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. 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. I had brought from home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. I was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort. They say that the first movable types were made on birch sticks–BUCHSTABE–hence the name. This is good evidence that Frankfort was the first place it occurred at.įrankfort has another distinction–it is the birthplace of the German alphabet or at least of the German word for alphabet –BUCHSTABEN.
None of the other cities where this event happened were named for it. 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. He watched her, judging that she would seek a ford, and he was right. Presently he saw a deer, followed by her young, approach the water. He would have given anything for a guide, but none was to be had. The enemy were either before him or behind him but in any case he wanted to get across, very badly. 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 city permits this house to belong to private parties, instead of gracing and dignifying herself with the honor of possessing and protecting it.įrankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have the distinction of being the place where the following incident occurred. So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion instead. 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. We made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found it an interesting city.
Toward the middle of April we sailed in the HOLSATIA, Captain Brandt, and had a very peasant trip, indeed.Īfter 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. I desired to learn the German language so did Harris. He was as much of an enthusiast in art as I was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. It was also my purpose to study art while in Europe. I looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in the capacity of agent, and finally hired a Mr. After much thought, I decided that I was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. 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.
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