Part 3 (2/2)

”They mean whether you have any goods in your trunk that are liable to pay duty. Tell them no.”

So Rollo went back and told the officer that he had not any thing to declare. He then opened his trunk; but the officer, instead of examining it, shut down the lid, saying, ”Very well;” and by means of a piece of chalk he marked it upon the top with some sort of character. A porter then took the trunk and carried it back to the train.

Rollo perceived that the difficulty about the lady's baggage had been settled in some way or other, but he feared it was settled in a manner not very satisfactory to the lady herself; for, as the porters took up her trunk to carry it back, she looked quite displeased and out of humor.

Rollo went back to the place where he had left his uncle George, and then they went together out to the platform. Here Rollo found the lady who had had difficulty about her baggage explaining the case to some friends that she found there. She seemed to be very indignant and angry, and was telling her story with great volubility. Rollo listened for a moment; but she spoke so rapidly that he could not understand what she said, as she spoke in French.

”What does she say?” he asked, speaking to Mr. George.

”She says,” replied Mr. George, ”that they were going to seize something that she had in her trunk because she did not declare it.”

”What does that mean?” said Rollo.

”Why, the law is,” said Mr. George, ”that when people have any thing in their trunks that is dutiable, if they _declare_ it, that is, acknowledge that they have it and show it to the officers, then they have only to pay the duty, and they may carry the article in. But if they do not declare it, but hide it away somewhere in their trunks, and the officers find it there, then the thing is forfeited altogether. The officers seize it and sell it for the benefit of the government.”

”O, uncle George!” exclaimed Rollo.

”Yes,” said Mr. George, ”that is what they do; and it is right. If people wish to bring any thing that is subject to duty into any country they ought to be willing to pay the duty, and not, by refusing to pay, make other people pay more than their share.”

”If one man does not pay his duty,” rejoined Rollo, ”do the others have to pay more?”

”Yes,” said Mr. George, ”in the end they do. At least I suppose so.

Whatever the amount of money may be that is required for the expenses of government, if one man does not pay his share, the rest must make it up, I suppose.”

”They did not look into my trunk at all,” said Rollo. ”Why didn't they?

I might have had ever so many things hid away there.”

”I suppose they knew from the circ.u.mstances of the case,” said Mr.

George, ”that you would not be likely to have any smuggled goods in your trunk. They saw at once that you were a foreign boy, and knew that you must be coming to Switzerland only to make a tour, and that you could have no reason for wis.h.i.+ng to smuggle any thing into the country. They scarcely looked into _my_ trunk at all.”

While Mr. George and Rollo had been holding this conversation they had returned to their places in the car, and very soon the train was in motion to take them into the town.

Thus our travellers pa.s.sed the Swiss frontier. In half an hour afterwards they were comfortably established at a large and splendid hotel called the Three Kings. The hotel has this name in three languages, English, French, and German, as people speaking those several languages come, in almost equal numbers, to Switzerland. Thus when you leave the station you may, in your directions to the coachman, say you wish to go to the Three Kings, or to the Trois Rois, or to the Drei Konige, whichever you please. They all mean the same hotel--the best hotel in Basle.

CHAPTER III.

BASLE.

The city of Basle stands upon the banks of the Rhine, on the northern frontier of Switzerland. The waters of the Rhine are gathered from hundreds of roaring and turbid torrents which come out, some from vast icy caverns in the glaciers, some from the melting debris of fallen avalanches, some from gus.h.i.+ng fountains which break out suddenly through crevices in the rocks or yawning chasms, and some from dark and frightful ravines on the mountain sides, down which they foam and tumble perpetually, fed by vast fields of melting snow above. The waters of all these torrents, being gathered at last into one broad, and deep, and rapid stream, flow to a vast reservoir called the Lake of Constance, where they repose for a time, or, rather, move slowly and insensibly forward, enjoying a comparative quiescence which has all the characteristics and effects of repose. The waters enter this reservoir wild and turbid. They leave it calm and clear; and then, flowing rapidly for one hundred miles along the northern frontier of Switzerland, and receiving successively the waters of many other streams that have come from hundreds of other torrents and have been purified in the repose of other lakes extending over the whole northern slope of Switzerland, they form a broad and rapid river, which flows swiftly through Basle, and then, turning suddenly to the northward, bids Basle and Switzerland farewell together.

”And then where does it go?” said Rollo to Mr. George when his uncle had explained this thus far to him.

”Straight across the continent to the North Sea,” said Mr. George.

Thus the whole northern slope of Switzerland is drained by a system of waters which, when united at Basle, form the River Rhine.

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