A TRAMP ABROAD

A TRAMP ABROAD

by Mark Twain

CHAPTER I
[The Knighted Knave of Bergen]

One day it occurred to me that it had been many years
since the world had been afforded the spectacle of a man
adventurous enough to undertake a journey through Europe
on foot. After much thought, I decided that I was
a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle.
So I determined to do it. This was in March, 1878.

I looked about me for the right sort of person to
accompany me in the capacity of agent, and finally
hired a Mr. Harris for this service.

It was also my purpose to study art while in Europe.
Mr. Harris was in sympathy with me in this. He was as much
of an enthusiast in art as I was, and not less anxious
to learn to paint. I desired to learn the German language;
so did Harris.

Toward the middle of April we sailed in the HOLSATIA,
Captain Brandt, and had a very peasant trip, indeed.

After a brief rest at Hamburg, we made preparations for
a long pedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather,
but at the last moment we changed the program,
for private reasons, and took the express-train.

We made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found
it an interesting city. I would have liked to visit
the birthplace of Gutenburg, but it could not be done,
as no memorandum of the site of the house has been kept.
So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion instead.
The city permits this house to belong to private parties,
instead of gracing and dignifying herself with the honor
of possessing and protecting it.

Frankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have
the distinction of being the place where the following
incident occurred. Charlemagne, while chasing the Saxons
(as HE said), or being chased by them (as THEY said),
arrived at the bank of the river at dawn, in a fog.
The enemy were either before him or behind him;
but in any case he wanted to get across, very badly.
He would have given anything for a guide, but none was to
be had. Presently he saw a deer, followed by her young,
approach the water. He watched her, judging that she
would seek a ford, and he was right. She waded over,
and the army followed. So a great Frankish victory or
defeat was gained or avoided; and in order to commemorate
the episode, Charlemagne commanded a city to be built there,
which he named Frankfort--the ford of the Franks.
None of the other cities where this event happened were
named for it. This is good evidence that Frankfort was
the first place it occurred at.

Frankfort has another distinction--it is the birthplace
of the German alphabet; or at least of the German word
for alphabet --BUCHSTABEN. They say that the first movable
types were made on birch sticks--BUCHSTABE--hence the name.

I was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort.
I had brought from home a box containing a thousand
very cheap cigars. By way of experiment, I stepped
into a little shop in a queer old back street, took four
gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars,
and laid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave
me 43 cents change.

In Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we
noticed that this strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too,
and in the villages along the road. Even in the narrowest
and poorest and most ancient quarters of Frankfort neat
and clean clothes were the rule. The little children
of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into
a body's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers,
they were newness and brightness carried to perfection.
One could never detect a smirch or a grain of dust
upon them. The street-car conductors and drivers wore
pretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox,
and their manners were as fine as their clothes.

In one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book
which has charmed me nearly to death. It is entitled
THE LEGENDS OF THE RHINE FROM BASLE TO ROTTERDAM,
by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.

All tourists MENTION the Rhine legends--in that sort of way
which quietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar
with them all his life, and that the reader cannot possibly
be ignorant of them--but no tourist ever TELLS them.
So this little book fed me in a very hungry place; and I,
in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or two
little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar
Garnharn's translation by meddling with its English;
for the most toothsome thing about it is its quaint
fashion of building English sentences on the German plan--
and punctuating them accordingly to no plan at all.

OR

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1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
2. TOM SAWYER ABROAD
3. TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE
4. THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
5. 1601
6. A Burlesque Autobiography
7. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
8. A Dog's Tale
9. A Horse's Tale
10. A TRAMP ABROAD
11. Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
12. Carnival of Crime in CT
13. Christian Science
14. Complete Letters of Mark Twain
15. Curious Republic of Gondour
16. Double Barrelled Detective
17. Essays on Paul Bourget
18. Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
19. Extracts From Adam's Diary
20. FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENCES
21. FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR
22. Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again
23. How Tell a Story and Others
24. In Defence of Harriet Shelley
25. Innocents Abroad
26. IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?
27. LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
28. MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY
29. Mark Twain's Speeches
30. On the Decay of the Art of Lying
31. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc v1
32. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc v2
33. Rambling Idle Excursion
34. Roughing It
35. Sketches New and Old
36. THE $30,000 BEQUEST and Other Stories
37. The American Claimant
38. The Gilded Age
39. The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg
40. The Mysterious Stranger
41. The Prince and the Pauper
42. The Stolen White Elephant
43. The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
44. Those Extraordinary Twins
45. WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN

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