In the late afternoon we floated out of the sweet air of the meadows into a stratum of effluvia from the tanneries of Tuttlingen, and but for the fact that the town claims as its hero Max Schneckenburger, the author of the words of “Die Wacht am Rhein” who was educated here in his youth, and for the more cogent reason of hunger, we probably should have paddled past the town without pausing longer than to admire some of its architectural features. Tuttlingen is not all tanneries, although, as we approached, we thought it must be, by the smell. It is a goodly-sized place, with the usual castle, an unusual church, and red-tiled houses, many of them elaborately half-timbered. Opposite the town, which straggles along the right bank of the stream, a great open meadow is in process of reclamation from the floods, and is being converted into a park or public pleasureground. In this flat expanse of rough ground stands a great square mass of masonry, which will sometime or other support the statue of Schneckenburger, for the Tuttlingers are actively engaged in gathering subscriptions for this monument. Schneckenburger can scarcely be called a poet, for these verses are probably the only ones of any account he ever wrote--at least, no others have been preserved--and they came from his pen at the age of twenty-one. Nine years later, in 1849, he died, having become established as a small merchant, after several years’ experience as a commercial traveller. From the accounts given of him by his widow, the distinctive feature of his character was patriotic fervor, which found its earliest expression in his choice of a motto, “Deutsch,” in his school-boy days, and later in the sentiments of “Die Wacht am Rhein.” The ever-active discussion in our camp, whether the extraordinary popularity of the patriotic song is due to the verses or to the music, is hereby passed on for final settlement to the readers of this narrative. We never could agree about it. [Illustration: Hut for duck shooting Neidingen.] As it was already late when we reached Tuttlingen, we proposed to hurry our dinner so as to have plenty of daylight to shoot the great weir which filled the air with its roaring. But the deliberate ways of German landlords are not easily changed, and we only succeeded in getting off in the late twilight. With some misgivings we paddled out into mid-stream, towards the sound of the falling water, between the two great bridges. The fame of our expedition [Illustration: MAX SCHNECKENBURGER, AUTHOR OF “DIE WACHT AM RHEIN” [From an old portrait]]