Many years ago the Herr Director and I were tramping through the Hartz Mountains in northern Germany. He had not yet achieved portliness and fame; while to me, America was still the land of Indians and buffaloes, and I had never dreamed of going there. We were climbing the Brocken, and that which thrilled me more than its granite steeps and deeply mysterious pines was, the hundreds of school-boys and girls we met, singing as they climbed, and who, when they rested, listened to their teachers who stimulated their imagination and their patriotism by telling them the stories which had woven themselves around those mountains. The Catskills are not unlike the Hartz, and I remarked upon it as the Herr Director and I were climbing the Walkill Range. Our destination was Lake Mohonk, the scene of the Conference for International Arbitration, organized and supported by that noble Quaker, Albert K. Smiley; and now after his death continued by his able and generous brother Daniel Smiley, and his gracious wife. The Frau Directorin, with hundreds of other guests, had been met at the railroad station by carriages, this being one of the few places left upon earth where the automobile is excluded. The Herr Director was not climbing as easily as he climbed thirty years ago, and neither was I, although I made a brave show and led the way, frequently leaving him in the rear, much to his disgust. "Yes," he said, mopping his brow and looking about critically, "this is somewhat like the Hartz," and my heart gave a joyous leap at his admission; "but several things are missing: Good company, merry songs and, above all, places of refreshment." Of course I could offer him no better company than I was, as there are not many people in America who climb when they can ride for nothing; and the only refreshment available was clear water from a shaded spring. As we drank he recalled laughingly how, when we stopped at one of those nature's fountains in the Hartz, a man who had watched us, came running out of his house and warned us that we might catch cold in our stomachs, at the same time politely offering to guide us to a place where we would get something not so dangerously cold, and with tempting foam at the top. I have long ago been weaned from the German custom of mixing refreshments and scenery; but one does miss the boys and girls, the merry, happy throngs, their sentimental songs and their fervent, poetic patriotism. Involuntarily my mind reverted to a scene the Herr Director and I witnessed after we had finally reached the summit of our mountain in the Hartz. It was nearly evening, and we could look far and wide above the forest into the happy and beautiful country. On the very topmost peak stood a corpulent German, surrounded by his genial group. He was reciting with fervor and genuine passion, in the broadest Berlinese dialect, one of their treasured poems which begins with these lines: