in " HEIDELBERG DU FEINE " 63 



his friend, " aber letzte woche habe ich sieben gehabt." 

 This practice of duelling must, I suppose, have its good 

 side, as it is not only prevalent throughout German 

 Universities, but shows few signs of decay, and yet it 

 is to our English ideas a puerile form of assault, as the 

 combatants are so protected by masks and bandages 

 that the worst that can happen is that the cheek is cut 

 open or the nose slashed across. No, much as we 

 may think that our English sports are overdone, there 

 is no shadow of doubt that the qualities of head and 

 heart which are called forth in cricket and football go 

 further in the making of character than does this 

 German system of duelling, which, after all, is only 

 practised by a fraction of the German students. The 

 rest get no games or exercise in common of any kind, 

 though gymnastics (turnen) takes a prominent place in 

 German schools. 



The Englishman, however, needs something of the 

 sort to keep him going and out of mischief. So my 

 friend the late Dr. Atkinson and myself bought an 

 English-built skiff, the Lady Margaret, and, much to 

 the astonishment of the humdrum Heidelbergers, 

 disported ourselves " verriickte Englander " we were 

 called on the "Green Neckar," strengthening our 

 muscles by pulling up the rapids to Neckar Gemiind, or 

 running down the river to its mouth on the Rhine. 



This brings to mind a scene which, though it 

 happened half a century ago, is keenly impressed on 

 my memory. One day, crossing the old bridge the 

 only one then over the Neckar, I saw a young man 

 punting up-stream in one of the native flat-bottomed 

 boats. " That man is an Englishman," I at once 

 exclaimed, for no young German gentleman was ever 

 known to put himself to the trouble of punting alone 

 up a rapid. And so it turned out, for the man was 



