Had we crossed a sea instead of an imaginary dividing line we could hardly have found a more abrupt change in the characteristics of people and country than we discover when we descend into the broad green valley of the Rhine. We have a series of fine views as we glide down the easy grades and around the sweeping curves of the splendid road that leads from the crest to the wide plain along the river—glimpses of towns and villages lying far beneath, beyond long stretches of wooded hills. On our way we meet peasants driving teams of huge horses hitched to heavy logging wagons. The horses go into a panic at the sight of the car and the drivers seem even more panicky than the brutes; it is quite apparent that the motor is not so common in Germany as in England and France.

The province of Alsace, by which we enter Germany, was held by France from the time of Napoleon until 1871, but it never entirely lost its German peculiarities during the French occupation. Its villages and farmhouses are distinctly Teutonic, though the larger towns show more traces of French influence. Colmar, some twenty miles from the border, is the first city—a place of about forty thousand people and interesting to Americans as the birthplace of the sculptor, Bartholdi, who designed the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. It is a substantially built town with an enormous Gothic church and its museum has a famous collection of pictures by early German masters.

A few miles from Colmar we come to the Rhine, so famed in German song and story, a green, rushing flood that seems momentarily to threaten the destruction of the pontoon bridge which bears us across. Beyond the river the level but poorly surfaced road leads to Freiburg, a handsome city of about seventy-five thousand people. It is a noted manufacturing town and has an ancient university with about two thousand students. Its cathedral is one of the finest Gothic structures in Germany, the great tower, three hundred and eighty feet in height, being the earliest and most perfect of its kind. The windows of fourteenth-century glass are particularly fine and there are many remarkable paintings of a little later date. The city has other important churches and many beautiful public buildings and monuments. Indeed, Freiburg is a good example of the neatness, cleanliness and civic pride that prevails in most of the larger German cities. It has many excellent hotels and we have a well-served luncheon at the Victoria. We should stop for the day at Freiburg were it not for our unexpected delay at Dijon; we must hasten if we are to reach Oberammergau in time for our reservations. In the three remaining daylight hours we make a swift run to Tuttlingen, some sixty miles eastward, passing several small villages and two good-sized towns, Neustadt and Donaueschingen, on the way. The latter is near the head waters of the Danube, and from here we follow the river to Tuttlingen. We pass through a beautifully wooded country and several inns along the way indicate that this section is a frequented pleasure resort. There are many charming panoramas from the road, which in places swings around the hillsides some distance above the river.

Had we known the fate in store for us at Tuttlingen, we should surely have stopped at one of the hotels which we hastily passed in our dash for that town. But we reach it just at dusk—a place of about fifteen thousand people—and turn in rather dubiously at the unattractive Post Hotel. If the Post is a fair sample of the country inns of Germany, the tourist should keep clear of country inns when possible. On entering we meet an assortment of odors not especially conducive to good appetite for the evening meal, and this proves of the kind that requires a good appetite. We are hungry, but not hungry enough to eat the Post’s fare with anything like relish and we are haunted by considerable misgivings about the little we do consume. The Post, however, does not lack patronage, though it seems to come mainly from German commercial men who are seeking trade in the thriving town.

We are away early in the morning, following a rough, neglected road some dozen miles to Ludwigshaven at the head of Lake Constance, or the Boden See, as the Germans style it. A new highway leading down to the lake shore is not yet open, though nearly ready, and we descend over a temporary road which winds among tree stumps and drops down twenty per cent grades for a couple of miles. We are thankful that we have only the descent to make; I doubt whether our forty-horse engine would ever have pulled us up the “bank,” as a Yorkshire man would describe it.

But having reached the level of the lake, we find a splendid road closely following the shore for forty miles and affording views of some of the finest and most famous scenery in Europe. In all our journeyings we have had few more glorious runs. The clear balmy June day floods everything with light and color. The lake lies still and blue as the heavens above, and beyond its shining expanse rise the snow-capped forms of the Swiss Alps, their rugged ranks standing sharply against the silvery horizon. At their feet stretches the green line of the shore and above it the dense shadows of the pines that cover the slopes to the snow line. It is a scene of inspiring beauty that one sees to best advantage from the open road. Near at hand green fields stretch to the hills, no great distance away, and the belated fruit-tree blossoms load the air with perfume. Hay-making is in progress in the little fields—women swing the scythes or handle the rakes and pitchforks while staid old cows draw the heavy, awkward carts. There are several pleasant little towns along the shore, rather neater and cleaner than the average German village, though even these are not free from occasional touches of filthiness. Near the center of the lake is Friedrichshafen, a popular resort with numerous hotels. There is a beautiful drive along the lake, bordered with shrubs and trees, and fronting on this is the comfortable-looking Deutsches Haus, surrounded by gardens which extend to the shore. We remember the Deutsches Haus particularly, since on its glass-enclosed veranda we are served with an excellent luncheon. As we resume our journey, feeling at peace with the world, and open up a little on the smooth lakeside road, the Captain exclaims:

“If I had all the money I could possibly want, do you know what I’d do? I’d just buy a motor, don’t you know, and do nothing on earth but tour about Europe!”

And we all agree that under such conditions and on such a day his proposed vocation seems an ideal one.

Friedrichshafen, I should have said, was the home of Count Zeppelin of airship fame, and as we passed through the town his immense craft was being made ready for an experimental trip. It was then attracting much attention in Germany and was the precourser of the only line of commercial airships now in existence.

Lindau, a small resort built on an island about three hundred yards from the shore, marks the point of our departure from Lake Constance. We enter the town over a narrow causeway which connects it with the main road, but find little to detain us. We climb the steep winding road leading out of the valley and for the remainder of the day our course wends among the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. It proves a delightful run; we witness constantly changing displays of color and glorious effects of light and shadow. Thunder storms are raging in the mountains and at intervals they sweep down and envelop our road in a dash of summer rain. Above us tower the majestic Alps; in places the dazzling whiteness of the snow still lies against the barren rocks or amidst the dense green of the pines, while above the summits roll blue-gray cumulus clouds glowing with vivid lightning or brilliant with occasional bursts of sunshine. Near at hand stretch green meadows of the foothills, variegated with great splashes of blue or yellow flowers as though some giant painter had swept his brush across the landscape. The effect is shown with striking fidelity in the picture by the late John MacWhirter R. A. which I have reproduced, though it is quite impossible on so small a scale to give an adequate idea of the original canvas—much less of the enchanting scene itself.

Among the foothills and often well up the mountainsides are the characteristic chalets of Tyrol and an occasional ruined castle crowns some seemingly inaccessible rock. We pass several quaint little towns and many isolated houses, all very different from any we have seen elsewhere. The houses are mostly of plaster and often ornamented with queer designs and pictures in brilliant colors. The people are picturesque, too; the women and girls dress in the peculiar costume of the country; the men wear knitted jackets and knee pants with silver buckles and their peaked hats are often decorated with a feather or two.

Our road averages fair, though a few short stretches are desperately bad—this unevenness we have noted in German roads generally. In one place where the rain has been especially heavy we plunge through a veritable quagmire, and we find spots so rough and stony as to make very uncomfortable going. We finally strike the fine highway which follows the River Lech and brings us into the mountain town of Fussen. It is a snug little place of some five thousand people, nestling in a narrow valley through which rushes a swift, emerald-green river. The Bayerischer-Hof proves a pleasant surprise; one of the cleanest, brightest and best-conducted inns we have found anywhere. Our large, well-lighted rooms afford a magnificent view of the snow-capped mountains, which seem only a little distance away. The landlord, a fine-looking, full-bearded native who speaks English fluently, gives the touch of personal attention that one so much appreciates in the often monotonous round of hotel life. To the rear of the hotel is a beer-garden where brilliant lights and good music in the evening attract the guests and townspeople in considerable numbers. Several other American motor parties stop at the hotel and we especially notice one French car because it carries nine people—and it is not a large car, either! The Bayerischer-Hof is first-class in every particular, and we find when we come to depart that the charges are first-class, too. The Captain is exasperated when we are asked sixty cents per gallon for “benzin” and says we will chance doing better on the way—a decision which, as it happens, causes us no little grief and some expense.

Fussen has an impressive Gothic castle—a vast, turreted, towered, battlemented affair with gray walls and red-tiled roof which looms over the town from the slope above the river. I fear, though, that the castle is a good deal of a sham, for there are spots where the stucco has fallen from the walls, revealing wooden lath beneath, and while in Fussen they call it a “thirteenth-century” building, Baedeker gives its date as two or three hundred years later. It was never intended as a defensive structure, being originally built as the residence of the Bishop of Augsburg. It is now occupied by the district court and the interior is hardly worth a visit.

Oberammergau lies over the mountain to the east of Fussen, scarcely ten miles away in a direct line, but to reach it we are compelled to go by the way of Schongau, about four times as far. We pursue a narrow, sinuous mountain road, very muddy in places. We have been warned of one exceptionally bad hill—a twenty-five per cent grade, according to the Royal Automobile Club itinerary—but we give the matter little thought. It proves a straight incline of half a mile and about midway the sharp ascent our motor gasps and comes to a sudden stop. We soon ascertain that the angle is too great for the gasoline to flow from the nearly empty tank, and we regret the Captain’s economy at Fussen. A number of peasants gather about us to stare at our predicament, but they show nothing of the amusement that an American crowd would find in such a situation. A woman engages the Captain in conversation and informs us that she is the owner of a good team of horses, which will be the best solution of our difficulties. “Wie viel?” Seventy-five marks, or about eighteen dollars, looks right to her and she sticks to her price, too. Her only response to the Captain’s indignant protests is that she keeps a road-house at the top of the hill, where he can find her if he decides we need her services. And she departs in the lordly manner of one who has delivered an ultimatum from which there is no appeal. A peasant tells us that the woman makes a good income fleecing stranded motorists and that the German automobile clubs have published warnings against her. He says that a farmer near by will help us out for the modest sum of ten marks and offers to bring him to the scene; he also consoles us by telling us that five cars besides our own have stalled on the hill during the day. The farmer arrives before long with a spanking big team, which gives us the needed lift, and the grade soon permits the motor to get in its work.

We reach Oberammergau about two o’clock, only to find another instance where the Captain’s economical tendency has worked to our disadvantage. He had declined to pay the price asked by Cook’s agency in London for reservation of rooms and seats for the Passion Play and had arranged for these with a German firm, Shenker & Co. at Freiburg. On inquiring at the office of the concern in the village we find no record of our reservations and no tickets to be had. “Shenker is surely a ‘rotter,’” says the Captain, immensely disgusted, and it requires no small effort to find quarters, but we at last secure tiny rooms in a peasant’s cottage in the outskirts of the village. Tickets we finally obtain by an earnest appeal at Cook’s offices, though at considerable premium.

Our quarters are almost primitive in their plainness, but they are tolerably clean; the meals, served in a large dining-hall not far away, are only fair. The people of Oberammergau, our landlord says, face a difficult problem in caring for the Passion Play crowds. These come but once in ten years and during the intervening time visitors to the town are comparatively few. Yet the villagers must care for the great throngs of play years, though many apartments and lodging-houses must stand empty during the interval and the only wonder is that charges are so moderate.

The regular population of Oberammergau is less than two thousand, though during the play it presents the appearance of a much larger place. The houses are nearly all of the prevailing Bavarian style, with wide, overhanging eaves and white walls often decorated with brightly colored frescoes. Through the center of the village rushes the Ammer, a clear, swift mountain stream which sometimes works havoc when flooded. The church is modern, but its Moorish tower and rococo decorations do not impress us as especially harmonious and there is little artistic or pleasing in the angular lines of the new theatre. The shops keep open on every day of the week, including Sunday, until nearly midnight. These are filled with carvings, pottery, postcards and endless trinkets for the souvenir-seeking tourist and perhaps yield more profit to the town than the play itself. There are several good-sized inns, but one has no chance of lodging in one of them unless quarters have been engaged months in advance—not very practicable when coming by motor.

One will best appreciate the magnificent situation of the village from a vantage-point on one of the mountains which encompass the wide green valley on every side. On the loftiest crag of all gleams a tall white cross—surely a fit emblem to first greet the stranger who comes to Oberammergau. In the center of the vale is the village, the clean white-walled houses grouped irregularly about the huge church, which forms the social center of the place. The dense green of the trees, the brighter green of the window-shutters, the red and gray-tile roofs and the swift river cleaving its way through the town, afford a pleasing variety of color to complete the picture. The surrounding green pastures with the herds of cattle are the property of the villagers—nearly every family of this thrifty community is a landholder. The scene is a quiet, peaceful one, such as suits the character of the people who inhabit this lovely vale.

And these same villagers, simple and unpretentious as they are, will hardly fail to favorably impress the stranger. The Tyrolese costume is everywhere in evidence and there is a large predominance of full-bearded men, for the play-actors are not allowed to resort to wigs and false whiskers. They exhibit the peculiarities of the Swiss rather than the Germans and their manners and customs are simple and democratic in the extreme. While the head of the community is nominally the burgomaster, the real government is vested in the householders. The freedom from envy and strife is indeed remarkable; quarrels are unknown and very few of the inhabitants are so selfish as to seek for honor or wealth. The greatest distinction that can come to any of them is an important part in the play; yet there is never any contention or bitterness over the allotments. It would be hard to find elsewhere a community more seriously happy, more healthful or morally better than Oberammergau.

I shall not write at length of the world-famous play. It has been so well and widely described that I could add but little new. It is interesting as the sole survival of a vast number of mediaeval miracle plays, though it has cast off the coarser features and progressed into a really artistic production. I must first of all plead my own ignorance of the true spirit and marvelous beauty of the play ere I saw it. I thought it the crude production of a community of ignorant peasants who were shrewd enough to turn their religion into a money-making scheme and I freely declared that I would scarcely cross the street to witness it. But when the great chorus of three hundred singers appeared in the prelude that glorious Sunday morning, I began to realize how mistaken I had been. And as the play progressed I was more and more impressed with its solemn sincerity, its artistic staging and its studied harmony of coloring. Indeed, in the last named particular it brought vividly to mind the rich yet subdued tones of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and the effect of the rare old tapestries one occasionally finds in the museums. The tableaux in many cases closely followed some famous picture—as Leonardo DaVinci’s “Last Supper” or Rubens’ “Descent from the Cross,”—all perfectly carried out in coloring and spirit. The costumes were rich and carefully studied, giving doubtless a true picture of the times of Christ. The acting was the perfection of naturalness and the crude and ridiculous features of the early miracle plays—and, not so very long ago, of the Passion Play itself—have been gradually dropped until scarce a trace of them remains. The devil no longer serves the purpose of the clown, having altogether disappeared; and even the tableau of Jonah and the whale, though given in the printed programs, was omitted, evidently from a sense of its ridiculousness. I found myself strangely affected by the simple story of the play. One indeed might imagine that he saw a real bit of the ancient world were it not for the great steel arches bending above him and the telephone wires stretching across the blue sky over the stage.

But I think the best proof of the real human interest of the play is that it held the undivided attention of five thousand spectators for eight long hours on a spring day whose perfect beauty was a strong lure to the open sky. And it did this not only for one day but for weeks, later in the summer requiring an almost continuous daily performance. And, having seen it once, I have no doubt the greater number of spectators would gladly witness it again, for so great a work of art cannot be grasped from a single performance.

Of course Oberammergau has not escaped the critics, but I fancy the majority of them are, like myself before our visit to the town, quite ignorant of the facts as well as the true spirit of the people. The commonest charge is that the play is a money-making scheme on the part of the promoters, but the fact is that the people are poor and remain poor. The actual profits from the play are not large and these are devoted to some public work, as the new theatre, the hospital and the good cause of public roads. The salaries paid the players are merely nominal, in no case exceeding a few hundred marks. The only source of private profit comes from the sale of souvenirs and the entertaining of visitors, but this can not be great, considering that the harvest comes only once in a decade. The play is “commercialized” only to the extent of placing it on a paying basis and if this were not the case there could be no performance. The very fear of this charge kept the villagers up to 1910 from placing their tickets and reservations in the hands of Cook and other tourist agencies, though they were finally persuaded to yield in this as an accommodation to the public. The most effective answer to the assertion that the chief end of the play is money-making may be found in the constant refusal of the villagers to produce it elsewhere than in Oberammergau. Offers of fabulous sums from promoters in England and the United States for the production of the play in the large centers of these countries have been steadily refused, and the actors have pursued their humble avocations in their quiet little town quite content with their meager earnings. Nor have they yielded to the temptation to give the play oftener, though it would be immensely profitable if presented every year or even every alternate year.

We leave the little mountain-girdled valley with a new conception of its Passion Play and its unique, happy people. The majestic spectacle we have witnessed during our stay will linger with us so long as life shall last and it can never be otherwise than a pleasant and inspiring memory.