Page:1880. A Tramp Abroad.djvu/343

 powdery spray, ruffled with foam, and girdled with rainbows—to look upon these things, they said, was to look upon the last possibility of the sublime and the enchanting. Therefore, as I say, we talked mainly of these coming wonders; if we were conscious of any impatience, it was to get there in favorable season; if we felt any anxiety, it was that the day might remain perfect, and enable us to see those marvels at their best.

At we approached the Kaiserstuhl, a part of the harness gave way. We were in distress for a moment, but only a moment. It was the fore-and-aft gear that was broken,—the thing that leads aft from the forward part of the horse and is made fast to the thing that pulls the wagon. In America this would have been a heavy leathern strap; but, all over the continent it is nothing but a piece of rope the size of your little finger,—clothes-line is what it is. Cabs use it, private carriages, freight carts and wagons, all sorts of vehicles have it. In Munich I afterwards saw it used on a long wagon laden with fifty-four half-barrels of beer; I had before noticed that the cabs in Heidelberg used it;—not new rope, but rope that had been in use since Abraham's time,—and I had felt nervous, sometimes, behind it when the cab was tearing down a hill. But I had long been accustomed to it now, and had even become afraid of the leather strap which belonged in its place. Our driver got a fresh piece of clothes-line out of his locker and repaired the break in two minutes.

So much for one European fashion. Every country has its own ways. It may interest the reader to know how they "put horses to" on the continent. The man stands up the horses on each side of the thing that projects from the front end of the wagon, and then throws the tangled mess of gear on top of the horses, and passes the thing that goes forward, through a ring, and hauls it aft, and passes the other thing through the other ring and hauls it aft on the other side of the other horse, opposite to the first one, after crossing them and bringing the loose end back, and then buckles