French garrison towns, one seldom turns a street corner without hearing
the measured tramp of a military company receding or approaching. These
German troops appear to march briskly and in a business-like manner in
comparison with the French, who always seem to carry themselves with a
tired and dejected deportment; but the over-ample and rather slouchy-looking
pantaloons of the French are probably answerable, in part, for this
impression. One cannot watch these sturdy-looking German soldiers without
a conviction that for the stern purposes of war they are inferior only
to the soldiers of our own country. At the little gasthaus at Pfalzburg
the people appear to understand and anticipate an Englishman's gastronomic
peculiarities, for the first time since leaving England I am confronted
at the supper-table with excellent steak and tea.

It is raining next morning as I wheel over the rolling hills toward
Saverne, a city nestling pleasantly in a little valley beyond those dark
wooded heights ahead that form the eastern boundary of the valley of the
Rhine. The road is good but hilly, and for several kilometres, before
reaching Saverne, winds its way among the pine forests tortuously and
steeply down from the elevated divide. The valley, dotted here and there
with pleasant villages, is spread out like a marvellously beautiful
picture, the ruins of several old castles on neighboring hill-tops adding
a charm, as well as a dash of romance.

The rain pours down in torrents as I wheel into Saverne. I pause long
enough to patronize a barber shop; also to procure an additional small
wrench. Taking my nickelled monkey-wrench into a likely-looking hardware
store, I ask the proprietor if he has anything similar. He examines it
with lively interest, for, in comparison with the clumsy tools comprising
his stock-in-trade, the wrench is as a watch-spring to an old horse-shoe.
I purchase a rude tool that might have been fashioned on the anvil of a