COOPER IN GERMANY 



71 



seinem listigen Wasclibaivngesiclit, auf dciii mii- \v(iiiige diirftige 

 Bartprol)en sit'litl)ai' wareii, stand iiii Eiiiklang eine eigentiiinliche 

 Wortkarglieit, ohiie dass ihin deshalb Meiisehenfeindlichkeit oder 

 Mangel an Gastfrenndschaft liatte ziuii Vorwurf gemacht wer- 

 den diirfen. In 'Das Fegefeuer in Frappes Wigwam (190()j fig- 

 ures the well-known French guide Vilandrie (probably identical 

 with Yilanderie in 'Der Talisman'). In all these characters the 

 reader will easily recognize something familiar. They possess, to 

 a greater or less extent, the characteristics of their famous proto- 

 type, the Leatherstocking. Mcillhausen was, however, by no 

 means a slavish imitator. It may ev^n be unjust to say that 

 Cooper's Leatherstocking has served as a model for the above- 

 mentioned cliaracters. The trapper is one of those figures which 

 cannot be disassociated from frontier life. As one of the most 

 picturesque characters of early American civilization he was 

 bound to find his way into fiction sooner or later. 



The interest Mollhausen possessed in Cooper is manifested 

 in a passage from his 'Tagebuch einer Reise vom Mississippi 

 nach der Slidsee' (1858), in whicli he speaks of his travels with 

 the Ottoe Indians during his first stay in America. He writes: 

 "I learned to look with pride on my ragged mocassins and 

 scarred feet, and to laugh at the icy north wind blowing on my 

 naked breast. ... I felt in the most joyous spirits, and 

 seemed to be realizing the dreams of my youth (dreams conjured 

 up certainly by Cooper and Washington Irving), when I sent a 

 bullet through the skull of a bear, or gave some mighty stag the 

 coup de grace." 



The taste for Indian fiction which Cooper's works had cre- 

 ated in Germany was not easily satisfied. It was not long before 

 the works of J. K. Paulding, F. Marryat, Dr. Robert Bird, W. 

 G. Simms, Sir Charles Murray, Captain ]\Iayne Reid and many 

 less-known writers were also translated into German and found 

 many eager readers. Parallel to this current of translations 

 from the above English and American writers flowed another 

 from French sources. In France Cooper's works had also called 

 forth a group of Indian writers whose works were in turn also 

 translated into German. Gabriel Ferry (pseudonym for Louis 

 de Bellemarre). Paul Duplessis and Gustave Aimard became 

 well-known names in German fiction. Among other German 

 writers of Indian fiction, the best known are Friedrich Ger- 

 stacker, Ernst Freiherr von Bibra, Friedrich Pajeken and Karl 

 May. These witli many others liave received consideration in 



