They are great travelers, these peasants. Once a
month they take the train to Rothenburg, and once a month they journey
home again, to talk of the experience for thirty days. All of them have
heard of Nuremberg [which is actually less than a hundred miles
away],--that vast and wonderful metropolis, so far, so very far, beyond
the ultimate horizon of their lives. They would like to see it some
day--as I should like to see the Taj Mahal--but meanwhile they content
themselves with the great adventure of going to Rothenburg,--a city that
is really much more interesting, if they could only know. In the very
midst of these congregated travelers, I casually set down a suit-case
which was plastered over with many labels from many lands; and this
suit-case affected them as I might be affected by a messenger from Mars.
They spelled out many unfamiliar languages, and a murmur of amazement
swept through the entire company when one of them discovered that that
suit-case had been to Morocco. Morocco, they assured me, was a place where
black men rode on camels; and I had no heart to tell them that it was a
country where white men rode on mules. Then another of these travelers--an
old man, with a face like one of Albrecht Duerer's drawings--discovered a
label that read "Venezia.
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