"The course of the river is so crooked that I have, after climbing a little mountain, seen the stream in all four directions; and, too, Eddard, there were seven little German villages in sight, nestling snugly in the winding valley.  Heidelberg, too, was interesting.  The old university, with its student-prison, made great sport for me."

Heidleberg University was established in 1386, although some of the buildings date back to 1200 A.D.  Since his father practiced law, Steger found it particularly interesting to learn that no municipal policeman could arrest a student of a German university.  

"Here in Germany, each university has its own courts of criminal and civil procedure and a student is subject to no other authority," Harry had relayed to his father in Bonham.  "This necessitates a complete court apparatus, and, in such a scheme, a dungeon is necessary.  The prison at Heidelberg is the most picturesque.  It is considered a lark to be imprisoned there, for they are given whatever they wish to eat and drink, whatever service they are willing to pay for, anything to read, or games to play, that they order; and chums are, at their request, put into the same room.  The walls of these rooms are ludicrous sights.  Not a half-inch of space is free from painting in crude and gorgeous colors.  Here is a caricature of some august and reverend university official.  The cause of their duress vile, and a comically composed verse serve as the text; there is a sonnet, perhaps in German, perhaps in Latin (and even occasional English verse), which the poor (?) prisoner has used to give vent to the pangs of his burdened, tortured soul." 

Of all the memorable places he visited, Harry wrote that the colossal castle at Heidelberg was the most interesting ruin in Germany.  

Even the size of the oven was staggering.  It was larger than Harry's father's law office and Harry's uncle Ed Steger's offices combined.  Heidelberg Castle was also home to the world's largest wine barrel.  The local subjects paid their taxes in wine, so the "petty princes" built a 50-thousand gallon wine barrel to hold their reward.  And they say everything's bigger in Texas! 

Construction at Heidelberg began late in the 11th century and even though it shows the ravages of time, man and nature, the mammoth, vine-covered structure built on a hillside still towers over the city.

"Nature knows how to garnish a ruin to get the best effect," Mark Twain wrote of Heidelburg Castle in A Tramp Abroad a mere 25 years before Steger's visit.  "Misfortune has done for this old tower what it has done for the human character sometimes − improved it."

To see the area at its best, Twain believed it necessary to see Heidelberg embellished by the soft glow of gas lamps as evening falls.

"One thinks Heidelberg by day--with surroundings--is the last possibility of the beautiful," Twain admitted, "but when he sees Heidelberg by night--he requires time to consider upon the verdict."

On the other hand, Berncastle, Germany left Steger with a very different impression.

"Berncastle has the narrowest, dirtiest streets it has been my misfortune to tread," Harry remarks.  "And, probably from a sense of harmony, the people are supremely dirty, too.  There are tottering, rambling old houses of the 13th century that still hold together and are inhabited by tottering, dirty old folks that still hold together.  There is a recently erected monument and I wanted to take a picture of it.  And old veteran of 1871, in a gaudy uniform that had at intervals proof of too close contact with its wearer's beer and cheese, caught me in the act and excitedly told me that to take a picture of that monument was most strictly forbidden.  He identified himself as the sentry stationed there.  I asked him the whyness of his whatness.  He replied that a firm which gets out these View-Postal Cards had bought from the German Government all photographic rights!"

So, some nuances of German life perplexed the transplanted Texan.  Tomato soup was very common, Harry observed, but order a raw tomato in a hotel and the staff will gaze at you as if they just found out you are contemplating devouring one of your own race.

And Steger continued to wrestle with his emotions as he observed the rituals of the region’s dominant religion.

"Here on the Rhein," Steger wrote to P.C. Thurman, "almost everything is Catholic.  I wrote Charlie something of a lot of holy bones that cured everything from fits to sore eyes.  To see, in Cologne, that grand mass, that magnificent cathedral, with its hundreds of years of history and accumulation of treasures of art and gold, does not tend to make me a Romanist.  Poor old market women, bowed double with work, with hands all hard and gnarled, toothless, wavering in step, come in and pray to the blood spots on the stone feet of Jesus, and to the Holy Mary most of all, for forgiveness, pay their money that represents the sap of their life, cross themselves, 'genuflect,' dabble their priest-blessed hands in holy water and go away believing that the stone image of Christ on the cross has helped them.  Often on the streets here I come across a crucifix which, for economy's sake, shows only the feet and the hands of Jesus nailed through--a ghastly sight, for no other part of the body is there."

To be fair, Steger's reaction would probably have been no different than that of someone reared exclusively in Catholic services witnessing their first hellfire and brimstone brush arbor revival in Harry's hometown.  The powerful emotions evoked in both scenarios would be difficult, if not impossible, for an outsider to comprehend.

And, as if penance for his doubt, Steger's fortune-telling skills seem to be fading.

He jokingly refers to his mom as "mither," probably an inside joke about the vernacular of the scholarly students Harry is now associating with, and Harry asks his mither to buy a post-card album for all the view-cards he is sending home.

"It has occurred to me that in later years it will interest me, too, to see the cards," Harry writes home.

Sadly, he is mistaken.

"The next letter you write me, after receiving this one, you had best address me at Balliol College, Oxford, England," Steger advises his parents.  "That will be my permanent address for the next three years."

Wrong, again.