LIFE IN A GERMAN VILLAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2059, 10 August 1893, Page 40

LIFE IN A GERMAN VILLAGE.

i. I waa at an age betwixt boyhood and man's estate, living among my relations in Normandy, when I made up my mind to learn German by plunging into some uninvited district of that country. I had a tntor who told me that he had once had an English pupil who had lived in the house of a German pastor or village clergyman, and obtaining the name •of this pupil I obtained from him the name :and address of the pastor. With him I next •opened up a correspondence and found that he was willing to receive a pupil. I did not wait for a further letter, which was to tell 'me when to come, but started at once. .•Passing through Paris, where I had been at •■school a year before, I spent an evening Trith a friend who a few years later was wounded and taken prisoner before Metz, and next day I started with my ticket taken for Brunswick, a good many hundred miles ■away. The long journey was commenced at night, and after passing the Ehine at Cologne I began to traverse the almost endless plain of North- Germany. It was December, but the winter snows had not yet done more than reinforce the hoar frosts, "which at this fine season already whiten the TYhola country. There i» inothing very iremarkable on the iouraiey save at one or two points. The endless plain is broken by ••a range of forest-oJafl hills cleft in two by a '"jpass through whiejatb&e railway runs, and in which is 4 he «mtfll town of Bielefeld. These feillewnot unlike our Hokonuis in fjharacter^-bar £he way up or down the plain, and tfMs pass b^u-a thej^me of Porta Weßtpbaliea. EeyQnd ffm's <ij£p ,-vaguely in olden, days the Jler.cynian'fqres^ and .through this fatal pas*, in the .ninth year of thi^era, Varus attempted to retreat, when he wascjat off and his army destroyed by the great ' patriot Hermann, called Arminius, who thus ' settled for 1800 years the Home Rule question in Germany. A better ,or worse place for such an event could ,not well be imagined. Minden is a pla«e o£ interest as the scene of the battle of that name during the Seven Years' Wa;r. I passed through the town of Hanover, which j[ afterwards came to know better, and there saw lying in a yard gome of the castings of the statue which was to form the gigantic monument to commemorate Hermann' 3 victory. By the time I reached Brunswick I had found out two things, In the first place I felt the severity of the climate after passing rapidly out of a region with conditions very like those which prevail in Otago; and into one of the severity of Northern Europe. Thi3 brought home to " me the fact that the clothing I was accust tomed to was quite inadequate— and this { was apparent from the most cursory inspect tion of the garments of the German 1 travellers. The second fact was that French v was no longer a current language, as upon Rhine it began to be difficult to get along x accepting at the larger hotels. I found traoreovera much stricter police system than II waa accustomed to in France, requiring a most jninute inspection of myself, my origin., and my doings to be written in the visitors' book for the edification, I suppose., of the chief of the police. Next morning, with help of the waiter, who like most German hotel waiten had served his apprenticeship in Paris, I got & Start on the branch line where my new •home lay. Incidentally I may mention that *h« French-speaking waiters proved awkward .< customers inthegreatwarwhichfollowed four years later, when they proved to be not only rtrained 'soldiers and capable liogaiits, but ' possessed of an uncomfortably accurate of many French districts and rtowns. Everything on the railway lines nvas done with military precision. It was evident that all the officials were trained ■soldiers— indeed everybody in Prussia seemed tto partake of this character. The people of Hanover and Brunswick were not so trained, tout all official posts in the former and many fin the latter country were filled by Prussians. ■JTrlese treated the newly-con querad province ©f Hanover with courtesy, but it was the cold ccwartesy of suspicion, and the country was -<ter the strictest military rule. The extent ?** : *^\x tbe country w»b under military orii.. * *ra» to *n Eoglisbman astonishganisation W^P £ » S has ug, though iv *^» g^g, owrißgl had become am, i. *%*»% *» * ib fifcat £ g the written on a tin tick. * 9$9 $rß*r B * Not only number of soldiers it wou '« « J"J ' *j* °"g so, but every cattle truck an,? WJ fiC wagson bad a similar ticket. ?®w I * cpec ran thus :— • 30 Manner (men). 5 Pferde (horses). Every such waggon was so constructed that • a very few extra fittings would make a passenger waggon of it. That the soldiers would have to stand up waa merely one of the details in the hardships of a campaign. Tte • outward rigour of military occupation was not very apparent, but I heard a good deal -more about it later. In a town the rule of - the colonel waa absolute. The order of a • Eergeanfc was sufficient for the arrest of a • citizsn who merely cried " cuckoo to a - sentry, hinting that the eagle on his hat was in another bird's nest ; and the order of <he ■ colonel was sufficient to send that citizen for ■ five weeks to the fortress of Minden. Liberty . as we understand it was, and I suppose sbll • is, unknown. " What is the nse of it ? said : .an officer to me once. " People who wish to . keep the law don't want it, and those who wish fco break the law don't deserve it." Thß branch line which I now traversed led due south for, I think, about 30 miles, '-tintil it reached Hamburg, at tha foot of the 3"Haiz mountains. It passed through one ■ small city, now of no great note, but onca igamous. This was WoUenbtlttel,ttje ancient

capitalof the State of Brunswick, for the city of that name now the capital was a free town of the Hanseatic Leagae. I afterwards often visited Wolfenbiittel, within nine miles of which I lived. It was an interesting little place, with a rare old library, of which the great Leasing was once librarian, containing some fine books and some suits of armour and other medieval antiquities. I found by experiment that the casques and gauntlets of the armoured knights were too small for me. I left the train at a village called Schladen, which I knew was only two miles from my destination. Here my difficulties were considerable. I got my luggage upon a barrow and saw it wheeled into a large warm room with a sanded floor in the village inn. Here, with the help of a pocket dictionary, I managed to persuade two girls that I was an Englishman and that by our law I wanted a carriage. I knew a little grammar, but no proper idioms. "Ich bin Englisch ."was the phrase I repeated over and over again, with little effect beyond the production of prodigious giggling. I should have said " Ich bin em Bnglander." The trap or wagen was at last trotted out, and I was driven over a at toe door of the astonished pastor, who did not expect me. He did not at once come to the door to welcome me, though I saw bis genial face at a neighbouring window. I knocked with my knuckles at the door, that barrier against the outer world so sacred to an Englishman that it is literally a trespass by one to open it withont leave. After a while he came out, and finding much to his astonishment that I was his new pupil, welcomed me warmly. Not suspecting me to be a total stranger Ho the customs of the country he was naturally expecting me to walk in, when he would have stepped out of his sitting room and greeted me in the Diele, or hall. An explanation ensued about letters crossing, &c, &c, and we at once became very good friends. He took me in and introduced me to hia young rather shy wife, who spoke a little French. He spoke a little o£ pretty nearly everything, English and Hebrew included. I found myself in a roomy house, built in the seventeenth century. In front of it was a gravelled yard open at one end to a street. Across it was a large substantial brick barn. At the other end was a garden, through which a path led to the village church. There was an air of comfort about the place, but compared with the style adopted by an ' English village clergyman of the same position everything was extremely simple. Plain floors, or clean boards covered with Indian matting, were in all the rooms. I will not pledge myself at a distance of 26 years, but I do not think there was a carpet in the house. The village church was not unlike an English parish church, but the walls were very thick, as I was told that such churches were used for defensive .purposes ages ago, and afterwards continued to be similarly built. The village was a large one, with 800 inhabitants, of whom 100 were Catholics and. the rest Lutherans. It was compact like a small town. Not a house straggled 100 yards from the rest. The houses were roomy, the brick barns numerous and large. ' There was no " estate owner" or Squire then, but a peasant who had managed to become the owner of two farms was rising to that degree, as he had a son to succeed him who was at the university, and another who was to enter a profession, The rest of the inhabitants were peasants. The term is misapplied or misunderstood. A bauer, usually translated peasant, is one who cultivates the soil, and here is always a freeholder. There were numerous substantial freeholders, and many more smaller ones.- Below these were the labourers, most of whom lived in a fair degree of comfort. There was very little actual pauperism ; the poor house was very small, and only had a few very^old iomatee. The poorest of the population consisted of the Catholics. Many of the labourers obtained an acre or so of the glebe at a moderate rent to grow the year's corn, and this was ploughed and sown by a farmer at a low rate, and harvested by the labourer's family. There was a village mill to which all took their corn, receiving back a certain weight of flour, and though in Germany the miller is generally supposed to be in league with the devil, tbiß one was popular and in good repute. The grain used as food by all classes was rye. This made a brownish bread which at first I foutd very indigestible. This may have been due to the fact that it was " raised " by means of leaven. This word is translated in German "sour dough," which puts the fact plainly j it is the sour ferment, ing residue from the last baking. When white bread was seen, which was seldom, it was too white, being made o! " firsts." There were a few small shops, but most shopping was done in the towns. There was a corn dealer reputed hard at a bargain. The officials of the v'llage ware the schoolmaster, tha forester, the night watch, and a few others, including one who blew the bellows whila the schoolmaster played the church organ. From fctie village was a glorious view of the Harz mountains ; with the Brosken, famous for its spectre and its goblin stories, in the centre. Behind the village was a long forest stretching for miles in both directions. A portion of this was the common forest of the people, who had the right fco a share of the firewood cut from it ml^er the superintendence of the forester, an' inestimable bo,on possessed by most villages in thst quarter. Along the banks of tha river Oket were wet meadows in which in summer fed numerous storks. These bandsome birde, known ODly byname in EDglaud, are extremely numerous, and are never molested. They breed here often in nests constructed for them of mortar on the houses, la a few weeks, when the young are strong on the wing, they gather in large I flocks, perform evolutions in the air like battalions, and then fly to their win'er home in Egypt The people treat them with almost superstitious respect, and take care of the few weakling* which are unable to ' A little more than a mile off on the high ' read was a village, in which was a very fine mansion— onoe a convent. This had been suppreEsed by King Jarome Bonaparte, oi Westphalia, in whose dominions this district had been. When it was sold it fell to the luck of a wealthy townsman to buy It, and his son or grandson was now the owner. He lived in good style, and.his beautiful wife and

daughters were much beloved and admired in the country. la the opposite direction was a small royal domain (also a suppressed convent) let to a tenant. A path through the beautiful forest led from one to the other. This was called the Nonnensteg, or Nuns- path, and traditionally it was the path formerly traversed by the nuus. It led past some large mounds and excavation?, the origin of which was unknown, but which were attributed to the Goths, or some such people of the forgotten times. As the fine domain attached to this old convent absorbed most of the land there, the small village was poor. The landless people, as in our village, were Catholics, and here they formed the bulk of the population. The road down to this village was, as is commonly the case in. that district;, fringed with apple trees^the fruit crop of which is annually Bold by auction to augment the parish funds. In other places the trees are cherry trees. I never heard of fruit being stolen or trees destroyed, and my tutor was astounded when I told him how low the morality of the English people on this subject stood. The forest was of mixed timber. A good deal of money had been made by cutting out large trees where the railways were made, but the chief use of the forest was to supply firewood to the villages. There were oak, birch, beech, hazel, bird cherry, and timber of other kinds, besides belts of spruce aud larch. In winter the valleys were full of snowdrops and in summer the lily of the valley, and King Solomon's seal abounded. Roe deer were plentiful in the glades. The forest swarmed with song birds, which are trapped for sale in large numbers. Indeed, this is the district in which, not many miles from the village, King Henry the Bird Catcher (Henry the Fowler), in the days of Atbelsfcane, grandson of Alfred the Great, founded the fortress of Goslar, a quaint and almost ri med town, and there established his bird-catching station, since which time the district has been famous for this industry. Numbers of birds are exported to all parts of the world ; indeed, I have seen dealers from the district selling them in this city.