This afternoon has been passed in an excursion to St. Dié, a beautiful ride to an uninteresting town, noted merely as the place where Amerigo Vespucci published his account of the land now bearing his name. Coming back, we left the beaten track, climbed mountains, and descended into valleys where autos rarely go, and our appearance created much astonishment; only two machines have passed that way this year. That route is not down on the map but plunges through the mountains to the west of St. Dié, passing Laveline, Le Valtin, and other towns. Just a run of seventy-five miles for the fun of it. We finally leave Gérardmer on a glorious morning. George is well on time and the auto is snorting before the door at nine o'clock. Yama has become an expert in packing our goods and chattels in it, and they fit like a puzzle of his own land. The road begins to mount as soon as we leave the town, and when we reach the Col de la Schlucht we are far above the valley, and on one of the highest points of the Vosges. The road winds directly along the precipice. On one side, the pine forests mount above us, while on the other, the fall is sheer to the valley below, some three thousand feet and the panorama of the Rhine land and these mountains is magnificent. Here we enter Germany. George shuts off all power and for the next half hour we coast down the mountain in superb fashion to a village near the base where we are halted by a dapper little man in a German cap to pay a duty of one hundred francs for the auto, which will be returned when we leave the country. The number and make of the machine are taken and also my name, which I give with its present spelling; but the little man promptly changes it to that of his own land. When I venture to fear that it will cause confusion and that the spelling given has held in America for two centuries, he waves my objections aside, "Your name is Schumacher,--the fact that your family has spent _the last few years_ away from _home_ does not change it,--once a German, always a German." Well, perhaps, but in those two centuries and more, other strains have entered, which may claim a showing, and at least you could never get my mustache into that Kaiser fashion and I am very certain that I am exempt from military duty. [Illustration: LA SCHLUCHT. THE TUNNEL ON THE ROAD TO MÜNSTER By permission of Messrs. Neurdein] So we move on. The entire characteristics of the land have changed. All the neat, sweet appearance of France is gone, and the daintiness has vanished. Germany is a work-a-day world. No matter how interesting, and the interest is, of course, very great, at its best it cannot be called an elegant country, and that word does apply to France. The soldiers with their spiked helmets are an improvement over the rank and file of the French, but the French officers are _chic_, elegant. The same holds with her women, while in Germany, the word "dowdy" certainly suits the dress from the Court down.