►.■jf.' '""-^S/ '^"X'h'i"''''^**'''" ''-'••-1 '•*' ''■ !!?PP™i"SrK*;l'* l-'tV!"; !'''h" v^.-'j •' ;'■'."■'-' i'jvs.v^'iVA- |A|W'y«-llf^* *M1K s'* ' • f- ' -'it *-»- 'k.,. . 1 .* \, ~ ■ .; ■■:^j!^fe^--^-/;;:..riJ:.!'r:;'--r':'- ..' *■ ,Vji) ..^T-.:,r';;.i\.'',*;'i'"l;r,'. / LATE EMPRESS EUGENIE. SIGHTS AND SENSATIONS EUROPE SKETCHES OP TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, FRANCE, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, ITALY, AUSTRIA, POLAND, HUNGARY, HOLLAND, AND BELGIUM, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE PLACES AND PERSONS PROMI- NENT IN THE FRANCO- GERMAN W^AR. . 1 t1 s vJTJIsriTJS SIEiTI?.! BI^O"W^:' Authw of " F(yur Years in Secessia,'''' and " The Great Metrvpolis." I'H.OI'XJSJBIj-X" IIjIjXTS1'H..A.a?:B30. PUBLISHED BY SUBSOEIPTIOM 0NL7. HARTFORD, CONN.: J^l^lSmiCJ^N PXJBLISHIT^a- COJ^FJ^N-Y. FRANCIS DEWING & CO., SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 1871. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON d5 \9 3^' Entered according to act of Congress, in year 1871, by AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO., in the office of the Librarian of Consrress at Washington. Those Who Have Been to Europe, And To Those Who Have Not, (such as it is), Jn the Hope that the Two Classes M.ay Become ITS Purchasers, Js/A ercenarily nscribed. PEEFAOE. Fou some reason, never made clear to me, every American is supposed to know all about Europe. I always fancied such complete knowledge to be mine until I went abroad, and found my mistake. In attempting to describe so many countries in a single volume much of the description must necessarily be mere outline. I have devoted the most space to what seemed least familial', and have tried to give clearly and unambitiously a general view of the Old World. My theme, I am aware, is very ancient, and if its treatment prove tiresome, the fault must be ascribed to the author's good fortune (the reader's corresponding ill fortune is not here to be taken into account) in securing that most desirable of all critics — a Publisher. "While the book has been going through the press, the situation in France has changed so rapidly that I have sj)oken for the most part of the coun- try and the capital as if the War had not been. J. H. B. New York, May, 1871. PAQB Late Empress Eugenie Frontispiece. — All Sebestb 18 Shaved in Two Minutes 22 TippiNQ 25 Good for a Sotereign 26 Third Class Railway Carriage 28 A Hansom Cab 30 St. Paul's Cathedral 33 Street Beggar 35 A Fleet Street Groggert 36 Sptjrgeon 40 Bathing at Htde Park 44 Delivering the " Times " 45 After the Dance 47 An English Beautt 48 Tower of London (Full Page), pace page 64 Shakespeare 66 My Guidb 67 Shakespeare's House » 70 Fatal News ' 74 Tunnel IN THE MiNB 76 Nelson's Monument 104 Peggy on her Low Back Car 107 Monument to Daniel O'Connell 108 "May You Niver Want a Pound " 112 Boulevard St. Michel 129 Place de la Bastille 130 Universal Politeness 132 The Hotel de Ville 134 Graves of Abelard and Heloise 137 Church op St. Genevieve 138 Church op St. Sulpice 139 Hotel des Invalides 140 Paris Views and Buildings (Full Page), pace page 160 Napoleon El. (Full Page), pace page 186 8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE General MacMahon (Foil Page), face page 216 Mountain Travel (Full Page), pace page 234 Madrid (Full Page), face page 240 Bull Fight (Full Page), face page 256 Peasant Costume 291 Peasant Costume 293 German Festival 296 Beer Drinking 300 Bismarck (Full Page), pace page 320 Gambling Scene (Full Page), pace page 340 Emperor William (Full Page), face page 356 Emperor's Palace— Berlin 358 Prince Frederic William 359 Palace of the Crown Prince 300 Prince Frederic Charles 363 Baron Von Moltke 365 Lake Como (Full Page), face page 379 Climbing Mont Blanc (Full Page), pace page 400 Genoese Women 480 Columbus Monument 431 Church Beggars 435 Leaning Tower 436 Wayside Shrine 437 Live Saint 467 A Dead Saint 469 The Vatican 472 St. Peter's, Rome 474 The Pope Blessing the Populace . . 475 The Pope's Hat 476 Bat op Naples (Full Page), face page 480 Garden Scene (Full Page), face page 528 Down the Shaft 534 Getting Out Salt 537 Fete in the Grand Chamber 538 The Ihferkal Lake 540 CHAPTER I. ON AND OVER SEA. PAGE. Ocean Travel— The Advantage of Freedom from Sea Sickness— A Quoter of Poetiy Justly Punished— The Sentiment of a Bridal Couple Destroy- ed by a Storm— First Impressions of England— Liverpool and its Lions —Its "Wealthy Merchants— Custom House Officers, .... 17 CHAPTER n. LONDON. Match- Vending a Pretext for Begging— Tipping as a Social Science-The Theaters— A Tragedian of the Past— Droll Scene at Sadlers Wells- Cabs and Cabmen— A LabjTinthine City— The Times Establishment— St. Paul's— Billingsgate— Over Eight Thousand Spirit Shops— Drunk- en Women Repulsively Abundant, 24 CHAPTER III. SPUKGEON. The Tabemacle-The Great Crowd in Attendance-Paying for Admissioa —Appearance and Manner of the Famous Clergyman— The Whole Congregation Singing— The Secret of his Power and Popularity, . 39 CHAPTER IV. THE BRITISH METROPOLIS, Some Of its Notable Features-The Daily Press-Strange Scandal about the Duke of Wellington— Evenings at the Alhambra-A Peculiar Ball at the Cremome Gardens-White Bait-English Beauty-The Estab- lished Church— Dean Stanley of Westminster, 43 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. MAGNIFICENCE OF PARIS. PAGE. Pere la Chaise — Disappointment in the Cemetery — Search for the Tomb of Abelard and Heloise — Women of the Humble Class Moved by Senti- ment — Abelard one of the Most Heartless and Selfish of Men — The Churches of the City — The Hotel des Invalides and Tomb of Napoleon — The Bourse — Frantic Stocli-Buyers — Screaming Speculators — A Complete Financial Bedlam — A Foolish Follower of Fortune — A Young Man Wasting Life for Wealth — A Mother's Agony over the Cradle of her Child, 136 CHAPTER XVI. LIFE IN PARIS. A Bad Place for Bad Tendencies — How Young Men Study on the Conti- nent — The "Grand Duchess" Schneider — The Women of the Capital — Difficulty Pretty Girls Have in Securing Places — Their Countless Temptations — American Women on the Seine — Cheap and Satisfactory Living — Story of La Ferine, the Popular News-Dealer — Adroit Adver- tising in Her Behalf. -143 CHAPTER XVII. NOVELTIES OF PARIS. The French Capital as a Wicked City — The Cocotte Balls — The Valentino, Casino, Chateau Rouge, Closerie de Lilas, and Jardin Malille — Unique and Extraordinary Dancing — Indecency of the Can-Can — Singular Mode of Getting Rid of a Wife — Ingenious Manner of Making a Repu- tation — Peculiar Experience at the Morgue — Romantic Fiction about Clarisse Demorne — New Way of Gaining a Livelihood, ... 149 CHAPTER XVIII. ROMANCE AND MURDER IN PARIS. French Love of Horror — The Great Sensation of the ' Pantin Murder — Ar- tistic Treatment of Subjects by the Press — The Sentimental Cut-Throat of the Rue St. Honore — A Waiter's Inability to Understand Strict Ce- libacy — The Notorious Theresa as a Singer — The Original of Camille— Parisian Students — A Young Coxcomb Playing the Part of a Blase Man of the World — The Convenience of Spealdng French, - - -155 CHAPTER XLX. CATACOMBS OF PARIS. Their Situation and Extent — Three and a Half Millions of Persons Buried in Them — Setting out on the Dismal Excursion — Groping in the Dark- ness — Ghastly Display of Bones and Skulls — The Grinning Hideousness of Death — Victims of the Great Revolution — Theological Inscriptions — Sight-Seers Lost in the Sombre Labyrinth — Their Terrible Sufferings . — ^And Lingering Agony — The Relief of the Bright Sunshine, -- -161 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. SOCIAL STATUS OF PARIS. PAGI. France Morally Misunderstood — The Capital not so Black as Painted — Par- isian Ethics — The Life of a Lorette on the Seine — The Demi-Monde and its Spheres — The Educated Mistress — The Grisette — The Advent- uress — A Glittering but Wretched Career^The Professional Cyprian — The Promenaders on the Boulevards — The Reckless Night- AValkers — Peace at last in the Morgue — Storm and Sunshine — Pain and Pleasure Strangely Blended, 167 CHAPTER XXI. THE CHIFFONNIEES OF PARI?. Everything Reduced to a System — Six Hundred Men, "Women, and Children Engaged in Rag-Picking — Their Industry and Dexterity — Nothing Es- capes Them — The Paradise this Country Would Prove — An Unbroken Bottle a Rare Prize — Great Excitement over Thi-ee Glass Vessels — Where and How They Live — The Fortune of the Fork — Soup of All Sorts — The Rag Merchants — Prices Paid for the Miscellaneous Gather- ings — Independence and Honesty of the Tribe — Contented in their Own Way, - - 174 CHAPTER XXIL LOUIS NAPOLEON. Mystery of his Birth — Early Incidents of his Life — His One Absorbing Thought to Rule France — His Mortifying Failures — Final Success — The Famous Coup d'Etat — Return of Adversity — the World's Judg- ments Unstable — Constant Anxieties and Apprehensions of the Emperor — What His Friends Claim for Him — His Complex Character — How he Looks, ^80 CHAPTER XXIII. THE EX-EMPRESS EUGENIE. Her Romantic and Eventful Career— Her Cosmopolitan Nature— How She Brought the Emperor to Terms— Great Popularity with the People — The Secret Histoiy of her Estrangement from her Husband— Her Loss of Public Favor through her Superstition— Sending the State Jewels to the Pope— Noble Bearing in Adversity— Sympathy with the Woman in her Sorrow, '^^ CHAPTER XXIV. HENRI ROCHEFORT. A Thorough Parisian— His Passion for Excitement— Personal Appearance of the Irreconcilable Journalisf— His Resemblance to a Mississipjjian or Arkansan— A Cool Head and Hot Heart— An Aristocratic Democrat— A Red Republican through Wounded Vanity— rHis Power with the Masses— A Formidable and Unyielding Foe, 191 ^^ CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXV. THE CHIEF FRENCH CITIES. PAOB. Radical Views and Sentiments of the South— Lyons— The Silk and Velvet Manufactures — Antiquity of the City — Suburban Residences of the "Wealthy Merchants — Prosaic Version of PauUne Deschapelles and Claude Melnotte's Romance — Marseilles — A Great Seaport — All Na- tions Represented There — The Province of Normandy — Rouen — Its Churches— Tomb of William the Conqueror — Havre — Cherbourg, - 195 CHAPTER XXVI. SCENES OF THE WAR. Geography Made Interesting by Battle — The Rhine Frontiei* — Champagne — The Old Province Idealized — The Region and the People as They Actually Are — The Stronghold of Metz — Its Loss Very Serious to the French — The Ancient City of Nancy — Verdun — Chalons — Rhcims, the Coronation Place of the Gallic Kings — Sedan and the Downfiill of the Empire — The Rivers Meuse, Moselle, Loire, and Seine — the Vosges Mountains — The Duchy and City of Luxemburg — The Strongest Forti- fications Defied by the German Armies — Strasburg, its Cathedral, Char- acteristics, and Defences — Versailles and its Splendors — Tours — Orleans — Bordeaux — ^Fontainebleau and St. Cloud — Ravages of the War, - 203 CHAPTER XXVn. THE FRENCH LEADERS. Generals Uhrich, MacMahon, Bazaine, Bourbaki, Chanzy, Faidherbe, and Trochu — Principal Events in their Lives — Analysis of their Characters — Thiers— His Bitter Opposition to Germany — A Very Energetic Old Man — Jules Favre — His Personal Appearance — Leon Gambetta — An Italian-Looking Frenchman — A Restless and Daring Nature, - - 214 CHAPTER XXVm. A Land of Inconsistencies and Anomalies — Glorious Visions Destroyed by Travel — Journeying Beyond the Pyrenees — Excessive Politeness — Ec- centricities of Etiquette — Mine Host at Valladolid — A Calesero at Bur- gos — Theological Courtesies — Great Outward Reserve of the Women — A Mantilla more Important than Marriage — National Opposition to Haste — Gallantry an Expensive Habit in Andalusia — Money the Open Sesame Everywhere. 221 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER XXIX. TfiAVELING IN SPAIN. PAGE. The Diligencia as a Means of Conveyance — Rongh-and-Tumble Riding — Studying Character on the Road — Muleteers and their Oddities — The Maragatos — A Guest at One of their Weddings — Their Melancholy and Rudeness — The Coach of Horse Collars — The Master and his Assistant Swearing at and Stoning Mules — The Great Event of Starting from a "Wayside Inn — Ludicrous Scenes — Castilian Peasants — Native Dignity, 230 CHAPTER XXX. THE CAPITAL. Burgos — Spires of Open Stone-Work — Grave of the Cid — His Corpse Knock- ing Down a Jew — Valladolid — Unpleasantness of Madrid — Vain Ef- forts to Remove the Capital — Its Dangerous Climate — Madrilenian Manner of Living — The Castilian's Idea of his Family — His Unquench- able Thirst — Gloomy Streets and Squares — Professional Mendicants — Ghastly Spectacles — The Bare and Dusty Prado — The Royal Palace — Descent into the Pantheon — The Sarcophagi of Kings, - - - 240 CHAPTER XXXL BULL FIGHTS. A Disagreeable Duty of Travel — The Bull Ring — The Spectators— Intro- ductory Flee-Catching — Fashionable Women and their Cavaliers — Beginning of the Savage Sport — A Frightened Beast — Disgust of the Audience — Better Success — Bloody Brutality — Sickening Sight — Horses Disemboweled — Murder Most Foul — A Squeamish American Retires — Disapproval of his Conduct, - _- 253 CHAPTER XXXII. ANDALUSIA. Tropical Aspect of the South — Effects of the Sun — True Poetry, Romance, and Chivalry — ^Primitive Customs and Singular Superstitions — The City of Seville — The Cathedral — The Alcazar — The Great Govemment Tobacco Factory — Hideous Women — Holy Week and its Absurd Dis- plays — The Annual Fair — Decay of Commerce — A Street Picture for Murillo — Aged Poverty, Careless Childhood, and Brute Instinct United, 259 CHAPTER XXXIII. GRANADA. The Old Moorish Capital — Danger of Romantic Situations — Sentiment Op- posed to Logic — A Susceptible American Girl Loses her Heart to an Adventurer — A French Courier Playing the Part of a Ruined Nobleman — An Awkward Dilemma — What the Alhambra Maybe Responsible For — The Grand Fortress-Palace — The Tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella — From Malaga to Granada on Top of a Dihgence — The Driver's Opin- ion of the Model Republic — Drowsy Effect of Inferior Castilian, - - 265 xvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIV. LISBON. Improvement of the Portuguese Capital — Its Picturesque Appearance from the Tagus— Site of the Inquisition— The District of the Terrible Earth- quake — An Extraordinary Sermon — The Roman Catholic Milennium Predicted — What it Will be — A Mixed Population — The Gallegos Strange Currency — Fabulous Prices for the Opera — The City not very Attractive to Strangers, -. 273 CHAPTER XXXV. ALONG THE RHINE. Stuttgart— A Tailor Made a Baron— Carlsruhe— Heidelberg— Its Old Cas- tle—A Superb Ruin, and a Strange History — The University — German Students Anything but Picturesque or Interesting— Mannheim— An Economical Place to Live— Mainz— Its Handsome Bridge of Boats— The Markets in the Public Square— The Rhine and its Scenery— The Winding Moselle— German Enthusiasm over Everything German, - 278 CHAPTER XXXVI. GERMANY. Some of the Prominent Cities— Then- Distinctive Features- Wilhelmshohe —Louis Napoleon's Captivity There— The Rothschilds— Their Rise, Prosperity, and Power— Goethe's House in Frankfort— Baron Trenck's Prison at Magdeburg— The Book Trade and Great Fairs of Leipsic, - 286 CHAPTER XXXVII. AUGSBURG AND MUNICH. An Old and Interesting City— The Fugger Family— Its Immense Fortunes Made by Commerce — Emperors Indebted to the Descendants of a Weaver— Superb Bronzes and Ideal Beer— German Thirst Unquencha- ble—The German Cemeteries— Exposure of the Dead before Burial Ghastly and Repulsive Scenes— Vulgar Curiosity of the Crowd, - - 298 CHAPTER XXXVIII. DRESDEN. Babies and Food— The German Appetite and its Superabundant Needs- Charming Journey down the Elbe— The Scenery along the River- The Capital of Saxony — Its Pleasant Situation— A Desirable Place of Resi- dence—The Great Gallery— The Magnificent Treasures of the Green Vault— The Most Splendid Diamond Collection in the World— Invit- ing Suburbs and Delightful Gardens, 306 CONTENTS. xvij CHAPTER XXXIX. PAGE. Rapid Growth of the City— Its Promising Future — Its American Appear- ance — Not Attractive in its Architecture — The Unter den Linden a Deep Disappointment — Pictures at the National Gallery — Feminine Criticism of Lovers on Canvas — The Ballet at the Opera House — The Tiergarten — The Popular Fondness for Festivity — The Famous Bronze Statue of Frederic the Great, 312 CHAPTER XL. BISMARCK. His Ancestors — Wild Life as a Student — Audacious Wife-Wooing — Quitting the Army for Politics — Superb Snubbing of a Pompous Count — His Success as a Diplomatist — German Unity his Ruhng Idea — Prosperous Mission to Russia — Embassador to Paris — The Chancellor a Born Aris- tocrat — His Long Course of Hectoring — Louis Napoleon's Boast — Re- venge at Sedan — Personal Ajipearance of the Man, - - - -318 CHAPTER XLI. POTSDAM. Inconsistencies and Idiosyncrasies of Frederic the Great — One of the Worst of Poets and Most Singular of Heroes — His Marble Tomb — The Sum- mer Palace of Baalsberg — A Very Comfortable and Truly Refined Home — The New and Old Palaces — The Orangery and Sans Souci — De- lightful Gardens — Triumph of Art over Nature — Vast Fortunes Ex- pended in Beautifying Grounds and Laying Out Parks, - - - 323 CHAPTER XLII. THE GERMAN GAJMBLING SPAS — BADEN-BADEN. Topography of the Place — Graceful Masking — The Tiger in Velvet — Inte- rior of the Conversation-House — What is Done and What is to be Seen There — The Excitement of Hazard — A Retired Merchant of Antwei-p Playing at Roulette — A Venerable and Superstitious Gamester — An Englishman Gambling for Distraction — A Fast Young American Ruin- ed at Trente-et-Quarantc — A Desperate Italian Adventurer — A Suspic- ious Rover — The Restless Woman who Always Loses — The Wife of a Noted Musician Staking her Florins — Seductive and Dangerous Gayety — Hypocrisy of the Direction, 329 CHAPTER XLIII. WIESBADEN. The TowTi and its Waters — The Health-Seekers and Pleasure-Hunters — The Former in the Minority — The Kursaal — The Crowd at the Gaming Tables — The Secret of Fortune — The Blindness and Unreason of the Votaries of Play — Age and Avarice — Youth and Recklessness — Femi- nine Gamesters — Those who Risk Much and Those who Risk Little — The Infatuation of Trente-et-Quarante — The Volcano Beneath the Snow, 33t> xviii - CONTENTS. CHAPTER XLIV. HOMBOUEG. PAGB. Superb Saloons and "Well-Bred Management — Mode of Playing Roulette and Trente-et-Quarante — The Folly of Studying Combinations — Men Bent on Ruin — Women Wrought to Desperation — How Different Na- tions Gamble — The German Cautious — The Englishman Variable — The Spaniard Anxious — The Frenchmiin Excited — The Italian Reflect- ive — The Russian Free-Handed — The American Careless — Delightful Gardens — A Quiet Spot for Bankrupts to Commit Suicide — Love-Mak- ing in Public — A New Order Needed — " All Kissing Forbidden Here," 342 CHAPTER XLV. EMS. Situation and Age of the Watering Place — The Quality of its Patrons — A Pair of Hypochondriacs — The Silent Enigma — What would You not Give to Pluck out the Heart of her Mystery ? — A Princely Blackguard — Singular Confessions of an Adventuress — The Other Side of a Shad- owed Life Clearly Revealed — A Woman Tried in the Crucible of Aflflic- tion — "Wliich is the Dross and Which the Gold 1 — Personal Losses — A Debt that Never will be Collected, 349 CHAPTER XLVI. EMPEROR WILLIAM AND THE CROWN PRINCE. William's Antecedents — What he is, What he has Been, and What he Might Have Been — His Rare Good Fortune — Analysis of his Character — No Favorite with his Liberal Subjects — The Prince's Good and Bad Qualities — More Popularity than his Father — Will he Improve or In,- jure the Succession "? 356 CHAPTER XLVII. THE PRUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS CHIEFS. The Military Organization and Service of the Country — Prince Frederic Charles — General Von Moltke — Steinmctz — Von Werder — Manteuffel and Von Roon — What they Have Done and How they Look — Their Individual Capacities, 361 CHAPTER XLVIII. MONT CENI8. Railroad up the Mountain — Heavy Grades — View of the Valley — Susa — The Great Tunnel — Machineiy Used for Excavating — Immense Drills — Effects of a Blast — Accidents — Rate of Progress — Ultimate Success, 368 CONTENTS. Xix CHAPTER XLIX. SWITZERLAND AND NORTH ITALY. PAGE. Boundary Lines — Character of the Swiss — Magnificence of the Country and Wretchedness of the People — Lake Como — Claude and Pauline — Handsome Villas and Towns — Mountains and Islands — Alpine Passes — Down the Mountain, 377 CHAPTEE L. IN SWITZERLAND. Swiss Cottages — Lake Geneva — Castle of Chillon — Geneva — Watch-Mak- ing — John Calvin — Jean Jacques Rosseau — Americans Abroad, - - 386 CHAPTER LI. CLIMBING MONT BLANC. Training for the Task — The Vale of Chamonix — Introductory Excursions — The Earliest Ascents — Defiance of the Sublime Peak — Prepared with Cords, Hooks, and Ladders to Set Out — Slippeiy Climbing — Endless Snow and Ice — Frozen Feet and Burning Brain — Perilous Crossing of Crevasses — Danger at Eveiy Step — Dreadful Accident on the Matter- horn — Five Men over a Frightful Precipice — On a Ladder along Yawn- ing Chasms — At the Grands Mulcts — Falling into Crevasses — The Summit Always Retreating — Remarkable Glaciers — The Top at Last — The Climber and the Sensation Exhausted, 394 CHAPTER LIL THE BERNESE OBERLAND AND VICINITY. On Foot among the Alps — Swiss Cascades — Grand Panorama from the Little Scheideck — The Grindelwald Glaciers — Avalanches — How they Look — Entire Towns Destroyed by Them — Disastrous Flood — Wrest- ling Matches — The City of Lucerne — Its Sculptured Lion — The Town of Zurich, 404 CHAPTER LIII. SWITZERLAND CONTINUED. Freiburg — Its Picturesque Position — The Town and Lake of Neuchatel — Basel — A Council of Five Hundred Wrangling Priests — The Battle of St. Jacob — Bern, and its Passion for Bears — The National Councils — An Example Worthy of American Imitation — A Famous Clock — Va- riety of the Little Republic — The Common Mode of Seeing it, - » 412 CHAPTER LIV. GRAND SWISS SHOOTING FESTIVAL. The Gathering at Zug — All the Cantons Represented — An Enthusiastic Crowd — Arrangement and Appearance of the Grounds — Energetic Eat- ing and Drinking — Practical Democracy — The Temple of Prizes — The Shooting Gallery — Personal Experiments with the Swiss Guns — Aa American Reception without Americans, 419 CONTENTS. CHAPTER LV. NORTHERN ITALY. PAGE. First Entrance into the Poetic Land — Dreamy Atmospheres and Dulcet Nightingales — Turin — Too Much Catechism and Too Little Soap and Water — A Religious Quadruped — Vision of the Stillettoes — Genoa — Its Unique Character — Living in an Old Palace — Decayed Noblemen as Humble Tradesmen — Italian Fondness for Reading — Horace Greeley in Choice Tuscan — Galley Slaves — Ligurian Women — Columbus' Mon- ument — Peculiar Charitable Institution — Inducements Offered for Mar- riage and Pauperism, 424 CHAPTER LVI. MIDDLE ITALY. Pisa — The Leaning Tower, Cathedral, and Campo Santo — Superabund- ance of Beggars — European Mode of Kissing — Piacenza — Parma — Mode- na — Bologna — An Experiment with the Renowned Sausage — The Gari- senda and AsinelU Towers — A Contented and Philosophic Cobbler — The Secret Love of King Enzio and Lucia Vendagoli — The Sad Trag- edy of Imelda and Bonifazio — A New Illustration for Sentimentalists, - 434 CHAPTER LVII. LIFE AND TRAVEL IN ITALY. The Climate and its Discomforts — The Italians Much Misrepresented — Continental Politeness and Continental Wines — The Make-Believe La- bors of Servants — The Old Town of Forli — Startling Adventure at the Opera — A Band of Brigands on the Stage — The Entire Audience Rob- bed in the Politest Manner — Serio-Comic Scenes — Frightened Men and Fainting Women — The Released Manager Apologizes — Mimic Life after Real Danger — A Blase Traveler in Search of Novelties, - - 445 CHAPTER LVIII. FLORENCE. The City During May — Gayety of the Caseine — The Tuscan Capital Unde- • serving of its Reputation — Italian Dislike to Foreigners — Pen-Photo- graph of Victor Emanuel — The Piazza della Signoria — Its Celebrated Statues — Dining under the Sky — Mozart and the Apennines as Sauce and Savor — The Italian Passion for Prattle — Patois of the People — Their Pretended Knowledge of Language, ...... 455 CHAPTER LIX. ROME. The Lifeless Nature of the City — What Roman Catholicism Enjoins — Re- vivification of Paganism — The Cenci Palace a Tenement House — The True Story of Beatrice — Guide's Celebrated Picture — The Bliss of CONTENTS. sxi PAOB. Being Broiled on Gridirons and Fricasseed for Breakfast — Burial of a ' Saint, and the Assistance of a Heretic Thereat — Imposing Ceremony — Fragmentary Marbles — Theory Conceming their Lost Members — The Laocoon, Apollo and Venus of the Capitol — Hundredsof Millions Worth of Churches — Exaggerated Martyrdom of the Early Christians — The Pope as a Man and a Priest — Theological Breadth and Squeamish- ness — The Roman Ballet Girls — The Cross and the Devil Banished from the Stage — Luci-ezia Borgia under a New Name — The Catacombs — Sixty Millions of Bodies Buried in Them — Following a Monk with a Torch to See Skeletons, 464 CHAPTER LX. NAPLES. The Principal Streets and their Peculiarities — The Manufacture and Dis- play of Jewelry — The Beautiful Bay — Pulchinella — The Favorite Amusement of the Common People — Manners and Morals of the Nea- politans — The Destruction of Stabiie almost Forgotten — Castellammare on the Old Site — EiToneous Ideas Concerning the Buried Cities — Di- ■vine Blessings in Disguise — Remarkable Concealment of the Catastrophe for Seventeen Centuries — Herculaneum and Pompeii Discovered by the Merest Accident — Strange Understanding of Luxury — The Ancient Romans' Mode of Living — Their Peculiar Morals — The Vestal Virgins — Temples, ^aths, and Theaters — Appearance of the Ruins, - - 478 CHAPTER LXL CLIMBING VESUVIUS. How to Make the Ascent — ^Annoyances at the Outset — Neapolitan Guides — A Donkey too Courageous to Run — Urging Beasts by the Tail — An American in Distress — Ludicrous Manner of Rendering Assistance — Clambering up the Mountain in a Storm — Wind, Rain, Ashes, and Scoria — Smoking Cinders and Hot Lava under Foot — Roasting Eggs in Volcanic Cinders — A Yawning Gulf of Fire — Awful Appearance of the Immense Crater — Almost Suffocated by Sulphurous Fumes — Mag- nificent Panorama from the Top — Rapid and Exciting Descent — Re- treating from a Mob, - -■ • - - 487 CHAPTER LXIL VENICE. The Most Romantic City of the World — Its Notable Places and Buildings — The Merceria, Piazza, and Piazetta — The Rialto — The Ducal Palace — Its Interior — Reminiscences of Venetian History— Portraits of the Doges — Marino Faliero's Vacant Space Di"aped in Black — Descent into the Dungeons with Torches — Gloom and Horror of the Prisons — The Bridge of Sighs — Popular Errors Concerning It — Gondola-Riding by Moonlight — Eveiy Part of the Town Accessible On Foot — The Islands —The Glass Works at Murano — Torcello and Chioggia, - - - 494 xxii CONTENTS. CHAPTER LXm. OUT-OF-THE-WAT CITIES. PAGE. Rimini — Its Past and Present — Poor Francesca — Attempt to Prosify her Melancholy Story — Memorials of the Early Christians — Byron's House and Haunts — His Kindness and Benevolence — His Memory Still Revered — Ferrara — Its Medieval Flavor — The Grand Ducal Castle — Hugo and Parasina — Tasso's Doubtful Prison — The Palace of Lucrezia Borgia — A Beautiful Fiend Full of Deadly Surprises, 503 CHAPTER LXIV. LOMBARDT. Verona as Fancied and Verona as Found — The Amphitheater — Tombs of the Scaligers — Vanity Stronger than Death — Romeo and Juliet — Impo- sition upon Travelers — A Common Horse-trough Palmed Off upon the Public for Mrs. Montague's Tomb — Milan — The Peerless Cathedral — Watching a Storm in the Alps from its Tower — La Scala Opera House, 511 CHAPTER LXV. DOWN THE DANUBE. The Danube — Rise and Course — Capital of Upper Austria — Steamboats — An Admirable Sandwich — Noted Persons and Places — Presburg — Hun- garian Life — Characteristics of the River, 519 CHAPTER LXVI. ATJSTRIA AND HUNGARY. Vienna — Dumb-Waiters — A Superb City — Garden Concerts — Pesth — Hun- garian Fairs — The Father of Roses, 525 CHAPTER LXVII. DOWN IN THE WIELICZKE SALT MINES. Poland — Salt Mines — Down the Shaft — Salt Chambers — Rivers Under- ground — Crystal Salts — Getting Out Salt — Fairy Scenes — Infernal Lake — A Demon Chorus — QuaUty and Quantity of Salt — Extent of the Mines, 533 CHAPTER LXVni. HOLLAND. A Land of Steady Habits — Singular Formation of the Soil — The Dykes — Struggle of the Dutch with the Spaniards and the Sea — Decline of the Little Kingdom — A Beautiful Promenade — An Unique Cathedral — A Country of Canals and Windmills — An All-Pervading Air of Indus- try and Thrift — A Surprised Angler — A Piscatorial Curiosity — The Native Cottages — The National Domesticity — The Garden-House — Its Situation and Semblance — Peculiarity of the Dutch Nose, - - 542 CONTENTS. xxiij CHAPTER LXIX. AMSTERDAM. PAGB. A Very Active and Wealthy City— The Venice of the North — The Princi- pal Streets— The Style of Buildings— The Royal Palace— Eight-Gabled Inaccessible Churches — The Tomb of De Ruyter — A Diversified Theol- ogy—Valuable Paintings — Great Ship Canal — The Theaters — Diamond- Cutting — Ten Thousand Jews Employed in the Business — A Wealthy Banking Center — Hope & Co. — Costumes of the Provinces — Grotesque and Fantastic Attire — All the Houses Intoxicated — A Bewildered Amer- ican — A Very Narrow Hotel — Short Beds — The Possible Object of their Brevity — The Municipal Government, 550 CHAPTER LXX. DUTCH CUSTOMS AND CHAKACTERISTICS. Dwellers on the Water — The Trekschuit — Families Afloat with Fowls, Hogs, and Cattle — Four Hundred Thousand Amphibious Hollanders — Plain Living and Steady Money-Sa\'ing — A Healthy, Comfortable, and Con- tented Nation — Walloons, Frisians, and Germans — Endless Sweeping, Dusting, Rubbing, and Scrubbing^The Dutch House- Wife — The Mania for External Cleanliness — Personal Neatness Rather Exceptional — Ec- centricities of Tidiness — Broek the Cleanest Town on the Globe — Dwell- ings too Nice to Enter with Shoes — Streets that Horses Must not In- vade — Zaandam — The Cottage of Peter the Great — " Nothing too Small for a Great Man," 559 CHAPTER LXXI. DIFFERENT DUTCH CITIES. Haarlem — Its Renowned Siege by the Spaniards — A Great Market for Bulb- ous Roots — The Wild Tuhp Mania — High-Roofed Houses and Peaked Attic Windows — Ley den — The Siege of 1574 — Heroism Rewarded — The Hague — The Scene of Barneveldt's Execution — The Prison fi-om which the DeWitts were Dragged and Tom to Pieces — Delft — The Em- barkation of the Pilgrim Fathers — The Monument to the Murdered Wil- liam of Orange — The Ashes of Admiral Van Tromp — Rotterdam — Tu- multuous Scenes on the Exchange — Perpetual Moppers and Mer- schaum-Colorers — Much Commerce and More Quaintness, - - - 566 CHAPTER LXXn. BELGIUM. Difference between the Dutch and the Belgians— The Soil and Resources of the Country — The City of Antwerp — Singular Manners of the People — The Crookedest of Towns — Not So Picturesque as Represented — Its Middle-Age Greatness — Magnificence of the Churches — Rubens' Pic- tures — The Zoological Gardens — Travel in the Kingdom — The Musical Festivals — Extraordinary Demonstrations — The Belgians as Noise- Makers — Dances in the Tavern Gardens — Liege — Its Manufactures and Smoky Atmosphere — Nineteenth Century Practicality, - - - 572 xxiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER LXXIII. GHENT AND THE GANTOI3. PAGE. Why Americans Should Like Belgium — Situation and Singular Appearance of Ghent — Its Public Squares and Promenades — The Friday Market — Flemish Eccentricities — The Ecclesiastic Edifices — The Renowned Bel- fry — The Beguinage — The Matrimonial Society and its Results — Ex- tensive Manufactures — The City once Larger than Paris, - - - 580 CHAPTER LXXIV. BRUGES AND BRUSSELS. The Fourteenth Century in the Nineteenth— The Celebrated Belfry— The Melody of its Chimes — How they are Played — Origin of the Name of Bruges — Its Fine Gothic Structures — The Cathedral of Notre Dame — Tomb of Charles the Bold — Curious Chimney Piece — A Genuine Mount of Piety — Order of the Golden Fleece— St. Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins Once More — Deserted Monasteries — An Asylum of English Fugitive Kings — Brussels, a Paris in Miniature — The Feminine Passion for Lace — The Scene of Charles V.'s Abdication— The Manni- kin Fountain — Superstition Concerning It — The Battle and Field of Waterloo — Annoyance from Guides—End of the Pilgrimage, - - 585 CHAPTER I. ON AND OVER SEA. ^ NE of the advantages of travel is that our friends are never so agreeable as when we are going away from and coming back to them. Absence is tem- porary death ; and the possibility that it may be permanent makes us forget faults and remember virtues. The waves of the ocean wash away many unpleasant memories ; and at the distance of a thousand leagues we see what has been through the lens of the ideal. The steamer " Queen," of the National Line, on which 1 sailed for Europe, proved what I had always believed, that sea^ sickness is not one of my possibilities. I had often been rocked on the cradle of the deep without the least discomfort ; but I had never crossed the Atlantic during what is known a& the stormy months. Perhaps the "Queen " is not a fair test, she is such an excellent ship, and seems so wholly in sympatli;^ with the sea. There were winds and waves and gales enough to make any one ill capable of illness ; but I had not the faint- est qualm from the hour we quitted the Hudson until we cast anchor in the Mersey. The " Queen " is one of the largest vessels afloat, and so convenient and well arranged, I do not wonder she is a favorite. All her sister ships, built by the Lairds, are on the same model, and have been very prosperous. They are particular- ly adapted to the carrying of emigrants (I have always felt an interest in their ocean passage), who, on account of the su- perior accommodations, seem to give the National Line the preference. 2 18 FAIRLY EMBARKED. Our passage was interesting from its variety. It was not all calm, nor all storm, but a fair mixture of both. The first two days we had so little wind that it was monotonous. But on the third day the breeze freshened, and on the fourth rose to a gale. It was exhilarating to be on deck with the ship pitching and tossing under your feet; the waves breaking over her once in a while, and the spray dashing into your face from the white-crested surges on all sides. A good deal of rhetoric has no doubt been wasted in describing storms. The ALL SEKENE. waves are not mountain high — the highest rarely, if ever, ex- ceed forty feet — nor does the vast deep open like a yawning chasm. But still a stonn is very picturesque and enjoyable to any one who retains stomachic regularity, and relishes a con- flict of the elements. I felt a great satisfaction in standing on deck, hour after hour, watching the boiling waters, the dark, bending sky, and hearing the roaring wind, so fierce at times that I had to hold to the railings of the vessel to prevent being blown overboard. I had not a single qualm, nor would the wildest storm that EFFECT OF SEA-SICKNESS. 19 ever raged give me one, I am confident. I have been thor- oughly tested by the ocean, and I have always refused to give up my resolution or my breakfast. Many persons dislike sea-voyages, though I am not of them. They complain of weariness, of monotony ; but the ocean and the sky, with a book and a cigar, are companions, if you have no others, though sympathetic society is not to be despised. Travelling alone is not agreeable when you travel far ; and he who can take a friend with him will discover his friend a blessing. Marmontel was right : " It is sad when we see any thing beautiful to have no one to whom we can say, ' See how beautiful it is ! ' " Whist is a pleasant sea game. I have found it an excellent time-killer in Atlantic travels. Tour own and your antagon- ist's tricks get confused when the ship gives a lurch or a roll ; but that is remediable, and adds to the variety. I relish the feeling on the ocean, that when you leave the pier, you won't have to stop, or look after baggage for the next ten or twelve days ; that you are secure from the common an- noyances of travel for more than three thou"sand miles. A man who does not get sea-sick always has an opportun- ity on shipboard to gratify fhe element of original sin — the the- ologians say — we have in us. ' His superiority to the tortures of the ocean makes him seem superior to his fellows. The fancy is natural enough, considering that he can sit quietly down and eat his breakfast, while scores of poor fellows are lying below so disgusted with life that they are wholly indifferent whether the ship floats or founders. On the " Queen " we had some amusing instances of marine malady. One young man was very eloquent upon the ocean, as we were steering down the bay. He quoted all the hackneyed songs and stanzas of Byron in praise of the sea ; wondered how any one could weary of its beauty and its grandeur. The first, two days were very calm, but on the third it began to blow. The enthusiast disappeared from the deck, and I did not meet him again until we were running up the Channel. Then he crawled into the saloon, pale as a ghost. I inquired 20 SIGHTS IN LIVERPOOL. after liis condition, and as he had bored me with quotations (one of the blessings of Eden was that Eve couldn't quote), I asked how he enjoyed the sea. He steadied himself to give energetic energy to his utterance, and ejaculated sepulchrally, " Oh, the sea ! The people who are fools enough to like it ought to be drowned in it." A change had evidently come over the spirit of his dream. A young couple, just married, had chosen Europe for a bridal tour. They were very affectionate and devoted for a little while ; but the first strong breeze blew all love and sym- pathy out of them. I observed them when the vessel first be- gan to roll. They were leaning fondly against each other as the ship lurched. That lurch made them mutually hateful. They glared on one another like deadly foes ; then they groaned, and did the very opposite of what was poetic. They parted. They crept below by different stairways, and when they rallied enough — a week after — to reappear, they were Separated physically, if not spiritually. Each seemed to regard the other as the source of his or her suffering. Their passion- ate attachment was extinguished, at least for the time. They were changed by their sea-sickness as years of land-living would not have changed them. Let no man who seeks to cultivate the sentimental ameni- ties with a woman take her to sea. The ocean is very fine in the abstract ; but in the concrete it is as death to love. The first impression of an American on entering England is the substantiality of everything. Our trans- Atlantic cousins, as the London Times calls us, when it wants to be patronizing, are not graceful nor artistic nor picturesque ; but they are sohd, which we are not. How strikingly the docks of Liverpool im- press a 'New Yorker ! They are of sohd masonry, cost mil- lions of pounds, and will last for ages ; while those of Manhat- tan are wretched wooden affairs, that are a shame to the city. The public buildings, the warehouses, the paving of the streets, the drays, the carts, and the horses, look as if they were, in- deed, intended to last. Such long-limbed, massive quad- rupeds, such broad- wheeled vehicles, we never see in our coun- THE COMPTON HOUSE. 21 try. They seem primitive, almost grotesque, compared to our slight animals and wagons ; but they excellently serve the purpose for which they were designed. All the buildings are dingy and grim from the moist char- acter of the climate and the quantity of soft coal they burn ; but the principal streets are quite clean. One of the lions of Liverpool is the Compton House — not a hotel, as might be supposed, but a variety store on a very ex- tensive scale. It is one of the largest and most prominent buildings in town, and seems more Yankee than British. The proprietors sell dry goods, millinery, crockery, glass ware, clothing, furniture, hardware, marine outfits, musical instru- ments, and almost everything but locomotives and tombstones. If they have not the last, they have cofiins, both ready-made and made to order ; so that anything, from an infant's robe to a w^ooden overcoat, as they used to call it in the army, can be supplied at the Compton. I should think it would require a large degree of versatility to conduct so varied a trade, and that the strict attention it demanded would render a man fickle-minded. Almost any American would predict failure for such a peculiar business; but the present firm instituted the establishment, and have never been in any financial difii- culty. And that, too, though they have been burned out once or twice, which, speaking from a Kew York standpoint, might account for their prosperity. I never knew until recently the origin of the word Liver- pool. It is taken from the word liver, a fabulous bird of the crane species, supposed to have inliabited the vast pool w^iich once covered the site of the present city. This mythical bird is the central figure in the coat of arms of Liverpool. All the ground on which the town stands is made, and over it, in years agone, flowed the sea. Except in business, Liverpool is a dull place. Commerce crowds out science, literature, and art, which London monop- olizes. With a population of over five hundred thousand, Liverpool has not a library, a gallery, or a theatre worthy of the name. Every dramatic manager fails eventually. 22 QUICK SHAVING. Tlie city lias few handsome private residences, as most of the prosperous citizens live out of town. Great fortunes have been amassed there, some of the merchant princes being worth $10,000,000 to $12,000,000 each. Fortunes, varying from $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 are quite common. Business is reg- ulated very much as in Kew York ; a business day embracing but four or five hours. You can find no one before ten o'clock, and seldom after four. About the latter hour the merchants go to their homes, which lie along the different railways. The grounds of many of the houses are beautifully laid out, though they suffer, as English grounds usually do, from over-regularity and stiflness. Shaving is still quite primitive in England, for the reason that most Englishmen are in the habit of shaving themselves. SHAVED IN TWO MINUTES. In some of the towns the barbers charge only a .penny, but they merely rasp the chin, and then release their victim ; not even washing: off the lather. I was directed to a tonsorial CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS. 23 artist who solicited American patronage, and who enjoyed a reputation. I found his shop exceedingly plain, with few con- veniences and no luxuries. The chairs were common chairs, with a small head-piece. I sat down, and the razor was jerked across my face, being wiped at every jerk. There was none of the careful or artistic manipulation for which our barbers are famed. The job was finished in two minutes; but I re- membered it two months. It is often remarked by traveUers that the Custom-house officers in Em-ope form a marked contrast to those in America. The officers on this side are much more expeditious and obliging than ours. They show no such disposition to detain or annoy you. K they have no reason to suspect contraband goods, they pass baggage without inspecting it or pulHng it to pieces. They are mortal, of course. The British officials like to have their palms crossed with silver, and if you fail to re- member their weakness, inform you of it by word of mouth. " Price of a pot of beer, sir," they say, and hold out their hand to facilitate the exchange of small coins. Several Englishmen have assured me no Custom-house officer in Great Britain can be bribed ; but he certainly likes to see the courtesies of the occasion properly observed. CHAPTER II. LONDON. STRANGER, or foreigner, going to England now is likely to infer that the principal branch of retail trade is in matches. The streets of London are full of match-venders, mostly children from six to twelve years of age. They offer you matches everywhere, and with a perseverance and energy that encourage the belief that their salva- tion depends upon their selling a certain number. You are forced to doubt if the matches they offer so super- abundantly are made in heaven. You question if enough people have gone there to make so many. The cause of the activity in the match market is that it is an excuse for beggary. The English cities, especially London, became so overrun with professional mendicants that an effort was made to suppress them. The police received orders to arrest all beggars. Of course, the beggars found a subterfuge. They embraced a legitimate business — selling matches. They invest a penny in matches, run after you, and beg most piteously. They seem so forlorn, and are so pertinacious that strangers give them money either out of pity or for convenience. Americans are of course the first choice of beggars, for most Em*opeans be- lieve we are all rich, and anxious to get rid of our money as soon as possible. A wretched-looking girl, of eight or nine, came up to me, holding out a box of matches, making her ap- peal so adroitly that I gave her sixpence for her art. " Thank you," she said ; " thank you, Mr. American." " How do you know I am an American, my child ? " " rirrixG " universal. 25 " Oh, because you gives me silver ; our people never gives us nothink but pennies." The extent of " tipping," as it is styled, is remarkable in Britain. We should call it " feeing," and more candid per- sons would name it " bi'ibing." We are in the habit of pay- ing porters, servants, and all kinds of menials for any particu- lar attention or service rendered; but we are very careful about giving money to those we regard or who regard them- selves as our social equals. The line is closely drawn on this side of the Atlantic, and we never cross it with douceurs. Over there it is quite different. You hardly meet any one you cannot make happy with anything between a shilling and a sovereign. Even pennies are not re- fused by well- dressed men, or six- pences by w e 1 1 - dressed women. The smallest courtesy or the largest kindness is gladly rendered you under the im- pression that you will pay for it. You drop your cane : it is picked up at once, and you part with a penny. A stamp is put on your letter; a glass of water is handed you ; the TIPPING. morning paper is shoved toward you, and you pay for the convenience. A woman buttons your glove, or takes a hair from your coat (even if it be her own), and you make pecuniary compensation therefor. In America we do many things gratis. In England, or in 26 COST OF LIVING IN ENGLAND. Europe, for matter of that, they do nothing on such terms. Little gratuities in London will cost a stranger from two to ten shillings a day ; and if he wants any real favors, he must draw on his sovereigns. I have been embarrassed sometimes concerning the extent to which, and concerning the kind of people, one may " tip." But I have learned that in most cases hesitation is superfluous. A New Yorker, as the story goes, boarded in the house of a friend, in London, for some months. When about to leave for the Continent, and bid adieu to his friend's wife, she kissed him good-by. The New Yorker, not anticipating so warm a greeting, and deeming it a special favor — for the woman was pretty — slipped a sovereign in- to her hand, and went off. We hear a great deal about the cheapness of living in Eu- rope ; but it is not true for travellers in Great Britain. The hotels in London are quite as expensive as in America, considering the accommoda- tions. The English houses are generally inferior to ours, in size and comfort, and in the quality of the table. What a New York, or Boston, or Chi- cago hotel furnishes, would cost in London fully ten dollars a day. As it is, you cannot live in what is considered there a first-class hotel for less than five dollars in currency, and if you are fastidious or dainty, it will be much more. You cannot get the plainest breakfast for less than three shillings, and a tolerable dinner will be five or six shillings. Then you have sei-vice charged in the bill at one to two shillings a day, and are expected to pay the servants besides. The Europeans live much more economically than we do. They care vastly more about money, in the first place, and secondly, they better understand its judicious use. All manu- GOOD FOR A SOVEREIGN. THE ^'BOBBIES.'''' 21 factured articles are cheaper in Britain and on the Continent ; are well made, and of good material. The expense of boots, clothes, and hats, for instance, is not mnch more than fifty or sixty per cent, of what it is in the United States. The average Englishman wears a coat or hat for several years, while we think a few months quite sufficient. The policemen look awkward enough in their peculiar uni- form, which is a short, stiff, square-cut, blue coat, that would give an unprepossessing appearance to Antinous. On their heads they wear a cloth helmet, with a small crest, intended to break the blow of any club or missile. This gives them a ridiculous appearance, and with their other garments, insures them the name of " bobbies." How the government can ex- pect the majesty of the law to be sustained by the " bobbies " I can't imderstand. They are too funny to command respect. I should as soon expect to disperse a mob by reading a hu- morous lecture instead of the Kiot Act. The speed of the English train is exaggerated. They go much faster than ours ; but even the express rarely averages more than forty miles an hour. When behind time, it runs as high as fifty or sixty, but only for short distances. The fare is about five cents a mile for first-class, four cents for second- class, and less than three cents for third-class, while with us it averages about three cents per mile. The rate varies little whether the distance be short or long, and the .advantage of buying through tickets at reduced prices, as with us, is not to be had. An American is struck with the superior construction of the railways. They all have double tracks, and their bridges, tunnels, embankments, and elevations are of the most substan- tial sort. No common road is allowed to cross the track, ex- cept over a bridge or by a tunnel. The telegraph lines and signal stations are excellent, and kept in perfect order. Seri- ous accidents seldom occur, and only from gross carelessness. The theatres in London are, on the whole, inferior to the theatres of New York, both in the quality of the houses (ex- ternally and internally,) and of the performance. The Covent 28 THEATRES IN LONDON. Garden is a large, gloomy building, not at all attractive within, and the Italian operas are not given in the style that might be naturally expected ; nor are they mounted as they ought, in what the English claim to be the first of the European lyric theatres. THIRD-CLASS RAILWAY CARRIAGE. Drury Lane (recently rearranged and improved), the Prince of Wales's (the Wallack's of London), Hay market, and Gayety Theatres are the best in the metropolis. The Adelphi, Strand, Holborn, Lyceum, and minor theatres, have little to boast of, and some of them are dingy and dreary enough. A theatre of the old time, and one rarely visited now-a- days by strangers, is Sadler's Wells, in a quarter of the town where no one would imagine a place of amusement to be. Having attended all the fashionable play-houses, I fancied an excursion to Sadler's Wells niiglit be entertaining. Phelps, AN UNWELCOME SUBSTITUTE. 29 " the eminent tragedian," was perfonning a round of favorite characters, and his E-ichelieu was so bad I felt a strong curios- ity to see if he could do anything worse. I attended a second time, when the manager, with soiled hands and limping Eng- lish, appeared before the curtain to state that Phelps was too hoarse to play, and that his son would take his part. It re- quired fully ten mimites to communicate so much as that, for the audience cheered, hooted, and yelled so as to drown the fellow's voice at every half sentence. The curtain rose, and young Phelps strode upon the stage as Bertuccio in the " Fool's Revenge." But he could not make himself heard. The uproar continued for fifteen min- utes. At last he succeeded in informing the house that he would not attempt the character if they did not wish it. Cries of " Go on, go on," and " Go off, go off," with applause, hisses, and confiision worse confounded. The actor could not again lift his voice above the din, and finally quitted the stage in despair. Then the manager reappeared and began a series of em- phatic gestures, putting his hand on his heart, and swinging his arms in a manner that indicated he was making a speech. It was all dumb show amid the tumult. I grew weary of the place, and concluding I had had my three shillings' worth of legitimate drama, quitted the theatre. What became of the manager or the audience, I do not know. As I went out of the dingy old building, with its crooked entrances, its queer arcade, its seedy ticket-sellers, and heard women in draggled skirts swearing over their disappointment, and saw tipsy rogues standing in the rain (it always rains in London) waiting to rob-somebody tipsier than they, I thought how thoroughly Sadler's. "Wells represented the theatre of the past, and that quarter of the city the London of the present. Phelps certainly represents the past. Twenty-five years ago he Avas thought one of the best of living tragedians, for he had a powerfid voice, and could rant like King Cambyses. He stood at the head of his profession ; but the natural school of acting came in, and left his strut-and-thunder style out of fash- LONDON CABMEN. ion. He could not change ; lie did not wisli to. He declared tlie times unjointed, and the generation nnappreciative. He grew morbid and bitter ; lie could not get engagements where once he would have refused to play. When I last saw him he was obliged to seek the provinces. Poor, old, broken, misan- thropic, he was filling at the Wells his final engagement in the metropolis. There are two kinds of cabs in England, the Hansom, a two-wheeled vehicle, and a four-wheeler, built like an Amer- A " HANSOM " CAB^ ican coupe or brougham. English cabmen are like their tribe the world over. They will cheat you if they can. They are •not so bad as the Celtic Jehus in New York — they could not be if they tried — ^but they overcharge whenever they think they can with safety. Their regular fare is sixpence per mile for a Hansom, and one shilling for a four-wheeler ; but they always ask a stranger twice as much, presuming he Avon't THE GREAT CITY. 31 know the distance he has been driven, "When he hands them the proper amount, however, and lets them see he understands the situation, they accept the fare with a tolerable degree of resignation. They do not swear and insult, and threaten him as they do in our blessed land of freedom, until nothing but self-discipline and the high price of funerals prevent him from indulging in the luxmy of a justifiable homicide. To one not a native of London, the famous labyrinth of Crete seems to have been recreated along the Thames. Such a wilderness of streets, lanes, inns, courts, and alleys, was never before known in Christendom. There is no clue to any given locality. You must depend entirely on your instincts or a cab- man ; and the latter, on the whole, is to be preferred. A street has one name in one block, another in a second, and still another in a third. On the west side of a thorough- fare the street is King ; on the east. Queen ; on the north. Bread ; on the south, Milk ; on the right. Black ; on the left, White; and so on without end. There is some mental connection between such nomenclat- nre, but in most of that prevailing there, there is no suggestion of fitness or coherence. A triangle is called a square, a square IS called fields, a rambling block a circus, a dark comer an inn, and a blind alley a crescent. To show the irregularity of London, let me take one of the best-known routes between down-town and the western quarter. Beginning at the Bank of England with Threadnee- dle street, where there is a chaos of thoroughfares, and going toward Trafalgar square as directly as you can, you pass through Poultry, Cheapside, St. Paul's Churchyard, Ludgate Hill, Fleet street. Temple Bar, the Strand, and Charing Cross, and yet you have nothing to inform you where you are. Few of the streets are indicated by their names. Those which are, are so insignificant that no one cares to know them. The lamp-posts have no directions whatever ; so, after dark, you are wholly at a loss. The Directory, though an immense volume, is so like a Chinese puzzle that it rather conceals than conveys intelligence. 32 A NEW YORKER PUZZLED. The location of a house or the address of a business firm is given simply as Oxford street, Bloomsbury, White Friars, or Covent Garden, with a number of such cabalistic initials as W. C, E. C, W. or C, which are simply confounding to the stranger. The letters mean "West Central, East Central, "West or Central, as respects the quarter of London. In the Direc- tory you constantly find " City" in parentheses, and marvel at it until you learn that it means the part of town east of Tem- ple Bar, though London extends miles and miles west of the Bar. It is a curious fact that a century ago the Mayor of Lon- don, in one of those spasms of ferocious morality to which the British public is periodically subject, complained of the wick- edness of theatres, and demanded they should be suppressed in the city. They were suppressed, and since then, though the feeling and restriction have passed, no theatre has been built in the so-called city limits. The tangle of dingy alleys in which the Times office stands is a good illustration of the topography of London. I defy any one to stumble on it in fifty years, unless he makes a direct and persistent eifort in its quest. Fleet street is the street for daily newspapers ; and you read on flaring signs the names of all the prominent journals in front of the offices as you pass, the name of the Thunderer excepted. You wonder where it is, and you might wonder until doomsday if you were not in- structed to look out for Pilgrim street — a narrow alley — down which you thread your way into Broadway, E. C. (a miserable lane, that makes a New Yorker indignant to look at), and finally chase into a corner, a dwarfish-looking, begrimed build- ing, on which are the letters, " The Times Publishing Office." It is difficult to avoid disappointment in St. Paul's Cathe- dral. It is vast and gloomy enough, and has been sufficiently expensive ; but architecturally it is unsatisfactory. The dome is admirable, but its sculptures and ornamentations are inferior. It is a great pile of monetary wastefulness, but very interest- ing from its historic associations. Interiorly it is worse than outwardly. It is unfinished, like the Continental cathedrals, ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 33 and, like them, invites in permanent placards the public to contribute to its completion. Service is held in the eastern end, and the remaining part of the interior is emptiness. But the whole is so cold and dreary, even ghostly in appearance, that I should think every religious emotion and aspiration ST. PAUL 3 CATHEDr.AL. would be extinguished therein. In the church during service I seemed to have walked into a living tomb. The faith must be earnest and the soul aflame that can worship in such a freezing temple. To ascend to the dome and climb into the ball, four hun- dred feet high, is quite the proper thing. The way is long, tedious, and very dirty ; but if you are strong of limb and careless of soil, you will find the three or four shillings invested in the enterprise repaid, should the day prove clear, by an ex- cellent view of London and all the surrounding country, with the enjoyment of a wind that threatens to blow off your hair. 3 34 COFFEE-ROOMS. The coffee-room is one of the marked featm-es of every British hotel, and is mentioned in glowing terms by all the English as a synonym of sociability and comfort. My expe- rience has not led me to form a very favorable opinion of the coffee-room ; called so, perhaps, because coffee is almost the only thing not drank in it. The coffee-room is generally a large room in the hotel where visitors sit, talk, read the papers, and (particularly) drinlv. The talking is usually slow, but the drinking is very fast, and has always seemed to me the sole object of the convo- cation. One certainly hears there conversation as fully divested of intellectuality as any he has ever listened to among men claim- ing to be intelligent. The English, as a people, rarely deal with ideas. They delight in facts, and prosaic facts, too. When they fail to talk of business, which they do five times as much as I have ever known Americans to do, they speak of . how much it cost them to make the journe}^ to the city ; tell what they have had for dinner, and intend to have for break- fast ; or discuss, with their peculiar intonation, some question we should deem unworthy of a thought. I could not help comparing the English with the American style of conversation, and greatly to the disadvantage of the former. "We, as a people, have much more humor, wit, fancy, readiness, and fluency than they. In spite of the efforts to suppress professional mendicancy in London, there is a superabundance of beggars, especially in the West End, where the wealthy residents live. Ladies are often deterred from walking out there on account of the hordes that beset them. They are afraid to refuse the petitions, and also afraid to put their hands into their purses, lest they be in- sulted in the first case, and robbed in the second. Wretched-looking women with babies in their arms haunt the popular quarters, and offer faded bouquets and other worthless wares as a pretext for soliciting charity. They are liable to arrest for begging, and, though seldom arrested, they like to make a show of selling something. Nearly all the ENGLISH GROGGERIES. 35 beggars are natives — unlike ours, who are all foreigners. The people there, however, have more reason to beg — for they are poor enough — but nearly all of them are imposters and pro- fessionals. ., Billingsgate, clown by the Tower way, is not very unlike what it was in Dr. Johnson's time. The fishmongers, male and female, keep up a hid- eous bawling, and the lat- ter make more noise than the former. Their chaffing is so energetic that I have listened by the half hour to their peculiar raillery. Those fish-wives have noth- ing feminine in their ap- pearance, manner, or con- versation ; but I hear they often do kind and womanly acts. I hope they do ; for while I watched and lis- tened to them, they seemed of the epicene gender, without the virtues of either men or women, and the faults of both. It is very unsafe to speak to them in jest ; for they have a stream of foul words they are only too glad to turn upon any one, be he prince, peddler, or poet. On every street, in every block, you see the bar-room, which varies from the low doggery in the dark court to the gilded gin palace at the crowded corner. The number of houses where malt and spirituous liquors are sold is over eight thousand, about one for every five hundred inhabitants. No doubt the English drink more than any nation in the world. They are reared to beer, wine^ and liquor, and they do no in- justice to their trainings. Liberal potations injure man less in this climate than they do elsewhere ; indeed, some physi- cians hold that strict temperance is unwholesome, though such medical opinions may be influenced by personal habits. STBEET BEGGAR. 36 FLEET STREET. Women drink as well as men. Yon see women standing among men in the gin shops, both bj day and bj night, and they^are constantly going in and out with bottles, and pitchers, and jugs, seeking or carrying away the fiery poison. A very cit, loved and lauded, converted into an outcast and a thief by his thirst for liquor ; the father of an affectionate family brought to the prison and the gallows by the demon of drink. And so, on and on, and on — down, down, down from the first flush of pleasure and excitement to the lowest pit of woe and despair. CHAPTER III. 8PUEGE0N. ^ROFITING- by a leisure Sunday in London, I went to the Tabernacle to hear Spurgeon, whose reputation is increasing steadily and whose in- fluence is greater to-day than ever. The Taber- nacle is on the north side of the Thames, near the famous " Elephant and Castle," about a mile dis- tant from St. Paul's, in a densely crowded and en- tirely democratic portion of the city. The church (Baptist) is very large, and has two galleries with six rows of seats extending in the form of an ellipse all around the liouse, giving it much the appearance of a theatre. It will seat six or seven thousand persons, and would be filled, if its capacity were twice as great. It is the custom to admit all the pew-owners, friends of members, and those who have purchased tickets of admission (they are sold for a shilling, and regularly advertised in the Times) before the hour of service. The favored ones are in- troduced by side-entrances, and the great public kept out until the first hymn is read, which is at eleven o'clock. I took a cab and rode over to the Tabernacle at about half- past ten. Then the steps were so crowded I could not get within forty feet of the front door. As it was too late to pur- chase tickets (they are purchased of the trustees, I have under- stood), I was obliged to practise the Christian virtue, patience, and wait until the sexton saw fit to open the doors for the multitude, of whom I was on that occasion one. Precisely at eleven the crowd moved inward, and I with 40 SFUffGHON^S TABERNACLE. it. I was in the first gallery in less than two minutes, and almost every place was occupied, from the pews on the main floor to the tiers under the roof. I found a vacant back seat nearly in front of the pulpit, by the window, and got into it at once. Spurgeon was then reading the hymn, stanza by stanza, in rather a monotonous and declamatory manner, in a strong though not rich voice, which could be heard over the whole of the vast assembly. I was as far off as any one in the congre- gation ; and I did not, I think, miss a syllable. I could see the man plainly. There is nothing clerical, as the word is commonly understood, in his appearance. He is large limbed, about five feet ten or twelve inches high, and full enough to be considered corpulent. He has a florid com- plexion, a full, broad face, is rather square at the forehead, with black hair, heavy chin and jaw, not relieved by half-cut whiskers, dark as his locks. His eyes, which I should take to be gray, are capable of great variety of expres- sion. His nose is broad, heavy, disproportion- ately short, and in- clined to turn up at the end. He wore the customary suit of black and the indis- pensable white cravat. He looks in no wise a man of genius, or even of marked indi- viduality, though he shows strength and -decision of character with superabundance of physicality. The entire congregation sang the hymn ; the clergyman taking part with the rest and- standing in the pulpit the while. SPURGEON. HIS STYLE OF FBEACHINO, 41 The effect of so many voices, many of them rich and sweet, though uncultivated, was rather impressive. At the close of the hymn, Spurgeon offered a prayer, which was given in the tone and manner of a sermon. Indeed, I thought it a sermon, until he concluded with the usual form of amen. He peti- tioned Heaven for a revival of vital Christianity, of practical charity, of earnest work ; for the blessing of the nation, its redemption from foreign influences, from Popery and Ritual- ism — which is the same thing (I quote him exactly here) — and the return of a simple and sacred faith. His sermon, nearly an hour long, was in the same key. It was not at all doctrinal. He declared that religion should come from and touch the heart.; that Christians should be humble, and gentle, and tender, as Jesus was; that they should struggle, and agonize, and weep — the more tears the better — and strive to lift themselves above the sordid cares and selfish anxieties of the world. God did not want those who could be for a moment without Him. Every true Christian must aspire ; must recall what the Saviour had suffered, what the martyrs had endured. A preacher of the Gospel must be chosen of God. No one should be a minister who could resist being sucli ; for he who could resist had no vocation for the sacred office. The ordinary Christianity of the day was not what was wanted. It was cold, empty, a thing of form. We needed warm, earnest, devoted, absorbing work, free from all compromise with sin, the flesh, and the devil. Spurgeon was not eloquent in a single passage ; but he held his hearers to the end. JSTot one person, so far as I .could ob- serve, went out until he had concluded ; and the church was very uncomfortable from the crowd and the heat. He does not impress me as a man of rare gifts or even of extraordinary talent. He does not shine in logic, nor glow in rhetoric. He is fervid without color, and earnest without passion. Where, then, is the secret of his power — for power he cer- tainly has — with the English people ? It is in his sympathy with humanity, his understanding of the popular heart, his de- parture from mere dogma and creed, and his unlikeness to the cold formalism of the EstabHshed Church. ^2 TITE B EEC HER OF BRITAIN: In America, in France, in Germany, he would produce no sensation ; would have obtained little reputation. But in Eng- land circumstances favor him ; and he is doing, no doubt, an excellent work. His hearers and admirers are from the com- mon walks of life— intelligent, but not cultivated, persons, I who care little for caste, whose tendencies and instincts are democratic. I Spurgeon is the strongest foe Eitualism has in the British pulpit. He is earnest and resolute, and draws the crowd as no other man on that island does, or can. He has been called the Beecher of Britain. He is little like Beecher has not his genius, his culture, his spontaneity, his magnetism. He is far inferior mentally to the pastor of Plymouth Church ; but he resembles the American in his earnestness, his liberality, hisl anxiety to do good. M '^';tj'i „ ' CHAPTER TV. THE GREAT CITY. 'HE British metropolis is less unpleasant than is usually supposed. Most tourists go there and behold the entire city wrapped in fog and mist and smoke, out of which descends a constant shower of soot and dirt, alternating with a drizzling and irri- tating rain. Umbrellas and soiled linen, and ruffled temper are inseparable companions, especially with strangers in London, nine months out of twelve. Consequent- ly after waiting, day after day, for clear weather, and petition- ing heaven in vain for enough of blue sky to make a violet of, and after seeing nothing but miles of crooked and narrow streets, full of begrimed and unhandsome houses, tourists lose patience, despair of England, rush over to France, glorify Paris, and execrate London for all time to come. They have no idea there are any pleasant spots or green places in London. They hardly go beyond Trafalgar square. Its bronze lions seem to hold them at bay in Charing Cross. If they would penetrate to the quarter about Hyde or Regent's Park, or over to St. James's, or to Belgravia, or to Tyburnia, or to E'otting Hill, or Bayswater, and the weather should favor them, they would see th>.t the great city has her elegant quarters, her fair gardens, her pleasant breathing places, like other European capitals. The localities I have named look so unlike the East End, given over to business, the docks, and the toiling and suffering poor, so unlike even the Surrey side of the Thames, that one can hardly believe them part of London. But even the "West End brightness is not without its shadows, when you think of 44 PROMINENT JOURNALS. the extreme indigence and privation of the residents of Black- ^vall, of the alleys, corners, and lanes where thousands and tens of thousands starve and sin that the few privileged ones may lie in purple, and drink the nectar which gilded injustice distils. The London newspapers advertise themselves in the most flaring style. On all the board-fences and dead-walls you see immense posters about the Telegraph having the greatest cir- culation in the world ; the Standard being the largest paper ; the NeiDs the most readable, etc. The omnibuses, by huge BATHING AT HTDE PAEK. signs upon the top, convey the same kind of intelhgence ; and, indeed, the whole city is filled with this journalistic advertising. The Times continues, of course, extremely prosperous, and does not thrust its excellence into the public eyes from street corners, like many of its contemporaries. It has less influence than it once had, and the Telegraph, News, and PaU Mall Gazette have interfered with its profits, but not materially. Of the dailies in London, the four named are the most money- THE THUNDERER. 45 making journals ; — a number of tliem barely making tlieir ex- penses. The Times^ jou know, changes its course suddenly, when it so chooses, without giving any reason therefor, Monday's issue supports a certain policy which it has advocated for months. Tuesday morning it appears with an entirely dif- ferent policy, and never a syllable as to the change. This has so often happened that the public has ceased to wonder at the revolutions of the Thunderer. One good thing in the Times DELIVERING THE "TIMES.' is that when it alters its views on a certain question, it dismisses the writers who have been supporters of the old views, and employs new writers for the new views. Unlike our journals, it does not supply itself with elastic scribblers, who can write any question up or down — contradict and abuse to-day what they uttered yesterday as deliberate convictions. The Times is very anxious to conceal the names of its ed- itorial contributors, and when they become known, whether by accident or design, it often dispenses with their services, and 46 NOTED GARDENS. never engages them again. The journal is owned by several wealthy men, the largest owner being Mr. Walters, formerly member of Parliament. The course of the Times has always been mysterious and beyond conjecture. Though usually on the side of the capitalists and the heavy merchants, it really speaks for itself alone ; sometimes going in direct opposition to what seems its best interests. The Alhambra Palace, of which we hear much in this coun- try, as a peculiar and racy entertainment, I visited, as traveller bound. The building is very spacious, somewhat tawdry, and dingy. It has three galleries, and in the space under the dome are tables, flanked with benches, where those who like can eat, drink, and smoke during the performance. On the out- side of the space filled with tables are a number of stands where refreshments are sold by young women, who strive to be engaging. There is room for promenading, and during the evening men of a common kind lounge around, smoke, drink, and chat with the waiting-maids. The performance consists of music, vocal and instrumental, dancing, burlesque, tight-rope walking, and other varieties. The ballet, which had been praised to me, I found very inferior. Not one of the fifty or sixty girls could dance ; but they made up for that by lavish display of person and extremely immodest gestures. They seemed on very good terms with many persons in the audience, leering, winking, and smiling at fellows you would avoid in- stinctively if you met them late at night on London bridge. Blondin, styled on the programme " The Hero of Niagara," did his familiar feats over the heads of the audience, who would have been more interested in his performance if he had been of the opposite sex. The entire entertainment — to call it such — was very dol- orous. I was present at the opening of the Cremome Gardens. On the occasion a ball was given, which, it was understood, was to be attended by the representatives of the demi-monde. The night was cool ; so those who attended crowded into the large hall where the dancing was to be ; few of the men remov- THE CREMORNE. 47 ing tlieir overcoats. Tlie women came late, many of them be- ing members of the ballet corps of the theatres, and not relieved of duty, therefore, until nearly midnight. The women were nearly all of them decidedly plump, and showed great ingenuity in keeping on the wisp of drapery, believed errone- ously to be a waist. They were painted red and white, and their eyebrows, lashes, and eyes darkened to give them ex- pression — a melancholy failure. AFTER THB DANCE. The proportion of men to women was as twenty to one. Some of the latter would have seemed pretty if they had been in any degree modest. A few of the girls were in full mas- culine dress — black dress coats, white cravats and gloves — and attracted much attention by their rollicking licentiousness. The Cremorne is a very free place, as may be surmised by the fact that not long ago at a masquer ide a number of women appeared in real Highland costume, and did some astonishing 48 BEAUTIFUL WOMEN. waltzing in a densely crowded assembly. Paris would not tolerate that for a moment. What impressed me most at the Cremome was the appear- ance of many very young men who accompanied the painted wantons there. The young men had hardly the first down on their cheeks; were excessively "spooney" looking, and re- minded one of theological students laboring to be fast, and meeting with very dubious success. They must have been the victims of the loose creatures they so fondly clung to. The English beauty, upon which English writers insist so perpetually, seems to me much exaggerat- ed. The girls are fresh and healthy- looking, and when very young — from twelve to twenty — are often very hand- some. Then they remind one of American girls ; but when fully matured, and after mari'iage, they acquire a ful- ness, not to say fat- ness, that dissipates all romance, and es- tablishes a degree of physicality it is dif-. ficult for us to admire. The English women, regarded from a utilitarian point of view, are superior to our more delicate and spiritual beauties. They are better adapted to become mothers, to ride a steeple- chase, to take long journeys, to destroy good dinners and brown stout. But that is so material, it interferes with our idea of the esthetic. And beauty should be considered for it- self alone, independent of any use to which it may be put. AN ENGLISH BEAUTY. CHURCH OF ENGLANT). 49 A strange scandal is that about the present Dnke of Wel- lington, whose residence stands near Hyde Park comer. The duke has never shown any particular capacity, except for rapid morals, for which he once enjoyed considerable reputa- tion. The story runs that while with a profligate companion in Southern Europe, some years ago, they obtained entrance by stealth or force into a Greek convent. Tlie religious dig- nitaries found them there, and regarding the offence as the greatest sacrilege, determined to put the young noblemen to death. They gave the rakes their choice between Abelard's fate and mmediate execution, "Wellington's companion pre- ferred death ; but "Wellington accepted the dreadful alternative. Improbable as this story is, many persons believe it. The foundation for it is, I suspect, that the duke was very wild, and that after several years of marriage, has had no children. The fish known as white bait, and caiight at a certain sea- son — the English say, only in the Thames — is something every American feels obliged to eat. It is a very small fish, resem- bling our minnow, and receives its name from its color, and from its use as bait. The English think it delicious, and boast of it as much as the Kussians do of the sterlet ; but I cannot, after frequent tests, discover its great excellence. The favorite mode of cooking white bait is to fry it, and then eat it with lemon juice and brown bread and butter. It tastes very much like our smelt, which in flavor it does not surpass. It is ex- pensive, which may account in part for the reputation it enjoys. The Established Church is in a singular state just now. Everything indicates that it must be the Disestablished Church before long, so cold and dead have many of its forms become, and so incongruous its elements. There are four divisions in the Church-^the Ritualists, the High Churchmen, the Low Churchmen, and the Broad Churchmen ; the last including latitudinarians, rationalists, free thinkers, and even atheists. The Ritualists and Broad Churchmen are declared to be sin- cere and earnest ; but the other two to be indifferent, willing to accept any sort of compromise that prevents agitation, and leaves them to their stolid quietude. 4 50 DEAN STANLEY. Dean Stanley, of Westminster Abbey, one of the most gifted of the Episcopal prelates — by many persons considered the intellectual head of the Church — is said, by those claiming to know, to be a mere deist, a disciple of Theodore Parker's radical doctrines. His sermons are very liberal, but so subtle and philosophical that his hearers, failing to understand their import, believe them the expression of true orthodoxy. Many of the prelates, like Pusey and Colenso, are charged with all manner of heresies; but, according to the articles of the Church, there seems no way of removing clerical dignitaries, whatever their opinions. It is claimed that when the Church was formed, it was a compromise with different elements, and was purposely made so broad and elastic that everybody could hold his own views, and yet remain in the pale. CHAPTER V. THE PROVINCES OF ENGLAITO. I ANUFACTURING towns are always melan- choly, those of England especially so. It mat- ters little whether it be Manchester or Birming- ham, Sheffield or Newcastle. Nearly the entire population seem to ' be operatives, who have a worn, haggard, over-worked appearance, that is unpleasant, not to say painful, to contemplate. They live in wretched, crowded, ill- ventilated quarters ; have no leisure for reflection or improvement, but toil from the cradle to the grave ; substitute dissipation for recreation ; fill the coffers of a few capitalists, and die the drudges they have lived. They meet with little sympathy in England. They know they can never rise beyond what they are. They have no future, as they have in our country. They are mere cum- berers of the soil for others' uses ; are regarded as machines worth so much per day. They are bound by an iron aestiny, and when they quit life, they can have little to regre since they have never had anything to hope for. Caste and capital rule on British soil, and Lord Noodle or Sir Edmund Profli- gate, though all sin ^nd selfishness, is honored and praised, while the poor honest man is never taken into account. Coventry is a city I visited on account of its ancient fame. I had expected to find it very old and unique — a kind of Eng- lish Ferrara or Mantua ; but it shows much freshness and spirit of improvement. It has sixty thousand people and many new buildings ; though the old part of the town, with its small tiled houses, and narrow streets, reveals its past. It has been a large 52 PEEPING T03f. manufacturing point for rilibons and watches, but, during tlie last few years, its trkde has exhibited a marked decline, like most of the manufacturing towns of England. In all of them there are many persons unemployed, and the number is rap- idly increasing. Pauperism is spreading throughout the coun- try, in which no one can travel without arriving at the convic- tion that the great material prosperity of Britain is on the wane. The sole remedy for the existing condition of things is emigration. Thousands of honest working-men would come to America now if they had the means; and the next ten years will see a steady stream flowing to our shores. We have long sheltered English pickpockets, prize-fighters, and burg- lars : it is quite time we were favored with a worthier class. Coventry is always associated with Falstaffs ragged scare- crow army ; and were the oleaginous Jack alive, he would have little trouble in recruiting as forlorn a regiment as that which, according to that clever reporter, Will Shakespeare, so awoke his uproarious laughter. Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom involuntarily enter the mind when Coventry is mentioned. I wonder if any Tom could be found now-adays. This age is so accustomed to nudity in women that I fancy all curiosity on that subject is allayed. The prevailing modes and the ballet have destroyed much of the charm and mystery of loveliness unadorned, and few men are so ignorant or so prurient as to incur risk or dan- ger to behold Godiva riding through the streets when Godivas may be viewed with entire security at any of the theatres, and semi-nakedness leisurely observed in almost any fashionable drawing-room. The famous ride of Godiva is still repeated there, with the difference that a handsome youth is substituted for the fair lady. Every year, about Easter-time, a young man is attired in flesh-colored, tight-fitting silk, and with a wig of flowing, yellow tresses, rides through the city amid a crowd of specta- tors. The custom pleases the people, who, perhaps, have imagi- nation enough to change the sex of the masquerading boy. GHATSWORTH. 53 Chatsworth, you know, is one of the largest estates of the Duke of Devonshire. It is in Derbyshire, and, as all tourists are supposed to go there, I made the visit. Chatsworth is certainly a magnificent estate, consisting of over seven thou- sand acres, admirably laid out, and liberally stocked with sheep and cattle of the finest breeds. There are also preserves of game, and parks of deer, with groves, gardens, and conserva- tories, worth a colossal fortune. It seems unjust that one man should own so much land where it is so scarce as in England ; and yet Chatsworth is only one of seven or eight splendid estates belonging to the Duke. He is estimated to be worth about twenty millions of pounds — one hundred millions of dollars — and to have an annual income of fully ten millions of dollars, a sum sufficient, with careful economy, to preserve him from absolute want. He has a model village for his tenants near his estate, and it is really what it claims to be. The dwelhngs are all substantially built of stone, with pleasant gardens, and would be desirable as homes for men of culture and taste. The Duke's residence, open to visitors, is completely palatial, filled with fine frescos, marbles, paintings, historical relics, and articles of virtu. The country people for many miles around deem it a rare privilege to see it, and going through it is an era in their quiet and monotonous lives. The privilege costs them two or three shillings, for everything in England must be paid for. The money is given to the servants, of course, but I should sup- pose a man of the Duke's wealth might pay his domestics enough to prevent them from taking money from strangers. They do not know how to extend courtesies in Europe. They call places free to the public ; but no one can enter them with- out expending as much as he would to go to the theatre or a concert. It is strange that noblemen do not perceive the bad taste of allowing t^eir servants to receive money. It not only undoes an act of kindness, but makes it appear as if they were making show-shops of their own homes. Chatsworth is over four hundred years old ; has been occu- pied in that time by the most distinguished historic person- 64 HAUNTED CASTLE. ages. Queen Elizabeth, Mary Stuart, Charles I., Charles II., Queen Anne, Bacon, Essex, and Raleigh have banqueted and slept beneath its roof. Five or six miles from Chatsworth is Haddon Hall, one of the best preserved old castles I have seen in England. It was built during the reign of "WilKam the Conqueror, and though unoccupied since lYOO, it is kept in nearly the same state that it was five centuries ago. It gives an excellent idea of the strong- holds of the feudal times, when bold and unscrupulous barons held the power of life and death over their vassals, and robbed, fought, and pillaged, as they chose. There are the vast, rude kitchens and larders, the oak-built banquet-halls, the council chambers, the ball-rooms hung with faded tapestries, the closets of the jesters, as they were centuries ago. In the banquet- hall is an iron ring, to which those who failed to drink a certain quantity of wine were fastened, and cold water poured down their necks. The Hall, which is the property of the Duke of Rutland, is very interesting, but so dreary that few commoners would care to live in it. It is said to be haunted — all old buildings long deserted get that reputation — and by the spirit of a beau- tiful woman, whom a baron, in the time of Edward L, carried off in one of his forays and murdered, because she would not submit to his desires. The fair ghost is heard to moan and scream in the chambers of the round tower, and to be seen flitting about the battlements during tempestuous nights. Many of the rustics would not sleep in the Hall for all the Duke is worth, and some of them claim to have heard the mys- terious sounds, and to have seen the shadowy virgin more than once. The Hall is well fitted for ghosts, and I think if I were one I should immediately take possession. I am now medi- tating a supernatural story, and I intend to lay the scene there, having carefully noted down the various rumors that are afloat respecting the ancient castle. A woman in white conducted me through the different apartments ; but she did not look very ghost-like, and her mischievous eye, and pouting lips, and easy manner, as she ran carelessly up the stone staircases, did YORK. 55 not indicate that she was in danger of dying from the same cause that gave to Haddon its wandering spirit. York gave me a day of satisfaction. Its ancient walls, though restored in part, are in general excellently preserved. The remains of its old castle and St. Mary's Abbey, and its Cathedral — the largest in England, not excepting St. Paul's — liberally repay a visit, apart from its many grotesque houses and antique streets. The Cathedral is a fine specimen of gothic, •and dates from the seventh century, though it did not have any- thing like its present form until five hundred years later. It is in the shape of a cross, a square massive tower rising from the intersection to the height of 240 feet, and two other towers of 200 feet flanking the richly-decorated front. The entire length is 524 feet, and the width 222 feet. The carved images of the N^orman kings, beginning with William, in the middle of the nave, are the best specimens of comic sculpture that I can remember. The monarchs resemble Celtic gentlemen, who, after holding an animated argument with shillalahs, had stood up in a row to whistle an Irish war-song with parched lips and cracking throats. Such a droll crew of crowned mountebanks can hardly be found anywhere else in ecclesiastic sculpture. If Punch would copy them, they would be vastly superior to most of his illustrations. The much boasted organ of the Minster disappointed me greatly. It is not half so sweet or rich in tone as the organ at Haarlem, Freiberg or Berne; but you can't make Yorkshiremen believe so. The county jail is now in the old castle, and it is a much better and neater jail than any in America. I can conscien- tiously recommend it to some of our countrymen whose mod- esty prevents them, though conscious of their deserving, from patronizing home institutions. Among the curiosities of the prison are Dick Turpin's manacles and pistols, and the cell in which he was confined. He was hanged near York; but, owing to an unfortunate fall, he was prevented from telling how he liked it. The origin of York is almost lost in fable. Under the Romans, Hadrian, Severus, Constantine, and other emperors 66 NEWCASTLE. resided there, Severus having died in the town, and his funeral rites having been performed on Sivers Hill, near the city. During the Saxon rule it was the capital of the king- doms of Northumbria and Deira, and in the eighth century its diocesan school attracted students from all parts of the king- dom and the Continent. Its ancient walls, three miles long, restored by Edward I., have four imposing gates, and now serve for a promenade. Most of the streets are narrow and irregular, lined with very antique-looking houses ; but many* parts have been modernized, and have handsome buildings. Parliament street, with its termini, Sampson square, and the Pavement, in which the markets are held, is one of the pleas- ant quarters of the old town, which now has a population of over 42,000. Newcastle is the Pittsburgh of Great Britain, and, though well built, is one of the dingiest and dreariest towns in the whole United Kingdom. It is improving rapidly, and contains much wealth ; but I cannot see how anything except the tyranny of what men call business, can induce any one to live there. "What is known as the Old Castle, on the banks of the Tyne, is a most gloomy and most forbidding building. I looked at it one evening under a chilly and lowering sky, and thought it ought to have been one of the original contributions to Dante's Inferno. To stand under its shadows is enough to drive the last atom of cheerfulness out of the lightest heart. Persons troubled with excessive animal spirits should take an ocular dose of the dark tower two or three times a day. I have no means of ascertaining how many people thereabouts go to the gods by their own deliberate act ; but if a large num- ber do not, it is because sensibility is not one of the English idiosyncrasies. Most men are affected by externals, which are in that city of the most depressing character. The sun may shine there, but it did not while I was in the vicinity — a fact of which the natives seemed to be quite un- aware. "Fine weather this," said a citizen to me one morn- ing. " Oh, yes, delightful," I replied, supposing him to be CLOUDS OF SMOKE. 67 Jesting — an error on my part, which his subsequent remarks made clear. Englishmen rarely joke on any subject, and the spirit of badinage, so common with us, they seldom under- stand. Fine weather indeed ! "When he used the phrase the air was so dense with smoke and clouds formed therefrom that any one might have believed the centre of the solar system in total eclipse. Newcastle has very extensive manufactures, mostly in iron, and many handsome buildings, marred by great clouds of per-, petual smoke, which hang over the city like a pall. Its pres- ent population is about 120,000, and it boasts of Duns Scotus ; Akenside, the poet ; Hutton, the mathematician ; the Earl of Eldon, the famous chancellor, and Admiral Collingwood, as its native citizens. CHAPTEK YI. WABWICKSHIKE. jEAMINGTON, you know, is a very fashionable watering-place, perhaps the most fashionable of all the inland spas of England, having grown so of late years, during which it has quite eclipsed Bath, whose day of favor and prestige has gone by. Its sahne waters are highly recommended, es- pecially by those who have never tried them. Hav- ing experimented upon them in a small way, both internally and externally, I should judge that a man of ex- tremely vigorous constitution might drink and bathe in them, and live to be thirty years of age. It is quite possible that I am not a good judge, having suffered from excess of health from my earliest recollection. I gave my opinion one morn- ing to an old habitue of the place, when he told me the waters were for invalids, not for robust persons. Hence I conclude that, while the springs may kill a well man, they may cure an ill one. Argal, as Shakespeare's clowns say, they are not for me, and I'll no more of them. Leamington is an exceedingly pleasant town of 30,000 in- habitants, a good deal like Saratoga, except that it is better built and more attractive in its surroundings. Its hotels are superior to Saratoga, though less pretentious, and, albeit very dear for England, would be thought very cheap in America. The chief charm of Leamington is its contiguity to several of the most interesting places in England. It is in Warwick- shire (pronounced there as if it had no second ^6), and within a few miles of Stratford-on-Avon, Kenilworth, Newstead Abbey, KENIL WORTH. 6 9 Warwick Castle, and Guy's Cliff. "With those I chiefly con- cerned myself ; and as the weather was delightful — very much like our month of May — I enjoyed my rides and drives exceed- ingly. The most interesting point after Stratford is Kenilworth, which, no doubt, owes its reputation more to "Walter Scott's novel than to any historic account ever given of it. "Who can think of Kenilworth without recalling the selfish and cruel Earl of Leicester and poor Amy Robsart, so brutally treated by her perfidious lover and inhuman husband? The apart- ments (or what remains of them) which Amy occupied are still pointed out, but her life at Kenilworth is so shrouded in mystery that all statements made about her must be received with caution. She was a foully-wronged woman beyond ques- tion ; but so many women have been foully wronged that mere wrong— more's the pity — entitles them to little distinc- tion. Kenilworth is more of a ruin than I had expected to find it. What Cromwell's soldiers left, sight-seers have sought to rifle. They have hacked the ruins and pulled out bricks to such an extent that entire portions of the walls have fallen down ; and those still standing require the support of heavy timbers. "What a mania is this of relic-hunters ! To gratify their vulgar curiosity, they spare nothing. If left to themselves, they would carry off the Cohseum and the Alhambra, piece by piece, and reduce St. Peter's and the Escorial to the condition of the Heidelberg Castle and the Baths of Caracalla. They are the modem Yandals, and without the excuse of the old barbarians, they wish their culture to be an apology for their ravages. Kenilworth is supremely picturesque, with its broken arches, its crumbling turrets, its shattered battlements, its mouldy towers covered with ivy and pleading with silent elo- quence for the romance of the past. The great gate-house or barbican is in the best state of preservation, but much of that was despoiled by Puritanic rage, and appropriated to ignoble 60 REMIXISCENCES OF TEE CASTLE. uses. Caesar's Tower, in the Norman style of architecture, is the least imperfect part of the ruins. It was formerly the keep and citadel, and its lofty arches and the great thickness of its walls remind me of the Claudian aqueduct at Rome, The Banqueting Hall, built by John of Gaunt, is quite complete in parts. There Robert Dudley, the courfly villain and knightly sycophant, entertained the petticoated tyrant, and compared her homeliness to the beauty of Venus and the freshness of Hebe. There, for generations, were the royal ceremonials, the chivalrous assemblies, and the magnificent revels, in which the Plantagenets and Tudors took conspicuous part. How many splendid women and gallant warriors have laughed and loved there over their wine ; how many jewelled hands have touched with a thrill that was a revelation ; how many mailed heels have rung upon the marble pavements, and quaffed bumpers to York or Lancaster before they went to the tourna- ment and the front of battle ! The scenes of pomp and was- sail were so easily recalled that I lost myself in the purple mists of fancy until the cawing of the rooks flying about the battlements, reminded me that I stood by the grave of centu- ries. Mortimer's Tower, where the treacherous Earl of March feasted with his mistress, the unchaste Queen of Edward II., while the unfortunate monarch and his band languished in the dungeons of the castle, has almost entirely disappeared. So has the Tilt Yard, in which the famous tournament of the Round Table took place before the high-born beauties of the day. One can judge of what Kenil worth must have been by what it is. There is an engraving, by Ratclyffe, of the castle in 1620, which shows it in all its beauty, with the ornamental gardens smTounding the Plaisance, filled with fomitains, avi- aries, statues, arches, and grottos. With Elizabetli the last gleam of its splendor departed ; but with her and her magnifi- cent era of poets, warriors, statesmen, and scholars, it will al- ways be associated. Kenilworth was a right royal place once ; never more so than when the last of the Tudors carried her red hair and Amazonian features to the entertainment that nearly made Leicester bankrupt. WABWICK CASTLE. 61 They were copious drinkers iu those days, for, according to an antique chronicler, a thousand hogsheads of beer and wine were consumed during the festal occasion on which the Queen was the guest of the fawning and favored Earl, Eliza- beth herself was a very capable imbiber of liquids that cheer and do inebriate, and tradition has it that she frequently be- came so affected by her potations that some one of her numer- ous favorites had to carry her to bed. A magnificent, aquiline- nosed sham was that self-styled Maiden Queen ! Warwick Caatle is one of the finest in England, and beauti- ^ fully situated on the Avon — Shakespeare's river, as it may well be called. Its origin is mythical, the antiquarians declar- ing, with their usual fecundity of invention, that the Eomans began it. Dugdale says Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great, was its founder, and that Henry de Newburg, a ]^or- man, improved and added to the fortress. It came into the possession of the Nevilles by the marriage of Cicely, daughter of Richard ISTeville, Earl of Salisbury, to Henry, seventh Earl of Beauchamp. The famous king-maker, as the friend and foe of Edward TV. was called, lived there. By the marriage of his daughter Isabella to the Duke of Clarence, it passed to the Plantagenets ; then to the Dudley family ; then to that of Rich ; then to the Grevilles, to whom the present Earl of WarM'ick is related. The present walls, with the battlements and towers, are certainly four or five hundred years old, but the interior is comparatively modern. The approach to the outer court of the Castle, is through a winding road cut out of the solid rock, draped with ivy and evergreens. After passing through it, you are confronted by gray stone towers and battlements of the l^orman pattern, that seem as if they might have been erected last year, so fresh do they look. The grounds of the inner court are laid out in the usual elaborate but artificial English style. You enter the Castle by the great hall, where you are shown by a pompous servant, in anticipation of half a crown, the reception and the banquet rooms, the chapel, the bed in which Queen Anne slept (I am tired of seeing beds where 62 ENGLISH FLUNKEYISM. women have slept), the armory, containing suits of mail and weapons of the feudal times, including the helmet, cuirass, and sword of the King-Maker, the helmet of Oliver Cromwell, the dagger of Eichard III., the gauntlets of Edward lY., and other things of historic interest. There are a number of paintings, too, by the old masters, nearly all of them inferior to what you see on the Continent. A Circe, by Guido, was the only one that impressed me ; and my unwillingness to admire what the lackey pointed out with much more pride than if he had been the original "William de Beauchamp of the family, seemed to disturb his equanimity. Those English flunkeys amuse me. They think every- body should be enthusiastic over each bit of marble, gilding and canvas that belongs to their masters. It is very droll to hear them grappling with Italian and French names when they can't pronounce their own correctly. They drop their JCs religiously ; but they understand economy, for they pick them up and apply them to all words beginning with a vowel, so that none of them are lost. "When the Earl of Warwick's servant told me this or that is so and so, I replied, " Oh, yes, I know all about it. I've seen the original in Rome, or Florence, or Dresden ; " and to his comments of " That is very fine, hexceedingly beautiful," etc., I responded, "Yes, very good; but on the Continent they have better, of course." It was a petty sort of malice ; but the fellow was so inflated with the idea of being a noble- man's servant, that he sometimes forgot himself Before he had conducted me half way through the apartment he became much subdued, and ceased to give me his critical views on Morelo and Dominicko, as he called Murillo and Domenichi- no. When I went away, he looked as if I ought to hand him a sovereign, inasmuch as I had not been properly impressed by his importance and his artistic taste. Guy of Warwick was a very remarkable person, as you must be aware, if you have ever read the legends of Warwick Castle. The old woman at the porter's lodge invites you, or the shilling she sees in your eye, to inspect his arms, and some A SAXON GIANT. 63 of his relics which are under her custody. She declares he was a Saxon giant, nine and a half feet high, and if you would give her half a crown, she would inform you he was twelve. She showed me a huge copper kettle, in which, she said, his porridge was made. That, I pretended to understand, was his tea-cup, and remarked that he must have been a very good- sized fellow for England, but that in America a man of ten feet was below the average height. She looked at me, and ex- pressed some surprise ; but observing that she was taking my altitude, I informed her I was a dwarf ; that for several years I exhibited myself throughout the country, and that I made so much money, I had to come to Europe to get rid of it. The joke was lost. She believed every word of it. The English, whether cultivated or uncultivated, rarely see a jest. Guy's Cliff is worth visiting, because it shows you how the nobihty of England live. Though an ancient seat, it is now used as a country-house by a family of distinction, and can be seen during their absence. The furniture of the most wealthy families in Great Britain is very plain compared to ours. They spend in pictures and articles of virtu what we lavish in showier things. Tradition has it that the redoubtable Guy of Warwick left the Castle, and went there to close his days in penitence and prayer, while his lovely wife mourned him as dead in her baronial home. The truth, probably, is that she was disagreeable and addicted to curtain-lectures, and that he, not relishing them, shut himself up in the Cliff and drank him- self into a coffin. Newstead Abbey has been greatly restored and beautified by its present owner, a Mr. Webb, a man of large fortune and scientific tastes. Byron's apartments are kept as he left them, and have been so much visited since the late scandal that the family are much annoyed. A tree near the Abbey contains the poet's mother's name, and some verses to her, cut with his own hand. The tree is more frequently looked at than ever, but it is not regarded as sentimentally as it used to be. The Abbey is picturesquely situated, but it is so damp, owing to a lake near it, as to be very unhealthy. All the infants who 64 BYRON^S APARTMENTS. hare been bom there for years have died, and a superstition arose that it was because a skull of one of Byron's ancestors (he was in the habit of using it as a tobacco box) remained un- buried. Recently, the skull has been put under earth, but the atmosphere has not grown more salubrious. Byron was so fond of being talked about that he ought to come back now and have his inordinate vanity gratified. A woman in Paris said when I was there, " A man who would seduce his sister must be so diabolically wicked that he could not fail to be interesting." TOWER OF LONDON ' CHAPTER YII. STRATrOKI>ON-AVON. SHAKESPEARE. •ITCH as the quiet village of Stratford is visited, it is much less visited than one would suppose from the world-wide reputation of him who was bom there, and with whom it is always associated. It might naturally be expected that every train would take dozens of persons to the spot which appeals more to the intellectual and cultivated of every nation than any other mental Mecca in either hemisphere. It is not so, however. The English go between Liverpool and London every hour, and yet few take Stratford on their way ; and even when they pass through it, they seldom stop to look at the tomb of the most marvellous poet of all time. I have met a number of literary men in London who have never been there, and who probably never will go, from the fact that the journey is so easily made. I have seen Ameri- cans, too, who, after travelling all over the Continent, visiting Egypt and the Orient, had failed to see the slab that covers the ashes of "William Shakespeare. The Americans, however, know much more of the poet than the English, who read him little, comparatively, and seem to have much less appreciation of him than our own people. From April to the end of Octo- ber, quite as many Americans as native Britons visit Stratford, as is shown by the registers kept at the church and the house in Henley street. I have no doubt it will sound strange to John Bull and his brethren, but Shakespeare, to my mind, was far more Ameri- can than English, and many of his creations are American 6 SHAKESPEARE. types. Hamlet is the exponent of a liiglily cultivated, ex- tremely sensitive, morbid American, placed beyond the need of exertion, tortured by ideals, and haunted by consciousness of indecision. I have known many Hamlets; indeed, it is quite a common character in this country. But I have never encountered a British Ham- let. The English seldom un- SHAKESPEAKE. derstand or admire the crea- tion. They consider Ham- let, as Carlyle does, a mere milksop, who was maddest when most logical. Shakespeare's heroines, many of them, are rather of the American than English type — as Ophelia, Portia, Imogen, Desdemo n a , and Yiola. In fact, we have a right to the great bard in that he anticipated our de- velopment. He spiritually belongs to us, for we sympathize with, and comprehend him better than the people for whom he wrote. Shakespeare is a liousehold word with us. His name is a charm, an inspiration. If I were inclined to take off my hat at the mention of any one, it would be at the men- tion of William Shakespeare, for I regard him as the Jesus of the intellectual world. Before going to Stratford I had expected to be overrun with guides, offering their services, and determined to show me Anne Hathaway' s cottage, if I declined to accept their con- duct to Shakespeare's tomb or his house. I was very agree- ably disappointed. Ko one approached me, though many knew me to be a stranger, and probably conjectured the pur- pose of my visit. I went down the first street, and, meeting one of the villagers, I inquired, " Can you direct me to Shake- speare's house ? " " "Whose house ? " CHURCH ON THE AVON. 67 I don't think he lives about and I never heard of the " Shakespeare's." " What Shakespeare ? " "William Shakespeare." " I don't know any snch man here. I was born in this villa£ name of Shakespeare." I asked no more questions. I went on, musing upon the uncertainty of fame. He who had filled civilization with his genius, and made English seem an inspired tongue, had not reached the memory of the rustic whose home was less than five hundred yards from where the poet died. I stepped into an ale-house to drink down my astonish- ment, when in came a poor youth afflicted with St. Yitus's dance, who said he knew what I wanted, and that he would like to "show me round"; informing me he had acted as guide for Artemas Ward, Longfellow, and Jefferson Davis. I smiled at the connection, and could not resist the thought that Stratford was so Shakesperian that the only guide in it must needs himself shake at every word he uttered. That was a bad joke, in private, of which I doubly re- pented when I looked into the unfortunate fellow's kindly face. By way of atonement, I engaged him at once, at thrice the price he asked, though I really had no need of his guidance. When I entered the Church of the Holy Trinity, on the banks of the Avon, service had just begun ; so I was obliged to wait until it was over before I could look leisurely at Shakespeare's tomb. As the service consisted merely of some abominable readings in the worst English accent, it was not very interest- ing nor edifying. I consoled myself with the reflection that that was the penalty I paid for the satisfaction of my pilgrim- STOfTE TABLET. 68 GRAVE OF SHAKESPEARE. age, and so endured the liollow forms for fully fifteen minutes, counting bj my watch — two hours, counting by my feelings. After the prayer had been monotonously sung, and the few worshippers had departed, one of the surpliced priests re- appeared, in secular garb, and asked if I wished to see the slab covering the remains. I replied affirmatively, when he rolled back the matting before the chancel, and there I read the familiar lines beginning, " Stranger, for Jesus' sake, forbear To dig the dust that is enclosed here." Shakespeare's wife, their two children, and grandchild are buried by his side, and their graves are pointed out by the clergymen, as they need to be, since the inscriptions are bare- ly legible. On the wall, near the tablet and effigy, is a notice to this effect : " Yisitors are particularly requested not to step upon the slab covering the sacred ashes of the dead." I thought that very appropriate until I saw, after the handing of a shil- ling to the priest, that he did not avoid stepping upon the slab, nor did he request me to avoid it. The words " until the customary fee is paid," should have been added to the notice ; but the phrase, no doubt, is sup- posed to be understood. The English complain of the fees exacted on the Continent for sight-seeking ; but their country is quite as bad as Switzerland, Germany, or Italy. It does seem to me that if there is any one place that an English- speaking person ought to be privileged to behold without draught on his purse it is Shakespeare's tomb. The notice to visitors is ingeniously contrived. Without it persons would look at the effigy and tablet in the wall, and go away conclud- ing that they had seen all that is to be seen. The notice cor- rects this error, and insures the receipt of a shilling. If the money so contributed might be expended in giving the priests who officiate in the church a course of elocutionary lessons, it would be well bestowed. "Were I compelled to attend service there, I'd gladly contribute a shilling or two every Sunday out of regard for my ear, already so deeply wounded. EFFIGY OF SHAKESPEARE. 60 The effigy of the great dramatist is grotesque. It represents him with a pen and scroll in his hands, resting on a cushion. The face is entirely wooden, without character or expression, and recalls the blocks one sees in hair-dealers' windows, for the support and display of wigs. The stone was whitewashed until nine years ago, when the whitewash was removed, and the original colors restored, thereby making it look worse than before. I can think of nothing that more closely resembles a sign for a tobacconist's shop, or a rude carving of a Teutonic beer-drinker, such as you see sometimes in Germany, than that effigy of the immortal bard. How much he has been wronged facially ! Shakespeare may not have been handsome, in the usual sense; but the man who could create "Lear," "Macbeth," and " Othello," could not have resembled a boiled carrot or a coarse figure on a Dutch clock. With what must have been his intense love of beauty, I should fancy his spirit might be indignant even now at the caricature of the face that has been for more than two centu- ries put off upon the world. But he was too large for that. He never concerned himself even about his wonderful plays. It is not likely he would trouble himself in regard to his pic- tures, ti-ue or false, especially in the all-satisfying sphere in which he must be now. The church is a handsome gothic building, and its situation on the banks of the Avon, its old graveyard and crumbling headstones, and its graceful spire, of modern construction, make it very agreeable to visit, apart from the sacred ashes it contains. To the sentimental and romantic, its benches on the margin of the stream — small and sluggish, but not without beauty — offer place and inducement for reverie and contempla- tion. I saw several young women sitting there, evidently trying to work themselves up to the proper mood. If I had been gallant, I might have aided them ; but, as it was, I went my way in silence to Shakespeare's house, in Henley street, which is now owned by the Shakespearian Club, who pur- chased it a number of years ago^ and keep in it a custodian, to whom you pay sixpence for admission. The dwelling seems 70 SHAKESPEARE'' S HOME rude enough now, but it was thought very comfortable, and not without pretension, in the poet's day. It is two stories high, with gables of oak frame filled with cement, and has undergone very little change since its occupation by Shake- speare's father, who was a man of position and property, hav- ing at one time been the mayor of Stratford. You enter the house through the kitchen, paved with common flags, and ascend to the first apartment, in which the poet was bom. It seemed very natural, devoid of reverence though I may be, to uncover in the rude room where the poet of eternity first saw the light. How little his mother, whatever her maternal hopes, could have dreamed what the infant — the boy in the homely chamber — would become, and how, for centuries after, men of other climes would sail from beyond the seas to bow before the mighty genius which is as fresh to-day as when it first flashed into recoc:niti()u. There are seven or eight rooms in the house, three of them called the Museum, for admission to which an additional six- pence is charged. The Museum is interesting, as it contains his seal ring, the earliest copies of his works, various illustrated editions, numerous por- ^^ traits, or what claim to be "sHAKESPEARE's HOME. sucli, aud all tlic Sliake- spearian relics that could be collected. Strange to say, not a scrap of his manuscript is there — not even his autograph, nor a single letter, save one, of the many he must have received. The total disappearance of almost everything that belonged to, or might have been part of, the man, is as wonderful as his genius. I^o marvel some persons hold that such a being never existed. If there was no Shakespeare, who wrote the plays ascribed UNPARDONABLE VANDALISM. 7l to him ? That's the question no one has been able to answer, for the theories about Bacon, though specious, are not to be entertained. No human creature could afford to forego the imperishable fame that any one of Shakespeare's dramas was certain to in- sure. The mj^thical Homer, Dante, Tasso, Goethe, and all the others who have been ranked with Shakespeare, pale before his divine and unquenchable fire. It is curious to observe the difference in the pretended por- traits of the poet. Each artist who has attempted to represent the bard, has put his peculiar nationality and notions into the picture. It is easy to recognize the French, the German, and the Italian schools ; and of the twenty portraits, though they have something in common, no two look alike. The Chandos picture, in the National Gallery in London, is declared to be the best ; but I don't believe it resembles Shakespeare closely. It is more Italian or Spanish in appearance than it is English, and reminds me of some of Murillo or Yelasquez's portraits in Madrid. The poet was not brunette, I fancy, but rather blond, more like the picture that hangs in his house, and which belonged to the clerk of the county for more than a hundred years. - How long Shakespeare lived in the building in Henley street is unknown, though there is no doubt he was born there, and probably his father before him. The house in which he died was pulled down by the Reverend (?) Francis Gastrell, because he was annoyed by visitors to the place. What a clerical old curmudgeon he must have been ! Certainly he deserves to be damned to everlasting fame. Could anybody bom out of England have been guilty of such a deliberate piece of hoggishness ? The foundation of the house only remains, but still attracts visitors to the quarter of the village in which it stands. To Anne Hathaway's cottage, in Chartery, I made a pil- grimage, and found it a very old, tliatched, humble abode. In it is preserved the bench on which Shakespeare is said to have wooed Anne, and the comer of the fireplace where they sat 12 ANNE HATHAWAY'' S COTTAGE. during the long winter evenings. What wonderful talk he must have poured into her love-greedy ear ! (I won't for the time accept the probability that he was not very fond of her.) What a pity it is some zealous reporter could not have intro- duced himself into the closet, and put down the magical sen- tences of tenderness and truth ! We should have found all "Eomeo and Juliet," all "Cymbeline," all "Hamlet," all " Othello," flowing from his inspired lips. No wonder he won Anne, though seven years his senior. His speech would have won any woman. The cottage at last accounts was to be sold. -The govern- ment, or some scholar, should buy it, that we may all have the privilege of visiting the roof where lived and loved the woman who must ever arouse all our imagination when we think she was Shakespeare's wife. Shakespeare's wife ! What new sweetness and beauty is lent to the word when we couple it with his name, and remem- ber that she saw his secret self, and slept upon the heart for whose faintest tone the world hungers after two centuries and a half of its music forever hushed ! CHAPTEE Yin. DESCENT INTO A COAL-PIT. AYING heard, for years, of the wretched and unnatiiral life miners are compelled to lead, I determined, during my last visit to England, to make a descent into some of the pits, and judge for myself. I M^as prepared for something horri- ble, for I had been told, over and again, that men were employed in the collieries, and women, too, who, for weeks and months, never saw the light of day ; that infants were often born in the subterranean regions, and, for years unable to see the sun, withered and died, hke plants striving to grow in a cellar. For a fortnight I tried to find the deepest pit in England, and soon learned that the Weannouth colhery, at Sunderland, on the coast of the German Ocean, twelve miles from Newcas- tle-on-Tyne, was the one that would give me the best (or worst) idea of labor in the bowels of the earth. The Wearmouth is — with, perhaps, one exception, the Duckenfield, near Manches- ter — the deepest colliery in England. It has been worked for forty years ; is nearly 2,000 feet below the surface, and has three walls or galleries extending from one and a half to three miles in length. One of the walls is dug under the sea, and yields as fine coal as either of the others. It employs 1,200 men, has two shafts, each with two light tub cages, each tub containing eight and a half cwts. of coal. The mine is capable of drawing 2,000 tons each day, counted as twelve hours — probably the largest yield of any coUiery in Europe. A singular history is that of the Wearmouth. Richard 74 A SUCCESSFUL M0N03IANIAC. Pemberton, a man of means, first conceived the idea that coal was to be found on the spot. He began operations, and soon exhausted his fortune, without finding coal. His friends en- deavored to dissuade him from pursuing the enterprise, confi- dent he had made a mistake. He would not listen to them : he felt certain the coal was there. His relatives were wealthy, and, inspiring them with his enthusiasm, they at first lent hun aU the money he asked for. Still he did not succeed. They began to be distrustful ; but he, being a man of strong will and much persuasive power, induced them to make advances, mitil they were literally bankrupt. Again his friends impor- tuned him to desist. He would not heed them — seeming to become more confident as they grew more despondent. He swore lie would dig down to hell before he would stop ; that if he did not get coal, he would find cinders. He was declared crazy, but he still continued to raise money. He would never admit the possibility of failure ; but hope, so long deferred, evidently wore upon him. He grew thin and haggard, taciturn and morose ; and, naturally of a high temper, his nearest friends were afraid to speak to him of the mine, about which they believed he had become a monomaniac. At last, one day when he was in Newcastle, coal was reached. A messenger went post-haste from Sunderland to in- form him hastily of the joyous news. Pemberton met the messenger on the bridge over the Tyne, and heard the tidings as he was riding moodily along on horseback. Pemberton' s cheek flushed; Ids eye fatal news. flashed when the fact was announced. He reeled from his AT THE MIXE. 75 seat and fell to the ground as if he had been shot. He was picked up insensible. He never spoke afterward, and in twenty- foui- hours was a corpse- The glad news had killed him. But all his expectations of the mine were realized after death. To-day his son receives a very large income from the company of capitahsts who are working the Wearmouth. I arrived at Sunderland early in the morning, and ap- plied for permission to go into the mine. The superintendent, or chief viewer, as he is called, had not arrived. I was obliged to wait for an hour, and during that time I was about the colliery, and saw the miners descending in the cars to their daily work. They went down a shaft, out of which the hot air and smoke were nishing as if from the fabled pit. The blast was like that from the crater of Vesuvius, and almost suffocated me. It was not of a character to encourage my adventure ; but I had gone there to go into the mine, and go I would. I returned to the office, and found the chief viewer. He was very courteous and pleasant ; said he was entirely will- ing I should go, though he felt bound to tell me that the ad- venture was not without danger, adding, "Two gentlemen, who- made a descent out of curiosity, were killed near here last week." "If you have no objection, I should like to go." " You are not afraid, then ? " I smiled. " Oh, yes, I see," he said, looking at my card before him, "you are an American, and a journalist. Of course you'll ■go," and he smiled in turn. Before going down, it was necessary to put on a miner's costuuite. I went into an upper room of the office, and was feoon aiTayed in a coarse woollen shirt, short trousers, a jacket, and an old leather cap. Then arming myself with a stick and a safety-lamp, I set out. I fancied I looked like a pro- fessional miner, barring my French boots; but as I passed through a line of miners, smoking near the colliery, they looked so pleased as I went by, that I am afraid my disguise was not so complete as I had supposed. % DOWN THE SHAFT. The resident viewer, who accompanied me, did not take me to the smoky shaft, but to another one, where the air was quite cool and fresh. "We stepped into a coal-bucket, and whirled down in about two minutes to the bottom of the pit. The descent was exhilarating, and I enjoyed it. It seemed very dark at first, and for a minute the lamps were of little service. I soon grew accustomed to the darkness, and groped along until I reached a cabin to wait for the coal cars, sixty in number, which are drawn up and down the gallery on a rail- way, by a rope fastened to a wheel moved by an engine. The cars arri\ang, I shut myself up like a jack-knife in one, and was bumped along for a mile " over the rails in six minutes. Then I got out, and walked another mile in a tunnel (blasted out of the rocks) not much over three feet high, stepping aside every few minutes to let the coal cars, dragged by horses, pass, and experiencing some difficulty in avoiding being run over. Considering the narrowness of the pass, the lowness of the roof, and the faint lights, which hardly re- lieve the mine from total darkness at some points, it is a wonder more are not injured. As it is, accidents from the cars are nearly as numerous as they are on the Erie Railway, son^ebody being killed or wounded almost every week. For a man troubled with lum- bago, I should not recommend the Wearmouth colliery for regular exercise. It is trying even for the lithe-limbed and supple-backed. In half an liour we reached the place where the coal was being dug out. The galleries are ventilated by means of a furnace, which rarifies the air near the main shaft ; but still the atmosphere is hot and very close. I don't perspire very freely ; but the perspiration poured down my face, and I was moist from head to foot. T! N'^EL IN THE MINE. UNDER THE SEA. Il There I stood, and watched great muscular fellows swing- ing their picks, and cutting out vast pieces of coal, which were shovelled into the cars, and carried off every few minutes. The miners wore no clothes, save shoes and a breech-clout, and were so begrimed with coal-dust that they resembled ne- groes. How they did toil — they are paid by the car-load — and perspire, and perspire and toil, in the black vaults ! I really pitied them ; but they did not seem to mind it. They work for six or seven hours, and are then relieved by fresh hands. They make very fair wages for that country, and their position, so far from undesirable, is deemed en^aable by thousands among the laboring classes. Still, such severe toil, far away from the light and the breeze of heaven, is unnatural, and must be unwholesome. That men can stand it for a long time; is no argument in its favor. The fact only proves the vigor of their constitution and their power of endurance. Occupation is good for all of us ; but toil, call it by what fine name we may, is an evil and a curse, as much so as war or famine. After watching the process of getting out coal for half an hour, I went to another part of the mine, and finally, to the end of a gallery cut under the sea. It seemed singular that the ocean should be tumbling over my head, and ships sailing, perhaps the elements raging ; yet, in the dark pit, there was no sound but the rumbling of the cars, the click of the picks, and the scrape of the shovels. What a pleasant predicament I should have been in, if old Neptune had been inclined to pay a visit to the pit ! I tried to get up a sensation by indulging my imagination, but I could not. The possibility was too remote ; and then I remembered that Plato, not Neptune, has jurisdiction over the pit. Con- found mythology! Like other knowledge, it destroys most of the illusions we strive to cherish. The veins or strata of coal in the Wearmouth are from three to six feet thick. "When the coal is taken out, the walls are propped up, this being done over night that the miners may work without interruption by day. The stone above 18 LIFE IN THE MINES. and below the coal is very hard, so that the galleries are made with exceeding difficulty. The colliers never work over twelve or thirteen hours at a time ; those who have hard labor not more than six or seven. They return to the upper air as soon as their task is over, and appear to be strong and health- ful. Boys work in the mines who are not more than nine or ten years of age, and as they rarely change their life, the col- liery becomes their world, and a cheerless, dreary world it is, heaven knows ! The resident viewer who accompanied me, now over fifty, told me he began as a boy of ten, and he has been in a colliery ever since. He has risen as high as a man of his class can. He is healthy and vigorous ; yet there is a hardness and sadness in his face and manner that are the un- mistakable results of living half his life out of the fresh air and the sunshine. The stories about the English mines have been absurdly exaggerated. The mines are not such horrible places as we have been led to believe ; but they are quite bad enough, I should suppose, even for those who think it just that some men should be slaves, while others, no less deserving, enjoy the luxury of doing as they choose. After spending four or five hours in the deepest coal- cellar I had ever been in, I concluded to go up to the sky- parlor again. I have an aversion to returning anywhere by the same route I have come ; so I asked to make the ascent of the smoky shaft. " Do you think you can stand it, sir ? " inquired my guide. " It is a hundred and eighty degrees there, and the smoke is stifling. Are your lungs good and strong, sir ? " " They are like leather. Some of the miners go up the smoky shaft, and I think I can do what they can." " I'm not so sure of that, sir. They're used to it. You're not a miner, sir, if you have got on a miner's clothes." " Well, I'm as dirty as any miner ; I'll wager a sovereign against a shilling on that ; and I don't believe I can suffocate through all the layers of coal that divide me from my natural body." ABOVE GROUXD AGAIN. VO , " You don't look quite as trim as you did, sir, M'lien you got out at the station this morning." " Let us go ; " and we went. I endured the dense smoke and ovei'powering heat for two minutes very heroically, I thought. I breathed with difficulty, and my blood boiled in my veins while ascending the shaft. But I got out without asphyxia or congestion, and I relished the journey — it was so peculiarly disagreeable, and because I might not have gotten out at all. What a spectacle I was in the sunlight ! I looked as if I had been beaten through Tophet with a soot-bag, and had re- turned by the same route. CHAPTEE IX. NOKTHEEN IRELAND. IIEN an American goes to Ireland it seems very much as if he were visiting his own country. He sees the same faces, hears the same voices, notices the same peculiarities, with which he has been familiar from his childliood. Barring the externals, Dublin becomes New York ; Cork, Boston ; Galway, Cincinnati ; and Limerick, St. Louis. He does not find, as he may have ex- pected, the indigenous Irish different from the transplanted article. They have similar virtues, inconsistencies, and short- comings there as here, proving the truth of the old apothegm, " They change their sky, and not their mind, who cross the sea." This is supposing that one enters Erin from the South, which is as unlike the North as France is unlike Spain, or Germany unlike Italy. Most of the people of Northern Ire- land — I went there first — are far more Scotch than Irish ; so much so, that in going from Glasgow to Belfast, or from Edin- burgh to Londonderry, one hardly perceives he has gotten into another country. The marked Scotch element disappears steadily as you move toward Leinster, and, having passed be- yond the line of Dundalk Bay, the character of the inhabitants undergoes a very sensible change. Belfast, though the second city in population — it now has 130,000 souls — is the first in point of trade and manufactures. Situated at the head of a fine bay, with its numerous and extensive linen factories, its considerable commerce, and various branches of industry, it is not strange that the growth of the modern town has been so giant'' S CAUSEWAY. 81 rapid, and its prosperity so remarkable. It recalls Manchester and Liverpool, though it is cleanlier and more regularly laid out. In no other Irish city is there such excellent provision for general education, and consequently idleness and crime ar^ little known. Many of its linen estabhshments are so large and costly, that on several occasions I mistook them for pal- aces—the word means less abroad than with us. Men who, twenty years ago, had nothing, are now millionaires — a change of circumstances very rare in Europe. Several citizens of Belfast are worth, I have been told, over £800,000 or £900,000, and the number of those is large who have annual incomes of £10,000, £15,000, and £20,000. These wealthy Imen mer- chants are usually very intelligent and liberal ; have comfortable, rather than luxurious homes, and dispense wide and cordial hospitality. Most of their residences are outside of the city, where, as is common in Great Britain, they spend upon their grounds what we lavish upon furniture and fashionable display. Being in the north of Ireland, we very naturally go, either by water or by land, to the Giant's Causeway, with which our first geography made us familiar. Like most things from which we have large expectations, it proves a disappointment. I set it down as one of the shams of travel along with the catacombs of Rome, the glories of the Rhine, the beauty of the Unter den Linden, the charm of Holyrood Palace, and the perfect clean- liness of Holland. It is totally unlike what I had anticipated. Any one sailing along the coast would fail to be struck by the so-called great natural curiosity, and if of a sceptical turn, would with difficulty be made to believe it what he had so often heard of. It is a rocky mole of columnar basalt, seven hundred feet long, but greatly varying in breadth and eleva- tion, rising sometimes to a height of two hundred and fifty feet. It separates two little bays, called Port Ganniary and Port Koffer, formed by the windings of the coast. The curi- ous three-pillared formation, known as the Chimney-tops, looks so much like turrets that it is not strange one of the ships of the Spanish Armada, as is said, battered it with shot for some time, under the delusion that it was Dunluce Castle. " 6 82 CAVERNS AND COLUMNS. The impression the Causeway gave me was that of a large pier or mole either in ruins or unfinished. It consists, indeed, of three piers projecting from the base of the eliif. The pil- lars, which are of a dark color, stand so close together that they seem to be united ; and with their six, eight, and nine sides, bear every appearance of having been hewn out by hu- man skill. It is not strange the tradition arose among the natives that the ancient giants once began to build a causeway across the channel, and were only prevented from completing the work by the irresistible valor of the Irish heroes, of whom this country has always been so prolific. In the neighborhood of the Causeway are two caverns, which admit small boats, and recall the famous Grotto of Capri, though they are on a much smaller scale. The roofs bear a striking resemblance to a gothic aisle, as they form almost a regular pointed arch. The Giant's Gateway and the Giant's Organ, both com- posed of basaltic columns, are seen behind us for some distance as we leave the Causeway. To the east is Sea-GuU Island, a broad, high rock, which takes its name from an immense number of gulls always upon or about it. I had often wondered, on ocean voyages, where all the gulls came from ; but after visiting that island my won- derment ceased. From the thousands of birds there it must be at once the Mecca and the Eden of these tireless wanderers. The clamor of their cries can be heard at a long distance, and is so confused and varying, one might think they were endeav- oring to reconcile the irreconcilable differences between the Catholics and the Orangemen. Not far from Sea-gull Island is the remarkable promontory called the Pleaskin, which many persons, myself among the number, admire more than the Causeway itself. Its jutting rocks and picturesque clifis give it the appearance of a vast rambling castle partially battered down after a fierce and pro- tracted siege. In the vicinity, perched on a bleak, insulated rock, is Dunseverick Castle — a dreary ruin in the midst of an impressive and oppressive solitude — once the seat, I was told, A CURIOUS BRIDGE. 83^ of the powerful and warlike O'Kanes, a very distinguished amily, whose descendants, on both sides of the Atlantic, seem to be unlimited. The basaltic island of Rathlin, six miles to seaward, is crowned with the ruins of a castle in which Robert Bruce is said to have taken refuge after his flight from Scot- land, nearly six centuries ago. Passing Horseshoe Harbor, we see in succession the pecu- liar-shaped rocks known as the Lion's Head, Bengore Head, the Twins, Four Sisters, the Giant's Pulpit, and the Giant's Granny — the last of which, to an active fancy, readily assumes the shape of an old woman in stone. The road from the Causeway to Ballycastle passes a chasm sixty or seventy feet wide, separating the little rocky island of Carrick-a-Rede from the mainland. Over this cavern, more than a hundred feet above the sea, is a foot-bridge formed of two cables about four feet apart, to which rude planks are lashed, with hand-ropes at the sides. I have known nervous persons to avoid making the passage of this bridge, so slight and insecure does it seem, particularly when the wind, very apt to blow thereabouts in violent gusts, sways the rude struc- ture irregularly, and even violently. There is really no dan- ger, however, as I found by experience, and as I might have learned by observing the fishermen and peasants of the neigh- borhood, who cross and recross at all hours of the day and night, whatever the weather, often bearing burdens much larger and heavier than themselves. ]^ear Ballycastle are the ruins of a fortress built by M'Donnell of Dunluce, as the tradition runs, more than two centuries ago. The fortress is on the summit of a high, rocky promontory overlooking the sea, and must have been very strong, both for o:^ensive and defensive purposes, in the wild and warlike days when it obtained its renown. All the north coast is grand, gloomy, and picturesque, abounding in beethng promontories, rugged cliffs, and rocky bays, which would furnish excellent means of escape for smug- glers or pirates who understood the peculiarities of that dan- gerous coast. 84 LONDONDERRY. The village of Cushendall, a few miles south of Tor Head, tradition reports to be the birthplace of Ossian, upon whose actual existence many of the Irish insist, showing exceeding impatience and irritability toward any one who undertakes to prove to them, historically and logically, that the great Gaelic Homer, as they style him, was purely a creation of M'Plier- son. In the ISTorth, no less than in the South of Ireland, I saw ruins of tombs, and castles, and churches that were associated with the nam^s of famous heroes, and warriors, and saints I had never heard of. I was frequently told that I should make myself better acquainted with Irish history — something I have been trying to do for many years. The few histories of that peculiar country, which I have found, were so much like a com- bination of the "Chronicles of the Cid" and the "Adventures of Ainadis of Gaul," that I could not distinguish facts or truths in such a twilight of fiction. I am afraid, too, that I lack the faith and enthusiasm necessary to a proper interpreta- tion of the multitudinous les^ends with which the land is sat- urated. If any one wishes to know how hopelessly ignorant he is of the most extraordinary characters and events of the world, he should go to Ireland. Londonderry, or Derry, as it is called over there, disap- pointed me, as it disappoints most persons, by reason of its activity and advancement. I had expected to find it an old and long-ago finished town, into which the spirit of progress had not entered. I supposed it something like Chester or Carlisle in England — interesting from its past history rather th^n from any relation it bore to the present or the futm^e. I had quite forgotten its modern growth, and thought only of the old town within the walls which withstood the memorable siege of the forces of James II. Of late years it has improved very rapidly, the present population being little less than thirty thousand. Though a small place at the time of the fa- mous siege, the then residents of Derry must have been ex- tremely prolific — a natural inference from the fact that their descendants are to be found almost everywhere, and in partic- GUNPOWDER EXPLOSION. 85 ular abundance in our own country. In any of the States, north, south, east, or west, I have hardly met any one of Scotch-Irish extraction who has not told me some of his an- cestors fought and displayed great heroism at Londonderry. I forget the number of casualties on the side of the defenders ; but they must have been few, inasmuch as so many survivors seem to have given their time and energy to the benefit of posterity. Derry's situation, on a steep hiU, not unlike that of Lisbon, is striking and picturesque from the right bank of the river (Foyle), though its abrupt ascents make riding tedious, and walking an exercise too energetic for quiet enjoy- ment. There, as everywhere else in Ireland, I heard a great deal of the antiquity of the town, an Augustinian abbey hav- ing been founded on the summit of the hill, more than twelve centuries ago, by a saintly architect called Columba. In the sixteenth century, Derry was made a military sta- tion ; but a terrific explosion of gunpowder destroyed both the fort and the town, and nearly everybody in them, and so filled the Adcinity with horror that it was completely aban- doned for more than forty years. Derry had just begun to prosper in a rehabilitated state, when one of those amiable and apocryphal gentlemen, fOr whom that region has been remark- able — he was of the fertile O'Doherty family — took possession of the fortifications and the town, reduced them to ashes, and butchered both the soldiers and the inliabitants, lest history might do him wrong by charging him with an ungenerous dis- crimination. The old walls of Derry still remain, and, like those Of York, have been converted into a promenade. The gates, de- stroyed at the siege of 1689, have been rebuilt, and the one on the site of that from which the heroic garrison made its first sortie is a triumphal arch in commemoration of the event, and bears the name of the Bishop's Gate. A Doric column, surmoimted by a statue of the Rev. George "W^alker, cele- brated for his defence of the town at the time of the siege, was erected in 1828, at a cost of £4,200. In the centre of the city is the Diamond, a square from which the principal streets 86 CRUMBLING RUINS. run at right angles toward the ancient gates. The Episcopal Palace stands where the old abbey is presumed to have been. The long, narrow bridge over the Foyle, on the same plan as the bridges at "Waterford and "Wexlbrd, is the work of an American architect named Cox, who also constructed the oth- ers. The scenery about Derry is pleasant enough, though not impressive. The Yale of Faughan makes pretensions to pic- torial beauty, but the hills that form it are bleak, and the river flowing through it has little to awaken admiration. Going south, you pass through Drogheda, an ancient city with numerous ruins, more interesting to the professional anti- quary than to the j^oco-curante traveller. It boasts of the re- mains of an Augustinian priory — founded by St. Patrick, of course — a Carmelite convent of the reign of Edward L, a graceful tower of a Dominican abbey, and various ecclesiastic remains covered with ivy, tradition, and superstition. I was urged to visit what were asserted to be the magnifi- cent ruins at Mellifont and Monasterboise, but I unhesitatingly declined. There are throughout the country so many crum- bling priories, shattered abbeys, mouldy round towers, each having its long and tedious story of stereotyped saints and wonderful warriors, all of whom seem to have been native kings, that I confess I grew rather weary of them. My memory of all I heard in and about Drogheda is rather confused ; but, if I remember rightly, it was something of a town before Damascus was dreamed of. Antiquity, I repeat, is a striking peculiarity of every place in Ireland, which is represented to have been great and glorious before any other region was known. So overwhelmingly in love are the Hiber- nians with their country, that I fancy in their secret hearts they believe it had an immortal history before the external and rather supei-fluous entity knoAvn as the Earth was created. It sounds like a jest, but I have actually been told by sons of the soil that greater poems than the "Iliad" or "Odyssey" were sung in the streets of their forgotten cities long before the era supposed to have given birth to Homer. The Drogheda of to-day is wedded to fact and prose. It BIRTHPLACE OF WELLINGTON. 87 * has numerous manufactories, and not a few tanneries, brew- eries, distilleries, and soap-works, the aroma from the last of which is neither classic nor salubrious. I was persuaded to make an excursion to the battle-ground where William III. and the dethroned monarch James settled their dispute. A very voluble person gave me a glowing de- scription of the fight, which differed materially from the his- toric accounts I had read. I understood him to say he was there himself; but as the battle was fought in 1690, and as he did not look to be more than one hundred and forty years old, I suppose that I failed to comprehend his dialect. One thing, however, I recall distinctly — that of all the English, Dutch, Flemish, French, Scotch, and Irish soldiers who were present, the Irish did all the hard, indeed, the only creditable fighting. James was beaten, somehow, but it was because he failed to take the counsel of his Celtic adherents. At least, I was so informed by my cicerone, and I felt unwilling to doubt the authority of an individual so supernaturally learned. To those interested in localities associated with eminent men it may be worth while to visit Dangan Castle, near Trim, the early home, and, as many assert, the birthplace of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The Irish feel great satisfac- tion in claiming Wellington, and not infrequently say that, if it had not been for one of their countrymen, Napoleon Bona- parte would have obliterated England from the map of Europe. The Castle is a massive, inharmonious, gloomy structure, and the bedroom reputed to have been occupied by the Duke is cheerless and dreary enough to have given him the night- mare. There was nothing interesting or lovable in his char- aicter : he was simply strong, stubborn, and dutiful ; and if he remained very long in that old pile, it would not be strange if some of its coldness and its shadow crept into his inflexible soul. CHAPTEE X. IRELAND. ONNEMARA — meaning, in native Irish, bays of tlie ocean, as I have been informed (I have never donbted anything told me on the Green Isle)— is on the west coast, a district abont thirty miles long, and eighteen to twenty wide. It is easy of access from Galway, though to penetrate it one must surrender the railway trains, and entrust himself to cars. With their aid he can see most of the scenery in three or four, or at most six days, with time for a fair amount of pedestrianism — something of a task in that wild region. 'Connemara abounds in lakes, mountains, rivers, torrents, pools, rugged ridges, and brown moorlands, covered with bog and heath flowers. It is a favorite resort of tourists, who believe it different from anything else in the island. There is such a savageness in the district as one might expect to find at ,the erids of the earth, and the goats and tawny children you find there appear quite Arcadian. The scattered inhabitants are primitive enough to have pleased J ean Jacques. They have rarely been twenty miles away from the spot in which they were born, and have no knowledge of any country except Ireland, which, in common with many of the more cultivated class, they think the principal part of the globe. I fancied, in such a remote and barren region, I might have gotten beyond the wonder-workings of the historic O's. But I erred egregiously. The O's first applied their initial to the ownership of the entire country, and then proceeded to aston- ish nature with their performances, as if by regular contract. A GYPSY CAMP. 89 The ancient seat of the O'Flahertys is declared to be near Moycullen ; and not far from Ballinrobe, on an island in Lough Mark, I was forced to listen to a well-worn tale of the regal O'Connors— wliat wonld I not have given to see an Irishman without a drop of royal blood in his veins !— and their occupa- tion, in the fifteenth century, of a ruined castle before me. 'On Clare Island, in Clew Bay, a crumbling tower, I was assured, indicated the stronghold of Grace O'Malley, who, though feminine, slaughtered her foes with magnificent ferocity. She was such a fury and fighter, that I think I have seen some of her descendants of* the same sex in this country. Cony Abbey was mentioned as the place where Eoderick O'Connor, the last of the Irish kings, retired, and died in seclu- sion.^ That was very consolatory to me ; for I had supposed the line to be endless, and that I should never hear the last of them. I was right. In less than a week after I stated to a citizen of Limerick that Eoderick O'Connor was the final Milesian gentleman who wore a crown ; and he told me I was seriously at fault; that the O'Connors never were royal; that the only real kings of Ireland were O'Donohues. As he bore that name himself, I supposed he knew, and let the subject drop. If there be anything in which I feel my total imbecility, it is in respect to Irish history. Those wdio wish to believe that it is a thing of unvarying facts, must never cross the Shannon, or even behold the LifFey. While rambling near Bray, I heard of a gypsy camp in the neighborhood. It was the first that had been in the country for many years, and was an object of great interest to the superstitious peasantry, who pay liberally out of their slender means to have their fortunes told. All persons in wretched circumstances are anxious to learn something of the future, and adversity long continued has an influence favorable to superstition. I had been told much of the beauty of the wo- men and their spiritual insight, and never having visited any of the Zingara tribe in Ireland, I wished to see if they followed the same plan of deception as in England and Spain. 90 MAKING A WISE. I engaged a car and was driven to the camp, composed of abouf fifty men, women, and children, who lived by dealing in horses, making baskets and gewgaws, and telling fortmies. While walking among the tents and wagons I was noticed by her they called their Queen. She invited me into her tent, and, sitting down on the straw, requested me to do the same. She then urged me to have my past and future revealed. With excessive practicality I asked her price. " Half a crown for generalities, and a crown for particu- lars," was her answer. Telling her I would have half a crown'^ worth, she unbut- toned my glove, drew it off, gazed intently at the palm of my hand, and began : " You have never done any hard work " (I correct her Eng- lish as I go along) ; " but you have led an easy life. You have, I think, obtained y^our wealth from your wife. You are mar- ried, are you not ? " " Of course," I responded. '• I knew it ; I see the lines of wedlock in your hand. You have had more than one wife ; is it not so ? " " Oh, yes, a dozen." "You are English, aren't you?" " I did not come here to answer questions ; but I'll tell you that I am a Hindoo, educated at Gottingen, and a Florentine by adoption." That was Chaldaic to her, and she fell into generalities : " You won't break your heart about women, fond as you are of marrying them. Put a gold coin into your hand and make a wish." I dropped a half-crown there, and she took it out. " You will not have your wish before the end of the next year." (I had wished I could get a good breakfast in Ireland.) " You will be called upon to sign a paper on the 10th of the coming month, and if you'll give me another half-crown, I'll tell you whether to do it or not." " You are right," I responded. " That will be my thir- teenth marriage contract. I intend to sign it, by all means ; IRISH FAIsm 91 for marriage with wealthy women is the best thing in the world to keep a man in funds." "The signature will decide your fate. Can I have the other half-crown ? " " Oh, noj I have had information enough." "I see, too," continued the gypsy, "you have travelled." " Yes, too far to be deceived by shallow tricks." " Haven't I told you the truth ? " " Not a syllable. I'll tell your fortune for nothing if you like, and make far better guesses than yours." " I don't want you to. "What countryman are you ? I'd like to know something of your history, if I haven't told it." " Some other time maybe I'll take you into my confidence but now I'm in haste, for I am choking for some water." The Grypsy Queen was not ill-looking, having the usual black eyes and hair and swarthy complexion ; but it would have been difiicult to invest her with romance or sentiment, for she could not speak her native language, and elegance was not among her virtues. I recalled the scene from " Contarini Fleming," where the precocious youth kissed the red lij^s and turned away. I re- peated mentally the pretty verses of Bailey : " My gypsy maid, my gypsy maid, I bless and curse the day — " But what's the use of a man of taste trying to become in- terested in any woman who drops her A's and aspirates her vowels ? Fairs in Ireland are not what they once were. The palmy days of Donnybrook, with its head-breaking and general "shindies," have departed, and seem to be regarded by a large part of the peasantry of Munster and Leinster as the surest indications of the national decay. The jjeople, as they really are, are still seen to the best advantage at the county fairs, which are the gala-days of the commonalty. The great- est interest is taken in them. Everybody goes to the fairs ; and it is not unusual for the peasantry to walk twenty -five or 92 ^LIMERICK. thirty miles for tlie pleasure of being present. Tliey meet there their friends and acquaintances, many of whom they see nowhere else ; so that a fair is a democratic reunion of all per- sons who have anything in common. The high animal spirits of the Irish are strikingly revealed at these annual gatherings. They chat and laugh, dance and drink, make love and make merry, not omitting a little fighting — of course for, the sake of variety — with the most restless and perfect abandon. An Irish peasant, with a shilling in his pocket, and two or three drinks under his jacket, smoking a pipe before the booth of a fair, seems to be the lightest-hearted, most devil-may-care creature on the planet. From Galway to Limerick is a short ride. Limerick, with its 55,000 souls, ranks as the fourth Irish city in population and importance, and has of late years improved materially. King John's Castle, built by that monarch as a defence against the Irish, has seven massive towers connected by walls of im- mense thickness, and bears traces of the hard sieges it has sus- tained. The cathedral is noted for its sweet-toned peal of bells, of which a story is told. The bells were cast by an Italian, and placed in the campanile of a convent in Florence. He had put his heart into the work, and believed his bells tb.e most melodious in the world. During the wars between Francis I. and Charles V. he lost all his sons, and his wife soon after dying from excess of grief, the Italian went to Mantua, and during liis abs^ence the bells were carried off. When he returned and found them gone he was heart-broken, for they were his only consolation. He determined to wander over the earth until he recovered them ; and so, staff in hand, he set out upon his almost hope- less pilgrimage. One summer day, after sunset, in 1559, as the tale is told, a gray-haired man was seen in a boat on the Shannon. Listless and despondent, he took no notice of any- thing until the bells of the cathedral pealed out on tlie soft evening air. He was young again." He recognized his long- lost and long-sought bells ; and, lifting his hands in gratitude to Heaven, his soul went forth with a prayer on his lips. Limerick, as every one knows, is famous for its lace — a fact REMimSCENCES OF LOLA MONTEZ. 93 every stranger discovers from the constant importunities to buy, whether in or out of doors. It is cheap, but being made of cotton, it is not liked in this country, and bears no com- parison to the delicate linen fabrics of France and Belgium. They say there that it has often been exported, returned from MecliHn, and sold at four times the price it originally cost at home — a good but highly improbable story. Limerick enjoys with Dublin the reputation of having the prettiest women in Ireland. It would not be supposed, from most of the specimens we see here, that beauty was given in any dangerous degree to the daughters of Erin; but among the cultivated and better classes in Leinster and Connaught many of the women have a delicacy and regularity of feature that make good their claim to personal loveliness. IS^ot a few of the Irish of the opposite sex look like Italians or Spaniards ; but the finest type has large gray or light-hazel eyes, brown hair, rather pale complexions, oval faces, and lithe figures, with a grace and ^dvacity of manner which, to my mind, are more American than foreign. Poor Lola Montez was a native of Limerick, with a dash of Spanish blood, it is said. Persons still living in that city say they remember her girlhood, and speak of her beauty and kindness of heart as something not to be forgotten. The house in which she was born has been pointed out to me — a rather dingy stone building in a narrow street. I heard there a different story about her from that usually told, and I give it as it came to my ears. Her name was Eugenie Moncton, instead of Elizabeth Gilbert. She was the illegitimate daughter of a French officer and an' Irish widow of position and brilliancy, who became attached to each other in Paris. Her mother lived in Dublin, but went to Limerick to conceal her condition. The child was given to an honest and reputable family to rear as their own, receiving a hberal sum for its education and support. At ten the little Eugenie was sent to a convent in France, where she displayed remark- able precocity, and at thirteen was considered a paragon of beauty. At fifteen she had formed a clandestine correspon- 94 THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY. dence with a Spanisli officer, who had seen her while visiting his sister at the convent. She eloped with hira to Madrid, and, after living as his mistress for a year, was deserted by him. She then returned to Paris, where she had numerous liaisons, and while travelling in Italy is reported to have fought a duel with an Italian Count and wounded him, because he had in- sulted her in the street. She had acquired various manly accomplishments, especially in the use of arms, and, suiFering from the outrage offered her as a woman, she donned mascu- line attire the day following, and threw a glass of wine in the face of her insulter in one of the fashionable cafes of Milan. After various adventures and intrigues, she went upon the stage, and as an actress won the heart of the old King of Ba- varia. After that her life became well known. Her mother lost aU traces of her after her elopement, and tried ill vain to find her. She left five thousaild pounds to Eugenie in her will, but the sum was never claimed. Lola was far from blameless ; but she was badly treated and grossly slandered. She was more sinned against than sinning, and had good reason for hating men, though she did not hate them, who, from the first to the last, betrayed and abused her. She had, at difierent periods of her life, large sums of money, which she either gave away with a prodigal hand or was rob- bed of by designing sharpers. At the close of her checkered days, she was so fleeced by men she had benefited and confided in, that she died in poverty and want. She now rests in Greenwood, with nothing but " Elizabeth Gilbert," inscribed on her nnpretending tomb. Few women whom the world calls wicked, and society ostracizes, but can trace their first wrong- doing to the perfidy of our sex. The Lakes of Killarney are the central attraction of Ire- land. No one would think of setting foot on the Green Isle without " doing " the Lakes. They are to that country, in re^ spect of interest, what Paris is to France, or Rome to Italy. The common way of seeing Ireland is to land at Queens- town, dash by Cork to the Lakes, spend a day there, and then whirl through Munster and Leinster to Dublin ; and, after a MOUNTAINS IN IRELAND. 95 few glimpses at the capital, cross the Irish Sea for London. Either this or reversing the route, and taking ship at Queens- town, bound home. Three days at least are needed to visit the Lakes properly, and five or six may be well spent upon them. If you have made your virgin journey abroad, premeditating a regular tour, go to Killarney first, or, at least, before you go over to the Continent. The Irish lakes are finer than the Scotch, and im- measurably superior to the English ; but after you have become acquainted with the lakes of JSTorthern Italy and Switzerland, the beautiful bodies of water in County Kerry will be much less than your fancy has unaged them. There are three lakes of Killarney — the Upper, Middle, and Lower, though the second is rarely counted or regarded as distinct from the Low- er, Familiarity wdth Como, Maggiore, Geneva, Lucerne, Thun, Brienz, Zurich, and the other Continental lakes damp- ened any enthusiasm I might have had for those of Kerry. Still I did everything that was to be done in and about them as faithfully as if I had never seen a bit of water larger than a duck-pond. I even ascended Mangerton, Tore, and Carran- tual, the last 3,414: feet, being the loftiest mountain in Ireland, because it was one of the things laid down. But having long before measured all such sensations in Switzerland, and ex- hausted them by climbing Mont Blanc, the Hibernian hillocks raised no tumult in my breast. I visited the ruins of Aghadoe — the usual round tower, the cathedral, and castle (hardly worth looking at), and a cave near the entrance of tlie gap, declared to be of great interest to archaeologists. As I felt no interest in it, and as archaeology is not one of my weaknesses, I presume the statement may be true. The roof of the cave is formed of large stones inscribed with what are called the Ogham characters. They looked to me a good deal like a map of Boston ; so that, having been informed they were the written language of the Druids, I had no more doubt of the fact than I had of most things told me in Ireland. Near by is a solitary hostelry, kept by a putative granddaughter of the apocryphal Kate Kearney. Kate is reputed to have been extremely loA'^e- 96 NATURAL CURIOSITIES. ly • but if she were lovely, if slie ever existed, and if tlie yo'uno- woman I saw was lier daughter's daughter, the young woman is a most striking illustration of the theory that beauty is not hereditary. The Gap of Dunloe is a narrow gap between MacCrilhcuddy Eeeks and the Toomies and Purple Mountain. On each side craggy cliffs, composed of large projecting rocks, frown over the nan-ow path^vay, as if angry at human intrusion into that wild solitude. In the interstices of the rocks grow a few melancholy shrubs, which, with the dark ivy and luxuriant heather there- about, add to the effect of the landscape. A small, swift stream, the Loe, runs the whole length of the glen, expanding at different points into pools dignified by the name of lakes. The glen is so contracted in one place that the precipitous sides llmost shut off the narrow pathway. Just beyond the o-ap is the Black Yalley, so called from the shadows thrown across it by the Eeeks, and the color given by the peat to the lakes which dot it. The Upper Lake, though the smallest, is considered by many the most beautiful, because it is nearer to the mountains than the others, and more studded with islands. A circuitous channel, connecting the Upper and Middle lakes is known as the Long Eange, and is bordered by some very fine scenery. At the entrance is Coleman's Eye, a singular and picturesque promontory, and further on a pei-pendicular cliff called the Eagle's Nest, so remarkable for its echoes that some of the gufdes declare that when you cry out " How do you do ?" the echo responds, " Yery well, I thank you, and won't you take a drop of whiskey?" The Nest made no such reply to me, owing probably to the fact that I had no partiality for the fiery liquid the natives are so fond of. About a mile beyond is the Old Weir Bridge, an ancient stone structure with two arches, through which the boats are swiftly carried without use of the oars. Below the bridge is a sequestered and charming spot, called the Meeting of the Waters (whether named from Wicklow or not I cannot say), which Walter Scott praised highly. INNISFALLEN ISLAND. 97 The Middle, sometimes called Tore Lake, is divided from the Lower by Dinish and Brickeen islands, and connected with it by three narrow channels. It lacks the wildness of the Up- per and the pictnresqueness of the Lower Lake ; but its shores are magnificently wooded, and toward sunset to row through it is dehghtful. The Lower Lake, five miles long (the whole length of the lakes is about eleven miles) and three broad in the widest part, has thirty islands, the largest of which, Ross, contains one hundred and sixty acres. On the island are the ruins of Eoss Castle, nearly covered by ivy, built by one of the countless O'Donoghues, whose descendants lived there for three or four hundred years. The Castle has its inevitable legends. One of them is that a member of the O'Donoghue family — whether Michael, or Dennis, or Patrick, is not stated — awakes from his grave-sleep every seven years, rides over the lake at the first flush of dawn on his milk-white steed to the Castle, which, the moment he reaches it, is restored by magic, and remains as it was in tlie fourteenth century until the sun appearing above the woods, returns it to decay. The Castle was the last Mimster stronghold surrendered to Crom- well. ]^ot far from Eoss is Innisfallen Island, near the middle of the lake. It seems to be covered with an impervious wood ; but after landing, I found beyond the leafy screen beautiful glades and lawns, embellished by thickets of flowering shrubs, clumps of arbutus, and magniflcent trees. Through the open- ings of the foliage, I caught glimpses of the lake, its variegated shores, and of the mountain peaks, making a panorama of ex- ceeding beauty. The lakes have the peculiarity of most of those in Europe — winding like a river through the woods and mountains, and often so landlocked that it appears impossible to advance, no opening even large enough for your little boat being anywhere visible. Near the village of Cloghreen, two and a half miles from Killamey, are the ruins of Muckross Al:)bey, both church and monastery being kept in excellent condition by the proprietor of the demesne. Some of the kings of Munster — kings must 98 CASCADES. have grown on every bush in Ireland — are said to be buried there; but as there were so many of those crowned and sceptred gentlemen, I opine it was not thought worth while to denote their resting-place. The vault of the McCarthys, how- ever, is in the centre of the choir, and marked by a monument rudely sculptured. In the midst of the cloister is a very aged yew, which I was told is the largest of the kind in Ireland. I don't know whether the shilling I paid was for the tree or the information, though I suspect that if I had given only a six- pence, there would have been larger trees in the country. In the vicinity of the lakes are numerous cascades, of which the Tore (between the Tore and Mangerton mountains), formed by two streams, tumbles over a broken ledge of rocks, and is thrown into striking relief by the fir-covered sides of the chasm. The other falls are more remarkable for their names, such as Derricunnihy and Esknamucky, which, pronounced in the vernacular, affected my ear as if I had been shot in the head by a bewildered alphabet. The annoyances and importunities from beggars, pipers, guides, donkey-drivers, and vendors of everything you don't want, mar very seriously the pleasure of a visit to Killamey. No place approaches it in power of excessive boredom in aU Europe, except the Bernese Oberland. The women, who are bent upon selling arbutus-wood and bog-oak ornaments, Limer- ick lace and mountain dew (goat's milk and whiskey), are the worst of all the tormentors. They follow you more devotedly than Ruth did !N"aomi, and stick to you like poverty to a poet. The chroniclers of the country take pains to assure travellers that those wild Irish girls are as impregnable in continence as they are obnoxious in perseverance; and I am confident no tourist of taste would seek to disprove the promises made for them. CHAPTEK XI. DUBLIN. "F I had not understood the enthusiasm of the Milesian mind, and the radiant colors with which it invests all it loves, I should have expected to find in Dublin a city of wondrous splendor and inexpressible charm. How often have I listened to eulogies of the Irish capital from the lips of its rhetorical sons and daughters, until, taking coun- sel of my fancy, instead of my reason, it shone upon me from afar, like a divine dwelling-place, whither weary and beauty-starved souls might be permitted, as a recompense for sufferings past, to journey and be blessed ! It is almost superfluous to state that any such dazzling pre- conceptions failed to be realized on the banks of the Liffey. Though Dublin is neither a commercial nor a manufactur- ing city, its buildings have that worn and dingy look which marks towns entirely given over to trade. The Liffey — its full name is Anna Liffey — divides the city into nearly equal parts, is spanned by eight homely bridges, and is little more inviting or fragrant than a Dutch canal. At low tide the river reveals the same lamentable lack of water that distinguishes the Arno in summer, and during the warm months affects the atmos- phere in a way that but faintly recalls the orange groyes of Sicily, or the rose gardens of Cashmere. Dublin has large private wealth, but at the same time more poverty in proportion to its population than any city in the United Kingdom. Out of nearly 300,000 inhabitants, one eighth are said to be paupers, and one quarter to be chronic 100 COMMERCIAL STAGNATIO^T sufferers from extreme poverty. The Irish are too light- hearted and improvident to provide for the future ; yet most of them are glad to work when they have the opportunity. But there is no employment for a large number of the people, who, with a sort of feline instinct, attach themselves to places regardless of surroundings. And then their fondness for rela- tives and friends is such that nothing but the extremest need and the prospect of an early funeral will drive them from the familiar scenes which appear to have become endeared to them only through suffering. The passage of the Union Act is thought to have injured Dublin beyond recovery, by depriving it of a resident nobility, a large body of influential commoners, and all the dignity and importance of a city at once the seat of government and the capital of an independent kingdom. The spaciousness of the Custom-house seems to show this ; for when it was begun, in 1781, magnificent ideas were entertained of the future pros- perity, financial and commercial, of the country. Unfortunately, Dublin has very little of the spirit of pub- lic enterprise which grows out of material prosperity and faith in the future. One hears complaints everywhere of mercan- tile dulness and commercial stagnation, and there seems no hope of a change for the better. The capital grows, it is said ; but rather, I suspect, by the force that inheres in large cities, than by any of the ordinary causes contributing to prosperity. The manufacture of poplin, almost the only one the city has left, has shown some symptoms of revival recently, but bears no comparison to what it once was, having at its height, it is stated, given employment to thirty thousand persons. Dublin is famous for its hospitality, and deservedly. I question if any city on the globe is a more cordial and liberal entertainer. Those of its citizens who are in good circum- stances regard hospitality as one of the highest of social vir- tues. They feel a generous rivalry in outdoing each other in the cause, and they interpret literally the phrase, that one can- not do enough for his friends. "We are accustomed to regard hospitality from a sentimental DESTITUTION OF ITS PEOPLE. 101 point of view ; but I am afraid sober reason will compel ns to admit that it springs from a species of refined selfishness. To be hospitable, we must have large leism-e and abundant means, a certain amount of vanity and love of approbation. These are even more necessary than sympathy, warmth of feeling, and kindness of heart. The Dublinites possess all of these. There is no particular demand upon then* time, and no duty is so se- rious that it cannot be set aside in friendship's service. They experience unalloyed pleasure in contributing to the pleasure of others, and have the happy mixture of self-consciousness and benevolence that finds gratification in the flattered and enlightened egotism which passes in the world under the name of gratitude. Most strangers who make acquaintances in Dub- lin, whatever their first impression of the city, go away with the conviction that it is delightful. They see the place through the pleasant people they have met, and their remem- brance of manifold favors puts a glamour on their eyes. I had heard so much of the hospitality of the town, that, having a fondness for seeing and doing things alone, and feeling an in- clination not to spend more than a year in Ireland, I was afraid to deliver the letters of introduction with which I had been kindly furnished. I don't think I have ever witnessed such destitution and poverty as in the southwest portion of the city, known as the Liberties, particularly in the neighborhood of St. Patrick's Cathedral. I had grown accustomed to wretchedness and squalor by roaming about Blackwall and other such localities in London, but I found that Patrick street. Black lane, and other miserable and feculent quarters of the Irish capital could not be visited without an instinctive shrinking and shudder. Such heaps of rags, such excessive filth, such complete sur- render to the lowest animalism, such absolute abandonment of all ambition and aspiration, I have never observed in the hu- man species. The Five Points and St. Giles's in their worst days were cheerful, even inviting, compared to the over- whelmingly repulsive want and misery of Dublin's outcasts. The chief cause of their woe is, of course, intemperance — the 102 DUBLIN UNIVERSITY. prolific parent at once of poverty and crime, especially in Southern Ireland. Beside decayed and noisome habitations, in which body and mind suffocate, is the ever-present spirit- shop, where hideous creatures, no longer men and women, buy, in hope of oblivion, new depravity and deeper damnation. I should imagine such wretches would be as desperate in mind as in circumstances; but they are not. They indulge in chaff and humor, that seem as incongruous as dance-music in a charnel-house. This inextinguishable elasticity of mind under the most distressing and depressing phases is a phenomenon of the Irish character I am unable to understand. "With superabundant causes for losing faith in themselves and every- body else, with quite enough to insure the ruin of every earthly expectation, the Irish are, probably, as contented a nation as any on the sphere. Nothing damps their ardor; nothing chills their spirit ; nothing can take away their unconquerable hope. Behind Fortune's darkest frown they detect a smile, and when her buffets strike them to the earth, they leap up jubilant, and instinctively fall into the dancing of a jig. Life at its darkest is a very rigadoon to them. When other people drown and hang themselves, the mercurial Hibernian borrows a pipe, whistles defiance at fate, and believes undoubtingly in a bright- er to-morrow. I have noticed more genuine gayety and over- bubbling enjoyment among a dozen Irishmen, without a penny in their pockets, or the prospect of getting one, than in a com- pany of rarely fortunate Americans, with a broad background of blessings, who labored under the delusion that they were supremely happy. Dublin University, or Trinity College, proved to me the pleasantest and most interesting object in the city. The build- ings are rambling and inharmonious ; but they are well pre- served ; and the park and grounds are handsomely and taste- fully laid out. The University was founded by Queen Eliza- beth as early as 1591, and still has a wide i*eputation as a seat of learning, though it has materially declined during the pres- ent century. It has been much impressed upon my mind from the fact that I have never known a freshly imported Irish- ITS BUILDINGS. ' 103 4 man seeking a journalistic position in New York, who had not graduated there with the highest honors. Indeed, two of the peculiarities that almost invariably mark the expatriated Hi- bernian who understands the mysteries of his own autograph, are, so far as my observation extends, that he has received his degree at Trinity, and been on the staff of the London Times. Presuming that the University, among other branches, in- structs its students in the art of writing tolerable English, and holds no prejudice against beginning the name of the Deity with what printers term an upper-case letter, 1 have some- times been inclined to doubt the correctness of the memory of the self-declared alumni of the Dublin University. But on reflection, I have concluded that, as often happens in colleges, so much time may have been devoted to advanced studies that the rudiments have been either forgotten or neglected. The buildings of Trinity consist of three spacious quad- rangles, comprising library, museum, observatory, printing- ofiice, and the quarters of the students, numbering, during the past year, fifteen or sixteen hundred. The library has a num- ber of valuable manuscripts ; among others were pointed out to me a copy of the Brehon Laws and the Book of Kells (what- ever they may be), and not a few of questionable authenticity. In the museum is a harp purporting to have been the property of Brian Boru or Boroihme, the most famed of the native kings — a thorough Drawcansir in prowess — from whom seven eighths of all the Irish now living are lineally descended. Brian was a most extraordinary warrior, altogether superior to Alexander, or Caesar, or Napoleon, and no doubt, but for a mortal wound at Clontarf, nearly eleven centuries ago, would have conquered the whole of the then known world. St. Patrick's Cathedral, for its present condition, is in- debted to the liberality of the wealthy brewer Guinness, who is reported to have spent nearly £200,000 in its restoration. In the choir, where* hang the tattered banners of the Knights of St. Patrick, are the tombs of Jonathan Swift and Hester Johnson, the tender-souled and deeply wronged Stella, whom the ecclesiastic brute made famous in his verse. It was like 104 NELSON MONUMENT. Swift, while writing of her affectionately, to treat her shame- fully. His relations to Stella and Yanessa, and other good but over-sentimental creatures, seem to corroborate the cynical notion that the worse men treat women, the better they are loved. The .present church is said to occupy the site of the ancient one, where the always-to-be-heard-of St. Pat- rick preached to the citizens. There, we are told, pagan rites were performed, and there, too, was the well from which the saint baptized the king and his newly converted subjects. The service held in St. Patrick's has long been that of the Established Church; but still the ignorant and superstitious Catholics, who dwell in extreme squalor and poverty in the immediate neighborhood, regard the spot with utmost reverence, and mourn its "desecration" much more than any misfortune of their own. They gaze upon the structure as they pass it, with an eye of dissatisfaction, and, no doubt, long for the power to raze it to the ground, or, at least, put an end to its lieretical use. The principal thoroughfare, Sackville street, is broad, but not imposing, owing to an architectm-al lack of corre- spondence with what must Jiave been its original plan of laying out. It is quite short, and will appear to more advantage when the Carlisle bridge, connecting it with Westmoreland street, is replaced with a new and finer one, and such improvements are made as will render Grafton, Westmoreland, and Sackville a uniform and ■continuous thoroughfare. The Nelson column, almost the only object that fixes the NELSON MONUMENT. FIGETING FOR FLEASXJRE. 105 eye in Sackville street, is a granite shaft, one hundred and twenty feet high without the statue surmounting it, and ugly enough to have been made and erected in N'ew York. The much-praised public buildings of the city, the Univer- sity, the Bank of Ireland, the Four Courts, the Castle, the Na- tional Gallery, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church, the General Post-office, and others, are much inferior to their reputation, and may very soon be disposed of. Few readers of Irish novels but have made acquaintance with the Phoenix (or, as it is called by the ordinary autochthones, Pha- neex) Park, which is to Dublin what the Common was to Bos- ton, or the Central Park is to New York. Lever and Lover have introduced the Phoenix into so many of their romances that it is difficult to conceive how an Irish story, having any relation to society, could be completed without its assistance. "When duelling was the fashion, hot-blooded Hibernians had their hostile meetings there, and numerous localities are pointed out where hair-triggers were brought into requisition. It is stated that one, two, and even three duels a week were not un- common in the park, during a long period of years. The provocation was usually given over wine at night, and such was the testy temper of the gentlemen of the time, that they were never satisfied to take breakfast before they had ex- changed shots. A more pugnacious race than the Irish never lived ; and, forty or fifty years ago, a man was hardly consid- ered a genuine gentleman and a worthy member of fashionable society, who had not been " out " at least once. In that day, to be a three-bottle man, and to have been a principal in sev- eral duels, was a badge of distinction which the possession of all the virtues and the practice of every benevolence would not have conferred. The Irish have always seemed to me to be the only people who really enjoyed fighting. Other nations fight on principle, from pride, and from various causes antag- onistic to inclination ; but the Hibernians apj)ear to have a nat- ural love for physical as well as mental strife. They are like the irascible French colonel in the play, whose affection was best secured by a passage at arms. 106 FHCEKIX PARK. The Phoenix Park is really an ornament to Dublin, few cities having so fine an expanse of wood and water, hill and dale ; and its seventeen or eighteen hundred acres have been so carefully cultivated and adorned, that it deserves to be con- sidered one of the noblest specimens of public grounds in the British Isles. The sick and invalid soldiers of the Royal In- firmary may be seen on fine days, crawling or limping about in the sunshine, as you enter the principal gates from Park- gate street, or stopping to look at the Wellington Monument opposite, which has been materially improved of late, without redemption, however, from original deformities. The bas- reliefs at the base, commemorating the siege of Seringapatam, by Kirk, the battle of Waterloo, by Farrell, and the signing of Catholic Emancipation, are its best features, and not with- out credit, artistically. The park receives its name from a column of thirty feet, surmounted by a phoenix, which was erected by the Earl of Chestei-field, while occupying the posi- tion of Lord Lieutenant. On what is known as the " Fifteen Acres," the reviews and sham-fights are held, which the Dub- linites, both of high and low degree, profoundly delight in. The town seems to empty itself on such occasions, which are thorough gala days. The fashion, the wealth, and the culture, no less than the humility, the poverty, and the ignorance, of the capital, go there then in an indiscriminate crowd ; and jewelled fingers and embroidered handkerchiefs are commin- gled with soiled hands and nondescript head-coverings after the manner of an ideal democracy. From the Knockmaroon gate an excellent view is had of the Lififey, flowing at the foot of high and fertile slopes, devo- ted to the cultivation of strawberries ; and the public road winding along the river, and studded with strawberry stalls and strawberry markets. During the season, a walk or ride or drive to that quarter, to take tea, hot cake, and strawber- ries, is one of the established recreations and recognized prop- er things to do among the best people of Dublin. But a visit to the " Beds," as they are called, is not confined to the fash- ionable. Eveiy one who can raise two or three shillings, NATIONAL CONVEYANCES. 107 mounts a jaunting-car, that peculiar veliicle of Ireland, and drives there after sundown in the exuberant spirits characteris- tic of the nation. The jaunting-car, which seems to strangers so awkward and grotesque, is well adapted to the country, and typifies the character of the people. Such a rumbling, tumb- ling, breakneck means of transportation could not have been conceived anywhere else. Its driver, perched upon a narrow seat in front, like a ruminating bird upon the sole limb of a blasted tree — its two wheels, the seats on the sides directly over them — its rattling, bouncing motion, as inimical to grav- ity as to dyspepsia, present a comical and contagiously exhil- arating spectacle that it is hard to resist. To retain either dignity or serious reflection while riding about in that style PEGGY ON HER LOW-BACK CAB. is simply impossible. The Archbishop of Canterbury him- self, the impersonation of consequential solemnity, would re- lax, and even become jocose after a few miles of such grotesque 108 GLASNEVm CEMEtEEY. travelling. On a jaunting-car, a man is shaken up mentally as well as corporeally, and catches the spirit of merriment and fun that forms so great a part of the Hibernian natm-e. It is not strange the people bear adversity so lightly, and jest and dance and sing in the midst of penury, and in the face of starvation, when they go bobbing and bounding through life on the side of a jaunting-car. The use of the " low-backed car," upon which Peggy rode so successfully to market, in the well-known and popular Irish song, is confined exclusively to the Green Isle. Glasnevin, in the northern suburbs, is an attractive ceme- tery, because it is the burial-place of Hogan the sculptor, Cur- ran, O'Connell, and many other celebrated Irishmen. Curran's tomb, in the form of a sar- cophagus, is a copy of an an- cient monument, and O'Con- uell's is surmounted by a column one hundred and seventy feet high, after the laodel of the famous round towers on the coast of Ire- land, whose use and purpose have so sorely puzzled anti- (juarians. Several executed Fenians lie there, Avith col- ujnns raised to their memory by those who regard them in the light of martyrs. I have \ seen much emotion displayed tJby persons who visited the ' cemetery only to contemplate MONUMENT TO DANIEL o coNNELL. tlio Feiiiau mouutaius, and who repeated the "God bless Ireland" inscribed upon the shafts, with a fervor indicating the belief that the invocation would be one day answered. The theatre furnishes opportunity for the study of some of the peculiar traits of Irish character, the minor theatres and DUBLIN THEATRES. 109 the gallery being the best for the purpose, as cultivated and successful persons are usually conventional and uniform in conduct all the world over. I went to the play-house, whenever convenient, in all the cities large enough to support one, and never neglected during the evening to ascend to the region of the gods. The common people have little liking for what is knowTi as the legit- imate drama ; but they fairly revel in sensational melodrama, particularly where their impossible countrymen, with whom our stage has made us so familiar, perform prodigies of absurdity and valor. Such productions reveal their intense, impressible, and emotional nature in a very remarkable way. The mimic show is like a reality to them, and they display as much feel- ing over the counterfeited passions as if they were burning in- spirations. The Irish drama there is in no manner different from what it is here. It has the same brave, blundering, swaggering, joking, gallant, ultra-patriotic heroes, who love women and the bottle as they detest tyranny and the Saxon, and who al- ways extricate themselves at the end from innumerable diffi- culties, and declaim about the glory of Ireland as the curtain descends to the music of some national air. There is always, of course, the unvarying British spy, whom the Irish are per- petually discovering in their most secret councils, and in all their convocations, wherever their lot may be cast. He turns up as regularly on the Cork, Dublin, and Limerick stage as he does in ward meetings and Fenian circles on this side of the Atlantic. Whenever he appears, he is hissed and hooted at as if he were a veritable culprit, and I have seen apples and oranges hurled at him when he happened to play his part with any decree of excellence. I M^as informed that one of the company of the Cork Theatre, usually cast for the character of infomier, became so odious to the impetuous and unreasoning public, that he was compelled one night to jump into the river to escape from an infuriated mob. The gallery audiences laugh and weep and roar and swear over what they witness on the stage, and go into such ecstasies 110 GALLERY AUDIENCES. of sympathy, indignation, and choler as would not be possible to the most excitable throng at the Theatre Beaumarchais or the Funambules. The fact that the dramas always violate both history and probability adds to their charm for the in- genuous and impassioned people. In spite of the valor and the virtues of the latter, they have neither nationality nor in- dependence, and in the strict distribution of poetic justice at the conclusion of the performance, they have the compensa- tion through the imagination which stern and stubborn circum- stance denies to them in the larger theatre of life. CHAPTEK XII. IRELAND. F the wit and humor of the Irish, no one who sees them on their native soil, can doubt. They are the only peasantry in Europe who can lay any claim to qualities that are usually reckoned intellectual. They have more of the mental attributes of Shakespeare's clowns — the least natural of his wonderful creations — than any liv- ing mortals unblest of education. The English, Scotch, German, Italian, and even French peasants are the veriest clods in comparison with the Irish, who say bright and sharp things without eiFort or premeditation. Their ready wit and power of repartee are extraordinary, and improve as one journeys toward the south. I have frequently heard scintilla- tions from " gorsoons," and porters, and car-drivers that would have been applauded in the Academy, and have created envy in the most exclusive drawing-rooms. They never lack for a word or a phrase, and have a verbal knack of getting out of a quandary peculiarly their own, as respects both the knack and the quandary. It is a common saw over there that an Irish- man has the privilege of speaking twice ; and I can see the justice of it. He first makes a blunder, as if by design, and then renders the blunder bright by illuminating it with a joke. I remember a colloquy like this, in Sackville street, be- tween an English tourist and a car-driver : " I say, Pat, what are those figures up there ? " " An' shure, yer honor, thim's the twilve apos'les." 112 NATIVE WIT AND HUMOR. " Twelve apostles, indeed ! Why, there are only four." " Och, now, ye wouldn't have tliim all out at once, would ye ? That's the posht-office, and the rist is inside, yer honor, sortin' letthers." Driving through County Wicklow, and commenting on what seemed to be the irregularity of the milestones, my car- man remarked : " Be gorrah, an' they're not milestones at all at all. This is a graveyaird of the Miles family, an' there was so miny of thim, ye see, they hadn't names for thim all, an' so they numbered an' buried thim wheriver they found a good slipot." And his eye twink- lingly inquired if the conceit were not good enough for a drink of whiskey at our first halting. Giving a crown to a bar-maid at Limerick, for a mug of ale, the price of which was but threepence, she smiled all over her face, and said : " An' may yer worship niver wahnt for a pound until I give ye the change ; and I wish ye sich luck that I know ye wouldn't be afther askin' for a pinny of it." Annoyed by a strapping girl, who insisted on acting as guide at the Gap of Dunloe, I gave her a shilling on condition that she would not follow me. Before I had gone another mile she reappeared, when I reminded her of her promise. " Will," she replied, " I losht the shillin' that ye was so "mat te niver want for a pound.' IRISH FLATTERY. 113 goohd as to give a poor gnrl the loikes o' me ; and I thought I'd come back to see if ye hadn't just found it." Of course I handed her another, with the words, " Tou know, ISTorah, you are not telling the truth ; but this time you must keep your word." " An' will ye make a poor gurl who's losht her heart to ye confess in yer viry face that she's run two miles over dese rough rocks to git anuther look at yer han'som' eyes ? " A porter at a Galway hotel had with much trouble pre- vented an American's trunk from going to Belfast instead of Queenstown, and the owner rewarded him with a sovereign. The shrewd fellow held the coin rapturously in his hand a few moments, and then said to the gentleman, " Haven't ye a bit o' shilver about ye ? Ye wouldn't have me shpendin' the loikes o' this bayutiful gould to drink yer health wid ? Give me a shillin', yer honor, and I'll kape this to remimber ye by." In the Yalley of Glendalough, a native, peering out from one of the ruins of the tiny Seven Churches, accosted a guide with, " Dinnis, did ye come here thinkin' they was say in' mass this mornin' ? " " I might have belaved so, ye spalpeen, if I hadn't sane the divil lookin' out of the windy." " Wliat makes your horse so slow ? " I asked one day in the Glen of the Downs of my Celtic Jehu. "It's out of respict to the bayutiful sanery, yer honor; he wants ye to see it all. An' thin he's an intilligent baste, and appreciates good company, an' wants to kape ye in beloved ould Ireland as long as he kin." Experience taught me that if I made complaint it was altogether useless to try to get an answer unflavored with what the natives term "deludherin' blarney." Such fulsome and transparent flattery as the Irish persist in pouring out upon you soon grows extremely irksome, and none the less so when you know that it is expected every honeyed falsehood wiU be paid for in proportion to its sweetening. A visit to Ireland is considered incomplete unless the vis- itor take at least a run through County Wicklow, caUed the 8 114 BRAY. Switzerland of Ireland. Wicklow is lauded to tlie extreme of hyperbole, from Belfast to Cork, and its praises are sounded far and wide in England. Americans who put trust in the highly colored accounts that may be given them, will fail to realize their expectations. The English, whose country is little more than a highly cultivated cabbage garden, think any land superior to their own in variety or picturesqueness, wonderful to behold. So they rave about Wales, and Scotland, and Ire- land, when travellers of experience find them somewhat tame. They who are acquainted with Italy and Switzerland will be apt to underrate Ireland, because it is revealed to them after much finer and grander scenery has become familiar. Wick- low should not be named in the same year with the Zermatt Yalley or the Bernese Oberland. The Scalp is an attractive rocky defile, originating, no doubt, in some convulsion of nature ; and the Dargle, a popu- lar place of resort, especially for picnic parties, presents many inducements for ramble and rest. The river, rushing through the rocky defile, makes welcome music in the summer, and the ever-green oaks, very abundant there, give grateful shade. Bray is an agreeable sojourning place, and is liberally pat- ronized by the Dublinites. Two or three 'good hotels 'are there, the largest of which was built by an Irishman who came to this country and made a fortune in a few years. Ke- turning home, he was so afifected by his prosperity that he laid siege to a distillery in the neighborhood, and was com- pelled to raise the siege on account of a smnmons to attend his own funeral. One or two waterfalls that give variety to the neighbor- hood of Bray, lack nothing but water to render them attrac- tive. The Devil's Glen, near l^e wrath, is about a mUe in length, and traversed by the river Yartry, which sparkles and foams over the rocks in a mildly romantic manner. The Vale of Avoca, which Moore's verse has made famoiis, has not the beauty the poet painted. The renowned Meeting of the Waters — or, rather, Meetings of the Waters, for there VALE OF AVOCA. 115 are two — Moore also sang into j-eputation. The proper bne is formed by the confluence of two rivers — the Avonbeg and the Avonmore — in a pleasant valley, guarded by handsome hills. The exact spot where Moore wrote his lyric is marked by a slab and a group of evergreens. Sentimental eyes have mois- tened over the slab, and sensitive beings have throbbed with romantic emotions at the thought of the real presence of the Meeting of the Waters, whether they stood before one or the other of the aqueous conventions. There was a fierce contention as to which of the locations the bard intended to celebrate, until he admitted, in a gush of candor, that he did not know himself, and that he composed his poem in a library miles away from the scenes that suggested his subject. It is unkind to dash sentiment in this way ; but persons who, in Mr. Swiveller's rhetoric, insist on dropping the briny at Tasso's prison and Juliet's tomb, in Ferrara and Verona, when the bard never saw the former, and the latter is known to have been a horse-trough, must be set right for the vindica- tion of hist6r)7-, and in defence of the lachrymal ducts. Many bits of unknown scenery on this side of the Atlantic are far superior to the Yale of Avoca, or the "exquisitely beautiful Avondale." Not far from Aughrim is the far-famed Shillelagh Wood, part of the estate of the Earl of Fitzwilliam, which furnishes the national weapon the Green Islander is so enamored of It is the Irishman's logic — he calls its use an argument with sticks — and he applies it alike to his friends and foes. "Arrah, now," said a sturdy fellow to me, " we had a daliteful toime doon in the glin yonder. We all had our shticks wid us, and, be gorrah, I knocked doon six of my frinds in liss than a min- ute. It was foine fun, yer honor, and ye'd a bin glahd to be theer." Strange as it may seem to the descendants of Irisli kings, I did not regret my absence ; for I have that anti-Hibernian idiosyncrasy which makes pleasure possible without the intro- duction of a cudgel or a broken crown. In the Yalley of Glendalough, whose suiTounding moun- 116 QLENM A.L URE, tains are precipitous and pecu. iar in shape, resembling huge rocks, are the Seven Churches, called the Cathedral, the Abbey, Trinity, Our Lady's, Christ's, the Rhefeart, and Teampule-na- Skillig, curious as specimens of early ecclesiastic architecture. Glendalough looks like fine landscape seen through an inverted telescope, so small and dainty is it. The valley must originally have been tenanted by fairies of the Pease-blossom and Mus- tard-seed pattern ; for no congregations composed of beings of a larger stature could have crowded into the tiny churches. One average well-fed Englishman would fill all the space the Cathedral could ever have contained, and any modern belle who desired to attend service in Trinity, would have been obliged to leave much of her raiment outside. The two lakes are pretty pools, belonging to such wild and stormy bodies of water as are seen in the Central Park. In the steep, craggy face of the mountain, some thirty feet above the lake, is a small cave known as Saint Kevin's Bed. Saint Kevin, it seems, was an anchorite of such ferocious pudicity that he hurled the beautiful Kathleen, who came to keep him company, into the lake below — a story that needs confirma- tion, and which women potently disbelieve. Some seven miles from Rathdrum is Glenmalure, a wild pass, so quiet and solitary that, if divorced from society and wedded to nature, I might be glad to dwell there. Several cascades are scattered through the vicinity, the most noticeable of which is Phoula-phouca, formed by the fall of the Lifiey, after passing through the Glen of Kippure. The waters glide in stillness to the verge of the fall, and then plunge by a series of cataracts — always provided the river is in proper condition — into the gulf below. This is one of the most famous cas- cades in Ireland ; but it bears no more comparison to the Giessbach in Switzerland, than the Passaic Falls to Niagara. Persons wishing quietude and gentle sensations can find them in "Wicklow ; but they should seek them there before maldng acquaintance with the Continent. Taking the midland Great Western Railway to Galway, one passes through an interesting region of country. He has GALWAY. 117 a good view of the ivy-mantled towers of Leixlip Castle, and can, if lie choose, stop to look at the Salmon Leap in the Liffej. Maynooth, with its college and castle, the ruined walls of Castle Carbury, and the hill of Carbury, the scene of numerous encounters between the Irish and Anglo-Normans, are also on the route. Pagan remains, as they are christened, and decayed villages d,re scattered along the line. Ballinasloe, remarkable for its great cattle-fairs, and attended by people fi'om all parts of Europe, is one of the stations. The moun- tains of Connemara are visible from the railway, with the usual proportion of demolished castles and obsolete abbeys. At last one reaches Galway. the capital of the "West, and, in point of population — it has some 20,000 — the fifth city in Ireland. A few years ago it was supposed that Galway would become an important commercial point ; but the failure of the Lever line of steam-packets, running between there and New York, destroyed all hope of its commercial consequence. It is insisted on that it is the nearest point to the American coast ; that it has superior advantages to any port in Great Britain ; and the withdrawal of the steamers is ascribed by the Irish, as are most of their misfortunes, to British prejudice and British gold. Galway had an active commerce, chiefly with Spain, until the middle of the seventeenth century, and so great was the intercommunication between the two nations that traces of Spanish blood, costume, and architectui'e are still visible in the declining town. The wide entries, broad staircases, and arched gateways often recalled Cadiz, Malaga, and Seville ; and the sculptured and grotesque adornments on the outside of the buildings had the Moorish aspect that I remember in Yalencia and Granada. Lynch's Castle — the large warehouse in Shop street is so denominated — ^looks decidedly Spanish with its front of quaint and curious carvings, and might have been trans- ported from the ancient quarters of Antwerp. Many of the inhabitants, particularly the women of the lower order, have the dark eyes, dark hair, and dark complexion that belong to the more southern races, leaving little room to doubt that the Celtic 118 THE CL ADD AGE. ^ blood of Hispania and Hibernia now flows in the same veins. That like seeks like is said to have been very frequently shown, nearly two centuries ago, by the mutual attraction existing be- tween the Spanish merchants and the Irish women. In some instances I saw the black eyes and golden hair which Titian, Correggio, and Guido so loved to paint, and which was re- garded in their time as the ideal type, especially of Yenetian beauty. The Galway women I encountered were of the hum- bler classes ; and, though not without a kind of coarse comeli- ness, did not suggest the pictm*es of the Academy or the Ducal Palace. Their garments were rather southern, both in scanti- ness and color. They are very fond of red petticoats, descend- ing to a few inches above the ankle, and of wearing black and blue cloaks, which they throw over the head, as if they had an instinct to imitate the mantilla. Shoes and stockings are unattainable luxuries with them, and, as they are not fanatical in respect to personal tidiness, they lose some of the picturesque effects they might have, if made immaculate and transferred to canvas. The Claddagh, the fishers' quarter near the harbor, is one of the attractions of Galway. The people inhabiting and called after the quarter are curious and peculiar in all respects. Like the denizens of IS^ew Haven, near Edinburgh, the natives of the Basque provinces in Spain, and the gypsies everywhere, they preserve their own customs and individuality, and very rarely intermarry with any other people. "Without education, or any of the refinements of modern life, they are far less tur- bulent and refractory than the natives of Connaught generally. They have an elected chief, whom they call king, and to him they refer all differences and disputes, so that they are enabled to get along without the dissentious assistance of lawyers. Per- sonal quarrels and collisions are said to be almost unknown among the Claddagh, and this is strong presumptive evidence that they are a separate race from the Irish. CHAPTER XIII. munster. lYE miles from Cork, which is reached by rail or by car, are Blarney and its famous castle. The Cork cars, by the bye, are different from those in any other part of Ireland, being small, square, covered boxes, with seats on the side, but not over the wheels, looking like segments of our own omnibuses. Everybody knows that kissing the Blarney Stone is synonymous with a fluent and flattering tongue, re- gardless of sincerity. Every Irishman south of the Liffey is popularly supposed to have enjoyed the renowned osculation ; and though very few have, to none of them is denied the wheedling gift it is presumed to bestow, any more than that derived from a dip in the Shannon, that makes perfect the quality of impudence, or, as the natives euphemistically express it, ci\dl courage. The origin of the term Blarney and of the Blarney Stone is told in numberless traditions. Crofton Cro- ker states — and this is the most plausible of all the stories — that in 1602, when the Spaniards were urging the Irish chief- tains to harass the English, one Cormach M'Dermod Carty, who held the castle, had concluded an armistice with the Lord President on condition of surrendering it to an English garri- son. Carty put off his lordship day after day, with fair prom- ises and false pretexts, until the latter became the laughing- stock of Ehzabeth's Ministers, and the former's honeyed and delusive speeches were stamped with the title of Blarney. Father Prout, in his popular papers, speaks of the stone as 220 THE BLARNEY STONE. the paUadium of Ireland, and attempts to show, drolly enough, that it was brought over by the Phoenician colony said to have peopled the island; that the Syrians and Carthaginians, long its custodians, gave rise to the expression Punica fides Syri- osque hUingues, from their labial devotion to the stone. He adds that some Carthaginian adventurers, enamoured of the relic, stole it and carried it off to Minorca, and afterward, driven by a storm into Cork harbor, deposited it near the pres- ent spot. From the same high authority we learn that the " Groves of Blarney " was translated from the Greek, though the well-known song was written only seventy years ago, by Kichard Milliken, a Cork lawyer, as a burlesque on some dog- gerel rhymes about Castle Hyde. There are several Blarney Stones, and the garrulous old woman, who has been, she says, custodian there for forty years, regulates her choice of the veritable Blarney according to the visitor's willingness and capacity to climb. She told me first that the real stone had been knocked off by some "indacent blackgeeards," and was lying on the ground near the door I entered. I informed her I knew better; that she had found the invention convenient because most persons preferred to touch that stone with their lips rather than take the trouble of reaching the genuine one. The great original is at the northern angle of the massive donjon, about one hundred and twenty feet high, which, with a lower and greatly-decayed portion of the castle, is all the ruin that remains-v Jt is some distance below the summit, and bears the inscription, now very dim, " Cormach MacCarthy fortis me fieri facit, a.d. 1446." If it were very easy to kiss the stone (is it with women as with it?) perhaps fewer per- sons would kiss it ; but as the caressing performance requires that one shall be held over the parapet by the heels, I put mine in charge of my companion, fresh from Oxford, who took his pay for his trouble by pronouncing me in Greek a simpleton, presuming that the classicism would either disarm the offence or soften the justice of the charge. The old castle, covered with ivy, stands on the side of a CORK. 121 steep limestone ridge, rising from a deep valley on the bank of a small river — the Au-Martin, which washes part of the base — and adds greatly to the interest and beauty of the sur- rounding landscape. The grounds adjoining the castle are the celebrated Groves of Blarney, to which the loquacious gate- keeper admits you when, by his practical knowledge of physi- ognomy, he discovers a shilling in your face. He persists in telling you the Groves are " bayutiful, daliteful, and shplen- did," conscious, probably, that without his assistance you would arrive at no such conclusion. The Groves, nothing but a thick shrubbery of laurel-trees, long divested of the grottos and rustic bridges that once adorned them, are only worth seeing because, if you neglected them, you would hear from somebody else how much you had missed. Cork, with a population of nearly 100,000, ranks next to Dublin and Belfast, A large part of the city is built between the dividing branches of the Lee. The Mall, Patrick, George, and the Grand Parade are the principal streets, but have no archi- tectural attractions, as the buildings, both public and private, are irregular and unhandsome. The principal lion is the Shandon steeple, the spire of St. Anne, which, as the church is built on an eminence, is visible from every part of the city. The steeple is composed of the limestone of a demolished abbey and the red sandstone of a ruined castle, making three of the sides white, and the remaining one red ; so that it seems not unlike an ecclesiastic barber' s-pole. Father Prout's familiar lines, — " The bells of Shandon, They sound so grand on The banks of Lee," — have done more than anything else to make the church and the spire famous. The Queen's College is very picturesquely situated on a height overlooking the river, and, looming out from the midst of trees growing down to the edge of the stream below, com- mands a magnificent view. 122 QUEENSTOWN. Ko one should fail to go down the Lee to Queenstown, a distance of twelve miles. The Cove of Cork is renowned for its beauty, and deserves all its reputation. The slopes of the northern bank are crowned with terraces and villas, and be- tween the demesnes of Tivoli and Feltrim the channel sweeps to the south, and carries you by Dundanion Castle and its pleasant grounds. On the right bank of the river, opposite the village of Blackrock, is the Ursuhne Convent, one of the best known institutions of its kind in Ireland ; and further down is the Blackrock Castle, built in the gothic style, on pro- jecting rocks, and completely commanding that part of the river. You also steam by Castle Mahon, formerly the resi- dence of Lady Chatterton, a writer of some distinction ; by the town of Passage, to which Croker has given lyrical fame, celebrating in verse the charms of its anonymous maid ; by the Giant's Stairs, a name given to some natural steps in the cliff; by the pretty village of Monkstown; and by Rocky Island, which would be well worth attention, if the ten thou- sand barrels of gunpowder, usually stored in the hewn-out chambers of the rock, should simultaneously explode. Queenstown is associated with the emigrants who are con- tinually flocking to this country. I had expected to find them indulging in every form of fantastic grief as they parted from the land they seem to love so much, and yet are so glad to quit ; but they bore the separation with due resignation. The truth is, the emigrants display their grief and exhaust their sentiment of pathos when they leave their immediate homes. At Tralee, Limerick, Kildare, Kilkenny, and other places, I had been the witness of scenes of passionate sorrow that at first smote my heart. The persons who were going away were accompanied to the stations by all their relatives and friends ; and such sobbing and weeping, such intense embraces and clasping of arms, such gesticulations and ejaculations, such invocations to Heaven, and hurling of shoes — not worn, but brought along for the purpose — it had never before been my lot to witness. Children, women, young men and old, made water-carts of themselves, as Mr. Samuel Weller would put it. DEPARTURE OF EMIGRANTS. 123 Young women threw themselves on the ground and tore their hair, and seemed resolved to beat their brains out against the nearest wall ; old women wrapped their heads in the ragged cloaks they are never without, and, swaying to and fro, uttered those peculiar wails and cries — the genuine ulalulu — which they always employ as a chorus to misfortune ; the men kissed and clung to each other as a doting woman would to her lover on his way to certain death ; and the little children were as melodramatically afHicted as if dirt and mothers were banished from the world. Nothing in the direst woes of Yerdi's lyric dramas, even as represented at the Grand Opera, surpassed the exhibition of mental agony I would have been only too glad to escape from. If actual heart-break be possible, it will surely take place among these poor peasants, I thought. Having on several occasions, however, concluded not to take the trains on which the emigrants went, I discovered that those who re- mained behind could, like the ultra-sentimental of all nations, die of grief without recourse to the physician, the priest, or the undertaker. As the cars passed out of sight, eyes were dried, hysterics disappeared, crushed souls were restored, and the joyous sun again flashed through the pall of sundered clouds. In fifteen minutes the women chattered and laughed, the chil- dren made bog-puddings (we call them dirt-pies) and roared with delight ; while the men, smoking their " dudeens," and draining the bottle to their departed friend's, were merry as crickets once more. Then- sorrow was genuine, but it was not lasting, fortu- nately, for it would soon kill in such large and strong doses. The Irish, especially the Southern, are supremely emotional and excitable. Very easily moved, they quickly react from sorrow, which is not natural to them as a permanent feeling, and regain the state of cheerfulness and gayety that belongs to tltfeir mercurial temperament. They enjoy the emotional, cul- tivating rather than resisting it ; are hapjsy in their unique way, both at wakes and weddings, at fights and funerals, in the midst of penury and surrounded by abundance. It is not strange the common people want to come to 124 IRISH FUTURE IN AMERICA. America — the land of promise and El Dorado indeed, likened to their own. Ireland is better to look at than to liv^e in. An artist may make pictures there, but the laborer with difficulty earns his bread. Kecks, and lakes, and mountains, are excel- lent for landscape, but hard for the tiller of the soil. Much of Leinster, Connaught, and Munster is a wretched country, and nearly all the South is sterile and boggy. For miles and miles, nothing but stunted herbage and beds of peat, a robust but ragged peasantry, miserable hovels, and an air of reckless- ness and desolation on every hand, indifference and improvi- dence to-day, and heedlessness of to-morrow. A mildew is on the land : it steadily declines and hopelessly decays. The Irish, I repeat, ascribe their unfortunate condition to the English ; the English trace it to their want of knowledge, energy, and character, — to superstition, bigotry, intemperance, and thriftlessness. Perhaps the truth lies between the two. At any rate, Ireland is not the kind of country for the Irish. They have not the qualities nor the habits to develop a land so little favored by nature, and it would seem that before many years the entire population will be transferred to our shores. The Irish future lies in America. There is no doubt in my mind that the Catholic Irish are different from any other people under the sun. Their virtues, no less than their vices, are their own, and it is almost impossi- ble to judge them by ordinary rules. They defy analysis or classification, and are as much a mystery to themselves and each other as to external nations. Where, or under what cir- cumstances, they would succeed best, no one may say ; even they do not conjecture a future, which, with all their boasted past, they have never calmly considered. They are told that they suffer here by sticking to the cities, instead of seeking the country and making themselves independent ; but on their own soil they flourish no better in the rural regions than in the social centres. Their hovels are the most miserable in Europe, and their state the poorest. "With an earth floor, a rude chimney, a bed of peat, a wife and a dozen children, a pound of tobacco, and a spirit-shop not far AN OPPRESSED PEOPLE. 125 away, without a shilling or a prospect, they are easy-minded and happy-go-lucky to a degree that no Anglo-Saxon can un- derstand. "When we should go mad, or blow our brains out from sheer desperation, they will whistle and dance in their dirt and rags, and lie down to a deeper and sweeter sleep, with starvation and typhus in the hut, than any one of us, under the most favorable circumstances, would enjoy on a pillow of fragrant down. I have visited the principal cities and districts of Ireland, and though I have been pleased with it, it is rather monoto- nous, and the condition of the country, and the poverty of the people make a journey through its length and breadth often disagreeable — sometimes painful. The southern Irish are in an unfortunate state. They ascribe all their ills to England, and seem to be hopeless of their political future, which prom- ises better than it has done for generations. The much-agitated Church Establishment has been put at rest, and the land ques- tion is assuming a more favorable shape. The friends and advocates of the Government declare that the inhabitants of Connaught and Munster are more dissatisfied than ever, and that the more they receive the more they demand. There may be a feeling in the minds of the Catholic Irish that the soil belongs to them ; that the landlords are oppressors and aliens for the most part, and hold their privilege only by force. This feeling, whether just or not, has an evil influence upon the land ; paralyzes energy ; destroys ambition ; eats at the public heart ; is an incurable canker far and near. The Englishman and Catholic Irishman are natural enemies, and the difference in their history, traditions, aspirations, and creeds will be Likely to keep them such. What is best for that coun- try only time will show. It is useless to prescribe for its numerous ills. Remedies have been tried again and again, and are still being tried ; but the trouble is, the people sorely disagree as to what they need and should have. Perhaps the wisest thing to say in the present crisis — that land always has a crisis — is to repeat what we hear so often on both sides of the Atlantic--" God save Ireland ! " CHAPTER XIV. THE FRENCH CAPITAL. 'NE advantage in visiting Paris is, that if you fail to like it, you won't be satisfied anywhere. Paris is unquestionably the gayest of all capitals, with more to amuse and interest than any other city on either side of the Atlantic. Science, art, Hterature, society, pleasure, in almost every form, are to be found and followed there ; and he who suffers from ennui on the Boulevards is hlase beyond heahng. The French capital may disappoint at first, and an initial visit, when sight-seeing is the sole purpose, may prove weari- some. I know it was so with me. Having but a limited period to devote to the city, I was compelled to make a business of what should have been an entertainment. The first few days passed very tolerably. But after doing the Louvre Gallery, Notre Dame, the Madeleine, the Boulevards, the principal opera houses and theatres, the Mabille, Chateau Rouge, the Imperial Library, the Corps Legislatif, the Champs Elysees, and the Bois de Boulogne, I began to be tired of the treadmill round. To a very young man Paris is always delightful. Its walks, drives, amusements, brilliant cafes, demi-monde and varied excitements, are seductive, fascinating. But, when somewhat older, he has ceased to dwell in mere externals. After he has lost the power to idealize the common irregularities of youth- ful experience ; after the glamour of freshness and fancy has gone, he sees in Paris only a repetition of other places ; and THE GRAND HOTEL. 127 lacking intellectual and sympathetic companions, wearies of the charming city in a week. It has been said that when good Americans die they go to Paris; but they go in crowds; otherwise, it would not be thought an abode of the blessed. Going to Paris means, with most of our countrymen, having a round of dissipation with each other at the Grand Hotel. Of French life they see noth- ing, and care little for it. They ride, and drive, and laugh, and talk, and drink, and spend money together, and having nothing to do, and no sense of restraint, they imagine them- selves very happy, and return home with pleasant memories of the French capital. Everybody has met a number of such persons, who think it very odd that their peculiar pleasures are not relished by all. They prefer the Valentino to the Louvre, and the Clauserie de Lilas to. Yersailles. To enjoy Paris below the mere surface, to appreciate it fully, one must stay in it some time ; must learn to feel how convenient, comfortable, and varied it is ; how infinitely supe- rior, on the whole, to any or every other city, and cease to measure it by a purely ideal standard. I have had such expe- rience ; and, looking back calmly upon all the places I have seen and resided in, the French capital stands above any other, and draws me with a stronger magnetism. It is not so much its excitement as its rest, its gayety as its cosmopoHtan solitude, its pleasures as its polite indifierence, that always invite me to the great centre of civilization. Not less than twenty to twenty-five thousand Americans are usually staying in Paris, and the Grand Hotel is their rallying point and rendezvous. Go into the court-yard any day between eleven in the morning and the same hour in the evening, and you will be almost certain to meet some of your acquaintances. I have encountered men there I had not seen before for ten or twelve years. The Grand Hotel does, and has from the first done, an im- mense business ; but, as in the case of the Erie Railway, the stockholders seem to derive little benefit from it. The hotel is owned by a French company, between which and the pat- 128 THE THEATRES. rons there are so many intermediates that tlie profits get strained too fine for perception. It is a common saying that everybody makes money about the concern but its sharehold- ers. If a shrewd, energetic American should take the house, he would make a fortune in a few years. As an instance of its profits, two of the principal waiters in the drinking saloon pay $1,000 a year for their places, and clear $1,500 to $2,000 each, by the pour hoire they receive. Ko wonder : the careless-handed Americans are favorite geese to be plucked by the vast horde of shrewd Continentalists. The Grand Hotel is expensive, costing from $50 or $60, to $200, $300, and $500 a week. :N'ot a few of our countrymen who go there to make a show, spend the last-named sums, and fancy they have done honor to the Republic by their reckless outlay. The theatres, to the number of twenty-five or thirty, in- cluding the four or five opera houses, present every variety of attraction, from the classic drama of Racine and Moliere to the vaudeville and spectacular ballet. The prices seem high, even to an American, ranging from twelve francs (about $2.50) to two francs. The houses are excellently patronized, particu- larly on Sunday evening; but they are ill-constructed for ven- tilation, and the stalls are so shut in that it is difficult to breathe. We find fault with our theatres, which are breezy gardens compared to the theatres of Paris. The foyer, into which every one goes during the entr'actes for fresh air, pre- vents asphyxia. Some of the theatres are very well built, and handsome ; but others are dingy, even dirty, and every way disagreeable. Much more attention is paid to the scenery, and costuming, and orchestra, than with us, generally ; but some of the New York houses will compare favorably with, are even superior to, any in Paris. The people who go to the theatres pay little attention to dress. At the Grand Opera and Comedie Francaise, on par- ticular occasions, toilette is deemed essential; but it is not usually much regarded, even there, out of the boxes. A popular idea in our country is that Parisian audiences THE BOULEVARDS. 129 are very quiet and thoroughly well-bred. They are, on the contrary, very noisy, and even during the performance, some- times chatter and laugh so loudly as to require the rebuke of all who wish to hear the play. They are quite as bad as our people in getting up and hur- rying away from the house before the curtain falls. They be- gin to go out five minutes before the last words are spoken or sung, and can't be kept in their places by the severest disap- probation. The Boulevards, from the Madeleine to the Place de la Bastille, show the life of Paris. All its features and characteristics are reflected there — its variety, its animation, its gayety, its glitter, its elegance, its BOTTLEVABD ST. HICHEIj. hollowness, its fierceness, its tenderness, its love of art, its fondness of sensation, its passion for nudity and out-door life. Probably the Boulevards are a disappointment to many who have heard so much of their splendor. They are merely very broad, well-built, admirably paved streets, fiill of gay shops, brilliant cafes, hotels, and theatres ; but when they are lighted at night, and crowded with loungers and promenaders, 9 130 RECOGNIZED IMPOSITIONS. ttiey arb really dazzling, and surpass any similar quarter in the world. The Boulevard St. Michel is one of the many fine streets, and gives a very fair idea of their general appearance. The Place de la Bastille is historic ground. There formerly stood the re- nowned Bas- tille, built as the Castle of Paris, afterward used as a State pris- on. The spot is now marked by a graceful mon- ument; and the names of six hundred and fif- ty-five persons who, it is said, PLACE DE LA BASTILLE. caused its destruction, are engraved upon the column. One of the continental annoyances to new travellers is the pour hoire, huona mano, or trinlc-geld (drink-money), for it is never included in any agreement, nor is the amount fixed. You engage a hack, or get your dinner or breakfast, or go to the theatre, or buy anything, and, in addition to the price, you are expected to pay something more, wdiich varies from a few sous to five francs or a sovereign. How this custom arose I can't say ; but it is so firmly established that it is difficult to break it down. While Americans complain of the system, they do more than any other people to make it oppressive by their extrava- gance. They pay six sous for a glass of beer, and give ten to the garcon ; and so in proportion. If tourists would demand that all first charges should include everything, the imposition FREEDOM OF WOMEX. 131 woiild be stopped ; but until they protest against it by act, of course it will be continued. The pour hoire is the hete noir of travellers of irritable temper and limited means. Americans maunder, too, about the small swindles prac- ticed by hotel-keepers, such as charging them with extras they do not have ; putting down candles they have never seen ; making them pay for service in the bill, and expecting them to pay it over again to the domestics. The item of service has long been an annoyance. Tourists were so defrauded by servants — demands were so exacting — that landlords pretended to remove the grievance by including the service in the bill. They do include it ; but every servant expects gratuities just the same. The only course of conduct is to have an under- standing that the service be paid with your bill, and let the begging menials go. It may be more trouble for you to do this than to pay twice ; but you must decide that question for yourself. Women have a great deal of freedom in Paris. They go where they like, and do what they like, without the smallest hindrance. They are unattended very often, and no one mo- lests or insults them. They enter the crowded cafes ; take a seat in a whole line of men ; call for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, or a sherbet, and have their pleasure in the most masculine way. True, most of the unattended women are lorettes ; but they are treated with as much outward respect as if they were duchesses. No rudeness, no ribaldry, in their presence. Nobody feels contaminated by their nearness. Even their purer and more fortunate sisters sit at their side with fathers, brothers, and husbands, and feel no taint. There are very rarely separate apartments for the sexes, and for the reason that there men do not talk in j)ublic in such a man- ner that women may not hear them. Americans, who reside in Paris for any length of time, adopt the habit of the coun- try, and go to the cafes with their feminine friends without the least hesitation. You often see ladies drinking coffee and wine at the little tables in the court-yard of the Grand Hotel- the great stronghold of Americanism. ^ 132 UXIVERSAL POLITENESS. You may remain in Paris a year, and visit every quarter, without seeing a quarrel of any sort. A street fight is ahnost unknown, and the striking of a blow is an anomaly there. The influence of decorum must be strong when our country- men cease to be belligerent, once on the Seine. It is a serious thing legally to strike a Frenchman. A young Bostonian took offence during the Exposition at a gen- danne, and knocked him down. Other gendarmes inter- fered, and they were felled also. The affair created an excite- ment. The young fellow escaped into the Grand Hotel, but not concealing himself, he was afterward arrested and thrown into prison. General Dix tried to obtain his release, but did not succeed until the young man had been confined seven months, and had paid several thousand dollars. The poor fel- low, though very vigorous naturally, was entirely broken down by his captivity, went home, and died of consumption. I like the Frencli for their politeness and decorum. Go where you will, there you never notice the smallest rude- n e s s , even among the com- m o n classes. The spirit of courtesy is uni- versal. It may not be deep, but it is all one desires. Ask a qiiestion in the streets, and you may be sure of a courteous answer. Any one will direct you to a place you wish to find, and take pains to accommodate you, and that, too, without expectation or thought of reward. ' The fondness of the Frencli for out-door life is a healthful tin. They rarely sit within walls when they can get into UNIVERSAL POLITENESS. FONDNESS OF TALKING. 133 the open air. On pleasant days every cafe in and about Paris has its little marble-top tables arranged under awnings in front of the house. There men and women sit, and talk, and smoke, and drink hour after hour in a state of repose and satisfaction that never seem to be ours. They can extract much from little. Their pleasures are not expensive. They are very economical. A Frenchman will sit over his small glass of eau sucre or demi-bouteille of vin ordinaire, and draw more satisfaction from it than an American would from the expenditure of a thousand dollars. The French are born talkers, and usually they talk well. Their language is eminently adapted for conversation, having all the little niceties and varieties of expression that make compli- ment, satire, and epigram. Since the Greeks gabbled so elo- quently in ancient Athens, there have been no such talkers, as a nation, as the French. It is to them a distinct pleasure ; they cultivate it as an art ; it is an intellectual dissipation ; a sort of mental absinthe, without its bane. Frenchmen, and particu- larly women, are won by talking. While they can talk, and be talked to, life is not barren, nor their existence a failure. To more reticent nations they seem complete chatterboxes. High and low, rich and poor, cultivated and uncultivated, all talk. In the market, the public square, the theatre, the cafe, the drawing-room, their tongues ^are constantly wagging, and they wag witli no little eloquence. When an American, who loves conversation and speaks French, is weary of his own country, he can go to Paris, and talk himself into Pere la Chaise. The Hotel de Ville is an imposing and magnificent struc- ture, devoted to the city's use. It has elegantly-appointed apartments for the use of civic and other public functionaries, and an immense library of some fifty thousand volumes, con- taining works of the greatest value. In the Eue de la Paix is a well-known pastry-cook, whose history is singular. He was once a litterateur and dramatist, famous for his eccentricity. He had talent, but he never succeeded with the managers on account of his want of tact. 134 AN UNGRATEFUL HUSBAND. Poverty was, consequently, his natural condition, and lie suf- fered from it ; for, like most men of culture, he had luxurious tastes. About five years ago a wealthy friend, who had often lent the playwright money, fell violently in love with the pretty TUE UOTEL DE VILLB. wife of a pastry-cook, one Lacroix, and laid formal siege to her affections. Contrary to the expectations of the lover, the madame, though amiable, was not disloyal, and repulsed all his advances. The gallant, who had been very successful in such affairs, was angry at his failure, and finding the wife could not be captured, he withdrew his suit, and resolved to be revenged. In the dilemma he applied to the litterateur as to the best means of getting satisfaction. The man of the pen advised his friend to set him up as a pastry-cook in the same neighborhood, say- ing that the novelty of the thing would take away all Lacroix's business. The idea was put into practice. The store adjoin- ing Lacroix's was rented, and the playwright put into it. The appearance of the eccentric fellow in a cap and white apron proved an attraction. He secured a large custom at once, and has retained it ever since. Lacroix was compelled to re- move his shop to another quarter of the town, and soon failed completely. THE MORAL. 135 The madarne learned the cause of the sudden rivahy, and imparted it to her husband, expecting to be highly praised for her virtue. But her liege lord, as the story goes, was incensed at her for her superfluous conscientiousness, and upbraided her as the author of his misfortunes. They quarrelled so that they separated. The madame was very justly indignant, and, after the divorce, became attached to the ardent admirer she had formerly rejected. Let no wife who has resisted temptation, draw from this story a false moral. Let her remember that men love truth above everything ; that but few husbands are named Lacroix, or are pastry-cooks, both in spirit and in fact. CHAPTEK XY. MAGNIFICENT PAKIS. >ERE LA CHAISE is one of the disappoint- ments of Paris. There are many cemeteries in the United States superior to it. Indeed, the famous place has very little to recommend it, and reminds one of a brick-yard scattered over a hill. The monuments generally are neither handsome nor in good taste. There are no walks nor groves worthy of the name ; and you marvel how such a cemetery ever gained g, reputation. There are the graves of warriors, poets, statesmen, patriots ; but the tomb of Abelard and Heloise is more interesting than all the rest. The figures of the famous lovers, carved upon the monument, lie side by side — her head resting upon his arm — and are covered by a Gothic roof. The tomb is much impaired by time, and the only part of the inscription we can read is, " They are united at last in death." I had great difficulty in finding the grave, and asked two elderly women of the humble class, where it was. They took great pains to show me ; went here and there among the tombs, spending as much as fifteen minutes in the search. At last they pointed it out. I thanked them, and offered them money ; but they refused it politely, saying, " Oh ! no, sir ; we are glad you wanted to see it ; we are too happy to show it to you. We cannot take money for pointing out the grave of the two dear ones who have done so much to make love im- mortal." I thanked them again, and felt ashamed that I had forgotten that every woman in France is a sentimentalist. NOTED GRAVES. 137 My guides were poor ; would have received money for al- most any other courtesy, I suppose ; but they could not accept reward for performing what they regarded as a sentimental duty. No persons of the same class in England, Germany, Spain, or Italy, would decline money under such circumstan- ces ; but in France, the mere name of love is the open sesame to every feminine heart. I stood before the tomb, and, recalling their story, won- dered whether the lovers were indeed united in death. Does sympathy extend be- yond the grave? or is it merely the credu- lity of the heart that makes us believe so? I thought how true it i s , setting aside all romance, that love was never so pure, so deep, so chivalrous, as it is to-day ; that woman was never before such an object of spiritual worship ; that man, even in this age of practicality, was never so knightly in his devotion, so gener- ous in his charity to woman's weaknesses and woman's errors. So reflecting, I uncovered in the presence of the dead, and felt that love is the sole religion ; the Christ that, by hourly offering itself a sacrifice for selfishness, makes it nobleness at last ; the good angel who works miracles of beauty, purifies and transforms whatever it touches, until what is Love's be- comes Hope, and Holiness, and Kest. It was painful to remember, beside their tomb, that only Heloise was noble and devoted ; that Abelard was selfish, and mean, and cowardly beyond almost any man woman has suf- fered for. He acted like a tyrant and a brute, and yet she GRAVE OF ABELARD AND HELOISE. 138 CHUKCHES OF PARIS. loved him as if lie had been an angel. She forgave him all the monstrous wrongs he had done her, and to the last was loyal and magnanimous in every throb of her heart. Abelard is sanctified in sentiment ; but in history and truth he deserves eternal execration. The churches of Paris are very costly, and many of them beautiful. The fame of Kotre Dame is almost as great as that of St. Peter's Cathedral at Eome. The Church of St. Genevieve was modelled after the . . i^ celebrated Pan- ^ theon at Athens, ^ and bore that //,fl^^i" , ^ name for a long ///^L^_^ ' 1 time. It was converted after- i ward into a \ temple dedica- ted to the fem- l ous men ot the ^ nation, but was ' restored to the i Church by the ^ Emperor Napo- leon III., and >i christened in honor of Saint Genevieve. It '-'^ is a grand and ^^^^^^.^^^^g magnificent CHURCH OP ST. GENEVIEVE. StrUCtUrC. The Church of St. Sulpice is an imposing edifice. Its front is of a very unusual style, and, standing in an open space, the structure produces a striking efiect. ^ It has an immense organ, of about seven thousand pipes, and one hundred and eighteen registers. The interior of the church is hung with rich and expensive paintings, and few persons visit Paris without giving the build- jng a long and close inspection. FRENCH STOCK EXCHANGE. 139 Paris abounds in public buildings of a sumptuous kind. The Hotel des Invalides is one of the finest specimens of archi- tecture hi the city. It shelters the poor and infirm defend- CHUECU OF ST. StTLPlCE. ers of France. The dome is over three hundred feet in height ; a Church hospital and library are connected with it, and it has accommodations for about five thousand men. Its chapel con- tains the splendid tomb of the Emperor Napoleon I., and is rich in paintings and statuary. Those who have been amused with the tumultuous pro- ceedings of the Gold Board or Stock Exchange, in Broad street, should not fail to make a comparison between New York and Paris. I once thought no men out of straight jackets could appear more excited or grotesque than our bro- kers and speculators, when the list of shares is fluctuating and feverish. I was mistaken. The Parisians are thrice as mad as they, as you may see, if you will walk along the Boulevards down to the Place de la Bourse any afternoon between twelve and three. That vast Pantheon-shaped building, the steps of which are 140 VIEW FROM THE GALLERY. crowded with men talking together in knots, holding pencils and small books, is the French Stock Exchange. The 'outside groups appear calm. They are talking earnestly, but not loudly ; and yet over, and around, and under them comes a roar rising and falling like an an- gry sea. You cannot account for the mysteri- ous noise at first ; but when you mount the steps you perceive the tumult is inside of the Desirous to vestigate, you as- cend by a side door to the gal- lery, open to the public, and look down into the large hall below. You will find a great many spec- tators like your- self in the gal- lery, which will hold twenty-five hundred, all of them watching the excited tlirong. The hall occupies the entire building, the walls extending to the roof, and bearing medallions with the names of the principal commercial cities of Europe. The floor is filled with men of all ages — those of middle life and beyond it predomi- nating — separated from each other by iron railings and circles guarded by gendarmes (soldiers are ubiquitous in France), building. in- HOTEL DES INVALIDES. WALL STREET OUTDOXE. 141 who stand there to keep out all but the regular members. "Within the iron railings are the registers and accountants, who, with large books before them, keep records of the sales and transfers of the shares sold during the day. Every one of the ten or twelve hundred men down there is talking; no, not talking, but yelling at the top of his voice, and many of them shaking their anns and brandishing their hats in the air continuously and frantically. They are oifering stocks you know ; but you never would suppose any one could hear what they are saying. They are not content with shouting or gesticulating. They are indulging in physi- cal gyrations and contortions. They hug each other like fellows maudlin after midnight ; they leap on each other's shoulders ; they shake fists ; they dash forward and junip back- ward ; they laugh ; they scream ; they howl ; and style all this business. What a centre of commerce a mad-house must be, you think, if the Bourse is a place of sale and barter ! I don't think any one gets a better idea of the trade of money-making after spending an hour in the strangers' gal- lery. He concludes if men can be so aftected by speculation, that speculation must be undesirable, even pernicious. See that gray-haired man, sixty-five at least, who ought to have retired years ago, and to be living at peace with all the world. He is worth a vast fortune ; and yet he is crying out in a shrill voice, "Half per cent, higher!" wiping his hot brow nervously, and inviting the apoplexy to visit him next spring, when, if he had been sensible, it would not have come at all. His wife is gambling at Baden-Baden ; his daughters are losing their hearts to professional libertines, and his only son is running to the grave by the path of dissipation. The old speculator might have had it otherwise; but he forgot family for money, and he has his reward. There is a young man who had a handsome income from his business ; but he did not think it large enough. He deter- mined to speculate, and now his life is so feverish that he can rest neither day nor night. The terrible voice that says, 142 RESULTS OF SPECULATION. " Sleep no more ! " has spoken to him. His young wife watches his hectic cheek, and shudders at his sudden starts in the silent watches before the dawn. And then she goes to the little cradle at the bedside, and prays over the sleeping babe, through falling tears, that the father may be spared, and that poverty may come, if with it will come peace of mind. The Paris Bourse is worse than the ]^ew York Exchange 111 its power of harm ; for men, bankrupt in the Old "World, cannot recover as in the New. Scores of persons are often ruined at the Bourse in a single day. No one takes warning by example : we want experience of our own, and we get it to our cost. CHAPTER XYI. LIFE IN PAKIS. ARIS is an unfortunate place for persons with bad tendencies. It makes them worse by giving them opportunities and licenses they would not have nor take at home. Some young men go, or are sent there, to reform. It is like casting soiled linen into the mire for cleansing. Their temptations are ten times as strong as they would be anywhere else, and, moreover, all the restraints of friends and family are removed. Within a radius of five hundred miles a youth will be drawn into the maelstrom of dissipation, and it is difficult to get him out. Young men sent to the Continent to be educated find their bane in that city. Instead of studying at Heidelberg, or Jena, or Dresden, they riot among the wine-shops and the lorettes of Paris ; and even wlien they summon resolution enough to go back to their musty books they rarely stay long. Nanine writes, or Figaro speaks of a new play, and they rush off by the first train to the seductive capital. I have known youths, while parents believed they were mastering all the philosophy and science in Germany, who were graduating in dissipation not far from the Place Yendome. When they returned home, with pale faces and bloodshot eyes, their sympathetic sisters pitied them, no doubt, and said, " Poor, dear Charley, he has nearly killed himself with study at that hateful university. He would have died if he had staid there much longer." Per. haps he would ; but Thorpe's, and late suppers, and the ballet- 144 WOMEN OF PARIS. girls of tlie Cliatelet, and the syrens of the Closerie would have been the means of his taking off. The "Grand Duchess" Schneider I have often heard, and she certainly improves on acquaintance. She is not pretty, nor is she a very remarkable singer; but she has an indefinable magnetism. She is large to stoutness, and gives you an im- pression of perfect health. Her eyes are expressive, and she makes the most of them. Her mouth is j^retty to a point of perilousness. She acts admirably such parts as Offen- bach's, and often sings deliciously. In some scenes she proves that she has power beyond what she shows, and is lost for the moment in her art. Schneider is not a hypocrite. She says she lives for pleas- ure, and seeks it wherever it can be found. Her salary is very large for Europe — over eight hundred francs a night — and froin her admirers she receives large sums of money and the richest presents. But she spends all she receives, and is often in debt. The women of Paris are rarely handsome in respect to the rule-and-line mode of judging. Their features are seldom regular ; but their faces are interesting, with so much and such ever-changing expression, that one is likely to forget how they look. Their eyes are fine, and their noses, though frequently retrousse, are adapted to their other features, and lend piquancy to the whole. It is to be regretted that they often mar their faces by excess of rouge, and by blackening their eyelashes, eyebrows, and lids. Their manners are engaging, but it would be better if the women themselves were less artificial. No man can determine, under ordinary circumstances, whether nature or the modiste made them. After he has won an angel, he cannot be sure she will not melt, under intimate ac- quaintance, into an unesthetic mass of whalebone, cotton, and sawdust. The women look best between nineteen and twenty. After twenty-five or thirty they often grow tawny and shrivelled, and old women in France when homely, are very homely. They don't become thin and over-spiritualized, like the Americans, HOMELY SERVANTS IN DEMAND. 145 nor SO stout nor material as the English. Some of them wither up and darken until they bear a close resemblance to smoked herrings. Not a few of the fairest of the sex are the demi-mondeists and cocottes. A very good-looking -girl is with difficulty kept in any hotel, store or shop in Paris for any length of time. She is in danger of being persuaded to lead the life of a lorette, rather than earn her bread by honest industry. So much is this the case that pretty girls cannot easily get places ; for it is feared they won't stay more than a few days. Their vanity is so easily excited — and they are singularly sentimental, what- ever their station in life — that when some designing fellow tells them they are beautiful, and gives them a trinket, their head is fairly turned, and their usefulness as clerks is in peril. Homely servants, and saleswomen, and accountants are, therefore, in demand, and the demand must be freely met, from the number of sallow, cross-eyed, unattractive creatures in the cafes, shops, and theatres. It speaks ill for the morals of the community that a woman can't be handsome and keep a posi- tion in a public place. Thousands of girls are educated and grow up with the expectation of entering into the demi-monde. They have no hope of marriage. They do not want to work. They have an insatiable fondness for display, for admiration, for pleasure, for affection. The consequence is, they go to the protection of the first man who is liberal with his purse and loose in his notions, Not trained to virtue, without abhorrence of unchastity, with a code of morals that exists nowhere else, they follow a life of gayety and pleasure without regret or remorse. If they sin much, they love much. Sensuous and sentimental pagans as they are, when favor deserts and fortune frowns, they kiss their faded flowers, and old love-letters, quote a phrase from Lamartine or Dumas, light the charcoal, and are at rest. Who blames them, poor creatures ? Man, who is always responsible for them, is cruel when he casts at them the smallest stone. The American women, of whom so many are constantly in Paris, are greatly admired there. Nor is it strange; 10 146 ECONOMY OF LIVING. for they are, among all nationalities, strikingly handsome. Whenever you notice a pretty woman in Paris you may feel almost certain she is an American. On the Champs Elysees, at the Bois, at the opera, in the Boulevards, the delicate, spir- ituelle, oval, intellectual faces, that peep out like lilies in a gar- den, are unmistakably those of our countrywomen. They are known all over the Continent for their rare beauty, and lauded from the Yolga to the Seine, At the Grand Hotel you see more pretty women than anywhere else in Paris. Some of them are like peacocks — beautiful only when silent. But there are many who talk as they look ; who are entirely elegant and well-bred ; who have the fine magnetism and fragrance that render the plainest women lovely. Paris, though a city of luxury, is not necessarily, therefore, a city of extravagance. You can live exactly as you please — for five hundred francs a day, or for five, if you like. After numerous experiments, I have discovered that a man can have more comfort there for a small amount of money than any- where else in the world. If he attempts to make a show, or seeks fashionable quarters, he must, of course, be careless of his purse. That is true of all places. Having dined and lodged all the way from the Boulevard des Capucines and the Grand Hotel to the Quartier Latin, and the lodging-houses of the Hue Monsieur le Prince, I have found that a bachelor can be well fed, well lodged, well clad, and have reasonable incidental expenses, for eighty francs a week — about sixteen dollars gold. He can live better on that amount than he can in New York for twice the sum, A native citizen declares that no unmarried man needs more than thirty-eight hundred francs ($760) a year to be en- tirely happy in Paris, and all he expends above that is foolish extravagance. " But Paris is no place for married people," the reader says. It is not very favorable to wedlock for those who go there sin- gle; but for those who are already wedded, and have been struggling to keep up appearances in America on a smaU in- come, it is excellent, I wonder more of our New York fami- VIRTUE REWARDED. 147 lies don't emigrate there. They get along poorly enough at home with their $2,000, or $3,000, or $4,000 a year ; while in that city they conld be very comfortable. They could get ex- cellent apartments, instead of being obliged to rent a whole house at an enormous rate. They could educate their children far better than on this side of the Atlantic, and, on the whole, the change would be for the better. La Ferine, the popular news-dealer, who occupies the kiosk in front of the Grand Hotel, is an instance of the benefit of paragraphs. Two years ago she was very poor, and for weeks knew not whether to walk into the wide-open doors of the demi-monde or the silent waters of the Seine. An orphan, five-and-twenty, bred in the provinces, she went to the me- tropolis to earn her bread — not handsome nor educated, but still rather interesting, A journalist met her, and liked her, and wished her to become his mistress. She said she had come to Paris to take care of her body, not to sell it : that she was without money, but no man was rich enough to buy her con- sciousness of honor and her self-esteem. The sentiment was cheap enough ; can be heard any night ad nauseam on the Bowery stage ; but it impressed the writer for the press as something extraordinary. A woman neither old nor hideous, and in Paris, too, yet determined to be virtu- ous, was a revelation to him. Interested before, he was fasci- nated now. Strange to say, considering his nationality, she awoke in him a feeling of severe respect, instead of driving him from her through wounded vanity. He advised her to set up a news-stand, and he rented a kiosk — the best one in the Boulevards — for her for three months. Then he began to write paragraphs about La Perine — the influence of the daily press is immense in that city — and before a week she had secured a liberal patronage. In a month she became the fash- ion ; for the journalist is connected with the brightest and clev- erest sheet in Paris; and now she is earning quite a little fortune. La Perine is famous. Her photographs are in the win- dows; songs are written about her; every one stops at her 148 A SHREWD PARTNER. kiosk to look at her. She is called beautiful, because sbe is celebrated. Her admirer will not allow her trade to languish. He keeps her before the public in all varieties of epigram. At one time she seemed waning in popularity. A little fiction about an attempt to carry her off, as she was going home late at night, fully reestablished her, and she may now be deemed a permanent feature of the Boulevards. CHAPTER XVII. NOVELTIES OF PARIS. I HE reputation of Paris is tliat of the wick- edest of cities. If it be so, it is likewise the most decorous. It may be that sin is less sinful by redemption from coarseness. The French seem to hold this view, and preserve an external show of graceful de- cency rarely found in any other nation. If you wish to be- lieve in- the elegance and refinement of Parisian life, do not go below the surface. Under the blandest manners and the warmest professions of regard, nestle brutal ferocity and ab- sorbing selfishness. Behind downcast eyes and dainty talk may lie utter heartlessness and supreme sensuality. Paris is no worse than London, Vienna, or New York ; but it does not pretend to ignore the vices all great cities have, and it cer- tainly makes them less dangerous by recognizing their exist- ence. The French capital is, on many accounts, the most decep- tions in Europe, and, therefore, the most agreeable to those unacquainted with its inner life. If the Parisians avowed what they felt, and put their acts into words, they who ad- mire would be repelled, and they who praise would de- nounce. Their proverb, " What can't be said can be sung, and what can't be sung can be done," is characteristic of the peculiar people. They call common things by fine words, and do what they would deem it barbarous to speak. Those who have been behind the scenes must regret they have stripped ofi" so much of the illusion, and can only console 150 THE COCOTTES. themselves with the thought that they have reached the truth. No one who has been troubled with a morbid longing for the facts that underlie appearances there, and has resolved to pen- etrate 4;hem, can be induced to tell exactly what those facts were, or how they impressed him. Experience has its own privacy. Illusions are sweet, particularly in Paris, and there they should be cherished in all earnestness. The hals de nuit of the city are among its novelties, and, of course, strangers who would not think of patronizing such places at home, visit them there. They are extremely popu- lar, both with the French and with foreigners. The Yalen- tino, Casino, the Chateau Rouge, the Closerie de Lilas, and famous Jardin Mabille, are among the best known. They are * very much ahke in character, being participated in by cocottes of the town and their admirers, and attended by the miscella- neous public. The Yalentino and Casino — in the heart of the city and under cover — are generally closed in warm weather, because then the al fresco places take precedence. The price of admission is three or four francs for men, and one franc, or nothing, for women. The ballroom is arranged with considerable taste, brilliantly lighted, and excellent music is furnished. Any one can dance who wishes. The women can be had for the asking, for a bouquet and a bottle of wine. They are very ready to be the partner of any stranger, for they believe the acquaintance may prove advantageous. Not a few of the cocottes are pretty and genteel. They are all young, and have the engaging manner so common to the French. They are dressed very well, though with more of a view to physical display than modesty. They seem in the best of spirits, and are wholly free from that hardness and con- strained gayety that mark the frail sisterhood in our country. They seem to have violated no law of their being by the life they lead. They appear born and fitted to it. If they have any aspiration above and beyond it, they do not show it. Their training has been peculiar — they have little to look for- ward to, and little to regret. To enjoy themselves through the THE DANCE PLACES. 151 senses, to dress well, to be admired, is all they wish. With a new robe, a bottle of Bordeaux, a bright afternoon, and an in- dulgent friend, they have all they require. They have a ca- pacity to live in the hour, in the moment, which is quite for- eign to the Anglo-Saxon race. While the wine flows, and laughter ripples, and kisses blossom, they have no care for to- morrow, no memory of yesterday. In the midst of the dance, while they whirl under the gaslight with flushed cheeks, and throbbing bosoms, and sparkling eyes, they are as happy as they can be , for the madness of the hour fills them to over- flowing, and their bodies are steeped in the intoxication of the senses. They ought to be very miserable ; but they are nothing of the kind, and only sickness, or old age, or poverty, can bring them discontent. When that comes, a few centimes will buy charcoal, and then obli\don and a pauper's grave. The Yalentino and Casino usually close at midnight, and the Chateau Rouge is frequently dull. The Closerie is the most varied and natural, for there the French students and artists of the Latin Quarter go for what they consider a de- lightful revel. They take their mistresses, and drink, and laugh, and make merry, after a very intense fashion. Such grimaces, such antics, such badinage, such drollery, can't be witnessed elsewhere. They have masquerades every now and then, and the costumes and masks are of the most remarkable kind. More license is permitted then, and they accept it to the fullest. They are said to have limitations in their extrava- gance, but I can't see what the limitations are. If there is anything more they can do, it is difficult to conceive. The Closerie is the most eccentric of the dance-places, and gives a very correct, though not very favorable, idea of the student hfe of Paris. Not infrequently quarrels begun there lead to duels ; but there are never any blows or knock-doMois, as with us. Frenchmen of culture rarely strike each other. They offer insults, and fight with weapons. The use of the fist is deemed a brutahty among the educated classes. The Mabille is the most attractive place for the balls, and is seen at its height in summer. On a warm evening, and the 152 DROLL DOINGS. occasion of a fete, the garden is crowded, strangers being in the majority. Church-members of culture and position, from this side of the Atlantic, go to the Mabille sometimes on ac- count of its notoriety ; but they would deny the fact stoutly, if charged with it at home. The dancers, almost without exception, are professionals. The women are elaborately prepared for the entertainment they give. They wear street dresses, but are otherwise clad like ballet-girls. When they begin dancing they are often decorous ; but as the evening advances, and they warm with exercise and wine, they give themselves the largest freedom. If they were on the stage in short skirts, you would think nothing of their poses and pirouettes ; but in the ordinary apparel, their movements seem very different. What they suggest is even more than what they do. While executing a single quadrille, they leap, and kick, and whirl about in a most bewildering manner. But even such dancing is eclipsed by the can-can, which, as executed there, is simply lasciviousness set to music. It has often been said that the can-can at the opera bouffe in New York is more licentious than at the Mabille in Paris. Those who make the statement are either ignorant or they wilfully misrepresent. The can- can could not be danced in America as it is at the Mabille or the Closerie. They do droll things in Paris. Not long since, as the story goes, a Frenchman in good position, wishing to get rid of his wife, and having no excuse for separation, introduced his friend to her, with the express understanding that the friend should use his best endeavoi'S to win her heart. The husband, of course, furnished the largest opportunities to the two to be together, and treated his spouse so coolly that she became con- vinced of his indifference. The friend, on the contrary, was gallant, tender, and devoted ; was always in madame's society, and actually became very fond of her. The desired result was brought about ; but to conceal their plot against the woman, the two men had a sham duel, and, after firing their balless pistolsj got merry over Beaujolais at Yefour's. AN AFFECTING ROMANCE. 153 All three are contented. Feminine hearts and mascnline consciences are so elastic on the Seine they can accommodate themselves to every situation. An artist who carved the group of dancers before the new opera house, was violently attacked, by some of the critics, for his work. The statue is really meritorious ; but the sculptor was likely to be ruined by the censure heaped upon him, par- ticularly as he had no reputation. The poor fellow was in despair ; but one of his friends unknown to him, had a rem- edy for his woe. The friend employed somebody to throw a bottle of ink on the statue, and for days its whiteness bore the vast black stain. Everybody that passed on the Boulevards observed the marble ; denounced the vandalism ; grew into sympathy with the artist, and praised his statue. Photographs, by the hundred,, were taken of the group, and it and its carver became famous. The artist's fortune is made, and all by a little ink, which, however, properly bestowed, has often had a similar effect. Passing the Morgue one day, I thought I would step in. There were several bodies there, one of them that of a young woman. While regarding it attentively through the glass, and imagining what the departed life had been, a well-dressed man came up, touched his hat, and asked me if I were a writer for the press. The question was impertinent; but I make it a rule in travelling not to repress any one likely to give me information. I replied affirmatively. " I thought I was right," said the man ; " for I believed by the expression of your face you were arranging the life of that poor creature (pointing to the corpse) into different chap- ters. Our Parisian journalists are constantly looking for ma- terial here. They search for fueilletons all over Paris. Do you know the history of that young woman ?" " I do not, indeed." " Hers was a sad fate. To think she should have come to such an end after all ! " " Did you know her, then ? " I inquired, my interest rising. •154 A GOOD STORY SPOILED. "Of course; everybody knew her. You remember Cla- risse Demorne, whom they used to call 'La Belle Eeine' ?" " I never heard of her." " That is strange. Would you like to ? I remember her when she was lovely as an angel, and all eyes followed her gilded carriage in the Bois." " Yes ; I should be glad to learn her history." Then the man told, in very graceful style, that the poor woman who lay there on the slab was, a few years ago, the queen of the demi-monde, and considered the most beautiful woman in Paris. She was for a long while the mistress of Count de M , who left her when he married. Then she found a protector in a Kussian prince, who gave her a splendid establishment. Season after season she floated on a bright stream of pleasure. At last she fell in love with a wretched croupier at Ems. She became his wife. He spent every franc she had, and abused her shamefully. He broke her spirit and her heart. She lived in poverty for months at Cologne, and returned last spring to Paris, a wreck of her former self. That morning her body was found in the Seine. This he related at length, and with so many embellish- ments, with so much of a professional story-teller's manner, that I handed him a couple of francs for his trouble, when he had concluded. After he had walked away I began to doubt his authority, for he knew too much of Clarisse Demorile for any man who had not been her confidante. Desirous to satisfy myself, I asked one of the officials at the Morgue, and learned that the body was that of an unfortunate blind beggar, who, coming to the Seine for water, had fallen in and been drowned. The corpse had just been identified. I mentioned the tale of mv informant, and the official laughed, saying, " He is a racon- teur (a tale-teller), who was once a writer of novels, and who, it is said, now makes a livelihood by furnishing plots and situ- ations for authors and dramatists. He is naturally a flaneur (loafer) ; too lazy to work, he is contented to get a few francs, and narrate his imaginary experiences over a bottle of wine, to his boon companions in the Quartier Latin." CHAPTER XYIII. ROMANCE AND MUKDEK IN PARIS. ^l^ HERE is nothing the gay capital of civi- lization enjoys more than a first-class ^^Vv murder — one of the grand, melodramatic sort, fairly swimming in blood, and brist- ling with mystery and horror. One would imagine that a people so vivacious, so sensitive, so artistic, so sensuous, would shrink from the details of terrible crime; that, what- ever fascination blood might have had for them originally, their dreadful Revolution would have cured them forever. Their life, their art, their literature, prove otherwise. They are a nation of opposites • they are full of light and shadow, of merriment and melancholy, of superficiality and profundity, of self-indulgence and self-sacrifice, of frivolity and heroism. They are master-cooks and master-dancers ; but they are great thinkers and great doers also. They give us our fashions in dress and our best treatises on military warfare. They invent new soups and discover new planets on the same day. They publish charmingly question- able stories and the deepest studies of science. Their women, the most graceful and engaging in the world, leave off flirta- tion to ponder the most abstruse problems of astronomy ; and quit Calculus to devour with caresses the man they love. The French deserve to be called the modem Greeks ; and yet the two are very unhke. The French have no parallel ; for with all their variations they are consistent. Perhaps it is true that there are two kinds of nature — human nature and French 156 LOVE OF SENSATION. nature ; but French nature seems often to have the better of it. No nation has been more misunderstood, in spite of its prodigies of performance ; and it is only now the French are beginning to get full credit for their versatility and greatness. Their cleverness in little things withdrew attention from their accomplishment of great things. Their prowess in war and their progress in science were forgotten while their ragouts and ballet-dances were remembered. I was in Paris at the time of the famous Traupmann murder, and it was curious to notice how completely the city surrendered itself to the prevailing sensation. It wholly out- did any American city in its hunger for the latest news, about which it usually cares very little. Nothing was talked of but the tragedy of Aubervilliers. It engrossed every grade of society. Speculators on the Bourse, before they spoke of the quotation of rentes, inquired about Traupmann. Even Louis Napoleon's health, which was as common a topic in France as the weather in America, lost its interest. The kiosks on the Boulevards were besieged long before the daily journals were issued. Duchesses and the demi-mondeists, grave ministers and austere priests, the members of the Academy and the street gamins, all pored over the highly spiced accounts in the Gai/r lois and Figaro. Such heavy journals as the Pays and Monv- teur, generally sought only for their soporific effects, abandoned themselves to the raging mania. They discussed the murder in all its bearings, and furnished the very latest intelligence from Pantin and the Mazas, where the assassin was confined. Every man, woman and child in Paris had a theory re- specting the murder, and the gossiping journalists were in a positive state of beatitude at the opportunity afforded them for interweaving endless fancies with their slender facts. In every edition they improved upon the story. The murderer and the murdered were Kmned in most fantastic colors. Poor Madame Kinck, a very plain, uneducated Alsatian peasant grew to be a beautiful and accomplished woman, and her chil- dren perfect cherubim in loveliness. The French writers will not permit anything to appear in A BEWILDERED WAITER. 157 print as it really is. It must first receive a Parisian varnish, consisting of a strong mixture of sentiment and melodrama, and be treated artistically. The Parisians love the terrible no less than the tender, the shocking no less than the sentimental. The man who, some years ago, in the Rue St. Honore, cut off his mistress' head and buried it with flowers, left a senti- mental note declaring he killed her because he loved her; fled to Spain, turned priest, and was afterward killed in a duel about a woman, was thoroughly French. "Whatever their idiosyncrasies, they are agreeable and interesting, none the less because they are self-conscious in the extreme, and live only for the world. Paris does not expect any man to lead a life of strict celibacy. I remember this story told by a young companion and countryman : I used to be amused at the bewildered air of the gargon^ who brought my coffee to my lodgings in the morning. When I rang the bell, and ordered coffee for one, he seemed incapa- ble of understanding it. " For two ? monsieur said." "No; for one, gar§on." " But the coffee-pot will not hold two cups." "I don't want two cups, gargon." " Ah, yes (musingly), when young people are very fond, they like to drink out of the same cup. Monsieur should be French, for he is gallant." " I have no one to drink out of the cup with me. I want it for myself alone. Go, and do as I bid you." The gargon, looking distrust, departs lingeringly. The next morning he is very attentive, as if I required comforting, and I give him something for his solicitude. The third morning he indulges the hope that Mademoi- selle is well, and is confident she must be happy. Amused at the fellow's pertinacity, I inform him I do not know Made- moiselle, and have no desire to. At this he lieaves a deep sigh, and casts a look of profound pity upon me. The fourth 158 A POPULAR SINGER. evening and the fifth his face preserves its sadness. On the sixth he begs to inquire the land of my nativity, and I tell him. On the seventh he loiters in the apartment, and, seeing he has something on. his mind, I ask him what he has to say. Then he relieves himself as follows* "America must be a strange country. Do all the men there hate women ? " That is very like a Frenchman. He concludes that any gentleman who may choose to breakfast alone for a week must necessarily be an uncompromising enemy of all woman- kind. Theresa, who, from some inexplicable cause, preserves her popularity, appeared in Za Cliatte Blanche up to the time of the siege of Paris, and sang several songs, one or two of a pathetic character. The audience grew wild over her; and yet there was something positively grotesque to my mind in a coarse, vulgar-looking woman, who might have been imported from Billingsgate, attempting to touch the heart with a few indifferently executed bars of ordinary music. On the day when aU mysteries are revealed, it will perhaps be known how a common creature like Theresa found it possi- ble to fascinate the fastidious and elegant Parisians. The original of Camille now lies in Pere la Chaise, under a plain marble monument, marked simply, '■''Par amour d Marie Duj)lessisy Such was the real name of the renowned lorette, who was a beautiful, elegant, and accomplished woman. She led very much such a life as Dumas, Jils, has described in his play. After two years of gilded dissipation, a young and very romantic physician met her at an opera ball. They fell in love with each other, and he wanted to marry her at once. She would not permit him to do so ; but she dismissed her admirers, gave up her establishment, bought a pretty cot- tage near Versailles, and invited him to it. He held the tran- scendental doctrine that true love restores to a woman the chastity she has lost ; but still she would not be her friend's wife on account of his family, which was good, but not in pros- perous circumstances. The physician — the Armand of the, drama — ^was infatuated with Marie, said to have been a charm- THE ORIGINAL CAMILLE. 159 ing creature, in spite of her unconventional life, full of good- ness and charity, graces, and aspirations. She was a sentimen- talist, and had never accepted the protection of a man she was not fond of. When the young physician came, he was her ideal ; for he was fresh in feeling, chivalrous in conduct, poetic in temperament. Willing to sacrifice everything for him, she could not bear to bind him to her by a tie he might regret. Marie and her lover dwelt together after the Arcadian fash- ion, near Versailles, until the father interfered. Of course, the old gentleman had no objection to his son having a mis- tress — that is the rule in Paris — but he was unwilling his only boy should give up his profession and all ambition for a lorette. He saw them both, and read them a moral lecture. Marie besought her friend to leave her ; at least to travel for a year ; that, hard as was the sacrifice, she was willing to make it for the love that is above all passion. So urged by his mis- tress and his father, he went to Italy for two years. When he had been gone ten months, Marie, who had lived the life of a recluse, died, the medical men said, of rapid con- sumption ; the sentimentalists declared, of a broken heart. Her elegant furniture at the cottage was sold. Her death made a noise in Paris, and the auction created a sensation. A crowd was present, and, among other literary men, young Dumas. He bought a diamond ring that Marie had worn, and carried it home. Two months after a pale youth called on Dumas to see if he could purchase the ring. The youth was Marie's lover — the Armand of the drama. He told the author his story, and " Camille " was the consequence. The lover did not expect to live through the winter. He is alive now, a husband and father, having married a fortune and a widow. Usually, the French, like the German students, are not very attractive in person, manners, or character. Nor are they roman- tic or distingue in appearance. On the contrary, they are usu- ally commonplace, under- bred, material, and selfish, and the life they lead is enough to demoralize St. Jerome. I have never seen but one model student at the Closerie. He had a pale, classical 160 CONVENIENCE OF SPEAKING FRENCH. face, wore a dark moustaclie and long hair falling over a broad Byron collar, a black velvet coat and top boots. He was about one-and-twenty, but had evidently exhausted his capacity for emotion. He did not dance, and all the entreaties of the young women could not prevail upon him. He lounged through the crowd smoking his pipe, wholly indifferent to the clamor and dissipation around him. Ko terms of endearment won him. He unloosed himself laughingly from caressing arms and dechned offered lips at every turn. "You know J.' love you," cried a little creature, "and yet you turn away from me as if I were not pretty." " Yes, my child," he answered patronizingly ; " I have learned my rdle. You are willing to come to my heart be- cause you know you cannot bring me to your feet. If you thought I really cared for you, you would desert me to-morrow. You women worship what you cannot reach. Love is for boys, philosophy for men ; " and the yomig coxcomb sauntered off, blowing clouds of smoke. I have frequently heard that persons who speak nothing but English get along very readily on the Continent. I don't see how they do it ; for I found that my French, much as I had forgotten of it, stood me in good stead. The language may not be absolutely necessary ; but it is certainly very convenient. It must be awkward in the extreme to be in a foreign country and not know a word of its tongue. Such ignorance ought to contribute to the development of a man's pantomimic powers. I have seen persons entirely undemonstrative naturally, gestic- ulating to the drivers of cabriolets, keepers of restaurants, and valets de place in a manner that would have done credit to the Kavels. In their efforts to make themselves understood they wasted more mental force than would have been required to obtain a tolerable acquaintance with the French stock phrases so convenient for the Continent. 1. PONT NEUF, PARIS. 2. THE TTHLEKIEi?, PARIS. 3. THE SENATE 01 FRANCE, CHAPTER XIX. CATACOMBS OF PAKI8. HE Catacombs of Paris are a city of the dead underneath the beautiful capital of France, and contain a silent population nearly double that above ground. It is estimated that they hold the remains of about three millions and a half of human beings, while not more than two millions live in the upper world. The Catacombs of Paris are not, strictly speaking, subterranean places for burying the dead as they are in Egypt, Home, ISTaples and Palermo. They were originally the quarries out of which the stone was taken for building pm-poses. They lie under the southern part of the city, and completely undermine the observatory, the Luxembourg Palace, the Pantheon Church, La Harpe, St. Jacques, Vaugirard and many other streets in that quarter. Their extent is something like three millions of square yards, one-tenth of the whole surface occupied by the gay city. The Catacombs are proba- bly twelve or thirteen hundred years old, and long before they were used as cemeteries, which was of recent date, thieves, robbers, murderers and criminals of every kind sought refuge there from justice and the law. In 1Y84, some part of the quarries gave way, and it became necessary for skilful engineers to descend into them, and make them more secure, lest the houses and streets above them should break through the thin shell, and cause great destruc- tion of property and life. While the engineers were at work, it was determined to 11 y 162 AN UNDERGROUND EXCURSION. remove tlie dead from the graves of the Cemetery of the Inno- cents, which stood on the site of the present principal market, known as the Halles Centrales. No better or more fitting place could be found for the deposit of the remains, than those ancient excavations. Other burial places required to be re- moved, and consequently on the Yth of April, 1786, the Cata- combs were formally consecrated to the purpose to which they have since been devoted. The himian bones were taken from the cemeteries at night, in funeral cars, accompanied by priests chanting the Catholic service for the dead, and on arrival at the Catacombs, were thrown down a shaft in such a helter- skelter manner, that the relics of noblemen and peasants, reformers and robbers, poets, bishops, wealthy merchants and beggars were irretrievably mixed together. The bones from one cemetery were kept apart from those of another ; but beyond this no order was followed until 1810, when a regular plan of arrangement was begun. There used to be no difficulty in obtaining admission to the Catacombs ; but the occurrence of a number of accidents and the insecurity of the gloomy vaults prevented the authorities from opening them to the public more than once a year — about the first of October — when a limited number of persons, after obtaining tickets from the Inspector-General of the quar- ries, are allowed to accompany him in his annual tour of in- spection. There are forty or fifty entrances ; but the principal one is at the Barriere d'Enfer — a gloomy name for a gloomy place — and it was there I entered them last Autumn, having a curiosity to see how dismal they were. As usually happens, quite a party had assembled to make the excursion. We had provided ourselves with wax tapers or candles, each of us lighting and carrying one as we went through the doorway down a circular flight of ninety stone steps. At the bottom are a number of galleries running in different directions. A guide placed himself at our head, and asking if we were all ready, we set out on the melancholy journey. The first passage in which we found ourselves, and which, UNKNOWN PASSAGES. 163 like many others, is hewn out of the solid rock, is three or fonr feet wide, and about six feet high, making it difficult for more than two persons to walk abreast, and compelling tall men to stoop somewhat. There were several Americans and English- men in our parly whom nature evidently had not designed for such explorations. Their hats and heads frequently came in contact with the rocky ceiling much to their annoyance, and they declared that, if they remained down there for any length of time, they must either be shortened or become round- shouldered. The Catacombs are laid out like a city with different passa- ges corresponding to streets, the names carved at the top, and two arrows painted on the wall, one pointing to the interior and the other to the main entrance. The walls were damp and frequently wet ; the water not only dropping from the roof, but sometimes running through in streams, and showing now and then large cracks and crevices as if the whole might tum- ble down over our heads, and either crush us or bury us alive. I observed, indeed, that in some places the roof had fallen in, and I could not help but notice that not a few of my com- panions felt very nervous lest they should never get out of the dreary caverns. One or two Englishmen seemed to be very angry at themselves for going into what they called such a "blasted 'ole," and expressed much indignation at the authori- ties for bringing them into it, evidently forgetting that they had sought the permission which had been somewhat reluc- tantly granted. As we walked or rather groped along in the darkness, only feebly lighted by our flickering candles, we occasionally passed a deep hole or pit. I lowered my light without being able to discover anything but a very deep and impenetrable blackness. I also noticed a number of passages branching off from that in which we were, and I was on the point of exploring some of them until informed by the guide that it was strictly forbid- den, as any one was likely to lose his way, and die of starvation before he could be found. "We turned several comers, and learned from the guide-board that we were under the Sceaux 164 A GHOSTLY EXPERIENCE. railway station, more than three hundred yards from the place wliere we had entered. "We could tell from the names cut in the walls under what streets or buildings we were, and it seemed very strange we should now be beneath a boulevard or avenue, and then under some church or public institution which we had walked in and visited frequently without think- ing that the famous Catacombs were only forty or fifty feet below. In less than twenty minutes we reached the door leading into the enclosure containing the remains of the dead. Over the door is a Latin inscription, " Within these boundaries repose those who wait a blessed immortality." We stepped inside and found ourselves in the presence of what seemed to be millions of skeletons heaped up on every hand. The passages we had entered were broader and much higher than those we had gone through, and closer observation showed me that what I had supposed to be skeletons were merely bones and skulls piled on each side nearly to the roof, which is soma ten feet in height. The bones exposed to view are the arm, leg and thigh bones with three rows of skulls at equal distances, while the smaller bones of the body are thrown in behind. The skulls with the ghastly holes where the eyes had been, and the upper jaws partially filled with teeth, glared vacantly and grinned hideously upon each other, and uj^on us as we passed along. And in the light and shadow our candles cast upon the dismal scene, the skulls appeared as if they were moving to and fro in some wild and ten-ible dance of death. It was, indeed, a series of chambers of horrors in which the ghosts of hundreds of years seemed making a mournful mim- icry of the life they had left. A damp and grave-like odor filled the air, and when we spoke our voices sounded hollow and dismal, as if we ourselves were dying in the presence of the dead. In some places, I observed skulls arranged in the form of a cross set into the wall — an association of death and religion which would have delighted the monks of the old time, and would no doubt be pleasant in the sight of many of the holy APPROPRIATE INSCRIPTIONS. 165 fathers still occupying the monasteries of Kome. Some of the skulls had bullet-holes through them, and were those of men killed during the revolutions. Many others belonged to the victims of the guillotine so actively employed during the terrible massacres of 1793. Several of the galleries led to chambers, somewhat resembling chapels, and called " Tomb of the Revolution," and " Tomb of Yictims," because in them are preserved the remains of those beheaded or killed during the times when blood flowed hke water in the streets of Paris. There was no end of the bone-lined corridors running in every direction, and so confused that it vas very easy to lose one's way. A number of persons have ai different times been lost in the Catacombs, and though most of them have been rescued, some have perished miserably. They must have striven vainly to get out of the dark labyrinth, until, exhausted from terror, weakness and hunger, they could go no further, sank down and died. The bones in the Catacombs have been taken from more than twenty different cemeteries, including the three best known, Montmartre, Mont Parnasse and Pere la Chaise, Only the poor and unknown persons are removed from the present cemeteries. They having had no money, and being without friends, are compelled to make room for those who have been more fortunate in life, and are even more fortunate in death. In addition to the names of the various localities under which the passages are, and of the cemeteries from which the remains are taken, there are carved upon the walls inscriptions in French such as these : " Death reduces us all to the same level, and difference of rank is lost in the grave." " Happy is he who has the hour of death ever before his eyes." " Be not proud, O mortal, for here thy short-lived glory ends." " Think of God in the midst of thy pleasure, for God is everywhere, and watches over thee always." After passing nearly three hours in the Catacombs, one 166 AMONG THE LIVING. ♦ l^art of which is very much like any other, we were conducted to a circular staircase, which I supposed the same we had descended. Being told we had seen everything worth seeing, we went up, and, opening a heavy door, found ourselves more than a mile and a half from the spot where we had gone down. The fresh air and the bright sunshine and the beautiful city greeted us again, and I could not help a feeling of relief after my dreary wandering in the darkness and among the dead. I remembered the inscription in the Catacombs : " Happy is he who has the hour of death ever before his eyes ; " but it seemed to me, just then, that he is far happier who is surrounded by the joys and the comforts of life. CHAPTER XX. SOCIAL STATUS OF PAEIS. IIE popular notion of Paris, in this coun- trjj is that there virtue and women seldom coexist. Probably no country on the globe is so much misunderstood, morally, as France. The women of the capital are thought to be wanton as a rule. Talk to an American of French domesticity, and he would imagine you ironical. According to his conception, a Parisian woman, especially if she be married, passes her early life in flirtation, and becomes loyal only when years have cooled her blood and impaired her charms. We even speak of French morality, meaning every species of im- morality, as if it were the opposite of all established opinions upon ethics. Such views are not to be wondered at, perhaps, when we remember that French literature deals with subjects the Eng- lish-speaking people for the most part ignore. It analyzes passion ; theorizes upon the relation of the sexes ; gives a sen- timental and voluptuous coloring to relations we either deem too sacred or too dangerous to write about. Secondly, few foreigners, Anglo-Americans notably, have little, if any, ac- quaintance with the better part of French society, especially in its domestic aspects. Hardly one out of five hundred or a thousand of our nation who go abroad, gets a glimpse of the life of a French family, or has any comprehension of the feel- ings or sympathies of a French wife or mother. Thirdly, the 168 OUTSIDE AND INSIDE VIEWS. demi-monde, recognized, protected, even encouraged as a dis- tinct social element, is on the surface, always approachable, easily accessible, and from that phase of life, all Paris, all France, is judged. This is not the place to show how domestic a large part of the French, even of the Parisian population, are ; though any one who stays in France for any length of time, and seeks for information, can readily disabuse his mind of preconceived opinions. Paris is preeminently cosmopohtan, the centre to which all pleasure-seekers tend, where the senses are adminis- tered to in the most agreeable way. The thousands and tens of thousands of strangers constantly there, look for gayety ; dwell in externals merely, and when curiosity and pleasure are gratified, they go elsewhere, forgetting that what they secretly condemn, they have greatly assisted to form part of. Paris has long been a show-city, and consequently is very artificial. It takes no special pains to conceal ; it aims only to make decorous. The worst is on the outside ; the best is hid- den ; while in America, and England, too, we fancy we extin- guish what we merely cover. Our society is perpetually being agitated by what the newspapers are pleased to term "startling revelations" of a domestic and private character — a set of sensations to which Paris is unaccustomed. The reason is, that there sin is allowed to escape by open channels. We shut it up, and explosions are the result. Paris is bad enough ; I have no disposition to be its apolo- gist. But that it is so much worse than other great cities, London or New York, for instance, I am unwilling to believe. Paris has had no political, but it has had moral, freedom ; and inasmuch as human nature is very much the same everywhere, it by no means follows that where the largest liberty is, there is the greatest evil. Hurl deformed -vdce out of the front win- dow, and it will re-enter by the back door as tempting sin. The demi-monde is largely supported by strangers and sojourners in the city. Confine Paris to its native population, and that middle world would almost disappear. The expenses attendant upon wedded life, and the legal restrictions upon MORAL IDEAS OF PARISIANS. 169 marriages are the chief causeS there of concubinage. Thou- sands of men in Paris, not having the means to support a household, prefer a mistress to miscellaneous sensuality. The French believe the interests of society will, like other interests, take care of themselves. We hold that they need to be con- served. No doubt the Parisians have different moral ideas from our own. They do not regard unchastity as an unpardonable sin. They consider it more in its spiritual relation than we ; believ- ing that a woman may have many virtues without the one, and have the one without others — an opinion- the Anglo-Saxon mind is slow, if not unwilling to accept. The famous play of Camille is an expression of such belief. It was more popular and more denounced than any drama produced within my memory. It had its earnest defenders and its fierce rebukers ; and whether it be true or false, beneficial or pernicious in its influence, is still an unsettled question. From close and impartial observation, one is led to infer that the life of a lorette is not so demoralizing in France as in England or America. The demi-monde being recognized, the members of it do not suffer so much as with us from re- morse, from the feeling of being outcasts. The fall from con- ventional to unconventional relations is not so far as in our country, and consequently the reaction is not so great. Women of this class have more hope, at least less despond- ency, more cheerfulness, more of a future, more prospect of reformation, than with us. " So much the worse for Paris and the cause of morality," say some of my readers. " Unchaste women have no right to contentment or to expectations. The severer their punish- ment, the better the example. By making vice hideous, you render ^nrtue attractive." My answer again is : "I am not reasoning ; I am not say- ing what is better or what is worse. I am merely chronicling. Inferences and conclusions gratis to all who wish to draw them." Parisian loretUs do not become so degraded as ours. I'^O THE DEMI-MONDE. They do not, from the top round of temptation tumble to the lowest round of sensuality, and thence into the kennel of de- spair. They do not sink from one impure condition to an im- purer, until all sense of shame is lost. They do not, very rarely, at least, seek obli\don in strong drink or opium. They do not show indecency in the streets. They do not fight and make public spectacles of themselves. They do not steal. They are not arrested by the police, and sent to prison. They far less frequently than our unfortunates commit suicide, or die miserably in the hospitals. They are much oftener re- claimed by a genuine affection ; and not seldom they are mar- ried to men who, knowing what their past has been, forgive the fault for the sake of the contrition. " That is all wrong," declare the censors. " No one should marry such creatures. If impure women can find husbands, their hfe, which should be a warning and a torment, is con- verted into a pleasant comedy. The possibility of such an end to all their sin is dangerous to believe." Answer : " That is for the men who marry them to decide. Perhaps those men would say, ' It is better to wed a woman who confesses impurity, and promises to be pure, her promise being guaranteed by gratitude and affection, than to wed a wo- man, believing her to be pure, who proves to be otherwise.' " There are six spheres in the demi-monde of Paris, each distinct, each occupied by women who, being in one, not very often enter another. The first are women of education and refinement, orphans or illegitimate daughters, instructed at the expense of the government, who, compelled to earn their own livelihood, are thrown into contact with men in a different grade of society. The girls form an attachment to the men who are fond of them, but not willing to marry them, because the French do not take wives or husbands out of their own station. The girls, who have probably looked forward to some such connection, become the mistresses of their lovers. There is no concealment of the fact on either side ; for this community admits of, negatively sanctions, such relations. The two live together. She is loyal. THE ORISETTE. 171 for she loves. He supports her — often in luxury. She has society like her own, but not his society. The connection con- tinues until he is married, frequently after, since marriages in France — and this is a fruitful source of such intimacies — is de- termined by merely worldly considerations. The separation is not so painful as it might be, for it has been anticipated ; though occasionally, sad to relate, it makes a tragedy on one side, and hfe-long remorse on the other. Frequently men re- fuse to marry, and live with their mistresses until death. If the mistress abandons, or is abandoned by, her lover, she goes into a shop (if not already there), which she can easily do, as no tradesman in Paris inquires into moral antecedents. Consequently, she is not, as with us, shut out from earning her own livelihood, if she desires. Her first passion may have ex- hausted her heart, but that seldom happens. She is not long in finding a protector, whom she accepts, either for financial or sentimental reasons. Her new friend may, or may not, be in easy circumstances. Whether he is or not, she follows her calling ; has apartments with him ; takes care of them ; is his companion at the concerts and theatres and on the evening promenades. This is the second sphere, which to many poor and unpro- tected girls is the first. The mistress' new relation does not change her outward life. She labors and she loves ; her mind is employed and her heart is filled. She is as happy as other women are, for she dofes not believe herself polluted or degraded, and she has the society of girls whose circumstances are like her own. It sometimes happens that excitements and vanities appeal to her so strongly that she grows unwilling to work. She wants more money and more pleasure. This is regarded by a French- man as evidence of disloyalty, actual or prospective; and so, when she quits the shop, he quits her. She then becomes a mere adventuress, a member of the tliird sphere, or a repre- sentative of the fourth, which is a moral decline. The adventuress is the most glittering and seductive member of the demi-monde. She is usually pretty, tactful and clever ;. 172 THE ADVENTURESS. has substituted art for nature, and her only end is pleasure. She is capable of better things, but she needs daily excitement as a stimulant. Her continuous revels are to her what brandy is to the inebriate. " The Marble Hea/rt,^'' familiar to our play-goers, though a bad translation, was designed to depict such a being. " Marco" was harder and more selfish than the original ; but even she melted when too late, and felt pity and affection when she saw the ruin she had wrought. The notorious Cora Pearl and Mabel Gray,* though both English by birth, are types of this class. They have become entirely Parisianized, and seldom leave the city during the season. I have often seen them at Baden-Baden, and they always sparkled on the highest crest of success. The adventuress is often an educated girl, who has been so wronged by some man as to nearly crush her heart. She may be a creature of such high animal spirits, so fond of excite- ment, that she is wilhng to purchase ease and luxury at any price. She is a power in France, and enjoys her sense of power keenly. She is singularly sharpened by her constant inter- course with men of the world. Possessed of quick instincts and a clear understanding of human nature, able to dissemble on all occasions, to counterfeit every emotion, she has a vantage ground she never quits. Though everybody knows what she is, shrewd men are constantly deceived by her. Those who boast of their scepticism and their indifference to wonien, become in- fatuated with her, and open their purse to her as freely as they do their confidences. While their money lasts they are retained. That gone, they are permitted to see what dolts they have been. The adventuress has a shining but a brief career — from eighteen to thirty-five. After that she finds it difiicult to trade upon her faded or fading charms, though sometimes she pre- serves herself so admirably, and is such a consummate artist wdthal, that she appears young at five-and-forty. The life she leads does not wear her out, as might be supposed. Unnatural * While tliis volume was going through the press, Mabel Gray died in London. THE COURTESAN. 173 as it seems, it is natural to her. Having little conscience or heart, she ages slowly, and soft couches, dainty diet and purple swathing keep her in fine condition. She does not perish wretchedly, as sensationalists declare ; but with a precaution and prudence that come to most of the French when 'they are no longer young, she provides for her future ; goes into graceful retirement ; smokes her cigarette ; grows pious, perhaps ; is kind to the poor ; kisses the cross with an unuttered epigram upon her lips, and sleeps in Montmartre under a marble figure of the Resurrection, The inmates of the bagnios are the fourth class, and the most melancholy. They are goaded by cruel necessity to rela- tions they shrink from. They meet the coarsest and the most selfish of men, and deal with a heartless and rapacious pro- curess. They snffer as courtesans in America; and, driven into the street and to desperation, it is not strange they seek death by their own hand. The well-dressed and often comely girls that crowd the Boulevards every evening are in the fifth sphere. They seldom accost any one ; they have good manners, and are decorous in speech. They occupy apartments, and find patrons enough to support them. With all their extravagances of dress and care- lessness of money, they often provide against old age, the terrible foe of every woman in Paris. The reckless women who assail strangers with importunities after midnight, and who are always struggling between want and excitement, are the semi-mundanes of the last class. They dance at the Mabille for pay ; attend the Chateau Rouge ; dwell in the Faubourg St. Antoine or the Quartier Latin; and when the burden of being grows too heavy are found with a look of peace in their pale faces in the bosom of the Seine. So the demi-monde of Paris flows on under sun and cloud, through clear lakes and turbid pools, by flowery banks and tangled wildwood, murmuring musically and brawling noisily over smooth pebbles and rough rocks ; — flows on, let us hope, after all its weary and shadowed wanderings, into the vast ocean of eternal rest. CHAPTEK XXI. THE CHIFFONliflEKS OF PAKIS. •YEEYTHING- in Paris is reduced to a system. All sorts of trades and callings, even the most insignificant, are ranked as arts or profes- sions. Though preeminently the capital of pleasure, it is also the city of business. From build- ing opera houses and opening new streets, to gather- ing garbage and renting chairs in the public gardens, everything is fixed, limited, and regulated. Even rag-picking has its established arrangement and order, is licensed, recognized, and encouraged by the gov- ernment. The rag-pickers of Paris number about six hundred, one half of whom are women, and children from nine to twelve years of age. They do their work entirely at night ; herd to- gether almost exclusively, and present a very singular phase of life. They do not confine themselves to rag-picking, but gather any articles of small value that may be thrown into the street. The Parisians are allowed to place any refuse of the house- hold in little piles before their doors, between the hours of daylight and dark; and after these have been raked by the chifibnniers, they are taken away by the rubbish-carts. The rag-pickers, who begin their nightly rounds between nine and ten o'clock, carry — strapped to their back — a large willow basket holding about two bushels, a stick some three feet long, with a hook at the end of it, in one hand, and in the other a piece of wire, to which a lantern is attached, so that the light will show whatever is on the ground. Between ten and twelve 3I0DE OF OPERATIONS. 175 o'clock they seem to be in every street, particularly in the new part of the city, where their labors are much more remunera- tive than on the left side of the Seine, where the most rigid economy is so generally practised as to interfere with their profits. If I did not know better, I should suppose there were several thousands of these pecuhar wanderers in the French capital ; for I have seen them almost everywhere at all hours of the night, silent, patient, industrious, and persevering. The members of this strange class are remarkably skilful, and move with the regularity and precision of machines. They very seldom speak, for they usually go alone, each one of them having his or her particular district, and hardly ever encroach- ing upon that of any other. They know the shortest distance between any two points in every crooked thoroughfare, and in walking from one dirt pile to another show their practical understanding of the definition of a mathematical line. With their lantern in the left hand, and their stick in the right, they can search a pile of rubbish to its length, and depth, and breadth in a few seconds. They never miss anything. ]^ot the smallest object escapes their attention. The tiniest rag, scrap of paper, bit of glass, or cork, or bone, or wood is transferred at once by the agency of their busy hook, from the heap to the basket, and in the twinkling of an eye. Tlieir dexterity is remarkable, and proves the perfection which prac- tice teaches. They very rarely use their fingers, for they can manage everything with their hook. Every few seconds you will see a rapid curve of their stick from the pile to the basket, and the deposit of the object in the latter is always certain. The smallest bit of paper goes into the basket as securely as a good- sized fragment of glass ; and, after they are through with the dirt heap, it is as absolutely without value as anything that can be imagined. The chifFonnier does not neglect the gutters, where he fre- quently finds the largest of his very slender treasures. He rakes them carefully but rapidly, and, discovering what he can sell for a centime — one fifth of a cent — considers himself par- ticularly fortunate. This country would be a perfect paradise 176 GREAT PRIZES. to him. He would deem himself the luckiest of mortals if he lived where old shoes, cigar-stumps, and empty bottles could be found in abundance ; though I am not sure such unexam- pled prosperity would not soon diive him to dissipation and ruin. To secure an unbroken bottle in Paris is regarded as a piece of rare good-fortune. I remember once throwing out of my hotel window, in the Rue St. Honore, several empty wine bottles. I thought no more of the circumstance until, two nights after, happening to be in the street, I saw at least twenty rag-pickers raking in every pile near the hotel. This was so unusual — for, as I have said, the chiffonnier almost invariably makes his rounds unattended — that I stopped to listen to their rapid and excited talk. I learned that the subject of discussion was bottles ; that three of them had been found in the neigh- borhood in an uninjured state, and that the communication of this extraordinary fact by the finder to the fraternity of rag- pickers had created an immense sensation. Twenty of them had come that night with an anxious hope of discovering more bottles, and were of course doomed to bitter disappointment. I was so much impressed by their quest for what they could not find, that early the next evening I employed a servant to bury three entirely new bottles, with corks in them, in three difierent heaps of rubbish ; and taking a seat at the window about ten o'clock, I quietly awaited the result. I had been there only a few minutes when fully fifty or sixty of the unfortunates of both sexes appeared below, chat- tering, gesticulating, and thrusting their hooks into every heap. Cries of joy announced the unearthing of the sought-for goods, which only stimulated exertion, and kept the rag-pickers in the neighborhood for more than an hour. The next night, and the night after, the crowd increased, and the investigation contin- ued. Before a week was over the tumult became such that the gendarmes interfered, and dispersed the chiffonniers under the belief, as I suspect, that they were planning an outbreak against the imperial power. I refrained thereafter from burying any WHERE TEET LIVE. 177 more bottles, lest they might become the innocent cause of a revolution, and the dignity of history be made to suffer by chronicling the overthrow of the Empire on account of two or three paltry vessels of glass. The custom of the rag-pickers is to patronize, between one and two in the morning, the cheap wine-shops so numerous in the vicinity of the market-houses, and guzzle the poor stuff sold at two or three sous a bottle. They remain there, chatting, drinking, and smoking, until nearly daylight, when they make another round — if they be sober enough — and then dispose of what they have picked up, to the petty merchants, whose reg- ular customers they are. For the contents of their baskets they get from one to five francs — twenty cents to one dollar of our money. These rag-merchants, or, more properly, refuse-buyers, em- ploy a number of men and women to sort out from the con- fused mass the articles that naturally belong together. As may be supposed, the places where this selection and arrange- ment -are made are neither pleasant nor fragrant, the floors being heaped with soiled rags of every kind, old bones, frag- ments of earthenware, ends of cigars, bits of mouldy leather, and unsightly and unwholesome odds and ends in general. The rag-pickers live in the meanest and wretchedest parts of the city, in such vile quarters as strangers in Paris, loung- ing or riding through the Boulevards, cannot imagine to have any existence. In the neighborhood of the Quartier Mouffe- tard and the ancient Barriere de Deux Mouhns, the most dis- mal in Paris, the poor chiffonniers, men, women, and children, lodge, crowded together, breathing the impurest of air, and enduring the most miserable of accommodations. A few of the aged couples rent a wretched room or two, and, as we say in America, keep house ; but by far the greater part of the rag-pickers take their meals in the commonest cook-shops. Yery little, if any, distinction is made there be- tween breakfast, dinner, and supper (the last, indeed, is hardly known among the working classes of the city), as each consists of a plate of soup and a hash or stew of very questionable 12 178 rag-pickers'* lottery. meat, "What is called mutton, beef, or veal, Is said, by those claiming to know, to be often horse, dog, or cat. However this may be, the meal, which usually costs about five sous, is certainly good and savory for the price, and heartily enjoyed by its consumers, to whom hunger is the best of sauce. Some of the cook-shops have a most extraordinaiy lottery, which they call the fortune of the fork. The owner of the shop buys from the cooks and waiters of the hotels and res- taurants, quantities of scraps or fragments left upon the plates of their patrons, and all these are thrown together and made soup of. When the soup is ready it is placed in a large iron kettle upon the counter, and, for two or three sous, each rag- picker has the privilege of darting a long fork into the boiled mass, to see what he can bring up. He may get a nice piece of chicken, a delicate bit of beef, a rich morsel of stufied goose-liver, or perhaps only a potato or bit of parsnip or car- rot ; possibly nothing at all. But, even in that sad event, the trier of his luck is entitled to a plate of soup, which, having tasted myself, on a certain occasion, impelled by curiosity, I can vouch for as excellent. The potage may have been made of rat, or cat, or dog ; of old boots, or bonnets, or wigs ; of dyspeptic poodles, or starved parrots or consumptive canaries ; but it was certainly savory, and more agreeable to the palate than a good deal of the soup I have taken at the best hotels and restaurants in New York. Very few of the chiffonniers are more than thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age. When they grow older, or get in- firm, they are usually employed by the rag-merchants who buy from the original collectors, as has been mentioned. The prices generally paid per one hundred pounds, by the wholesale dealers, are as follows : old paper, four francs ; coarse and common rags, four francs ; cotton rags, nine francs ; linen rags, ten to thirteen francs ; clean cotton rags, sixteen francs ; clean linen rags, twenty francs. Bones, glass, leather, iron, etc., bring from five to twenty-five francs a hundred. In ad- dition to the articles of regular trade, the rag-pickers frequently find those of value, such as jewelry, silver spoons, money, and CHARACTER OF THE CHIFFONNJERS. 179 bank notes. Finders of any such valuables are bound by law, in France, to give them to the commissioners of police, on pain, if discovered, of punishment for larceny. Without this penalty, the rag-pickers, who in general are entirely honest, would, and do, hand over to the police whatever valuables they pick up, getting a receipt for it, giving their name and place of residence. The valuables are sent to the Prefecture, where they are kept for twelve months, and, if not claimed at the expiration of that time, are surrendered to the original finder. The chifibnniers, though not very attractive in person, habit, or manner, are, on the whole, upright, industrious, and independent. They never steal, never beg, and are seldom willing to receive money from strangers ; thus proving them- selves remarkable exceptions to most of the common people in Europe. The greater part of them are born and bred to the business, and prefer the irregular, free-and-easy life to one of ordinary labor. Their mode of existence cannot be regarded as either pleasant or desirable ; but they get no little satisfac- tion out of it, and really enjoy themselves, as all Parisians do, in their own way — much better than persons who are more prosperous, and have more reason to think themselves for- tunate. CHAPTER XXII. LOUIS NAPOLEON. HE career of Loiiis Napoleon, from the time of his birth until he made himself Emperor of France, might be called after Octave Feuillet's novel, "The Romance of a Poor Young Man." Indeed, the facts of his life are more romantic than romances, and verify the familiar proverb, that truth is stranger than fiction. Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, born at the Tuileries, in Paris, April 20, 1808, the youngest son of Louis, King of Holland, and Hortense, daughter of the Empress Josephine, became an early favorite of the Emperor Napoleon. Scandal has always been rife in respect to his parentage : he has been accused of being the son of almost every man except his mother's husband. Even his imperial uncle has been charged with the responsibility of his birth, for the reason, probably, that it is believed by many that Hortense was the only woman Bonaparte ever really loved. The com- mon report in Paris has been that Louis' father was a Dutch Admiral. It is stated that the King of Holland, who was never attached to his wife, and who soon separated from her, refused to recognize Louis as his child until imperatively or- dered to do so by the Emperor. It is certain that the late Napoleon III. bears no personal resemblance to his uncle or to his mother ; but he is said to be very much like his father — always thought to be more Dutch than French in manner, temperament, and character. On the whole, therefore, there EAGERNESS FOR A THRONE. 181 is no more reason to doubt Louis Napoleon's legitimacy than to doubt most men's under similar circumstances. Louis was mainly educated by his mother, who resided in Paris under the title of the Queen of Holland. After the overthrow of Napoleon I. they went to Augsburg, where the boy learned German, and, after remaining there several years, they made their home in Switzerland and Italy. The youth subsequently attended the mihtary college of Thun, and when the revolution of 1830 broke out he asked Louis Philippe for permission to go to France, but to no purpose. He then went back to Italy, and was engaged in the revolutionary movements of 1831, until he was banished from the Papal territory. Soon after this the elder brother, Napoleon, died, speedily followed by the Duke of Reichstadt, leaving Louis the successor of the First Napoleon, by the imperial edicts which had set aside the usual order of descent, and fixed the succession in the line of Louis, instead of that of the older brother, Joseph. Louis' mother had always reared him with the idea that he was destined to rule over France — an idea she seems to have inherited from Bonaparte — and she never ceased to impress upon her son, in every possible way, that the crown of his uncle would be his, if he would but strive for it. His destiny now appeared clear : from that moment all his thoughts con- centrated upon his succession to the throne, until he became upon that subject unquestionably a monomaniac. His first step was to gain the approval by the French people of his am- bitious schemes ; and to show the necessity of an Emperor to the nation, he wrote a book, which he afterward made into a larger and more elaborate work, called "Idees Napoleoniennes," insisting still more strongly upon his position. He tried to add deeds to his theories. In 1836 he proclaimed a revolution at Strasburg ; but the attempt resulted in a mortifying failure. He was taken prisoner, and Louis Philippe was persuaded, by the earnest entreaties of the prince's mother, to inflict upon him no more serious punishment than banishment. He was sent to this country, and after leading a semi- vagabond life in 182 CHOSEN PRESIDENT. !New York and its vicinity, and wandering aimlessly about the country, he went to South America. In 183Y he was recalled to Switzerland by the mortal illness of his mother, and was with her when she died. It is said that she besought him with expiring breath to remember his destiny, and he solemnly promised he would spare no effort to achieve it. France de- manded that Switzerland should surrender him, and this in- duced him to retire to England. In August, 1840, in company with Count Montholon, who had been with his uncle at St. Helena, and sixty or seventy other persons attached to his fortunes, he chartered a steam- boat and went to Boulogne. Arrived there, he marched with his handful of followers to the barracks, and demanded that the soldiers should surrender. They refused; a slight skirmish occurred, and the prince was arrested, and sentenced by the House of Peers to perpetual imprisonment in tlie fortress of Ham. After remaining in captivity six years, which he spent in literary labors, he escaped in the disguise of a workman, and went again to England. When the revolutionists of 1848 expelled Louis Philippe, Louis ISTapoleon hurried to Paris, and was universally laughed at for his folly ; everybody feeling assured that he was about to do something that would make him more ridiculous than ever. He was chosen, however, a deputy to the National Assembly, Lamartine vainly endeavoring to eifect his banishment. On taking his seat he avowed his fidelity to the republic under oath, and on the 10th of December was chosen President by a large majority. In his new capacity, he and the representa- tives of the people were widely at variance, until suddenly, on the night of December 2, 1851, he made his famous cou^ d^etat Paris was declared in a state of siege ; the Assembly was dissolved ; many of the members arrested in their beds, and sent to prison ; while the people who showed themselves hostile to the outrage were shot down by the soldiers in the streets. At the same time a decree was issued establishing universal suffrage, and the election of a President for ten years. Louis I^apoleon was, of course, chosen, and he at once set AN EMPEROR PRISONER. 183 about restoring the Empire. In January, 1852, a new consti- tution was adopted, the National Guard revived, and new orders of nobility were issued. In the following ^November the people were invited to vote upon a jplebisciturti making Louis Emperor, under the title of Napoleon III. The votes, as may be supposed, were largely in his favor, and thus the one object of his life, so long and steadily pursued — the single pm-pose he had cherished and held fast to in banishment, imprisonment, mortification, and defeat — was at last accom- plished ; accomplished, too, against the expectation and belief of both the Old World and the New. Napoleon's career since then is well-known : his marriage; his alliance with England against Russia ; his conjunction with Italy against Austria; his various political measures, which seemed to have made him the first monarch in Europe, until the disaster at Sedan toppled the Empire down over his dis- crowned head. The world's judgments are unstable enough. While Louis Napoleon was an adventurer, aiming at the throne, he was de- clared a charlatan and a simpleton. When he had grasped success, and secured the throne, he was pronounced gifted and great. Now that adversity has fallen upon him again, those who sounded his praises loudest insist that he was always a mountebank and a fool. Dm-ing the eighteen years of Napoleon's reign, the anxieties and responsibilities and perils of his office were constant and incalculable. Though suffering from disease that racked him, and threatened to prove mortal, he was ever on the alert, per- petually on the watch for formidable dangers, of which few save himself had any conception. Conspiracies were always form- ing against him, and assassins dogging his footsteps. Every day and every night he was in peril, and mental rest or relief must have been to him a feeling unknown. One would imag- ine that even his humiliated position, as a State prisoner at Wilhelmshohe, might have brought him a sense of release and comfort. It is said that the first night of sound sleep he expe- rienced after he set foot in Erance, after the revolution of 1848, 184 A PECULIAR CHARACTER. was in the castle where lie was confined. When he ruled over Paris it presented the anomaly of a city of peace in a state of siege. He was conscious beyond everybody else that he lived upon a mine, which might at any moment explode, and blow him and his dynasty to atoms. He has endured enough to wear out twenty of the most vigorous men, and all for ambi- tion, which has been indeed the god of his idolatry. The secret history of the Empire, if faithfully written, would re- veal a condition of such constant vigilance, anxiety, and appre- hension on the part of the Emperor as would make the impe- rial robes seem in their power to torture like the shirt of Nessus. Yery few persons in this country felt any sympathy with IsTapoleon when they heard of his downfall. They believed that he richly deserved his fate ; for he had secured the throne by deceit, and perjury, and bloodshed. A pretended republi- can and patriot, he privately plotted against the liberties of France, and did not hesitate to slaughter in the streets of Paris those who had been his sincerest friends. His apologists claim that he has always had the interests of his country earnestly at heart ; that he understood the peo- ple even better than they understood themselves; that the Empire was indispensable to the prosperity and the glory of the nation ; and that it could be established only through the extreme measures he adopted. They say that he conscien- tiously thought the end justified the means; that, when he seemed to sin deepest against Erance, he loved her most, and that to-day, in his humiliation, he mourns more over the sor- rows of his country than over his own. It is almost impossible at this time to analyze or estimate so peculiar and contradictory a character as Louis Napoleon's. He has been from the first more or less a political sphinx, and no one has guessed the riddle of his daily giving-out. His face is as impenetrable as his nature. I have often seen him when he had reason to hope and to fear, to rejoice and be trou- bled — when Paris was quiet, and when on the brink of revolu- tion. But that stern, strange, thoroughly enigmatical face was GENERAL APPEARANCE. 185 ever the same. The eye looked dull, cold, rayless ; the heavy moustache covered the severe mouth ; the large aquiline nose appeared obdurate and threatening, searching, as if it scented whatever was in the air ; and his whole mien conveyed the impression of a strong will battling against a weak tempera- ment. There is nothing noble or royal in his person or his presence. Met under ordinary circumstances, in the common walks of life, he might well be mistaken for a Hebrew mer- chant, who had exhausted the sources of pleasure, and pene- trated the depths of dissipation, to discover that there was nothing in either, and that silence and mystery were the gov- erning powers of the world. CHAPTEK XXIII. THE EX-EMPRESS EUGENIE. YMPATHY, like glory, lights upon the highest heads. Though there are thousands of needy, homeless, broken-hearted women in France to-day, suffering from no sin of their own, they are of the undistinguished many, and the mind, therefore, goes beyond and above them, to fix its thought and pity upon one who, only yesterday their Empress, is now uncrowned, dethroned, and a weary wanderer in a weary land. Strange have been the fortunes of Eugenie Marie de Guz- man, and stranger still have been the fortunes of Eugenie Bonaparte. No one would have dreamed, in the wildest flight of imagination, that the pretty child playing in the soft sun- shine of Granada would ever be Empress of the French. No one would have supposed, after being seated on a throne for more than seventeen years, and after having won the admira- tion and applause of all nations, that she would be compelled to fly from an infuriated mob, in the beautiful city where she had been most loved, and where the loudest paeans had been chanted in her name. Cosmopolitan in character, as in blood and education — for she is a Scotch-Spanish-French woman — she attracted atten- tion from her earliest girlhood by the loveliness of her per- son and the charm of her manners. Later in life she was re- splendent in the most fashionable salons of Madi'id and Paris, and was the cynosure of admiring eyes on the Prado and Champs Elysees. A coquette, as any pretty woman born in NAPOLEON III. SUCCUSS OF THE EMPRESS. ISI Spain and educated in France would naturally be, she is re- ported to have broken scores of hearts before her marriage, but to have broken them in the purely sentimental way which does not prevent them from being early and easily mended. Still unwedded at twenty-six, it was generally predicted she would share the fate of many bewitching flirts, and die in single-blessedness. She had lived the hard and wearing life of constant gayety, in gilded society, and yet her face was as fresh and her form as round as if she had spent her years on the sunny plains of Andalusia, instead of in the crowded theatres and hot drawing-rooms of the French and Spanish capitals. Spending the winter in Paris, the Emperor met and fell in love with her — a brilliant triumph for Eugenie over the rather loose and hlasS man who had travelled much, and seen the rarest beauties of the richest lands. Having sought in vain to ally himself with nearly every royal family in Europe, he had almost forsworn marriage when he encountered the fasci- nating Guzman. He pressed his suit earnestly and eloquently ; but at the end she referred him to the priest, and so they were united. The marriage proved what love-matches seldom do — both wise and politic. No sooner was she invested with the pui"ple, than she — understanding how great an influence a handsome and elegant woman can exercise upon so gallant a nation as the French — made it her ceaseless study to win them to the Empire through their esteem and aflection for the Empress. Eugenie's success was so remarkable, it cannot be doubted that patriotism, humanity, and tenderness of heart entered largely into her diplomacy. She obtained pardons and amnesties for political prisoners ; erected hospitals and churches ; procured grants from the government for building new railways; im- proved the docks and harbors, and did everything in her power to add to the prosperity and happiness of France. Finding that trade had suffered from the lack of a feminine representa- tive of the throne, and from the want of a proper recognition of the Empire by the world of fashion, she instituted at 188 HER APPEARANCE WITH VICTORIA. once Court balls, State concerts, and ceremonial dinners, and attended the theatre regularly; thus giving an impetus and activity to business almost unprecedented. In company with her husband she made a grand tour through the northern provinces, and through Brittany, where serious political dis- aifection had existed, and by her generosity, beauty, and gra- cious manners, reconciled the most discontented to the new form of government. The imperial pair had invited Queen Yictoria to meet them at Cherbourg, and she gladly went, thus affording an opportu- nity to the public to compare, or rather contrast, the woman sovereigns of the two great powers. It is hardly necessary to state that the advantage was altogether on the side of the former Countess de Teba. Not to speak of her youth, and grace, and freshness, her toilette on that occasion was a miracle of taste and art, while the Queen, as stated by those present, was attired in a white gown, trimmed with light blue, wearing a green scarf, carrying a pink parasol, and bearing upon her uncomely head a bonnet conspicuous with dark- brown ribbons — a combination of millinery and mantua eminently calculated to put whole drawing-rooms to flight. During the Crimean War the Emperor and Empress returned the Queen's visit, when Eugenie, appearing in public with Yictoria, so com- pletely outshone her that the loyalest of the English are said to have experienced great mortification and something nearly akin to disgust. The Empress, though not born to the throne, as Victoria may be said to have been, seemed in the presence of the latter like a goddess beside a mvandiere. "When Louis Napoleon, entering the field during the Italian war, made the Empress Regent, her popularity was at its height; and it is questionable if any sovereign of Europe dur- ing the century had a stronger hold upon the afiections of the people. After the sudden and unexpected peace at Villa- franca, and the political and religious complications in which the Emperor became involved, Eugenie took such strong, even violent, sides with the Pope and the Roman priesthood — until her flight from Paris she continued to hold them, more or less OVER-ZEAL FOR SEE CHURCH. 180 — as to alienate herself, not only from her husband, but from the people who had once almost worshipped her. From all the accounts current, and believed in Paris at the time, she seems to have been possessed by the demon of un- reason. She did everything she could to thwart Napoleon, both as a man and a monarch, and made him more or less subser- vient to her fanatical schemes and superstitious fears by his unwillingness to render their discord public. She forced M. Fould, the Minister of State, to resign. She even went so far as to sell the jewels that had been presented to her on her mar- riage, by Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Paris, and other principal cities of the country — these really belonged to the State jewels — and send the proceeds to the Pope, who stood in no more legitimate need of money than the Eothschilds do of eleemosynary sous. From that time to the fall of Napoleon she never fully regained the esteem or affection of the Parisians, who, though nominally Roman Catholics, are as far as possible from zealots. She seems, however, by some of that impenetrably mysterious management for which her sex is noted, to have won back the estranged heart of her justly-aggravated and indignant hus- band. In justice to her, it may be said that over-zeal for her Church, and certain superstitious fears connected with her son and the dynasty, impaired her judgment for the time, and de- ranged her naturally clear and excellent faculties. The com- mon anxiety and common danger which the Emperor and Empress shared so long, no doubt contributed largely to the restoration of their sympathy and love. Apart from her bigotry and superstition, for which her nativity and education must be held responsible, she has been in the main a generous, charitable, and womanly woman, who has done so much good that the little ill she may have been the cause of is not worthy of remembrance. During the brief term of her second regency she bade fair to resume in the hearts of the French the position she held at the time of the Italian "War. Her bearing and conduct were discreet, courageous, and patriotic, and but for disasters to the nation 190 A FUGITIVE AND A WANDERER. which she could neither lessen nor prevent, she might again have been the universal favorite she was when, day after day, she visited the military hospitals ; ministered to the wounded and the dying, and the grateful soldiers turned almost with expiring breath to kiss her passing shadow on the wall. Amid the trying and terrific scenes which followed the announcement of the terrible defeat at Sedan, she sustained herself and her authority with noble dignity and heroic calm- ness. And only when she had been deserted by almost every one of her professed friends and adherents, and when the piti- less mob of Paris was howling with rage at the very doors of the Tuilleries, did she quit the city she had so loved, and which had so loved her, to become a fugitive and a wanderer, crown- less, homeless, husbandless, in a land that had found it con- venient to forget that France had been its ally and its friend. .Those who have hated Eugenie, if any there be, can hardly hold their hatred longer against the unfortunate woman who has fallen from the head of a proud and generous nation to the position of a suppliant for the commonest sympathy. Her answer to the advice that she should order out the troops to fire upon the mob before she fled from Paris, was this: "I would rather have their pity than their hate." And this an- swer, so expressive of womanly tenderness and generosity, will be remembered to her honor long after her inherited bigotry and superstition are forgotten. She has done much to make the position of a sovereign charming and lovable ; and when her epitaph is written, it will be with forgiveness for her faults, and sincere afi'ection for her far more than overbalancing virtues. CHAPTEE XXiy. HENRI KOCHEFOKT. A^^y^^^Y^ ENEI EOCHEFOKT is a genuine French- iBilllTn lil! ^^^ — ^^ Parisian, rather, since Paris is an I ' Wi^?y^iJ c y !| intensification and exaggeration of France — ii'fiPW'^^flllM ^^^ y^^ ^^^ nnlike most of his countrymen. i^yjXyjJlH He has all the strengths and many of the i^^^^^tT-^ weaknesses of his fellow Gauls, who often re- mind us of the dictum of Yoltaire : There are two kinds of nature — human nature and French nature. He is brave to rashness, self-conscious in the extreme, melodramatic always, wedded to sensation. But, if vain, he is strong ; if egotistic, he is resolute ; if vindictive, he is earnest. He worships ex- citement as he does himself, and is resolved the world (a Frenchman's world is always Paris) shall not forget him — at least while he keeps out of Mont Parnasse. Never satisfied, save in trouble of some kind (Harry Percy had not more loathing for a quiet life), he is just now in the height of contentment. He has accomplished much. He has made himself talked about. "What Parisian could ask more ? His name is familiar even in what is regarded on the Seine as the backwoods of America — in New York, for instance. He is the best-known journalist on the Continent ; indeed, almost the only one known at all, except Emile de Girardin. In Paris he is spoken of as frequently as the Madeleine or the Louvre. He is one of the very few persons pointed out on the Boulevards ; and, after Louis Napoleon, was the first man strangers desired to see. Eochefort's appearance is very difierent from the popular 192 PERSONAL APPEARANCE. notion of it, as is that of most mortals who have achieved either distinction or notoriety. He is not a whit like the ideal Frenchman — slight, graceful, elegant, olive-complexioned, black-eyed. When I first saw him, in Brussels, during his self-exile, and when I met him afterward in Paris, I could not find in him any personal resemblance to his countrymen, I should have thought him an American — a native of Missis- sippi, Texas, or Arkansas; and I expected to hear, as he spoke, the Anglo- African accent of the Southern States, in- stead of the pure, unmistakable Academy French. He is above the medium height (most Frenchmen are small of stat- ure), and rather muscular, but raw-boned and angular. He is exceedingly pale — pale to cadaverousness — with something of the green shadows in his face that seem to lurk about Ribera's inquisitorial pictures. He has prominent, high-cheeked bones ; a square, spacious forehead ; a large, thick nose, relieved by a closely trimmed moustache ; deep-set eyes, whose color, difli- cult to determine from their variableness of expression, is really dark gray. His chin is long, heavy, somewhat protu- berant, bounded by a whisker au bouo / his cheeks are thin and unshaven ; his brows thick ; his hair curly, and worn of medium length, after the American fashion. His face, un- questionably homely, indicates marked character and strength ; and when animated, undergoes a very favorable change, giving a very different impression from what it does in repose. Some- thing of the coldness and hardness one finds in Titian's picture of Philip II., in the Library of the Escorial, is in the face of the irreconcilable journalist. He would not be suspected commonly of having nerves ; but the close observer will de- tect in him a triumph of self-discipline, a suppression of im- pulse, a mastery of mind over matter. All his editorials since he blossomed into Red Republicanism in the Figaro^ became an ultraist in the Lanterne^ and a ferocious extremest in the Marseillaise^ would convey the impression that he is a man of uncontrollable passions ; but he is not. He is violent be- cause he deliberates to be. He is hot-hearted, but cool-headed. He never says a word more than he intends, and he thoroughly understands the force of language. POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS. 193 Rochefort is a count of ancient as well as noble blood ; has bad every advantage of education, prestige, and association. Like most Parisians born with prosperous suri'oundings, he early completed the round of pleasures (some say he had none); and, approaching middle age, found it necessary to have a new dissipation. Sterne has said women in France are at first gallant, then literary, finally religious. The men, it seems to me, have fom- degrees — dissipation, study, politics, scepticism. The first is usually from eighteen to twenty- three ; the second, from twenty-three to twenty-eight ; the third lasts to forty ; and the fourth to the grave — even though, from youthful training, they make profession of religion at the latest horn*. Eochefort, now about forty, has had this fourfold experi- ence. He may be weary of wine and society, of conversa- tional and sentimental conquests, of epigrammatic writing for writing's sake, of clever criticisms and fine theories of art. He now devotes himself to politics and what he conceives to be the wrongs of his country. N"aturally an intellectual epi- cm-e, a dilettante, he would have continued such, say the Im- perialists, but for the wounding of his self-love by Louis Na- poleon. As that is the unpardonable sin in a Frenchman's eyes, it was, of course, unpardonable in Rochefort's. From that moment he hated the Emperor ; and the only way to show his hatred was to oppose the Empire and abuse the whole Napoleon family. He became a Republican through his feelings of personal resentment, and has for years been the inteiisest advocate of free government. However he may have reached his present principles, he is most earnest in their behalf. If turned to them by personal feelings, he holds and clings to them with all the tenacity of his temperament, and all the ardor that conviction lends to enthusiasm. He longs for a revolution, and would lead one to-morrow, if he were sure it would carry him to the scaffold. After Eochefort was obliged to quit Paris to avoid impris- onment, after the suppression of the Lanterne, his bitterness toward the Emperor and the Empire so increased as to become 13 194 REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT. almost a monomania. All the while he resided at Brussels he chafed inwardly like a caged tiger, and fed his wrath with the luxury of his hatred. I used to encounter him there, walking alone in the streets, pale and hard as marble, the type of re- strained malevolence, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies, he could return to Paris regardless of Louis Napoleon. That gave him the field and the advantage he had sought. He issued the Marseillaise ^ and from the first number to the last it teemed with the most violent abuse of the Emperor, and everybody and everything connected with him. In his desire to insult the head of the government, and bring on a crisis, he laid aside all gener- osity and chivalry. He called Eugenie wanton, and her son illegitimate, when it was his proudest boast a few years since that he was a gentleman before he was a count. If what I have heard of Rochefort in Paris be true, I doubt if he would be satisfied with any form of government. He has been bitten with the cobra of political theory, and he will never recover. He is an implacable foe, and he troubled Louis Napoleon with an army of a million of soldiers at the imperial back. The people believe in him ; he can fan the smoulder- ing fires of the Faubourg Gt. Antoine, and awake the spirit of the sa/ns culoUes across the Seine. The days of revolution may come after the war. If Roche- fort cannot force them into hideous birth, they are over indeed. A man willing to die for a purpose is always dangerous to those who oppose him. That man is Henri Rochefort ! * * What was a eurmise has become a prediction. Since this chapter was written, Rochefort has been a strong advocate of the Commune in his latest journal, Le Mot d'Ord/re. CHAPTER XXV. THE CHIEF CITIES IN FRANCE. ^ HE South of France is noted for the liber- ie ality of its political sentiments, and conse- l\ quently has more of the republican element, even of the crimson sort, than any other section of the country. The people, in i)^ contradistinction to the titled and privi- leged classes in the large cities, such as Bordeaux, Lyons and Marseilles, and in the region round about, have always been at least lukewarm toward, if not op- posed to, the dynasty of Louis Napoleon. After the declara- tion of the Republic, they were not satisfied, because they did not believe the provisional goveixment sufficiently democratic, and they would no doubt have set up some new authority, had not their turbulence and open rebellion been suppressed by the military power. The spirit of the Faubourg St, Antoine, is fully shared, if not exceeded, in Southern France, where such ultraists as Blanc and Blanqui, and such extreme journals as the Marseillaise, meet with intense and passionate fervor. Lyons, two hundred and forty miles southeast of Paris, is the second city as respects population and manufactures in the country. Its population has increased rapidly, and is still in- creasing. In 1852, it had something over 156,000 people; ten years after nearly 319,000, and at present not far from 400,000 people. The city is mainly built on a tongue of land between the Saone flowing from the north, and the Rhone from the east. It extends, however, to the opposite banks of both of those large rivers, which are spanned by numerous 196 THE CITY OF LYONS. handsome bridges. Two steep hills, Fourvieres and St. Sebas- tian, on the right bank of the Saone, are partially occupied by streets. One of these leads up to the summit of Fourvieres, from which an admirable view can be had, not only of the city but of the country for miles around. The panorama is strik- ingly beautiful, embracing the Cevennes mountains on the south, and the distant but distinct Alps on the east. Though there are fine quarters in the city — the quays with their planted walks are the finest — the streets generally are narrow, irregular, and dirty, and lined with high buildings of a most ungraceful pattern. The Place des Terreaux and the Place Bellecour, and two or three other squares, are very attractive. The pub- lic buildings are neither numerous nor handsome. The church of the Abbey of Ainay, on the bank of the Saone, has gloomy dungeons, far below the bed of the river, in which many of the early Christians are said to have been confined before they were put to death. In the Archiepiscopal Palace, near the Cathedral, a great many Protestants were butchered in 15Y2, as a sequel to St. Bartholemew. The town is surrounded by a line of detached forts crowning its different heights. Osten- sibly for the pui'pose of defence, they were probably made with the object of intimidating the Lyonnais, notorious for their seditious disposition, and of all the red republicans in France decidedly the reddest. The silk manufactures of the city are the largest and most important in the world, and of late years the manufacture of velvet has become a great branch of industry. Eighty thou- sand machines (metiers), consuming about four millions of pounds of silk, valued at $40,000,000, produce silk manufac- tures worth over $60,000,000. One fourth or one third of all this is consumed at home, and of the remainder, which is ex- ported, by far the greatest part comes to this market. I do not know the value of the velvet trade (Lyons now exceeds Genoa in the quality of its velvet), but it must be fully $10,000,000 a year. The city is very ancient, having been a place of some im- portance when Csesar invaded Gaul. It was sacked by the TEE LADY OF LYONS. 197 Huns and Yisigoths, and suffered terribly at the hands of the Saracens. On the dissolution of the Empire of Charlemagne, it became the capital of the kingdom of Provence, and was an- nexed to France during the reign of Louis IX. Several of the Roman EmjDerors, Claudius, Caracalla, and Marcus Aurelius, and the famous general Germanicus, "were natives of Lyons. Outside of the city proper, are many beautiful residences, and grounds belonging to the wealthy merchants, who are for the most part men of liberality, culture and taste, as their delightful homes testify. Spealving of merchants, recalls M. Deschapelles, the father of the ultra-sentimental young lady to whom Bulwer intro- duced us years ago. When in Lyons, I sought in vain for Pauline, but found a prosaic fellow, who gave a different ver- sion from that of the stage. I don't vouch for his story : I merely repeat it in his words. Claude Melnotte was in truth a gardener's son, who fell in love with Pauline while she was buying radishes of him one morning, when her father, having been tipsy the night before, refused to purchase the household necessaries as was his custom. Claude was rather susceptible, and sold her the radishes at half price, on account of her pretty face, as he said, which pleased her, and so delighted her practical parent, when he heard it, that he insisted on her going to market every morning. She did not like to go ; but papa being obdurate, she obeyed. Claude finally became so interested that he gave her radishes for nothing, and even went so far as to purchase mutton and conied-beef, presenting them in the name of love. Her mercantile papa was in ecstasies with Claude, declaring him a very generous person, who ought to be encouraged. He demanded that Pauline should take everything that was given gratis. Pauline became the regular market-goer for the family, and at last Claude told her he would like to marry her, if the old gentleman would come down handsomely. She felt affronted, and informed the elder Deschapelles, who, living only in money, inquired into Claude's circumstances, and found he had not returned any revenue to the asiHssor for several 198 ANOTHER VERSION OF AN OLD STORY. years. He then called on the sentimental youth, and threat- ened to take away his license. Claude got mad and brought suit for the things he had given Pauline. He failed to get judgment ; and, resolving on revenge, induced one of Deschapelles' clerks, who had been refused by the lady, to introduce him as a wealthy chap, that cared no more for a thousand dollars than A. T. Stewart does for ten cents. Old Deschapelles was taken in; and so was Pauline, for Claude dyed his whiskers and put on a wig to woo her in. She did not care how he looked or talked ; for the old man, having gotten hard-up, couldn't pay'her bills, and she was bound to have a wealthy husband. When Claude proposed she asked him to make out a statement of his effects, and having sworn that he owned ten comer lots in Lyons, she accepted him, and her father ratified the contract. They were married at once, but after the ceremony, Descha- pelles discovered the trick, and put his new son-in-law out of the house, receiving a black eye in his laudable labor. Claude would have been sent to prison for his scoundrelism, but he offered to go into the army, and so escaped punishment. He didn't fight very well, but he played an excellent game of draw- poker, and in two years made money enough to get out of the service. He then returned to Lyons and offered to live with Pauline. The old man said he would consider his case ; that two more men had proposed during his absence, and the chap that had the most money should take the girl. Claude fell short by several thousand dollars, and was, in consequence, ordered to keep out of the way. Pauline married one of the other fellows — the report that she went to Chicago to get a divorce is without foundation — and Claude took to cognac so enthusiastically that he fell off one of the Rhone bridges on a certain night, and the coroner afterward made $25 by holding an inquest on the body. . Pauline was happy, as women usually are, in her second marriage, for her husband paid all her bills without grumbhng. She had several Children, grew fat and frowzy, and died at last MARSEILLES. 199 of a chronic and combined attack of beer and dropsy. Claude never knew a line of poetry in his life, and couldn't have told the difference between the Lake of Como and a Dutch canal. " Dost thou like the picture ? " Marseilles, the most important seaport of France, at the head of a fine bay, is built on the side and at the base of a hill partially surrounded by loftier hills, leaving the view open to the sea. The old town, on the west, is uninviting on account of its narrow and crooked streets and dismal buildings. The new town, on the east, is very pleasant and well built. It is noted for a fine thoroughfare traversing its whole length, and for the Grand Cours promenade, planted with trees, adorned with fountains, and lined with elegant mansions. The churches and public buildings are not very noticeable or interesting. Marseilles is the great point of debarkation for the Mediter- ranean, and regular lines of steamers communicate with Spain, Italy, Malta, Syria, Algiers, Sicily, Egypt, Greece, and Turkey. All nationalities are to be met there, and all languages are spoken in its streets and on its wharves. To the stranger it is veiy interesting on account of its cosmopolitan character. Staying a few days in Marseilles makes it seem as if he had travelled over a large part of the world. The variety of cos- tumes one sees there gives the impression of a grand masquer- ade, and I question if. Sioj city on the Continent furnishes so good an opportunity to study manners and character. Marseilles is said to have been founded by the Phoenicians, about six hundred years B.C. It has had various fortunes and misfortunes. Having taken sides with Pompey, it was be- sieged and captured by Caesar ; was afterward a prey to the Goths, Burgundians, and Franks ; was nearly destroyed by the Saracens suffered from war, pestilence, and famine, and was at last united to France in 1481. Its population is about 300,- 000 — the third city of the country — and its growth is steady and rapid. The old province of Normandy, including the departments of the Seine-Inferieure, Eure, Calvados, Manche, and Orne, is one of the most interesting and picturesque regions of France. 200 SPLENDID CHURCHES OF ROUEN. Its landscapes are varied and picturesque. Hill and valley, stream and woodland, hamlet and town, cottage and villa, fly past you as the train rushes along, as in a dream of beauty. A soft, rich greenness lies over the earth. The peasants and laborers are tlirifty and industrious, and appear contented and cheerful. Rouen, once the capital of Normandy, has lost much of its ancient character by the destruction of the old buildings, the opening of new streets, and the general spirit of improvement that Louis Napoleon introduced into the Empire. Still, there is enough of the old town left to make it attractive. Rouen has of late become quite a manufacturing city, thereby dimin- ishing its romance of course, and has so increased that its popu- lation is now estimated at 100,000. Its famous churches — St. Ouen and Notre Dame — have the reputation of being among the finest gothic structures on the Continent. They are seven or eight centuries old, and full of historic memories and associations. They are in a very good state of preservation, considering their age, though headless angels, legless saints, and armless cherubim are prominent in their architecture, as in most of the cathedrals of Europe. Neither of the churches is finished, of course. It is not the pohcy of the religious managers abroad to complete their cathedrals. If they did, they would have less excuse for so- liciting donations ; and, like the horse-leech's daughter, they are ever crying, " Give, give ! " The stained glass of the Cathedral, particularly the rose- windows, is very fine and of various generations. A very severe hail-storm of long ago, broke many of the panes, which, having been supplied by modern art, contrast most noticeably with those of more ancient date. There are, in St. Ouen, two rose-windows on opposite sides of the church. One of them is said to have been painted by the pupil of the artist who made the first ; and, the work of the pupil being superior to that of the master, the latter, in a fit of jealous rage, put out the other's eyes. This story is told of so many of the churches, that it may well be deemed apocryphal. ( JOAN OF ARC, 201 In the choir of the Notre Dame, small tablets mark the spot where the heart of Eichard Coeur de Lion, his brother Henry, his uncle Geoffrey Plantagenet, and John, Duke of Bedford, were interred. I have often wondered the ecclesiastical legend-makers did not, or do not, display more variety in their invention. They have the same old tales repeated over and over again in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Austria, until one wearies of hear- ing them. The persons who have charge of the department of theologic fiction should advertise for proposals for new legends, which would, I feel confident, be an improvement upon many of the old ones, both in interest and probability. St. Yincent is even older, it is said, than St. Ouen or l»[otre Dame, though not so well known. In it are buried, I was told, the remains of William the Conqueror, that eminent pirate, grandson of a tanner, from wliom so many of the titled families of England have boasted their descent. I have seen the tomb of William at the Abbayeaux Hommes in Caen, and I remember he died in one of the monasteries near Rouen, from the effects of a rupture after burning Mantes. His ashes are declared to be in both places. Perhaps he died twice, as a slight atonement for his innumerable villanies. The Place de la PuceUe d' Orleans every one visits; for Rouen is always associated with the burning of Joan of Arc — that most barbarous act, for which the English are responsi- ble. A monument, extoUing her virtues and combining a fountain, is erected on the spot, and its inscription is read almost hourly by people of every nation, who sympathize with the memory of a heroic woman that delivered her country when man had despaired of its cause. Near the monument is an old buUding commemorating Joan's martyrdom. The building is ornamented with a number of statues representing the principal persons who took part in the condemnation and execution of the Maid of Orleans. Other objects of interest are the ancient stone clock, re- ported to be six hundred years old, the Parliament House of the Dukes of Normandy, and the building in which Francis 202 HAVRE AND CHERBOURG. I., Henry YIII., Charles Y., and other eminent monarchs are said to have met, and consulted, and feasted. On the outer walls of this building are carved representations of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, which are a good deal marred by time and the elements. Havre is a handsome and prosperous city, the port of Paris, and in foreign commerce ranks next to Marseilles. It is surrounded by ramparts and walls, and has a very strong citadel. Its public structures are in no wise remarkable ; but it is well built, and many pleasant villas adorn the suburbs. The city was founded in 1509, and has a population of 80,000, steadily increasing. Cherbourg, a fortified seaport and an important naval sta- tion, has some 30,000 people. Its most famous work is its breakwater, stretching across the roadstead, and completed, after many difficulties, at an enormous expense. Its houses are of stone, and slated, and its principal buildings are military and naval arsenals and hospitals. CHAPTER XXYI. SCENES OF THE WAR. (AR makes persons and places memorable that are unknown or have been forgotten. Geog- raphy and history sleep in time of peace ; but the strife of arms wakes them up, and fills them with an interest they did not before possess. Until the great struggle between France and Germany, hardly any one thought of, or cared for, the French provinces west of the Rhine, or for the various localities and fortified towns which have since become famous. Names never mentioned a year ago, are now in everybody's mouth, familiar as household words. The region of country along the Rhine and adjacent thereto, is not attractive and picturesque, as many suppose. Part of it is known as Champagne, from which the delicious wine, made from grapes grown in that vicinity, receives its name. All vine-growing regions, for some reason or other, are represented as especially favored by nature. The inhab- itants are poetically described as of a superior order, and every landscape is mentioned by visitors, as if they had seen it while under the influence of the chief product of the soil. I have heard a number of travellers speak of the depart- ments of Meurthe, Moselle, Meuse, Mame, and Ardennes, as if they were parts of Arcadia, abounding in delightful scenery, and the handsomest peasantry in the world. "When one visits that quarter of France, and looks at it for himself, he fails to find the broad and smiling plains, the green and graceftd hill- sides, and the flowery river banks he has probably expected. 204 FEMININE PEASANTS. Nor does he discover the hardy, comely, and light-hearted race who spend their leisure hours laughing and dancing, making love, and quaffing the purple vintage of the golden season. He sees, instead, an uninteresting and rather dreary dis- trict, abounding in chalky subsoil, which renders it at once monotonous and disagreeable. The country, for the most part, is flat and uninteresting. The vine-dressers and their families, like most of the French peasantry, are deplorably ignorant, and have a dull, over-worked look, altogether at variance with the popular opinion of French intelligence and vivacity. They live in dismal stone dwellings, without gardens or yards of any kind, which have an appearance of positive discomfort. The pleasant farm-houses and cottages so numerous in America and England, do not exist in the purely agricultural regions. There are large tracts of cultivated land everywhere, but hardly any comfortable habitations. The scattering villages have nothing to recommend them. They are usually made up of one straggling street, a continua- tion of the high road bordered by the ugly, ill- ventilated stone houses without flowers, shnibbery or trees, making them look desolate enough. The grape region is almost entirely without fences or hedges ; the roads running through the various vine- yards whose limits are indicated only by heaps of stones. Some of the feminine peasants would be pretty, if they were neatly and properly dressed ; but, as a rule, they display none of that carefulness and coquetry of attire for which their countrywomen are noted. They are quicker and more anima- ted than the men, as I have observed is generally the case in Europe, and are so free in manner and generous in disposition that they are often brought to shame by their very generosity. Into the region I have described, the Germans marched, subsequent to the engagements of Saarbriick, Worth, Hagenau, and Weissenburg. After overrunning a large part of the province of Lorraine, they compelled Bazaine to surrender at Metz with all his army. Metz, one of the strongest fortified places in Europe, is the capital of the department of Moselle, and situated at the con- MET2 AND NANCY. 205 fluence of the Moselle and Seille rivers. It is a quaint and curious old town, and though its present population is about 57,000, its prosperity belongs to the past. Its citadel, on the right bank of the Moselle, is a stronghold indeed, where a few determined men could defend themselves endlessly against great odds. Its Gothic Cathedral, with a spire three hundred and eighty feet high, is an interesting specimen of architecture. Its arsenal, with a cannon foundery and armory, is one of the largest in France. The loss of Metz was a serious blow to the French, who will not be likely to recover it from the Germans at least during this century. After the decline of the House of Charlemagne, it passed into the possession of the Emperor of Germany, who fortified it with all the engineering skill then available. In 1552, it claimed the protection of France, to which it belonged until its recent fall. It has important manufactures, and, being a general entrepot for foreign mer- chandise, carries on quite an active trade. Metz is very old, having been of considerable note under the Romans. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes very seriously impaired its prosperity, which it has never regained. Nancy, twenty-nine mUes south of Metz, on the left bank of the Meurthe, is one of the best built towns in France, and has a population of 46,000 or 47,000. The Place Royal, the prin- cipal square, is remarkable for its handsome buildings, among which are the Town-hall and the Bishop's Palace. A bronze statue commemorates the memoiy of Stanislaus, ex-king of Poland, who did much to beautify the town. The most con- spicuous structures are the Cathedral, the Bon Secours Church, the barracks and hospitals. An academy, national college, nonnal school, and a library containing over thirty thousand volumes, are among its educational institutions. Nancy was taken by Charles the Bold in 1475, and two years aftei^ward he lost his life while besieging it. In 1634, it fell into the possession of Louis XIII., and Louis XIV. destroyed its forti- fications, but its citadel is still standing. Yerdun, in the department of Meuse, is well fortified, and has numerous manufactures. Bombarded and taken by the 206 CHALONS, REEIMS, AND SEDAN. Prussians in 1792, it was restored to tlie French after the battle of Valmy. Chalons, where Louis Napoleon had an intrenched camp, is the capital of the department of Marne, and situated in an open country. Its importance is in the past, having been one of the great commercial cities in Europe, under the Merovingian kings, when it contained 60,000 souls. In the fifth century, Attila was defeated there by the Romans, and in the sixteenth century its parliament burned the bull of excommunication launched by Pope Clement YIII., against the king of France. Its fairs were once celebrated ; but for the last two centuries it has been rather an insignificant town. Rheims, twenty-five miles northwest of Chalons, has about 56,000 inhabitants, and is the centre of the champagne wine trade. Substantially built and enclosed with walls, its streets and squares are spacious, and some of them handsome. The Cathedral is a noted specimen of Gothic architecture, with a finely sculptured portal and fagade. The Porte de Mars, originally a triumphal arch erected by the Romans, is much admired. The city has been the birthplace of many distin- guished Frenchmen. The monarchs of France, with several exceptions, were crowned there from the time of Philip Augus- tus to the revolution of 1830. Sedan, where Louis IS^apoleon surrendered with the whole of MacMahon's army, will henceforth be famous in history as the place in which the French Empire met with its downfall. Until recently, it was chiefly associated with the chairs which bear its name : in the future it will be remembered as the city where the third Napoleon lost his seat. Sedan has a popula- tion of some 38,000. In its principal square is a bronze statue of Turenne, the famous commander, who was born there, and whose memory must have made the humiliation of the French, on the memorable 3d of September, doubly bitter and mortifying. The town was long an independent princi- pality, but was united to France during the reign of Louis XIII. It contains nothing noteworthy ; has an active agricul- tural trade, and extensive manufactures, with several schools i ^ RIVERS OF FRANCE. 207 and colleges of local reputation. The citadel, in the south- east quarter of the town, contains a large arsenal, which is almost the only public building worth visiting. Its university under Protestant auspices enjoyed an extended fame until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes caused its suppression. The river Marne, a sluggish stream, two hundred and ten miles long, rises south of the fortified town of /Langres ; be- comes navigable at St. Didier, and unites with the Seine at Charenton in the immediate vicinity of Paris, The river Mouse has its origin in the department of Haute- Marne ; passes through the department of Yosges ; disappears underground near Bazoilles ; reappears four miles distant in the neighborhood of Keufchateau ; becomes navigable at Yer- dun ; runs through Belgium and Holland ; empties into the l^orth Sea by three principal mouths ; its length being fom* hundred and thirty-five miles. The Moselle, whose waters, by the bye, are not blue, as the popular song goes, but decidedly brown, rises in the depart- ment of Yosges — is very tortuous, and often exceedingly pic- turesque. It is navigable from its confluence with the Meurthe, near Frouard, and separates Luxemburg from what has been Khenish Prussia, and after flowing for some three hundred and thirty miles, joins the Phine near Coblentz. The Loire rises in Ardeche, at an elevation of nearly four thousand feet; flows northwest and west a distance of six hundred and forty-five miles — it is the longest river in France — and empties into the Bay of Biscay. It is a rapid stream, and its navigation is usually interrupted at least half of the year from ice in winter, drought in summer, and floods during the spring and autumn, all of which may be safely said to im- pair it for practical purposes. It has a number of affluents, and is navigable, when Nature permits, from La Norie going with the current, and up to Poanne against the current. The river is connected by canals with the Saone, Seine, and Yilaine. The Seine — as much a source of interest during the Franco- Prussian war as the Potomac was during our rebellion — has 208 THE VOSGES MOUNTAINS. • its fountain-head in Cote d'Or; becomes navigable at Mery; flows through Paris, where its width is from three to five hundred feet, and empties into the English Channel at Havi'e. It is five hundred miles long, navigable three fifths of its course, and strikingly picturesque in its lower part. It communicates by canals with the Loire, Meuse, Moselle, and Rhine, and is of great advantage to the inland commerce of the country. The Yosges mountains, where so many strategic movements were attempted by both sides, and made brilliantly successful in several instances by the Germans, nm from the northeast of France to the southeast of Belgium, the chain terminating on the left bank of the Rhine, near Mainz. The mountains, connected with the chain of the Cote d'Or, the Jura, and the Ardennes, are frequently so rounded in form that they are called balloons ; two of these balloons, Alsace and Groebwiller, being respectively forty-seven hundred and forty-three hundred feet high. The summits of the Yosges are often covered with dense forests, and contain coal, copper, lead, and silver. Luxemburg, of which so much has been heard since the Germans crossed the Rhine, is a Grand Duchy "belonging to Holland, with an area of twelve hundred and thirty square miles. It is generally well wooded, but is rugged, mountain- ous, and covered in many parts with heaths and marshes. It was first governed by Counts, one of whom, Henry lY., be- came Emperor of Germany, in 1308, under the title of Henry YIL Forty-six years after, Charles lY. made it a duchy, and in 1443 it passed by marriage to Philip of Burgundy, and through him to Spain. In 1659 part of it was ceded to the French ; but in 1Y14 it fell into the possession of Austria, until the revolutionary ai-mies made it part of the French Empire. It was converted into a Grand Duchy in 1814, and in 1830, in consequence of the revolution of Belgium, a portion of it became a Belgian province. Henceforth it will probably be a part of the newly-formed great German Empire. Its popula- tion is something over 200,000. Luxemburg — capital of the Grand Duchy — ^is so strong by nature, and by the engineering skill which has been lavished LUXEMBURG. 209 upon it, that it has been pronounced, after Gibraltar, as nearly impregnable as any place in Europe. The high town, in con- tradistinction to the low town, is two hundred feet above the .latter, on a steep rock, approached from below by flights of steps and zig-zag streets cut out of the solid stone. The entire rock is surrounded by a massive wall, deep ditches, and formid- able outworks. That part of the fortifications called Le Bouc is a rocky promontory commanding the valley on all sides. The town is substantially built, and contains something like 11,000 people, exclusive of the garrison, usually between 5,000 and 6,000 men. No war in Europe has done so much to discredit fortifica- tions as that between France and Germany. Nearly all the towns where the battle raged have excellent defences, and Yauban and other eminent engineers exhausted their art in fortifying the French frontier. Any one with half a military eye would doubt that the formidable fortifications in the north of France could be so ineffectual to resist any armies as they were to resist the Germans. It was supposed that the struggle be- tween the two nations would be mainly confined to the fortresses on the frontier, and that the greater part of the contest would be in regular sieges, alternating between assaults and sorties. The idea that the Germans would invade France with little diffi- culty, and adroitly avoid the strongholds especially designed to keep them out, was not seriously entertained by any number of intelligent minds. If Yauban be conscious of the melancholy failure of the militar}'- defences he spent so much of his life in perfecting, he must be disappointed and indignant indeed. Time, treasure, and intellect in almost unlimited amount, were devoted to fortifications which the Prussians marched by without pausing to reflect what innovations they had made upon the art of war. Strasburg, formerly the capital of the province of Alsace, is generally regarded as the strongest fortified city in France. Near the Yosges mountains, and really on the west bank of the 111, it is practically situated on the Rhine, communicating with Kehl (in Baden), on the opposite side, by a bridge of 14 210 STRASBURG AND VERSAILLES. boats across the latter river. The town is triangular in fomi, enclosed by bastioned ramparts, strengthened by numerous outworks, and entered by seven gates. The famous citadel, at the eastern extremity of the city, is pentagonal in shape, and has always been considered one of the masterpieces of Yauban. It was there the gallant Urich took refuge during the terrific bombardment until he was forced to surrender by the clamor of the citizens. Albeit a French city, it is extremely German in appearance, and most of its inhabitants speak both lan- guages. The vast Cathedral, thought by many to be the finest ecclesiastical edifice on the Continent, though founded in 504, and begun in the tenth, was not completed until the fifteenth century. One of its projected spires has never been built ; but the other, four hundred and sixty-six feet, is the highest in Europe, and can be seen for miles around. The church is richly decorated with sculpture, and the choir, at- tributed to Charlemagne, is greatly admired, as are its stained- glass windows and the wonderful astronomical clock. Its population, about 85,000, notwithstanding they are more German than French, are very proud to be included among the latter, and have little liking for their old nationality. The Germans in holding Strasburg, declare they are only reclaim- ing their own, which is true enough historically, since Louis XIY. seized it and annexed it to France without any pretext whatever. Popularly, the old town is best known for its pates de foie gras ; but its manufactures, especially beer and leather, are varied and extensive. Its canals connecting it with the principal rivers of France, and with the Danube, are great commercial aids. Regular steamers ply between Basel, Hotter- dam and London. Yersailles, where the headquarters of King William were during the siege of Paris, is but ten miles from the capital, and so remarkable for the elegance and regularity of its con- struction, that it has the reputation of one of the handsomest towns on the Continent. The magnificent palace, built by Louis XIY., was for more than a century the residence of the kings of France. During Louis Philippe's reign the palace TOURS, ORLEANS, AND BORDEAUX. 211 was restored, and is now used as an liistorical museum. The vast galleries, with their paintings and statues arranged in chronological order, the splendid gardens, fountains, groves and walks, with the pretty palaces called the Great and Little Trianon, are such objects of interest and attraction that Ver- sailles is one of the first places the stranger visits. Tours (the provisional government took refuge there for a while) is situated at the extremity of a fine plain, and its chief entrance is by a superb bridge over the Loire. The old town is irregular and poorly built ; but much of the new part is ambitious in design, and not without beauty. Its present population is not more than 35,000, though it once boasted of more than twice that number. Like so many of the French cities, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes crippled its com- merce, and dwarfed its prosperity to such an extent that it has never recovered. The two towers, St. Martin and Charle- magne, are conspicuous from every part of the town, and are the sole relics the revolutions of 1793 have left of the great Cathedral of St. Martin of Tours, which had stood for twelve hundred years. Orleans on the Loire, sixty miles from Paris, is very old, and in the main ill-built. It was erected on the ruins of the ancient Genabum, and was afterward captured and destroyed by Caesar. Capital of the first kingdom of Burgundy, it has given the title of Duke to a member of the royal family since the days of Philippe of Valois. Orleans is famous in history for its deliverance from the English, who had besieged it for six months, by the heroism of Joan of Arc, ever afterward known as the Maid of Orleans. Its population, which has undergone very little change for the last twenty years, is in round numbers 50,000. Bordeaux, in the southwest of France, on the Garonne, sixty miles from, its mouth, and the sea, was the seat of the provisional government after its flight from Tours. It is noted for its commerce and its culture, and is a very fiourishing city. The old part of the town is meanly built, with narrow and crooked streets; but the new quarters, particularly Chapeau 212 DAMAGE BY THE WAR. Kouge and the Allees cle Tourny, are noticeably handsome. The bridge across the Garonne is sixteen hundred feet long ; has seventeen arches, and is a splendid work. The remains of the palace of Gallienus, the Cathedral, the Church of Feuil- lants, in which Montaigne is buried, and the great theatre, built by Louis XYI., seating four thousand persons, are the principal objects of interest. Bordeaux is the first port in the south of France, and the second in the country ; its commerce extending to all parts of the world, and its manufactures in- cluding almost everything. It is the seat and centre of a vast wine trade, in which the greater part of its merchants are en- gaged. It was sacked by the Visigoths, ravaged by the Saracens and Normans; passed under the dominion of Eng- land by the marriage of Eleonore of Guienne to Henry Plan- tagenet : but since 1453, has belonged to France. Its harbor is capable of containing twelve hundred ships, and is accessible to vessels of six hundred tons burden. The population is something like 170,000, and steadily increasing. The injury done to Paris and other French cities, and to the country generally, by the war, cannot for a long while be estimated. The suburbs and vicinity of the capital have of necessity suffered severely, and it must be many years before the great centre of civilization, the most beautiful and delight- ful city of the world, will be what it was under the reign of Louis Napoleon, who, whatever his defects, spared no pains to improve and adorn the charming metropolis of the modem world. Fontainebleau, thirty-eight miles from Paris, has felt the scourge of war, and the German soldiers have week after week filled its spacious streets. Its famous palace is one of the most magnificent in the country, and various monarchs who have made it their residence have lavished upon it money without stint. Henry lY., Louis XI Y., Napoleon Bonaparte and Louis Philippe expended upon it at least $8,000,000 or $10,000,000, not to speak of Louis Napoleon's prodigality. The park is beautifully laid out, and adorned with fountains, cascades, lakes, grottos, statues and temples corresponding to the ST. CLOUD. 213 splendor of the palace. The forest has an area of eighty-four square miles, and abounds in every kind of game. The town, with a population of 10,000, is the birthplace of several of the French kings, and has numerous historic associations. The Chateau of St. Cloud, five or six miles from Paris, is exceedingly pleasant and handsome, with its extensive park and beautiful fountains, and was a- favorite residence with Louis Napoleon, as with other French monarchs. Henry lY. was assassinated there, and there Bonaparte caused ' himself to be proclaimed first consul. The Chateau was set on fire and burned during the war, which is deeply to be regretted, both for esthetic and historical reasons. The fine wood of Vincennes, a favorite resort of the Pa- risians, is said to have been partially destroyed, as have no doubt many beautiful buildings and delightful spots of which we have yet to hear the particulars. CHAPTER XXVn. THE FKENCH LEADEES. \0 nation of modern times has suffered more se- verely than the French during any war of equal duration. An extraordinary proportion of their general officers were placed hors de combat j those ■ not killed, wounded or captured, being relieved or set aside with a fickleness and injustice characteris- tic of a failing cause. Too much space would be required to mention all the unsuccessful leaders, military and civil, the French had during the struggle ; but I wish to give brief personal sketches of the most prominent men who figured in the contest. A number who were conspicuous have passed out of sight, if not out of memory ; and I shall confine my- self, therefore, to those who were, at least for a time, central figures in the most sanguinary drama of recent centuries. Jean Jacques Alexis Urich, the French general who made such a stubborn resistance to the besieging armies at Strasburg, is a native Alsatian, having been born at Phalsburg, February 15, 1802. He was a military student at St. Cyr, and became a sub-lieutenant in 1820. He rose rapidly; served in the Crimea, and afterward commanded at Paris a division of in- fantry, which was comprised in the f fth army corps of Italy. In 185T he was made commander and grand officer of the Legion of Honor. He married late in life the once celebrated dancer, Marie Taglioni, who retired from the stage nearly twenty-four years ago. Urich has always distinguished him- self for coolness, resolution, and courage, and it is stated that the mortification of being compelled to surrender the admira- GENERAL MACMAHON. 215 bly fortified city of which he had charge, has ever since preyed upon his mind. Though a German by descent, as is evident by his name, he is, in common with most of the Alsatians, in- flexibly loyal to France ; and it was a matter of personal no less than professional pride with him to hold their ancient capital against its enemies to the very last. Urich is quite German-looking ; has a strong, bold, nervous face, and a decid- edly military bearing. Patrick Maurice MacMahon might be thought, by his name, one of those peculiar Frenchmen who abound in Dublin and Cork. He is descended from an ancient Catholic family of Ireland that attached itself to the fortunes of the Stuarts ; but for generations he has had French ancestors, and is himself the son of a peer of France, who was an intimate friend of Charles X. He was educated at St. Cyr ; became a staff officer, and after varied service won many laurels as Captain at the assault on Constantino. He afterward became Lieutenant-Colonel, General of Brigade, Officer of the Legion of Honor, and Com- mander in rapid succession. He particularly distinguished himself in the Crimea, and was entrusted with the perilous honor of blowing up the works of the Malakoff, which was the key of Sevastopol. He accomplished his purpose, and by the most heroic bravery, backed by the desperate courage of his soldiers, he finally drove the Russians from their position. Subsequently he commanded the twelfth corps of the army of the Alps, in the Italian war ; and for the glory he won on the field of Magenta, he was made Duke of Magenta and Marshal of France. At the coronation of the King of Prussia, in 1861, MacMahon was the representative of France, and displayed an almost regal pomp on the occasion. On his return home, he was appointed to the command of the third army corps, in place of Marshal Canrobert, and in 1864 was made Governor of Algeria. As soon as France had declared war against Prussia, Mac- Mahon was summoned to Paris, and made next in command to Napoleon of all the armies in the field. He was regarded as the ablest soldier of the nation, and great expectations were 216 GENERALS BAZAINE AND BOURBAKI. formed of his future success. All these were shattered, how- ever, at the surrender of Sedan, where MacMahon was wound- ed, as was then supposed, mortally. But he recovered only to experience how bitter is the repeated defeat of ^ the armies once deemed invincible. MacMahon, though in his sixty-third year, is hale and vig- orous as a man of forty. He has a fine military bearing, and withal a pleasant and rather benevolent face. His hair is quite gray, his features strong, and his eye dark and penetrating, which, with an erect and graceful carriage, stamp him as a model of a French Marshal. Francois Achille Bazaine springs from a military family, and has shown by his skill and courage in the field that he has inherited its martial virtues. Like most of the French officers, he served in Algeria, and won honors at the siege of Sevasto- pol. He took a prominent part in supporting the authority of Maximilian in Mexico, and before he entered the capital suc- ceeded Forey as General-in-chief of the expedition. While in that country he married a Mexican woman, with the intention, it is said, of gaining political influence through the members of her family. He was charged in Mexico with duplicity, dis- honesty, and cruelty, and his reputation has suffered not a little in consequence. In his engagements with the Germans he fell behind his reputation, and finally, shut up at Metz, was forced to surrender. Bazaine looks more like a sturdy, stubborn sol- dier than a distinguished captain. In person he is short and stout, and his face, though intelligent, reveals more strength of will than intellect. He is now in his sixtieth year, and has received the usual badges of distinction, such as crosses and medals, in sufficient number to flatter the vanity of any man ambitious of military fame. Charles Denis Bourbaki is of Greek origin, but was bom in Paris, April 22, 1816. He was for a long while an officer in the Zouaves ; played a conspicuous part in the Crimea at Alma, Inkermann, and Sevastopol, and did gallant duty during the Italian campaign. During the late war he fought nobly in the cause of his country, and probably accomplished all that I GENERAL MacMAHON. GENERALS CffANZY, FAIBHERBE, AND TROCHU. 217 could be accomplished under circumstances so adverse. Though beaten again and again, he was always ready to fight, and to lead the forlomest of forlorn hopes. General Chanzy, who was commander of the army of the Loire, and on whom for a while the' last hopes of the French cause rested, was born in the Ardennes, in 1824. At sixteen he shipped as a seaman on board a man-of-war, but after twelve months' service grew weary of the sea, and determined to enter the army. After leaving the military school, where he had been conspicuous for his attainments, he became an officer in a regiment of Zouaves, and lived in Africa until the Italian war, into which he entered with great ardor. He covered himself with glory at Solferino and in other engagements, and then returned to Africa. Recalled from there only last Octo- ber, when the cause of France looked dark and desperate enough, he was soon put at the head of the army of the Loire. He felt, no doubt, that it was too late for glorj'^, were it not for patriotism ; but he did his utmost to stem the tide, which, ere long, swept him away. If he did not gain success, he deserved it, by untiring energy, unfaltering will, ceaseless vigilance, and boundless courage. Louis Cesar Faidherbe, born at Lisle, January 3, 1818, entered the Polytechnic school in his native city at the age of twenty, and the school of Metz two years after. Before he was twenty-five, he had taken part in many military expedi- tions, in Africa ; in Senegal became an officer of engineers in 1852; and, two years later, was made governor of the colony. He was superseded as governor in 1861 ; but he resumed his functions, and was not recalled until at his own request in July, 1865. Since then, he has gone through the regular grade of promotion, and in all the positions in which he has been placed, has discharged his duty as a thorough and compe- tent soldier. In his efforts to relieve Paris by making a diversion of the besieging army, he omitted nothing that energy, skill and valor could achieve ; but his efforts, like those of the other French commanders, came too late. Louis Jules Trochu, the defender of Paris, and the one man 218 LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS. in whom the French reposed faith after they had lost confi- dence in nearly all their chieftains, was born in the Morbihan — part of the old province of Bretagne — in the Spring of 1815. After receiving his military education, he was attached to the staff of Marshal Bugeaud in Algeria ; was aide-de-camp to St, Arnand in the Crimea, and afterward commanded a brigade until the end of the war. He was general of division, and remarkable for the skill and bravery he displayed during the Italian war. At the close of 1861, he had seen twenty- five years of service, and ha(J taken part in eighteen campaigns. He is the author of several valuable military works. During the memorable siege of Paris his position was one of the most trying that can fall to the lot of military commanders. He had dissensions within and the enemy without ; but he bore himself calmly and ably through every diflSculty and danger, and seemed unwilling to yield the unequal struggle even when nature, fortune and fate combined against him. Trochu has always been regarded by his friends and com- panions in arms as a man of the finest nature and most ster- ling character, combining modesty with bravery, amiability with resolution, ability with candor, and kindness of heart with chivalry of spirit. His appearance is prepossessing ; his face — more like that of a student than a warrior in expression — being pale and pensive, while his features are regular, clear-cut and strong. Many incidents of his private life prove him to be gentle, generous and noble ; and, though his extreme modesty has heretofore prevented his advancement and the acknowl- edgment of his abilities, it is not unlikely that a grateful country will yet crown him with the honor he deserves. Among the many civilians and members of the Provisional Government prominent after the fall of the Empire, Thiers, Favre and Gambetta were the most conspicuous. Louis Adolphe Thiers was born at Marseilles, April 16, 1T97, having sprung from a family of cloth merchants ruined by the Revolution. He was admitted to the Bar at an early age ; but soon perceived that he was better adapted to politics and literature than to the practice of law. In his twenty-fourth JULES FAVRB. 219 year lie went to Paris to seek his fortune, where he became famous as a politician and author, and acquired an ample for- tune. He has also distinguished himself as a journalist, and for his violent opposition to the Napoleonic dynasty was im- prisoned and expelled from the country. After the adoption of a more liberal constitution for the Empire, he entered the Corps Legislatif, and delivered many eloquent speeches on the side of the opposition. He always protested against the move- ment of the Italians and Germans toward national unity, and censured the late Emperor because he did not interfere to pre- vent it. He has always dishked Prussia, and earnestly advo- cated warlike measures toward her in 1866. He disapproved of the declaration of war last July because the nation was not then prepared. In spite of many political errors, Thiers has ever been consistent, honest and resolute, and since Sedan, has striven most patriotically to stop the bleeding wounds of his country. He has sought aid and sympathy from every nation ; but his energy and zeal have been of no avail. Thoroughly French in temperament and character, and with a record upon which there is no etain, few of his countrymen will more deeply lament the eclipse of the great and glorious nation. Thiers looks more like a merchant than an author or orator, being short and fleshy. He has a full round face, very fresh and youthful for his years, a bright eye, strong nose and firm mouth. As energetic in body as vigorous in mind, he is one of the youngest old men in public life in all France. The natural expression of his face is pleasant and genial ; but it often becomes stern, almost fierce, when he is excited. If you were to meet him in the Rue Yivienne, you would suppose him to be a prominent member of the Bourse, rather than a leading statesman, a fiery joumaHst and a distinguished moulder of public opinion. Jules Favre, bom at Lyons in 1809, went to Paris in his twenty-first year to practice law. As an advocate his reputa- tion has been above that of any man in France. Of recent years he has distinguished himself in politics, and in the Corps Legislatif was one of the firmest members of the opposition. 220 LEON GAMBETTA. He has shown himself a man of action as well as thought, and has striven nobly to sustain the Republic in its darkest and gloomiest hours. Personally, Favre has a strong, genial, inter- esting face, which might be mistaken for that of an American or Englishman. His features are large, and his clear, penetrat- ing eye under heavy brows seems to see into the soul of things. Leon Gambetta is not a Corsican, as has been stated ; hav- ing been born October 30, 1838, at Cahors, in the south of France, of a Genoese family. He studied law, and was ad- mitted to the bar before he was twenty-one, and gained very notable success. In politics he has been an " irreconcilable " of the Rochefort type, and in the Chamber of Deputies has op- posed again and again with burning words the views and course of the government. After the declaration of the Republic he was made Minister of War, and has been untiring in energy and full of resources in the midst of disasters. He seems to have been ubiquitous, and though he may at times have erred in judgment, no son of France has done more than he to up- hold the fortunes of the doomed country, or striveji harder to expel the enemy — O how vainly ! — from the invaded soil. It is strange he has not broken down completely under his tremendous labors. He is very Italian in appearance, of me- dium size, rather thick set ; has a dark and piercing eye, long black hair, and an expression of passionate energy in his face, which well illustrates his character. It is thought by many, if he had held his office when the war began, that the re- sult would have been very different from what it has. No man connected with the Provisional Government, unless it be Trochu, manifested such activity, perseverance and courage in the face of difficulties so formidable and obstacles so over- whelming. CHAPTER XXYIII. SPAIN. .PAIlSr," said Talleyrand, "is ^ country u\ which two and two make five." Seeming so to a Frenchman, an American might be par- doned if he believed it a land in which two and two made six, or any other number. Ancient Iberia is certainly a region of the imexpected. It is full of surprises and disappointments. Nothing ever happens there as one supposes it will, and the knowledge of to-day is ever contradicted by the experience of to-morrow. For more than three centuries the country has been an enigma — politically, religiously, and socially — that no other European nation could solve ; and its present condition augments its anomaly. Where else has there been so long a Queen without a dominion, and a kingdom without a king? They who have never visited Spain may wonder ; but those who have been there will be incapable of new surprises. The land where "yes" means "no," and "immediately" "next week " — where inn-keepers assure you they have every deli- cacy, when they know they are besieged by starvation — where there are rivers without bridges, and bridges without rivers — where highwaymen rob you of your last escudo, and then piously commend your soul to God — where "princely hospi- tality " signifies fleas for bed-fellows and garlic for breakfast — the land, where are all these and many other contradictions, soon prepares you for whatever may happen. Land of romance and superstition, of chivalry and bigotry, of Lope de Vega and Cervantes, of Cortez and the Cid, of Moor- 222 FANCY AND REALITT. ish refinement and Gothic rudeness, of the Alhambra and the Inquisition, of heroism and persecution, of art and assassination, of poetry and intrigue, of splendor and squalor, we have all, at some time, built gorgeous castles upon your mountain sides, and viewed with rapture our broad estates watered by the Xenil and Guadalquivir. We shall never see you as you ap- peared to us in our youthful dreams ; for the outward eye dis- pels the visions of imagination ruthlessly and forever. Your moonlight will never fall so soft, even in Andalusia, nor your guitars drop such sweetness, though under the towers of Se- ville, as came to us when reverie blossomed in the rich soil of the heart. The splendors of Cordova's cathedral will lessen when we stand in its marble aisles ; and the nightingales will never fill the evening with such music as they did before our wandering feet had borne us to the ancient palace of the Moorish kings. "Wlien I first went whirling over the soil — in America we should call it creeping — in the midst of cigarette-smoke, that made the compartment look like a miniature edition of the Blue Grotto of Capri, and when, trying to smile serenely at the three sallow cahalleros opposite, who sat dignifiedly smok- ing me to death, I heard at the stations, " Yalladolid," "Ma- drid, " Sevilla," " Granada," roared out in gutturals fragrant with garlic, my noble castles crumbled, and the raw wind of the Sierras swept down and chilled my buds of sentiment to death. If quite diflferent from what fancy and romance had painted it, I was very glad to see Spain, and my memory of it is still most welcome. Three things I have found needful to a satis- factory visit — patience, politeness, ^tv^^l j[>esetas. Armed with these, I could be mildly seraphic on trains that seemed as if they would never start, and could inquire unmoved for "accommodations" at the homeliest ^05aand continued for four years, when, about 1,000 yards having MACHINES USED. 371 been completed, the perforators were called into requisition. The common mode of tunneling is to sink vertical wells at proper distances, and work through from one to the other ; but this was not practicable in the Mont Cenis enterprise, as 40 or 50 years would have been necessary to have made the wells sufficiently deep. The only feasible plan was to begin boring at the opposite ends ; and then the difficulty was to supply air to the workmen at a distance of two or three miles from the outer entrance. The ordinary motive power, steam, needs fire for its generation, and fire needs air for its support. Consequently steam could not be used ; and, after long delib- eration and countless experiments, compressed air was em- ployed. The perforating machine that has wrought the Tun- nel is moved by common air compressed to one-sixth its nat- ural bulk, which, when liberated, exercises an expansive force equal to that of six atmospheres. The machine is composed of 17 or 18 upright iron tubes, in which, by a vibratory motion caused by the rise and fall of water, and regulated by pistons in the tubes, the air, as I have said, is compressed one-sixth. As the piston ascends it forces the water up, compressing the air and driving it into a reservoir. As the piston descends a valve is opened near the top, and through the valve the air rushes into the vacuum, is in turn compressed, and also forced into the reservoir. From the reservoir a large iron pipe, ren- dered air-tight, conveys the compressed air into the Tunnel. Ten of the perforators are kept constantly at work. The drills, working by the compressed air, keep steadily boring the rock at the average rate of nine feet a day. During the surveys preceding the selection of the spot for the Tunnel, it was discovered that the Rivers Arc and Dora in their windings were at a certain point less than eight miles apart, and at this point it was evident Nature designed the great work should be constructed. The mouth of the Tunnel is 350 feet above the level of the valley, as was necessary from the fact that the valleys of the Arc and the Dora are at differ- ent heights above the sea-level. The inequality is regulated 372 ^A^ UNDERGROUND BLAST by grades, so that, entering at Fourneaux, the lower side, you come out at Bardoneche at the proper level. For some time after the Tunnel was begun, any and all visitors were admitted ; but, as the work advanced, it became necessary to adopt stricter rules. Permission was given to inspect the Tunnel on two fixed days of the month ; and if any person of influence or position, particularly a journalist, wished to examine the work at any time, he had little diffi- culty in doing so. When you have obtained permission, you are taken in charge by the director of the workmen, who gives you a long India-rubber coat and a lighted lamp, at- tached to half a yard of wire, and with these you set out upon your subterranean journey. The entrance is about 25 feet wide, and as many in height. A double railway track runs into the Tunnel, carrying in the various implements and the stone for the mason work, and bringing out the fragments of broken and blasted rock. At each side of the Tunnel is a narrow sidewalk of flagstones, and the air conduit is ranged along the side of the gallery, while between the lines of rails, in a deep trench, are the gas and water pipes. The Tunnel, as may be supposed, is very damp, and a number of little streams percolate through the rocky sides and roof. A temporary wooden partition divides the Tunnel into two equal galleries, above and below ; the rarefied air from the lower gallery rising and passing out through the upper, while fresh air comes into the lower to supply its place. After going some distance, you lose sight of the patch of daylight furnished by the entrance, and find yourself in the midst of darkness which seems positively tan- gible. You soon see glimmering through the blackness a number of lights, and hear rumbling sounds, which proceed from the wagons carrying out the various debris. The part of the Tunnel finished on the French side, when I was in the vicinity of Mont Cenis, was something over two miles and a half, and furnished very easy walking. Then came the portion of the gallery which, having been opened by the perforators, was now enlarging by the ordinary hand pro- DRILLING FOR A BLAST. gyg cess. There the passage over fragments of rocks, past wagons moving to and fro, and in the face of various obstacles, be- comes difficult and somewhat tiresome. Before you have pro- ceeded far, the guide will request you to pause for a while, and you will probably sit down in the rugged gallery, not more than nine or ten feet wide, to await what you know must be a blast. In that dreary cavern, nearly three miles from the outer world, and with more than a mile of Alps tow- ering above your head, you expect to be almost deafened by the sound of the explosion. But it is very different from what it would be in the open air — a dull, heavy rumble, echo- ing and reechoing through the gallery, and seeming to shake the mountains from base to summit. One explosion follows another in rapid succession, and, after seven or eight, the wooden doors, which are closed just before the blast, are opened again, and the clouds of thick, yellow smoke come pouring through the Tunnel in such density and volume as to be painful, if not dangerous, to persons with weak lungs. The. guide then gives you a sign to go on, and you soon get beyond the suffocating atmosphere into one comparatively fresh and pure. Before long you reach the end of the Tunnel, and see the carriage or platform supporting the perforators actively at work. They so scatter sparks of fire from the rock as to re- mind you of small Catherine wheels. The motive power of the perforator is conveyed to it from the conduit by a flexible pipe throwing the compressed air into a cylinder placed hori- zontally along the carriage, which the Italians call the affusto. In the cylinder is a piston, to which is attached a sharp drill nearly three feet long. The motion of the piston drives the drill against the rock, and by a complicated piece of machin- ery gives it a rotary motion. The drill makes 200 revolutions a minute, and as the force of each stroke upon the rock is some 200 pounds, the power the drill exercises is equivalent to about 40,000 pounds a min- ute. The hardest substance the workmen encounter is white quartz, and through it the progress is necessarily slow — not 374 ACCIDENTS IN THE TUNNEL. much more than half that made through hornblende, mica, and slate. The first difficulty in beginning the perforation is to make a hole large enough to confine the drill. That once made, the drill works back and forth and rotates with remark- able regularity, assisted by a stream of water to facilitate the boring process. For blasting, about 90 holes, three feet in depth and two to three inches in diameter, are bored in the ordinary rock. The holes are charged with powder and tam- ped, when, the miners withdrawing behind the wooden doors, the slow match is ignited, and the explosion takes place. So the labor continues day and night, week after week, includ- ing Sundays, month after month, year after year. The work- men are divided into three reliefs. Eight hours are given to labor, and sixteen to rest. For all this hard, unvarying and perilous toil in an unwholesome and poisonous atmosphere, the common laborers receive, I have been told, only three francs a day, and those who have more skill and experience, .but five francs. The wear and tear of machinery in the tunnel is very great. The drills have to be changed every few minutes, and it is estimated that at least 2,500 perforators have been used up. One would naturally suppose that frequent accidents would be unavoidable in such a gigantic undertaking, and I have been told that more than 1,000 workmen had lost their lives up to the summer of 1869. The guides and directors, how- ever, had a different story. They declared that not more than 50 or 60 men had been killed outright, though a number of others had been seriously wounded. Their statement, I sup- pose, is to be taken with allowance. I have always found that casualties of any kind diminish in proportion to the in- terest of the persons who report them. Most of the accidents occurred on the railway, from the falling of rock, and from premature explosions ; but many others which defy classifica- tion were constantly taking place. The day before, or the day after my visit, a premature explosion killed, as I was in- formed, five men and wounded nine others, three of them RATE OF PROGRESS. 375 fatally. I heard, too, that a week previous a rock had fallen and crushed three men to death. I therefore concluded, by a very simple rule of three, that, if eleven men lost their lives in one week, it was hardly probable only fifty or sixty should be mortally hurt in twelve years. I have mentioned the average rate of progress through the tunnel at nine feet a day ; but this is an estimate rather than a fact. It is almost impossible to give an exact average, owing to the difference in the material which the drills en- countered. As the work advanced, the rate of progress dimin- ished. Through the quartz the workmen did not make some- times more than 16 to 19 inches a day. During the month of May, before the quartz had been reached, they made an advance of 93 metres (a metre is 39tVV English inches) ; dur- ing June, when the quartz first began to appear, 48 metres ; during July, 17 ; and during August, only 12. If it had not been for the quartz, it is probable that the tunnel would have been completed more than two years ago. It was thought that the work would be finished early last spring. In the excavating gallery the temperature ranged from 70 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit all the year round, and the differ- ence between the inside of the Tunnel and the external at- mosphere was often from 35 to 45 degrees. The perforators were not introduced into the Tunnel at Fourneaux (the French side) until 1863, two years after they had been in use on the Italian side. The air-compressing establishment at Fourneaux (there was a similar one at Bardoneche) was on the banks of the Arc, about three-quarters of a mile from the mouth of the Tunnel, and was well worth a visit, especially from those who feel an interest in ingenious mechanical contrivances. The amount of money expended on the Tunnel I have heard variously estimated at 100,000,000 to 150,000,000 francs; but I should suppose, when the entire cost is footed up, that it might be more. Since the beginning of this, the greatest achievement in engineering yet undertaken, at least in modern times, the pre- 376 VL TIM A TE SDCCESS. dictions have been numerous that the work would never be finished. Time and again the report has been circulated of the abandonment of the enterprise as hopelessly impracti- cable; and yet, as I have said, the labor went on steadily, and without serious interruption, at both entrances, from the first day of its practical beginning. The Italian engineers, Grandis, Grattoni, and Sommellier, mainly contributed, with sugges- tions from Bartlett's rock-perforating invention, to the forma- tion of the ingenious apparatus which has been so successfully employed in the construction of the Tunnel. They specu- lated and experimented so long and so energetically upon their ideas and plans that their final triumph was hailed by their friends with as much surprise as satisfaction. Those who have gone over the Mont Cenis pass either by diligence or by rail, and remember how wearisome and tedious, from a mere practical stand-point, the journey has been, will be de- lighted to know that they can do in a few minutes, with the help of the Tunnel, what has heretofore required several hours of fatiguing travel. The Tunnel will make the route between Fourneaux and Susa very direct and vastly shorter than the present wandering and circuitous road from St. Michel to the old Italian town lying at the base of Mont Cenis. It is some- wliat remarkable that this immense work, which was begun later than the Hoosac Tunnel — not over four miles long in- stead of nearly eight, as the Cenis enterprise is, and nothing like so difficult or so complicated a piece of engineering — should be completed two years before the end of the Massa- chusetts bore is even predicted. We Americans are so accustomed, and not without reason, to plume ourselves upon the accomplishment of great material and practical enterprises, that it would seem more natural for us to have made the Mont Cenis Tunnel than for the French and Italians to have surpassed us in what we are pleased to consider our proper field. Much as we have done, and more that we shall do, it is altogether likely that the completion of the Mont Cenis Tunnel will stand, for generations as the greatest feat of engineering the world has yet known. CHAPTER XLIX. SWITZERLAND AND NORTHERN ITALY. HEN the tourist seeks to enter Switzerland through Northern Italy, traveling by diligence, and steaming over lakes Como, Lecco, Lugano and Maggiore, it is very difficult for him to de- termine in which country he is. The geographical lines of the picturesque region are very puzzling, especially as regards boundaries. One hour you are in Switzerland, and the next in Italy. This ride of a mile is Italian, and the other Swiss. The top of a hill belongs to Victor Emanuel, and the base to one of the cantons. You only know when you have reached Italy by the fact that your baggage is examined by the cus- tom-house officers, but in such a polite and quiet manner compared to that of our own country that, remembering your serious annoyances at the port of New York, you are, for the time being, biased in favor of monarchical governments. I have grave doubts whether the people who live thereabouts know to what nationality they belong themselves. They are certainly a mongrel race — a mixture of Italian, French, and German, speaking all languages but their own, and having the defects of three different countries, with few of their re- deeming virtues. It has been the fashion of us at home to speak of the Swiss in the most laudatory terms, and to put them forward as the representatives of all that is honest, independent, and noble in character. I am afraid we have rather idealized the Swiss, as we are apt to do everything that is far away, and to attribute to them on account of their republicanism some 378 FIGHTING FOR MONEY. qualities that are not theirs. They have many virtues. They are sturdy, brave, and devoted to freedom. But they are not so upright, generous, and chivalrous as we have supposed. They have a splendid, but sterile country, where the commonest means of livelihood are procured with such difficulty that every thought and effort must be directed to that end. Under such circumstances, whatever the dispo- sition, generosity is impossible. Men who are compelled to constant toil can not be liberal any more than beggars can give sumptuous entertainments. "Where all exertion is toward material support, the mental and spiritual being must be neglected. In a word Switzerland is too poor in soil to be rich in manners, for the graces and attractions are born of the superfluous, and without them the quality of interest is rare. Switzerland has received enormous credit for retaining her independence in the midst of monarchies and empires. Un- questionably she has fought long and well ; but she owes her political republicanism even more to her position than to her prowess. The country is almost inaccessible to armies, and even if subjugated, the attempt to hold it would be folly. Her nationality, in the strict sense, she has not preserved. She has been overrun and conquered mentally by her imperial neighbors, and she is each and all of them by turns rather than herself. She can not be said to be attached to freedom as a principle, for her soldiers fight on any side that pays best. The most despotic powers in Europe have Swiss in their armies, and the military citizens of the cantons have long been regarded as mercenaries. I remember the reply of the Genevan to the Parisian officer who declared that the Swiss fought for money, and the French for honor. " Oh, yes, that is very true. Every nation fights for what it has least of." The Genevan was half correct. The Swiss are so poor they have little power to choose ; and whenever money is to be had the temptation is difficult to resist. Still, it is not easy to grow enthusiastic over men who, while vaunting of their in- UNPLEASANT COMPANIONS. 379 dependence and their love of liberty, will sustain for hire the supremest despotism. My own experience with hotel proprietors, guides, servants, and diligence managers in that country has not been of a kind to prepossess me in its favor. As a class I have found them much less fair-dealing and more disingenuous than Italians, whose reputation among travelers has never been good. I have been made the victim of little swindles among the Alps that are not practiced in the Appennines ; and, on the whole, I prefer Naples, Rome and Florence to Berne, Chamonix and Geneva. If you object to an overcharge in your bill in Italy, the landlord usually corrects it cheerfully. In Switzerland he either attempts to justify it, or flies off to collateral issues. A Switzer considers it so much his duty to make something out of you that it is hard for him to forego what he regards both an obligation and a satisfaction. The Swiss may be ex- tremely honest ; but they have taken a singular method of revealing their honesty to me. The traveler in Switzerland is constantly struck with the difference between the country and the people. The contrast is painful ; for the magnificence of the one throws into bolder relief the wretchedness of the other. Excessive toil and ir- remediable poverty, have made the Swiss as a people homely, misshapen, hard. Nature has sought to balance her prodi- gality to the land by niggardliness to its inhabitants. As if the' absence of all grace and comeliness were not enough, she has added goiter and cretinism to their misfortunes. Throughout the Rhine Valley, and the Yale of Chamonix, unsightly creatures glare at you on all sides. You turn from a lofty peak, or a magnificent gorge, to a monstrously swollen neck or a gibbering imbecile. Your admiration for a picturesque cascade or a splendid glacier is interrupted by the petition of a hideous cripple or the stare of a wandering idiot. Beggars are as numerous there as in many parts of Italy, and far more repulsive. They lack the picturesqueness, the ingenuity, the professional ease, of the ItaUans, who often amuse, while the others always disgust 380 LAKE COMO. The good deities deliver me henceforth and forever from Swiss beggars, Swiss goiter, and Swiss cretins ! They are so revolting that the Zermatt Valley, the Mont Blanc chain, and the Bernese Oberland are all requisite to make amends for them. Lago di Como, or Lake Como, has probably obtained more reputation from the popularity of Bulwer's pinchbeck pro- duction than from any other source. The lake is certainly beautiful, but I doubt if the author had visited it when he wrote the Lady of Lyons. Otherwise he would not have made Claude speak of the perfumed light stealing through the orange groves. Oranges do not grow to any extent spon- taneously even as far south as Rome, and Como is one of the most northern points of Italy. I might suppose Bulwer caused Melnotte to make the mistake to show the youth's ignorance of what he had never seen ; but that would not be like the self-conscious Lytton, who usually tells all he knows. Thackeray might be suspected of such a stroke of art ; but it would be too fine for Bulwer. Como is the Lacus Larius that Yirgil praises in the Geor- gics (give me credit for not quoting his honeyed hexameters), and it merits all his praise. It does not seem like a lake, but a river ; for it is so shut in by hills and mountains on both sides that you can rarely see a quarter of a mile before or behind you. It is about thirty-six miles long, though scarcely three miles wide at its broadest point, and in some places over eighteen hundred feet deep. It somewhat resembles the Rhine, but is much more beautiful and imposing ; the moun- tains on each bank being often seven thousand feet high. These mountains rise from the very border of the lake, and are covered with verdure and foliage from the base to the summit — something we neVer see in this country. The high land is dotted with cottages and villas (many of them situated at the water's edge) of the most tasteful and elaborate description. Not a few of the villas are the summer residences of the noble and wealthy families of Milan, and with their handsome gardens, white statues gleaming through CLAUDE AND PAULINE. 381 the trees, picturesque buildings, and artificial grottoes, seem as if they might be the very home of poetic content. I did not observe Claude's palace, though I directed my lorgnette on every side in search of it. I suppose after mar- rying Pauline she grew extravagant, and so far exceeded her husband's income that he became bankrupt, and all his prop- erty was sold by the sheriff of the neighboring town. Claude was entirely too sentimental as a lover to succeed as a hus- band, and it is not to be wondered at that he let his wife ruin him. Women frequently say that men who talk poetry, and lav- ish all manner of tendernesses upon them, quite fail to under- stand the practicalities of domestic life. Such persons need management — the darling occupation of the feminine heart — and I fancy Mrs. Melnotte in undertaking the administra- tion of her liege-lord's affairs, speedily consigned them to what Mantalini calls the demnition bow-wows. Lakes Lecco and Lugano much resemble Como, though not so fine in their surroundings. They are all favorite places of sojourn, especially with the English, many of whom visit them year after year. Our " trans- Atlantic cousins " are different from us. When they find any place they like, they stay in it for some time, and visit it again and again. When we find a pleasant spot, we go somewhere else. The spirit of restlessness possesses us. We believe happiness exists everywhere but in the place we happen to be in. We pursue the phantom round the globe without discovering that it is a phantom, and die with an inherited notion that it is in the world to come. Cadenabbia on Como, Menaggio at the intersection of Como and Lecco, and Lugano on the lake of that name, are very pleasant points of sojourn. The hotels there are good, but, like those of watering-places generally, far from cheap. They all have fine lake and mountain views, and would be charm- ing spots for the honeymoon, which a whispering cynic terms a sentimental truce preceding the battle of domesticity. I have occupied chambers in that vicinity, commanding 382 FAVORITE PLACES OF SOJOURN. such skies and waters and steeps as must have made them delightful to the dullest eye and the most unimaginative mind. I went from Locarno to Arena by boat on a clear, delight- ful day, and enjoyed the deep green water of Lago Maggiore, the light blue sky, and the ever-changing shores quite as much as I had anticipated. The northern or upper part of the lake is the finest, being bordered by lofty mountains, nearly all of them wooded, while the lower end becomes sub- dued in character as it approaches the plains of Lombardy. Like Como, Maggiore resembles a broad river, and is con- stantly losing itself among the high lands through which it flows. Its average width is three miles and its length forty- five, while its depth in some places is nearly twenty-seven hundred feet. As far as Stresa, Maggiore is an uninterrupted picture — painted in water colors, of course — which, once seen, is long remembered. The scenery is altogether Italian, as it ought to be, nearly the whole lake lying in Italy, but much softer and more luxurious than you would look for so far north. Numerous handsome villas and towns nestle along the banks of the river under the shadow of the mountains, ap- pearing and disappearing while you steam along, as if they were playing the coquette with nature who shelters them so gracefully. Locarno is what boarding-school sentimentalists would call a sweet village, with its planes and elms festooned with vines, its orange and citron trees, its pretty campanile and pleasant chapels. The slopes above the town are cov- ered with olives, myrtle, pomegranates and fig-trees, and the whole aspect of the neighborhood is luxuriously southern. Across from Luino are two half-ruined and singular-looking castles, which in the Middle Ages harbored half a dozen notorious brigands, known as the Mazzarda brothers, who for years pillaged and burned, outraged women and murdered men, until they grew to be the terror of the neighborhood, and were believed from their frequent escapes to be in league with the devil. BORROMEAN ISLANDS. 383 Tradition represents them as handsome and gallant fel- lows ; but I am sure they were vulgar villains who would have robbed their grandmother of her last farthing, and have beaten her because she had no more for them to steal. That prosaic probability does not, however, destroy the romance of the association, for robbers' ruined castles of the fifteenth century are too rare not to be welcome when presented in authentic shape. Near Intra you get a view of three magnificent mountains, the Stralhorn, Cima di Jazi, and Mischabel, which hide them- selves several times on the route, and then tower up again into the sky when you have ceased to expect them. But the most charming part of Maggiore is in the neighborhood of the Borromean Islands. There the lake broadens into a bay. Mountains are on both sides, and the green verdure of the hills rising from the water fades off gradually into the brown and barren distances of the Alps. The Borromean Islands are four in number — Bella, Supe- riore, Sa;n Giovanni and Madre — the first and last belonging to the family Borromeo, from whom they receive their name. Bella has long been famous, having been purchased two cen- turies ago by Count Borromeo, who from a barren rock con- verted it into a luxurious, but extremely artificial-looking garden. The island is crowded with fountains, statues, mo- saics and grottoes, and has ten terraces on which laurels, oleanders, cedars, cypresses, lemon and orange trees are planted in profusion. The chateau is gloomy, and wholly disproportioned to the size of the island. Jean Jacques, it is said, once thought of making it the scene of his burning ro- mance of " La Nouvelle Heloise," but concluded it too arti- ficial for his superlatively natural story. Isola Madre is laid out with walks, and more inviting than Bella. On the south side are many fine aloes, and I was pleased to see several of them in bloom. A singular statue is that which meets your eye as you steam into Arona. It is one of San Carlo Borromeo, Arch- bishop of Milan. It is sixty-six feet high, and rests on 384 ALPINE PASSES. a pedestal of forty feet. The robe is of wrought copper, and the head, hands, and feet of bronze. The enormous figure is held together by clamps and masonry in the interior, and per- sons who have no objection to heat, dirt, and bats can ascend, as I did, by means of ladders and iron bars into the head, which will hold three grown men. A noticeable peculiarity of the Alpine passes is that the one you go over is always the grandest and most interesting. That is, you must say so to be in the fashion ; for all the trav- elers you meet give you such information. I have crossed by three passes, and may therefore be supposed to take a broad view of the subject. I am inclined to believe the St. Gothard the most attractive, and the Simplon and the Splugen next, though so many clamor for the St. Bernard, Brenner, Mont Cenis, and Bernina that they may settle the question among themselves. The Simplon is certainly the most famous. You remember that after the most arduous passage of the St. Bernard, Na- poleon determined to build a military road, and the Simplon was the result. The work, which is magnificent, required six years and about $4,000,000 for its completion. The dili- gence ride is long, nearly twenty-four hours, and would be tedious but for the impressive scenery scattered all along the route. I varied the monotony with walking, gathering Alpine roses, running here and there for a commanding view, and exploring the sombre recesses of the chalets, refuges, and hos- pices. The cascades, gorges, defiles, overhanging rocks, and snowy peaks were very interesting ; but I have seen few re- gions more crushingly desolate than the summit of the Simp- lon. The clouds hung over and around and below it ; a cold, sleety rain fell ; the icy glaciers showed their white tops like frozen ghosts, and the few habitations scattered about seemed incapable of supporting life as I stood on the dreary apex in the all-pervading, almost painful stillness of the place. I afterward entered the well-known Hospice, a large stone building at the base of Monte Leone, which rears its splendid head nearly three thousand feet above the Simplon. The DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. 385 Hospice was founded by Napoleon for the reception of travel- ers, but was not finished until the Hospice of St. Bernard pur- chased it, some forty years ago. According to the prescribed custom I drank a glass of com- mon wine handed me by one of the members of the order, and left my contribution in the poor box. I thought while talking to the monk what a life was his, and wondered what view he took of the world. I did not ask him, however. He seemed cheerful and satisfied, and evidently had no fancy for meta- physical speculation. I could not help but pity his condition, and probably he pitied mine. I admired him for giving up everything for the good of his fellow-creatures ; for spending his days among the eternal snows for the sake of succorino- the distressed. He would have admired me, if he had had keen spiritual insight, for my resisting the temptation to an- noy him with abstruse questions he felt no interest in. The descent of the Simplon is sudden and rapid. We went down in about one-fifth of the time we had employed in going up. We dashed along at a fine rate, gradually getting out of the mists and into a milder temperature. After passing the Gal- lery of Guido we had a view of the Fressinone, recently swol- len by rains, dashing over the rocks, which, with the cliffs towering two thousand feet above our heads, made a striking picture — one that surpasses the famous Via Mala in the Splu- gen route. Down, down, down, we went, hanging over the broad val- leys and the winding streams; rolling through huge rocks, rent in twain by convulsions of Nature ; skirting precipices where tall trees growing below appeared like shrubs ; rattling along under jutting promontories of flint and ilex ; pausing at quaint towns with sharp spires and half stone, half wooden dwellings with overspreading roofs ; barked at by village dogs ; gazed at by homely wenches whose huge waists lay under their arms ; visible and invisible as we wheeled round the declivities of the mountains, and finally halted before the gasthof for the night, releasing our smoking horses from their rapid journey, and bestowing ourselves on a rude bench to smoke into fresh forms the memories of the Simplon Pass. CHAPTER L. IN SWITZERLAND. ITH Swiss cottages we associate a deal of ro- mance ; but seen on their native soil, they are extremely uninviting, and as little likely to at- tract lovers as the grave they talk so much about, and take such pains to keep out of. They resemble living tombs, are chilly, damp, and dreary enough. The fiercest passion that ever drove man to folly or woman to madness would be frozen in them. Cupid would contract the rheumatism, and the god- dess of affection herself would so suffer from catarrh and lum- bago as to forget her specialty. Love, to be herself, must be in good health. She seldom has physicians' bills to pay. When she does, she changes her name, and does the offices of pity. The cottages look picturesque perched on the few green places among the Alps ; but entered, they are no more invit- ing than Ugolino's dungeon. I don't wonder their inhabitants get so sallow and bilious, homely and hard-looking. It is the natural result of such habitations. Swiss cottages would have no sentimental aspect if their realities were known. It makes me chilly and half ill to think of life, or what is called life, in their grim unwholcsomeness. Lake Geneva, or L^man, has been so much lauded by Vol- taire, Goethe, and Byron; is so associated with Rousseau and Gibbon ; has been so sung and painted by bard and artist that it is likely to provoke disappointment. The largest of the Swiss lakes — fifty miles long and eight wide in its greatest CASTLE OF CHILLON. 387 length and width — it is crescent-shaped, the two horns being inclined to the south, and differs from the others, more or less green, in being of a deep blue. Its blue color is ascribed by Sir Humphrey Davy — he lived for some years, and died at Geneva — to the presence of iodine — an opinion with which the native naturalists do not agree. Like Lake Constance, it is subject to changes of level ; the water in particular spots ris- ing occasionally several feet without perceptible motion or apparent cause, and falling again in fifteen or twenty minutes. The currents, produced by the rising of subterranean springs, are often very strong, and water-spouts sometimes occur. The eastern end of the Lake is much finer than the western, owing to the nearness of the mountains and the superior character of the scenery. The lateen sail of many of the vessels — seldom seen elsewhere except at Leghorn and in Scotland — adds to this picturesque effect. On the banks grow the sweet and wild chestnut, the walnut, the magnolia, the vine and the cedar of Lebanon, and are situated many beau- tiful villas. From V^vay one has a charming view of the lakes and the Alps of Yalais. One sees the rocks of Meillerie, and near by are Clarens, and all the romantic places that Rousseau has painted so vividly in his tale of longing and of love. A sail over the blue waters, and a walk upon the picturesque shore recall Julie, who, say what we may, is a natural woman. Vevay is delightfully situated, and he who wishes to culti- vate sentiniental companionship and the beautiful in nature will find the spot favorable. That is the place, above all others, to read "La Nouvelle Heloise," nearly all of whose scenes are within easy reach. The Castle of Chillon is not far from there. Of course, I visited it, for Byron's poem has made it famous. It stands on an isolated rock, is reached by a bridge, and is as gloomy as any one would desire, with its massive walls and towers. It is now used as an arsenal, but the dungeons in which Francis Bonnivard, the Abb^ of Corcier, and many reformers were confined, still remain, as does the ancient beam on 388 CITY OF GENEVA. which the condemned were executed. " Crott der Kerr segne den Ein-und Ausgang, (May God bless all who come in and go out ! ") are the words inscribed by the Bernese in 1643 over the Castellan's entrance. I wonder if He blessed me when I went in and came out. I forgot to ask. In the dungeons are eight pillars, — one of them half built into the wall — to which the prisoners were fettered. Thou- sands of names are inscribed on the columns, among them Byron's, but whether genuine or not is uncertain. The poet's prisoner was not, as many have thought, intended for Bonni- vard, of whose history he was unaware when he wrote the verses. A number of pleasant villages, as Chernex,Colouge8, Glion, Montreux, Vernex, and Veytaux, are scattered about the Lake and on the mountain, in the neighborhood of Yevay, and are much visited by strangers and tourists during the summer. Lausanne, the capital of the Canton of Vaud, has 20,000 inhabitants, and is beautifully situated on the terraced slopes of Mont Jurat; but is less attractive after entering it. In the garden of the H6tel Gibbon, the celebrated historian com- pleted the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Ouchy is the port of Lausanne, and the road to it from the Lake is lined with handsome villas. Geneva is the chief city of Switzerland (population 50,000), and being on the confines of Savoy, and easy of access from the different capitals, is quite cosmopolitan in character. It seems to be a favorite place of sojourn for Americans, who are largely represented at all the hotels, of which it can boast an extraordinary number of a superior class. Geneva is very pleasantly situated on the Lake and presents a handsome appearance as you see it from the water — an ap- pearance not sustained when you penetrate the interior or older portion of the town. The city, like many people who visit it, keeps its beauty for the outside, and will not bear in- ward examination. This is particularly true of many of our countrymen, who dash about there in showy carriages and make a grand display, but live very economically, not to say meanly, at home. GENEVA WATCRES. 389 Geneva, as every one knows, is the centre and home of watch-making and watch-makers. One of the largest houses (Patek, Phillipe & Co.,) manufactures exclusively for the American market. I have been through their establishment, and have seen watches all the way from those that could be set in a ring to a large-sized chronometer, striking the quar- ters and playing tunes, overladen with carving and jewelry, and worth five or six thousand francs. Outside of our country such costly trinkets could hardly find purchasers. The process of manufacture is very interesting. From the bars of precious metals and the crude rubies you trace the fine work, through every delicate manipulation, until the chronometer is complete and perfect. A great deal less of the labor is performed by machinery than at Waltham or Elgin, and is consequently far more exact. "Watches that sell there for fifty or one hundred dollars cannot be bought in the United States for less than two or three times that price. The amount of labor expended on a Geneva watch is re- markable. Six or seven months are required for its comple- tion, and all who assist in it are slaves to their calling. The good watch-makers are obliged to lead regular, abstemious lives ; for their eyes must be keen ; their nerves steady ; their minds unembarrassed ; even their digestion perfect. Mental anxiety, a little dissipation, unfits them for their calling. With the best care of themselves they soon wear out, and die of old age at five-and-forty. They are a sad, over-strained, over-worked class. They put all their life into their trade. They think, move, and have their being in a watch. They have no thought, no hope, no purpose beyond it. I carry a Geneva watch in my pocket, and its tickings constantly re- mind me of the feverish pulses of the poor fellows who have given so much of themselves to the little miracle of mechan- ism and absorbing toil. I am afraid I shall never see one of the delicate time-keep- ers without a certain melancholy association — without recall- ing the conscientious serfs I have studied on the Grand Quai of Geneva. 390 CALVm AND ROSSEAU. The watchmaker is born, I believe, not made. The trade is inherited, and descends from sire to son. The city will always enjoy its excellence in this business. The steady habits, the unvarying patience, the plodding capacity, the un- swerving purpose of a Switzer, are essential to complete suc- cess. In a country like ours, where everything is haste and recklessness, where we touch life with bare nerves, the man- ufacture of a genuine Geneva watch would be next to impos- sible. John Calvin and Jean Jacques Rousseau are the two men Geneva always recalls. In the Rue de Chanoines is shown the house in which the stern and cruel reformer lived and died, and m the Grande Rue the dwelling where the eloquent apos- tle of love first opened his melancholy eyes. How different these men; how lauded one, how abused the other! They both led stormy lives. Both were earnest, and sought the good of humanity in different ways. One found his guide in his merciless interpretation of the Scriptures ; the other in his trembling sensibility to every form of pain. Calvin, in the interest of religion, condemned the conscientious Servetus to the stake. The works of Rousseau, written in behalf of humanity, were burned by the common hangman. Both were sincere; both were mistaken. Austere and rigorous in his way as the reformer was ; scoffer and atheist as the philosopher was called, there are many to-day who would rather have been Rousseau than Calvin. There is, to my mind, more true religion in "Emile" and "Nouvelle Heloi'se," much as they have been censured, than in all the pitiless doctrines the theologian taught. Calvin would dave damned every soul that held an opinion different from his own. Rousseau would have quenched with his tears the flames Calvin kindled about the poor physician who had dared to doubt the injustice of God. And one is styled Christian, the other infidel. The house of Calvin is now a Catholic school. Tlie pulpit from which he dealt damnation over the world has since been occupied by Romish priests. Where Rousseau's statue stands, CHUR Cn BY VOL TAIRE. 391 on the island named after him, I have heard sweet music ris- ing night after night. In the Musde Rath I have seen gen- tle natures turn from the picture of Calvin's death as if in pain, and soft eyes moisten over Rousseau's bust as if in sym- pathy with all he endured. Who knows but the present gen- eration is reversing the judgment of the past ? Geneva is at the southern extremity of the Lake, at the point where the Rh6ne flows from it with the swiftness of an arrow, and makes a pleasant lullaby to the head that seeks its pillow in the neighboring hotels. Again and again have I gone to sleep to the noise of its stream, and been awakened from dreams by the rush of its waters. The RhSne surrounds the little Quartier de I'lsle, and divides the town into two parts. The canton of which the city is the capital is the smallest in Switzerland after Zug, and Voltaire used to say : " When I shake my wig I powder the whole republic." Fernex, in French territory, is four miles from Geneva, at the foot of the Jura mountains. It was a wretched hamlet until Voltaire in 1759 purchased land there ; founded manu- factures ; attracted industrious colonists ; built a chateau for himself and a church with the inscription over the portal — Voltaire Deo Erexit (Voltaire has erected this to God). The Chateau and Church were visited by thousands every year ; but recently they have been removed, ostensibly to give place to new improvements, but really, it is said, with the expecta- tion of extinguishing the memory of the Patriarch — an effort kindred to Mrs. Malaprop's endeavor to keep out the Atlantic with her broom. Most of the Americans who go abroad seem to have but one object — advertisement of themselves and the length of their purses. Even those who have slender incomes are anxious to have it thought otherwise. They spend as they go, giving on every hand without reason or justice. When they are obliged to return home, they spare and pinch until they have made up for their prodigality in Europe. I have seen many on the Continent affecting what they conceive to be — a grand mistake, by the by — the liberality of princes ; and I am sure 392 AMERICAN TRAVELERS. when they got back to their native land they chaffered with tradesmen, and disputed about pennies. The Europeans un- derstand this peculiarity, and make the most of it. They flatter our national vanity, which is to make others believe we are worth more than we are, and so enhance their fortunes at the expense of our own. We make ourselves ridiculous in this way ; but we never seem to perceive it. Every year our extravagance on the Continent increases, and every year foreigners fatten on our folly. Americans have ruined Europe as a place of travel for persons of moderate means. Prices have advanced a hundred per cent, in a few years, and the time is coming when a single native Columbian can not spend six months abroad for less than three thousand dollars in gold. There is one rate over there for Americans, and another for Europeans, who do not think the best thing in life is to waste money. A French, English, or Italian nobleman who has inherited riches is much more careful of them than any of our own people, who have made what they have by hard work. It would be well for us if we could remember this, and refrain from affecting gentility by unreasonable and therefore vulgar display. I hardly know what poor Switzerland would do without the income derived and expected from the English-spending race. It has become as much of a show-shop as Italy. Wherever there is a fine view, a lofty mountain, or a picturesque cas- cade, a hotel is set up, and tempting baits are laid for the purses of the Anglo-Saxons. The English, however, are wiser than we. They visit the Continent to improve and enjoy themselves. They like to be comfortable ; but they have no ambition to convince every one they meet of their disregard for money. They are willing to pay for what they get. The Americans are anxious to pay for what they do not get ; and there is no doubt they get less for what they spend than any people in the world. One of the first things an American of the kind I speak of tells you, is how much it has cost him in Europe. He does not seem to appreciate or remember what he has seen ; but A HARVEST FOR SWITZERLAND. 393 he can inform jou to a dollar of the extenU of his expendi- tures. If he has parted with five times as much money as he ought, he appears happy, and sails back across the sea with the assurance that he has sustained the national reputation, so mifortunately and deservedly acquired, of living beyond one's means. Switzerland derives annually from travelers not less than seven or eight millions of dollars ; and I need not say that the greater part of this comes out of the ever-open pock- ets of our countrymen. Our material prosperity has spoiled us. We are children as yet. Perhaps with age we shall learn that the vanity of money-spending is, of all vanities, the weakest and silliest. . CHAPTER LI. CLIMBING MONT BLANC. OU rarely enter any town in Savoy or Swit- zerland where you are not told you can have splendid views of the Alps, and of this and that particular mountain, from height or tower, if the weather be clear. The last phrase is very discreet, though ex- tremely disappointing. Most tourists suppose it means when there are no clouds or mists ; but it means when the atmosphere is in a peculiarly translucent state, which it seldom is, in mountainous districts, more than once or twice a month. There is no satisfaction in looking at peaks miles and miles away. You have to depend on your imagination for their outlines, and create them more or less out of the clouds that envelope them. That is a good exercise for the development of the poetic faculty ; but rather misubstantial as a pleasure to one who has crossed the ocean to see with his outward instead of his inner eye. Naturally, every tourist desires to have a view of Mont Blanc, the Agamemnon of the Alps, and, indeed, the moun- tain monarch of all Europe. He often seeks to gratify his curiosity from Milan, Martigny, Geneva, and every other place within a radius of a hundred miles ; but he rarely suc- ceeds unless he makes a journey into the celebrated Vale of Chamonix, whose scenery has no equal in grandeur in all Switzerland. The Mont Blanc chain might not be thought mugh of in INTRODUCTORY EXCURSIONS. 335 our country — the loftiest peak is less than fifteen thousand feet (14,807 feet to be exact) but in Europe they hold it in the highest regard. The Vale of Chamonix lies immediately below the chain, and seems wholly shut in by the mountains and the sky, Mont Blanc and all his companions rear their hoary heads over the insignificant hamlet — the whole population consists of hotel attaches, guides, and mule drivers — dwarfing it still more, and making it appear like a village of toys. Many persons drive there from Geneva — fifty miles distant — and after looking at the splendid scenery, return the follow- ing day. Others, more curious or ambitious, ascend Montan- vert with the aid of a mule ; quit their beast, go down to the Mer de Glace, cross it, ride again to the Chapeau, and after- ward climb the Fl^g^re, which can be accomplished in twelve hours. Some content themselves with going to the H6tel des Pyramides, at Montanvert, and enjoying from that point the splendid panorama — probably the finest beyond the Atlantic. There you see all the grand mountains in their native sub- limity — Blanc, the D6me du Gout^, Aiguilles du Midi, Verte, d'Argentidre, les Jorasses, and all the sky-piercing fraternity, costumed in snow, glaciers, and icy seas. Having plenty of time, and a little money, I wanted to do something more than common. I like climbing. I am well constructed for it, having no superfluous flesh, and having ac- quired a certain agility and endurance in early boyhood by trying to collect numerous accounts left me in trust by a good fellow who had been called away by important business to the other world. I have vast faith in my capacity for upward movements ; but still I had heard so much of the danger and difiiculty of as- cending Mont Blanc that I thought I would prepare myself by introductory excursions. I discarded mules and guides where I could ; did Montan- vert before breakfast ; crossed the Glaciers des Bossons ; mount- ed the Fl^g^re, explored the source of Arveiron as an appe- tizer for dinner; and, finally, went on foot from the hotel to the Jardin and returned by Les Tines in about ten hours. 396 TEE EARLIEST ASCENTS. The guide who conducted me on the last expedition was warm in his encomiums upon my pedestrian powers, which I should have regarded merely as the insurer of a large trink- geld had I not noticed that he was more disposed than I to halt on the mountain march. Mont Blanc was first ascended in 1786 by Jacques Balmat, an intrepid guide, who M^as made seriously ill by the fatigue and exposure, but recovered sufficiently in a few weeks to go up again with his physician, Dr. Paccard, and return after a succession of perils and narrow escapes. Balmat lived nearly fifty years longer, and was finally killed by falling over a pre- cipice while in pursuit of a chamois. The following year, De SaussurCjthe naturalist, made the ascent with sixteen guides, and published the results of his expedition in a scientific journal. In 1825 the summit was reached by Dr. E. Clarke and Captain Sherwill, and during the last fifteen years a num- ber of tourists have climbed to the peak of Blanc every season. The majority of those who undertake the journey abandon it from disinclination or inability to endure the severe fatigue which can hardly be borne by those unaccustomed to regular and energetic exercise. After my experience, I felt confident I could accomplish the task, if I could make up my body as easily as I had made up my mind. Every hour I have passed in the Valley, Mont Blanc defied me, as if to say, " Come up here if you dare ! Why think you have endurance and content yourself with scaling the lesser steeps ? I am monarch. If you were born to command, as you fancy, no doubt, take your place by my side." I soon began to imagine the peak was really challenging me. I became possessed with the idea of doing what the old fellow so vexatiously invited me to do. I talked to my guide a trusty and experienced person — who said the ascent could be made in two days, though three was the usual time, and at an expense for himself and two porters to carry ladders, hooks, cords, and provisions, of about four hundred francs. SLIPPERY CLIMBING. 397 It is customary to ascend to the Grand Mulcts on the first day, rest and sleep there, climb to the summit, and return to the Mulcts on the second day, and descend to Chamonix on the third. All that I felt I could do in forty-eight hours. My guide, the trink-geld in his mind, was entirely of my opinion. Our party was soon ready. It consisted of two tourists be- sides myself— a German and Englishman — and five guides and porters. The German intended to go as far as the Grand Mulcts, and the Briton was determined to reach the summit, if flesh and spirit would hold together. We set out early in the morning. Alpenstocks in hand ; the porters carrying knapsacks and implements enough to cross the whole range of the Andes, which I presumed to be for the sake of impressing their patrons with the conviction that they earned more than they charged. We began the ascent near the village where a huge glacier (Des Bossons) nearly reaches the Valley. The glacier resembles a sea suddenly frozen, not during a tempest, but when the wind has lulled, and the billows, though still very high, have become blunted and rounded. The icy billows are almost parallel to the length of the glacier, and are intersected by tranverse crevasses, which, while white outside, have a bluish-green interior. The glacier was slippery and steep, and theclimbing, hour after hour, was monotonous, tedious, and tiresome. I began to think the thing as great a bore as the Mont Cenis tunnel, for my ankles ached, and, as the sun rose, the heat grew uncomfortable. The fatigue was temporary. I grew accustomed to walking on the ice after a while, and my burning blood lent energy and enthusiasm to my march. I had been wondering where the ladders were to be used. I found out. They were placed across the crevasses, which are the chasms in the glaciers, and which, when covered with snow, are treacherous pitfalls, letting inexperienced moun- taineers into eternity without asking their leave. A number of fatal accidents have occurred by tourists stepping on what 398 DANGLES OF TEE ROUTE. they supposed firm snow or ice, and disappearing for ever in chasms from 1,000 to 5,000 feet deep. Most of the crevasses are so small they can be stepped over, but a few require the ladder, which, with pointed hooks, holds the ends firm while you cross. The guide wanted to tie a strong cord or rope about my waist so that, in the event of my falling, I might be saved from a broken neck. I objected to the cord. I had known a number of men whose necks had been broken by being tied to a rope, and I had no notion of going out of the world dangling to a cord. If I took a laying trip to another planet I wanted to travel disencumbered. So I crossed the crevasses generally on the ladder without being tied. The glaciers that seemed only a few hundred yards wide were miles in extent. I fancied sometimes they were endless. The sun, now very hot, melted the snow. My boots sank into it and splashed the little rivulets that flowed through the frozen surface. My feet were very cold, and my brain was burning up. It was an odd sensation — winter underfoot and midsummer overhead — certainly not according to the received ideas of hygiene ; but I knew the inversion would do me no harm, as my health had always been invulnerable. I got along vastly better than my companions, who weighed at least 160 to 170 pounds each, and who wheezed and puffed along like consumptive engines, and grew supremely tired every half mile. The true Briton became profane in the midst of perspiration and fatigue, and would have retraced his steps several times if it had not been as hard to return as to go on. I felicitated myself upon my having an avordupois of only about 120, having lost by months of hard travel, exercise and perpetual sight-seeings, nearly fifteen pounds. I could have distanced my fellow-tourists every hour, if I had had my way, and I was anxious that they should give up the journey that I might the sooner accomplish it. The Teuton did not relish the climbing, and would frequently . exclaim, Mein Croit, mein (xott, es ist gefdhrlich (my God, my God, this is dangerous), and wipe his brow with nervous apprehension. DREADFUL ACCIDENT. 399 Some of the places on the route certainly looked ugly. We went along narrow ledges of rock, slippery with ice and snow, where hardly a foothold could be secured, and where a mis- step would have sent us over precipices of thousands of feet. In certain parts of the journey we slid down steep declivities, being very careful to keep our feet firm lest we should go Ibounding down, down, down, and be dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks bristling below. Under those circumstances we were tied together by a strong rope, so that, if one slipped, he might be saved by the holding back of the others. More than once, but for such precaution, some one of us would have broken his neck. It was by the fracture of a rope that three Englishmen, Rev. Mr. Hudson, Lord Francis Douglas, and Mr. Haddo, with one of the guides, lost their lives in the sum- mer of 1864, while descending the Matterhorn — they were the first to climb it — having been precipitated from a point near the summit to a depth of 4,000 feet upon the Matterhorn glacier. There is little doubt, however, that the entire party, consisting of seven persons, would have perished had not the rope broken, preventing three ofthem from following the fate of their companions. Mr. Haddo lost his footing, and dragged the others after him to dizzy death. Where we were compelled to climb down steep ice-covered rocks with a yawning precipice at the base, and across a ladder to a ridge of snow-crowned granite, and then across another lad- der with several thousand feet of airy nothing below, the ends of the latter resting only on the ends of high peaked prom, ontories, it was quite enough to test the steadiness of the brain and firmness of the nerves. However, such places seemed much more perilous than they really were, and the peril retreated, I discovered, as I came to grapple with it directly. To a man of cool head and well balanced nervous system there is little danger, except in case of accidents which can be neither foreseen nor avoided. Near the Grand Mulcts the rocks are extremely rough, as if all Nature had been upheaved, and the creeping up and over the icy obstacles is very fatiguing. There the German 400 SLIPPING INTO CREVASSES. and Englishmen complained louder than ever, and the former constructed a theory of the universe which, if carried out, would have prevented much of our trouble and not a few of our bruises. About sundown we reached the Grand Mulcts, where we were to spend the night. The accommodations were rude, but the prices were extravagant enough to have insured ever^ luxury. I was not so tired as I had expected, but I was fever- ish. My nerves were all aglow ; I felt as if I could climb for a week without food or sleep. However, I lay down and had snatches of oblivion, with dreams of crevasses, glaciers, and avalanches without end. The German and Englishman, after two bottles of wine and several pipes of tobacco, decided they would go on in the morning, but being called about daylight the former was too stiff to crawl out of bed, and the latter doomed his optics to perdition if he would climb to the summit of Mont Blanc for the whole Bank of England and the jewels in the Tower beside. I was up at dawn, and the three guides who were to ac- company me with all their Alpine apparatus strapped to their back. We swallowed a few mouthfuls — that is I did — but the guides ate like cormorants, perhaps with a view of increasing the expense, which is always borne by the tourist. We had some hard climbing from the outset. The guide proffered me aid, but I declined it. I made a show of freshness when I was really fatigued. What right had I, as a free-born American citizen, to know there was such a thing as physical exhaustion ? I climbed over rocks very nimbly while my throat was parched, and my pulse and heart throbbed violently. Occasionally I slipped into a little crevasse up to my waist ; now and then I tum- bled over a rock ; but I soon righted myself, and went on with a firm will and steady step. I never found appearances quite so deceitful. I was confident we should be at the summit of Mont Blanc every five minutes for five hours. The steeps were often very TEE SUMMIT AL WA YS RETREA TING. 401 Steep. We had to use our staffs and hooks frequently, and once in a while the guide insisted on pushing me up a hard place, though I vowed I did not need his aid. After we quitted the Mulcts the atmosphere grew cold, but still the rays of the sun were intense. I wore nothing but a close-fitting silk cap, and I was conscious of being rapidly converted into a red man, though I had no means of ascer- taining my tribe. I was very anxious to thrust my staff into the snow at the top of the mountain. I wanted to prevent it from retreating, as it had been doing for hours. Eternal winter reigned around, above, and below us. We seemed to have penetrated the great heart of the hyperbo- rean regions. Nothing anywhere but ice and snow, gla- ciers and crystal seas. As we neared the oval peak of Blanc, I looked below and saw what seemed one vast glacier as far as the eye could reach. Farther down we could hear the streams flowing under the glaciers. Up there the cold had chained every rivulet. Icy stalactites hung to the snow-covered rocks. When the winds blew, particles of the frost pricked my face like needles, and yet the sun smote me with fierceness. My body was in three zones — the Arctic to my knees ; the Tem- perate to my waist ; the Tropical to my brain. I marvelled sometimes I was not sun-struck, for my temples beat like caged eagles against burning bars. I grew very thirsty every few minutes. I stooped, gathered the driven snow, and ate it voraciously ; or, rather, I should have done so if it had not melted when it touched my parched lips. I fancied I could hear a smothered hiss when the cool stream ran down my throat. The way grew rougher, and harder, and steeper as we ad- vanced, and yet I walked, and hobbled, and climbed much faster than there was any need, the guides said, for I felt a burning restlessness that would not let me stop, save when exhausted nature demanded pause. My heart appeared to rise into my mouth, which was dry and parched ; my lips, I know, grew white, and I felt the fever sparkling in my eye. 402 THE TOP AT LAST. Sometimes there was a sharp pain in my heart, and a sense of suffocation in my throat ; but I still smiled grimly, and ex- claimed, " Allons, allons ; il faut se depecher ;" when my strained limbs answered only to my strained will, well-nigh overtasked. Another half an hour, yea, an hour. Still on the glaciers. Still deeper and higher among the ice and snows. The glaciers are the most remarkable features of the Alps. They are formed of the granulous snow which accumulates in the valleys and clefts in the rocks above the snow line — eight thousand feet — which is melted by day and frozen by night, thus adding layer upon layer of the purest ice. Some of the glaciers are said to be fifteen hundred feet thick, though most of them are much less. They are always in motion, but not perceptibly, and sometimes acquire such size and force that they carry everything before them — soil, trees, rocks, and houses. I had resolved to think no more of getting to the top of Mont Blanc ; in fact, I had half come to the conclusion that it had no top. While I was slipping along, driving my iron- shod staff into the ice at every step, the guide called out : " Eh bien, Monsieur Chamois (the flattering name he gave me), enfin nous sommes arrives." (Well, Mr. Chamois, we have arrived at last.") I did not believe it. I cast my eyes upward. Sure enough, there was no more tantalizing stretch of ice above me. I sat down, and calling for the wine, drank a deep draught ; told my companions Mont Blanc did not amount to much, and that if they wanted to see mountains they must come to America. But the view ? There wasn't any. The clouds shut out everything. I could hear my heart thump in the audible and awful stillness, but my oft-deceived eyes told me, beyond doubt, that I had finally climbed to the summit of the peak which I had watched and aspired to in the valley miles below. I had panted for it; then I panted by it hard and fast. For half a SENSA TION EXHA US TED. 403 minute I had the satisfaction, the achievement of any object, earnestly desired, always gives, and then the sensation and satisfaction were exhausted. The fleeting present sparkled for a moment, and fell flat in the beaker of experience, never to sparkle again. I lifted my voice and shouted. The echoes answered with ten-fold power strangely, solemnly drearily, as if they had never before been awakened by mortal man ; and then the si- lence deepened once more into what seemed a soundless eter- nity, the return of nature to brooding chaos. I had not expected to see anything. I was not disap- pointed. I had the reward of every deed in having done it. Was I fatigued ? If I were somebody else I should answer in the afiirmative, with a profane emphasis. CHAPTER LII. THE BERNESE OBERLA.ND AND VICINITY. ■■ URING my wanderings in Switzerland I often took the pilgrim's staff and knapsack when I deemed it advisable, and went into the moun- tains, independent of porters, drivers, and lackeys of all sorts. There is a feeling of indi- vidual sovereignty in such genuine tourist mode that I like ; but still it has its counterbalancing discomforts. After sustaining the role of Octavian, I perceived wherein I had suffered. First, my clothes were damaged beyond repair, and my boots gaped like a church-yard in cholera-time. I was burned like an Indian from my throat to my forehead, so that, when prepared for the bath, I looked as if in some miscellaneous distribution of bodies and heads I had gotteii hold of the parts that did not belong to me. After several days' climbing, I underwent sundry com- plexional modifications. The skin on my face peeled off partially, and becoming crimsoned and bronzed again, I was resplendent in facial hues. Indeed, I regarded myself as a curious specimen of natural history which Agassiz would hesitate to classify. When I reached my baggage I was able to change myself back into the form of a nomadic American, which I originally bore. My complexion for some time retained its varied colors, which might have puzzled the political ethnologists who are in doubt whether the red or black man should enjoy the elective fran- chise. If suffrage were universal, I should have been privileged to vote several times on my face, for the white SWISS CASCADES. 405 man, the red man, the brown man, and the black man that I represented could each have cast a vote. One of my latest walks was from Interlaken to Lauterbrun- nen ; thence to Grindelwald and by the Great Scheideck and Rosenlaui glacier to Meringen. The first' walk, six or seven miles, is by a good road. Lauterbrunnen is in a rocky valley, the mountains rising precipitately on both sides, where the sun, even in summer, does not make its appearance much before eight o'clock in the morning. There are numer- ous waterfalls in the vicinity (Lauterbrunnen means " nothing but springs"), and their pouring over the lofty precipices gives a grand effect to the gloomy valley in which the village lies almost hidden. The Staubbach (dust brook) descends unbroken for over nine hundred feet ; but as the volume of water is small, it is changed into spray before reaching the base. In the morning, when stirred by the breeze and shone upon by the sun, the little cascade is spangled with rainbows, that rise and fall and sway to and fro with every varying breeze. It seemed to me, when looking at it, as if Nature, or one of her daughters, had put on a variegated petticoat on a windy day, for all to admire who could. The Triimlenbach is another cascade of note. Fed by the glaciers of the Jungfrau, it rushes rapidly over a narrow chasm, and roars so you can hear it for two miles. It is not high, however, and therefore loses much in consequence. The finest fall I have seen in Switzerland is the Giessbacn, on the lake of Brienz, opposite the village of that name. It has seven cataracts, from seventy-five to a hundred feet each, and its entire descent is eleven hundred feet above the lake. You can ascend to the loftiest point by a path, and each cascade is crossed by a bridge. The Giessbach is, on the whole, the most picturesque fall I have ever known, and when illuminated after dark by Bengal lights, is striking in the extreme. The Reichenbach, partially in sight from Meringen, is higher than the Giessbach, but not so beautiful. It makes splendid rainbows, and plunges over the rocks above in sheets of splendid foam. 40 6 iriE W OF THE M UNTAINS. En route to Grindelwald the first ascent after crossing the Liitschine is quite fatiguing, and has often discouraged pedes- trians at the start. As Switzerland is not visited until sum- mer, you are compelled to do your climbing with a high temperature, and going up steep mountains in the burning sun is one of the pleasures for which few persons secretly sigh. Heat, perspiration, and shortness of breath are rarely becoming, and still more rarely are they enjoyable. When you have reached the Hotel Jungfrau, you have a splendid view of that mountain. Towering up before you, covered with ice and snow, like a giant striving to scale Heaven, it fills you with a sense of grandeur that is not sur- passed even by the famous view of the Mont Blanc range from Montanvert. The Jungfrau is but 12,287 feet, not so high as Mont Blanc by 2,500 feet ; but it is fully as imposing between the two peaks of the Silberhorn and Schneehorn, thrusting its immense fields of snow above the clouds. If mountains are capable of inspiring awe, the Jungfrau will do it when viewed from the altitude on which the hotel is situated. The panorama from the Little Scheideck is striking. It embraces the entire valley of the Grindelwald, the flattened cone of the Faulhorn, and the Monch, Eiger, and Schreckhorn, the giants of the Bernese Oberland. The descent to Grindel- wald is very tedious, much of it being on a narrow path covered with loose stones which slip and wound the feet at every few steps. In the Reichenbach valley, not far from Meringen, is one of the most charming pictures in the country. It is a rich and fertile valley, skirted by pine forests, and watered by a rapid stream, with a vast mountain background of bold peaks and snow-crowned pyramids, that render it particularly imposing. The valley is crowded with infinite variety of landscape, and would give delightful employment to an artist for a whole season. The famous glaciers of Grindelwald are not very remarkable after you have examined those of the Rhone and the Yale of Chamonix. Still, they well repay a visit from the novice in the AN A VALANCHE REGION. 407 Alps. The lower glacier is 3,150 feet at the base, and is con- tinually advancing and thrusting its moraine before it. By ascending it you have a fine sight of what are called ice- needles in many fantastic forms. I know persons who have always regretted going out of Switzerland without seeing the glaciers. They are not very remarkable after all. They are, as I have said, merely vast bodies of frozen ice, which in their largest forms are called mers de glace. They are formed of melted snow and ice, which freezes again and again, and con- stantly descends toward the valley down the mountain side. They are very pure ice usually, having a blue color wherever they are opened (the open space is a crevasse) , and often as- suming the form on the surface of frozen billows. They are somewhat impressive when one walks over them, as I have done for miles ; but having become acquainted with a prime glacier its fellows lose their interest. The crevasses are sometimes very wide and deep. The Rosenlaui has an enor- mous crevasse, into which a stone thrown is many seconds in reaching the bottom. Avalanches are what nearly all ambitious tourists desire to see, above all other Alpine phenomena ; and yet many are obliged to leave the country without gratification. I presume I have been fortunate. I have seen avalanches without num- ber on the Mont Blanc chain, on the Jungfrau, the Wetter- horn, Matterhorn, and the ]\Ionch. Indeed, they have fallen wherever I have been, as if for my special benefit. They are caused by the accumulation of vast masses of snow and ice on the upper part of the mountains. Partially melted by the sun, they slide off, and go thundering and crashing over precipices and down rocky steeps. They often resemble cataracts, and are likely to be mistaken for them. They are disappointing generally ; for, viewed at a great distance, though they appear near, they show like simple snow-slides. What seems to be a common white cascade, is really hun- dreds, aye, thousands, of tons of ice and snow, capable of car- rying away forests and villages in their headlong course. They tumble generally into uninhabited districts, and do little 408 RESULT OF A FLOOD. injury, though whole towns have been overwhelmed by them, as in the canton of Schweitz, in 1806, when three villages were completely destroyed. The RhSne Valley has, in times past, suffered so severely from avalanches, that during the winter no one lives in their track. During the warm weather there are ice avalanches ; during the cold season they are mainly of snow, drifted to vast volumes by the terrible Alpine storms. There is one spot near the Great Scheideck — it is in the region of the Monch and Eiger — where avalanches abound. I have known half a dozen there in half an hour ; some of them raising such a cloud of snow-mist as completed their resem- blance to a cataract. I am not aware that I am the discov- erer of that avalanche neighborhood, but I should think, if its peculiarity were known, that several hotels would spring up there immediately. They would certainly do well, for ava- lanches are more sought after than any other Swiss spectacle. I enjoyed Meringen during the days I tarried there. On the bank of the Aare, in a valley three miles wide, surrounded by wooded mountains and overshadowed by snow-crowned pinna- cles, with three brooks descending from the Hasliburg in grace- ful waterfalls, Meringen is a remarkably inviting spot, and from its neighborhood numerous excursions may be made. The brooks often overflow their banks, and cover the whole vicin- ity with mud, stones, and fragments of rock brought down from the adjacent heights. Such a flood destroyed the greater part of the village in 1762, and filled the church with debris to the depth of eighteen feet, as is still shown by a black line on the wall. The inhabitants of the district (Hasli-Thal) are traditionally supposed to be descendants of the Swedes or Friedlanders ; are noticeable for their pure dialect, pictur- esque costumes, and slight but wiry frames. They excel as wrestlers, and in many of the matches so common during the summer mouths on the Higi, Stadtalp, Wengernalp, and else- where. At stated times the young men of a valley or of several neighboring valleys meet, for a trial of strength and skill, THE FINEST LAKE. 40D their friends and acquaintances being the spectators. For a decisive victory one of the antagonists must be thrown by the other on his back, and so energetically and obstinately are the contests conducted that serious and even fatal injuries not in- frequently result. These wrestling matches, when not gotten up for mere show and gain, as at Interlaken, Lucerne, and Zurich, are curious and exciting, though sometimes painful for the'r prolongation. Meiringen is one of the few places I have visited where I could see the grandest landscapes, forests, mountains, gla- ciers, and cascades out of the window, without the trouble of changing my position in bed. I went to Lake Lucerne by the Briinig pass, which is pictur- esque, though not grand, like the St. Gothard, Simplon, or Splugen. I have been on all the Lakes of any note in the country, and I admire Lucerne above any other. I prefer it to Lu- gano, Como, or Maggiore, for variety and picturesqueness. Neuchatel and Constance are tame in comparison with the others. Brienz, Thun, and Zug, are too contracted to awake enthusiasm. Geneva is admirable at its upper end, but loses character as you go to the lower part. Como, with its verdure- covered mountains, that seem to run down to drink its pure waters, with its purple shadows, and its delightful villas, lingers in the mind a lovely dream of Italy. Maggiore, soft-skied, island-studded. Alp-crowned, leads you through delightful windings from majesty to pictured repose. But Lucerne combines the exquisite features of all the rest. It has the softness of Como, the beauty of Geneva, and the variety of Maggiore. Cruciform in shape, it is as four differ- ent bodies of water ; the bay of Lucerne forming the head, the bays of Kiisnacht and Alpnach the arms, and the Lake of Uri the foot. From Fluelen to Lucerne it is twenty-five miles long, and four miles wide, and some fifteen between the ex- tremities of the arms. Its beautiful banks are associated with William Tell (of him the rude iconoclasts of the day have left us little to admire), or at least with Schiller's poetic version 410 CITY OF ZURICH. of the apocryphal hero. The Lake is full of charming sur- prises, and the new always appears lovelier than the old. You look to the north or the south, and islands and villas greet you ; beyond them, emerald hills, dotted with romantic hamlets, ruined castles, and beyond those again range upon range of the Alps, fading through snow and cloud into the blue splendor of the overarching heavens. I doubt if Lucerne has its equal on the globe. It is a noble lyric of landscape, and its vision stirs the recollection of all beautiful things within you like the strains of Beethoven or the lines of Shakes- peare. The city of Lucerne will always be a pleasant memory — am- phitheatrical in situation on the Reuss, where it emerges from the Lake, between the Rigi and Pilatus, facing the snow- clad Urner and Engelberger Alps, and conspicuous by its walls and watch-towers. Two of its old roofed bridges covered with quaint paintings of saints — the dance of death and historic scenes, are curious and interesting. The chief art attraction, outside the "Waggis Gate, is the Lion of Lucerne, hewn out of the solid rock after a model by Thorwaldsen, in memory of the twenty-six officers and seven hundred and sixty soldiers of the Swiss Guard massacred in defense of the Tuileries, August 10th, 1792. The lion, twen- ty-eight or thirty feet long, is reclining in a grotto, his body transfixed by a broken lance, and his paw sheltering the Bour- bon lily. The work is excellent and full of spirit. Though Lucerne has a population ot less than 12,000, 4,000 or 5,000 strangers are often there in summer, and some of them find slender accommodation even at the large and superb hotels. Zurich I quitted unwillingly, as almost any one does who has any fondness for beautiful scenery. It is at the extremity of the Lake (Zurich), on the banks of the Limmat, dividing it into two parts. On both sides of the Lake are orchards, vineyards, and villages, and beyond them the grand back- ground of the towering and snowy Alps looking deliciously cool amid summer heats. The city is the most flourishing of the Swiss manufactm'ing towns, and the literary center of PERIODICAL INSANITY. 411 German Switzerland. Its population is nearly 21,000, and including the suburbs some 46,000 or 47,000. The hotel where I stayed (the Baur au Lac), is the most delightfully situated public house I have seen anywhere. It is on the banks of the Lake ; is almost surrounded by beauti- ful gardens, one of which runs down to the water's edge, from which you have a magnificent view of the Lake and the Alps. A bath-house is adjacent, and you can step into a row or sail boat anytime for a pleasure or a fishing excursion. The sun- sets, and the twilight and the evening are delightful, as seen from the garden. I have sat there hour after hour hardly able to leave so lovely a scene. You hear music, both vocal and instrumental, on the water, and the air is loaded with the fragrance of the flowers and the blossoms of the locusts which grow there in profusion. What surprised me was that there were so few Americans or English at Zm-ich. The house was very full, but the guests were mostly Germans, Dutch, French, and Italians. I have no motive and no disposition to " puff" hotels ; but I believe I do an act of benevolence to my travel- ing countrymen when I call their attention to the Baur au Lac. I remember Cappri, Ischia, Pozzuoli, and all the famous retreats about Naples ; but I give preference to the situation of the hotel in question. I don't know the landlord, but I have been told he becomes insane at the end of every season, and regains his wits just before the opening of business. I can't account for this except that he seems to deal honestly with his patrons, which may be a sure symptom of mental de- rangement in Switzerland. The public houses in the country are in the main excellent, though you need to look out fo"r overcharges. But the Trois Couronnes, at Yevay ; the Schweizerhof, at Lucerne, and the Giessbach, at the celebrated cascade, have the finest situa- tions (the Baur au Lac always excepted) I have seen in Europe. CHAPTER LTTI. SWITZERLAND — CONTINUED. 'REIBURG, capital of the canton of the same name, owes its origin — and its 10,000 or 11,000 inhabitants, I suppose — to Berthold, of Zahringen, who, seven centuries ago, showed his good taste in and understanding of town sites by founding this city. It stands on a rocky eminence surrounded by the Sarine — is very like Bern in situation — and forms the boundary between the French and German-speaking population of Switzerland; German being the language of the lower, and French of the upper part of the town. Freiburg is exceedingly picturesque, as I found out by walking from the railway station to the elevated site occupied by the Jesuits' College, thence across the Suspension Bridge (it is 905 feet long, 22 broad, 175 above the river, is sus- pended by four chains, nearly 1,200 feet long, forming a' single arch) by the road to the Pont de Gotteron (a similar bridge to the other, but 285 feet above the water, and span- ning a deep rocky ravine) , which I crossed and proceeded by numerous windings to a group of houses, known as Bourgillon, just outside of the town. To go from the upper to the lower part of the city is like passing from one country to another. The man you meet one moment is voluble in the Gallic tongue, and the next person you address in the same language has no conception of your meaning. You must change the nasal for the guttural, and indulge in genug, and nein, and gehen Sie loeg^ instead of asses, and non^ and va-t-en, to the miscellaneous throng that persecute travelers on the Conti- nent. AN ORGAN-IC STORM. 413 The Church of St. Nicholas, the Episcopal Cathedral, is a good specimen of Gothic ; is nearly six centuries old, and its reliefs on the portal, representing the Last Judgment, Heaven and Hell, are as grotesque in the light of the nineteenth cen- tury as they were no doubt terror-inspiring to the monkish superstitions of the past. Tlie organ of the church is one of the most celebrated in Europe, and the sacristan who shows it does not fail to tell you that it has sixty-seven stops and seventy-eight hundred pipes, some of them thirty-two feet long. The organist, M. Vogt, plays every evening, and the franc paid for hearing him yields a large interest in melody. A composition descriptive of a storm — a favorite on the Continent — was very impressive. The rich volumes of sound, imitating the strife of the elements, rolled through the ancient arches in the gathering shadows of the evening, and throbbed and sighed and wailed to the airy ghosts my aroused imagina- tion had created. I enjoyed the music greatly, as did the thirty or forty strangers who has assembled in the church, and all seemed unwilling to depart when silence followed the darkness that had fallen almost imperceptibly while the musician touched the keys and their hearts together. In front of the Town Hall, an old linden tree, fifteen feet in circumference, partly supported by stone pillars, was originally a twig (according to tradition) borne by a young Freiburger who ran bleeding, breathless, and exhausted into the city to announce the victory at Morat over Charles the Bold, nearly four hundred years ago. I like the situation of Neuchatel (about 10,000 population) as it is ])uilt on the steep slope of the Jura, rising like an amphitheatre from the Neuchatel Lake (twenty-seven miles long and six wide). The new quarter of the town, containing many handsome houses, is on the Lake ; and the Castle, on an eminence, is the seat of the government of the canton. The College has a small collection of minerals and fossils made by Agassiz when he was a professor there. The Chau- mont, a spur of the Jura chain, to the north of the town, 414 LEGENDS OF A CHURCH. commands a fine view of the Lake, the surrounding country and villages, with the entire Alpine range from the Sentis to Mont Blanc, when the atmosphere happens to be favorable. The Lake is so far inferior to the beautitul bodies of water of the higher Alps that it seems common-place, though in another country it would be thought quite picturesque. The most important branch of industry in the canton, par- ticularly at La Chaux de Fonds and Le Locle, is the manu- facture of watches, many of them being sold at Geneva. At the two towns mentioned about 250,000 watches are an- nually manufactured. Basel is less interesting than I had expected to find it, re- membering it as the Basilea of the Roman army in the fourth century. It is the second city of Switzerland in population (45,000), but the first in wealth, manufactures, and com- mercial importance, which it owes to its position on the Rhine, at the junction of the frontiers of France and Germany. The river divides the city into Great and Little Basel, which are connected by a wooden bridge. The Miinster is an im- posing and historic church, built by the Emperor Henry II. in 1010, and afterwards burned down and shaken down by an earthquake. It was there the celebrated Council, composed of five hundred clergymen, assembled in 1431 to establish a reformation of the Church. They disputed for five or six years without any result, until Pope Eugene lY., growing tired of their wrangling, excommunicated the whole contro- versial crew. In the Miinster are buried many historic characters, among them Erasmus and the Empress Anna, wife of Rudolph of Hapsburg and mother of the line of Austrian princes. Basel is walled and moderately well-built, the streets clean, but ir- regular, and liberally supplied with fountains. Just outside the gates is a Gothic obelisk to commemorate the battle of St. Jacob in 1444, when 1,300 Swiss attempted to force their passage to the town, against which 30,000 French, under the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XI.), were marching to attack the Confederates. After a desperate con- A SWISS TOWN WITH GERMAN ATTACHMENTS- 41 J flict the brave Switzers were to a man cut to pieces, and the memory of their heroism is preserved in tlie name of the wine — Swiss Blood — made from the vineyards occupying the scene of the unequal struggle. This action gave, it is said, to the Swiss their earliest reputation for valor, and was the cause of the enrollment of the Swiss Body Guard of France. Arriving at Bern, I find myself in as German a community as if J had been in Cologne or Dusseldorf. The shops, the streets, the signs, the people, the fountains, the hotels, the cooking, make you think you are in a wholly different country Irom that including Geneva or Lausanne. The odor of cheese and beer assails you under the arcades ; blood-puddings and ferocious sausages stare you out of countenance ; large-waisted women in queer costumes plant themselves in yom' way; broad-faced men, with long pipes and oily complexions, run against you and say Guten tag, mein Serr, and pass you puff- ing like a Western steamboat. You have to fight for ventila- tion, for your true German stands in mortal fear of the smallest di*aught. Your chamber is closed like a castle in time of siege. A huge feather-bag is put upon your bed, though the weather be as hot as Tophet, and you have sought repose in the garb of the Apollo Belvidere. Bern is admirably situated, and its surroundings are not surpassed by any city in Switzerland. If any one, however, expects to behold all the famous mountains which the guide- books tell him he can see from various points in the town,,he will be disappointed. To have an appreciative view of the Alps, as I said before, you must go among them. Still, on clear summer evenings, about sunset, you can enjoy a superb panorama while dining in the Garden of the Casino, or from the terrace of the Federal Hall. When I was last at Bern, the two National Councils were in session (they sit in July generally) , and I had an opportu- nity to hear their debates. The bodies answered to our Senate and House, and are composed of very intelligent-looking men, of apparently strong character. They speak in German, French, Italian, and sometimes the Swiss dialect, which sounds 416 IS.AMPLE FOR C0NGRESSME2i. YQYj odd at first. The French speakers have the most to say,, the Italians next, and the Germans least. I observed, however, that, judged by the American standard, they were all superhumanly reticent. The most extended harangue was an epigram compared to what I have heard in Congress* I think the debates are not reported, which may account for their brevity. I am convinced it our poiticians at Washing- ton had no expectation of seeing what they say in print, they would talk far less and do much more. I could not help but notice that at Bern there were no buncombe speeches, as we style them. What the Representatives said was to the point, and they knew when they were done — a dizzy height of wis- dom we seem never likely to reach. Bern, derived from Baren (bears), is mainly remarkable for those animals (the operators for a fall in Wall street should live there), which seem to be apotheosized by the in- habitants of the canton. The bear is to the Bernese what the ibis was to the ancient Egyptians. They have, near the Aare River, a bear's den, in which some huge and ferocious animals are confined. They have bears carved on the city gates, and bears on their heraldic devices. They have a me- chanical clock, in which bears play the most prominent part. They have stuffed bears in their museum. They adorn their fountains with bears. They cut and paint bears on every- thing, and they ought to adopt as their motto " Bear and For- bear." The bear-worship is a tradition, the origin of which is lost in time ; though some suppose it is a symbol of gal- lantry toward women, as Eve is said to have made her first appearance in public in a bare skin. She must have been a Bernese. One of my amusements at Bern was to watch the strangers who used to drive or walk, full of expectation, to the clock tow- er, and after witnessing its performance, go away deeply disap- pointed. At three minutes before every hour a wooden cock gives the signal by clapping its wings and crowing. One minute later a number of bears walk around a seated figure A FAMOUS CLOCK. 417 of Time, the cock crows again, and when the clock strikes Time turns an hour-glass, and seems to count the hour by raising his sceptre and opening his mouth. Simultaneously the bear on the right bows, a grotesque figure strikes the hour with a hammer on a bell, and the cock ends the en- tertainment by crowing a third time. This may appear like something, but when you find out that the figures are small, and reveal no special mechanical ingenuity, the clock reminds you of a child's toy. Bern has better preserved its characteristic features than any other Swiss town. Most of the houses of the old quarters are built on arcades, under which are the foot-ways. The busiest street is nearly a mile long, and under four different names runs from the Ober Thor to the Nydeck bridge. The Cathedral, in which is a fine organ — I liked it as well as that of Freiburg — is a handsome Gothic structure, remarkable for its open-work balustrade encircling the roof. The great attraction of the city — its population is some 80,000 — is the view it affords of the Alps and the Bernese Oberland. It is situated on a peninsula formed by the Aare, and looking down at the winding river, and off to the varied mountains, no one can fail to be impressed with the pictur- esqueness of its position. Switzerland has variety enough to please a Saracen or an idealist. Our own land, of course, excepted, probably no country in the world can begin to equal it for beauty and di- versity, picturesqueness and grandeur of scenery. And then, too, the finest scenery to be found is shut up in the little re- public in the most compact and convenient form for visiting. Switzerland was evidently designed for tourists who had little time and much appreciation. It must have been in- tended for what it has become — a show box ; for Nature has crowded it with panoramic views of the most magnificent description which you seek to advantage at certain points, as children do miniature pictures through a magnifying glass. The glass there is taste and culture, and the views are on so large a scale that no magnifying power is necessary. Amer- 418 TOURISTS IN SiVJ'IZERLAMn. icans generally fail to do justice to Switzerland. They run through it by rail from Geneva to Constance, and fancy they have seen all that is worth seeing. They should spend several weeks — three to five will answer if actively and in- telligently employed — in visiting the different parts of the country before they can form an adequate idea of its sur- passing scenery. Many of the very best portions of Switzer- land can not be seen without going off the beaten track; without taking diligence or private carriage, and often the journey must be made by mule or foot. The Zermatt and Chamonix valleys and the Bernese Oberland can never be appreciated unless one goes through them as a pedestrian. Nature, jealous of her rights, will not reveal herself to those too indolent to woo her with enthusiasm. Like other women, she wants to be courted before she gives the best of herself to her wooers. CHAPTER LIV. GRAND SWISS SHOOTING FESTIVAL. VISITED Ziig because the annual national shooting festival of Switzerland was held there, as it usually is in the month of June. Switzerland is so quiet, so conservative, so industrious, that you would not suppose the people could be brought to feel such a deep interest as they do in the burn- ing of gunpowder, unless in defence of their inde- pendence. Everybody from the Valais to the Schafifhausen, between Savoy and the Tyrol, is concerned in the festival. Every one of her entire twenty-two cantons is largely repre- seflited. Every heart in Helvetia responds to the crack of the rifles that are continually sounding from early dawn to dusk. I do not know the exact population of Switzerland, but I should suppose the greater portion of it was there; for very long trains were coming and going every hour from and to Basel, Bern, Zurich, and St. Gallen. You know how overworked the Swiss look, and how over- worked they really are. But there they are changed in ap- pearance. They enter so fully into the spirit of the sulphur- ous merry-making that they seem younger and fresher by years than is their wont. The little capital with its quaint houses, its ancient streets, its arches crowned with spires, is decked like a country bride. Flags, streamers, and wreaths hang from every house, and mottoes and verses recording the glory of Switzerland, and the courage and honor of the Swiss are wrought in fir and pine at every turning of the street. On such occasions the village of less than 4,000 people is 420 PERFECT EQUALITY. greatly over-crowded. Not a dwelling in the town but has three or four beds in each room and two or three occupants in each bed. The Germans care less than we Anglo-Norman- Saxon-whatever-we-may-bes for social compactness. They are more gregarious and less fastidious than ourselves. They dine from dishes that are, to say the least, unique, and take strange bed-fellows without hesitation. All the Swiss are made one by shooting and drinking together. Why should they not lie together like sardines in a box ? The grounds, which are adjacent to the railway and near the station, cover an area of 200 acres. A rude wooden shooting gallery rmis along one side of the enclosure, which is covered with booths and side-shows of every description. There are two or three large buildings, gaudily painted on the outside, and surrounded with the national flag, a white cross on a field of scarlet. These are called festhalles, and the long, plain pine tables* and benches in them are occupied by those most bounteously blest with thirst and appetite, par- ticularly thirst. I am familiar with Germans and German life ; but I never visit a place of this sort -without feeling some astonishment at the amount of solids and liquids our good friends of Fatherland are able to dispose of. They eat and drink early, late, and often, and with such a relish, such an unctuous satis- faction, that it is enjoyable even to a surfeited spectator. A festhalle will hold ten or twelve thousand persons, and is all the while comfortably full of men, women, and children. It is creditable to the German nation that when they seek recreation, or indulge in their mild dissipation, they take their families with them. Their ease and freedom are to be admired. They are all on the best of terms. There seems to be no social distinction. The carefully dressed citizen sits next to the bloused peasant, and the cultivated lady of society speaks pleasantly to the bronzed woman who has just come from the labor of the fields. Young men and old sit with their arms about the waists of their feminine companions, who are not unfrequently seen asleep, leaning their heads on A TEMPLE OF PRIZES 421 stalwart shoulders. How delightfully democratic, how charm- ingly unconventional all this ! Would that we at home could be inspired with something of the spirit that animates these people ! Babies are, of course, represented, and largely. The Ger- mans are nothing, unless prolific. The round, red-faced little creatures, who, I am bound to say, don't look a bit like cherubs, laugh and crow as if they were fully in sympathy with the occasion, though I judge from their vociferous cries once in a while that they find something in the proceedings that does not meet with their approbation. On the whole, the festival appeared more of a grand family gathering than any we have in this country, even of the Ger- mans. The Swiss work so hard, and so much, that when they play, they play with all their might. They give com- plete license to their inclinations, always mindful to keep within bounds, however, and make the most of every minute. They talk, laugh, smoke, drink, sing, dance, love, and shoot, by turns, and seem as contented as if they lived in Arcadia, instead of tarrying in Zurich. The Temple of Prizes was an object of great interest, par- ticularly to the feminine part of the visitors. It was in the middle of the grounds, and included such a variety of articles that it is impossible to remember them. There were silver and crystal goblets, meerschaum pipes, coverlets, rifles, household furniture, watches, pictures (the portraits of Presi- dent Lincoln and General Grant among the rest), any number of large and small medals, and I know not what else. In addition to these, there were many prizes in money, amounting to seventy or eighty thousand francs, which is thought a large sum in that country. Placards of the prizes were posted about the grounds very conspicuously, and were read with interest. There were different classes, given with such elaborate explanation and detail that I had not patience to read them, particularly as my German does not always en- able me to translate with as much freedom as I should desire. The shooting hall was merely a shed, from one side of 422 EXFEBUIENTS OF SHOOTING. wliicli the marksmen discharge their pieces at a bull's eye — a distance of one hundred and iifty yards (long range), and about seventy-five yards (short range). Men stationed at the targets, behind bullet-proof casements, note the shots as rapidly as made, pulling a cord connecting with the gal- lery which is a sign that the shooting can continue. Of course everybody shoots — the prizes are open to all who will pay thirty centimes a shot — even the men who oc- cupy stands in the gallery, and load the rifles as rapidly as they are discharged. One can shoot six or twelve times, but not less, or five thousand times, if he is so inclined, and has the money. The rifles used are very different from those in this coun- try. They are of different kinds, but generally of the old needle-gun pattern, and very awkward and clumsy. They are heavy, and have a large segmental piece near the trigger for the left (supporting) hand to rest upon. The Swiss do not hold the piece as we do, directly and freely against the right shoulder, but put the right elbow upon the right hip, and, so supporting, bring the gun up to their eye. It is need- less to say this is not as fair a test of skill as our method ; but the Swiss can't be induced to shoot in any other way. I tried a few shots, and felt as I were firing a Columbiad or Dahlgren at a sparrow. One requires training in a gym- nasium to hold his piece, and taking sight was almost impossi- ble, where there were so many superfluities on the barrel. The piece was very heavily charged, and kicked, when it exploded, like a vicious mule. If my shoulder were not strong, I fancy it would have been dislocated by the dozen discharges. It was black and blue from the rebound. I don't think I did any very remarkable shooting. I didn't expect to. I was quite satisfied to get the gun off, so cumbersome was the whole thing, and so unpromising its performance. I believe I killed nobody (at least I have not heard of any death up to this time, which is consolatory, for I fancied my old piece full of manifold murder. One person was wounded during the engagement, that was myself — and supremely disgusted with the Swiss manner of shooting. A LOST OPPORTUNITY. 423 The shooting, which I observed was not good, but I suppose I saw none of the crack marksmen. Men without much skill might win a prize by burning powder enough, for they might succeed, by mere chance, in hitting the bull's-eye once in fifty or a hundred times. Certainly there was sufficient firing to earn a treasury of prizes. The guns were going without intermission from morning to night, and a gallon of beer was drunk for every shot. I heard something of the reception of Americans there, but saw nothing of it. I was the only one of my countrymen on the spot, so far as I was aware, and I am sure I was not re- ceived. If Train had been present, what a splendid opportunity he would have had to talk Fourth-of-July English to the pa- triotic Germans. They would have listened to him with pa- tience, for they could not have understood a word he said. CHAPTER LV. ITALY. " F I could visit but one country beside my own that country would be Italy — above any other the land of poetry and romance. No Italian town or city of note in which I have not tarried, and the longer I stayed the more I admired, — the more I grew into sympathy with the pervading spirit of antiquity and the mediaeval time. How well I remember the evening I entered Italy by the Mt. Cenis route ! It was in Susa I first set foot, and the dull old town, unattractive as it is, borrowed a eharm from the fact that it was Italian. The evening was beautiful, — soft, moonlit, dreamy, delicious, — and the nightingales sang in the groves and thickets more sweetly and plaintively, I thought, than I had ever heard them before. I could not sleep, so rejoiced was I at having reached at last the land where my mind had often been before. I sat up until the dawn flushed the East, and when I lay down, it was to dream that all my gorgeous visions of Italy had come to pass. Turin was the first city proper I formed acquaintance with. The capital of Piedmont, though finely situated, handsomely built, and boasting a population of nearly 200,000, has few old monuments or associations. Francis I. in the sixteenth century demolished the exten- sive suburbs, the Roman amphitheatre, and other ancient works, so that the vestiges of what the city was during the Empire and the middle ages are entirely obliterated. Turin has been for some years a place of refuge for the per- A MIRACULOUS WAFER. 425 secuted all over the kingdom, and until lately fifteen hundred to two thousand persons were living there who had been obliged to leave their homes on account of their religious and political opinions; those from the Papal States having been very naturally the largest in number. The population is cos- mopolitan, probably from its proximity to France and Swit- zerland, and very liberal and tolerant in its views. There is less indolence and more intelligence in Turin than in any city of Italy, Milan, perhaps, excepted. The pleasantest part of the city is the Collina Hills, beyond the Po. They are extremely inviting, being covered with the richest green, surrounded by churches and dotted with handsome villas. Sitting in the gardens to the right of the Piazza Emmanuele under the sunshine, and looking over at the Collina, peace and poetry seem to dwell there together. There are over sixty churches in the city, and though many of them are elaborately and expensively painted and decorated, none are particularly interesting. La Gran Madre di Dio is in imitation — very feeble imita- tion — of the Pantheon, and cost $1,000,000, proving how much money may be spent for a bad (architectural) purpose. When I went there I found a zealous priest instructing a num- ber of extremely dirty little boys in their catechism. The catechism is excellent no doubt ; but I could not help think- ing the urchins might have been spared a while to go down to the Po, only a few yards off, and wash themselves. What is the use of having a river near so many soiled children, with- out giving them some of its benefit ? In the Church del Corpus Domini is a marble inscription, from which the profane are separated by an iron railing, com- memorating the wonderful recovery of a sacramental vessel containing the holy wafer, which a sacrilegious soldier stole, and concealed in one of the panniers of his saddle. The horse, or ass (I think it must have been an ass), being of a consci- entious and religious turn of mind, refused to pass the church door with the stolen property. He kicked and plunged, as secular beasts of his species often do ; the vessel fell to the 426 A MEDIEVAL VISION. earth, and the wafer girt with rays of light, shot up into the air until the priests appeared, when it descended into their sacerdotal bosom. Skeptical persons may consider this an improbable story ; but such things are constantly occurring in Italy, and the smallest hamlet in the country has five or six first-class mira- cles every year. In the Royal Armory is a number of very delicate triangu- lar-bladed stilettoes, with which the amiable ladies of the middle ages used to liberate themselves from disagreable hus- bands. The modus operandi is said to have been very simple. The gentle spouses put one arm about their liege-lord's neck, and with the disengaged hand thrust tiie fine steel into his left side, under the fifth rib. Signore Lorenzo or Duke Mat- teo made a wry face or two, but when he discovered that the act was prompted by the love of his idolized wife (for some- body else), he made no trouble, and the next day went to his own funeral. When I looked at the stilettoes I fell to recollecting how many a gentleman of the Negroni, Pallavicini, Balbi, Doria, and Brignole families had been tickled to death by their persuasive power. I saw visions of dark-eyed, night-haired, passionate women waiting on marble porticoes and in olive groves, for lovers they had bound themselves to by the new crime of murder. I saw gilded, frescoed, mosaic-paved chambers where strong men, famed in history, slept by the side of beautiful demons who bent over them fiercely, and whose voluptuous arms de- scended in white death. I saw the brilliant masquerade, the secret meeting in the garden, the clasping arms, the hungry kiss, and then, when the revel was over, the flushed gallant stabbed to death in the narrow street by the hired bravo. I saw the young wife with such hair and eyes as Titian loved to paint, kneeling at her husband's feet, and protesting her devotion before high Heaven. I saw the generous hus- band look into her saint-like face, and believe her pure for her LESS GARLIC AND MORE WASHING. 427 wondrous beauty, assured so sweet a soul could never sin. I saw her, fresh with the pardoning kiss upon her lips, give that kiss to the man to whom she had yielded honor and all else. And then the stilettoes, so fine, so bright, so cruel, like the time they typified, flashed before my eyes until I saw no more. I returned to myself, and stood in the Piazzo del Cas- tello, with the nineteenth century around me, and the whistle of the locomotive bound for Genoa in my ears. Genoa always impresses me as very mediaeval, and its ap- pearance from the sea, with its crescent shape, gradual ascent from the shore, and the abrupt hill covered with villas rising abruptly behind the town, is likely to be remembered. Its 130,000 people are picturesque-looking, but not as neat and wholesome as I should like to have them. It is one of the misfortunes of that really beautiful country that its sons, and daughters too, alas ! will insist on eating garlic, and living in sublime independence of soap, water, and immaculate linen. Victor Emanuel has done much for the people ; if he could only persuade them to eschew garlic, wash themselves once or twice a year at least, and part with some of their earnings to a laundress, he would do more, and entitle himself to the lasting gratitude of Anglo-Saxon tourists. The Italians all the way from the Po to the Tiber occupy themselves with washing clothes in the classic rivers, and even at the public fountains. What do they do with the washed garments ? They certainly do not wear them ; for they wash more in a day than they wear in a twelvemonth. I have endeavored in vain to determine this question. When I visit Italy the next time I hope the people vrill re- lieve my curiosity by appearing in pure linen, and also out of regard for an American who admires their country exceed- ingly, eat less garlic, or keep at a more respectful distance. If cleanliness be next to godliness, the Italians must be the greatest atheists in the world. Genoa is a characteristic Italian city ; a city of filth and faded splendor, of wretched dwellings and handsome gardens, of squalid people and crumbling palaces, of orangr groves and 428 GENOA THE SUPERB. obnoxious odors. It was known in the mediaeval times, with which so much of its history is associated, as Genova la Superba ; but it is difficult at present to perceive how it gained the high-sounding title. You see little that is superb even in the best streets — the Yia Nuova, Nuovissima, Balbi, and Carlo Felice. Indeed, those with the Carlo Alberto, run- ning round the harbor, are almost the only ones passable by carriages. Nearly all the streets, excepting the Piazze, are unwholesome lanes, many not over seven or eight feet wide, often narrower, where persons from opposite sides can shake hands out of the upper windows, and where dampness and dirt destroy much of the romance almost inseparable from the name of Italy. The origin of Genoa is said to be anterior to that of Rome, and it is easy to see in the ancient city traces of the prosperity it enjoyed and the splendor it possessed during the seven centuries when it was the capital of a great commercial republic. The hotel where 1 stayed was formerly the Palazzo Serra, situated in front of the harbor. One morning I lay in bed and watched the clouds and the mists and the struggling sun until I got quite lost in a waking dream of the fair land. On the ceilings were the frescoes and on the floor the fine mosaics that had been put there four centuries ago, when a powerful and wealthy family dwelt within the walls. I was irresistibly carried back to the days of the Doges, of the Dorias, the Brignolis, Spinolas, and Fieschis, when they did so much in war, in art and literature to make Genoa feared and famed. I thought of the fair women and brave men who had slept where I lay ; of the dainty and mailed feet that had come up the marble stairs on missions of mercy, jealousy, crime, and love. I thought of the strange and interesting scenes that had occurred under those mediaeval walls, and of how many charming romances might be written by one who knew all. Much of the old furniture belonging to the palace is still in use at the hotel — mirror, bureaus, chairs, and tables — all heavily gilded, and each having a story that it cannot speak. REDUCED NOBLEMEN. 429 A number of the Dorias still reside there, but in reduced circumstances. One of them, however, is very wealthy, and lives in Rome, renting his palace in Genoa. Singular how distinguished families run out. Andrea Dora, a namesake of him who so nobly served the State, keeps a wine shop near the Piazza delle Fontane Amorose, and is reputed to be a lineal descendant of the great man. The family, however, do not recognize him, and he seems quite contented to earn his bread by selling very bad wine ; hoping, it may be, with an Italian cunning that his proud kinsmen may drink it some day, and so give him his revenge. Giuseppe Fieschi, in the Via degli Orefici, where the fa- mous filagree workers in gold and silver have their establish- ments, is declared to be of the great Fieschi family. His grandfather fell into disrepute somehow, and his father and his gi*andson disgraced themselves by becoming industrious. I have been told that one of the eminent Spinolas not long ago was the controller of the destinies of a vetturo (Anglice was a hackman), but having drank too much one night, fell off the dock and was drowned. The trouble with him was not that he swallowed too much wine, but that he took too much water with it. The Italians are decidedly a reading people. They have a number of newspapers (called so because they contain no news), which they buy very freely, and pore over earnest- ly, possibly for the purpose of seeing why they are printed. They bear such names as i' Opinione Nazionale^ Ecco cT Italia, and Crazetta di Popolo, showing a democratic tendency, and are sold for one or two cents. While I was drinking a cup of coffee in La Concordia one evening, I picked up a journal, and found in it Horace Greeley's American Conflict (Ameri- cano Conflitto, by Orazzio Greeley.) Not the whole of it, as you may imagine, but about a thousand words. The paper had just begun to publish the translation, and its to-be-con- tinued was likely to last for the five years, at the rate of space it was giving to the work. 4'^0 TEE GALLEY SLAVES. Our idea of the Italians is that they do not read news- papers at all. They have not done so to any extent until re- cently, and the change is a good sign. No doubt the people are improving every way under their United Kingdom, and will yet surprise the world by their progress. The galley slaves, as they are still called, though the galleys are abolished, are kept in the Bagne on the dry dock. They are employed in the daytime on the public works in different parts of the city, and dressed in red — a color to which Genoa seems largely and very distastefully to incline. There are six or seven hundred of them, and they are, on the whole, a vicious, desperate-looking set of fellows as I have seen, though I have no doubt I should look no better than they if I were paraded through the streets for years branded as a felon. The murderers are distinguished by a black band GENOESE WOMEN. around their caps, and I noticed the black band was very common. All the convicts are pardoned when their sentence is half served, if the,y behq,ve themselves. THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT. 431 The Genoese women have peculiar, but not very pleasant faces. The Ligurians were never famous for beauty, and I hardly recall a single handsome feminine countenance, though I frequented the gardens and public promenades where there were many of the sex, and of the better classes. One custom I liked — the wearing of a thin muslin scarf — what the Americans call organdie, I think — upon their heads instead of bonnets. They pin the scarf to the hair, and let it fall gracefully over the head and shoulders. It is picturesque, and would make any woman look well, if looking well were in her power. In the Palazzo Doria Tursi, in the Via Nuova, now occupied as city offices, are preserved some interesting articles. Among them are various manuscript letters of Chris- topher Columbus respecting his will ; Paganini's violin ; a piece of embroidery illustra- ting the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, said to be nearly nineteen hundred years old, and a bronze table con- taining the award made A. U. C, 633, by Quintus Marcus Minutius and Quintus Fulvius Rufus between the Genuenses, the ancient Genoese, and the Viturii, respecting a certain terri- torial boundary. COLUMBUS MONUMENT. The Columbus Monument, in the Piazza di Acqua Yerde, is a white marble pediment, with Columbus and an American woman at the top, with figures below representing Geography, Justice, Law, and Religion. Christopher was a native of that city, which is one of the reasons I had for visiting it. I thought if he were kind enough to come all the way over 432 A SINGULAR CHARITY. the ocean to discover America before much dependence could be placed in the regular line of steamers, I ought, as an American, to take the trouble to see where he was born. We owe much to Columbus for discovering our country. If he had not discovered it, where should we have been ? The Campo Santo (cemetery) of Genoa is renowned for beauty. It is elaborate and imposing, but its monuments and statues, grottoes and urns, fomitains and flowers, are so arranged as to give the burial place a stiif and artificial ap- pearance. Taste is not a Geneose quality. Some of their most prominent buildings are painted red, with a kind of coarse fresco all over the front that goes far to destroy anything like effect. The city has fifteen or sixteen religious establishments gov- erned by monastic rules, in which women are employed in various ways, but take no vows. In the largest of these, the Fieschine, some three hundred women are occupied in making lace, embroidery, and artificial flowers. The great Albergo de' Poveri is what its name implies, a hospital for the poor, and is outside the Porta Carbonara. It was founded three centuries ago, is capable of accommodating 2,500 persons, and is generally full. Most of the inmates are old, but many of them are so young, healthy, and vigorous that it seems strange they should be there. Why don't they go to work, instead of living by charity ? That is a strong ar- gument in our country, but it is not there. Many Italians regard life without labor as a kind of glory, and their country being fertile, their climate mild, and little required to support the body — ^they support it after, the national fashion. Give an ordinary Italian a few bottles of wine, a flask of oil, sufficient poUenta, macaroni, and th% sunshine, and he will not concern himself about peace or war, the condition of finan- ces, or the state of his soul. But the people are improving in industry, thrift, and intelligence, and I believe that the end of the century will see them very different from what they have been. PREMIUM TO PAUPERISM. 433 The inmates of the Albergo do certain kinds of work, me- chanical branches mainly, and do it very well. But they might do much more. The fact that they know they will be taken care of prevents them from having any ambition or incentive to exertion. When the girls reach a marriageable age they receive a respectable dowry, and the youths get a certain sum also if they wish to be husbands. Very fre- quently, owing to this inducement to wedlock, the inmates marry each other, and their children return to the hospital to live upon charity, as their parents have done before them. This seems very like giving a premium to pauperism ; but the Genoese do not so consider it. The hospital does much good ; but it does much harm also. The Italians need to feel the sense of individual responsibility. They have leaned so long upon their priests and princes that they have become disqualified from taking care of themselves. They are im- proving, however, as I have said, and their future will be brighter. CHAPTER LVI. MIDDLE ITALY. T Pisa I went to see the Cathedral and the ^ Campo Santo, which many neglect altogether. The Cathedral is one of the finest in Europe, and is free from that damp, musty, grave-like odor that renders the atmosphere of Continental ' '^f\^ churches so unpleasant. The pictures are very ' "-^^V^ good, some of them excellent, and the music — I was there on a fete day — was such as I had no reason to ex- pect in so small a town as Pisa. The Campo Santo, the cemetery of the middle ages, is really an abbey, and very in- teresting. Its frescoes of the Triumph of Death, the Last Judgment, and the Inferno, are curious, even ludicrous, though they were designed to be solemn even to awfulness. The angels and priests dragging men out of their graves by the hair of the head, and of Christ and the Apostles sitting in the clouds like a number of smoking, beer-drinking Teutons, is too absurd, even for the admiration of the most orthodox. The dullest traveler can tell when he is in • Italy from th^ prevalence of beggars, if from no other cause. They greet you the moment you enter the country, and follow you until you quit it. I have been besought at least a hundred times an hour to give something to countless ragged creatures for the love of the Virgin ; they naturally supposing that such an appeal must move even the most stubborn heretic. Every church in Italy has its beggars. They stand or kneel, muttering, moaning, and praying at the entrance aware that all strangers visit the churches as objects of curiosity. The people of the country pay no more attention CnURCH BEGGARS. 435 to beggars than they do to the rustling leaves. The mendi- cants expect to get nothing from that quarter. They look for support from foreign sources entirely, and they know Ameri- cans by instinct. CHURCH BKGGARS. Victor Emanuel has made a vigorous effort to suppress professional mendicancy in his dominions ; but he can't, of course. He might as well try to prevent his countrymen from eating macaroni. To beg is as natural to a certain class of Italians as it is for them to live and be lazy. In Italy, as in other European countries, men kiss women at least before others, on the right and left cheek invariably. The French, and perhaps the other nations, consider it indelicate to kiss a woman's lips, for the reason, I suppose, that they cannot understand such a kiss in its purity. Their custom of getting two kisses for one might at first seem superior to ours, and is numerically. But one kiss on the lips — the ex- perienced declare — is worth a dozen on the cheeks. Lips were made to kiss and be kissed, and wliy should their pur- pose be set aside by a stupid conventionality ? If a woman is worth kissing at all, she is worth kissing properly. If you can't conscientiously kiss her lips, don't kiss her at all. 436 SIGBT-SEEING. In Italy they blow a horn before a train is to start ; in the United States they take one. In France they use napkins large enough for sheets, and drink brandy in their coffee. In Italy they sweeten their strawberries with rum, and spoil everything with garlic, and have various other customs we know not at all. * All the towns in Italy are not attractive ; and, besides, oc- casionally, one wearies so of sight-seeing that the most beauti- ful object loses its charm through an mifavorable or un- sjrmpathetic mood. LEANING TOWER. The leaning tower is the attraction in Pisa. It is strange so many go to see an ordinary column, two hundred feet high, sunk in the mud. Piacenza received its name from the ancient Romans — BOLOGNA. 437 satirical fellows, they ! — because there was and is nothing pleasant in it. Parma is of much more ancient and mediaeval renown, and reminds you of a decayed brickyard on a dusty day. It was destroyed during the wars of the Triumvirate, and Julius Cassar and Augustus made the mistake of rebuilding it. An earthquake visited it in 1832 — one of the few things that can visit it with advantage — and shook down some of its houses. Nature generally under- stands what she is about. Correggio has a very fine fresco upon the ceiling of the Duomo — at least it would be very fine if any one could see it. But between the distance and the crumbling ceiling, it is difficult to determine whether it is the Assump- tion of the Virgin or the remains of a hen-roost. Petrarch — when he was cracked about Laura di Noves, I suppose — direct- ed if he died in Parma, that he should be buried there. But he took par- ticular pains to die some- where else. Petrarch wasn't such a fool as many took him for. He evidently knew where to give up the ghost. By the roadside throughout the country is frequently seen a shrine representing some saint or the Crucifixion, at which the natives kneel with the utmost reverence. Modena is much like Parma, only more so. The most favorable view of it can be had from the window of an express train which does not stop at that station. If your eyesight is defective, all the better for the view. Rogers says some- thing like, WAYSIDE SHRINE. 438 AN INSULTED DOG. " If ever thou should'st come, by choice or chance, To Modcna * * * Stop at the palace near the Reggio gate." But take my advice and don't go. Bologna, though one of the most interesting cities in Italy, is often neglected by tourists. In going from Florence to Venice, or vice versa, they pass it on the railway without giving a thought to the old Etruscan town, founded under the name of Felsina, it is said, nearly a thousand years before Christ. Such ancient places, living' mainly in the past, where commerce is dead and enterprise unknown, always attract me more than the centres of trade and travel. I remember B.avenna, Rimini, Ferrara, Mantua, and Verona with more pleasure than the gay and bustling towns that have a hold upon the present. To the unhistoric and unclassical mind Bologna is merely associated with the sausage of that name ; to the cultivated it represents a history of literature and art, the school of the Caracci, the triumphs of the University, the struggles of a brave and resolute people for independence. As I make it a point to do everything in any place I visit, I deemed it necessary to eat Bologna sausage in the city of its creation. I went into the Trattoria di Tre Re and ordered the famous Bologna. I had succeeded in swallowing some of it at home, and concluded I might do so there. I was mistaken. The sausage was so full of garlic, so greasy and so strong that I was unable to master it. I am sure it was genuine, it was so very bad. I tried to give it to a dog that came wistfully to the table, but he snuffed it, ran away and howled most dolorously. When a hungry Italian dog won't eat anything, it can't be very good for a human creature. My conscience troubled me for my treatment of the poor brute. I intended to do him a kindness, and I am sure he labors to this day under the con- viction that I designed to poison him. When you go to Bo- logna don't try to eat its sausage, even if the natives seek to disguise it under the euphonious name of mortadella. ANTIQUE APPEARANCE OF THE CITY. 439 Becktord, author of " Vathek," called Bologna the city of sausages and puppies. The latter, a peculiar breed, have al- most entirely disappeared, and, I opine, their disappearance is traceable to the sausages. Indeed, I see in them cause and effect. The city is remarkable for its arcades (reminding you of Padua and Modena, in this respect), which, running under nearly all the houses, furnish protection from the sun and rain. You can walk for miles without seeing the sky, and consequently the umbrella and parasol business does not flourish there. The antique appearance of Bologna, with its picturesque mediaeval architecture, its crumbling palaces and quaint churches, is very interesting, and carries you back five or six centuries, when the Guelphs and Ghibellines fought so desperately, and the Yiscontis and Bentivoglios held such tyrannic sway. The Piazza Maggiore, or Yittorio Emmanuele — ^formerly the Forum, is a very attractive square. On one side is the Palazzo Pubblico, six himdred years old ; on another, the Palazzo del Podesta, an historic building of the twelfth century ; on the third, St. Petronio, a very large and unique church that has never been finished ; and on the fourth, the peculiar Portico de' Banchi. The square has several statues and fountains of curious workmanship, and is well deserving of attention. I went into it early one morning, while the market was in progress, and as I observed the peasants from the country in their varied and picturesque costumes, talking, laughing, and selling their fruits and veg- etables, I found it difficult to believe I was in the middle of the nineteenth century, and a stranger from beyond the seas. I expected to see Filippo Ugoni or King Enzio appear in the Piazza with their armed hosts, and renew the contest that lasted for so many years, and cost so many precious lives. I was brought back to the present by the effbrt of a small boy to sell me a Bologna newspaper, and by the zeal of a vettu- rino, who was resolved to drive me to the Campo Santo. The modern part of Bologna is very well built, and some 440 LEANING TOWERS. new houses, an unusual thing there, have been erected. The surrounding country is very fertile, producing so liber- ally that the city has received the name of La Grassa. Its present population is only about 75,000 ; but within a few years it has given signs of a new life. It is very different, however, from what it has been. Dante thought the Bologn- ese dialect the purest of Italy, and now it is so full of harsh- ness and barbarism that it is almost impossible to understand it. The Leaning Towers are the greatest curiosities of the city, though they have no architecture to recommend them. One of them, the Garisenda, is one hundred and thirty feet high, and eight feet out of the perpendicular ; the other, the Asinclli, two hundred and fifty-six feet high, and four and a half feet out of the perpendicular. They are seven and a half centuries old, and look as if they might have stood in the time of the flood. The Asinelli commands a fine view of the country, and as climbing is one of my recreations, I went up it, and spent a few hours in looking over the town, at the fertile plain of the Romagna, the Veronese, and Eugan- ean hills, and the far-off white peaks of the Tyrolese and Carinthian Alps. The old cobbler who was there fifteen years ago still acts as custodian, and seems as delighted when you give him a franc as if he had received a dukedom. I feel interested in the old fellow, for he says he is always happy. He has neither wife nor children, and never owned ten dollars at any one time. He has perfect health ; works every day at his trade ; sleeps at the base of the column ; drinks his bottle of cheap wine, and has his pipe every evening on the piazza. He is a prac- tical philosopher, for he wants nothing he has not, and is con- tented with what he has. It is common to say no man would exchange situations with any other. I have often wished I was the cobbler of Bologna. The University, once so famous, and more than seven cen- turies old, has now gone into obscurity. It had ten thousand students in the twelfth century, and the fame of its professors THE UNIVERSITY. 441 ^vas world-wide. It was the first school in which dissection of the human body was practiced, and in it Galvanism was dis- covered. I had heard so mucli of the University that I paid a visit to it. It has been in the former Palazzo Cellesi for the last sixty years, and its recitation rooms are inferior to those of our common schools. I was^ surprised to see the very ordinary benches and desks of unpainted wood cut and hacked as in village school-houses. I thought of the time when Novella d' Andrea, daughter of the canonist, filled her father's chair, and lectured on jur- isprudence, behind a curtain, lest her wondrous beauty should distract the students. Then of Laura Bassi, Professor of Mathematics and Physic, to whose lectures many learned women of France and Germany went for instruction ; of Ma- donna Manzolina, deeply skilled in anatomy, and of Matilda Tambroni, the rare Greek scholar. The library, though it contains only a hundred and thirty thousand volumes, is well selected, many of the books having been chozen by Mezzofante, who, at the time of his death, spoke forty-two tongues. Byron, you remember, said of the ecclesiastical librarian : " I tried him in all the languages of which I knew only an oath or an adjuration of the gods against postilions, savages, pirates, boatmen, sailors, pilots, gondo- liers, muleteers, camel-drivers, vettm^ini, postmasters, horses and houses, and by Heaven he puzzled me in my own idiom." At present the University is little more than a medical school, and is hardly known outside of Italy. In its palmy days it was second to none in reputation and popularity. In the Palazzo del Podesta I have seen the room in which King Enzios, the son of Frederick the Second, was kept a prisoner for two-and-twenty years. He was captured in bat- tle, and no effort of his father could obtain his release. The poor fellow died in confinement. He was handsomely enter- tained, but never allowed to go beyond his prison. Few per- sons were permitted to see him, and they usually in the pres- ence of others. Lucia Vendagoli, a beautiful and distinguished woman of the time, felt deep sympathy with the poor youth ; 442 ACADEMY OF FJNE ARTS. continued to see him often — too often, perhaps — and fell in love with him eventually. The child born to them was the founder of the Bentivoglio family, who afterward gave th^ Popes so much trouble. The Academy of Fine Arts has an excellent collection of pictures. I do not refer to the modern paintings, but to those of the Bolognes'e scliodl, of which Ludovico Caracci and his cousins, Annibale and Agostino, were the leaders. Guido Reni, Domenichino, and Guercino, were among its most emi- nent representatives. The Academy has several hundred pictures, those of the Caracci being more numerous than in any other city. Raffaelle's Saint Cecilia in Ecstasy is one of his most fa- mous works. It shows Cecilia in a trance of delight hearing the music of the celestial choir. She has dropped her lyre, and is gazing upward while surrounded by Paul, John the Evangelist, Augustin, and Mary Magdalen. The coloring is very fine, having great richness and depth, and the drawing and expression of the figures are remarkable. Guido Reni's famous Crucifixion is there, but is not equal to its reputation. His Madonna della Picta — the Virgin weeping over the body of Christ above, and saints Petronius, Carlo Borromeo, DominiCk, Francis and Proculus being below — is a fine specimen of art ; the face of St. Francis bearing a striking resemblance to the late President Lincoln. Guerci- no's William, Duke of Aquitaine, receiving the religious habit from Saint Felix, and St. Bruno, praying in the desert, are among the artist's best productions. Both were carried to Paris by Napoleon and remained for some years. The best picture in the gallery, to my mind, is Domenichi- no's Death of St. Peter, Martyr. The naturalness of the figure is striking. The terror of the priest Ijang on the ground is exquisitely depicted, and the Saint seems endowed with life. I observed it with a glass, and the detail and finish of the work are wonderful. In the Cathedral is the Annunciation, the best work of Ludo- vico Caracci, which it is said caused his death. It is on the AlV AR TIS T GRIE VED TO DEA TH. 443 arch above the high altar, and when he had completed it, and the scaffold had been removed, he grieved that the foot of the angel before the Yirgin was a trifle crooked. He offered to put up a new scaffold that he might retouch the painting, but his urgent request was refused, and the old man died of mor- tification and grief a few days after. A portion of the house is shown here in which Imelda Lam- bertazzi lived and died. She was the mistress of Bonifazio Gieremei, and belonged to a family of the Ghibelline faction, while her lover was of the Guelphs. The bitter hatred of the rival families had been kept in check by the authorities until Bonifazio, having made a clandestine appointment with Imel- da, as had become his habit, they met, blinded by passion, under her father's roof. He went to her apartments, and his presence was discovered by a spy who at once informed the lady's brothers, feasting and carousing in a palace near by. Flushed with wine and burning to revenge themselves against the audacious youth for the stain upon their sister's honor and their family escutcheon, they hastened to the place of rendezvous. The lovers heard them coming, and Bonifazio besought Imelda to fly. She had hardly concealed herself when her half frantic relatives dashed into the chamber, and dispatched Gieremei with poisoned daggers. Alarmed at their rash deed, they sought to conceal the body, dragging it into an adjacent court-yard, throwing it into a drain, and cov- ering it with rubbish. Imelda, from her hiding place, listened with her soul in her ear; but hearing no struggle, no cry, fondly fancied her lover might have escaped. She returned to the apartment. Boni- fazio was not there ; but the floor was covered with blood, and by the crimson drops she traced her way to the corpse. It was still warm. She knew he had been stabbed with poisoned daggers because her brothers carried such weapons. She hoped to preserve him. She attempted to suck the poison from Bonifazio' s wounds, hoping to save his life as Queen Eleanor saved her royal spouse. It was too late; but the venom his mistress had taken into her mouth communicated 444 A LOVE TRAGEDY. itself to her blood, and she expired in blissful agony on her lover's breast. This tragedy intensified the wrath of the hostile families who determined to be revenged on each other ; gave rise to a fierce fight in the street, and a series of contests that kept the city in turmoil for many years. Some persons have erroneously supposed the story of Romeo and Juliet taken from this painful incident, and that the tale of the Capulets and Montagues is merely fiction. It is high time the unhappy lovers of Bologna were rescued from the oblivion into which they have sunk, and that they received their meed of sentimental fame. We have so few lovers who have fairly and romantically died for each other that we can't afford to let even a single pair c f them slip. Sentimental young persons who have ex- hausted Abelard, Heloise, Tasso, Leonora, Camoens, and Cata- rina, must remember Imelda and Bonifazio. They were no shams and make-believes. They loved, indeed, with a love as strong as death. CHAPTER LVII. LIFE AND TRAVEL IN ITALY. ERTAIN parts of Italy, such as the Yalley of the Riviera, the Plains of Lombardy, and the region between Rome and Florence are delightful. They ^ are crowded with landscapes, and almost surfeit ''C y^^ ^^^^ beauty. You want to stay amid the charm- r1|^^2f ing scenes forever, and dream your life away. ni^ Americans and the English suffer more from cold in Italy in winter than they would at home, for there are no means of keeping warm. A pannier of wood, as it is called, is nothing more than a bundle of vine twigs, that smoke much and burn little. The bleak, penetrating wind sweeps down from the Alps and the Apennines even as far south as Naples, and kills invalids picturesquely. When people with consump- tion go to Italy they should make their wills first. If, how- ever, they have any will of their own, they would better remain at home. They can then benefit their physician by making his bill larger, and spite their relatives, if they have any pro- perty, by living much longer than wealthy people have any right to. All that is said about the delicious atmosphere, and cloud- less sky, and bracing breezes of Italy, applies almost equally well to other countries in the same latitude. Pleasant weather is like pleasant weather anywhere else, and disagreeable weather fully as disagreeable. The repeated declarations that in the air of Italy you feel it a joy merely to live, is mad rub- bish. It is not a joy to live anywhere, unless you are fortun- ate in temperament, circumstance, and destiny. •146 BETTER THAN REPRESENTED. The time I have spent in Italy has proved to me that the Italians are much misrepresented. We are told by the tourist and general letter- writef that their life is a continued swindle ; that you are cheated at every turn ; that unless you are ever on the alert you will be hourly robbed. The Italians have their faults. They are like children. They tell falsehoods and will defraud you in little ways. It belongs to their tem- perament, and is an inherited habit. But they are for the most part polite and kind, trustful and loyal. Vetturini, landlords, guides, servants of all sorts, are courteous, patient,' and accommodating, and when you show them the smallest civility, they a})preciate and remember it. I have seldom found a vetturino who demanded his buona mano ; but when it was given him he so received it as to make the giving a pleasure. As to the stories of dishonest hotel-keepers, all I can say is I have not found them true. If you stay with the landlords only half a day, they make out your bill and put down each item in it ; so if there be anything wrong you can detect it at once. I have been in all the principal cities and towns, and I do not remember a single instance in which the bill rendered con- tained anything I had not had. At the cafes and restaurants every article you order is specified and the price set opposite, even if your breakfast or dinner amount to no more than fifty soldi (fifty cents). In your room everything is safe. I had no hesitation in leaving my watch, jewelry, and money on the bureau or table, and going out for thfe day. It may not have been pru- dent ; but such a thing as a robbery at a hotel is almost un- heard of on the continent. I never thought of locking the • door of my chamber if I made an excursion out of town, and not a pin nor a scrap of paper was ever removed from its place. I have left canes, umbrellas, books, lorgnettes at the the- atres, in the cars and in shops. When I went for them, though a day or two after, they were always waiting for me, ;and it seemed a sincere pleasure to the finders to restore them. ABOUT WINE. 447 If this be dishonesty or swindling I enjoy it, and I should like to see more of it on this side of the ocean. Then everybody is polite on the continent ; and politeness, to my mind, is the first of social virtues. All that we ask of ninety-nine hundredths of the men we meet is politeness ; for they stand related to us only through manners. I feel no concern about the financial trustworthiness of Mr. Jones, or the private morals of Mr. Wiggins, when I ride down town with him in the morning, or take luncheon opposite him in the afternoon. But if Mr. Jones thriists his elbow into me, or brushes his boots against my trowsers ; if Mr. Wiggins puts his knife into the butter, or eats with an emphasis, that is quite another matter. I should much prefer, as far as I am personally affected, that either gentleman might swindle his creditors, or be in love with another man's wife. Indeed, I should rather dine with a well-bred assassin than an ill- mannered saint ; and I think most of us would. It is said that the farther we go East the Detter manners we find, and that the less political freedom men have the more courteous they are. This may or may not be so ; but if it be true, I should be glad to see some of our countrymen reduced to bondage. Liberty is excellent ; but if some of it be not used for courtesy, it might as well be withheld. No one has the right to be free who fails to recognize the duties — and politeness is the first — which freedom imposes on him. Here we are constantly told that Europe is the best place for good wine ; that? it is as cheap as water ; that we shall never know what good wine is until we go abroad. A vast deal of cheap wine is to be had there, but you find it very dear after you have drank it. The vin ordinaire of France is pure and palatable, and costs next to nothing, but it is too thin to be satisfactory. The wine that deserves the name is eight to ten francs a bottle. The vino nostrale of Italy is only poor vinegar deteriorated. I swallowed it for a few weeks because the water was not pleasant, but afterwards I chose lemonade, which is rich cordial in comparison. I have tried all kinds of Italian wine, Asti, Frascati, Tuscany, Falernian, 448 POLITENESS OF OFFICIALS. and Lacryinae Christi, and the last two, the best quality, to be had in Naples alone, are the only palatable wines I have found. They were not much to boast of, though the Lacrymae has a wide reputation, and Horace has extolled the Falernian to the stars. I have been audacious enough to order Sherry, Port, Ma- laga, and Champagne, and all of them were the worst that ever passed my lips. They were chemicalized, of course, and more obnoxious than they are at cheap bar-rooms in New York. The fact is, they adulterate wine on the continent as they do in the United States, whenever they find it profitable. The wine of the country, though highly watered, is pure be- cause it is cheaper than any decoction they can put into it. Cheap wine everywhere is poor wine. If you want good wine you must pay for it, and then you are frequently de- ceived. The contrast between traveling in the Old and New World is most striking. All railway officials abroad are as uniformly courteous and accommodating as ours are rude and dis- obliging. Every question is civilly answered, every attention shown. The persons who ride with you a few miles lift their hat when they enter the car, and, when they leave it say, " Bon voyage, monsieur," or " Buon giorno, signore," though you have not spoken a syllable to them, and they never ex- pect to meet you again. But that is insincere ; they don't mean anything by it, some one insists. Perhaps they don't ; and yet it is of such'little nothings the agreeableness of life is made up. What a marked contrast is all this to our own land ! How different from the insolent hotel clerks, the insufferable hack- men, the disagreeable servants, the trickery and fraud prac- tised upon travelers in various ways ! I have heard tourists long to get again into the English-speaking counties after being a few months on the continent. I don't feel as they do. I am more at home where the most ignorant people know enough to be polite. Travel is a positive pleasure on the FEEING SERVANTS. 449 continent, and I shrank from the idea of returning to the vast cars, the bellowing conductors, the slamming doors, the disagreeable crowd, the roaring hackmen, and the insolent underlings who make travel in America a trial and a tor- ment. It may all be well with this country in a century or two ; but a tew more generations must look with leniency on the giant. He has been so occupied in growing that he has not had time to polish his periods or perfect his manners. The Italians have the reputation of being indolent ; but those at the hotels are very active at the time you arrive. No matter how little baggage you have, they divide it into a half dozen little pieces, and each carries something. I used to carry a silk traveling cap, and one day, at Modena, a stout fellow took it out of my hand, and putting it on his shoulder, as if it had been a trunk, bore it up stairs. He could not have shown more satisfaction if he had performed one of the labors of Hercules, and at the door of my room he paused and wiped his brow in the most exhausted manner. As the cap did not weigh more than four ounces, and he weighed fully two hundred pounds, I did not waste much sympathy upon him. The object of the porters and waiters in seizing your bag- gage in this style is to claim a fee. The Italian hotels in general have now adopted the English rule of putting service in the bill, whether any be rendered or not ; but the under- lings expect a douceur all the same. They don't ask for it usually by word of mouth, but they do with their faces, man- ners, and gestures, quite as plainly as if they spoke. At Lucca one of the carriers told me when he brought me the bill that I might give him something if I wished to. I told him the service had been charged. He said that was for the chamber, not for the table. I informed him I wanted all the service included in the account. Then he confessed that it was all there ; but what I gave nim would be a kind- ness, and looked so pleading I handed him a franc. A few minutes after, another fellow appeared with a similar petition. I handed him a franc also, and he disappeared to 450 CITY OF FORLI. give place to another I had never seen at all. I then refused. The fellows who had been paid had gone out of sight, and if I had continued to bestow francs, no doubt I should have found twenty of the beggars who had done some special ser- vice for me. At Spezia I tried the gratuity for an experiment. It was not a success, and I did not repeat it under similar circum- stances. The Italian servants are never satisfied. Give them a franc, and they want five francs ; give them five, and they think they should have a Napoleon. And yet of all ser- vants they seem to me, the French perhaps excepted, the least disagreeable and annoying. The ancient and romantic little city of Forli, which lies at the foot of the Apennines, about forty miles from Bologna, is rather oif the beaten road of travel, and has as much of the mediaeval flavor as any Italian town I recall. Its population is not above sixteen or seventeen thousand ; but it is full of associations, and impressed me more than Ferrara or Faenza, Mantua or Rimini, with all their mouldy memories of the past. It has its theatre and opera, as may be supposed, though neither the one nor the other is of a very high order. Still, I liked to go there, and to make up what the music lacked by pondering on what it suggests in regard to the historic past. I was sitting one night in the pit, when a gentleman at my side entered into conversation with me, and I discovered that he was an American, the first I had met there. At the close of the performance we began to criticise it, when he remarked that he had witnessed a most extraordinary entertainment on that very stage, which had taken him altogether by sur- prise. " Indeed," he continued, " I shall not forget it if I live a hundred years. Its impression will never be removed." ^' That is very singular," I said. " I can't imagine how any very remarkable performance can be given in so small a city as this. The music must always be inferior where the patronage is so slight. Be kind enough to tell me what AN ADVENTURE. 451 there was extraordinary in the representation of which you speak." " Well, here we are at the Albergo. Let us go in and order a bottle of Lachrymae Christi, and I'll tell you all about it. " It was late in the autumn, seven or eight years ago. I was on my way from Bologna to Rimini, and concluded to stay here overnight, as I had never seen Forli before. In the evening, as I was wandering around, I passed the theatre, and, observing that Bellini's ' Capuletti e Montecchi ' was to be given, I went in. It was a little after the hour ; but I found the opera not yet begun. Though the house was tolerably full, I had no difficulty in getting a seat. I waited patiently for fifteen minutes, and still no signs that any of the Capulets or Montagues had as yet been born. I did not wonder that the audience displayed some vexation and dis- appointment in cries of ' Basta ! hasta I ' I sat for ten minutes longer. The house was growing somewhat uproarious, and I was on the point of going out when the stage-bell rang for the orchestra, and the instrumentalists began the sad and tender overture. That done, the long-delayed curtain rose, but on quite a different scene from that recorded in the libretto. " Instead of the members of the rival houses, testy and turbulent, some twenty men, in the picturesque costume of. the Abruzzi, appeared drawn up across the stage with guns levelled at the audience. One of their number, who seemed to be their chief, stepped to the foot-lights, and informed the people in front, in very un-Tuscan Italian, that they would be instantly shot if they made the least resistance. " It occurred to me that this was quite a new version of an opera I had supposed myself entirely familiar with, and, in all my recollection of the lyric repertoire, I could not think of ar v drama which began exactly in that way. " The audience was evidently dissatisfied with the first scene, and many of then\j in spite of the menace and the levelled guns, started pell-mell out of the house. A number 452 ITALIAN BRIGANDS AS A CTORS. of the ladies screamed and jumped up in the boxes ; but, in a few minutes, they became calm and quiet, and showed more coolness and self-discipline than their natural protectors. " For myself, though I did not particularly relish the situation, I felt more amused than alarmed at its unexpected novelty, and I waited to see what would happen next. I noticed that the men who had attempted to quit the theatre had returned paler than when they sought to go out, and I overheard one of them say, ' The doors are all guarded by armed men, and we shall certainly be murdered, every one of us ! ' This was comforting at least, and I remembered with a kind of melancholy satisfaction that, as I had no creditors, I should leave no one to mourn for me, if the worst came to the worst. " Fill your glass, my friend. Let me assure you that in this world no man is missed unless he leave debts behind him. Therefore, always owe somebody something if you wish to be remembered. " The next thing in the programme was the entrance into the theatre of ten or twelve more of the black-bearded, peak- hatted, amateur or professional artists, who looked as if they would cut a throat for ten baiocchi, and that the rate would be reduced if murders were required by the dozen. The new- comers, gun in hand and stiletto in belt, went to everybody in the house, and used such persuasive speech as to induce them to part with their valuables. They transacted business more rapidly and efficiently than I had ever known it to be transacted in Italy. " In less than a minute, a fellow, who might have been poisoner and assassin-in-chief to the Borgias, stepped up to me, and, lifting his hat, said : '■'•'' Buona sera, signore ; scusdtemi;' and held out his hand for my personal property. " I had prepared for him by concealing my watch and purse in an inside pocket. I presented two or three bank-notes received some time before in Palermo and not current any- where, with an I. 0. U. taken from an imposter in Paris, and SOMETHING NEW IN R OBBER Y. 453 worth ten per cent, less than nothing. Determined not to be outdone in politeness, I remarked, as I handed him the precious treasure : " ' Siete molto cortese.^ " He took what I offered without question, and saying, ' Cosi, va bene ; grazie ngnore^ turned his rapacious atten- tion to my neighbor. " Very soon the robbery was complete, and the thieves quitted the theatre, while the leader of the band (I don't mean the director of the orchestra) ordered the strangers on the stage to recover and shoulder arms, which they did, and marched off without a word. " As soon as the bandits had gone, such a chattering, and swearing, and general tumult, arose among the audience, who then felt free to express their feelings at the outrage, that I could not help laughing. While this confusion was at its height, the manager appeared before the foot-lights and made an explanation of what had taken place. " He said that, just as the performance was about to begin, a band of brigands had descended from the Apennines, sur- rounded the theatre, taken possession of all the entrances, bound the artists and everybody behind the scenes, and then proceeded to plunder the audience in the manner I have described. He thought there were about one hundred of them in all, and expressed the hope that the infernal scoundrels would yet be captured and shot — a sentiment which awoke general sympathy and hearty applause, but not an atom of expectation. He added, moreover, that he was very sorry for the unpleasant but unavoidable occurrence ; that he was willing to refund the money we had paid for ad- mission, and would be only too happy if the bandits would also make restitution. If we cared, however, to hear the opera, he would be charmed to present it, and so, bowing, he retired, amid loud bravos and clapping of hands. " Nobody quitted the theatre ; and, as I fancied, some other novelty might be offered, my curiosity impelled me to remain. 454 THE AFTER-PIECE. " Bellini's composition was very fairly rendered. The artists and audience were in unusually good spirits after the peculiar contre-temps, and were on the best terms with each other. " I felt some desire to know whether this sort of thing happened often or only occasionally, and on inquiry I was told it was altogether unprecedented. I was glad of this, for I like novelties, even when they are somewhat disagreeable, and I consider that episode worth twice the price of admission. In fact, this cool and ingenious method of robbing a whole audience pleased me so much that, whenever I am in this part of the country, I visit Forli in hope of seeing it again. " I have known a great many changes of programme during an opera season, but that was the first and last time I ever knew ' Fra Diavolo ' substituted literally for the ' Capuletti e Montecchi ' on any stage. I like Bellini ; but I prefer bandits. Camiere^ cavate il tappo e quella bottiglia.^* CHAPTER LVIII. FLORENCE. IRENZE LA BELLA, as the Italians call it, appears to more advantage during May, and early in June than at any other season. Then the weather is charming. The days are perfect — Nature's editions of poetry bound in blue and gold, — and the nights, star-studded and moonlit, are deliciously cool, exactly of the temperature to ren- der out-door life pleasant, and sleep refreshing. Evening rides and promenades are of course enjoyable, and are made the most of by the pleasure-loving population who throng the Lung-Arno, the Via Tornabuoni and other prominent thor- oughfares. The Cascine, the principal park and drive, is very gay to- ward smiset with handsome carriages and horses. All the fashion and culture goes there to visit, as well as to drive, and one has an opportunity to see the finest and best-dressed men and women of the city. The Cascine has charming walks, a zoological garden, a pyramidal fountain, a caf^, a beautiful villa, and is the most attractive spot about Florence. To drive in the Cascine and to have a box at the opera is to be fashionable in Florence. There is much wealth in the town, which displays itself in the elaborate toilets of the privileged and prosperous classes, who are fond of show and every kind of social dissipation. The advantage of being in Italy in spring and early sum- mer is that you see the people of the country instead of the crowd of English and Americans who axe there during the 456 F^ ORENCE <• THE BEA UTIFUL:' winter. The Italians do not seem to like foreigners, and keep within doors when the annual invasion begins. After the month of April they feel that their country is their own. They go out and lead the life which is natural to them — one of dreamy indolence and sensuous indulgence. I know no people who get more satisfaction out of existence. They dwell in the passing hour, and will not permit the future to trouble them. We fret and wear ourselves out before we have reached middle age, so taxing our nerves and will that when we have leisure we have not the power of enjoying it. Florence does not deserve its self-given title, " The Beautiful ;" for, apart from its situation, there is no particu- lar beauty in it. It is interesting, however, and several weeks can well be spent there. It is famous for its eminent men, and was, you know, the seat of the famous Medici family, who acquired immense fortunes by their commercial enter- prises. They really deserved the name of merchant princes, which is so much abused in tliis country. If a man in trade grows rich here by the practice of all the arts of selfishness and meanness he is often styled a merchant prince, especially if he happens to buy a few daubs and monstrous marbles, and a lot of books he never reads. Dante was born there, and a splendid statue of white mar- ble is erected to his memory in the Piazza Santa Croce. The pedestal, twenty-two feet high, is adorned with four reliefs representing scenes from the " Divina Commedia ;" at the cor- ners are four lions, and about the base are the arms of the principal cities of Italy. The poet is buried in Ravenna, but all honor is done to him in his native city. His portraits are seen everywhere. They are not the ideal faces we are accus- tomed to, but they are true to nature. In the Ufizzi Gallery is a cast of the bard's face, taken just after death. It is very thin and worn, and inexpressibly sad. It looks much like the face of an American Indian, and might easily be mistaken therefor. The Cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, in the Piazza del Duomo is one of the largest and most imposing churches in Europe. It was begun in 1398, and still looks incomjilete, from CHVR CHES AND PALA C£S. 457 the fact that it has no fa9ade, the old one having been torn down nearly three centuries ago to give place to a new one. It is Italian gothic, 522 feet long, and 322 feet broad, and 280 feet high. Its dome is larger than that of St. Peter's at Rome, or St. Paul's at London, but is out of proportion to the body of the church, which is built of various colored mar- bles, and has a very singular and impressive appearance. Its interior is plain, even to baldness. The Campanile, the most remarkable bell-tower in Italy, is 275 feet high, and furnishes a splendid view of the city, the valley of the Arno, the surrounding heights and the distant mountains. I enjoyed, exceedingly, the panorama from its summit. The Baptistery is world-renowned for its bronze doors. Two of them, by Ghiberti, were declared by Michel Angelo worthy to be the gates of Paradise. Santo Croce, another famous church, is 460 feet long and 134 feet broad. Its new facade, of black and white marble, is handsome, but rather staring in style. The church is nearly six centuries old, and contains monuments to Dante, Alfieri, Macchiavelli, Nobili, Aretino, Galileo, and others. Michel Angelo and the Countess of Albany (Ahieri's mis- tress), are buried there. The Ufizzi and Pitti Palaces contain the largest and best art collections in the world. The two are connected by a cov- ered gallery extending over the Arno, and ten minutes is re- quired to walk from one to the other. The Ufizzi has the . famous Venus de' Medici, in which I was sorely disappointed. It has little spirit or suggestiveness, even if Cleomenes did make it, and the head is too small for the body. If the Venus represented the ideal of Greek beauty, we have assuredly im- proved upon it. The Venus de' Medici is far inferior to my mind, to the Venus of Milo, the Venus of the Capitol, or even the Venus of Canova in the Pitti. I have studied the Medicean Venus, but I cannot understand how it obtained its reputation. The face is not handsome nor expressive, and I am sure there are many women in America who are comelier and have better figures than the celebrated marble. 458 RENOWNED PAINTINGS. The Ufizzi has probably three hundred statues, and over two thousand pictures, some of which are the best on the Continent. The Tribune contains the " Venus," the " Apollino," the " Wrestlers," and the " Grinder," in mar- ble, and several of Raffaelle's best paintings, Titian's two celebrated " Yenuses" (they are supposed to be portraits of the mistresses of the Due d' Urbino), Guercino's " En- dymion" and " Sybil of Samos," and Andrea del Sarto's " Madonna and Saints." The two halls full of portraits of the most distinguished painters, done by themselves, are very interesting. They in- clude every one, from Raffaelle to the artists of the present day. The Pitti has five hundred paintings of note, among them some choice Tintorettos, Rubenses, Salvator Rosas, Carlo Dolces, Velasquezs, Guidos, Caraccis, Vandykes, Murillos, and Coreggios. The saloons of the Palace are finely fres- coed and ornamented, but they are so much like the palaces you see all the way from Paris to Naples that you care little for them. The galleries furnish the means of study for months, and are delightful for esthetic loungers. Victor Emanuel lives in the Pitti (or did until the capital was removed to Rome), which, as the Ufizzi, the Palazzo Vecchio, and Loggia dei Lanzi, is built of dark and mas- sive stone, and looks like a grim fortress of the feudal times. I have seen Victor often. He is a king who is not kingly. He does not care much for his royalty, it is said by those who claim to know. He is a physical being, who likes open air, streams, mountains, forests ; and yet has no sentimental as- sociations with Nature. He is neither poetic nor fastidious, not at all an Italian in feeling or in temperament. If he had more intellect and culture, he might be a voluptuary. As it is, he is the antipodes of a spiritualist. He is more like an old German baron of the past century than a king of the present day. Give him a boar to hunt, and he whistles away the cares of state ; a rustic feast to sit at, and he drowns un- pleasant memories in draughts of Lachrymae Christi. THE KING'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 159 No one would suspect the careless and jolly Victor of being either an Italian or a king. He is, I repeat, more Teutonic than Tuscan, and in semblance more plebeian than patrician. He has a coarse face, which would be hard but for its sensual lines. It is broad, and yet compressed between the chin and forehead, as if it had been melted and run into too small a mold. He might sit for one of Rubens's satyrs, and the copy would require little alteration. An easy, good-natured fel- low, though his short aspiring nose gives him an air of mean- ness and suspicion, he is too indolent to be tyrannical and too careless to be just. He enjoys royalty, because it gives him an opportunity to have a good time ; and to have a good time is with him the best thing that is to be gotten out of life. He can hardly be called popular ; nor is he unpopular, for he is associated with the idea of a United Italy, dear to the Italian heart. He is as much attached to his country as a man of his constitution can be ; and would be glad to see it great, if its greatness did not interfere with his convenience and material comfort. The Boboli Gardens are visit-worthy. Cosimo I. deserves the credit of originating them, having appropriated a large sum to them more than three centuries and a half ago. They are on the side of a hill and command fine views of the city. The long walks are bordered with evergreens and statues, and, with the grottoes and basins and casinos, make the place very pleasant. It is estimated that several mil- lions of dollars have been expended on the Gardens. The open space called the amphitheatre was formerly devoted to the merry-makings of the Court, and is full of associations with the Medicis, their gaieties and gallantries, which latter were by no means few. It was once said there never was one of the Medici who had not half a dozen mistresses, and that the Father of his Country and the Cardinals were no excep- tions. That may have been slander ; but all contemporaneous accounts agree in representing them as a family of supremely liberal morals. Above the Boboli is the Fortezza di Belvedere, built b> 4G0 FAMOUS STATUES. Ferdinand I. in 1590, which is of little use now, though it adds to the picturesqueness ot the hill on which it stands. The Piazza della Signoria, is the most noticeable in the city. Formerly the Grand Ducal Square, it is now the center of traffic, and full of retail venders and hawkers of all sorts. Savonarola and two of his monks were burned at the stake there in 1498. The Palazzo Vecchio, once the seat of the Republican Government, still frowns down there, with its history of six centuries of chance and change. At the en- trance to the palace are statues of David, by Michel Angelo, and Hercules and Cacusby his rival, Baudinelli. The Square contains other works by the same artists, and the famous fountain, with Neptune and the Tritons. In the portico of the Loggia dei Lanzi are Giovanni di Bologna's " Rape of the Sabines," Cellini's " Perseus" (bronze), the " Rape of Polyxena," a copy of " Ajax with the Body of Patroclus," and other statues. The portico of the Ufizzi is ornamented with busts of prom- inent Tuscans ; among them Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Macchiavelli, Cellini, da Yinci, Amerigo Vespucci (he un- justly gave his name to our country), Michel Angelo, Galileo, Giotto, Donatello, and others — certainly a very creditable array of names. The houses of Galileo, Vespucci, Guicciardini, and Bianca Capello, the beautiful mistress and wife of Francesco de' Me- dici, whose life was so full of romance, are frequently visited by tourists. Bianca's home was the most interesting to me, for with all her weakness she must have been supremely at- tractive. I used to go to the Cascine to dine every day, and, seated in the open air beside the Arno, in full view of the Apen- nines and the surrounding hills, covered with villas and old mon- asteries, if I had had only a bit of bread and a flask of wine, it would have been more than a banquet within walls. There were always wandering musicians in the park. They came to play for me while I ate — and I found Bellini and Mozart, with the soft sky and the mountains, the best sauce in the world for the viands the bottega brought me. SUBURBS OF FLORENCE. 461 A cutlet dipped in the dreamy air of Tuscany, a soup sea- soned with a delicious duet of Verdi, an ice crowned with the curve ot a distant mountain, is refreshment and nourishment to the mind no less than the body. I shall long remember that more than Apician dining on the Arno, for I have fes- tooned it with beauty, and hung it in one of the fairest cham- bers of my memory. Fiesole is one of the suburbs of Florence most frequently visited. It is on the summit of a high hill, very picturesque, and gives a splendid view. Once a monastery and a church were there, the latter containing monuments of the noted families of the time. Fiesole is an Etruscan town, so old no one can ever guess its age. Most of its ancient ruins have been destroyed or are occupied by convents and monasteries, which very natm-ally arise on the sites and remains of Pagan temples and monuments. Near Fiesole are many handsome villas, with highly cultivated-grounds. In one of them, be- longing to the Grand Ducal family, Boccaccio assumed that the stories of the Decameron were told by a company of ladies and gentlemen to distract their mind from the fearful ravages of the plague. Florence is growing rapidly, and becoming very French in character. Indeed, it seems like a little Paris, though ne- cessarily inferior to the great capital in elegance and luxury. Its population, about 130,000 to 140,000, is annually adding to its cosmopolitan character. Its climate is not desirable, but still it is one of the favorite capitals of pleasure-seekers, who are quite resigned to being chilled to the marrow in the winter, and stung to madness by the mosquitoes during the autumn ; for they know, however they suffer, that they are in Florence the Beautiful. I have come to the conclusion that the Italians are the greatest chatter-boxes on the planet. They can talk more on smaller provocation than any people I have known. The French have the reputation of great babblers, but they can't begin to rival the subjects of Victor Emanuel. The most ignorant of them gabble about a bit of garlic or a bean as if the destiny of the universe depended on that particular vegetable. 4g2 A NATION OF BABBLERS. They must hold the religious belief that they can talk away their sins ; and so they tire their tongues in this world for hope of pardon in the next. I am afraid, if I had the par- doning power, I should be less lenient with the perpetual babblers than they would like. I am fond of the liquid sweet- ness of the Italian — though you don't hear much Tuscan in the country — but its endless continuance is wearying. I have fre- quently gone to bed with a lot of Italians jabbering under my window, and when I awoke in the morning, they were at it still. I don't know if it was the same individuals, but it was the same people. You remember the once popular play of the " Dumb Girl of Genoa." I am confident that the man who wrote it never was in Italy. There are no dumb persons in Genoa, or any other Italian city. An Italian cannot be dumb, and I have sometimes regretted that certain Americans I wot of were not deaf. It would not be so bad if the Italians spoke the language Dante, or Tasso, or Petrarch wrote, or anything like it ; but they have a jargan no scholar can comprehend. Ari- osto and Alfieri would be as much at loss to fathom the mean- ing of the words poured out in that country as an ancient Athenian would be to understand a modern professor's Greek harangue. In Piedmont, Lombardy, Tuscany, and Romagna — even in Bologna, so famous once for its learning and cul- ture — they have a dialect of the most extraordinary kind. It is not like any other language on earth or under it. Mezzo- fante, if he were alive, could not tell on a wager what the strange medley is all about. It is all folly to tell travelers they should speak Italian when they visit Florence or Naples ; the better they speak it the worse they are off. What they need most is capacity to swear roundly in English and to carry a full purse. , With these accomplishments they can go any- where between the Mediterranean and Adriatic, and get along very comfortably. The common people are very poor linguists ; but to make up for the defect they claim to speak every language. Ask a hack-driver or waiter, or porter, if he knows Hebrew. Chal- FL UENCT IN LA NG UA GES. 463 daic or Choctaw, and he will reply in the affirmative ; and yet the only thing you can ring out of him is his barbarous patois. I tested the question one day by making the inquiry in six tongues, and each time the camiere declared " Si, Sig- nore^'' with an emphasis that amounted to an affidavit. Then their French is worse than their Italian, which would seem impossible. I was afraid when I got home I should have my ideas of language so confused that I couldn't render myself intelligible in my native tongue. Perhaps I don't. I have hardly encountered an Italian in his native land who spoke English. One of those who spoke it, after a fash- ion, was a landlord at Genoa, and he talked perpetually. He never saw me but he began to gabble — proud, no doubt, of his accomplishment — and went on until I informed him con- fidentially that I was a Russian, and that beyond a few stock phrases I knew nothing of English. He then told me he thought he had discovered a Russian accent in my speech, and hoped I would lose no time in acquiring a language that was so " magnifico bucheeful." Wasn't that carrying impudence and patronage to some- thing like extremes ? CHAPTER LIX. ROME. jY observations and experiences in Rome were before the Pope was deprived of his temporal power, and before that city became the capital of Italy. So I shall speak of it as it was then. In Rome notliing moves but the priests and the monks. It is a species of living grave, the catacomb of classicism, the stronghold of the Catholic Church. Independent of theology, an- tiquities, and art, the city has little interest or beauty. One wearies of it in a day, and is bound to it in a month. - The charm of the place, to a man of my temperament, is that the people are not demoralized by the spirit of work. Labor is an inconsistency and an impertinence there. Unless you are an artist, or an ecclesiastic, or a tourist, there is nothing to be done. Rome has no commerce, and wants none. The spirit of the Papal States is stagnation and prayer. If you are a de- vout Catholic, say your beads, believe in all miracles, past, present, and to come, and your soul will be secure and your mind at rest. Concern not yourself about this world. Do not fret. You are in the best of keeping. Chapels and cre- dos will send you direct to Heaven, when this pleasant wine- drinking and daily lounging, known as life, is at an end. The skies are soft ; the soil is rich ; graves are cheap. Nature and the Church will provide for you. Be at peace with your- self and mankind. The angelus is sounding. All sins may be forgiven ; all virtue is in faith. Bend the knee, and re- REVERIES ON THE PAST. 465 sign yourself to ecclesiastic keeping, that your dream of relig- ion may not be disturbed. To a heretic that is what the daily life of Rome, secular and spiritual, seems to say. I hear it in the monotonous ap- peal of the beggars, in the discordant cry of the hawkers, in the peal of the campanili, in the chatter of the rambling monks. Existence on the Tiber, is a simulacrum of being. I wander about there with imagination and memory, and walk back through the centuries as through the excavations o^ the Pal- ace of the Caesars and the crypts of the Mamertine Prison. The Vatican, the Capitol, and the Villa Albani draw my breath into their storied marbles, until they live again, and I flit around them like a pale ghost. Romulus, Nerva, Tarquin, Pompey, Caesar, Tiberius, Nero, are no longer dead. I feel their presence on every hand, and the Gods of Olympus are restored. Jove, the divine autocrat, once more thunders and controls. Mars, the clamorous bully, bellows over the dreary campagna. Bacchus, the rowdy deity, crushes the purple grape until it flushes his laughing face. Venus, the enchanting hussy, is delightfully disloyal, and makes her disloyalty poetical. Minerva, the blue stock- ing of the skies, frowns upon all flirtations ; and Juno, the jealous wife of two thousand years ago, is wretched for the inconstancy of her erratic lord. I see the symbols of Paganism and Christianity — the mar- ble ApoUos and the painted Christs — confronting each other in every gallery, and Paganism appears to have the right of reigning there. The ruins of Rome assert themselves in op- position to the sentimental teachers of the modern faith, and every arch and every column cries out against the invader of the ancient creed. Though no archeologist, I love to linger in the shadows the dead centuries have cast, and forget for the time the practical spirit of the nineteenth century. The Temple of Peace, the Arch of Septimus Severus, the Baths of Diocletian, the Via Appia, with its sumptuous tombs, woo me every day. In the 466 THE CENCl PALACE. whispering wind is the soft voice of Egeria, and the strange confession of Sabina ; in the yellow Tiber the history of Nerva and Augustus is mirrored ; in th^ Alban and Sabine hills all the past mingles with their blue haze, and converts thought into a vision of departed ages. The Cenci Palace, so famous in history, and so indissolubly associated with the tragic death of Beatrice, about which a hundred stories have been written — looks gloomy enough near the dirty and dismal quarter known as the Ghetto. I have passed it a number of times, and have always stopped before it as if the passing breeze might whisper some of its terrible secrets. The Palace is a large and dreary pile of architecture, and was for many years deserted. The doors and windows were carried off, and only bats and lizards were its occupants. The Government is said to have purchased it recently ; but it still resembles a miserable tenement house, clothes hang- ing out of the windows to dry, and filth being the outward sign of its inhabitation. The building is thought by many of the superstitious Italians to be haunted, and consequently none but persons pressed by poverty will live in it. It seems, indeed, as if it might be accursed, so dismal and dreary are its massive proportions. Reports are current that terrible shrieks are heard in the night, and that a figure in white, with blood upon its garments, is seen in the spacious corridor. That is thought to be Beatrice, whose spirit cannot rest. The palace has been blessed by the Pope again and again ; but still these ignorant people deem it accursed. The story of the Cencj is most revolting ; but I think I never quite understood it until I saw Rome. The father of Beatrice, Count Francesco, seems to have been a most de- praved wretch of the Alexander VI. pattern, and like that notorious Pope, a creature of unbridled lust. His daughter, who was as pure and lovely as her parent was monstrous, had the misfortune to inspire him with an incestuous passion. She begged to be spared, but he forced her to obey his will, until at last, mad with her degradation, and revolting at her .compulsory sin, she conspired with her brother to have her TROUBLE WITH TEE SAIXTS. 467 father assassinated. He was murdered, and she was arrested and arraigned for trial. The crime was not proved upon her ; but she was condemned and executed, the Pope, who had been the friend of the Count, refusing to show the poor girl mercy. Every one loved her ; her death was universally mourned, and the Pope execrated for his inhumanity, for which he is said to have had secret reasons, never yet known. Guido's picture is known everywhere through the number- less copies. The original is in the Barberini Palace ; but I cannot think it faithfiil, though the artist is said to have painted it the night before her execution. The face is sweet but insipid, more resembling that of a child than a mature, intense woman of character, as Beatrice unquestionably was. I have often wondered how many saints there are. I tried to count them when a little boy, but the enumeration table ran out, and as they have made many more saints and no more figures, I have not tried it since. I once thought I should like to be a saint myself; but my evangelical educa- tion was neglected, and I failed in my ambition. I don't mourn much, however ; there are too many canonized crea- tures to suit me. If there were only two or three million, I shouldn't care ; but who wants his sinfulness swallowed up in so much saintliness ? I have been told that all the Conti- nental directories are used for saint-making, but I am confident the story is not true, as the di- rectories have not names enough. It is necessary to know a vast deal about the saints in Italy to understand the pictures — and I have found my knowlenge inade- quate. I undertook to read the " Lives of the Saints," but I became financially embarrassed before I could pay the trans- portation on the books which a friend with a huge library had LIVE SAINT. been kind enoudi to lend me. 463 AN IMPOSING CEREMONY My daily round of churches prompted me to believe they did not lead very happy lives, unless being broiled on grid- irons, shot full of arrows, and torn to pieces by wild animals constitute happiness. Perhaps it did in their day ; but now the idea of pleasure is somewhat changed. The authorized accounts say the saints died singing hymns ; that they were delighted with their martyrdom, and wouldn't have had things otherwise if they could. Probably they were more contented with their death than their life. I should be, if part of my experience consisted in being stewed, boiled, and fricasseed, every morning before breakfast. The Church at Rome during the summer has as many theo- logic theatricals and sacerdotal mummeries (and they consti- tute one of the principal attractions of Rome) as it has during the winter and the early spring. And the summer spectacles, I am informed by the cognoscenti of the Church, are as curi- ous and certainly as interesting as the shows of Holy Week and Christmas time. These priestly pomps have never had the smallest charm for me — in fact, they rarely have much for any heretics save feminine ones ; and yet, when some new kind of monkish dis- play is announced, I go and look at it, to see if it can possibly be more ridiculous than the last one I may have witnessed. On a certain Sunday it was made known to me that the remains of St. Francesca the Roman (if I err in the name, any other nf the million or two of saints will answer as well) were to be removed from the Monastery of Tor de Specchi to the church bearing the title of the saint. It seems that some years ago one of the daughters of the Palavicini family left a large sum to build a new church for St. Frances ; and, as the sacred remains were interred there, it became necessary to remove them to the monastery. The church being finished, poor St. Frances was to be carried back in grand procession, and to be buried once more, until her canonized dust was re- quired again for a public show. I was told that this was to be one of the most imposing processions the city had seen for years, and its prominent feature the walking on foot of the noblgst ladies of Rome, draped in sables, and bearing torches. THE PROCESSION. 469 The time named for the procession was six in the evening. I was in the Campo Vaccine an hour before ; but, as the car- riage was comfortable, the weather delightful, and my com- panions agreeable, I bore the martyrdom of waiting with due resignation. About seven some of the Cardinals' carriages drove up with tiieir, flaring, gilt and crimson trappings, and the venerable prelates were handed out with exceeding cere- mony. Then came monks of half a dozen orders, all looking equally devout and dirty ; then priests, in white surplices, bearing candles and chanting hymns ; then youthful choris- ters, singing in shrill voices ; then the Swiss Guard, whose uniform Michel Angelo designed from a study of the middle ages, and made supremely grotesque ; then the Papal Zouaves, well-dressed and indolent, with crucifixes. Madonnas and baldachini mingled here and there ; and then the body of the saint in a palanquin, carried on the shoulders of four anointed priests. I say the body, because I suppose the mummy-like figure I saw, with clasped hands and hideous grinning head, was intended to represent the mortal remains of what had once been the honored devotee. It may have been an effigy only, or it may ^~'"r^T -r-^ . have been (to the devout Catholic mind) the breathing saint, restor- ed to life for that particu- lar occasion by one of the every- day miracles for which the Roman Church is famous, the Continent A DEAD SAINT. I never can determine when traveling on 470 PROCESSION OF NOBLE WOMEN. what I am expected to see or believe in tlie way of ecclesiastic marvels. The Church has such illimitable power to subvert the laws of Nature and obtain special interventions of Heaven that I may have beheld wonders unconsciously. In describ- ing any ceremony, therefore, I hesitate to say what I have seen until I learn by canonical authority what has happened that the outward eye of the heretic cannot perceive. I have doubted through my mere reason many things I have read of in this country as actual occurrences ; and yet they are sup- ported by such a weight of sacerdotal authority that I must either believe or be discarded from the faithful. But to return. After the body, living or dead, of the saint, followed about forty women, robed in black, with long black veils over their heads, and carrying tapers. These were the feminine representatives of the best families of Rome — the Dorias, the Palavicinis, the Borgheses, and Barberinis ; and their profound humility in walking, when they might have rid- den, and in keeping company with common Christians, so un- like themselves, was greatly admired and created a sensation among the plebeian Romans who had crowded together to see the spectacle. The surroundings of these women set them off to advantage — any woman with a possibility of comeliness would have looked well, under the circumstances. Many of the noblesse looked and were handsome, with their large, lustrous eyes, their dark hair, their rich olive complexions, and their warm, graceful mouths. It would have been strange indeed if the generations of ease and luxury behind them and their opportunities for culture and elegance had -not resulted to their esthetic advantage. The fair women marched slowly on, amid the chant, the music of the accompanying bands, the tolling of the bells, the comments of the throng; and be- hind them more gilded coaches of church and state, and the pageant was at an end. Up the steps of the church the pro- cession moved, and its varied colors and waving torches lent a certain degree of picturesqueness to the gathering dusk that even the meaninglessness of the occasion could not destroy. As I sat in the carriage, in the deliciously soft air, the bells MARBLE mm CENTS. 471 making the evening mournful, watching the pretentious pa- geant that seemed to me so empty, and the Roman crowd of grown-up children, who were so delighted with the spectacle, and as I glanced at the Temple of Peace before and the Co- liseum behind me, I could not help thinking how fitting it is that the center of the Catholic Church should be where the seat of the old paganism was, where the sweetest air of the Campagna is loaded with the breath of pestilence, and where for centuries art and superstition have been cherished, and so interwoven that we are almost forced to admire one through the other. I watched the procession as it lingered on the portico of the church ; I looked again and again at the ancient ruins ; I observed the awe-inspired faces of the Italian crowd ; 1 glanced at the solemn mummery of the pageant ; and, with the memory of old and new Rome, the heathen empire and the Papal States, I rejoiced, after all, that I was a heretic, and that there was no danger of my canonization. The Vatican, Capitol, and Villa Albani, are rich in marbles, and I admire them. I should admire them more if they had been more favored with arms and ears and, chins and noses. One would imagine the statues had been saints from their treatment. Tliey have been very roughly handled, and very unjustly. I don't think that to be a statue is such a sin as to require maiming and even decapitation. The old fellows in marble lead very blameless lives. They don't swear or get drunk. They don't borrow your money ; they don't write for the newspapers, or even run for Congress. They might be a little cleaner, but they are adopted Italians, and it is not the custom of the country to wash. How were the figures deprived of so much of their original selves ? From their severe habits of reflection they must have got lost in thought, and many of their members been unable fo find their way back. Possibly in the antique days the men and women were choleric, and in their quarrels pulled each other's noses until they pulled them off, and bit off ears, too. For their armless condition I can only account by the suppo- 472 INCOMPLETE STATUES ACCOUNTED FOR. sition that, being distinguished characters, and contemplating a visit to America, they removed their arms, either because they believed it unlawful to bear arms in this country, or be- cause they were aware of tlie national custom of hand-shaking, and wished to provide themselves against it. Who made all these statues, and how they were made, has long been a question. Sculpture, after the manner of the an- cients, is a lost art. I have a theory on the subject. The marble-cutters did their work separately. One made arms, one legs, one noses, another ears, and so on. The fellows who did the small work were far lazier than those who carved the larger parts, like thighs, heads, and trunks. The conse- quence was noses, ears, fingers, and chins were short, and the proper supply could not be obtained. This accounts for the appearance of the statues. They are not broken ; they are simply incomplete. Modern artists have done their best to supply the defect, and in due season they will succeed. The Venuses and Cupids and Psyches are being restored, and will soon be presenta- ble. One of the finest mar- bles in the Vatican is the torso of Hercules. I like it, but my liking would be increased if there were more of it. A breast and abdomen, with an abbre- viated pair of thighs, may be sufficient for art, but would be found very in- convenient in nature. I am acquainted with persons who would not be half so enthusiastic about the famous marble if it were entire. In the Vatican are the world-famous Laccoon and the Apollo. The former is a masterpiece of sculptured expres- sion, and the latter indeed an ideal in marble. I should THE VATICAN. OLD PAINTINGS. 473 never tire of looking at the carved god; should never be quite persuaded he would not reveal to me the mysterious blisses of Olympus. A statue I shall not forget is the Venus of the Capitol. She is in a reserved cabinet, but becomes visible for a paul or two given to the custode. I don't know why she is shut up, for she is assuredly undressed enough to appear in society. The Capitoline Venus looks as if she were a trifle unhappy ; but whether it is because she can't talk, or because she has no man to buy clothes for her, I have not determined. Poor, dear girl, it is tpo bad that she should be shut up there all day and all night, with no one to tell her how charming she is. The popular belief is that Rome, and, indeed, all Italy, is full of fine pictures. Good paintings, however, are very scarce everywhere. The old masters seemed inspired, sometimes, and at others did very inferior work. Because a painting is by Raffaele or Domenichino, Tiziano or Correggio, Guido or Murrillo it does not follow it is excellent. Any such paint- ings will bring a fabulous price on account of the reputation of the artist, which merely proves want of taste on the part of those who claim to be coUnoisseurs. Raffaelle, the prince of painters, frequently bailed, in my judgment, both with his pencil and his brush. Some of his Virgins, immortal though they are called, have little merit. Not one of them is more than a decidedly pretty woman. They lack spirituality, strength, and depth of tone ; and even the Madonna da Foligno, regarded as one of the greatest paintings known, has numerous defects. Sassoferrato's "Virgin and Child," in the Vatican, though it has little reputation, looks more divine than any similar picture in the collection. Perugino, Raffaelle's master, and famed from sea to sea, never did any work I should care to have. His figures are thin and flat, and remind me of deco- rations on tea chests. Raffaelle's "Transfiguration," Domenichino's "Commun- ion of St. Jerome," and a few other pictures in the Vatican are. as e;enerations have agreed, marvels of art. 474 SPLENDID TEMPLES. ^1 The churches of Rome are said to be over three hundred in number, and yet the population of the city is less than two hundred thousand. Service is not held at all in some of the churches, and in none is the attendance large ordinarily. At St. Paul's, the fourth largest church in the world, there is no mass save on special occasions. The building is beyond the walls in a very unhealthy position, and is visited during the summer only by tourists. It is very rich in marbles, and is reputed to have cost over thirty millions of dollars. The Roman churches must be worth, or at least the sum expended on them, must have been hundreds of millions. What an incalculable amount of good might be done with such a sum ! Though almost everybody is disappointed in St. Peter's at first, it so grows upon you, as you examine it at leisure, and regard it comparatively, that you soon feel its vastness, and are impressed by its grandeur. If Angelo's plan had been carried out, the Church would have been an architectural glory. To tell any one, as the guides do, that it is 613 feet long, the nave 152 feet high, the length of the transepts 445 feet, and the height of the cross 405, or, as some in- sist, 448 feet, gives you no idea of its proportions. You get them best by mounting to the lantern. In the portico of the Pantheon I flattered my- self I had discovered some defect after devoting sev- eral hours to it from a fan- -^^^ cied favorable point of view ; but I afterward had the mortification to see the fault was in my position. The fact that Raffaelle is buried in the ancient temple draws many strangers to it. When the deforming belfries are torn down, the fa9ade of the Pantheon can hardly be improved. The first time I went to Rome I hurried on to the Coli- ST. PETER S AT ROME. THE POPE'S APPEARANCE. 475 seum as if, after staying on the same spot for nearly two thousand years, it would disappear before I got there. Vast as it is, I have never been able to understand how it could have seated, as has been claimed, 87,000 spectators. The story is about as truthful, I suspect, as the one which says that when Titus died 5,000 wild beasts and 10,000 cap- tives were slain. The ancient amphitheater should be visited at moonlight to be seen to the best advantage. Then the imagination has play, and the night helps the classic as- sociations wonderfully. The traditions of the martyrdom of the early Christians are absurdly exaggerated. Instead of thousands, competent authorities declare less than one hund- red perished in the arena. The Catholic Church, however, has always been only too willing to help its cause with pious frauds of a very transparent sort. When I was last in Rome Pio Nono was seriously disliked out of the Papal States — not as an individual, but as a tem- poral prince. Then his spiritual authority was on the wane with the Italians, who are growing skeptical, and complain that the gates of the Roman Heaven open too often at the clinking of gold. The theological change in Italy during the past ten years is very remarkable. Implicit faith and blind submission is no longer received by the people. They have begun to reason, and the vast Vatican dwindles before logic. The Pope himself is an amiable, pleasing, well-bred gentleman, who is said to be much more liberal than his Cardinals, but has not the courage to do what they oppose. In Rome every one likes him, for he makes a study of manners, and is anxious to conciliate all who approach him. He closely resembles his por- traits. He is a fleshy, white-haired, round-faced, POPE BLESSINO THE POPULACE. 476 ABSURD INCONSISTENCIES. dark-eyed old man, with an expression of humor that often flashes out in conversation, and contributes much to his sleek and well-fed appearance. He is extremely earnest and zeal- ous in and for his creed, and conscientiously helieves the sole salvation of the world is through the universal establishment of his prosletyzing Church. Pio looks forward, I understand, with great hope to Amer- ica as the land wliere Romanism will have its widest diffu- sion, and where the sanctuary of St. Peter will be most se- cure. For a man not very strong, naturally amiable, and fond of peace, the Pope has had a stormy and unwelcome reign. The religious authorities were very broad about some things and very squeamish in others. They made no objec- tion to the most seductive Sunday evening ballet. The bal- lerine don't dance very well, but they have excellent figures, The Roman girls have very good eyes, and when their faces are lighted up with excitement they look temptingly wicked. Their gestures and poses are highly objectionable ; and yet they are admitted and applauded by the best women in Rome, who would be shocked at the smallest immodesty off" the stage. The ballet is the favorite amusement of the Romans, and superior to their opera. The pope makes strange regulations respecting the opera. For instance, he has interdicted the use of the words " cross" and " Devil," and neither one nor the other is introduced on the stage orally or in semblance. In " Faust" Mephistopheles appears as an apothecary, aud his speeches are altered very grotesquely. The opera of " Lucrezia Borgia" can- not be represented under that title, because her father, Alexander YI., happened to be an occu- pant of the pontificial chair. Her name is changed to Luisa di Lucca, and as such she poi- pope's hat. yQj^g and murders to her heart's content, without causing scandal to the Church. Alexander is generally be- lieved to have been one of the greatest villains of his time. THE HOMES OF THE DEAD. All and villians were abundant in those days ; but any one who deems the Borgia infamous should read his life, as given ec- clesiastically, to ascertain what a precious saint he was. The Catacombs I went into and found they amounted to very little. They are all without the walls, sixty in number, and contain over sixty millions of bodies. From St. Sebas- tian nearly all the bones have been removed ; but the others abound in tombs and skeletons. The Catacombs have been but partially explored. When they are fully, relics enough will be found for a thousand new clmrches. The Catacombs are only holes in the ground, with various ramifications^ chambers, and galleries, in which a man could lose himself without difficulty. Loculi or graves were dug in the walls of tufa, and bodies of all sizes deposited there, one above the other. The Catacombs furnished a very good place for sepul- ture, and might still be used to advantage. The walls have numerous inscriptions of a religious character, crude and often unintelligible, scratched in the tufa by friends of the de- ceased. These burial places are probably eighteen hundred years old, and were for centuries the public cemeteries, inter- ment within the walls being forbidden. A number of martyrs and early Popes were deposited there, making the Catacombs objects of special interest and religious devotion to the early Christians. Various chapels were erected, and remain there still. It is supposed the Christians concealed themselves in the Catacombs during their persecution. Hawthorne, in his " Marble Faun," gives them new interest by making them the theater of some of his most impressive scenes. When I entered St. Sebastian one day, with a monk as guide, both of us carrying lighted tapers, the place presented few inducements for residence of a permanent character, un- less one should happen to have his breath permanently stopped. Then it would make very little diflference. CHAPTER LIV. NAPLES. T is common to say that Naples is not Italy, and the Neapolitans not Italians. They seem to me Italians intensified, reproducing all the pecu- liarities of their nation. The Neapolitans boast of the Toledo as one of the finest streets on the Con- tinent; but there is very little of it. It is not more than a mile and a quarter long, rather narrow, and made to appear narrower by the height of the houses. Few of the buildings are either handsome or imposing, and clean- liness is often sought in vain. Many of the shops make elab- orate displays, and, after dark, lend a certain brilliancy to the street. The Toledo is the favorite promenade, and, Sunday morn- ing, and from sunset to 9 o'clock, any day, it is full of ele- gantly-dressed men and women and handsome turnouts. The carriages there, as throughout Italy, are open, and give a full view of the riders, producing a much better effect than do our close vehicles. Many of the women dispense with hats, and, as they have fine hair, very largely their own, they are improved by their bonnetless condition. In no city in Italy does one see anything like the number of carriages he sees in Naples. Their rolling, with their merry occupants, in one continuous line, along the Chiaja, the Toledo, and about the bay, lends a semblance of gayety to Naples that reminds one of Paris or Vienna. Naples is, unquestionably, the most lively city in Italy, and much the largest. Of late years its population has increased NEAP OUT AN JE WELR Y. 479 SO rapidly, that it is ' )w called eight or nine hundred thou- sand, which must be an exaggeration. I presume seven hund- red thousand wjDuld be much nearer the truth ; but even this is remarkable, for it shows an increase of nearly three hundred thousand in ten years. Naples has a large and growing com- merce, considerable manufacturing interests, and an excellent local trade. Its jewelry, especially its corals, is deservedly celebrated, and the annual sales are very large. Of course Americans are the freest and most generous buyers, and are universally regarded as the most desirable patrons. I can conceive what a temptation the shops of the Toledo must be to a wife who has a full purse and a liberal husband. Gold and coral and jewels are there exposed in such fascinating forms that the feminine eye must make the extravagant hand. She who would not peril her tyrant's bank account while gazing at the treasury of pretty things, is indeed a model of prudence. Jewelry is not so very cheap as many suppose, though it can be bought for about 30 to 40 per cent, less than in the United States. The Villa Reale is the name given to the public garden skirting the western part of the bay, which makes that quarter of the town very pleasant. It is handsomely laid out with walks, and flower-beds, and fountains. Every evening music in the villa by one of the regimental bands, attracts a crowd of persons who sit in and before the cafes, drinking, smoking, talking, and often flirting to the various airs performed. The scene recalls Paris. The bay, like everything famous, is, at first, disappointing. Still it is beautiful, and you find that its blue symmetry gains upon you as you grow acquainted with it. It is difficult to get a complete view of the bay from any part of the town ; but when you go out upon it, or ascend Vesuvius, or sail off" to Ischia or Capri, you behold it in all its picturesqueness. The heights of the city, Mount Somma, Vesuvius, the pecu- liar bend of the land, Procida, Pozzuoli, and Sorrento, all make the bay a pure poem of the sea. It looks like a vast 480 SAD FATE OF AN ARCHITECT. turquoise set in the golden sunshine and crowning the larger jewel of the Mediterranean. I tried to feel indifferent to the bay ; but it conquered me with its loveliness, and I lay my slender garland of admiration at its graceful feet. When sailing down to Sorrento in a fisherman's boat one day, the dreamy lines of Buchanan Read's poem ran like a musical rivulet through my memory. I heard the waves say ; With dreamy eyes My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise ; and so every breeze murmured along and over the enchanting water. By the by. Read told me in Rome that when he composed " Driftings" he had never been in Naples, and that if he had been he could not have written the poem, because actual ob- servation changed his ideal of the charming bay. It seems there are advantages sometimes in describing what you have not seen except with the mind's eye. Of the eight theatres, of course the renowned San Carlo stands at the head. It adjoins the Royal Palace, near the Largo del Castello (the Neapolitans use Largo for Piazza) and is one of the largest opera houses in Europe. It has six tiers of boxes — one hundred and ninety-two in -all — with a large parquette, and will hold five thousand persons. It is heavily gilded, but looks somewhat dingy, and its interior is neither attractive nor striking. Charles III. ordered its erection, and its architect, Angelo Carasale had a sad death on account of it. He delighted the King in constructing it, but, being unable to explain some of his accounts satisfactorily, he was thrown into St. Elmo where he died after five or six years of confinement. His royal master, though he knew the architect to be poor and deserving, permitted the poor fellow to perish by inches, never interesting himself in the smallest degree in his fate. San Carlo has heard the notes of the most famous singers of several generations, and a number of renowned operas, such as Lucia, Somnambula, Mosd, Giuramento, and others were first given within its walls. LICENTIOUSNESS OF THE CITY. 481 Pulchinella, which has its headquarters in the San Carlino, is the characteristic amusement of Naples, and is given twice a day at some of the theatres. It is merely a species of low comedy, a burlesque in the Neapolitan dialect, in which local hits, satirical humor and coarse jests are discharged at every- body and everything. The people relish the licentious enter- tainment greatly, and crowd the houses where Pulchinella is the autocrat. I have attended the unique performance, but as I do not understand Italian in its supreme impurity, many of the jokes were as imperceptible to me as if I had been a German. The Museo Nazionale is the British Museum of Italy, and an excellent collection, where the stranger can spend many days with profit. The frescoes and inscriptions from Hercu- laneum and Pompeii are interesting to the archaeologist; but I have been surfeited with them. The marbles are interesting ; but few are remarkable as works of art. The Aristides which has been so much praised is probably somebody else, and the Psyche, universally extolled for its loveliness, appears insipid. The fact that she has lost the top of her head, and her arms, also, does not, in my mind, add to her beauty. The Venuses, on account of an absurd squeamishness, used to be shut up ; but now they are again on exhibition. If they were withdrawn because of their bad looks, it was well; but no fear need be felt that such ill-formed creatures would pro- duce a sinful thought. I don't believe any living woman would be so reckless of clothes if she had such a bad. figure as those marble divinities. The collection of bronze statues, the largest in the world, is mainly from the cities buried under Vesuvius. The Etrus- can vases are curious, but too numerous to examine. The coins, ancient chains, ornaments and weapons, are very valua- ble to any one whose time is not so. The better class of Neapolitans are very fond of display, and the poorest seem ambitious of arranging their dirt and rags in fantastic form. The women, as a rule, are extraordinarily vain, and to their determination to be admired in some way 482 SURROUNDINGS OF TEE CITY. may be largely asscribed the extreme licentiousness of the town, which cannot escape the attention of any one remaining there for any length of time. The terraces of the city, and the flat roofs of the houses, adorned with shrubs and flowers, and serving as promenades, give it a unique and picturesque appearance irrespective of its superb situation. Its three hundred churches are not sufficient to sober or restrain the recklessly giddy and gay people, nor to render any great num- ber of them . regardful of the conventional forms of modest behavior. For ages it has been the chosen seat of pleasure ; it was such when as Parthenope it was more Greek than Ro- man, and when Nero selected it as the place for his theatrical debut. The surroundings of Naples are far more attractive than the city. Torrento, the birth place of Tasso, has been called the finest spot of earth, and in the autumn or early in May it is indeed delightful. The Green and Blue Grottos are curious ; Pozzuoli, Baiae, Cumae, and other neighboring localities are very interesting from their historic and classic associations, and Paestum, with its ruined temples, stimulates memory and imagination like Baalbec and Thebes. It does not seem generally known that a third city, Stabias, was destroyed by the same eruption of Vesuvius (A. D. 79), which put an end to Herculaneum and Pompeii. It was at Stabise the elder Pliny lost his life, having been sufibcated by the sulphurous vapors of the volcano. As he is said to have had weak lungs, it is not strange that he perished ; for if I had had any pulmonary affection when I went up to the crater, I am confident I never should have gone down. Stabiae had bad luck. That eminent swash-buckler, Sylla, knocked the town to pieces during the civil war, and Vesuvius compelled it to put on sack-cloth and ashes many years after. Castellammare, the well-known summer resort, now stands on the sight of Stabiae, whose excavations, not having promised well, were filled up soon after they were begun. The popular idea that Herculaneum and Pompeii were de- POMPEII. 483 stroyed, with nearly the whole population, is entirely erro- neous. Both the cities did not contain, probably, over sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants, and out of that number not more than two or three hundred lost their lives. All the skeletons found have been, I think, less than ninety. Tlie gods seem to have been on ill-terms with Pompeii ; for they were constantly sending convulsions of nature to destroy it. But let me examine my theology. We have it on the best authority that Heaven chastise th what it loves. The gods, therefore, must have been madly fond of Pompeii, and proved their fondness by favoring it with earthquakes, volcanic erup- tions, bloody wars, and other blessings is disguise. The citizens of Pompeii had just been enjoying one of their periodically pleasant earthquakes, and were employed in re- building some of the shaken-down houses, when Vesuvius paid its respects by overwhelming them with a shower of scoriae, ashes, and pununice. They lost their patience at this new manifestation of celestial favor — regarding it as rather too much of a good thing — and quitted the town in such precipi- tate disgust that some of the poor fellows left their skeletons behind them. It is very remarkable that, though Pompeii was a well- known city — Cicero, Claudius, Drusus, and Seneca, having lived there — its disappearance was not observed nor its burial- place discovered until a little over a century ago. The upper wall of the great theatre was never even covered up, and yet for seventeen centuries nobody thought of making excava- tions. The story is that a rustic, in digging a well, discovered a painted chamber containing several statues, and that his dis- covery first awakened an interest in the Pompeiian sepulture. The excavations are still prosecuted, but so very slowly that it is believed they will not be finished until some time after the Day of Judgment. Much has been said of the luxury of the people of Pompeii, and some pious souls have thought they were destroyed be- cause they were extremely sensual. The Pompeiians could 484 LIFE OF TEE POMPEIIANS. not have been luxurious in the sense in which we understand luxury. They had some good statues, mosaics, and frescoes ; but their houses were small and generally unattractive. The people appear to have lived out of doors almost entirely. Nor am I surprised, considering what little and uncomfortable rooms they had. Their streets were very narrow and much traveled, as the deep wheel-ruts show. The wine trade must have been the principal one, for every third or fourth shop was kept by a wine merchant. I made a calculation one morning while there, and concluded from the estimated population and the number of wine shops, that each citizen must have drank at least a gallon a day. The private dwellings seem to have been divided into two parts — public and private. In the former were the open space known as the area, the porch, the vestibule, the porter's lodge, and the hall where the patricians received their clients. The private part of the dwellings contained the open court called the peristyle, the dining-room (trichinium), the sitting- room, the parlor, the library, the bath, and the bed-chamber. The women appear to have been kept apart from the men, and their apartments to have been a sort of harem, visited by the masculine tyrants only upon especial occasions. The roofs of the houses were flat, and so covered with vines and flowers as to form a pleasant promenade. The Pompeiians appear to have had no stables, no litera- ture of consequence, and no poor people, judging from the discoveries thus far made. On the whole, they must have had a very uncomfortable domestic life ; for the dwellings of Sallust and Diomedes, two of the most pretentious, are more like tombs than houses. We Americans would not occupy such places for any consideration. They must have been dark, damp, and in every way disagreeable. I should suppose the luxuries of the Romans would have been rheumatism, con- sumption, and sciatica, dwelling under such peculiar roofs. The people of Pompeii were artistic beyond question, but I am afraid their morals were not what they should have been. Some of the houses (evidently of a peculiar class) in the un- THE AMPBITHEA TRE. 485 covered city are ornamented externally and internally with pictures and symbols that are revoltingly obscene. Many of the precious works of art have been removed to the Museo Borbonico, now Nazionale, where the curious can see them any day. They are singular instances of the extreme coarseness lurking behind culture and assumed refinement, and indicate that the bestial excesses of Caligula, Commodus, and Galie- nus, were very Roman after all. The house of the Vestals, in one of the streets, has mosaics and decorations very far from vestal in character, and revealing too plainly that the purity of the Virgins must have been rather imaginary than actual. I am forced to the opinion that while many of the Roman Vestals may have had numerous good qualities, chas- tity, either of thought or action, was not among them. The ' Anaphitheatre, more ancient than the Coliseum at Rome, is 430 by 375 feet, and could seat 10,000 persons. It had twenty-four rows of seats, each row being occupied by persons of different rank. The magistrates and patricians were carefully separated from the plebeians. The entrances at the end of the arena for the admission of wild beasts and gladiators and the removal of the slain are in good preserva- tion. It is said, when the gladiators asked if their lives might be spared, after they had fought bravely, that the first among the spectators who turned down their thumbs — the sign of refusal — were the Vestal Virgins. What tender and sensitive ladies they must have been ! The amphitheatre was crowded — according to some of the historians — when the eruption of Vesuvius occurred, and not one of the persons in the audience perished, though a large portion might have done so without loss to mankind. The temples, baths, and theatres, are interesting, and quite well preserved. The temples contain the altars of sacrifice, some of which look as if they were recently carved. In two of the temples, skeletons, unquestionably those of the priests, were found with their sacrificial knives in their hands. As they were doing, or thought they were doing, the behests of the gods, the gods should have provided for their safety. 486 HERCULANEUM. The stage of the theatres is very small compared to that of the modern time. But the antique drama was much simpler than ours. It had very few scenes, and they revolved on a pivot. From a portion of the tragic theatre a fine panoramic view of Pompeii is obtained, which, it must be confessed, closely resembles the combination of a great brickyard and stone-cutter's establishment on which work had long been suspended. Herculaneum, you remember, was destroyed by the mud which Vesuvius threw out during its eruption. Mud-throwing never proves destructive in this country. If it did, half the politicians would have been dead long ago. For fifty years the excavations amounted to nothing, on account of the stu- pidity of the persons who had them in charge ; but of late they have resulted in the discovery of some fine statues, now in the Museo. Herculaneum is so much less interesting than Pompeii that it is not worth describing. Temples, villas, tombs, and prisons, have been, and are still being, uncovered. Many travelers are surprised to find the cities open to the sky, imagining they are buried now, as they were at first, and that they must be visited with torches. The work of excavation is under the direction of the Gov- ernment, which appropriates so much annually. When the sum is exhausted the work stops. You pay two lires or francs for each admission to Herculaneum or Pompeii, and the guides are not allowed to receive any additional fees. You can go to either town by rail, and get through with both in five or six hours. CHAPTER LXI. CLIMBING VESUVIUS. _ one thinks of Naples without Vesuvius, which in all pictures of the city is represented as tow- ering above everything else on one side of the crescent-shaped bay. Sending forth perpetual smoke from its peak, it resembles a great torch burning over the town, which rests quietly in the narrow valley below. One of the first things to do, after reaching Naples, is to make the ascent of Vesuvius, much more interesting since the great eruption of 1867 than it was before. You can go up from the Pom- peian side, as it is called, or from the opposite side, there being little to choose between the two. The railway will carry you to either of the starting points, whence you can ride or walk to the base of the volcano. Being at Pompeii, my only difiiculty was to determine which one of the many guides I should select to accompany me. There is probably no place in the world where a traveler or stranger is more annoyed by guides, hackmen, and all sorts of runners and agents, than in and about Naples. If you stop for a moment in the Toledo, or any other principal street, you are at once surrounded by them. You cannot make the small- est purchase or the most trijfling engagement with less than six or eight of the tribe. Anybody's business is everybody's business there ; and self-elected agents, assistants, and go- betweens are as numerous as fleas or garlic odors. So it was in making an arrangement with a guide for Ve- 488 A COURAGEOUS DONKEY. suvius. From three to twelve ragged men and boys persisted in acting for the fellow who had first proposed to be my con- ductor. They gesticulated and jabbered in wretched Italian, and thrust themselves between me and the guide. I flour- ished a cane, and roared out a few phrases in German, which they, not understanding, fancied to be terrible threats, and hurriedly retreated. At last I secured a donkey, and made a contract with the guide to go with me to the top of the vol- cano for twenty-five francs (five dollars in our money), though I had no idea I should get off with that amount; and I did not with twice as much. My beast had been recommended as very safe, and he cer- tainly was safe as respects slowness and laziness. A braver donkey never lived : he would have died rather than run under any circumstances. But he and I and the guide finally reached the base of the mountain, where I fancied, from the ascent, I should be unable to urge my animal forward. There we encountered a new lot of ragged fellows offering their ser- vices to carry me, and the donkey, too, on their shoulders, and to do everything but leave me alone. The first half of the way up the volcano rises gradually, and is easily managed by a horse or mule, — even such an one as mine was. The native loafers, as we should call them here, were bent, however, on assisting my beast, since they could not aid me. To this end, they seized him by the tail ; kept twisting it, and screaming and yelling at the poor creature until I felt confident he would be frightened into something like speed. But his courage was unflinching ; he crept along with all the calmness of a snail. I tried in vain to get rid of the pursuing rabble by shouting at them, and " cutting be- hind," as the boys call it, with my cane. They held their purpose and the tail, however, until I informed them that I would not give them a carlino for their trouble. That had the desired efiect. They at once fell into silence, and dropped behind. In about half an hour my companion (^also an American), the guide and myself had arrived at the spot where, in con- ASCENT UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 489 sequence of the steep and sudden ascent, it became necessary to dismount. Judge of my surprise, to find there at least a dozen of the same troublesome class I had gotten rid of at the base of the mountain, as I had fondly hoped for that day at least. These urgent Italians had poles with leather straps attached, and wooden chairs or litters, with which they are in the habit of aiding or carrying persons to the top, who are either too weak or too indolent to climb up themselves. I resolutely declined their assistance, and my companion did also, though our guide declared we might need a helping hand before we reached the summit. We set out, and half a dozen of the beggarly crew followed, constantly offering their services, and stretching out their arms to catch us in the event of our slipping or falling. The walking was certainly very bad. The sides of the vol- cano were covered with ashes and powdered fragments of lava, called scorise, so that our feet slipped every step we took, and sank in the half stony, half metallic rubbish several inches above our ankles, and sometimes nearly to our knees. These obstructions, added to the steepness, made the climb- ing very hard and tiresome. The afternoon was quite warm, too — it was at the close of May — and the active exercise soon bathed me in perspiration. To increase the unpleasantness, a storm gathered, and, though only a few drops of rain fell, a high wind blew the ashes and scoriae into my face, almost blinding me, and making my skin smart as if it had been pricked with needles. The mountain had not seemed high from the foot ; and I had wondered why persons had complained of fatigue in going up. I discovered for myself that the task was not so easy as it looked, especially as I went back at least one step for every two I took forward. Each time I slipped, the fellows who kept close behind made an effort to catch hold of me, and begged for permission to aid me in the ascent. I still obsti- nately refused ; but my companion had become so exhausted that he gladly resigned himself to their care. One of the Italians having fastened the leather straps of a pole about his 490 XEW FLA VORING FOR EGGS. neck, the tired American — I will call him Alexander — caught hold of the pole with both hands. A second Italian went be- fore the first, who held to a leather strap around the other's waist, and a third got behind Alexander, and pushed him. I could not help laughing at this strange way of climbing — three men employed in dragging and forcing up one. Alex- ander looked as if it were a serious matter with him. He breathed heavily, and the perspiration streamed from his face, which was red and white by turns. Every two or three min- utes he would stop to rest, and say to me, " This is the hard- est job I ever undertook. I don't know that I shall ever get up ; but I am bound to do my best in trying." The further we went, the steeper the mountain grew, and the thicker the ashes and scoriae became. I knew Vesuvius was not quite four thousand feet high ; but it appeared at least twenty thousand before I got to the summit. The wind blew harder and harder, and I was obliged to shut my eyes sometimes to keep out the sharp particles flying about in such profusion. After toiling for three quarters of an hour, I reached the region where the lava lay in large cakes, and in a quarter of an hour more, I found it hot and smoking, with any quantity of half burning cinders under my feet. The guide had taken up in his haversack a few eggs, and giving me two or three, I placed them in the cinders and among the fragments of lava, where in a minute or two they were thoroughly roasted, as 1 discovered by eating them. I think I should have liked them better if I had not fancied they had a flavor of sulphur, which, so far as I know, is never recommended in cooking. Alexander declined to eat any eggs, saying he wished to reserve all the strength he had to get to the top. After this little luncheon, we resumed our climbing, and soon knew by the crevices in the mountain, out of which sul- phurous smoke was issuing, from the burning sensation of our feet and the generally hot and half suffocating atmosphere, that we could not be very far from the crater. Brimstone was abundant thereabout. It lay in great yellow spots along A TAWXING GVLF OF FIRE. 491 and around the path I took, and so filled the air with its fumes that I could hardly breathe. I took out my handker- chief, moist from frequent mopping of my face, and tied it over my mouth and nostrils to prevent inhaling the sulphur. The guide now pointed out a hollow in the mountain full of cracks and seams, which, he said, had once been the crater — about sixty or seventy years before, in all probability — but which no more resembled it than many other places I had noticed. Fifteen minutes more, and I stood on the brink of the real crater. I confess I was surprised. I had expected to see only a moderate-sized hole partially filled with hot ashes, sur- rounded with smoke and vapor. Instead of this, I saw before me at my very feet, a vast, yawning fiery gulf, from which rushed great blasts of hot air, threatening to stifle me. Far below, the flames, white, yellow, crimson, and purple, were raging, and all the interior of the volcano looked red-hot. It seemed as if it must have been burned out hollow, and as if all the outside were only a shell, which might break through at any minute, and let me down into the fiery pit. I could not see to the bottom on account of the vapor and smoke ; but the crater appeared to be twelve to fifteen hund- red feet deep, and seventeen to eighteen hundred feet in diam- eter. There was a tremendous hissing and boiling, bubbling, and muttering, as if every minute there might be a new erup- tion. There was no danger of that, however, as the crater always fills up before an eruption takes place ; indeed, it is caused, as supposed, by the choking up of the ordinary vents by which the steam and gasses and hot air generally escape. The old Romans used to believe that the crater of Vesu- vius was one of the mouths of Hades, and the belief was natural enough to so superstitious a people. If there were any mouths or openings to any such imaginary region, I should be quite willing to regard the crater as one of them. Appear- ances are eminently in its favor. There was a species of fascination about the burning gulf. I felt a painful satisfaction in standing on the brink, and 492 MAGNIFICENT VIEW. wondering in how many seconds I should perish, were I to give a single step forward. Blast after blast, and wave upon wave, of fiery heat dashed up and beyond me, until I fancied my eyelashes, eyebrows, and whiskers must be singed, and my face blistered. The sulphur odors were very powerful, and, strong as my lungs are, they seemed sometimes to be almost in a state of congestion. Persons of a consumptive tendency would be in peril there, I am confident. Alexander, who was robust and vigorous, told me he nearly fainted on the edge of the crater, and that it gave him a shock he had never before experienced. When we returned to Naples, he was sick and confined to his bed for nearly a week — the result of the excitement and exhaust- ion caused by his adventure. While we were on the summit of the volcano, the wind lulled and the clouds broke away. The sun, which was slowly descending, came out clearly, and bathed the beautiful bay, the distant city, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Capri, Ischia, Poz- zuoli, and all the charming scenery for miles around in a vast flood of golden glory. Such a grand view, under such favor- able circumstances, I have rarely witnessed. It was well worth the trouble of climbing Vesuvius, for the broad region of land and sea, town and villa, island and mountain, ruins of the past, and splendors of the present, lay stretched out in the soft, purple air, as in a fairy dream. The varied and de- lightful picture of nature was a fine contrast and relief to the awful gloom and terror of the burning crater. I remained on the top of the mountain mitil the sun had touched the horizon, watching in the mean time with deep interest the ever- changing and gorgeous shadows falling upon the vision of beauty which lay beneath my feet. I felt the supreme satis- faction of gazing on some of the rarest aspects of nature. They stole into my memory and have lingered there since in such forms of loveliness as to bring back almost daily the ascent of the volcano, its awful mysteries, and its crowning splendors. Having supped full of the crater, and having swallowed BACK TO NAPLES. 493 two or three glasses of the hot wine the guide had carried up, having paid the whole half-dozen of the beggars the exorbi- tant price they demanded, and given them what they wanted to drink, I began the descent. The Italians were determined to be recognized, but as I declared in the choicest Tuscan that I would not give them another carlino, and that I'd hurt some of them if they touched me, they let me alone severely. Going down was fine fun. At every bound my feet sunk so deep into the ashes and lava that falling was impossible, so long as I leaned backward. I ran all the way, and in less than three minutes was where the horses were tied to the blocks of lava. They had looked as small as rabbits from the summit and I was glad to see them resume their original proportions, convinced if they were reduced in any way they would never reach the railway station. I took the guide's horse, and as he seemed desirous to get to his stable he moved oflf in good style. I urged him to a run, and all three of us dashed over the road at that pace, making clouds of dust, whirling through the vineyards, past the wine-shops, the yelping curs, the dirty children, the hide- ous old women, the greasy-looking men, until we reached Torre dell' Annunziata, our faces crimson, and our horses white with foam. Covered with dust, and talking English to each other, we were recognized by beggars, boot-blacks, news- boys, and sweet-meat venders, and fairly besieged. We took refuge in a wine-shop, and waited until the train arrived, when we returned to Naples in a very soiled condition, the mob following us and clamoring for every coin between a tor- nese and a pezza, in the name of all the saints in the calendar. CHAPTER LXIL' VENICE. ■ENICE is an architectural romance. Some strange and interesting history is bound up in every noticeable building. It fairly bristles "with associations, and teems with mysteries never yet explained. The most original and peculiar city of the world, it has a species of fascination for the reasoning mind no less than the poetic brain. For ten centuries Venice was the scene of perpetual strug- gles, of great enterprises, of remarkable reverses, of dazzling triumphs. An aristocratic democracy, a liberal despotism, an enlightened tyranny, all the power seemingly resident in the Doges, the Doges were as liable to arrest and punishment as the humblest citizen. The greatest among their rulers lost their heads, and no one, though they were very popular and had rendered great service to the State, Aurmured at their doom. The Inquisition of the Three and the Council of the Ten were supreme ; and yet they, in turn, might any day have found themselves in the dungeons of the Ducal Palace, and twenty-four hours after their headless corpses might have been floating at midnight in a silent gondola under the mys- tic Bridge of Sighs. All the history and all the fiction of which Venice forms so large a part, comes freshly to your mind as you stand in the famous Piazza San Marco, or glide along its winding canals. All the dead Doges ending with Ludorico Manini file before you. Blanca Capello leaves her palace (still standing mute and mouldy), and flies with her lover so handsome and so THE PIAZZA. 495 unworthy. Andrea Dandolo once more returns in triumph from golden conquests ; again Sabastiano Ziani weds the Adri- atic. Pierre and Jaffier plot, and Belvidera weeps. Antonio spurns Shylock on the Rialto. Desdemona listens to Othello, and loses her virgin heart through her greedy ear. The poetry of Venice is more real than its history. You think of Shakespeare's creations when its arms and its alli- ances are forgotten. It is a striking proof of genius that the great dramatist should have embalmed in his wondrous verse the city he never saw, weaving from his fancy what seem immortal facts. One needs no society in Venice. He has constant compan- ionship in his memory, and his culture is as perfect sympathy. I have ridden day after day in the gondolas past decaying palaces, and out to the islands in the lagoons, careless of the hours, and incapable of determining time. The prattle of the rowers, directing my attention here and there, fell unheeded. I heard what they heard not ; I saw what they could not see. Venice is indeed the city of dreams. Existence appears unsubstantial there ; exertion impossible ; the future nothing. Only the past has a place in the brain of the Bride of the Adriatic. I have often felt there that I was Ijang on the soft pillows of a million memories, and I dreaded to stir lest they should be displaced. The Piazza, as the Piazza San Marco is called by way of distinction, has the reputation of one of the finest squares in Europe. The marble palaces that have been so much praised are blackened with age and weather, and not imposing in their style of architecture since certain alterations and additions have been made. Once the abode of the highest oJSicers of the Republic, they are now occupied exclusively as shops, and remind me of the Palais Royal with their gay windows and continuous arcades. The Piazza, and its vicinity, are the very heart of the city. All Venice, at least the fashionable part, goes there on the evenings when the bands play, which they usually do three times a week. On festal days the Piazza, the Piazetta, the Molo, and the Riva degli Schiavoni, are thronged. The two 496 MENDICANTS AND HAWKERS. best caf^s, Florian's and the Quadri, have in front little tables extending nearly to the middle of the square. At those tables sit men and women, and sometimes children, smoking, drink- ing, and sipping sorbetto in the most informal manner and in the best of spirits. When the nights were pleasant — and they are usually delightful in spring and early summer — I always tarried in the Piazza until 11 o'clock, when engaging a gondola, I was rowed through the lagoons and out toward the Adriatic. The Venetians are a pleasure-loving people, though one- third of them are reported to be paupers entirely supported by public charity. Another third, I should judge, are pro- fessional beggars ; for, go where you will, you see made-up faces and extended hats soliciting alms. The first words Venetian children learn, I suppose, are ^^ Datemi qualcosa, iSignore" and the babies are said to turn from the maternal font to look for soldi in the maternal eye. Sitting in the Piazza would be much pleasanter if one were not annoyed constantly by mendicants, flower-girls, hawkers, and wandering musicians — a host of bores it is difficult to put to flight. No sooner is one gotten rid of than another ap- pears. Conversation is interrupted and coffee drinking inter- minable under such circumstances. I endured the infliction and parted with all my small coin in hope of buying my redemption. But having gained a rep- utation for good nature, the beggars, flower-girls, hawkers, and musicians all bore down upon me with such distracting pertinacity that I was obliged to quote several lines of Homer. That had the desired effect. They went off" in alarm, believ- ing no doubt the Greek words were maledictions, all the more dreadful because they were not understood. San Marco is one of the most unique churches on the Con- tinent. Its architecture, which was originally Byzantine, has had so many Gothic and other adjuncts that it is impossible to determine its exact character. Begun in the tenth century, it has been undergoing modifications and variations ever since. It looks like the marriage of a mosque to a cathedral, and as SAy MARCO. 497 if the marriage had been inharmonious. The rich mosaics in front and inside of the church, its rich, varied, oriental marbles, its five domes, its quaint and elaborate ornamenta- tion, attract more than they please the eye. Immense sums have been expended upon it — not less than $25,000,000 or $30,000,000, it is estimated— and you do not wonder at it when you observe the barbaric richness that per- vades the building. The mosaic pavement has sunk in many places, giving an idea of greater age than the church has. The four bronze horses over the principal portals are very famous. They have had more changes than any figures known. They are believed to have been brought by Augustus from Alexandria after his victory over Antony, and to have adorned the triumphal arch of Nero, and of other Roman Em- perors subsequent to the tyrant's death. Constantine removed them to Constantinople, and Doge Dandolo carried them to Venice in 1208. Napoleon subsequently took them to Paris, and mounted them on the arch of the Place du Carousel. The Venitians, who were very indignant at the artistic rape, cre- ated such a disturbance that the horses were returned in 1815. The people have a superstition connected with the horses, believing the city can never prosper without them. The Pala d'Oro, which forms the altar-piece, is a valuable acquisition, reported to be worth $3,000,000. It is of gold and silver, about five feet by three, and incrusted with pre- cious stones to the number of several thousand. The Pala was made in Constantinople in the tenth century, and contains many Latin and Greek inscriptions. For a long time it was shown only on festal days ; but it is now exposed to the vul- gar eye, and may be examined for a lira, or even half that sum. The Ducal Palace every one is familiar with, from the count- less engravings and photographs that have been scattered - everywhere. It is, probably, as interesting as any building in the world, for its past is full of mystery, which always has its fascination. It is not what we know of the palace, but what we do not know, that constitutes its charm. No one 498 THE INTERIOR. can look at its Moorish-Gothic walls (the fifth that have stood in the same spot), remembering their predecessors were four times destroyed during six memorable centuries, and imagin- ing what has occurred beyond those curious colonnades, with- out feeling a thrill of historic association. Between the two columns of red marble in the upper colonnade the death sentences of the republic were formerly published, and from the portal adjoining San Marco placards announced the sov- ereign decrees of Venice. The building is unique, as every- thing is in that city. All the capitals of the short columns are different, being richly decorated with foliage, figures of men and animals and strange allegorical symbols. The interior cannot fail to be interesting if the walls are so attractive. Let us enter, and bid the dead Doges live again. The court has two cisterns with bronze fronts, reputed to con- tain the best, or, more properly, the least bad water in the city. We ascend the Giant's Staircase, look at the colossal statues of Mars and Neptune, and linger on the landing where the Doges were crowned. In the gallery we have reached are the busts of Venetian Doges, artists and scholars — among them Enrico Dandolo, Bembo, Marco Polo, Tintoretto, Gali- leo, Sebastian Cabot, Foscari, Vittorio Pisani, and others. Passing along the corridor loggia, we find on the left the Golden Staircase, which only the Venetian aristocracy whose names were written in the book of nobility were permitted to ascend. We then enter the library, where 10,000 valuable manuscripts are preserved, and many excellent miniatures of the sixteenth century, purchased by Doge Grimani for 500 sequins. We come then to the Sala della Bussola, the ante-room of the Council of Ten. At the entrance was the famous lion's head, into whose mouth were thrown the secret denunciations of the enemies of the State. The head is gone now, but the aperture remains. How dreaded it was once ; how harmless now ! How many lives, how much pain, that terrible mouth has caused. Looking at it even through the shadow of cen- turies causes something like a shudder. THE STATE PRISONS. 499 Tlien we reach the hall of the Council of Ten, who here ruled the republic, and yet were obnoxious to its decrees — tyrants to-day, and perhaps victims to-morrow. Here they sat in judgment upon men of power, who never imagined they had been suspected, and who, once suspected, were arrested, condemned, executed often within twenty-four hours. Ter- rible authority, used with such rigid justice that it was almost cruelty ! In those days there was but one unpardonable crime — lack of loyalty to Venice. Offend the sensitive and remorseless abstraction, Venice, and the law moved through darkness like a hungry tiger to a bloody revenge. We come now to the Senate Hall, and we fancy the severe Senators have just quitted their seats to reflect upon some measure yet undetermined in council. If we wait, perhaps they will come again in the dark robes, with the stern faces we have so often seen reproduced by the artist's cunning. We open this massive door, and we are in the audience chamber of the Doge and his private counsellors. There they received foreign Ambassadors, and in the days of their rule and pride they were haughty in their demands, exacting in their claims, dictatorial in their terms, pitiless in their resents ments. Nations knelt before them, and they spurned the proudest in the dust. See how time brings its revenges ! We mount to the celebrated Sotto Piombi, once prisons, where the sufferings of the inmates from heat and cold, in summer and winter, were so intense that they perished by inches. Venice pitied them not. They had offended Venice, and death was the only thing for them. Under the Piombi are the Pozzi, or dark cells. We follow the guide with torches, and the departed centuries roll back again with the crimes, the mysteries, the tortures, the secret executions of the despotic republic. Neither light nor hope entered there. Every minute was charged with fate. The accused was tried without knowing his accusers. He was led from the hall to the dark dungeons again. There the priest visited him to shrive his soul. No communication was al- lowed with the outer world. He was indeed in the jaws of ^^" HALL OF THE GREATER COUNCIL. the hungry lion. The teeth snapped together, and the head- less corpse was the only message to his friends. We are in the dungeon where Marino Faliero and Jacopo Foscari were confined. They breathed this chilly yet stifling air. They strained their eyes, as we do when the torches are removed. We realize their situation. We pity them. We see them pale but heroic. We plead for their liberty ; but they are slumbering peacefully, and four centuries of world- tossing has not disturbed their sleep. The Bridge of Sighs has been made poetical by Byron, and ever since the stories have been repeated of State prisoners being led to death from the palace to the prison ; of their fate being decided when they passed it ; of their agony when they stepped upon it, and felt the shadow of their doom. It is generally supposed that Faliero and Francesco di Carrara went over the Ponte de' Sospiri to the block. But they did not, nor did any other political offenders. The prison is com- paratively modern. The persons confined there are, and always have been, vulgar criminals — robbers, forgers, mur- derers — and they alone cross the bridge. All the romance of the passage of pain rests upon a fiction or a blunder. Some noticeable pictures are in the Hall of the Greater Council of the Ducal Palace. Among them is Tintoretto's Paradise, 84^ by 34 feet, the largest picture on canvas known. It is blackened and marred by efforts at restoration, and is so crowded with figures that one must have much patience to devote to it the time it requires. Tintoretto must have had an insatiable appetite for work, for he did enough to fill a dozen ordinary lives. The city is full of his pictures, and many of them are exceedingly fine. One must go to Venice to get a correct idea of Tintoretto, who certainly had a bold- ness and breadth of execution, a variety of invention, and a force of expression few artists have ever shown. The flower girls in Venice are quite different from those of Southern Italy. They are young, many of them pretty and very neatly dressed. The comely ones find numerous pat- rons ; but I judge from the perfect understanding that seems INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE. 501 to exist between them and many of their customers, that their calling is but a thin disguise. The Arsenal is worth looking at as an evidence of what Venice once was. It has numerous walls and towers, and occupies a space two miles in circumference. Though more than five centuries old, it has very complete yards, basins, and buildings,' and so many of them as to convey a vivid idea of the Republic in its days of naval supremacy. At present the armory is open to visitors, and even that the Austrians plundered. Various suits of armor are shown with numerous cross-bows, match-locks, swords, halberds, and helmets. One of them, of heavy iron, was worn by Attila, King of the Huns, and is quite as much as an ordinary man can bear on his shoulders. I tried it on myself, and found it the most becoming head-covering I ever had, for it was so large that it completely covered my face. A fragment of the Bucentoro, the vessel in which the Doge espoused the Adriatic, is among the objects of interest, and also a model of the ship in which Columbus discovered Amer- ica. , The collection is similar to that in the Tower of London, but in some respects more interesting. The instruments of torture prove the barbarity of the me- diaeval ages. There are the thumb-screws, pincers, racks, spiked collars, and bone-crushers of the most excruciating pattern. What is called the hood of violence is an iron hel- met of such ample size as to cover the victim's shoulders. In the top are holes into which red-hot spikes were thrust against the head and neck to extort confession, which was heard through an aperture at the side. A number of instruments that were the property of Fran- cesco di Carrara, tyrant of Padua, are kept in a cabinet. One of them is an infernal machine, which killed whoever opened it by a spring connected with two loaded pistol-barrels. Though Venice is built, as you remember, on seventy-two little islands ; is traversed by about one hundred and fifty canals, including the Grand Canal, running through it in the form of an S, and has some three hundred and seventy bridges, 502 CHURCHES AND ACADEMIES. the city from the top of the bell-tower of San Marco looks like any other city ; the houses being too high and the canals too narrow to show its peculiar situation. Though gondolas are the ordinary modes of conveyance, one can walk all over the town, not more than six miles in circuit, by means of the nar- row pavements bordering the canals. The only real street is the crooked and narrow Merceria, lined with shops, which leads to the Rialto, and is always much crowded. In Venice, the first bill of exchange appeared ; the first bank of deposit and discount was established, and at the be- ginning of the seventeenth century, — the first newspaper in the world was published. It received its name G-azzetta (Gazette) from the coin for which it was sold. The Churches and the Academy of Fine Arts are very in- teresting, as are the islands, Burano, Chiogga, Torcello, the Lido and Murano, famous even in the middle ages for its glass works, and now employing 3,000 persons. Chiogga is noted for the beauty of its women, said to have furnished models for the old Venetian painters ; but when I was there their beauty was invisible. CHAPTER LXni. OUT-OF-THE-WAT CITIES. HE smaller and comparatively out-of-the-way places in Italy have always had a strong magnetism for me. They are far less pervaded than the common centers of travel by the spirit of modern progress. They give leisure to become im- pregnated with their influences, and to look at their records of the past with feelings disconnected from the ever-prosaic present. Quaint old Rimini draws me from afar ; but I have never been quite able to realize that the little walled town of 17,000 people is the historic home of the Malatestas, and on the site of the ancient city of Ariminium. When I crossed the eighteen-century-old bridge of Augustus over the Marecchia, I felt for the moment as if I were going back to the Roman Empire ; but the appeals of a crowd of beggars a few minutes after at the railway station brought me back to the present century. The Arch of Augustus, now the Porta Romana, under which the road to Rome passes, is built of travertine ; com- memorates the gratitude of the inhabitants to Augustus for repairing their roads, and is of much classic interest. The Church of San Francesco is covered with armorial bearings of the Malatestas — the rose and elephant predominate — and the seven sarcophagi contain the ashes of the distinguished men the reigning family called to their aid and honor. The house of Francesca da Rimini, whom Dante has made 504 TEE RIVAL RUBICONS. immortal, was on the site of the Palazzo Ruffi ; though many insist and believe the present building was the home of Paolo's mistress. So many sentimental tears have been shed over Guido's unhappy daughter, that few romantic minds will ever credit the story, recently told, that her tender escapade was only one of many similar episodes in her life. The ancient port of Rimini, at the mouth of the Marecchia, has been destroyed by the sand brought down by the river, and is now the resort of many small fishing vessels ; nearly half of the entire population being fishermen. Leaving Rimini for Cesena, I was anxious to find the far- famed Rubicon, and the result was I stopped at every little stream to bathe. In most of them there was not water enough for the purpose, and I had to content myself with a lavation of the feet. The Pisciatello, near Cesena, the Rigossa, near Roncofreddo, the Fiumicino, near Sogliano, and the Uso, flowing directly into the Adriatic, have each and all put for- ward strong claims to be considered the classic stream. Near Savignano, the column on which is inscribed a Senatus Con- sultum, denouncing any one as sacrilegious who should cross the Rubicon with an army or legion, is now declared apocryphal. The Uso is most probably the old boundary between ancient Italy and Cisalpine Gaul, and is to this day called by the peasants II Rubicone. There was more water in that little river, and I fancied, when it touched my lips, that it had something of the Caesarean flavor — imparted no doubt when the great Julius plunged in with the words, '-'■Jacta est alea! " Consequently, I give my vote for the Uso as the only original Rubicon. The question of authenticity still lies between the Uso and Fiumicino, in spite of the Papal Bull of 1758 declar- ing in favor of the former stream. It is somewhat notable that the dramatic story of Caesar's passage of the Rubicon, though told by Plutarch and Suetonius, is not mentioned in the " Commentaries," whose author could not have foreborne to allude to it on account of his extreme modesty. Ravenna is altogether historical, having been the capital of the Wetsern Empire, the seat of the Gothic and Longobardic RAVENNA. 505 kings and the metropolis of the Greek Exarchs. Within its walls are the tombs of Theodosius's children, of numerous Ex- archs and Patriarchs, and of the renowned author of the " Divina Commedia." The mausoleum of Theodoric, king of the Goths, a rotimda built of blocks of Istrian limestone, is a short distance beyond the gates, and the deserted streets are full of Christian antiquities, which have undergone little change since Justinian's time. Persons interested in theology regard Ravenna with the liveliest concern. The sea once flowed against the walls of the town, but is now about four miles distant. The ancient city was built like Venice, upon piles in the midst of a vast swamp, and communication kept up by numerous bridges. The tomb of Dante, near the Church of San Francesco, is a square edifice with a small dome, internally decorated with stucco orna- ments. In the neighborhood is Byron's house, and the memory of the poet is still cherished in the city, which he quitted half a century ago, and where he was honored and loved for his countless acts of kindness and generosity. He liked Ravenna exceedingly, and praised the climate much more than I can, though his partiality to the place may have been owing in part to the society of the Countess Guiccioli, with whom he passed most of his time. The Pineta, or pine forest near the city, extending for twenty-five miles along the Adriatic, was one of the poet's favorite rides. Besides himself, Dryden, Boccaccio, and Dante have sung its praises ; and very grateful in warm weather have I found its cooling shades. Ravenna has not now a population of over 20,000, many of whom are very poor, and largely dependent on the charity of the wealthy families. Ferrara is one of the decaying capitals that has always appealed to me. The old home of Tasso, the faded court of the ducal Estes, the grave of poor Parasina Malatesta, it tells its own story. Grass grows in its broad and deserted streets ; its spacious palaces are decaying, and its strong walls enclose thrice as 606 FEERARA. much space as is occupid by the shrunken population. The Ferrarese say they have 30,000 in the town ; but I don't be- lieve there are 20,000 — not more than one-fifth of what it con- tained at the height of its power. The principal piazza, del Mercato, in the centre of the town, is very mediaeval in appearance. On one side of it is tlio Cathedral, a quaint and remarkable structure of the eleventh century, which has undergone various changes and modifica- tions. On the other side are castellated Gothic buildings peculiar to the period. They were once palaces, but now serve for the ignoble purposes of trade. The architecture, the costumes, the loungers in the piazza have a strange, out- of-place look. The people seem as if they had died some centuries before; had forgotten to be buried, and were now at a loss to find their graves. Strangers attract attention, and you observe eyes following you as you go by. Dark-haired women peer out of partly-closed blinds as you pass, and drowsy vetturini rouse themselves to solicit your custom. Italy is there, as it was twenty years ago, before the innova- tion of railways and the crowding into it of English-speaking strangers. Prices are low. You can have things at your own terms. If you won't give six francs, three or two will be accepted. At my hotel — the best in the town — the landlord named five francs for my room, and when I repeated " cinque franci " for a clear understanding, he said, in bad Italian, but with a seraphic smile, " Signore can have it for four if he will consent to stay." The arrival of a guest at a public house creates a sensation, especially late in the season. All the men, women, and children have a glance at him from doors and windows, and the drowsy dog in the court-yard opens an optic to make sure the vision is substantial ; wags his tail hospitably, and drops to sleep again. Mould clings to the houses ; the stucco drops from the palaces ; vast gateways crumble ; fair gardens run to waste ; marble columns totter ; towers sink ; priceless pictures COMMUNION WITH THE PAST. 507 spoil with dampness, and semi-desolation girds faded Ferrara romid. I like Ferrara, for all this. I enjoy its sleepiness, its stag- nation, and share in its soft dream of the past. I walked about the old city one afternoon so far as the ramparts ; sat on the strong-built walls, and thought how times had changed since they were reared. What need of them now ? Who wants forlorn Ferrara to-day ? Who would have it ? The walls are mockeries. The land that can be overflowed in the event of a siege is merely a harbor for mosquitoes and a generator of fever. The decayed city can- not boast of an enemy. The race of the Estes is extinct. Their glory has faded forever. As I sat on the walls the sun went down, and the stars came out. The frogs croaked in the marsh ; the swallows wheeled through the shadows of the evening ; the bats flew out of a broken bridge ; the lizards ran along the walls, and the clocks of the city churches tolled the passing hour like a funeral knell. I imagined the ghosts of the departed stealing over the ramparts to visit the home they once had loved. I imagined the sad-eyed Tasso fretting against fate and mom-ning for his mistress so far above him. I imagined Ariosto crowned with laurel, and repeating his dulcet rhymes to the music of his own heart. I imagined Henry the Proud reaching out hopefully for the crowns of Brunswick and Hanover. I imagined Lucrezia Borgia, beautiful and cruel, stealing from her palace to meet the assassin who had come from Rome. I imagined Calvin, hard and narrow as his creed, convincing Renata with his pitiless logic. I imagined the gentle Leonora sighing tenderly for the poet she dared not love. These projections of my brain passed ; but the bats, and the lizards, and decaying Ferrara remained. The castle, formerly the Ducal Palace, is excellently pre- served. It is really an old-fashioned castle, as its name implies, with moat, drawbridge, turrets, and bastions all complete. It is built of brick, is cumbrous and massive, and 508 HUGO AND PARASINA. has four imposing towers. It was the residence of the Estes during their entire career, and is full of associations. The hall of Aurora, in which Leonora, Duke Alphonso's sister, had her apartments, is shown. It received its name from the Aurora that Titian painted on the ceiling as a portrait of the woman Tasso loved, and is still admired. There is the room of John Calvin, while the brave daughter of Louis XII. gave him an asylum from his persecutors. In the prisons below are the dungeons in which the un- fortunate Parasina Malatesta, wife of Nicholas III., and her stepson and lover, Hugo, were confined after their guilty passion had been discovered. Byron has made the sad story familiar in his well-known poem. Hugo was beheaded in the court-yard. Parasina, while being led to execution, asked after her lover, and, having been told he was dead, said she had no desire to live, and yielded with apparent gladness to the axe. She is said to have been a charming woman, and it was quite natural she should be fond of Hugo, a gallant and generous youth, rather than of her husband, a grim and un- interesting man. It was not wise nor just in Nicholas to condemn his wife and natural son. Hugo had merely done what his father had done before him, and he probably inherited the strong passions of his sire. How much more philosophic if Nicholas had said to his wife : " You have been very imprudent, to say the least, my dear. But if you don't love me, it is not your fault. Take Hugo. He is an excellent fellow. Go where you will. I'll pay your passage to the next station, even as far as Chicago, if it be necessary. Get a divorce. I'll help you to it. Marry Hugo — he will make a first-rate husband — and you will forget in his society the unhappiness you have had in mine. Don't weep, Parisina. Smile, rather, at the good fortune before you. I've paid all your bills. Farewell. You know I dislike scenes. The best thing for a man and woman, when they find out they don't love each other, is to go apart. There, there, Parisina, no tears. If I furnished you with a bad hus- band, I have now supplied a better article. Read French novels, and be happy." THE TRA GED T D ONE IN PR OSE. 509 Had such a course been followed, Parisina and her lover would have become Mr. and Mrs. Hugo, and perhaps reared a family. They would have gotten along prosaically, but comfortably. They would have had occasional quarrels, and he would have staid away at the club very late every once in a while. He might have complained about expenses, but she, like a true woman, would have drowned arithmetic in tears, and received a larger allowance the next year. No one would have heard of their story ; scandal would have been avoided, and instead of being quoted in defence of lawless love, and injuring the cause of domestic loyalty by their example, they would have been regarded as a model pair who kept their skeletons in their own closet, and gave healthy children to the state. But it was not to be. They were made to expiate the misfortune of temperament and circumstance, and the senti- mental world has embalmed their memory in its tears. They manage those things better in Chicago. Tasso's prison is one of the sights of Ferrara. It is in the lower part of the Hospital of St. Anna, and is visited by hun- dreds every season. The story runs that he was kept there for eighteen years, because he had the temerity to fall in love with his patron, Duke Alphonso's sister. Another version is that he was really insane, and a thu'd, that the Duke im- prisoned him for violent abuse heaped upon the noble family by the bard, who deemed himself badly treated. On the cell are written the names of Byron, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Casimir Delavigne, John Smith, D. Wilkins Jones, P. Thompson, and a host of other celebrities. The prison is interesting to those who believe Tasso was ever in it. But many persons who have investigated the subject hold that the tale is a fiction ; that the poet was not confined there, or anywhere else. Goethe and DeStael were among the skeptics, and there is excellent reason for their skepticism. All the Ferrarese are ready to make affidavit that the author of " Jerusalem Delivered " underwent the horrors of a long captivity in the identical spot ; but I fear their judg- ment is biased by a fondness for francs. 510 LUCREZIA BORGIA'S HOME. Lucrezia Borgia's palace, in the Corso del Vittorio Eman- nuele, is much decayed, and several of the doors and windows are boarded up. She lived there eighteen years with her husband, the Duke of Ferrara, who must have had a pleasant matrimonial existence. Lucrezia was the kind of companion who would not grow monotonous. She was constantly pre- paring agreeable surprises for her friends in the way of cold steel and artistic poisons. Between her intrigues and assas- sinations, she must have found time to make her liege-lord very happy — particularly if he liked a quiet life. It must have been interesting for him to lie awake at night to con- jecture whether she would stab him in bed or poison him at breakfast. We have few such accomplished women now-a- days. The world is losing ground. CHAPTER LXIV. LOMBARDY. HEN a small boy I read my own thoughts in the lines of Rogers's colloquial poem : " Are those the distant turrets of Verona ; And shall I sup where Juliet at the mask Saw her lov'd Montague, and now sleeps by him V Shakespeare's tragedy also, the grandest love poem in any language, filled me with longings to see the city where the passionate daughter of the Capulets lived, loved, and died. I had all kinds of sentimental associations with Verona — even wrote a story, full of soft skies, tender tears and de- licious woes, and located it on the banks of the Adige. Ve- rona stood to me for Italy, and my most poetic imaginings clustered round it. I dreamed with eyes shut and eyes open of Verona ; fancied all the women beautiful, and all the men gifted and knightly who had the rare good fortune to dwell in that favored town. As I grew to manhood and skepticism I recovered from all such notions, and knew Verona to be nothing but a common- place Italian city, which would hardly be mentioned in America if the poet of all time had not made it immortal. But still I wanted to visit it on account of the ideas I had had in boyhood. When I stepped off the cars I found myself surrounded by a score or more of the most ragged and garlic-perfumed vet- turini I had encountered in all Italy. They each and all in- vited me to ride in their cabriolets behind the worst-looking beasts I had seen on the Continent. Poor quadrupeds, I 512 VERONA. pitied them. They seemed ashamed of themselves. Not one of them, could he have spoken, would have acknowledged himself a horse, or even have made any pretension of the sort. Rosinante was a Babieca to them. The breathing skeletons stood together in the warm sun- shine, with the hope of casting a shadow ; but they could not. A shadow was impossible to any combination of such thinnesses as theirs. I wanted to ride ; I must take one of the vehicles and one of the apologies for a horse. There was no choice. Where all were so bad it would have been idiocy to discriminate. I engaged a cabriolet after making an agreement with the vet- turino not to make me pay for the forlorn quadruped if he should happen to run (I use run for rhetorical effect) against a shadow and kill himself. So we started at a snail-like speed, and with difficulty passed three large buildings, which we shouldn't have done, if the buildings had not been too old to get out of the way. The streets were almost deserted. The people seemed stupid and common-place. On the authority of William Shakespeare, there were once two gentlemen of Verona. I think they must have died, without issue ; as I looked for them or their descendants, and found nothing to answer their description. The situation of Yerona is very fine, the rushing river di- viding the town, the varied landscape dotted with villas and groves, and the hills and mountains purple in the distance, giving it a beautiful setting. The modern fortifications are very strong, and have of late been much improved. The principal object of attraction is the ancient Roman amphitheater in the center of the city. It is the best pre- served amphitheater in Italy, and is very interesting. It was probably built about sixty or seventy years after Christ, and was capable of containing twenty thousand people. It is of mar- ble, has forty tiers of seats, and several loges or boxes, evidently for persons of distinction. An arch runs com- pletely round and under it, and in this arch are what is said THE R Oil A N AMPHITHEA TER. 513 to have been prisons for condemned persons, and cages for wild beasts to which the condemned were exposed. Churchists of this age, especially the Roman Catholics, are resolved upon the massacre of a great many Christians by the Roman Emperors. I have no great veneration for Tibe- rius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, and other such royal murder- ers ; but I am convinced they were not so bad as repre- sented. I have no doubt they put to death a number of the early Christians. It was one of their habits. They consid- ered that the best use to put a man to was to kill him. If they had not slaughtered the Christians, they would have been discriminating in their favor, for they slaughtered every- body else. The churches claim to have ascertained to their own satis- faction that thousands of the early Christians were made martyrs in the Verona amphitheatre ; but there is no au- thority, so far as I am aware, for any such statement or opinion. I spent several hours in the amphitheater, and it lost none of its interest by my belief that wild beasts had not dined daily on Christians. There are ruins of a large aqueduct near the amphitheater which show that it was once flooded with water from the Adige, for the presentation of naval sports in the arena. All the indications are that it was a grand establishment in its day. The Veronese are very proud of the arena, as they term it, and have taken particular pains to preserve it. Many of the arcades are now occupied by mechanics and small tradesmen, and the interior is used for exhibitions of fireworks, tight-rope dancing, and feats of horsemanship. In the thirteenth century judicial combats were decided there, and it is stated that the Visconti hired it out for duels, charging twenty-five lire for each duel. After the amphitheater the Tombs of the Scaligers rank next in importance. They are two large and handsome monuments adjoining a little dingy church, and present the names of once prominent leaders, who would not otherwise 514 THE HOME OF JULIET. have been known at all. One of them was so anxious to be remembered that he left a very large sum for the erection of a column over his ashes. The column is a fine specimen of the Gothic, but has grown so dingy and has crumbled so much in the several centuries it has stood there that a large part of its beauty is lost. In the enclosure are four sarcophagi of sol- diers very noted in their time, whose names can not now be conjectured. Juliet's tomb it was, of course, my duty to visit, whatever doubt there may be of its genuineness. So I drove to the place, rang a bell at an iron gate, paid a few sous to a slat- ternly girl who opened it, and walked through an arbor cov- ered with vines to the hallowed place. I had no idea Juliet was buried there ; indeed, I felt assured her tomb had been destroyed years before ; but still, when I looked upon the horse- trough they show for the last resting place of Juliet, I re- moved my hat for the local association. What difference if Juliet's body had never been there ? In Verona she lived ; in Verona she died ; in Verona she was buried. Her spirit was there ; her memory perfumed the spot ; her history filled the world. Though the tomb is a deception for a mercenary purpose, it is well to have even a cenotaph to which sentimental pil- grims may go and indulge in the luxury of romantic sensi- bility. " Gentle Juliet, she died for love," I said experimentally, in Italian, to the uneducated girl who had admitted me. Her face changed in a moment ; her eye moistened as she an- swered, " Si Signore, Giulietta infelice." Women, all the planet over, whether high or low, culti- vated or ignorant, on this or the other side of the sea, are made a common sisterhood by their faith in love. Juliet's house, which was no doubt her home at the time of her melancholy death, is pointed out in the Via di Santa Croce. It is a very narrow building of stuccoed brick, over a gateway, and indicates that her parents could not haVe been in very prosperous circumstances. I remembered the pa- ROMEO FORGOTTEN. 515 latial residence Edwin Booth assigned her at his theater, and could not help ^rawing the contrast between the real and the ideal. Where art thou, Romeo ? The question may well be asked ; for he seems forgotten even in Yerona. Why should Juliet be remembered, and not he ? It is certainly more remark- able for a man than for a woman to die for love, and Romeo ought to have full credit for his romantic suicide. Poor Ju- liet was Mrs. Montague, to be sure ; but that is no reason her husband should be so cruelly ignored. I never quite understood why Romeo should have made such an ado about his banishment to Mantua, until I went there myself. It was Mantova la Gloriosa in his time, but now-a- days it is not at all glorious. On the flat and sedgy banks of the Mincio, surrounded by lakes and marshes, very strong, militarily, and very unhealthy, actually, it has no claims to natural beauty, but its mediaeval buildings and historic asso- ciations still draws the traveler to the ancient capital of the munificent Gonzagas. The center of the city shows consid- erable commercial activity, but the grass grows in many of the streets, and the palaces and public edifices bear traces of decay. Mantua has no large squares, but vast architectural piles, hoary battlemented towers, castles, and Lombard arches vividly recall the feudal period, and give it a novel aspect. Its population is increasing — remarkably enough — and is now nearly 40,000, but during the reign of Giovanni Francesco II., and Frederico II., in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, it must have been more than twice as large ; for Mantua was then one of the richest and gayest courts of Italy. The Castello di Corte, the palace and fortress of the Gonzagas, conspicuous for its grand machicolated towers, is occupied at present as public offices. The immense edifice (it contains over five hundred apartments) adjoining the Castello, and generally known as the Palazzo Imperiale, has had more in- vention and ingenuity of architecture exhausted upon it to little purjiose than any building iu Italy. The frescoes by 516 MILAN. Giulio Romano are some of them very good, and others very inferior. I had some curiosity to visit the Palazzo del Diavolo, re- membering the legend that it had sprung up in a single night by the agency of the Fiend. It has a desolate, dreary, haunted look ; but this effect is counteracted by its present occupancy as shops and lodgings. I had heard that it was infested by genuine and unmistakable ghosts, who produced blood-freezing effects, and I was anxious for a nocturnal in- terview. But on inquiry I learned the ghosts had retired from business, owing to the increasing lack of confidence in their supernatural character, and so I quitted Mantua in deep disappointment. Why do ghosts always retreat before earnest seekers ? I have been looking for them the world over, since childhood, and have never yet been able to find even one. Milan is so modern compared to the other cities of the country — thanks to the numerous wars that destroyed all her ancient and mediaeval remains — has such an air of bustle and business, and contains so much of the Parisian element and spirit that it seems more French than Italian. Still Milan, unlike its neighbor and rival, Turin, consumes a week most pleasantly. It has fine buildings, churches, picture-galleries, libraries, theatres, and public gardens ; and the people appear as gay and as fond of pleasure as they are on the Seine. The central attraction of the city is of course the Cathedral, so beautiful that it deserves all its fame. Everybody has seen photographs of the church ; but no one can form a just idea of its magnificence, its elaborate details, and its superb effects without a personal visit. I fancied its towers and four hun- dred and fifty statues would give it an overloaded, if not tawdry appearance. I suspected there were tricks and shams in its architecture, and that the whole would lack fitness and proportion. I was agreeably deceived. Completeness, solidity, symmetry, and harmony particularly distinguished the structure. It is marble throughout ; has a finished and impressive character, even from the exterior, which no other church has. THE SPLENDID CA THEDRAL. 5 j 7 You are not compelled to look at it from any particular angle or point of view to appreciate it. It is grand and beautiful at the same time, and its grandeur and beauty are so blended you hardly know which predominates. As a Gothic structure it has no equal in Europe. Milan would be worth a long journey if it contained nothing but its cathedral. Its stained-glass windows, especially those behind the altar, are really gorgeous. The church should be viewed outwardly and inwardly mider the sunshine for full appre- ciation. The ascent of the principal tower— three hundred and thirty-five feet, I believe— enables you to see the statues and spires in their completeness of detail, and gives a eowp (Voeil of the entire building that camiot be had from below. There are galleries running all over the upper part of the structm-e, forming such a labyrinth that it is easy to lose your way, even under the light of the skies. I needed fully half an hour to descend, and got on the right road at last only by discovering that every other one was wrona-. From the principal tower you have a pleasant view of the city and surrounding country. You see Pavia, the Apennines, the Alps, including Mount Rosa, Mount Blanc, and the Mat- terhorn— one of the grandest panoramas I remember from a spire. One day when I was on the tower there was a grand thunder-storm. I saw it gathering in the mountains, and the varied cloud effects— the grand chiaro-oscuro of Nature— with the wind, the lightning, the mists, and the sweeping down of the rain from the Alps into the valley, was a sort of meteorological epic. I watched the storm for an hour, and was charmed with the disappearance and reappearance of the different peaks as they wrapped and unwrapped themselves in and from the mantles of mist and the gray and sombre hoods of the clouds. Once in a while the sun would stream through the entire mass as if the heavens had caught fire ; then the lightning would dart down the inky depths, like a messenger of flame calling upon the crags to speak, which they did^in grumbling, muttering, bellowing, crashing voices. The wind 518 -D^ VlNCrS LAST SUPPER. blew as if it would tumble the spires among which I stood, and the thunder boomed like distant cannon, sometimes dying gradually away amid its own echoes, reminding one of a forest of lions roaring themselves to sleep. La Scala is very much like San Carlo, at Naples, in the in- terior arrangements, and will hold as many persons — five thousand. It has five tiers of boxes, a large platea, or par- quette, and a gallery ; is simple in its adornments, and will not compare in elegance or beauty with some of the New York theatres. The stage is very large, and has a double floor, so arranged that fountains and other spectacular aids can be introduced with fine effect. Some of the operas, to which the theatre is mainly devoted, and the spectacles during the carnival are presented with a superb tnise en scene. Da Vinci's Last Supper, which has been copied oftener, perhaps, than any other fresco in the world, is in the refectory of a former Dominican monastery. I knew how abominably the painting had been treated by other persons claiming to be artists ; how they had daubed and marred it under pre- tence of retouching it ; but I did not expect to find it in such a shocking state as it is. The wall has crumbled, the fresco has peeled off, and new colors have been so plastered upon it, that very little of the original picture remains. To pretend to admire it now for anything more than its drawing is, to my mind, an affectation. Li a very few years not a crumb of the Last Supper will be left. Peter, and John, and Judas, and James, once depicted with such a master-hand, will have faded into eternal night, unless one of the miracles of the Church, so readily and successfully produced at all seasons, shall restore it to its pristine freshness. The art world cannot afford to lose Da Vinci's chef d'oeuvre, and I suggest, therefore, the introduction of a miracle to some pur- pose. CHAPTER LXV. DOWN THE DANUBE. — ~ HE Danube, rising in the Black Forest, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, at an elevation of 2,900 feet above the sea, and flowing in its general course from west to east, a distance of 1,000 miles, empties into the Black Sea by four different outlets. The great river is very crooked, and with all its windings is nearly 2,500 miles long. Its width varies greatly. At Ulm, where it becomes navigable, it is some 330 feet ; in Moldavia, it is 1,400 feet; in Turkey, over 2,000 feet wide, and below Hirsova, in Bul- garia, it expands like a sea. It may be considered navigable for steamers from Ulm to its mouth except between Drenkova and Kladova, where it is interrupted by three great rapids ; but navigation is often difficult by reason of sandbanks and shallows. Before the introduction of steam, in 1830, the boats descending the Danube, so swift is the current, were very rarely taken back, but broken up at the end of the voyage, as flat-boats are on the south-western rivers. The great stream receives in all some sixty navigable tributaries, and its volume of water is equal to that of all the other rivers combined emptying into the Black Sea. The picturesque part of the Danube is between Linz and Buda, a distance of about 300 miles, and it is over this part that sight-seers travel. I devoted a couple of hours to Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, said to contain 27,000 or 28,000 people, though its appearance does not indicate that it has 520 STEAMERS AND PASSENGERS. half the number. The Hauptplatz, ascending from the river, is the only spacious or pleasant street, and its center is mark- ed by the ugly Trinity Column, much resembling the one in Vienna. It was erected by Charles VI. in 1723 to commem- orate the termination of hostile invasions and the ravages of pestilence. The Capuchin Church contains the tomb of Montecuccoli, the well-known Imperial General during the Thirty Years' War. Near the town is a fine view of the Danube and the Alps of Salzburg and Styria. The fortifications of Linz, erected at great expense about twenty-five years ago, are being removed. Our late war showed Austria their worthlessness ; and she, like other nations of the Old World, is taking lessons from the New. The steamers for Vienna are small, something like those on the lesser Swiss lakes, though not so comfortable. They are often crowded during the spring and summer, and it is troublesome sometimes to get a seat on deck. I wedged my- self in between two fleshy old German women, or rather they sandwiched me, and 1 was at first compelled, though it was a very warm afternoon, to admire the Danube from that disad- vantageous position. I had no idea of finding such a variety of people on the Danube steamers. The passengers, particu- larly after quitting Vienna, were made up of Germans, Bohe- mians, Hungarians, Poles, Americans, Greeks, and Turks, representing the Protestant, Catholic, Greek, and Mohamme- dan creeds. They were of all grades of society, too — mer- chants, soldiers, tourists, professional men, diplomats, specu- lators, adventurers, priests, and nondescripts. Many of the men and women were curious studies ; and I wove out of the impressions they gave me material enough for many illustra- tions of the peculiarities of human nature. Below Linz the right bank of the Danube is flat, but numer- ous islands make the river picturesque, and in an hour you have a view of the mountains. Near Asten are the Augustine Abbey o£» St. Florian, one of the oldest in Austria, and the NOTED PERSONS AND PLACES.. 521 castle of Tillysburg, erected on the site of the one presented by the Emperor Ferdinand to General Tilly during the Thirty Years War. On one of the islands is the ruin of Spielberg, another ancient and historic castle. Still further down are the castle of Pragstein, projecting into the stream, and vari- ous romantic ruins followed by a contraction of the stream as it flows through high, wooded mountains. At Grein, ridges of rock jut out into the river, making the Greiner Schwall a surging water. In that vicinity the Dan- ube has palpably worn its way through the solid granite, and is soon divided by a large island called Werth. It is impeded by vast rocks, and is forced into three channels, through one of which, the Strudel, only thirty or forty feet broad, the river runs like a rapid. There the boat descends, and requires skillful piloting to prevent its going to pieces on the project- ing rocks. An hour after you reach the ruined castle of Werfenstein, and opposite it another, the ancient robber stronghold of Struden ; then a whirlpool, little more than a rapid of late years ; then grand, rocky landscapes, chateaus, crumbling old abbeys and watch-towers. Near Saussenstein is a pil- grimage church, Maria Taferl, on an eminence of fifteen hundred feet, which is visited annually by a hundred thousand devotees. At Pochlarn, some miles below, is located the traditional residence of Rudiger, who, according to the Nibelungen-lied, entertained Chrimhilde most sumptuously when she was journeying to the land of the Huns. He was a very noted person, as I remember the wild romance of the Lied, passing his time in guzzling wine, cutting throats and running off with other men's wives. He used to think nothing of routing single-handed an army or two before breakfast, and set as much store by what he called his honor as a New York mil- lionaire does by a five-dollar bill. At Melk, or Molk, is the immense Benedictine Abbey, sev- eral times besieged, and still having the bastions Napoleon strengthened after the battle of Aspern. A once-dreaded 522 • CITY OF PRESSBURG. robber castle is at Aggstein, where the chieftain had a pleas- ant habit of outraging the beautiful women (all outraged women are beautiful somehow) who fell into his hands, after which he cut their hearts out and ate them broiled — a bit of carnivorous sentiment that ought to find admirers, as it has literary imitators in Swinburne and others of the supersensual school. Then come more churches, abbeys, ruined castles, and robber dens, scenes of battle, siege and fable — enough to satisfy the greatest lover of romantic variety. The broad part of the Danube does not touch Vienna ; but you go to it by an arm or branch called the Viennese Danube, serving the purpose of a canal, which many visitors have supposed to be the famous river in its fulness. From Vienna you take a small steamer, and are transferred to a larger one when you reach the main arm, a distance of several miles. - You are soon at Lobau, the island where the Austrians and the French had the hard fight in 1809, and pass the villages, somewhat inland, of Epling, Aspen, and Wagram, memorable in the Napoleonic wars. At Deutsch-Altenburg is a fine ruin, and at Hainburg there are many decayed walls and towers, and a stone carving of Ki«g Etzel, who, the Niebelun- gen-lied says, spent some time thereabouts. You pass Pressburg, the old capital of Hungary, where the Magyar kings were crowned — now a dull city, with little to make it attractive. The extensive castle at the summit of the Schlossberg was burned down more than fifty years ago ; but the view from that height, embracing the plains of Hungary and the wind- ings of the Danube, is the chief attraction at Pressburg. The Cathedral (with a wooden tower), consecrated in 1452, and said to have been founded by St. Ladislaw, was the church designed for the coronation of the Hungarian kings, but has no architectural attractions. Near the bridge of boats is a slight artificial elevation, walled in and closed by a gate, called the Konigsberg. On this the new king, after his cor- onation, rode his horse, brandishing the sword of St. Stephen towards the four points of the compass to evince his deter- HUNGARIAN' AND CITY LIFE. 523 miiiation to defend his country from enemies from whatever quarter. The plains of Hungary, which you reach after Pressburg, are fertile but dreary-looking, all their towns and villages seeming to belong to a past age. The river is full of mills, made by anchoring two boats in the stream, building a small, rude house on one, placing a wheel between the two, and submitting it to the action of the current. The thing is very simple and cheap, and I am surprised some of the Western farmers on the White, Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas rivers have not done something of the same sort. The Danube is often divided into several arms, making isl- ands, some of them very large, as the Grosse, which is 55 miles long and 33 broad, and contains as many as a hundred villages. Gonyo, a village almost entirely of thatched houses, is at the extremity of the Lesser Schiitt, and near by is Raab (Gyor in Hungarian), a city of 17,000 inhabitants. Just above Komorn, at some distance from the river, is the rich Benedictine Abbey of Martinsberg, which, being on a height, is plainly visible from the steamboat. The ancient town of Komorn is a very strong fortress (po}> ulation 18,000) with extensive tetes-de-pont on the bank of the Waag, which there falls into the Danube. The fortifica- tions, greatly extended during the last sixty years, were originally planned and built by Matthew Corvinus. Further down is a low range of hills covered with vine- yards. Gran, near the junction of the river Gran with the Danube, is conspicuous for the dome of its cathedral — some- what resembling St. Peter's — on an elevation and overlooking the town of 12,000 people. In that neighborhood the channel contracts, running through porphyry and limestone rocks which make the scenery more picturesque. The old walls of the fortress of Wissegrad extends down to the river. The castle was destroyed by the Turks, and its fortifications after- ward dismantled by the Emperor Leopold. The Hungarian kings occupied it as early as the eleventh century, and it is still an interesting ruin. The hills now recede ; the river 524 CHARACTERISTICS OF TEE RIVER. turns south ; is divided into two arms ; passes the town of Waitzen, and, as the banks become flatter, you see rafts, barges, and local steamboats, showing the approach to Pesth and Buda (Ofen). These with their lofty structures, the fine suspension bridge, the fortress, the royal palace, and the Blocksberg, as they come fully into view, recall Prague and the Heradschin, and make a beautiful picture as the sun is sinking, and flooding the cities, the river, and landscape with purple, crimson, and gold. The Danube combines many of the striking features of the upper and lower Mississippi, the Ohio, the St. Lawrence, and the Hudson, with historic associations and medigeval ruins which they cannot have. To enjoy it completely one should be well acquainted with history, and be able to recall the ex- travagant fables of the famous Lied. The Danube is like the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Moselle, and with its islands, rapids, mountains, vineyards, green slopes, and picturesque ruins, may be said to excel any one of them in variety. I have often heard Strauss and his band play " The Beautiful Blue Danube Waltz " at the Volksgarten. The blueness of the river is a poetic fiction ; for it is very brown at all seasons of the year. Still the muddy Danube would not sound well, and melody must be consulted in the arrangement of music. Below Pesth and Buda the river loses its varied and at- tractive features. In Transylvania it runs through an im- mense plain, — only 400 feet above the sea level, without any undulations. Large streams with marshy banks flow into it through flat land interspersed with stagnant pools and sandy wastes. Below Moldavia it is for sixty or seventy miles a succession of rapids and shallows, bordered by rocks and sandbanks, and in Servia it is interrupted by three great rapids, the lowest of which, known as the Iron Gate cataract, rushes in a narrow channel through stupendous rocks, ending in eddies, wliirlpools, and a series of small falls. So it con- tinues, spreading and spreading, the banks growing more and more marshy, and often overflowed, until, largely increasing its volume, it is lost at last in the Black Sea. CHAPTER LXVI. AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY. •lENNA is very handsomely laid out, and is hardly equaled by any capital of Europe in the magnificence of its buildings and its prin- cipal streets. I was not prepared to see a city so fine materially, and, I may add, so uninteresting mentally. It has galleries of art, various collec- tions, beautiful gardens, excellent music, and yet it seems tiresome. There is something oppressing in the at- mospliere which made me desirous to get away as soon as I had seen all its noticeable features. Vienna is called a Ger- man Paris : but it is far more German than Parisian. The citizens dress well, are externally polite and painfully decor- ous ; but they appear to a stranger supremely dull. No one appears to enjoy himself or herself. Vivacity is unknown, and animation interdicted. In the first place, the hotels and restaurants are very poor, which is a great dissatisfaction to strangers. Secondly, nobody seems to have any acquaint- ance with the city, and if he has, he cannot convey his intel- ligence clearly. Thirdly, and mainly, nobody knows anything about anything, and seems absorbed in evolving stupidity from his inner consciousness. The fiaker-drivers, after you have explained to them for half an hour where you want to go, will pretend to under- stand, and then drive you in the wrong direction. If you wish to visit a church they will take you to a beer garden ; if a picture gallery, to the police office ; if a palace, to the rail- way station ; if the bankers, to th€ cemetery. It may be sup- (525) 526 VIENNA. posed this is done to get another fare, but it is not, for the fellows hurry off as soon as they have set you down. They are dishonest enough — fully as much so as their intel- ligence will admit ; but they have not sufficient ingenuity to make a florin by a trick. They really don't know the differ- ence between the Arsenal and the Belvidere, the Ambras Col- lection and the Albertina, the Prater and the Polytechnic Institute. The waiters are no better. They are dumber than the Pyramids. Ask them for a glass of beer even, and they look as perplexed as if you had demanded they should solve the Schleswig-Holstein question. Order a cup of coffee, and they repeat the phrase wonderingly, as though you had given them an Egyptian riddle. This is almost an exact transcript (translated) of a dia- logue I had with a waiter in a fashionable caf^ : " Have you cigars ? " "Cigars?" " Yes ; good cigars." "Good?" " Yes, yes ; good cigars." "Cigars?" " Certainly. Don't you understand what a cigar is ? " " Understand ? " " Do tell me if you have any good cigars." " Cigars, did you say ? " " Yes ; c-i-g-a-r-s ; you know what that means, I suppose." " Oh yes ; I understand very well. " " Then get me some at once." " Certainly, right away." The fellow was gone fifteen minutes, and came back with an ancient almanac. The women in Vienna are the comeliest Germans I have seen. They have finer features, better figures, and show more taste in dress, than is common among the Teutonic nations. They look like the French, but are without their tact, quick- ness, or perception. Their manners are good, but negative. A SUPERB CITY. 527 They do nothing to offend, but they have no power to charm. They all so act after a pattern, that one might infer they had been drilled by a sergeant of the Imperial Guards. They do not appear to have any emotional life, and yet there are, no doubt, many fierce volcanoes under those fair mounts of snow. There is a Vesuvius in every woman's being, and there is always some man — usually some men — who can cause an eruption which may be delightful or terrible in its consequen- ces. The Inner City, as it is called, is filled with stately build- ings, fine churches, imposing bronze monuments, handsome gardens, and elaborately laid out grounds. The architectural display is extraordinary, and I cannot but think the deplora- ble financial condition of the country is partially attributable to the lavish expenditure. There are miles of houses which would be called palaces anywhere else, and acres upon acres of the most valuable land are devoted to squares and promen- ades. The New Opera House, which has been recently opened, is a specimen of the imperial mode of doing things there. Ex- cepting the unfinished Opera House in Paris, the Karnthner- thor is by long odds the finest in the world. Naples, Milan, Berlin, St Petersburg, London, have nothing like it in com- pleteness, extent, or richness. It bristles with gilding, carv- ing, frescoes, and marbles, and cost, I understand, twenty millions of florins — about ten millions of dollars. The great objection to it, as to all the Continental theatres, is its total lack of ventilation ; the boxes being so enclosed that not a breath of fresh air can get into the -house, even if it had an order for admission from the Emperor himself. The sights of the City are numerous, but, with some exceptions, not very interesting. The collections of pictures, as the Czernin and Harrach, are inferior, though the Liech- tenstien and Belvedere, particularly the latter, are very good. The Ambras collection and the antiquities in the lower Bel- vedere, the cabinets of coins, and minerals, and natural his- tory, are what every European traveler has already become familiar with. 528 "^^E GARDEN CONCERTS. The churches are hardly worth the trouble of inspecting, St. Stephen's excepted, which is a fine specimen of Gothic, recalling the Cologne Cathedral, though much smaller. The tombs of the Emperor Frederic the Fourth and Prince Eugene of Savoy are interesting, of course ; but the others are either apocryphal or associated with superstition. The tower, 430 feet high, commands a fine view, including the battlefields of Lobau, Wagram, and Essling. The cemeteries are not remarkable, but as they contain the graves of Gluck, Schubert, Mozart, and Beethoven, they will attract everyone who loves the memory of the great composers, and feels that their music has made it immortal. The Treasury is very rich, abounding in ornaments, ivory ear- rings, sculptures, precious stones, and countless curiosities. As might be expected, you are shown the lance that pierced 'the side of Christ, and the nails and fragments of the cross, which long ago ceased to interest me, as I have seen enough of them to make a small lumber-pile and set up a respectable hardware establishment. The sword, crown, girdle, alb, stole, dalmatica, and sceptre of Charlemagne (no one who pays the full fee is obliged to believe them veritable) are ex- hibited, having been brought from his tomb at Aix la Chapelle. The jewels are handsome and of great value, par- ticularly a diamond (once the property of Charles the Bold), weighing one hundred and thirty-five carats, and an emerald, cut as a vase, weighing nearly 2,800 carats. The garden concerts are among the most agreeable resorts in Vienna. They are given almost nightly at the Volks- garten ; on the Burgglacis ; at Dommaycr's in Hietzing, and at Rudolfsheim, by Strauss, Weghuber, Sperl, and other leaders of note. Some of the gardens are beautifully laid out, and attended by the best class of people. For fifty to eighty kreutzers you can hear all the great composers rendered by the ablest musicians. Not a few of the women in attend- ance are quite handsome — very different from the ordinary German type — and almost all dress as they would at the opera or an evening party. They would appear to more ad- ENTIRONS OF TEE CITY, 529 vantage, to my mind, if they would eat less, and be more in- different to beer. I should suppose that Mozart might be ap- preciated without cold ham and cabbage, and that Mendels- sohn could be enjoyed apart from' brown bread and cheese. The Prater, tlie favorite park of the Viennese, is intersected by five avenues, of which the Wurstelprater is the haunt of the lower classes, who, on holidays and Sundays, enjoy them- selves most vigorously. During the season the display of equipages in the Prater is brilliant. The environs of the city, as Schonbrunn (where the Duke of Reichstadt is buried), Laxenburg, the Briihl and Baden, are exceedingly pleasant, and easily reached by omnibus or rail- way. Vienna is growing rapidly, and now has a population, in- cluding the suburbs, of 670,000. It is said to have been originally an ancient settlement of the Celts or Wends ; then it became a Roman town, Marcus Aurelius having died there A. D. 180. It fell successively into the power of the Huns, the Rugii, and Heruli, the Ostrogoths, and other barbarous hordes. In 1276 it was taken from the King of Bohemia by Rudolph of Hapsburg, and has been governed by that family ever since. In 1519 the Emperor Maximilian I. invited the Kings of Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia to a banquet in the imperial city, and so arranged the marriages of his children that Bohemia, Hungary, and Moravia fell to the crown of Austria ; thus gaining, as a verse of the time ran, by the in- fluence of Venus what had long been denied to Mars. Pesth is thoroughly Hungarian. The streets have Hunga- rian names, and the majority of the people are unable to speak German, or even to understand the simplest question in that language, as I found in making inquiries about public buildings or well-known localities. The Hungarians, or Mag- yars, as they prefer to be called, are evidently a different race from the Austrians, with whom they have little sympathy, and for whom they have no affinity. They keep up all their traditions and ancient customs, and have their own costume, still wearing top boots, soft hats (turned up all round and 34 530 PESTH AND THE HUNGARIANS.. adorned with feathers) , and embroidered garments, with which Kossuth and his suite made us so familiar twenty years ago. They frequent their own cafes; have their own newspapers, their own amusements, and their own society. They seem to have very little, if any, association with the Austrians, albeit the latter have adopted a very conciliatory course since the revolution of 1848, and the title of their sovereign is Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Many of the Hungarians have entered the army in which there are regiments, com- posed exclusively of Magyars, and their patriotism and na- tional self-love have been so adroitly appealed to that they are now considered very loyal to Francis Joseph. The Hungarians are less cultivated and enlightened than the Austrians, but they are quicker, intenser, and naturally more intelligent. They are more warlike, too, and with equal advantages would be likely to be victorious over the dominant nation of slower mind and more sluggish blood. They are like the Poles — brave, restless, and impetuous, but have not ad- vanced very far in the arts of peace, and have done little to develop their country. They have much of the old barbaric blood, and seem to prefer change and turbulence to settled conditions and the spirit of progress. Their peasantry are very much as they were a hundred years ago. They wear the same half Oriental costumes ; have a barbaric fondness for ornaments, and are delighted with trifles. But under all this is a strong, fierce spirit — that of the ancient Huns — which will always be formidable in war. Pesth is the most important commercial town in Hungary ; has numerous handsome buildings, several fine churches, in- cluding a handsome Synagogue, a national museum, the val- uable Esterhazy collection of pictures, and many objects of interest. It has obtained all its importance during the last seventy or eighty years, and bids fair to become a rival of Vienna. It is the seat of a university, which was removed Iiere from Tyrnau in 1780, and has a thousand students. The four annual fairs held in the city are the events of Pesth. They fmiiish the greater part of the Hungarians with THE ANCIENT CITY OF BUD A. 53 1 the means of living. They bring honey, wax, wool, raw hides, and slibowitza — a species of brandy made from plums — and sell these articles at very remunerative rates. The fairs are times of great festivity, and sometimes not unlike the once famous Donnybroo.k in the scenes accompanying them. The Hungarians have a fondness for strong drink, particularly for their slibowitza, and on those occasions they often get drunk and fight. The liquor makes them very pa- triotic, and they frequently express their opinion of their Aus- trian rulers in exceedingly emphatic terms. It is said that the seeds of the revolution of 1848 were sown at one of the fairs. Francis Joseph has entertained the idea of suppressing the four annuals, but he has learned that it would not be good policy. To abolish the fairs would, I believe, bring all Hungary into open revolt. The slibowitza I drank a little of to try it. It is rather sweet, but very fiery and deceptions. Small as the quantity was, it affected my brain, and when I lay down at night — ten hours after — I dreamed of killing my grandmother in jest. I don't believe the Hungarian brandy exercises a pacific influence. One of my objects in visiting Hungary was to get some of the Imperial Tokay, of which I had heard so much. It has the reputation of being the best wine made, and a small bottle costs ten florins — about five dollars in gold. It is sweet and strong, something like a liqueur, but not particularly good. The truth is, there is no delicious wine in Europe, or anywhere else. The ideal wine, like other ideals, can never be found. Buda, or Ofen, on the other side of the Danube, is connected with Pesth by a fine suspension bridge. It has but fifty-six thousand people, nearly all Germans, and yet it is twenty times as old as the latter city. It was once a Roman colony ; was conquered by Sultan Soliman in the sixteenth century, and remained in the power of the Turks for a century and a half. The only reminiscence of its Mussulmanic history is a small Turkish mosque, of octagonal form, with a turret and crescent, erected over the grave of a noted monk, who was 532 THE FATHER OF ROSES. called the " Father of Roses." I am sorry he is dead, for he is much needed in Buda, which is not at all fragrant. If he were to be resuscitated, he would find few of his children, and little to remind him of them. When the Continentalists have any fathers of roses they ought to keep them alive as long as possible — that is, if the fathers have any perfuming or disin- fecting power. The Continentalists have any number of saints embalmed ; but the air they breathe is not embalmed in the least. I wish most heartily it might be. Opposite the suspension bridge rises the castle hill, through which a very long tunnel leads to the Horvathgarten, in which theatrical and other performances are given in the open air. The Fortress, with the handsome royal chateau, is on the top of the hill about which the town is built. The Hentzi-Platz contains the monument to General Hentzi and other officers who died in defending the fortress against the Hungarians. From the summit of the Blocksberg is a fine view of the river and the towns on either side. Though Buda is hardly one hundred and fifty miles from Vienna, it has always seemed to me very far from the more frequented cities and centers of civilization, possibly because I have associated it with King Etzel, or Attila, who is supposed to have had his stronghold and headquarters where the ancient city now stands. CHAPTER LXVII. 'DOWN IN THE WIELICZKA SALT MINES. HE most celebrated and productive salt mines in the whole world are those of Wieliczka, in Galicia or Austrian Poland, ten miles from Cracow. My main object in going to that city was to visit the salt mines, which you can do any day by oljtaining a ticket of admission at the Chateau of Wieliczka, and by the payment of a I certain number of kreutzers to the officials and the workmen. I The mines, connected with those of Bochnia, the next } railway station, are said to be entered by eleven shafts ; but the principal one, which I went down, is generally known by way of distinction as the entrance shaft. The greatest depth of the mines is eight hundred feet, though it is sometimes stated to be over a thousand. They have seven different levels or stories, one above the other, connected by countless I passages, flights of steps and bridges. Never having been j down in a salt mine, I had some little curiosity to know how j the descent was made. I very soon found out. After being placed in charge of two very rough-looking fellows — they ] seemed as if they might have lived under-ground all their ' lives, and only to have escaped to the surface of the earth at j that particular time — I was taken to the mouth of the pit. ' So I was told at least, but I could see nothing of the great hole in the ground for which I was anxiously looking. Be- fore me, however, was a piece of machinery resembling a complicated windlass, and while I was wondering what it was for, a large trap-door was removed, revealing the mouth of the shaft. (533) 534 DOWN THE SHAFT. My conductors lighted their torches — they appeared very much Uke old-fashioned lard oil lamps — and motioned to me that they were all ready. I supposed from their appearance that they were Poles, and as I have never been very fluent in DOWN THE SHAFT. the Polish tongue, I fancied they would not be able to con- vey to me a great deal of intelligence. I discovered later, however, that they knew some German, and as I knew a little also, we got along quite comfortably. I found that the ap- paratus for letting us dOwn in the mine was a species of iron SALT CHAMBERS. 535 basket, in which we sat with our legs hanging outside, and holding to ropes fastened above to a ring encircling an iron shaft. This ring slipped smoothly down the shaft, carrying us, clinging to the ropes, down with it. The entrance to the mines was something like a well, though rather square than round ; and as we sped downward, the feeble light of the torches rather increased than lessened the darkness, and laashing fitfully, and throwing shadows here and there, made it seem as if the ropes that held us had snapped asunder. But I had no fears of that kind— indeed, I doubt if any well- balanced man has such apprehensions of absurd possibilities as travelers and adventure-seekers are inclined to represent. I had no idea of the depth, which appeared much greater than it was from the silence and the darkness that surrounded me. I did not know but we might be going to the lowest depth of the mines, and when we stopped in our downward course, I was surprised to learn that we were Uttle more than two hundred feet below the surface of the earth. Then our real journey began. One of the torch-bearers went before, and the other behind me, as we walked over a wooden bridge, and down a flight of stairs, and through sev- eral passages, all cut out of what appeared to be solid rock veined with quartz. I asked the guides to stop, and Hfting up a torch, saw that what I had taken for quartz was rock salt, and that most of the rock was green salt, as it is called, being largely mixed with clay. After walking up and down, right and left, and left and right, we entered a considerable cavity, which reminded me ' somewhat of the Star Chamber in the Mammoth Cave. This had been hewn out by the workmen, I was informed, and after they had gotten all the salt contained in the stratum, they had abandoned it for another field of operations. I no- ticed in the chamber several crosses, an altar, and a number of images— intended, I presume, for saints— which were made of rock salt, and which looked beautiful while the light of the torches fell upon them. We went on again, over more bridges, down more flights 536 ^^^ WORKING WITH THEIR EYES SHUT. of steps, through more passages, until we reached what the guides styled the river. It wasn't enough of a river to do any harm, however, and better deserved the name of a pool. It was just such a river as the Lethe or the Styx in the great Kentucky cave, and we crossed it in just such a boat — a muddy scow, which might have been built in the earliest in- fancy of navigation. The guides in a few seconds pushed the boat over with poles, and we got out on another bridge, and began descending one of the longest and worst series of steps I had encountered. At the bottom we branched off into a crooked passage, at the end of which was still another tire- some and rickety flight of stairs. I believed we were get- ting further and further into the bowels of the earth, and so we were, as I learned from one of the grim fellows, who said we were some four hundred feet under ground. I examined the walls about me, and could plainly perceive that they had more of a crystal appearance than they had had ; the crystal, of course, being the veins of rock salt. One thing which had astonished me was, that we had met so few workmen. We had passed them here and there, using pickaxes and crowbars, but nothing like the number I had expected to find. The reason, as I learned by inquiry, was, that the parts through which we had gone had been mostly worked out, and the laborers had been removed to lower and richer strata. About twenty minutes later, we ob- served several men making a new passage. They had just begun it, and were lying down on their backs, and striking their picks into the salt overhead. One might believe that the falling particles would have destroyed their sight, and so they would no doubt, had not the men drawn a kind of coarse hat over their faces, and shut their eyes, while they employ- ed their implements actively. This was the first instance I had observed of men doing work effectively with their eyes shut. After crossing several more pools or rivers — there are at least twenty of these, formed by the percolations of water through the strata — we entered a very large, open space, some DAZZLING EFFECT OF FIRE WORKS. 537 four hundred feet broad, and at least a hundred feet high, known as the Chamber of Letow ; and fifteen minutes later, another of still greater dimensions, the Chamber of Michel- awic. These were fitted up like chapels, having altars, can- dlesticks, statues, chairs, thrones, and various kinds of ornar ments, all cut out of rock salt. Before I left Cracow, I had purchased some fire-works — blue and red lights, serpents, and Catharine wheels — as I had been advised to do if I were going into the mines. I did not have, I confess, a very clear idea as to what I was going to 533 -1 REAL FA IR Y S CENE. do with them. But when I was inside of those large cham- bers, and after one of the guides had lighted a number of lamps on an altar, I was very glad indeed I was pro\ided with the fire-works. The lamps had a remarkable effect, and the burning of the red and blue lights transformed the chamber into a grotto of diamonds. The spectacle was really splendid. From every part of the walls, with their uneven surfaces, were reflected again and again the rays of light, until the place ni mill -i"- was a blaze of radiance and glory. It was more like a fairy scene than anything else, and the thought that it was six THE INFERXAL LAKE. 539 hundred feet or more under ground, amid natural darkness and silence and desolation, added to the wonder of the vision. I should never have believed that two such simple things as light and rock-salt, acting upon each other, could produce such a miracle of splendor. The serpents and Catharine wheels appeared to great advantage after all the lights were either extinguished or removed. I certainly never enjoyed so much such a slender stock of fire-works. The darkness was so intense as to be almost tangible, and when the ser- pents and wheels were whizzing through it, it seemed as if the whole night of the earth were compressed into that small and pitchy compass. The larger of the chambers, Michelawic, — it is over a hund- red feet square, — is dedicated, I miderstand, to St. Anthony. Once every year, on the third of July, a grand mass is cele- brated in the chamber, or chapel, as it is usually considered, and afterward a banquet is given of the most sumptuous char- acter. Whenever any members of the imperial family visit the mines, the most extensive preparations are made to re- ceive them. The principal passages and chambers are bril- liantly illuminated ; the workmen are given a holiday, and festivals are held, in which they participate. These are long- remembered by the poor laborers, who then receive gratuities, and have what they regard as a most pleasm-able time. The Infernal Lake — a large pool of water some seven hund- red feet long, three hundred feet wide, and forty deep — ^par- ticularly impressed me. I went out upon it in a boat, and burned some of the fire-works, while a number of the work- men awoke the echoes of the dreary place by crying " Gluck Auf, Gluck Auf," ("Welcome, Welcome), until the cavern seemed peopled with invisible imps and demons screaming with sardonic satire to the last victim they had ensnared. There certainly was something bitterly ironical in the idea of associating that gloomy pool and pit with a welcome of any sort. I have been told that the workmen sometimes show the words "Gluck Auf" in illuminated letters in an arch at the lower end of the lake ; but they did not do so on the oc- 540 A DEMON CHORUS. casion of my visit — whether because they were less enterpris- ing than usual, or because they thought a single sight-seer THE INFERNAL LAKE. would not remunerate them sufficiently for their trouble, I have never been able to determine. After getting back to the land again, twenty or thirty of the fellows who had taken part in the diabolical chorus of " Gluck Auf," came up to me, repeating the words, and holding out their hands. The guides swore at them in a vile gibberish, and made a feint of driving them away. I understood this as a mere ruse, and gave the unfortunates the kreutzers they were so desirous to 2;ct. QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF SALT 541 During the remainder of the journey, I saw a great many of the workmen, who were getting out the salt very much as coal is gotten out — with bars and picks. In the lowest re- gions, where we then were, the salt was much purer, being sometimes in solid blocks as clear and white as crystal. The lal)orers were muscular and stalwart fellows, with very little intelligence in their faces generally, and their features for the most part coarse and harsh. They were usually stripped to the waist, and many of them were entirely naked, except a cloth about their loins. Nearly all the workmen, I believe, are Poles, poor and ignorant, of course, who pass their lives in the mines, toiling night and day for barely enough to keep body and soul together. Their pay varies from thirty kreutzersto a florin a day, very few earning the latter amount. I was constantly importuned for trinkgeld, and having pro- vided myself with considerable copper coin, I was astonished to see with what delight two or three kreutzers were received. The salt varies a great deal in quality. The so-called green salt contains six or seven per cent, of clay, which destroys its transparency. Another sort, spiza^ is crystalline, but mixed with sand, while the perfectly pure, szyhik, is found in large crystallized masses. The general yield of the mines is, I think, about 500,000 tons annually, valued at twenty florins or ten dollars per ton, making the revenue|5,000,000. When the mines were discovered is not known, though it is certain that they have been worked nearly nine centuries. After spending three or four hours in the mines, and seeing all the features worth seeing, I retraced my steps, and went out the same way I came in. I might have passed two or three weeks under-ground, if I had traversed all the passages and excavations, whose combined length is over three hundred miles. The extent of the mines from east to west is about thirty-two hundred yards, and from north to south fourteen hundred yards. It is easy to examine the mines satisfactorily in two hours, if one be in haste ; but the time occupied, how ever long, is not likely to be regretted. CHAPTER LXVIII. HOLLAND. ^^OLLAND is eminently a land of honest labor |m and steady habits. Much like Germany in 1^ many respects, it is very different from it in others, and has qualities and peculiarities that are entirely its own. The name Holland, mean- ing the marshy land, is well bestowed, as the country has been almost entirely formed by the mud of its three great rivers — the Rhine, the Mouse, and the Scheldt — mixed with the sand banks thrown up by the ocean at their capacious mouths. Naturally a great morass, it has been made not only habitable, but extremely fertile by the excessive industry and unfailing perseverance of its people. As is well known, the sea coast, where it is not lined by the upheaval of vast sand banks, is protected by immense dykes built partly of granite brought from Norway, and partly of timbers, fagots, turf, and clay. These dykes or embankments — usually 70 feet broad at the base, 30 feet high, and wide enough at the top for a roadway — have been built at a cost es- timated not to be far from 12,000,000,000, and are main- tained at an annual expense of over ^2,000,000, Everybody knows what fierce and heroic wars the Nether- lands waged with the Spaniards for their religion and their independence, and every one can see in the two separate kingdoms of to-day the energy and determination which made the ancestors of the present population such sturdy soldiers and such unflinching patriots. Belgium has lost the name of Netherlands, which still clings to and is the official title of Holland. No wonder the Hollanders are warmly prejudiced ARNHEIM. 543 in favor of their country, since for many generations they have been perpetually struggling to keep it from rapacious enemies and the inexorable sea. The little kingdom is very different from what it was in its days of naval supremacy, when Admiral Yon Tromp, with brooms at his mast-head, sailed, insolent and victorious, in the English Channel, and threatened to sweep the British from the seas. Its historic glory has been dimmed, and it has lost many of its rich possessions ; but it is still a very in- teresting country, and its 3,500,000 of inhabitants illustrate what industry, sobriety, and thrift can accomplish under cir- cumstances the most adverse. The first town in which I tarried, after crossing the Ger- man frontier, was Arnheim, capital of the province Gelder- land, situated on the right bank of the Rhine. Arnheim has a population of 28,000 or 30,000, is very ancient, and re- nowned in history as the place where Sir Phillip Sydney died in 1586, from a wound received at the battle of Zutphen. I\ is very well built, and has a church, in which the Dukes o\ Gelderland are buried ; but is chiefly noted as the residence of many of the Dutch nobility and wealthy merchants, whose handsome country houses and gardens adjacent to the city give it an air of remarkable comfort and pleasantness. Many of the gardens in the suburbs are elaborately laid out, but with a regularity and precision that enforce an air of stiffiiess and artificiality which, however much admired by the natives is not quite agreeable to a stranger fond of variety. The city, for its size, is the wealthiest in Holland, the fortunes of some of its citizens being estimated as high as $10,000,000 or $12,000,000. Little business is done there beyond a mere local trade, as the town is given over in a great measure to the recreation and enjoyment of the rich residents who have retired from active life. Consequently merry-making and pleasure-seeking, though in a very sober way, are the chief pursuits of fashionable Arnheim, which at all favorable sea- sons lounges and smokes, drinks and talks, dines and dances, according to the exactions of the busy tyrant known as so- ciety- """ ~' 544 UTRECHT. Utreclit, also on the Rhine, where the Yecht hranches off, is, with its 58,000 people, an important city carrying on con- siderable trade, by means of the rivers and the two canals by which it is traversed, and across which are 28 stone bridges. Its manufactures of cotton, woollen, and plush — the last is called Utrecht velvet — are extensive and profitable. The old walls have been pulled down and converted into pleasant walks, and beyond the walls is a fine promenade, the Malie- baan planted with eight rows of lime trees, bordered by hand- some gardens, and having several foot and carriage-ways. When Louis XIY. was ravaging the country he admired the trees so much that he gave special orders that they should be spared. In the audience hall of the University was signed, in 1579, the act of confederation declaring the Seven United Provinces independent of Spain, and in the British Minister's house, which has been replaced by a barrack, the famous treaty of Utrecht ending the war of the Spanish succession was signed in 1713. The Cathedral, the tower on the one side and the church on the other, is the most noted building, and from the top of the tower, 390 feet high, a most commanding view is obtained. The Dutch have singular places of abode, I thought, when I learned that the sexton of the church lived with his family in the tower, about 200 feet above the ground. He has re- sided there, he told me, for many years, and in that airy hab- itation all his children have been born. He is a thorough Hollander, industrious, contented, domestic, and supernatu- rally fond of his pipe, which he often carries to bed with him. Six miles from Utrecht is a Moravian colony, and near it the mound erected by 3,000 soldiers, under the command of Marshal Grammont, in memory of the day on which Bo- naparte was crowned Emperor. Traveling through Holland I was struck by the difference between the general aspect of that country and any other in Europe. Its surface is so flat, and its canals and windmills — these are said to number 12,000 in all, with sails on an av- erage 8 feet broad and 100 feet long — are of such regular and LAND OF WINDMILLS. 545 constant recurrence that the scenery would be monotonous and tedious but for its unique character. If Don Quixote had traveled through Holland, instead of Spain, to fight wind- mills, which he mistook for cruel giants, he would have found his imaginary foemen on every hand, and could hardly have hoped, even with his stout heart and crazed brain, to have come off victorious against such tremendous odds. I have known persons who thought that the Dutch depended upon windmills because they were so conservative and economical. This is all a mistake. They use windmills largely for drain- ing purposes, as a substitute for steam and water power. They could not have steam without wood or coal, which they would be compelled to import, and their sluggish canals and rivers have not current enough to set in motion the wheel of a toy mill. It is not much trouble or much expense to make four long sails, and the wind, which sweeps from the ocean over the deltas of the great rivers, besides costing nothing, is in almost perpetual supply. An air of industry and thrift pervades everything. I can hardly remember to have seen a single idle Dutchman. He is always busy about something, however trifling and unim- portant, that something may appear to others. His fields are well drained and carefully cultivated ; his meadows rich, and his gardens productive as labor and art can make them. Beg- gars and drunkards are almost unknown in the Netherlands, where everybody minds his own alBfairs, and deems it the first of duties to take care of himself. His life for the most part, particularly if a town resident, is sedentary, except in winter,, when skating and sledding become absorbing amusements- The climate is much colder than in similar latitudes in Great Britain, and the months of December, January, February, and often March, are very severe. The canals and rivers are thea solidly frozen, and, inland commerce being entirely sus- pended, many persons have leisure for recreation, which under different circumstances a conscientious practicality would not allow them to take. Very little can be said, by the bye, in favor of the climate, which varies from 23° below zero to 35 546 DISAGREEABLE CLIMATE. 102° above. I presume it is healthy — it is certainly disa- greeable enough to be, for the Dutch as a nation are very ruddy and robust ; but it is not attractive nor agreeable at any season, being damp, raw, chilly or cold during eight months, and hot and unwholesome during the remaining four months of the year. The Dutch, who are models of patience, never show it more than in their amateur inland fishing, a favorite pastime, if it may be called such, which I have always supposed must be followed from principle rather than for any definite purpose. When I first went to Holland I was under the impression that certain festivals were observed by the casting of hooks and lines into any attainable body of water which required to be watched from daylight until dark. I fancied that I had ar- rived on those festival days, but as week after week went on, and there was no variation in the water -watching and pole-and-line devotion, I made inquiry concerning the singular custom, and learned to my surprise that all those eccentric Dutchmen labored under the hallucination that they were fish- ing. So they were, and have been for generations no doubt, but catching is beyond their wildest conjecture. Though having only slender sympathy with quaint Sir Isaac's special weakness,! began after awhile to feel an interest myself in the national angling. Wandering about the country and through the towns, I never failed to pause and fix my at- tention upon any man who held a pole with a line at the other end, dropped into the water. I did this persistently and ha- bitually, and never yet have I beheld any single Dutchman or combination of Dutchmen catch a fish even of the most insig- nificant kind. I am bound to believe that the Hollanders who seldom work without a purpose must be sometimes pisca- torially rewarded ; but this is a matter of faith rather than of reason. My natural and skeptical self will insist that not a fish is to be found in all the canals and rivers of the Neth- erlands ; but if there be any such oviparous vertibrate animal -it is too wise to bite, or too ingenious to be caught. I know there are Dutch herring by the million ; that the FISHING ON PRINCIPLE. 547 fishery has been called the Dutch gold mine, and 1 have seen them brought by the wagon load into Amsterdam (the com- mon people say its foundations are laid on herring bones), but they are captured on the coasts, and have no relatives, I am sure in the interior waters. I observed a burly fellow fishing one day in a canal, and noticed with astonishment that he seemed to have a bite. He evidently did not expect anything so phenomenal. His stolid face flushed, his dull eye sparkled. His pipe dropped from his mouth, and I imagined from his general appearance he Was about to have a fit, caused by so unheard-of an occur- rence as the actual biting of a fish. I waited and watched. There was no mistake about it. "With my own eyes I saw the cork go under several times. The angler had by this time grown crimson. His phlegmatic frame trembled with ex- citement ; he leaned forward in anxious expectation. Then he drew his line obliquely to the left, and in a few seconds a strange-looking object flew through the air, and was landed on the quay. I ran to the spot, unwilling to quit the country without being recompensed by the vision of at least one pis- catorial success. The singular fish was a drowned cat, in which the hungry hook had fastened, inspiring ardent expec- tations in the persistent angler that were never to be realized. The Dutch cottage, though not very inviting at first, with its massive roof of thatch and rather damp appearance is a model of neatness. If you enter you will find, however humble the abode, that all the wood-work is scrupulously clean ; that every vessel is bright and shining, and that no atom of soil or dirt rests on anything. Yery frequently the stork has a nest on the top of the gable, and may be heard there chattering to her newly-fledged family. Storks are very numerous ; remain from the middle of May to the middle of August ; are great favorites with the people, and pro- tected by law. In spite of the plainness and simplicity of the Dutch cottages there is something picturesque in them as they are seen at the bend of a canal, peeping out from the screen of willows or tall weeds as if they or their inhabitants were 548 DUTCH COTTAGES. amphibious, while the sunshine or clouds overhead make the needful light and shade to complete the landscape. The Hollanders are exceedingly domestic, even more so than the Germans. They marry early, unless unusually op- pressed by poverty, and rarely fail to have large families. The first incentive to a little money-getting with a young man in that country is that he desires to take a wife, and when he has one, and becomes the father of several children, he is contented with the slenderest income. He regards his thatched cottage as if it were a splendid palace, and looks out upon the drowsy canal as though it were a crystal stream, on which were floating to him every bark of joy and peace. The Hollander is rather romantic in his domesticity, and with it all his sentimental associations and promises of the future are interwoven. As soon as he gets beyond the neces- sity of living from day to day, and has put by a little surplus, he fixes his thoughts upon and centers his hope in a garden- house. This somewhat resembles an English box in the country, though it is smaller, and, like everything else in Holland, unequivocally unique. The garden-house to which the honest Dutchman repairs with his family every Saturday evening, and where he remains in undisturbed and smoky en- joyment until Monday morning, is usually a little wooden building, brightly, often tawdrily painted, and labeled on the front in gilt letters, " My Quiet Abode," " Rustic Retreat," " Peaceful Haven," or " Home of the Heart." The domestic dovecote, in which sundry plump round-faced and noisy doves in white pinafores and immaculate short breeches are ever prominent, is generally on the border of a canal, inclosed on three sides by oozy ditches, skirted by hedges. The patch of ground is filled with vegetables and flowers of every produca- ble kind. The garden-house and its surroundings are inva- riably conspicuous for color, for which the Dutch and Flem- ish painters have long been noted. The tiny retreat is some- times dazzlingly white, sometimes brilliantly green, at others radiantly blue, or startlingly vermilion. Then the members of the household, particularly the feminine ones, are clad in THE GARDEN HOUSE. 549 varied and positive hues, while the extreme greenness of the hedges and the rich crimson, yellow, purple, gold, and scar- let of the dahlias, tulips, carnations, and roses give the im- pression of countless butterflies arrested in their flight. The more prosperous a Hollander is, the more time and money he gives to his garden-house, ordinarily situated in the outskirts of the town or city where he earns his stivers and guilders. He spends in this way what Americans, tortured by agricul- tural theories, spend upon fancy farms, and I have been told that rich natives of the Netherlands have invested in four or five, sometimes in not more than two or three acres, by far the greater part of their income. They could not sell their pet plat for one-tenth of its cost, and yet they could not be persuaded to part with it for ten times the sum expended in what, to them, is the Eden of their expectation. With the national love of regularity and form, flowers of the same kind and color are usually confined to one bed. Dur- ing the summer season, company is entertained and pleasure- parties made to these out-of-town retreats where tea, coffee, beer and gin are drank, and tobacco burned amid the liveliest of gossip and the serenest of substantial comfort. Boating is one of the common accompaniments of the Sunday and holiday excursions, and parties of merry-makers are constantly rowing along the turbid and slimy canals apparently unaware that the exhalations from the half-stagnant water are power- less to recall the sweets of Hybla or the honeysuckles of Cas- tile. I have found the summer in Holland anything but desira- ble, for then the whole atmosphere is laden with mephetic fumes, and the sun burning down upon the flat, marshy, canal-fretted kingdom, its whole surface shimmers with heat and steams with obnoxious miasmata. The Dutch enjoy this, however, to such an extent, that I have come to regard the Dutch nose, if not the most whimsical, the most independent of the influence of smell of any noses in all Europe. CHAPTER LXIX. AMSTERDAM. MSTERDAM, meaning the dam or dyke of the Amstel, at the confluence of which river with the Ij, the city is situated, is one of the busi- est and most bustling towns on the Continent. The metropolis of Holland, and constitutionally its capital (the king is crowned there, though the seat of government and the royal residence are at the Hague), the population, at present some 275,000, is steadily increasing, as is natural with its exten- sive manufactures and much more extensive commerce. One would hardly look for so active and wealthy a place if he did not remember that the colonies belonging to Holland in the East Indies, with the territories in Sumatra, Borneo, New Guinea, Surinam, Cura^oa, and several West India islands, have a combined population of about 17,000,000, and that Amsterdam conducts the chief trade and commerce of all those distant regions. Amsterdam, called the Venice of the North, only resembles the Italian city in its building on piles, its numerous canals and contiguity to the sea. Venice is a dream of the past ; Amsterdam a realization of the present. The city, as may be supposed, stands on soft, wet ground, with a bed of sand 50 feet below the surface, into which the piles are driven. The principal branch of the Amstel enters the city on the southeast, and winding through it divides it into the old and new sides, and is joined to the Ij by this and numerous other courses. The different canals, crossed by two hundred and THE VENICE OF THE NORTH. 551 fifty bridges, mostly of stone, and usually provided with a draw in the center, divide the town into ninety islands. To- ward the land the walls form a semi-circle, flanked by a broad ditch and bordered by trees. The ramparts have been lev- eled, and on the bastions, twenty-eight or thirty in number, windmills have been erected. Amsterdam has eight stone gates, named after the different towns to which they lead. On both sides of the Amstel, the streets toward the sea are narrow and irregular, but beyond that part of the town are five main lines of thoroughfares, corresponding to the semi- circular direction of the walls. The principal of these thoroughfares, the Heeren, Keizer, Singel, and Prinzens- gracht, are long, broad, excellently paved, and very well built. In the centre of each, as in nearly all the streets of the city, is a canal bordered with broad brick-paved quays, and planted with trees. The houses are mostly built of brick, six or seven stories high, rather narrow in proportion, round or pointed at the top, the gables to the street, often constructed in the form of a staircase, entered by flights of steps in front, and surmounted by forked chimney stacks. The buildings of pretension are surmounted by a carved and polished slab of white marble. The shops, particularly in the Nieuwendyk, the Kalvers, and Warmois straat, are large, admirably fitted and stocked, abounding in windows of plate-glass, for which the city is renowned. The handsomest, as well as most noticeable building in Amsterdam, indeed in all Holland, though it would not be remarkable elsewhere, is the Royal Palace, once occupied by Louis Bonaparte, and formerly the Town Hall, which the Dutch are never weary of extolling, and which they consider one of the finest pieces of architecture of modern times. It is a stone edifice, in parallelogrammatic form, about 270 feet long, 210 broad, and 110 feet high, rest- ing on 14,000 piles, has many excellent paintings, and is noted for its great hall, lined with white Italian marble, 112 feet long and 90 feet high. The marble is finely carved, and when the room is brilliantly lighted, as it is on state ball nights, and the floor is crowded with elegantly-dressed dancers, it shows to advantage. 552 VARIEGATED THEOLOGY. The churches of the city are marked by plainness and simplicity, but share the unique character of everything in Holland. Many of them have six or eight gables built out from the center, and, standing in damms or open places, are surrounded by shops, so that it is difficult to find the en- trance. It is as if theology were fortified by trade, which may be the unconscious symbol of the spirit of the country. I have frequently gone roimd and round the churches, peering into a haberdasher's or cordwainer's, or grocer's, to discover the means of ingress. By and bye I would find a narrow way or little shop, through which I could gain admission to the church. The finest ecclesiastical edifice is the Nieuwe Kerk, or New Church, the upper part supported by 50 stone pillars, and lighted by 75 large windows, some of them handsomely stained. It contains a number of tombs of distinguished Dutchmen, among others that of the noted dramatic poet, Vondel (the partial natives have compared him to Shakes- peare), and that of Admiral De Ruyter, who sailed up the Medway, and burned the . English fleet at Chatham. The Oude Kerk, or Old Church — it was founded in the fourteenth century, only a few years after the so-called New Church — is the burial place of several of the prominent Admirals, and has a large and fine-toned organ, ranking in reputation with that at Haarlem. Amsterdam, as a representative of Holland, has a varia- gated theology. The State religion is Calvinism, but there are besides, about 35,000 Evangelical Lutherans, 50,000 Ro- man Catholics, over 20,000 Jews, with a large number of Scotch Presbyterians, English Episcopalians, Moravians, Baptists, Quakers, and Greeks, each and all of whom have their places of worship. There are some 50 benevolent and charitable institutions in the city, including asylums for the blind, the deaf and dumb, hospitals for the poor, the infirm, for orphans, widows, foundlings, the aged, and the insane. The Museum has a collection of some 500 pictures, prin- cipally of the Dutch and Flemish schools. Some of them are THE DIAMOND MILLS. 553 masterpieces, notably Gerard Don's " Evening School," in which the efifect of several candles is distinctly illustrated by the admirable management of light and shade. This little painting, 14 by 20 inches, was executed by the artist, it is said, for $100. The Museum paid for it, more than sixty years ago, $3,700, and it could not now be bought for four times that sum. The feature of the gallery is Vanderhelst's " Banquet of the Burgess Guard," which took place June 18, 1648, in the grand hall of St. Loris Docle, in that city, to commemorate the peace of Westphalia. The twenty-five fig- ures are all portraits, and excellently done. Rembrandt's " Night Watch," and the elder Teniers' " Body Guard," and " Temptation of St. Anthony," are also striking illustrations of art. A magnificent piece of engineering is the ship canal, 20 feet deep, 125 broad, and over 50 miles long, constructed between Amsterdam and the Holder at an expense of over $5,000,000 to obviate the danger and difficulty of navigating the shallow water of the Zuyder Zee. There are half a dozen theatres in the city where perform- ances are given in French, Dutch, and German. At two of the minor theatres, which have variety performances, some- thing like the Alhambra, in London, on a small scale, smok- ing and drinking are allowed, and the result is that even the phlegmatic Dutch so fill the places with noise and the fumes of tobacco that it is almost impossible to see or hear anything of the entertainment. Gem-cutting is a specialty of Amsterdam, and in the dia- mond mills, as they are usually called, about 10,000 Jews, in wliose hands are these establishments, are regularly employed. There diamonds and other stones are cut and polished for jewelers all over Europe. Not being a dealer in diamonds, I had no difficulty in obtaining admission to one of the largest mills, worked by steam engines, and their machinery, acting on metal plates, causes them to revolve with excessive rapid- ity. On these plates diamond dust is laid, and the diamond to be polished is placed on a cap of amalgamized zinc and 554 ^ GREAT BANKING CENTER. quicksilver, and pressed against the plates. When a diamond is to be cut, diamond dust is put on a fine wire, and drawn rapidly backward and forward like a saw. The diamond dust, which is, of course, very valuable, is carefully watched, and not a particle of it wasted, as with nothing else can the cutting or polishing be accomplished. Many of the Jewish proprietors of the diamond mills are very wealthy, and, like their race in all quarters of the globe, are connoisseurs in dia- monds and every variety of precious stones. Amsterdam and Antwerp are the principal diamond markets on the Con- tinent, and persons wishing to buy or sell valuable diamonds usually go to one of the two cities for the purpose. Amsterdam, with the exception of Frankfort, is the richest city for its size on the globe. Though comparatively new, having been, early in the thirteenth century, only a fishing village, with a small castle, in which the lords of Amstel re- sided, it has prospered bravely, reaching its acme of success during the 16th and 17th century, when the siege and decline of Antwerp, and the closing of navigation on the Scheldt gave it the rank of the first commercial city in Europe. In banking it has long been eminent, and a number of firms have made immense fortunes. One of the most noted and wealth- iest houses is Hope & Co., founded in the 17th century by Henry Hope, a Scotchman of French descent. Another Henry Hope, one of the leading members of the firm, forty or fifty years ago, was an American, whose father, a Scotch loyalist, had settled in Boston. After the Rothschilds, this house has probably exercised as much financial influence as any one firm on the Continent. The banking capital of Am- sterdam is enormous. The money its bankers have and cin control is not far from $500,000,000. Some of the most prosperous bankers and merchants live with a plainness and an economy which in this country would be called niggardliness. Their ofiices are often in rear build- ings and out of the way places where no one would look for firms with an European reputation. I have had occasion to call on some of the bankers there, and after groping about COSTUMES OF THE PEASANTS. 555 through basements, and up narrow stairways, I found men transacting business of millions a week in dingy apartments, whose entire furniture would not have brought 500 guilders in the most favorable market. In Amsterdam, on festal days, the peasants from the prov- inces pay the commercial capital a visit, and attract much at- tention from their quaint costumes which have undergone no change for a century and a half. The Eierlander wears a dress partially Swiss and partially Greek, a high, peaked cap, with bands of red at the top and base, a pointed collar, a red and white striped cravat, a green skirt and jacket above a purple underwaist over which the jacket is laced with a yel- low cord. The sleeves, of a drab color, fit close to the arm, with white puffs at the shoulder and pointed cuffs at the wrist. A plaid yellow apron is worn and fastened at the waist with a large bow of a bright orange hue. The skirt descends to a few inches above the ankle, and white stock- ings with high shoes complete this singular garb. The Frieslander of the common sort wears a close-fitting gown of green, a large lace cape, and on her head a lace cap covering her ears and coming nearly to her shoulders, while on each side of her head is a large piece of brass shaped like an oyster-shell and fastened at the bottom with something that looks like an old-fashioned window-curtain. If of the better class, her lace is finer, and she dons what is known here as a spencer cape with a deep embroidered border. The native of Zealand has short, close fitting sleeves, and a vest of large-figured calico. About her neck is a brass collar ornamented with bits of red glass. A band of the same kind is around her forehead, and over her ears hang several brazen links set in the same manner. The Zaandam peasant is attired in a short gown, usually of bright green, with a gathered skirt, a brass mounting over her forehead and at the side of her temples, and a black hood lined with white, falling over her shoulders. The Beierlander, in addition to an ordinary gown, and apron of flaming color, wears a kind of lace cap gathered in 556 ORPHANS IN MASQUERADE. heavy folds at the sides, and entirely concealing her hair. In her ears are large hoop rings from which hang huge crosses of brass or gilt with settings of crimson glass. The denizen of North Brabout covers her bust with a taw- dry handkerchief fastened at the waist, and decks her head with a huge stiffly starched cap that suggests an exaggerated wig of the Louis XIV. style. There are numerous other quaint costumes with variations of peculiar caps, brass ornaments, and chains about the face,' and extraordinary bonnets, looking like inverted wash-bowls, and coal-skuttles, of the modern pattern. What prompts women with wit enough to keep out of a lunatic asylum to so distort themselves is not for the masculine mind to divine. We often wonder at the hideousness of fashions of the present day, and it is consolatory to know that in the Netherlands, some four or five generations since, they were even worse than now. And it is always pleasant to remember that the present, bad as it may be, is an improvement on the past. The orphans, who are inmates of the asylums, and who frequently appear in the streets in procession on Sundays and holidays, wear a uniform of black and red, one-half of the boy's jacket being red and the other half black, while the skirt of the girl's gown is equally divided by the two colors. The boy's trousers and the girl's waist are entirely black. His cap is black with a red band, and she wears a white hand- kerchief crossed over her breast, and a white apron. A long line of the orphans so attired looks very grotesque, and is apt to give the impression to strangers that the little folks of the town are out in masquerade. Few buildings of Amsterdam that are not out of the per- pendicular, and, considering their number, they are much more remarkable than the Asinelli, or the Garisenda towers at Bologna. They look alarmingly infirm, as if they might tumble down any moment. They lean in all directions, some- times forward, sometimes backward, to the right and also the left; and I have heard it said that the citizens hold a prejudice against a warehouse or dwelling which is straighter, or rather DR UNKEN HO USES. 557 less crooked, than the average. What seems to be eccentric architecture arises from the sinking of the piles on which the buildings are erected. Notwithstanding the appearance of the houses they are all perfectly safe, as they are put up very substantially and with the best of foundations. Such a thing as the falling of a building has never, I think, been heard of in Amsterdam. There is something ludicrous, how- ever, in the structures of whole streets appearing unable to stand upright, as if the entire town had been on a riotous ex^ cursion to Schiedam, and had come home, after trying to drink out its two hundred distilleries, staggering under spirit- uous defeat. I heard of an American, in Amsterdam, who had, one even- ing, been testing too fully the quality of the national gin, and who subsequently attempted to walk home. After going round and round one of the damms for nearly an hour, he steadied himself against a lamp-post and fixing his eye on a church, he said : " Well, this is the crookedest town I've seen yet. It beats Genoa and Antwerp. I swear I've passed that church forty times in as many minutes ; and yet I must have walked three miles. Either that church is following me, or I am drunk. (After a few moments reflection.) Perhaps I am drunk. Well, it isn't strange. Look at the houses! They've got their kegs full, sure. If I am drunk, I'm soberer than this town is anyhow. When houses can't stand any straighter than these do, they ought to be taken in, and not be allowed to stay out all night, disgracing themselves in this way." On my first arrival in the fcity I ordered the coachman to drive me to the Bible House, to which I had been recom- mended. It was so very far from the station — nearly three miles — that I imagined the driver must be playing one of the tricks for which the Hibernian hackmen at home are so no- torious. By questioning him, however, I discovered that he had the usual Dutch honesty, and was taking me by as direct a route as possible. The Bible House, which, though a hotel, keeps the name of its Scriptural original, 1 found to be mod- 558 ^ QVEER HOTEL. eled after the Calvanistic creed. It was so very narrow that going up stairs was like climbing a ladder ; and, slender as I am, my room was so small that I had to sleep on my side all night, and then descend to breakfast by the stairway hand over hand. This is something of an exaggeration ; but I can conscientiously say that the Bible House reminded me of a very thin slice of a moderate-sized hotel which had been care- fully cut off for some deserving charity. One night in the Bible House made me feel so much like the edge of a razor that I went the next morning to the Amstel, the best hotel in the kingdom, and allowed myself to expand to the breadth of a knitting needle. The Amstel is new, and built after modern requirements. It is almost the only place I slept in Holland where the beds are long enough. The Dutch cherish a notion that four feet or thereabouts is the proper length for a bedstead, and as they usually sleep with their chin on their knees, brevity makes little difference with them. I once thought that they slept with their boots on, and put them over the foot-board so that the servants could pull them off and black them without awakening the owners. Travel has enabled me to correct this with many other errors. The Hollanders seem very primitive. I remember going into a barber's shop in Amsterdam, one day, and offering the barber a napoleon for shaving me. He didn't know what the coin was, and went out and staid nearly half an hour to inquire among his neighbors if he was safe in changing the coin. As napoleons are current all over the Continent, I was forced to believe the barber below the average of stupidity. The city is governed by a Senate or Council of thirty-six members and twelve burgomasters ; the members of the Coun- cil serving during life, and -filling by their own election any vacancies that may occur. Considering the unique character of Amsterdam, I wonder it is so seldom visited, especially as it is so near Brussels and Paris where every one goes. CHAPTER LXX. DUTCH CUSTOMS AND CHABACTEKISTICS. N one respect the Dutcli are like the Chinese — many of them live almost entirely on the water. As they can go from any one part of the kingdom to any other by their canals, and as a large number of the population is engaged in traffic and in the carrying trade, men not only keep their families on boats, but also their fowls and domestic animals. Thus their vessels (trekschuiten) become aquatic homes, and may be con- sidered a species of modem ark in which Hans or Dietrich plays the role of Noah, with an opinion about the deluge more nearly resembling that of Louis XIV., than the Biblical patri- arch's. One would not suppose that a vessel in which ducks, geese, pigs, cows, and children, are kept, would be very neat or wholesome ; but the trekschuit is remarkably so, consider- ing the circumstances. The cabins built on the upper decks, and occupied by the members of the family are swept, scrubbed, and polished, with the frequent regularity and un- relenting rigor displayed on land. To a foreigner, one of these floating households, drawn by horses at the rate of four miles an hour, is curious enough. One week they are at Rotterdam ; the next at Delft, and the third at the Hague. They pass May at Leyden; June at Haarlem ; July at Alkmaar ; August at Amsterdam ; Septem- ber at Utrecht ; October at Gorkum, and winter at Nymwegen or Bois le Due; so that, if Holland be their world, as it usually is to the common people, they must become thoroughly 560 THE WATER-DWELLING POPULATION. cosmopolitan. I have heard it estimated that not less than 300,000 or 400,000 persons pass their lives upon the water, and support themselves by trading between one point and another. Children are born on the vessels ; are reared there ; dwell there ; die there, bounding the sphere of their being by the dull canals. Almost the only recreation they have is in winter, when, being frozen in, they go skating and sledding because they can use their time in no money-getting way. The Dutch are, I repeat, models of prudence and thrift ; living very comfortably, but making every stitver count. They have none of the vainglory of money-spending ; do nothing for mere show. Nearly all the tradesmen in every town live over their shops after the old fashion, and combine their com- mercial affairs more or less with their domesticity. ~Eot a few of the large merchants do likewise, having beside the canals their tall warehouses (reserving certain apartments for their residence) into which they can lift merchandise from vessels by means of blocks projecting from the roofs of the buildings. The vast capital of the Hollanders has been acquired much more by their saving than by their earning capacity. "With every natural advantage to contend against, they have had extraor- dinary prosperity. Fighting, for generations, foreign foes and the native sea, they have been trained to the every-day battles of life, and the unending struggle for existence. The goods of this world are generally well distributed among them, and no nation in Europe gives more evidence of health, comfort, and contentment. Most of their wealth is derived from dairies and live stock ; excellent meadows having been created by the draining of bogs and lakes. They get their cattle from Den- mark and Germany, and it is remarkable in how short a time the lean kine become fat and sleek, yielding milk out of which immense quantities of butter and cheese of the best quality are made. In Holland, as in Ireland, excellent peat is found and used for fuel. Mixed with the Dutch are 600,000 or 700,000 Walloons, Frisians and Germans ; but with these the natives seldom intermarry, so that the national type — stout and rather short figure, and blonde complexion — is pretty well THE INSANITY OF CLEANLINESS. 561 preserved. The Holland women as a sex are better-looking than the men, being slenderer and frequently taller ; while their features are more delicate, and their expression less stolid. Many of the men and women, notwithstanding the northern latitude, are decided brunettes — these are the comeliest — though the blue eyes and flaxen hair are the rule. The neatness of the Dutch is proverbial ; but it seems to me to consist mainly in externals. The country is so damp that great surface care has always been a necessity ; hence the endless dusting, sweeping, rubbing, and scrubbing, all over the kingdom, which gives a stranger the impression of universal and eternal house-cleaning. The Dutch woman is a bom housewife, and can never know rest or satisfaction until every speck of soil or dirt is removed from her range of vision. She is an unconscious Lady Macbeth, who, instead of walking in her sleep, is ever working in her wakefulness, and crying mentally, "Out, damned spot ! " to every unclean atom which serves at once for her torture and delight. She is an arch enemy of all foul- ness ; the rag, and broom, and brush, are the symbols of her function. She makes order a nuisance, and cleanliness a dis- tress. Water pours, and soap foams before her. She is not happy unless she can see her round and ruddy face reflected in every vessel of tin or brass ; and the sight of a stain disturbs her nerves like the hysterics. Her children are washed until their flesh is sore, and if the little creatures were not rugged of constitution, they would perish from superfluous hydropathy. She sets her foot upon the ploughshare of household work, and every day she passes a splashing and rubbing ordeal. The masculine Hollander, though less tormented than his mate by the passion for neatness, still carries his ideas of order and material purity to extremes. He strives to make his stable look like his parlor ; often ties up his horse's tail to prevent it from contact with dirt, and has been known to whitewash or paint the smooth ends of sticks of wood piled for winter use. He knows where each tool or each article in his shop is to be found, and always keeps it in the best condition. He 36 562 NOT NEAT IX MAXY THINGS. understands the adaptation of means to ends ; wastes nothing ; lets nothing rust or decaj. All this has been taught him by the needs of his climate and condition ; but beyond this are niceties he takes little into account, and forms of cleanliness his helpmate does not suspect. Among the less obvious neatnesses may be mentioned those of person. Children are scrubbed as pans and kettles are, be- cause they are part of the belongings of the household ; but when maturity is arrived at, baths and fresh linen are not deemed so indispensable. The cultivated classes there, as everywhere, make of purity a religion ; but the people in ordinary or common life, though they may be madly devoted to order and objective cleanliness, give no evidence of apply- ing the principle to themselves. They are not so entirely careless and untidy as the Latin nations, and yet their habits are not very different from those of the inhabitants of north- ern Europe generally. They would certainly add to their agreeableness by superior neatness, and may cultivate improve- ment of a personal kind for many years without caiTying it to a vicious extreme. They are heedless, too, of their culinary preparations. Their table-cloth will be immaculate, and every dish upon it lambent with labor ; still you cannot be sure that the water of which the coffee has been made is altogether pure or fresh. "What does not show, in Holland, is. apt to be neglected, and the prevalent neatness arises less from refine- ment and fastidiousness than from tlie enforcement of obliga- tion and the inheritance of habit. The Dutch sense of sight appears to be cultivated at the expense of at least two of the other senses — smell and taste. During their blazing Augusts they are profoundly unconscious that their sluices, ditches and canals, fragrant with green scum, decaying fish and long exanimated kittens, are not fresh as breezes from the sea. Again and again I have asked how they managed to endure their summer sweets, and they have invariably told me they were unaware of their existence. Their appetite, moreover, is more hearty than discriminating. They greedily devour what a delicate palate would reject, and THE CLE AXE ST TOWN ON THE GLOBE. 563 smoke pipes so ancient and so potent as to make any other gorge than tlieirs violently rebellious. I have seen them empty- ing prosaic ntensils, dipping np water, washing fish and their own feet, less than three yards apart, in the slimy and unsavory canals. This may be neatness in Dutch, but, translated into English, it bears another name. My own idea about the reputation of Holland for cleanli- ness is, that two or three centuries ago, it was in this respect greatly in advance of other nations. Since then they have made vast improvement, while Holland has stood still. But we continue to laud them for a conspicuous habit which in us has grown to be an instinct, though it reveals itself in less obvious forms. Six miles from Amsterdam is Broek, often called the cleanest town in the world. You take the ferry-boat to Wa- terland, and from there go on foot or by carriage to the soilless spot. Most of the inhabitants of Broek are wealthy, many of them being landed proprietors, or retired merchants. They are all united in cariying material cleanliness in their houses and streets to an excess that is ridiculous. The greater part of the residences — not entered without change of shoes — are , of wood, painted white and green, though the fronts of not a few are yellow, blue, orange, brown, and red. The roofs are of polished tile, and the narrow streets are paved either with brick, or with small stones set in regular patterns. The entire population, which is less than 1,500, seems to occupy itself from dawn to dark in washing, rubbing, scrubbing, and pol- ishing. Such a lot of monomaniacs on the subject of neatness never before existed, and never will, let us hope, exist again. They are soap-and-water crazy, brush-and-broom mad. With the earhest flush of the morning, troops of servants begin to sweep, and rub, and dust everywhere and everything, though not a speck of dirt could be discovered with a microscope. The stables are as carefully kept as the dwellings. The floor is sometimes of cabinet work, and before entering them ordi- nary boots or shoes are removed, as in the dwellings, for slip- pers or sabots. I have myself seen cows' tails held up by 564 ZAANDAM, cords to keep tliem out of any impurity. Horses and cattle are washed every morning, as if they were children. Yehi- cles of any kind are never permitted to enter the village — no business is done there — as the horses' hoofs and the wheels might soil or break the elaborate pavement. Some of the side- walks are laid with porcelain, and the finest tiles, arranged in handsome figures, as in our halls and vestibules. If a straw, or twig, or leaf fall in the street, it is almost immediately picked up or swept off. I have been told there is in almost every house a particular room devoted to order and tidiness, and entered only once a week that the furniture may be dusted and rubbed, and then locked up again until the next periodic visit. Some of the Calvinistic families, I am informed, are so zealous in the observation of the Sabbath, that they have two handles to their pump — one for the ordinary days of the week, and the other for Sunday. There is nothing too absurd for the residents of Broek to do in their insanity of neatness. The impression I received from the village was not pleasant. I would not live in it a year if it were given to me. The inhabitants seem to be small, narrow, and one-ideaed, as they must necessarily be, with no other thought or aspiration than that of cleanliness, which they do their best to make odious. Strangers visit Broek from sheer curiosity, regarding its people as amusing lunatics, to whom common carelessness is total depravity. The greater part of the villagers are Calvinists, who probably believe that the Bottomless Pit is a region where Hollanders are con- demned through all eternity to see dirt, without the opportu- nity or expectation of removing it. Another place of interest is Saardam, or Zaandam, nine miles from Amsterdam. You can reach it by steamboat in about an hour. The town has a population of some 12,000, nearly all sailors or ship-builders. It is noted for its windmills — some four hundred in all — employed in grinding soft rock, found on the Rliine, which, when mixed with lime, forms trass, used as a cement in the construction of the Dutch docks and dykes. It was here Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia, learned his FETER THE GREAT^ S COTTAGE. 5C5 trade, having gone to Holland that he might instruct his sub- jects in the art of ship-building. He was so much annoyed, however, by the curious crowd, that he quitted Zaandam, and entered the dock-yard of the East India Company, in Amster- dam, which was enclosed within walls. The cottage in which Peter lived still stands, having been purchased by the late Queen of Holland, sister of the Russian Emperor Alexander, who caused it to be enclosed with shutters. Every part of the cottage is written over with names, a few of them noted, but most of them noodles. The Emperor Alexander had a tablet placed over the mantel-piece, with the inscription, " Nothing too small for a great man." CHAPTER LXXL DIFFEKENT DUTCH CITIES. ^AAELEM, with a population of 29,000, was once famous for its bleaching works and cot- ton manufactories ; but both of these branches of trade have greatly declined. Historically the town is well known for its siege by the Span- iards, under the Duke of Alva, which lasted seven months. At the end of that time, being wasted by famine, the heroic Dutch determined to cut their way through the enemy's camp. The besiegers, learning of the desperate determination, offered amnesty if the garrison would deliver up fifty-seven of the principal citizens. For the sake of the starving women and children, that number of citizens voluntarily surrendered themselves, and Haarlem capitulated. The Duke of Alva, with his characteristic per- fidy and cruelty, violated his plighted word, and put to death two thousand soldiers and citizens. Haarlem is a great market for the sale of bulbous roots, tulips, hyacinths, dahlias, etc., raised in the Bloemen-Tuinen — extensive nursery grounds on the south side of the city. When the tulip mania raged throughout Europe, fabulous prices were paid for the Haarlem bulbs, $2,000 and $2,500 having been given for a single one. The public gambled in them as the Wall street bulls and bears do in stocks, and hundreds of men lost their wits and their fortunes in the wild and singular speculation. The average rate there for tulip bulbs at present is about twenty-five cents, and the highest figure is $50. One horticulturist in town exports annually 100,000 ranunculuses, HAARLEM AND ITS FLOWERS. 667 150,000 hyacinths, 300,000 tulips, 400,000 crocuses, and a great many other flowers. The church of St. Bavon, a vast Gothic structure, with a high, square tower, contains the organ, of which everybody has heard, and which at one time was the largest in the world. This instrument has 60 stops, 5,000 pipes, the largest of them 15 inches in diameter, and fills the entire end of the church. The organ is very powerful, but has not, to my ear, so sweet or so delicate a tone as the instiniments at Freiburg or Bepn, one of which, if not both, are superior to it in size. The great engines employed in pumping out the Lake of Haarlem, containing at least 1,000,000,000 tuns of water, by which 50,000 acres of land were redeemed and made produc- tive, have become objects of interest, and are frequently visited by the curious. The city, with the ever-present canals, bordered by trees, the high-roofed buildings and peaked attic windows, looks pleasing and picturesque. The environs are attractive, and the country between Haarlem and Amsterdam is so intersected with canals, causeways, sluices and windmills, as to make it unusually interesting. The old city of Leyden has seriously deteriorated. It once contained over 90,000 people, but now has less than 40,000. At present it is best known as the seat of the University, for- merly one of the most prominent seats of learning in Europe, and still in high repute. It has about twenty professors and Ave hundred students. Among the former have been Ar- minius, Gomarus, and Scaliger, and among the latter, Grotius, Descartes, Fielding, and Goldsmith. Leyden is pleasantly situated on the Old Rhine, six miles from its mouth. Its former fortifications have been torn down, and the lines of the walls planted with trees.* The seven gates, however, are still ' standing, and the ancient Castle de Burg is now occupied as a hotel, and the adjacent grounds converted into tea-gardens. The streets are broad, straight, and scrupulously clean. One of them — Breede straat — the Dutch consider equal to any thoroughfare in Europe; but this opinion can only be ex- 568 LEY DEN. plained by their national vanity. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the town was what Leipsic is now — a great centre of the book trade. The renowned Elseviers were then enjoying their typographical glory, and made their edi- tions of the classics famous everywhere. All that now remains of that flourishing past is to be found in five ordinary printing offices. The Musemn of Natural History is an admirable collection, one of the fullest and best selected in Europe, and includes among its minerals the largest topaz in the world. The Stadthuis (Town Hall) has a portrait of Peter Yan- derwerf, the burgomaster who, for four months, so bravely defended the town against the Spaniards, in 1574. For sevcTi weeks the garrison and citizens, having no provisions, sub- sisted on dogs, cats and rats. Hundreds died of hunger, and in their dire extremity the stoutest of Vanderwerf's follow- ers begged him to surrender and save them from starvation. He made answer by offering them his body to appease their hunger, which so shamed them that their complaints were silenced, and they resumed the battle with new vigor. The burgomaster's heroism was nobly rewarded. The Prince of Orange at last broke down the dykes to relieve the suffering city, and a high wind, sweeping over the land, drove the waters so rapidly that at least twelve hundred of the besiegers were drowned. The same wind also wafted a fleet of two hundred boats from ^Rotterdam to the gates of Leyden, and the gallant city was delivered in its last extremity. The Hague, — the Hollanders call it 'S Gravenhage, — thirty- two miles from Amsterdam, is the residence of the Court and the States-General. Situated on a branch of the Leyden and Rotterdam canal, four miles from the North Sea, it is thought the finest city in Holland. It is surrounded by a moat crossed by drawbridges, and many of its streets are intersected by canals, lined there as in all the Dutch cities, by rows of trees. Originally it was a hunting-seat for the counts of Holland, as its native name implies, and did not rise into any importance until the beginning of this century ; Louis Bonaparte having THE EAGUE. 669 conferred upon it the privileges of a city. The town has about 90,000 inhabitants, and is exceedingly well built ; the streets being wide and paved with brick, with many handsome groves of trees. The Hague has been more influenced by Paris than any city in Holland, as is observable in its cus- toms and manners, and French is generally spoken by the cultivated classes, and many of its tradesmen. The society of the poUtical capital is of the best, and there is an unusual amount of gayety, form and display among a people so uni- formly staid and self-contained as the Dutch. It is the birth- place of William II., Prince of Orange, "William HI., King of England, Huygens, the mathematician, Boerhaave, the physi- cian, Bilderdijk, the poet, and was the residence of Barneveldt and the De Witts. The principal edifices are in the Yyverberg — the great square in the north or fashionable quarter. The royal palace is a plain Grecian building, and the former palace of Prince Maurice is now the National Museum, containing an unrivalled collection of Dutch paintings. The most celebrated picture is Paul Potter's " Young Bull " — ^probably the best animal paint- ing extant. The bull, the cow reclining on the grass, several sheep, an aged rustic looking over the fence, and the entire landscape seem to have been cut out of nature. Bembrandt's " Anatomical Lesson," representing the dissection of a corpse by a medical professor and his pupils, ghastly as the subject is, is strikingly vi\dd and impressive. The cadaverous color and shrmiken appearance of the dead body are wonderfully natural. Judged merely as a work of art, I have seen nothing of Rembrandt's equal to it. Gerard Dou, Holbein, Wouver- mans, have some of their best works there, and Poussin's " Yenus Asleep " is a fine specimen of drawing and color. On the lower floor of the Museum, among the historic relics, is the dress worn by William, Prince of Orange, the day of his assassination at Delft ; the shirt and waistcoat of Wilham HI., the sword of Yan Speyk, and the armor of Ad- miral Yan Tromp. The Binnenhof has much historic interest, having been the 570 DELFT. scene of the execution of Jan Yan Olden Barneveldt, one of the noblest and most patriotic of Hollanders, who, because he sought the good of his country, was falsely accused and falsely condemned by the malignant machinations of Maurice, Prince of Orange. The exact spot where fell that venerable and blameless head is still pointed out. The State prison is shown in which Cornelius De "Witt was confined because he was opposed to the ambition of the princes of Orange, as Barneveldt had been, and whence he and his brother, Jan De "Witt, the Grand Pensionary, were dragged by a savage mob and torn to pieces. The Dutch, like the Flemings, had in the past a fatal habit of sacrificing to their suspicion and wrath those of their citizens who deserved the deepest gratitude at their hands. The House in the "Woods, as it is called, now the residence of the Queen of Holland, is in the suburbs, and reached by the Yoorhout, a broad road, skirted with trees and elegant mansions. It is in the centre of a well-wooded park, sur- rounded by artificial lakes, and grounds beautifully laid out. The house, very plain on the outside, is exquisitely furnished, the walls hung with tapestry and many admirable pictures. I visited Delft, with its 20,000 inhabitants, because from its port — Delft-Haven — the Pilgrim Fathers embarked for Southampton, July 22, 1620, and also to see the monument of William of Orange, assassinated by Balthazar Gerard, an agent of Philip II., who, with the Jesuits, had long been con- spiring against the prince's life. They made seven attemj^ts to murder him, and on the eighth succeeded. On his tomb is an inscription referring to a small dog, a great favorite with Wil- liam, who was once preserved by the faithful guardian's bark- ing and jumping on the bed when the assassins were about to stab him in his sleep. After the murder of the prince, the dog pined and refused food until he died. The palace where Prince William met his death is now used as a barrack. The Old Church contains the monument of Admiral Van Tromp, the hero of thirty-two battles, with a bas-relief representing the engagement in which he fell. Delft is clean and well ROTTERDAM. 571 built, but dull and drowsy as a Dutchman nodding over his midnight schnapps. Rotterdam is the second city in Holland, boasting a popula- tion of 120,000, which is steadily increasing. It is more favor- ably situated for trade than Amsterdam, and has a very large and growing commerce. Its residents are of various nation- ahties, English, French, Germans, Danes, Russians, Poles, Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Italians, Spaniards and Americans, having large mercantile interests there. The scenes at the Exchange are tumultuous and exciting. I went there several times, and I don't think I ever heard a greater confusion of tongues, and more noise made about money in all my life. If any new Tower of Babel should ever be built, and workmen should be needed to illustrate the old story, they could be as readily supplied in Rotterdam as in any place I know. The city is altogether Dutch, the high, quaint-looking houses being built of very small bricks, and designed more for comfort than for beauty. Many of the private dwellings there, as in other towns in Holland, have small mirrors outside the windows, reflecting up and down, so that everybody and every- tliing passing in the street can be seen by the inmates, while they themselves remain invisible. There seems to be a per- petual rivalry and endless contest there between the men as meerschaum-colorers, and the women as moppers, as to which of the two shall perform the greater amount of work. The struggle has been going on for many years, but has never been decided, and never will be. The Church of St. Lawrence, more than four centuries old, has a magnificent organ, and contains the ashes of Admirals De Witt, Rortenaar, and Yanbrakel. The liouse in which Erasmus was born, in 146Y, is still preserved, and a bronze statue of the eminent theologian and writer adorns the market place. There is little to detain any one not interested in business in Rotterdam, unless he has made his advent into Holland at that point. In that event, the oddity of the city will hold him for some time. CHAPTER LXXII. BELGIUM. S Holland and Belgium were united until the revolution of 1830, one would naturally expect to find tlie customs, manners, and people of the two countries much alike. /'/■^ ^w^- v'- ^^ ^^^^ contrary, they are so dissimilar that ^^i^ ^S^^^ it seems strange the two kingdoms could have remained so long together under the same laws and institutions. The Dutch and the Belgians re- semble each other in their industry, thrift, and energy ; but in their modes of thought, and in their temperamental ten- dencies, they reveal no kinship. The Belgians, as a nation, are less conservative, more excitable and restless than the Hol- landers, and, consequently, more inclined to change. The territory of Belgium is small, compared to that of the great European powers, being only about one eighth as large as Great Britain, while its entire population is little beyond 5,000,000. What there is of soil, however, is made the most of. About two-thirds of the whole kingdom is under cultiva- tion, and nearly eight-ninths is put to profitable use. Of the nine provinces, those of South Brabant, the two Flanders, and Hainault look like a vast garden. The population, which is the densest in Europe, is composed of two distinct races — the , Flemish, who are of German, and the "Walloons, who are of French extraction. The former, who are much the more nu- merous, reside principally in Flanders ; but a great many of them live in the provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, and South Brabant. The Flemings speak a dialect of German, and the ANTWERP. 513 "Walloons a corruption of French, including words and phrases from the Spanish and other languages. The government, like that of Holland, is a constitutional monarchy, based on the broadest principles of rational liberty. Punishment by death has been abolished, and freedom of the press, religious liberty, and trial by jury, have been established. The creed of the country is Roman Catholic, to which most of the people, at least outwardly, adhere ; but they have a degree of breadth, toleration, and individuality in their theology, which rarely prevails among the Latin nations. The difference between the Hollanders and the Belgians is well illustrated by Amsterdam and Antwerp. Both of them are strictly commercial cities, and long-time rivals. They have much the same interests and the same ends. Still, they im- press me as almost opposite in many things, and seem ani- mated by a noticeably dissimilar spirit. I first saw Antwerp during a Great National Exhibition, as it was called. It did not amount to much as an exhibition ; but all the provincialists crowded to it, and regarded it as something extraordinary, which was well for a stranger, as it furnished an ample field for observation. Antwerp is not so peculiar as Amsterdam, or other Holland towns ; but the average population, the majority of whom are Flemings, seem unlike the people of any other part of Europe. They are as attached to ancient customs as the Dutch ; and, speaking, for the most part, no language but their own, are little influenced by surrounding nationalities. The upper classes know French, and are generally urbane ; but the labor- ers and mechanics are natural even to rudeness They don't seem to have moved with the times, and impress me as not quite ci^dlized. Quiet, if not always good manners are so general on the Continent, that the boisterous spirit of the Flemings is very noticeable. They laugh and jeer at each other, and raise such an outcry in the public places, that I sev- eral times fancied I was near a political primary in one of the upper wards of New York. They are independent and in- dustrious, but entirely devoid of the graces, and sublimely in- different to the elegancies of life. 6V4 A VERY CROOKED CITY. Their singular manners may be due to tlie beer they drink, by long odds the worst I ever tasted. The miserable stuff they call lager on the Island of Manhattan, is nectar by comparison. The Antwerp beer, to my palate, tastes like nothing else under the sun ; is thick, muddy, sour, acrid, mawkish, and might be wisely used in cases where nausea is desirable. I wish I had the recipe for making it. Whenever I hated a man, and did not wish to kill him, I'd invite him to drink a glass of Ant- werp beer. The city is crookeder than Boston, and must have been built, as that is said to have been, on cow-paths. It is almost impossible for a stranger to get about, or to find any given point without frequent attempts and frequent failures. I sev- eral times left my hotel, and, under the belief that I was con- stantly going away from it, discovered myself, after an hour's walking, back at the point of starting. There is little archi- tecture to speak of in the town, the churches excepted ; but the quaint old houses, six or seven stories high, running up to a point, with various evidences of their once Spanish owner- ship, are curious enough to make a ride or walk through the streets desirable. So much has been said of its picturesque- ness, that the city defeated my expectations. It is shaped like a bow, the walls forming the semicircle, and the river Scheldt the cord. The fortifications, which are very complete, are nearly three miles long, including the strong pentagonal Cita- del, built by the Duke of Alva. Antwerp reached its highest prosperity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when it was the commercial centre of Europe. It then contained 200,000 people ; 500 vessels daily entered its port, and 2,500 ordinarily lay there at anchor. It has been besieged, sacked, and cap- tured again and again, and has greatly declined since the mid- dle ages ; but of late years it has acquired a new growth and impetus, and now boasts of a population of 130,000, with a promising future once more. Of its 200 tortuous streets, the Place de Meir is the finest, and its 'squares are often spacious and pleasant. Of the docks, dock-yards, and basins, constructed by Napo- NOTRE DAME AND ITS CIIUIES. 575 leon, at an expense of $10,000,000, only the basins were pre- served from the demolition that followed his downfall. They are now converted into docks lined with large warehonses, and the harbor thns formed, capacious enough to admit ships of any size, and easily accommodating 1,000 vessels, is one of the best on the globe. The churches are, as a class, quite handsome, not to say magnificent. The Cathedral of Notre Dame has a beautiful Gothic spire, estimated from 400 to 4:()Q feet, but certainly one of the very highest in Europe. The chimes include ninety- three bells, the largest weighing nine tons, and the smallest only one hundred pounds. I know of none superior to them. Their tone is very soft, and their time unusually exact. They are hung so high you hear the music without realizing its source. The melody seems floating in the air, and is very pleasant, unless you hear too much of it. The view from the tower is admirable. INotre Dame is remarkable for its paintings by Rubens — " The Descent from the Cross," " The Elevation of the Cross," " The Assumption of the Virgin," and " The Resurrection of the Saviour." The first is thought by many to be his chef d'muvre, and I can recall none of his works that are better. Still, it has his usual defects — coarseness, incorrect drawing, and confusion of outline. The corpse of Jesus is admirable in its anatomy, its supine, heavy helplessness ; but the face is insignificant — totally unlike the ideal conception of the Saviour. The two Marys are more refined in appearance than Rubens's women generally, but their expression conveys well-bred regret, rather than heart-broken sori'ow and overwhelming desolation. "The Elevation of the Cross" is in some respects superior to the " Descent," and the coloring is excellent. The '* As- sumption " and " Resurrection " are not superior to many of the artist's paintings. It is a pity both of Rubens's wives were so fleshy and gross in person, since he perpetually reproduced them. Instead of seeking an ideal, he copied the actual. He fancied, strangely 576 PAINTINGS BY RUBENS. enough, that his corpulent spouses were models of beauty, and, consequently, we have their huge breasts, and flaxen hair, and over-liberal limbs, in every picture the uxorious husband drew. There is something singular in his employing his genius on Scriptural subjects. He should have confined himself to Aj)hrodites of vast avoirdupois, to wanton nymphs and fawns, to lascivious Satyrs and sensual Silenuses. The Church of St. Jacques is imposing in appearance, and rich in marbles. The " Crucifixion," by Yandyke, adorns the walls, and is one of his best paintings ; and the "• Scourging of Christ," by Hubens, is well worthy of admiration. Ku- bens's tomb is there, and is the principal object of attraction. St. Paul's has a coarse representation, in wood, of Calvary and Purgatory, which many of the Catholics seem to admire. If they do, it is less creditable to their taste than to their zeal. St. Augustine and the Church of the Jesuits are noticeable edifices internally as well as externally, the former containing thfe celebrated altar-piece, by Kubens, of " The Marriage of St. Catharine." The rapidity of Rubens' s execution is shown by the receipt at Mechlin, in the Church of Notre Dame. The receipt, dated March 12, 1624, is for eight pictures (among them the " Mirac- ulous Draught of fishes," and the "Worship of the Magi") done in eighteen days, for eighteen hundred florins. The house in which Pubens died, in a street named after the painter, is frequently visited by those interested in art. The house is commodious and comfortable, considering the time of its erection — nearly three centuries ago — and was, no doubt, regarded then as a sumptuous mansion. After the death of the eminent painter, the Duke of Newcastle resided there, and entertained, under his roof, Charles II., while that royal rowdy was in exile. The Zoological Garden of Antwerp has one of the larg- est and best collections of birds and animals in Europe. It is on the whole superior to the Jardin d'Accliraatation in Paris, and not a whit inferior to the collection in the Regent's Park, London. THE NATIONAL FONDNESS FOR MUSIC. 577 The old city has endeared itself to many feminine hearts by the excellent quality of its black silk, which is a specialty there. Yery few women who go to Antwerp leave it without carrying with them a memento of the place in the shape of material for a new gown. Travelling in Belgium is both cheap and convenient, on account of the admirable system of railways established there, before they were introduced into any other country on the Continent. The fare is the lowest in the world — hardly more than one third of the price charged in Great Britain. The Belgians as a people are much gayer than their Dutch neighbors, having an inordinate fondness for music and danc- ing. Musical festivals are held every year at Antwerp, Ghent, and Bruges, at which amateur performers contend for prizes awarded to the most skilful and accomplished. At such times there la great emulation among the people of the different provinces and districts, and those who win prizes receive the most tumultuous ovations. The victorious musicians are often mounted on platforms, and borne through the streets in pro- cession, with flags, banners, and devices, amid the wildest shout- ing and yelling of the crowd. The first demonstration I saw of this sort I mistook for a mob. I followed the throng for a long distance, expecting every minute that its uproarious mem- bers would stop before some house and undertake its demolition. I could not comprehend that any mass of human beings could be so excited and make such an outcry without having a griev- ance, and when I learned that all the ado was in honor of a man who had played on a fiddle or a clarionet, I felt that the effect was altogether disproportioned to the cause. So far as din and clatter go, the Belgians are in striking contrast to the Hollanders, who are unusually quiet, while the Flemings and "Walloons seem to me the noisiest, on the smallest provocation, of any people in the Old "World. The Belgians, still more than the Germans, appear to have a national love of music. Even the laboring classes have con- siderable skill in mastering instruments, and most of them have naturally good voices. I have heard peasants wallcing 37 578 A MERRY PEOPLE. along the liighways, and working in the fields, singing so sweetly and accurately as to arrest at once any cultivated ear. It is to this appreciation of melody, no doubt, that the numer- ous chimes of Belgium owe their origin. ITo considerable city in the country is without these carillons, which from tower and spire fling out their soft music at almost every hour of the day and night. The lower and middle classes are greatly addicted to balls, given on summer evenings in the gardens of the public houses in the suburbs of the towns. A large platform is made for the dancers, who go through the measiu-es with a fervor and vigor seldom equalled, and never surpassed. Again and again, watch- ing the men and w^omen at these garden entertainments, I have been lost in wonder that they would work so hard without lib- eral compensation. They not only dance themselves crimson and moist, but they often sacrifice manners and clothes in the ardor and exaltation of their exercise. Even the unrestrained bacchants of the Closerie scarcely excel the Belgians, whirling through the late hours of the night, flushed with excitement and beer. The tourist finds in Belgium much less monotony than in Holland. Though level and low toward the north and west, it is rugged and rather high on the southeast, in the region of the Ardennes, with whose forests Shakespeare, though he never saw them, has made us so familiar. !Nearly one fifth of the whole kingdom is wooded, mainly Luxemburg and Namur, where the forests are very dense. In the provinces of Antwerp and Limburg, is a vast expanse of woodland, called Campine, so sterile that hardly anything but common heather and lichen will grow upon it. With the exception of those two districts, agriculture, owing to the extraordinary economy and industry of the people, flourishes everywhere. The Belgians were once regarded, and still deserve to be regarded, to a certain extent as the model farmers of Europe. So unsparing of labor and so painstaking, it is not strange that with their agriculture, their rich mines, their manufactures, and their commerce, they have always prospered under circumstances which are the opposite of favorable. THE CITY OF LJEGE. 579 Going to see Liege (situated in tlie eastern part of the kingdom, in the middle of a plain surrounded by mountains, and at the junction of the Meuse and Ourthe) is easier to talk of than to do, from the fact that the town is always enveloped in smoke. It may well be called the Birmingham of Belgium, for it is almost entirely a manufacturing city, and has few nat- ural or artificial attractions. The picturesqueness which one finds in so many of the Belgian towns is wholly. lacking there. The streets are narrow and dirty, often steep, while the build- ings are dingy, dreary, and so high as to exclude both air and sunshine. The great staple of manufacture is iron, and the specialties are fire-arms and machinery, in which it surpasses France, and nearly rivals England. Several of its quays are ornamented with shade-trees, and serve with its ten or twelve public squares for promenades. The Church of St. Jacques is large and handsome, and the tracery and fret-work of its in- terior are not excelled anywhere. Liege has a number o^ suburbs and adjoining villages, all devoted to manufactures of one kind or another, and with these has a population of about 120,000. It was founded in the sixth century, and has been prominent in history, having been besieged and captured by the Duke of Brabant, Charles the Bold, Marshal Boufflers and the Duke of Marlborough. In the middle ages the re- peated conflicts between the citizens and their Bishops, and between the Bishops and the Dukes of Burgundy, imbued the old town with a good deal of romance, of which Walter Scott took advantage in his " Quentin Durward." But machinery, manufactures, and mere money-making have brought Liege down to the level of nineteenth century practicality, and dis- pelled every vestige of the picturesque past. On the whole, I was hardly repaid for the trouble of going there ; for all the sights of the city are obscure, and in such an atmosphere sen- sations are impossible. CHAPTER LXXIII. GHENT AND THE GANT0I8. ;IIENT is associated with American history by the treaty concluded there December 24, 1814, which ended the war between Great Britain and the United States. Moreover, Motley has done so much by his eloquent history, to render Bel- gium attractive, that one might suppose our countrymen would haunt its ancient cities from a feeling akin to patriotism. They are prone to think, however, after looking at Brussels, which is Paris seen through the reversed end of a telescope,, and, possibly, after dashing through the crooked, almost circular, streets of Antwerp, that they have exhausted all that is notable and curious in Flanders. They either forget, or are too indif- ferent to remember, that Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, and Mechlin more thoroughly represent the old spirit and time than any of the other cities. Few who have tarried in those quaint cor- ners of civilization but will recollect their sojourn as both pleas- ant and profitable. That many persons confound Holland and Belgium is not at all odd. Bruges and Ghent, with their fortifications, canals, and bridges, vividly recall Leyden and Amsterdam ; while the Flemings, though in many respects, as I have said, very un- like, show striking resemblances to the Dutch. Ghent is certainly a unique city. Its situation, at once jje- culiar and picturesque, is at the confluence of the Lys and the Scheldt, on the Terneuzen canal, communicating with the sea. It occupies a triangle of the fertile plain ; is surrounded by walls and entered by gates, with numerous canals dividing it into twenty-six islands, connected with each other by ninety THE FLEMINGS. 681 bridges, great and small. The city boasts of its fine prome- nades, the chief of them, the Coupure, between rows of hand- some trees, skirting the Bruges canal. Strangers may be par- doned for not admiring the promenades so much as the natives, who, for centuries, have cheerfully borne the delusion that Ghent is one of the most beautiful and delightful places in either hemisphere. In some of the older quarters of the town, the streets are dark and very narrow; but the houses, with gable fronts, rising tier above tier, look so fantastic, so unlike anything we have at home, that it is easy to elevate the picturesque above the merely pleasant, and receive mental gratification therefrom. On the whole, however, the city is well and very substantially built, containing a number of public squares, among which the principal are the Cauter, planted with lime trees; St. Pierre, used for reviews and military exercises ; St. Pharailde —the gate of the Castle of the Counts of Flanders still stands there— and the Recollets, flanked by conspicuous mansions and large hotels. The most notable of the squares is the Vrydags Market (Friday market), where the counts of Flan- ders were once inaugurated, and the famous trades unions for- merly assembled, where Jacques Yon Arterelde first aroused the popular tumults by which he finally perished, and where the infamous Duke of Alva kindled and fed the fires of the Inquisition. The markets— held every Friday, as the name in- dicates — furnish excellent opportunities for observing tlie man- ners and studying the character of the people. The Flemings seem quite dififerent from any of the nation- alities of the Continent. They have the industry and energy of the Dutch, the versatility and sensibility of the Italians, the violence and obstinacy of the Spaniards, and the vanity and excitability of the French. They have always appeared to me the most variable and emotional people in Europe. I have known them to laugh, and talk, and weep, and rage, all in one breath. With a large basis of character and firmness, they show themselves, at times, as mercurial as quicksilver, and as unstable as water. 582 THE MARKET-PLACE. The market-place at Ghent is ilkistrative of the Flemings, as history reveals them. Their talk and jests, their chaffer- ings and bickerings, show clearly enough that their ancestors might have sided with Louis of Crecy to-day, and the Ruwaert to-morrow. Humor and irritability are theirs to a large de- gree ; and one never feels sure that what they begin in a joke, they may not end with a quarrel. Yery little, if any, of the German or Teutonic element is perceptible in their nature ; and yet they have the sturdiness, and many of the sterling qualities belonging to that race. The Flemings seem to have been in- fluenced and moulded less by the homogeneous tendencies of the present century than any of their neighbors. There is still a middle-age savor and suggestion about them, which brings back the battle of Bruges, the defeat of Peter du Bois, the surrender of Ypres, and the desperate struggle of Bos- becque. Many of the provincialists who carry their products and wares, especially linens, to market, look in their quaint and fre- quently fanciful costumes as if they had stepped out of the four- teenth or fifteenth century to light their pipes, or chatter ram- blingly in the ancient square. At the Friday market, the tourist can see more of the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of the Flem- ings than anywhere else in Belgium. One of the curiosities in the neighborhood is a large cannon, ten feet in circumfer- ence, nineteen feet long, and three feet in diameter at the mouth, called Dulle Griete (Mad Margaret), and supposed to be a near relative of the Mons Meg at Edinburgh Castle. The principal buildings are the Church of St. Nicolas, the oldest in Ghent ; St. Michael, containing a fine Crucifixion by Yandyke ; St. Pierre, notable for its handsome dome, and St. Bavon, a vast, though somewhat ungraceful and richly decora- ted cathedral. The Belfroi (Belfry), a high square tower crown- ed with a gilt dragon, has a clock, several large bells, and a very musical chime, which some persons prefer to the more famous chimes of Bruges and Antwerp, The Beguinage, surrounded by a wall and moat, is a nun- nery_, in whose cloisters are immured six or seven hundred wo- THE BEGUINAOE. 583 men who believe that by an unnatural and over-rigorons life of seclusion they have consecrated themselves to Heaven. Their vows have now ceased to be compulsory. They can return to the world when they please, and consequently none of them avail themselves of the privilege. Some of the nuns are said to belong to the best families of the kingdom. From supremely religious fervor, or from mismanagement of their af- fections, they have surrendered pride of place and position in society to mutter prayers and tell their rosaries, in hope of forgetting the melancholy past, and achieving a blessed future. Any one would mistake the Beguinage for a castle ; and it may have been built under the conviction — not wholly irra- tional — that those inside want to get out, and that those outside wish to get in. The Beguin nuns are not too absorbed by spiritual duties to devote part of their time to the working of lace and embroidery, remarkable for the delicacy of its texture and the beauty of its finish, and which, though sold from the nun- nery at a small figure, commands in Paris, London and New York the highest price. The new theatre is handsome and commodious. The lit- erary, scientific, artistic, and charitable institutions are numer- ous. The Societe Matrimoniale has for its object the legiti- mation of what the French call enfants d' amour, and is one of the most benevolent enterprises in Ghent. Its members — made up, I have understood, from the best families in thfe city — have done a vast deal of good by bringing about the marriage of the parents of the unfortunate offspring who would other- wise be abandoned to the cold charities of the world. They make it their business to discover the paternity of the infants, and the circumstances under which they were born, and ex- haust all the means of moral suasion to strengthen the frailties of the fathers and mothers by wedlock. Delicate and doubtful as such a mission seems, the success that has attended it has been as gratifying as it might be unexpected. The extent of its cotton manufactures, employing some $10,000,000 of capital, and over 30,000 workmen, has given Ghent the name of the Belgian Manchester. Its other manu- 584 THE GANTOIS. faetures, especially of Flemisli linen — some 20,000 pieces are oflfered for sale at the market every Friday — are very large and important, and the annual fairs are attended by Dutch, French, English, German, and even Italian merchants, in great numbers. Celebrated as Ghent has been in history, its origin is un- certain. The first known of it as a town was in the seventh century, though it does not seem to have acquired importance for nearly five hundred years after, when it aspired to promi- nence, and completed its fortifications. At that time it occupied only the space between the Lys and Scheldt ; but, toward the close of the thirteenth century, it was almost as populous as it is now. Of late years it has greatly improved, and the Gantois at present claim that they number 150,000 souls. It was so much larger then than Paris, that Charles Y., who was born there, might have said, had he been alive, as he said nearly two centuries later — ^^ Je mettrais Paris dans mon Gant (Gand)." * Few cities have been the scene of more turbu- lence and fighting. Its citizens for several centuries were en- gaged in civil discords and foreign wars, and their courage was seldom abated by the greatest suffering or the most disastrous defeat- Even when Charles Y. was at the height of his power, greater and stronger than any monarch since Charlemagne, the Gantois did not hesitate to resist with arms the exaction of his subsidy, and were dreadfully punished for their audacity. The Citadel, which is still one of the most conspicuous objects in the town, the subdued Gantois were compelled to erect at their own expense, though they knew it was designed to keep them in an odious subjection. Ghent is extremely peaceful now, and seems to be as much surrendered to trade and commerce as it has been in the past to riot and revolution, conspiracy and bloodshed. But, amid its factories and warehouses, its breweries and machine-shops, its bustling streets and crowded wharves, the virtues of the an- .cient burgesses, and the spirit of the Arteveldes still survive. * " I could put Paris into my glove (Ghent)." CHAPTER LXXiy. BRUGES AND BRUSSELS. O quit Belgium without going to Bruges would not indicate a traveller's wisdom, for this town, with Antwerp and Ghent, com- pletes the trio of the most interesting cities. Like Ghent, Bruges retains so much of its mediaeval character, that it can hardly fail to enchain the attention, and stir the mem- ory of the most careless tourist. Scarcely any one in entering it but will recall Southey's lines of apos- trophe : Fair city, worthy of her ancient fame, The season of her splendor has gone by ; Yet everywhere its monuments remain. Temples which rear their stately heads on high. Canals that intersect the fertile plain — Wide streets and squares, with many a court and hall. Spacious and undefaced ; — but ancient all." The first object I sought was the famous Halles with the Gothic Beltry, a lofty tower standing in the Grande Place, the principal square of the town, and considered the finest structure of the kind in all Europe. The Belfry has fifty bells, ranging from six tons in weight to a few hundred pounds, which are played by means of an immense cylinder communi- cating with the clock. As these chimes are rung four times an hour, they seem to be sounding incessantly. They are very sweet in tone, and rank higher in musical reputation than any of the famous carillons of the kingdom. They have such 586 THE FAMOUS BELFRY. a peculiar, dreamy and tranquillizing effect as tlieir melody comes and goes with the changing breeze, that it seems I should never tire of them. I might alter my opinion, how- ever, if I were a permanent resident instead of a mere loiterer in the immediate neighborhood. On festival days, a profes- sional musician, regularly employed for the purpose, performs exquisite airs on the chimes by striking on immense keys. His hands are covered with thick leather, and the work is said to be so hard that he is compelled to stop every quarter of an hour from excessive fatigue. Bruges takes its name from its bridges, of which there are some iifty crossing the canal. Nearly all the prominent build- ings are Gothic, built in the fourteenth century, and decorated with sculpture and paintings. One of the most conspicuous of these is the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in which Charles the Bold is buried. Other notable structures are the Church of St. Sauveur, the Palace of Justice, the Hospital of St. John, and the Hotel de Yille. The last contains a public library with many rare and valuable manuscripts. The scheme of a lottery drawn in Bruges in 1445 is to be seen there, which makes it probable that this species of gambling originated in Belgium. At one of the windows of the Hotel, the old Flem- ish Counts took the oath of allegiance to the laws. The Church of Jerusalem, founded by Pierre Adorner, contains an exact representation of the supposed tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. In the council chamber of the Palace of Justice is a curi- ous chimney-piece with life-sized figures of Charles V., the Emperor Maximilian, Charles the Bold, and his wife Margaret of York. An excellent institution is the Mont de Piete, not a mere pawnbroker's office, as the name usually implies on the Conti- nent, but a benevolent establishment where the poor, by pledg- ing securities, can obtain money at a low rate of interest. It is indeed a Mount of Piety which ought to be reproduced in every town of any size on both sides of the Atlantic. It does incalculable good in Bruges, and is a practical charity whose excellence it is difficult to over-estimate. PAST AND FEE SENT. 687 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, instituted in that city in 1430 the Order of the Golden Fleece out of compli- ment to the Flemish weavers who had brought their manufac- ture of wool to such a state of perfection. In the Cathedral of Kotre Dame (its lofty tower can be seen, it is said, on very clear days, from the mouth of the Thames, tlrough I doubt if any day was ever clear enough for that), in the Hospital of St. John, the Church of St. Sauveur, and the Academy of Paintings, are many fine pictm-es, the best of which are by Memling, Yan Eyck (to any one who admires their style of art), Yandyke, and others of the Flem- ish school. When I left Cologne, I supposed I had gotten rid of the eleven thousand virgins of St. Ursula ; but I found the absurd fable commemorated in Bruges by paintings on the side of the coflSn, presumed to contain the arm of that much massacred lady, which is kept as a precious relic in the Hospital of St. John. The convent of the Beguin nuns, similar to, but much smaller than that of Ghent, is in the city. Convents and mon- asteries, once very numerous, have been mostly suppressed thea'e, as in other centres of Koman Catholicism. A number of the old monasteries in different quarters have long been de- serted, and are crumbling to decay ; while others have been devoted to what is known as secular, meaning more valuable and desirable, uses. Bruges was fortified by Count Baldwin of the Iron Arm in 837, and walled some two centuries after. During the Hanse League it was the leading market of middle northern Europe, and became very rich and prosperous. Injured by success, as the Flemings always were in their early history, they waxed insolent and turbulent, and toward the close of the fifteenth century they rebelled against Duke Maximilian ; threw him into prison, and suffered severely by the measures of suppression adopted against them. The odious Duke of Alva completed their misfortunes, and many of their best artisans sought safety and employment in England. 588 THE FEMININE PASSION FOR LACE. Bruges lias in tura been tlie asylum of two of the fugitive English Kings, of Edward lY., when the war of the Roses drove him from his kingdom, and of Charles II., in his com- pulsory exile. The house inhabited by the Merry Monarch still stands on the south side of the great square, at the corner of the Rue St. Arnaud ; and when I saw it last, it bore the sign " Au Lion Beige." The population of Bruges, in its palmy days, was 225,000. Now — and it has grown materially within a few years — it has not, at the outside, more than 55,000. Brussels would be interesting if one had not seen the French capital, which the Belgian city has imitated in everything. Brussels is proud of its reputation as the miniature Paris, of its French manners, French customs, French toilettes, and even of its French affectations. The Belgians resident there claim that they speak purer French than the Parisians, just as the Irish of Dublin insist that their English is better than that of the Londoners, which might be without any alarming approach to perfection. The principal attraction of the place to women is, that Mechlin and Brussels laces can be had in the latter city on advantageous terms. The feminine mind seems somewhat deranged on the subject of laces ; but the derangement is harmless — except to the pocket-book. I don't think any woman could be quite happy in a world where laces could not be purchased ; and they so abound in Brussels that many of the sex might be content to spend their lives there. I have for years endeavored to discover the mysterious fascination of Mechlin, Grammont, Brussels, Point, and Valenciennes, but it is quite beyond me. I understand it through sympathy, how- ever, and if I were an angler for feminine souls, I should bait my hook with the rarest and most expensive lace I could find. There are various factories in Brussels, in which women are exclusively employed. To put the poor creatures to work over laces they cannot possess is tantalizing and cruel to the last degree. Belgium is an excellent field for shopping, and when vis- ited by women, is devoted to purchases, very much as it has THE MANNIKm. 589 been devoted to fighting by the transatlantic nations, who have made it the battle-field of Europe. Brussels, the capital and metropolis of the kingdom, is handsomely situated on the river Senne. The principal portion is built on a hill, and from a western point of view reminds me somewhat of Genoa or Naples. The old town, which is in the lower part, has narrow, crooked streets, and few attrac- tions ; but the new town is elegantly laid out, and has numer- ous squares, the most noted, the Place Royale, the Place de la Monnaie, and the Place des Martyres. The old fortifications have been razed, and on their site are beautiful boulevards and promenades, shaded with linden trees, and running around the city to the distance of nearly five miles. The Hotel de Yille, in the lower town, is a noble Gothic structure, with a spire of open stonework, 370 feet high. It was erected in 1400, and in 1555 its grand hall was the scene of the abdication of Charles Y. From the tower an excellent view can be had, you are told, of the field of Waterloo. This, however, is a mere deception to aid the sacristan or some one of his numer- ous assistants to obtain an extra franc. I tried the experiment, and I succeeded, though not before I had engaged a carriage and driven beyond the historic village. Many of the churches are imposing, — the finest of them is the Cathedral of St. Gudule, six centuries old, — and contain fine sculptures and paintings. Of the many fountains in the city the most celebrated is the Mannikin, at the corner of a street near the Hotel de Yille. This is the bronze figure of a small boy, more naturally than modestly occupied, to which the citizens are so much attached that then* feeling almost amoimts to veneration. On festival days, they are in the habit of dressing the little urchin in uni- form, and tricking him out in a variety of costumes. The common people are superstitious in regard to the Mannikin, regarding it in some mysterious way as the palladium of their liberty, and the guarantee of their privileges. Brussels enjoys all the advantages of a metropolis ; has picture-galleries, Hbraries, scientific and literary institutes, and 590 WATERLOO. valuable collections of various sorts. Indeed, it would be, as I have said, a most interesting and delightful city, were it not such a copy in miniature of Paris, and were it not determined to sneeze whenever the French capital takes snuff. Before the Rebellion, Waterloo seemed to Americans to have been a great battle ; but since then, having had so much fighting on their own soil on a more extensive scale, they are less interested in the contest by which Bonaparte lost his power and his throne. The exact merits of that memorable struggle will always be regarded differently by the English, Prussians, and French ; but the victory, to unbiased nations, does not seem so glorious when it is remembered that 140,000 men, with 380 pieces of cannon, defeated an army of 75,000, with only 240 guns. Waterloo is always associated with Brussels. Everybody remembers, and too many persons quote the stereotyped stanza of Byron, " There was a sound of revelry by night," etc. I have no special fondness for battle-fields, perhaps be- cause I have seen how they are made ; but I could not resist the inclination to visit the spot on which Napoleon was beaten by circumstances, rather than by Wellington, who, as a captain, does not deserve to be mentioned on the same day with the victor of Jena and Austerlitz. I supposed I should not be repaid for my trouble, and I was not.» The ground is rolling, and well calculated for a grand fight, the various hillocks serving very well to cover the reserves of the allies. I looked in vain for the sunken road of Ohaine, or any trace of it. That is a melodramatic invention of Hugo, and he makes effective use of it in his really brilliant description of the great contest. If Grouchy had engaged Blucher, as he was appointed to do, instead of losing his way, as he declared he did, and for which there was no excuse, the result of the battle would have been different. Napoleon had calculated correctly, and had victory in his hands ; but he could not foresee blunders — or treachery — and so was defeated when he had most reason to expect a glorious triumph. ANNOYING GUIDES. 591 The guides are a nuisance of the first water, and I peremp- torily declined to avail myself of their energetically proffered services. If you have any idea of the field when you go upon the ground, they drive it out of your head by their polyglot jabbering about positions, generals, corps, cavalry, artillery, infantry, and a number of terms they do not understand. The impostors who vend " mementos " of Waterloo are a greater source of annoyance than the guides. The bullets, fragments of shell, canes, etc., which they offer for sale, are made, it is well known, in a small town near Brussels ; and yet many persons are foolish enough to buy them, corroborating the proverb respecting the facility of divorce between a fool and his finances. There is nothing very remarkable on the battle-field, which is now carefully cultivated, and, when I saw it, bore a plen- tiful crop of corn. The farms of Hougoumont and Belle Alli- ance, the monuments to the Hanoverians and to Col. Gordon, the Lion of Waterloo, and the monument of the Lion, from the summit of which the best view is obtained, are the places and objects usually visited by tourists, who seldom quit the field with any clearer idea than they had before visiting it, of the most decisive combat of modem times. 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Thousands of Miles in Sleighs, etc. ■WITH AN ACCTJRATE AND MINUTE MAP AND NEARLY TWO HUNDHED PIITE AND APPEOPPJATS ElTCr.AVING-S, B'Sr THE BEST .A.RTISTS. BEING A COjrrr.EUENSIVE AND VALUABLE EXPOSITION OF TIIE COL"NTr.IES OP Alaska, Kamchatka, Siberia, China, & Russia, as Ihey are to-day. By TKOMAS W. KNOX, Author of "CaiTip Eire and. Cotton Eield." Few know anythinfr of tho prcat country ex;)lorod by tlip autlior. cxci'iit so far as they have fathered ideas of it from lloatinj,' rumors and uiiri,lial)lu stories. Comparatively few even would now how to proceed to reach it from fc^au Francisco. (Scarcely any know of the magnificent river, the Amoor, and of the vast valley it water*. All will be surprised, on reading this book, to see how diflerent is the truth, from their Iraajriuinjjs of this entire region and its inhabitants. The author of this work came prominently before the public as one of the old War Cor- respondents, and has been more recently known as one of the most able and popular writers and .i'lirnalists of the day. His attempt to go aronnd the world by way of Kamchatka, Siberia, Russia, etc., involving thousands of miles travel througli an almost unknown country, drew great attention at the time. The successful result, and the safe arrival of the traveller at St. Petersburg, alter a journey through the vast region between the nioutli of the Amoor river and that city — a feat scarcely ever before performed by a foreigner, — created great interest in the trip; and no subject to-day can be more intensely fascinaliug tliau that presented iu this book. Agents wanted. Apply to AMEEIOAN PUBLISHING CO., Hartford, Conn. THE 'UNCIVILIZED EACES; Or, NATUF?AL HISTORY OF MAN. A. complete account of the Jilanncrs and Customs, ami the I'liysical, Social, and Jtelle/ious Conditions and CJiaracteristics of the Z^ncivili.zed Haces of Men O? 3E3d«. O "O" <3r H O XJ T THE U PB" T IU. 13 XV O H. Ij 33. By Rsv. J. G. WOOD, M. A., F. L. S., A.\i.t\\or of ZS'atviral Histoi-y of Animals, Bible ^i\iiiials, etc., etc. ■Witli over TOO Fine Illustrations from Ne-w Desij^jns, Tjy Zixrecker, Augas Dau'kjy, Haadley, Wolf. e'.;c., ; UI«a"C3r3EB..A.'V3ElID ^"K" ■I'3E3C33 ^^tOTJcSEZH-S I>.A.IjZ5X3EIIj. Bound in 2 Volumes : also in 1 Volume Complete, of nearly 1,700 Pages. The author of this work has the endorsement of the most literary men of Oreat Britain. He has. by his exhaustive and invaluable works on men, birds, beasts, etc., placed himself foremost among writers on Natural History. The work here offered is the most interesting of all his writings. Years of travel and care- ful research have been spent in its prejiaration. the records of the most famous explorers have been studied and compared, living travellers have given their aid to the work, and have con- tributed to the author's collection of the dresses, ornaments, maps, etc., of barbarous races, from which ample drawings have been made to fully illustrate the work. Reflecting every phase of uncivilized life and society, giving life-like pictures of the pecu- liar institutioiis and the manners and customs of every class and race of men, except the white, on the entire globe, their modes and habits of life, where and how they live, in fact showing up the whole outer and inner life of the great majority of the people in the knowu world, in a manner and \vith a fulness never equalled, the work is oftered by the publishers with implicit faith iu its being rucoguLzed as a book of rare merit and value. Agents icantcd. Apply to AMEEICAIT PUBLISHING CO., Hartford, Conn. OSTEW A.N1D EISTLA-RG-ED EDITION" OF EIOHARDSOI^'S "BEYOND THE MISSISSIPPI." BROUGHT FORWARD TO THE SUMMER OF 1869, DESCRIBIXG THE OLD WEST AS IT WAS, and THE NEW WEST AS IT IS, I FROM TBE GREAT RIVER TO THE GREAT OCEAN. 620 LARGE OCTAVO PAGES.— 216 ILLUSTRATIONS, and the most Minute and Accurate Map of the country in existence. isay to 1869. THE OPENING OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD, its Oi'igin, Progress, and Completion, together with all the Great Changes in the country incident thereto, are ftilly and faithfully described. It gii-es evert/ Station on the roiid, Distances apart, and such other Important Statistics as render it invaluable to all. All other proposed Railroad Routes to the Pacific ai'e found upon its map, and are duly considered and explained. All subjects connected with these roads are fully written up. This work gives graphic accounts of the Progress of the Western half of our con- tinent, and the most romantic, stirring, and picturesque incidents in its history. OF MORMONISM AND POLYGAMY IN UTAH, With fine Illustrations of Life in Salt Lake city, of Buigham Young, his Wives, Children, Residences, &c., &c. Of the great NATURAL CURIOSITIES, of which there arc more in Western America than on all the globe beside : among which are the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas ; Pictured Rocks ; Lakf s among the Clouds ; hundreds of Mineral S]n-ings ; Great Salt Lake and its Basin ; the Snake River Cataract of Idaho ; the Great Falls of the Missouri ; the una]jproaciied Scenery of Columbia River ; the boundless Forests and beautithl Puget Sound of far AVaishington Territory' ; Pike's Peak; Long's Peak; Mount Shasta, Mount Hood, Mount Rainer; the Geysers, Big Tree Groves, and the stupendous Yosemite Valley of Calilbrnia. It descril>es and gives views of THK BIG CANYON OF THE COLORADO RIVER, 500 miles long, with the incredible journey of James White throui;h it, iiyion a raft, occupying 14 days, during 7 of which White was without food ; of the DISCOVEKV AND OPENING UP of the NEW WHITE PINE SILVER REGION OF NEVADA, which is attracting thousands of emigrants and causing the wildest excitement ever known in our mining history. COMPLETE STATl!iTICS OF EACH STATE A\D TERRITORY, in Gold and Silver, and other Products, increase of Population, number of acres of Pul)lic Land, value of same, surrounding Markets, with the inducements otfered to settlers, can be found in its ])agcs. No other book extant contains one-half the in- formation on the subject contained in this. To the Emigrant, to the Traveler, and to all others whose interests or inclinations draw their attention westward, this book will be invaluable, treating ftdly of this ])art of our country, its vast and unequalled resources, and of the comparative extent, ca])abilities, and availabilities of its diffci'cnt sections, giving such information as can be obtained from no other source. CONDITIONS. TTe sell this work with all additions at the original prices. Bound in Fine EugUsh Cloth, ---..- S8.50 '• " " '• Gilt Edge, - . . . 4.OU " Leather, (Library Style.) . - - - . 4 00 Ajmts icanted. Apply to AMEKIOAN PUBLISHINQ CO., Hartford, Ct. 1 1 ^ L U ^ T 12. ^k. T E I> ITS ORIGIN, TRUTH, AND DIVINITY. Comprising an account of Patriarchs and Prophets, the scene of their labors, style of their writings, character of their prophecies, and the time and niauuer of their deaths. The Life of Clirist, his teachings, miracles, death, resurrection and ascen- sion. The Lives and Labors of the Apostles, the Primitive Fathers, the Martyrs and other prominent defenders of the Christian Faith, with an exposition of the nature, design, eti'ect, and linal triumph of Christianity. Giving iu a condensed form, a re- liable and comprehensive survey of the Christian Church, from the early ages down to modern times. EMBRACING A TERM OF OVER 3000 YEARS. BY J. E. STEBBINS. Eighteen Fine Steel Engravings, In the various styles of the art and by the beat artists, with a large map of fncient countries and localities, will adorn its pages, and will alone equal in value the cost of the book. CONDITIONS: The Book will be printed, bound and finished in a very superior manner, in modern style, excelling in all points. It will contain over six hundred pages and be sold through our authorized agents only. DELIVERED TO SUBSCPJBERS AT THE FOLLOWING PRICES. Extra fine English clot'h, marble edge, ----- §3..50 " gilt " 4.00 Library style, (Leather) sprinkled edge, ----- 4. 00 Half calf, marble edge, ------- 5.00 Agents Wanted. Apply to AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO., Hartford, Conn. ~~ NEW QUARTO PHOTOGRAPH V/ilh Marginal References, Apochrypha, Concordance, an Index, Family Record, The Psalms of David in Metre; A Table of Text'!: a Table of Kindred and affinity ; a Table of Scriptivreiceighta and meas- ures; a Table of Offices and Canditinn (f Men; a Table of Passages in the Old Testament qmneil by Ch.ri.st an.l Ifis Apostles ; and. what has never been, added, an Account of the Lives and Martyrdom of THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. IIjI,USTB,A.TED WITir SEAirTIFjrL STEJEL ENGRAVINGS. NOTICE^TO'SUBSCRIBERS. Our NEW PH0Tt)6RAPn ALBUM FAMILY BIBLE, which we take pleasure in presenting to the imhlic throujrh our traveling aseuts, forms a new ami attractive feature in Bible-making, which 'at om;e commends itself to eve y home and fireside. The family Bible, with its reeord'of Mar- riage?, Births and Deaths, has ever been held as a sacred household treasure, and the present edition has. in connection with iis register, an arrangement in album form by which Family Portraits may be preserved within its sacred lids; making in realitv, what it purports to be, a Family Bible. It is aUipted to Family wants— every family should have it— it fills a void long felt in family circles, and We anticipate for it a large and rapid sale. oo3srxDn?ioisr s. Th<> work is printed on good paper, with ten Fine Steel Engravings, and beautifully bound in various styles. Prices varying from $6.50 to $i20C. Agents Wanted, Apply to AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO., Hartford, Conn. PERSONAL HISTORY OF ILLUSTliATEl) WITH Twentj-five New and Elegant Full Page Engravings, In Stoel and Wood, among which are two of General Grant, by tlie liest Artists in tlie conn- try. Also, Fac-similcs of Kare L)otuments, Public and Private, tlie famous I iiconaitional-Sur- rcnder, and other equally interestinir and important Letters, from Originals intrusted to the au- thor by General Grant and his friends. THE 3XOST r»OI»XJL.A.Il BOOK! OF THE ©EASOTST. This volume contains many Documents and Letters of the Highest Importance, relating to Civil and Military Matters, SINCE THK WAR, which have never before been made public. By ALBERT D. RICHARDSON, AUTHOR OF "field, DXINGEON, and escape," and "beyond the MISSISSIPPI." AUTHENTIC, AUTHORIZED AND APPROVED. Written with the knowledge, consent, and full concurrence of the illustrious General. In view of the prominent position now occupied by General Grant, it must be conceded by all that a full and truthful history of him, should Jind its way into the hands of every reader. No Ameiican citizen should live vnder any President Willi wluose character and antecedents, bothjmblic and private, he is not perfectly familica: This work differs very essentially from the many "Lives of Grant," now before the public, and should by no means be classilled with them. While recording his illustrious achievenituta both in the Field and in the Cabinet, it is yet p -rsonal, rather than martial, or polit.cal, free from military technicalities or partisan coloring, d 'picting not merely the exploits of G;aiit, the soldier, but the entire life of Grant the man, his daily habits and conversation, his thoughts, and his motives, as evinced by his acts and his words, under all of the many ditterent circum- stances of his eventful career, giving, in fact, a full and clear exhilAt of the inner, as icell us the outer man. It has not been prepared for a campaign document, but for the library, and it has been admitted by all to be a great acquisition to the biographical literature of the country. It contains 5fj0 pages, and in mechanical execution is fully up to our well known style. Its snb cription price is, Beautifully Bound in Fine Cloth, Sprinkled Edge, " " Gilt Edge, - " Leather. Library IStyle, ... Elegantly Bound in Extra Half Calf, or lialf Turkey, Agents Wanted. Apply to AMEEIOAN PUELISHING CO., Hartford, Conn $3.00 3.50 4.00 5.00 By JUNIUS HENUI BRO^VNE. The author of this work needs no endorsement. His well laiown signature, as a leading and popular correspondent of the press, is welcomed at thousands of firesides in the land. His hab- its of close observation, his long experience as a journalist, and his acknowledged talents as a V. riter have all been drawn upon and concentrated for months upon this work. Ilcflecting every phase of Metropolitan life and society, giving life-like pictures of the inter- esting localities and peculiar institutions of New York, the manners and customs of every class of its people ; their modes and habits of life; how and whore they live; the great contest -for wealth existing among them, and how it is gained and how lost ; revealing scenes of wickeduese and of misery ; e.xposing the tricks of the dishonest, and the traps laid for the unwary ; in fact, showing up the whole inner life of the great heart of our coiuitry, in a manner and with a full- ness never equalled. This volume is respectfully offered by the publishers, with implicit faitii in its great value as a book of profit and amusement. This work is embcllisliud by Over T-weuty Appropriate and Spirited Engravings. and is a most beautiful and attractive octavo volume of 700 pages. It is sold exclusively hij Agents and can be obtaint:d f ram no~other source, and is delivered to sttbscT^bc vs Elegantly Bound in Fancy Cloth, Gilt Back and Sides, Sprinlded Edge, - $3.00 Gilt Edge, - • 3.50 " " Leather, (Library Style.) Sprinkled Edge, - - • 4.00 " " Extra Half Caif, or Half Turkey, . - - 5.00 'i;^~ Payment to be made iqion receipt of the ipork. Agents Wanted. Apply to AMEEIOAN PUBLISHING CO., Hartford, Conn THE GREAT REBELLION. A HISTORY OF THE Embracing an authentic account of the whole contest, BY HON. J. T. HEADLEY, Author of ^^ Napoleon and his Marshals" ^^ Washington and his Generals," ^'Sacred Jlountains," &c. IN EN&LISH AND G-ERMAIST. This Great Work commences with tlie first outbreak of the war, and gives a full and truthlul account of the terrible struggle to its very end, aud closing with the He- ports of Generals Grant and Sliennan. Noting each important and interesting event, with time and place of its occurrence, with perfect accurac)', stating only as facts tliose things which are well authenticateil, this work cannot fail, ere long, to be accepted by all as a standard autuokitv, and as stich will jirove of immense value to its possessors as a hook for reference, aud no library will be considered complete without a copy of it upon its shelves. This work is printed from a beautiful, clear, new type, on good paper, and is ilhis- trated witii over seventy tirst-class Steel Engravings, consisting of Military and Naval Scenes, and Portraits of Ollicers prominent in the war. It will be beautifully aud substantially bound in One Superb Volume of nearly Twdre Hundred Ptujes. Price, Library Style, (Leather) Sprinkled Edge, - - - f.5.00 Embossed Morocco, do do - - - 5.00 do do Gilt do - - - - 5.50 Agents Wanted. Apply to AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO., Hartford, Conn. THE SECRET SERVBCE, The Field, The Dungeon and The Escape. By ALBERT D. RICHARDSON, (Tribune Correspondent.)- The above work embraces the entire narrative of Mr. RICHARDSON'S Unparalled Experience for Four Years. I. Traveling through the South in the secret service of the Trihune at the outbreak of the W.ir. II. With our armies ami fleets both Kast and West, during the first two years of the Rebellion. HI. His thrilling capture while running the batteries on the Mississipiji lilver at Vicksburg,wher« more than half his companions were either killed or wouniU-d. IV. His confinement for twenty months in seven different Uebel Prisons. V. His escape and almost Miracuhms Journey by night, of nearly 400 miles, aided by Negroes and Union Mountaineers of North Carolina and Tennessee through the enemy's country to our lines. t abounds in stirring events never before given to the jinblic. and contains minute details of the escape, which have not vet appeared, including a descrii^tiou <.!' 1)AN KLLIS.the famous Union Pilot, and the "UNKNOWN GUIDE," in the person of a Young Lady, who piloted I.lr. Eichardson and his con^rades by night out of a Kebel amlju=h. In view of the author's rich material, his well known trustworthine.os, and graphic descriptive powers, the publishers feel justified in predictins a w<>rk of unusual interest, coiitaining more of the FACT, INCIDENT AND KOMANCE OF THE WAR, than any other which has yet appeared. The work is offered in the best style of typography, on good paper, andcontainfw^<3/'500 Octavo Pages and Ninetetm Engravings. Price, Cloth, (neat and substantial,) ....... $.3.00 Library Style, (Leather) Sprinkled Edges, ..... 3.50 The book is published in the German language, same styles of binding, and same prices. Agents Wanted. Apply to AMEEIOAIT PUBLISHING CO., Hartfo'd. Conn. K 7 16 /)