July 25 Thursday – The second day of the carriage trip over country that Sam and Joe would tramp in early August. Eclectic entries from Sam’s notebook:
Green theatrical fine forest before Allerheiligen.
Steep slope clothed in green velvet--before theatrical forest.
Saw a small deer here.
Superb view from Teufelstein, Luisaruhe & Englekanzel.
C[lara] when down & visited the waterfalls.
A ruin where a Kloster was built 700 yr ago. Leave the monks alone, every time, to pick out the loveliest spots.
People gardening high above our heads before Allerheiligen.
Beautiful bright green grass everywhere.
Lovely valley & quaint thatched houses in Thal befor[e] Seeberg [Seebach] or some such name.
Drenching rain all down the Schlectes Weg which approaches Allerheiligen. Bright holly bushes.
Sometimes the cows occupy the first floor, sometimes the family
Saw a cow’s rump projecting from what should have been the drawing room.
If they had Schwarzwald bread, the feeding the 5,000 was hardly a miracle [MTNJ 2: 117-8].
Monday, August 5, 1878 – Sam and Joe left Baden-Baden by rail to Achern for a week-long tramp. Sam wrote at 8:30 PM, that night, from Allerheiligen, Germany to Livy in Heidelberg. of almost being left at Baden Baden that morning, having waited on the wrong side of the train tracks. After having their day “mapped out” by a schoolmaster named Scheiding, the rest of the day was full:
We took a post carriage from Achern to Otterhöfen for 7 marks—stopped at the “Pflug” to drink beer…It was intensely Black-foresty…/ We walked the carriage road till we came to that place where one sees the footpath on the other side of a ravine, then we crossed over & took that. For a good while we were in a dense forest & judged we were lost, but met 2 native women who said we were all right. We fooled along & got here at 6 P.M—ate supper, then followed down the ravine to the foot of the falls, then struck into a blind path to see where it would go, & just about dark we fetched up at the Devil’s Pulpit (where you & I were,) on top of the hills. Then home. And now to bed, pretty sleepy & requiring no whisky. Joe sends his love & I send a thousand times as much, my darling [MTLE 3: 75].