Page:The life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (IA b21778401).pdf/90

60 gambling tables. Wiesbaden was so far interesting that it showed the pure and unadulterated summer life of middle-class Germans. There you see in perfection the grave blue-green German eye.

Our family found a comfortable house at Wiesbaden, and the German servants received the "boys," as we were still called, with exclamations of "Ach! die schöne schwarze kinder." We paid occasionally furtive visits to the Kursaal, and lost a few sovereigns like men. But our chief amusement was the fencing-room. Here we had found new style of play, with the schläger, a pointless rapier with razor-like edges. It was a favourite student's weapon, used to settle all their affairs of honour, and they used it with the silly hanging guard. Some of them gave half an hour every day to working at the post, a wooden pillar stuck up in the middle of the room and bound with vertical ribbons of iron.

When we were tired of Wiesbaden, we amused ourselves with wandering about the country. We visited the nearer watering-places.

We then returned to Wiesbaden, and went over to Heidelberg, which is so charmingly picturesque. Here we found a little colony of English, and all fraternized at once.

We "boys" wanted to enter one of the so-called brigades, and chose the Nassau, which was the fightingest of all. An Irish student, who was one of the champions of the corps, and who had distinguished himself by slitting more than one nose, called upon us, and, over sundry schoppes of beer, declared that we could not be admitted without putting in an appearance at the Hirschgasse. This was a little pot-house at the other side of the river, with a large room where monomachies were fought. The appearance of the combatants was very ridiculous. They had thick felt caps over their heads, whose visors defended their eyes. Their necks were swathed in enormous cravats, and their arms were both padded, and so were their bodies from the waist downwards. There was nothing to hit but the face and the chest. That, however, did not prevent disagreeable accidents. Sometimes too heavy a cut went into the lungs, and at other times took an effect upon either eye. But the grand thing was to walk off with the tip of the adversary's nose, by a dexterous upward snick from the hanging guard. A terrible story was told of a duel between a handsome man and an ugly man. Beauty had a lovely nose, and Beast so managed that presently it was found on the ground. Beauty made a rush for it, but Beast stamped it out of all shape. There was a very little retreating in these affairs, for the lines were chalked upon the ground. The seconds stood by, also armed with swords and protected with masks, to see that there was