As a student of German, anxious to gain fluency of expression, and to train my ear to catch readily the popular idioms, I found that I must fill out my writing and reading by contact with men.  After roving the streets of German cities, I packed a knapsack and set out upon the country-roads.  I was, as the Germans say, gut zu Fuss, a stout walker, and I learned to employ for my longer expeditions the Bummel-Zug, an institution I commend highly to all in my situation.  The Bummel-Zug is simply a “way” freight-train, to which in my time was attached a car for third-class passengers.  It stopped at every village, and the fare was very low.  It was convenient, therefore, for those too poor to be in a hurry, and for travellers like me whose purpose could be better served by loitering than by haste.  The train proceeded leisurely, giving ample time for deliberate survey of the land, and the frequent pauses of indefinite length afforded opportunity for walks through the streets of remote hamlets and even into the country about, where the peasants with true Teuton Gemuethlichkeit always welcomed a man who came from America.

Thus on my legs and by Bummel-Zug I wandered far, arriving one pleasant day at the ancient city of Salzburg, close to the Bavarian Alps.  I was anxious to see something of the Tyrol, and had been told that the Koenigs-See offered the finest and most characteristic scenery of that region.  Salzburg was a suitable point of departure.  The sky darkened and it began to rain heavily.  Berchtesgaden, in the mountains, the nearest village to the Koenigs-See, was only to be reached by Eilwagen, a modification of the diligence, which forty years ago still held its place on the Alpine roads.  I stood at the door of the inn, observing the company who were to be my fellow-passengers.  There were two or three from the outside world, like myself, a few mountaineers with suggestions of the Tyrol in their garb, and one figure in a high degree picturesque, a Franciscan friar in guise as mediaeval as possible.  His coarse, brown robe wrapped him from head to foot.  A knotted cord bound his waist, the ends depending toward the pavement and swinging with his rosary.  His feet were shod with sandals, and his head was bare, though an ample cowl was at hand to shelter it.  His head needed no tonsure for age had made him nearly bald.  His shaven face was kind and strong and he was in genial touch with the by-standers, to whom no doubt such a figure was not novel.  Incongruously enough, the friar held over his head in the pouring rain a modern umbrella, his only concession to the storm and to modernity.  Presently we climbed in for the journey, and I was a trifle taken aback when the monk by chance followed me directly, and as we settled into our seats was my close vis-a-vis.  As we bumped along the rough road our legs became dove-tailed together, I as well as he wrapped in the coarse folds of his monkish robe, the rosary as convenient