and courtesy i am glad to have the chance i love nature are those wild ducks i see on the lake flying about oh yes we have lots of them they are not allowed to be shot that s why they come here we have too there is a whole flock of that comes here every winter i feed them right out here at the dock every day why where can they come from i asked this is a long way from the sea i know it he replied it is strange they come it a at forty over the from the i suppose you will see them on the too if you go there i don t know they come though sometimes they leave for four or five days or a week but they always come back the captain of the steamer tells me he thinks they go to some other lake they know me though when they come back in the fall and i go out to feed them they make a great fuss they are the same then the very same i had to smile those two ducks are great friends of mine too he went on referring to the two i had seen following him they always come up to the dock when i come out and when i come back from my row they come again oh they make a great clatter he looked at me and smiled in a pleased way the train which i at was a through express from to with special cars for paris and it was crowded with of a ruddy solid variety health warmth assurance defiance i never saw a more marked contrast than existed between these on the train and the local outside the latter seemed much paler and less by contrast though not less intellectual and certainly more refined one stout german lady with something like eighteen had made a veritable express room of her second class the average entitled to a seat beside her would take one look at her and pass on she was beyond any hope of successful attack i watched to see how the character of the people soil and climate would change as we crossed entering germany the frontier into germany every other country i had entered had presented a great contrast to the last after passing fifteen or twenty towns and small cities perhaps more we finally reached and there the crew was changed i did not know it being busy thinking of other things until an immense conductor appeared at the door and wanted to know if i was bound for i looked out it was just as i expected another world and another atmosphere had been for that of already the cars and were different heavier i thought more heavy german were in evidence the cars the vast majority of them here bore the of imperial germany � the wide winged black eagle with the crown above it painted against a white background with the inscription post a station master erect as a soldier very large with parted whiskers arrayed in a blue uniform and cap regulated the departure of trains the and of italy here became and and the of every italian station was here the endless german and es st also came into evidence we rolled out into a wide open flat plain with only the thin of france in evidence and no of any kind and then i knew that was truly no more if you want to see how the lesser countries vary from this greater one the dominant german empire pass this way from into germany or from germany into holland at as i have said we left the mountains for once and for all i saw but few frozen peaks after as we approached they seemed to grow less and less a at forty and beyond that we entered a flat plain as flat as and as as the valley which stretched unbroken from to and from to judging from what i saw the major part of germany is a vast as flat as a and as thickly strewn with orderly new bright towns as england is with quaint ones however now that i was here i observed that it was just these qualities which make germany powerful and the others weak such such force such universal truly it is amazing once you are across the border if you are at all sensitive to national or individual you can feel it vital glowing entirely superior and more ominous than that of or italy and often less pleasant it is very much like the heat and glow of a furnace germany is a great or it with the industry of a busy nation it has all the daring and assurance of a successful man it commands itself at every turn you would not want to witness greater variety of character than you could by passing from through france into germany after the and civility of the english and the lightness and spirit of france the blazing force and defiance of the comes upon you as almost the most amazing of all in spite of the fact that my father was german and that i have known more or less of all my life i cannot say that i admired the of the german empire the little that i saw of it half so much as i admired some of the things they had apparently achieved all the stations that i saw in germany were in order new bright well ordered big blue signs indicated just the things you wanted to know entering germany the station were exceedingly well built of red tile and white stone the tracks looked as though they were laid on solid ties the train ran as smoothly as if there were no in t anywhere and it ran swiftly i had to smile as occasionally on a platform � the 