



Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)






[Illustration:

  ONLY AUTHENTIC PORTRAIT OF
  WILHELM HEINRICH SEBASTIAN VON TROOMP
  (FROM THE OIL PAINTING).
]




                             BARON TRUMP’S
                               MARVELLOUS
                              UNDERGROUND
                                JOURNEY


                                   BY

                           INGERSOLL LOCKWOOD

    AUTHOR OF “TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF LITTLE BARON TRUMP AND HIS
                             WONDERFUL DOG
    BULGER” “WONDERFUL DEEDS AND DOINGS OF LITTLE GIANT BOAB AND HIS
       TALKING RAVEN TABIB” “EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIENCES OF LITTLE
          CAPTAIN DOPPELKOP ON THE SHORES OF BUBBLELAND” ETC.


                             ILLUSTRATED BY

                         CHARLES HOWARD JOHNSON


                                 BOSTON

                       LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS

                             10 MILK STREET

                                  1893




                 COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY INGERSOLL LOCKWOOD

                         _All Rights Reserved_

                     MARVELLOUS UNDERGROUND JOURNEY

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF WILHELM HEINRICH
                     SEBASTIAN VON TROOMP, COMMONLY
                       CALLED LITTLE BARON TRUMP


As doubting Thomases seem to take particular pleasure in popping up on
all occasions, Jack-in-the-Box-like, it may be well to head them off in
this particular instance by proving that Baron Trump was a real baron,
and not a mere baron of the mind. The family was originally French
Huguenot—De la Trompe—which, upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
in 1685, took refuge in Holland, where its head assumed the name of Van
der Troomp, just as many other of the French Protestants rendered their
names into Dutch. Some years later, upon the invitation of the Elector
of Brandenburg, Niklas Van der Troomp became a subject of that prince,
and purchased a large estate in the province of Pomerania, again
changing his name, this time to Von Troomp.

The “Little Baron,” so called from his diminutive stature, was born some
time in the latter part of the seventeenth century. He was the last of
his race in the direct line, although cousins of his are to-day
well-known Pomeranian gentry. He began his travels at an incredibly
early age, and filled his castle with such strange objects picked up
here and there in the far away corners of the world, that the
simple-minded peasantry came to look upon him as half bigwig and half
magician—hence the growth of the many myths and fanciful stories
concerning this indefatigable globe-trotter. The date of his death
cannot be fixed with any certainty; but this much may be said: Among the
portraits of Pomeranian notables hanging in the Rathhaus at Stettin,
there is one picturing a man of low stature, and with a head much too
large for his body. He is dressed in some outlandish costume, and holds
in his left hand a grotesque image in ivory, most elaborately carved.
The broad face is full of intelligence, and the large gray eyes are
lighted up with a good-natured but quizzical look that invariably
attracts attention. The man’s right hand rests upon the back of a dog
sitting on a table and looking straight out with an air of dignity that
shows that he knew he was sitting for his portrait.

If a visitor asks the guide who this man is, he always gets for answer:—

“Oh, that’s the Little Baron!”

But little Baron who, that’s the question?

Why may it not be the famous Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian von