Page:Early Reminiscences.djvu/115

Rh The first opera I ever was present at was at Mannheim, when taken to hear Oberon. I can recall how that in one scene a fairy was to ascend in a cloud. The ropes got twisted, the cloud turned round and exposed to the audience a young lady seated on a slip of board against the wood and canvas backing of the cloud. I have since seen a good many reverses of very charming pictures.

In the spring of 1844 we drove to Bamberg and thence to the Franconian Switzerland.

Bishop Philpotts of Exeter was sitting at table by his hostess, who said to him: "Don't you think, my Lord, that Devonshire is very like Switzerland?

"Very much so," replied Henry of Exeter, "but in Devonshire there are no mountains, and in Switzerland there is no sea." Much the same might be said of the Fränkische Schwyz. There are no mountains at all; it consists of an elevated Jura limestone plateau that has been fissured, and down the rifts flow limpid streams fed from subterranean reservoirs. These ravines are picturesque, with spires and needles of rock rising out of woods; or with bare scarps pierced with caves. These caverns have been the haunts of extinct animals, as also of prehistoric men. Some, but by no means all, have been explored.

We took up our abode at the Krone in Muggendorf, a quiet little village. I was then aged ten, and my great amusement consisted in forming a collection of fossils that abounded in the rocks. One huge ammonite was as large as the roof of our carriage, and my father was sorely grieved at not being able to take it away with him. As to my collection, it was all thrown away before we started to leave Muggendorf.

At the inn we occupied was a little Franconian girl named Gretchen, wearing a scarlet kerchief about her head, black bodice with white linen sleeves, and a bright blue skirt. She was aged eight. We naturally became playmates. On rainy days we amused ourselves making paper houses for flies, with windows of muslin; but we likewise built an ark of cardboard, which we filled with flies of various colours, kinds and sizes, along with a blue-bottle that represented the elephant, a bumble-bee for Noah, and moths for his family. The ark when complete was launched and sent down the River Wiesent, and we watched it swimming downstream till lost to sight.