By these tours on foot,--the only philosophical way of travelling,--and by the occasional aid of the cheap third-class cars of that country, I visited all parts of Germany, and learned more of the language, character, and habits of its odd, warm-souled people than I ever could have learned at the great hotels and in the first-class railway carriages. During the long vacations, and especially after leaving Heidelberg altogether, I extended my explorations into remoter parts,--into the Tyrol, Switzerland, Italy, and France. I travelled in a way in which probably no American has ever travelled before or since, namely, disguised as a Handwerksbursche,--a wandering tradesman. Any one who has been in Europe will not ask why a stranger in that land should need to pass himself off as a poor native, if he wants to save money. On the Continent, as a general rule, a man in broadcloth, not personally known to the shop or hotel keeper, pays two prices; whereas a person speaking English, even if clad in fustian, pays three prices; and I should like to see him help himself. The English language has come to be mistaken for a gold-mine all through Europe. These wandering tradesmen, these Handwerksburschen, let me say,--for they are unknown to nations under free, constitutional governments,--are a sort of fossil remains of feudalism. They are young fellows, half journeymen, half apprentices, who are obliged to wander for two or three years from city to city, working at their trades. They finally return to their homes, weary and poor; having learned little but the rough side of the world,--to make what is called their “masterpiece.” If this pass muster, they are entitled to style themselves masters of their trades. They grow out of that old illiberal principle which compels the son to follow in the footsteps of his father and his grandfather. Yet, for all the narrow-minded enactments and regulations to crush their spirit and make them miserable, they always walk on the sunny side of nature. They are a jovial set of vagabonds, who have rarely the chance to be dishonest, if they had the inclination. Disguised in the blouse of their class,--something like our Western “warmus,” except that it is of thin blue stuff,--I have spent many a happy hour, toiling along the same road with them, listening to their stories and merry songs. If I meet one of them on the highway, he stops, offers me his hand, and exchanges a kindly word. He takes out his pipe, asks me to fill mine from his tobacco-pouch, and tells me all he knows of the road passed over. He never lodges in a city, unless he has work there. The village inn is his castle; here he obtains his bed at night and his breakfast in the morning for seven kreutzers,--not quite five cents; and trudges on, smoking and singing, through all Europe. This is the Handwerksbursche, poor, but merry; the knight-errant of the bundle and staff; the troubadour and minnesinger of the nineteenth century.