ASIA . r'^ ^'' ^ ' *3v«* 4^ r 1 , .f kr, A ' '3 f t,-' , L,J THt^KSitTTiT ... S'J>* cur ^atmli IHtttttCCBitg Slihratg atlfata, ??£» latk CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924075243695 A TOUR. OF THE WORLD / ;r SUCH PARTS AS RELATE TO CHINA AND THE CHINESE 3ft£j jFamousi Cities ann ^ttange 3^eoples Their Histories, Religions, and Ethnology EDITED BY PROFESSOR LEO DE COLANGE, LL.D. INTRODUCTION BY NATHAN HASKELL DOLE ILLUSTRATED " To travel is a profiiab/e pleasure.'' — RABELAIS •He who kiio-xs not what the world /?, hmixs no/ tchne l:e is himself." — MARCUS AORELlUS Volume I. University Press Company of New York th Copyright, 1896 By University Press Company qOHTENTS .Introduction India Indo-China China Japan Alaska The Return to the East: V 841 889 911 920 1025 1057 INTRODUCTION. ~f T is a common remark that travel, and especially foreign travel, is extremely broadening -*- to the mind. Beautiful and magnificent scenery, especially when haloed by the glories of historical association ; palaces and cathedrals, noble works of art by the greatest geniuses ; different manners and customs ; contact with men and women of other races and other religions, — all these influences have an educational value impossible to estimate, but definite and real. By all means let us secure, if possible, these advantages ; let us make the most of them, and assimilate all the culture that " globe-trotting," as the English irreverently call it, can give. But, after all, only a comparatively small number of people can afford to travel. The great majority of us are kept relentlessly chained to our daily labours, and the ten days or fortnight which we call " summer vacation " permit no extended flight, even did our means suffice to compass the extra expenses of travel. There is nothing that appeals more vigorously to human interest than accounts of adventures in distant lands. They fire the blood, and kindle desire to see something besides the dull, monotonous surroundings in which our lives are for the most part cast. How gladly would we pack our trunks and start off at a moment's notice, to endure all the perils and hardships of an ocean voyage, led on by the prospect of seeing wonderful sights, meeting delightful people, drinking in the associations of centuries, filling our minds with pictures — never-fading pictures of beauty and magnificence ! Alas ! that call comes to but few, and few are able to gratify the migratory instinct which is so strong in Us. This explains why books of travel, endowed with any vitality, have always appealed so directly to popular taste. They enable us to wander vicariously ; they open up to us vistas which otherwise would be hopelessly closed ; they show us distant scenes ; they bring before us, as it were into our very houses, thrilling pictures of adventure and exciting episodes of real life that have taken place at the very antipodes. Such a work as the present has a decided educational value. Not only does the descriptive text give an accurate account of many different lands, but the accompanying illustrations emphasize the lesson taught. The youngest member of the family loves to look vi INTRODUCTION. at "pictures."' It is only a step to asking questions: 'What does that mean, papa?" "What is that building, mamma?" " What are those people doing?" And the endless catechisms to which the elders of the family are subjected b\- the imperious toddlei's are naturally turned toward geography and history and art. Many a famous name thus becomes a household word. Many an impulse toward achievement is given by such a volume as this, pored over by happy children, to whom it is intrusted, perchance, as a' reward for obedience or good conduct. But it is not alone the young who from it will receive inspiration and encouragement. Many a weary wage-earner, into whose hands it has been brought by its inexpensiveness and its enticing beauty, will in its pages for a time forget his encompassing cares. Many a mother who has at last got her children all safely off to bed, will take it up, and drown in its fascinat- ing pages the sense of her responsibilities and sorrows. Many a clerk who has spent all day in the absoi'bing rounds of business, in the close atmosphere of the shop or counting-room, will mount on its noiseless wings and fly away to the ends of the earth, like the Arabian on his magical carpet. They will look in wonder at the Roman Forum and those magnificent remains of imperial splendour ; they will gaze across the wide plains of the Campagna and behold the cupola of St. Peter's rising like a crown above the seven-hilled citv. Thev will see the silent water- streets of Venice, the winged lions of St. Mark, the Doge's palace, and the Bridge of Sighs : they will float in the black gondola on the blue waters of that wonderful grand canal, and see the dreamy beauty of St. Mark's and that water-front of palaces. They will with equal facility and freedom from annoyances, — no fleas, no fees, no rail- way fares, no custom-houst- -exactions, — quit sunn}- Italy, and anticipate the fate of all good Americans who are said to go to Paris when the}^ die : they will linger on those fine free boulevards ; they will with awe contemplate the Hotel des Invalides and the marble coffin of the great Napoleon ! London, with its Tower and its miles of foggy streets, its imposing Houses of Parliament and its St. Paul's, the shrine to which all steps must bend ; the lovely English lakes ; the Border, celebrated in song and romance ; the rocky crags of Edinburgh, the Athens of the North ; St. Petersburg, that mighty city of the swamp, that miracle of stone evoked by Peter the Great; Moscow, with its white Kremlin and its dream of bizarre and picturesque churches; Constantinople, with its musk-scented Mosque of St. Sophia; Athens, with its acropolis and its ruined fanes, — all these cities, all these lands, all these tribes and nations pass in fine panorama before the eye — pass, but are there at call. Unlike the illustrated lecture, which has, perhaps, cost the economical pater-familias three or four dollars, — for he must take wife and daughters, — there is no hasty glimpse of some fascinating view thrown on the screen, only to vanish and be replaced by another, each half effacing the impression of its predecessors ; here all one has to do is to open the book. The text explains and illustrates; but even if the text become like a familiar friend, the picture each time may reveal some new detail, may suggest some new thought, may cheer some dark moment. INTRODUCTION. vii Methinks I see a cheerful, happy home into which this work has come. It is the hour before the children's bed time : they persuade father to show them the new book of travels round the world. The father in his smoking-jacket, comfortably seated in his easy-chair^ with a certain reverence — such as is due to all good books — takes it down. The children, full of expectation, th^r eyes shining with pleasure, cluster round him. Where will they not go during this magical hour ! They may in a moment be in far-off Africa, on the bank of the Ganges, or gazing at the Sphinx half buried in the sands of the Sahara. " For a song," as the saying goes, the father is enabled to take his familj- on a personally conducted tour. And the dry facts of geography, which perhaps the daughter found almost impossible to learn in school, suddenly become vitalized by what is almost as good as an experience in the very land about which she, poor child, is vainly cudgelUng her brains. This combination of education and entertainment is to be commended. It has a definite purpose in the world, and not the least important, when its scope and purpose is taken into consideration, is the way in which it is made easy for people of moderate means to take advantage of its unusual authenticity and beauty, and own it for themselves. Nathan Haskell Dole. " Hbdgbcote," Glen Road, Jamaica Plain (Boston), Feb. 29, 1896. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 841 IN" the northwestern corner of India lies the Punjaub, — " the land of the five rivers," — the home of the Sikhs, a brave and warlike people, who maintained their independence until 1849, falling under English authority only after a resolute resistance, and two long and sanguinary wars. The religion of the Sikhs is neither Mohammedan nor Hindoo, but of greater simplicity than either, being little more than a form of Deism, accompanied with the inculca- tion of moral precepts. Umritseer, their holy city, is two 'i'^*^^ hours distant by rail from Lahore, the capital of the '' ' fef!^ Punjaub, and is incessantly frequented by pilgrims. The ^^^ British part of the town is the usual station of bunga- ^-5^'^ lows and avenues of trees, and the native portion a mere ^Z^^^^^^k'^' nest of houses, like an ant-hill. Amid this confusion of ■iCsiQj.^'% L>' mean dwellings, rises, in strange contrast, the stately splendor of the Golden Temple, represented on page 843. This building, about sixty feet in length and thirty in width, stands in the 842 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. middle of a monstrous tank, two hundred yards square. Surrounding it are many handsome structures called Durhmsalas, occupied by pilgrims who, during their stay, are housed, fed, and clothed by the benevolent rajahs to whom the buildings belong. Upon entering the grounds surrounding the temple, the visitor is required to lay off his shoes and replace them by woollen slippers, the enforcement of this rule being a privilege left to the Sikhs in memory of their adherence to their English rulers in the time of the Indian mutiny. Half-way up the path leading to the temple, a square, paved with mosaics, is flanked by pavilions from whose open windows the priests, seated inside, salaam to the stranger, and invite him to enter. In one of them is shown the cell where the Sikh Bible is guarded by night, and whence it is solemnly carried every morning into the Golden Temple. Of this book Max MuUer says : " Though tedious as a whole, it contains here and there treasures of really deep poetic thought." The gateway to the path leading to the temple across the tank is covered with plates of chased silver twelve feet square, and along this bridge marble pedestals support richly gilded lamps. The temple is two-storied, the walls being of marble inlaid with mosaics of the Florentine style, representing birds, vases, and flowers; the roof is surmounted by three domes, around which are grouped a multitude of little cupolas, all highly gilded, and glittering in the light. Add to this silver doors embossed and chased with various designs, scarlet curtains, and orange banners flaunt- ing from high flagstaffs of the same color, and you have a scene of really dazzling 'effect. Across the little bridge and through the open door, a crowd is moving in- cessantly in and out. Within the temple, upon an embroidered cushion and beneath a superb canopy, lies the open volume of the sacred writings. Before it sits the chief priest, a young man who seems only to watch the crowd or idly talk with those near him. At his side another chants some sacred hymn in a monotonous but not unmusical voice, accompanied by musicians beating the Indian drum. A white sheet stretched upon the ground before him receives the offerings of the faithful, very numerous, but of the smallest possible value. The sacred tank — Umrita Saras^ " the fount of immortality " — was constructed in 1581, and its chief miracle is, that though thousands of filthy pilgrims bathe in it, it always remains pure,, as such a fountain should be. About two hundred years after its construction, Ahmed Shah, alarmed at the growing importance of the Sikhs and their religion, came down from Afghanistan, filled up the sacred tank, and, to complete its profanation, slaughtered over it the sacred kine of the Hindoos. This so enraged the Sikhs that they began a warfare, half religious, half patriotic, against their Mussulman neighbors, which resulted in the overthrow of the foreign invaders. The desecrated fountain was repaired and purified, and, from that day to this, has duiy wrought miracles to the satisfaction of the pilgrims who visit it, and doubtless ir u lij H 3 Q. UJ H Z UJ O _i o o UJ I I- 8-14 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. to that of the five or six hundred lazy priests who are maintained here in idleness by the gifts of the faithful. In Lahore, the chief city of the Punjaub, the most notable edifice is the tomb of her greatest ruler, Runjeet Sing. The building stands at the end of a quadran- gle, two hundred yards square, and has a large artificial pond in front of it ; it is TOMB OF RUNJEET SING. constructed of red sandstone, inlaid with marbles in designs of roses and lilies. Here the king's remains were burned with great pomp, on his death in 1840, and his four wives, together with five Circassian slaves, perished upon the funeral pile. The "Lion of Lahore," as his contemporaries styled him, was a truly remarkable man. Although liis boyhood had been passed in the idleness and profligacy of an Oriental harem, he manifested the mental vigor which would presuppose a Spartan training. Possessed A TOUR OF THE WOkLD. 645 of great natural courage, he was so ruled by his judgment that he courted no unnecessary dajiger, while never shunning that which it was expedient to encounter. In his deaUngs with men he showed unusual knowledge of human nature, and knew not only how to reduce to subjection the proud and high-spirited chiefs of the Pun- jaub, but to make them his warmest personal friends and allies. He was an excel- lent man of business though he could neither read nor write, and it was his policy to seem a devout believer, and to Usten for hours daily to the reading of the Sikh DWELLING-HOUSES IN SRINAGAR. scriptures, while in reality his own advancement was the only law to which he gave the slightest obedience. This prince was for some years the owner of the great Koh-i-noor, and it passed from the hands of his successor, on the annexation of the Punjaub, into the posses- sion of the East India Company, by whom it was delivered up to Queen Victoria. On the north of the Punjaub lies the beautiful land of Cashmere, an irregular valley from five to six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and shut in by mountains of which the summits rise here and there into the region of perpetual snow. Srinagar, the chief city, lies along the two banks of that great branch of the 846 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. Indus known in classic story as the Hydaspes. Its population is perhaps a hundred and twenty thousand ; and the abundance of ruins scattered throughout the town proves that its inhabitants were once much more numerous. Many of the dwelling- houses are two or three stories in height, and resemble Swiss chalets ; others have but one floor, and are surrounded by broad verandas (see page 845), while all build- BUDDHIST TEMPLE, PANDRADAR. ings, even to mosques and palaces, are roofed with a heavy layer of turf, giving them a singular air of rusticity. In striking contrast to these modem structures are remains of early architecture of great solidity and in excellent preservation. One of the finest of these ancient buildings is a Buddhist temple, represented above, situated at Pandradar, the former capital of Cashmere. DANCING-GIRL OF CASHMERE. 848 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. The inhabitants of this valley belong to the purest Aryan type. The men are tall, robust, and well-formed, and the women of distinguished beauty, not unlike the handsomest Italian peasant-women. About two hundred miles south-east from Lahore stands Delhi, the great Indian metropolis, or, indeed, we might say, the ancient capital of the Asiatic world. A com- parison is naturally suggested between Delhi and Kome; but while Eome presents the spectacle of a city gradually growing in size and importance, till it becomes, through the ambition of its inhabitants, the mistress of the world, Delhi appears to have played an opposite role. Founded originally by invaders not native to the Indian soil, it has been fought for and captured in turn by the successive conquerors of the pen- insula, and has been regai'ded as, in a sense, the palladium upon whose fate depended the destiny of the entire country, — a superstition lasting until our own time, and held of such importance that the English were never regarded as legally the masters of India until the time when the English banner waved from the towers of Delhi. Kome, too, can boast of an antiquity of but twenty-six centuries, while the ancient Indian traditions make mention of three cities, Madhanti, Hastiiiapoura, and Indra- pechta, which have succeeded one another upon the spot now occupied by the modern Delhi, the last of which, Indrapechta, was founded in the thirteenth century before the Christian era. Having become the capital of the great Mussulman empire of India, Delhi, at the will of each new dynasty, was transported to some new site, and in this pere- grination has strewn with its monuments a plain twenty-three miles in length and eleven in breadth. Of these structures, the most imposing is the triumphal column of Koutab, erected by the Mussulman conqueror Koutab-Oudin-Eigeb, in the very centre of the latest Hindoo capital. The column is approached by a narrow path between two rows of lofty trees, united into an arbor by a luxuriant growth of jasmine. Following this path for some distance, the traveller finds himself on the edge of a shallow ravine, filled with shrubbery and flowering plants, at the end of which rises the tall column, outlining its reddish mass against the azure of the sky. Il^owhere else in the world, perhaps, has IN^ature added so much grace to the work of man. In general, ruined cities are sad and desolate ; it would seem that the soil itself had also been smitten with a curse. Here, on the contrary, every- thing is fresh, gay, and delightful; birds fill the air with their music, and the most luxuriant flowers are in bloom as if in a garden. Crossing this ravine we find our- selves at the entrance of the building, before Aladdin's Gate, whose exquisite beauty is reproduced on the opposite page, from a photograph taken upon the spot. This portal, erected in 1310 by the Sultan Ala-Oudin, might well have inspired the famous author of the story of the wondrous Lamp ; the Genius of the Eoc surely never created anything more fairy-like. The work of the Spanish Moors in Grenada A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 849 cannot be compared to this architectural gem. Here, it is the stone itself, a red sandstone relieved with white marble, which furnishes the color, and the delicate ara- besques which cover all its faces are genuine carvings, while in the Alhambra the effect is obtained by the use of brilliant color and gilding spread out upon meagre structures of brickwork. Besides, there is not a point in the Moorish^ palace where one finds the purity of line and grandeur of proportion which characterize to so high a degree the work of the Indian sultan. This gate forms a square pavilion pierced on each side by a denticulated arch, and surmounted by a handsome dome. The interior of the pavilion is finished with much elegance. Entering through this magnificent portal, the traveller at once finds himself at the foot of the Koutab, which, standing entirely isolated, rises in the centre of a paved area, lifting its haughty head to the height of two hundred and twenty- seven feet. The tower is in the form of a cylinder, forty-six feet in diameter at the base, and only ten at the summit. It is divided into five stories, which grow less in height from the lowest upward. The three . lower are of red sandstone ; the upper, built in 1368, to repair damage done by lightning twenty-eight years before, are of marble. Within the city, the palace of the Grand Moguls is the chief object of interest to the visitor* This mass of buildings, inclosed by a wall forty feet high and three quarters of a mile in circumference, stands at the head of the main thoroughfare, the Ghandnee GTiouk, or Silversmiths' Street ; the walls, of red sandstone, are crenel- lated and adorned with bands in relief, and in the centre of each side of the quad- rilateral is a handsome gate, flanked with turrets and surmounted with kiosques. A kind of bastion, pierced with an entrance-way surrounded by slender minarets, pro- tects each of these gates. These fortifications are of the best period of Indo-Mus- sulman art, the reign of Shah Jehan, in the early part of the seventeenth century. Within the walls the eye is shocked by long and ugly rows of barracks, built by the English upon their occupation of the town. In the inner court, however, there yet remains the great audience hall and the throne hall, with something of their ancient splendor. The latter is a vast kiosque of white marble, of perfect sim- plicity in its exterior, but of great magnificence in the interior decoration, its columns and arches and dome being adorned with arabesques in precious stones incrusted upon the marble. The sunlight striking upon these enchanting mosaics, seems to give life to the delicate wreaths of flowers of lapis-lazuli, of onyx and sardonyx and a thousand other gems. Tavernier, a French jeweller, who visited and described the palace of the Grrand Moguls at a date when it was yet in all its splendor, tells us that the ceiling of this hall was covered with a tissue of gold and silver of elegant workmanship, which he estimates at a value of five million dollars. Heavy silk drape- ries, festooned with chains of solid gold, hung in the arched entrances, and in the ALADDIN'S GATE. DELHI. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 851 centre stood the marvel of marvels, the famous "peacock throne." This throne, of solid gold, measured six feet and three quarters in^ length and five in width, and formed a low, broad seat, the back of which represented a peacock's tail, glittering with enamels and precious stones ; a canopy, also of massive gold, bordered with a long, thick fringe of fine pearls, and resting on twelve golden columns, covered the back of the throne, wlrile the front was shielded by two immense parasols of velvet embroidered with pearls, having gold handles set thickly with diamonds. This master- piece of jeweller's work was made by a French goldsmith attached to the court of the Shah Jehan, and is estimated by Tavernier to have cost thirty millions of dollars. In 1739 it was carried off from Delhi by N^adir Shah, the great Persian conqueror, and has probably long since been destroyed. The imperial baths and the emperor's private mosque are still shown in the palace of Delhi, fine structures, and beautifully decorated with mosaics and carvings in marble and ivory. Between the various buildings which compose the palace extend vast spaces, once the fairy-like gardens so extolled by the Mogul poets, where now remain but a few forlorn trees, half buried under ruins. Although the English have taken away from Delhi its title of capital, and have even separated it from Hindos- tan by making it a dependency of the Punjaub, it is still considered by the native people as the capital of the north-west, l^o city rivals it in actual importance, unless, perhaps, Lahore. Its financial market is still the chief in Central Asia, and its bankers extend their correspondence into Arabia, Afghanistan, Thibet, and Tur- kestan. Two hundred and eighty miles south-east from Delhi, and connected with it by railway, is Lucknow, one of the most beautiful of all the Indian cities. It is sur- rounded on all sides by a beautiful park, traversed by countless rivulets, and towers and minarets in every variety rise over the tree-tops, making a graceful and pecu- liar silhouette. Within, the city does not disappoint the traveller. Its streets are broad and regular, bordered with rows of neat houses. Fountains surrounded by trees are abundant, and give the air a refreshing coolness. The inhabitants are picturesquely clad, and gentle in their manners, and the shops are uncommonly attractive. Many of the public buildings are of remarkable beauty ; one of the finest is the celebrated Honsseinabad Imambarra, a building erected for the celebration of the Mohammedan festival of the Mohun-um. It is resplendent with color and ornament, and makes a grand show under the blue sky of India ; but it does not admit of being viewed too nearly, and the traveller will do well to content himself with admiration of the general effect. The city of Agra, though of far less antiquity than Delhi, and less beauty than Lucknow, is, in some respects, the most important point in northern India, being the 852 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. capital of the north-west provinces of Bengal, and the great commercial centre of all that part of Hindostan. It is situated on the right bank of the Jumna, a mag- nificent tributary of the Ganges, and is connected by railway -with Bengal, the Deccan, and the Punjaub. But the greatest glory of Agra is the wonderful Taj, a building erected by the Shah Jehan as a mausoleum in memory of his wife, concerning which all travellers agree in the opinion that it is the most beautiful edifice in the world. The Taj stands upon the river-bank, raising its gilded crescent to the height of two hundred and seventy feet above the water-level. It is surrounded on three sides > ._. Ill GARDEN-GATE OF THE TAJ. by a walled garden of twenty-five acres in extent, having elegant pavilions at the four corners. The main entrance is through a magnificent Saracenic arch, eighty feet high, built of red sandstone, with panels of white marble which are covered with texts from the Koran inlaid in black marble. Passing under this arch, the Taj itself appears, in its dazzling white splendor, at the extremity of a wide avenue of cypress- trees. Like a statue on its pedestal, the building stands on a vast platform of red sandstone surmounted by a superb marble terrace fifteen feet high, from each angle of which springs a marble minaret a hundred and fifty feet in height. The mausoleum itself is an irregular octagon, with flat roof, from which rises a great central dome A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 853 and four lesser ones, and the four main fa9ades have each a lofty Saracenic arched entrance, flanked by two stories of deeply recesse^ windows. , There is no part of the exterior, except the dome, which is not covered with arabesques and inscriptions in black marble upon the polished white of the surface, — in fact, it is said that the whole Koran is written there, — but it is done with so much taste that i^ adorns the architecture without crushing it. Bishop Heber says of the Taj, "It was built by Titans and finished by jewellers;" and, in truth, no more finely carved casket ever came from the patient hands of Chinese artificer. ^/^ Another English writer says, "Were there nothing to be seen in India but the Taj, it would be, for an artist or an architect, sufficient compensation for the long voyage, for no pen can do justice to its incomparable beauty and its astonishing grandeur." But the interior even surpasses the exterior in magnificence. The sarcophagus of the sultana is in a vault directly under the centre of the building, and near it that of the Shah. The tombs are of the purest white marble, the sultana's most elabo- rately ornamented with arabesques and texts in every variety of precious stones. Ascending to the main floor of the edifice, two duplicate sarcophagi are perceived, placed exactly above the real ones, and ornamented in the same style, but with more elaboration of details. They are protected by a marble screen eight feet high, of the most exquisite carving, a mere lace-work of stone, interwoven with stems and leaves of lotos, rose, and passion-flower. This magnificent edifice was commenced in 1630, and finished in 1647, and dur- ing these seventeen years twenty thousand workmen were constantly employed upon it. The magnitude of the structure required a hundred and forty thousand cart-loads of red sandstone and Rajpootana marble, and every province of the empire contributed to its adornment, sending precious stones of which a list was preserved in the public archives. There was jasper from the Punjaub, lapis-lazuli from Ceylon, coral from Arabia, rock-crystal from Malwah, and onyx from Persia; Thibet sent her turquoises, '^ Yemen her agates, Asia Minor her chalcedony, Colombo her sapphires, Punnah her diamonds. Notwithstanding these free gifts and the forced labor of the workmen, the total cost of this gigantic work was about twelve million dollars. The Taj has shared in the disasters of its city. The Jats carried off its silver gates and its treasure ; the Mahrattas injured the mosaics; an English governor. Lord Bentinck, even went so far as to propose to sell it for the value of its materials ; but the Queen's government understood its duties better. All the damage has been repaired, the edifice cleansed and restored, and the gardens, enriched with rare plants, are kept up as carefully as in the time of Shah Jehan. South from Agra, and about sixty miles away, there exists a wonderful group of buildings belonging to a period nearly a thousand years earlier than that at which the Taj was erected. They are the remains of the ancient city and fort of Grwalior, FACADE OF THE PALACE. GWALIOR. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 855 crowning the top of an escarped, isolated rock, which rises above the modern town of the same name. This rock is of sandstone capped with basalt ; its greatest length is a mile and a half, with an extreme breadth of nine hundred feet, and a height of nearly three hundred and fifty feet above the level of the plain. Its face is perpendicular, at some points the upper paijj; overhanging the lower; and the ascent is by a steep road cut in the solid rock, and barred at intervals by five gates as formidable as those of a feudal fortress. The first of these gates is a superb Moorish triumphal arch, crowned with a story of colonnettes. Passing beneath it, the traveller enters upon the road, wide and well-kept, but of fatiguing steepness. ' Here begins for the archaeologist a series of monuments, bas-reliefs, caverns, cisterns, ranged along the road as in a museum. The rocky wall on either side also demands attention ; it is excavated into numberless cells, many of them containing altars and statues, a reminiscence of the early her- mits who sheltered themselves here. Between the third and fourth gates are vast reservoirs for water, and here the sides of the road are covered with bas-reliefs of enormous size. Beyond the fourth gate is a little monolithic temple, believed to be of the fifth century. It consists of a square chamber with a peristyle in front of it, and is surmounted by a pyramidal spire. The upper part of this spire has been broken oflF, and is replaced by a little dome of masonry. As we reach the crest of the rock, the magnificent fa9ade of the Palace of King Pal (see page 854) rises before us. It is really a great dead wall, relieved by turrets at regular intervals, the only windows being in the very tops of these tur- rets; but bands of carved decoration, rows of arches, and a profusion of enamelled figures of every description, — Brahmins, elephants, peacocks, candelabra, in blue, brown, green, and gold, — give it an incomparable lightness and elegance. The bricks which form this ornamentation have a brilliancy of color and delicacy of shading from which ten centuries have taken nothing away. Besides this palace there are two important temples in this ancient city, and many chapels; and the rock itself on which the city stands is cleft by a remarkable fissure, a hundred feet deep, whose perpendicular walls are lined with figures of every size, from the one ten or twelve inches in height up to the colossus of sixty feet. These statues have historical and religious significance. Returning to Agra, we suppose the traveller to follow a route leading nearly due west as far as Ambeer, thence in a southwesterly direction through some of the tribu- tary states of Western India, and coming out to the sea at Bombay. An hour's drive from Agra, along a fine macadamized road, bordered by shade- trees, and curious old tombs surmounted by figures of horses in red sandstone, brings us to Secundra. This village, insignificant m itself, is held in high honor by Mus- 856 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. sulman and Hindoo, throughout all India, as the place where repose the remains of the Emperor Akbar, the greatest native sovereign of the peninsula. The Mausoleum stands in the centre of an immense and very beautiful garden on the bank of the Jumna. The building itself, which rests upon a platform of white marble four hundred feet square, is m the form of a pyramid, and consists of five stories. The four lower ones are of red sandstone, the upper of polished white marble. The first four stories are surrounded each by a row of elegant Mosques of red sandstone, and the upper story by a wall of white marble elegantly carved. Upon the upper floor, in broad day- light, is the state sarcophagus, around which the crowd gathers to pray, — a superb THE MAUSOLEUM OF AKBAR. parallelogram of white marble, a masterpiece of carving, upon which are inscribed in relief, amid a very network of arabesques, the ninety names by which the Mussul- man religion calls upon God. The real sarcophagus, in which the emperor was buried, lies in a crypt beneath the centre of the building, bearing a single Arabic inscription upon its lid. This mausoleum is the work of many reigns. Its foundation Was laid by Akbar- his son, Jenanghir, added the stories in red sandstone, and Shah Jehan surmounted the edifice with its crown of marble. It thus stands as an admirable illustralion of the most brilliant period of Indian architecture. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 857 Three days' journey westward, across the rich English province of Agra, is the ancient city of Digh, which claims to have been a capital fifteen centuries before the beginning of the Christian era. It is now the second city in the Jat kingdom of Bhurtpore ; and in 1803, its superb fortifications, erected by King Souraj-Mull about a century before, enabled a few French officers in the service of Scindia, the Mah- ratta prince, to hold igi check Lord Lake's victorious army after the battle of Las- wari. This same monarch constructed, about 1725, a splendid palace, regarded as the best instance of modern Hindoo art. It is composed of many detached pavihons surrounded by a fine garden, and situated between two small lakes, outside the walls. The principal edifice is the Gopal Bhowan, built npon a high terrace on the PALACE OF GOPAL BHOWAN. shore of the western lake. Its water-front, which we present here, is very elegant, with its balconies and colonnades, and the two marble kiosques that make the angles. The garden is filled with orange and other fruit-trees, and its shady avenues are paved, and bordered by canals for irrigation. Leaving Digh, the traveller for a while finds himself in the midst of desolate, stony plains, without any redeeming feature of beauty in the landscape. He soon, however enters upon the mountain region of Mewat, and the approach to Ulwur, 858 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. the capital of the little kingdom, is most picturesque. The city lies upon a low hill, crowning its top with palaces, and around it is an array of higher summits of singular outline and unposing height. Over all these hill-tops runs the chain of forts and bastions and walls which defend the town, while their slopes are brilliant with the richest vegetation. There are two beautiful palaces, but, as is usual in these Indian cities, a mau- soleum of some famous prince is the finest building of all. The illustration which we give below represents that of the Rajah Buktawur Sing, a work of the last century. It is entirely of marble, resting on a pedestal of red sandstone, and is MAUSOLEUM, ULWUR. surmounted by a dome of somewhat unusual outline, topped by a massive stone pinnacle. A journey of ten days, on horseback or on camels, through a delightful and V varied country, brings us to Ambeer, the ancient queen of the mountains, founded by the Minas, the great aboriginal race of Upper India, and for many centuries their capital. Approaching Ambeer the road climbs a hill, winds through a dense wood, and suddenly coming out into open ground, reveals the mysterious valley lying far below. Let the reader imagine a deep crater whose sides are lined with a dense A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 859 and gloomy jungle ; in the centre a cone of verdure, serving as pedestal to a marble palace, fairy-like and radiant, before which would pale all the marvels of Granada or Seville ; all around this cone, a silent and deserted city, of which the meanest house is itself a palace; and lastly, a lake with blackish waters. Such is the first effect of Ambeer; but what is indescribable about it is the sensation which comes over the traveller, after a few minutes' contemplation. Nothing so romantic, so mys- GOLDEN KIOSQUE, AMBEER. terious was ever seen before; you ask yourself if it be not a dream from the Arabian Nights and whether some one will not come suddenly to disturb the silence of this sleeping city, and cause some frightful mystery to spring from it. The palace espe- cially has something supernatural about it ; the domes covered with plates of gold and of blue enamel, the turrets of marble of an ivory-yellow, the walls decorated with gilded balconies : surely this is the Palace of Scheherazade. DC o o Q. > Q o bJ O < _l < 0. UJ X H I- o o A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 861 We add with regret that the sole inhabitants of this region of fairy-like mag- nificence are tribes and legions of the great hunouman, the largest of the Indian monkeys 1 Between Ambeer and Bombay, the city of chief importance is Oudeypoor, the capital of Meywar, one of the states tributary to the British government, but retain- ing a native sovereign, called the Maha Kana, and known in his own domains by the imposing title " The Sun of the Hindoos." The first view of the city is very striking, as the traveller approaches it. In the foreground a long line of forts, pagodas, and palaces is relieved against a forest of gardens, behind which rises the city, a curious mass of towers, steeples, and kiosques, ascending a pyramidal hill ; the summit bears a marble palace, shining white against the blue background of the hills. I^either pen nor pencil can give an adequate idea of the beauty of this city, so well named Oudeypoor — " the City of the Rising Sun." Closely built up to the city walls are an extensive group of suburbs, where every hillock is covered with luxuriant gardens, adorned with kiosques and fountains. En- tering by a gateway flanked with bastions, we find ourselves on the edge of a mag- nificent bazaar. The houses are all built of stone, with flat, terraced roofs ; the shops are situated under arcades that border the street on each side, and have a neatness and regularity of aspect almost unknown in Oriental cities. The Palace of Oudeypoor, the largest and most magnificent in India, covers the entire crest of the hill which rises in the centre of the city, and the natural extent of the ground not being sufficient, the Hindoo architects increased it by throwing out from one side of the hill an immense terrace, supported on three tiers of arches: this work is of such solidity that part of the palace rests on this " made land," and the remainder of it is inclosed as a great court-yard, containing barracks and parks of elephants. Two walls inclose the mass of buildings composing the palace, of which the entire length is more than two miles. The principal entrance is from the side of the city, — a beautiful marble gate, with three archways, crowned by an attia of extreme richness ; the panels, balconies, and domes are covered with decorations in exquisite taste, and without any intro- duction of idols. Within is the grand court-yard, on two sides of which are the royal apartments; the walls are ornamented with galleries at each story, and the angles are occupied by octagonal towers, surmounted by cupolas. The height of the palace is a hundred and twenty-three feet, but the dazzling whiteness of the marble of which it is entirely composed, and the grand simplicity of the architecture, augment its proportions, and would lead one to believe it double its actual size. The interior of the palace harmonizes with the stately facades, and is well suited to the requirements of a tropical climate; dark corridors, with gentle inclination, take 862 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. the place of stairs, leading from story to story ; the large, well-lighted apartments have walls and floors of marble ; there are court-yards and fountains and flowers at every turn. The great halls are hung with draperies ; soft cushions and rugs cover the floors, and the tvalls glitter with mirrors and brilliant frescos. One of the rooms is decorated with an odd kind of mosaic, which makes the visitor smile, but is really no more absurd than the porcelain salons of Fontainebleau and other French palaces: its walls are covered with European plates and cups and saucers, the commonest crockery side by side with the most expensive Dresden, — a two-penny salt-cellar with a vase of Bohemian glass. Little did the Hindoo artist care what his materials cost ; he looked only to the colors of them, and contrived to obtain from this het- erogeneous mass certain original and graceful effects. The frescos in many of the rooms are of great interest. They contain portraits of all the Ranas or sovereigns of Oudeypoor, and scenes of importance in the reign of each. Painted with care and with a remarkable skill in the use of color, they are valuable memoranda of the history and manners of this Indian race. During our visit one of those military processions took place which are so frequent in the west of India, where some Mahratta pi-ince appears before his subjects with a splendor unknown elsewhere in the world. The display commences with the native troops commanded by European officers, then the Arab corps, the squadrons of Mah- ratta cavalry, the field artillery, the musketeers, the cannoneers mounted on drome- daries, and many thousand troops to swell the procession to as great length as possible. Then comes the royal standard-bearer, mounted on a superb elephant painted and covered with embroidered housings ; the man bears a flag of cloth of gold forty feet in length. Around him are a body of picked cavalry, specially charged with the defence of the standard. Armed with long lances and curved sabres, they are clad with extreme richness ; their coats of crimson velvet, tight-fitting trousers, and pointed shoes, form as perfect a knightly costume as could be imagined. Some of them wear a light steel morion and Saracenic coat of mail; others have heavy cui- rasses of buffalo-skin richly ornamented. The tips of their lances are silvered, and their bucklers of rhinoceros-skin decorated with golden bosses. After them follow an immense drum-corps, with instruments of every size and form, more agreeable to see than to hear; and then the nobihty of the kingdom on prancing horses, surrounded by their servants carrying banners, and by heralds loudly proclaiming the importance of their respective masters. To them succeed the high officials of the kingdom, ministers, high-priests, and courtiers. Each one of these personages is seated upon an elephant, whose gold-fringed covering reaches to the ground. Twenty or thirty elephants, proud of their adornments, thus defile, with grave and majestic air ; most of them have trunk and forehead painted with fantas- tic designs, and wear on the head tall aigrettes of white plumes. Bach dignitary A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 863 sits cross-legged in a superb hondah, and over him is held a splendid parasol, which, by its degree of richness, indicates his rank at CQurt. Lastly comes the prince himself, preceded by his family, his sons and daughters seated upon elephants. The prince's houdah is of solid gold, sparkling with gems. Dressed in crimson velvet and sparkling with diamonds, he sits on his embroidered PAGODA. BOMBAY. cushions, and behind him is his principal minister, in costume as brilUant as his own. On each side of the elephant two men stand on the steps of the houdah waving peacock fans. One of the four is the royal herald, who displays a flag, and proclaims the dignity and valor of his master. The crowd falls prostrate as the ele- phant passes by. The animal, ahnost hidden under his trappings, seems like a moun- tam of gold and diamonds seen through the perfumed smoke of the censers borne 864 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. before him, and the man in whose honor this parade takes place, sits aloft with impassive face and folded arms, most like the Hindoo conception of Divinity. A short distance west of Oudeypoor the traveller strikes the railway of the west coast, and in a few hours reaches Bombay, the most cosmopolitan city of India. The diversity of race among the inhabitants of Bombay is at once apparent. Besides the Hindoos, the sons of the soil, and the Enghsh, its conquerors, there is the Arab wrapped in his burnous, the Persian in black garments, with tall Astrakan cap, the Jaines and the Banyans with odd-shaped turbans, the Bhoras and Khodjas, the Abys- sinians with negro features, the long-robed Armenians, the Jews, the Parsees with their black mitres, the Scindes with square cap, and many others less easily recognized at sight. Differing from each other in religion, it may well be supposed that the people NATIVE COTTAGES IN CEYLON. of Bombay have their crowd of places of worship. The city is the residence of an English bishop, and a Eoman Catholic vicar, and it contains numberless Parsee temples, where the sacred fire burns day and night. There are also Hindoo pagodas, of which the one represented on page 863 has the chief claim to our admiration. But of all the great Indian cities Bombay offers least to the traveller in search of the picturesque. A sea-voyage down the Malabar coast in one of the English steamers which ply between Bassorah, at the head of the Persian Gulf, and Singapore, the most southern port of the Malay peninsula, touching at the principal ports on the route, is a very agreeable and interesting journey. One never wearies of admiring the beautiful hills covered with dense forests, which succeed one another along the coast, — the low ground laden with the most luxuriant crops whose brilliant green con- L-;4?,ii'/-v//y/^ J^^. Ckr. ////'-' 'Ph /a : TIGER HUNT, INDIA. TRENCH DIGGERS OF KHORSABAD, NINEVEH. TYPES OF MADAGASCAR. z o I- < I- u o UJ > z < N < cc m A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 865 trasts with the blue water of the Arabian sea, — and the little towns, with their white houses against the dark background of the wooded sl(jpes. A brief delay in the open roadstead of Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, affords time for a short excursion into the country, where vegetation has all the luxuriance of the tropics, and several varieties of palms subserve to almost all the wants of the natives, whether in fipod, clothing, or lodging. (See page 864-) INTERIOR OF THE PAGODA. MADURA. On the eastern side of the great Indian peninsula- is the region formerly known as the Carnatic, extending from Cape Comorin to the river Kistna. This is now in- cluded in the presidency of Madras, the portion of India most purely Hindoo and Brahminical, and it is here that we find the chief examples of a kind of architecture known to ethnologists as the Dravidiah, and familiar to us as the "pagoda style." 866 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. These temples consist almost invariably of four parts: the central structure, usu- ally small and unimportant, in which the image or emblem of the divinity is placed; the porches, or mdntapas, leading to this cell ; the gate-pyramids, or gopuras; and the pillared halls, or cKovXtries, used for various purposes, which are often of vast dimensions; Besides, there are always tanks of water used for sacred purposes, and usually many dwellings of priests, in the immediate neighborhood of the temple. The character of the Dravidian races is far inferior to that of the Aryan, and their religion has always been a degrading fetich-worship. They had no intellectual or moral aspirations to express in their sacred buildings, and offered to their divin- ities only a tribute of patient and minute toil. "To cut a chain of fifty Hnks out of a block of granite," says Fergusson, " and suspend it between two pillars, was with them a triumph of art. To hollow deep cornices out of the hardest basalt, and to leave all the framings, as if of the most delicate woodwork, standing free, was with them a worthy object of ambition, and their sculptures are still inexplicable mysteries, from our ignorance of how it was possible to execute them. All that millions of hands working through centuries could do, has been done, but with hardly any higher motive than to employ labor and to conquer difficulties, so as to aston- ish by the amount of the first and the cleverness with which the second was over- come — and astonished we are ; but without some higher motive, true architecture cannot exist. The Dravidians had not even the constructive diflSculties to overcome which enabled the mediaeval architects to produce such noble fabrics as our cathe- drals. The aim of architects in the Middle Ages was to design halls which should at the same time be vast and stable, and suited for the accommodation of great multitudes to witness a lofty ritual. In their struggle to accomplish this, they de- veloped intellectual powers which impress us still through their works, lifo such lofty aims exercised the intellectual faculties of the Hindoo. His altar and the statue of his god were placed in a dark cubical cell wholly without ornamentation, and he thought he had accomplished all his art demanded when he covered every part of his building with the most elaborate and the most difficult designs he could invent. Much of this ornamentation, it is true, is very elegant, and evidences of power and labor do impress the human imagination often even in defiance of our better judg- ment, and nowhere is this more apparent than in these Dravidian temples. It is in vain, however, that we look among them for any manifestation of those lofty aims and noble results which constitute the merit and the greatness of true architectural art. In nine cases out of ten these buildings are a fortuitous aggregation of parts, arranged without plan as accident dictated at the time of their erection." At Madura, near the southern extremity of the peninsula, is a pagoda of great size, remarkable as containing the most beautiful choultry, or pillared hall, in all the Presidency. It was commenced in 1623, and finished in 1645, at an expense of more A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 867 than five millions of dollars. It is entirely of stone, three hundred and twenty feet long, eighty feet broad, and twenty feet from pavement to roof, which latter is formed of granite blocks resting upon the pillars. The hall consists of a nave and two side aisles, and the effect of these three great galleries is really superb. All the way down the nave, besides bas-reliefs and arabesques with which each column is loaded, the statues of Indian nio»archs are detached in full relief from each, and the capi- tals are carved in representation of gigantic animals with fierce and menacing air, who seem ready to spring upon the offender who dares enter these sacred precincts. The illustration (page 865), drawn from a photograph, exhibits the entrance to this wonderful hall. If the temple at Madura contains the most elaborate ornamentation of any in southern India, that of Seringham (page 869) is unquestionably the largest and most harmonious. The outside wall of the inclosure measures twenty-four hundred and sev- enty-five feet by twenty-eight hundred and eighty feet. There are ten great pyram- idal gates, or gopuras, and if the temple had been finished there would have been twenty, that is, four in each of the five concentric walls surrounding the small domed building which is regarded as the sanctuary. The date of this structure is surprisingly recent, work on it having been stopped by the ten years' struggle between the English and French for the possession of Trichinopoly (1750-60). If we allow fifty years back of this date for the commencement of the building, we still bring the whole within the limits of the eighteenth century. Between the first and second walls, Hindoos of inferior caste are allowed to re- side; within the second inclosure none but Brahmins are permitted ; within the third are certain families of priests of Vishnu ; within the fourth are various small temples and mantapas. One of these, called the thousand-columned mantapa, has sixteen columns in front and sixty-five in depth. They are spaced evenly ten feet apart from centre to centre, and as the hall is only from ten to fifteen feet high, it will be seen what a remarkable instance this is of misapplied labor. Bach pillar is, how- ever, a monolith, and they are all carved more 6r less elaborately, so that there is after all something very impressive about this wilderness of stone. The central in- closure, where rests in eternal slumber " the blue god," Vishnu, is forbidden to ordi- nary mortals. The sanctuary in which he reposes is small and low, and surmounted by a dome of gilded copper. Within this inviolable inclosure are the kitchens where the divinity's repast is sedulously prepared, and a whitish smoke arising from them is all that betrays what goes on within. As a pendant to this gigantic Dra vidian temple, we would call attention to the mosque standing in the garden just outside Trichinopoly ; simple and plain, it requires no description, and the contrast points its own moral. At Tanjore, a few miles from Trichinopoly, and connected with it by a railway 868 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. built about 1860, there is an immense pagoda, not varying in any important respect from the type of that at Madura. There is also a famous palace of the Mahratta princes, represented on page 870, concerning which we shall give some details. "Although, like all nations of Turanian race," says Fergusson, "the Dravidians were extensive and enthusiastic builders, it is somewhat singular that till they came in contact with the Mahomedans, all their efforts in this direction should have been devoted to the service of religion, No trace of any civil or municipal building is to be found anywhere, though, from the stage of civilization that they had attained, it might be expected that such must have existed. What is even more remarkable is, that no castle or fortification dates from the days of the native rulers of the Carnatic. Most singular of all is the fact that they have no tombs. They seem always to have burned their dead, and never to have collected their ashes, or raised any mounds or memorials to their departed friends or great men. JS^o Dravidian tomb or cenotaph is known to exist anywhere. "When, however, the Dravidians came in contact with the Mussulmans, this state of affairs was entirely changed, in so far at least as the civil buildings were con- cerned. The palaces, the elephant stables, and the dependencies of the abodes of their rajahs, rival in extent and in splendor the temples themselves, and are not surpassed iu magnificence by the finest Mahomedaai palaces. " One of the most interesting peculiarities of these civil buildings is that they are all in a new and different style of architecture from that employed in the tem- ples, and the distinction between the civil and religious art is kept up to the pres- ent day. The ci\il buildings are all in what we should call a pointed-arched Moorish style, picturesque in effect if not always in the best taste, and using the arch every- where and for every purpose. In the temples the arch is never used as an archi- tectural feature. In some places, in modern times, when they wanted a larger internal space than could be obtained by bracketing without great expense, a brick vault was introduced, — it may be said surreptitiously, for it is always concealed. Even now, in building gopuras, they employ modern beams supported by pillars as lintels, to cover the central openings in the upper pyramidal part, and this wood having decayed, many of the more modern exhibit symptoms of decay which are not observable in the older examples, where a stone lintel was always employed. But it is not only in construction that the Dravidians adhere to their old forms in temples. There are, especially, some gopuras erected, within the limits of this century and erecting even now, which it requires a practised eye to distinguish from the older examples ; but with the civil buildings the case is quite different. It is not indeed clear how a convenient palace could be erected in the trabeate style of the temples, unless wood were very extensively employed, both in the supports and the roofs. My conviction < X a z a: u CO < o o a < Q. 870 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. is that this was really the case, and its being so, to a great extent at least, ac- counts foi their disappearance." With the Mussulman rule, however, begins the use of the arch in civil build- ings, and the Palace of Tanjore is a fine instance of the later architecture of this semi-Moorish description. It was probably commenced in the latter part of the sev- enteenth century, but most of its buildings belong to the eighteenth, and some even to the nineteenth. The visitor is at first struck with the contrasts existing in it between the most abject poverty and a truly royal splendor. It will be remembered, however, that in India every rajah is surrounded by thousands of servants, who share INTERIOR COURT. PALACE AT TANJORE. his good or his bad fortune, and must be lodged under his roof. Hence the neces- sity for extensive apartments suited to these impecunious followers. Externally ' the palace makes no show; two gates, one of which is very lofty, giving entrance to elephants, and a seven-storied tower, — a curious specimen of Indo- Mussulman architecture, — alone distinguish the exterior of the royal dwelling from the huts I which surround it. The main courtyard is surrounded, as in all native struc- tures, by dilapidated and filthy buildings, swarming with the crowd of the rajah's de- pendants. But one thing gives an Oriental stamp to the place, the presence of a couple of fine Hviug elephants, one on each side of the gate, on a platform of masonry, A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 871 to which they are chained by the foot : majestic colossi, incorruptible guardians of the palace of a king. A quadrangular court far within (represented on page 870), contains the statue of Sivadji, the late rajah. The western fa9ade, of bricks and chunam, a kind of stucco made of calcined madrepore, is the purest and best specimen of Indo-Mussulman art under the native dynastjj^ The ornaments are remarkable for the elegance and variety of then' design. On the side beneath which stands the marble statue of Sivadji, the archivolts, too heavily laden, and the columns, somewhat too massive, are not so sat- isfactory as the simpler arches and balconies of the other side. When the native princes, surrounded by their court and warriors, sat in state upon the granite block which now serves as a pedestal for the sculptured figure of the last Mahratta ruler, it must have been a fine and imposing display. The block measures twenty-seven feet in length by twenty in breadth, and nearly four in height; its sides are ornamented with bas-reliefs representing wars of demons. Here, formerly, justice was dispensed. The statue, the work of Chantrey, is extremely beautiful. The rajah is represented in the attitude of devotion, looking towards the temple. On the wall, behind the statue, is a bas-relief in stucco. The palace contains an arsenal and a library. The latter is rich in Tamul, Teloogoo, and Sanskrit manuscripts, written upon leaves of a kind of palm-tree ; it also contains many European books of no special value. In all the architecture of the Palace of Tanjore one fact is brought constantly before the eye and mind — the hatred of the Hindoo for symmetry. All the arches differ among themselves in outline, and the most diverse ornaments succeed one an- other without harmony. On page 872 we represent the Pagoda of Chillarabaran, one of the most venerated, and reputed to be one of the most ancient temples in southern India. Modern research has, however, been forced to relinquish the date of the sixth century, which was at one time relied on, and the tenth or eleventh century is now believed to be the earliest period to which any part of the building can be attributed. The temple of Parvati, to which a gallery and staircase was added in the fourteenth or fifteentli century, and the hall of a thousand columns was almost certainly erected between 1595 and 1685. "Although this temple has been aggregated at different ages," says the distin- guished author of the "History of Indian and Eastern Architecture," to whom we have before referred, " and has grown by accident rather than design like those at Seringham and Tiruvalur, it avoids the great defect of those temples ; for though like them it has no tall central object to give dignity to the whole from the out- side, internally the centre of its great court is occupied by a tank, round which the various objects are grouped without at all interfering with one another. The temple PAGODA OF CHILLAMBARAN. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 873 itself is one important object to the eastward of it ; the Parvati temple another, on the north, forming a pleasing pendant to the thousand-columned choultry at the south." The exterior inclosure is formed by a wall more than thirty feet in height : more than ten feet thick at the base, it is reduced first at half and then at three quarters of its height, bj^ about twenty inches on each side, so that at the top it is scarcely more than three feet in thickness. Externally it is all of hewn stone, but is said to be brick within. It is more than six thousand feet in circumference, and surrounded by a fine road bordered with cocoanut - trees. The four entrances are only breaks in the wall, and have no ornament. A second wall, less regular and much lower than the first, succeeds. This is partly of brick and partly of hewn stone. The interval between the two walls contains no building, but is filled with beautiful trees whose height serves as a scale by which to estimate the immense buildings within. In this second wall are the immense gopuras, which are invariably visited by every traveller. These are four, of nearly equal size ; their positions are not re- spectively regular ; their general form is a truncated pyramid, resting on a great rectangular mass of hewn stone covered with carvings, while the whole upper part of the structure is of brick, ornamented with mouldings in stucco, and seven stories in height. The entire height is about one hundred and forty feet, thirty-five feet being hewn stone. What may be called the basement of these gopuras has verti- cal sides forming two stories, separated by mouldings and cornices, the whole cov- ered with grotesque carved figures that only photography could reproduce. In the lower story, each statue has a rectangular niche, never rounded above. The niche is quite deep, surrounded by columns, and surmounted by a pediment, like a little temple. The divinities are of stone, and are either fully detached or in very high relief. They all seem to be of the same fine, light-colored sandstone, and cut out of a single block. Often, to increase the difficulty, they are cut out of the same block as the niche. As most of them are of larger than life-size, it will be readily seen what immense blocks must have been required for the work. These figures represent the numerous divinities that Hindoo superstition has created. Some have heads of elephants, of horses, or of oxen ; others brandish a dozen arms. Many, appearing indifferent or sleepy, are seated on cushions, one leg pendent, the other drawn up under them. Each niche is ornamented on the sides with columns or pilas- ters carved in arabesques or representing figures: these ornaments are in great variety, and in some cases are very elegant. The friezes which separate the stories or sur- mount them are rounded, forming a sort of projecting gutter, decorated with carved work, and beneath there is a succession of rude figures of birds, the stone between being also carved. 874 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. The second story of the basement is twice the height of the lower. It is much less decorated; there are indeed great spaces wholly bare. In the centre, near the door, are two great niches in brickwork, with three more on each side. These are much larger than those of the lower story, and contain grotesque figures of divinities. Those of the central niches are of colossal size. This basement, which we have thus described, is traversed by a great entrance-way or door, twenty-five feet high and fourteen feet broad. Its form is rectangular, and its roof consists of enormous stones supported by pilasters, and by four enormous mon- oliths, thirty feet high and twenty-eight inches in diameter. Without comparing these pillars to the obelisks of Egypt, we cannot but be amazed at their size and num- ber, each gopura having four. They are said to have been brought from a quarry thirty miles away, and must have been transported over sandy ground, no commu- nication by water being possible, i^^othing but the religious fanaticism of India could, like that of Egypt, have executed such labors, and, in addition, we must suppose an advanced condition of science, that the labor of many men could have been concen- trated to effect such results. These four monoliths are not carved, perhaps to show that each is a single stone ; but the pilasters are a mass of the richest work, and so are the columns of the two lateral entrances, and the vaults overhead. All the carving has been done with the utmost care, and the edges are as sharp as if finished yesterday. Above this massive base rise the seven stories of the gopura. The first six are alike, though retreating as they ascend. Besides a frieze, each story has its walls ornamented with columned niches, in which there are statues ; ascending, the dimen- sions gi'ow less, and the character changes slightly. Each story also has little structures built out at the angles. All these small temples, borne by the large one, are mingled with statues sometimes much larger than life-size, making discordant gestures, and having traces of brilliant paint upon them. Each story, up to the seventh, also has a door serving to give light to its interior. The seventh story is a sort of round-roofed house, covered with a similitude in stucco of round or pointed tiles, surmounted by those flattened balls ending in a point which are seen on mosques. These balls are of stucco, like the rest, but are said to have been formerly of gold. Upon the very top of the building there is a hideous figure of great size ; it has an enormous mouth with pointed teeth, two of them curved tusks, pointed ears, and on the head two horns. The eyes are great white balls, very projecting, and sur- rounded with red and yellow. The study of this gopura is a course in Hindoo theogony. The whole Indian Olympus is depicted here : Brahma, with his five heads and four arms; Vishnu, "the blue god," sitting upon the folds of a serpent, whose five heads cover him like a canopy ; Siva, white and livid, with the hideous head above described. Among the GOPURA. TRIPUTRY. 876 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. statues are the numerous incarnations of Yishnu, — when he transformed himself into a fish or a tortoise, when he had flames upon his head, and the like. Other divhii- ties have elephants' trunks; one is mounted on a paroquet. Some have five to ten heads and four to eighteen arms, all holding weapons or symbols ; they are black, red, green, or blue ; a few only are flesh-colored. All these figures wear pointed mitres, sometimes three or four stories high, painted in bright colors; all have many bracelets, above the elbow as well as below it, and wear great rings, not only in the ears but around them. To give a clearer idea of these carvings, with their high relief and infinite diversity, we present on page 875 a section from a gopura at Triputry, of the same design and finish as those of Chillambaran. This gopura belongs to an entirely deserted temple, about a hundred miles further inland. Within the second inclosure at Chillambaran, besides the various buildings, there is the ghaut, or sacred tank, without which no religious edifice, or even village or hamlet, is complete in India: for all castes subject to the law of Mann are required to perform many ablutions daily. This tank is a quadrilateral three hun- dred feet in length and two hundred and fifty feet in breadth, surrounded by a broad granite staircase giving access to a gallery of great height. There is nothing more curious than the aspect of one of these fish-ponds in the morning, when the natives, lightly clad, come silently, with devout air, rubbing their teeth with a prescribed root, and bearing a small copper vase in one hand, to perform their religious duties. At the water's edge they make numerous prayers, accompanied by many genuflections; then laying aside their garments, they bathe, pouring water over their heads from the copper vase. In the centre of a group of buildings on the left of the great gopura is the sanc- tuary of Vishnu. Here is the figure of the divinity, half the size of life, seated upon his serpent, and surrounded by flowers and garlands of jasmine. Many lamps filled with cocoanut-oil are burning in this shrine, which has no windows or means of ven- tilation, and has an atmosphere endured with difficulty even for a few minutes. Hither the brahmins repair at nightfall, and place themselves in rows on each side of the sanc- tuary, some advancing and prostrating themselves before the idol. Meanwhile a bell rings at intervals, and the priests chant responsively in a nasal tone. In another sanctuary, consecrated to Bramh, there is no figure; five pillars of eandal-wood adorn the entrance. In the opinion of some these pillars represent the five elements, the wind being the fifth ; according to others they represent the five classes of priests. Eighteen other columns of the same wood, placed before the grating, represent the eighteen Puranas, or cosmogonic poems of the Hindoos. A throne covered with plates of gold, stands within the sanctuary, and over it hangs a deep violet curtain. This curtain is called the Impenetrable Mystery, and covers what they < a z o o -J o o UJ -I o to < 878 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. denominate the "Splendor of Grace," the Supreme Being, infinite, invisible, the First Cause, Bramh, whom nothing escapes, who can be represented in no way, whom Brahma himself adores. Chillambaran, like all the centres of Brahminic worship, has its solemn proces- sions; here they occur by night rather than by day, and nothing can be imagined more picturesque than these scenes, beneath the cocoanut-trees of the first inclosure. The image of the god is enthroned on a huge scaffolding, twenty-five or thirty feet high, entirely covered with jasmine flowers, their lustrous white shining in the torch-light against the dark sky and masses of trees. Twenty or thirty men bear this shrine upon their shoulders, and are preceded by four elephants, shaking their great ears and waving their trunks above the crowd. Then follow huge trays of ROCK-HEWN TEMPLES. MAHAVELLIPORE. woven branches, filled with vases in which cocoanut bark is burning, lighting up the under side of the foliage of the trees with its sparkling and fitful flame, while troops of men carry torches of the same substance or of cotton dipped in the oil of the cocoanut. The crowd gather close around this procession, and in their white gar- ments add still more to the picture; while overhead, the cocoanut-trees offer infinite variety of graceful outline and masses of light and shadow. Our series of illustrations of Dravidian architecture would be incomplete without an example of the rock-cut temples, which are the most ancient remains of this remarkable style. The "raths" of Mahavellipore are of as early date as the fifth or sixth century of our era, and they appear to be copies in stone of earlier wooden structures designed as monasteries. Situated on an open sea-beach, a few miles from Madras, they have been much visited and often described ; but much of their mys- tery is still undeciphered. In some respects they are the most marvellous work of A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 879 human hands existing. Let the reader imagine a sandy plain, out of which rise isolated granitic rocks of various height and size. Upon these masses of granite, human labor has been expended until they have assumed the form of elaborate temples, covered with inscriptions without, and even in a degree excavated within, as though they were structures raised in the usual way. Four of them stand in a line, north and south, and seem to ^ave been all carved out of the same rock, which must in that case have been between thirty-five and forty feet high at its southern end, sinking to half that height at the northern extremity, and its width diminishing in like proportion. The two illustrations represent this range of four temples ; the one on page 878 taking them from the north, the other from the south. The first on the north is a ROCK-HEWN TEMPLES. MAHAVELLIPORE. mere cell, eleven feet square externally and sixteen feet high. The second is a small copy of the fourth, and measures eleven feet by sixteen in plan, and twenty feet in height. The third is very remarkable ; it is an oblong building, with curvi- linear-shaped roof with a straight ridge. Its dimensions are forty-two feet long, twenty-five feet wide, and twenty-five feet high. Externally its carving is completed, but internally it is only partially excavated, the work apparently having been stopped by an accident. It is cracked completely through, so that daylight can be seen through it, and several masses of rock have fallen to the ground. This has been ascribed to earthquakes and to other causes, but it appears more probable that it was due to the inconsiderateness of the architect of this curious structure. Having com- pleted the exterior, he proposed to excavate the interior so as to make it resemble a structural building of the same class, leaving only such pillars and supports as would be enough to support a wooden roof of the same dimensions. But in this case the 880 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. roof was a mass of solid granite, which, had the interior been excavated as pro- posed, must have crushed the lower story into powder. As it was, the builders evi- dently took the hint, and ceased further work. The last of the series is the largest and most remarkable. Its dimensions are twenty-seven feet by twenty-eight in plan, and thirty-four feet in height. The upper part is entirely finished with its sculp- tures, the lower part merely blocked out. Near these temples are various animal figures : a colossal zebra partly buried in sand, a hon, and an elephant. In more or less neighborhood to this group are rocks covered with figures in high rehef, and caves excavated from the rock, filled with MOSQUE. TRIPLICAN. marvels of sculpture. The inscriptions are in Sanskrit. The figures are, as usual, images of Hindoo gods — Brahma, Yishnu, and Siva, but all in forms more subdued than are found elsewhere. The one extravagance is that the divinities have four arms — never more — to distinguish them from ordinary mortals. " It is the sober- est and most reasonable version of the Hindoo Pantheon yet discovered," says Fer- gusson, "and consequently one of the most interesting, as well as probably the earliest." This region is almost entirely Hindoo, but there are yet a few Mohammedans, A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 881 especially in the cities, and there is a mosque of much importance at Triplican, near Madras. (See page 880.) !N^orth of the Presidency of Madras, in the central portion of the Deccan, lies a region of about a hundred thousand square miles in extent, known as the Mzam's Territory. The government is Mohammedan, although the people are Hindoo. The present Il^izam is the descendant of Azof Jah, an officer of the court of Delhi, who, being governor of this province in 1719, made himself independent, and founded a state which has subsisted till the present time. Seven miles from his capital, Hyderabad, is the ancient city of Golconda, of which nothing is now left but the large, strong fortress crowning a rocky eminence, within the walls of which the Mzam keeps his jewels, and the tombs of the ancient kings of Grolconda, some six hundred yards distant from the fortress. In passing, it is worth notice that the name of this city has become world-renowned on a curi- ously false notion of its diamond mines, which is quite as unfounded as it would be to speak of the gold mines of San Francisco. The territory of the Nizam was once famous for furnishing a considerable proportion of the diamonds of the world, but the mines have become unproductive and are no longer worked. When they did exist, however, they were not in Grolconda, but in Parteall, some distance further south, and were merely cut and polished in the city. Grolconda was, in the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, the capital of a powerful kingdom, and the tombs of these kings are extremely splendid, forming one of the most striking groups of Indo-Saracenic architecture now existing. They are square buildings resting on a rectangular granite platform. The first story is of granite ; upon this rests a second, partly of stone, partly of brick, the corners formed by octagonal brick pillars, supporting little minarets terminating in balls. This second story is surmounted by a spheroidal dome of the Arab shape. Within, in the centre of a vast unornamented hall, is placed the mausoleum of black marble, covered with verses from the Koran, cut in relief. Notwithstanding its extreme simplicity, this black mausoleum, under a vast white dome, is of striking effect. Most of the pillars are octagonal, and different portions of the edifice have bands of enamelled bricks of bright colors. In some of the tombs, the entire dome is covered with tMs brilliant enamel glittering beneath the tropical sun. We now reach the Presidency of, Bengal, the most eastern part of India proper ; and here we come to a very ancient and peculiar architecture, of which an example is given, page 884. Much difficulty exists in finding a suitable name by which to des- ignate this architecture, and the term Indo-Aryan has been used, as less objectionable than any othei', while it is still in a degree unsatisfactory. There is no trace of external Aryan affinities in this style; in fact, no other style is so purely local and aboriginal. All that can be said is that it was invented and used in a country the CAR OF JUGGERNAUT. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 883 Aryans once occupied, and on which they had left a strong imprint of their superior mental power and civilization. * The Indo-Aryan structures have always the pyramidal form with curvilinear out- line ; there is no division into stories, no suggestion of habitations, no pillars or pilas- ters anywhere. I^either the pyramid nor the tumulus afford any hint as to the origin of the form ; noi» does the tower, either square or circular ; nor does any form of civil or domestic architecture. It does not seem to be derived from any of these; and whether we consider it as beautiful or otherwise, it seems certainly to have been invented, principally at least, for aesthetic purposes, and to have retained that impress from the earliest to the present day. " My impression is," rsays F(3rgusson, " that if the great table-lands of Bengal, and their surrounding valleys, could be examined, much older forms of these temples could be discovered, — some, perhaps, so old as to betray the secret of their origin; but till this is done, the Bengali devala must be rele- gated, like the Irish round towers, to the category of unexplained architectural puzzles. In connection with these Indo-Aryan structures are found certain great cars, of pyramidal shape, devoted to the transportation of the idol. They were originally altogether of stone, except a brick dome at the top ; but alas I everything has degen- erated since the " good old times," and even a Car of Juggernaut is not so heavy as it once was ! They are now of wood, but being something like thirty feet long and equally broad, and of enormous height, they still require thousands of men, drawing upon six strong cables, to move them along the road irom the temple to the pleasure- garden where the divinity takes his airing.; The illustration on page 882 represents, however, the primitive type, as existing to this day in the ruins of Bidjaiauggur. Captain Mundy, an English officer who visited the temple in 1829, gives a viva- cious account of his view of the idols on occasion of their airing in the car, " an event which," he says, "fortunately occurs but twice a year." *' Their godships were formed up in line, on an elevated terrace within the en- closure, and protected from the night dews by an extensive and gaudy canopy of many-colored cloths. The evening was dark, and at intervals blue lights were thrown up, to enable the spectators to view the ceremony ; but the idols being almost con- stantly hidden by a forest of cJiouries and hand-punkahs diligently agitated by the attendant Brahmins, to prevent the ffies and mosquitoes from invading their sacred noses, we sent a polite message to the Raj-Goru, or chief priest, requesting that he would cause the officials to open out for an instant to the right and loft in order to afford us the satisfaction of contemplating the expressive countenances of the wor- shipful trio. Our embassy succeeded ; the crowd fell back from before them ; two brilliant lights were illumined, and we saw distinctly three frightful wooden faces, of the respective colors of black, brown, and yellow, the lower portions of the figures being closely swathed in cloth wrappers." a o o X I- < HI a [0 o A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 885 "The following day the idols were again consigned to their niches in the temple. Upon this occasion it is the annual custom for Juggernaut to declare himself to be en petite sanU, from the eflPects of a severe cold, consequent, probably, upon his bath, which continues to afflict him until the day when, by the wise treatment of his physi- cians, he is restored to his usual good health ! " The city of Calcutt|, though a large and important place, has less architectural PAGODA NEAR KUTTACK. importance than any of the great Indian capitals. We shall therefore pass it by, and, giving a picture of the splendid mosque at Hoogly, a few miles out of Calcutta on the north, we shall conclude our illustrations of India, where so many of Art's greatest treasures are gathered, with l^ature's grandest marvel, the Mountain Graurisankar, the culminating point of the earth's surface, a peak which rises to the height of twenty- nine thousand and two feet above the level of the sea. 886 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. GAURfSANKAR. At the base of the great Himalaya range lies the valley of the Ganges, parallel with it for twelve hundred miles, and affording access to much of its grandest scenery. Eleven hours by rail from Calcutta, four hours in a river steamboat, a hundred and twenty-four miles in a dak gharri, or mail-cart, then fourteen miles on horseback or in a palanquin to the foot of the lower hills, and by similar means to the top of them, A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 887 bring the traveller to Darjiling, a point whence is obtained a magnificent view of the very highest peaks of this mighty range. , " Unfortunately," says Andrew Wilson, " Gaurisankar, the loftiest mountain of all, is out of the reach of nearly all travellers, owing to our weakness in allowing I^epaul to exclude Englishmen from its territory ; but if any one is very anxious to try Chinese Thibet, he will^nd one of the doors into it by going up from Darjiling, through the protected state of Sikkim ; but whether the door will open at his request is quite another thing, and if he kicks at it, he is quite likely to find him- self suddenly going down the mountains faster than he went up them. Verbum sat sapientibus ; but if one could only get through this door, it is a very short way from it to Lassa, the capital of Thibet, — which, possibly, is the reason why it is kept so strictly guarded. "Gaurisankar and the highest peaks of the Himalaya are on the border between I^epaul and Thibet, and form a group somewhat obtruding from the line of the main range. It is provoking that the weak foreign policy of the Indian government, a policy, however, which has been very much forced upon it from home, should allow the N^epaulese to exclude English travellers from their territory. This policy places about five hundred miles out of the reach of the English traveller, though these five hundred miles contain the culminating point of the whole range, the most splendid jewel in the ' stony girdle of the earth.' " Though denied to the English, travellers of other nations have succeeded in making their way into this closely guarded region ; and the illustration on page 886 is reproduced from a sketch made upon the spot by Schlagintweit. A first view of the Himalaya Mountains is described by Wilson with enthusi- asm. " Prom Landaur," he says, " a sea of mist stretched from my feet, veiling, but not altogether concealing, ridge upon ridge of dark mountains, and even covering the lower portions of the distant great wall of snow. No sunlight as yet fell upon this dark yet transparent mist, in which the mountainous surface of the earth, with its black abysses, seemed sunk as in a gloomy ocean, bounded by a huge coral-reef. But above this, dazzling and glorious in the sunlight, high up in the deep blue heavens, there rose a white, shining line of gigantic ' icy summits reared in air.' I^oth- ing could have been more peculiar and striking than the contrast between the wild mountainous country below — visible, but darkened as in an eclipse — and these lofty domes and pinnacles of eternal ice and nSve. liTo cloud or fleck of mist marred their surpassing radiance. Every glacier, snow-waU, icy aiguille, and smooth-rounded snow- field, gleamed with marvellous distinctness in the morning light, though here and there the sunbeams drew out a more overpowering brightness. These were the Jumnotri and Grangotri peaks, the peaks of Badrinath and of the Hindoo Kailas ; the source of 888 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. mighty sacred rivers; the very centre of the Himalaya; the Himmel or Heaven of the Teuton Aryans, as well as of Hindoo mythology." The story of the expedition to which we owe the sketch here reproduced, is one of the deepest interest. Adolf Schlagintweit, with his brothers Hermann and Eob- ert, all three distinguished at the university for their Alpine explorations, were recom- mended by Bunsen and Humboldt to the English government as suitable persons to take charge of the magnetic survey of India, left incomplete by the death of Cap- tain Elliot in 1852. The Enghsh government supplied them liberally with money and instruments, and they sailed from Southampton, September 20, 1854. Landing at Bombay, they separated, and proceeded by different routes to Madras, making scien- tific observations on the way. Thence, early in the following year, they sailed for Calcutta, and on the 25th of March, Adolf and Eobert entered upon their first Hima- layan journey. From this time until October they explored the passes and glaciers of the range, reaching at one time an elevation of twenty-two thousand two hun- dred and sixty feet, the greatest height ever attained by any European traveller. In the latter part of autumn they came down to Agra, and Adolf proceeded alone to Madras. In April, 1856, the thi'ee brothers, rejoining one another after independent explora- tions in Central India, again forced their way into the midst of the Himalayan giants, and passed the summer in making new researches. At the close of the year Robert returned to Europe by way of Bombay, and Hermann by way of Calcutta, Adolf remaining to pursue his researches further in Thibet and Turkestan. But the deci- 1 sion was a fatal one. In March, 1857, he crossed the Bara-Lacha Pass into Thibet, and proceeded to Kashgar; and here, in August, he was killed by the Turkomans. His journal, consisting of a hundred and thirty-five closely written pages, and bear- ing date up to August 11, was recovered by the English government ; it describee a region never before visited by any scientific traveller. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 889 % IIsTDO-CHIISr^ HE vast regions which, in the form of a double peninsula, lie between the Bay of Bengal and the China Sea, are scarcely known, except upon the coast, the interior presenting a field for useless and wearisome conjectures." It is more than sixty years since Malte-Brun wrote these lines concerning the country at which we have now arrived, in our journey around the world, learned geographer was well aware that the general relief of this region was formed by four chains of mountains, beginning in Thibet, extending themselves towards the south, and enclosing between their parallel escarpments three long and superb valleys, watered each by its great river; but he adds that these rivers were as yet almost entirely unexplored. The six decades, so fruitful in discovery, which have passed over the work of Malte-Brun, have raised in a great degree the veil that once concealed Indo-China from our eyes. Two successive Burman wars have opened to the BngUsh the valley of the Irrawaddy ; they have explored it as conquerors, and have reduced its southern half to the condition of a province. The length and breadth of Siam has been traversed by European and American travellers, and a French expedition has examined the whole course of the Makong as far as the Chinese frontier, giving special attention on their way to the ruined cities of Cambodia, the most remarkable architectural remains in the whole peninsula. Besides this, all the great Christian sects have had, and still have, mis- sions in Indo-China, many of them possessing established places of worship in Burmah and Siam. 890 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. One of the first things that strikes the tourist is the Great Pagoda of Rangoon, seen from a distance, crowning the city with its elegant conical roof and gilded top. The town itself extends about a mile along the river, and the streets are narrow, but clean and well-paved. The houses are rude bamboo huts, but there are a few built of brick, belonging to Europeans, and since its occupation by the English the place has been fortified. From Rangoon, which is the principal seaport of Burmah, the traveller ascends the Irrawaddy, and at every mile admires the variety and beauty of the landscape. Between the river and the foot of the mountain-chains which define its basin, lie broad strips of low ground displaying the greatest luxuriance of vegetation. The villages are numerous and pleasing ; often the sombre mass of a monastery, with its triple stories, commands the cabins and trees of the foreground, while in the middle distance rise low hills covered with dry grass, and crowned with pagodas to which winding paths lead up from every direct! jn. Approaching the ancient city of Pagan, the river seems to widen. The eastern shore is superb with vegetation. It is a succession of richly wooded valleys, and groups of palm-trees sheltering the villages. The first glimpse of Pagan shows an immense dome, — the Tsetna-Phya; then, glittering pyramids, rising one above another, and surmounting roofs resplendent with gilding ; dark, gloomy temples, square and solid, whence spring bell-towers shaped like a mitre ; and lastly, a crowd of cupo- las, black and white, grotesque and fantastic, amid houses, palm-trees, fields, and gardens. Seen from the river, the effect of this architecture is so strange and whimsical that one feels as if he were in a dream. Landing, the traveller finds his interest and curiosity increased. But little has been written about Pagan, although it is a city of much importance; and it was here, amid the ruins of an earlier time, that, on the 8th of February, 1826, the Burman army made its last stand against the English invaders. The ruins of Pagan cover a space of six miles in length and a mile and a half in width, along the river-bank. The number of temples, either ruined or still standing, is not far from a thousand. They are of great variety : pagodas in shape of a bell, of a button, of a pumpkin, and of an egg ; Buddhist temples, and relic- houses, with all the modifications possible to such structures, but having a certain siniilarity of general outline. For the most part these edifices are of cubic form ; within, a great chamber with vaulted roof; at the main entrance, a great, projecting porch ; on the eastern side, two lateral doors. The plan has the form of a cross; the building rises in successive terraces, ending in a spire which is often a kind of pyramid, swelling out half-way up. These constructions are of brick covered with plaster. The interior walls and chapels are similarly coated, and richly decorated in A TOUR OF THE WORLt). 89l fresco. Such is, in general, the type of these temples, which vary in size from eighty to eight hundred square yards. Their most remarkable features are the idols they contain, — colossal images thirty feet high, and all resembling one another. The only difference among them is in attitude : some preach, others pray, others give their benediction. Standing upon pedestals of wood carve;^ to resemble a lotus-flower, they face the entrance of the chapels, which are all adorned with magnificent gates twenty-one feet high. These wooden gates are marvels of carving, representing leafage of the most exquisite finish. The immense niche in which the statue stands is sometimes nearly fifty feet high ; a decoration of gilded metal surrounds it, having the effect of lacework. At the top of the niche, a concealed window pours a flood of light upon the head and shoul- ders of the idol, which, covered with gold, seems swimming in a sea of light. This brilliant vision, in the depths of the gloomy chapel, is inexpressibly effective. The pagodas are all built of bricks cemented with mud. It is difficult to imagine buildings of this kind attaining a height of nearly two hundred feet; but they are almost solid masses, so that the corridors and arched roofs seem excavations. The work has been so carefully done, besides, the joining of the bricks is so perfect, that it is difficult to introduce between them the blade of a knife. The entire sur- face is covered with plaster, and where this coating remains firm, the buildings are in good condition; where it has given way they have fallen into ruin. The temple of Shwe-Zergoug (page 892) is one of the most celebrated in the kingdom. Every Burman must visit it at least once in his life. Colonel Burney, who visited Ava in 1830, asserts that it was founded by the forty-second king of Pagan, !N^auratha Men-zan, about the year 1064 of the Christian era', and was finished by his successor. There is kept in the temple a fac-simile of a tooth of Gauda- ma, — a tooth for which the king sent an army to China. The holy relic, as large as an elephant's tusk, eluding the invitation, preferred to remain in China, and the king was forced to content himself with a miraculous duplicate. Amarapoora, the Bunnan capital, is built upon ground but slightly elevated above the river, and in the rainy season is nearly cut off from the mainland by the rise of the water. It is surrounded by a wall and moat, but its defences are of little importance, and would offer no resistance to modern artillery. The streets intersect one another at right angles, and divide the city into regular squares. The palace stands in the centre, and its walls are believed to be exactly parallel with the city ramparts. North of this building is the Palace of the Lord White Elephant, behind which are the common apartments of his Highness, and the stables occupied by the ordinary elephants, belonging to the king. Captain Yule, of the Bengal Engineers, describes the animal living at the time of his visit as more than fifty years of age, of enor- z < a < Q. d o a K HI N I UJ X (0 Ll. o Q. s ui A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 893 mous size, but meagre and ill-conditioned, and of a truly royal uncertainty of temper. This elephant was of the color of the spots which are j^een on the trunk and ears of the ordinary animal, and well merited his title of "white." His royal paraphernalia, which is exhibited to visitors, was truly magnificent ; his driving-hook, about forty inches long, was encrusted thickly with pearls ; the handle was of crystal, with gold ornaments and two or tlyree bands of rubies. His tiara of cloth of gold was adorned with great rubies and superb diamonds, and circles of "the nine precious stones which turn away malign influences" rested on his forehead. "When the animal is in grand costume, like the great Burman dignitaries and the king himself, he wears on his head a gold badge on which are inscribed all his titles, and between his eyes a crescent of large gems. To his ears hang enormous silver tassels, and he is caparisoned with scarlet silk embroidered with pure gold. A fief belongs to him, and a special officer of high rank ; he has four golden umbrellas, and a household of thirty persons. Before entering his palace, the Burmans lay aside their shoes. The capture of a white elephant is frequently announced, and causes great ex- citement at court. But usually, on investigation, it appears that they are only pre- tenders, to the king's great regret ; for the capture of a genuine white elephant is a consecration by nature of the reign in which, the event occurs. In 1831, one was taken which was white enough to require great respect and an establishment second only to the real White Elephant. But the government was at that time paying off the indemnity of the peace of Yanabo, and was obliged to appropriate to this purpose the revenues of the new-comer. A deputation presented with great pomp to the animal a letter from the king, begging his pardon for the unintentional disrespect, and assuring him that the whole sum should be reimbursed within two months. Exactly in what light the white elephant is regarded by Burmans of intelligence is a thing not easily asqertainable ; but there seems reason to believe that he is considered merely as a traditional attendant upon royalty, like the cream-colored horses which draw Queen Victoria's carriage when she goes to open or prorogue Parliament. The streets of Amarapoora are broad, and clean enough in the dry season. But m the rains the mud becomes intolerable, and almost prevents access to some quar- ters of the city. Most of the houses are constructed of bamboo, raised upon posts. Along the principal streets, a few feet in front of the houses, runs a row of pali- sades, neatly made and whitewashed. The posts supporting them are crowned with flower-pots, and shrubs grow in abundance between the palisades and the house. The yaja-mat, or king's palisade, is designed to prevent the crowd from disrespectfully embarrassing the passage of royalty, and even from looking upon his sacred person; for the prpverb, "A cat may look at a king," does not seem in force in Burmah. o > o z ID o m I H _l O o •i I < A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 895 This system of palisades gives an air of neatness to the city, but as it hides both shops and people from view, that is to say all that is, most interesting to the stran- ger, it gives a character of great monotony; and it is only when, mounted upon an elephant's back, he can overlook these barriers, that he is able to form an idea of the really crowded capital. The illustrations, pa^es 894 and 897, represent two of the most remarkable ex- amples of Burman architecture, situated at a little distance from the city. They were built, one by the present queen-dowager, the other by her daughter, the wife of the reigning king ; and their recent construction explains their yet perfect preservation, despite the rapid decay of all wooden buildings in a country like Burmah. Within their enclosure are numberless monasteries and chapels ; in the centre is a hyoung, or vast sanctuary, about three hundred feet in length. Its one story extends like a wide terrace, on which the various lesser structures rear their quad- ruple roofs. From the balcony upward all is gilded ; coping, balusters, and roofs are covered with sculptures. But it is especially in two little buildings near the central hyoung that the Burman artists have displayed all the luxury of their imagi- nation. In the Maha-Toolut-boungyo, the sanctuary retains the form usual in monasteries, but it is carved as if it were an ivory shrine, and almost covered with the richest gilding. The coping, carved to represent gigantic imperial crowns, is supported by fantastic dragons, which, with bent heads, appear to gnaw at the beams they grasp in their mighty claws, while their tails seem to wave in the air. The quadruple roofs, covered with zinc, glitter as if they were of silver; and the walls, encrusted with mosaics, glass, and gilding, sparkle like a sea of light covered with a golden network. Even the ladders which serve to give access from one roof to another, are covered with gold and glass. Along the basement is a series of curious carvings, representing types of different nations, — Burmans, Chinese, and one Englishman! The latter, with his dog and gun, is an amusing caricature, not entkely destitute of truth. In the interior of the building are curious figures of animals conversing among themselves, recalling illustrations of La Fontaine. The Maha-comiye-peima, resembling the other in general plan, is even more elabo- rate and splendid. In this edifice the three bell-towers are not gilded, doubtless in consequence of the civil wars of 1852. The contrast between the dull color of the teak-wood and the lustre of the gold produces a charming effect. The basement story, instead of being completely gilded, has panels of scarlet lacquer, with borders carved and gilded. The pilasters are united to each other by golden filigree work of ex- quisite delicacy and finish. The corbels which support the copings of the .terraces are different from those of Toolut-boungyo, consisting of human figures with animals' heads in various attitudes of dancing, and covered with gilding and mosaics. 896 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. - The balustrades of the balcony are wonderful. They are not, as ordinarily, pilas-. ters of wood or carved panels, but wide bands of sculpture, artistically enlaced with one another ; at their points of contact, curious fantastic figures stand forth, whidh, if not perfectly well executed, have at least much spirit and originality. Along and under the balcony is a coping m exquisite taste, consisting of carved bands, which repeat the designs of the balcony, and are entwined around shields. Interlaced serpents, enamelled in colored glass, with bouquets of flowers in their mouths, similarly designed, form the stair railings ; and the walls of the upper stories are adorned with crystal mosaics, while the copings and summits of the roofs are of exquisitely carved wood. These Tcyoungs fill the mind with wonder. We ask ourselves in vain how was it possible for a people having so few resources in respect to tools and implements to produce monuments of skill and taste so precious as these. In odd contrast to these delicate structures is the Temple of Mengoun, eight miles from Amarapoora, an edifice known by the characteristic name of King Mentaragyi's Folly. This grandfather of the present king employed three quarters of his forty -years' reign, the weary and unrequited toil of thousands of his subjects, and incalculable sums of money, in heaping up masses of brick and mortar to a height of five hun- dred feet. It is said a prediction had united the close of his reign with the ter- mination of his architectural labors. But he left the latter unfinished, and twenty years after, the terrible earthquake of 1839 reduced his temple to the mountain of debris which the photographer's art permits us faithfully to reproduce on the opposite page. The geological formation of the region watered by the Irrawaddy is very simple. From the delta of the river as far as to the neighborhood of Amarapoora the rocks are of tertiary formation. Sometimes the current forces its way through gorges in these rocks, as below Prome ; sometimes it traverses extensive plains resembling beds of ancient lakes. The general stratification is parallel with the river, although at certain points the strata present obstacles to the current which has been obliged to make its way through deep beds of bluish clay, and even of solid sandstone. This being the general character of the river basin, it is important to observe that the strata are often dislocated, contorted, and broken. Resting upon these dis- located formations is a series of strata of sandstone and conglomerate, less solid than the preceding, but also less interrupted. Often sandy, and at times calcareous, these strata are full of infiltrated iron, and also contain innumerable fossils of mastodons, elephants, the rhinoceros, tapirs, stags, and turtles. JS'ear the capital we find chains of metamorphic and crystaUine rock, running north and south,, and forming a series of low hills. It is presumable that they are of earlier formation than the tertiary rocks which surround them. There are also trap dykes, evidently owing their origin to the subterranean forces that yet work beneath I* i FAKIR, SWEEPER CASTE, INDIA. ^ ^j ' v-- ' T, :;. ' -- ''r . ' V '''' Sj\;j^y';te^iXi^--^ '' l**'^. ' yiU.tegSr^; >• o o > 5 ui z z o H < < I- z iij o MX > < q CO CO < O III X I- A SACRIFICE TO THE GODS IN ANAM. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 897 the soil of Burmah, shaking it from time to time, and notably in 1839, when they bent down like ears of ripened corn, the gigantic temples of Pagan and Mengoun. The same incandescent laboratory whence were thrown out, in earlier ages, the spark- ling rubies of Momeit, and the gold which all the Burman streams bring down in their sands, supplies those vast reservoirs of mineral oil which make the chief riches of the valley of the ^rrawaddy, and those volcanoes of boiling mud which bubble up in new cones every day upon the plain of Membo. ^ At the mouth of the second great river of Indo-China is Bangkok, the Siamese capital, and the basin of this river, the Menam, is the natural geographical extent of PALACE. BANGKOK. the kingdom. All the central part of this basin is an alluvial plain, cut by inter- secting streams, and under water for many months every year. The environs of Bangkok are, in every direction, as far as eye can see as flat as the Dutch polders. The city itself rests upon an archipelago of muddy islets which the main stream of the Menam divides into two groups. That on the right deserves no higher appellation than suburb, for the huts of the common people gar- dens, and marshes prevail in it. Pagodas and the dwellings of the great are rare. On the left of the river is the city, properly so called, surrounded with crenellated walls, and flanked with towers and bastions, covering a space six miles in circuit. z 3 o a z 111 s Q. UJ H iij I- A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 899 Between the city and the suburb thousands of booths, floating upon rafts, stretch away in two rows, following the windings of the river, which is furthermore encum- bered by countless boats of every size and shape. The busy life and industry going on upon the water is the first thing which catches the traveller's notice when he enters the Siamese capital. Another strange impression is added to this : there is no sound in all the town of wheels or horses' feet. For business or for pleasure, one is obliged to take a boat upon the river. Bangkok is an Oriental Venice; everywhere is heard the noise of oars and anchors, the sailor's song, or the cry of Sepoy boat- men. The river is the great boulevard, and the various canals serve as streets and ROYAL AUDIENCE HALL. BANGKOK. lanes. The observer has only choice of two attitudes, — to lean from his balcony, or to glide silently over the water, lying in the bottom of his little craft, and lin- ger with fascinated eye upon the palaces and pagodas that fling aloft, above the eternal verdure of tropical vegetation, their gilded spires, or rear their polished domes and lofty pyramids, carved in open-work cut out delicate as lace, reflecting all the rays of the sun, all the colors of the rainbow, from their crystal and porce- lain veneering. This " Arabian Mghts' " architecture, the infinite variety of buildings and costumes, indicating the diversity of nationalities gathered here, the incessant sound of musical instruments and the tumult of scenic representations, produce an effect both novel and pleasing, and without counterpart anywhere in the world. ■ " ■ * • ' 1 , ,< ♦ ^S*'.». Sw"^ -v"-:^*'* ';^t. ^ '.c^ i-^i^^^^'-i^Ti PAGODA OF WATT-CHANG. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 901 The royal palace (see page 897) is enclosed by high walls of great extent. Withm the walls the whole enclosure is paved with fine marble and granite blocks. There are military posts and cannon in position at frequent intervals. On every side are seen elegant little buildings decorated with painting and gilding. In the centre of the great court is the audience-hall, with four fa9ade8, covered with polished tiles, adorned with superb carvings, and surmounted with a tall gilt spire. Here the king ROYAL RECREATIONS. receives foreign ambassadors. 'Not far is the great hall, where the king gives daily audience in presence of more thian a hundred mandarins, who lie prostrate upon the ground at his feet. At the door are two gigantic statues of granite, which were brought hither from China. The walls and columns of this hall are brilliant with color and gilding, and the throne, which is shaped like an altar, has a seven-storied canopy above it. MONKEYS TEASING A CROCODILE. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 903 The royal apartments are adjacent ; then come the palace of the queen and the houses of the ladies of honor, and an immense garden, said to be magnificent. Besides these, there are extensive buildings containing the royal treasure, — gold and silver, jewels, furniture, and valuable apparel. Within the palace-walls there is a court of justice, a theatre, a royal library, im- mense arsenals, stables for the royal horses, and store-houses for all kinds of valuables. There is also a superb pagoda, the floor covered with silver mats, containing two statues of Buddha, one of solid gold four feet high, the other made of a single emerald, more than an arm's length in height, valued by Enghsh visitors at two hundred thousand piastres. The royal pagodas are of incredible magnificence. Some of them have cost as much as two hundred silver quintals, — that is to say, a million of dollars, which, considering that labor costs nothing to the king of Siam, leaves the value of the materials used at a very high figure. There are eleven of these pagodas within the city limits, and twenty without. The pagoda Xetuphon contams a statue of the sleeping Buddha, a hundred and fifty feet long, entirely covered with gilding ; in the pagoda of Borovanivet, more than four hundred and fifty ounces of gold were used in gildings only. A royal pagoda is a great monastery where four or five hundred priests are lodged with their attendants. It is really a vast garden, where amid trees and flowers stand many elegant buildings : a score of Chinese kiosques; many great halls ranged along the bank of the river ; a large audience-room for preaching; two fine temples, — one for the statue of Buddha, the other a praying-place for the bonzes ; two or three hundred pretty little dwelling-houses occupied by the priests; ponds and parterres; a dozen pyramids, gilded and covered with tiles, some of them two or three hundred feet in height; a bell-tower; flag-staffs surmounted by gilt swans, and bearing crocodile-shaped flags; statues of lions and giants in Chinese granite; and, at the two extremities of the enclosure, ctoals lined with masonry, boat- houses, and a funeral pile whereon to burn the dead. Add to this that the temples are a glittering mass of painting and gilding, and the colossal idol is all gold and jewels, and one may form an idea of what is understood in Siam by a royal pagoda. The finest of these establishments, that of "Watt-Chang (see page 900), stands upon the right bank of the river, and its spire, two hundred feet high, is the first indication of the city seen by the traveller as he approaches Bangkok from the sea. More recently a pavilion has been erected by the King of Siam, entirely in the Italian style, with colonnade and peristyle (see page 901), bearing a Sanskrit inscrip- tion upon the portico, which may be translated, "Eoyal Eecreations." Within, the building consists of a suite of rooms resembling those of a European house, filled with mirrors and French clocks, drapery and furniture of the latest fashion, curiously 904 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. intermingled with philosophical and chemical apparatus, globes and maps, the photog- raptier's camera, and stuffed specimens of natural history. From Bangkok, a voyage along the coast of the Gulf of Siam brings the trav- eller at last to Saigon, the French seaport of Cochin-China, lying in the delta of the Makong, the third great river of the peninsula, and the one by which access is obtained to the inland region of Cambodia and the wonderful ruins of Angcor. On the way, however, many towns and small rivers attract notice, and one is well repaid for delay by a thousand interesting and curious scenes. I^othing is per- haps more amusing than to watch the freaks of the monkeys, which abound in this region; and such a scene as the one represented on page 902 may any day be wit- nessed in places where the crocodiles are numerous. These amphibiae frequent the low river banks under trees haunted by troops of malicious monkeys, and the latter THE CATARACT OF KHON. delight to swing downward and tease the crocodile, extending and withdrawing a little black hand within an inch of his mouth. The monster snaps his huge jaws in vain and the monkeys greet his failures with derisive chatter; but sometimes they swing too low, and the teasing hand is caught as in a trap. With the rapidity of light- ning the little animal is drawn under the water, and with shrieks and moans the frolicsome group in the trees disperses, not, however, so dismayed but that they will recommence their amusement whenever the occasion offers. The French colony of Cochin-China is in possession of the delta of the Makong, and great hopes were at one time entertained by the home government that this river would prove to be a navigable stream all the way from the Chinese frontier. In this hope a commission was dispatched to examine the river, and it was explored nearly to the frontiers, at a great sacrifice of brave and valuable life, only to satisfy A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 905 themselves that it is "an impassable stream," broken at least three time* by furious cataracts, and having a current against which nothing could be navigated. In following the course of the river in the little' boats of the country, the French explorers frequently turned aside into some lateral arm where the current was less violent, and sometimes even made their way amid the trees of inundated forests. After ascending it about four hundred miles, they came to the Cataract of Khon, a scene of the wildest grandeur. For a distance of five miles the Makong is a series of foaming rapids, which here and there are interrupted by sheer leaps of forty or fifty feet. The river is here very broad, and rocky islands, covered with vegetation, divide each fall into eight or ten separate cascades. For the delta of the Makong, let the reader imagine a country perfectly flat, cut by the magnificent arms into which the great i-iver divides,, extremely well wooded with palms, bananas, and all the luxuriance of tropical growth crossing and interlacing in every direction. Beneath this roof of verdure are scattered here and there cabins of bamboo and clay, about which wander, on terras of entire equality, many living creatures: first, various specimens, more or less filthy and unattractive, of Adam's race; then, gentle, mild-eyed buflaloes; enormous swine of a peculiar bi-eed; and lastly, numberless fowls of that variety which the exhibition of 1855 has made so popular in the western world. This, under the fervid sun of the tropics, is the picture which meets the eye of the traveller, who, by way of the Saigon, or any other of the arms composing the delta, seeks entrance to the native land of the Coehin-China fowl. The French exploration of the Makong resulted, as we have said, in disappoint- ment; but incidentally it had one result which amply justified the expense and efibrt of the whole expedition. This was the exploration of the ruined cities of Cambodia. Historically less important than the buried cities of Assyria, they are, in an architec- tural point of view, far more extraordinary, and reveal a state of civilization which may well excite our astonishment. As early as the thirteenth century, a Chinese writer describes these cities, espe- cially Angcor the Great, or Angcor Thom, as in a state of great prosperity. Two centuries and a half later Eibadeneyra visited them, and found them in ruins. Since that time, at rare intervals, travellers have caught a glimpse of wonderful buildings buried in jungles, and have kept alive an interest among archaeologists in respect to these far-off and hidden treasures, gratified at last by a thorough and minute exam- ination of them. Four miles south of Angcor the Great is the temple, to which all accounts refer as the most important of all the existing ruins. Of this we present an illustration, reproduced from a photograph, for the purpose of showing the exquisite finish and 906 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. minute detail of the work. The general plan of the temple consists of three rectan- gular and concentric inclosures composed of galleries or verandas, and each fifteen or twenty feet higher than the one outside it, giving to the whole mass, as seen from without, a pyramidal form. The first of these inclosures measures thirty-two hundred and forty feet by thirty-three hundred, and outside of it is a moat six hundred and ninety feet broad. This moat is crossed by a superb causeway of great blocks of sandstone, and adorned with pillars and fantastic dragons at regular intervals. In the first inclosure is a gateway not unlike the gopura of a Dravidian temple, five stories high, and extended by lateral galleries and towers into a fa9ade more than six hun- dred feet long. Passing through this portal, the road continues to the next inclosure, where it ends before a second terrace supported by round columns elegantly sculptured. From the second to the third terrace a great flight of steps leads up, and the terrace itself is crowned by a central tower, which, although the upper part has been destroyed, stands yet about a hundred and ninety feet above the level of the road. Besides this central tower, eight others rise from various portions of the building, all con- ducing to the pyramidal effect, which seems to have been the leading idea. All the three terraces are surrounded by galleries or colonnades, which are open to the air with the exception of those of the second story, and nowhere in all the immense structure does there seem to have been made any provision for human abode. The whole building appears to have but one object or end in view, namely, to be the entrance to the quadruple sanctuary established at the base of the central tower. From whichever of the cardinal points the temple is approached, everything leads towards one of the four enormous statues over the four sides of this tower. Nothing arrests the explorer till he finds himself at the entrance of the sanctuary. The central tower is two hundred feet long and two hundred and thirteen wide. In it no divinity is found, for the reason that this temple manifestly was dedicated to the snake-worship peculiar to some branches of the Turanian family, and its gods sufiered from the disadvantage of being eaten up one by another, or dying from natural causes. But all through the enormous structure are the tokens of its desti- nation. " Every angle of every roof," says Fergusson, " and there are hundreds, is adorned with an image of the seven-headed snake ; every cornice is composed of snakes' heads; every convolution of the roof — and there are thousands of them — terminates in a five or seven-headed reptile. The balustrades are snakes, and the ridge of every roof anciently was adorned with a gilt dragon." There is, therefore, no divinity in the temple, but at present it is occupied by Siamese bonzes, who main- tain the worship of Buddha, and take what care they can of the vast edifice. They are too few in number to do much, but they sweep out the most frequented cen- tral galleries every day, and now and then pull up the grass which grows between ANGCOR WAT. 908 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. the stones. The rest is completely abandoned to the inroads of the luxuriant vege- tation of the tropics and to bats and night-birds, which make their home by myriads under the roofs of the colonnades. A few words of description must be given to these galleries, which are the most remarkable feature of Angcor Wat. Their mechanical arrangement is as perfect as their artistic design. On the inner side they are formed by a solid wall of the most exquisite masonry, supporting the interior terrace of the temple. This wall is built of large stones put together without cement, and so exquisitely fitted that it is difficult to detect the joints between the stones. Ten feet and a half in front of this wall stands a range of square piers,' resembling the Roman Doric order, with capitals similar to the classic examples, but more ornamented. These pillars have no bases, but at the foot of each is carved on the four sides, a figure of a devotee or worshipper, surmounted by a canopy of incised ornament, which is also carried along the edge of the shafts. The pillars support an architrave and a deep frieze, which is ornamented with bas- reliefs of the most elaborate design, and above this a cornice of a very classical outline. This cornice is composed of infinite repetitions of the seven-headed snake. The roof of these galleries is a pointed arch made by stones projecting one beyond the other, as the old Pelasgi used to build, and as do the Indians of the present day. This was probably intended to be hidden, as it is quite plain, and in one of the galleries re- mains of a beautifully carved ceiling of teak-wood have been discovered. Upon the inner walls are an almost infinite variety of bas-reliefs, representing, for the most part, battle-scenes. They are distributed in eight compartments, having an aggregate length of about two thousand feet, and a height of six and a half feet, the number of figures being estimated by one traveller as twenty thousand, and by another as a hundred thousand. These figures, by their magnitude, their minute finish, and their elegant proportion, compare favorably with classic sculpture, and it is interesting to note that the principles on which this sculpture is employed differ from the Indian and from the Egyptian examples, where the figures were in high relief, forming part of the architecture, but are allied to the Greek method, in which sculpture was regarded as purely decorative, and to be used entirely within the architectural lines. In examining this great temple minutely, the traveller is impressed with the differ- ences existing between its different parts. The two lower stories or terraces seem designed to throw into strong relief the importance and richness of the third. As we approach the central sanctuary the decoration becomes more splendid ; the chisel cuts deeper into the stone, the colonnades are doubled, marvels of sculpture burst forth on every side. What admirable arabesques are designed upon the pilasters which make the setting of the doors for the sanctuary ! On the two sides the general design appears symmetrical, but a nearer view reveals the greatest differences, the most charm- ing variety in the details ; curiosity and interest are redoubled. Each one of these o O o o < 00 I 910 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. graceful inlcrlacings, these capricious designs, appears the work of an individual artist, who, composing his own design, imitated nothing, borrowed nothing, from his neigh- bor; each one of these pages of stone is the feint of a delicate and original inspiration, not the skilful reproduction of a common model. Sometimes the commenced page is not completed; the stone is left rough, awaiting the chisel. The artist died, perhaps, in the midst of his work, and no one was found to take his place. It seems as if this were a fate incident to all great structures. Angcor Wat has fallen into ruins, without ever having been finished ! Even more cruelly threatened by the forces of nature is the old city Angcor Thom, or " the G-reat." Making his way northward through the forest, along an amaz- ing highway, peopled with huge stone figures, — elephants the size of life, lions, drag- ons, — most of them overthrown and broken, the traveller reaches the city's southern gate. The forest, interrupted by the wide belt of moat which forms a kind of clearing all around the city, here becomes deeper and more gloomy. A narrow path winds between the great trees ; here and there are massive stones all overgrown with moss. After a walk of three quarters of a mile, the explorer comes to a vast inclosure, within which are visible, in the distance, the towers and spires of some great structure. It is the Baion, or Temple of the Forty-two Towers, the most beautiful and exten- sive of the ruins of Angcor. The view of it on the preceding page represents the building as it doubtless appeared in its original splendor, surrounded by a broad moat and inclosing wall. This moat has been entirely filled up, and within the wall, the forest debris of centuries almost bars access to the main structure. But the forty- two towers are yet standing, with all their rich sculpture, and it is possible to make a thorough examination of the building. Its general plan is much like that of Angcor Wa]t, but it is believed to belong to a somewhat earlier date. ^•^T'; ^•^'^s.^-'"""^M A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 911 SIKCB the days of the great Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, probably no epoch iij the history of China h-as been so important as the present. Now, at- least, for the first time, has the Flowery Kingdom been opened to the influence of Western civilization. Even the sacred Bed City, the trebly fortified centre of the ^^ imperial capital, is no longer a region of mystery, and the photographer's camera has been permitted to do its work in the streets of Peking. • Shanghair which first opened a door to foreigners, claims our first notice in any mention of the vast empire of which it is so important a seaport. Founded as a 912 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. walled city in 1544, it has always held its own as the great Chinese emporium of foreign trade. In 1831, Dr. GutzIafiP, visiting the place for the first time in a junk, observes that from this port "more than a thousand small vessels go up to the north several times annually, exporting silk and other Kiangnan manufactures," and besides, that an extensive traffic was carried on with the Indian archipelago. Since that time the ships of every commercial people in the world have visited Shanghai; and now the approach by river looks almost like that of a prosperous European seaport. Ocean steamers, in long line, lie anchored in the channel, and steam-launches dart in and out among the crowd of native craft that are seen around, with their ENGLISH LEGATION. brown sails and curious, uncouth shapes. As far as the eye can reach,' the broad river is crowded with vessels, and at the wharves the loading and discharging of cargoes goes on incessantly. In some places there are only native craft, as represented in the illustration on page 914. These vessels range from fifty to two hundred feet in length; the largest of them have three masts and a short bowsprit. They are elevated bow and stern, and have sails of matting, run through with strong bamboo rods, and hoisted by a large rope. The mainsail of a large junk will weigh several tons. Among the vessels may be seen, here and there, great dismasted junks used as A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 913 restaurants, and thronged all day by a merry crowd. Upon the wharves much small traffic is carried on ; idlers loiter, children play ^t ball or at Chinese shuttlecock, striking the bird with the foot instead of with a battledore; and gamblers with cards or dice stake the very clothes they wear, their houses, their wives and children, the fingers on their hands. Shanghai, howevir, is half a foreign town, and it is at Peking that one finds the true Chinese characteristics. This great capital, whose population in 1851 was offi- cially stated at two millions of inhabitants, consists really of two cities: the Mongol, Mantchu, or Tartar, which is the ofBicial and military city at the north; the Chinese, MONASTERY CHAPEL. i or trading city, at the south. Each is surrounded by its own walls and moats, and they are connected only by three gates elaborately fortified. Between the two cities lies! a broad paved avenue, and following this to the east, the traveller comes out at the I angle where the Mongol city is overlapped by the Chinese, and ascending a gentle slope, finds hhnself upon the top of the ramparts. ■ ■ What a strange and magnificent picture it is to the eyes of a European, wonted to high, square houses, regular public buildings, and the gray monotony of color pre- vailing in all our great cities ! Pagodas, temples, kiosques, towers, porticos, curve in spirals, bend over like heavy-headed flowers, round themselves into balls, spring up X a z < X m 5i > DC bJ i A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 915 in sharp notched peaks, amid the denuded trunks and wide-spreading branches of centenarian trees, and flag-staffs of princely resideaces lifting aloft in air their long, bright-colored pennants. In front, a little at the right, appear the gilded roofs of the Imperial Palace, with its lofty dome of white marble ; further on, the five pagodas of the artificial hillock in the Imperial Grardtens rise one behind the other ; still further away, to the north, runs the sombre line of walls, loaded with towers, pavilions, and batteries, rising to the height of a hundred and fifty feet above the ground. MOSQUE. Turning to the left, the view changes entirely; here is the Chinese city, an inextricable confusion of narrow lanes and low hovels, with roofs of mud or reddish tiles Only the wide avenue of the centre is visible, cutting the city in halves, and the compact and busy crowd can be discerned which is gathered all day long in this great artery. Far away the eye rests on the dark mass of a grove of trees, from which arise the blue domes of two immense circular buildings: they are the temples of Heaven and of Agriculture, with their surrounding parks. Finally, on the west, beyond the wretched suburbs which surround Peking, may be seen a great plain covered with luxuriant crops, where there is not a grove, not even a single tree of size. In the < bJ X o A TOUR OF THE WORLD. m north of China, in singular contrast to our European landscape, all the trees are in the cities, and the country is but one great grain-field, taxed in every square foot to support the enormous population of the Flowery Kingdom. The interior of the Mongol city is extremely regular. Its outline is a rectangle, and from its nine gates extend in straight line across the city, boulevards paved with PORCELAIN TOWER. stone, ninety feet broad, and cut at right angles by numberless streets one-third of this width, and in turn connected with each other by an infinity of narrow lanes. Here are many imperial establishments, temples, and mandarins' houses. In the southern part of the city are the English and French legations (see p^ges 912 and 916), originally palaces of great dignitaries, which had fallen in some way to the crown J in the west are Buddhist monasteries, a chapel of one of which is rep- resented on page 913; in the extreme north is the great temple of Confucius (see CO => O U. z o o LJ _l 0. 111 H A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 919 page 918), a truly magnificent marble structure, above the high altar of which arc inscribed these words, " The Chief and Guide of the ten thousand worlds ; " and, lastly, near the centre, there is a mosque (see page 915), erected in the eighteenth century by one of the emperors who had made conquest of a Mussulman prince, and desired to aflPord him opportunity for observing the rites of his own religion. In the centre of*this Mongol half of Peking is a vast walled inclosure, known as the Yellow City. Within its walls are pagodas of peculiar sacredness, and ])alace8 of high dignitaries of the empire. Here also are the Imperial Gardens, with their great artificial lakes and porcelain tower (page 917), and the hil- lock, two hundred and fifty feet high, believed to be in substance a mass of coal, * accumulated by some provident emperor against an expected siege ; lastly, and most important of all, there is a third inclosure, with high walls and a broad moat, and four gates, — the Eed City, the sacred abode of Imperial Majesty. The Chinese call it " The Forbidden City." Its gates are " The Great Purity," " The Celestial Tran- quillity," and the like. It contains the palaces of Medium, Sovereign, and Protect- ing Concord. It has a pavilion of Impurpled Splendor, wherein the Orchestra of Universal Peace plays before the Son of Heaven as he sips his tea. Having attained celestial heights of nomenclature like these, it is perhaps well to go no further, lest we find they represent but a semi-barbaric splendor a good deal fallen into decay, and that the Imperial Palace of China contains but little more peace, tranquillity, and concord than does that of Constantinople. 920 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. J A.F J^N • it3$t«» ' I EAR neighbors to China though they are, the Japanese indig- nantly repudiate the idea of a common origin with the dwellers in the Flowery Kingdom. Their civilization, in some points identical with the Chinese, in many other respects differs widely from it. Their characters used in writing are the same ; the worship of Buddha and of Confucius exists equally in both countries; in Japan and in China the same style of pagoda rears its head, wherein officiate the shaven gray-robed bonzes ; their junks are alike ; rice and fish, tea and rice-brandy, are the staples of consumption in Yeddo as much as in Canton ; Japanese coolies make the streets of iN^agasaki resound with the same piercing, rhythmic cries as do the coolies of Shanghai ; the. literature of the archipelago has no national stamp, being borrowed altogether from China ; finally, the head- dress of the Japanese reminds one of that of the Chinese under the early dynasties, anterior to the wearing of the queue. But here the resemblance ends. The Japanese race, haughty and noble, military and feudal, differs essentially from the Chinese race, hum- ble and sly, scorning the art of war, and having a gift for trade and commerce. The Japanese knows the meaning of our word "honor"; to deprive him of his sword is an insult only to be wiped out with blood. The Chinese laughs if you A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 921 tell him he is a coward, or if you prove to him that he has hed : these aie mat- ters of indifference to him. The Chinese race are filthy in their habits ; the Japa- nese are of the daintiest neatness. The Japanese 'has a cheerful disposition, he is intelhgent, and eager to learn j the Chinese despises all that Hes outside of his own country. All this denotes in the dwellers in the island empire a race superior to that which peoples China ; and we are led to believe that the Japanese are an off- shoot of the great Mongol family, owing their presence here to some early immigra- tion by way of the Corea. Whatever may be their origin, no Asiatic race is more interesting, and the mys- tery in which they have been shrouded until within the last twenty years adds per- haps to the eagerness with which the great civilized nations of the west now press through the doors which Commodore Perry's Expedition, and the famous "treaty of friendship and trade," first opened in 1854 In many respects it is still difficult fully to understand the Japanese character and habits. The home life of the higher classes is yet carefully secluded from for- eign inspection, but enough is known to show us an amiable, versatile, Ught-hearted race, neither truly Asiatic, nor yet completely European; but, like the ancient Greeks, forming a link between the two. Of their curious dual government, and the duplicate system to which it has given rise, — a system carried out into almost every detail of existence, ■ — we have not space here to speak. To understand their language, is a matter of extreme difficulty, and no thorough knowledge of a people can exist without an adequate comprehension of its mental ability as displayed in its own liter- ature. It is, however, a curious fact that the Japanese, so reticent in respect to themselves, have from age to age placed upon record their daily lives in the shape of thousands of clever sketches, of more or less finish, but all interesting and in- structive from their strongly marked originality, and many of them from the quaint and cynical humor which characterizes their conception. A most fascinating book would be a collection of such sketches, which might be entitled, " The Japanese painted by themselves." We present one of these sketches on page 922. It represents a scene from one of the numerous theatres in Yeddo, looking upon 'the stage across a private box. Theatrical representations are announced every night just before sunset. by an harangue from a staging outside, in which the merits of the piece are set forth, and the public are notified of the names of the performers. As it grows dark the lanterns are lighted and the invitation is given, "Enter, gentlemen! enter, "ladies ! The performance is about to begin." The illumination, however, attracts many lin- o-erers outside. Two rows of great paper lanterns cross the front of the building. Between them are globes of transparent paper, each containing a wax candle, and around the doors are enormous oblong lanterns throwing light upon placards which o Q Q U >- UJ q: I- < u I I- I- UJ -I < CO UJ H H CD A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 923 set forth the characters and scenes of the play. Some of these placards are the entire height of the building, and there are banners higher than the placards. Each thea- tre has its own armorial bearings reproduced on the lanterns and flags, and, in gigantic proportions, covering three sides of the building. Within, the best places are in the second gallery, where spacious boxes are arranged in a row, furnished only with the usual Japanese matting by way of seats ; a servant at once brings in tea, cakes, and sweetmeats, also pipes, tobacco, and a little brasier. As long as Japanese actors welcome their audience in this way, they can safely abandon to us the practice of paid applause, nor dread the importation of our ways of expressing disapproval. The performances are in great variety, and last usually till one o'clock in the morning. The exhibitions of Japanese jugglers in the United States, some years ago, will give an idea of their skill in certain directions, and it is not too much to say that, taking into consideration the national character and ideas, the Japanese have no superior in their theatrical representations of whatever kind. While in this section of the country let us give a passing glance at the Daimios, the great feudal aristocracy of Japan. Each of these nobles is practically independent of the Tycoon when in his own province, where he has the power of life and death over all his subjects and dependants. To keep some order among this turbulent class, an early Tycoon i-equired them to spend half of every year in his capital of Yeddo, and on their return retained their wives and children as hostages. Thus is explained the enormous extent of the official quarters of the city within a double enclosure of glacis, wall, and moat, and whole streets with moated houses display- ing a frontage of more than a thousand feet. These buildings differ among them- selves only in size, but are all of the same style of architecture and the same sim- plicity. Many of the streets are a hundred feet wide, and the fronts of the houses — that is, the two-storied range of buildings enclosing the court-yard — sometimes extend nearly a quarter of a mile. These buildings are always separated from the street by a small, narrow, and muddy moat, little more than a gutter. They are in form an oblong square, with low, wide, grated windows and doors at regular inter- vals. They are occupied by servants and armed retainers. Within are the seigno- rial residences, and beautiful gardens, while towering shade-trees rise above the roofs and give an air of regal grandeur to the scene. No business is ever seen in this quarter. Armed retainers pace the streets, often with bows and arrows, and with the armorial bearings of their masters embroidered in the back and sleeves of their tunics. At times some Daimio is seen abroad, accompanied by his train of servants and attendants. He rides in a norimon, or Japanese palanquin, — a suspended cage, much like a large baby-house, says Sir Rutherford Alcock, with roof, and side-doors, and cushions, and shelves, and windows. It is . suspended from the shoulders of fom^ men, two 924 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. before and two behind, the bottom of the norimon being about a foot from the ground. The bearers step out at an even steady pace of about three miles an hour. This is the mode of locomotion de rigueur for the great Daimio; he is sometimes followed by two or three led horses, but it must be a very poor noble indeed who demeans himself so far as to be seen on horseback. An armed guard surrounds him, and before him a porter carries a couple of trunks containing a change of clothing, in case he may wish to make some alteration in his toilette during the few hours he will be absent from home. At the opposite end of the city lie the trading quarters. Here shops of every description, notably those for the sale of porcelain and bronze, as on page 925, abound. Of Japanese art pages might be written merely in opening the subject. As has been well observed by M. du Chesne de Bellecour, in an article in the Bevue des Deux Mondes, Japanese taste favors the rare and elegant, rather than the sumptu- ous. N^o where, unless perhaps on the diadems of the Mikado and the Kisaki, is there lavish display of gold and precious stones. The grandees of the empire take pride in the antiquity of their possessions. iN^othing is so precious in their eyes as an assorted service of old cracked porcelain, or vases of antique bronze, heavy, mas- sive, black, and polished as marble, or furniture and utensils of that old gold-powdered lacquer known as salvocat. The great bronze vases of modern Japanese work are perhaps the most perfect of all their artistic achievements. They are often five feet high; some are of a beautiful yellow almost as brilliant as gold; upon these is a great display of ornaments in relief, mostly mythological, subjects : others, more severe in style, exhibit upon a plain, smooth, black surface light designs of flowers, birds, and arabesques, in silver thread beaten into the bronze with a hammer. The only rivals in elegance to these beautiful black bronze vases with their niello-work of silver, are their porcelain vases, light-gray or sea-green in color, ornamented with fine painting of which the delicate touch and harmonious tints have an indescribable charm. A few words must be said of the Japanese religion, which is represented in its two great phases, — the worship of ancestors, by the illustration of the Temple of Hatchiman, on page 926; and the Buddhist worship, by the Temple at Kawasaki, represented in the head-piece to Japan, and in part, on a larger scale, on page 927. The former is evidently the earlier faith of the country, and seems to have been originally a commemoration of certain great men and early heroes, to whom the country was much indebted, but of scarcely any religious import. Later it grew to be a form of worship, and has curiously blended with the Buddhism borrowed from China and India. Buddhism is a flexible, conciliating, insinuating system, and knew how to accommodate itself to the Japanese mind. On their first entrance into Japan, the bonzes succeeded in obtaining the guardianship of the shrines and little chapels of the earlier faith, and built around them sanctuaries of their own. They readily q: < < N < ca Hi a) UJ z < 0. 92(5 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. added to their own ceremonies symbols borrowed from the national religion; finally, the better to mingle the two forms of worship, they introduced into their temples Japanese idols, invested with titles and attributes of Hindoo divinities, and Hindoo divinities transformed into Japanese. There was nothing inadmissible in these changes, TEMPLE OF HATCHIMAN. naturally explicable by the doctrine of transmigration, and, thanks to this combina- tion, to which has been given the name of Eioboo Sintoo, Buddhism is now the dominant religion of Japan. Our last illustration (page 930) represents the entrance to the residence of the BELFRY OF BUDDHIST TEMPLE. 928 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. English legation in Japan. Of what is to be seen within this portal Sir Eutherford Alcock's own description will be most appropriate. This gentleman arrived in Yeddo in 1859, as her Majesty's envoy-extraordinary, and at once requested a residence to be assigned him. A choice was offered of two or three buildings which had served as, temples, and of these the selection was made of the Tozengee, one of the largest and best-endowed in Yeddo. "During our walk," says the envoy, "I had been assured there was no finer site or grounds in the city, and that it had been specially des- tined for the British representative. On turning off the Tocado (as the great high- road through the island is called, and which skirts the bay here), we passed through a gate giving entrance to a long avenue of cryptomeras and pines ; then through a sec- ond more imposing gateway of two stories across an open square with lotus ponds and trees on each side; and finally, by an entrance to the right, through another court-yard, and gained a fine suite of apartments looking on to as beautiful a specimen of Japa- nese garden and grounds as can well be conceived. A lawn was immediately in front; beyond, a little lake, across which was a rustic bridge; and beyond this again, palm- trees and azalias, large bushes trimly cropped into the semblance of round hillocks; while the background was filled up with a noble screen of timber composed of the finest of all Japanese trees, — the evergreen, oak, and the maple. Palms and bam- boos were interspersed, and a drooping plum-tree was trained over one end of the rustic bridge giving passage across the lake. To the right, a steep bank shut in the view, covered equally with a great variety of flowering shrubs and the ground- bamboo, and crowned with more of the same timber. Through this a path led up- ward by a zigzag flight of steps to a fine avenue of trees, the end of which wid- ened into a platform, whence a wide view of the bay and part of the city below could be obtained with a perfectly scenic effect. The distant view was set in a framework of foliage, formed by the branches and trunks of pine-trees, towering from fifty to a hundred feet high into the blue sky above. From the end of the ave- nue, through which a mid-day sun could only pour a chequered arabesque of light and shade, the bay stretched far away a thousand feet below, basking in the fiiU glare of sunshine, and making the deep, cool shade of the terrace, with its thick screen of green leaves, all the more enjoyable by contrast." N^ot a corner, however, of this delightful habitation but was destined later to have its sinister memories. The foot of the flagstaff was reddened with the Japa- nese linguist's blood, on the 29th of January, 1860 ; the main entrance, the court, the temple, the second story of the legation, became, in the night attack of July, 1861, the scene of a frightful struggle, which left five dead upon the floor and eighteen wounded ; finally, upon the veranda on the garden side, fell, a year later, two Eng- lish marines, after having fatally wounded one of their assassins. In consequence of these events, all the foreign representatives in Japan demanded A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 929 a'nd obtained from the Tycoon the concession of a quarter in which they could unite all the legations, put themselves in a state of defence, and insure a communication with the ships of war of their respective countries. A public garden of great size, called Goten Yama, was assigned for this purpose. Acres of peach-trees in flower were cut down, and great clumps of cedars fell under the axe. The pleasure resort of the populace was destroyed, and all was prepared for the new buildings. But no >oner had the British legation been completed, with its imposing fa9ade, its elegant 'es, and picturesque roofs, than the hand of an incendiary laid it in ashes. ' by this event, the other legations were abandoned, and the representatives pean powers in Japan withdrew their residence to Yokohama. '3ommon prose, the Japanese call their country Nipon ; in poetry, it is " The jf the Rising Sun." The archipelago consists of four large islands, and a f lesser ones. The whole region is the theatre of frequent and violent earth- !; hence, all the houses are wooden, and but one story in height. At Yeddo, er, there are city walls and gates of Cyclopean construction, consisting of enor- / blocks of rough stone, fitted into one another. Many volcanoes are still in ebul- n, but Fusi-yama, the highest mountain in Japan, more than eleven thousand feet aeight, is now extinct. ENGLISH LEGATION. 'pi '"n'W'^m 'mt nm '^nm\wjmfwr < z I 9 6 a o a < X H u. o I H O m Ul z I- PERIL STRAIT. A. L J^ © K ^, THE multiplication of routes across the continent offers the traveler great variety and no little ditficulty of choice. For those who have plenty of time, a journey through the Great Lakes on one of the magnificent double-screw propellers of the Northern Company is a delightful way of varying the monotony of a long railway journey. One may start from Buffalo and pass through Lake Erie, touching at Cleve- land and Detroit. If we like, we may stop at Detroit, and enjoy a few days among the lakes and islands which make this city so fascinating. Thence we sail through the straits into Lake St, Clair, and by the St. Clair Eiver into Lake Huron. We stop at Mackinac Island, which is now a National Park, and has a fort perched on a cliff of white limestone over a hundred and fifty feet in height. Arch Eock is one of Nature's marvels. The cliff from which it projects is 200 feet above the water, and from the top one has a splendid view, stretching over an extent of fifty miles, dotted with beautiful islands. One might spend weeks cruising around the multitudinous islands that dot the St. Mary's Eiver. Or, having mounted through the famous Sault Ste. Marie (popularly known as the "Soo"), through which passes a vaster aggregate of tonnage in three months than files through the Suez Canal in a year, up to the level of Lake Superior, there is a whole world for the yachtsman who has more time than the hurrying tourist. The wonderful region which bears the name of Nipigon — a strait, a bay, a river, and a lake — attract the sportsman and the lover of the picturesque. From the great steamboat all this beauty is lost. One must come to it at close range on a small yacht. 1026 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. At most, one can see the huge far lying masses of Thunder Cape and McKay's Mountain. And far away at the very end of the lake lies " The Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas," as Proctor Knott once designated the young Duluth. Duluth would almost resent being called "young." She sprang almost at one bound into the full stature of maturity, and, with all the confidence of boundless strength, regards her- self as equal to the slow-growing cities of the East. The story of the evolution of this town reads like a romance. The hills rise quite abruptly eight or nine hundred feet above the lake, and the parallel streets are like terraces, so that each range of houses is built above the roofs of the next lower. The St. Louis Eiver, a noble stream, draining SAULT STE. MARIE. THE NIPIGON. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1027 N'orthern Minnesota, descends these* heights, and offers a water-power sufficient to turn all the wheels of a vast metropolis. But we • started out by the Northern Pacific, and* that road takes us for many, many miles along the northern shore of Lake Superior, with great variety of scenery. The hills and cliffs, surmounted by the railway track just before it reaches Fort William and Port Arthur, give evidence of the difficulties which the engineers had to meet. At Port Arthur watches are suddenly found to have gained an hour, and have to be set back. But tunnels and viaducts, embankments and cuttings, made room for the great artery, and added another laurel to man's crown of enterprise. The proof of the need of it may be found in the enormous grain elevators at Fort William, in which may be stored not far from half a billion bushels. Within a few hours' ride from Fort William are the Falls of Kaka- bikka, or more cor- rectly, but not so poetically, Kakapikank on the Kaministiquia River, which empties into Thunder Bay. The fall is almost as high as that of l!s^iagara, and is considered by many even more beautiful. The name of Rat Portage gives no inkling of the splendid regions which the tourist may reach from that place. Here is the Lake of the Woods, with its exquisite islands, and just beyond the fiir-famed . Rainy Lake; while on the other side there is the great Lake Winnipeg, which has its own gallery of beauties, although its shores are for the most part rather low. The falls on the Winnipeg River are destined to make Rat Portage a great city. The whole region is one of lakes and of boundless possibilities. As late as 1870 Winnipeg was a miserable-looking village, clustered round Fort Garry, a post of the Hudson Bay Company, at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. It is now the ganglionic center of eight or ten railways; and the corner lots. AN ISLAND IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS. 1028 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. which then might have been bought for a song, ai-e held at fancy prices. Selkirk, a few miles distant, commemorates the services of Lord Selkirk, one of the early pioneers of the West. It was only by a chance that Selkirk failed to be the emporium that Winnipeg has become. Winnipeg is on the border of the great prairie region of Manitoba, which is destined to be, in trite phrase, " the granary of the world." The climate of this region, far north as it is, is excellently adapted to raising cereals. A thousand miles of prairies! A large part of this distance may be travei'sed by water, the Saskatchewan, -^ Sis%=^S?5^^5^£i«=^.--- _ ■^v:^-r--=^--~~>-fc^,.-----^----: .-... - - _. i ^y '-p^j^y- -':- RAT PORTAGE, LAKE OF THE WOODS. which flows into Lake Winnipeg, rising at the foot of the Rockies, and having only one obstruction to its navigation in all that distance. At Brandon, the great grain market of the iSTorthwest, the watches have to be set back another hour. The monotony of the level, treeless lands is forgotten under the enthusiasm of the first glimpse of the Rockies. They are more than a hundred miles away, and yet the atmosphere is so clear that they seem almost at hand. We appreciate the story told of the Englishmen who were making a tour of the West, and started out one day for a walk. They said that they thought they would step toward yonder mountains. They walked and walked, and the mountains were as far off as ever. At last one of them got a little ahead of the other. When the slower one overtook his friend, he found him in the pi-ocess of disi'obing in front of a narrow irrigating ditch. In answer to his exclama- tion, the fi'iend said, very calmly: 'Tor four hours we have been walking toward them A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1029 blasted mountains, and they don't seem to come any nearer. And here we are at a brook: it doesn't look to be more than a foot across it; but there must be some de- ception in it, and I am making ready to swim it!" One of the finest passages in all Russian literature is in Count Tolstoi's novel, " The Cossacks," where the hero of the story catches his first view of the Caucasus Mountains. Every- ' thing else fades away under the tremendous impress of those glorious snow-oi'owned peaks. A similar eflect is produced on the mind at the vision of the Rockies as they rise on the western horizon, becoming ever more magnificent as the traveler approaches THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS FROM ELBOW RIVER. HERDING CATTLE ON THE PLAINS. 1030 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. them. One could spend days at Calgarry and never weary of the panoi-ama of glorious peaks rising into the depths of heaven. To the south is a great ranching country, and the cow-boy and his ways may be studied as a relief from the overpowering sensations of the mountains. At Banff, which the hot and sulphur springs have made a famous spa, the views are no less magnificent. This region round about has been created a National Part, and the excursions among the half-dozen valleys that center here are full ROCKY MOUNTAINS, NEAR CANMORE, of excitement and delight. Less than fifty miles west of Banff is the official "summit" of the Eockies, and the train is a mile above the level of the sea. The enormous moun- tain masses lift themselves all around. Here two raindrops, falling side by side, may part, the one to find its way into the Atlantic by the Saskatchewan and the mighty Nelson, the other into the Pacific by the Columbia. The canon by which the train pierces through the heart of the Rocky Mountains is called the Wapka or Kicking-horse Pass. Above our heads rises Mount Stephen, nearly fourteen thousand feet above the sea, and bearing on his shoulder a mighty glacier which would make the Mer de Glace turn greener still with envy. Some of the lakes among these mountains are remarkable for their reflections; photographs of them are equally satisfactory up-side down. Between the Rockies and the Selkirks, still unexplored and offering most exciting sport for the A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1031 mountain climber runs the swift Columbia. The railway crosses it, and then ascends the Selkirks, while the marvels of the scenery seem constantly increasing, l^othing in the Alps can excel " Sir Donald," whose keen pinnacle rises snow-clad to the height of eight thousand feet above the Great Glacier. The Great Glacier is one of the most exten- sive in the world. The railway crosses Stony Creek at an elevation of not far from 300 feet. For miles the track had to be blasted '^ out of the living precipice. At Eevelstoke we meet with the Columbia once more; it has grown into a majestic river almost a thousand feet wide. Even after we have passed through the Sel- kirks, we are not done with mountains or with marvels of construction. There are forty miles of wild scenery on both sides as we pass through the Gold Kange, with its pre- cipitous pass. Then, after infinite variety of lakes and mountains, we enter the wide, bare valley of the South Thompson, where the mountains draw apart. Kamloops, origin- ally a fort of the Hudson Bay Company, has now become the most important town in British Columbia, and is one of the most beauti- fully-situated towns in the country. The train flies along in sight of Kamloops Lake, until the mountains again shut us in. Perhaps the most thrilling moment on the trip is. where we suddenly enter the terrific canon of the Fraser Kiver, along which we make our way through the Cascade Mountains, here dashing through tunnels, again crossing the giddy chasm by a viaduct over which tower the threatening mountains. At Yale we emerge from the carton, and look back with wonder at the jaws of the cavern through which we have passed. We still cling closely to the river, and it well MOUNT STEPHEN, NEAR THE SUMMIT OF THE ROOKIES. 1032 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. repays study; it offers constant variety. Abounding in salmon, it gives occupation to numbers of Indians, whose canoes dot its surface; it rolls down golden sands, and wo may catch a glimpse of some prospector trying to wash out a few grains of the yellow dust. It is a constant marvel to see how rapidly civilization has taken hold of this favored land, which only a few years ago was a wilderness. IS'ow, on all the intervales cattle are seen grazing, and neat farms, with well-set orchards, gladden the eye. Wide GLAC(ER HOUSE, SELKIRK MOUNTAINS. rivers cotiie flowing down into the Fraser, and occasionally a branch railway sepai-ates from the main line and invites to regions new and strange. Kich mines may await the adventurous pioneer. JS'ow and again we see through the clear atmosphere, against the southern sky, the gleaming white cone of Mount Baker, sixty miles away, almost as high as Mont Blanc. The forests that cover the mountain sides are an enormous brotherhood. The trees partake here of the grandeur of the mountains. Many of them are over three hundred feet high and thirty or forty feet in circumference, near the ground. Vancouver, the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific, was built amid such a forest. In 1885, it was a shanty-town; the next year its shabby newness was swept by fire. To-day, it is as noble a city as there is in the West. Its situation is superb. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1033 Burrard Island separates the sound from the sea, and makes a magnificent land-locked harbor. The channel, though narrow, is deep. Across the harbor rise the peaks of the snow-clad Cascade Mountains. In fact, there are mountains in every direction, and a beautiful sweep of waters, and boundless forests of giant pines. It is simply incredible to think that these wide avenues, lighted with electricity, well-paved, and framed in handsome, substan- less than a dozen trails through the Vancouver is Liverpool, is, in- Liverpool, of the immediate connec- ports of the far steamships take the islands of the Pa- of Australia. Daily to Victoria, the ince, on the Island whose purple moun- of the landscape, indeed, come into Pacific coast; it is stay-at-home to amazing life and vi- tion: telephone bells dashing along streets; electric hundreds of new CARIBOO ROAD BRIDGE OVER THE FRASER RIVER. tial buildings, were, years ago, not even forest. destined to be the deed, already the Pacific. She is in tion with all the East. Mammoth traveler to the cific and the ports trips can be made capital of the prov- of Vancouver, tains are a feature A new world has, existence on this hard for the quiet think that all this tality is a new crea- ringing, bicycles smooth, well-paved trams flying about, houses going up. and wealth pouring in as from the horn of Fortune. But so it is. Victoria is a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, and the government buildings there cost upwards of a million dollars. Like Vancouver, it is within reach of boundless coal fields; and the mountains that add so much to the beauty of that region are pregnant with immeasurable wealth. Three miles from Victoria is the naval station of Esquim^lt Harbor, where the British Government has constructed docks and other substantial evidence of her power. A railway connects the city with the coal fields of ]!^anaimo. A trip to these points may be made while passengers are waiting for the Alaska steamer, which will be seen coming up the broad sound from Port Townsend. The route of the steamer lies be- tween Vancouver and the main-land. Behind her fade the snowy peaks of the Olympian - ,7im"-t*T''i| " '■ -^ ill / • ' i' "• Wi .-'f DC < ^^J *J1J "Will If' ,1 V;..,fcll,.%1, A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1035 Motintains, but others will be constantly coming into view. The course leads from strait to strait among innumerable islands of every size, but all of them bare of human life. Vancouver itself is only partially explored as yet. * l^o man has ever penetrated through its mighty forests. The net-work of islands continues all along the coast, and adds greatly to the pleasure of the voy- age to Alaska; for as the ship is constantly behind them, the force of the mighty Pacific swell is broken, and the waters are calm. After passing Prince-of- "Wales Island, we are in Alaska, which was ceded to the United States by Russia, in 1867, for the compara- tively small sum of 17,200,000. Had our country looked after the interests of this territory, as duty re- quired, it would have been a wonderfully profitable investment ; perhaps now the re- cent discoveries of gold on the tributaries [ of the Yukon River will stir the govern- ment to a wiser course. Had the representations of the Canadians been heeded, England would have added this mighty empire to her Canadian possessions. Imagination paints the Alaskan winters in somber colors, but the truth of the matter is, that the warm Japanese current, the Kuro-sivo, or the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, imparts to the coast at least a far warmer climate than might be expected from its geographic situation. At Sitka, the thermometer rarely goes down to zero. A HOME IN THE NORTHWEST. 1036 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. Fort Wrangel was formerly an important Eussian settlement on Wrangel Island. Near here the Stiekeen Kiver enters the country, and gives passages into Columbia, the boundary of which is only a few miles inland. At this place, as, indeed, all along the coast, even before we reached Vancouver, the totems of the Indians are to be seen. These are the coats of arms of the Indian family, and are more barbaric than those on English escutch- eons only in being cruder and more sculpturesque. The tradition among the Indians was that their principal clans were descended from four symbolic ani- mals: the crow, the eagle, the wolf, and the whale. The totem, which is a pole rudely carved to represent the sym- bolic ancestor, allows those familiar with aboriginal heraldry to trace the ancestry and the various mar- riage alliances. Gor- geously-colored and elaborately carved, they make a genea- logical tree of which a duke might be proud. Who would not be happy to have in front of his house a tall post surmounted with a magnificent bear, and with the marks of his paws carefully notched in the wood, and on the other side of the gate a similar post surmounted by a human figure with a cap on its head.? This would prove that you were descended from a chief. These Indians are native-born artists j all their utensils, everything that they use, is carved FOREST GIANTS. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1037 and colored by their hands, and we shall have abundant oppor- tunity to load ourselves with their handiwork. After leaving • Wrangel, and thread- ing more labyrinthine water-ways, amid islands and islands, we begin to meet great cakes of floating ice. They have fallen from the glaciers that line the coast ; soon we shall see them. Here, VIEW FROM ESQUIMALT. for instance, is the glacier of Taku, half a mile wide, and perhaps three hundred feet high. Under the warm sun, we may see enormous pinnacles break off, and go crashing and plunging into the sea, to rise rocking and swaying, and beginning to feel a glory in their new but ephemeral existence as icebergs. Surely some comic power drives Nature to change them into bizarre and unheard-of forms! Hamlet would have puzzled THE OLYMPIAN MOUNTAINS. 1038 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. his subservient courtiers with a description of their shapes: " 'T is backed like a whale;" "It has horns like an ox;" "It has the neck of an ostrich." It is said that enough gold has been taken from the single island of Douglas to pay six or seven times for the cost of all Alaska. Across from Treadwell, on the main-land, is Juneau, named after a prospector who discovered rich mines there. It has had a steady growth since 1880, and now numbers several thousand inhabitants. As we progress farther north, every valley has its own glacier. But the two most famous are named Muir and Davidson. It has been calculated that the Muir Glacier travels seaward at the rate of about forty feet a day, so that over seventy -five million cubic feet of ice are dumped daily into the sea. 'No wonder that the sea is encumbered with icebergs. Now rise the splendid mountains of the Mt. St. Elias system, — Laperouse, Fairweather, an^ Cril- lon lift their ice-crowned summits from twelve to fifteen thousand feet into the cloudless skies. From Muir Glacier to Sitka, the pleasant route is by the strait separating The Admiralty, Chichagof, and Baranofi" Islands. By this route we see the famous Peril Bay, and that wonderful network of water-ways with which Alaska is so richly endowed. Sitka is situated on Baranoflf Island, at the foot of a wide and splendid bay, protected against the tempests of the open ocean. It is surrounded by lofty mountains, the most beautiful of which is Mt. Edgecumbe, an extinct volcano, which has been compared to Fuji-san, in Japan. The town was founded in 1804, under the name of ]S"ew Archangel. Many of the first settlers were adventurers escaped from the Siberian mines, and their first governor, for whom the island was named, was Baron Baranoff, INDIAN TOTEM. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1039 who ruled them with an iron hand. The Eussian church has six bells, cast in Moscow. The Indians bring in all sorts of woven and carved curiosities for sale. The illustra- tion gives an excellent idea of these aboriginal merchants displaying their wares as a lure for the willing tourist. Perhaps you may even see a genuine medicine, but beware of faUing into his hands in a professional way; you would rue the day that gave your destiny into his control, that is, if you lived to rue it! The vegetation around Sitka isi almost tropical in its exuberance. The steamer turns back from Sitka, but how little we have seen of Alaska! Sitka is only at the gate, as it were. Do we realize that its chief I'iver is one of the lai'gest in the world, running for more than two thousand DAVIDSON'S GLACIER. miles, draining unknown regions, where, through the greater part of the year, deep snow covers fabulous deposits of gold, — a river so wide that one cannot see across for hundreds of miles? There are mountains higher than Mont Blanc, and vast plains traversed as yet by no explorer's foot. It is a wonderful land, and even the superficial view of it, gained from a nine days' 'trip by steamship, fills the heart with pride, and stores the mind with never-fading recollections. The trip back to Victoria from Sitka is so planned that the tourist may see what night, or rather time for sleep, -for night is hardly applicable to the few brief hours of twilight that separate the days, -causes him to miss. It is also a shorter trip. On our return, we must not fail to visit those rival cities of the Northwest, - Tacoma and Seattle. The growth of these places was largely a circumstance of the railway opening of the West. It was accompanied by too great confidence, and they are both suffering temporarily from the reaction. But for convenience and beauty of location, what towns in the world can compete with them? The view of Mt. Rainier, or, if you prefer, Mt. Tacoma, with its infinite variations of color, its jewel-like facets, the splendid 1U4U A TOUR OF THE WORLD. belt of the Olympian Mountains, the sapphire seas, winding in and out, offer a variety of scenery that is a delight forever. Tacoraa is the Fuji-san of Washington. One passage from the poet of the Sierras may well be quoted here: — " Out of the blackness and above the smoke, above the touch of pollution, above the clouds, companioned forever with the stars, Tacoma stands imperious and alone. You may watch the boat sail by at your feet for a little time; but somehow, before j^ou quite know it, your head will turn to Tacoma. You may see a pretty woman pass by as you sit here on the high-built balcony of the new red city, on the strong right arm of the sea of seas; but somehow she becomes a part of Tacoma, melts into the moun- INDIAN MERCHANTS OF SITKA, tain of snow, and your face is again heavenward. You may hear a wise man speak of the actions of great men as you sit here; but somehow his utterances seem far, far away, and your heart and your whole soul, — they have gone up into the mountain to pray. And it is well. You will come down to the world a truer and a better man. You will descend, but never entirely descend. Your soul will in some sort remain high and, white and glorious. You can never again come quite down to the touch of that which is unworthy, for you have been companioned with the Eternal." Another poet, John Boyle O'Reilly, made a visit to Tacoma, and came back to the East full of white enthusiasm over the beauty of the sunsets across Puget Sound, and with the Alpine glow slowly fading on the summits of the eternal mountains. Had he lived, what immortal verse might he not have been inspired to pen as the outcome of his pilgrimage! The population of Tacoma is about thirty -five thousand; it has lost ten thousand since 1890; but it could well spare that floating population, and its future growth and importance are assured. Seattle is rather larger than Tacoma; it is the terminus of A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1041 three transcontinental routes, the Canadian Pacific having recently made the connection. Its steamship facilities are excellent j no less than fifty larger or smaller steamboats ply up and down the Sound. There is the same sort of rivalry between Seattle and Tacoma as there is between St. Paul and Minneapolis. They are only about ninety minutes apart. Portland, Oregon, which is only a short trip from these Puget Sound cities, is the largest town of the Northwest, and perhaps the most desirable for residence. The climate here is delightful all the year. Living is cheap, and fruits and vegetables are abundant. There is so little snow that the lawns are green all the year. Electric cars run in every direction, and the residential quarter on the "mountain" offers the most exquisite views of the city, the Willamette and its tributary, and the snow-capped peaks of Mount Hood and Mount Helens. One of the finest excursions to take from the city is to the magnificent falls of the Columbia. Portland was at one time reckoned to be the second wealthiest place, per capita, in the country. Its population is about eighty thousand. Another interesting excursion from Portland is to the town of Vancouver, the capital of Clarke County, Washington. It takes forty minutes by electric car to the ferry, by which you cross the swift Columbia. This is the center of the prune-raising region. They send several thousand car-loads of the fruit to the East in the course of a single year. Before we leave the IS'orthwest, we must surely visit the Yellowstone Park, although it means a journey of over a thousand miles east from Portland. It takes the railway traveler only a day and a half, and we can go there even more swiftly! The area of the Yellowstone IS'ational Park is about three thousand square miles. Previous to 1871, when Professor Hayden published his survey of it, comparatively little was known of the region. After that the government reserved it forever as a public park. At least a week is needed to see the principal wonders of this marvelous domain; but for a thorough exploration, either on a bicycle or on horseback, a whole summei; would hardly suflace. At the entrance to the park are the Mammoth Hot Springs, the principal feature of which is the tier of terraces which bear oddly jumbled names, such as Cleopatra, Minerva, Jupiter, Angel, Devil's Kitchen, Cupid's Cave Terraces. Boiling springs were responsible for the phenomenon. There are fourteen of them, the result of calcareous depo8i|:s, and covering fully three square miles. Liberty Cap, which stands as the monument to an extinct geyser, is forty-five feet high, but not more than twenty feet in diameter. The others are for the most part much larger. It is strange to think that even at the beginning of the park we are over six thousand feet above the level of the sea. The colors in these mounds are extraordinary. The water that streams from the crevices is curiously decorated with alg* of every shape and tint. The coralline basins are here pink, there creamy like alabaster; the sloping brown and ocher sides are studded with lichen-like lacework. 1042 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. Near Bunsen Peak, which rises over nine thousand feet, there is a beautiful water- fall. The canon through which the stage-coach passes leads into Swan Valley, sur- rounded by mountains and divei-sified by bright brooks and clumps of lofty trees. Oflf to the, right, the mountains Quadrant and Ai;itler rise to the height of 10,200 feet. They belong to the Qallatin range* The Obsi- dian Cliff, which stands lifting its haughty crest, is a mighty, bulk of vol- canic glass, two hundred feet high- In the !Norris Basin is the only gteam- geyser in the whole region; it is called the Black Growler, — apparently, be- cause it is white. This is a delightful community of gey- sers, and these , also bear bric-a-brac names: "Thfe Devil's Ink-stand," " The Minute Man" (this because it blows off every fifty seconds), " Congress Spring," and "The Monarch." Here again one is amazed at ]S"ature as a painter in water-colors! Such exquisite hues, — pink, emerald, yellow, and in infinite gradations! It is forty miles from the Mammoth Hot Springs to the Lower Geyser Basin, and the road is full of interest, — canons, waterfalls, park-like meadows, and everywhere mountains; you may even see the snow-clad Tetons. The YELLOWSTONE. 1044 A TOUR OF" THE WORLD. Fountain Geyser is true to its name: it vomits up an enormous mass of water high into the air. The Paint Pots consist of boiling mud or clay, rich in tints, and con- stantly taking the strangest forms, — oftentimes like those of flowers. This part of the park is called Hell's Half Acre. The White Dome is another geyser which has built up a mound twenty-five feet high, and perhaps 100 feet in circumference. Its performances are erratic, but the mighty bulk of water and steam which it ejects gives its distinction. At Midway Basin, we see the Excelsior Geyser, which has been long quiescent, and is now only a pool, calmly giving off clouds of steam; even more beautiful are Prismatic COOKING FISH IN THE YELLOWSTONE. Lake and Turquoise Spring. Prom the Lower to the Upper Basin it is about nine miles. The Upper Basin contains the most remarkable of these infernal fountains. Some of them may not play at all; the spirit may not move in the waters, but Old Faithful, about once an hour, will be sure to do his best. Castle Geyser goes off generally twice a week. Fortunate are those who are there in time to see it at its best! When its eruption begins, it sends ten spouts to the minute, perhaps averaging twenty feet in height; then suddenly there is an upward burst, and the column of boiling water rushes up a hundred feet, and this lasts about a quarter of an hour. Then it rests for another thirty or forty hours. There are dozens of them of different sizes and various intervals, and all wonderful and weird. Black Sand Pool is an oval basin, forty feet long and half as wide, ex- quisitely colored, and set in a frame of black sand. The little stream which flows from it is a rainbow of variegated colors, — red, terra-cotta, cream, yellow, green. A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1045 The Yellowstone Lake is 7,741 feet above the sea; but that does not prevent its frame-work from being lofty mountains. Flat Mountain is 9,000 feet; Mount Stevenson is 10,300,; Colter Peak is 10,500; Mount Doane tL same. In fact, nearly all the mountams in the park reach about the same altitude. The lake is very gracefully irregular in form, and is diversified with many islands. Out of it flows the Yellowstone Eiver, to empty later^into the Missouri. Before it leaves the park, it plunges down through the Great Canon. Words utterly fail to do justice to this magnificent exhibi- tion of Nature's force. Here again the mighty mother has tried her hand at impres- sionist painting; the combination of colors on the walls is simply marvelous. At the top, where the sun strikes, it is dazzling-white; all the tints that have been elaborated in the Mammoth Paint Pots seem here to have been worked into the decoration of these fantastically-elaborated corridors. They are brown and gray; they are yellow and pink. Only a manufacturer of anilines or a modern milliner could name them all. At Lavender Point, violet predominates, though it is variegated with green, like a wet sun- set. Mighty buttresses, supporting the flying buttresses, as of a cathedral, pinnacles and towers, needles and obelisks, sculptured animals such as might have lived in the palaeozoic age, remind one of the quaint fancies of the cathedral architects of the Middle Ages. Lispiration Point might well inspire the pen of a poet. Here the young eagles may be seen trying their wings, and the fallow deer timidly emerge from the dense green forest that clothes the upper part of the canon. You look up and down this gorge. At the head of it is a fall of 308 feet; farther down, the river makes another leap of over a hundred feet. Other tributary streams come tumbhng down into its dashing waters. Crystal Cascade lightens up the dark glen which leads it to the Yellowstone. One of the most beautiful spots in the whole park is Tower Falls. It is not a great stream, but it comes winding down among the fantastic pinnacles that it has carved, and plunges down in a solid mass into its tributary canon, where it, too, joins the caravan of waters that ultimately reaches the Gulf of Mexico. "We have been able to mention only a few of the marvels of this superb play- ground which Uncle Sam has rescued from the hands of the vandals. Here we may see a few specimens of the great bison Avhich graze there, pondering solemnly over the disappearance of their countless ancestors. Here are a few of the mighty trees, lifting their heads to heaven in mute thankfulness that the reckless, unprincipled, narrow- sighted wood-choppers have been compelled to spare them. As time goes on, and a realization of the attractions of the Yellowstone is absorbed into our national conscioiis- ness, the foresight that preserved for posterity this Garden of the Gods will be a cause of thanksgiving. Lines of steamships connect Tacoma and Seattle with San Francisco. The voyage down the coast, if one is a good sailor, has its advantages over the route by rail. It gives one the intense pleasure of entering the Golden Gate, and getting from the 1046 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. outside the first glimpse of one of the finest harbors in the woi-ld. But we can also reach it by rail by the USTorthern Pacific. What a contrast with the old way of reach- ing California! "The Queen City" is set not on a hill, but on several hills, and cannot be hid; nor does she want to be hid. She is naturally proud of her situation, and of her history, and of her prosperity. She is a creation, in a certain sense; for, in spite of her splendid bay, the location for a city was not so very promising. The early settlers realized the full extent of what discomfort is caused by the combination of loose sand and strong wind. Now good paving and scientific use of materials have to a certain extent obviated the difficulties; but certainly dust is the bane of the beautiful city. It is situated on the north end of the peninsula which the bay cuts ofi^ from the Pacific. The bay or harbor is fully thirty miles long, and offers safe anchorage for all the fleets in the world. The site of the town is about six miles wide, and covers an area of nearly twenty-seven thousand acres. From the top of Telegraph Hill, to which the cable cars swiftly bear you, there is a magnificent view. Farther toward the west is Russian Hill, three hundred and sixty feet high. The population of the city is over three hundred thousand, — a solid growth from the wretched little village which the first gold-miners found a half century ago. What stoi'ies the "oldest inhabitants" can relate of those days! What romance in the lives of such men as the Banker Meiggs, who decamped with the savings of the prudent miners, and then, having become a multi- millionaire, returned from South America years afterward to pay them or their heirs the stolen principal with compound interest! What tales of Yigilants, and summary justice administered to lawless ruffians! What romantic epics of fortune-making and losing! The auri sacra fames — the cursed thirst for gold — drives men out of their senses! Was it wise to represent the streets of heaven as paved with gold? Doesn't it appeal to a more sordid instinct? The visitor to San Francisco is always taken to the Chinese quarter, which is situated not far from the center of the city. Here one finds the shops of the wealthy Chinese companies,' and in contrast the cellars and sub-cellars where the most degraded objects of humanity imaginable are to be found: unventilated opium-dens, the effluvium of which takps away yoirr breath; vile rooms, the purposes of which cannot be even mentioned; shops and work-rooms, swarming with the self-satisfied looking pig-tailed sons of the far East. Here is the home of the high-binder, and some of those tall buildings have grewsome memories of murder and disappearance. The treatment of the Chinese by Christian California does not bear investigation under the moral microscope. It is on a par with, the national treatment of the Indians. But the Chinese quarter of San Francisco must not be missed, even though it fill the visitor with mingled wonder, horror, and disgust. Was Sodom and Gomorrah any worse? And yet many of those Chinese merchants are the soul of mercantile honor, and are eternally grateful for '1.,lliiilll,!li',L',ilj,,ii','ilk'j" i, utoU. J>'. CALIFORNIA UNDER DIFFICULTIES, 1048 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. J favors extended, — the "Heathen Chinee" to the contrary notwithstanding. Perform- V ances at the Chinese Theater are almost as long as life itself; but it is intei-esting to stop for a half hour and see the acting, incomprehensible though it be; and the trained musician will get a new idea of harmony by listening to the strains of the ear-piercing \j instruments and the high falsetto-singing of Chinese songs. The Joss-house also will offer fond for contemplation, though we may not feel impelled to try mechanical prayers. It is a relief to return to the safe and solid magnificence of the Palace Hotel, the cost of which, you are informed with bated breath, was not less than six million dollars! , SEAL POINT, SAN FRANCISCO BAY. The San Franciscan is, indeed, proud of his native hotels, no less than of the palaces of its multi-millionaires. For those who have time, a pilgrimage to the missions of the Spanish Jesuits along the coast is not without a deep pensive charm. "Whatever judgment may be passed on the theology, or the subtler morals of the disciples of Loyola, history certainly ofiers no sublimer instances of self-sacrifice and obedience to Duty, "Stern daughter of the voice of God," than may be found in the annals of the Jesuits; and the line of mis- sions, ruined or falling in picturesque decay, that stretches along the coast of Southern California is a touching testimony of their labors. But Southern California, which was once given over to raising the fruits of the Spirit, is now devoted to more material fruits. It is the orchard of the land. Under the magic impulse of irrigation, those fertile valleys blossom like the rose. Fruits of every kind flourish under this delicious sky; and, as for flow6rs, Eastern eyes have no notion of what blooming means. One might spend months on this enchanted coast. Back, but in full view, are the ever- A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1049 varying mountains. And the glorious Pacific, not always true to its name, sends in its huge breakers in creamy foam along the curving beaches or on the rocky cliflfe. One cannot leave San Francisco without a full draught of this cup of deUght, and San Francisco's Ocean Park is unexcelled in the world. As we ride out in the electric tram, we shall hear of the gallant fight made by San Francisco's Hebrew mayor to secure access to the shore for the thousands of his fellow-citizens. And there we shall catch glimpses perhaps of the same seals which months before were sporting on the SACRAMENTO. waves of the Alaskan archipelago! This colony of seals and sea-lions is one of the wonders of the West. But in spite of ihe attractions of San Francisco and of the whole coast of Southern California, we must be turning our faces homeward. Before we leave for the Yosemite, we will make a brief visit in Sacramento, the capital. It is only eighty-^ine miles from San Francisco on the Sacramento Eiver, which affords a delightful water-way for the traveler far up into the State. Agriculture has proved a more golden boon for Cali- fornia than all her mines, and Sacramento is in the very center of the richest grain- fields and orchards in the worid. The climate is beyond reproach. Indeed, the word "weather," in the opprobrious Kew England sense, is not mentioned in California. 1050 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. Sacramento is a great railway center, and its trade is enormous. The State capitol cost upwards of three millions. The Crocker Art Gallery has a collection of pictures of which any European city might be proud. If one follows up the Sacramento River, and then takes to the Cottonwood Creek, one will in time reach the vicinity of Mount Shasta. Here are located rich mines which the Indians knew of and defended. Scarcely a quarter of a century ago it was not safe for the white man, even when well convoyed and armed, to enter this mysterious region. A whole library might be Written about the vicissitudes of mines. "The Lost Confidence" mine would deserve a chapter. As an iron mine it failed j but afterward MODERN MINING. silver was discovered in it, and it became a source of unbounded wealth to its new owners. Modern mining has learned something from the study of the action of water: a good head of pressure will soon tear its way through pretty solid rock, and lay bare the hidden treasures. Mount Shasta (which is said to have obtained its name from a corruption of a Russian word meaning chaste) is 14,444 feet high. It was once a volcano. Its ascent is a tour de force in every sense. In the wonderful valleys at the foot of this snow- capped butte, you may fall in with some Wintoons. Would you like to say a few words to the pretty little squaw? Well, you may say: — Arnee! chocky, kellalee, nett lionda me yommoi, which means, "Ah! when far or near, I always think of thee." She may answer: — Ella tipna weetah teen nunarma. Booya Barla! which signifies that she knows men's words are not all true; they are all nonsense! Be not discouraged, flatter her, say: A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1051 Mutt koolkool col, mutt teen yorkos (Your lips are like sugar; your words like gold). Then, if she smiles, say: Challa mohalie, elchoopcJia wittelly, nett minnel ! (My dear girl, kiss me quick, or I die!), or Haddeo ! himniar, kenivarnie chippetvinnem nett lieiheina miss! (Say! morning, noon, and night I love thee!); but if she scowls and looks indignant, then you may say: Ello chiUook beersJcin, komm harlarda! which will signify: Don't be provoked; I was only fooling! TO SHASTA'S FEET, The vision of Shasta is a picture to place in the memory beside that of the great peak of Japan, or the four giant peaks which we saw in the North. Instead of being a pyramid, however, it is truncated; the top is a level plateau. Oh, but it is cold up there! Our next stop must be at the Yosemite Valley. As regards size, the Yellowstone is vastly superior; but here Nature concentrates her marvels. The valley is a narrow gorge, between the Bast and West Sierras. It is only about six miles long, and its depth' is, on the average, greater than its width. Its perpendicular walls rise a mile above the floor of the valley, and the valley itself is over four thousand feet above the sea The visitor is prepared for any marvels as he enters the grove of giant Mariposas that stand like lignified giants at the entrance. Satan, as imagined by Milton, might have plucked up one of these enormous trunks for his spear: — 1(152 . A TOUR OF THE WORLD. "to equal which the tallest pine Hewn ou Norwegian hills, to be the mast ; Of some great ammiral, were but a waud." Hundreds of feet they tower into the air; their size is beyond belief, and when you see a wagon with two horses driven right through the trunk of one of them, as through a media3val city-gate, you rub your eyes and think you are dreaming. The trail to the valley leads down steeply, offering a succession of glorious views. First of all, the eye is attracted by the stupendous mass of the "Great Chief of ^-^rli-, GEMS OF SIERRAS. the Valley," — El Capitan, a granite cliff rising sheer over three thousand feet. At the west of Cathedral Rock, the Merced River gives a wild plunge of 630 feet before it strikes, to leap away again in a succession of cascades. This is the famous Bridal Veil Fall, which the Indians called Pohono, — a far more beautiful and less hackneyed name. In the spring, when the snows are melting, there are numberless other water-falls: the one opposite Pohono bears another sentimental name, but, like " the virgin's tears," dries up in summer. Its leap is more than a thousand feet. The reflection of Cathe- dral Rock in the now placid waters of the Merced is like a dream of beauty. The Spires are twin peaks joined by a wall of adamant. Farther up the valley are the Pompompasus, the "Leaping Frog Rocks," which unimaginative visitors have christened " The Three Brothers." Strange that the Indians, who have been so rudely dispossessed of their lands, cannot be allowed at least to perpetuate their memory by their sonorous and always appropriate appellations; the rechristening is in nearly every case a decided BIG TREES OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 1054 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. loss in individuality and poetry. Opposite the Pompoinpasus is "Sentinel Rock," which rises in a solid mass over three thousand feet above the valley. From here in a straight line, two miles and a half away, is the grandest fall of all, — the Yosemite. This also varies in magnitude, according to the season. At the bottom it varies from twenty to forty feet in width. The precipice over which it descends is about 2,600 feet high. The first plunge is 1,500 feet, then it leaps down in cascades, the final one being about four hundred feet. When the wind blows, it sways and vibrates with VIEW IN YOSEMITE VALLEY. an indescribably weird effect. At the end of the valley, it branches into three canons, hollowed out by the rivers. That leading to the northwest is called the Tenaya, and contains that enchanting lake of visions, Mirror Lake, in which, reduplicated, you see the mighty rock walls and the gigantic trees. The central canon is the work of the main stream of the Merced. Here also are magnificent cataracts. The first is the Vernal, having a height of four hundred feet; a mile farther up the river is the gem of them all, — the I^evada, which is nearly two hundred feet higher. There is a differ- ence of fully three hundred feet also between the two falls. The scenery all around is almost equal to that of the Yosemite itself Looking down upon the carton is the " Cap of Liberty," an isolated crag fully two thousand feet in height. All these marvels of atmospheric architecture are due, in the first instance, probably to the erosion of water, though some scientists have claimed that the Yosemite Valley was caused by earthquake or volcanic action. However it was caused, the valley is one MARBLE CANONS IN THE PAGUMP VALLEY, UTAH. 1056 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. of the greatest wonders of the world, and deserves all the panegyrics that have been lavished on it. There are many canons in the West. That of the Colorado is pre- eminent for its wild magnificence and its colossal walls rising above the rushing river. The Marble Canon in Utah is no less tremendous in its amplitude and in the beauty of its coloring; but it is rarely visited. SITKA, ALASKA- CROSSING THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. THE RETURN TO THE EAST. ALL good things must come to an end. Adam had to leave his Paradise, and we must leave this modern Eden, the beauties of which seem every day to take a deeper hold on the mind. Fortuhate are we, however, that, instead of having to endure the long voyage round Cape Horn, or even to cross the Isthmus of Panama, or, still 1058 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. worse, to depend on emigrant wagons for the terrible journey across the mighty "divide" of danger-haunted mountains and the alkaline plains, we may step into a luxuriously-appointed car, — a sort of hotel on rails, — and fly, or rather glide, smoothly and comfortably from city to city, — homeward bound. After crossing the beautiful Sierras, where the same story of difl5culties surmounted is repeated in the hieroglyphics of tunnels and dizzy bridges, viaducts and parapets, we take a northeast course across the great State of I^evada, and are soon skirting the blue waters of that strange inland SILVER-MINING IN COLORADO. ocean, — the great Salt Lake, or the Timpanagos, as the Indians called it. Ogden is reached. This city has been called the Marvel of the Desei-t. It is the terminal of no less than seven railways, and its population is more than twenty thousand. Above it rise the "splendid peaks of the Wasatch Mountains, the peaks of which are over two miles above the sea and one mile above the lake level. Two crystal rivers flow down from the mountains, — the Ogden and the Weber, — having each of them earned their passage to freedom by wearing away tremendous canons through the mountains. The Ogden furnishes the city with pure sparkling water for drinking, and irrigates the whole region. From the top of the heights overlooking the city, the view is magnificent: at our feet lies the Great Salt Lake, with its islands and bold shores rising up into snow- capped mountains. The city itself covers more than sixteen square miles, and is em- A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1059 bowered in trees whose roots are watered by the ever-flowing canals. A boulevard leads directly from the city into the canon of the Ogden. Here is a striking exhibition of the power of water; and this power, which has been running to waste, — if anything in Nature runs to waste, — is soon to be utilized in furnishing the city with limitless electrical energy and light. There are tremendous cataracts and rapids, the thunders of the waters echoing J;hrough the lofty walls. At the entrance of the canon are hot springs. About an hour's run from Ogden is Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah, and the most interesting. It has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Driven away from civilized lands on account of their peculiar doctrines, the Mormons, under the lead of Brigham Young, who was one of the great men of his day, — a sort of a Solomon, even as regards the plurality of his wives, — struck into the wilderness and settled down a thousand miles' distance from his nearest neighbors. Streets one hundred and thirty-two feet wide were laid out at intervals, making the blocks or squares 660 feet square. The land seemed to be a desert; but Brigham Young's keen eye saw the crystal streams flowing idly down from the noble mountains that hemmed in the valley, and he whis- pered the word, " Irrigation." Then the wilderness literally began to blossom like the rose; the plains were fertile, and wealth flowed into the coffers of the "Saints." They had a truer wisdom than might have been expected; instead of trying to force the minerals which they knew lurked in the mountains which rose so grandly above them, they devoted themselves to agriculture and manufacturing. The city now has about forty thousand inhabitants, and the Mormons are out- numbered by the Gentiles; but still they cling to their religion. Their Tabernacle, which was designed by Brigham Young, is two hundred and fifty feet long, one hundred and fifty feet wide, and ninety feet high. Its acoustic properties are wonder- ful; every person in an audience, often exceeding thirteen thousand, can hear what is said. There is an enormous organ with three thousand pipes, and the choir has two hundred singers. JSTear by is the Temple, of gray granite. Its dimensions are two hundred by ninety-nine feet. The architecture of this is more conventional; it has three towers at each end, and % the two central spires are two hundred feet in height. The Assembly Hall has a seating capacity of 2,500, and the most elaborately decorated interior of any building in the West. It cost $150,000. The whole temple, when it is completed, will have cost nearly five millions. The Eastern visitor will look with interest at the Endowment House, where the marriage and baptismal services were at one time performed. He will also have the Lion House pointed out to him. Here lived ten of the great polygamist's wives. His favorite wife, Amelia Folsom, lived in the Grado House, across the street, and facing the Bee Hive, which was the executive office of "the Church of the Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ." In the northern part of the city are delightful hot springs which have been instrumental in curing many diseases. There are many public buildings in Salt Lake City, of which any town might 1062 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. height of two thousand feet above the river. It is more than sixteen miles long, and full of grand and startling effects. One of the three tunnels through which the railway passes is quarter of a mile in length j but then tunnels are an unmitigated nuisance. By means of the Hagerman Tunnel, indeed, we dive through the Saugauche Range, at a height of 11,528 feet above the sea. As we had climbed up, and ever up, through the wild scenery of Hell Gate, it seemed as if we should never get beyond. But this wonderful tunnel — one of the highest in the world — brings us safely through, five hundred lower than the summit. What will not the skill of engineering accomplish? "What a scene on every side! Have we mentioned the glimpse of the famous Mountain of the Holy Cross? That was visible a little way back. No dwarf of a mountain! Over fourteen thousand feet rises its snow-crowned head, and the upright of the cross — which is formed of several canons filled with snow — is fifteen hundred feet. We begin the descent, and wind round and down to Leadville, famous in story. It would be interesting to stop for a few hours in this great mining town, but we must onward. We cannot join the prospectors whose claims stake out the mountain, or put a hand into the horn of plenty pre-empted by "the Big Four" or "the Big Six." We can only open our eyes with wonder at the stories of the marvelous wealth which the genies have stored for man in these regions above the clouds. After leaving Buena Vista, where are the Cottonwood Hot Springs, we have a new series of wonderful views. The so-called Collegiate Eange — Mounts Harvard, Yale, and Pi-inceton — lift their hoary heads over fourteen thousand feet, and then far below lies the beautiful valley of the Arkansas River, which began near the top of the Continental Divide in Fremont Pass. The grand canon of the Arkansas is about eight miles long^ and through this the railway runs. At the Royal George, the walls of the gorge rise 2,500 feet above the track. At Florence we may see a train just starting for that other mining camp, Cripple Creek, which is forty miles away, through another marvelous suc- cession of difficulties overcome. Still following the course of the Arkansas River, we reach Pueblo, sometimes called the Pittsburg of the West, — a city of forty thousand in- habitants, and smoky with its smelting works. From Pueblo, which is also a junction, we turn due north, and, after a run of forty-five miles, find ourselves at Colorado Springs. This has grown to be a town of fifteen thousand inhabitants. The society is delightful. Beautiful houses have been built, and the views from the principal streets are magnificent. Pike's Peak, the high monarch of the Rockies, is in full view, and to the south rises the beautiful Cheyenne Mountain, where the poet Helen Hunt Jackson is buried. Colorado Spi'ings is the seat of Colorado Universit)^, one of the most creditable institutions of learning in the West. Five miles from Colorado Springs is the " Saratoga of the West,"' — Manitou Springs. The springs which bubble forth so salubriously at Manitou were known to the Indians in pre-historic times. They were visited by French missionaries two hundred years ago. It is just half a century since they were A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1063 described by the Englishman Ruxton in language that even now sets the blood thrill- ing. Manitou has a bewildering array of attractions besides its springs, — caves and canons, walks and drives. It is only a short distance to the celebrated Garden of the Gods, into which you enter by a red sandstone gate, the portals of which are about four hundred feet high. Once inside, you find what at first sight might be thought to be a petrified menagerie: seals and bears, mammoths and monkeys, fishes and elephants, — all kinds of monsters grotesquely carved out of the rock. The park contains about five hundred acres, filled with huge rocks worn by water into all sorts of strange and incongruous shapes. Some of the crags tower several hundred feet in height; some of the strange forms are high up on the walls, that enclose the Garden. From a window which some master architect might have built, there is a superb view of Pike's Peak ; here you would think that Pisa had sent over her leaning tower; yonder are cathedral spires that might have come from Milan. There is a strange mixture of the grand and the grotesque. You no longer wonder that cathedrals were ornamented with gargoyles! One imaginative visitor de- clared that he found there huge stone toadstools, yellow, i-ed, and pink baits of Chinese form, two-ton sun-bonnets, pillars supporting a fine assortment of kettles or caldrons, two-hundred- pound loaves of underdone bread, petrified dumb bells, and a whole flock of witches in tattered raiment. Every visitor, you see, has his own imagination vividly excited by these freaks, and has to give them his own names; a set of cut-and-dried appellations is an impertinence. A few miles above the Garden of the Gods is Monument Park, which, while it is not so grotesque as the other, has a somewhat similar museum of natural curiosities. Against a lovelv background of soft yellow and white sandstone cliffs, thick set with evergreen foliage, arise these strange carvings of Nature. Here again they have been impertinently named: "The Anvil," "The Quaker Wedding," "Dunces' Parliament," SINKING SPRING, NEAR TYRONE. (PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD.) 1064 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. "Priest and Nun;' and dozens of other names. The Kocky Mountains are full of such wonders. Wo might spend months with Denver or Colorado Springs as a starting- point, and visit wild canons, park-like valleys, lovely lakes, and mountain-tops offering the most extended views. From Manitou, a cog-wheel railway ascends to the very summit of Pike's Peak, from which there is a view that is memorable. You are stand- ing on a height, but all around are others not much less imposing. In Colorado, there VILLAGE IN PENNSYLVANIA. are nearly one hundred and fifty peaks over ten thousand feet high. What would Zebulon Pike have said when, in November, 1806, he attempted to climb this moun- tain, and declared that no human being could do it. But time is pressing; we might spend months in this fascinating region, and we must onward. Denver is our next gtop, — Denver, "The Queen City of the Plains." Of the Plains? Yet it is situated just a mile above the level of the sea, and on its horizon rise the Rockies. Her population is going on toward two hundred thousand; and she is, indeed, the metropolis of the Rockies. She has evei-y reason to be proud of her growth and prosperity. It was only forty year« ago that the first beginnings were laid. The camp which grew into the capital was called Auraria. Then, to reach it, required a long and dangerous A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1065 route across the limitless plains. Now a dozen railways center there. She has an opera-house that cost nearly a miUion. The State capitol is costing about three millions. The more conventional way to return to the East fi'om Denver, would be to take in Chicago and the cities along the lakes; but we have already had a glimpse of the Great Lakes, and we will, therefore, take a more southern route. From Kansas City BRIDGE NEAR FAIRMOUNT. we will proceed directly east to St. Louis, where we cross the Mississippi by a mag- nificent cantalever bridge, one of the most wonderful in the world. St. Louis is not a particularly interesting city to the tourist who has been seeing scenes of such surpass- ing beauty as we have just left, but we cannot help being struck by its enormous extent and by its restless life. Its situation explains its prosperity; lying as it does at the junction of two mighty rivers, and gathering up the riches of three States, nay, of dozens of States, it is naturally a home of wealth. Our next brief stop is at Cin- cinnati, on the Ohio, and here again we find the evidences of boundless prosperity. As we' come East, we strike once more a region of fascinating mountain scenery; we must cross the Alleghanies, and, although the heights are less colossal than those 1066 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. which we got so accustomed to viewing in the "West, we shall not tire of their beauti- ful slopes and curves. What could be more picturesque than the famous Horse Shoe Bend? What could be more delightful than to stop for a few days' rest at Deer Park, on the Divide of the AUeghanies, where the rivers, rising close together, start off on their long journeys toward the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic. Here are lovely moun- tain views, and a scenery restful and satisfying, and yet not without its elements of grandeur. It would not do to end our journey without a visit to Washington. This glorious city comes as a surprise even to those who are well informed. Thirty years ago there was still much about the city that spoke of newness, and there were many detestable contrasts between public magnificence and private squalor. But now no city in the country has more beautiful mansions, and there has come in a permanent population of ranch culture and wealth. There is much to see in Washington, and several days might well be spent here. First of all, we will go to the top of the Washington Monument, from which is afforded a wide-sweeping view which stirs the heart with memories. Yonder flows the broad Potomac; there are the heights of Arlington and the silent city of the heroic dead. The public buildings are grouped about our feet. We must visit them in turn, but the finest view of the Capitol is from the very edge of the Potomac. The writer remembers seeing it just after a heavy thunder-shower had passed by: the sky was still purple with tbe massy cloud, and the sun had just come out so that a rainbow arched above the white dome and front of the beautiful building. It was like a vision of the Celestial City! The Smithsonian Institute, the Patent Office, and the new Library-building deserve long and careful study, and then there are the Corcoran Art Gallery, the White House, and the Treasury Building, all of which have their fascinating attractions. From Washington we proceed to Philadelphia. Since the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 Philadelphia has spruced up immensely. It was a witty society lady there who, not long ago, speaking of the former slurs that were cast at her native town for its deadness, remarked that, in Philadelphia, B. C. meant Before the Centennial. There is some truth in that. It used to be said that in Boston culture, in New York wealth, and in Philadelphia good family, was the passport to the first circles. In former days each Philadelphia mansion had marble steps leading to the front door. These were used for two purposes: for entrance and for altars to the worship of ancestors. Every morning, at the same hour, clouds of steam are seen ascending from these altars, and what seem to be acolytes or vestal virgins kneel on the marble slabs. It used to be a cult; it is now only a habit, and is not pei'formed by the pious descendants themselves, but by their proxies. It was called " doing the fronts ! " This has given rise to a special disease called " servants' knee." But, jesting apart, the immaculate whiteness of the Philadelphia doorsteps is worthy of all praise. Even slabs of blue marble seem z z u I- z 1x1 o III 3: I- H X I- < < X -J < o iLl 1068 A TOUR OF THE WORLD. to turn Avhite after a few years of this treatment. The streets of Philadelphia were laid out with extreme regularity by AVilliam Penn. Market Street sweeps between the Delaware and the Schuylkill, and Broad Street stretches at right angles, running for miles and miles over the level ground. Chestnut Street, however, is the principal business street, and parallel with it runs Walnut, which, above Broad Street, and, together with a certain district, including Eittenhouse Square, the Philadelphians like to call the " court end of town." Many of the quiet old houses that made these streets monotonous, however delightful they were inside, have been transformed in the last few years ; and now Philadelphia has many fronts which are architecturally beautiful. The visitor will like tp climb to the top of the City Hall, and from the dizzy height of its tower view the landscape o'er. The building, which is more noticeable for its size and the height of its tower than from any genuine architectural splendor, occupies nearly a whole square at the intersection of the two principal streets. Its cost was upwards of twenty millions. l^ear it, on Chestnut Street, is the mint. At the lower end of Chestnut Sti-eet is the most historic building in Pennsylvania. Here hangs the cracked bell which once rang liberty to all the nations. In West Phila- delphia, just beyond the Schuylkill, is Pennsylvania University, many of the buildings of which are worth an extended visit. Fairmount Park and the Zoological Gardens offer charming recreation. The Art Gallery contains some of the pictures that attracted attention at the time of the Centennial. The journe}' from Philadelphia to IS^ew York has now been so shortened by doing away with curves and by a road-bed of adamantine solidity that one scarcely notices the lapse of time. Before we know it, we are rolling into the station at Jersey City, and before us rise the strange conglomerate of lofty buildings that distinguishes lower New York. I'here is no beauty of sky-line and no unity of architecture. Everything is sacrificed to make more room; for where land is worth five or six hundred dollars a square foot, rents must be high and buildings high also. Trinity spire, which used to be a landmark, is now buried under the mass of roofs. The newspaper buildings are most in evidence; it is their part, of course, to be conspicuous. Even at night they gleam with electric lights, as if the cliff-dwellers' abodes, which ,we left in far-off Arizona with never a mention, — so many things crowded them out, — had been trans- ported to the entrance of the Hudson. Then there is that marvel of the age, — the Brooklyn Bridge, whose huge cables seem to hold twisted into their fabric the very embodiment of the Nineteenth Century. This at night is transformed into a necklace of brilliants fit for the Queen of the East. A delightful spot in old New York is the Battery, — that little Park, spoiled to be sure by the tracks of the Elevated, but, nevertheless, even in its degradation, offering a resting-place and a vantage-ground for observation. Yonder is the Statue of Liberty A TOUR OF THE WORLD. 1069 EnlighteniHg the World, and in front of us goes the ever-changing panorama of the ships. A part of the great deep has been taken up bodily, so to speak. The Great Aquarium is one of the spectacles of 'New York. As one rides up town, either on a Broadway car or by the Elevated, one sees evidence on every hand of the commercial supremacy of the city. Birds of a feather flock together, and so do the various trades and branches of trad^ Here in one quarter are collected the wool merchants; in another dry goods, in another pianos, in another the publishers ; and so it goes. It would take a volume to do justice to l^ew York, especially in its new aspect as a compound city, including all the outlying suburbs and Brooklyn. Viewed in this sig- nificance it leaps at once to being one of the greatest centers of population in the world. But it still has Central Park and the new park-like region looking down upon the Hudson. With a drive through the Park, and a visit to the tomb of General Grant on Mol-ningside Heights, our stay in New York must end. * We come to Boston by boat, as that gives us the delightful sail up the East Eiver in the early evening. It is a succession of charming views ; but soon the last towers of the city fade away, and we pass along by the villa-decorated shores of Long Island. We reach Boston early in the morning; and here we find everything in a state of flux, as it were. The old State House, which used to dominate the top of Beacon Hill, is dwarfed by tall buildings. It has grown an enormous tail, which caused the demolition of scores of houses; but, unfortunately for architecture, the old dome and the narrow old facade — well enough when it was in its original entirety — have been • perpetuated in marble instead of wood, and it is now neither one thing nor another. The historic Common is riddled underground by the Subway, the proof of which is seen in a series of little buildings where Boston had once vowed no building should ever stand. A vast area of Boston has been rased to the ground to make way for the new Union Sta- tion. Boston is changing so rapidly that its own sons, staying away for a few months, hardly know it. But still it is Boston. The Old South still stands and is safe for the next century. Park Street church is threatened; trade demands its site. The new Public Library and the Art Museum, Trinity Church and the new Old South make a goodly company on Copley Square; and the Parks by which the city is encompassed, and the perpetual beauty of the suburbs and the harbor, make it a city among ten thousand. Its growth is rivaling that of some of the Western cities, but it still, in spite of all changes, retains its individuality; it is still the Athens of America, and the hub! THE END.