Читать книгу Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence - Louis Agassiz - Страница 57

MUNICH, September 26, 1828.

. . .The instruction for the academic year closed at the end of August, and our professors had hardly completed their lectures when I began my Alpine excursion. Braun, impatient to leave Munich, had already started the preceding day, promising to wait for me on the Salzburg road at the first spot which pleased him enough for a halt. That I might not keep him waiting, I begged a friend to drive me a good day's journey, thinking to overtake Braun the first day on the pleasant banks of the Lake of Chiem. My traveling companions were the younger Schimper [Wilhelm], of whom I have spoken to you (and who made a botanical journey in the south of France and the Pyrenees two years ago), and Mahir, who drove us, with whom I am very intimate; he is a medical student, and also a very enthusiastic physicist. He gave me private lessons in mathematics all winter, and was a member of our philomathic meetings. Braun had not set out alone either, and his two traveling companions were also friends of ours. One was Trettenbacher, a medical student greatly given to sophisms and logic, but allowing himself to be beaten in argument with the utmost good nature, though always believing himself in the right; a thoroughly good fellow with all that, and a great connoisseur of antiquities. The other was a young student, More, from the ci-devant department of Mt. Tonnerre, who devotes himself entirely to the natural sciences, and has chosen the career of traveling naturalist. You can easily imagine that this attracts me to him, but as he is only a beginner I am, as it were, his mentor.

On the morning of our departure the weather was magnificent. Driving briskly along we had various surmises as to where we should probably meet our traveling companions, not doubting that, as we hoped to reach the Lake of Chiem the same day, We should come across them the day following on one of its pretty islands. But in the afternoon the weather changed, and we were forced to seek shelter from torrents of rain at Rosenheim, a charming town on the banks of the Inn, where I saw for the first time this river of Helvetic origin. I saluted it as a countryman of mine, and wished I could change its course and send it back laden with my greetings. The next day Mahir drove us as far as the shore of the lake. There we parted from him, and took a boat to the islands, where we were much disappointed not to find Braun and his companions. We thought the bad weather of the day before (for here it had rained all day) might have obliged them to make the circuit of the lake. However, in order to overtake them before reaching Salzburg, we kept our boatmen, and were rowed across to the opposite shore near Grabenstadt, where we arrived at ten o'clock in the evening. In the afternoon the weather had cleared a little, and the view was beautiful as we pulled away from the islands and watched them fade in the twilight. I also gathered much interesting information about the inhabitants of the waters of this lake. Among others, I was much pleased to find a cat-fish, taken in the lake by one of the island fishermen, and also a kind of chub, not found in Switzerland, and called by the fishermen here "Our Lady's Fish," because it occurs only on the shore of an island where there is a convent, the nuns of which esteem it a great delicacy.

The third day we reached Traunstein, where, although it was Sunday, there was a great horse fair. We looked with interest at the gay Tyroleans, with the cock-feathers in their pointed hats, singing and yodeling in the streets with their sweethearts on their arms. Every now and then they let fall some sarcastic comment on our accoutrements, which were indeed laughable enough to these people, who had never seen anything beyond their own chalets, and for whom an excursion from their mountains to a fair in the nearest town is a journey. It was noon when we stopped at Traunstein, and from there to Salzburg is but five leagues. Before reaching the fortress, however, you must pass the great custom-house on the Bavarian frontier, and fearing we might be delayed there too long by the stupid Austrian officials, and thus be prevented from entering the city before the gates were closed, we resolved to wait till the next morning and spend the night at Adelstaetten, a pretty village about a league from Salzburg, and the last Bavarian post. Night was falling as we approached a little wood which hid the village from us. There we asked a peasant how far we had still to go, and when he had answered our question he told us, evidently with kind intention, that we should find good company in the village, for a few hours earlier three journeymen laborers had arrived there; and then he added that we should no doubt be glad to meet comrades and have a gay evening with them. We were not astonished to be taken for workmen, since every one who travels here on foot, with a knapsack on his back, is understood to belong to the laboring class. . .Arrived at the village, we were delighted to find that the three journeymen were our traveling companions. They had come, like ourselves, from Traunstein, where we had missed each other in the crowd, and they were going likewise to sleep at Adelstaetten, to avoid the custom-house. Finally, on Monday, at ten o'clock, we crossed the long bridge over the Saala, between the white coats with yellow trimmings on guard there. On the Bavarian frontier we had hardly remembered that there was a custom-house, and the name of student sufficed to pass us without our showing any passports; here, on the contrary, it was another reason for the strictest examination. "Have you no forbidden books?" was the first question. By good fortune, before crossing the bridge, I had advised Trettenbach to hide his song-book in the lining of his boot. I am assured that had it been taken upon him he would not have been allowed to pass. In ransacking Braun's bag, one of the officials found a shell such as are gathered by the basketful on the shores of the Lake of Neuchatel. His first impulse was to go to the office and inquire whether we should not pay duty on this, saying that it was no doubt for the fabrication of false pearls, and we probably had plenty more. We had all the difficulty in the world to make him understand that not fifty steps from the custom-house the shores of the river were strewn with them. . . After all this we had to empty our purses to show that we had money enough for our journey, and that we should not be forced to beg in order to get through. While we underwent this inquisition, another officer made a tour of inspection around us, to observe our general bearing, etc. . .After having kept us thus on coals for two hours they gave us back our passports, and we went our way. At one o'clock we arrived at Salzburg as hungry as wolves, but at the gate we had still to wait and give up our passports again in exchange for receipts, in virtue of which we could obtain permits from the police to remain in the city. From our inn, we sent a waiter to get these permits, but he presently returned with the news that we must go in person to take them; there was, however, no hurry; it would do in three or four hours! We had no farther difficulty except that it was made a condition of our stay that we should not appear in student's dress. This dress, they said, was forbidden in Austria. They begged More to have his hair cut, otherwise it would be shortened gratis, and also informed us that at our age it was not becoming to dispense with cravats. Happily, I had two with me, and Braun tied his handkerchief around his neck. It astonished me, also, to see that we were not entered on the list of strangers published every evening. So it was also, as we found, with other students, though the persons who came with them by the same conveyance, even the children, were duly inscribed. It seems this is a precaution against any gathering of students. . .

The letter concludes in haste for the mail, and if the story of the journey was finished the final chapter has not been preserved. Some extracts from the home letters of Agassiz's friend Braun, which are in place here, throw light on their university life for the coming year.* (* See "Life of Alexander Braun", by his daughter, Madame Cecile Mettenius.)