We made one day the pleasant steamer trip round Lake Starnberg, with its pretty wooded shores, and the dim mysterious snow-clad Alps (Wetterstein and other peaks) looming in the background. A middle-aged Graf on board (I think an ex-diplomatist) talked interestingly on many subjects, Bismarck among others. He said that the only serious attempt at reconciliation between him and the Kaiser, ten years before, had been frustrated not by the latter but by Bismarck himself, who was constantly ridiculing the young Emperor both in public and in private. It was odd, he added, how the number _three_ had pervaded Bismarck's life and personality. His motto was "In Trinitate robur": he had served three emperors, fought in three wars, signed three treaties of peace, established the Triple Alliance, had three children and three estates; and {25} his arms were a trefoil and three oak-leaves. Talking of Austria, our friend quoted a dictum of Talleyrand (very interesting in 1921)--"Austria is the House of Lords of Europe: as long as it is not dissolved it will restrain the Commons." Dining together in our hotel at Munich, he told us that the "Four Seasons" possessed, or had possessed, the finest wine in Europe, having bought up Prince Metternich's famous cellar (including his priceless Johannisberger and Steinberger Cabinet hocks) at his death. Of Metternich he said it was a fact that in 1825 Cardinal Albani was instructed by the Pope to sound the great statesman as to whether he desired a Cardinal's hat--"in which case," added his Holiness, "I will propose him in the next Secret Consistory." We were much amused at reading in a local newspaper the result of a "longest word" competition. The prize-winners were "Transvaaltruppentropentransport trampelthiertreibentrauungsthränentragödie," and "Mekkamuselmannenmeuchelmördermohrenmuttermarmormonumentenmacher"![7] I had hitherto considered the longest existing word to be the Cherokee "Winitawigeginaliskawlungtanawneletisesti"; it was given me by a French missionary to that North American tribe, whom I once met at the Comte de Franqueville's house in Paris, {26} and who said it meant, "They-will-now-have-finished-their-compliments-to-you-and-to-me"! I remember the same good priest telling me that when the first French missionary bishop went to New Zealand, he found the natives incapable of pronouncing the word "eveque" or "bishop," their language consisting of only thirteen letters, mostly vowels and liquids. He therefore coined the word _picopo_, from "episcopus," which the natives applied to all Catholics. English Catholics they called _picopo poroyaxono_, from Port Jackson (Sydney), which most of them had visited in trading ships; while French Catholics were known as _picopo wee-wee_, from the constantly-heard words, "Oui, oui."