THE GENERALIFFE.
Title : The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe
Author : Samuel Irenæus Prime
Release date : April 6, 2021 [eBook #65004]
Language : English
Credits : E-text prepared by Sonya Schermann and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/alhambrakremlin00prim |
THE GENERALIFFE.
The South and the North of Europe are contrasted in this volume. Not by any formal comparison of the morals and manners, the institutions and condition of the peoples in different latitudes, but by candid statement and description, I have sought to give a fair view of life as it is in Spain and Scandinavia.
Since the journey was made, the Queen of Spain has fled, and the Emperor of France has perished from among men. But the social life of the nations remains the same from age to age.
viii The Alhambra is a type of the South. The Kremlin is a symbol of the North. Both of them are fortresses enclosing palaces: the glory of Spain in ruins, the pride of the North in its strength and beauty.
Vague and indefinite ideas of these wonderful edifices, and of the countries they represent, have been entertained by many, who may find in these pages pictures of things as they are, which the writer trusts are faithful and portable.
| The Generaliffe | Frontispiece. |
| Bridge, Gateway, and Cathedral of Burgos | 16 |
| The Cid | 17 |
| The Escorial | 22 |
| The Royal Palace, Madrid | 40 |
| Toledo | 54 |
| The Alcazar | 59 |
| Cordova | 82 |
| Court of Oranges, Cordova | 87 |
| The Great Mosque, Cordova | 89 |
| “La Geralda,” Seville | 93 |
| She wept and told her Beads | 96 |
| The Bull-Fight | 101 |
| The Picador | 106 |
| In the Alameda, at Malaga | 118 |
| The Diligence | 125 |
| Outer Wall of the Alhambra | 130 |
| Portion of a Door | 138 |
| The Vermilion Tower | 142 |
| The Alhambra | 156 |
| Geneva and the Rhone | 166 |
| Merle d’Aubigné | 167 |
| D’Aubigné’s Birthplace and Residence | 169 |
| Lausanne, and the Lake of Geneva | 171 |
| x Castle of Chillon | 173 |
| The Lake and City of Geneva | 175 |
| Cathedral and Platform at Berne | 182 |
| On the Lake of Thun | 184 |
| Pilatus, Lake of Lucerne | 190 |
| Monument to the Swiss Guard. ( By Thorvaldsen ) | 195 |
| Tell’s Chapel, Lake of Lucerne | 198 |
| Swiss Horn Blowers | 211 |
| Peasants of Eastern Switzerland | 212 |
| Female Costumes in Appenzell | 217 |
| Death of the Chamois | 231 |
| On the Rhine | 241 |
| Aix-la-Chapelle | 245 |
| Frankfort Dining-Table | 269 |
| Polish Peasants | 283 |
| Scene at Railway Station | 294 |
| A Rainy Day in a Russian City | 309 |
| Street Scene in a Russian City | 315 |
| A Russian Porter | 321 |
| The Kremlin | 331 |
| Plan of the Centre of Moskva City | 335 |
| The Russo-Greek Service | 342 |
| Helsingfors | 383 |
| Stockholm Steamers | 396 |
| Upsala | 413 |
| Costumes of Sweden | 421 |
| Roxen Locks | 435 |
| Travelling in Carioles in Norway | 457 |
| Palace of Frederiksberg | 462 |
| A Domestic Scene in Denmark | 469 |
| Façade of the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen | 471 |
| Portrait of Thorvaldsen. ( By Horace Vernet ) | 473 |
| Hamburg | 480 |
| Home Again | 482 |
Lodgings at the Alhambra.—Restoration.—Webs of Falsehood.—The Sierra Nevada Mountains.—Fruits.—Progress of the Peasantry.—The Moors.—Adam’s Visit to Spain.—Expulsion of the Moors.—Decline of the Empire.—Railroads.—Mines.—Early Settlers.—Iberians.—Phœnicians.—Goths.—Moors.—Waning of the Crescent.—Capture of Cordova.—Flight of the last Moorish King
Biarritz.—Chateau Eugenie.—Dangerous Coast.—Breakwater.—The Virgin’s Partiality.—Bathing Grounds.—Couriers.—Antanazio.—His Honesty and Zeal.—Crossing the Boundary.—Island of Conference.—Spanish Courtesy.—The Basque Provinces.—Peculiar Customs.—Ancestry.—The Language.—Spanish Stupidity.—La Fayette.—St. Sebastian.—Duke of Wellington’s Sack of the City.—Bull-ring.—Likeness of the Country to Switzerland.—Physique of the Inhabitants.—Productions.—Industries.—Primogeniture.—Tolasa.—Vittoria.—Wellington’s Victory.—Miranda.—Roderick, the last King of the Goths
A sleepy Town.—Origin of the Name.—Fusion of the Crowns of Leon and Castile.—The Coffer of the Cid.—Swindling a Jew.—Moorish Lies.—Hotels.—A Change of Base.—The Cathedral.—Statues.—Carvings.—Verdict of Charles V. and Philip II.—Devil beating the Railroad.—Carving by Nicodemus.—Miracles.—Castle.—Engineer hoisted by his own Petard.—Burgos Taverns.—Philip II. His Character.—Conception xii of a Palace, Monastery, and Tomb.—The Escorial.—Dimensions.—St. Lawrence.—Turning-point of his Life.—Description of the Palace.—Death of Philip II.—Mausoleum.—The Sagrario.—A toe -tal Loss.—Cellini Crucifix.—Library
A polyglot Valet.—Missionary Schools.—Foreign Chaplains.—The Church Militant .—Upper Chamber.—Religious Intolerance.—Inquisition.—Persecution.—Spanish Sabbath.—Devotion.—Infidelity.—The Prado.—Bull-ring.—Wine Shops.—Frolicking.—Dancing.—Cheap Wines.—Carnival.—Costumes.—Politeness.—Maskers.—Ancient Belle.—Hobbling Monk.—Pope.—Natural Goose.—Devil.—Orang-outang.—General Abandon.—Religion and Folly.—Good Humor
Napoleon’s Epigram.—Royal Palace.—Cavalry.—Military Parade.—Plains of Castile.—Armory.—Swords of Gonzalo de Cordova, Ferdinand, and Charles V.—Armor of Boabdil.—Revolvers.—Mighty Men of War.—Toledo Blade.—Stables.—Spanish Horses.—Merino Sheep.—Royal Equipage.—Crazy Jane’s Carriage.—Her Effigy.—Mischievous Display.—French Language and Influence.—Slow Coaches.—Cheap Labor.—Architecture.—Banking-house.—Bank of Spain.—Repose of Manner.—Gold at last.—Railroads.—Post-office.—Personal Identity.—Rebel General.—Lost Letters.—Telegraphs.—Progress.—Picture-gallery.—The Immaculate Conception.—Vision of St. Bernard.—Christ sinking under his Cross.—Equestrian Portrait of Charles V.—Titian.—Correggio.—Mary in the Garden.—Blas del Prado.—Hidden Gems.—Murillo.—Material and Ideal Art
Progress.—Hotel Lino.—The wicked Flea.—Easy Manners.—Breakfast.—Model Landlord and Waiters.—Toledo Butter.—City xiii set on a Hill.—Monuments of departed Peoples.—Romance.—Architecture.—Oldest City in the World.—Mythic Founders.—Perfidy of Roderick.—Reign of the Archbishops.—Decline of Power and Glory.—Cathedral.—Descent of the Virgin.—A fair Penitent.—Orthodoxy of the Priesthood.—Burning of the Missals.—The Muzarabe.—The dead Lion better than a living Dog.—Eloquent Epitaph.—Honors paid the Virgin.—The Alcazar.—Derivation of Mango.—Spanish Pride.—Peacocks.—Foreign Impressions.—Moorish Gates.—San Juan de los Reyes.—Thank-offerings.—St. Florinde.—Cave of Hercules.—Legend of the Cid.—Café.—Toledo Blades.—Virtues of the Tagus.—Sword of Boabdil.—Lunatic Asylum.—Don Quixote.—Crazy Editors.—Statistics.—Causes of Insanity.—Spanish Slowness and Temperance.—Sophomores
Smoking.—Cigarettes at Dinner.—Taking Sanctuary.—Retort.—Tobacco Culture.—Cuban Monopoly.—Chewing tabooed.—Early Smoking.—Children and Ladies.—Tobacco Factory.—Cigareras.—Flavored Cigars.—Potash.—Soda.—Opium.—Intemperate Clergyman.—La Mancha.—Don Quixote.—Treeless Landscape.—Sheep.—Corn.—Primitive Ploughing.—Husbandry.—Primogeniture.—Lands of Church and Crown.—Agricultural Schools.—Periodicals.—Sierra Morena Mountains.—Cautious Engineer.—Manjibar.—Pickled Chicken.—Moving on.—Perfumes of Arabia.—Resting-place.—Transatlantic Indigestion.—Andalusia.—Ignorance and Crime.—Government Education.—Statistics.—Salamanca.—Influence of Climate.—Population.—The Aloe and Olive.—Oranges and Lemons.—Hills of Andalusia.—Sheep
Cleanliness.—Paved Streets.—Bridge over the Guadalquiver.—Age of the City.—Wholesale Butchery.—Government.—Mosques.—Baths.—Inns.—Schools.—Library.—Rural Fête.—Departed Glory.—Palace of Abdurhama.—Beautiful Evergreens.—Fruits.—Interior of an Ancient House.—Moorish Style.—Cathedral.—Converted Mosque.—Gate of xiv Pardon.—Court-yard.—Orange Grove.—Fountains.—Gold Fish.—Elders in the Gate.—The Mecca of Europe.—Holy Shrine.—Symbolism.—Indulgences.—Bronze Ornaments.—Inscription in Gothic and Arabic.—Dimensions.—Precious Stones.—The Mihrab.—The Kalif’s Oratory.—Mosaics.—Devout Mussulmans.—Chapels.—Etching on Stone.—Impressive Monuments
Delicious Climate.—Customs.—Exile of the Moors.—Consequent Decay.—The Alcazar.—Barbaric Splendor.—A Christian Kingdom.—Cathedral.—A House of God.—Giant Columns.—High Mass.—Unconscious Worshipper.—Beautiful Women.—Venus-worship.—Port of Seville.—Fruits.—Don Juan.—Barber of Seville.—Murillo’s House.—Mosaics.—Moorish Castle.— Auto-da-fé. —The Quemadaro.—Field of St. Sebastian.—Circulation of the Bible.—Tower of Gold.—Treasure House.—Prison.—Bins of Gold.—Decline and Fall of Spain.—Demoralizing Influences.—Corruption and Robbery.—Yellow Fever.—Guadalquiver.—Amphitheatre.—A Delicate Lady.—Warlike Husband.—Her Description of a Bull-fight.—The Ring.—Spectators.—Trumpet-blast.—Picadors.—Entrance of the Bull.—Charge.—Horseman.—Terrible Sight.—Chulos.—Banderilleros.—Squibs.—Matador.—Applause.—The Ladies.—Different Tastes.—Squeamish Husband
La Caridad.—Art Treasures.—St. John.—Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.—Moses striking the Rock.—Recovery of Pictures at Waterloo.—French Thieves.—Venus de Medici.—Thoughtful Amateur.—Museum Fees.—Guardian Angels of Seville.—Martyrdom.—Murillo’s Pages of the Gospel.—Old Masters.—Decay of Art.—Bull-fighting.—The Season.—Exaggeration.—Curious Development.—Effect on the National Character.—Street-plays.—Feats.—Demoralization.—Spanish Pride.—Morality.—Contrast between the North and South of Europe.—Costume of Andalusia.—Fashion.—Life of the People.—Price of Labor.—Food.—Climate.—Beer.—Wine xv cheaper than Water.—Sack.—Intemperance.—Physical Circumstances.—Social Burdens.—Beautiful Trait.—Obedience.—Veneration of the Aged
An ill Wind that blows no Good.—Curious Excuse for Crime.—Old World like the New.—Resort for Invalids.—Genial Clime.—Range of Thermometer.—Mineral Waters.—Sunshine.—Rainfall.—Heavenly Skies.—Advice to Consumptives.—Grapes.—Raisins.—Wine and Oil.—A Sabbath.—Service at the British Consulate.—Mrs. Partington.—English Chaplain.—Sermon.—Narrow Streets.—Sweet Memories of Cologne.—Picturesque Moors.—Cathedral.—High Mass.—Florid Architecture.—Fruits.—Prayer of a Dying Moor.—Florinde.—Chronicles of Washington Irving.—Luxuries of Travel.—Diligences.—Out of Malaga.—Obstinate Mules.—Night.—Mountains.—Setting Sun.—Lovely Scenery.—Orchards.—Armed Guards.—Gentlemen of the Road.—Loja.—Inn.—Flock of Fleas.—A Stimulant.—Setting out for Granada.—Santa Fé.—Its History.—Granada at Last.—In the Grounds of the Alhambra
The Paradise of the West.—Rivers of Eden.—New Damascus.—Granada.—Origin of the Name.—Fruits.—Mountains.—Skies.—Moorish Empire broken.—Zawi Ibu Zeyri.—Alhambra.—Meaning of the Name.—Extension of the Castle.—Original Grandeur.—Its first Prince.—His Improvements.—Roads.—Colleges.—Hospitals.—Canals.—Arts.—Sciences.—Degeneracy.—Intrigues and Murders.—Ruin.—Final Overthrow of Moorish Power.—Ferdinand and Isabella.—Columbus.—Fleas and Cake.—Blessing and Gold.—New World in the West.—Bookstore.—Irving’s Tales.—Gate of Judgment.—Plateau.—Desolation.—Court of Myrtles.—Court of Lions.—Boabdil.—Abencerrages.—Treachery.—Hall of Ambassadors.—Bensaken.—Walking Cyclopedia.—Prudence.—Washington Irving.—Dolores.—Queen’s Garden.—Hall of Two Sisters.—Harem.—Linderaka Gardens.—Queen’s Dressing-room.—Gypsies.—Perfume Bath.—Water Bath.—Governor’s Court.—Bowed Slab.—The Morning Star
The poor Cobbler of Granada.—Spanish Rule of Living.—Xantippe.—Search for Gold.—Messenger Dove.—Dreams.—Landslip.—Fever cured.—Conversion.—The Watch Tower.—Magic Bell.—Parapanda Mountains.—Reign of Law.—Gift to the Duke of Wellington.—Bloody Pass.—Vega.—Water Gates.—The Last Sigh of the Moor.—His Mother’s Reproof.—Moorish Race.—Political Prisoners.—Birthplace of Eugenie.—The Generaliffe.—Ancient Tree.—Suspected Queen.—Women of Spain.—Sins of Climate
Troubadour and Gypsy Life.—Dwarf.—Horse.—Fair.—Physique of the gitanos.—Habits.—Habitations.—Moral Principle.—Chastity.—Swindling.—Superstition.—Fortune-tellers.—Credulity.—Trickery.—Parisian Spiritualist.—Gypsy Creed.—Musings.—Causes of Astonishment.—Paintings and Cathedrals.—Unworthy Ambition.—Silence in Church.—Cathedral of Granada.—Chapel Royal.—Tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella.—Tomb of Philip and Crazy Jane.—Obliging Priest.—Fees.—Leaving Granada.—Disguised Thief.—Seizure and Imprisonment.—Out of Granada
Geneva.—Color of the Rhone.—Cæsar’s Wall.—Cathedral.—Calvin.—Lady Jane Grey.—Rousseau.—Voltaire.—Madame de Stael.—Byron.—Jura.—Mont Blanc.—Celebrities.—Coppet.—Ninon.—St. Protais.—Lisus.—Morges.—Grand Muveran.—Diablerets.—Mont Rosa.—Mont Blanc.—Lausanne.—St. Anne.—Sacred Rat.—Cathedral.—Convention of Reformers.—Gibbon.—Classic Ground.—Chillon.—Bonnivard.—Torture Chamber.—Hotel Byron.—Railroad.—Ice.—Swiss Valleys.—Freyburg.—Suspension Bridge.—Great Organ.—Cathedral.—Wonderful Music: its Power and Sweetness.—Berne.—Morat.—Burgundian Custom.—Public Bears.—Unfortunate Englishman.—Curious Clock.—Market Women.—Federal Palace.—Swiss Cantons.—Bernese Alps.—Thun.—Jungfrau
Pleasant Ride.—Interlaken.—Lakes Thun and Brienz.—Abendberg.—Faulhorn.—Giesback.—Illumination.—Ascent of the Brunig.—Vale of Meyringen.—Falls of Reichenbach.—Lungern.—Splendid Courage.—Cheap Suffering.—Modern Reformers.—Mount Pilatus.—Myths.—Lucerne.—Population.—St. Leger.—Service.—Crucifix.—A Devotee.—Mass.—Organ.—Cloisters.—Lake Lucerne.—Lion of Lucerne.—Dance of Death.—Striking Scenery.—Gersau.—Brunnen.—Bay of Uri.—Sir James Mackintosh.—Swiss Patriots.—Chapel of Tell.—Cascades.—Fluellen.—Altorf.—Captain Lott
The Hermit Meinrad.—His Black Virgin.—Murder.—Detective Ravens.—Monastery.—Miracle.—Shrine.—Pilgrims.—Revenue.—A Barefooted Penitent.—Village Church.—Fountain.—Gallery.—Abbot.—Hospitality.—Library.—College.—Monastic Life.—Adieu.—Pleasant Quarters.—Meals.—Hotel Life.—John Bull.—A Charming Couple.—Americans.—A National Feature.—Slang.—Language.—Manners.—An Elegant Lady.—Selfishness.—French and Swiss Railroads.—Improvements.—Accidents.—Accommodations
Trogen.—Convent.—Memento mori.—Scenery.—Religion.—German Service.—Curious Custom.—Constance.—Martyrs.—Dividing Line.—Remarkable Change.—Cause.—Pillory.—Evening Bell.—Watchman’s Song.—Bridal Custom.—Athletic Sports.—Democracy.—Assembly.—Office Seekers.—Council.—Roads.—Taxation.—Schools.—Foreign Pupils.—Pedestrians.—Moral Culture.—Treatment of Women.—Cows.—Farm Work.—Manufactures.—Mechanics.—God’s Acre.—Graves.—Funeral Ceremonies.—Simplicity.—Lonely Burial.—Unpleasing Custom.—Costumes.—The Upper Classes.—Refinement and Culture.—Manners.—Patriotism.—A Challenge
A German Watering-place.—Land of Salt.—Salt Works.—Last of the Barons.—Homburg.—Kursaal.—Palace.—Gaming.—Kreusnach.—Spas.—Salt Springs.—Cure-house.—Kissingen.—Baths.—Cures.—Long Sledge-ride.—Princess of Mecklenburg.—Clerical Postman.—Whey-cure.—Grape-cure.—Rest.—Rheingraffenstein.—Ebernburg.—Relics of Reformers.—French Cannon Balls.—The Bingen of Poetry.—The Real Bingen.—Bishop Hatto’s Tower.—Maüse-thurme.—Southey.—Ehrenfels.—Rudesheimer Vineyards.—Wine-making.—Shallow Soil.—Johannisberg Vineyard.—The Rhine.—Mayence.—Printing.—Guttenberg’s Statue.—Cathedral
Tomb of Charlemagne.—The Dead Emperor.—Cathedral.—Consecration.—Holy Shrine.—Healing Waters.—Palace.—Holy Relics.—Remarkable List.—Septennial Exhibition.—Sultan of Turkey.—Crowd.—Order and Devotion.—Sultan and Suite.—Stolidity.—Priests and Women.—A Crush.—Pageant opened.—Procession.—The Relics.—Puseyite Priest.—On the Road to Rome.—Superstition.—Pictures.—Virgin’s Garment.—Modern Style.—Holy Shirt.—Other Relics.—Pilgrims.—Revenue.—Waters.—Fountain.—Music.—Invalids.—Kurhaus.—Social Ease.—Baths.—Sulphur Water.—Antiquities.—Tower of Granus.—Statue of Charlemagne.—Bust and Skull
Graveyard.—Childish Plays.—Cheerful Graves.—Grave of Goethe’s Mother.—Inscription.—Lovely Sentiment.—Coffin of Goethe.—Wealthy Jew.—Humiliation.—Ancient Glory.—Ariadne.—Elegant Cars.—Smokers.—Pine Forests.—Women’s Rights.—Beer Drinking.—A Good Arrangement.—Frankfort-on-the-Oder.—Krewz.—Dinner.—Gardens.—Scenery.—Nakal.—Bromberg.—Wedges.—Attentive Servant.—Frontier.—Passports.—The Vistula.—Poland.—Warsaw
Historic Legend.—The Jesuits.—Partition.—Last Insurrection.—Nationality crushed out.—Attempted Insurrection.—Defeat.—Warsaw.—Armed Despotism.—Discontent.—Precarious Prosperity.—Russian Rule and Language.—Fate of a Spy.—Consequence.—Russian Soldiery.—Ill-manners.—Botanical Gardens.—Observatory.—Palace.—Sobieski’s Monument.—Grave Error.—Illumination.—Streets.—Drunkenness.—Climate.—Lutheran Church.—Relics of Romanism.—Mendicants.—Jewish Quarter.—Hospital.—War of Religions.—Statue of the Virgin.—Little Russia.—Funeral.—English Cock
Pretentious Hotel.—Splendid Bridge.—Polite Ticket-seller.—Cars.—Prairie.—Wretched Peasantry.—Jews.—Railroad Employes.—Lapy.—Mother and Son.—Bialystok.—Grodno.—Diet of Poland.—Last King of Poland.—Jewish Holiday.—Lithuania.—Plains.—Napoleon’s Hill.—Monument.—Wilna.—Ruins.—Insurrection.—Babel.—Dunaberg.—Captive.—Short Night.—Serfs.—Reform.—Board of Arbitrators.—Emancipation.—Pskof.—Lady Smoker.—St. Petersburg
Searching Process.—Peculiar Costumes.—Rough Streets.—Russian Bath.—Dinner.—Model Guide.—Elegant Diction.—Peter the Great.—Catharine I.—Striking Contrasts.—Accommodating Weather.—Palace of the Emperor.—Column of Alexander.—Statue of Peter the Great.—Boy Czars.—Peter’s Lawyers.—Devotion.—Cathedral.—Trophies.—Isaac’s Cathedral.—Amazing Splendor.—Worship.—Offerings.—Holy of Holies.—Behind the Scenes.—Careful Husbands.—Greek and Romish Churches.—Lent.—Sabbath.—Exorcism.—Honors paid the Virgin
Winter Palace.—Ways of Royalty.—Crown Jewels.—Orloff Diamond.—Hermitage.—Art Galleries.—Curious Code of Laws.—Royal Museum.—Peter’s Walking-stick.—Art Culture.—Condition of the Masses.—Laborers.—Mechanics.—Prices.—Rent.—Food.—Dress.—Peculiar Custom.—Polite Bankers.—Despot.—Justice.—Verdicts.—Story of Labanoff.—Siberia.—Abuses.—Academy of Science.—Zoological Museum.—Sunset on the Neva.—Boatman.—Light at Evening-tide
American Engineers.—Sleeping Arrangements.—Newspapers.—Drama.—Courtesy.—Lubanskaia.—Dinner.—Villages.—The Volga.—Murdered Bishop.—Sleeping Car.—Ladder.—Russian Jargon.—Pathetic Appeal.—Board.—Refreshments.—Greek Ecclesiastic.—Patriarch Nicon.—New Jerusalem.—Profanity.—Tyranny.—Revolt.—Pope of the North.—Emperor’s Slight.—Nicon’s Humility.—Banishment.—Patriarchates.—Dead Level.—Flight of Freedom
A Swiss Landlord.—Fleas.—Shrines.—Palaces, Cottages, and Churches.—The Moskva.—Circular City.—Kremlin Walls.—Gates.—Chief Entrance.—Picture of the Redeemer.—Respect.—Cannon.—Miracle.—Splendid Scene.—Tower of Ivan.—Bells.—Medium of Worship.—Holy City.—Pilgrims.—Bell-making.—Precious Metals.—Silver Bells.—Chapel of the Betrothed.—Music of the Bells
Cathedral of the Assumption.—Bones of the Patriarchs.—The Iconastasis.—Sanctuary.—Archbishop’s Throne.—Coronation Ceremony.—Tombs.—Cathedral of the Archangel xxi Michael.—Religious Freedom.—Churches.—Cathedral of St. Basil.—Archangel Cathedral.—Pilgrims.—Golgotha.—Sacristy.—Religion.—Holy Oil.—Baptism.—Making of the Holy Chrism
Royal Palace.—Empress’s Drawing-room.—Empress’s Cabinet.—Hall of St. George.—Hall of St. Andrew.—Gold Court.—Napoleon’s Descent.—Treasures.—Historical Curiosities.—Precious Orb.—Foundling Hospital.—Mortality of Foundlings.—Orphan Asylum.—Sheep’s Clothing.—Harvest Season.—Jews.—Peasants.—Riding School.—Wax-show.—Ethnological Society.—Travel.—Sydney Smith’s Stick
Commercial Travellers.—Sparrow Hills.—Church of the Saviour.—Simonoff Monastery.—Novo-Devichi Convent.—The Moskva.—A Holiday.—Napoleon’s March.—Borodino.—Evacuation of Moscow.—French Enthusiasm.—Triumphal Entry.—Surprise.—Incendiarism.—Return of the French.—Horrors of the March.—Russian Barbarism.—Public Kissing.—From Moscow to St. Petersburg.—Fussy Ladies.—Klin.—Dinner.—Tver.—Beggars.—Night without Darkness.—The Fussy Ladies again.—Sunrise.—Marriage Customs
Americans.—Cronstadt.—Fortifications.—Vessels.—Smoking.—Wyborg.—Saw-mills.—Channel.—Ruined Tower.—Submission of Finland.—Religion.—Government.—Harvests.—Famines.—Army.—Wages.—Fens.—Lakes and Islands.—Drosky.—Huge Stones.—Excursion.—Eden in the North.—Serpent in the Garden.—Long Bills.—Attentions paid Strangers.—A Finnish Lady.—Fishermen.—A Killing Man.—Gulf of Finland.—Fredericksham.—Sclava.—Hard Case.—Social Customs
Helsingfors.—Sweaborg.—Fortified Islands.—Society House.—Ducal Palace.—Finnish Gentlemen.—Senate House.—University.—Observatory.—Library.—Literature.—Kalewala.—Schiller and Shakespeare.—Language.—Congress.—Coats of Arms.—Botanical Garden.—House of Refreshment.—Health Establishment.—Mineral Fountain.—Rocky Islands.—Fishing.—Peasantry.—Abo.—Hotel.—Good Manners.—Castle.—Cathedral.—Tombs.—Conflagration.—Carriole.—Kibitka.—Bondkara.—Finns
Harbor of Abo.—Swedish Customs.—Eating and Drinking.—Climate.—The Baltic.—Stockholm.—Porters.—Hotel Rydburg.—Pleasant Quarters.—Scandinavia.—Odin.—Sagas.—Christianity.—Lutheran Religion.—King.—Congress.—Hospital.—Physicians.—Clergymen.—Education.—Religious Toleration.—The Press.—Cost of Living.—Vice.—The Riddarholm’s Kyrkan.—Tomb of Gustavus Adolphus.—Reformation.—Royal Palace.—Picture Gallery.—Library.—Codex Aureus.—King of Sweden.—Mimic War.—Standing Army.—Order.—Thieves
Drottningholm.—Lake Malar.—Sigtuna.—Odin.—Superstition.—Pirates.—Rural Life.—Professor Olivecrona.—Islands.—Chateau.—Commercial Life.—Manuscripts.—University of Upsala.—Codex Argenteus.—Icelandic Literature.—Standard of Education.—Students.—Costume.—Cathedral.—Statue of Thor.—Old Upsala.—Mora Stone.—Mass Meetings.—Graves of Pagan Deities.—Temple of Odin.—Ancient Tower.—Battle-field of Faith.—Deer Park Restaurant.—Social Customs.—Swedish Homes.—Content.—Moral Progress
Steam Canal.—The Oscar.—View of Stockholm.—Sodertelje.—St. Olaf.—The Gota Canal.—Castles and Legends.—Soderkoping.—Tavern xxiii Breakfast.—Sabbath in Sweden.—Church.—Costumes.—Service.—Snuffing and Nasal Singing.—Watering-place.—Physician.—College of Health.—Baths.—Mineral Waters.—Emigration.—Lodging and Board
On the Gota Canal again.—Working-girl.—Lake Asplagen.—Swedish Professor.—Lake Roxen.—Berg.—The Vetra-Kloster.—Graveyard.—Tombs of the Douglases.—School-house.—Dinner on the Canal.—Crops.—Lock-keeper.—Lake Boren.—Motala.—Iron-works.—Lake Wetter.—Wadstena.—Pea-crop.—Peasantry.—Labor.—Cold.—Sunset.—Forsvik.—Russian Gentleman.—Lake Wenner.—Trout.—Falls of Trollhatten.—River.—Unfortunate Sailor.—Collection.—Hongfel Castle.—Gottenburg.—Cheap Lodgings.—Museum.—Daily News.—Training House for Servants.—Philanthropy
Embarkation.—Breakfast.—Skager-rack and Cattegat.—Freidericksvern.—Christiania.—Hotel du Nord.—Flowers and Fountains.—Stove.—Norwegian Breakfast.—Museum.—Superstition.—Duel of the Girdle.—Bridal Ornaments.—Heathen Relics.—Learning and Letters.—Lake Mjosen.—English Commercial Traveller.—Boat Library.—Sportsmen.—Church.—Fat Pastor.—Remnants of Popery.—Costumes.—The Lord’s Supper.—Service.—Devotion and Reverence.—Oneness of the Church.—Lillehammer.—Cheap Living.—Cripple.—Christiania.—Carriole.—Post Horses and Boys.—Agershaus.—Robin Hood of Norway.—Benevolent Institutions.—Grave of Bradshaw
Skager-rack and Cattegat.—Magnificent Sunset.—Elsinore.—Toll.—House of Tycho Brahe.—Kronborg.—Treaty of Vienna.—Danish Giant.—Fortifications.—Hamlet’s Grave.—True xxiv History.—Royal Castle.—Queen of Christian II.—Touching Prayer.—Royal Forest.—Castle of Peace.—Denmark.—Her History.—Valdemar II.—Schleswig-Holstein.—Christianity.—General Intelligence.—Education.—Copenhagen.—Thorvaldsen’s Museum.—Statues.—Vanity.—Hall of Christ.—Gems and Bronzes.—Vor Frue Kirke.—Religion and Art.—Church Service.—Baptism.—Love of Amusement.—Theatres.—Public Gardens.—Museum.—Ruins.—Monuments.—South American Gentleman.—Zealand.—Fleas.—Kiel.—Elmshorn.—Home Again
IN the grounds of the Alhambra, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings of Granada, what time those conquerors of Spain here held their right regal court, I have come to sit down and to rest.
My lodgings are just under the walls of the old castle, in sight of its crumbling towers, in hearing of its many falling waters, and under the shadow of its English elms, which the Duke of Wellington gave to Spain. At any moment a few steps take me into the courts and halls and chambers of the Alhambra. In years past, while this pearl of Arab art and Oriental splendor was silently suffered to fall into ruin, with the lapse of centuries, it has been the habit of some travelled authors more addicted to romance than others, to get the easy privilege of sharing lodgings with the bats in some deserted chamber, and they doubtless fancied themselves inspired with the genius of the place, as they dreamed and wrote where fair sultanas with their charms eclipsed the splendors of the fairy place itself.
As it is no part of my purpose to indulge in romance while writing these sketches of the Alhambra and of Spain, and as the walls of a comfortable inn are much more to the taste of a weary traveller than the stone floors and open 2 windows of a tumbling old castle, it is my preference to take up my abode for the present with the good people in the Alhambra Hotel, and not with the keepers of the palace itself. Besides, there is no choice left. The government has undertaken the work of restoring the Alhambra to its pristine beauty, and this process is now going onward under the direction of Sr. Contreras. He has already displayed so much skill in imitating the arabesque decorations of the walls, that only a practised eye perceives the difference when the ancient and the modern art appear in the same chamber.
Architects as well as amateur travellers from all parts of the civilized world, for centuries past, have made artistic and pleasure journeys hither to study and admire the style that has nothing like it except in Spain, and here only where the Moors held sway. And perhaps no work of art in the whole world has been more frequently and fully described than the Alhambra of Granada. History, poetry, and science have tried their several hands upon it. Romance has been so busy with it that it is not an easy task to disentangle the web of fiction, and get the only part of the tale worth knowing. So dear is truth, the simple, naked truth of history, to every true soul, that he is a great doer of evil who seizes upon history, and while professing to write it, weaves into his story the fancies of his own prolific genius, and that so deftly and so charmingly that the whole is accepted as veritable history, and the romance as the most credible and interesting of the whole. Early English history has thus been illustrated and inextricably confused. The spell of the magician’s wand has thus made the conquest of Mexico a poem rather than a reliable narrative. And Spain, more than any other land, is now hopelessly given up to legends and doubtful chronicles, modern and antique, so that one who reads must have either the credulity of a devotee, or the indifference of folly, to read with satisfaction the ancient history of the Peninsula.
3 But the Alhambra is here! Granada is where it was a thousand years ago! The same deep blue sky, the bluest sky that covers any land, hangs over its magnificent Vega or plain, through which the Darro and the Genil, united, flow! The hills, each one with a story that can be scarcely heard without a tear, stand where and as they did when the Moors were masters of this region, which they thought the terrestrial paradise of man, and immediately under the celestial mansions where the Prophet and the Houris await the coming of all true believers. The Sierra Nevada, covered with perpetual snow, seems close at hand, as it lies on the eastern horizon, and in this cloudless sky and brilliant atmosphere the long range shines like silver mountains in the noontide, as it did when fleet horsemen brought its ice in baskets to cool the drinks of Wali Zawi Ibu Zeyn, its first Moorish king. Those snowy summits reminded the Arabs when they came here of Mount Hermon, and this plain seemed to them to surpass in fertility and beauty the Vega around Damascus.
And to this day the palm-tree, the pomegranate, and the fig, the orange and lemon, the olive and vine, flourish under the genial sun. In these declining years of the nineteenth century, with a railroad running into the city across the heart of this paradise, and telegraphs linking it with Madrid and London and Washington, the peasants still scratch the ground with the root of a tree for a plough, and carry their produce to market on the back of a donkey.
The creations of the Moors in Spain form the most remarkable chapter in human art. To me, Spain has been a new discovery; a sudden revelation of a world within a world; the monuments of an extinct or departed race standing alone in a desert. The generation that now possesses the soil has nothing of the genius or taste or spirit of the barbaric tribes that were once their masters. And the Alhambra at Granada, the Mosque at Cordova, and the 4 Alcazar at Seville, look like the wrecks of a stranded empire, whose people live only in their glorious ruins.
In the language of a brilliant historian, “Spain stands to-day a hideous skeleton among living nations.”
They have a legend here that Adam made a visit to the earth a few years ago, to see how his farm was getting on. He alighted in Germany, and found schools and colleges and books, and the people intent on learning. He soon left it for France, where the people dressed in fantastic styles, and were mad upon works of art and improvements unknown to our great ancestor. Disgusted with all he saw, he came down to Spain, and, with delight, exclaimed, “This is just as I left it.”
Adam was nearly right. Of all the countries in Europe this is more as it was than any other. The greatest calamity that ever happened to Spain was its expulsion of the Moors; and it will be a century, perhaps many centuries, before the arts and sciences will flourish on this soil as they did before that year, so memorable for the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and the overthrow of the kingdom of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella. Both those events, forming the most momentous epoch in the history of Spain, occurred in the year 1492, from which period we may date the decline of an empire enriched by the untold wealth of a new world added to its possessions, and strengthened by the destruction of the last stronghold of its former conquerors and masters. Foreign capital and enterprise have forced railroads across her mountains and plains, but the capital and enterprise of the world cannot make them profitable, when the people have no industry and no ambition. The mines of Spain are so rich that she has no need of possessions in the gold fields of the western hemisphere; and they have been known and worked ever since the days of the Phœnicians, when Andalusia was the Tarshish of Holy Scripture. Yet Spain is more distinguished 5 to-day, as being behind the world, than for aught it has done or is doing for itself or others. And it often seems to a traveller here in Spain that he is in the Orient, so many manners and customs, so many works, and, much more, such a want of things he is wont to meet with in the more civilized nations, remind him that he is among a people who have derived much of what they have and are from lands at the other end of the Mediterranean Sea.
It has a mixed race of inhabitants. It would not be strange if it had a mixed government also. Successive tides of people have swept over it, and the vestiges of all are left on the surface of the nation. Very little, indeed, is known of the days when the Iberians from Caucasus, and the Celts from Gaul, were the rude settlers of Spain; but the traces are more plain of the Phœnicians, who came here 1500 years before the birth of Jesus, and founded Cadiz and Malaga, and Cordova and Seville. In the year 218 before Christ the Romans came, and, of course, conquered all Spain, and reigned here just six centuries. Then came the Goths, sweeping the Romans out of Spain as they crushed Rome in Italy. And the Goths ruled Spain precisely 300 years. Then came the Moors, and, in two pitched battles, smote the Gothic Christian power to the earth; and, like a hurricane from the African coast, rushed up from the south, and never stayed its destructive course till the crescent had supplanted the cross on every tower in Spain. The Moors were lords of Spain just seven centuries. Gradually the crescent waned, as the Catholic Christian kings recovered strength, until St. Ferdinand captured Cordova, in 1235, and Ferdinand and Isabella completed the work at Granada, on the third day of the year 1492, and the last of the Moorish kings fled from the Alhambra.
AWAY down in the south-west corner of France, on the Bay of Biscay, was a hamlet on a rock-bound coast, which has of late years suddenly sprung into the notice of the world. The sunshine of imperial favor ripened the modest bud of a humble village into a flower of remarkable beauty. What was a short time since quite unknown, is now the fashionable watering-place of France. Selected by the late Emperor as his autumnal resort, he built a handsome chateau, and named it Eugénie , and thus made the fortune of Biarritz.
Here we spent a few days of rest after a long and wearying journey. The coast is dangerous. The bay is rough to a degree that has become a proverb. An attempt was making under government direction to construct a breakwater, so as to enclose a “harbor of refuge,” and one is greatly needed. A process, new to me, but perhaps common, was going on: that of building rocks, or blocks, to make the projecting pier. Thousands of square feet of rock are here in the hills, but, for some reason, it is preferred to form a concrete mass with stone and cement. These are made in cubes of six or eight feet, with two grooves underneath them, and when they have stood long enough to be proof against water, levers are thrust under them, a derrick hoists them upon a platform which is moved on a railway to the pier, where they are launched off into 7 the deep. The fury of the waves at this point, especially in rough weather, is frightful. The new breakwater was recently swept away. Two or three workmen were caught by the waves rushing higher than was expected, and the poor fellows were carried off into a deeper ocean. This terrified the others, and they declined to expose themselves to such dangers. The priests came to the rescue. They set up an image of the Virgin on an overhanging rock. She looks down benignly on the work and the workmen. Not one has been swept away since she stood there!! Confidence is restored. The breakwater is gradually extending. It will cost an immense sum, and if the Virgin is so successful in saving the lives of the landsmen in building it, one would think she might just as easily save the sailors, and so render the harbor unnecessary.
On this stormy coast, where the surf breaks over huge rocks, and sometimes rushes curiously through them by passages worn in ages of incessant roll, there are several coves where the beach slopes gradually to the sea, and the smooth sand floor furnishes delightful bathing grounds. Here, in the season, the court used to disport itself in other robes than those of royalty, and among the crowds of fashionable people, who in fantastic deshabille indulge in the ocean bath, were daily seen the Emperor and Empress and the remarkable boy who astonished the mayor by being the son of an Emperor when only ten years of age!
A courier, or travelling servant, is usually more of a nuisance than assistance, but I had to have one. He had the Spanish name of Antanazio, was of course familiar with the language, and he spoke French also, but not a word of English. He was a half devout Catholic, and professed to be very discriminating in his faith, rejecting many of the notions of his countrymen, and swallowing others without a strain. He was a big fellow, so big that he could easily have taken me under one arm and my companion on the 8 other, and marched into or out of Spain at any moment. He was the terror of the cabmen and porters and waiters, bullying, swearing, and pushing his way through the thickest of the fight, in those struggles that attend every arrival of a passenger in any part of the world. He was just about as honest as the race to which he belongs. Every traveller thinks his own courier a pattern of honesty. I have had them in a dozen different countries, and never yet was able to put the word honest into the certificate which they craved at the end of the journey. Some are better than others. Any one of them is worse than none, if you have a slight knowledge of the country. Antanazio was in league with every hotel man to get as much out of us as he could, and he made up for his frauds on a large scale by an excess of zeal to save a few coppers for us when a poor porter or sacristan was to be paid for service. The gnat and the camel were familiar to Antanazio. Yet he was one of the best couriers to be found, and he shall have the benefit of this notice.
Just before we leave France to go into Spain we pass a village, here mentioned only to cite an eloquent epigram inscribed around the dial of the clock on its tower: “ Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat .” Even so; each flying moment wounds: the last slays. And after quitting the Hendaye station, we dash across the river Bidassoa, which divides the two kingdoms. It would take us the rest of the day merely to read the history that invests this crossing with interest for all time. A little dry spot is in the bed of the river. There kings and queens and generals have met to settle affairs of state as on neutral ground, and the petty patch has come to be called the Island of Conference. Here, in the middle of the dividing river, Louis XIV. of France had his first meeting with Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, and they were married in the cathedral of St. Jean de Luz on the French side of the river. On 9 the same spot the kings of France and Spain met in 1463 to negotiate; and here too, in 1645, Isabella the daughter of Henry IV. was exchanged for Anna of Austria, the one to be the wife of the king of Spain, and the other of France. In 1526, Francis I., who was a prisoner of Charles V., was here given up, and his two sons accepted as hostages in his stead. We go thousands of miles to visit a spot that has thus been made sacred and famous, yet one can hardly tell why he looks with interest upon ground so sanctified. The grass and the weeds grow just as freely, and the birds are as careless in their songs, and the water flows on as it always flows; but still no thoughtful traveller can pass such landmarks in the march of great events, without pausing to observe the effect which those events have had on the history of the world. And this is one of the greatest objects before us as we enter and traverse Spain. It is a land of history: of romance too; and perhaps both are equally interesting. For every line we cross, and every city and province we visit, is rich in association, even if the land is now but a great sepulchre of great peoples.
And we were in Spain. On the northern frontier, and in instant contact with the people of France, is a race that is Spanish only in name, and hardly that; a race that has, through all the mutations of government in this unstable country, maintained a sort of independence, with rights and privileges, manners and customs so peculiar to themselves, that they may be said to be in Spain, but not of Spain.
On the anniversary of the death of one of their number, the friends gather at the grave, and offer to the departed gifts of bread and fruit, as if they required supplies of food for the endless journey in another world. On the holidays, which are many in a year, they are wild in the dance, with the tambourine and bagpipe and castanet, being far more demonstrative in the height of their excitement than the more southern inhabitants of Spain. They are a proud 10 race, and more proud of their ancestry than any thing else, the poorest peasant among the hills displaying on the door of his hut a coat of arms, and claiming descent from some ancient and illustrious house. As a race they have no trouble in reckoning their pedigree back to Tubal and Noah, and unless your tree of genealogy has branches springing out of a trunk that bears the name of Adam, these people are far ahead of you in the line of their ancestry.
They occupy the Basque Provinces, three divisions, small in extent, lying among the Pyrenees and on the Bay of Biscay. They are probably lineal descendants of the first settlers of Spain, and may be correct in their boast that they are not tainted with Roman or Moorish or Gothic-German blood. They still speak a language so strange and so formidable to a foreigner that it is said no one has been able to master it. There is a tradition among them that the devil himself spent five years in studying it, and was able to learn three words only. But after much inquiry I could not trace this tradition to any reliable source. In fact, it is said that one or two bold and persevering scholars have actually made some inroads into the language, but the discoveries made were a very poor reward for the time and labor spent.
Into this new yet ancient country we enter at once, for it is the northern gateway of Spain. At the outset of our journey we must “change cars,” for the Spanish government, in granting license for a railroad to enter its domains, refused to allow it to be made of the same width with that of France, as it would in that case afford to the French facilities for invasion in case of war! The idea is very characteristic of Spain. And the same stupidity that dictates such an impediment to travel forgets that every train of passengers coming in from the north is an invasion that is just as fatal to the regime of Spain as would be another 11 incursion of Goths or Gauls. Ideas, rather than arms, work revolutions now-a-days.
The mountains have stretched themselves across this frontier to the verge of the ocean, and on our right as we go south is a narrow pass between two precipitous hills, and thus a safe and easily defended path for ships is made. Within is a snug harbor, where the largest fleet may lie unseen, and unreached by the storms at sea. Out of this little port once sailed a man whose name is dear to the American heart; for in the days that tried the souls of our fathers La Fayette came here into Spain and took passage to the Western world, to give his sword and his fortune and his life to the cause of liberty. A little farther on, a high castle-crowned hill defends the city of St. Sebastian. It is the first place of any importance after entering Spain. Being so near to France, and so easy of access by rail, it is common for Englishmen and others to take a trip to St. Sebastian, from Biarritz, which is only two or three hours distant, and then they can say they have been to Spain. There is nothing of interest here to attract the traveller. The Duke of Wellington, after losing 5,000 men in storming it, drove out the French, and when his army got possession of the town, they sacked it, set it on fire, and enacted such scenes of wild debauchery as are not remembered without a blush of shame after the lapse of more than half a century. To please visitors from the north, and to make their town a fashionable resort in the season, the people of St. Sebastian have a bull-ring, and exhibit on a small scale the national entertainment of a weekly bull-fight. For it must not be supposed that Spanish blood only is delighted with this savage sport. The French love to see blood; and the English, whose highest national sport is the prize-fight; and Americans, who have been known to allow a prize-fighter to be sent to their national Congress,—all take great pleasure in seeing horses, bulls, and men, in one grand mêlée , wounded, 12 bleeding, dying; and the fairest of some of the most delicate little women of these Christian countries clap their hands when the bull gets the advantage and tosses his bleeding victim into the air.
We are now in the midst of the mountains. The road gradually rises as we advance, and frequently makes its way through the heart of the hills. The valleys lie sweetly far below. If the road followed the line of the valleys it might be exposed to frequent injury by floods. And as this range must be crossed, it is better to make the ascent as easy as possible. We might be in Switzerland, so like it are these farms on the hill-sides and in the valleys; the sounds that break on the ear are the same: the houses scattered in cosy nooks, or clustered in little villages which the church crowns with a blessing as of heaven. The oxen have their head and necks covered with a sheepskin or a woollen blanket to protect them from the rain. They drag a cart of which the wheels are a solid block of wood secured with a tire. There has been a fair to-day in some one of the villages, and men and women are going home, leading cattle they have purchased. The men are well formed, athletic, straight, and good-looking. The women are a superior race, and even when leading a calf the peasant woman steps proudly along as if she were entering her drawing-room. Their hair is their glory, worn pendant on their backs. Of their moral and mental culture little is known, as they have slight intercourse with the outer world. From the beginning they have had a government of their own, sometimes being cut up into republics, and managing the most of matters in their own way. Even when they have claimed their own congress, and tariff, and army, the Spanish government has thought it the part of discretion to humor them. When emerging from these provinces into Castile, our luggage was searched to find any tobacco we might be smuggling: for this is one of the privileges of the Basque Provinces, that 13 they may import tobacco free of duty, but it is under a tariff the moment we pass beyond. In this region the Indian corn of our own country is the principal production. Peaches, apples, and cherries are abundant. Iron mines are worked, and furnaces are frequently seen in full blast. Cloth and paper mills are in operation. The inhabitants have an energy and enterprise far superior to that of the people farther south. Many of them become seamen. Some have made discoveries in distant seas. One of the most peculiar of their ideas, and one that may account for the lofty bearing of their women, is, that the right of primogeniture exists among them, but it applies to the first-born child, whether son or daughter! This often places the woman at the head of the house, so that she can say, as few women elsewhere can say, “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own.”
Property is very widely diffused among the people; farms seldom comprise more than ten acres, so that there can be no great practical distinctions among them on account of wealth. They divide their farms with hedges instead of fences or walls, while in the more southern parts of Spain they put up no fences of any sort, but merely mark the bounds of land with a stone, which cannot be moved without incurring a curse.
In a charming valley, among hills clothed with chestnut-trees, and the meadows with orchards of apples and pears, lies the village of Tolosa, and farther on we rested at Vitoria, a famous city, the capital of the Province of Alava, and celebrated as the scene of a great battle between the English and the French in 1813. The Duke of Wellington led the British and beat the French under Joseph Buonaparte, who fled in such disorder and haste that all the pictures he had stolen in Spain, and five millions of dollars, fell into the hands of the Duke.
We are now leaving the Basque Provinces: Miranda is 14 the first town in Castile at which we stop. An immense railroad station is in progress of erection, showing the expectation at least of a great amount of business. We hope the hope may be realized. Crossing the river Zadorra, and now the Ebro, and along the Oroncillo, we are again in the midst of the wildest and grandest mountain scenery, as we take our iron way through the frightful gorges of Pancorbo. And even here the legends of Spain begin to invest the crags and ruined castles with the interest of romance. For on these heights are the remnants of the castle where Roderick, the last king of the Goths, brought the beautiful Florinda, whom he saw as David saw Bathsheba, and seeing loved, not wisely but too well, and loving, lost his crown, his honor, his kingdom, and his life.
NOTHING purely Spanish comes in sight till we get to Burgos. This old city is half-way from the frontier to Madrid, and is just so slow, sleepy, and sluggish a town as one should see to get a correct impression of Spain at the start. About a thousand years ago, Diego Porcelos, a knight of Castile, had a beautiful daughter, Sulla Bella, who was loved and won by a German, and they founded this city, calling it from a German Burg , a fortified place, Burgos. For many long years it was independent, governed by a council. Afterwards, Gonzales was made the governor, as Count of Castile, who and his heirs reigned until, under Ferdinand I., in 1067, by a happy marriage, the crowns of Leon and Castile were fused into one.
BRIDGE, GATEWAY, AND CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS.
The legendary hero of Spain, whose exploits are only less than those of Hercules, was born in Burgos, and what is more and better, his bones are here in the Town Hall; and if any doubt is entertained of the fact that he actually lived and died and was a wonderful man, between the dates of his birth and death, such doubts ought to be dispelled by a sight which I had of an old brass-bound, mouldering chest, sacredly preserved in one of the inner and holy chambers of the cathedral, and called the coffer of the Cid. Once on a time the Cid had occasion to borrow a large sum of money of two Jewish bankers in Burgos, and he left with them as security this trunk, with, as he said , all his jewels and gold in it. He did not pay the money when it was due, and the 16 chest being opened by the lenders was found full only of sand! It was thought in those days a merit to cheat a Jew, and the Romanists show their estimate of the trick to this day by keeping the swindling coffer among their precious 18 relics. But it is hardly probable that a Jew ever lived who would lend money without first seeing the security, and the story therefore lacks probability. However this may be, we are now in the city of the Cid, and though a Christian knight, he had read the words of the Prophet of the Moor,—“There are three sorts of lies which will not be taken into account at the last judgment: 1st, One told to reconcile two persons at variance. 2d, That which a husband tells when he promises any thing to his wife; and 3d, A chieftain’s word in time of war.” Such is the morality of Mahomet, and there is not a little of the same Jesuitism under other names.
The Cid.
The city has 25,000 inhabitants, and one of the most splendid cathedrals of Europe; but not a hotel that is decent. We went to the best, and its entrance was strong with the smell of the stables. The first flight of steps inside was littered with dust and straw, and it looked as if we were to be led to a manger, which word is, indeed, the same with the French salle à manger , a dining-room. Yet this proved to be as fair a hotel as Spain at present offers to its friends from abroad. They are all inferior to second-rate hotels in France or Switzerland, and many that profess to be first-class are execrable. The charges are higher than in better houses in countries where living is dearer, so that the business of entertaining strangers in Spain is an organized imposition. The roads are now free from robbers who formerly infested them and made travelling dangerous. The robbers have evidently left the highway and gone to keeping the hotels. They still rob travellers, with less risk and trouble than in the olden time.
An Englishman by the name of Maurice, being high in the favor of Ferdinand, the saint and hero, laid the foundation, A. D. 1221, of the Burgos cathedral, which fairly challenges comparison with any or all of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in the world. Having 19 been built in successive periods, and these at long distances from each other, there is a want of harmony in the parts, but this is observed only by the professional eye, while to others, and especially on one who enters this first of the great edifices of Spain, its interior bursts with a blaze of grandeur covered with beauty, that fairly dazzles while it awes and delights him. And after having visited and leisurely studied half a dozen others, including those of Toledo and Seville, I regard the cathedral of Burgos as exhibiting a degree of perfection in detail, an elaborate execution to adorn and embellish a sanctuary, not equalled by any of its rivals in Spain.
And it is to Spain that we must come to see what the art and consecrated wealth of princes and priests can do to build temples in honor of God. Italy has nothing like them. St. Peter’s is the largest Christian church in the world, and perhaps more labor and money have been expended upon it. But as a Christian church it is a failure, without and within. Not so with any of these magnificent monuments of human power and devotion. The towers of this, at Burgos, with their graceful, open-worked pinnacles, spring up as if seeking the sky. The gates are grand, and surrounded and crowned with bas reliefs . Around the towers are seventy statues, of prophets and apostles, and over the transept are twenty-four life-size statues of female saints, each covered with a canopy, as guardian angels on this house of prayer. Moses and Aaron, in stone, stand by one of the doors, with Peter and Paul, and in the vestibule is the Saviour, and around him the four evangelists are writing the holy gospels, while at least fifty statues, apostles, angels with candlesticks, seraphs, and cherubs, add to the ornament of this one gate.
It is quite impracticable to convey by words, and it is a fact that drawings or photographs of interiors fail to convey an idea of the view which one meets on entering a vast 20 cathedral. The impression is on a devout mind, whether of the same faith with that professed by the ministers at these altars or not, the impression is one of solemnity and sublimity. When the enlightened stranger comes near to study the wretched additions which superstition has made to the simplicity of Christian worship as established by its founder, his taste and principles may be shocked and revolted by what he sees and hears in gorgeous and glorious cathedrals. But these are abuses that have crept in: fungi on the trunks of grand old forest trees, under whose branches it is a delight to sit and think of him who dwells in a nobler temple not made with hands. Three hundred feet long, and two hundred feet and more wide within, and chapels yet beyond, each one large enough for a church, and two hundred feet to the roof, which is supported by vast pillars of stone, and each one of them wrought elaborately with garlands, and fruits, and images of angels, and historic scenes and incidents in Scripture,—such is the first grand view that lies before us, as we enter the gates of this cathedral in Burgos. It is in the form of the Latin cross, and at the intersection, the crucero , as it is called in Spanish, the effect of the vaulted dome, and of the whole minute and elegant workmanship, is so exquisite that the Emperor Charles V. is reported to have said it should be placed under glass, and Philip II. pronounced it the work rather of angels than men. I could discern nothing worthy of such exaggerated eulogy, while admiring the harmonious proportions and the graceful combinations that enhance the effect of elaborate sculpture and ingenious decorations.
Four massive columns, embellished with allegorical sculptures, form the transept, and above them the main arches spring. Angels bear aloft a banner, inscribed, “I will praise thee in thy temple, and I will glorify thy name, thou whose works are miracles.”
Just here, for we were coming toward the high altar, 21 Antanazio dropped upon his knees, on the marble floor. A little bell had been rung, and all the Catholics in the cathedral bent to the ground as the host was elevated for their adoration in the celebration of the mass. We stood before the high altar, resplendent above and about it with wrought silver and gold and rich carving and sculpture, in which the life and death of the blessed Saviour are inscribed in mute yet expressive symbols. In the choir are more than a hundred stalls or seats of carved walnut, each one of them an elaborate work of art, rich with figures of men and beasts, the virgin and saints in martyrdom and in glory; and one of these saints is astride of the devil, in memory of the fact that the devil did carry this saint from Spain to Rome in one night. That’s better time than any of the Spanish railroads can make.
We were led by a kind sacristan through the various chapels, all rich in tombs of costly workmanship, and some containing relics which, to the believer in their virtue, are of priceless value; one of these precious treasures being a statue of Christ on the cross, which we were expected to behold with deep reverence. It is asserted and believed to have been carved by Nicodemus just after he had buried the Saviour. It is, therefore, an authentic likeness; and if any doubt existed of its being a genuine work, it is removed by the facts that the hair, the beard, the eyelashes even, and the thorns, are all natural, real ; that it sweats every Friday; that it sometimes actually bleeds; and that it has performed many miracles. It would have been more impressive on my unbelieving mind if it had not been girt about with a red petticoat!
THE ESCORIAL.
The castle has a history in which the names of all the great warriors of the last thousand years have a part; it has been the prison of some kings, and the bridal-chamber of queens, and the birth-place of more. In modern times Napoleon conquered it. And what is more remarkable, 22 Wellington tried to drive out the French, and failed. It is now a heap of ruins; for when the French abandoned it they blew it up, but so bunglingly that some three hundred of them went up with it. The explosion destroyed the painted windows of the cathedral, an irreparable loss.
There is nothing in Burgos to see but the cathedral; and that is worth going to Spain to see, though you may have to put up at and with a Burgos tavern.
Philip II. came to the throne of Spain in 1556, less than twenty years before the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day in France, and in the same century with the Reformation led on by Luther. His history and his character are familiar to the world. Cold, cruel, bigoted, intolerant, morose, gloomy, superstitious, the grandson of a woman who was known by the name of Crazy Jane, and who earned the title, the son of the great Emperor of Germany, Charles V., who was also Charles I. of Spain, this Philip II., thus descended and thus endowed, was less a king than a monk, and in the cloister or the cell was more at home than on the throne. He was the husband of Bloody Mary of England, and, like her, verily thought to please God by persecuting the saints and mortifying himself. Perhaps his queer grandmother had put the idea of a palace and a monastery and a tomb into his head. Perhaps his father, in the gloomy hours when he meditated retirement and abdication of his sovereignty, inspired the son with this strange purpose. Or, more likely, the conception with him was original, and as no monarch, before him or since, had such a heart under the guide of such a head, it is only just to give him all the credit of devising and achieving one of the most stupendous follies and gigantic monuments that was ever executed by the hands of men.
The Spaniards reckon the Escorial as the eighth wonder of the world!
About twenty-five miles north of Madrid, in the midst of 24 the dreariest wilderness of barren, rocky, all but uninhabitable hills, a region where no beauty of scenery cheers the eye, no silver river winds along through fertile vales, no verdant slopes are covered with grazing herds, and no forests with their cool shades invite the tired traveller or the weary citizen to seek repose,—here, in the last of all places for such an edifice, is placed the Escorial , the largest and grandest edifice in Spain, and the most remarkable building now standing on the earth. What Egypt had when Karnak and Thebes were in their prime, what Babylon and Nineveh knew in the days of their now buried glory, we have but faint knowledge. This house covers a square of five hundred thousand feet! It is about 750 feet long, and 600 feet wide. It is a royal palace. It is a monastery. It is the sepulchre of the royal family of Spain. It is a church; and in that church, the chapel of this strange house, there is more wealth lavished on the pulpits and altars than on any other that I have seen, in this or any other country. Yet all this is in a wilderness, far away from cities and the abodes of men who might be supposed to admire and enjoy such grandeur,—a temple in a desert, a palace and a sepulchre.
Passing on by the rail from Burgos, we might stop at Valladolid, once the most renowned of all the cities of Spain, now so utterly decayed as to be of interest only to antiquarians. Here Ferdinand and Isabella were married in 1469. Here Columbus, the worn and weary, died in his own house in 1506. Here he slept in death six years, and then his bones were removed to Seville, and again to Cuba, that they might rest in the New World he found. Philip II., whose Escorial we are going to see, was born here in Valladolid, and after he grew to manhood had the pleasure of seeing at one time fourteen Protestants, and thirteen at another, burnt alive, in the Grand Square of the city: a most edifying spectacle, which strengthened his faith so 25 much that he afterwards dedicated his mighty structure to the good St. Lawrence, who was broiled to death on a gridiron, enduring his torments with so much fortitude that he said to his executioners, “I am done on this side, perhaps you had better turn me over,”—whence comes the expression, “done to a turn.”
Philip II. made Madrid the capital of his kingdom, holding his court there or at the Escorial, at his pleasure, for they were only a few hours apart.
It is a long but pleasant walk from the station to the palace, and it is better to stroll along the shaded avenues, resting at times on the solid stone seats, looking upward at the solitary pile ahead, and musing on the wonderful dead past; the pomp and pageantry, the vast processions of priests and kings and countless armies of Spain, of France, of England, that have marched up this same street, in triumph, in penitential grief, or in funeral array. Away from the world, the world has often come hither, under the many garbs the world wears, according as it is in glory or in shame. Entering the grand quadrangle by the chief gate, the colossal edifice presents its central front and the two lateral projections in one view; the main façade is adorned with statues of the principal personages in Old Testament history. Crossing the court, paved with great granite blocks, we enter, and the massive walls, the cold damp halls, gloomy in their naked, solid grandeur, make us feel that we are entering a fortress, and not a palace. It would be impossible to find your way without a guide. There are sixteen courts within, and out of each of them long passages lead to eighty staircases, and up these we may go, if we have time, to twelve thousand doors, and look out of two thousand six hundred windows, and worship at forty altars!! You wish to be excused from such climbing and kneeling. Come, then, with me at once into the church. It is more than 300 feet long, and 230 feet wide, 26 and 320 feet high: of granite all; its columns are majestic in their proportions, severe in Doric simplicity, supporting twenty-four arches, so beautifully sprung that, wherever you stand, the eye takes in the whole at a glance. The pulpits surpass, in the splendor of their finish, any thing in Italy. The richest, variegated, and most precious marbles, used as freely as though they were common wood, are adorned with gold and silver, strangely in contrast with the severity of the church itself. The altar is reached by a flight of several steps, and on the right, as we stand in front of it, a window opens into a little chamber, which we sought with more interest than any other apartment of this remarkable structure. We went out of the church and into the room. It was scarcely ten feet by six in dimensions; but it was the favorite closet, the study and the bedchamber of the monarch who built the whole. This was all he wanted for himself. It was in sight and hearing of the service at the high altar. At midnight and before daybreak he could rise from his couch, and join in the service of the church. I sat down in the plain old chair, by the table, the same that he used, and put up my feet on the camp-stool that often held his diseased and agonized limbs, and looked down from the little window on the priests and people in the church below. And here in this room death came and called for Philip II. For long months he had suffered anguish not less than that he had inflicted on better men than he. Let us leave it for others to say if like Herod he was smitten for his sins, and destroyed with the same disease. But when he saw that his end was near, at his order his servants bore him on a couch through the palace, and the monastery and the church, that his poor dying eyes might rest once more on all that he had done, and then they brought him back to his lonely, comfortless cell, and left him to die. It was on a September Sabbath morning, in 1598, while listening to the service at this altar, and holding in his hand the same 27 crucifix that fixed the dying eyes of the Emperor his father, that Philip yielded his spirit into the hands of a just as well as merciful God!
We left this sad chamber, and descending a flight of steps made of precious stones, the walls lined with beautiful, polished marbles, we stood in a subterranean chapel, a mausoleum, shelves on each of the eight sides, and on each shelf a bronze sarcophagus, and in each coffin a dead king or queen. The name of each occupant is inscribed on the outer shell. One of the queens scratched her name on her coffin with a pair of scissors before she was put in. She could not have well done it after. There is an altar in this dungeon, and here the late queen of Spain, who is very devout in her way, came once a year and had a service at midnight. It adds nothing to the solemnity to have mass here in the night, for at noonday we had to hold candles in our hands to see our way in and out.
The Sagrario was a more interesting apartment than this. It has some fine paintings. I valued them more than the 7,400 relics which are here preserved with pious care, including the entire bodies of eight or ten saints, twelve dozen whole heads, and three hundred legs and arms. It once had—but the fortunes of war have deprived the house of the treasure—one of the bars on which St. Lawrence was burnt, and one of his feet, with a piece of coal still sticking between its toes! but the coal and the toes are lost in toto .
One of the priests, who was leading a company of strangers visiting the place, overheard me asking for the Cellini crucifix, and immediately took us to the choir, and opened the door of a closet in which this remarkable work is carefully preserved. It is a Carrara marble statue of Christ on the cross, and marked by the great Benvenuto himself with his name and the date, 1562. He was the first who made a crucifix in marble, and the patient toil and 28 great genius expended on this work have made it justly esteemed as his master-piece of sculpture.
Yet have I alluded to but one or two out of a thousand things that fix the attention, and impress one rather with astonishment than delight. I have not even mentioned the library, which is the crown of the whole, designed to be the repository of all learning, and in spite of all its sufferings by violence, it is still rich in rare and valuable books and manuscripts. The cases are of ebony and cedar. Jasper and porphyry tables stand through the hall, about 200 feet long, and allegorical paintings adorn the ceilings.
It was refreshing to get out of it, after walking through the palace and the cloisters, and to enjoy the warm sunshine beyond the gloomy walls. Two or three cottages have been built among the groves planted here, and it seems a mercy to children to provide a more cheery home for them than a sepulchral palace could be, though of wrought gold.
A VALET-DE-PLACE who was leading us to church on Sunday morning in Madrid, spoke very fair English, and I asked him where he had learned it. He said, “At the missionary’s school in Constantinople.” He was quite a polyglot, professing to be able to speak seven languages fluently. It was interesting to meet a youth who knew our missionaries there, and entertained a great respect for his old teachers,—and it gave us an idea, too, of the indirect influence which such schools must be exerting, when youth are trained in them, and afterwards embark in other callings than those that are religious in their purpose.
He led us to the Prussian ambassador’s, where the chaplain preaches in the French language. No Protestant preaching was then allowed in Madrid,—none, indeed, in Spain,—except under the flag of another government. The ambassador, or the consul, had the right, of course, to regulate his own household as he pleases; and, under this necessary privilege , he has, if he is so disposed, a chaplain, and divine service on Sunday, when his doors are opened to all who choose to attend. The practical working of it is that a regular congregation comes to be established under each flag, if there are so many persons of that country and of a religious tendency as to make it important. In most of the great capitals of Europe there are people of other countries resident for business, health, or pleasure, and they find a place of worship in their own tongue.
30 The Germans resident in Madrid speak the French language, as well as their own, and the present chaplain preaches in French. He is an earnest, excellent man, and his pulpit abilities would make him greatly useful in a wider sphere than this. In an upper chamber, that would seat fifty persons, a little congregation, not more than twelve or fifteen, had come together to hear the Word. The desk, or pulpit, was habited after the fashion in Germany, with black hangings, embroidered neatly by the hands of the wife of the Prussian ambassador, and with the words in French, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.” I was told that on Christmas and Easter festivals of the church some two or three hundreds of German Christians come to church and to the communion; but the rest of the year their spiritual wants do not require the weekly ordinances, and the congregation rarely exceeds thirty people.
We went after church to the old Palace of the Inquisition. It is now converted into dwellings. Over the main entrance was the inscription, common all over these foreign countries, as in some parts of our own, “ Insured against Fire .” The poor victims who in former years were dragged under that portal would have been glad to read such words, if they could be interpreted into an assurance that they were to be safe from the fire of an auto da fe .
The Spanish Inquisition affords the saddest story in the annals of the human race. Whatever the name or creed of the persecutor,—Jew or Gentile, Roman, Greek, Protestant, or Mahometan,—the saddest of all possible facts is this, that man has put to torture and to death his fellow-man on account of his religious opinions. Let God be praised that in all the earth men now may worship him in their own way, with none to molest or make them afraid.
And it is very well to bear in mind that persecution has its spirit, and some of its power, even where the victims are 31 by law insured against fire. In the press and in the pulpit the venom of bigotry and the bitterness of intolerance may be poured on the heads of those who are guilty of other opinions than ours, and in God’s sight such persecution may be as offensive as the rack and boot of the Inquisition. The spirit of the Master rebukes the use of the sword, even in the hands of Peter, to cut off a servant’s ear, and the same spirit forbids us to be uncharitable towards the meanest of those who have not the light of the grace to see as we see, or to defend Christ in our way.
They have no cathedral in Madrid, but their churches are many, and on Sunday morning they, women especially, go to church. The Spaniards are more devout than the Italians. There is a proverb that to go to Rome is to disbelieve. The people in Spain have not seen Romanism as it has been seen in Italy, until the popular mind is sick of it. But they make short work in Spain of their devotions.
The Prado is their park, on the skirts of the town. And this is not enough for them on Sundays. We saw the crowds pouring out towards one of the gates, some in carriages, but most of them on foot,—men, women, and children, hundreds, thousands, in holiday attire,—and we followed. Beyond the Alcala gate, near which is the bull-ring, half a mile into the country, we came to the meadows over which these pleasure-seeking Castillians had spread themselves to enjoy their national and favorite pastime. A little later in the season, when the weather is warmer, thousands of these people would stop at the bull-ring, and see the battle of men and beasts. It is too cool as yet, and the bulls do not fight well except in hot weather. But it is not too cool to dance out of doors, and for this divertisement these thousands have come. On the wide meadows there is not a house, not a shanty, not a shed or booth. We have passed on the way scores of wine-shops; and there the people can resort if they choose. But on the grounds 32 there is nothing to be had but the pure and blessed air. The people are distributed in groups all over the plain. The grass is green. The sun, a winter sun, is kind and genial. The city lies in full view, with palaces and domes and pinnacles. And in the distance, but in this blazing sun and lucid atmosphere apparently very near, long ranges of mountains stand covered with snow, white, pure, glistening like silver in the sunlight, and forming a magnificent background to the gay picture at our feet. In the centre of each of these many groups a dozen, more or less, of young men and women are dancing to music. This is furnished by one, two, or three musicians, strolling bands, with guitars and violins. Often one is an old man, blind. His wife and daughter are with him, with their instruments. The airs are not wild, not even lively, as compared with those of Italy. But they are spirited, and sometimes familiar to a foreign ear; for the airs of music, like the airs of heaven, travel all around the world. The dances are pretty and modest, singularly tame, and far from being as full of frolic and abandon as one would expect to see in the out-of-door amusements of the common people. For these are the lower classes only. It is the pastime of the sons and daughters of toil, and perhaps want. They were not ill dressed, and most of them were well dressed. But they appeared to be the class of people who had but this day in the week for pleasure, and were now seeking and finding it in a way that cost them little or nothing. More were looking on than danced. Yet the sets changed frequently, and the circle widened as the numbers of dancers grew, and there was always room for more; for the meadows were wide, and the heaven was a roof large enough to cover them all.
And the strangest part of this performance is yet to be mentioned; more than half the men in this frolic of the fields were soldiers of the regular army, in their uniforms, 33 without arms, enjoying a half holiday. They and all the rest, men and women, seemed to be as happy as happy could be. If we had thought the people of Spain, and especially of Madrid, where the government is felt and seen more severely and nearly than elsewhere, to be gloomy, sullen, discontented, miserable, and ready to rise in revolt, such a thought would be put to rout by seeing these soldiers and others, men and women, thousands and thousands, making themselves so easily happy of a Sunday afternoon.
In one of the circles of dancers two young men, better dressed than the rest, were either the worse for liquor, or were feigning to be tipsy. As the other dancers paid no attention to them, and let them amuse themselves in their own way, it is quite probable they were playing the fool. These were the only persons in that multitude, of the lower orders of the city, who gave any sign of having been drinking any thing that could intoxicate. There were scores of wine-shops on the street, within the easy walk of all who wished liquors. It was necessary to pass them going and coming to and from the city. And thousands doubtless “took something to drink,” both going and coming. The young men would treat the girls, and, of course, all would have as much wine as they wished. For it is almost as cheap as water,—cheaper than water in New York perhaps; for there the tax that somebody pays for the use of Croton is something, but here in Spain wine is so cheap that what was left of last year’s vintage has often been emptied on the ground, or used instead of water to mix mortar with! Yet drunkenness is not one of the common vices of Spain.
And so passed my first Sabbath in Spain, worshipping in French with a dozen Christians in the morning, and looking at thousands of the people dancing on the green in the afternoon.
Three days before Lent begins the people give themselves 34 up to the wildest kind of frolic, with a looseness of manner that to a grave and thoughtful foreigner unused to such scenes at home is at first sight exceedingly foolish, and then very stupid. The Carnival is a carne-vale, a farewell to flesh; a grand celebration of the approach of Lent, or the season when lentiles , beans or vegetables only, are to be eaten for forty days. As the people see the time coming when for more than a month their religion requires them in a very special manner to abjure the world, the flesh, and the devil, it seems to be their idea to give the last three days of liberty to the enjoyment of these three forms of mammon-worship. If afterwards they served the Lord with half the zeal of these three days of devil-worship, they would be the most pious people on the earth. But to one whose religious prejudices are quite vivid against the nonsense of a Catholic carnival, it seems the queerest way in the world to get ready for serving God by plunging headlong into a scene of mad revelry that utterly abjures all sense and reason, and converts an entire city for three days into a pandemonium.
Yet it is all in such perfectly good humor, so free from riot and violence and drunkenness, that the only fault to be found with it is simply this, that the whole community make fools of themselves. The Romans had a proverb, “It is well to play the fool sometimes,” and perhaps it is. But when the whole town takes leave of its senses, and goes frolicking day after day, if it is a good thing, it is too much of a good thing, and that spoils it all.
Our windows look out upon the Puerta del Sol, the great square of the city. From it radiate the eight chief streets, and through it every moment the tide of life is flowing. Now it is the great centre of the carnival. Along the streets are seen parading small companies of men in masks and fantastic costumes, with all sorts of musical instruments, making harsh melodies as they march. Two or 35 three of the set are constantly soliciting gifts from those they meet, or holding a cap to catch money thrown to them from the people in the windows and balconies, who are looking down to see the sport. Some of these rangers are women in men’s clothes; more are men in petticoats and crinoline, ill concealing their sex, which a close shaven chin and hard features too plainly reveal. In this disguise, great liberties are taken. A young woman stops a man on the sidewalk, claps him on the shoulder, asks him for money, perhaps chucks him under the chin, and sometimes more demonstrative still, she throws her arms around his neck and gives him an affectionate salute in the broad light of day on the most public and crowded thoroughfare. Even this boldness is taken in good part, and seldom or never leads to any quarrel. The men were polite to the women. In no case did I see any rudeness offered by a person in male attire to a female on the street. The maskers were only out in hundreds, while the others, looking on and enjoying, were thousands on thousands. These were in the usual dress of ladies and gentlemen. They expected to find walking somewhat rough, but they were prepared for it, and would have been disappointed had it been otherwise. The maskers wore costumes as various as the fancy of the wearers or the makers could invent them. Some were clothed in white from head to foot, with stripes of red or black; their faces painted white like ghosts, or with horns to look as much like devils as possible. Many were imitation negroes, and this seemed to be a fashionable attire, as if the African were popular among the Spaniards, who once had a great horror of the Moors. Some wore a fantastic head-gear that excited shouts of laughter as they passed. One man strode along with a false head five times the life size, so nicely fitted to his shoulders that it looked to be a sudden expansion of his head into that of a monster. Solemnly 36 the bearer of this prodigious topknot walked the streets, apparently unconscious of the presence of the little-headed race of beings who were laughing at his swelled head.
Carriages, open, splendid barouches, and some with seated platforms prepared for the purpose, drawn by four or six horses, passed by, with six, eight, and even twelve maskers, all clad in the most inconceivably ludicrous robes, with queer hats and trimmings; and some of them with musical instruments, singing, gesticulating, bowing to the ladies in the windows, and exchanging salutations with the people in the way. The drivers and postilions and footmen were all rigged in livery to match the costumes of the company in the carriage, who thus aped the nobility and even royalty itself in its mockery of stately grandeur. And in the midst of these maskers, carriages with elegant ladies, in full dress for riding, go by, and among them, with his legs hanging over the side of the carriage, is one of the most fantastically got-up maskers, whose outlandish costume and ridiculous situation call out tremendous applause.
On the Prado, the great park of the city, thousands of elegant equipages are out in the afternoon, and the most fashionable people of Madrid are in the frolic. The ladies are loaded with sugar-plums to throw among the maskers, and these gay fellows will rush up to any carriage, leap on the steps, and demand a supply. On the walks, an old dowager in a splendid velvet cloak and dress, masked and representing an ancient belle, got up regardless of expense, attracts marked attention as she displays her fan and feathers, and struts as if in a drawing-room where she imagines herself admired. An old monk hobbles along, as if broken down with age and poverty. A procession of priests mocks at religion itself, in a country where we had thought it a capital crime to make fun of the priesthood.
37 And there goes the Pope himself; a man has actually mounted a hat like the Pope’s, and with white robes and gold lace has made a disguise that tells its story instantly. And the people laugh to see it. Nothing is too sacred nor too dignified to be travestied here. A company of mock soldiers pretend to keep order by making confusion more confounded. By some strange metamorphosis a man has turned himself into a very creditable goose, and waddles along most naturally, having some wires at his command with which he works his bill, his wings, and tail. A bear on horseback rides up, and Bruin is received with bravos. An ox is mounted also on a horse, and then a wolf; and even the devil is represented on horseback, and a woman rides astride behind him and her arms around him, a hideous, incongruous, but exceedingly ludicrous spectacle. Her hoops spread far behind, covering the horse’s hips and tail, so that the figure is half horse, half devil, and the other half woman. One man, as an orang-outang, leads and exhibits another dressed in the same way. Parties of dancers, all in these ridiculous costumes, form a ring and dance the fandango, with castanets and cymbals and guitars, executing the freest flings and giving themselves to the wildest abandon in the public streets. Others, men and women, disguised as if in their night-clothes and ready to go to bed, are wandering about, pretending to be lost, and their appearance is so comical that one almost forgets it is play, and pities the poor wanderers.
But the description is growing more wearisome than the scene itself. Nonsense all, but such nonsense as makes one laugh at first and then feel sad that grown-up men and women can find amusement, day after day, in such infinite folly. And where the religion comes in, it is hard to see. Yet we observe that our American and English friends who have leanings through their own church towards the Church 38 of Rome, take a wonderful interest in the carnival. They have some associations with it, and the fast that follows, that give to all this sport some significance quite incomprehensible to the uncovenanted unbelievers in the outer courts.
WHEN Napoleon, as conqueror of Spain, entered the royal palace of Madrid (it was in 1808, his brother Joseph, the new-made king of Spain, being at his side), the great captain paused on the splendid marble staircase; and, as the magnificence of the mansion burst upon him, he turned to his brother, and said, in his epigrammatic way of putting his thoughts, “My brother, you will be better lodged than I.”
It is far more splendid than the Tuileries, or any palace in France, England, Germany, or Italy. It cost more than five millions of dollars a hundred years ago; and that was a much greater sum of money than now. It has been enlarged and embellished from year to year ever since. When we drove up to the grand court, it was so formidably filled with cavalry that we thought the predicted insurrection was imminent, and the army had been summoned to the defence of the palace. Not at all. These mounted soldiers are only the regular guard. In this inner court, or square, the cavalry, in long line and fierce array, are ready for a fight with the revolutionists, if they are brave enough, or mad enough, to try their hands in a tussle with the troops of government, trained and paid to defend the existing order of things. From the windows of the armory this martial parade was imposing, though there were but a few hundreds of mounted men. The officers were clad in polished steel back and breast plates, which flash brightly in the 40 sun. The uniform is brilliant, and the riding splendid. Artillery companies, with cannon mounted, drawn by horses, manœuvre in the square, crossing and recrossing constantly, under the eye of the royal household. A long line of lounging people look on also; and, as they go and come all day, an impression is certainly insinuated by this military parade that the government is always ready to take care of itself.
THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.
The palace stands on the verge of a height that commands a wide and exciting view of the plains of Castile. The thought of what those plains have seen in the last two thousand years makes them of more than romantic interest to one who takes in the past with the present. What successive tides of conquest have there ebbed and flowed! To know that Charles V. and Napoleon and Wellington have followed one another up those shaded avenues to this summit, with their legions, is enough to invest them with grandeur.
And here in this armory is the very sword that Gonzalo, of Cordova, wore, and the sword with which Ferdinand, the saint and hero, smote the Moors; and the sword of Charles V., and the complete suit of armor which the great emperor often wore, and in which he was painted by Titian; and the suit of armor worn by Boabdil, the last Moorish king who sat on the throne in this Alhambra, and who left it behind, doubtless, when he delivered his sword into the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the foot of the hill on which I am writing. We had thought revolvers a modern invention, but here are elegant pistols, on the same principle, used in the seventeenth century, and now as good as new. A crown, a sword, a helmet, or something else, illustrates the life of all the heroes of Spanish history; and the number of warlike memorials here displayed is about three thousand. How men managed to fight while clad from head to foot in these suits of steel armor is to me, a non-combatant, one 42 of the mysteries of the art of war. We read of tournaments, and—more to be wondered at—of battle-fields, where all the knights are clothed from head to foot in the identical garments that are now before us, or in others made after the same pattern; and how, with such a weight of steel and so constrained in the freedom of action, they could manage to wield their swords and thrust their spears, I do not understand. They were not men of more physical power than our soldiers. Some of them were less than the present average size of men. But they were mighty men with the sword. The Toledo blade was quite equal to that of Damascus; and the helmet was often insufficient to save the brain, when the sword, in a strong hand, came down, cleaving through steel and skull.
Two or three hundred horses stood in the stables; and the grooms are only too happy, for a consideration to be paid at every door, to show these pampered and famous steeds. Each one of them has a name, in large letters, over his head, and on his blanket. Spain has some celebrated breeds of horses, but, like every thing else in Spain, they are run out, and the stock is only kept up by importation. It is so even with the Merino sheep, which belongs to Spain, but would have been extinct ere this, if it had not been perpetuated and improved abroad. You may see five hundred finer horses any pleasant afternoon in the Central Park, in New York, than any one of these pet horses of royalty. But you will never see, I hope, such a wealth and folly of equipage as the hundred carriages, and more sets of harness, and plumes, and liveries, and coachmen’s hats, and velvet saddles, and embroidered hammer-cloths, which fill long apartments, and are shown together with the gilded chairs of state in which the king or queen is borne by hand in processions, and the chariot on which the royal personage is enthroned, with a canopy overhead, trumpeters below, and herald angels above, for the coronation parade. 43 The carriages used by successive monarchs are here preserved in long lines of antiquated grandeur, even to the one in which Crazy Jane, the widow, carried about with her the corpse of her handsome husband, Philip the First. Queer woman that she was, jealous to insanity, she would not let her husband be buried while she lived; and now she lies by his side, down here in Granada, in the cathedral, and her marble effigy gives her an expression so gentle and loving, you would not believe she was ever the victim of the fiercest and meanest passion that makes hell of a woman’s heart.
I have been taking you with me through the palace and armory and royal stables, to give you a type of Spain. The poorest of all the governments, compared with its population and resources, it has these contrasts of wealth and poverty that mark its want of judgment, principle, and power. In the stables is invested a capital of more than half a million of dollars! This prodigality is royal, but also absurd. The people see it, and the world has gone by the age, when gilt trappings and gorgeous pageants struck the multitudes dumb with the reverence of royal glory.
The city of Madrid is well built, and has the appearance of a modern French town. Indeed, it is more French than Spanish in its out-of-door look, and the French language is very largely spoken in the shops and private families of culture. The intercourse now so frequent and ready with France by means of the railway and telegraph, and the abolition of all passport regulations and annoyances, have given the Spanish capital a start, and it will undoubtedly make rapid advancement.
But there is nothing rapid in Spain just yet. Opposite the hotel in Madrid where I was staying, an old building had been torn down to make room for another. Workmen were engaged in removing the debris to renew the foundation. You would suppose that horses and carts, or wheelbarrows and shovels, would be in use. Such modern 44 improvements had not reached the capital of Spain. One man with a broad hoe hauled the dirt into a basket made of grass, holding half a bushel; another man took the basket and carried it a rod to another man, who handed it to another a few feet above him, and he emptied it on a pile of dirt up there, and sent the basket back to be filled again. And so, day after day, a job that with our tools and appliances would be done in a few hours, was here spun out indefinitely. Yet the palaces and cathedrals and fortresses of the southern climes have all been erected at this snail’s pace, numbers and cheapness making up for enterprise and force. In Paris, in the street, a small steam-engine was at work to mix mortar, and the ease with which the process was put through revealed the secret of the wonderfully rapid transformations going on in that ever increasingly beautiful city. Here in Spain, to this day, where there are smooth, good roads for wheels, they still put a couple of baskets across the back of a donkey, and fill them with dirt or brick or stones, and so transport them, even when they are putting up the largest buildings. The architecture of Spain is more imposing than that of any other country in Europe. It is the climate that makes men differ so much in their physical as well as mental manifestations.
To see the mode of doing business in Spain, take the simple story of one day’s work of mine in getting some money in Madrid. Holding a “letter of credit” which is promptly honored in any part of the world, and is just as good for the gold in Cairo or Calcutta as it is in London, I went in search of a Spanish banker to draw a hundred pounds sterling, say five hundred dollars. Anastazio led the way, and soon brought us to the house where the man of money held his court. Being shown up stairs, through two or three passages and an ante-chamber, we were at length ushered into the presence. Señor Romero, the banker, was a man of fifty, dressed, or rather undressed, in 45 a loose morning gown or wrapper, a red cap on his head, slippers on his feet, and a pipe in his mouth. A clerk was sitting near to do his bidding. I presented my letter. It was carefully read, first by the clerk, then by the principal. A long consultation followed, carried on in a low tone, and in Spanish, quite unintelligible to me, if it had been audible. It was finally determined to let me have the money, and after an amount of palaver sufficient for the negotiation of a government loan from the Rothschilds, and taking the necessary receipt and draft from me, I was presented with a check on the Bank of Spain. When I had fancied the delays were over, they had only just begun. The bank was in a distant part of the city, and thither we hastened, taking a cab, to save all the time we could. The bank is a large and imposing edifice of white stone. In the vestibule was a guard of soldiers. A porter stopped us as we were about to enter the inner door. We must await our turn as some one else was inside! One at a time was the rule. Benches were there, and we sat down, admiring silently the moderation of banking business in Spain. At length our turn came. We entered a room certainly a hundred feet long. Tables extended the whole length. Behind them sat clerks very busy doing nothing. We were told to pass on, and on, to the lower end of the room, where we entered another, the back parlor, or private room of the officers. They were closeted out of sight, smoking, of course, and giving their wisdom to the business in hand. I presented the check at a hole out of which a hand was put to take it. I saw nothing more. We sat down and waited. Waiting is a Spanish institution. Everybody waits. Nobody gets any thing without it. We waited, and waited, and waited, and at last the little hole opened again, the mysterious hand was thrust out with the——money, you suppose; not a bit, but with the check approved. We must present it at the table or counter for payment. Returning to the long room, we presented 46 the check, and were directed to the proper bureau. And here, of course, we got the money. Not yet. Bills of the Bank of Spain were given us, and when I required the gold, I was told that gold was paid only at the bureau of the bank in another street. Thither we now pursued our weary way. It was a rear entrance of the same bank building. A long line of gold hunters was ahead of us. We stood in the cue, and at last were inside. In the ante-room we had to wait so long that we took to the bench again. At last, admission being granted, we were told that only one could be admitted with a single draft. We sent Antanazio in, and returned to the door. Here we were told that no exit , only entrance , was allowed at the rear! Explaining the case, we got out, and returning to the front, patiently as possible, we looked for the appearance of Antanazio loaded with gold. At last, for the longest delay has an end, the man emerged with the money in his hands. It had cost me from two to three hours in the middle of the day to draw this money, which in New York, London, Paris, or any city out of Spain, would have cost five minutes or less. And I have been so particular in the detail, because it lets you into the mode of doing business in the capital city, and the greatest bank of this country.
Until the French and English companies pushed railways into Spain, travel and mails were on the slow-coach system. When the royal person made a journey, it was like the march of an army, such was the retinue required for comfort and display. And as the railways are now completed only along a few great routes, the mails are largely carried in the diligences and coaches expressly made for the purpose. It is said, and there is no reason to disbelieve it, that down to the year 1840, when a Spaniard proposed to himself the danger and toil of a journey, it was his invariable custom to summon his lawyer and make his will; his physician, to learn if his health were adequate to the undertaking; and 47 finally his priest, to confess his sins and get timely absolution. It is not regarded now so formidable an excursion to go across the kingdom, but the native travel is so little that the railroads are very unprofitable. If it were not for freight they would not be supported at all. They have, however, greatly increased the correspondence of the country, and the rate of postage has been reduced, so that it is about as low as in other European countries. But the government keeps a sharp look-out upon the letters that come and go. In times when conspiracies are snuffed in every breeze, it would be quite unsafe for any one to entrust a secret in a letter going by mail. A government spy would be sure to have his hand on it and his eye in it, before it reached its address. The letters in the post-office at Madrid are held four hours after the arrival of the mail, before they are ready for delivery. The mail from the north, the London and Paris mail, comes in at ten o’clock A.M. We must wait until two o’clock P.M. for our letters. Then a list of all letters not directed to some particular street and number, or to some post-office box, is posted up in the hall of the office,—an alphabetical list. You look over the list, and if you find a letter for yourself, you ask for it at the proper window. If you are a stranger, your passport is demanded. But you had been told before coming to Spain that no passports are required, and now you must have one merely to get your letters. In default of a passport, you must in some way establish your identity. This is not always easy in a foreign country, but then nothing is easy in Spain. I got no letter from the post-office addressed to me while I was in Spain! The noted rebel, General Prim, was a dreadful bugbear to the authorities, and all letters addressed to me were suspected by the local postmasters to be intended for the General. They were therefore sent to the government, or otherwise disposed of. No efforts to recover them were successful. Much good may they do the people who had to read them. Some of them had hard work, I know.
48 Telegraphs are spreading over Spain, as they are over the world, civilized or not. Spain is one of the last countries where they could become popular; but the business of any kingdom that has relations with the outside world must be armed with the telegraph, or it cannot hold its own. In traversing wild and secluded parts of the Peninsula, I have been surprised by finding the telegraph poles set up, and the wire stretching on, over hill and dale. Spain is slow, and the telegraph is not demanded here by the energy and enterprise of the people as it is elsewhere. Despatches of more than a hundred words are not sent. To or from any part of the Peninsula ten words may be sent for about twenty-five cents, twenty words for fifty cents, thirty words for seventy-five cents; but the count includes each word written by the sender, date, address, signature, and if a word is underscored it counts two. Great precautions are taken to insure accuracy in transmission, and a small extra charge is made for delivery.
Before coming to Spain I had been told that the picture-gallery in Madrid is the richest in the world. It seemed to me an idle tale, the boast of boasting Spaniards, repeated until perhaps somebody believed, as I certainly did not. But having seen it, day after day, for a week, I cheerfully cast a vote in its favor. It is superior to any other in Europe; and, of course, in the world. It is not complete in the series of art studies. There are gaps of time which the student may desire to see filled. But there are few who visit these great European galleries as learners. The world comes to see them for the momentary pleasure to be found in the contemplation of the pictures. And they will be astonished to find that so many and so splendid pictures have been gathered and preserved in the Spanish capital.
The gallery is open to the public only on Sundays , but the director allows it to be shown every day to strangers, who are expected to give a fee to the attendants. On rainy days it is always shut; an obvious reason is, that visitors 49 will soil the floors with their shoes, but a better reason is that the gallery is so badly lighted that in gloomy weather some of the pictures are quite invisible.
Who would suppose that sixty pictures by Reubens are to be seen in one gallery in Spain! and fifty-three by Teniers; and ten grand pictures by Raphael; and forty-six by Murillo; and sixty-four by Velasquez, some of them very large and magnificent; and twenty-two by Van Dyck; and forty-three of Titian , who spent three years in Madrid, by invitation of Charles V.; ten of Claude Lorraine; and twenty-five by Paul Veronese; and twenty-three by Snyder; and more than thirty by Tintoretto!!! There are more than two thousand here. Among so many, of course, some are good for nothing, as in every large collection. But one gallery in the world has masterpieces only,—that is in the Vatican. And there you have less than a hundred pictures, all told. But they are all great. Here, as in Florence and Dresden, good, bad, and indifferent have been hung together; and perhaps the contrast makes the good appear better, and the bad worse.
Murillo, the greatest of Spanish painters, is here in his glory. We have associated his name with his “Immaculate Conceptions” more than with any other of his works. One copy was brought to America a few years ago, and is now in the gallery of W. H. Aspinwall, Esq. A duplicate is in the Louvre, at Paris. And still another is in Madrid. These are three originals, undoubtedly, and they have been copied in every style of human art, especially in Paris, until they are as common as heads of the Saviour, all the world over. Yet this is not the Murillo ,—not his “Conception.” It is a grand conception by the artist, but it is not the great picture of that subject on which, more than any other, his fame is founded. This is in another attitude, with another expression; the Virgin is looking downward, and not gazing, in an ecstasy, heavenward. The artist, in this picture, 50 imagines the Virgin Mary at the moment she becomes conscious of the fact that by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost she is to be the mother of the Son of God! The accessories of the painting are of no account, but into the countenance of the Virgin he would throw the expression such as a spotless maiden might be supposed to have when first alive to such a wondrous, awful, yet transporting and delightful thought, “I,—I,—of all the daughters of Israel, am the highly favored among women. Of me is to be the Messiah! I am the mother of the promised Saviour!”
Not far from this is a picture of the Vision of St. Bernard, exhibiting marvellous skill. The head is one of those prodigies of the painter’s art, that is to haunt the memory in after years. Like the “Communion of St. Jerome,” in the Vatican, to see it is to have it photographed in the mysterious chamber of the brain. Raphael painted one of his most remarkable pictures, “The Christ sinking under His Cross,” for a convent in Sicily. It is said by some to be a greater work than the “Transfiguration,” which is held to be the finest picture existing. To me, this in Madrid is the most impressive, the most nearly perfect. It is taken at the moment when Simon, the Cyrenian, attempts to lift the crushing cross, while the patient sufferer, with a face radiant with love and holy resignation, says to the weeping women near, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me but weep for yourselves and for your children.”
Titian’s equestrian portrait of Charles V. is sublime,—like a majestic mountain, or a mighty rock in a desert. The solemn grandeur of the picture is indescribable. The man and his times, a whole volume of biography and history, on one grand tableau, seen and remembered. Perhaps it would be as well to forget the women that Titian seems to have been fond of painting. Two of them here are not less perfect, many think they are more perfect, than the Venus of the Tribune. In other times the zealous priesthood 51 condemned these nudities to the flames, with heretics, as corrupters of the people; but some have been saved.
The picture that I desired more than any other to carry away and cherish as a life-long treasure, is one by Correggio. After his resurrection the Saviour appeared to Mary, and she supposed it was the gardener; but Jesus, turning, said to her, “ Mary ,”—and the truth burst upon her, it was her Lord! That moment of transport is the time the artist has seized for the representation of the kneeling and rejoicing Mary and Jesus. The love and tenderness in his look, the joy and reverence in hers! What beauty, too: how the yellow hair falls in living lustre on her fair shoulders, and her eyes speak the full expression of her yearning soul. “Jesus said unto her, ‘ Mary .’”
In another hall I found a picture of great merit, unmentioned by the guide-book, and by a painter unknown to me even by name before. It is a Virgin and Child, with four venerable saints kneeling before them. The artist is Bias del Prado. Few pictures in any gallery deserve more admiration than this. The heads of the old men are done with great power, and the thoughtful feeling in the face of the Virgin shows that the artist had both the genius to conceive, and the skill to create, an idea on the canvas, quite equal to the best of many others who have won a world-wide fame. And scattered through these long apartments, in narrow halls and basement rooms, in bad lights, and some almost in the dark, are many gems of rare value, “blushing unseen,” and worth a better place, and deserving wider renown. It would be tedious to read even a brief mention of the celebrated pictures of the famous old masters here, and that form so large a part of the attractions of Europe.
There are very few minor galleries in Madrid. Probably there has been a lack both of private wealth and taste to make collections. In one of these we found Murillo’s 52 “Queen Isabel of Hungary healing the Lepers,” a picture that would be admired as one of his greatest and best, if it were not so true to life as to make one almost sick to look at it. But this is the height of the highest art. Birds have been deceived by painted fruit. Bees have sought honey in flowers on the walls. And perhaps this cheating of the senses, even to disgust, is the perfection of human skill. But the imitation of the material is easy. If portrait painting were merely the reproduction of the form and features, it is the lowest department of the art. But to conceive the expression that belongs to the character of a saint, a prophet, a hero, a sibyl, a Madonna, and thus to create an ideal that will demonstrate its reality and truthfulness to an unbelieving or indifferent world, challenging admiration and asserting its own immortality, this is the attribute of genius only, and such is not the birth of every day or age.
Ignorant of the state of civilization in the ancient city of Toledo, the capital of Gothic Spain, the glory of the Jews and the Moors when they lived luxuriously on its airy heights, we had imagined it easy enough to find lodgings for a night. Unconscious of the fate awaiting us, we put up at the Hotel Lino, the largest and best in the city; and here we sought sleep. The search was vain. For the fleas are always going about seeking whom they may devour. We fell a prey to them and to the landlords too. Surviving the bloody night, we left a weary, wretched bed at eight in the morning, and ordered breakfast with coffee. At nine it was announced as ready. In the room where it was served three waiters attended us, each one smoking a cigar in our faces, as we sat and they stood around. The coffee was not on the table. On asking for it we were told there was none in the house.
“And is there none in Toledo?”
“Perhaps so.”
“Well, we will wait until you bring it. Give us some butter.”
“There is no butter in the house.”
“Is there none in Toledo?”
“None that is fit to eat; it is all rancid.”
TOLEDO.
After a time some wretched stuff for coffee was brought from a restaurant, and we made a breakfast, paid as much 54 for it as if we had been in Paris, and left the house in disgust.
The city stands on a hill; it is up, up, up, in a succession of narrow, irregular, crooked, clean, and curious streets, showing at every step the vestiges of successive stages of civilization, and often suddenly revealing monuments of departed peoples that arrest the attention and excite wondering interest. The Goths succeeded the Romans. The Moors drove out the Goths, and, like eagles perched among these rocks, defied the storms of centuries. Here the master of empires, the great Charles V., reigned in grandeur, and gave laws to the world. It is a fitting place for such a history as it has; and no other city has a more romantic life. Indeed, romance has done so much to embellish the story of Toledo, it is difficult to be in it, and study it here on its own rocks, without asking for its enchanted towers, and haunted caves, and knights, with magic swords and spectre horses, and its 200,000 mighty men and beautiful women, that once made this castle-crowned crag the glory of Spain, and as famous in the earth as Babylon or Damascus.
It is more Oriental in its appearance than any city we have yet seen in Spain. But it is too far north, and too far up in the air, to be adapted to the life of Orientals. Its houses are usually low; and they have the court in the midst of them, out of which doors open into the several apartments. Many of them are very old, five hundred years, at least, and repetitions of those that stood on the same site before; for this reproduction of itself, from age to age, is a feature of the peoples and climes with which Scripture history has made us familiar. Many of these old houses are fine specimens of the Moorish manner of building; but with this, perhaps the predominant style, is blended more or less of the Roman, the Gothic, and the Saracenic, and every style except the modern; for Toledo 56 is a city of the dead past, and no resurrection is before it. The Spanish chroniclers claim that Toledo was founded at the same time with the creation of the world, but who lived in it before the human race was made they do not help us to understand. Others less ambitious find that Nebuchadnezzar, and others that Hercules, laid the first stones.
The last of the Goths who sat on the throne of Toledo was Roderick. And when weighed down with the guilt of a seducer and a betrayer of his friend, he went forth from Toledo in his chariot of ivory, and, with his mailed legions, marched to the banks of the Guadalquiver, and at Guadalete encountered the flood of Moorish barbarism just then setting in upon Spain, he disappeared, the city began its downward career, and no emperors, no bishops, no kings, have since been able to purge it from the sin and the shame of the perfidious Roderick.
In after centuries, when the Moors were expelled and the cross again supplanted the crescent, the archbishops of Toledo were more than kings, and lived here in luxury, and wealth, and grandeur, without a parallel in the history of the church. Great patrons of art and science, they founded universities and cultivated the arts of peace, while they were often plunging the country into war, which they waged with valor and skill. Under them the city reached a degree of splendor unsurpassed in the dreamy reign of Oriental voluptuousness and taste. But when it succumbed, as it did to the great German Czar, and the court was removed to Valladolid, its sun went down, never to rise again.
The cathedral is a glory, even in Spain, which is richer in cathedrals than any other country. Toledo has always been favored by the Romish Church. It is believed by many that the Virgin Mary came down from heaven, in person, to attend the investiture of one of its archbishops, and there is not to be found a grander and more beautiful 57 Gothic temple than this. As we entered it the dim light that was chasing away the shades from among the vast columns and the lofty arches gradually brightened as we became more accustomed to it, and a sense of majestic proportions and solemn grandeur took possession of the soul. A service was in progress, and we paused till it was concluded, for it matters not what the form of religious worship, and however much our views may differ from those engaged in it, it is unseemly to be gazing at the temple while its ministers are serving at its altar. In the midst of the service a priest was receiving a young woman’s confession. As she put up her lips to his ear to whisper her penitential words, she beat upon her breast with one hand, as if she were in agony of soul. Her tale of sin completed, she rose from her knees, bowed low again, kissed her confessor’s extended hand, and went away.
Toledo and its priesthood have been famous for their devotion to the strictest orders and dogmas of the church, till Rome itself scarcely stands higher for holiness and orthodoxy. In the disputes that have at different times agitated the Romish communion, they have not been afraid to appeal directly to the judgment of God, and to claim his verdict in their favor. In the great contest about the proper form of words in the mass, when the old missals were used in Spain, in spite of the orders to substitute the Gregorian mass, or the Roman improved form, the first appeal to the divine judgment was in favor of Toledo, and the early missals. Again the trial was demanded; and the old and newer missals were brought out, great folio volumes, into one of the public squares, and, in presence of the city, fire was applied to them. The older was burnt to ashes, and the newer survived the ordeal. Toledo was not willing to abide even by this very conclusive test, and finally it was settled by blending the two masses into one.
Their richest and most sacred chapel in the cathedral is 58 the Muzarabe, or Mixed Arabic; so called because it was built to preserve the forms of the old Gothic service, such as was used when the Goths consented to live under the dominion of the Moors while allowed their own religious rites. In this cathedral lie the ashes, and over them are the tombs of some of the early kings of Spain, and several of those grand archbishops whose reign was not less kingly than that of kings. Cardinal Albornoz died in Italy, and the Pope sent his body home to be buried here. To save the expense of transportation, for there was no express company, not even a steamboat then (1364) to bring it,—Urban V. issued a decree granting a plenary indulgence to all who would lend a hand in carrying the dead cardinal on his long journey. Gladly did the poor peasantry bear the body on their shoulders from one town to another till it reached Toledo. In front of one of the chapels I was suddenly arrested by a strange Latin inscription in a brass plate in the pavement. It was in these words:—
Here lies dust, ashes, nothing else. Over the bones of one of the most powerful cardinals who ever reigned in Spain, and himself called a king maker, the epitaph is eloquent: perhaps an affectation, however, of humility, a virtue for which Fernandez de Portocarrero was not illustrious in his life.
The Virgin Mary has been pleased to come from heaven to this cathedral, as I have said, and if any one doubts it, he can see the very stone on which she first set foot as she alighted from her aerial excursion. And now the faithful kiss this precious stone, touching with their loving lips the very spot which her foot once pressed. Her image is clad with gold and precious stones and costly raiment, crowns and bracelets and chains, the gifts of royal hands, and the greatest ladies of the kingdom are her maids of honor. On 59 gala-days she is borne in state through the streets, and honors are paid to her at every step, as the Queen of Queens.
A sleepy old porter let us into the Alcazar . Al-casa-czar is the house of Cæsar, or the czar’s house, the king’s house, the palace.
The Alcazar.
The palace, or what was once a palace, crowns the summit of the hill on which the old city of Toledo stands. Around the base of the rock below the Tagus rushes rapidly, and away in every direction stretches the wide plain, gloomy, desolate, and yet grand in its storied past. It is not certain that the Moorish, still less certain that the 60 Gothic kings preceding them, had their royal residence on this bleak height. But the Catholic kings for centuries held their courts on this spot, and the prints of their hands are visible everywhere. The porter who opened the door for us is a model of a Spanish official. Too proud to be a door-keeper, and, with nothing else to do, he would impress even a stranger with the idea that he was born with a higher destiny than to tend a gate. It was a pleasure to him, evidently, to tell us we must not go here, nor there, nor anywhere, except where it was of no use to go; and the scanty information he was willing to impart was extracted with difficulty, and worth nothing then.
We stood in the midst of a spacious square, the patio, or court, and on its four sides rose the walls of the ancient palace. Charles V. and Philip II. rebuilt the most of it on the ruins holding some of the apartments that date as far back as Alonzo X.; and in modern times the hoof of the war demon has trodden the stairways and galleries and gorgeous halls, until what with English and French soldiery, and some of other nations more barbarous still, the Alcazar of Toledo is a more comfortable residence for bats and owls than kings and fair princesses. Two or three proud peacocks were strutting in the warm sunshine of the patio, displaying their gaudy plumes and arching their graceful necks, reminding us of other beauties who had often gone blazing through these doors, with radiant jewels and shining robes, yet, in all their glory, were not arrayed like one of these. This patio shows, on its four sides, two rows of galleries, one over the other, supported each of them by thirty arches, with columns crowned with Corinthian capitals, embellished with the arms of the many kingdoms that Charles V. had conquered. A staircase, designed by Philip II. while he was in England, and built under orders sent by him while there, leads up to the royal apartments, long since deserted, and now worth seeing only 61 because they were once the home of men and women whose names are part of the history of the world.
An English gentleman said to me in the rail-car in Spain one day, “I should be glad to have you tell me what it is that impresses you the most in coming from America and travelling in Europe.” I answered that it required some time to make a fitting reply to so great an inquiry. “Well,” he said, “will you take fifteen minutes to think, and then give me the result?” I replied, “I am ready to answer now: what impresses me more than all else is, that these old countries, having been what they once were, are what I find them now .”
It is the law of the earth, I suppose, and what has been will be, and so on to the end of time.
We left the melancholy palace to its porter, its peacocks, and the bats, and wound our way down and around the corkscrew streets, narrow, close, and dirty, admiring the ancient Moorish gates and doors, studded with iron balls. The older doors have two knockers, one high for a horseman to use without dismounting; and, the gate being opened, he would ride right into the court. We were looking for the Church of San Juan de los Reyes, and soon found it, a church that dates back to the Moorish-Gothic period, or the time when the severity of Gothic grandeur was adorned with the more florid embellishments which Moorish art introduced into Spain. On the outer walls are suspended the massive iron chains which were found on the limbs of the Christian captives when Granada was conquered by Ferdinand and Isabella; and the rescued prisoners hung up their chains on this church as thank-offerings. And still farther down the hill we come to the Bridge of St. Martin, and here are plainly the ruins of the old Moorish castle and palace. A square tower on the water’s edge bears the name, to this day, Florinde , and tradition says it was here that Roderick unluckily saw her 62 while she was bathing. The rest of the story we have hinted at already.
Irving, in his bewitching Spanish tales, gives a marvellous account of the Cave of Hercules, which is said to extend three leagues beyond the river, and is full of chapels and genii and enchanted warriors. To visit it has cost kings their crowns; and the terrible sounds that are heard, and the rushing winds assailing the bold explorer, make the attempt too formidable for modern valor. The entrance is from the Church de San Gines, but is now walled up. In fact, it was never unwalled, except in the fancies of romantic historians.
One day, long time ago, as the Cid was riding through Toledo, his horse stopped suddenly, and knelt before a wall built against a bank of earth. The hill was opened, and within was found a niche, and in the niche an image of the Saviour, with the same lamps burning in it which the Goths had put there long centuries agone. A Moorish mosque is standing opposite, which has been converted into a Christian church, and in it the first mass was celebrated in 1085. It takes its name from the legend of the Cid, and is called Christo de la Luz. It is perhaps the smallest church in Toledo, only twenty-two feet square, yet the quaintest and most curious thing to be found in the city; short columns support arches in the shape of a horse-shoe, and three narrow naves, crossing each other, cut up the church into nine vaults. There is nothing in it worth seeing.
It took us half an hour to find the sacristan to open the door of Santo Tome, or St. Thomas, where we went to see a famous picture by El Grecco, a burial scene, of considerable power, and were it not that Spain has hundreds of finer pictures than this, it would be worth the time it cost us to see it.
Passing through the Zodocover, the largest public square in the city, where in the “good old times” of torture for 63 the church, the poor unbelievers in papal faith have been made spectacles before the world, I met a boy with a pop-gun, anxious to show his skill in shooting with that formidable weapon. Yielding to his urgent desires, I set up a bit of money which he was to hit and take. A dense crowd, a hundred certainly, were the idle gazers on this ridiculous scene, forming a ring around me and the boy! I confess to a sense of great amusement when I stood where cardinals and bishops and priests, with armed soldiers and executioners, had burnt heretics in sight of kings, and multitudes thronging the tiers of balconies that look down into this square. It was certainly more human, not to say Christian, for me to divert this idle crowd by setting up coppers for a boy to shoot at with a pop-gun, than for my illustrious predecessors to entertain the populace of Toledo with the sight of martyrs burning at a stake.
Tired of walking, for Toledo is so up-and-down, that you might as well ride on a ladder, we entered a café for refreshments. In the wide, open court was a deep well sunk into the solid rock on which the city stands, and the water thereof was as cool and sparkling and delicious as that which the woman of Samaria gave to him who told her all things that ever she did. The saloon was fifty feet long or more, filled with marble-top tables, and men were eating and drinking, playing dominoes, and smoking. It was toward the close of the day. Of all the people there, none called for spirits, scarcely any asked for wine. Coffee and chocolate were the principal drinks. There was no noise, no gambling. It was chilly, and the servant brought in a brazier filled with live coals, and set it near us. Others drew around it, as they did in the high priest’s court-yard when Peter denied his Lord. Many Oriental customs brought in by the Moors are still retained in Spain. I made an excuse for wandering up to the house-top, and found the houses so closely built against each other, with 64 no intervening spaces, that you could easily look into your neighbor’s, and sometimes see what was quite as well not seen.
While here we looked about for some specimens of the famous blades, which have made Toledo as celebrated as Damascus itself in this line. But we found nothing worth seeing. The manufactory of arms is outside of the town, and has no reputation beyond that of others in Spain. England or Connecticut will furnish as perfect a sword to-day as Toledo. Yet this is only another, and a very striking illustration of what Spain is, compared with what Spain was. As far back as under the Romans, Toledo had a character for the perfection of its weapons of steel. The Toledo blade has been a proverb for temper ever since.
The idea has prevailed, and the workers in metals in Toledo have not been unwilling to encourage it, that the waters of the river Tagus have virtues to impart peculiar firmness to the steel that is cooled in them. The manufacturers, of course, have long been constituted into a guild, or corporation, and the secrets of the trade preserved with care. So long ago as in the ninth century Abdur-rhaman II. gave a great impulse to the art in Toledo, and its fame was spread still wider. A thousand years have rolled away since that time, and now, in the nineteenth century, they do not make as good weapons as they did then.
In the museum at Madrid we saw the splendid swords which the famous warriors of Spain have worn, and, in the saloon of the Director of the Generaliffe, in Granada, the identical sword of Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings; but they make no such steel now. Indeed, the steel they use is imported from England, just as they keep up the stock of horses and cattle and sheep, by importations from other countries. It is very probable that long, thin blades, that may be curled up like a ribbon, can be produced in China, or Persia, or Sheffield, as well as here. The men 65 of Milan and Florence made as good swords as these. The use of fire-arms naturally diminishes the value of a sword as a weapon of war.
Spanish people do not go CRAZY ! Now and then there is a lunatic in Spain, but, as compared with the United States, or England, or France, the Spanish people manage to keep what wits they have. Just outside of Toledo there is a lunatic asylum. It is the successor of the one that Don Quixote ought to have been kept in, and which is mentioned in that knight-errant’s biography, the first work of fiction that I ever perused, and which then, in childhood, fired me with a desire to visit Spain. Don Quixote was crazy; and there may be thousands crazy whom the world do not reckon so.
In London the latest tables show that one person in every 200 is insane. In Paris one in every 222 is in a lunatic asylum, or ought to be. In Madrid, the capital of Spain, only one in every 3,350. In the year 1860 there were 2,384 lunatics in Spain, when the population was 15,673,481; and this would show one insane person to 6,566 inhabitants. In 1864 there were 3,818 persons in houses for the insane, but they do not regulate these institutions with the same strictness that prevails in some other countries, and they confine in them many of those criminals who would otherwise be let loose on the community to pursue their career of crime under the cloak of monomania. It would therefore appear, and there is no good reason to doubt the fact, that comparatively little insanity exists in Spain. One report of 1861 gives the following as the percentage of the cases, when pathologically classified: “Maniac exaltation, 31.91; monomaniacs, 11; melancholy, 6; derangement of mental faculties, 20.53; imbecility, 6.15; epileptic madness, 11; undetermined, 10.41.”
The medical faculty will understand this classification, but I do not know the difference between some of the 66 sections into which the victims are thus divided. But when we come to the proximate causes of insanity, we are in a region level to the uninstructed mind, and here we find that moral and mental excitements growing out of love, such as jealousy and disappointment, are prolific causes: that physical ailments badly attended or wholly neglected frequently result in derangement; and the political turmoils of the State are followed by the same effects. But, on the other hand, there are at least three common causes of insanity in the United States, and probably in England also, that have a limited, if any, influence in Spain. These are religious excitements, haste to be rich, and intemperance in drinking. In Spain they take things easily. The people do not work the brain unduly in matters of religion or trade. The church takes care of the souls of the people: the law or the government excludes all disturbing elements that might come from the efforts of others to proselyte the people, and in their ignorance of any other way of getting to heaven than the church teaches them, they are quiet on that subject. Religion never made any one crazy; on the contrary, it has soothed the madness and healed the malady of many a crazed brain and distracted soul. But the wild and unenlightened excitement, begotten of blind fanaticism and erroneous teaching, has often driven men and women mad, as statistics of American insanity fearfully show. And in Spain there is not energy enough, not life enough, to make speculation dangerous in philosophy, morals, or even in money. I think it very unlikely that they will ever go wild after tulips, or mulberries, or petroleum. They are making railroads, but the French and English furnish the capital and send the engineers. And the great safety-valve, or rather the great preserver of the people’s intellects, is found in the fact that they are never in a hurry about any thing. The old Romans had a good motto, Festina lente , hasten slowly; but the 67 Spaniards never hasten at all . They despise punctuality. An hour after the time when a positive appointment had been made with me, a man in Seville said, when I told him I had been waiting, “Why, the Queen never comes till an hour after the time announced for her arrival.” And this utter indifference to the value of time, which is money all the world over, begets, or is begotten, for it is hard to say if it be the cause or the effect, of that perfect sense of ease, content with one’s condition, idle carelessness, that dismisses all anxiety for the future. Such people do not go crazy.
And far above all other immediate causes of insanity in northern climes, is the use of spirituous liquors. The scholar drinks to keep up his mental fire, and when he becomes insane his malady is marked “excessive study.” The banker or merchant drinks too much, and when he is put into an asylum his madness is ascribed to his devotion to his business. The millions of our people drink, drink, drink,—and this vice of the north of Europe and of America yields thousands on thousands of cases of insanity every year. But in those countries where cheap wines, with little alcohol in them, are the common drink of the people, intemperance is comparatively rare. An English engineer, employing hundreds of men in building and repairing Spanish railways, assured me that intemperance is wholly unknown among them. The class of men who would be the most addicted to the vice with us in the United States, are here more temperate than any class of people in England or America. It is not to be supposed that this temperance is the result solely of the culture of the vine and the abundance of weak wine. It would be a false conclusion, from very inadequate premises, to infer such an idea. It is due in most part to the climate itself, which is at once favorable to the vine, and unfavorable to that elevation or excitement which strong drink begets. And in this delightful 68 clime, where to live and breathe is a luxury, and to keep cool is at once a virtue and a joy, the heating stimulus of ardent spirits would not be sought as one of the pleasurable vices of the land.
Therefore, and to this conclusion we are easily led, the people here in Spain are not likely to be, as a general thing, insane. And if we of colder climes could be so humble as to take a lesson from poor, old, decrepit Spain, we might learn from these facts to moderate our desires, to pursue the good we seek with less haste and more speed, to use the world as not abusing it, and resting now and then, avoid the lunatic asylum on our journey to the grave.
At dusk we went to the station to take our departure from Toledo. In the train going up to Madrid was a large party of young men. Noisy, boisterous, rude, they cheered every lady who came to the cars, calling out to the good-looking ones to come to their apartment, and making sport of others; and all this with a freedom and indecorum that would not be tolerated even in our land of universal liberty. I was surprised both at their impudence and its impunity, and asked who the fellows were.
“Oh,” said Antanazio, “they are college boys: the same all the world over!”
Even so, I do believe.
AS I took my seat in a “first-class” car and left Toledo, a gentleman in the same compartment asked me, “Is smoking disagreeable to you?”
It was the first time that such a question had been put to me in Spain. I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days before, but generally no one pretends to ask the privilege of smoking in the cars, or the parlor, or anywhere. Everybody smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted in any department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some hotels, I notice a rule posted in the dining-room, “Smoking not allowed.” But nobody heeds it. An attempt to enforce it would probably lead to the sudden departure of all Spanish guests from the house. At the largest and best hotel in Madrid, sixty or seventy persons, ladies and gentlemen, were at dinner, (table-d’hôte), and in the midst of dinner, between the courses, gentlemen lighted their cigarettes, smoked them, and resumed their eating. Yet the notice forbidding smoking was in full view, or was until the clouds of smoke obscured it. In the reading-rooms of the hotels, oftentimes small and unventilated, nine out of ten are smoking all the time, and the thought never occurs to one of them that this may be a nuisance to others. I am told, that at the theatres in Spain, in the midst of the play, the audience smoke in their seats, and if any managers attain to such a moderate height of civilization as to publish a rule restraining the odious habit, the Dons of 70 Spain pay no sort of attention to it. All attempts at reform end only in smoke.
I asked Antanazio if smoking is allowed in the churches of Spain. “Oh no, no,” he answered, with a pious horror; “it was shocking to think of such a desecration.” “Then,” said I, “when I come to Spain to live, I will get a little church for myself, for nowhere else in this country can a man find refuge from this intolerable nuisance.”
“Ah, yes,” he replied; “but perhaps the incense will make a smoke quite as disagreeable as the American weed.”
This was a double hit, as it reminded me of my Protestant aversion to incense in churches, and also of the fact that the weed and the habit of using it came from my part of the world.
By this time the compartment was so densely filled with smoke that I opened the window and put out my head for breath, as a signal of distress, in the hope, but vain, of enlisting the sympathies of the smokers, and inducing them to forego their pleasures while I recovered. I detected grim smiles of satisfaction on the dark faces of my fellow-travellers, who puffed away the more vigorously, as they looked on my woe-begone face.
Perhaps by advertising a reward for the discovery, it might be possible to find a man in Spain who does not smoke. Yet, strange to say, the culture of tobacco in Spain is forbidden by law. The soil and climate are favorable, and its cultivation has been a great success. But by that kind of legislation or decree peculiar to Spain, and constantly reminding one of the Chinese, the mother country, Spain, is prohibited from raising tobacco in order that the daughter, Cuba, may have the monopoly. The right of importation is sold to contractors, who make a great business of it. In the middle of the fifteenth century the Spaniards began to get tobacco from America, and they have been getting more and more of it ever since. In 1860 71 they smoked seven millions of cigars, and cigars are not the thing they usually smoke. They have their tobacco rolled up in little bits of paper, and these they carry in their pockets, with matches. Often they carry the tobacco and the paper separately, and make a cigarette when they want it, making one while smoking another. These interesting manufactures are not peculiar to Spain; they are common in our own country, but not so general. The weed is used only for smoking and snuffing in Spain. I cannot learn that it is chewed at all.
Children smoke at an earlier age in Spain than in other countries. It is not uncommon for them to begin at six, or even five years of age. And they never leave it off till they die. Ladies smoke. Not often do we see them with a cigarette in their pretty mouths on the street or in the cars, but in the café and in the drawing-room they enjoy it, as well as in the boudoir and the bath. By cool fountains, in a marble-paved patio, among the orange-trees, or lolling at noon on their silken-hung couches, they love to smoke, and their lords have spoiled their own breaths and taste too effectually to make any objection. Where both eat garlic it amounts to the same thing.
In Seville we saw a tobacco factory, erected more than a hundred years ago, at a cost of nearly two millions of dollars then! It is 652 feet long and 524 feet wide. Five thousand persons are at work in it all the time, putting the imported tobacco into cigars or cigarettes, and making snuff, and they use two millions of pounds of tobacco every year. Most of these workers are women. Mothers who bring their children have nursery arrangements provided for them during the hours of work. But the most of them are young women, a class by themselves, known as cigareras , or cigar-girls. Smart at their business in the factory, they are wild as hawks and gay as larks at the bull-fight on Sundays, or the dance on the green. This is the largest establishment 72 of the kind in Spain, and produces as good an article as any other, but the cigars made in Spain are not as popular with good judges as those brought directly from Cuba. The manufacturers there prefer sending the best to London, New York, or Paris, where they find a readier market for the high-priced article. And the Cubans are as cute in concocting peculiar flavors for their cigars, as the French or the Italians for their wines, or Jerseymen for their cider. The connoisseur in tobacco pays a quarter of a dollar (more or less) for a “first-rate” cigar, and smokes it with delicious enjoyment at his club, or after dinner in his study, rejoicing in the dreamy, balmy languor that softly steals upon his senses, soothes his nerves, and makes him sweetly oblivious of the cares and toils of the day just passed. He is sure it does him good. And he does not know, and will not believe when he is told, what every one knows who looks into the subject to learn, that at the very root and source of the business there is as much concoction of tobacco as there is of coffee or wine. Potash and soda are in abundant use to impart peculiar pungency to the plant. And many in the excited atmosphere of New York or London life demand a sedative cigar more soporific than the narcotic plant in its natural state. For them, cigars are made of tobacco leaves steeped in opium . Many of our clergymen, renowned for eloquence and piety and learning, denounce with blazing zeal the baneful practice of smoking or chewing opium , a habit becoming almost as common in the United States as in China. But these same excellent men are daily smoking opium in their cigars, quite unconscious of the evils, physical and mental, they are gradually but surely inhaling with every breath they draw through this venomous weed. The cigar burns freely when first lighted, its ashes are grayish white, and the ring is faint at the end, the smoke rises lightly, and the taste, if any, is nearly imperceptible; therefore 73 they know it is a good cigar. But the opium-eater is not more surely a suicide than they. Dyspepsia often follows; and nervous debility, despondency, melancholy, insomnia, maladies supposed to be relieved by what is their producing cause. Epilepsy and apoplexy are not unknown effects.
We now cross the wide pastoral regions of La Mancha. Readers of Don Quixote recollect these plains as the scene of many a gallant exploit by the knight-errant who took his title from this province. And we had no sooner called him to mind than we saw a windmill, and then another, and soon many more, brandishing their huge arms, as when the crazy hero supposed them to be challenging him to fight, and with mad courage rushed to the encounter. Flocks of sheep are roaming over the plains as when he mistook them for hostile armies. His trusty squire Sancho proposed that they should wait until they saw which side was likely to come off conqueror, and join that ; but the hero of the windmill denounced the counsel as worthy only of a craven, insisting it would be more becoming a valiant knight to join the weaker side, and insure it the victory.
No trees are seen. This is the peculiar feature of the Spanish landscape. Across vast plains that reach the horizon the eye seeks in vain to find a single tree to relieve the monotony of the view. And when the hills stretch away in graceful lines, bending and rising with voluptuous swells that seem to be carved and set against the sky, they are destitute of trees. In centuries past these have been stripped off, and none have been planted since; and the country is as bare as the back of your hand.
The sheep are tended by shepherds, who migrate from the higher to the lower pastures, according to the season of the year. They constitute a large part of the wealth of the people. Ten years ago there were seventeen millions of sheep in Spain. The number is, doubtless, much 74 greater now. The wool trade of Spain was at one time of vast importance to the world, but England and Germany now far outstrip it, and the trade with Syria, in the coarser wools, has opened an outlet for the produce of Lebanon and the plains of Mesopotamia.
Corn, including cereals of all kinds, does well in this central part of Spain. It thrives in spite of the stupidest, or rather the most primitive style of agriculture, still prevailing. “Tickle the ground with a hoe,” and the crop will spring. But there is little tickling done with a hoe. They plough to this day with a tree, the root sticking into the ground and scratching it a little; or they leave a branch shooting out at an angle from the stem of the tree, and sometimes they cover this stick with a bit of iron, and with mules or oxen drag it along the field. They sow broadcast, and plough it under. They use no harrows. It is barely possible that one of the modern civilized ploughs has found its way into Spain, but I saw none, and heard of nothing better than the but-end of a small elm-tree. Yet agriculture is the great business of Spain, suited to the habits and genius of the people, who love the sun and enjoy the open air, and dislike trade or mechanics of any kind. And more than any other people in Europe the Spanish do as their fathers did, despising all innovations as unworthy of their ancestral dignity. The farmers of Virgil and Homer, and the rural scenes which are described in the Old Testament Scriptures, are the counterpart of what may be seen in Spain to-day. I am reminded daily of the fields in Asia Minor, in Syria, and Greece. If it were strange that improvements in husbandry had made very little progress there, much more surprising it is to find that all things in this country continue to be as they were. They are so near the rest of the world, and the means of communication are now so ready, it is a marvel of marvels that they are still in the same ruts their fathers were in a thousand years ago.
75 But there are signs of better times. The law of primogeniture has been abolished, and this new measure tends rapidly to the multiplication of owners of real estate. The lands of the church have been sold and divided. Vast tracts held by the crown have also been distributed by law among the people, at a moderate price. Agricultural societies have been formed, and cattle shows and fairs are becoming common. These things are in the right direction. The government has established agricultural schools and model farms. A few periodicals are published, with the intent of spreading useful information among the people; and those who can read will get some good out of them.
After crossing the plains of La Mancha we reach the Sierra Morena range of mountains, and are to work our way through and over them. The daring of the engineers who would push a road into such recesses is prodigious. The precipices are frightful. Peaks of mountains start up suddenly, and seem to pierce the clouds. Rocks of gigantic grandeur rise abruptly, and sometimes stand apart in solitary dignity. Deep gorges are to be spanned by the iron road. Long and frequent galleries lead, in gloomy state, through the bowels of the mountains. The road is sublime, if safe, and it appears to be well made. We come to a bridge under repairs. All the passengers are requested to walk. In single file we march over the bridge, and then await the train. It comes across, lightened of its load, slowly and safely. It is quite likely that in America the engineer would have put on all steam, and dashed across in a second, or, if not, he would have gone down a hundred feet, into a frightful chasm, and the verdict, if any were sought, would have been, “nobody to blame.” Fret as we do about the railroad management in Europe, it is safer and surer than ours. They err generally on the safe side, provoking us by their delays, but very rarely breaking our 76 necks. And, on the whole, their way of doing things is the best.
At Manjibar we stopped for lunch, or breakfast, or dinner, whichsoever any one might call it. It was hard to say where or when our last meal was, and what was the name of this. Still more difficult was it to ascertain the names of the dishes set before us. One dish had been chicken, but in some advanced stage of its post-mortem existence it had been consigned to a bath of pickle, and was now offered for our consumption. A single taste sufficed. It probably returned to its brine, to wait a bolder customer, with a better appetite. Then they gave us a stew. I suggested that it was hare. My companion thought it a cat. I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and turned away. The price of this meal that we tried in vain to eat, was the same as the table-d’hôte dinner at many hotels in Paris,—four francs.
Sick, I went into the air. I sat down on a trunk outside, sighing for other lands, and something to eat. A servant came out and drove me off the trunk, saying, “It is forbidden to sit here.” Into the waiting-room I directed my steps. It was full of dirty, disgusting people, some of them beggars, some gypsies, some in queer costumes, some in rags. The fragrance was too much for me, and I walked out again. Over the way was a table with candies and liquors to be sold. It was in front of a door that opened into the side of a hill. There was no other sign of a house. I went across the railway, and entered the open door. It let me into a small room, nicely cemented above and on all sides; a fire in a neat arrangement for it, and a chimney reaching out of the ground above. A man was sitting by the fire; a babe was in a cradle; the wife was bustling about. It was a very comfortable affair. Another room was the bed-chamber; and a third was a storeroom; and the three completed the underground cottage. In other climates it might be damp. Here it was dry enough; 77 cool in summer and warm in winter. I spent a few minutes very cheerfully with these people, and they seemed to be pleased with a visit from a stranger. It was a far better house than the rude huts we had seen on the way.
We are now in Andalusia, and in one of the worst parts of Spain. True, it is Andalusia , and the very sound of the name is musical, suggesting beauty and pastoral delights. But in the province of Jaen, and we are near the city of that name, out of a population of 360,000, more than 300,000 are unable to read; and as ignorance and crime go hand in hand, the number of murders is between 350 and 400 every year, and nearly as many robberies. Such is a picture of much of Spain. This is, perhaps, as dark a picture as could be honestly drawn, but there are hundreds of towns, of which the mayor or chief officer does not know how to read or write.
Ten years ago, when the last census was made, in a population of 15,613,536, there were actually 12,543,169 who could not read and write, leaving only 3,070,367 people in Spain possessed of these accomplishments. In 1860 there were 1,101,529 children in the public schools of Spain, and they must learn something.
It is encouraging to learn that the government is paying increased attention to the subject of education. There are 25,000 primary schools in the kingdom, which ought to be exerting a powerful effect upon the people. Spain has ten universities, and the number of students in them is far greater than one would expect under the low state of popular education. They are thus distributed:—
| Madrid | 4,194 |
| Barcelona | 1,365 |
| Seville | 887 |
| Valladolid | 828 |
| Granada | 617 |
| Valencia | 624 |
| Santiago | 403 |
| Saragossa | 389 |
| Salamanca | 242 |
| Oviedo | 155 |
The course of study pursued in these institutions is substantially 78 the same as that in other countries: 2,040 of the students are in the Philosophical and Literary course, 1,617 in the Exact Sciences, Physics, and so forth; while Law, Theology, and Medicine include the rest. Some of these universities once had a reputation as wide as the civilized part of the world, and students from all nations flocked to them as to the purest and sweetest fountains of knowledge in the earth. At Salamanca, where now there are less than 250 students, there were 10,000 in the fourteenth century, and its reputation has been higher than Oxford’s. It was at this university that the Copernican system of astronomy was held and taught, when the Romish Church denounced it as heretical and contrary to the Holy Scriptures. Yet even here Columbus could make no impression in favor of his theory of another continent, but all his arguments were treated with the greatest contempt by the learned men of the university of Salamanca. The professors of the modern school, which still retains the name and distinctions of the days of its glory, get $600 a year for their services, and that is probably an index of the estimation in which learning is held in these decayed and benighted regions.
The present population of Spain, making due allowance for increase since the last estimate, is about 16,400,000. It is therefore the eighth of the European powers in numbers, Italy and Turkey being both ahead of it. The increase of population in Spain is only at the rate of less than the half of one per hundred annually. At this rate the number would double only once in 181 years, placing Spain behind every country in Europe, in this respect, except poor Austria. She doubles once in 198 years; then Spain; then France, once in 122 years; Holland, once in 80 years; Scotland, once in 46 years; Prussia, once in 41 years; England and Wales, once in 29 years.
One of the most curious questions in morals, politics, and physiology, is started by these facts. They furnish 79 food for thought. One class of speculators will find moral causes to explain the circumstances, and they may easily gather a pile of facts to sustain their positions. Climate, too, has its influence. The civil government, with the physical condition of the people, is to be considered. But when the physical, the moral, the civil, and the social state of Austria, Spain, France, Holland, Prussia, Italy, and England is duly examined, it still remains to be ascertained why it is that the number of inhabitants increased more rapidly among the colored people of the Southern States of North America while they were slaves, and now increases more rapidly among the Irish portion of the American population, than it does among these highly favored countries of Europe. The statistics of births in New England and other parts of the United States unhappily show that, with the increase of the cost of living, and of luxury and effeminacy, the number of children born is less and less from year to year. There is no truth in social economy better established by the comparison of an adequate number of facts than this, that the diminution in the number of births is attended by, if not consequent upon, the deterioration of the health and the morals of any people. Oppression which makes a wise man mad may depress the spirits, exhaust the energies, and retard the increase of a population, not supernaturally sustained as were the Hebrews in Egypt, who, the more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew. But favored as the middle and southern countries of Europe are by climate and soil, affording the people an easy and comfortable subsistence, they might and would increase in numbers as rapidly at least as the northern, if they were so disposed.
We are now coming down into the region of the aloe, the olive, the orange, and the vine. Since we have crossed the Sierra Morena, the climate has softened. At this season of the year (February), the vegetation is not far advanced, 80 but the leaves of the olive are always green, and the orange and the lemon bear leaves and fruit and flowers at the same time. The orange should, in some climates, like this and the south of France, remain on the tree, after it appears to be ripe, for two years, before it is sweet. Much of that delicious fruit which we have in our country is too sour to be good, because gathered and sent to market before it is fully ripe. Here, and all over the southern parts of Spain, it is a glorious fruit. It is very large, very yellow, and very sweet; and being abundant, is very cheap. A cent of our money will buy the largest, and the natives get them much cheaper than that. Sweet lemons are also common. But they are not agreeable. They seem to me a miserable attempt to be an orange. And the good sour lemons grow to an enormous size. I got one in Cordova to measure, and my hat would hold one lemon only! The skin was at least an inch thick; the juice not so acid as of the lemon generally, and there was no more of it than in one of ordinary size. These large lemons are used in preserves, the skin being the only available part of the fruit.
We are now on the plains, in sight of the graceful hills of Andalusia . In the soft sunlight of this warm winter’s day the hills appear to be sleeping and enjoying their repose. All nature, even now, invites to rest. We begin to feel the languor of the clime. There are no trees but the olive. No birds are singing, or we should know that summer is nigh. We stop frequently at little stations, to leave and take the mail. The letters and papers are tied up in a packet with a string, and are handed from the mail-car to a boy or a woman on hand to receive them. The letters from the place are delivered to the mail-agent in the same way. No bag, no box, no lock or key, not even a wrapper around the letters protects them. It is the way they do things in this country.
Over these wide plains there are few or no habitations to 81 be seen. The peasants must travel many miles to their daily work, for they live in villages far away from the lands they till. Few cattle are to be seen; now and then a flock of sheep. More black sheep than white ones were in sight, and many of the blacks were singularly marked, having but one white spot on them, and that at the tip of their tails.
CORDOVA.
A NEW, but old world, a sudden vision of the Orient , rose on the sight, when we reached the city of Cordova . Never did I enter a city that filled me with a deeper sense of the transient, temporal, and fleeting nature of all things material. It is not in ruins. It shows no tokens of decay to the coming traveller. A cleaner city is not in the world. It was the first city in Europe whose streets were paved, and the traditional habits of the people are so well preserved, that although it was a thousand years ago (in 850, under Abdurhaman) that this work was done, it has been done again and again, and the stones in the streets are kept as clean as the floor of a house. The Guadalquiver flows gently by the side of it, and under the shade-trees planted on its banks the idle and the fashionable have their favorite lounge and promenade. The bridge over this widely famed river was first built by Octavius Cæsar and rebuilt by the Moors. Standing on sixteen arches, it is a striking monument of two departed dynasties and forms of civilization. The city itself was great before Christ came into the world, and Julius Cæsar writes of it as it was in his day, when his armies swept over Spain. In the civil wars of Rome, Cordova declared for Pompey, and then Cæsar put 28,000 of its inhabitants to the sword.
After the Moors came over from Africa, and, in the battle of Guadalete, struck down the power of the Goths, this city was governed by the Caliph of Damascus, until it 84 became independent and the capital of Moorish Spain. Then began its career of glory. In the tenth century it had 300,000 inhabitants (now 40,000), and for these devout and cleanly and hospitable and learned Mussulmans there were six hundred mosques, and nine hundred baths, and six hundred inns, and eight hundred schools, and a library of 600,000 volumes.
Outside of the city the people had gone in crowds to a rural fête. Men, women, and children, old and young, rich and poor, on foot, on horse, on mules or donkeys, and in carriages,—any way to go,—all had gone to have a jolly time in the country, as the custom is in Spain. It was a gay sight, but rising among the grounds were scattered here and there the remnants of ancient buildings, broken columns, fragments of capitals, and blocks of stone, that lay there silently speaking of departed glory. For here once stood the fairy palace of the Moorish Abdurhama, which that prince built for his favorite sultana, whose name it bore, and whose statue stood above the principal gate. The whole palace was of marbles and precious stones, adorned with the florid architecture which the genius of the East would invent. More than four thousand marble columns did this luxurious monarch bring from France and Italy and Africa to adorn his halls. And when he had spent more than fifty millions of pounds sterling upon it, he brought into his harem four thousand and three hundred women! Guarded by twelve thousand valiant men, he gave himself up to the pleasures of “the life that now is.” The city of Cordova was the city for such a king!
It is Moorish, Oriental, languid, voluptuous, in its decay. Walking along its quiet, almost noiseless streets, we looked in upon the courts that form the central patio around the four sides of which the house is built. In the midst, a fountain springs, and the water falls back into a marble basin. Around it shrubs with blooming flowers fill the air 85 with fragrance and beauty. In some of them evergreen trees, of unknown age, are growing, and these have been trained so curiously, as to produce surprising effects. Planted at the four corners of a square, their tops are brought over to meet each other, the branches are joined, the redundant leaves and twigs being pruned away, they grow together, the whole four, like one tree of arch over arch, a perpetually verdant bower. The windows of the dwelling look down into this court; and in them, or on its marble pavements in the heat of the day, the women sit with their needle-work, enjoying the fragrant shade and the music of the falling water. The gardens abound in oranges, lemons, and limes, hanging over the walls in clusters of extraordinary size.
The interior of these ancient houses is no less interesting. One, to which we were invited, was said to be the best example of the Moorish domestic architecture extant in Cordova. A few jasper columns were standing under the archway by which we passed from the court. The modern whitewash had covered the most of the arabesque embellishments upon the walls. We ascended a flight of broad, brick steps, with a solid beam of wood at the outer edge of each step, and at the head of the stairs the venerable master of the house met us kindly and made us welcome. We heard a piano as we were coming up the steps, but it suddenly ceased, and a young lady flitted out of view. The house is said to be more than a thousand years old. It may be so, but the Moorish style is so imprinted on the tastes of the people that they build age after age with substantially the same models, and it is not safe to affirm that the hands of the Moors laid any of these stones. The ceilings are very low, the rooms small, the furniture, as in all lands, is according to the taste or means of the owner, but Eastern in its style, and adapted to the quiet, languid type of the modern as well as the ancient inhabitants of this and all such climes.
86 The wonder of Cordova is also one of the wonders of the world. Its cathedral has been a mosque of the Moors. To see it once is an adequate reward for all one has endured in travelling thus far through the most comfortless country in Europe. To see it often, and study it in the minute details of its extraordinary plan and finish, is to lay up a store of imagery for dreams of memory through the rest of a lifetime. At least so it seems to me now, since entering its magnificent Gate of Pardon, and suddenly standing in the midst of a thousand variously colored columns,—marble, jasper, porphyry, granite,—all surmounted by Corinthian capitals, a forest in a temple, a petrified grove of trunks of majestic trees, enclosed in walls. Perhaps the memory of it will fade, so that a year or two hence the impressions of wonder, of sublimity, of vastness, will not be so strong as they are now. But at the moment when the interior first broke upon my sight, it was as strange to me that the art of men could construct such an edifice, as that the great Architect should build the walls over which the Niagara rushes for ever.
Court of Oranges, Cordova.
Stepping out of the street through a gate in a solid wall, we are in the midst of a court-yard some 400 feet long: an orange grove, venerable trees that have been bearing fruit, as now, a century or more; and three fountains send up jets of waters that fall back into large marble basins filled with goldfish which groups of children are feeding. Near the gate, on benches, elderly men are sitting, smoking, and enjoying the sunshine. The elders sat in the gate in the Scripture times, and do now in Eastern towns, and here also, where Oriental manners still obtain. In former years this court became a great resort for the people who made a mart, or exchange, as in all ages men have been tempted to make the house of prayer a market-place, and so it often becomes a den of thieves. Now, this Court of Oranges, as it is called, is the resort of old men and children, who enjoy 87 the warmth and shade and waters of the holy precincts. Passing through this court we come to the sacred edifice itself. Its history is as eventful as that of Spain. It was built by the Moors as a mosque, and when the Christians conquered Cordova, they converted the mosque into a church, though they could not convert the Moors into Christians. And this now-called cathedral is the one that Abdurhaman began to build A. D. 786, and his son completed in 796, pushing on the work with such tremendous energy that in ten years he constructed one of the most remarkable edifices in the world. His father’s idea was to surpass every temple on earth in extent and strength and splendor. It was to be the Mecca in Europe; and when the Western world was subdued to Islam, as he and all the believers believed it would be, the holy place to which pilgrimages from all these lands would be made was Cordova. 88 It is, therefore, the finest example that Spain possesses of that peculiar style of architecture and ornamentation which the Moors introduced, and which have been gradually disappearing with the lapse of centuries. It doubtless has a symbolism behind its material forms, and the student of art and religious thought will read in the plan and a thousand details, a meaning that does not meet the unanointed eye of the simple traveller.
The Gate of Pardon is so called because, under the Roman Catholic dispensation, indulgences were granted to those who entered by it into the temple. There is one gate of the same name in each of the cathedrals that I have visited in this country. The bronze ornaments upon the doors are very curious, the royal arms are displayed, and while the Christian inscription, in Gothic letters, of the word Deus , proclaims the true God, the Arabic letters also testify that the Mahometans worshipped him, for they write, “The empire belongs to God.”
Within the temple there is at first a sense of gloom, almost of oppression, arising from the vastness of the area and the want of height. The roof cannot be more than 40 or 50 feet high, while the floor stretches away 640 feet in length and 460 feet in breadth. A thousand columns in long lines, like trees planted in the garden of the Lord, are each of one single stone,—the spoils of temples in the East and the West, and some of them imperial gifts, and hence a variety of colors and size, showing all sorts of marbles, the green and red jasper, black, white and rose, emerald and porphyry. Crossing each other, at right angles, these rows of pillars form nineteen naves one way and twenty-nine the other; long-drawn aisles, over which the horse-shoe-shaped arches, standing one upon the other and supporting the roof, produce a marvellous effect.
THE GREAT MOSQUE, CORDOVA.
The Holy of Holies in the mosque was the Mihrab, and it has been preserved in the converted temple, with religious 89 care, as at once a curiosity and a memorial that the Mahometan has ceased to defile these courts. It is a recess in the wall of the temple, in which the Koran was kept, and where the Kalif came to say his prayers, looking out of a little window toward Mecca. It is a small six-sided room, about twelve feet across, the floor one piece of marble, and the roof, in the shape of a shell, is also, we were assured, of a single block, and up the six sides rise marble pilasters, the whole adorned with strange Arabic art and mysterious inscriptions. When Hakem was Caliph of Cordova, he sent messengers into the East to ask for skilful artificers in painting glass and giving this strange effect to tracery in metals and stone; for there is in mosaic work, when well done, something superior to the softest painting, and quite incomprehensible. The workers in mosaic came, and their skill now shines in this miracle of Oriental art, which has been here since 965, and is as fresh and beautiful as when it shone at the feast of the Rhamadhan, in the light of a thousand lamps. In the marble floor is worn a deep groove, by the knees of devout Mussulmans, who have thus gone around it while at their devotions.
On the sides of the cathedral are many chapels, each with its altar, its pictures, its relics, and its history. By one of them, once a Moorish sanctuary paved with silver, is a rude painting of a crucifixion, and an inscription in Spanish which tells us that that—
“While the Mahometans celebrated their orgies in this temple, a Christian captive uttered the name of Christ, whom he held in his heart, and he engraved this image with his nails on the hard stone of this pillar, for which his death has purchased this aureole.”
On the stone column is etched a crucifixion which tradition says the prisoner scratched in with his finger nails. The stone is very hard, and the story harder.
Come again and again, and this strange pile, with its 91 thousand columns and its thousand years of history, grows on you with every visit. We come from a land where all is fresh and new, and these old temples fill us with awe. But if we are impressed with a ruin as in Rome, where Paganism built its temples to become the sites of Christian churches, which themselves have been buried and again dug up to be the wonder of the present age, how much more impressive is a building still fresh and unbroken by the march of centuries, where the pomp and ceremony of a religion, corrupt indeed, yet recognizing God the Father as the only true God, are perpetuated year after year till their number becomes a thousand years.
NOT until reaching Seville does one feel what a luxury it is to live,—just to breathe,—to inhale the delicious air and rejoice in being . Other climates had been cold, or damp, or chilly; some hot, debilitating; but this was just right, and when a man comes to the place where the weather just suits him, it is time to sit down and enjoy it. It was a privilege to be any thing that could breathe in this delightful clime. It is the latter part of February. If one of my lungs was out of order, or both of them, I would stay here till they were well, or until the weather became too hot for comfort, and that will be but a few weeks hence.
The city is clean, well-built, and in the evening the inhabitants throng some of the streets so as to make it difficult to walk. The courts around which the houses are built are beautifully adorned with flowers and shrubs, and trees; in warmer weather awnings are spread over them, and here the family enjoy themselves with the piano and guitar, the song and the dance. Here, too, the table is spread, and all Seville, it is said, takes tea out of doors.
“LA GERALDA,” SEVILLE.
It was a dreadful day for Seville, and indeed for Spain, when the Moors were driven out of the country; they had conquered it, and ruled eight hundred years. Four hundred thousand Moors, Jews and Arabs, left this city of Seville in a few days after it was surrendered to St. Ferdinand. Wealth, learning, taste, art, and the charm of Eastern life went out with them, and Spain has been lower 93 in the scale of morals and manners ever since. This is no compliment to Mahometanism. To compare the present condition of Spain with any thing that has gone before it, and say that the former days were better than these, is saying very little for the better times. In this old city of Seville we found the Alcazar or palace, being the first specimen of Moorish magnificence we had seen. It consists of a group of palaces, on the banks of the Guadalquiver, and exhibits the same style of architecture and mural decorations that are so much admired and celebrated in the Alhambra. Indeed, the pavements and columns and arches and apartments have been preserved or restored with so much greater care than the Alhambra itself, that the latter appears to be a feeble example of Moorish taste and skill, compared with these glorious rooms in Seville. Fancy must people these chambers with men and women, of flesh and blood; clothe them in Oriental and gorgeous raiment, surround them with every luxury that gold and labor and power can give; hang these passages with curtains whose richness has not been excelled by any thing that modern art has produced. When the sleepy janitor opens the outer gate and leads you through these deserted and empty halls, in which your footfalls make the only sound, into apartments that for centuries have been silent as the grave, yet on every hand is beauty of coloring and carving and curiously wrought adorning that you must pause to admire; even in the midst of admiration one cannot but mourn that the barbaric splendor of Moorish glory has departed, and the degenerate race of effete Spanish civilization has taken its place. A thousand wives of a proud Moor once made these walls jocund with their mirth, and the adjoining gardens and the beautiful Guadalquiver were gay with their revels and song, and the moral tone of the palace was as high, and the happiness of the people just as great as when a dissolute queen and a profligate court, and an ignorant, 95 depraved, and impoverished people, constituted the government and inhabitants of a nominally Christian kingdom.
Instead of a mosque, is the cathedral of Seville. It is the noblest example of the Gothic ecclesiastical architecture in the world. St. Peter’s at Rome produces no such effect on the soul when first you enter it. The Cologne cathedral is nearer it in power. I have no superstitious feeling that compels me to be awed by a place. But I cannot enter this temple without worshipping! Instantly, as you stand within its walls, its giant solemn columns rising around, scarcely visible in the twilight at the noon of a brilliant southern day, its vastness, its amazing height, the roof like a firmament, and resting on arches, dividing it into sixty-eight compartments, one feels that this surely ought to be none other than the house of God. High mass was celebrated during one of my many visits to the cathedral. When the tinkling of the bell gave the signal for the “elevation of the host,” the faithful, wherever they chanced to be in the vast area, fell on their knees and silently adored the idol which superstition had just held aloft for the worship of an ignorant multitude. A woman entered one of the chapels and knelt before an image of the Virgin and poured out her soul in prayer. As if unconscious that spectators were all around her, she wept and told her beads.
She wept and told her Beads.
The women of Seville are celebrated for their beauty. In the Central Park of New York, Hyde Park of London, or the Bois de Boulogne of Paris, you notice that many of the most splendid equipages carry very plain women, and one often admires the compensation system that gives the signs of wealth to some and saves the good looks for others. But you may stand by the fashionable drive of Seville and the first hundred carriages that pass shall have four handsome 96 women in each of them. As “you would scarce expect one of my age” to be a connoisseur in this matter, I will give in the words of my guide the types of Spanish beauty: “Deep blue-black eyes, adormilados sometimes, and at others full of flashes, each a puñalada ; a small forehead; raven hair, long and silky, which they might almost turn at night into a balmy soft pillow, and a long flowing mantilla 97 by day; a peculiar meneo , sal , and indescribable charm, naturalness, and grace in every movement, together with liveliness and repartee,—form the principal features of their appearance and character.”
The dance and the song, the bull-fight more than any thing else in the season of it, make this city the home of the gayest, wildest, most dissolute men and women in the south of Europe. Corinth, in the days of Venus-worship, was not more wholly given up to the lust of the flesh and the pride of life than Seville to-day. Yet it was once the emporium of the New World. From its port set sail the fleet that carried Columbus to a land beyond the sea and brought back the wealth of the Western Ind. It has been the residence of kings; and successive dynasties, faiths, and customs have in turn made Seville their capital and terrestrial paradise. It is girt on every side by fertile plains, the orange and lemon trees hang loaded all the year with their golden fruit, and the silver river, whose name is poetry and whose banks are haunted with the memories of Eastern delights, washes the feet of this beautiful city.
If there was ever an original to Byron’s Don Juan, and there was perhaps an original to him as to Cooper’s Spy or Irving’s Schoolmaster, then the tradition may be true that points to a low white-washed house, close to San Leandro, and belonging to the nuns of that convent, where that graceless scamp once lived. And the “Barber of Seville,” of course, had his shop somewhere in town, and it has been conveniently located in the same neighborhood, so that when you visit the St. Thomas Square you can see them both. They are nothing to see, unless you are at that age when the poetry of Byron has charms they lose as you get older and wiser.
The house of Murillo, the painter of Spain, and not far from being the painter of the world, is an object of attraction, 98 and Seville has it, and also some of the greatest pictures of this master. The Queen of Spain would send the Pope a present worthy of a sovereign to give to another, and she sent two of Murillo’s paintings. The Pope had them copied in mosaic, and sent the copies to the Queen of Spain. It is surpassingly wonderful that stone can be set so skilfully as to make a picture with all the softness of shade and color that belongs to the finest work in oil. We will look up some Murillos on our way, but just now we are near the site of the Old Moorish Castle, which is not more distinguished for the tales of Oriental life and love and war than it is for being the place in which the Inquisition was first established. What tales of horror its stones might tell if they were permitted to cry out! Nowhere on this planet has the notion of converting men to believe a lie, by roasting them if they will not believe, been carried to a higher finish than in Spain. In each of its chief cities a spot is still cherished with affectionate regard by the faithful, where in the good old times of their fathers the auto-da-fé was celebrated with pompous processions, when priests and soldiers and hosts of men and women marched to the public square with a company of those who had been condemned to the stake! The Quemadaro , or burning place of Seville, is outside of the city, and the plain is called the Field of St. Sebastian. Aceldama would be a more appropriate name.
On the banks of the Guadalquiver, near the Moorish Alcazar, stands a famous pile called the Tower of Gold, as well so called from its ancient color as the uses to which it has been put. Its summit gives an outlook far upon the plain across the river, and in times of old it has been a fortress of huge strength, to resist the enemy when threatening the palace itself. It was built by the Moors as a treasure-house. When the Spaniards got possession of it, 99 Don Pedro made it a prison for his friends, men and women, who fell under his disfavor. And then came a time when it was wanted for the purpose of holding heaps of gold, for when Columbus had gone from Seville to a new world, and the stream of gold began to flow back to Spain, this Seville, which had sent out the great discoverer, received the returning treasures, and this tower became the reservoir to contain it. Eight millions of ducats and more have been stored here at one time, private and public funds, and the monarchs of Spain often put their arms deep into the bins of gold, and helped themselves.
The decline and fall of Spain would be the fitting theme for another Gibbon, and the lesson it teaches might be studied with advantage in the new world, whose discovery had so much to do with enriching, and then destroying the kingdom. It is very hard to speculate or philosophize on the causes that led to the prostration of a great power like this, when the element of religion is excluded from the study. Without the demoralizing influences of a political religion, there were causes enough to work the ruin of Spain, and foremost among these was the influx of wealth, that made every man greedy of a chance to get rich, at the expense of the State. It is useful to recur to it now, and in our own country, because the same causes are working mightily in the same direction, and producing the same deplorable effects. It was always so, but increased opportunities increase temptation and multiply the consequences. Men now seek and obtain office not for honor and the power of usefulness, but to get rich. Government in the hands of such men is an instrument of robbery, an engine of corruption, and it has in itself disease and death. The influx of gold from California has corrupted the American people in the same way, if not to the same degree that the Mexican gold and silver demoralized Spain.
100 Antanazio proposed to drive out of town, along the banks of the river, to the ruins of an ancient city. A charming ride of an hour, in a delicious winter day, without the winter, brings us to the ruins of an amphitheatre built by Scipio Africanus, A. U. C. 546. Here, away in this end of the then known world, three men were born, each one of whom became a Roman emperor! The glory of nations was once over all the palaces, temples, and theatres that distinguish this spot. But now the ruins themselves are ruined. We can mark, or rather we can believe when we are pointed to, the places where the nobles sat to see the games of blood in the arena of the amphitheatre, the dungeons of the wild beasts are laid open, and the chambers where gladiators stripped for the fight, that gladdened the hearts of men and women two thousand years ago. Yet they were quite as rational and refined, quite as Christianable and decent, as the bull-fights of to-day.
“Have you been to see a bull-fight?” was one of the first questions put to me by a delicate little lady-friend whom I met.
“No; have you?” I answered and asked in the same breath.
Her husband was sitting by; a splendid soldier-like looking man, six feet high, and well proportioned, who could take the bull by the horns when he pleased, and would do it were there any occasion. He did not wait for his pretty wife to answer my inquiry, but laughingly replied:
“Yes, she has, and I went with her, but could not stand it; the sight made me sick, and I had to leave in disgust; but she staid it out, and saw—how many killed was it, dear?”
“Six bulls and five horses,” she said with a smile of supreme delight.
“Killed!” I cried.
THE BULL FIGHT.
102 “Yes, killed,” they both answered, and he went on to say, “butchered;—horrid!”
“Tell me all about it, please; I would like to hear , at least.”
“Well,” said the amiable husband, “if you are going to talk bull , I will go into the reading-room and have a smoke.” He went out, and she went on:—
“These men ” she said; “but I ought to say, you men, are so squeamish; you faint at the sight of a little blood; what would you do in a fight, a real battle with bullets and brains flying all about you and men bleeding to death by hundreds, if you can’t bear to see a bull cut down or a horse ripped up. Why, I saw a horse run all about the bull-ring with his entrails trailing on the ground, and a bull with his hamstrings cut, and making splendid fight on his knees. You must go and see it; now there’s my husband, poor fellow, he ought not to go to such places, it doesn’t agree with him!”
“Well, I would rather have you describe a fight,” said I, “than to go and see it. I have no particular taste for blood, but any thing would be agreeable that you would undertake to describe.”
“Thank you. You have seen the ring; every city in Spain has its bull-ring: a circular theatre, open to the sky, with seats rising from the arena in the centre. The seats on the east and southerly quarters are covered to protect the grandees, while the multitude sitting in the sun hold fans before their faces or take it as it comes. This ring will seat some fifteen to twenty thousand people, and a gayer, grander sight it is rare to see, than these bright-colored, dressy people; the women are the most beautiful in the world; they are far handsomer than American women, you know they are, don’t you?”
“Perhaps so, present company excepted, and one or two 103 others: but pray go on,—I am more anxious to hear of bulls than women.”
“A blast of trumpets sounds the hour for the spectacle to begin, and the eager shout of the multitude shows their impatience to see the fun. A great show precedes, the magistrates riding in with a troop to give something like dignity to the occasion, and when they have swept around the circle and retired, the spectators sit in breathless silence. Two mounted men, called picadors , ride in, each with a long spear at rest, and take their position, some fifty feet in front of the gateway through which the beasts are to enter. All things being ready, and the breathless throng thirsting for the fray, the huge door unfolds, and a fierce bull dashes into the arena. The multitude greet him with a shout of ecstasy. He makes straight upon the picadors, if he is a bull of spirit. There’s a great difference in the animals; some of them go scouring all around the ring, head down and tail up, pursued by the picador; but a real bull of Navarre—they are the fiercest and pluckiest—pitches right ahead for the first enemy he sees. The horseman levels his lance to meet the tremendous monster as he comes; sometimes catches him on the shoulder, and the blood spouts from the wound. But he does not stop for trifles. It takes more than a scratch to stop a good bull; he rushes on and sometimes buries the iron deeper in his flesh, or tosses it off, and catching the horse on his horns, hoists him and his rider into the air, and as they come down in a heap, he drives on to meet other antagonists lying in wait, and ready to do him mischief. The very last time I was there, it was this sight that made my husband sick; the horse scrambled up, and actually went trotting around the ring, when there was more of him outside than in, he was so terribly ripped open by that one lunge of those splendid horns. I was in hopes that the bull would beat 104 the whole of them; now he met the men on foot, with red cloaks on their arms, which they shake to attract the excited gentleman’s attention. He sees them and bears down gallantly upon them like a Monitor or a Miantonomoh, and the wily chulos , or cloakers, leap dexterously to one side, and sometimes they jump over the barriers among the spectators, where they have been followed by the raging bull himself. This is not often, however. He has still another set of fighters to drive out of the ring. These are the banderilleros , who throw fiery darts into the bull’s neck; these darts are provided with a powder squib which explodes when it strikes in the flesh, and puts his majesty into a horrid rage: by this time, the bull, hunted by all these foes, charging upon one and speared by another, is becoming exhausted, or the spectators are wearied with the sameness of the fight, and want a new victim. The matador , or chief butcher, then enters the field in a full court dress, with a scarlet robe in one hand and a sharp stiletto in the other. He brandishes the red skirt to draw the bull on, and as he comes he aims a stab at his neck, and, if he is a master at his work, takes him in the right spot, and the huge fellow falls dead at his victor’s feet. Once I saw the matador miss his aim, the bull wheeled suddenly, one horn took him in the side, and he went over the head of the bull and came down a mangled corpse. Then a shout went up as if to shake the skies. I felt badly myself, but these Spanish people seemed to relish it amazingly, and I suppose they get used to it. But the bull generally gets the worst of it. When he has had the finishing stroke, a team of mules is driven in, the dead beast is hitched on by a hook and chain and drawn out rapidly, and the ring is clear for another fight. All this has not taken half an hour, and a similar scene is repeated until four, five, or six bulls, and often as many horses, are killed.
105 “When a good hit is made the spectators rise en masse and shout their applause. This is the triumph of the gladiators in the sand. A little riband on the bull’s mane is a prize which the combatant seeks to capture, and this he presents to his lady-love as the evidence of his bravery and skill. The ladies are evidently quite as enthusiastic in their love of the national sport as the men, and they show it by clapping their little hands or fans and crying bravo , as eagerly as any.”
“And do you really find pleasure in this bloody spectacle?” I inquired somewhat anxiously, for I had been quite interested in her graphic description, and could readily see that she had spoken with feeling.
“Well, I must say that I do like the excitement of it. I never could see any sport in looking on when two or three or four horses were thrashed to make them run faster; yet many women think it the height of enjoyment to see a horse-race. The noblest men of England delight to stand in a ring around two men who beat each others’ faces into a jelly, and they call it the ‘manly art’! The ladies of New York go to theatres and operas with their necks and more exposed to the gaze of men, and the ladies look at the licentious dancing of ballet girls who have been tortured into the art of showing themselves disgustingly to every virtuous taste. And I have come to the conclusion that in all parts of the world people have their own ideas about amusement, and there is no great difference in the moral of it. For my part I like a good fair stand-up bull-fight more than any of them.”
My fair enthusiast rested; I thanked her for the information she had given, and added:
“I agree with you entirely, my dear madam, as to the moral of the sports you speak of; only I think the New York amusements are the most corrupt and corrupting. 106 And when I write on ‘Bull-Fights in Seville,’ I shall do my best to put it in your words.”
“If you do,” said she, “send me a copy of your book; I want my husband to read it. He can’t bear bullfights.”
DON MIGUEL DE MANARA, a Spanish rake, one of many like the Don Juan who stands as type of his race, having spent his life in the way rakes love to live, undertook to be religious in his later years. He had sowed his wild oats, and never got much of a crop, and now that death was likely to call for him soon, he thought to get ready for his coming by making over to some pious uses what he had not spent upon his lusts. According to the theory of that church which takes care of all Spanish souls, he made a sure thing of it by founding a hospital, to which was given the name of “ La Caridad .” A brotherhood, whose special vocation was to minister to persons sentenced to death, and to bury their bodies, took charge of it. It is famous far beyond Seville and Spain. Its patients are tended by young men of good families in the city, who minister by turns to the sick and dying brought to this Charity . Perhaps some of the young gentlemen nurses, like the founder, have an eye to a compromise of their own infirmities, by giving attention to these miserably sick poor.
But the fame of the hospital is so great because it has within its walls some of the noblest paintings in the world!
The building stands in an obscure part of the town, and we had a long search to find it, Antanazio, our guide, being quite unused to take his travellers to hospitals and out-of-the-way churches, as theatres and bull-fights and fandangoes among the gypsies are much more attractive. But we found 108 it; an old woman janitor let us in, and led us to the chapel where the art-treasures are to be seen.
This church is the guardian of the masterpieces of Murillo . His manner is as distinctly marked as Raphael’s or Titian’s, and the power of none of the Italian masters, unless we except Leonardo da Vinci, is greater than his. It was difficult to believe this in Italy, where Murillos are comparatively rare, but here, where alone his greatest and best works are to be found, it is easy to believe that he is among the first. Several of his pictures in this church are of St. John, and in one of them an angel assists the saint in carrying a sick man, and in another the same saint washes the feet of a pauper. The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes is a wonderfully faithful presentation of that sublime scene. But the great picture, the one we specially came to see, is “Moses striking the Rock in the Desert.” Its eloquence tells and pleads its own story: a famished multitude pressing to the gushing stream and gathering the precious waters in their hands; mothers drinking, while their children, with parched lips, are pleading for the life-saving draught; even the beasts declare their joy at the sight of water, and gratitude lights up the faces of the thronging Israelites. But the central, majestic figure in the group, on which the painter’s high art is lavished with a wealth of skill, is Moses, with folded hands and upturned eyes, acknowledging the goodness and the power which this miracle, almost as wondrous to him as to his people, has so suddenly revealed. Near him is his brother Aaron, scarcely less than Moses in the scene, for he, priest-like, is still in the act of prayer. And in the people every form and feature of human life and feeling are portrayed, each after its own kind, with the hand of a master.
There are several pictures here by others, as well as other Murillos, that I have not space to mention. Marshal Soult carried off five of the great pictures by Murillo, and two 109 of them, “Abraham entertaining the Angels,” and the “Prodigal Son,” were bought by the Duke of Sutherland. Wellington recovered, at Waterloo, some of Soult’s spoils of the galleries of Spain. The French are great thieves when they get among pictures or statuary. They once had the Venus de Medicis boxed and ready for Paris. War is pretty much the same game all the world over, and always.
The picture-gallery of Seville was saved from French spoliation by the forethought of a Spanish amateur, who sent all the paintings to Gibraltar before the French reached Seville. We found, to our disappointment, that the museum was closed for repairs, and a special order from the governor was necessary. Instead of sending the order, he promised to send us a guide to conduct us through the gallery the next day. An hour after the time he came, and the only service he came to perform was to lead us to the door of the museum, which was close to our lodgings, and then to receive his fees for this needless service. That was very Spanish. The porter then admitted us and received his fees. Another led us across the court into the hall where the pictures were standing along the walls, unhung, and he received his fees. When the convents in Spain were suppressed, the best pictures among them were gathered into this museum. Murillo painted some of his finest works for the Capuchin convent, which stood near the Cordova gate. One of the sweetest and most perfect of paintings is that of the two saints of Seville, the maidens Justa and Rufina, who held up the giralda, or tower of the cathedral, when it was likely to be blown down in a tempest. In the days of Pagan Spain a procession was passing through the streets bearing an image of Venus , to which the people made homage. Two young women, lately converted to the Christian religion, by name Justa and Rufina, refused to worship the idol, and the multitude in their madness made martyrs of them on the spot. When the Christians became 110 masters of the city, the maidens became its tutelar saints, and are painted as holding the giralda in their hands, in honor of their kind interposition in a storm.
Here is Murillo’s first and last page of the gospel,—the Annunciation is the first page, with the beauty and joyful hope of the motherhood of him who is the desire of all nations; the last page is the Mother of Jesus weeping over the death of him who was to have redeemed Israel. The St. Thomas giving alms, by Murillo, has been praised by the best critics as not excelled by any of his works. Wilkie placed it among the finest.
It is a question often asked, and never answered, Why can we not have these pictures, or such as these, in the Western World? Few of the many who would enjoy and appreciate them ever can come to Spain or Italy, and must they live and die without the sight of all these glorious works of art? It would be an easy matter to have copies made of the most celebrated and magnificent pictures, and transported to New York, into a national gallery. Copies may be made so as to challenge comparison with the original, and to give a fair idea of the distinctive manner of each of the artists. It does not require the same genius to make a perfect copy that it does to conceive and give birth to the original. And there are no living artists, and have been none in the last three hundred years, to paint character, soul, thought, feeling, as those men did whom we call the Old Masters. We have as great painters now as they. But not in their line of things. England and France and America have had, and now have, artists whose works could not have been produced by Da Vinci, Giotto, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, Carlo Dolce, or Murillo. But there is no one alive now to paint the Last Supper, the Judgment, the Transfiguration, the Charles V. on horseback, or the Smitten Rock, comparable with those majestic transcripts of sentiment which stand up in the world of art among man’s 111 works, as Niagara and Mont Blanc are sublime among the works of God.
After writing the account of the bull-fight in a former chapter, it occurred to me that you might ask whether I went to see the sport myself, or relied altogether on the descriptions of the ladies and others. That is a fair question, and I am therefore obliged to say that I did not; that I have never seen a bull-fight. Three reasons prevented me from going. First, they are usually to be seen only on Sunday, and I never go to places of amusement on that day, at home or abroad. Secondly, I have no taste for sights of blood, and would rather go the other way than into the bull-ring at any time. And thirdly and lastly, in the way of reasons for not going, there was not a bull-fight while I was there! It was and is yet the winter season, when the weather is cool compared with spring and summer, and the bulls do not fight well except when the weather is hot. The “season,” which is even more distinctly marked than that of opera in Paris or New York, begins the first Sunday after Lent, and a performance takes place every Sunday afterwards, if the weather permits, till the height of summer suspends it for a few weeks when the heat is excessive. It is resumed from the latter part of August until the first of October. Then the fall and winter are made dull by its absence, and the Spaniards long for the return of hot weather and the beasts.
There is a great deal of exaggeration in the descriptions given by those who enjoy the sport. The horses selected for the sacrifice are miserable jades, that are fit for nothing else but to be killed, and the bulls are rarely so fierce as to be dangerous, unless goaded or provoked into phrensy by the tricks of the combatants. The men who go into the fight are all hired butchers or fighters, who are paid regular salaries, like actors in a theatre, and they make a business of it. And so universal is the rage of the people to see 112 this, the national sport and pastime, that the ring must furnish seats for ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand people, and the price of admission for such a multitude readily supplies the means to meet the great expenses of the entertainment.
One of the most curious facts developed by the bull-fight is the fondness that women have for such scenes. It is no fiction that ladies, whose refinement cannot be called in question, are in raptures when the fight is the most savage and bloody. It always was so. In the amphitheatres of Italy, when martyr Christians were compelled to fight with wild beasts, the fairest and proudest of women were among the spectators, who looked on with delight when their fellow-creatures were torn limb from limb. I have often heard it said, here and elsewhere, that women are more fond of these bloody spectacles than men are. We know they are more sympathetic with suffering, and in the hospital and chamber of sickness and anguish, they minister with a long-suffering patience and fortitude from which the sterner stuff that men are supposed to be made of revolts at once, or soon shrinks worn out, “used up,” as we say.
What is the effect of these scenes of blood and butchery on the national character? In the streets the boys play bull-fight: one holds up a red handkerchief and shakes it in the face of another boy, who makes a lunge at him with his head, and then pursues him, and another sets off after him , and so the bull-ring is enacted in the highway. As all the large towns have bull-rings, and the poorest classes of people manage to get money enough to see the show, and the country boy can give his girl no greater treat than to take her to a bull-fight, the thing is in the widest sense national, and its influence reaches down to the lowest ranks, while it is the pet of the nobility and gentry. And its effect must be degrading, brutifying, and demoralizing. If there were any thing in the Spanish character to work upon, for good or evil, the influence of such a decided national pastime 113 would be more distinctly pronounced. But the senseless pride of the Spaniard,—pride with nothing to be proud of; pride with idleness, ignorance, and poverty; pride of the meanest and most contemptible sort,—is the warp and woof of Spanish character, and there is hardly any thing more in them than there would be in a nation of peacocks.
When you have excepted the vice of intoxication, and a great exception it is, you have said all that can be said in favor of the moral habits of the Spanish people. They do not steal from one another, that I know of, any more than other people do. But they certainly commit murders more frequently than other nations do, unless the slayer is maddened by drink. In estimating the comparative morality of peoples, this matter of intemperance holds the balance. It is the prolific parent of the greater part of the crimes of a people where it is the prevailing vice, yet very few moralists are disposed to reckon it the crime of crimes. In Spain the women are said to be almost universally corrupt. As a matter of course, the men must be just as bad. I have been assured here in Granada, by those who ought to know, having long resided here and become thoroughly acquainted with the state of things, that there is no social morality among men and women in Spain: that from the highest to the lowest they have all gone out of the way, and that they are known—the women are—as divided into four classes, with different degrees of refinement in vice, but all four classes lost to virtue and without conscience of sin. It is quite probable that such a statement is to be taken with many grains of allowance. But making all deductions that one’s good nature demands, there still remains a sediment of truth that one shudders to admit. In this plane of inquiry we are met with the truth that Austria, Italy, France, and Spain are the Roman Catholic countries where the vice of licentiousness corrupts the moral of social life. The Protestant countries of Europe 114 are in colder climes, and intemperance is the vice that among the poorer people breeds misery more ruinous to their health and prosperity.
At the railway station, when we were leaving Seville for the Alhambra by the way of Malaga, a group of natives in the costume of Andalusia presented a picturesque and not unpleasing appearance. In the cities of Europe it is rare to see any thing national and peculiar in the dress of the people. Fashion is an empire that extends over every nation, and reigns in London, Berlin, Vienna, and Madrid with resistless sway. The seat of government is in Paris, and her edicts are obeyed in free America as well as in France. But when you get into the rural districts, the people cling to an ancient régime ; a fashion, indeed, who sat on the throne long years ago, and has never been put aside by any revolutions of modern invention. These rural Andalusians, in breeches and sandals, with red belt or sash, and loose jacket, and conical hat and wide rim turned up all around, are dressed as their great-grandfathers were, and as their own great-grandchildren will be, and others, for generations to come. They had been to the city on an excursion , and were now going home again, none the better, but a deal the worse for the change of life they had suffered in town.
It was a good opportunity to learn something of the life of these people, who form, after all, the great mass of any nation, and the part of the people with whom every true heart is in sympathy. The rich and the gay, the fashionable people who throng in cities, can live as they please. The poor, who live from hand to mouth, and cannot choose for themselves, but must live as they can, these are the people in every country whose condition we want to inquire into; and when we have learned of their state, we know what their country is. It is the average of human comfort that we want to get at.
115 And it is a real help towards one’s satisfaction with the condition of a people to know that it does not take a vast amount of the good things of this life to make one happy, if he has never had any thing more or better than the little he has been contented with. These Andalusians work on the farms of large proprietors, and get six to ten cents a day and their food, when they are working by the season. This sounds small. The wages of laboring men who find themselves, and who work by the day, will average forty or fifty cents a day. To know what such pay is worth we must know how they live, and what it costs to buy the food they have. Their food is chiefly soup of bacon oil and vegetables, with bread and fruit. They take a kettle of this thick soup, more like a pudding than a soup, to the fields with them; and day after day, year in and year out, eat substantially the same thing. And this food costs the peasants a very little more than nothing. The ground is easily worked, the climate is so favorable to growth and land so abundant, that what can be raised for food is almost as accessible to the poor as if vegetables were spontaneous and free to everybody. So it is that these poor people are quite as well off, as to the mere physical comforts of life, as those who get one, two, and five dollars a day in other lands, and have to pay so much for food and lodgings as to be sorely puzzled to do what a cat often tries to do,—make both ends meet.
These Spanish peasants appear to be lively, intelligent, and wide-awake. They give a reason for doing any thing, when they are asked; and that is more than the Irish or English peasantry can do at home, or in the land of the soaring eagle. Except in Russia, there is not a people on the continent of Europe that appear more stolid and unthoughtful, more like mere cattle or machines, than the farm peasantry of merry England. This may be in appearance only; but the truth is that you can get more out of an 116 ignorant laborer on the continent of Europe, whose language you do not more than half understand, than out of an English farm hand who is supposed to speak English.
Beer has something to do with this matter of stupidity. These southern climates in Europe and this soil are favorable to the culture of wine-grapes, and wine is the solace and stimulus of the commonest people. You may buy as good a bottle of wine for thirty cents in Spain as you would have to pay three or four dollars for in New York. And if you will not give thirty cents for it, you can have as much as you want for little or nothing. Until the railroads were built and transportation made easy and cheap, it was common, when the new vintage came in, to empty the casks that held what was left over of former years. And a church was pointed out to me that was built with mortar made with wine instead of water, there being a scarcity of water in the vicinity but plenty of wine that was to be thrown away. Sherry wine, which is the sack of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, is the leading wine of Spain, and is made now and here just as wine was made in the times of Hesiod and Isaiah; for in such climes as this the people keep on doing things as their ancestors or others did in the same place thousands of years ago. They drink wine as freely as the English drink beer, and as Americans drink rum and water. But they do not get drunk as our people do, and they are not so stupid as the beer drinkers of England are. They are stimulated, of course, and the exhilaration is carried to excess sometimes. It is not true to say there is no drunkenness in wine-growing countries, but the best informed men, who had the most abundant opportunities of learning the facts in the case, assured me that intemperance is not common; that it is very rare among the working people of Spain. This is not to be used as an argument in favor of wine raising and wine drinking in America. It would indeed be better for the health of the drinking men 117 to drink pure wine than bad whiskey, or the vile compounds that are sold as wine in our country. But if wine were as cheap in the United States as in Spain, there would be just as much intemperance in the United States as now. The climate and the strife of such a country as ours furnish causes for the use of stimulating drinks that do not exist in Italy or Spain; and philanthropists who discuss and legislate on the subject of temperance, without regard to the physical circumstances of a people, are in the same case with the traveller who reckoned his bill without his host. It is well to multiply and fortify wholesome laws to restrain men from evil indulgence, and it is our duty to ply all possible moral agencies to reform and save our fellow-men; but our duty does not end with legislating and preaching. There are social burdens to be raised from the poor by the voluntary action of the rich, and by the application of the gospel principle of brotherhood, which will so ameliorate the condition of the lowly that they will not be tempted as now, by the pressure of weariness, care, and woe, to fly to the intoxicating cup for help to bear their load, or to forget that it is on them. But this disgression is getting dry, if it is on drinking.
A beautiful trait of character and a lovely custom of the Spanish peasantry appear in their love for parents. They yield to them obedience , respect, veneration, and love, after they are aged, and the children are men and women grown. The married children delight to have their parents to direct and govern them as in childhood, and these children even quarrel among themselves to get and keep possession of their aged parents. This trait of character is said to mark a slow country, where the past, the ancient, is held in honor; while progress has no such reverence for old age. Would to God that we had a little more Spain in young America, if it is Spanish to honor one’s father and mother.
In the Alameda, at Malaga.
THE wind blowing from the north-west,—that is, a land breeze, at Malaga, excites the nervous system so much, that in courts of law it is held to be an extenuating circumstance in case of crime. It is therefore of great importance to know which way the wind blows when you 119 are proposing to kill your neighbor or to commit a forgery. In our country we have hardly got to that point, but in Boston, where easterly winds prevail, the phrenologists set up a plea in behalf of the Malden murderer that was quite as absurd as the Malaga weather. In New York, the doctrine of mental and moral disturbance is held to be an extenuating circumstance in crime. And some of our eminent citizens, merchants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and ministers have united in representing the strong excitement engendered by stock speculation, as an excuse for forgery. From all of which it is fair to infer that the guilt or innocence of a man in the New World, as well as the Old, depends very much upon the way the wind blows.
Malaga is one of the most celebrated resorts for invalids. It is not a resort of fashion, like Nice and Mentone, and perhaps Sicily is more sought by those whose maladies are partly imaginary and the other part nervous. But Malaga is a place to which intelligent physicians send hundreds of patients who are in a bad way, and yet have a fair chance of getting well if they spend a few winters in this uniform, genial, mild, but not enervating clime. The warm south wind comes in upon it from the sea, on whose shore it lies, and the mountains in the rear shield it from the northern blasts. In an ordinary room, without fire, the thermometer (Fahr.) ranges all winter long from fifty-two to seventy deg., never higher or lower, unless when an extraordinary fit of weather is on, and the average temperature is about fifty-five deg. from November to March. It is six degrees warmer than Rome, which is one of the dampest, chilliest, and most disagreeable places for an invalid to winter in. I tried hard to get well in Florence and Rome and Nice, and then fled to Spain, and found what neither Italy nor Southern France would furnish,—an equable clime; warm, but not debilitating. Nature has a laboratory for making mineral waters that chemists in vain attempt to imitate, and there are peculiar 120 combinations of atmospheric elements in divers places, that must be tried on the spot if you would get the good of them. The invalid who wishes a climate that braces him up without exciting him to cough, will have to breathe in a great many places, perhaps, before he finds those opposite qualities blended, and if an unprofessional opinion is worth any thing, it is here given, that the south of Spain is the paradise desired. But nothing is more important for consumptives than uniformity of climate, and the argument in favor of Malaga is complete, when you learn that the range or variation of its temperature is less than that of any other place on the continent of Europe! Pau, that beautiful little nest in the Pyrenees, so sheltered by the hills that no wind visits it too roughly, has a range of no less than sixty-eight degrees during the year, and Rome has sixty-two, and even Nice, fairest of watering-places for winter, ranges sixty, but Malaga has only a range of forty-nine degrees in the year.
It rained almost every day in Rome. It rains in Florence implacably, just when you wish it would not. Nice is fairer, but not always fair. Malaga is so uniformly pleasant, that a day without sunshine is very unusual in the months of November, December, and January. Good authority says there are not, during the whole year, more than ten days on which rain would prevent an invalid from taking exercise. It seemed to me that the winter weather in Malaga is more nearly like to that of Cairo, in Egypt, than any other place, and there are but four degrees of difference in the average temperature.
But take it summer and winter through, and in the last nine years it has rained only 262 times, or thirty-nine times in the course of each year: and think of it, O ye dwellers in London, or Paris, or New York, it has been foggy or misty but sixteen days in three times three years! And this bright, beautiful atmosphere gives a blue sky so 121 deep and pure, that it would take a poet of more than average fancy power to invent a firmament of superior glory, or to find a sunset in Greece or Italy to be mentioned in the same day with the gorgeous splendors that clothe the skies of Southern Spain at shut of day.
If you have consumption, or bronchitis, or any malady that is working mischief with your breathing apparatus, do not be governed, nor even guided, by the hasty generalizations of a man who writes from what he sees and hears in a tour for health and pleasure through half a dozen countries in the course of a season. The most that he can tell you is that such a climate as this is said to be excellent for those who have consumption already, and is likely to engender it where it is not; and if you cannot reconcile those two sayings of the books and the people, it is well enough to know that a sickly plant may be saved by being cared for in a hot-house, that might have been made to droop if taken in when it was in healthful vigor. Dr. Lee, whose opinion is of great weight, regards the climate of Madeira, Pau, or Pisa better than that of Malaga, for incipient tubercular disease, in persons of an excitable habit. And so much caution is to be used in deciding upon the means to be used for saving life by change of clime, that I would not write a line on this subject if I supposed that any one would be foolish enough to make a voyage on the strength of it.
When a miserly client attempted to get an opinion out of a lawyer by asking him at dinner, “What would you advise me to do in such and such a case?” the lawyer answered, “I should think the best thing you could do would be to take advice.” And this is what I advise.
No finer grapes than those of Malaga do we enjoy at home in the winter season, and the trade in raisins is enormous. We have been familiar with a raisin-box, but it was something quite novel to see extensive factories making nothing else but these rude little cases, all to be used for 122 packing raisins. The raisin stores or depots where the boxes are waiting to be exported were so vast as to astonish me, but when one thinks of the extent to which they are distributed throughout the civilized world, it is only wonderful that the trade is not far greater.
The country around is flowing with wine and oil. It might easily be made to yield cotton and sugar enough to supply the market of Europe. But it is in Spain , and nothing thrives in Spain but Romanism and its sister.
Through a succession of streets so narrow that no wheel carriages can pass, and designed only for bipeds and quadrupeds to go on foot, reeking with smells that made fragrant the memory of Cologne, we wound our way, meeting Moors from Morocco, in their picturesque costume, caps, togas, or shawls, with bare legs and sandals; meeting gypsy women and gypsy men whose home is Spain, and whose story is part of life in Spain, we plied our devious walk on Sunday into the little square in front of the Malaga Cathedral. Built of white stone, on the site of a mosque, and still retaining part of the old Mahometan structure, it rises in a mass about three hundred feet square, to the height of 130 feet, and the tower rises 220 feet above the roof. High mass was celebrated when we entered, and few worshippers were present: most of these were women of some “religious” order, and some priests, not serving at the altar but on their knees before it, on the beautiful pavement of blue and white marble. Perhaps the interior is too light and florid: the various decorations have been added at periods so remote from each other that they lack harmony. But what is wanting in severity and solemn majesty is made up in the variety of ornament, portals, statues, and wood carvings.
The tribes of Jordan, in Palestine, once held this city and region, reigning and rejoicing in the climate, the soil, and the sea. They sent the luscious grapes away to China, and Ibu Bathula, who was here in 1630, was quite as 123 delighted with what he had to eat and see as we are, who come 230 years after him, for he says: “I have seen eight pounds of grapes sold for twopence; its pomegranates are like rubies, and unequalled in the whole world; its courts have no rivals in beauty, and are shaded by wonderful groves of oranges.” He adds that he saw a preacher collecting money to ransom some Moors whom a Spanish fleet had captured. He rejoiced in the wine of Malaga, and all the more, it is probable, because its use was forbidden by the Koran: for we have the highest authority to say that stolen waters are sweet. And is it not Al-Makkari who tells the story of a dying Moor who prayed: “O Lord, of all things which thou hast in Paradise, I only ask for two; grant me to drink Malaga and Muscat wine!”
The old fortress once stood here, from which the beautiful Florinde threw herself into the sea, and by her death roused the rebellion that was headed by her father, and drove from the throne her betrayer, Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings. But all these stories, are they not written in the chronicles of Washington Irving, and is there any one so incredulous as to doubt the truthfulness of the thousand-and-one legends of that fascinating and most learned historian? For my part, since I have been dreaming here in the Alhambra, I have no more doubt of the Spanish tales that he told than I have of the verities of the Arabian Nights or the legend of Sleepy Hollow.
What travel was in Spain before the invention of diligences I know not, but probably the rich rode on horse or mule back, and the poor footed it; now that railroads have brought distant cities near each other, it is only occasionally that you are treated to an old-time ride in a coach, and perhaps you may be glad that once at least, in Spain, it was necessary for us to undergo this species of locomotion.
Between Malaga, a great seaport, and Granada, the ancient and glorious city of the Alhambra, there is no communication 124 except by diligence . The time is fourteen hours. And the hour for starting is six in the evening! You have before you this luxury, of one long, jolting, execrable night ride, with no rest, no change from dewy eve till morn. You may be a delicate lady, or a feeble old man, or a middle-aged invalid, seeking rest and finding none; but you must go by the diligence, and go in the night and all night, or hire a carriage for yourself, and then there is no certainty that you will ever get to the other end of your journey.
The Spanish diligence is divided into two inside compartments, the berlina or coupe of three seats in front, and interior of six. By waiting over a day or two, we were able to get possession of the three seats in front, and though the fare was more than in the interior, we had the comfort of escaping suffocation by tobacco smoke, and of seeing the fun ahead.
At least a hundred ladies and gentlemen, evidently of the higher class, assembled at the coach office to take leave of some one who was going to Malaga to hold an office under government. It was a genteel and decorous company, and a sight quite peculiar to the country. In America or England, men are often escorted to and from the station, but this was a social, rather than a public ovation, and was a quiet and handsome farewell to a popular man in society.
THE DILIGENCE.
Wherewithal shall I give you an idea of the team that took us out of Malaga that lovely winter evening! Ten mules, the most refractory, ill-mated, and discordant beasts that have served a master since the days of Balaam, were hitched together and to the diligence with rope harness of primitive construction. On one of the leaders rode a postilion: by the side of the midway pairs ran a man whose duty and privilege it was to beat them; and the wheel mules were guided by reins in the hands of the 125 driver on the top of the diligence. The driver thrashed the mules at his feet; the whipper thrashed the three pairs in the middle of the team, and the postilion thrashed the leaders. All thrashing at once as fast and as hard as they could. All shouting at once at the top of their voices, the lumbering vehicle is at last fairly launched and away it goes. The postilion on the forward beasts blows his horn to signal the people in the narrow and crooked streets that the thing is coming. The driver snaps his whip like a revolver, and after the snap brings the lash around the flanks of the lazy brutes: the whipper is now on one side and now on the other; whip, whip, whip all the while; kicking, punching, shouting, the mules spread themselves all abroad, never pulling in concert, but each one on his own hook, and as we got along out of the suburbs and into the broader ways of the country, the rebellious creatures seemed to grow frantic under the ceaseless blows rained upon them by their tormentors, and plunged and kicked till one of them made confusion all confounded by turning a somerset out of his harness and bringing the whole concern to a standstill. It was a short process, putting him in again, and then away they all scampered, more like a drove of cattle than a harnessed team, but the beating was redoubled the more they ran, till I really began to think it was time for these dumb beasts to open their mouths and speak some words of remonstrance. And yet how soon we became so demoralized, as rather to enjoy the excitement and frolic of the ride.
Night was drawing on. We begin to ascend the mountains behind Malaga. The city lies at their feet, all glorious in the golden light of a setting sun. The bay is a lake of loveliness; and the sea, unbounded, stretches off under the southern sky. Orchards of olives, always green, and hills that are vineyards in the season of grapes, and orange-trees, are around us,—evidence of a rich and fertile 127 country. Yet every half mile or so an armed patrol guards the road to make it safe for travellers, and we have two or three on the top of the diligence with their guns loaded to give a welcome to any “gentleman of the road” who might be disposed to make free with unsuspecting travellers. And so, with the excitement of the novel mode of transportation, and listening with ears erect to the tales of robbers with which Antanazio beguiled the mortal hours, we passed a long and wretched night, winding among craggy mountains on the verge of precipices, and crossing deep ravines.
It was three o’clock in the morning when we reached Loja, where we were to stop for refreshments! out of the diligence tumbled a miserable set of people, sleepy but sleepless, cross and hungry, and made a general rush to the hostelry—by courtesy called an inn. Nobody was up, but in the course of ten or fifteen minutes a dirty old man brought in a pot of chocolate and put a plate of cakes in the middle of a table which had been spread with a cloth overnight. I noticed little black spots around on the cloth, and putting my finger at one of them, away hopped a flea, and a flock of them were soon in motion. The chocolate was good, and the fleas were stimulating. In twenty minutes we were caged again, and, with fresh teams and good spirits, set off for Granada.
About six o’clock in the morning we were passing through Santa Fé,—a large town—in the streets of which hundreds of men and women were seen standing, about to march off in gangs to distant fields to work. The inhabitants do not live in scattered houses over the country,—here and there a farmer’s cottage, as with us,—but, dwelling for safety in villages, they must go miles and miles away to and from their fields of daily labor. This Santa Fé has a history. It was built by Ferdinand and Isabella while laying siege to Granada, and here Columbus came 128 and successfully made his plea for their royal favor and help to go out into the ocean in search of a new world. He found it that same year. Granada fell in 1492, and the last of the Moorish strongholds yielded to Spanish power.
As we rode across the wide and fertile plain that lies in front of Granada, the lofty mountains appeared; the east was in shadow, and the west tinged with the rising sunlight. Soon the city on a hill rose on the right, crowned with the Alhambra. One could not fail to be excited as the dreams of childhood and youth were becoming real. An hour more and we were in peaceful possession of Granada, and comfortably lodged within the grounds of the Alhambra.
WHEN the followers of Berber, the Moorish chieftain, some of whom came from the regions of Damascus and the valley of the Jordan, first entered the plain that lies in front of Granada, they imagined, in the fervor of their Oriental fancies, that they had struck Paradise itself. Perhaps they had come back to Damascus, the blessed and glorious city of the East, but that and Paradise to them were about the same thing. The wide and fertile plain was and is watered by two streams like those that flowed round about the Eden of sacred story, and if the earthly gardens of man’s delight were to be an emblem and foretaste of the flowers and fruits, the beauty and plenty of the gardens of the skies, they were certainly now before their eyes. They gave the name of “Damascus of the West” to the city that crowned the hill, and shone in the summer sun like the great dome to the temple of the King of kings. This city was called Granada, from the granates, or pomegranates, that then as now grew in abundance, with luscious grapes, figs and citrons and olives, and all the fruits of a southern and delicious clime. Near by, the snow-clad Sierra Nevada reminded them of their own Mount Hermon, and over all these was hung a canopy of blue, so deep and pure and clear that the sea, reversed and lightened by the sun by day, and set with stars at night, could not have been more lovely to behold.
OUTER WALL OF THE ALHAMBRA.
When the empire of the Moors in Spain was broken into hostile factions, preparatory to its final extinction, the city 130 of Granada fell into the hands of Zawi Ibu Zeyri, who was its first king, and established his royal residence here. The towers or castle on the summit of the hill, and commanding the whole city, were called Alhambra , which means red castle , and to this color the stones turn after exposure to the air, from the oxide of iron they contain.
Within the walls of this castle, covering an area of several acres, the successive Moorish kings erected palaces, and embellishing them according to their own tastes, joined walls and towers, and courts and fountains and gardens, until in process of time the great enclosure became filled with the edifices which this luxurious and extravagant race of monarchs desired for themselves, their wives and concubines, and the hosts of servants and dependants which such a style of life, in such a country, must demand. At this moment, the palace of the Russian emperor holds five thousand persons, all actually required to wait upon the Czar and his household and one another. In the Seraglio of the Sultan of Turkey 40,000 oxen were eaten yearly, and 400 sheep a day. An army would therefore be as easily lodged as the family of a Moorish king in the palace at Granada. What it was in the days of Abu-Abdallah, who has the traditional honor of having built the palace itself, or of Yusef I., who added lustre to its walls by his gorgeous decorations, we can form but a faint conception from what we see of it now that it is stripped of its purple and gold, and has nothing of its former splendors but the mouldering walls and shattered stairs and broken floors.
The first prince who took up his abode in the Alhambra itself was Alhamar, from whom it has been by many supposed that the palace itself was named. He was a wise, gentle, and noble ruler, so widely differing from most of his race that he actually preferred peace to war; and, to make it possible for him to pursue without interruption his vast beneficent plans for the improvement of the condition of 132 his people, he consented to pay an annual tribute to Ferdinand, King of Arragon. Alhamar constructed roads to the distant parts of his empire, which then reached to Gibraltar; he built colleges and hospitals; and the canals that carried waters far into the plains for irrigation were the work of this barbarian king. Under his reign the city rose to its zenith of splendor. The arts and sciences flourished as the vine and fig-tree in a genial soil. Wealth, learning, genius, taste, and chivalry lent their aid to heighten the attractions of this fair city. Yusef, one of his successors, added many buildings to those that he had left, and others were crowded into the arena in after reigns, so that for two hundred and fifty years it was growing in such magnificence and beauty, as the soft, languid, and effeminate tastes of a luxurious, debauched, and decaying race of irresponsible, licentious, and decaying monarchs, with a host of wives to prompt them to indulgence in every whim of fancy, could invent to add to the delights of their terrestrial paradise. What could be looked for as the result of such lives but the ruin of the empire. Kings had but short reigns, for intrigue, lust, ambition, and murder made one after another give place to a rival who sought his bed quite as much as his throne. The usurper soon became the enfeebled voluptuary of the harem, and the arm that was as strong as Hercules in the battlefield became as weak as a woman’s when love, not war, was the passion of the hour. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. The cities of the Moors no longer were in league, but each, jealous of the rest, was in succession sieged and sacked.
At last Granada stood alone in its independence and its impending ruin. Mohammed Ibu Otsman had bowed his neck to the Queen of Castile, and the Alhambra was the only Moorish gem which remained to be transferred to the Christian crown. Ferdinand of Arragon, by marriage with Isabella of Castile, formed at once a union of hearts and 133 arms that prepared the way for the overthrow of the last remnant of Moorish power in Spain. Columbus, repulsed from his native country, had strangely sought aid in this distracted land. As if a higher will than his own were directing his weary steps, he had pursued these conquerors of the Moors over the mountains, and found them in their tents within sight of the red towers on the heights of Granada. They had other conquests than of unknown worlds in view. The prize they sought was gleaming, like a sun, between them and the snows of Sierra Nevada. They turned a deaf ear, in the din of war, to the tales of the adventurous sailor. And he went away.
He had gone a day’s journey on his solitary way to Seville and had reached Loja, where we had fleas and cake for our lunch this morning, when a messenger from the queen arrested his steps and brought him back to the royal presence and favor. They gave him the blessing and the gold he needed, and then they conquered the Moors, and Granada, with its Alhambra, fell into their hands. And in the same year Columbus gave them a new world in the West.
Years and years since, even in the long time ago when the sunny days of childhood were yet in the glow of their noon, I remember wondering “what the Alhambra is.” It had to me then, and all the way along the lengthening years of life, a dreamy rather than a real existence, and if at times I read its story, the “Tales of the Alhambra” rather increased than weakened the sense of dream-life in which alone it was to be enjoyed.
In Malaga I went into a Spanish bookstore and asked for English books on Spain. The bibliopole sent me into the garret of his shop, where in a corner was heaped a pile of odds and ends of English literature, such as might have been left behind by some poor invalids who had perished in their perusal, while seeking to get a new lease of life in this 134 delicious clime. But among them were several copies, in paper covers, of Irving’s “Tales of the Alhambra,” whose uncut leaves showed them to have been unread and kept for sale to passing pilgrims like myself. I carried one off. It would be pleasant to read on the spot: and I have read them with fresh delight, while every court and wall and tower, every fountain, stream, plain, hill is linked with the stories that the old master told while he dreamed within the ruins of the palace that his fiction has made more famous than its history. But reading tales about the Alhambra do not tell us what it is, and it is quite likely that my account will give you no more intelligible an idea of it.
We have ascended the hill through a long avenue shaded with elms, and approach a massive gate, the gate of judgment, a seat of justice in olden times, where in the open air, as was common in Oriental climes, the magistrates, the elders, were accustomed to administer the law. “Then he made a porch, where he might judge, even a porch of judgment.” I Kings, vii. 7. Many other passages of Scripture allude to the same custom. A square tower surmounts the gate, and the pillars are inscribed with Arabic legends. The horse-shoe arch has a mighty hand in bas-relief, with the fingers pointing upward, and on the second arch is a key in stone, and the tradition is that the gate was impregnable until the stone hand should take the stone key and unlock the gate for the enemy to enter. Without waiting for such a miracle, we pass through the two-leaved gates, and by a winding and still ascending path we reach the terrace on which the palaces and villas of the Moorish kings were built. This plateau is about half a mile long, and narrow, surrounded by red walls six feet thick and thirty feet high, and made strong by many towers, each one of which was the residence of some of the household of royalty. The various styles of architecture within and on these walls 135 are the best illustrations of the successive races and tastes and power of the men who have ruled on this lofty eminence. Rome and Carthage has each in its turn been master here, and left his sign-manual in characters that time has spared. More incongruous than any thing else is the Tuscan palace of Charles V., and a modern parish church has risen on the ruins of a mosque. Napoleon’s soldiers were followed by the English, and modern war is not a whit more mindful of the proprieties of art and sentiment than the old savagery which we despise. Ruin, desolation, decay is now the spirit of the place. It is impressive, eloquent indeed; perhaps more so than those ruins in Egypt and Greece and Rome that have the hoar of more centuries upon them. It is not so strange, nor so mournful, that the columns and walls should now be in the dust that did their duty two, three thousand years ago. It seems to be almost becoming that the temples of old paganism should moulder in the dispensation of faith that worships in spirit only. But it is painfully suggestive of the transient nature of all human art and power that these massive structures with gorgeous decorations, whose splendor is only equalled by the fancies of romance, have had their rise, their reign, and their ruin all within the lapse of the last ten hundred years.
Antonio Aguilo ’y Fuster, Conseije del Palacio Arabe, Alhambra, gave me his card, as we entered a small door in the side of a plain wall, and were informed that we were now in the palace of the Moors, the veritable Alhambra itself! The important personage whose card was in my hand was the guardian of this mysterious realm, and would, for the usual consideration of a dollar to him paid, introduce us to the several apartments. The contract was concluded, and the porter led the way.
He brought us first into the Court of Myrtles. It is a vast open oblong, 170 feet by 74, with a lake in the centre, 136 surrounded by a marble pavement and myrtle-trees, from which it takes its name. In this lake the wives of the Moorish monarch bathed, of course secluded from all eyes but his own, and the eunuchs, whose “sentry boxes” still remain. Light and beautiful columns, with graceful arches springing from the capitals, support a gallery on all sides. Out of this court open many rooms, whose floors and walls and ceilings, with their inscriptions, their delicate tracery work, not worth the name of sculpture, but beautiful as perishable, are the types of the race that revelled here in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Right here Mohammed III. had his head cut off, and his body was pitched into the water where the usurper king Nasr often enjoyed the luxury of a bath with his wives.
The governor, or more properly the janitor, made brief comments on the architecture and uses of the various apartments, and then led us to the Court of Lions . Above all other portions of the Alhambra this gives the most correct idea of the palace as it was in its ancient and early glory. A process of restoration has been going on for some years, under the direction of government, and Sr. Contreras having the work in charge, has succeeded so happily that Yusef himself, who was the first monarch to indulge in these Oriental shawl-pattern tracery and tawdry designs, would have been delighted to have the modern architect to help him from the beginning. And the Emperor of Russia has heard such reports of the wonderful restorative powers of this skilful manipulator of plaster, that he has ordered an Alhambra for himself, a copy of this series of ruined palaces, which he will keep for a curiosity on the banks of the Neva. In the midst of the court is a fountain supported by twelve marble lions, in the centre of a vast alabaster basin. Standing on the four sides of it are 124 white marble pillars, sustaining a light gallery and a pavilion projecting into the court, elaborately adorned with filagree-worked 137 walls, and a domed roof that admits the tempered light and excludes the heat of the sun. This fountain too has been filled with blood, for here in the midst of all this luxury of splendid decorations the children of Abu Hazen were beheaded by the order of their own father. One only was spared, and he lived to regret it; for he lived to be the famous and unhappy Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings of Granada. The next hall into which we will enter is that of the Abencerrages , an illustrious family, who fell under suspicion of disloyalty to the throne. The wily monarch invited all the leaders of this line to a feast, and when they had been sumptuously entertained, they were invited, one by one, to the Court of Lions, which we have just left, and each man’s head was cut off as he entered. The dark spots on the marble floor are, of course, kept sacredly dark from year to year, in memory of the treacherous punishment of imaginary treason.
The most magnificent of all the halls is that of the Ambassadors. It is the largest of the apartments, and is seventy-five feet high. It was the grand reception-room, where the throne of the Sultan was placed, and around the sides of the room are niches where each one of the ambassadors of foreign courts was seated in state, on great occasions. The ceiling is curiously wrought in different colors,—blue, white, and gold, inlaid wood in crowns and stars and wheels. All around are inscriptions celebrating the praises of the kings, and couched in the panegyric imagery of the Oriental style.
It would be tedious to read, if I had patience to describe, the many courts and halls and baths, saloons and chambers, the galleries leading to them, the little gardens where the sun looks kindly down upon a few plants and flowers, and to tell you of the thousand-and-one tales with which so many of these towers and chambers have been made historic. Murder has followed close on the heels of 138 jealousy, in all ages, and under a system that makes intrigue and lust the great amusement of life, the history of the harem has always been a story of suspicion and blood.
Portion of a Door.
Bensaken is the guide to the Alhambra. Others are willing to lead you through the labyrinth, and will talk to you as they go, in a mixture of Spanish, Italian, French, and English, with a dash of Arabic, which they have picked up from the translations of inscriptions on the walls; but they are all ignorant fellows, who live by the ignorance of those to whom they tell their stories. Now 139 Bensaken is an Englishman, born in Gibraltar, and has lived to be seventy years old in Spain; has been through all these years adding to his knowledge of the country, its history and its condition, especially all that relates to the Moors, Granada, and the Alhambra, until he has grown into a walking cyclopedia of Spanish lore. And this learning of his he guards so cautiously that when other guides and interpreters, with travellers so unhappy as to have fallen into their hands, would come near to us while our learned Bensaken was discoursing to us of the wonderful mysteries of the Alhambra, its legends and its uses, he would suddenly pause in his interesting narrations, and begging pardon for his silence, would wait until they had passed beyond hearing; for, said our veracious and most agreeable Bensaken, “I cannot afford to let them fellows know what I have been learning all these years of my life, I have forgot enough to set all of them up in business.”
“Did you know our countryman, Washington Irving, when he was here?” I inquired.
“Oh yes, and a nice, worthy gentleman he was: so kind, so pleasant always; but he did not keep very closely to the facts: to tell you the truth, those are very beautiful stories of Mr. Irving, but the most of them are all in your eye, sir.”
“He speaks of the good people who lived here when he lodged in the Alhambra, and a fair maiden to whom he gave the name of Dolores, and a noble young man, Molina, or something like that; what ever became of them, can you tell me?”
Bensaken gave a low little laugh, and said that Dolores was a coarse and dowdy drudge, whom the warm imagination of the author had invested with purely rhetorical charms, and the other occupants of the palace had no claims to distinction. One of them whom he mentioned was murdered in a street brawl, and the whole family had 140 passed into oblivion. Yet their names will live in the stories of the Alhambra while the genial and smoothly flowing pages of Irving are read as the pleasantest and most reliable account of the traditions of this wondrous pile.
We went down into the garden of the Queen’s prison, and on a little patch of green we stood while Bensaken pointed to the gallery where she was permitted to walk and take the air and enjoy the sunlight, but the various chambers to which she was restricted had no exit. This was not very close confinement, to be sure, but it becomes intolerable, even the luxury of a palace, with a flower garden in its court, and gorgeous hangings and gilded ceilings and marvellous sculptures, if the royal lodger is a prisoner, and hopes for no exit but through the gate that opens in the tomb.
And then we visited the “Hall of Two Sisters,” so fancifully named because of two immense marble slabs, which form a part of the pavement. The decorations of this apartment are exceedingly beautiful. The stalactite roof is said to consist of 5,000 pieces, and though all this plaster ornamentation is supported only by reeds, it remains almost unbroken as it was when first put up. These were the private apartments of the wives and slaves of the Sultan, and were furnished with couches and divans, and the walls are covered with love poems, in the glowing language of the East, celebrating the sensual delights of these voluptuaries of the harem. All that architecture and upholstery, poetry and taste could supply for the embellishment of chambers of pleasure, were lavished with wasteful profusion here, or, to use the more familiar terms of our Western phraseology, “they were got up regardless of expense.”
Passing out upon a balcony we looked down upon the Linderaka gardens, which once were the delight of a princess whose name, Linda Raxa, was the same as Pretty 141 Rachel; she became a Christian, and her story, if put into the hands of a skilful manufacturer, would make a beautiful romance, with more truth than is necessary for half a dozen modern historical novels. The dressing-room of the Queen in one of the towers has a look-out upon the surrounding country; the Sierra Nevada, rising 11,000 feet, and so near in this clear atmosphere that it seems close at hand, and one feels the coolness of the snow-cliffs on its sides; there is the house, now a college, where Christians suffered martyrdom under Domitian and Nero; those huts in the hill in front and those holes into the hill itself are the habitations of gypsies, whose home is Spain, and who are very numerous in these parts; the city of Granada itself lies at our feet; once it had more than a thousand towers, and now it has more than 500, and they are monuments of departed glory. Yet there is nothing in the city so mournfully eloquent of human folly and frailty as the ruin in which we are standing. Here is a wide marble slab, pierced with twelve holes, and below the slab is the chamber where the perfume was prepared, and as it ascended the Queen stood over these holes, and was made suitably fragrant! In the days of Esther similar means were evidently in use, and they were probably quite as salutary and agreeable as the modern condensations which in a bag or bottle furnish the necessary facilities for making lovely woman odorous to her friends.
Down below was a suite of rooms where the baths for the Sultan and the children were arranged, with pipes for the supply of hot and cold water, as convenient as in “a house with all the modern improvements.” Places for couches, galleries for musicians whose melodies would make the luxury of the bath more enjoyable; the pavement is of white marble, the roof is pierced with holes like stars, and the whole arrangement corresponds with the baths of Turkey and Cairo at the present day.
The Vermilion Tower.
And the long passage through which we were now conducted led to the dungeons of the castle; most of them are walled up, but one was left open that we might see how short and easy was the mode of disposing of an unhappy victim of jealousy or revenge, who could be built into a recess and find it a dying bed and grave. It was a long subterranean walk till we came out to the governor’s court. 143 Here I saw what I had not supposed to be possible,—a marble slab bent into the shape of a bow by the weight of a wall falling and resting upon it.
On every balcony and at every window the wise Bensaken was ready with a tale of love, or blood, or gold; and it would be hard to say in which he most delighted to indulge. He was sure that out of this window the beautiful Zoraya, the “Morning Star” of Abu Hazen, she that was once Dona Isabel de Solis, a fair Christian captive who became the favorite Sultana, and the mother of Boabdil, let him down by a basket into an abyss from which he escaped and saved his life, to become afterwards the last of the race of princes here. But I must tell you one of his stories that he knows to be true, and which has never yet been entered into any chronicles of the Alhambra.
BLASICHO, or, in good English, poor Blas, was an honest worker in leather, a mender of soles, in the city of Granada. There are streets in this queer old town wholly given up to one or another handicraft, and it is rather pleasing than otherwise to see the rule disproved that two of a trade can never agree. Perhaps it is easier for a whole street full of cobblers, or tinkers, or carders, or smiths, to live in peace, than it would be for only two rivals in trade, who would be jealous of each other as natural foes. It was curious to follow the walks along and see the little shops, sometimes not more than five or ten feet square, filled with the wares and the workmen, so that a customer would have had hard work to wedge himself in if he would be measured for a coat or boots, or examine the goods for sale. It looked as if there were some people willing to work, though we heard of a shoemaker who was called upon by a traveller like ourselves to repair his dilapidated shoe: the cobbler called out to his wife to tell him how much money there was on hand, and learning that she had enough to get them supper, he declined doing the work. This was in literal compliance with the Spanish rule which requires a man never to do to-day what can be put off till to-morrow.
Blasicho had a hard time of it to get work enough to earn the bread that his wife and his little ones must have from day to day, and he hated work, as all his neighbors did, and all his race do. If he had a wife with a cheerful 145 temper, to cheer him as he beat his leather on his knee, perhaps it would have been better for him and his, for it does make work light and easy to have a good-natured woman near at hand, to say a pleasant word and hear even one’s complaints with a sympathetic smile. But the wife of Blasicho was neither fair to look upon nor gentle in her temper, and she led the poor cobbler a vexed and weary life of it. His lapstone was not harder than the heart of his spouse, and the blows that he gave it were more in number, but not more severe, than she rained upon him, when their words grew into quarrels that always ended in the thorough discomfiture of the man of the house. Her great sorrow was that she had not wealth: her sisters had found husbands who could give them the best of every thing, and as much as they required to make fine ladies of them, but she had married a cobbler too poor to live without work, and too lazy to work, and the only blessing they had in abundance was a flock of children that grew in stature and numbers every year, and demanded more and more to keep them alive. She dinned her woes into his ears, and his poor soul was worried to despair by the ceaseless pother of her querulous tongue.
He wanted money. If California had been part of the known world in the day of Blasicho’s misery, his greed would have driven him to the mines in search of gold. But gold he must have, or his wife would worry him to death. He had heard that the Moors had left heaps of gold in the earth all around him, and if he had some rod to guide him to the sacred spot where the treasure was concealed, it would be the making of him for life, to dig it and carry it home to gladden the heart of his discontented wife, and stop the everlasting run of her complaining tongue. Day after day he walked around the hill of which the Alhambra in its glory and decay is still the crown, and he studied the projecting rocks and the graceful 146 curves and gentle depressions, and the peculiar growth of the citron and pomegranate, to discover some signs of a place where it might be that in the olden time some Moorish miser, or in later time some Spanish pirate coming home from foreign pleasures, had buried his gold. His hope was suddenly kindled into certainty. One sunny morning he was taking his daily walk about the sacred hill, and passing through the deep cut on the eastern side, where far above his head the aqueduct with the waters of the river run into the Alhambra with its refreshing and ceaseless flow, he sat down to rest awhile and muse upon his hapless lot, and the hopeless search in which he was wasting his days. He looked up at the craggy side through which the red rock cropped, and on the scanty soil in which the almond shrubs were struggling to hold their own, and he was wishing that one of those red rocks were a ruby or even a lump of gold, when a dove, whose home was in the Tower of Comares, flew down upon a projecting rock, and cocking his eye most knowingly, looked below as if it saw something there that would be worth having. Blasicho observed the motion, and the thought came to him that the dove was a messenger to point him to the spot where his treasure lay. He took note of the rock, and drew a line, with his eye, to the foot of the hill where the bird’s eye had guided his search. A few feet from the path, up the cliff-side, was a ledge of rock, and it was easy to see that, a century or two ago, a man might have stood on it and worked into the mountain and buried his gold. The ledge would be the mark by which he could find it, and its height was such that no one would suspect that such a spot would be chosen as a hiding-place for money.
Poor Bias went home with his head full of the dove and the gold. All day as he sat on his bench pretending to work, the beautiful neck of the dove, with his head turned sideways, and his one eye down looking to the ledge, was before 147 him. That night he dreamed that he went there and broke into the hill with a pick and found a heap of gold. The next morning he went there and the dove came again, and again she peered into the ledge from above, and again Blasicho was comforted with the strengthened hope. He dreamed the second time the same, and came the third morning and the dove met him as before; and again, the third night, he dreamed that he burst into the mountain and was the possessor of more gold than his insatiable spouse had ever dreamed of having. This was more than the anxious cobbler could endure and be quiet. That night in the darkness and alone, for there was no one in Granada he could trust with his discovery, Blasicho sought the ravine, climbed cautiously to the ledge with a bar of iron to aid him in his burglary. He struck in vigorously, for it might be a long night’s work, and time was precious. The hollow sound that answered his blows quickened his heartbeats, for it assured him there was a chamber within. The débris was fast piling at his feet. He was already inside the hill. He heard something grating, rattling above and near him; he rose to his feet only to be struck with a land-slip which his digging had started: it caught him, dashed him off his perch, buried him, bruised him, half killed him, at the foot of his golden hill. The poor fellow struggled from underneath the mass of dirt and stones, and luckily finding no bones were broken, but more dead than alive, he crept home and went to sleep, while his wife was dinging into his ears her reproaches for his bad habits of being out late at nights. He was cured of hunting for gold in the dark. He became a new man, a new cobbler. His early hammer advertised his conversion. Business revived. He had to have some more help in the shop. The shop was soon too small. He wanted to enlarge it, and for that purpose he got permission of his landlord to dig away the hill in the rear to make room for an extension. This work he 148 performed with his own hands after the day’s work in the shop. That digging made him rich! What he found he had wit enough to keep secret, even from his wife, for if his landlord should hear of it, he would lay claim to it as in his soil. But Blasicho went on with his cobbling and building. He bought a few lots in one of the fashionable quarters of Granada, and to each of his daughters, to whom suitors came in numbers, now that he was evidently prosperous, he gave a handsome house and portion.
More than all, and better, his wife’s temper improved. He and she still lived over the shop, but the apartments were embellished with all the comforts that the amiable woman wanted, and she was proud, and not humbled, when her sisters came to see her. None of them knew the source of his sudden wealth, and indeed he was cunning enough to develop gradually, so that it was attributed to his increasing business, and his good luck in trade.
He knew that it all came of his being cured of money digging, and sticking to his work. He had never heard of the Latin proverb, ne sutor ultra crepidam ,—let the cobbler stick to his last,—but he knew the soundness of the principle. And he taught his grandchildren, who were fond of visiting him, that when he tried to get rich in a hurry he got nothing but wounds and bruises; but when he worked faithfully and steadily at his trade, prosperity followed his labors, and his days were crowned with plenty, contentment, and love.
An old woman sat at the foot of the stone stairway, and took the fee that admitted us to the Watch Tower. On the southern edge of the hill, and rising high above the rampart, the broad flat roof of the tower affords an off-look that scarcely has an equal for beauty of prospect and interest in historical association. A bell swings in a turret; the rope hangs within reach; and there is magic in the ring. For the second day of January is a great fête day in Granada,—the 149 anniversary of the capture of the city by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492,—and every maiden who ascends this tower on that day, and rings the bell with her own hand, is sure to have a wedding ring on her hand in the course of the year. The bell therefore rings right merrily on the fête day from early morn to set of sun, and the sign is as sure as any of the many that love and folly have conjured.
And in the far west, across the plain, rise the Parapanda Mountains, on whose top a cloud resting is a sign of rain, and when it hangs there they say it will rain “if God wills;” but if the cloud descends the mountain-side they say “it will rain if God wills or no .”
There too, off on the verge of the plain, lies a farm of 4,000 acres which the Spanish government gave to the Duke of Wellington for his expulsion of the French, and his heirs now derive a revenue of some $20,000 annually from the land.
And that gap in the mountains is the pass where Moor and Christian, the Cross and Crescent, have encountered each other in murderous fight, when knights in armor met hand to hand, and in protracted battles far more bloody and fierce than in our modern warfare they contended for the possession of this beautiful vale.
It is called the vega , or the plain, and from the watch-tower on which we are now standing we have the best view of it. Two rivers, like those that watered Paradise, flow across it,—the Darro, which the Moors called Hadaroh and the Romans Calom, and the Genil, which the ancients knew as the river Singilis. This fertile and beautiful plain stretches thirty miles or more away from the city of Granada, like a vast amphitheatre, a prairie sea: now and then a white cluster of houses, a little village, like an island on the surface of this great ocean of corn and wine. The snow-clad heights of Sierra Nevada rise to the bluest of blue heavens that cover it as an infinite dome, and 150 the five-hundred-towered city stands on this rocky height in the midst of this magnificent panorama, the green meadows and vineyards of the vega below, the white-capped mountains around, and the cerulean skies, so pure, so deep, so lovingly bending over and embracing the whole.
But the bell on the watch-tower answers a better purpose than merely to ring husbands for the lively Spanish girls. This plain is to be watered by these rivers, and they must be led away from their own banks by artificial channels to the thousands of plantations into which it is divided. But the rivers are not sufficient to allow the continuous flow of water through all these canals for irrigation, and the time and quantity of water are regulated by law. Each man has his water-gate, through which the stream is to come, and the hour when he is to open his gate and when to close is announced from the tower. At the stroke of one, all within a certain distance open their gates, and the water flows in upon their fields, until the bell strikes again, when they close, and the next open theirs, and so the supply is extended from one to another and the whole plain is watered.
The “Sigh of the Moor” is the name of that mountain in the south-east horizon, on the way to the sea-coast, and it gets its name from the tradition that when the last of the Moorish kings, the unhappy Boabdil of whom we have been speaking often, was flying from the city, he paused here, and as he looked back upon Granada “he saw a light cloud of smoke burst from the beautiful and beloved Alhambra, and presently a peal of artillery told that the throne of the Moslem kings was lost for ever. ‘Allah Achbar, God is great!’ he exclaimed; and, unable to refrain his grief, he burst into a flood of tears. ‘Weep not,’ said his mother, the stern proud Azeshah, ‘weep not as a woman for the loss of a kingdom which you knew not how to defend as a man.’”
151 As Bensaken pointed to the mountain of “El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro,” and told this sad story of the Sigh of the Moor, the tears stood in the old man’s eyes, and he was actually in sympathy with the Moor Boabdil who ran away from this tower nearly four hundred years ago.
Behind those hills, and in the valley beyond, there are to this day villages inhabited by a race of people who retain the Moorish manners and customs, mingling the Roman and Mahometan forms of worship, using no knives or forks, but eating with their fingers, in the Oriental style, and preserving with traditional jealousy the prejudices of the race that has been so long extinct in Spain. Rarely does a traveller climb the heights that stand between those settlements and the higher civilization of the plains and cities, but the few who push their adventurous way into those uninviting regions find themselves suddenly carried back into life and times of which we read now-a-days as if in the pages of romance.
Walking across the tower, we look down into a court, where a guard of soldiers is keeping watch over a prison! And, to our amazement, we find that we are in the very midst of the walls that contain four or five hundred political prisoners, who are here in durance vile for real or suspected offences. It is not the fashion at present to put to death political offenders, and the poor fellows that are shut up in these walls, hopeless and helpless, are perhaps on the whole disposed to think themselves better off than if they had lost their heads. Once the late queen punished the whole of her congress, some hundred and fifty, and sent them to prison, or foreign parts, thinking that their room was worth more than the advice they were disposed to give her. Some of the prisoners here confined are men of high social standing and of commanding influence in the country, but in the miserable strife for power and wealth, and the game of politics, which 152 is more corrupt, if possible, here in Spain than in our own country, they have fallen victims to successful rivals, and are now wasting away in the dungeons of the Alhambra. Some of them had obtained the special favor of working in the gardens and among the flowers and shrubbery; and, under the genial beams of the bright sun in winter, they found a grateful mitigation of their sufferings.
We had seen enough for one day, and took a ride over the city. Bensaken pointed out, as we passed the modest mansion in which the late beautiful Empress of the French was born. Her father, Count Montejo, fell in love with a daughter of the British consul at Malaga, Mr. Kirkpatrick, whose name unites Scotland and Ireland. The count married her, and Eugenie is their daughter. Her grandfather is therefore a Scotch-Irish-English gentleman. Some of her relatives are not of much account. One of them asked of me the gift of a glass of whiskey.
Not far from the Alhambra, and a pleasant walk across the fields, is the Generaliffe, a pleasure-palace in olden time, a retreat in the country from the more stately grandeur and closer confinement of the citadel.
It has been preserved with greater care, or perhaps restored from time to time, and is now one of the most interesting remnants of the Moorish dynasty. Its courts are paved with marbles, gladdened with fountains and flowers, and from some of them tall cypresses rise, which in other countries would rather adorn a burial-place than a palace court. One of them is the famous tree under which the beautiful Sultana Zoraya was sitting when one of the Abencerrages came to prefer a petition, and being seen to kneel before her, was suspected of making love, and her life and that of all his family was the forfeit. Bensaken was greatly provoked by the evident disposition of the writers of historical tales to insinuate that the Queen was actually receiving a lover, while he makes out a case of 153 innocence and positively merciful virtue that would melt a heart of stone.
But if Bensaken was kind in his judgment of the ancient Queen, whose guilt or innocence will never be made the subject of inquiry before a court of impeachment in this world, he was less inclined to say a good word for the women of Spain. And in this matter he was no harder on them than others who have lived long enough in this demonstrative country to know the facts in the case. The women of Spain are, as a nation, more beautiful than those of any foreign country in which I have travelled, and this average beauty covers the peasant classes as well as the better-born. This is to be mentioned in connection with the fact stated by all who are familiar with Spain, that virtue is scarcely known. It is impossible, without disregard of the proprieties, to go into the statistics which an illustration of this fact would require. I was repeatedly assured that ladies would regard it as a reproach, an evidence that they were slighted, if they had not an acknowledged lover besides their legal lord. Of course the men are worse than the women, if worse can be, and little or no disgrace can be said to accrue when the vice is so common that virtue is an exception, and is despised at that. If it be asked, how can such a state of things be, when the church embraces in its bosom all the people, young and old, and confession is required of all who commune? the answer is easy. The forced celibacy of the priests tends to corruption, and they have no moral power over the people, unless it be a moral power for evil. And this vice is not necessarily a vice of a Roman Catholic people: it is the vice of the climate: as genial to the south as intemperance in drink is to the north. We must be charitable in our judgments of our neighbors and our fellow-sinners everywhere. It is a very common impression that the sins of a people are fashioned by the type of the religion 154 they profess; and that this vice, which prevails all over the south of Europe, has some relation to the Roman Catholic religion, which is also the ruling influence of church and state. Doubtless the reformation of the church would reform the state also, but human nature will remain substantially the same, and the vices peculiar to the climate would still discover themselves to a greater or less extent. Under the Protestant influences of the north of Europe, intemperance prevails fearfully. So it does in our country, in spite of the highest moral culture and the best opportunities of education. Religion in its purest forms does not reach the masses of mankind in any country so as to save all of them from vice, and in its imperfect development, as in Romish or half-reformed countries, it is even less powerful to deter the multitude from evil.
WHEN we came down this evening from the Generaliffe, we found a curious group in the vestibule of the inn where we were lodged, and a picture of troubadour and gypsy life in Spain was before us suddenly. A dwarf, so stout and short as to be a monster in his appearance, and two or three girls to sing and play with a rude tambourine, made hideous dancing. The landlord and landlord’s wife, the two daughters of the landlord and their husbands,—two lazy fellows who helped one another do nothing all day long,—were seated around, enjoying the scene. The short fellow was short mainly in his legs, which, indeed, were not much longer than his neck; and the antics he cut up were grotesque and ludicrous in the extreme. But who could refrain from joining in the dance to the music, rude as it was? The landlord’s daughters could not, and with a little coaxing the dandy husbands were brought upon the floor; other young people, hearing the fun, dropped in, the frolic became general, and we were treated to an impromptu Spanish fandango, of which I do not propose to be the reporter. It was not amusing merely, but interesting also to observe the phase of lower life among these people, and to see how easily they could find entertainment without going out of doors to get it. The ugly dwarf went through the company, cap in hand, gathered a few pence, and with his little troupe hobbled off to try his luck at some other place. They told me that he lives in the mountains, many leagues 156 away from Granada, but comes down to town, during the season of company, to exhibit himself. And in this, too, he is not unlike the degraded in other parts of the world, who are always willing to make a living by their deformities, if they can get a chance.
THE ALHAMBRA ( From the Generaliffe ).
The gypsies held a horse fair in Granada to-day. We found them in great numbers, from distant parts of the country. It was a new scene and phase of life. Gypsies are seen in England, in America, in Germany, in Italy, indeed there is hardly a country unvexed by gypsies. Wandering over the world, having no continuing city or abiding place, like the frogs of the land from which they get their name, they find their way into king’s houses and everybody’s house,—lying, cheating, stealing, peddling, and meddling, a nuisance and a curse. But the gypsies of Spain are a race by themselves, and not the ancestors nor the children of the gypsies of the other lands I have named. They have indeed a language with many words in common, and their habits are similar all the world over, but these gypsies of Spain are a race by themselves. Where they came from, and who they are, it is hard to say. They are usually spoken of as from Egypt, and being once called Egyptians, then gyptians,—the name easily runs into gypsies in the English tongue. But they are called gitanos in Spanish, and the race has no relations with the wandering tribes or families that roam throughout Europe and the Western World.
They are, as a people,—at least they seemed to me,—larger and stouter than the Spanish; and by no means so well-favored. Dark complexions, black eyes, long straight black hair, high cheek-bones, and short noses, they resemble North American Indians more than any European race. They are not cleanly in their persons, nor their dwellings; their roaming habits lead them to eat and sleep anywhere, with their dogs and donkeys; they dwell in 158 caves if no better houses are at their command, and the hill behind the city, which we see from the towers of the Alhambra, is pierced with holes that lead into the chambers where they make their homes. They have also one quarter of the town where they have dwellings, but the walls of a city are not agreeable to the freedom of their wills, and they prefer the hills and the country.
They have no moral principle. There is but one virtue known among them, and that is so rare in Spain, and so remarkable among such a people, that it must be set down to their credit at the very start. The women are chaste, and that to a degree that perhaps no other people in the world can claim. It is the one feature of their character that redeems them from the curse of utter and hopeless vagabondism, and, standing out as it does like an ivory tower in the midst of a waste of moral ruin, its beauty is the more lovely and its existence the more wonderful. I cannot say what I would of the care with which mothers guard their daughters from contamination with their own race and the outside world; and I cannot add another word in their praise. They live by fraud. Known to the world as swindlers and liars and thieves, they are nevertheless tolerated, and perhaps because feared; their ill-will being dreaded, and their friendship supposed to be conciliated by complying with their demands.
They get power over people in the same way that spiritualists do: by appealing to that latent superstition which lurks in almost every human bosom, and is much stronger in some than others, and is often strongest in those who would be the least suspected of such a weakness. Thus the women of this gypsy race are fortune-tellers. The young women of Spain, like the young women of every country that I have seen, have some curiosity and credulity, upon which a shrewd impostor will easily play and extort money as the reward of her trickery. To these young 159 women lovers are promised, and when the pride or the passion of the young is tickled with the promise, the prophet is not very sharply questioned or judged. One very common trick performed by the gypsy women in Spain has been reproduced in our country and in England again and again, and will be repeated as long as rogues can find fools to be duped. As love is the ruling passion of the young, avarice is of older people, and to make a heap of money out of a handful is the great desire of the soul. The gypsy woman promises a lady to teach her how to make a trunkful of gold out of a few hundred dollars. The lady is to take all her gold, and to get as much as she can, and tie it up in a white handkerchief in the presence of the gypsy, then to keep it carefully by her side, night and day, for three days, then the gypsy is to return and they are to deposit it in a trunk over which the gypsy is to say her form of words, and then the trunk is to be carefully locked and guarded for three weeks, and when opened is to be found filled with gold. The gypsy, returning after three days’ absence, comes with a bundle of rubbish tied up in a white handkerchief concealed under her mantle, and easily substitutes it for the one which the lady has watched for three days, and after the other is well locked up she disappears, to be heard of no more in that quarter. A trick so stupid and silly one would hardly believe could be practised once; but it is played every year, upon many victims, in all countries. Last summer a spiritualist woman in Paris assured a gentleman that large treasures were buried in the grounds about his house, and he spent thousands and thousands in tearing up his place to find it. The woman got the most of the money spent, and he is hunting yet. But these gypsies are not mere fortune-tellers, they are traders and tinkers; they deal in horse-flesh particularly, and are a striking illustration of the curious fact that trading horses, buying and selling horses, all the world over, has some affinities with trickery. 160 Why it is, perhaps, the attention of psychologists has not been sufficiently long directed to the subject to say; but gypsies and jockeys are usually reckoned as belonging to the same class, and nobody is expected to trust either.
Bensaken went with us among these strange people, and as he understood their language, he made our visit among them exceedingly entertaining, and the facts that we gathered from him and them of their haunts and habits are perhaps as reliable as those which Borrow and others have furnished. I could not learn that they have any religious system. They believe in one God, but they have more to do with the devil, whether they believe in him or not. They have no faith in anybody. Why should they, or rather how could they? Intending to keep faith with nobody, and living only to deceive, they cannot be expected to believe. If they are not lineal descendants of Ishmael, they are like the Arabs, a nomadic race, and their hands are against every man, and every man’s against them.
I fell to musing over the change that three or four hundred years had made in the state of things on this famous spot. For we are within the grounds of the Alhambra. And the time was when the splendor of Oriental courts was shining here in its brightest array, and the luxury of kings and queens was spread about these seats that are now the scene of this low revelry and mirth. The vanity of earth is impressed upon me by this miserable show. The fashion of this world passeth away. And, indeed, the lesson of the Alhambra is the strangest, saddest lesson that ruins teach. Its walls, its towers, its turrets, its gates, in their decay, as they yet linger on the heights overlooking the city and the plain, seem to say, We are witnesses to-day that the glory of kings is fleeting as the dew of the morning:
161 have dissolved; and the wreck behind is the monument of a departed race, an extinct dynasty, a better, wiser, nobler race by far than that which now inhabits the land. For when the Moors went out of Spain, they carried with them arts, science, enterprise, energy, strength, and taste. They left a people in possession ignorant, proud, bigoted, and indolent: a people that now, in the midst of an advancing age, is making no advance; a people who carry earth in baskets instead of wheelbarrows, and wood on donkeys instead of using carts!
Two things astonished me in Spain: the one, that the pictures in her galleries were so great and good, and the other that her cathedrals so far excel the rest of European temples in the grandeur of their architecture. Poor as Spain is now, we must not forget that it was once the most powerful of kingdoms, and the mistress of a world of its own. And the arts and sciences once flourished here as they did in the brightest days of Grecian and Roman glory. The paintings that are gathered in Madrid are probably as valuable in the eyes of the artistic world as those of any other gallery; and there are half a dozen cathedrals in Spain that are not equalled by the same number in all the rest of the Continent. One who visited them will not be apt to forget the florid beauty of the one at Burgos, the massive grandeur of that in Toledo, the thousand columns that sustain the arches on which rests the roof of the converted mosque at Cordova, or, the most majestic of them all, the vast and solemn pile that stands in Seville; nor will he readily lose the impressions made upon his soul by the cathedral at Granada, into which we are now entering, as we are about to take leave of the Alhambra, and go to the north of Europe.
It was the design of the founders of this temple to make it the most splendid in the world; and this weak and unworthy 162 ambition has doubtless given to us many noble monuments of genius and labor which a less exciting motive might have failed to produce. We are met with a notice, on entering, that we are not to converse during service; and it is a caution that might well be put up in the Protestant as well as Catholic places of worship. Five naves are divided with massive pillars; the pavement is marble, and very beautiful; the interior 425 feet long and 250 feet wide, with chapels on the sides, on which private wealth has been lavished with a profusion that seems absolutely incredible; one of them was built by an archbishop, whose wealth was so great that he imitated the royal manner of living, and preferred to be like his Master a king, rather than like his Master a servant.
Charles V. called upon the artists of the world to come and embellish this house, and to assist him in building the sepulchres of his father and mother, and the kings of Spain. The chapel royal is the most impressive mausoleum in the whole kingdom; for here, in full view, are the tombs, and upon them the images, in marble, of Ferdinand and Isabella, and beneath these monuments repose the ashes of those illustrious monarchs whose names are so indissolubly linked with the history of our own distant land. By them lie the relics also of Philip and his wife, who was called Crazy Jane. There are no more elaborate sepulchral monuments than these. Four statues of learned divines and twelve apostles surround the royal tombs, as if keeping eternal guard over the inevitable dust. The statues of the royal dead are said to be good likenesses, and I hope they are, for these people had so much care and trouble in life, it is certainly pleasant to see them looking so quiet in their stone beds. Even Crazy Jane, the wife of Philip, is as calm and peaceful, in the effigy that lies at our feet, as if she never had been in the habit of carrying the corpse of her husband about with her from 163 place to place, refusing to have it buried, and insisting on the pleasure of embracing it whenever she took a notion for so cold a comfort.
Isabella, the fair patron of Columbus, desired to be brought here and buried; and here she lies, one of the noblest women that ever sat upon a throne: a wonderful contrast with the late Isabella who came from Madrid to Granada, a few years ago, descended into the vaults, and caused mass to be performed for the souls of the departed; which souls are quite as well off without any masses as hers will be with many. Her visit was made here in 1862, and Ferdinand and Isabella took possession of the city in 1492, nearly four hundred years between the visits of the two Isabellas; and there is as great contrast between the characters of the two women as there is between the condition of the country under the reign of the one and the other.
A very obliging priest led us from chapel to chapel, and pointed out to us the several distinguishing marks of antiquity and sacredness that make the cathedral a joy to the believer, and one of the most—in many respects the most—sacred in Spain. He was not unmindful of a trifling fee when we parted, and one cannot but be amused with the solemn gravity with which this office of guide to the holies is performed by the priests, who doubtless have the mixed motive of displaying the charms of their sacred places, and of getting the little money that grateful travellers leave in their hands. It is best to have their services, for they answer a hundred questions that without them would be unanswered, and their weary life seems to be lightened by the brief companionship of strangers.
In the evening we set off from Granada by diligence, leaving the place in the same style that marked our entrance. A crowd gathered at the office to witness our departure. A woman at the window put down her money 164 to buy a ticket to take a seat with us. Before she had received the ticket, a couple of officers of justice rushed in and seized her. They stripped off her bonnet and her luxurious head of hair: they tore off her mantilla, and, shocking to relate, her loosely-flowing dress fell at her feet, in the midst of the derisive shouts of an admiring multitude; and, thus stripped, she remained a well-dressed man! He had helped himself freely to the money in the shop where he was employed, got together all he could borrow and steal of others, and, in the disguise of a woman, was about to abscond to parts unknown! Probably he was going to that happy land far, far away, which is still believed by them to be the paradise of thieves. His career was suddenly arrested. The crowd followed hooting at his heels as the officers led him off to prison; the horn of the postilion rang out its call on the evening air, the dozen horses and mules at last consented to pull together, and we plunged out of Granada.
BY a very circuitous route, over which I will not ask you to follow me, I came to Switzerland, on my way to the north of Europe.
When I was a boy of nine, I read in Cæsar’s Commentaries, “Extremum oppidum Allobrogum, proximumque Helvetiorum finibus est Geneva,” and rendered it into English, “the farthest town of the Allobroges, and nearest to the frontiers of the Helvetii is Geneva.” Out of the lake flows the river Rhone, with waters so blue that they seem to have been colored with indigo, and Sir Humphrey Davy, who died here, attributed the deep color to the presence of iodine. The outlet of the lake is crossed by several bridges, and the city stands on both sides. The old wall on the left bank was originally built by the men of Julius Cæsar, as is attested by coins and other remains of those days, to this day occasionally found. Its antiquity, its remarkable history, its past greatness, and its present beauty, the many eminent men who have here spent their lives, and more than all its situation on this lake, give the city of Geneva an attraction that no other place in Switzerland possesses.
The cathedral here in Geneva is the venerable edifice in which John Calvin and his peers in the Reformation preached the doctrines that are now working their way into the minds of the entire Christian world, as the real basis for civil and religious liberty and progress.
GENEVA AND THE RHONE.
As we entered it, we trode upon the nearly worn-out epitaphs in the stones of the floor, to the memory of Roman 166 Catholic dignitaries, who ruled here before the Reformation, for the edifice is more than five hundred years old. A chapel of the Virgin Mary, no longer needed for her worship, holds the tomb of the Duke and Duchess of Rohan, 1638, and in another part of the church is the monument to the memory of Agrippa d’Aubigny.
In the old library, just behind the cathedral, are many interesting manuscripts of Calvin, forty-four volumes of his 168 sermons, twelve of letters written to him, his own letter to Lady Jane Grey while she was a prisoner in the Tower of London, and 394 other letters by his own hand. Besides these, there is nothing more than the severe simplicity and solidity of the edifice, with its remarkable history and associations, to make it interesting.
It appears like a slow old town. But the names of good great men, and great bad men, are so identified with Geneva, that it is never spoken of without being associated with their works and influence. Calvin came here three hundred years ago and more,—the three hundredth anniversary of his death was commemorated a few years ago,—Rousseau was born here, Voltaire and Madame de Stael and Lord Byron have resided here; and a long list could easily be made longer, of illustrious men, some of them flying from religious persecution, some from the reach of the sword of justice, some hiding from themselves, for it has been, and still is, an asylum for all, of every name, faith, and aim, who would be free to think and speak, while they yield wholesome obedience to the laws. I was quite surprised to-day when the excellent United States consul at this place showed me in one of the infidel Rousseau’s works a note in which that brilliant writer speaks in the highest terms of John Calvin, not only as a theologian, but a statesman whose views, he says, will be always held in reverence.
D’Aubigne’s Birthplace and Residence.
At the foot of the lake, and near the city, are many beautiful villas, with the water in front of them, the Jura mountains on the north to be seen by those on one side, and the mountains of Savoy on the south-east in full view from the other. Mont Blanc towers above them, “the monarch of mountains,” his white head and shoulders seen above the dark ranges in front of him, like the bare form of a giant among the hills. Rev. Dr. Merle d’Aubigné, the historian of the Reformation, Sir Robert Peel, and other eminent men, have had their residences on the south-east side, and 169 Baron Rothschild has a splendid palace on the opposite shore. Voltaire’s house, and the residence of the Empress Josephine, are also there. The shores, as we go up the lake, are covered with vineyards, and every village that we pass is marked with some features of historical interest. Madame de Stael formerly resided at Coppet, a little village where is a Roman tombstone with this inscription, “Vixi ut vivis: morieris ut sum mortuus: sic vita traditur, vale viator et abi in rem tuam.” Ninon is an old town that boasts of Julius Cæsar as its founder, and under its castle are those gloomy dungeons which are the terrible witnesses of the cruel customs of past ages. On the left shore as we advance we notice a village on the extremity of a cape, which is called St. Protais; this saint was the Bishop of Avenches, the Roman Aventicum, who died in 530, and was buried here, tradition says, because “his body did not seem inclined to go any further.” And in 1400, nearly a thousand years 170 after his burial, it was proposed to remove him to Lausanne, but he showed such signs of repugnance, that it was deemed improper to disturb him any more. Near this was once a town named Lisus, which was destroyed in 563 by a sudden rise of the lake occasioned by the fall into its waters of an entire mountain on the Savoy side. It was an important place, as the remains of vases, statuary, and mosaics attest to this day. As we reach the town of Morges the scenery of the lake has opened upon us with grandeur and beauty which is impossible to describe. The snow-clad summits of the Grand Muveran, the rocks of the Diablerets, and the tapering jagged peaks that are appropriately called teeth, and have their several names, which one is scarcely expected to remember, now rise in full view, and the excitement of the voyage is fairly begun. Away in the distance is Mont Combin, one of the stupendous Mont Rosa group, and there are the mountains of Abondance and the cragged peaks of Meillerie, while in the background, overlooking all, glows and blazes in the splendors of this summer sun the everlasting snow-crown of Mont Blanc.
That square tower in Morges is the old donjon of Wufflens. It rises 170 feet, and towers above a group of turrets, all of brick. It was built in the tenth century by Bertha, whose memory is so sacred, the good queen of the Burgundians, who visited every part of her kingdom on horseback once a year, with a distaff in her hand, to set her subjects an example of industry.
Lausanne, and the Lake of Geneva.
The most picturesque in its situation, and the most famous city on the lake, except Geneva, is Lausanne , the capital of the canton of Vaud, built on three hills, along the slope of the Jorat, and dating back to the year 563. And then, oh wonderful to relate! it became in 580 the see of a bishop, the prelate Marius bringing hither the relics of St. Anne, from whom the town is named, Laus Annæ , and a part of the true cross, and some of the Virgin Mary’s 171 hair, and, more than all, a rat ,—a veritable rat, which had devoured some of the bread after it was consecrated, and was thus converted into the body of our Lord! These valuable possessions drew immense numbers of pilgrims, and raised the celebrity of the place, which afterwards had a remarkable history, civil and religious. Its cathedral was consecrated by the Pope himself. In 1479 the whole region was overrun with a species of beetles like locusts, devouring every green thing. The invaders were excommunicated by the bishop, but the sentence had no effect! Farel and Viret and Calvin, with other reformers, were here in convention in 1536. Here Gibbon finished his work, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and the principal hotel bears his name, while the house he lived in and the 172 terrace where he often walked, are pointed out as objects of interest to travellers. We rode through the quaint old place, and then continued our journey.
But if we pause even to mention the places on the northern shore of the lake, and allude to the events that have made them classic, we shall not get over the ground or the water to-day. We have now reached the upper section of the lake, and the mountains round about it have been rising in sublimity and beauty as we advance. The water is a thousand feet deep. On the right hand the mountains rise precipitously from the water’s edge, and on the left vineyards cover the sloping hills: sometimes walls sixty and eighty feet high have been built to support the soil, and on the terraces so formed luxurious vines are flourishing, and in the days of the old Romans a temple to Bacchus, the god of wine, was standing here, the ruins remaining to this day. The view from Vevey is regarded by many as the most delightful on the lake, and the situation of the town is so picturesque and healthful, so cool in summer and so warm in winter, that it is sought for as a residence by strangers all the year round, and in this strangely ordered region, in sight of everlasting snows, the pomegranate and the rose-laurel and myrtle blossom in the open air, as in the south of France. And now we come to the upper end of the lake, and such an amphitheatre of mountains, rocks, and hills, sure no other lake in the wide world presents. The sun was low in the west as we approached this eastern end, and a flood of golden light was poured in upon the bosom of the waters, and covered the stupendous battlements on either side with a living glory.
Close down on the edge of the lake is the old Castle of Chillon, more than six hundred years of age, where the Dukes of Savoy ruled with terrible power. Down into its dungeons we were led, to one where on a flat rock the condemned prisoners spent the last nights of their lives; 173 to another where, on a cross-beam still here, they were hung; to the stone column, one of the supports of the castle, where for seven long years the Prior of St. Victor, Francis Bonnivard, for his heroic defence of the liberty of Geneva, was chained to a ring yet remaining in the pillar, the chain passing around his body, and allowing him space only to walk around it, year after year, or to lie down and sleep by its side. In this dungeon many of the reformers were imprisoned.
Castle of Chillon.
In an upper room we found the chamber of torture, in which was a wooden column, to which prisoners were put to the question , chained, and tormented with fire, or drawn and stretched with rings and pulleys; and in another room a trap-door is open, and a spiral stone staircase leads downward,—the prisoner, unconscious of what was before him, steps down three steps into the darkness, and the fourth is eighty feet below, where he is dashed to pieces on the 174 rocks. Yet in this castle, and near to these horrid places, are the bed-chambers and parlors and dining-rooms of dukes and duchesses, men and women like ourselves, who could eat, drink, and be merry under the same roof with all this cruelty and misery.
And this is at the head of the Lake of Geneva. Within ten minutes’ walk is the Hotel Byron, one of the best places to stop at in all Europe. It is in the centre of a semi-circular sweep of beetling crags, and snow-peaked mountains, and wine-growing hill-sides; it looks away down the lake, and not another house, not a sound disturbs its deep tranquillity, while nature, history, poetry, and art invite us to repose.
Leaving Chillon in the morning by rail gave us a new idea of the way that Switzerland is now explored by tourists. When I was here, a dozen years ago, it was to be seen only by footing it through the passes, or riding on horseback, with now and then a lift in the diligence , or antiquated stage-coach. Now railroads have been made to connect so many of the principal places and points of interest, that only the younger and more vigorous of travellers strike out into the mountain fastnesses, and toil over the hills where as yet no roads have been made. I inquired of the porter this morning how to get across from Martigny to the Vale of Chamouny. “You takes von leetel hoss,” he said, from which I knew that the ponies still do the work through that finest of all the day’s rides in Switzerland. There are hundreds of interesting tours yet to be made where no rail or coach will ever intrude, and no other locomotive, unless Professor Andrews makes his air-ship a success: in which case it would be admirably adapted to travel in this country. One of the last places in the world I should have thought practicable for a railroad is the border of this lake, and yet here it is entering the valley where the Rhone empties, and so extending to Martigny and to Sion.
THE LAKE AND CITY OF GENEVA.
176 Penetrating secluded regions where frost has been king since the world began, the rail has made even the everlasting glaciers, these frozen cataracts, articles of merchandise. As the quarries in the mountains are worked by the art and spirit of man, so the icebergs that here grow from age to age, and scarcely seem to melt at all, are cut into blocks, and transported by the rail to Paris. The glacier of the Grindelwald is drank in brandy punches at the Grand Hotel and the Louvre. To get the ice, these mighty frozen seas are excavated in galleries and chambers, and magnificent saloons. The depths of snow on the surface exclude the sunbeams, but calcium lights shed a brilliant lustre, reflected as from a thousand mirrors of glass, and in small apartments fitted up for the purpose, the furniture of a well appointed parlor, sofas, chairs, and cushions, invite to cold but not inhospitable repose. When the Mer de Glace is taken by rail down into Italy, and thence by ship to the East Indies, ice will be reasonably cheap in Calcutta. And this will be more readily done than to tow an iceberg from the North Pole.
As I said, we left Chillon in the morning, and retraced our course a part of the way by the railroad which passes on the hill-sides, away above the lake, through luxuriant vineyards, and over stupendous gorges, spanned by stone bridges, and arrived before noon at Lausanne. Here we struck out into the interior of Switzerland. And I was at once impressed with the great progress, even in this stationary country, made in the last thirteen years. Then we traversed this wild and wonderful country mainly over paths that no wheel had ever marked, and sometimes by ways that only the footstep of the most cautious traveller might tread. Now, we take the coupé , or front compartment of an elegantly fitted up rail-car. It has seats for four persons only, with rests for the head and the feet, and a table before you, and windows in front and sides, so that 177 you can see all that is around you, or write of what you see and feel. Before us are the peaks of untrodden hills, all covered deep in perpetual snows, the pink color on the white like the hues of roses, as the sun shines on but never melts them; here, on the right, I see the lake that yesterday we sailed through from end to end; now it is smooth as a silver sea, and as beautiful; reflecting majestic mountains, and cities and villages where wealth and art and letters and taste have for ages delighted to dwell. And on the other hand, and sometimes on both sides of us, we see Swiss valleys teeming with a busy, peaceful, happy people, whose homes suggest to me the thought of contentment, and therefore happiness. The old city of Romont we pass below, as it stands on a hill with an ancient wall and towers surrounding it; good enough in those old times when bows and spears and stones were the weapons of war, but of no account in these times of Columbiads and Paixhan guns. At the foot of the hill on which it stands, the fields are laid off with walks and garnished with groves, showing that the people of these regions delight in those enjoyments that indicate culture and taste.
The city of Freyburg, where we passed the night, is remarkable as being the seat of the chief power of Romanism in Switzerland. It has as many as ten convents and monasteries and high seminaries of learning. The suspension bridge is said to be the longest in the world, nine hundred feet: it is not so beautiful as the one at Niagara, but may be longer.
The organ of Freyburg has been long celebrated as one of the best instruments in the world, and there is probably but one superior to it. Yet the performances upon it are so unequal, varying with the skill or the humor of the organist, that very different reports are made of it by parties hearing it at different times. Perhaps it was my good 178 fortune to hear it under circumstances the most favorable. Certainly the music was the most effective of any that I have ever heard, more so than any I expect to hear till the “nobler, sweeter strains” of the divine melodies break on the spirit’s ear among the harmonies of heaven.
The cathedral dates back to 1285. Over the front entrance is a queer old bas-relief, representing the last judgment. The Father, God himself, done in stone, sits aloft, with angels blowing trumpets around him. At his feet, on the right, the righteous are led off in triumph to their places in glory, and on the left a devil is weighing souls in a pair of scales; another devil, with the head of a pig, is carrying a lot of poor sinners in a basket on his back, and is about to cast them into a great kettle where others are boiling, while little imps are blowing the fires with bellows, and hell itself, represented by the jaws of a monster, yawns near, and Satan sits on his throne above. We studied this strange device until the evening shades were too dense to permit us to see it, and then entered the portals. Darkness and silence reigned within. Two candles on the columns near the altar gave all the “dim religious light,” that only served to deepen the gloomy grandeur of the venerable pile. A few persons had already been admitted, and were conversing in whispers, invisible and scarcely audible in the distance. We sat as far away from the organ as we could, and where it was probable it could be heard to the best advantage. As the hour approached (it is played from half-past eight to half-past nine every evening), the strangers, who pause here on their travels, entered in little groups, and then a large crowd of gentlemen, who, as I learned the next day, were the teachers, professors, and other literary men of Switzerland, came in together, filling every available place. They were in Freyburg in convention, and by invitation were now present to enjoy the musical feast. It may be that 179 owing to this unusual attendance of the learned and cultivated men of the country, we had the highest possible development of the powers of the instrument and the ability of the organist.
Something in the circumstances doubtless added to the dramatic effect of the exhibition. The cathedral seemed to be full of people, but a few only could be seen, and a sense of solemnity, devotion, awe, began to steal upon me as I sat waiting for the first notes of the organ, which was lighted only by a single candle, and that unseen, so that the instrument seemed away among the stars. Some of its pipes are thirty-two feet long. They are 7,800 in number, with sixty-four stops. As I looked up expectant, I thought, “Oh, if it had only a soul!” And then, just then, a breath of melody, so soft, so sweet, so soul-like, came along on the still air, it might have been the first notes of the advent song of peace that fell like this by night over Bethlehem. This gentle stream of music rose and swelled into a river of melody that soon burst its banks and became a rushing torrent of sound, mighty in its power, almost awful in its expression. This was but the prelude. Then came, in successive anthems, songs and passages of master-pieces of the great composers; some of them familiar, all of them exquisite in their effect, to illustrate the wondrous faculties of this uninspired, untenanted mechanism, that was yet able to represent with such fidelity the deep and lofty, the softest and strongest emotions of the soul.
Now, the imitation of the human voice was so perfect, it required an effort of the mind to believe that a living being was not rendering those plaintive strains in some distant chamber of this vast hall; and now, the ring of bells broke musically on the ear, and the far-away toll of some solemn church-bell added its voice to the harmony. The Alpine horn, the flute, and other instruments were so distinctly 180 given, it was hard to comprehend the truth that, in the midst of one grand performance, on a single instrument, so many and so distinct and perfect imitations of others could be introduced. Perhaps nothing was more beautiful than the tinkling of water dropping into a fountain; yet, when one effect had been enjoyed, as if the most complete, another soon succeeded, so delicate and so touching, that it seemed as if the last were more lovely than all which had been heard before.
It is quite impossible to speak of the closing performance without being suspected, by those who have not heard it, of exaggeration. And, indeed, so differently are we constituted, that some will be charmed with a picture or statue, ravished with eloquence of oratory or music, and delighted with a landscape or waterfall, while others exposed to the same influences are as unmoved as the marble or the instrument. I know that I am not one of them, thanks to him who made us to differ; and I know, too, that they who sat near me, when the last grand movement of this organ was made, are not of them. For when the strong wind began to shake the walls of the old cathedral, the rain to pour in torrents on the roof, the thunder rolling in terrific majesty,
we bowed our heads, with such a sense of awe and adoration, as could scarcely have been increased if the war of elements had indeed been bursting on us, and the voice of the Almighty had suddenly filled his temple.
I will not describe the effect of this music: how it soothed, subdued, and melted the heart when its tenderest utterances fell like balm on a wounded spirit; how it carried me away to other days, and far-away lands, and lifted me again to thoughts of heaven and the harmonies of the 181 saints; and so pure, so holy were the strains and the associations they brought with them, I wept that I had ever lived but in the hallowed atmosphere of the Good, the Unseen, and Infinite! Nor was this a transient sentiment, fading when the hour of such strange teaching was ended, and the gothic temple ceased to tremble with these majestic tones. It has followed me for days and nights among these stupendous mountain fastnesses, over ice-clad plains, where “motionless torrents, silent cataracts,” proclaim the power of him who “clothes them with rainbows,” only less lustrous than the one around his throne. I hear the voice of God everywhere, in this sublime and awful land. But if these silent works of his are eloquent to speak his praise, how much more is such a voice as that organ, the great achievement of a mind and hand that God made, endowed, and guided in their work.
I have thought in years past that words are not essential to a train of thought: we think in words, always and only in words. But now I know that we need no words to make us feel, and words are not made that are capable of expressing what we feel. As we sat in silence beneath the majestic harmonies of this surpassing instrument, even so it were better that I had made no attempt to portray with pen what is not in the compass of words to utter. It is to be heard and felt and enjoyed.
Just beyond Freyburg, as we go to Berne, is the battle-field of Morat, which battle was fought four hundred years ago, but is famous to this day: for the bones of the slain were gathered into a heap, and some of them are still to be seen. It was formerly the custom for every Burgundian who passed to carry a bone home with him to bury in his own country, and Lord Byron said that he took away enough to make a quarter of a man. But they are mostly gone now, and an obelisk is set up to mark the field.
Cathedral and Platform at Berne.
By stopping over from one train to another you will see 182 all that is worth seeing in the quaint old city of Berne ,—the German for Bear,—the city of Bears, so called because it is built on the spot where its founder, Berchthold, of Zahringen, slew a bear long time ago. So the people keep three or four of them in a stone pit, at the public expense, for the idle and youthful to look at and feed and see them climb a tree. It is amusing to see a city worshipping bears. 183 Therefore go to see the bears, when you go to Berne. Do not fall over the parapet, for if you do, the bears will tear you to bits, as they did an unfortunate Englishman on the 3d of March, 1861. If you happen to be at the old clock tower when it is striking the hour, you will see a curious procession, which presents a very striking appearance; and, indeed, every fountain and statue and mountain is deformed with ugly bears, till you cannot bear to see them. You will be quite willing to leave the city after walking through its principal streets, where the second story of the houses projects over the sidewalks, making a covered promenade, and the shops are half-way in the street, and the market-women sit all along the way with their baskets of vegetables, and the chicken vendors are ready to cut off the heads of the fowls over a drain that carries off the blood, and so forth.
Besides the hotels, the only notable edifice is the Federal Palace, a new and truly beautiful building. Here the National Diet, or Congress of Switzerland, meets annually in July. There are twenty-two cantons, or states, in the Swiss Confederation, and they are severally independent, but unite in this council for purposes of mutual protection and support. Each canton has a dialect, or patois, peculiar to itself, and sometimes unintelligible to its neighbors; and the French, the German, and the Italian languages are so generally spoken in distinct cantons, that they are obliged to have an interpreter in Congress to redeliver a speech, or restate an argument in two other languages after a member has made it first in the only one that he understands. What a blessed thing it is that our congressmen understand, at least, each other’s language, for if their speeches had to be repeated three times, when would the assembly ever break up?
The grandest sight in Berne is the range of Bernese Alps, and a grander spectacle, perhaps, the country itself cannot present. When that long, white, rifted, mountain-boundary 184 of the world stands up in its majesty, lighted as we saw it by a blazing noonday sun, it is sublime as well as beautiful.
On the Lake of Thun.
It is only an hour by rail to Thun, and then we are on a lovely little lake ten miles long, with lofty mountains on each side of it; so lovely indeed is this lake, that days after we had left it, when other views were spoken of, Thun always had its admiring advocates, who claimed for it the pre-eminence in beauty over all that we had seen. And so in this land of glorious natural scenery, where every valley is a subject for a picture, every mountain a study, and every lake a gem, it is easy to exhaust the words of 185 admiration, and then fail to convey any adequate idea of the constant succession of splendors that greet the traveller’s never-wearied eye.
Writing these last words, I look up, and before me is the Jungfrau, clothed in white raiment from crown to foot. The sky kisses her cold brow. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so are the everlasting hills about her now and ever. But no words can give to you, beyond the sea, the faintest conception of what one feels who exposes his soul to these visions of grandeur and beauty, and rejoices as he thinks “My Father made them all.”
IF it were required of me to name the pleasantest day’s ride thus far of this summer’s tour in Switzerland, I should give the palm for beauty to the day that took me with two friends from Interlaken to Lucerne by way of Brienz and the Brunig Pass.
Interlaken, as its name implies, is between the lakes Thun and Brienz. Thun is a beautiful gem of a sea; Brienz is a little smaller, but fortified by formidable mountains and scarcely less lovely than her sister Thun. Our carriage-road, after leading us out from Interlaken,—that great English boarding establishment with a road running through it, and interesting only as a flat valley in sight of the Jungfrau, and so full of people all summer long that you can find no sense of quiet or retirement, though the hotels are good, and the rides pleasant, and the mountain scenery sublime,—our road led us along on the western shore of Lake Brienz, and is cut into the hill-side so far up that all the way along we were able to survey the whole lake. I looked back to the Abendberg , a mountain which I once climbed to visit the Institution for the Relief of Cretins, the idiots of Switzerland, which Dr. Guggenbulre established there. That remarkable philanthropist and physician, in whom and his labors I became intensely interested when here before, has since that time been removed by death, and no one being found to carry on his benevolent and self-denying work, it was suspended, and the building is now a hotel.
187 On the east side of the lake some of the finest mountains in the country are to be seen, and the flat summit of the Faulhorn is even more inviting than the Rigi, which now is visited by scarcely more tourists. Cascades are leaping frequently from lofty heights into the abyss below, and we have scarcely exclaimed at the beauty of one before another rushes into sight. By and by we come to one more imposing than all the rest; at first we catch but a single fall; as we advance it takes another plunge, and then another, and soon the whole reach and all the leaps of the Giesback are roaring and tumbling down the lofty precipices before us. I had been under it and around it, at its base, but had not before stood, as now, where its successive falls are all blended into one, and the white crystal flood pours more than a thousand feet, through the green fir-tree borders, into the lake. If you have a night to spare, when you come here, you may cross from Brienz and spend it at the Falls, which are illuminated with Bengal lights, producing a spectacle of enchanting and bewildering magnificence and beauty. But if you have not time, get some one who has just been there, and who knows that you have not been, to tell you about it, and you will get an idea from his description that will quite surpass the original!
After passing the little village of Brienz,—where the English-speaking landlord of the Bear (Ours) will entertain you well if you give him a call,—we soon began the ascent of the Brunig mountain. It gives you at once some conception of the immense expenditure of money, time, and science of engineering required to construct these Swiss roads. As smooth as those of Central Park, and as solid, they are made to wind around and about so as to render the ascent gradual. Sometimes we seem to be returning on our track, but always singing Excelsior , and yet so gradually that the strain is not severe on the horses, and you feel no sense of danger as you are borne along without jolting 188 or fatigue. And what a lovely vale is every moment in view at the foot of the mountain! A rapid river sweeps through it, and by its side a white, smooth road: sweet Swiss homes in the midst of green farms dot the valley, that may well be the pride of the whole land. Now we are looking down into the Vale of Meyringen. For two or three hours we have seen in the distance a splendid cascade, and now that we have approached it, we find it the lower leap of the celebrated Reichenbach Falls, and into the valley so many are pouring constantly, that you are not surprised to learn the inhabitants have often suffered sadly from the swelling of these mountain torrents, which come down so rapidly and fearfully as to bear away every thing before them. A hundred years ago, almost the whole village of Meyringen was buried twenty feet deep in the sand and rocks and rubbish. A mark on one of the principal buildings shows the height to which the waters rose in that memorable deluge. And as we are wound along up the Brunig, we enter the clouds and find the rain descending, so that we are obliged to shut the carriage up till we pass through the cloud, and emerge as we come down into a sunnier region. At the foot, the village of Lungern offers us dinner, and we rest. One of my friends had been suffering all day with toothache, and had at last reached the reckless determination to have it out, if a dentist, or even a blacksmith, could be found in the place. I admired his courage more than his discretion, but probably had only a feeble sense of his suffering. The village doctor was summoned, a fine-looking, self-reliant, intelligent young man. The landlord stood with solemn face at the door of the room where the dread operation was to be performed. The landlady wrung her hands in sympathy. The head waiter held the sufferer’s head. I held my peace. In a moment it was done! And then the charge, it was one franc! twenty cents!! Think of that, ye man tormentors, who, 189 with forceps dire, tear a tooth by the roots from one’s bleeding jaw and charge him two dollars, or five!
Lungern, where now lies the bone of one of my countrymen, stands by a lake of the same name, which was once much larger than it is now. But the people, more in need of land than water, at the cost of $25,000 dug a tunnel under a hill that held the lake, put 1000 pounds of gunpowder at the end of the hole and touched it off. Away it went, and away went the lake, and the village itself was nearly whelmed too. Down went the lake 120 feet, leaving several hundred acres of ground which is now tilled. But not enough to pay for the work. God has given the seas and the lakes their bounds, and man is a poor tinker when he tries to blow the world up and make it over. I sympathize with the poet who rejoices that the sun and moon are swung out of reach,
The whole region beyond is historic, and the quaint villages we pass through have their several stories of battles, sieges, and victories. Every step of the way presents a new picture of loveliness or sublimity. At last we are brought into sight and now are riding along the base of Mount Pilatus, his head as usual crowned with clouds and storm. The tradition is,—and you must believe in all the traditions of this country, or you lose half the interest of travel in it: even the life and exploits of William Tell are traditional rather than historic, yet who that lives here or travels here thinks William Tell a myth? If he does, he had better not tell anybody he doesn’t believe in Tell,—the tradition is that Pontius Pilate, after condemning the Saviour, wandered over the world with a conscience goading him to death; that finally he committed suicide on the top of this mountain, which is almost always, in consequence of this 190 awful event, begirt with tempests. And the popular belief that these storms were of infernal origin was so prevalent, that for a long time it was forbidden by law to make the ascent. But the mountain is the first great barrier the clouds meet as they are marching southerly into the Alpine regions. There they break, and around the peak of Mount Pilate the thunder and lightning play with vengeance, when elsewhere it is “clear shining after the rain.” The carriage-path is now along the shore of Lake Lucerne and at the foot of the mountains,—ahead of us it seems as though we were coming to the sudden terminus of travel, but the narrow way opens as we advance, and we sweep securely under a frowning precipice, and over a solid rock for the bed of the road, and having made the circuit of the mountain we emerge upon a plain which lies between us and Lucerne.
Pilatus, Lake of Lucerne.
The sun was just sinking to rest as we were bringing to 191 a close our journey of ten hours, memorable for the picturesque views that were constantly before us, the four lakes that we had skirted in our ride, the uncounted waterfalls, majestic mountains, alternate rain and sunshine, and that pleasant friendly converse which an easy-going carriage permits and encourages, when, with tastes to enjoy the beautiful world that God has made, we sit all day under the open sky and admire, wonder, and adore.
Lucerne is one of the most beautiful spots in Switzerland. We have often laughed at the guide-books for calling each and every place, castle, river, waterfall, temple, or tower, the most beautiful, the oldest, largest, most romantic, or something quite as superlative. But we get into the same habit, and readers must make allowances for the enthusiasm of travellers. Take off as much as you please, and Lucerne is very lovely.
It was my first Sabbath, on this journey, in a place almost wholly given up to Romanism. The population is about 13,000, and less than a thousand are Protestants. At nine o’clock in the morning, with two American friends, I went to the cathedral or church of St. Leger, and found it already crowded and a sermon in progress. The preacher was arrayed with so much magnificence that I supposed he must be some very distinguished personage in the church of Rome. The Papal Nuncio, or representative of the Pope of Rome, has his official residence in Lucerne, but I presume he does not officiate as a preacher. The audience filling the seats and thronging the aisles were giving devout attention, each one on entering bending his knee and crossing himself. The women occupied one half, and the men the other, of the house. I could find no seat, but a young man in a pew rose, gave me his seat, and stood up himself, a politeness not common in any Protestant church in any part of the world to which my weary steps have been directed. The preaching was in German, 192 and more unintelligible to me than if it had been in Greek or Latin, so that I was at liberty to study the surroundings. Over the altar was a statue of Christ crucified: the body made of wood painted to the life, and life-size, suspended so low that the face, with all its expression of intense agony, was perfectly visible. The blood had settled all below the knees and the lower part of the chest, and was trickling from the spikes through the hands and feet. The altar was richly adorned with gold, and candles were burning on it. On either side of it were minor altars; over one of them was an inscription in Latin recording the sacred relics there treasured. These are to be found in all the great churches on the continent, but have lost none of their hold on the reverence of these superstitious people. The toe-nail of the prophet Jeremiah would be the fortune of any relic-hunter who should light upon it. Over another altar, called Privileged , but why I did not learn, was a representation, in full life-size, of the descent from the cross. The weeping women had very sorrowful faces, and the wound in the Saviour’s side was gaping fearfully, and the blood still oozing out. As I was looking at it, a lady elegantly dressed, leading two children, four or five years old, entered a side door, and approaching this altar knelt before it, and turning her face upward to these images of the Saviour’s death, gazed long, and I suppose was praying. The sermon was still in progress, but she gave no heed to it. Perhaps, like myself, she was not able to understand it, and had come to worship, not to hear. When she had closed her protracted devotions, she took the little boy and girl and made them both kneel, where she had been kneeling, and look up as she had done, and when they had thus performed the service which she evidently prescribed, she led them out. Others cast themselves down before this and other altars, and with no attention to the service in progress, went on with their own prayers, and then left, or 193 joined with the rest according to their pleasure. When the sermon was ended, long, and well delivered, in a persuasive, conversational tone, without notes, and with an evident air of earnest feeling, another priest, in gorgeous apparel, came to the high altar, and, attended by two or three boys to hold up his robes and move his missal-book from place to place, as he had to change his position, he proceeded to celebrate the mass. The officiating priest was an elderly man whose face indicated great intellectual force, and his appearance was that of a student and man of learning. As he took a golden chalice and laid his hands over it, and prayed, and then lifted it up while all the people bowed themselves with profound reverence, it filled me with amazement that such a man as he seemed to be could suppose that the wine in that cup had been miraculously and instantly converted into the blood of the Son of God!!! And when he held up in the same way a bit of bread in the shape of a wafer or thin cracker, two inches or so in diameter, and again all the people bent themselves in adoration, he himself, with uplifted hands and downcast eyes and moving lips, appeared to regard the ceremony as an immediate exhibition of a present and new-born God. Then he took the cup again and drank it, and drank once more, turning it bottom upward over his face; and when this was done he took a white napkin and dried the inside thoroughly, as if no drop of the sacred blood must remain within, and the door of a golden casket or closet on the altar being opened, he placed it within, with the bread he had converted, and locked it safely there. While this ceremony was going on, a priest had emerged from behind the altar, and with a brush in hand went up and down among the people, sprinkling them with holy water. A splendid organ and a choir of singers took part in the service, which was in all its parts imposing to the senses, fitted to make a deep impression on the ignorant masses.
194 The cloisters that surround the church are filled with tombs and memorial paintings and inscriptions, and the windows on the south command charming views of the lake and mountains.
From this service, which was rather to be called interesting than edifying, we went to the English church service. The Protestant Germans have a new and very pretty edifice, which they permit the English-speaking residents and travellers to enjoy for two services on the Sabbath. The sermon we heard was on the nature and blessed effects of prayer. It was evangelical and useful, some passages very touching and impressive. The prayers were read by a young American clergyman, and the audience, which was quite large, filling the church, was probably one-half American.
I have never found a more romantic, more sublime, more classic and beautiful lake in the little part of the world I have seen, than the Vier-Wald-Statter See, the Four Forrest Cantons, or, as it is more often called, Lake Lucerne.
You will come to Lucerne, to the Schweitzer Hof, the best hotel in Switzerland. From the wharf in front of it steamers go five times a day the whole length of the lake and return, making the excursion in five hours.
It is the lake of William Tell. Unbelieving sceptics intimate a doubt that such a man as Tell ever lived; but the apothecary in whose house I am lodging now has his scales in the form of a cross-bow, with a gilt apple on the top, to represent the great exploit of the hero’s life, and every house has its memento of the man without whom there is no Swiss history. You might as well tell me that George Washington is a myth, and that he never hacked his father’s cherry-tree with a hatchet. I have a piece of the tree, and know it to be true. And every Swiss patriot knows that William Tell shot the apple off his son’s head, and the monster cruelty of the order that made him do it 195 roused the fires of indignant resistance to tyranny, and resulted in the independence of the country. It is necessary to believe this, to enjoy the scenes made sacred by the story.
Monument to the Swiss Guard. ( By Thorvaldsen. )
You will leave the city of Lucerne, having seen the lion cut in a solid rock as a monument to some Swiss soldiers who were killed in Paris fighting for pay in 1792, and having also walked through the covered bridge that is distinguished, but not adorned, with a series of paintings by Holbein, representing the Dance of Death; and after the boat has gone from the landing about fifteen minutes, you must look back on the crescent city rising from the water’s edge, flanked by the ancient wall on which the useless towers still stand; and on the spires of the cathedral whose organ claims equal honor with that of Freyburg; and the old tower in the centre of the river which was once a light-house, 196 Lucerna, whence the name of the town; and on the green hills, behind and on either side of the city, elegant residences of opulent citizens, and of some who from Paris and more distant parts come here to enjoy the summer in a delicious and healthful clime. Naples is grander, but hardly more beautiful, as she lies around her lovely bay, with Vesuvius, like the Rigi, keeping watch over her Italian charms.
For an hour or two out we are in the midst of the same bold and striking scenery which is common to all the Swiss lakes, with nothing of special interest except the historic associations that cluster about the little villages at the foot of the hills on the shores. We would be slow to believe that a population even of a few hundreds could hold on upon the sides of the mountains, or find the means of support among those green meadows, where lies the little village of Gersau, and there are only about 1,500 people in it. Yet so tenacious are these Swiss of independence, that this little, secluded, poor, portionless community, not more than two miles square, maintained its existence as a separate state for more than four centuries, and was then swallowed up by the French in the devouring fires of 1789. It is now part of one of the Swiss cantons. We cross the lake again and come to Brunnen, where the figures of the three historic patriots of Switzerland stand with each a hand held up to heaven, on the outside of the Sustenhaus, on the bank of the water. But when we leave Brunnen, and through a narrow pass enter the Bay of Uri, the grandeur of the view breaks instantly upon us with such a power as to set at defiance the attempt at description unless one has a bolder pen than mine. Philosophers have tried it. Poets have done what they could to illustrate and repeat it. So prudent, and yet so capable a writer as Sir James Mackintosh says it makes “an impression which it would be foolish to attempt to convey by words.” I will therefore 197 not be foolish. Yet you may look with my eyes upon precipitous mountains starting from the bosom of the lake and pointing with silent and solemn majesty into the sky: here and there as we pass are verdant meadows, few and far between, but beautiful as they nestle at the feet or on the breasts of these gigantic cliffs, not a human habitation, sometimes for miles, to be seen, but all still, serene, and impressive in its solitude, and awful in its manifestation of the stupendous works of God.
A sharp rock rises perpendicularly from the water on the western shore, and some foolish people have put a gilt letter inscription on it: as if the words were of use to perpetuate the histories of these shores. We come to a low pasture, a narrow ledge, the most hallowed spot in Switzerland, for here the three great patriots whose portraits we saw at Brunnen,—Furst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal,—were wont to meet to concert their plans. And here at midnight, Nov. 7, 1307, they, with thirty trusty men whom they had chosen, took the oath that bound them in a solemn league to break the hated yoke of Austria, or die. They fought and conquered, and they perished too, but their names and deeds live, in revolving centuries, and pilgrims from lands that were then unknown now come and look with reverence upon the spot thus consecrated, for the lands of Tell and of Washington are lands of liberty, and the sons of each are brothers.
And across the See, a few miles on, is the chapel of William Tell. It marks the spot where the hero jumped from the boat to the rock and bounded away into the woods, when the tyrant Gessler was carrying him to prison. A storm had overtaken them: the tyrant, a coward of course, was afraid, and, as Tell was an expert in the boat, he ordered him to be unbound, that he might manage the little bark. Tell steered her close to the rock, and leaped ashore, and was gone. A little chapel, open on the lake front, is erected 198 here, preserved with pious care, adorned with art and taste, and once a year a long procession of Swiss, in boats, approach the sacred place and listen to a discourse in honor of their sainted hero.
Tell’s Chapel, Lake of Lucerne.
Adown the sides of these majestic mountains frequent cascades leap and hang and play, and not far from the chapel two fountains spring directly out of the mountain side and pour two copious streams into the lake below. They are said to flow from a lake in the valley on the other side of the mountain; but whether this is true or not, it is an illustration of the way in which the veins of water run 199 along beneath the earth, rising even on the sides and summits of the hills, and springing to the surface when reached by art, or, as in this case, discharging by a natural outlet. The earth has its mysteries yet unsolved. Some of these bare mountain rocks are laid in convoluted strata, a few feet only in thickness, but wrapped over and over, as if they were a heap of great sheets once, easily thrown into these forms. It is easy to say that they are of volcanic origin, and that these hills were once flowing down in presence of the Lord. But this explains nothing. The philosopher is no wiser than the poet. And neither sees any farther into the bowels of these mountains than the Christian pilgrim who sits with me on the boat, and, as he sees the water gushing out of the rock as if smitten by the rod of Moses, he says: “Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of the waters? Out of whose bosom came the ice? There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen.” And this is the way the waters go, through chambers cut in the rocks by Infinite skill, that they may flow just where they are wanted to bless or beautify the world.
Reaching the end of the lake at Fluellen, we enter at once upon the highway over the St. Gothard into Italy. Two miles on is Altorf, where William Tell shot the apple on the head of his son. And still farther on is the place where he finally lost his life, drowned while seeking to save the life of a child. The road beyond is one of the grandest and most historic of the Swiss passes, but I am not going that way now, as Capt. Lott said. What did he say? Why, this,—a passenger asked him why the ship was going so slow: the captain told him the fog was too thick to make much headway. “But,” said the passenger looking up, “it’s clear enough overhead.” “Yes,” replied the Captain, “but we’re not going that way just now.”
MORE than a thousand years ago, a holy hermit, by the name of Meinrad, of royal blood, sought the wilds of Finsterswald, and here (for I am now on the spot) lived in a hut, and spent his days in prayer, with a little black image of the Virgin and Child which had been given him by the Abbess of Zurich. But his piety and the Holy Virgin did not shield him from the violence of wicked men. He was murdered in his hut by two robbers, who would never have been caught but for the interposition of the Virgin, who sent two ravens after them. These birds followed them to Zurich, and there hunted them till their guilt was detected, and they were put to death.
The odor of Meinrad’s sanctity spread far and wide, and the Benedictine monks came and established a community, built a monastery and a church, and have flourished on this spot ever since. So long ago as 948 the Bishop of Constance came here to consecrate the newly erected church, and in the night before the ceremony was to be performed he was awakened by the music of angels filling the place, and a voice from heaven came to him, saying that he need not proceed with his holy services, for in the night the house had been sanctified by the coming of the Saviour in his own proper person. This was reported to the Pope, who pronounced it a genuine miracle; and in obedience to his decree a plenary indulgence is granted to all pilgrims who come here, and on the church is inscribed, “Here is 201 full remission from the guilt and punishment of sins.” During all these thousand years that have since revolved, this spot has been the shrine to which not less than 200,000 human beings each year, with heads and hands and feet like other people, have journeyed, to bring their offerings, and worship a black image of the Virgin Mary holding a black baby in her arms. Why the image is painted jet black I cannot learn. So great is the concourse of pilgrims here, and so large are their offerings, that this monastery, in a bleak Alpine vale, 3000 feet above the sea, and off from all highways, has become one of the richest in the world. One in Styria, one in Spain, and a third in Italy, are, perhaps, more numerously visited. But the annual revenue of this is immense. The abbot has his banking house in Zurich, where he deposits the funds, and the investments are constantly increasing. They are buying lands largely in the United States of America, especially in Indiana, and the order of Benedictines at Vincennes is in constant correspondence with Einsiedeln.
Hither have I just made a pilgrimage, not on foot, as many do. An old woman of seventy-five, carrying her shoes in her hand and toiling up with bare, sore feet, said the priest had bade her travel so to Einsiedeln, and her sins would be pardoned. But I came by the steamboat from Zurich to Ricksterwyl, and was then brought up the hill in a nice covered carriage, a much pleasanter way of doing a pilgrimage than walking barefoot, or even with peas in your shoes. It is a two hours’ ride from the lake, the ascending road being alive with travellers going and coming, and public-houses to entertain the pilgrims invite you to rest. The village itself consists of a multitude of taverns and shops for the sale of images, crosses, medals, &c. Passing through it, we come to a large paved square. On one side of it, and at the foot of a hill which rises behind it, stand the sacred edifices: a vast temple, with the 202 monastic buildings on each side of it, imposing in their appearance among these wilds of nature, where it seems almost a miracle that they can ever have been reared and enjoyed by man. The church itself is adorned with extravagant pictures and marble chapels and shrines, and just at the entrance stands the image of “Our Lady of the Hermits,” the only black image of the Virgin I ever saw. She and the Holy Child wear crowns of gold, and glitter with diamonds and embroidered garments, their faces of ebony shining in the blaze of jewelry and tinsel finery. Before them, worshippers are always kneeling, counting their beads. At the other shrines others are bowing and murmuring their prayers. Painted skeletons of celebrated saints lie exposed in marble shrines. The offerings of those who have had their prayers answered hang around on the walls. All sorts of prayers are here made, and they who make them believe they are answered.
In the square in front of the church is a fountain with a dozen jets of water, and each pilgrim drinks from each one of them, to be certain that he drinks of the one out of which the Saviour refreshed himself nine hundred years ago!
The monastery is freely opened to strangers. Through long halls on each side of which are guest-chambers where their many visitors are lodged, we were led to a gallery, adorned with several splendid paintings, presented by Catholic monarchs: Louis Napoleon and his Empress, the Austrian Emperor, and several historical pictures. Out of this we walked into the reception-room, where the abbot himself was so condescending as to meet us. He speaks only German and Latin. A very large man, of commanding form and presence; with a face shining like the sun with good humor, good living, and content, he answered perfectly to your idea of the abbot of a Romish monastery. He gave me a cordial greeting, and understanding that I 203 was from America asked if we enjoyed universal peace. When I assured him we did, he spoke of the late contest in Europe, which he pronounced “bellum atrocissimum,”—a most atrocious war. Then he inquired about the President, and produced from his private rooms a photograph of the late Lincoln in the arms of Washington in heaven!
After a little further general conversation he withdrew. He is by virtue of his office a prince of the Austrian empire, and is so addressed by all the Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland. I was highly pleased with the interview, and not less with one of the monks to whose kind care I was now committed. He led me to the interior of the monastery, where the cells of the monks are arranged on the several stories or floors: each one is a comfortable room, with one window looking into the walled garden and the hill that rises behind. When we reached his own he unlocked it and showed me in; placing its only chair, he bade me be seated, while he went to look for the key of the library. “While I am absent,” said he, “enjoy yourself as you please, examine every thing, and be quite at home.” A few books were in a case over his writing-desk, by which he could sit or stand and the closets, shelves, every thing was bare of paint, and plain as could be. A little bed was in one corner near the door, simple enough for an anchorite. No images, pictures, or crucifixes were in sight. In a few minutes he returned, and led me through the cabinet of natural history, into the library of 30,000 volumes, neatly arranged in niches. When we came to the folios of the fathers, I pointed to the works of Irenæus , and said: I have the name of that father, my own father having given it to me because he admired the writings of the old author, the disciple of Polycarp, who sat at the feet of the apostle John; I was thus in the line of the succession. We took down the folio and looked at its imprint. Then he asked me if I would like to see the manuscripts, and 204 upon my expressing a strong desire to do so, he raised an iron trap-door, and conducted me by a flight of stairs into a room below, where an immense number are deposited, and admirably preserved and disposed. None of them, however, are very ancient.
A college of two hundred students is maintained in the same range of buildings, and taught by some of the monks. Of these monks there are about forty, besides the priests who minister at the altars, and receive confessions in German, French, Italian, and Romanesch languages, according to the nationality of the pilgrims. The monks spend their time in reading, writing, and in the refectory, where they eat together, and enjoy the good things of this life as well as other people. Some of them are quite old. Death comes here as elsewhere, and closes up a life of apparent indolence, yet possessing some strange fascination that is hard to be comprehended by the outside world. It certainly is not favorable to the highest usefulness, for these men might be doing far more for God and their fellow-men in the pursuit of some honest calling, preaching the gospel, or working with their hands. They consume and do not produce. Nor is this mode of life friendly to holiness. Passions are part of man’s nature, and they are not quenched or dwarfed by seclusion from intercourse with the outer world. Human sympathies, which are cultivated and refined by the practice of social virtues, and so tend to make us better, are not apt to flourish in the cell of a monk. And although the walls of this magnificent monastery, in a sterile Alpine valley, shut out the pomps and vanities of the world, they cannot be made so high or so strong as to confine the wandering desire, which will sap the foundations of the sternest virtue, and make the bosom the seat of vice to which the soul consents, and therefore suffers. The pure in heart see God. Not in the cloister of the anchorite, the monk’s lonely cell, nor the hermit’s 205 cave; but in the steadfast pursuit of the Good, the True, and the Great, in the daily walks of life. It is virtue to live above the world, while living in it. None but the children of the Holy One can walk through the furnace without the smell of fire on their garments.
Such were my thoughts as I left the monastery, shaking hands with Father Reifle, the Benedictine, who had so kindly waited upon me, and by his intelligent conversation and lively interest in my enjoyment had won my warm regards. He put the key into the lock of the iron gate at the head of the stone stairs, and unlocking it let me out, and we bade each other Adieu, as he stood within and I without the door.
Returning to Zurich, and going thence to St. Gall, I mounted a diligence, and rode an hour and a half into the hill country, up hill all the way, to a place unheard-of in the guide-books, and unvisited by travellers, unless business or the search for solitude should call them there. It is at least a thousand feet above the lake, of which a distant view is had, and in the midst of beautiful high valleys, green pastures, and thrifty villages, three or four of which are in sight, each with its single church spire or tower. Not a boarding-house was to be found in the place. There is a hotel, but hotels had been my dwelling-place long enough, and now I would have a home, and such a home as the people around me enjoy. In a private family, the village apothecary’s, I learned that, perhaps, a room could be had, and thither I bent my steps. Happily for me, they were willing to take me in, and in a short time the apartments were ready and I was duly installed.
My quarters are a parlor and bedroom, on the front of the house, first floor, up stairs over the shop. The floor is uncarpeted, made of various Swiss woods laid in mosaic, in diamond shapes, of three different colors. A large, earthen, polished, white, monument-like thing, gilt at the corniced 206 summit, stands on one side, and I soon learn that it is a stove, the door of which is out in the hall, where the fire is kindled, and now in the middle of August a fire is needed all the time. On the corners of this ornamental as well as useful pile stand two Parian busts, one of Goethe and the other of Schiller. An engraving of Schiller reading one of his poems to his friends hangs on the wall, and a portrait of Columbus, and another of Luther and other celebrities are around me. The windows extend without interruption over the entire length of the room, and a row of flowers in pots are on the sill outside, and embroidered curtains within. The shutters are closed by raising them with a strap, as the windows of a rail-car. A sofa, an easy chair covered with leather, three tables, a divan, and a chair or two, with rugs lying around, and little gems of art with books scattered about, complete the furniture of this perfectly comfortable and delightful room. The walls and ceiling are all panel-work in wood, painted white, and as purely white as the Alpine snows. In the bedroom, the floor, the wall, and ceiling are as in the parlor, only the color is a light salmon, very chaste and clean. The bed has a down comforter on the top of it, and two pillows, with double cases, the inner of figured green silk, showing at the open embroidered end of the outer linen. It is almost too pretty to sleep in, in the dark. Over the head of the bed is a beautiful engraving of Uhland’s “Landlord’s Daughter.” On the stand at the bedside is a little basket of confectionery, a porcelain transparency of the Saviour standing among the clouds and pointing heavenward; a china night-lamp burning with a bowl of water over it, kept hot by the lamp; and every little nick-nack that delicate taste and an appreciating sense of what comfort is would be likely to suggest.
I am asked, before retiring, at what hour I will breakfast, and I reply, “When the family do; and let every thing be as you are in the habit of having it.”
207 The times of eating and the food were not to my taste the first day. It took me a little while to get adjusted to the change. But in every country I would live as the well-to-do people of the country live. And here I soon learned that the number of meals and the hours of eating were regulated by the climate, which is so bracing as to indicate frequent eating and substantial diet. I am writing this at ten o’clock at night, and I will give you the journal of the day.
Breakfast at 7½ A.M. , consisting of coffee, bread and butter, with honey and cold meat.
Dinner at 12, noon, soup, fish, boiled beef, beef à la mode , vegetables, salads, cucumbers, apricots, pears, plums, apples, preserves, pastry, &c.
Lunch at 4 P.M. , coffee, bread and butter and honey. Everybody takes this meal as well as the others. They come in from the fields and the shops to their coffee at 4.
Supper at 8 P.M. I am almost ashamed to say that at 8 this meal was served in my parlor, for me only: soup and a roast chicken, which disappeared, leaving scarce a wreck behind. And I forgot to say that at six o’clock I took tea out with a private family in the village, where the table was spread with the richest cream, butter, strawberries, currants, bread, and honey,—all but the tea being the fruit of the gentleman’s own grounds. And at my table there were presented several dishes not enumerated above, the names of which were worse than Greek, and the compound of a color and odor that did not enlist my sympathies. However, I try a little of every thing, and eat all the time. I understand there is a doctor in the village, whose fame extends to distant cities, and ere the week is out I may have to test his skill.
It is one thing to travel in a country, stopping only at the great hotels, and quite another to get off the highways, among the people, and live as they live. At the hotels, the aim is to give you the kind and quality of food you are accustomed to in your own land, to put you into a good bed, and charge you just as much as you will pay. It is my way, when I can, to get out of the beaten paths of travel, and mingle, if possible, with the natives of the country, and those, too, who are not in the habit of entertaining strangers, and soon learning that they are fair game to be plucked as long as they have any feathers.
More than half the guests in the Swiss hotels are Americans. The English complain—John is generally grumbling—that the Americans get the best rooms at the hotels, and that travelling on the continent is not half so agreeable. It was my misfortune to travel last week in the same compartment of the rail-car with an English clergyman and his wife [and, by the way, she called him hubby , for husband, whenever she spoke to him,—an appellation for the head of the house that was new to me, and not very agreeable]. He said he would write a letter to the Times ,—that is an Englishman’s universal refuge when he thinks himself imposed upon in travel. “I sh o ll write to the Times about this country, and I sh o ll say that the cookin’ is exceedin’ly mean, the scenery very dull, and the travellin’ decidedly uncomfortable.” But he was as near being a fool as a man could well be, and be at large. His tongue ran incessantly, and he talked so loud that no other conversation could be had, and everybody must listen to his twaddle and complaints. “The ’ills were too ’igh” for him to think of climbin’ any of them, and not “’igh” enough to interest him in lookin’ at them; and on the whole he thought Switzerland a failure.
209 It is curious to observe how soon Americans are known to be such, anywhere in Europe. In England, a hotel waiter or a porter at a lodge or castle would know you to be an American, certainly the moment you spoke, and perhaps before. A woman said to me when I had said that I was an American, “You don’t speak like one.” When I pressed for an answer to the question, “What is the difference between my speech and others,” she replied, after much hesitation, “Why, I thought all your countrymen talked through the nose.”
That educated Americans, and all of them accustomed to good society at home, speak the English language with as much propriety and purity as the most cultivated Englishmen, is certainly true, and it may safely be added that the masses of the people in America, born to the manner, speak it far better. Small as England is, the dialects of the provinces are so diverse, that one is often sorely puzzled to understand a commonplace remark or inquiry. It was very amusing, too, to perceive that many slang phrases, or technical terms, that we had supposed to be of local origin and use in the United States, were as common in England as with us at home. “You’ll ’ave lots of time,” says the coachman. “I’ll pop out your luggage,” when he would tell us that it would be done instantly, said the conductor.
But the language is not more marked by its peculiarities than the manners. There are all sorts of people in every land. Some of each variety go abroad, so that we must expect to meet them, and it is very absurd to judge of a country by the few specimens you meet on the road. But while I am heartily ashamed of some of my own countrymen who are abroad, and make themselves ridiculous by an extravagance of independence that amounts to a contempt of every thing and everybody except themselves and their country, still I think that, as a whole, they are the best behaved people abroad. At the Baur du Lac Hotel, Zurich, day before 210 yesterday, at breakfast, a German lady took her seat at the head of a long table, rested both elbows upon it, and taking a roll of bread eight inches long, held it in both hands, and without taking it from her lips, or taking her elbows down, she ate the whole of it from end to end. I sat next to her, on the corner, and saw it done. She then took another roll, a round one, and devoured that: all this while waiting for her coffee. What more she ate, or how, I did not see, having turned away in disgust. It is not probable that any woman from America would go through such an exercise at home or abroad.
Yesterday, in the rail-car in which I was riding, an English gentleman and family entered the compartment in which I was seated, the only passenger. There were four seats, two on each side of a little table, on which we could lay books or papers. Overhead were racks and pegs for bags and bundles. He piled his, and his wife’s, and his wife’s sister’s, on the top of the table, usurping the whole of it, and utterly ignoring the right of anybody else to any of it. Jonathan would put a thing in its place, and be ashamed to interfere with the convenience of his neighbor. John Bull looks out for number one. This selfishness extends to neglecting those little attentions to women, on which an American prides himself, and which makes it so easy for women in America to travel alone.
On the French and Swiss railroads has been introduced an improvement that may be commended to our directors. In every train there is a car with one compartment, marked on the outside, “For women unattended.” Into this carriage ladies who have no male escort enter, and are properly cared for by the conductor. They can travel in this way in seclusion and with entire safety; but after all it is quite probable that the women in America would be quite as willing to take their chances with the men; and, perhaps, the experiment, if tried, would be a failure. One thing the 211 railway people might learn of us, and that is, to check the baggage. In place of it, here they give you a slip of paper with a number on it, and paste a corresponding slip on your trunk, which is some protection, but not so safe nor so convenient as our plan. In many respects the European railroad system is far, very far, superior to ours. Its safety is incomparably greater than ours. An accident is very rare. I have not heard of one since coming abroad. The connections are invariably made. The track is more solid and secure. The road is made for ages. There are grades of fare according to the accommodation. The first class is better than any of ours. The second is not equal to ours, and the third is inferior to the second.
Peasants of Eastern Switzerland.
You have never been in Trogen. You have never heard of Trogen. You do not know where on the map to look for Trogen, and you probably would not find it, if you looked for Trogen.
213 Trogen is one of the little villages in Canton Appenzell, in Switzerland. It is reached by carriage from St. Gall, a large town on the railroad from Zurich to Constance. As soon as you leave the line of the rail, you begin to ascend, and it is all the way up, up, up, till you get here. We passed a convent about half the way up, inhabited by nuns, who were once expelled from St. Gall. They have now a rich establishment, very secluded, and perfectly impenetrable in its interior mysteries. You can see the reception rooms and the chapel, and the grating that separates the nuns from you and all the world: that’s all,—no, not quite all; in the chapel they will show you a human skeleton, decked with magnificent jewelry, enough to adorn a princess; and this may teach you that the pomps and vanities of the world are wasted on one who is soon to be a bundle of bones.
When you reach the summit of the hill, a scene of extraordinary grandeur and loveliness lies around and below you. As far as the eye reaches, it is a succession of green, cultured, and peopled hills, often crowned with villages, but mostly marked by scattered dwellings in the midst of beautiful farms, white roads winding around and over the hills, and in the distance, through an opening, lies the lake of Constance, a picture of silver in a fair setting of emerald. Trogen is the largest of the villages; but there are three more in sight, Speicher, Wald, and Rechdobell, each with its single church tower; for the people are all Protestants, and all Lutherans. In this village and Speicher, close by, there is not one Roman Catholic family, and I believe that is a very unusual fact in this country, where there are nearly as many of the one as the other, and they are mingled closely in many of the cantons.
Here there is only one church, and that German. Service is held on Sunday at nine o’clock in the morning. The church is a well-built edifice of stone, about one hundred 214 years old, with frescoed ceilings, representing the Ascension, Christ blessing the children, and other scenes not intelligible to me. The women sat by themselves and made three-fourths of the congregation. As each one came in, he or she stood in silent prayer, reverently bending; the women then sat down, the men remained standing. They stood patiently till the minister came in and opened the services, and they did not take their seats until the sermon was begun. On this occasion there was an unusual number of children present, as in one of the large schools there had been during the week past the death of a scholar, and now all the pupils came in procession, and took their seats together. All the men, who were relatives of the deceased, wore black bombazine gowns, swinging loosely on their backs, a badge of mourning. The service opened with a voluntary hymn by the children in the gallery, well sung. Then the pastor read a psalm, which was sung by the entire congregation,—there was no organ. I should think every one in the house had a voice, and used it with the spirit and the understanding also. Prayers were then read by the pastor, all the people standing. At the close, the minister announced his subject, and then the people—the men for the first time—sat down.
He was a young man, clothed in a black gown, with a blue silk or woollen ruffle about his neck. He read his text, “On earth peace, good-will toward men,” and, shutting the book, delivered his discourse without notes, with great ease, fluency, animation, and much eloquence. His manner was good, and the attention of the congregation was kept closely fixed. His leading idea was that peace is to be found only by union with God through Jesus Christ. And he pursued this thought beyond the experience of the individual to the wants of the community and the nation, insisting with great earnestness that wars come from the want of Christian love, that good-will which Christ came 215 to bring, and he warned his people and the people of Switzerland, that now, as in ages past, their only hope for national unity and peace was in union with God, on whom alone they could depend.
At the close of the sermon he read prayers again, the people all standing. Then he proclaimed the names of certain parties intending marriage, and also he mentioned the names of any who had died during the past week. After a hymn had been sung, he descended from the pulpit. The people, still standing, bowed their heads reverently in silent prayer for a moment, and just then a man in the body of the church cried out an advertisement of an auction sale to take place in the neighborhood. The women now left the house, not a man sitting down, or moving from his place, till all the females, old and young, had reached the door. The minister next walked out, and the men followed. The service was over in one hour and a half. An hour-glass stood on the pulpit, but was not in use, as the large clock was in full sight, and the bell clanged every quarter of an hour, as it does day and night.
It was a kind and beautiful providence that turned my weary footsteps to this remote and unfrequented canton of Switzerland. Harper’s Hand-book, an invaluable guide for American travellers in Europe, has not even the name of the place in its index. Murray’s Hand-book, which all the English go by, says “it is but little visited by English travellers.” To get into it by any other than the easy road through the north-eastern passage, you must cross the high Alps and glaciers which bound it, and add as much to its picturesque beauty as they take from the comfort of travelling. But if you visit Constance,—where John Huss was tried and condemned and burnt at the stake,—it is easy to come to Appenzell.
And speaking of Constance leads me to that memorable spot, on the border of the lake that for a week past has been 216 always under my eye, a spot that deserves a monument, a beacon to warn the church of the guilt and shame of religious bigotry and intolerance. It is almost like a judgment that the city itself, which for four years harbored the ecclesiastical council that murdered John Huss and Jerome of Prague, has now but one-fifth of the population that once inhabited it. As I stood on the place where it is said the martyr’s stake was planted, and remembered the glorious truths which he witnessed in the flames, I thought how little is the world improved even to this day, where the civil and ecclesiastical powers are still in the same hands. For as we travel in these European countries, the line that divides the Protestant from the Roman Catholic canton, or part of a canton, is just as clear as if a wall of adamant, high as the sky, were set up between. Even Murray’s Guide-book, which does not pretend to any religious opinions, speaking of the two parts of Canton Appenzell, says:
“A remarkable change greets the traveller on entering Roman Catholic Inner Rhoden, from Protestant Outer Rhoden. He exchanges cleanliness and industry for filth and beggary. What may be the cause of this is not a subject suitable for discussion here.”
Yet the moral philosopher, the philanthropist, the patriot, above all the Christian, even a Christian traveller, wishes to consider “the cause,” whether it is proper or not for a guide-book to discuss it. As travelling tends to promote liberality of sentiment, to enlarge one’s charity, and to convince even a strict adherent to his hereditary faith, that many, far from his way of thinking, are just as sure of heaven as he is, so travelling opens one’s eyes to the effect of the different systems of religion upon the social, temporal, political, as well as moral condition of men. And I have been amazed to find how powerful is this effect upon mere men of the world, men who have never given a thought before to the influence of one religion rather than 217 another on the face of society. Even the guide-books call attention to the shameful fact that “filth and beggary” are the distinguishing features of a part of one country that differs from the rest only in being Roman Catholic. The same laws, the same climate, the same facilities for acquiring the means of living, and just as much soap and water in one as the other, but the thrift and the neatness of one are in brilliant contrast with the poverty and nastiness of its neighbor.
Female Costumes in Appenzell.
The customs of the canton are somewhat peculiar. I was informed that they still adhere to the use of the pillory for the punishment of petty offences, and the machine stands by the wayside, with a hole for the neck, a padlock, and a chain. But I did not see any thing of the kind. Nor did I see the bone-house , in any churchyard, where it is 218 said the bones are deposited of those who have been buried a certain number of years, and who must then give place to others. Their bones are taken up, properly labelled and laid away on shelves in the bone-house, so that their friends can get them, or any part of them, when wanted. As the graveyards are usually small, and no attention is paid to the relationship of the parties buried side by side, it is quite likely that, after the lapse of thirty or forty years, there would be no objection to this arrangement, which strikes us as exceedingly unpleasant, if not positively revolting.
Every evening at half-past eight o’clock the church bell is rung, and all the children must immediately go home. If they are abroad after that, they are taken into custody by the patrol of the streets, and either delivered to their parents, or, if frequent offenders, they are kept in durance overnight. This is an admirable regulation, which I commend to imitation in free America. It is adopted here in a pure democracy, and works admirably well. In the cities it would be a great moral life preserver, worth millions of dollars and as many souls, that would be saved by the plan.
At eleven o’clock the watchman sings a set of phrases in a clear, loud voice, which often disturbs me as he shouts, just under my window, “Put out lights, cover up your fires, lock your doors, say your prayers, and go to bed.”
I learned here a bridal custom of this region, so sensible and proper, that I shall mention it for the benefit of the young folks. The custom of making gifts to the bride prevails here, as everywhere, but it is better regulated. The bride makes out a written list of things that she will require in beginning to keep house, especially those things that are over and above what would naturally be furnished by her parents. This list is taken by her friends, and one of them says, “I will give her this,” and marks that as provided for; another will give her that, and sometimes two or three or 219 more will combine and furnish a more expensive present than any one would give alone. After the wedding, the couple usually start off on an excursion, and on their return they find their dwelling filled with these presents, each marked with the giver’s name.
These people are very fond of athletic sports and exercises, games that call forth prodigious strength, and make the inhabitants of this canton famous for their skill and power. Every holiday, and many a Sunday, is given up to wrestling and boxing. They are like the Scotch in hurling a heavy weight. They will throw a stone of 50 or 100 pounds. A man some fifty years ago threw a stone ten feet that weighed 184 pounds. But their great sport is shooting for a prize. They are splendid shots. Shooting matches are held every year in the villages, and sometimes they are matches between the people of the whole canton, and again of the whole country. As we travel we see the targets standing at the foot of a hill, and buildings that are put up for the purpose of accommodating the companies that are formed for the encouragement of this national accomplishment.
So ignorant was I of the forms of government existing in this part of the world, I did not know that six out of the twenty-two cantons, or states, of Switzerland are purely democratic in their government. It is true that this is modified, in a measure, by their confederation with the others, and that they have delegated to their general government the power of declaring war, coining money, and regulating a system of mails. And, by the way, postage is cheap in Switzerland: five centimes, or one cent of our money, conveying a letter anywhere within the country, and, in all the villages and cities, delivering it at the residence of the receiver. These several cantons are, in other matters, independent of each other; and, in times long past, have had fearfully bloody wars among themselves. 220 They are at peace now, but from father to son is handed down the story of the wars.
This canton, containing a population of about 50,000, is a simple democracy, and as primitive and pure as ever could have existed in the earliest days of Greece or Rome, before an oligarchy or a monarchy was known. Here the people, all the males over eighteen years old, actually assemble, personally, and in one place, to choose the necessary officers, and to make their own laws. This popular meeting is held annually, in April, and on Sunday always.
On that day there is no preaching in any church in the canton, except the one where the election is held. All the ministers come with the people. At the close of the morning service, the election is opened by prayer, and then the people proceed to the discharge of this serious duty, the act of their individual sovereignty. Every man wears a sword by his side, a token of his being a freeman ; for, centuries ago, when serfdom prevailed, only freemen could vote, and they wore swords. Now, all wear swords on election day, for all are free.
The canton is not so large but that they can all come and return on the same day, and, for the most part, they come on foot. It is expected that they will all come. And where the power of voting is equally distributed in this way, and every man feels that he is an equal part of the government, there is little danger of any one’s staying away who is physically able to come. They meet sometimes in one place, and sometimes in another, but mostly in this village of Trogen, on the public square. Here a platform is erected, and the officers chosen last year conduct the proceedings. The landeman, or chief, presides, and the clerk announces the name of any one nominated for public office. All in favor hold up their right hands. All opposed then do the same. If there is any doubt, a count would be resorted to, but that is never necessary. Office 221 is not sought with any great rapacity, and the people are not divided into parties fighting for the spoils. The several officers thus elected are charged with the execution of the laws. A council is appointed, which meets from time to time, in the state-house here, and consults in regard to the internal affairs of the canton. If any new legislation is necessary, they frame the law, put it into print, and a copy of it is then placed in every house in the entire canton. It is not yet a law; it is thus distributed that the people, who are the law-makers, may examine it, talk it over among themselves, and make up their minds as to its expediency. If it is of importance sufficiently pressing to require immediate action, a meeting of the people may be held four weeks after the law has been proposed; but generally this is avoided by having the measures submitted to the annual assembly in April. Then the law is submitted to the mass meeting, and they vote for or against it, by the uplifted hand. As ample time has been given to the people to discuss the matter, there is no call for long speeches, nor would they be tolerated by an assembly that was bound to break up and get home the same night. And the laws thus adopted are put in force by the magistrates appointed by the popular vote, and often at the same time that the laws themselves are adopted.
Among the principal cares of such officers must be the construction and repairs of the highways. Oh that our American people would send a commissioner of their country pathmasters over here! Within the last four years two of these cantons have built a road along the eastern side of Lake Lucerne that would do honor to Napoleon in the days of his mightiest power. For miles it is cut into the edge of solid rock, which makes the bed of the road, and a parapet; sometimes it is a tunnel, and once a tunnel with windows looking out on the lake. All are made by the voluntary, self-imposed taxation of a hard-working people. 222 And so far as I can judge or learn, this community, so governed, is as orderly and happy as any other. Whatever good government can do for a people is done for this, and the people do it for themselves. Switzerland is an enlightened country, and probably as moral a people as any other. By law every child is required to attend school from three to four hours every day till he is twelve years old, and a certain number of hours every week afterwards till he is sixteen. This makes education a necessity, unless the children are incompetent to learn. And there is an enthusiasm on the subject of education surprising even to an American. The various grades of schools meet the wants of all, and fit the young for any department of life’s great work. In this village the cantonal college, or high school, is located. Any parent may send his son here from any part of the canton, and he is educated at a trifling expense. Young men go from this school, at once, into mercantile employment in Asia, in France, England and America. And there are pupils in it from India, from Smyrna, from South America, Mexico, and New York. I heard a tramping in the street last evening, and, looking out of my window, saw a host of boys marching by. I learned, by inquiry, that they were a school of one hundred and twenty, making a pedestrian tour through a part of their native country, Switzerland. Accompanied by their teachers, they thus walk day after day, getting health and knowledge and fun, for they make play of it as they go. Early this morning I was awakened by hearing them again. They had been lodged, how I know not, at the inns in the village, and now at three o’clock, A.M. (for I looked at my watch), they were up and off. Just then they struck up one of their merry songs, and serenaded the sleeping villagers as they took their leave. And even now, while I am writing these lines, I am called to the window to look out again, and here is a large school of girls, some 223 of them small, and others young ladies grown, making a pedestrian tour. Both of these companies are three or four days’ journey from their homes. They will be absent, perhaps, a week or a fortnight. And they will be wiser, healthier, and happier for the little tour.
I mention these pleasant incidents to show the interest which teachers, parents, and pupils must take in the business of education, when the school is thus made a part of the pleasure, as well as the labor, of the young. Nor is the moral culture of the young neglected. Far, very far from it. These schools are not godless schools. Religious instruction is not legislated out of education in this country. In this canton they are nearly all Protestants. But in St. Gall, where they are nearly equally divided, the Romanists have their own schools, and the Protestants have theirs, both supported by the same system, and working harmoniously, so far as any co-operation is required, but kept distinct in the matter of instruction.
If the treatment of women, of the higher or lower order of creation, is a fair test of the civilization of a country, this Switzerland will rank very low. Good roads are considered an evidence of a high standard of civilization, and very justly; yet there must be some exceptions, for here in Switzerland, where they harness the cows and make them draw heavy loads, the roads are first-rate, smooth as a floor, and solid in all weathers.
Probably this glorious land that I am now rejoicing in, can find some excuse for the sin and shame of making the cows and women do so much of the hard and heavy work; and they may pretend that the women like it, and the cows are all the better for it. But it strikes me that nature has required certain duties of the gentler sex, that are so incompatible with the severer labors of the country, that they may be fairly excused from a service that requires the 224 greater strength which God has given to men and oxen. In the beautiful city of Zurich, the most enlightened, cultivated, and refined city in the interior of Switzerland, where the most learned of her sons are educated, the city of Zuingle and Lavater and Pestalozzi,—and that boasts a monument to Nagel, a university, and polytechnic institute,—in that fair city I met a team, composed of a horse and cow, harnessed side by side, drawing a heavy load, the driver walking by the side of the cow, whose side was in welts, raised by the stout whip which he carried, and used mainly on her to make her keep up with the horse. It is more common still to see a single cow in harness drawing a load, and a yoke of oxen is a sight that I have very rarely seen in travelling here. Whether the males are more generally sold for beef or not I cannot learn; but it does not appear to any one here that it is out of the way to make this use of the cows. And I was rather pleased than otherwise, in conversation with a great and good philanthropist and reformer, to find that he professed to be ignorant of the fact that cows were put to such service, and when I assured him that I saw one in harness going by his door that day, he said it must have been an ox!
And to understand why it is that women work so much in the fields, we must see what is the principal employment of the people. I have seen forty women at work in the same field here, and not a man among them. No sort of work on the farm is considered too heavy for the women. How could it be, when at Boulogne we had crossed the British Channel, and landed in France, women rushed on board the steamer to carry our baggage ashore! And here the women dig the fields, when a plough would do the work far better and more quickly. They carry out manure, or drive a cow that drags a load of it, and spread it on the soil. They mow. They rake and pitch hay. They plant and sow, and reap 225 and pull, and manage the farm as they would do if the men were all off at war. And where are the men?
They are not idle, nor dissipated, nor away from home. They are at work, and in the house, not tending the baby, nor baking the bread, nor washing the clothes; but they are industrious, and what are they at? The Swiss are a frugal, saving, thriving people. The amount of arable land is not enough to meet their wants. They are a manufacturing, not an agricultural people, though they export cattle, butter, and cheese. Watches, jewelry, muslins, embroidery, and carved wood-work, are the principal articles of manufacture for export, and these, with a few other branches, employ the most of the men; for the work is done in the country very largely. The city of Geneva sells 75,000 watches yearly; but as you are riding in a diligence among the mountains, a man will step out from a little cottage and hand a neat, small package to the postilion, who puts it carefully into a place prepared for such deposits. It is the works of watches, or some jewelry, which the man has made in his own house, and is now sending to his employer in Geneva. In the retired village where I am now writing, so secluded that if a man should commit a murder and come here to live, the New York detectives would never find him, even here the cellars of small houses are filled with machinery to weave Swiss muslins, and to embroider it exquisitely. The buyers from the Broadway stores have learned where to come, and boxes are lying in front of my window directed to Stewart, and to Arnold and others in New York. The places where this delicate work is done are damp and unhealthy; but unless it is done in a damp room the gossamer thread becomes so brittle that it breaks in weaving.
And all through the mountainous parts the carving of wood is the great business of the people. Saw-mills are run 226 to cut up the trees to be made into ornamental articles for sale, and these extend from mantel clock cases worth $1,000 to some gimcrack not worth a cent. The centre tables and chairs, the game pieces and desks, knives and forks, and whatnots, are far too numerous to mention; but they display a degree of skill and taste in execution that would do no discredit to Greece or Italy in the days when sculpture was their glory. And all this mechanical work is done by men, and men only.
The tendency of things is always to extremes, and here in the working-classes, and nearly all are in those classes in Switzerland, the men have pushed the women too largely out of doors, usurping employments that women might follow with success, while the men should take upon themselves the labors that are too heavy for their wives. But Switzerland itself is an exceptional country. It has no fair chance in the world as a nation; and so large a part of its surface is impracticable for the use of man, and it has become so great a resort for foreign tourists, they are expected to spend all the money they can afford in the works of art which the natives produce.
Walking out with a young German friend, who did not understand a word of the English language, I saw at a little distance an enclosure, neat gravel walks and shrubbery, with flowers showing through the iron railing that surrounded it. I asked what the enclosure was, and the answer, in German, struck me pleasingly: “ Gottesacker .”
I had never heard the word for graveyard before in German, though the English of it, “ God’s Acre ,” is familiar, and has often been the theme of poetry and prose. Gottes Acker is the acre or piece of ground that belongs not to man of all the land in the earth that he claims as his own, but is the Lord’s. And why is it his? The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness. The mountains and the valleys, 227 the plains also, and all that are therein. Why is this small enclosure, a petty piece of ground in the midst of a wide, magnificent domain, alone called God’s?
Yes, it is his, because all who inhabit this place have gone to him. We walked into the sacred enclosure, for the gate was open, inviting the passer-by to come in. The paths were neatly gravelled, and the plots surrounded with flowering shrubs, and the graves not raised above the ground as ours often are, but levelled, and each grave bordered with boxwood and planted with flowers. Few were marked with a headstone, but most of them had a staff set up in form of a cross, and on it a plate with a brief inscription. The centre of the graveyard was laid off in a circle, planted with trees and furnished with seats, where friends could sit in the shade, and meditate among the graves of departed friends.
“And is Gottesacker the only word for this place in your German tongue?” I asked.
“It is also called Friedhof .”
Fried means peace, and Hof is the yard or a court of a house, and Friedhof is “the Court of Peace.” This was another beautiful and fitting name. It speaks for itself, and sweetly expresses the feeling of this place. It is peace, all peace here. The battles of life are fought, and there is no strife in this court of peace. The struggles, cares, anxieties, rivalries, jealousies, fears, all that disquiet, harass, fret, and annoy, all, all are buried here. The tramp of a million men in arms awakens no sleeper here. The church itself may be rent and torn and shaken to its base, but its members in this court of peace are not distressed. These hearts that once panted, burned, and bled in the race, the stripes and sorrows of the world, are all at peace now. Blessed is the rest that cannot be broken till the trumpet calls.
228 “That is a beautiful word,” I said; “and does your language furnish any other than these two, Gottesacker and Friedhof.”
“Yes, we sometimes speak of it as Todtengarten .”
The Garden of the Dead ! And so they plant flowers among the graves, and along the walks, and make the rural village graveyard an attractive, not a repulsive spot, a garden where friends, members of the same family, are at rest. Jesus was laid in a garden when he was dead. His members slept with him, and will blossom in the Paradise above, where the flowers never fade.
Long before Abraham asked a burying-place to put his dead out of sight, the living had their funeral rites and ceremonies. And it is wonderful how widely they differ, in different parts of the world. There is, doubtless, a great difference in the customs of the various cantons of Switzerland, for though the whole twenty-two of them would not make a state larger than New Jersey, they have a costume , or dress, peculiar to each, and many of their habits are equally singular. If the weather will permit, it is customary here to defer the funeral until Sunday, even if the person dies on Monday; and thus it often occurs that there are two or three on the same day, and sometimes more. In a population of three thousand, all belonging to one church, and the funerals being held in it, the number is frequently more than one or two at the same hour. The average number of deaths is about ninety in a year. Last Sunday there were three funerals here. The friends of the several deceased met in front of the respective houses where the dead were lying. None but the relatives enter the house. The three funerals were to be attended at the village church, and all at the same hour, as early as nine in the morning. The body is placed in a plain deal coffin, sometimes, but rarely, painted. And the custom of the country forbids 229 the rich to have a coffin more elegant than the poor; the idea being that death abolishes all distinctions, and a plain coffin is good enough to be hid away in the ground. At the hour, the coffin with the dead is brought out of the house, and on a bier is borne on the shoulders of the nearest male relatives or friends. One of these funerals was that of an aged mother. She left eight sons and two daughters; six of the sons were grown men, and they bore their mother on their shoulders to the grave. The three processions met near the church, and the three coffins were then borne in the order of the ages of the deceased, to the church, but not into it. The body is never taken into the church. But when the relatives and friends have entered, the body is carried by the bearers immediately into the Gottesacker, God’s Acre, the graveyard, which usually adjoins the church. It is there buried, while none are present except those who do the work. I stood at a little distance while this melancholy service was performed. It was not pleasing to me that the dead should be thus put away unwept. And another custom was equally unpleasant to me. The graves are arranged in regular order, without any distinction of families, and as each person in the place dies, he is buried in the grave next to the one who was buried before him. It may have been a neighbor with whom he was at enmity, but now in death they sleep side by side, and know it not. Families are separated by the grave, as well as by death, and no two of them, unless they die together, may be laid together in the grave. This is surprising when we notice the remarkable attention they bestow on the Garden of the Dead. For when the dead are buried, the friends come, day after day, and adorn the grave with flowers, and surround it with a border of green, and water it with their tears of love.
While the body is thus cared for by the bearers, the 230 funeral service is proceeding in the church. This is similar to the service in our own country, the prayers and selections of Scripture being read, and a sermon preached, the same discourse answering, of course, for all who are buried on the same day. At the funeral, all the men in attendance wear a black mantle, of bombazine or serge, which they may get, for a trifle, of the undertaker, who keeps them for hire. Persons of property have them of their own, to wear only on funeral occasions, but the most of the people hire them when wanted, and thus every man at the funeral appears as a mourner. All the women dress in black when attending a funeral, and they never go to church in any other than a black dress. This is a very peculiar custom, but is invariably followed by all the people of this country. Not a light-colored dress appears in the great congregation on the Sabbath-day, or at a funeral.
If I have not already spoken to you of the cultivation, refinement, and manners of the intelligent, wealthy, and “upper” classes of the people, I say that a very erroneous and unjust opinion has been formed on this point, by travellers whose observations have been confined to hotels and highways, their only intercourse with men who make it their business to get as much as possible out of all who fall into their hands. It has been my pleasure this summer to meet in social life among the Swiss some of the pleasantest, most intelligent, and agreeable women and men that will be found in any country. Their manners and minds, as well as their persons, would grace any assembly, and they appeared to be only the fitting representatives of the best circles of society in this remarkable land. They admire their own country. Patriotism burns as brightly among these mountains as on our own shores. And when it was mentioned that I might write a book on Switzerland, a beautiful and accomplished lady bade me be careful, or she 231 would make another and set me right if I failed to do justice to her beloved Switzerland. I could only say to her, in reply, that the threat was a temptation to error. But any one who becomes familiar with the inner life of this people, will find as much to admire and esteem as in any European country.
A GERMAN watering-place, with its nauseous springs, its inviting groves and garden and shady walks and rustic seats and bowers, its conversation house, and sweet, clean beds and airy rooms and quiet halls, was in our way, and a Sabbath was just ahead of us. So we would rest there according to the commandment.
I have been left alone, or with my little party only, in a wayside inn, among the Swiss valleys, and have seen troops of travellers, some of them with white cravats and straight coat collars, go on their way of a bright, glad, summer Sabbath morning, when it seemed to me the mountains looked down with a divine benediction and invited us to sit all day under their shadows and worship toward the holy hill of Zion. And a Sabbath in a wilderness, alone, is well spent, if the soul is at peace, and the wearied limbs of a pilgrim are suffered also to have rest.
If a land impregnated with salt is cursed, this region ought to be barren; but it is not. It is a rich, picturesque, rolling country, and a beautiful river flows through its waving harvest-fields, just now white for the sickle. Sometimes a bold cliff stands majestically on the river-side, and an old feudal castle hangs on the summit, where once the lord of the domain held high revel and strong rule, a robber on land and a pirate on the river he would be called now, since his race has run out, and kings who do the same things that he did are reckoned as the lawful 233 plunderers as well as rulers of the people. So the robber told Alexander, and the king couldn’t see it, but it was true nevertheless.
They make salt curiously in these parts. The water is pumped up from springs or wells into troughs, which are raised on scaffolding thirty or more feet high; and below these troughs a solid mass of brush is piled, a wall some ten feet thick, standing on a reservoir; this brush wall reaches hundreds and thousands of feet along, according to the extent of the works employed. The pumps are moved by water-power, and slowly and steadily, ceaselessly, day and night, they raise the water into the troughs above, through which it trickles upon this brush and drops down, down, down into the basins below; this exposes the water to the action of the air and rapidly evaporates it; so that what runs through the heap and finally reaches the reservoir below is exceedingly strong, and by completing the process with boiling is readily converted into salt.
The vicinity of these works is a healthful resort for invalids, who find the atmosphere more highly charged with saline particles than the shores of the sea itself. In the neighborhood of the mighty wall of wood are boarding-houses, as at the sea-shore, and in the pleasant, shady side the ladies sit with their needle-work or books in hand, inhaling the invigorating air, and enjoying the quietest, coolest, and most bracing climate in hot weather, and on the outskirts of the fashionable world. On the bank of the river we found a place to stay, and from it made excursions into the regions beyond. A rock, rising one thousand feet perpendicularly from the water, held on its giddy summit the tottering remnants of the fortress of one of the petty tyrants of the olden time, and a circuit of five or six miles, in a broiling day, brought us by a path that no wheels can traverse to the height. Tradition tells of the last of the barons who held his court in these walls; how his daughter 234 was loved and wooed by his rival chieftain, whose castle still stands erect across the river a few miles below and in full view of this; how the “cruel father” refused to give his daughter to his foe, and the lover lured her by the arts of love to aid him in his daring scheme to capture her father’s castle and compel him to surrender her in exchange for his liberty and his home; how the stratagem succeeded, and the circumvented parent threw himself headlong from the rampart into the frightful abyss, and the lovers, after destroying the stronghold, removed to their castle below, and became the ancestors of a distinguished family of an unpronounceable German name. All this tradition tells, and to write it all out would be perhaps worth the while of some one who has nothing better to do.
Our next stopping-place was Homburg, one of the more modern, but the most brilliant of the watering-places in Europe. Like some of our own cities, it has rapidly rushed into notoriety ; that is just the word for the reputation it has made for itself, and by which it has made its fortunes and ruined the fortunes of thousands who have sought its hospitalities.
A very few years ago a wide waste of marshy meadows, swamps we would call them, lay around and over the spot that now gathers and holds for the season the fashion and style and rank of the gayest European capitals,—the largest and most distinguished circle of “the upper classes” to be found at any fashionable resort in the world. It is a city of hotels, and these on a scale of elegance that is not surpassed. But between these hotels and the waters of health that first drew the crowds hither, are these original meadows, now covered with young woods, and intersected by numberless walks and drives, in which a stranger might easily be lost, and left to wander hours and hours without finding his way out. Beyond these shaded groves we come to the springs, several, with various properties, very kindly 235 arranged to meet the many maladies of man, and all of them sufficiently disagreeable to be medicinal. Neatness, order, elegance reign everywhere. Around the springs, through the avenues overhung with venerable trees, along the rows of beautiful lodging-houses and residences of those who permanently pass the summer here, the quietness of private life rests with a grace and charm quite rare in a great watering-place. This gives to Homburg such an attraction that thousands of the quietest class of people in the world love to come here for refreshment and repose. They need not go into the Kursaal, though that word means cure-hall or cure-house. I would call it Kursaal, or curse-all, because it is the curse of all who are drawn into its vortex.
It is a palace. In its extent, its proportions, and appointments, it is fit for a royal residence, all the arts of ornamentation being exhausted to make it a splendid temple of pleasure, instead of a hospital or asylum for the sick and suffering. This palace, with its broad piazzas looking upon beautiful gardens, where elegant women are sitting under the shade, with their books or fancy needle-work, while a German band fills the soft and fragrant atmosphere with delicious waves of music; this palace, with its concert-rooms and ball-rooms and reading-rooms, filled with all the choicest periodicals of all nations, which studious old men are diligently pondering; this palace, so still, so beautiful, so gorgeous in its decorations, and so well fitted to bear the inscription which Ptolemy Soter put upon his library at Alexandria, “The Medicine of the Soul,”—this palace was also the great gambling-house in Europe.
A grand saloon that stretches across the house holds two long tables, around which are seated thirty or forty men and women, intent, silent, more statue than life-like. With your eyes closed you would scarcely be conscious that any one was in the room. The clicking of gold and silver on 236 the table, the few words of the manager as he decides a point, an occasional deep-drawn sigh as pent-up emotion finds escape, with now and then an involuntary exclamation, evidently out of order and quite disagreeable to all concerned,—these are the only interruptions to the solemn , painful stillness of the Homburg gaming-table. I have heard that something more startling than an oath or a groan sometimes has interrupted the current of the play, and that a gambler, in a paroxysm of rage and despair, has blown out his brains at the table. But such incidents are not of every-day occurrence. Besides, people who play here have not many brains to blow out. They are not insane. But as a class, they are below the average of the human family in intellectual force, because they stake their money with the knowledge that the chances are not even , are always against them, and in favor of the bank, or managers of the table. In playing roulette , or rouge et noir , the two games which are constantly going on, a bystander sees that the taker draws in more than he shoves out, and that the tendency of things is steadily in favor of the bank, while chance favors the victims just often enough to keep up the hope that they will make a grand hit by and by and make up all their losses. Yet the game is so transparently in the hands of the managers, that one wonders any one can be so big a fool as to lose all his money in such hopeless ventures. The bank sets up a certain amount of money every day, as the capital for that day, and stories are told of some heavy gambler now and then breaking the bank, but that means only that by a fortunate run he has cleaned out what was set up for the time, and to-morrow it is all right again with the same or a larger capital. But these stories are mostly fictitious, set afloat by the bank itself, which, by pretending to be broken , encourages the idea that it is just as apt to lose money as those who are playing against it.
Some of these people are historic characters. One of 237 them here now is the brother of the Viceroy of Egypt, and he plays heavily, but stops when he has had excitement enough. A fatalist by profession, he takes his chances as decrees, and consoles himself with other pleasures when these go against him. A German princess, who is the model of all the virtues at home, gratifies a darling passion during the summer months by wasting half her income in this gambling-house. American travellers are the most cautious of all the company; but now and then a dissipated youngster takes a plunge into swifter ruin in the waters of this terrible stream. Most pitiable it is to see fair women, and sometimes women that are known to be exemplary in society beyond the sea, trying it just once, tempting luck; and if they lose they usually stop after the first loss, but if they win they try again, and so on, until they lose all they have about them and can borrow of their friends.
A few hours’ ride across the country brought us to Kreusnach. The name of this watering-place had never reached me before, and it added one more to the many springs or spas with which Germany abounds. An army of servants rushed out to the carriage, as we drew up to the door of the Hotel Hollande, and in good English proffered their services to take us and our luggage in. The luggage we leave on the carriage until the rooms and the terms are found agreeable, and as we could have a handsome parlor and bedroom adjoining, on the front of the house, second floor, for one thaler, or six francs ($1.20) a day, we were not long in deciding that this was the place to stay in.
The salt springs of this region have long been known, but only of late have the wonderful medicinal properties of the waters been understood. Now some sixty thousand persons come here annually, and the number is increasing. The people, waking up to the idea that they have a fountain of wealth as well as of health in the bubbling spring, have erected a cure-house on an island in the river Nahe, 238 and hotels and lodging-houses have sprung up along the stream; a regimen has been prescribed, by which the greatest good of the healing waters may be had, but it is left to the choice of the visitor whether he will follow the rules or disobey them, and go away no better than he came.
At Kissingen it is not so. In that delightful little town, where royal blood comes to be purified, and nobles as well as commons gather in great numbers every year, they are so jealous of the honor of their waters, that no visitor is permitted to tarry in the place who will not comply with the rules of eating and drinking and bodily exercise which are prescribed by the medical authorities. These rules are simple and wholesome, and it will do you good to take the course, but if you will not, they take their course with you, which is to send you out of town forthwith, lest you should lose your health by your imprudence, and so bring discredit on the Kissingen waters. Fancy such a law as that at Saratoga! It is said that more sick people go away from the springs than come, but this is not to be affirmed of Kissingen, beautiful Kissingen, the cheapest and prettiest of the health-giving spas of Germany. A clergyman in Paris told me that he spends a month in Kissingen every summer, fifty dollars paying all his expenses,—going, staying, and coming home!
You can live nearly,—not quite,—as cheaply here at Kreusnach. The band, a fine German band, discourses sweet music in the park near the spring, at six o’clock in the morning; we drink,—faugh! yes, we drink the salt and horrid water and return to breakfast at eight, after a promenade in the groves; at eleven a bath is to be taken in the hotel, to which the water is carried in barrels and emptied into a reservoir, from which it is led into the baths; it is artificially warmed to the temperature of the blood; it is strengthened by the addition of the strong, boiled salt water that remains uncrystallized at the salt-works in the 239 vicinity; and this water, sold for this purpose, brings more money, by a third, than the salt itself. This drinking and bathing are good for scrofulous and all cutaneous complaints; for bad livers, that is, for those whose livers are bad; for dyspeptics, rheumatic people, and all kindred ailments. Indeed, these German springs are a pretty sure cure for almost any of the ordinary, perhaps extraordinary, ills of the flesh, because the climate is good, the mountain air is bracing, and the regimen requires a fair amount of temperance and exercise; and he must be in a very bad way who will not get well under the simple, exhilarating, purifying, and strengthening influences of this kind of life.
Here in Kreusnach we meet with men and women from the most distant parts of the Continent, attracted by the fame of this salt water. A Russian gentleman and wife, with an infant child, on whose account they came, had travelled six weeks in a sledge to St. Petersburg. Their children had died of scrofula, and they brought this live one over that vast tract of country, through northern cold, that its system in infancy might be renovated by this modern Bethesda. The Princess of Mecklenberg is here now, and last Sunday she proposed to attend the English Church service. The good rector heard of her intention, and thought it his duty to call and pay his respects. Unhappily he could not speak a word of German, and when he attempted to introduce himself at the door of the Princess’ lodgings, the servant understood him to be the postman, and brought him the letters ready to go to the post-office. His call was only deference to rank, and there was no need of it, except as every sinner needs a pastor’s care, and the Princess took no notice of it.
At a cell in the hill-side near the spring, whey is dispensed to those who daily drink it for the whey-cure. It has a great repute. So has the grape-cure in August and September. Either of them is just as good as the salt-water-cure, 240 and that is good beyond a doubt. I have great faith in any kind of doctoring that includes rest from business, with moderate eating and drinking, and plenty of exercise in the open air. Give the waters the credit of it, or the whey, or the grapes, or the doctors, it makes no difference what or who has the credit, if you have the cure.
But stop this everlasting rushing after the world that is perishing, and wait a little while at Kreusnach, or Kissingen, or one of a dozen places I could name. Here take your ease. Eat, drink, and be happy. Bathe your weary limbs in these youth-renewing waters. Walk out among these surrounding forests and hills. There stands the ruined Castle of Rheingraffenstein, on a crag that overhangs the Nahe; wind your way up one side, and when you have rested on the height, pick your way down the other side to a garden on the banks of the river; there refresh again; then in one of the little boats be rowed down to Ebernburg, the site of an ancient castle, which has now been remodelled into a hotel; but the relics of Luther and other Reformers who once were sheltered here are still preserved, as well as the balls with which the French blew the old towers off the hill into the waters below. Rusty swords, spears, chains, and old keys are laid in heaps, as some slight index of the good time coming, when spears and swords shall be turned into ploughs and pruning-knives.
Where the Nahe flows into the Rhine, there or about there, stands Bingen, and no amount of pretty poetry that has been said or sung about “Bingen on the Rhine” can make it any thing but a dull, dry, flat, dusty village, and horribly disagreeable at noon on a scorching hot day, such as this. We footed it half a mile from the station under a blazing sun, as there was no way to ride, and found a cool shade, while waiting for the steamboat to come up the river. The sight was romantic and picturesque. In the water, a little way above us, stand the ruins of Bishop 241 Hatto’s tower, the story of which is too familiar to be told again. He had hoarded corn in a time of famine, and the rats pursued him for his wickedness. He fled to this tower in the river. The rats swam out to it, ran up the walls, found their way in, and cleaned the Bishop’s bones for him. Southey has done the story into a ballad.
On the Rhine.
The Castle of Ehrenfels is on the side of the hill across the river, and the Rudesheimer vineyards on the hill-sides furnish that celebrated variety. All the Rhine wines are named from the castle, chateau, or neighborhood where they are made. The flavor depends more on the soil than on the art with which the wine is made. The process is substantially the same in all the vineyards, but the flavor of 242 the liquor is decidedly different. The hill-sides are so steep, and the rains are sometimes so heavy, that the soil is often carried down into the bed of the rivers. It can then be recovered only by scooping it from the bottom, and carrying it up in baskets. This is done every year. We might fear it would be spoiled by being carried into the river, but the loss of strength is not enough to alter the nature of the original. Some of the brands are famous, and the prices vary accordingly; but the cheapness of these wines here on the ground, compared with New York, makes one readily believe that the importation of wines must be among the most money-making of all kinds of business. Vinegar and water is quite as good a drink as much of this wine, and a little sugar added makes it better. Prince Metternich owns the famous Johannisberg vineyard, a little farther on, of seventy acres, of which many and fabulous tales are told of the small quantity and great prices of the wine, of the celebrated men who have owned the vineyard, and how very costly the wine becomes by age. But I will not weary you with them. The river itself is identified with the history of Europe. Taking its rise in the St. Gothard Pass in Switzerland, it receives tributaries all the way down, yet it is a small and comparatively insignificant stream. But kings have often fought for it, and it was the late French Emperor’s highest ambition to water his horses in the Rhine.
The art of printing makes Mayence immortal, and here we stopped to look at the monument to Guttenberg, its inventor, a grand statue by Thorvaldsen. It is the fate of few inventors to get their due in their lifetime; some of them want bread, and the public will not give them even a stone till long after they have been starved to death. It was the fate of Guttenberg to struggle hard for years against rival claimants to the credit and the profit of his invention, and so incredulous is the world of the truth,—though 243 ready enough to believe a lie,—that his existence was called in question, and his name has been pronounced a myth. And to this day there are people who think that Faust, who is popularly reported to be the—or in league with the—devil, had more to do with the black art invention than Guttenberg. They, that is Guttenberg and Faust, were in partnership for a while, but that was long after the real inventor had made the art a success, and the claims of Faust and his son-in-law Schoffer, both of whom were willing to be credited with the invention, have now given way to the light of evidence, and Guttenberg holds his own against the field. It is in legal proof that as early as 1438 Guttenberg was at work with his press and movable types. In 1450 he formed a partnership with Faust to carry on the business of printing, and he died in 1468. In a book published at Mayence in 1505, Johan Schoffer states “that the admirable art of printing was invented in Mentz (Mayence), in 1450, by the ingenious Johan Guttenberg, and was subsequently improved and handed down to posterity by the capital and labor of Johan Faust and Peter Schoffer.” The writer of this was the son of Peter Schoffer. He is mistaken in the date, for it is easily proved that Guttenberg was printing many years before 1450, which was the date not of the invention, but of his entering into partnership with Faust.
As I stood in front of this monument to a man whose genius and industry gave to the world this great boon, the statue itself appeared to be sublimely eloquent, as if from those lips, representatives of the lips long since returned to dust, was now going forth the streams of wisdom and knowledge and power that make up the rivers of happiness and usefulness in the art of printing as it has blessed mankind for four centuries, and will continue to flow with increasing volume to the end of time. Perhaps somebody else would have invented the art if he had not. It may 244 be that God would have made another man whose brain would be the womb from which this grand invention would have sprung. But there stands the man who first began to print with movable types, and from his beginning the work has gone forward, widening in its reach and power, and is yet only in the infancy of its career. If he could have anticipated even the present extent of its influence, what mighty emotions would have swelled his heart! And as I look upon this image of him, I feel that beyond any other mere man who has ever lived in the annals of time, he is entitled to stand pre-eminent as the benefactor of the human race. And it is worth remarking that scarcely any art has made so little real improvement for the last three hundred years, as the art of type-making. The types were as clear cut, and the impression just as perfect then as now. We do work faster and cheaper, but not better.
I walked into the cathedral and fell to musing among the ruinous tombs; a few children were gathered in one corner and a priest was engaged in giving them instruction; the setting sun was lighting up the colored arches and naves of red sandstone, giving a peculiar effect to the shabby temple, but there was nothing here to divert my thoughts from the statue, the man, and the work commemorated. It was glory enough for one city to have been the birthplace of such an art. Pilgrims will come hither with increasing reverence in far distant years. And I hope they will have a cooler day than I had. The mercury is now at 96 in the shade.
Aix-la-Chapelle.
IT is now nigh upon a thousand years since King Otto ordered the tomb of Charlemagne to be opened. The floor of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle was broken up, the sacred mausoleum that cherished the remains of the mightiest of emperors was entered; and there he sat in the chamber of death, as in a hall of state, on a marble chair, in the vestments of his imperial office, a sword at his side, a crown on his head, and a Bible in his hand!
Charlemagne was born in this place in the year 742. The cathedral is his monument, and under the central dome is a slab in the floor with the simple inscription, “Carolo Magno.” The cathedral was adorned with the richest marbles the world could furnish, and the highest art of the age was lavished in its structure and ornament. The windows reach from the roof nearly to the ground, and with their rich decorations give a peculiar beauty to the interior. The city has again and again been ravaged by enemies; other buildings have been razed to their foundations, but this has steadily stood in the midst of war and fires and centuries of decay and change. Long has it been the shrine of Roman worship, for Pope Leo consecrated it in 804; and thus, a thousand years and more, it has been gathering treasures of wealth, of association, and interest. It is now the most sacred shrine in the north, and, indeed, it is not likely that any spot this side of Rome has half so much to excite the veneration of the faithful.
Perhaps Rome herself has not more holy relics. This is a bold supposition. But the list of sacred things here collected is so long and so wonderful, and the estimate in which they are held is so high, that the city fairly lays claims to the first rank among the favored. Therefore pilgrimages are made to these shrines as to the Holy City itself.
My pilgrimage hither was accidental, or, rather, providential. 247 As I came into it at the close of a summer’s day, the streets were thronged with men and women, moving up and down, apparently without an object, swaying like the waves of the sea, and I asked if this was the usual crowd on the streets of an evening. It was at the height of the season for visitors to its famous fountains of water; for long before it was a shrine for pilgrims coming to pray, it was known for its mineral springs and their remarkable healing virtues. What more could be desired than a charm to cure diseases both of the bodies and the souls of strangers. The old pagan Romans knew the efficacy of these waters; and through all the centuries, since their rule, the city has been a fashionable watering-place. It was once the seat of empire, and the palace of Charlemagne, whose name invests it with more than romantic interest, has now passed away. Yet the city is frequented annually by thousands from distant parts, drawn here by the well-established reputation of the springs. It was, therefore, natural for me to ask if these crowds were the usual concourse of people on the streets of a summer evening.
The answer to my inquiry indicated as much surprise as the disciples exhibited when they said, “Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?”
I was told that it was the last day but one of the pilgrimage to the holy relics, and that this was the grand eve of the procession, the most remarkable pageant that is ever to be seen in these parts of the world. Of course this led to further inquiries, and I found myself suddenly and accidentally participating in one of the most extraordinary spectacles that I had ever seen or heard of. It will be a long story, but you must read it.
How the many precious relics came to be collected here I cannot learn; but the antiquity and wealth of the cathedral, and the vast power wielded for centuries by the 248 Catholic emperors who were here crowned, would easily make this spot the nucleus around which superstition and faith would rally all their strength. So it came to pass in the lapse of time that the number and value of the offerings which popes and kings and others made to this shrine became immense, and no money would now be considered an equivalent for the priceless treasures. Here is a list of them, to be read with all the faith you can summon:—
These superior relics are shown every seventh year only, or exceptionally to crowned heads on their special demand.
Several hundred years ago it was the custom to expose these relics every year in the month of July; but it was found that in some stormy war times the precious things were in danger of being carried off, and it was ordered that once in seven years they should be exhibited to the believers. It was the year and the day of the septennial demonstration when the Sultan of Turkey and I arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle. The unbelieving Mohammedan did not stay and see the show, but I did.
It was now dark; but I walked around the cathedral. All the streets leading to it were thronged with people, and through the crowds it was hard to thread one’s way. At the door, which I finally reached, the people were coming out, and the guards informed me that the only entrance was on the other side. It was a long way, and not very pleasant; but at last I gained the court, where the blessed pilgrims were permitted to enter. Two lines of men, women, and children, in single file, stretching far away into the darkness and into some remote part of the city, were marching 253 steadily into the cathedral, saying their prayers aloud as they walked slowly, devout in their appearance, and full of anxiety to get a sight of the precious treasures within. The prayers they were repeating are prepared for this service, and have reference to the sacred relics whose sovereign virtues they are now hoping to enjoy. When the remains of President Lincoln were for one day and night exposed in the City Hall of New York, the public were admitted to view them, and the line extended some miles up town, and marched steadily into the park all night long. Except that procession of gazers, I never saw a crowd intent on such a sight to equal the number of these pilgrims. It was impossible to enter the cathedral under these circumstances, and I was told that by coming early the next morning I could be admitted alone. But the next morning the gates were closed against all comers, and preparations were on foot for the grand septennial procession of the relics. The court and the streets leading to it were filled with rude benches, and thousands were seated where they could look with reverential awe on the cathedral in which these holy things were preserved. From the multitude there was rising on the air, like the sound of many waters, the voice of prayer. Away up one of the towers was a gallery passing around it, and on that gallery a procession of priests was making a frequent circuit, while the crowd gazed upwards with evident edification, as the holy utensils and the cross were borne aloft between them and heaven. There in the sun they sat, and thousands stood gazing and praying, the perfect embodiment of superstition, and the easy dupes of a cunning priesthood. They were of the lowest class of the population, if we could judge correctly by their dress and appearance. Yet were they orderly and devout, and only when some special spectacle led them all to rush to get the best place was there any need of the many guards who were on hand at all times to prevent disorder.
254 The grand procession was to emerge from the cathedral at two o’clock P.M. Then all these relics were to be carried in pomp in the hands and on the shoulders of the prelates through the streets of the city. “Good places to see the procession” were advertised for sale on the walls of the houses, and selecting one whose windows looked out upon the court of the cathedral and near its great door, I entered and hired half of one of the windows, taking a ticket that was to secure my seat when I returned.
Thus sure of the wonderful privilege of seeing the wealth of holy things which had brought these thousands here, I went off, and “assisted” in a demonstration with the Sultan of Turkey. He was on his way home from England, and was expected to reach Aix-la-Chapelle in the evening. But in consequence of delays on the road he did not arrive until five o’clock in the morning. He was then escorted to the palace, a modest mansion which the King of Prussia occupies when he is here, a rare event. When the Sultan had taken a brief rest and breakfast, he was to depart for Coblenz at ten A.M. , and the better part of the city turned out to see him as he rode through the streets to the railroad. He is a much better-looking man than his predecessor on the Ottoman throne, whom I saw in Constantinople some years ago. This man is stout, short, grave, with heavy black beard, and very Turk in his appearance. His visit to the west is regarded by his subjects as a part of the great work he is supposed by them to have on his hands,—the government of the world. To this day the most of them believe that France and England simply obeyed his orders when they came to the aid of the Sultan, and that he has now been out west to look after his provinces there.
In front of the palace and all along the streets dense masses of people pressed to get a sight; two Romish priests stood by me, and were intensely curious to see 255 the Turk. After a dozen carriages with his suite had passed, the state coach, with two fat horses and one very fat coachman,—coach, horses, and coachman covered with gold lace and trimmings,—came along with the solitary Sultan inside. The people sent up a very faint cheer, but he took no more notice of it than he would if the dogs had barked; looked stolidly down into the coach and rode out of sight.
At one P.M. I returned to my hired window. The crowd was vastly increased, dense masses of humanity filling every inch of space in sight of the line of march. But the court of the cathedral had been cleared, and a strong bar, guarded by soldiers, forbade the ingress of the multitude. The house where I was to enter was opposite to the door of the baptistery, and the whole court which was to be the scene of the great display was in full view from my window. I was early on the ground, and when I took possession of the humble chamber was the only person in it. To get to it I had to pass through the bedroom of the house, and in that was a double bed, two or three single beds, and a crib, in which the whole family slept side by side. Presently three Romish priests and two women entered, having also previously engaged places in this eligible apartment. The priests appeared to be intelligent men, and we conversed freely in French. They told me they had come from Holland to see the holy relics, and to participate in the solemnities of the occasion, and were then going to make a tour in Germany. The women were travelling in company. Presently one of the priests took out his prayer-book, and, retiring to one side of the room, entered upon his devotions. One of the women called my attention to him, and, giving me a wink of the eye, put up her finger to the side of her nose, and expressed the greatest possible contempt of the man at prayer . She was very lively, sometimes put her foot on the table, slapped her 256 sister on the back heartily, drank three glasses of beer, which the priests paid for, and said it was goot .
A band of musicians arrived, and took their stand in the court. Officers in black dress with staves appeared. The crowd pressed more and more densely on the bar, and in the struggle to get nearer, I feared some would be crushed to death. In years past, there have been many disasters of that kind here. Roofs of houses, overloaded, have sunk down with their living burden. And as far as my eyes could see, the picturesque multitude swarmed and heaved. Many in blue blouses; women with red shawls over their heads; and every color was seen in their variegated costumes, yet none but the commonest of the common people were there.
At two o’clock, a few horsemen rode into the crowd and opened a passage for the procession soon to emerge from the church. Where the people were to retire, how they could be compressed into a smaller space, it was impossible to see. Walls on all sides, but down the streets they had to go, and, as they were pressed against the houses, fright was on the faces of many; children were held up overhead to save them from being crushed; closer and closer they were stowed away; women put up their hands imploringly, but the horses tramped among them, and a way was at last cleared through the solid mass of human beings. It was not yet time for the procession to come out: this was only to let the officiating ecclesiastics, and servants bearing vestments, and boys in white with banners to pass in. But the time wore on, and at last the bells began to ring, a cannon was fired, a strong sensation swayed the waiting multitude, there was a sound of martial music, there was the roar of the voices of the crowds who could not restrain their feelings, the door of the cathedral opened, and the great pageant began.
In front marched a band of boys in white raiment, with 257 banners in their hands; a few Capuchin monks came next, in the coarse costume of their order; then followed a company of ecclesiastics, in white robes, with prayer-books in their hands, reading aloud as they walked; a large number in red and gold embroidered robes followed; a choir of young men singing; a brass band, making fine music; and then, wonderful to behold! in the midst of all this pomp appeared the dignitaries of the church, gorgeously attired, and bearing in succession the various relics which have already been named. They were enclosed in glass, some of them, and others were in magnificent chests of gold and silver, borne aloft on the shoulders of six men each, and surrounded with the richest trappings, as if the wealth of the universe might well be lavished on such precious treasures as these. The sacred procession was greeted everywhere as it proceeded with the prayers of the people, kneeling while it passed them. It took its way up into the city, through various streets by a prescribed route, in the midst of living masses of people, the windows and roofs filled with anxious spectators, who might never see the like again, and thousands of whom had come from afar, and had never seen it before. The march was about an hour long, and then they returned to the same court. But the procession was now largely increased. Two hundred “sisters,” of some order, had joined in, dressed in white, and perhaps as many of another order, in black; companies of infirm old men and women, as if from some asylum, and hundreds of lads in uniform, bearing flags, and four of them in white, with branches of lilies and green leaves in their hands. The procession entered the court, and, opening to the right and left, filled the area; the holy relics were borne into the midst, while the vast company lifted up their voices in singing, the band played, the bells rung, the cannon roared. It was a mighty choir in the open air, under the walls of a cathedral that had stood there a 258 thousand years; the vast multitude were hushed to silence to hear the music of this holy band of monks and priests and women and children, and while the whole atmosphere was full of song, the pageant passed into the temple.
My companions at the windows, the priests and their women, took leave of me, as they were in haste to take the railroad for Cologne. I stepped down into the court, and on the heels of the procession entered the cathedral. The relics were deposited in the holy places; the great golden chests were placed in front of the altar, and high mass was celebrated with the splendor of ceremonial becoming this great occasion.
When the procession was finished, the holy relics in their several repositories for another seven years, and mass duly celebrated, I returned to the hotel to dinner. About twenty persons were at the table. On my right sat a party of French people, gentlemen and ladies, and the fun they made of what they had seen on the street was immense. They ridiculed as ludicrous in the extreme, and as the very height of absurdity and nonsense, the idea that the clothes and sponge and garments worn two thousand years ago, and constantly exposed to air and all the chances and changes of these eighteen centuries, should be here to-day in good condition; and, of course, the priests and church came in for a good share of denunciation. In front of me, and on my left, was an English-speaking party, the central and principal personage in the group being an English priest. His garb was that of Rome, and his conversation was becoming his garb; but whether he had ever been received into the full communion of Holy Mother, or was only aping her manners and wearing her vestments, it is impossible to say. It makes little difference, however. He was disgusted by the infidelity of these French people, and, supposing none at the table 259 understood the English, he went on to say that it was highly improper to come into a foreign country and ridicule the customs and faith of the people. “For my part,” said he, “I think they are very stupid, as well as very ill-bred, to make such remarks at a public table where there are others who hold these relics in high honor as memorials of their holy religion.” The ladies of the party joined him fully in these sentiments, and, to my surprise, I soon discovered that the two ladies between whom he was sitting, and whom he always addressed as “My dear,” were both Americans, and evidently destined to become, if they had not already, excellent Romans. All of them, and the party was six or seven in number, had been gazing on the same spectacle that I had seen with mingled indignation and pity, and these enlightened, cultivated English and American people received the whole exposition as a glorious manifestation to their eyes of the veritable objects that were used at the time and in the midst of the scenes of the sufferings and death of our blessed Lord, and, therefore, justly to be held in reverence by all the faithful in all coming time.
Pictures of the relics were for sale in all the shops, and I bought a few as souvenirs of my pilgrimage. Particularly I sought for a good representation of that one which is first on the list and first in the admiration of the people. As the Virgin Mother Mary is held in higher honor by all good Catholics than the Son of God himself, so they likewise venerate with a deeper reverence the linen garment that she wore than the cloth which was around the loins of the Saviour on the cross. Having found two or three good copies of this peculiar garment, my curiosity was gratified to see the style which the ladies of Judea wore it in the year of our Lord 1 and onwards. Fashions change, and with the ladies they change more frequently than among the other sex. But the Virgin’s “linen garment” is exactly 260 in the form and pattern of those in use in modern times. It has short sleeves, reaching but a little over the shoulder; it has a lace frill or something of the sort around the neck, with a place for drawing strings in front. It looks, in fact, like any other shirt with the sleeves cut off.
Now, just imagine, if you can, a company of fine-looking men, fifty or sixty years old, in gorgeous costume, with the symbols of priesthood and the pomp of kings, marching through the streets of a city, and bearing aloft, for the admiration of a gaping multitude, an old shirt. That is the mildest way of putting it! That the Virgin Mary ever had it on, there is not the slightest possible reason to suppose. That such garments were then worn is contradicted by our knowledge of the costume of the Orientals of the present and former times. But to argue the question is as absurd as to believe in the shirt. Faith in these relics comes not by reason or argument, but is hereditary, blind, morbid, and against the senses. To doubt is fatal, and nobody here doubts. They believe in the holy linen of Mary, her girdle, the rope, the sponge, Bartholomew’s hair, Thomas’ teeth, Simeon’s arm, St. Catherine’s oil, Stephen’s rib, Peter’s chain, and the child Jesus’ crib. If they believe in these things, what will they not believe? And English and American men and women come here and profess their faith in the whole!
Pilgrimages to this shrine have been made for the last six or seven hundred years. The number of believers crowding in at one time has sometimes been so great that it was found necessary to shut the gates of the city in order to prevent the increase. Every pilgrim was expected to pay a penny, and in one year these amounted to 80,000 florins, or 1,600,000 pence. In that year 142,000 persons were present in one day. In that period the numbers were so great that separate quarters of the town were assigned to different nationalities, and they were allowed to 261 see the relics in their turn. They approached the relics on their knees, and in regular order, each bearing a pure wax candle. Great preparations were required to feed these multitudes, and it is not to be wondered at that it was found too much of a job to have this thing going on every year. Once in seven is certainly quite often enough. But the same forms and ceremonies of opening and displaying the treasures have been preserved from age to age. The exhibition begins July 10th and terminates July 24th. The rush became so great at one time that it was determined to dispense with the farce. But the inhabitants of the city, who, like the Diana smiths, make great gains out of the pilgrims, raised such a clamor that the show was resumed; and it is now as fixed in the routine of religious rites in this Protestant country of Prussia as the toting of the Pope on men’s shoulders at Christmas in Rome. Once in seven years the people flock hither for two weeks in July, and on the 24th the grand procession takes place.
But if the sight of these relics does the souls of the pilgrims no good, you may rest assured that the waters of these fountains will prove a Siloam to you if you have gout, rheumatism, or any cutaneous disease. Perhaps it is not well for me to prescribe without knowing the peculiar symptoms of your case; but for so many centuries have these waters been flowing for the healing of the people, that I have great faith in their secret virtues. Over the principal fountain is a temple, and from it extends a covered walk. The visitors take the water early in the morning, and, as it is too hot to drink off at once, they walk up and down, glass in hand, sipping as they go. Near by is the garden where, under shade-trees and by the side of fountains, they sit and chat, or listen to sweet music which the band discourses. As I was lounging here, a young Englishman was helped in by his sisters, and he was placed near me, so that I heard all their conversation concerning his 262 progress toward being cured. Then a lady on two crutches hobbled in, and, arranging herself as comfortably as her evident lameness would permit, sought a little rest from pain. An elderly man with his leg in splinters had two servants to hold him up, and his condition seemed to suggest that the waters were sought even for the benefit of broken limbs. The variety of diseases is not so great perhaps as at other springs; but the gouty, the lame, and the halt, seem to lie around among these orange-trees, flowery shrubs, gravel walks, and cool shades. But by far the greater part of the visitors to the springs come for pleasure only. There is a large Kurhaus , in which are rooms for concerts and balls, for reading and conversation, and in the court a beautiful garden, into which subscribers are admitted. There the ladies take their work or their book, and, around little tables on which is a cup of tea or glass of light wine, they spend the afternoon, the gentlemen smoking if they please, and an orchestra of splendid performers playing. It is a scene of social and elegant ease, the dolce far niente to perfection, with really more enjoyment in it than is often to be found where people have nothing to do. There is no gambling here, and that drives off a class of men and women that infest every watering-place where gaming-tables are licensed. The company is therefore select, compared with the Badens and Homburg. And the baths are splendid. They are furnished at all the hotels, and there are establishments specially fitted up for them. Into one of these I went to enjoy the luxury. Each bath has a dressing-room adjoining it, out of which when ready you go down four or five stone steps into a large cemented bath, while the water from two large pipes is pouring in. On a stone bench at one end of the bath you sit down till the water comes up to your chin, and then it ceases to flow. At first the smell of sulphur is strong; but this ceases to be disagreeable. The temperature is perfect, the water 263 abundant, plenty of towels, and a sheet besides, and the price is about 25 cents. I enjoyed it exceedingly, and commend it before all other bathing establishments this side of Turkey.
The antiquary finds much to interest him in this old town. It is something to be where Charlemagne was born and buried, and to see the works of his mighty hand; to visit the town-house, a tower of which still bears the name of Granus, a brother of Nero , who is said to have built it, and to have founded the city 124 years after Christ. In this house is a great hall, where for many successive centuries the Emperors of Germany were crowned. In front of it is a statue of Charlemagne, and the priests carry a silver bust of him in their septennial procession, with a bit of his skull in the top of it.
WITH faces at last fairly turned towards Russia, we stopped to rest for a day at the old town of Frankfort—the Ford of the Franks . Towards evening I wandered out to an old graveyard.
Like some in our own cities, it had ceased to be used for interments, and its walks and shade and vacant squares had become places of recreation for the children of the town. The gates were never shut, and, indeed, the walls were broken, so that it was a public square for the living rather than a quiet resting-place for the dead. A party of little folks were amusing themselves with children’s plays, and I paused in my solitary stroll to see them go through the old-time game of “Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,” the same that our children from generation to generation play with so much zest on the grass or the carpet at home. It was pleasant to know that the young ones, in another language, were singing the same simple song that millions on the other side of the sea have sung and will sing in their childish glee. It was a queer place for children to make a playground. Our children would not fancy it. The Germans have more pleasing associations with the burial-places of their dead than we have. They indulge in cheerful sentimentalism more than we do, in this direction. These old graves are covered with flowering shrubs; some of them are cared for by the children or friends of the sleepers who have been here so many years that their names 265 might be forgotten but for the tombstones. I read the inscriptions on many, and sought and found names familiar in history.
One grave was covered with wreaths and flowers. Yet it was an old grave, and evidently some special interest attached to it. I drew near and read in German,—
It was her request that this inscription should be put upon her headstone. The mother’s pride is in it, but so beautiful and so just! No man of this century has wrought himself more thoroughly into the German mind, and only one writer has led captive more minds in the world at large, than Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe, whose mother lies under this brick wall, with deep shade-trees hanging over her grave, and fresh flowers lying on it, though she was laid here sixty years ago. “From my dear little mother,” said the poet in one of his poems, “I derive my happy disposition and my love of story-telling.” And she said of herself, “Order and quiet are my characteristics. I despatch at once what I have to do, the most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down the devil without looking at him. I always seek out what is good in people, and leave what is bad to Him who made mankind, and knows how to round off the angles.”
If this saying of Goethe’s mother could be told in all the world as a memorial of her, it is quite likely it would do as much for the good of mankind as all that her son ever wrote, though he was the prince of German poets, and the master intellect of the age.
His coffin lies in the Duke’s vault at Weimar, or did when I was there, by the side of Schiller, and not by the side of the Duke, as royal etiquette forbade, even in the grave, such common dust as that of these two great poets to 266 be laid along with that of royal clay. Yet the Duke is more honored by having had the friendship of the poets than by his crown or kingdom.
Twelve years after the birth of Goethe’s mother, in 1743, a Jew was born in Frankfort, whose name and power in the world are quite as great as that of the poet. It is a question for the debating societies, whether money or mind rules in this age; but there is little doubt that the Rothschilds have been more of a power in Europe during the present century than Goethe and all the poets put together. This man was named Anselm. He had five daughters and five sons: all of the sons becoming bankers like the father, and establishing themselves in various cities, London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfort, came to control the finances of Europe, and to wield an influence before which the conquerors of kingdoms were often compelled to bow. They furnish one good lesson that is rarely mentioned or thought of: the father and five sons, and their children, have continued in one firm,—the five brothers were at one time the firm,—and, thus standing by one another, have been strong and prosperous; in this particular, Jews as they are, they set an example for Christians to follow. So great is their wealth and credit, that when the revolutions of 1848 in Europe instantly robbed them of forty millions of dollars, it did not disturb them, nor the confidence of the world in their stability. Kings and emperors are their guests as well as their customers; and this summer, one of them on the banks of Lake Leman, and another at his palace in Paris, has entertained royalty in right regal style. To us sovereigns in our own right, this is nothing very remarkable; but here, in the land of kings and princes, it is a matter always of wonderment, and it is also just a little detriment to dignity, when a crowned head condescends to eat off the plate of anybody but a brother of blue blood.
This old city of Frankfort has had its ancestral pride 267 sadly humbled in being swallowed by all-devouring Prussia. A lady said to me, “I hate the Prussians; I know it is not very Christian, but I do hate them; and I believe the royal family will be poisoned yet!” This venerable city was once the capital of the German empire, the seat of its Congress; here the German emperors were elected, for successive generations. The glory that invests a spot so sacred has now departed; and the firm policy of Bismark, and the unification of Germany, have reduced the proud old town to one of the many second-rate cities of Europe. A city, now-a-days, cannot live on the past. Trade and travel will not obey traditions. Frankfort still holds a financial importance that is fast passing away; and more people will linger here for a day to see the marble Ariadne , by Danneker, than to visit the “Hall of the Cæsars,” where the portraits of the emperors are hung.
We left by rail at nine in the morning. The cars were large, convenient, and elegant. For first-class passengers they were divided into apartments for six, and were lined with red plush. The second class were quite as good, but lined with drab; and the chief difference was in the price, which, being high in the first class, makes the company more select . In all the cars smoking is allowed, unless notice is posted on the outside to the contrary. In our compartment, which was one of the interdicted , there were three ladies and as many men, only one of them a smoker; and he kept on, regardless of the notice and the company. The third-class cars had plain board seats with no backs; but they were clean, and very decent-looking people rode in them. A fourth class were like our cattle cars, only not so good, for ours are well ventilated, whereas these were close, and were filled with dirty people, standing up, and getting what air they could through one or two little windows. Yet these people were generally smoking, their poverty compelling them to ride like cattle, but not prevailing to make them give up tobacco.
268 We passed through large pine forests. Wind-mills were frequent, as they are in flat countries, where no waterfall power can be had. Women were at work repairing the railroads; showing that here woman has her “rights,” as the women reformers call the privilege of doing any thing that men do. Of course they are degraded, as they will be with us just as fast as public sentiment allows them to assume the duties that do not belong to their sex. The waiting-rooms at the stations are restaurants also, and beer is guzzled incessantly. Little children drink beer with their parents.
Vast tracts of level country are on our right and left. Not a hill is in sight. The scenery is uninterrupted prairie. Passengers are informed, by notice posted in the cars, that they can have a dinner served at certain stations ahead, and that the conductors will send on the order by telegraph without charge. At all the stations cake and beer are passed along by waiters at the windows of the cars, and you may take in the dishes if you please, and leave them at the next station.
Frankfort-on-the-Oder is a venerable town of 37,000 inhabitants, memorable as the scene of a great battle in 1759, when Frederick the Great was defeated by the Russians and Austrians. We crossed the Oder at Castion, the bridge being strongly fortified, as if war were imminent or guns relied on as the best peace preservers. Immense tracts of peat-beds are on the route, and women are at work wheeling heavy loads of it just cut out, and men cutting it, the women being made to do the hardest work.
Frankfort Dinner-Table.
At Krewz we stopped for dinner. We had sent forward our names by telegraph, and were curious to see what was the result. It proved to be a good soup, a stew of beef and potatoes, roast veal with stewed prunes, and the usual condiments, but no dessert or wine, unless extra. The tables for dinner were set out on the platform, under shade, and 269 every thing neat and clean, and the table furniture good. Beautiful gardens are around the railroad stations: large peonies and lilacs, seringas and roses, and other flowers like our own, in full bloom. We met an excursion train with two or three hundred people, who had left the cars at a way-station to get water; and as our train came between them and theirs, they were thrown into the greatest alarm and confusion, lest they should be left behind. The cottages of the peasantry are very neat and comfortable; no signs of great poverty, no beggars at the stations. I have 270 scarcely been solicited by a beggar in Germany. As we are going north, the country appears less fertile: there is more grass and less grain; few fruit-trees, some apples, cherries, and pears; poplar trees, sycamores, and some willows are seen. We have ceased to see forests on the line of the road: we pass another peat-bed, and a dozen women are working it, one man overseeing them.
At Nakal twenty peasants were standing, each with a staff in hand, as if they had just arrived from a journey on foot, and were waiting for a train to take them on to the seaboard to emigrate. They were swarthy, stout, and well clad. They will all be voters soon on the other side of the sea.
Two hundred miles from Berlin, on our way to Warsaw, we came to Bromberg. We had marked it down as the half-way place, and here we were to pass the night. We found an elegant railroad station; porters from three hotels, with plates on their hats, begged the pleasure of our company at their respective houses. The Englischer Hof had the honor of taking us in, and we were hospitably and comfortably cared for. This city was once in Poland. When the kingdom was carved and partitioned, this fell to Prussia. But Polish names predominate upon the signs, and the Polish language still prevails. Its trade is in wool and iron and steel, by canal connecting it with Oder and Wexsel. We went to the top of a hill near the hotel, and found beautiful walks and seats, commanding fine views of the town. The churches are both Protestant and Catholic. We were near a cemetery, and all the tombstones had their inscriptions in Hebrew. It was a Jewish burial-place. Adjoining it was a dead-house, into which every dead person of this people is brought, and washed, and ceremonially prepared for the grave. A young man showed us over the apartments. He seemed to be the solitary dweller in this gloomy house. A fine monument in the grove near by is in memory of the good citizen who had 271 given the grounds, and embellished them, as a resort for the people.
Only in Germany have we had bolsters in shape of a wedge , hard, and designed to be laid with the edge under the shoulders, making an inclined plane, from which one is slipping down all the time. The old feather-bed comforter on top is now dispensed with; but in place of it is a quilt inside of a sheet, like a bag to hold it, and a very uncomfortable thing to manage. It requires a deal of patience to put up with the curious ways of other people; but when one gets used to them, they are just as well as his own.
We were to take an early start, and the servant was so anxious to do his whole duty, that he called us, as Samuel the prophet was called, three times in the course of the night, and finally succeeded in getting us out an hour too soon. But that was better than to be an hour too late, and so we had breakfast, and were off again by the rail at six in the morning. By eight we were at the frontier of Poland, now Russia. Our passports were demanded, and our baggage searched. Even the little bags were taken out of the cars and examined. The only article sought for was tobacco, and nobody ever found a bit of that in any luggage of mine. At the station signs of progress were evident. Carts drawn by oxen were loaded with brick, each brick twice as large as one of ours. Large iron pipes for aqueducts were lying around. A photographic apparatus, of a pattern quite novel to me, was in use, taking views of the works going on. The names of all the passengers were copied from their passports into a register; the passports were returned to their several owners, then each passenger was asked if he had his passport, and, the formality being over, we were allowed to proceed after an hour’s detention.
We are now travelling in Poland. We soon pass miserable dwellings, half under ground, and with stagnant water about them, giving every appearance of unhealthiness and 272 wretchedness. Yet the country was better tilled than in Northern Germany. We are now on the Vistula. At one of the stations we saw a meeting of friends, men kissing each other; young people stooped down, and old men kissed them on the back of their heads. Elegant parks and gardens surrounded the villa of the Princess Racziwill. For centuries it has been the residence of the titled and rich.
At half-past three P.M. we arrived at Warsaw. All the passengers, as they left the cars, were required to give up their passports again; were led into a room where all ingress and egress was cut off; here to each person was given a receipt for his passport, and he was required to give the name of the house at which he intended to stay, also to state when he expected to leave. He was then allowed to go. At the door a metal check was handed him, having on it the number of the hack in which he would ride; and thus, with a deep conviction that we are at last in a country where we are to be looked after, we were taken to our hotel.
ON the banks of the Danube, but just where the story does not say, and when it is quite uncertain, lived three brothers, whose names were Lekh, Teckh, and Russ. They were of the Slavonian race. Ambitious to found distinct dynasties of their own, they set off on their travels. Presently three eagles appeared, flying in as many directions, and the brothers instantly agreed to follow the birds and the example. Russ went after one of the eagles, and the region he went into he called Russia; Teckh went to Bohemia, whose people were anciently called Teckhs; and Lekh, led by a white eagle, came to Poland. The people adopted the white eagle as their national emblem, and they were called Polekhs, or Polaks, and in Shakespeare the people of Poland are Polaks. In some parts of this country the Poles are yet called Lekhs. The great importance of this recondite history is not very apparent; but it is enough to intimate that the origin of nations is often involved in obscurity, and this is specially true of these northern peoples.
The history of Poland, through its early centuries down to 1772, is one of the most romantic in the “book of time.” With the coming of the Jesuits into Poland came trouble, as trouble always comes with those pests of the human race. War with Russia followed, and the Polish territory east of the Dnieper, or Little Russia, was subjected to the Czar; and by and by, when the kingdom of Poland lay at the mercy of three surrounding powers, it was “partitioned” 274 between Russia and Prussia and Austria. This was but the beginning of her trials. Never conquered, though always overcome, fighting for independent existence again and again, she has in her death-struggles shown a tenacity of life that has commanded the admiring sympathy of mankind. Three times she has been divided among these devouring kingdoms; and at the settlement of 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, when a new map of Europe was made, it was decided that a part of Poland, Galicia, should belong to Austria, Posen to Prussia, and the large part which Napoleon had made into the Duchy of Warsaw, should be a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Emperor as King. In 1830 the Poles made another insurrection, and when crushed they were deprived of their constitution, their language was proscribed, and the last vestige of their nationality was beaten out.
There is a savage wickedness in this cutting up of nations, that does not touch the moral sentiment of the world as it ought. To murder a man is something palpable, and so obviously damnable. But to blot a nation out of being, to strike down the life of a people and bury it out of sight for ever, this is what has been done for poor Poland, and we have only to drop a tear over her grave, enter a protest in the name of human rights, and pass on. The most extensive portion of ancient Poland is under Russia, the most populous in the grasp of Austria, and the most commercial is held by Prussia. Warsaw is the unwilling serf of Russia. The present Emperor has sought to gild the chains that bind this people; but the iron chafes them, and will. He restored their language and schools; a council of state was formed; all the local officers were Poles. But nothing will satisfy a noble race but to be their own masters: in 1863 Warsaw was again in insurrection; the men rushed to arms, the women to the altars; the streets ran blood, the weak sank under the strong, and the end came.
275 The city of Warsaw has nearly 200,000 inhabitants. It is a well-built town, modern in its appearance, with many of its streets straight, and having large and handsome houses. It stands on the Vistula. It is more gay and attractive than you would expect to find it, under the heel of an oppressor, and after years of fruitless struggle with a crushing power. On every hand we see the signs of the ruler’s presence, in the persons of his armed deputies, the soldiers of Russia, who are here to keep order in Warsaw. In our hotel, the dining-room is always occupied by soldiers, who are eating and drinking, especially drinking. “Sherry cobblers” in quart tumblers are in front of them, and they are sucking at them diligently. Venice, under Austrian rule, was not more vigilantly guarded than Warsaw is at this day, after a subjugation that has been endured for forty years! It will take two or three generations to make Poland contented under foreign rule, and then the hereditary love of nationality will remain, and rise to the surface whenever it gets a chance for demonstration.
The city has a very unfinished appearance: there are splendid public edifices near by others that seem only begun, or neglected in the midst of building. Revolutions and the fears of revolution have made its prosperity precarious, and the inhabitants lack the highest stimulus to enterprise and exertion, the hope of permanent possession and enjoyment. The splendid government houses are in many cases the palaces of the old Polish nobility, now decayed or extinct families. Many of the former owners, who once rolled in hereditary wealth, have long since been exiled to the desolate wilds of Siberia, and their places will never know them again. A pall, like a perpetual cloud, is on the face of Poland, and by degrees the spirit of liberty will be extinguished. The language and rule of Russia will become universal. There is no hope in the future for the nationality of Poland.
276 In 1863 a spy of the Russian government was stopping at the Hôtel de l’Europe in Warsaw, where we are now writing; and, his business being suspected, the patriotic Poles, who are not likely to abide the presence of such a fellow if they know him, took the liberty of murdering him in his bed. The Russian government seized the house, shut it up, and for some years it has stood closed, a monument and a warning. Russia will not allow her spies to be murdered without visiting her vengeance on the house itself in which the murder is committed. As this hotel was formerly the palace of one of the noble Polish families, and the only hotel of large proportions, it was a serious injury to the city as well as to the proprietors. And I do not apprehend that the Poles will be any more gentle in their treatment of Russian spies, because their largest tavern was shut up half a dozen years.
Out of my window I see a soldier standing with his back against the wall; he has a soldier’s cap and long cloak reaching nearly to the ground; he has been there five or six hours, marching now and then a few rods and returning to his post: five soldiers come and stand in front of him, one of them takes off the cloak and puts it on his own shoulders, and, stepping into his place, mounts guard; and this process is continued and repeated all over the city, day and night, year after year. Thousands of Russian soldiers are thus quartered on the city continually: lazy, intemperate, and licentious, they are a moral pestilence; using their power to compel the subject people to submit to their insolence, and corrupting by their example and association those with whom they come into contact.
With this admixture of foreign and native people, it is impossible to discriminate between them; but a more unmannerly set of people I have never met at public places than they are here. The servants have no manners but bad manners. They enter your private room without 277 knocking; they are grouty in their address, sulky in their answers, and generally disagreeable. The same may be said of the officers of the hotel: disobliging, inattentive. The women appeared to be lively in each other’s company, but the men of Warsaw are grave and thoughtful.
We rode in the afternoon through the beautiful parks and meadows and groves where the Russian military exercises are held, and through the Botanical Gardens , and to the Observatory , for the pursuit of science has not been arrested by the revolutions that have overturned the government; and then we came to Lazienki , a splendid rural palace, built by King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski. Here the Emperor of Russia has his temporary abode when he visits Warsaw, which, by the way, he does not often, for his presence is not specially agreeable to the people. Beautiful villas are scattered through the park, the residences of persons connected with the court; fountains play, a beautiful stream flows by, and a monument to Sobieski, John III. of Poland, stands conspicuous, the sight of which is said to have led the Emperor Nicholas, in 1850, after the war in Hungary, to make the remark: “The two kings of Poland that committed the gravest error are John III. and myself; for we both saved the Austrian monarchy.” It is hard to say whether such reflections are sound or not; the rise and fall of kingdoms are all in the plans of Infinite Wisdom, and what to us seems exceedingly desirable may be the height of folly in the eye of Him who reads the future. It is certainly not human wisdom that has spared Austria or Turkey and sacrificed Poland, but the end may yet be well.
It was dark when we returned to the city. A feeble attempt at illumination was going on in some of the public buildings. Dim lights were hung along some of the walls, and now and then a private house had an extra lamp or two in its windows! We inquired the cause of this miserable 278 imitation of rejoicing, this abortive demonstration. The telegraph had brought the intelligence that to-day an unsuccessful attempt had been made to assassinate the Emperor Alexander. The illumination was thus very satisfactorily and exactly explained. The assassination was attempted by a Polander, and Poland would have madly rejoiced if it had been a success. I was at a loss to know whether the illumination signified joy at the Emperor’s escape from death or joy that his death had been so nearly accomplished. The melancholy exhibition of lights was just enough to suggest the two conflicting sentiments; and if the Russian soldiers and officials and dependants did their duty in hanging out the lamps, the inhabitants of Warsaw almost without exception will go to bed regretting that the shot of the assassin did not lodge in the heart of the Emperor whom they regard as their oppressor.
The streets of Warsaw are badly paved; riding in some of them is a protracted punishment. They are badly lighted, and it is not unusual for an ordinance to be in force requiring every one going out after dark to carry a light, under pain of arrest.
The first drunken person I saw in the streets of a city on the Continent of Europe was here. In the southern capitals, as of Spain and Italy, and even of France, there was gayety, but not intemperance. I had not been long in the city before I saw a woman lying on the pavement dead drunk. And nobody seemed to heed the spectacle, always and everywhere disgusting as the most shameful exhibition of fallen humanity. They have their favorite vices in the south of Europe, but this of drunkenness is not one of them. The use of wine, light wine, is not the cause of the sobriety of the people, though it is a fact beyond all denial that the wine-growing countries are the most temperate countries in the world. Yet they are not temperate because they have wine to drink. They would be just as temperate, 279 and perhaps more so, if they had no wine. They are temperate because the climate does not invite them to the stimulus of alcohol. That’s all. It is not their virtue, nor their wine, that makes them so. They are not tempted to drink strong drink. As soon as we get into these northern countries we find the people making free use of distilled liquors and getting drunk: and intemperance is the prevailing vice of the clime, as licentiousness is the vice of the south of Europe. Climate is to be considered in all our studies of the habits of a people, and it must be allowed its proper effect when we are estimating the virtues and vices of our fellow-men. Climate is no excuse for wrong-doing, but it helps to know why people fall into one or another class of sins.
On Sunday, after searching in vain to find the English service which was said to be performed in an evangelical chapel by a clergyman of the Church of England, we went to the Lutheran Church. Its dome, rising from an open square, is a prominent object in the city. The building itself is a rotunda , and very large. The yard was filled with all sorts of carriages, wagons, droskies, and carts, with horses of various grades, by which the people had come in from the surrounding country. Some of these vehicles were the rudest kind of rustic wagons, and being covered with mud, and filled with straw as the only seat, having no springs, and long and narrow, indicated that the roads were bad, and that the people had encountered some difficulties in getting to the house of God. It is rare to see such a show of teams about a city church. It was all the more interesting in Warsaw, in the heart of the old kingdom of Poland.
I entered the porch, and it was crowded by people unable to get into the thronged church. Looking over their heads, I saw three successive galleries rising above each other; and, following the winding staircase in the vestibule, we reached the first, and, unable to get admission there, we 280 mounted to the second, which was also full, and then to the third, where there was plenty of room. A singularly imposing spectacle was presented. The vast audience-room was a perfect circle; the three galleries sweeping completely around to the pulpit and organ behind it. The pews on the ground floor were occupied by a class of persons by their dress and manner more elevated in rank than the others. The pew doors were kept locked, until the sermon was to be commenced, when they were opened, and the crowd in the porch were permitted to take those not occupied by their owners. The first gallery pews were filled with plainer people. The second gallery had a set of worshippers whose coarse and humble attire indicated the harder worked and poorer people; but their dress was cleanly, and an air of comfort pervaded the whole assembly. The third gallery, into which I found access, was not seated, and the few persons in it stood at the front. It was a sublime spectacle, this crowded sanctuary, perhaps three thousand people, worshipping in a strange tongue, and all animated with the spirit of the hour. Behind the pulpit was a life-size statue of the Saviour on the cross. In front of it four immense candles, each four feet high, were burning. These candles and statue would lead us to suppose that the Lutheran was not wholly reformed, and that some relics of Romanism still lingered. The minister read a hymn, and around the organ a large choir of young men and boys, no females in it, stood up and sang,—the whole assembly, men and women,—with the organ, singing with a mighty noise. The sermon followed. The Polish is not one of the tongues with which I am familiar, and I shall not undertake to pass an opinion upon the eloquence or the orthodoxy of the discourse. But the clear rich tones of the preacher’s voice fell upon attentive ears, and the earnestness of his manner spoke well for him, though I could not understand a word.
281 At the door, as I came out, there was a row of mendicants, not asking alms, but willing and expecting to receive the charities of those who passed, and they were remembered by many. It was an inoffensive way of begging. Whoever gave was moved to do a good thing without being importuned.
The principal streets of the city had as many people in them, going to and from church, as you would see in New York, and so widely do the fashions of Paris prevail in the west and east and north, that the fashionable people of Warsaw, riding or walking, looked to be the same sort of people that one meets in cities with which he is more familiar.
I walked into the Jewish quarter of the town. Their Sabbath was yesterday; but to-day is one of their feast-days, and they were all out of doors, “a peculiar people” everywhere. The men wore long frock-coats reaching to the ground. Their dwellings were mostly mean and low; but we saw women going in and out of them dressed in rich silks, with splendid velvet mantillas, and they were doubtless as well off for this world as their people seem to be in all countries where they have a chance to live and trade. They have the best hospital in Warsaw. They retain their nationality, the expression of countenance, the curve of the nose, the faculty of making and keeping money wherever they go. And they are strangely hated in the Christian world since they crucified the Lord of Glory, as the serpent has been among men since he tempted the woman in Eden. Of the five or six millions of people in Poland, nearly one million are Jews. This is a large proportion, perhaps larger than any other country in Europe.
There are only about 300,000 Protestants in Poland, and when you learn that of the Russian or Greek church there are but five or six thousand, out of the five or six millions, you will see one grand reason why Poland will never be submissive to the rule of Russia. Their religions are at 282 war. Poland is intensely bigoted in its Romanism. In the public square we see a statue of the Virgin Mary, with an iron railing around it; flowers in pots are kept before it, lamps by night are burning in its presence, tumblers of oil with lighted wicks in them, and an old woman to light them as often as the wind blows them out, and here the people are constantly coming and throwing themselves down on the stones and saying their prayers: one young man was so earnest in his devotions, that he prayed with a loud voice, regardless of those around him, as if he knew the statue was quite deaf and could hear no common prayer. In 1863, the frightened people rushed to this image, when they saw that the insurrection was not to be successful, and the Russian troops charged upon the praying multitude of men and women and scattered them on their knees.
Before one of the churches two crosses are erected, to commemorate the union of Poland and Russia. Tradition says that they also mark the scene of the strangest duel that was ever heard of,—two brothers being jealous of each other on account of their own sister’s love, fought here and slew each other. The province of “Little Russia” lies between Russia proper and Poland, and for the possession of it the two kingdoms have fought till it has sometimes been thought they would devour each other.
As I saw people going into a court-yard I followed them, into a little chapel, where a corpse was lying in state. It was of an old man; thirty or forty candles were burning around him, but he was raised on a platform so high that his face could not be seen. Leaving him, I came out and met a funeral procession. The body was borne in a hearse, surmounted with a gorgeous crimson canopy, and drawn by six horses richly caparisoned and led by six grooms. The Emperor could not have desired a more ostentatious funeral; all hats were removed as the procession passed, and this practice, which prevails on the Continent generally, and 283 especially in France, is a beautiful and becoming tribute of respect, which I would be glad to see prevalent at home. They uncover their heads when the King passes by; and what monarch is mightier than he to whom the stateliest head must bow.
Ours were the only English names on the register of the hotel, the largest in the city; we called at another hotel, and not an English name was there, and during the three days we were in Warsaw we did not hear a word of our tongue, except when we spoke ourselves. We were not, however, as much disturbed by this as the lady was in Paris, who was out of all patience and spirits hearing nothing but French day after day. One morning she heard a cock crowing, and exclaimed, “Thank God, there’s somebody who speaks English.”
Polish Peasants.
WE were to leave Warsaw in the course of the forenoon. At half-past eight we came downstairs, and found the breakfast-room closed, and nobody up in the house who could provide the morning repast. As time was precious, we went out to another hotel, and it was still closed; when at nine o’clock we succeeded in getting in, there was no one stirring but the landlord himself, and he managed to get breakfast for us with his own hands. Returning to our own hotel we called for the bill, and found the prices for rooms and board one-third more than we were assured they would be, by the same man who now made the charges. I mention all these little things to show the ways of the world we are travelling in. We do not remember any country, nor any hotel, where we were more systematically imposed on, and where we got so little for so much, as at the Hôtel l’Europe, the largest and most pretentious house in Poland.
We rode from the hotel across the Vistula, over a new and splendid bridge, and found the railroad station a mile beyond. It is put at this safe and very inconvenient distance from the town to be secure against sudden outbreaks of popular violence. The people are of the excitable order, and this road is the grand route between Warsaw and St. Petersburg, over which their Russian masters come to govern the Poles. The young man selling tickets was civil, and he was the first man who had spoken civilly to us since we entered unhappy Poland. The Russian officials at the 285 station were all civil. Before we could purchase our tickets our passports were examined, and a “ticket of leave” was given us, for which we paid thirty copakes, about twenty cents. We paid a cent for the baggage check. The cars were splendid; the first and second class had spring seats, cushioned, with racks for parcels; and the second class was quite as good as the first in France or Germany. The passengers were very few; the train, the only one for the day, had but three cars, and none were full. We had an apartment for six entirely to ourselves, two of us.
We rush out into a vast prairie country, very sparsely inhabited, but well cultivated; large herds of cattle were grazing on the plains; pine groves were frequent; the north side of trees was torn by winter storms; houses were thatched with straw, and appeared to be miserable abodes for the poor inhabitants; they became poorer as we went north, sometimes partly under ground. They are now more scattered; fewer villages; but they are doubtless more frequent off the line of railroad, which may be laid through parts of the country less settled than others. The peasants in their rude working clothes had a wretched look, and the women were all barefooted. We passed a village that seemed to be Jewish, the men and boys being clad in long coats, such as we saw on the Jews in Warsaw. Once in every half-mile, on the road, was a neat house for the railroad man, whose duty it is to see that the road is in perfect order. These houses are numbered in order, over the whole route; they are of brick or stone, small, warm, and substantial, with a little ornament. The idea is excellent. A man thus provided for is impelled by his highest interests to be vigilant and faithful; and it would be strange, indeed, if the road were ever suffered to be out of order for a moment with such care. The road is solid, a single track with frequent turnouts, and the cars run smoothly. At every cross-road for wagons a man 286 stands keeping guard. Accidents must be very rare on a road so managed.
We stop at Lapy, on the river Narev, for dinner; they give us good soup, stewed veal, and potatoes, and a ball of forced meat, and charge us about fifty cents, two or three times as much as it was worth, but they do not expect to entertain you twice; certainly we do not expect to dine at Lapy again.
At Bialystok, the next station, a lady left the cars and was met by a young man, perhaps her son, in military dress; they kissed each other four times, and he then kissed her hand, and the salutations were completed. Many Jewish women were out to-day, which is one of their feasts; the cross-roads were thronged with Jews, who seemed to be gathering there to see the cars passing; they were not allowed on the track or on the side of the railroad, but must keep themselves on the wagon-roads, where they crossed the track. This town of Bialystok is quite an important place of 16,000 people, on the borders of the old kingdom, and in the cutting up of the country it has sometimes been Prussia, sometimes Russia, and aforetime Poland. It is now Russia, of course. We come on to Grodno, with its 20,000 inhabitants, which is a large town in Russia proper, and we feel a pleasant relief in being within the bounds of the empire itself, though even this was once in Poland, and the residence of some of her kings. Here sat the diets, or congress, of Poland, and even that most celebrated of all of them, the diet of 1793, which gave its consent to the partition of Poland. Here, too, the last king of Poland, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, laid down his sceptre. We find the Jews, in great numbers, out on a holiday; the grand-high-priest, with his gorgeous breastplate on, with long hair, as if it had never been cut and he were a Nazarene from his birth. We are now travelling in Lithuania, once a duchy, whose 287 duke married the Queen of Poland, by name Hedwiga, in 1386. This union made Poland powerful to resist the Tartars and the Dukes of Moscow, and to maintain the independence of the kingdom for a long series of years. The union of Lithuania and Poland continued until the third partition in 1795. The country appears poorer as we advance; the soil is less fertile; there is more sandy and barren waste. Pines and firs and white birches are the trees we see now; the houses of the peasants are low and poor; we have long since ceased to see improvements about the railroad stations; we are getting into regions of less civilization. As far as the eye reaches away to the horizon, no hills are in sight. It was across these wide plains that the great French captain led his hosts to invade Russia, sixty years ago! We shall be frequently on the track of that army’s awful march, and its disastrous retreat. We have come to Kowno, where the rivers Vilia and Niemen meet. Here the French army crossed the Niemen, June 23, 1812, on their way to Moscow, and a gentle rise of ground, on the bank, is still called Napoleon’s Hill. It was a mighty host when it was here in June. All the annals of war and of the world furnish no parallel to the story of that campaign; it was an epitome of Napoleon’s whole career. But it is rare that marble is so modest as the monument which the Russians have set up at Kowno to commemorate the miserable failure of Napoleon’s stupendous plan of subjugating Russia. In the centre of the market-place they have set up a stone bearing this significant inscription,—
“In 1812, Russia was invaded by an army numbering 700,000 men. The army recrossed the frontier, numbering 70,000.”
When Napoleon entered Wilna on his fatal march to Moscow, he occupied the same rooms in the episcopal palace that the Emperor Alexander had hastily vacated the 288 day before. We shall not have the same apartments, but we are here at the same season of the year; it was June 28, 1812, when the French army took possession of Wilna, the Russians having evacuated it in the night.
We had been riding eleven hours steadily, yet the cars were so comfortable, the road so smooth, and the motion so easy and gentle, that we had suffered little fatigue. The scenery had been improving. The country was more uneven, rolling, and actually rising sometimes to the dignity of hills, until we were able and obliged to pass through a tunnel, being our first experience of the kind in some days, so level had been the regions through which we had travelled. Wilna is surrounded by hills, and enjoys a river flowing out of the valley, and the ravines are filled with birch and larches, giving something of the life and beauty of verdure, which is quite inspiring in this latitude. In the fourteenth century the people here were pagans, and a fire was kept burning day and night at the foot of one of the castle-crowned hills. The ruins of the castle, which was reared in 1323, are still visible on the summit. What a history of war, famine, and fire these intervening centuries have seen. Thirty thousand inhabitants were destroyed by famine in one year, 1710, and five years afterwards nearly the whole town was burned. The people are still impatient of the Russian yoke. They are always ready for an outbreak. In 1831, they tried and failed; and in 1862 they made a desperate effort, and the leaders of the movement were summarily hung or shot.
The beauties of travel in Russia begin to be seen even in the dark. We are in the station, in the midst of a crowd of people, who seem to be talking all the languages of Babel; such a jargon does the Russian, Polish, and German make, when all are spoken at the same time by an impatient multitude. We are to wait an hour for the train to leave, and that will bring it near to midnight. If we 289 spend the night here, there is no train until to-morrow night at the same hour, and we shall therefore be as badly off when it comes. It is better to go on and make a night of it. Twelve hours will bring us to St. Petersburg, and then we can rest. There are no sleeping cars. We must sit up or lounge the best way we can. It is now eleven o’clock and is getting to be dark. But we are so far north that the days are long, and the night will be very short. At midnight we curl up in the corner of the seat, and the train starts as we go to sleep. At two o’clock in the morning we awake, and it is broad daylight! At three we enter Dunaberg , a large town of small houses; 27,000 inhabitants: the most of the buildings are of wood, and only one story high, like the little farm-houses scattered over the country. It is well fortified, though it is hardly worth fighting about. John the Terrible captured Dunaberg in 1577, and the Swedes took it in 1600. The railroad station-house towers above the dwellings, that look like ant-hills scattered around. We stop a few minutes only, and push on through vast quantities of charcoal and railroad fuel collected here, and pine forest succeed, and white birch-trees, and over a flat, uninteresting country. The sun rose between four and five o’clock, and at a wayside station we were refreshed with a cup of coffee. The night was over, and the shortest I ever spent with my clothes on. We now pass tilled fields, and at one time we counted twenty villages of low, small houses in sight at one time, as we rushed along. The grain is well up, and with a warm summer will come to maturity. Wide tracts of land are destitute of vegetation; and with the evidences of want of agricultural knowledge, and the brevity of the summer, it is easy to see that these crowded villages may be pinched for want of food in a bad season. These famines have sometimes reached the cities, and the sufferings of Moscow in 1600 were not exceeded by the horrors of Jerusalem besieged by Titus. One hundred 290 and twenty-seven thousand dead bodies remained for some days unburied in the streets, and 500,000 perished.
The peasants are astir in the early morning at their work in the fields. They are decently clad, and have the appearance of being “comfortable;” they and their houses indicating that they have time and inclination to take care of themselves. They are no longer serfs. This term is not the same as slave. The serf was sold with the land on which he worked, not away from it, or without it. So long ago as 1597, a decree was issued forbidding peasants to leave the lands on which they were at that time employed. This made every working-man a fixture on the land of the landholder. At a date even earlier than this, they were forbidden to leave except at stated periods, but the complete attachment by statute of the husbandmen to the soil did not take place until the sixteenth century. This continued to be the established order of things until the accession of Alexander II. to the throne in 1856. The serfdom of Russia was not absolute slavery. It did not subject the man to the unrestricted will of the master. The peasant remained the tiller of the same soil, and changed his master only when the soil changed owners. But the grievance was inexpressibly great. In some cases it worked extraordinary results. The serf sometimes by energy and ability became a man of wealth and power. But he was under a social ban that kept him down as color depresses the black man. The reign of the present Emperor has been marked by the introduction of great and beneficent reforms. Railways were begun, and a new impulse given to trade at home and foreign commerce. The manumission of the serfs had long been discussed, but an opposition from the nobility had been too formidable to make it safe. In 1838, some of the nobles petitioned for the abolition. In 1859, the nobles of Lithuania offered to free their serfs. A general plan was then devised for the whole empire, and by a 291 decree of March 3, 1861, about twenty-three millions of people were raised to the enjoyment of civil rights. A certain amount of land, varying in different districts from two and a half to ten acres, was allotted to each peasant. He is allowed to acquire more land by purchase. A board of arbitrators, in different parts of the country, regulate the price and terms of payment to the original owners. The government advances the purchase-money to the peasant in the form of a five per cent bond, and this the proprietor receives for his land, and the government takes the payment of the peasant by instalments, through a series of years. The districts, or towns, being made responsible for this repayment to the government, a wholesome restraint is put upon the inhabitants, by which they are kept within bounds until this debt is paid. Thus the entire population is made interested in the accomplishment of the great work. The nobles who were the proprietors of the soil, receive government bonds bearing interest, and thus derive a fixed income, while each peasant becomes an independent landed proprietor. The change has been effected with no convulsion, and is gradually becoming a settled and peaceful state of things. A few outbreaks occurred at the time, chiefly from want of understanding the plan, and on the whole it has worked well.
This beneficent reform has been effected without passion, and with the intelligent approbation of the masters who were by a single decree deprived of 23,000,000 of bondmen. The original owners of the soil are not reduced to poverty by the emancipation of their men. The men are not turned loose upon the world without means to earn their living, and without incentives to industry. The government is not made to bear the expense of supporting them, or of finding work for them to do. The emancipated man is at once put into a position to earn his living where he has always lived. The master is left with a large surplus 292 of soil, which he may cultivate with hired labor, which must be abundant, when the peasants have but small farms of their own, which are easily and chiefly tilled by the women. And this work has been accomplished with so much moderation, wisdom, and justice, as to compel the approbation of every enlightened judgment and conscience. It is in most aspects of the case a model plan of emancipation.
It seems strange to me that this rapid travel is hurrying me on to St. Petersburg! The cathedral and churches of Pskof are before us, and we stop for breakfast. We enter the breakfast-room and find the dishes laid; each one helps himself to whatever he wishes, and pays for what he takes; not a word being necessary, except to learn the price of the food.
A lady and gentleman were walking up and down on the platform, both smoking. We are coming to a city where smoking in the streets is prohibited by law. The peculiar garb of the rustic Russian is seen on the men around the station. They wear long woollen coats, reaching nearly to the ground. A girdle is about the middle. The hat is a low-crowned beaver, and rapidly expanding toward the top.
WE were in Russia, at Warsaw. At that point in the journey we were put through a searching process, and the result having satisfied the officials that we were not of the dangerous classes, and had no designs upon the life of the Emperor, or the emancipation of Poland, we had been allowed to enter. And now that we had come to St. Petersburg, there was no need of overhauling us again, for we had been certified to already. We were as free on arriving at the capital as if we had come to New York.
At the station-house we were reminded at once that we were in a strange land, by the peculiar costume of the porters and drivers, who were as numerous and noisy as at home. They wore low-crown hats, with bevelled rims; long coats reaching to the feet, and a belt about their loins. They were as clamorous for hire as in more civilized countries, but they pulled and hauled less. It was easy to see that the hand of government was upon this most ungovernable class of men. We found the same kind of omnibuses that run in our own streets, and on the one inscribed with the name of the hotel to which we were bound we took our seats, and were soon riding over the roughest paved streets that ever disgraced a city. For a long series of years St. Petersburg was unpaved. At length an imperial decree was issued that every vehicle coming into the city should bring a certain number of stones to be left for paving. If each carriage had dumped its load, without regard to size 294 or order, just where it happened, the result would have been about the same as we found and felt the state of the streets to be, as we were bounced and tumbled on our way to the Hôtel de France.
SCENE AT RAILWAY STATION.
The manager of the hotel bade us welcome in good English. We were grimed with the dust of thirty hours’ steady railroad travel, and the luxury of a bath was more enjoyable than bed or board. The Russian is a very different bath from the Turkish, where to the preliminaries of warm air to set the system into a perspiration is added the thorough and plentiful scrubbing with hot water, poured on mercilessly. The Russian is the vapor bath only, and its effect is to open all the pores of the skin, to empty them completely as the streams of perspiration gush from every little mouth, and to incite a pleasurable languor, when all sense of weariness, soreness, or stiffness is gradually steamed away. The Russian dinner that followed was of the best: soup, fish, cutlet, roast beef, partridges, vegetables, and varied dessert. Wines or not, as you choose to order.
To see a city whose language is not one of your accomplishments, you must have a guide, a commissionaire , a valet de place . Now we knew precious little of the Russ. We had picked up a little Polish—mark, I do not say polish—at Warsaw, and had startled the natives by sudden outbreaks in what we supposed to be perfectly proper language, but which only served to awaken their pity or make them laugh; but the Russian is another thing, and not expecting to spend a winter here, nor to study the literature of the country, we had given no time to the language. We must have some one to be our mouth to the people, somebody who could answer a thousand questions out of his own stores of information, or serve as our interpreter when we attempted to get it out of others.
In the city of St. Petersburg resides an old Englishman whose name is Russel. He has an understanding with the 296 hotel men that whenever a guide is wanted by travellers, he is to be sent for, and at our intimation he made his appearance, and very respectfully offered his services to make us familiar with the lions of the town. Mr. Russel is a venerable man in years, having completed his threescore and ten some time since. Half a century of these years he has dwelt in this capital of the Russian empire, and toiled in this interesting service of expounding its wonders to the visitors from other countries. Mr. Russel has become so familiar with the objects of interest in his adopted city, that he imagines his strangers to be equally familiar with them, and in no need of being enlightened. He is so far gone in the loss of his faculties, if he ever had any great quantity to lose, that a question must be proposed to him often and in many forms, before he comprehends it, and when he answers, you are not sure that he understood you, or that he knows any thing about the matter. He never speaks except when he is spoken to, unless to tell you something you knew before, or that was not worth knowing. He would pass the most important and interesting buildings or monuments or historic places in the city, and not mention them, unless you asked him,—“What’s that?” Yet he was very English. He dropped the H invariably. He exaspirated his vowels most unmercifully. Pointing to the tombs of the kings and royal family, he said: “That’s the hare to the throne; that’s his haunt , and there’s his huncle .” In a picture-gallery we came to Danae, and he was kind enough to say, “That’s a woman, I believe,” and there was not much room for doubt on the subject; and in a group of mythological sculpture he remarked for our information, “That’s Jupiter,—these is all gods.”
This was the intelligent man who was to make us acquainted with the city of St. Petersburg. If you are to be told only what he could tell me, it would not be worth 297 while to read any further. But we have eyes and ears of our own, and already the barbaric splendor of this northern capital is breaking upon us. You shall have our first impressions and our last, for we have made two visits here, and have become familiar with the city, if not in love with it. It is not a city to go into raptures over. Perhaps it will become beautiful one day. But nothing in it is finished. Streets with palaces on them are still disfigured with insignificant and miserable dwellings. Palaces are not completed. Wealth has been lavished, but nothing is done. It resembles our own capital in this, that its public buildings are far apart, and the city is not half built up.
In the year 1703, Peter the Great began to build a city, to be called after his own name. He selected a miserable site on the banks of the Neva, and here he gathered a host of Russians, Tartars, Kalmucks, and Fins, and set them at this stupendous work. We expect to grow as the people want houses to live in. Peter built a city, and then looked for people to come and find it. The little cottage that he built for himself on the shore is still standing where he placed it, and the tools with which he worked, with his own industrious and skilful hands. For several successive years, 40,000 men were annually raised by draft, as for an army, to come from distant parts of the empire and build. The nobility of Russia came and caused residences to be reared for them, when they saw that Moscow was no longer to be the capital. Peter died, and Catharine I. did not push on the work with energy. Her successor, Peter II., loved Moscow more, and died there. Anne, the empress, adopted Petersburg as her residence, and it flourished under her reign. Catharine strove hard to defend it from the inroads of the river, but it lies so low that no art can avert inundations. It lies in the midst of waters, a vast morass. Canals easily traverse its bosom. Bridges and islands and quays are part of the 298 streets and squares of the city. The houses are too many for the inhabitants. The thoroughfares are never thronged. You may walk long streets and scarcely meet a person. Half a million is the number of its inhabitants, but there is room for many more.
The contrasts are more sudden and striking than in other capitals. The rich are very rich; the poor are very poor. Society is rigid in its laws. The nobles have no sympathies with the serf, though a serf no longer. Caste is stronger in Russia than in England.
But I am impatient to be out in the town, sight-seeing. It is a very hot day, and I asked Russel if they often had such hot weather in June. “Well,” he said, “sometimes it is ’ot as this, and sometimes not so ’ot: it depends very much on the weather;” and with this profound observation he led the way into the city.
It was but a step from our lodgings, under the arch that divides and connects the state apartments into the grand square in front of the Winter Palace, the residence of the Emperor of Russia.
But before us rises a red granite column, the grandeur and beauty of which instantly fix the eye. A single stone, eighty-four feet high and fifty feet in circumference,—the loftiest single shaft of modern times, only less in height than Pompey’s Pillar,—stands in the midst of the square, surmounted by an angel and the cross. The pedestal bears a brief inscription, but it tells the whole story,—“Grateful Russia to Alexander I.” Originally this stone was cut out of the mountain, 104 feet long, and the order was to make the loftiest monolith in the world; but from fear that it was too long to stand firmly on its base, which was fourteen feet in diameter, it was shortened to its present length. With incredible labor it was erected upon a pedestal twenty-five feet high, and there, polished, it stands, perhaps the most splendid shaft that now presses 299 upon the earth. It seemed to grow as I gazed upon it. And daily as I caught sight of it from other parts of the city, or as I drove into the magnificent area of which it is the central figure, its simple majesty and exceeding beauty impressed me more and more. What vast labor it cost to bring this block from the mountains of Finland, and plant it perpendicularly on the banks of the Neva, in the heart of the city!
In the Admiralty Square is a more famous statue, and one of which we have heard from childhood; pictures of it had made it so familiar that it seemed an old acquaintance,— Peter the Great , the founder of the city, its inventor and builder, is on horseback, riding up a rock, to the verge of which he has come, when he reins in his steed and sits looking upon the river and the city he has raised upon its banks. The horse is rearing, and the immense weight rests upon his hinder legs and the tail, which touches a huge serpent, coiled at the horse’s feet. This is deservedly reckoned one of the finest equestrian statues, and it honors the most extraordinary man of his age.
Two boys were together crowned as Czars of Russia, at Moscow, by the Greek patriarch, on the 15th of June, 1682. They were brothers, and one of them soon yielded to the superior energy of the other, and resigning his share of the government, left Peter the sole sovereign of an empire but little above the range of barbarism. This Peter, who became Peter the Great , was then but seventeen years old. He was far in advance of every one, and his reign marks the era of Russia’s rise to greatness among the nations. Yet this man never rose to the conception of what must be a nation’s true glory. His ideas all ran in the line of material grandeur, and not in the direction of moral and mental progress. He was a born mechanic, and he built a nation. He thought to build a people just as he built the city that bears his name. His superstitious 300 nobles considered it wicked for him to go abroad, but he had heard of the arts of civilization, that made France and Holland and England glorious in the world, and he determined to see for himself what it was that made them so. He laid aside his imperial purple (if he ever had any), and travelled into distant lands. Sometimes he concealed his royal person in the garb of a common workman, and wrought in the shops with his own hands. I have seen many specimens of his handicraft that would do credit to any artisan who earned his bread by his industry and skill. He was a capital ship carpenter. Russia was in want of a navy. Peter learned how to build ships, and made a navy for Russia. In foreign countries he studied every thing, but learned nothing truly great in the art of government. Going into the courts of Westminster with a friend one day, in London, and seeing many men with wigs, he asked who they were.
“They are lawyers,” said his friend.
“Lawyers!” he exclaimed; “why, I have only two lawyers in my dominions, and I mean to hang one as soon as I return.”
In all that he saw in England and Holland, where he spent most of his time abroad, he never learned that mind makes nations great; that intelligence is the security of national progress and prosperity, and that the people, even under despotic governments, have the power to help themselves if their rulers will give them a chance. But he came back with the idea of making his empire greater by making it broader, and he took the sword as the instrument of success. He was partially successful. After a reign of half a century, he died and left his empire on the highway to civilization and glory. It is wonderful that Russia has made so little progress since his death in 1725. Yet no monarch ever reigned who descended to such minute details in legislating for his people. Inured to hardships himself, 301 and possessed with the idea that nothing was invincible which his will was set to overcome, he undertook to force his subjects into sudden and astounding reforms, from which they revolted. He could not make them see with his eyes, nor work with his hands. He made his clergy shave their faces, and the enemies of his innovations called him the antichrist. No man ever lived who impressed himself more indelibly upon a people than Peter the Great. His name is held in honor second only to the Divine. The relics of his handiwork are preserved with religious care. Every museum has some specimen of his genius and industry, and the lapse of a hundred and fifty years since these things were made by imperial fingers invests them with interest approaching reverential awe.
But the greatest of all his works, and one that is the most characteristic of the man, is the city of St. Petersburg itself. Why he selected such a site for it, it is impossible to say, unless its very unfitness and apparent impracticability developed that faculty for which he was so remarkable, and impelled him to undertake what to others was an impossibility. From the summit of a monument, or the dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the city seems to float in the waters. And this would not be a fatal objection to the site if it stood in such relations to the rest of the empire or the world as to make it important to fix it here. But it does not. Winter shuts it out from communication with the sea about half the time.
As we were walking on the most thronged of the thoroughfares in St. Petersburg, the Nevski Perspective, a well-dressed gentleman paused, and, turning toward a church which he was passing, took off his hat and offered a silent prayer. What at first appeared the eccentricity of a single individual, or excessive devotion, I soon perceived was the practice of many, and indeed a custom of the country. In passing a church, of course one passes an altar; 302 and it may be, and indeed is, out of sight, but the devout believer recognizes the fact by a token of reverence, slight perhaps, but nevertheless sincere. Women hurrying by with baskets of market stuff were often willing to put down their burdens before the cross and pass a moment in thoughts of their Saviour.
I went into the church, the Kazan Cathedral, with a colonnade in feeble imitation of St. Peter’s at Rome. The Greek religion is as nearly like the Romish as this church is like St. Peter’s: it is a copy after it , and a good ways after it, but still so near that it amounts to the same thing. They do not make unto themselves graven images, because that is forbidden by the second commandment; but they do make the likeness of things in heaven and earth, although that is forbidden, and they do bow down and worship these likenesses, or pay apparently the same honors to a picture of the Virgin that the Romanist does to a statue. The distinction is without a difference. But when I entered the cathedral, I saw a sight that never met my eye in Rome or any Roman Catholic city. In the middle of the day, and on a week-day too, respectably appearing, well-dressed gentlemen were standing or kneeling before the altar offering their devotions. Women were there numerously, and the poor, whose garb denoted their poverty; and these classes are largely represented in Romish churches everywhere; but the Greek religion had such hold upon the people of another set, as to excite remark. The same lavish expenditure upon the churches is to be seen here as in Italy and Spain, though the architecture is far from being so effective as that which prevails in Spain and Italy. This church was built sixty years ago, at an expense of three millions of dollars then. A colonnade inside in four rows extends from the centre pillars supporting the dome, which is 230 feet above the floor, and from the three great doors. These columns are fifty-six in number, each one a single 303 stone, thirty-five feet high, with bronze Corinthian capitals. In the midst of the main door the name of God is recorded with precious stones, and a miraculous painting of the Virgin blazes with gold and jewels of untold value. And in the midst of this temple of religion, sacred to the worship of the Prince of Peace, hung trophies of victories over France, Turkey, and Persia.
But this church is not the wonder of the city. You must go with us to the Isaac Cathedral, whose gilded dome has attracted our eye from every part of the city, and whose glittering cross above the crescent we have studied with an opera-glass, again and again, at a distance. Peter the Great built a church of wood just here, and Catharine another when the first was destroyed, but that gave way to this glorious pile, which was forty years in building, and was completed in 1858. It is far more imposing in its external appearance than St. Peter’s. Its proportions are perfect and stupendous. Like all other Greek churches, it is four square and in the form of the Greek cross. A grand entrance on each side is approached by a broad flight of red granite steps, vast blocks of stone from the quarries of Finland. Each flight of steps is surmounted by a peristyle, each pillar of which is sixty feet high, one solid, polished, red granite column! Above them, thirty pillars support the central cupola, and on the crown of this vast hovering cupola is a miniature of the temple below, a beautiful finish to the whole, on the summit of which stands the shining cross.
Within, the splendor is amazing. Think of columns of solid malachite fifty feet high! A bit of this stone is a gem to be set in gold for an ornament on a lady’s dress. But here it is in lofty pillars, and steps for altars, with lesser pillars of lapis lazuli standing near. The worship is in the form and manner of the Greek Church, and is strikingly Oriental, more so than that we see in the Church of Rome. 304 Men and women not merely bow and kneel and cross themselves, touching their fingers to their foreheads and breasts, but they prostrate themselves with their faces on the cold stone floor, and lie there as if dead. Women thus lying in a heap looked more like a bundle of rags or old clothes, than human beings worshipping the Almighty. Others brought candles and lighted them, to be burned before the images, that is, the pictures of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Child. Some of the people lighted the candles themselves, repeating a prayer; the verger lighted them for others, and presented them to the Virgin as he proceeded with the service.
One woman brought a napkin or some cloth embroidered, and gave it to the verger, who opened a golden door into the Virgin’s panel, and placing the offering in it, locked it again. This was as truly idolatrous as any worship you would see in Romish churches, and wherein it differs from offerings to idols in pagan temples I do not see.
A collection was now taken up, by assistants going around with bags, and gathering from the multitude standing before the altar. Every one seemed to put in something, and their alms and prayers went together.
Three priests were officiating. One went about swinging a censer with burning incense. A choir of men-singers stood near the altar and made the responses with great power and singular sweetness of tone. The sacristan came to us and offered to show us the sacred things in the temple, and when we objected that the service was in progress, and we did not wish to be sight-seeing at such a time, he assured us it was all right, and we need not stand upon ceremony. He led us to the holy places, and pointed out the sacred relics, which were useful to him in extracting a fee from the stranger, and that is the only miracle they are able to work. If they do this every day, and often enough every day, they will be held in honor as long as the temple stands.
305 In the course of our wanderings under the lead of the sacristan, we found ourselves behind the veil, or the hanging curtain which was opened for the priests to go out and in during the service. Fearful of intrusion, we were about to retire, when one of the priests came from his place, and invited us into the apartment where he was standing, and responding as his associate read the service. The inmost shrine, perhaps it may be called the Holy of Holies, is in a round temple, whose dome is held by eight pillars of solid malachite, and the walls and floors are of polished marbles of various colors. The steps by which we ascend to it are of polished porphyry.
The freedom with which a stranger was admitted “behind the scenes” in the midst of the service was surprising to me, and I had an opportunity not expected, of coming into contact with the priests and ministers of the Greek religion, while in their service. The priests are a very inferior order of men; very unlearned, of low extraction, and in their appearance and manners what you would expect after such a statement. They are obliged to be married once, and if the wife die, they are not allowed to marry a second time, but the widower continues to serve at the altar as before. It is said that the priests are very watchful of the health of their wives, on the principle that a good thing which cannot be replaced must be preserved with the greatest care. This is better than the celibacy of Romish priests, which is offensive to nature and good morals, a curse to the church and the world. You cannot be long in any country where the Romish priests abound without hearing of their bad morals, but the reputation of the priests in the Russo-Greek Church is better. In their religious services, the most effective part is the singing, and indeed the praying is intoning, which is a drawling kind of singing, now coming into use in the ritualistic churches, which are only feeble imitations of the Romish and Greek. Boys are employed 306 in the choirs, and for some parts of the service, the solos particularly, they get the deepest bass voices that can be hired, and sometimes they render the sublime passages with great effect. I have said the men, as well as the women, appear to be religious in Russia. And it struck me as very strange to see a fine-looking, full-grown man coming in at noonday into a church, bringing a little wax candle, walking up to a shrine over which is a picture of the Virgin, kneeling before it, bowing his head to the floor, crossing himself again and again, lighting his candle and sticking it into a hole prepared for the purpose, and once more prostrating himself to kiss the pavement, and then retire! This lighting of candles is an emblem of life, and is designed to keep the spiritual nature of man continually in view. The Russians have no religious ceremonies without this symbol of the Spirit. It is fast finding its way into the churches of England and America that copy after these Oriental customs, without apprehending their meaning.
Nothing in the mode of worship distinguishes the Greek from the Roman Catholic. I would not speak with confidence, but it appeared to me that the people were more deeply religious than they are in Roman Catholic countries. It is not, as with the people in Italy and Spain, and more especially in France, merely a matter of form to be gone through with, and that the end of it. In the Romish cathedrals, it was rare that I could get into sympathy with the worshippers so as to feel devotional in a service foreign from that with which I was familiar. For anywhere on earth where men are worshipping God in their way and we are present, from curiosity, or any other motive, I would desire also to be a worshipper, and offer among strangers the incense of a loving heart, touched with a sense of sin, and longing for divine favor. There is no danger of becoming an idolater by worshipping 307 the only living and true God in the midst of idolaters. The soul goes out to him who heareth prayer for those who are bowing down to stocks and stones. And he whom they ignorantly worship I would find in their temples, for the way to him is through the open door in the side of his crucified Son. But the Roman Catholics do not get so near to God as these Greek Christians do, for the former seem to be so much engrossed with saints and the mother of Jesus, that they lose the joy and blessedness of coming right to Christ, who is in the Father, and by whom they are saved.
The Russians keep Lent very rigidly, and are also careful to fast every Wednesday and Friday. They have four great fasts in the year: Lent, Peter’s fast, Conception fast, and St. Philip’s fast. The children are taught the catechism of the Greek Church. The Sabbath is not observed with any more regard to rest and worship than it is in France or Italy. They make long pilgrimages to monasteries and holy places. There are no pews or seats in the churches; all stand, the rich and poor, the emperor and empress, high and low alike on a level in the presence of God. When the Emperor was assailed in the park by an assassin, a few years ago, and escaped the blow aimed at his life, he rode directly to this Isaac Cathedral, and here in the midst of the thronging multitude, gave thanks for his deliverance from sudden death. The language of the church service is the Slavonic, and it is quite as unintelligible to the masses as the ora pro nobis and the rest of the Latin to the Roman Catholics in our country. The whole service is quite as imposing as the Romish, with processions and banners and sonorous responses. Religious services are often celebrated in private houses to cast out evil spirits; and always the fortieth day after a person’s death is observed in memory and improvement of the event. In 308 one corner of every room that you enter from the street is the image of the Virgin, and you are expected always to remove your hat on coming in; at first, it seems to be required as a token of respect to the persons in the house, but it is solely to honor the Virgin in the corner. The Russians are a very superstitious people, and they believe in houses haunted with good and evil spirits, especially the evil, and the constant presence of a pictured Mary is a protection; at least they think so.
A RAINY DAY IN A RUSSIAN CITY.
I HAD always supposed the Winter Palace of the Emperor was an edifice prepared with some special reference to the climate of this northern country. It is called the Winter Palace only because the Emperor has, as a matter of course, other palaces in the country in which to spend the summer. This is a vast structure on the very border of the river Neva, and in the midst of the city. It is built of brown stone, and makes some pretence to architectural elegance.
It, the palace, has five thousand inhabitants! I confess that those figures of speech seem to be very large, and it is a wonder how so many people can find employment in the service of one household. But the ways of royalty are not readily comprehended by mortals of common clay, and perhaps if we knew how many servants there are who have servants to wait upon them, how all these have families of their own, and these are all to be fed and lodged within these walls, we may begin to understand that one house may become a village, and quite populous also.
But if this number of dependents exceeds that of any other palace in Europe, as it probably does, it is safe to say that it is the most gorgeously decorated and furnished. Whatever extravagance the wit of man could devise to adorn a house has been lavished here, and the result is what might be expected,—a great display without that quiet elegance which distinguishes true from meretricious 311 art. The Russian is between the Eastern and Western. The Russian is not a barbarous people, nor yet thoroughly civilized. On the borders of the two, he delights in the barbaric splendor of the Orientals, and has not yet reached the point where simplicity imparts the highest charm to elegance and grandeur. This accounts for the architecture of Russian palaces and temples. More emphatically it shows itself in the immense amount of gold which overlays every thing they wish to adorn. Even the domes of their churches blaze in gold, so that each one looks like a rising sun.
The crown jewels of Russia are the chief object of interest in the Winter Palace, for it is dreadfully tiresome to be led over miles of polished floors to look through room upon room, in endless mazes lost, seeing the same things substantially everywhere, and hearing the same story over and over again about the kings and queens that slept here and died there; though, as it was built since 1840, there is little or no historic interest about it. But the crown jewels are worth seeing. One loves to look at a diamond worth a million, though he cannot use it for a button. The Orloff diamond is as famous as the Koh-i-noor, and was, perhaps, at one time part of the same stone. Its history is romantic. It was once the eye of an idol in a temple in India, and being plucked out and stolen by a soldier, it passed through many hands till Count Orloff bought it and gave it to the Empress of Russia. It cost the Count or the Empress about three hundred thousand dollars. It weighs 194 carats, being eight carats more than the Koh-i-noor weighed when it came from India. The Orloff is the largest of the crown jewels in Europe. The imperial crown itself is radiant with the most magnificent gems, forty or more in number, and the crown of the Empress contains the most beautiful mass of diamonds known to be set together; a hundred of them at least. Some of the richest are precious stones presented 312 to Russia by sovereigns in the East who would conciliate this mighty power. And what are they good for, when gathered into such a treasury? They are the playthings of royalty; baubles that delight the eye, pure carbon that is sold by the ton for a few dollars, but in the form of a diamond, it has a value scarcely to be reckoned, when they lie around in such heaps as we see them here.
The Hermitage is a palace near to the other, in which are the Russian galleries of art. If it was surprising to find in Madrid the most valuable collection of paintings in Europe, it was not less astonishing to find in Russia such magnificent pictures and so large a number of those that deserve admiration. For many years past the government has been spending large sums of money in the purchase of pictures. It has had and has its agents in Italy, and in every picture mart in Europe, ready to pay any price for “an old master.”
And it has shown its good sense in this, that when it cannot compass the original, it gets the best possible copy, and hangs it on its walls, with its story fairly told. This is the true way to cultivate the taste, and instruct the intellect of the nation in art. Catharine the Great built a pavilion on the end of the Winter Palace, to which she might retire from the cares of State, and here she drew around her the wits of the age. She called it the Hermitage, and that it might be a real refuge, into which royalty and its stiltedness could not intrude, she made a curious code of laws to govern the company that she here assembled.
The Hermitage is now the Royal Museum, and its grandeur and extent are unequalled. It is 515 feet long and 375 feet wide. The roof of this vast hall is supported by sixteen columns, each one a single block of granite from Finland, with Corinthian capitals of Carara marble. Successive stories on the same scale are filled with statues and pictures, and curious works of art, in which the genius and skill of all 313 schools and nations are represented. Even to mention them would take up more of your time than would be proper for me to consume, and I let them pass unnoticed. I was even more interested in Peter the Great’s gallery, where his turning-lathes and other tools that he used with his own hands are preserved; and what is even more remarkable, the instruments that he manufactured for himself, from a telescope to a walking-stick. His iron staff that he carried about with him would not be credited as genuine, were it not that a wooden rod tells of his gigantic stature, and thus makes it quite probable that he could walk with a rod of iron.
Art-culture in Russia has advanced to a far higher point than we would expect to find. The painting and sculpture of Russia in the Paris exhibition astonished the outside world, and the galleries in the Hermitage devoted to native art are marvellously illustrated with splendid achievements of the chisel and pencil.
In all countries I am more interested in studying the condition of the masses than the “upper classes.” In all countries the rich and the titled, the “well-to-do in the world,” can take care of themselves, and they are substantially the same kind of people in all civilized lands. The nobles of England, of France, of Germany, of Russia, have plenty to eat and to drink and they know wherewithal they are to be clothed, and when one is travelling in their country, he has no need to ask whether or not they are enjoying themselves after their own fashion, and have any need of human sympathy. But when we pass through a Russian town with a thousand huts in it, all about the same size, and not one aspiring to the dignity of a respectable American farm-house, and see vast tracts of land well tilled, but not a house nor a man in sight, then I wonder how the people live in these parts; what do they eat and drink, and do they have enough? Are they contented and happy, or do 314 they hunger and pine, and drag out a miserable sort of life of it, here in these far-away lands?
In the agricultural districts of Russia, not very far away from the chief cities, a laborer gets for a day’s work his food and about fifty copeks, or, of our money, about forty cents a day. A mechanic gets about one rouble, which is a hundred copeks, or about eighty cents of our money, for a day’s work, and he finds his own food. In the winter season beef is sold in St. Petersburg for ten or twelve cents a pound, and in summer it is as low as eight cents. This will enable you to compare the rate of wages with the price of food, and to see that there is not so great a difference in the cost, to the poor, of living in that country and ours, as might at first be supposed.
The rent of the hotel at which I am staying in St. Petersburg—and it is one of the largest in the kingdom—is about fifteen thousand dollars per annum, and that is about seven per cent on the valuation of the property.
The food of the peasantry is largely composed of cabbage soup, which is a great article among them, and they consume it day after day, year in and year out, and are always fond of it. This is one of the pleasantest compensations of Providence, that people may continue to be fond of a dish that they have to eat every day. Their bread is black, and they have some meat, for it is not costly, and on the whole they are comfortably fed. So they are decently clothed. Their dress has the appearance of warmth and comfort, too much for the hot weather that is now raging; but they have so much cold and so little heat, that they do not care to make a change for the brief summer. A poor peasant swelters in a jacket of sheepskin with the wool on it, or wears a fur collar if he can afford it, and sticks to it under a blazing hot sun, as well as in midwinter.
STREET SCENE IN A RUSSIAN CITY.
A peculiar custom is observed in Russia that I never 315 noticed elsewhere. You are expected always to take off your overcoat on entering the house to make a call, of business or pleasure. Even when you call at the bank, to draw or deposit your money, a liveried servant in the hall conducts you to an anteroom, where you lay aside your overcoat and hat, and then enter the business-room as if you were to be presented to the lady of the mansion. My bankers here are Wynken & Co., at the end of the iron bridge over the Neva, and, upon entering, I was shown to a seat, and my letter of credit taken by a clerk to one of the firm, who immediately came out from his office, and after a few complimentary inquiries, asked me what he could do for me, and in a few minutes the business was done.
A despot is the Emperor of Russia. We have come to associate only a bad meaning with the word despot . It had not such a sense as we liberty worshippers give it. Now it means a tyrant, a hard master, one who has unlimited power and uses it to oppress. Despotes is the Greek word for master in the New Testament, and sometimes the Lord himself is spoken of and addressed under this name. The apostle Paul says: “Let as many servants as are under the yoke, count their own despots worthy of all honor.” And again: “they that have believing despots ;” and again, he commands servants to be obedient unto their own despots . So Peter tells them to be subject to their own despots . And good old Simeon cries; “ Despotes , now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” And Peter speaks of those who deny the despotes that bought them; and in Rev. vi. 10, we read: “Plow long, O despotes , holy and true,” &c. These quotations show us the good sense in which the word was once used; and now, when we speak of a despotic government, we do not understand that it is necessarily an oppressive government, but one in which the power is concentrated in the hands of one man, who can use it at his pleasure, unrestrained by constitution or legislature.
317 Justice is administered under laws the issue of the sovereign will, and liable to be repealed at his pleasure. Trial by jury is of recent introduction, and may be considered as an experiment. In the court-room I inquired of an intelligent gentleman how it was working. He said, quite well; and then related the following incident to show how the royal will comes in, even to the smallest affairs of private citizens: An officer under the government promised to give a certain place of profit to a man, who was soon surprised to find that it was given to another. Such mishaps are not unusual in milder governments, I believe. But the disappointed office-seeker sought the man who had promised it to him, and slapped his face in open court, charging him with a breach of faith. He was arraigned and tried by jury for the assault and battery, and the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty, or more accurately,—“Served him right.” The verdict was received with great applause. The Emperor gave the office-seeker and the office-holder also, the striker and the struck, appointments in distant parts of the empire, where neither of them wanted to go or to stay, and thus he punished them both: one for breaking his word, and the other for breaking the peace. There is a vein of humor in such administration of justice.
“The bookkeeper of a mercantile house in Thorn was arrested in the Russian town of Rieszawa, by the burgomaster of that place, on a perfectly unfounded charge of an intention to smuggle. Although the bookkeeper succeeded in establishing his respectability, he was thrown into a dirty prison cell, and kept there twenty-four hours. His principal, of course, complained of this most unjustifiable treatment, and has lately received an official communication that the burgomaster has also been imprisoned twenty-four hours, and in the same prison in which he had shut up the unhappy bookkeeper.”
M. Andreoli, a Russian writer, who was exiled some years ago to Siberia, is now contributing to the Revue 318 Moderne , under the title of “Souvenirs de Sibérie,” his recollections not only of Siberian but also of Russian life. In the last number of the Revue he tells a story, the end of which belongs to the present reign, the beginning to the reign of Paul, of whose period it is strikingly characteristic. The Emperor’s favorite was at that time a young French actress, of whom he was madly jealous. One evening, at a ball, he noticed that a young man named Labanoff was paying her a great deal of attention. He did not lose his temper, but at the end of the ball gave orders that Labanoff should be arrested and thrown into the citadel. He only intended to keep him there a few days, “to make him more serious,” after which he proposed to reprimand him and to appoint him to an office which had been solicited for him. Labanoff, however, was forgotten. At the death of Nicholas, Alexander II., then full of magnanimity, liberated all the prisoners in the citadel, without exception. In a vaulted tomb, in which it was impossible to stand upright, and which was not more than two yards long, an old man was found, almost bent double, and incapable of answering when he was spoken to. This was Labanoff. The Emperor Paul had been succeeded by the Emperor Alexander I., and afterwards by the Emperor Nicholas; he had been in the dungeon more than fifty years. When he was taken out he could not bear the light, and, by a strange phenomenon, his movements had become automatic. He could hardly hold himself up, and he had become so accustomed to move about within the limits of his narrow cell that he could not take more than two steps forwards without turning round, as though he had struck against a wall, and taking two steps backwards, and so on alternately. He lived for only a week after his liberation.
We often read such facts as these, and they are sad and awful illustrations of what unlimited power may be left to do. Recently there have been horrible stories of cruelties inflicted by the agents of the Russian government, but 319 they are not worse than have sometimes been perpetrated in the name of liberty and justice in other and more enlightened countries.
Look on the map of Asia and see that vast country of Siberia , a part of the colossal empire of Russia. The tales that are told of the exiles of Siberia have formed a large part of the sensational literature of other days. In that lone, distant, cold, inhospitable clime, is the region where for many long years this government has sent its prisoners of state, and many others who have incurred the despotic displeasure. Banished for life is to all intents and purposes death. The wife of the exile, if not allowed to go with him and share his sorrows in a wretched land, is free to be married again. His property goes to his heirs as if he were dead. He has not even his own name in Siberia, but is known by the number that he receives when he enters upon his new estate.
It is terrible to think that one imperfect man holds in his own hand such power. The mere possession of it tempts to evil. And limit it as we may, divide it among many, apply checks and balances, there will yet be abuses under all systems of human government. Even our own boasted democratic republican form has its defects. We have made ignorance and vice too mighty in our popular elections, and have come to know that no despot is more irresponsible than the many-headed monster of a corrupt and unthinking multitude.
Taking a boat on the Neva and being rowed across to the Academy of Science, we made an interesting visit to the Zoological Museum, which has some things of interest far beyond that of any other museum in the world. Here we have something more than fossils, we have the veritable meat of the mammoth and mastodon and elephant, and perhaps they may all belong to one and the same animal. But the Siberian rivers have furnished ice-tombs in which these beasts have been buried for centuries, and when they 320 are brought to light by the change in the course of the streams, or by accidental discovery, they are certainly the most interesting of all the remains of extinct races. The great mammoth in this museum was found in 1799, on the banks of the river Lena in Siberia, and the flesh was so fresh upon it that the beasts and birds of prey were ready to devour it as soon as it was exposed.
The chief interest in this Russian collection lies in the actual skin and hair and flesh of these animals so remarkably preserved. Here is a rhinoceros, but of a species now extinct, with its head almost entirely covered with the original skin, and its feet also, the fine hair being still visible. The seals and otters, sharks and sea-horses, sword-fish and alligators, lions, tigers, bears, elks, and mooses; birds of countless kinds,—make up an assortment wonderful in its extent and variety, and the more interesting as the pursuit of science has led to the gathering of splendid specimens from the tropical regions, to be contrasted with the aboriginal growth of these Arctic climes.
It was the edge of evening as we returned from this expedition, and the declining sun was flooding the river and the eastern shore with golden glory. We were tired; the evening was cool and refreshing; the scene was beautiful, indeed exciting, as other boats and barges and steamers swept by us and ships and schooners swung listlessly in the stream.
The Winter Palace and the Hermitage, the Alexander Column, the Admiralty Buildings, and other splendid edifices were on the western bank, the fortress and arsenal and academy on the east, and the domes of the Isaac and Kazan Cathedrals hung like suns in the sky. We seemed to be far away from home, and lost in an enchanted sea. We rowed along under the stern of a vessel and read her name, “Favorite, Arbroath;” it sounded Scotchy, and hailing a sailor leaning over the ship’s side, I asked him, “where’s Arbroath?”
“Aboot twelve miles from Dundee,” he said.
321 “And what brings you here?”
“The ship,” he answered, and then added that the cargo was fire-brick, made in England, and brought here for the Russians, who make great use of it in their stoves. He did not like the Russians, he said, and hoped he should never have to come there again.
Our boatman landed us on the western shore, and as we walked up and down the river enjoying the evening breeze, he soon passed us with another company in his boat, and taking off his cap saluted us as old customers with a grace that would do credit to a Paris waterman.
It was half-past nine o’clock when we saw the last rays of the sun on the spire of the arsenal church, and we then went home. It is now eleven o’clock at night, and I am writing by the light from the window opening into a court. It would be easy to write all night without a candle.
A Russian Porter.
MY roughest railroad ride in Europe was from St. Petersburg to Moscow. It did not improve the road to be told, as I was, that it was built by American engineers; but it did jolt me so naturally that I felt at home as soon as we were under way. And there was a slight infusion of a familiar morality in the excuse made for the present condition of the road, that the managers of it under the government were seeking to buy it, and were letting it run down that they might get it at a lower figure!
A great throng of friends were at the station to take leave of the passengers about to set off for Moscow. It is a ride of about twenty hours; hardly a journey to call for as much leave-taking as with us demands a voyage over sea. The journey of four hundred miles includes the whole night and part of two days, and only one train a day, with no good place to stop for the night, so that we are literally shut up to the necessity of going through at once. The arrangements for sleeping are of the rudest kind. Into the cars the passengers brought pillows and blankets, preparing to make themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit. The fare through was $15, and my little trunk of less than fifty pounds weight was $1.50 extra. As soon as we were off, a man decorated with three medals entered with an armful of newspapers for sale, and as many bought them and read them as in a car going out of New York or Boston. It was a good sign. Small thanks are due to the 323 government from the press, however. It is subjected to the strictest censorship. No foreign papers are allowed to come into the country, unless they are subscribed for by permission, and then they are interdicted if any thing dangerous to the existing order of things is in them. Nothing unfriendly to good morals is allowed to be printed, and an excellent regulation requires the examination and approval of all plays before they can be put upon the stage. These barbarians of the north will not have the luxury of the “dirty drama” which is so fascinating to the highly cultivated Parisians and New Yorkers.
A lady and gentleman entered the car as we were just starting, and could not get a double seat; it was a long car like our own, with seats on each side of the passage. They could find separate seats, but they were to ride all night, and of course desired to sit side by side. They sought to make exchanges, but in vain. Seeing their distress, my son and I agreed to separate and surrender our places to them. Their gratitude was equal to their surprise. “We were French, they were sure.” Not at all. “Ah no, we were English.” By no means. “And pray, would we tell them of what nation?” Americans : and they were nearly overcome with pleasure, and poured out their grateful acknowledgments.
At Lubanskaia we stopped to dine, and you will be more amused by reading the names of some of the places we touched in passing, than by the names of the dishes we had for dinner. Thus we passed through Kolpinskaia, Sablinskaia, Ouschkinskaia, Babinskaia, Tehondoskaia, Volkhooskaia, Guadskaia, Mainvisheskaia, Bourgurnskaia, Borooenskaia, Okouloviskaia, Zarebchenkeskaia, Kaloschkooskaia, Ostaschkooskaia, Reschchilkooskaia, Paadsulnelchookaia; but I am getting a headache in copying them out of the time-table, and will spare you. Wales is nothing to Russia for hard names.
324 The station-houses are well built, and refreshment rooms well supplied; so that you get comfortable meals on the route.
At Tver we crossed the Volga, and here we had the first sight of that famous river. It is at this point downward navigable for steamers, and we might step on board of one and steam away two thousand miles to Astrachan! Tver is a place of remarkable historical interest, which lingers around the cathedral and the monastery in which a bishop was murdered by order of John the Terrible, though his death was reported as occasioned by the fumes of a stove.
As night drew on we learned that one car in the long train was fitted up for sleeping, and we were glad to pay a couple of roubles apiece for the chance of a horizontal nap. Toward midnight the process of reconstruction commenced. The long car is divided into four compartments, each eight feet square; across each side is swung a shelf, the seats below are converted into berths, and two more are made up on the floor; a pillow of homœopathic proportions is assigned to each passenger, and unless a man is afraid it will get into his ear he takes it. By a ladder of seven steps I ascended to the topmost perch, and there sought to rest. Alas! the search was vain. My refuge in sleeplessness is to old-time hymns, and Watts often composes me to slumber as his cradle lullaby did when the best of mothers sang it in my infancy. But now the only lines that haunted me were these, and perfectly descriptive of my present experience,—
For half a dozen Russians sat together in this little chamber; all smoking, all laughing, all talking, and in that jargon of a language worse to hear than any other that ever 325 crashed upon my auricular nerves. There was no railroad law to be invoked to stop them. We were two, they were six. They wanted to smoke and talk all night; we were invalids, fighting for a wink of sleep. As the night wore on, they grew more earnest. At frequent stops by the way they rushed out and returned fortified with strong drink; the smoke, the breaths, the smells, the talk became intolerable. I put my woe-begone visage over the edge of the shelf, and arresting their attention by a groan, asked if any of them spoke the French language? A military officer in uniform rose and said he did. Then in tearful accents I said, “You behold two American travellers who have paid for these luxurious couches to get a little rest in their weary travels. If you gentlemen are to keep up this discourse, sleep is as impossible as if we were under the tortures of the Inquisition; is it too much to hope that you will soon suffer this discourse of yours to come to an end for the night, to be renewed at some future day.” Before my speech was finished he had begun to laugh, and assuring me of his regret that we had been disturbed, he represented to his friends the wishes of two Amerikaners , and they soon turned in.
In the morning, looking down from the shelf, I counted thirty-two stumps of cigars lying on the floor, in one quarter, and at least a hundred must have been consumed in that one compartment.
At half-past seven we stopped for coffee. A forlorn-looking set of men and women crept out for fresh air and refreshment. They had been badly stayed with, all of them. But the longest night has its morning, and so had this. The coffee was good; we paid five times as much for it as it was worth, even there, but we were comforted with the beverage. At one end of the car was a wash-bowl and water, and over it a notice: “Towel, 5 copakes; soap, 15 copakes,”—so for about 20 cents you could have the use of everybody’s towel and soap!
326 The face of the country improves as we get on. More trees, more hills, more culture, and signs of thrift on every hand.
Into the car came a venerable ecclesiastic of the Greek type. A heavy gold cross was suspended from his neck and hung on his broad breast; and his gray hair rested in curls on his shoulders. The scarlet and gold on his robes attracted the eye of the stranger, but he seemed to challenge no special attention from the people with whom he came in contact. We called him the Patriarch Nicon at once, for he came in upon us as at Krukova, which is the station where we would stop, if we had time to make a visit at the Monastery of New Jerusalem, or Voskresenski, which, being interpreted, meaneth Resurrection. This monastery was founded in 1657 by the Patriarch Nicon, whose story is told by Dean Stanley in his lectures on the Greek Church, and condensed into the travel books in the hands of wanderers in these wilds.
At this village of the Resurrection, Nicon, a patriarch of the Greek Church, was wont to stop in his journeys through the country, and in 1655 he built a church here, and the Czar of all the Russias did him the honor to come to its consecration and name it the New Jerusalem. Nicon obtained a model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at old Jerusalem, and he made one like it here. He found hills and vales and brooks like those in the Holy Land, and gave them names to correspond, which they bear to this day, though two hundred years have since gone by. The river Istra became Jordan, and he made a little one for Kedron, and called a village at a distance Nazareth, and one nearer by was Bethany; and with these sacred associations he gathered around him the odor of sanctity, and with it came dreams of power and glory, such as priests are apt to have when they leave the service of God and substitute their own imaginings for the teachings of his word. The 327 Czar saw what he was at, and soon let him down from his Jerusalem. The Patriarch began to claim civil as well as sacerdotal power. Just as the Bishop of Rome became a king as well as priest, so Nicon would sway a sceptre as well as a shepherd’s crook. He put stringent laws upon his inferior clergy, and they became restive under his authority. He rode into town on an ass in profane imitation of Christ, and the people could not see the sense of being compelled to cast their garments in the way of him who was so unlike the meek and lowly Jesus whom they would have loved to honor. His tyranny drove them to revolt, and many sects sprang up which even now continue to maintain their existence in the empire and in a certain hostility to the regular Greek Church of the empire. Nicon grew more and more despotic, as his enemies grew formidable in numbers and power. He seized in the houses of the nobles, wherever he could find them, all pictures not painted in the style that pleased his royal will. In all his dealings with them he claimed the authority of the sovereign. He was fast becoming the pope of the north. At last the Emperor, no longer willing to acknowledge the lordly assumptions of this proud subject, refused to honor his festivals with the royal presence, or to recognize the Patriarch as spiritual father. Nicon was enraged at this slight, and thinking to humble the Czar, threw off his robes of office, resigned his crozier, and retired to his monastery at Resurrection. The sepulchre would have been a more fitting place for retirement. Hither he supposed the Czar would hasten, and with apologies, penitence, and tears beseech him to return and resume his reign. He reckoned without his host. The Czar could make and unmake such ecclesiastics, and he put another man in his place, and left poor Nicon to chew the cud of regret in his ignominious solitude. He stood it six years, and then sent word to the Czar that, after 328 long fasting and prayer, he had been honored with a vision of the prophet Jonah, in a dream, who had told him it was his duty to resume his seat on the patriarchal throne of Moscow. But the Czar could not see it. Jonah said nothing to him about it, and he had an idea that unhappy Nicon might, indeed, have had a great many dreams of the same kind, but that Jonah was not the man to make patriarchs for him. He called a council of Eastern patriarchs, presided in the midst of it himself, and this council came very naturally to the decision that Nicon should be degraded and banished to a monastery in Novgorod. The next Czar who came to the throne pardoned Nicon, who soon after died.
Such was the sad career of a great genius, whose brief reign was signalized by the aggrandizement of the Russian Church, for he magnified five patriarchates,—Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Moscow. And now his remains are lying in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which he built, in the chapel of Melchisedek, at the foot of the Golgotha, and over his tomb hang the heavy chains which, to mortify his body, he wore around his person, while he put heavier chains on the souls of those whom he reduced beneath his ghostly power.
I think there is a lesson in the life and death of such a man, and that we may read in it the workings of human ambition and pride, even under the garments of holy offices; we see the conflict between church and state, whenever they are allied, and the doom that awaits the men who pervert the institutions of religion to their own glory and the oppression of others.
We are now approaching Moscow. Two thousand miles by rail we have come. The whole region over which we are now passing seems to be one dead level of lowly toiling, dreary living, without one sign of such enterprising 329 life and energy as we would find in France or England, not to speak of that young world in the West, to which freedom seems to have taken her flight.
The train is moving slowly into town. We have come to Moscow. We are at the gates of the Kremlin!
M. BILLOT is a Swiss landlord, who keeps a good hotel in Moscow. He has a charming wife and family around him, a well-trained corps of servants, and makes his house a home for American and English guests. It is something for a weary traveller to find a home when he gets to Moscow.
I have but one fault to find with Moscow’s bed and board. Mind, it is not a complaint against mine host, M. Billot. It is the fault of the city, that it is full of fleas. We charged upon them with a flea powder, the second night of our sojourn there, but the powder about M. Billot’s pillows was as troublesome as the fleas.
We had heard of this house and landlord; for the Swiss go into all the countries of Europe, and some others, to keep the hotels. We found a connected line of them all through Spain, and in Italy, and they commend travellers to each other, as old neighbors ought to do. So, when we arrived at Moscow, we gave our baggage to M. Billot’s man, he put us into a carriage, and away we were whirled over the roughest roads that we had ever endured in a city. Moscow seemed to be too small for its people, as the people appeared to be too sparse for St. Petersburg. The streets were thronged with people in the pursuit of business, and their market-places presented the liveliest scenes imaginable.
THE KREMLIN.
Frequent churches and shrines arrest us as we pass, for every Christian crosses himself before each of them; even 331 the coachman in front of us drops his whip from his right hand, and makes the sacred sign on his breast, as he drives by the holy place. Some stand before it and humbly bow themselves at a great distance from the altar.
Our way was winding, through streets that had no aim apparently, for after the city committed suicide in 1813, on the coming of Napoleon, it was rebuilt in haste, without plan or purpose, but to get shelter for living and trade. But the city was spread out to a greater extent, and gradually houses of more architectural taste arose, with gardens about them, even in town. Here and there rises a splendid palace in the midst of the white cottages of humble neighbors, and the three hundred and seventy churches are interspersed, with their green or gilded cupolas and shining stars. We pass long rows of uniformly painted houses that belong to some public institution, and then we break in upon a wide square where the people seem to be gathered for some special purpose, and out of this square the streets extend on every side. Then we come to the high banks of the river Moskva, which flows through the midst of the city, and on either side of it are splendid edifices crowning the hills that rise from its side. The map of the city makes it appear circular. The circumvallation is twenty miles in extent, and within this are two concentric lines of fortification, rendered necessary perhaps for defence, as this remarkable city is the outpost of civilization on the borders of barbarism.
I never had a very definite idea of the Kremlin of Moscow. It has been mentioned in books about Russia as a part of the city that every one must understand. The Acropolis of Athens and of Corinth, and the Capitoline Hill of Rome, enclosed with a wall to shut them off from the rest of the city, a refuge for the people in time of peril, 333 the site for the most sacred temples and the most gorgeous palace for the sovereign, would be the Kremlin of Athens, or Corinth, or Rome. As far back as in 1340, walls of oak enclosed these heights. A few years afterwards, to resist the Tartars, the wooden walls gave place to stone, but treason gave the fierce barbarian hordes possession of the citadel, and the walls were destroyed. They were built again and again, but in 1485, when it was needful to protect the Kremlin against the attack of artillery, the walls were rebuilt on a scale never before attempted. The solid and lofty stone walls now enclose an area of about a mile and a half in circumference. Five massive gates admit the flow of life to the temples of religion and of justice within this enclosure. The chief entrance is called the “Redeemer” Gate. The passage through the wall by this gate is like going through a railroad tunnel. It is a holy hole, for over it is a picture of the Redeemer of Smolensk, and no one may pass under it without taking off his hat. Formerly, whoever was so hasty or forgetful as to neglect this mark of respect, was punished by being compelled to prostrate himself fifty times before the insulted picture. The Emperor of all the Russias never fails to uncover his head as he enters this gate. Hundreds were going in as I approached: on foot, in droskies, in carriages, but all were mindful of the place, and entered as if they were going into a holy place. Between the Nicholas and Trinity Gates are the arsenal and great cannons, some of them monster guns, quite antiquated by modern progress, but formidable in their proper place; and the long rows that are marked as left behind by the French in their retreat, tell a grim tale of the madness and folly of that disastrous campaign. Through this very Gate Nicholas, the French troops under Napoleon entered the Kremlin. Short as the stay of the Emperor was in the city, it was long enough for him to attempt to blow up the tower over this gate; but a miracle, 334 as the superstitious Russians believe, was wrought to preserve it; for over the gate is a picture of St. Nicholas, “the comfort of suffering humanity,” and when the explosion took place which was to blow this massive structure into ruins, it made a rent indeed, extending upward to the frame of the picture, and there it suddenly stopped, not cracking the glass over the picture, nor the glass lamp hanging before it! And Alexander I. caused an inscription to be put up in memory of the miracle.
We ascend the hill and stand upon a wide paved plateau, or esplanade, with a scene immediately around, before, and below us, of interest, grandeur, beauty, and novelty. A cloudless sky and a blazing sun are over us. All the buildings are dazzling in whiteness, and the domes of thirty-two churches within the Kremlin, and hundreds below and around, are blazing at noon-tide in their gold and green. Each one of three hundred and seventy churches has several domes, and besides them there are theatres and palaces, and convents and other public buildings, roofs painted green, sides white, and gilt overlaying domes, turrets, and spires. Gardens filled with trees, among the dwellings, as in more Oriental cities, and the river circling its way into and out of the town, give us some idea of what Babylon or Nineveh might have been in their vast enclosure and picturesque rural attractions within their massive walls.
In the midst of the Kremlin, and above every other structure in Moscow, rises toward the sky the white, solid, simple Tower of Ivan ; majestic in its simplicity and height, as if it were the axis about which this fairy world of Moscow was revolving, it stands sublimely there, with a bell of 444,000 pounds at its foot, and another of 130,000 swinging in its crown.
PLAN OF THE CENTRE OF MOSKVA CITY.
Scale of Feet.
At the foot of the Ivan Tower, supported by a pedestal of stone, is the largest bell in the world, and probably the 335 largest that ever was in the world. A piece is broken out of its side, and the fragment is lying near. The breadth of the bell is so great,—it is twenty feet across,—that the cavity underneath has been used as a chapel, where as many people can stand as in a circle sixty feet around.
In Russia, the bell is an instrument of music for the worship of God as truly and really as the organ in any other country! This fact is not mentioned in the accounts we have of the wonderful, enormous, and almost incredibly heavy bells that have been cast in Moscow. But it is the key to what would otherwise be difficult to explain. It appears absurd to cast bells so large as to be next to impossible for convenient use; in danger always of falling and dragging others to ruin in their fall. But when the bell is a medium of communication with the Infinite, and the worship of a people and an empire finds expression in its majestic tones, it ceases to be a wonder that it should have a tongue which requires twenty-four men to move, and whose music should send a thrill of praise into every house in the city, and float away beyond the river into the plains afar.
Moscow is the holy city of the Greek Church. Pilgrims come hither from thousands of miles off, and on foot, and sometimes without shoes. I have seen them with staves in their hand, and their travel-worn feet wound up in cloths, wending their way to the sacred hill. And when they draw nigh unto the city, and on the evening air the music of these holy bells is first borne to their ears, they fall upon their faces, prostrate, and worship God. If they could go no further, they would be content to die there, for they have heard the bells of Moscow, and on their majestic tones their souls have been taken up to heaven. This is the sentiment of the superstitious peasant, and it is a beautiful sentiment, ideal indeed, but all the more delicate and exalted.
337 As long as five hundred years ago, this casting of bells was an art in Russia. It is one of the fine arts now. Perhaps our great bell-founders will not admit that the founders there have any more skill in their manufacture than we have, and I am not sure that their bells have any tones more exquisite than ours would have if we would put as much silver and gold into our bell-metal as they do. But so long as those precious metals are at the present premium, little or none of them will find its way into our church bells. We have not the idea of the Russian as to the use of a bell. We use it to call the people to the house of worship. They use the bell for worship. Our bells speak to us. Their bells praise God. They cast their silver and their gold into the molten mass, and it becomes an offering, as on an altar, to him who is worshipped with every silvery note and golden tone of the holy bell.
This one great bell is the growth of centuries. In 1553 it was cast, and weighed only 36,000 pounds. It fell in a fire, and was recast in 1654, being increased to the astonishing weight of 288,000 pounds. This was too vast a weight to be taken up to the top of the tower, and it was sustained by a frame at the foot of it. In 1706, it fell in another fire and was broken into fragments, which lay there on the ground about thirty years. It was recast in 1733; four years afterwards a piece was knocked out of the side of it, and it has been standing here on the ground more than a century. It weighs 444,000 pounds! In the thickest part it is two feet through. It has relief pictures on it of the Emperor and Empress, of the Saviour and the Virgin Mary, and the evangelists.
Ascending the Ivan Tower, we find on three successive stories bells to the number of thirty-four. Some of these are of a size to fill one with astonishment had he not seen the giant below. The largest is on the first story above the chapel, and weighs more than sixty tons. It swings 338 freely and is easily rung. I smote it with the palm of my hand, supposing that such a blow could not produce the slightest vibration in such a mighty mass of iron, but it rung out as clear and startling as if a spirit within had responded to my knock without. Two bells are of solid silver, and their tones are exquisitely soft, liquid, and pure. It was exciting to go from one to another and strike them with their tongues, or with your hand, and catch the variety and richness of their several melodies.
The chapel below is dedicated to the patron saint of all ladies about to be married, and it may be readily believed that the bell that gives expression to their prayers will have, at least to their ears, the sweetest tone of all the bells in Moscow.
I came down from the Kremlin to my lodgings at Billot’s, and, wearied with the wanderings of the day, have been lying on the bed and looking out on the city. It is just before sunset, and the day has been oppressively warm. A delicious glow from the gorgeous west is bathing all the domes and roofs with splendid colors, and silence is stealing in with the setting sun upon the crowded town. It is the eve of one of their most holy festivals of the church. One vast church edifice is directly in view of my window and but a short way off. As I lie musing, from this church comes the softest, sweetest tone of an evening bell. Another tone responds. A third is heard. The Ivan Tower on the height of the Kremlin utters his tremendous voice, like the voice of many waters. And all the churches and towers over the whole city, four hundred bells and more, in concert, in harmony, “with notes almost divine,” lift up their voices in an anthem of praise, such as I never thought to hear with mortal ears: waves of melody, an ocean of music, deep, rolling, heaving, changing, swelling, sinking, rising, overwhelming, exalting. I had heard the great organs of Europe, but they were tame and trifling compared 339 with this. The anthem of Nature at Niagara is one great monotone. The music of Moscow’s bells is above and beyond them all. It is the voice of the people. It utters the emotions of millions of loving, beating, longing hearts, not enlightened, perhaps, like yours, but all crying out to the great Father, in these solemn and inspiring tones, as if these tongues had voices to cry: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.”
WE were alone in the holiest of all the holy places in the empire of Russia: a church and a sepulchre; the place where the emperors crown themselves and the primates of the church are lying in their grave-clothes all around; the grandest of all earthly grandeur, and the solemn evidences of the mightier power of King Death staring at the pageant in mockery of all that man is and does.
We were alone in the Cathedral of the Assumption; four gigantic gilded and pictured columns in the midst of it support five great domes; and on the sides are arranged the huge sarcophagi in which repose the bones of old patriarchs whose names are part of the history of the church, and whose relics are thus kept near at hand impressing the worshipper with something of awe, as one will feel it in the presence of the dead. There was no attendant in the church when we entered, and the deep silence reigning seemed befitting the place. We were silent, for the grandeur of the scene, the historic associations with the place, the evidences around us that this spot is holy in the eyes and hearts of the millions of this vast empire, made us solemn. Before us is the Iconastasis, or screen for sacred pictures, and behind this screen are the pictures of the patriarchs and fathers of the church. No woman may enter this holy place. It is very plain that the woman’s rights ideas of equality have not penetrated this veil. Here, too, are views of the final judgment scene, and of the life and death of the Virgin 341 Mary. These sacred pictures surround the sanctuary , the holy of holies, before it is the principal altar, and behind it the throne of the Archbishop of Moscow. In the centre of the church, with the four great pillars at each corner, is the coronation platform, on which takes place the most august ceremony known to the Greek Church or the Russian people. We cannot enter fully into the sentiment of awe that possesses the minds of a half-civilized race, who receive their sovereign with a mingled conception of the divine and human in his person. He seeks to perpetuate this reverential sentiment. He secludes himself from the world before he comes to take the imperial crown; he mortifies himself by fasting and prayer; and when the appointed day arrives for his investiture with the high office to which God has called him, there is none in all his realm that is high and holy enough to put on him the emblem of the power he is to take. This cathedral is thronged with the highest dignitaries of church and state, and the representatives of other empires, eastern and western, with the richest display of all that can illustrate the glory of this scene. They surround this empty platform, and gaze upon it with fixed expectancy. A solitary man enters and ascends alone; he speaks, but it is to repeat the words in which is expressed his faith in the doctrines of the church; he kneels to pray for his empire; he takes his own golden crown, and with his own unaided hands he places it upon his head; he descends, and entering the holiest sanctuary takes the bread and wine from the altar, and thus alone with God, whom alone he confesses to be his superior, he consecrates himself to the throne of Russia. Thus from Ivan the Terrible, all the way down to the Alexander who was shot at in Paris during the exhibition, have the Czars been self-crowned on this sacred spot.
THE RUSSO-GREEK SERVICE.
In a side chapel near the altar lies Peter, the first metropolitan of Moscow, with a nail of the Saviour’s cross and a 342 part of his seamless robe. On the right is the coffin of Philip, who had the courage to rebuke the Terrible Ivan, a terribly brutal ruler, murdering his nobles without mercy, and when Philip became too troublesome he murdered him. Now the dead prelate lies here with one of his skeleton hands exposed to view on his breast, and it is part of the Emperor’s service, when he approaches this tomb, to kiss the holy bone, that is left convenient for the purpose.
Very like this cathedral is that of the Archangel Michael close by; and here lie the coffins and relics of the early rulers of the Runic and Romanoff dynasties, all the way down to Peter the Great. The tomb of Demetrius, son of Ivan the Terrible, is the most sacred of all; he disappeared mysteriously, and the country was plunged into a long and bloody civil war; and, finally, his murdered body and coffin were brought to view by a miracle, and the forehead of the dead prince being exposed, or a hole about an inch in diameter being cut through the coffin and the forehead raised up to it, or what is just as good, a bone being put across the hole, the people approach with reverence and press their lips upon this holy and disgusting skull.
Our meditations among the tombs were disturbed by the entrance of visitors, many of them natives of the country, whose reverence in the midst of so much that to them was specially sacred, we could not fail to respect. I cannot kiss a bone with any enthusiasm; but there is no accounting for the tastes of people; and disgusting as is the idolatry of the Greek Church to me, I know that many English and American Christians wish to have that church united to theirs. I would like to see it reformed first.
There are no restrictions on religious worship in Russia! On one street in the capital of Russia, where the Emperor himself resides, and the Greek Church reigns in all its glory, there are six churches of as many different religious persuasions, all protected by the law.
344 The English have a church of their own in Moscow, and a rectory, for there are a large number of English-speaking people in these cities, not only men in trade, but tutors and governesses who are induced to come to Russia from England to teach the children and youth the English language. It is quite as great an accomplishment to speak English, as with us it is to speak French. And such is the extension of business westward, it is quite important that one who is in commercial pursuits of any kind should understand a language which more rapidly than any other is spreading over the world. We meet more Russians speaking our own tongue than of almost any other people.
During the Crimean war complaint was made to the Emperor that the English chaplain in Moscow offered prayers every Sunday that Queen Victoria might be victorious over all her enemies, and the Emperor replied that the chaplain might pray for the Queen or anybody else.
In the city of Moscow there are three hundred and seventy churches of the Greek faith, two Roman Catholic, and four Protestant; of these four, two are for those who worship in the German language, one French, and one English.
On the Sabbath I attended the Greek service in the St. Basil Cathedral. The crowd was so vast that multitudes were unable to get within the doors. A narrow door at the side yielded to the touch, and the sacristan received us as strangers and conducted us into the holy place where the priests were performing service. A choir of five—two old men, two young men, and a boy—made the responses and sang parts of the service with an energy and power that was exciting and astonishing as we stood by them and saw the effort they made to give effect to their utterances. The devotion of the crowded auditory was affecting. If one may judge of emotion by what he sees of people worshipping in a strange language, he must believe that these 345 are truly devout, and deeply impressed with the services in which they are earnestly engaged.
It is Trinity Sunday. Wagon loads of green branches of trees are carried through the streets for sale. Every house, shop, shrine, church, and station is adorned with evergreens; windows and doors are garlanded; the humblest house in the poorest quarter we passed through had its sprig of green, and where the poverty of the person prevented any display, it was evident that no one was ashamed to do what he could in honor of the day. The women and children carried flowers, the lily of the valley seeming to be the favorite; and bunches of it were constantly offered for sale, by those who would do a little business for themselves and help the rest to worship after their fashion.
We went up the Kremlin to the Archangel Cathedral. Thousands on thousands of people, a countless multitude, were standing around the Ivan Tower and the big bell, unable to gain entrance into any church, for these were all filled to overflowing by the densest mass of sweltering humanity. Many of this crowd were common and unclean people, like the very poor everywhere; they were ragged, unshod, and dirty. Those in better order had long frock-coats on, reaching to the ground nearly, with high boots over their pantaloons. These crowds were quiet, lounging around as if they had nothing to do and were doing it patiently, but not earnestly. They seemed to me a dull, phlegmatic race, incapable of emotion; but this is a judgment of no great account, for it is not unlikely the Russians may be as easily roused to action, for good or evil, as the Germans or English.
Work of all sorts was going on in the city, with not the slightest indication that the day was a sabbath. It was only wonderful that so many people could be busy with the work of every day, and such multitudes at leisure to enjoy a holiday.
346 Now and then a procession of poor pilgrims passed along, with sandals of bark bound upon the soles of their feet, for they had come a long distance from the far interior to worship in this holy city. Weary and foot-sore they were, men and women, in scanty, but heavy clothing, even in this hot weather, and wearing a look of solemn suffering as they trudged along with staves in their hands. They have not yet learned that the hill of Zion is now as near to them as in the Kremlin, and that God is worshipped acceptably only by those who worship in heart and truth. Some of these pilgrims may be beggars so disguised, for here, as at home, there is no form of swindling more common than religious imposture. The Russians are very kind and tender to idiots, and beggars go about barefoot even in winter, pretending to be underwitted!
On the wide area in front of St. Basil is the Golgotha, or skull place, a name given to a circular stone platform, said to be the place of public executions in old times, but if so, it has long since ceased to be used for any such purpose. Here the Czar sometimes stands in the midst of myriads of his subjects. Here the Patriarch blesses the people. Here the Patriarch has mounted an ass and the Emperor of all the Russias has led the beast by the bridle to the Cathedral of the Assumption. But the church has no such supremacy over the state now, as such a ceremony would imply. The Czar is a devout member as well as head of the Greek Church, and the Patriarch is his friend and coadjutor. The progress of the truth on the great question of religious liberty has made itself felt here as well as in western nations, and with all the ignorance and despotism and superstition, and the semi-civilization of this people, the government does not obstruct the spread of the Holy Scriptures, nor interfere with liberty of worship in any part of the mighty empire.
One of the priests of this church very kindly led us into 347 the sacristy of the former patriarchs and now of the Holy Synod, where he would show us the treasury, the library, and the vestry of the ancient metropolitans of Russia and the patriarchs of Moscow. It was the same old story which had been told us over and over again in the cathedrals of the Romish Church, ad nauseam ; and unless we had been advertised of the fact, we would not have supposed that we had taken a departure from Italy or Spain.
A reliquary containing a part of the purple robe which the Saviour of sinners was clad with in mockery of his kingship, and a bit of the rock of Calvary, are among the most precious relics which this rich collection boasts; yet they are not more admired by the faithful than the robes which were worn by the metropolitans five hundred years ago, and are now exhibited; a sakkos of crimson velvet, covered with great pearls, rubies, emeralds, almandines, garnets, and diamonds, making it weigh more than fifty pounds. And it is said that the Czar John the Terrible presented this priceless robe to the church as an expiatory offering after he had caused his own son to be murdered. The crimson garment, price of blood or not, is cherished with religious care as one of the most valuable things in the treasury of the Holy Synod.
But it is more wearisome to read of, than it is to see and note the robes and mitres and images worn by the bishops, figures of the Virgin and infant Saviour and St. John, cut in precious stones, the crucifixion scene done on an onyx stone, and others in gold and silver. Yet all these yield in value and religious interest to a few pots and kettles which are used in this chamber, and were now presented to what were presumed to be our admiring eyes. It may be that our instantaneous conversion to the Greek faith was anticipated as the effect of the sight. We stood it unmoved, and will venture to describe the things seen with no expectation that the perusal will make a convert of you.
348 Here is prepared the Holy Oil, or Mir , with which every orthodox Russian subject is baptized. The same mixture is used to consecrate every emperor who comes regularly to the throne, and to sanctify every church in the empire that is to be used for worship by the orthodox Greek communion. Now, if all the oil to be used for all these purposes, in an empire of sixty millions of people and by the adherents of the same church in other countries, is to be prepared in this room and by the priests here employed, it is plain they must have their hands and kettles full pretty much all the time.
The ceremony of oiling a child in the Greek Church, at its baptism, is performed by the priest taking a little brush or feather, dipped in the holy chrism, and touching with it the mouth, eyes, ears, hands and feet, back and breast; the eyes are thus anointed that the child may see only what is good, the ears to prevent him hearing the evil that is in the world, the lips that they may speak the truth, the hands and feet that they may be always found in the right way. Whence this oil that has such wondrous properties? When Christianity was first introduced into Russia, Constantinople furnished an infinitely little portion of holy oil that was then in use in the church for these sacred purposes; and this portion being used by the priests in preparing a large quantity, and some of that being used in preparing more, and thus from time to time each new supply being composed in part of what was prepared before, it comes to pass, on the strictly philosophical principle of the infinite divisibility of matter, some of the same unguent that came from Constantinople many centuries agone, is now used in anointing the eyes, ears, and mouth of every child that is baptized in Russia. If you do not believe it, it still comes to the same thing, and I do not see that it makes any difference.
The holy chrism is made by the clergy during Lent, 349 with great care and solemnity; about thirty different ingredients being used, gums, balsams, and spices. These are put into two large silver kettles and a huge caldron, scrupulously clean; and when the mixture is thoroughly made it is poured out into sixteen silver jars, which are distributed among the several bishops of the empire. The silver utensils used in this work, and all of which are exhibited as the most sacred treasures of the church, are said to weigh thirteen hundred pounds. And with them is a vessel of copper with mother-of-pearl coating, that contained the original oil as it came from Constantinople; and each year a few drops are taken out of it, and as many of the new mixture returned, so that the supply is always kept good, and the faithful of the church believe that this is the true succession of the oil with which Mary anointed the feet of her Saviour.
IF you are weary reading of royal palaces, you will be sorry to be invited to the one more gorgeously adorned and illustrated than any other which you and I have entered in company. You have often heard of, and perhaps have seen, some specimens of barbaric splendor! You have associated with the word barbaric , ideas of Oriental and excessive magnificence, laid on without the more refined and chastened taste of modern civilization. It is a word the old Romans used to define foreign people , and whatever came to Rome from foreign parts: all the world was barbarous or Roman. We do not use the word in the same sense as barbarous. But with it, in connection with gold and pearls and decorations of the palace, we associate a wealth of luxury and brilliancy of ornamentation, that would suit the meridian of Persia rather than of Paris.
Not having seen the palaces of the interior of Asia, I cannot draw a comparison between them and the royal residences of European monarchs. But we are now on the border between the East and the West, between Asia and Europe, between barbarism in its best estate and civilization. Take a map of the world and see where Moscow stands! What vast, uncultured, desolate regions lie at the east of it, and still further on, what empires and peoples that make up the bulk of the human race! Out of the barbarism of that eastern portion of the earth’s plane, Russia is emerging, and Moscow is her frontier town; a 351 wall and a monument: a sign and guide, signifying what Russia has been, and leading on to something higher and better, though the future is still in the depths of political and moral uncertainties.
The Tartar hordes have in ages past been fond of making raids upon Moscow, and leaving her palaces heaps of smoking ruins. In old times the Russians built them of wood for the most part, though one of stone erected in 1484 is still standing. Then the Czars removed the capital to St. Petersburg, and for a long time the Kremlin was without a palace or an emperor. The celebrated Empress Anne gave Moscow a palace, and her presence now and then, and Catharine II. designed a royal residence so vast and gorgeous as to rival the palaces of the world, but it was never finished; its model is preserved as a curiosity in the treasury. What she did build, the French wantonly burned when they were compelled to desert the city which its own inhabitants had consigned to destruction. This house, at the doors of which we have been standing while I have given you these historical facts, is the work of the late Nicholas, and is only about twenty years old. It has no likeness in the various orders of architecture; there is no correspondence or harmony between the within and without of it: yet the whole interior is a blaze of gold and upholstery that leaves all rules of taste and art out of the question. We pass through the Empress’s drawing-room, hung with white silk, her cabinet in crimson, her dressing and bath rooms with malachite mantels and priceless ornaments; the Emperor’s cabinet, with magnificent paintings of the proud French coming into Moscow, and the poor French skulking out,—grim satires these on the horrors and fortunes of war; the state apartments, with huge crystal vases at the entrance; the Hall of St. George, with the names of regiments and soldiers inscribed in gold upon the walls, who have been decorated with this order for bravery 352 on the field; the Hall of St. Andrew, hung with blue silk, and inscribed with the names of heroes; the Emperor’s throne, more ostentatious and imposing than any other in Europe; the audience-chamber and banqueting-room, on which is lavished the last resource of gilt and paint to make a show,—and yet when we are ushered into the Gold Court, all former magnificence is for the moment forgotten in the dazzling splendor that fills the place, as if the walls were blazing with living golden light. A flight of steps at one end of the room, called “the red stair case,” is never trodden upon but when the Emperor, on the greatest of all occasions, goes to the Cathedral of the Assumption. This is part of the old palace begun by Catharine, and has a history running back to the time when John the Terrible stood here and saw the comet that he construed into an omen of his doom. And up this flight of stairs came Napoleon, the greatest of actors, when he took possession of the palace of the Kremlin. And when he went down these stairs he began that descent which never stopped till he touched the bottom of his tomb.
The right wing of the palace is the treasury building, with the most remarkable collection of objects to be seen in Russia. The Tower of London illustrates England as this museum tells the history of the Russian empire. Her past and present intercourse with the Asiatic nations, and her more modern commercial relations with the West, have made Moscow the emporium of all that distinguishes her ancient and modern commerce, and exchange of presents when treaties have been made. What riches of plate, jewels, silks, manufactures, which China, India, Persia, Armenia, and other powers, peoples, and tribes have poured into the lap of this colossal power in the progress of centuries! When the French were coming, the prudent Russians, foreseeing the evil, removed these pearls and diamonds and rubies, these vessels of gold and silver, these costly 353 fabrics of art and toil which could never be replaced, and concealed them far in the interior, where the feet of the enemy would not be apt to follow them.
Among the historical curiosities here preserved with religious care, the traveller from the land of liberty views with sorrow and indignation the throne of Poland! Other thrones, as trophies of conquered kingdoms, stand near. One of ivory was brought from Constantinople in 1472. Another is from Persia, taken as long ago as 1660. It is covered with 876 diamonds, 1,223 rubies, and many other precious stones. Blazing in front of these thrones is an orb, which the Greek emperors, Basilius and Constantine, sent to Wladimir Monomachus, Prince of Kief, with a piece of the true cross! This orb is adorned with fifty-eight diamonds, eighty-nine rubies, twenty-three sapphires, fifty emeralds, and thirty-seven other stones, and with enamels colored in the highest style of Grecian art, to tell the story of King David, of the land of Israel.
One of the most wonderful institutions of Moscow is the hospital for foundlings, into which about twelve thousand children are taken yearly. As many, if not more, are received into a similar institution in St. Petersburg. It is said that no cities in the world surpass those of Russia in the comforts provided for the care of these outcasts from the birth, the most forlorn and helpless of all the objects that appeal to human sympathy. The government makes a yearly grant of about a million of dollars to this hospital in Moscow, and it has large resources besides, so that there is no lack of funds to meet the wants of these unfortunate little people, whose fathers and mothers forsaking them are taken up by the Lord.
In some cities I have seen a table made to revolve outside the walls of the asylum, and in, so that a child could be placed upon it outside, and on the door-bell being rung the table would be set in motion, and the infant is gently rolled 354 into the house. The mother or friend who brought the child and laid it upon the table would thus be relieved of its charge, and would silently depart, leaving the child, yet utterly unseen and unknown. This system has its advantages, and many attendant evils. But here in Moscow they affect no such mystery about the matter. The hospital receives the infant children of poor and honest parents who are willing to give their babes to the state, and it also takes the offspring of sin and shame who are brought by their mothers or left on the highway and picked up by the police or the wayfarer. A reception-room is always open. A man or woman enters with a babe. No question is asked but these:—
“Has the child been baptized?”
If yes, “By what name?” If it has not been baptized, that sacrament is at once administered, and the name given is registered opposite a number, which is hereafter worn as a sign around its neck, and this number is handed to the person who brings the child. This number entitles the bearer to come back any time within ten years and claim the child. The nurses are mothers who have left their own children in the country, and come here to get the wages and living in the hospital, which are far better than they enjoy at home. And some of the nurses are the mothers whose children are here, and as they have the number that marks their own, they can easily change about till they get the care of the babe they seek to watch, without its ever being known to be theirs.
Nothing is now wanting that medical skill and good nursing can supply to preserve the lives of these orphans. We go from ward to ward, admiring the cleanliness, order, and comfort on every side. The babes are bathed in copper tubs, convenient in shape, and lined with thick flannel. They are not laid on the hard knees or sharp hoops of unfeeling nurses to be dressed, but they are suffered 355 to lie on pillows of down while this operation is performed. After four weeks of such tender care, and when the child may be supposed to have gained some strength, they are sent with their nurses into the country. They are, however, exposed to such a climate, and the fare of the peasantry is so coarse, that it takes a tough child to weather the first year of life, and at least one-half of them die before they are twelve months old. Half of the remainder who survive the year fall by the way before they grow up; and so it comes to pass that only one quarter, twenty-five out of a hundred, of these children of the state live to be men and women. This is a small proportion, and it is quite likely that full as many of them would have lived to grow up, if there had been no hospital to care for them.
Another institute we find here in Moscow that has nothing to match it, and cannot have in our democratic country. The female orphan children of servants of the Emperor are taken into it, and eight hundred are constantly receiving an education to fit them for being teachers! They are bound to devote six years after they leave the institute to the business of teaching in the interior of the empire. They have a small salary, and thus provide for themselves while they are doing a good work for the state. No foundlings are admitted into this house. The orphans are all supposed to be children of honest parents, and this supposition keeps up a higher tone of self-respect than would be possible among a thousand children who did not know who their parents are.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing we have read of in the figure language of the Bible, but men in sheep’s clothing I had never seen till I met them to-day, in midsummer, in the market-places of Moscow. They could have but one suit of clothing, and to cover their nakedness must wear it summer and winter. It was made, “coat and pants,” of 356 sheepskin with the wool on, and was worn by some with the wool outside, and by others with the wool in. On a day like this of sweltering heat, when it was not safe for us to walk in the sun without parasols, these natives of the north, with their winter clothes on, were not apparently oppressed; and it was a comfort to believe that they had become accustomed to it, and had no idea of any thing more enjoyable than an indefinite degree of heat.
As winter is the longer half of the year, it is the harvest time for those who are in the line of buying and selling meats and all provisions that are preserved by frost. As soon as the cold weather fairly sets in, the fatted cattle and pigs and poultry are doomed to die by the hands of the butcher. The carcasses are instantly frozen and sent to market. Here it is packed up in enormous heaps, and families who are able to buy at wholesale prices lay in their winter supplies, and those who live from hand to mouth can buy at any time fresh meat that was killed in the fall. The weather is so uniformly cold that little danger of a thaw is apprehended, but if it comes, away goes the meat. And it must at any time be cooked immediately on thawing, so that it is rather a precarious mode of preserving provisions. But it is adapted to the country and climate, it saves packing and salting, and has the advantage of furnishing fresh meat, at moderate prices, at all times. The fish from the White Sea are also kept, like wood-piles, in heaps with oxen and sheep and deer. The flesh of mammoths and elephants of past ages has been found in perfect preservation in the icy regions of the north, and it is certainly one of the remarkable provisions of nature that cold, which is so destructive of animal life, should also be the preserver of flesh, for indefinite periods, after the life principle has been extinguished.
The Jews in Chatham Street, New York, who press their wares upon the notice of passers by, are modest 357 compared with the vendors of old clothes and miscellaneous matters in the markets of Moscow. It was hard to get away from them without making an investment in the most undesirable of all worldly goods,—a coat that somebody else had cast off. And such a jumble of things! reminding one of the sign on the country store window-shutter of an alliterative dealer: “Bibles, Blackball, Butter, Testaments, Tar, Treacle, Godly-books, and Gimlets, for sale here.” Ironware, pot-metal, in the shape of utensils for cooking, seemed to abound; and if the poorer people, who are the buyers here, have any thing to cook, it is very pleasant to know it. Their food is mainly milk, eggs, pickles, cabbage, and black bread, with beef and mutton according to their ability to buy it. As a general thing the Russian peasants are not underfed; the land being so largely in the immediate care of the laborer himself, he can manage to get food for himself and family. And as they clothe themselves in the rudest and most primitive way, literally using skins of beasts, and in their natural state, they ought to be able to live comfortably without handling much money.
The “Riding School” of Moscow is the building in which a remarkable museum is gathered. This building is one of the longest with an unbroken area in the world, the roof, without a column to support it, covering a space 560 feet long and 160 wide. It is constructed on this enormous scale for the exercise of regiments, cavalry and foot, in winter, when the weather is so severe as to render drills out of doors impossible. The Ethnological Society of the North of Europe had selected this place—and it was my good fortune to be here at the time—for the exhibition of the Slavonic races in wax! Here they are in all their varied employments, according to the climate, habits, and necessities of the several peoples; with their actual surroundings of forest, ice, snow, sea, river; the men, women, 358 and children, with dogs, poultry, oxen, reindeer, and sledges, hunting and fishing, freezing and trying to keep warm, marrying and trading and travelling; here are Albanian costumes, and there a cavern and human skeletons sitting in it, telling a story I could not understand, and here a cottage out of whose roof the smoke curls gracefully, and the open door and chickens and children playing near, need no interpreter to speak of comfort and content.
If one were writing a volume of the manners and customs of the Slavonic races, he would learn more of them by the study of this museum than in months of travel among the people. The society is composed of learned and thoughtful men of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, &c., who meet annually for the collection and diffusion of useful knowledge on the subject of their own race specially and the family of man. We are very apt to think that, outside of our own English-speaking countries, there is little doing to promote the civilization and thus the happiness of the human race. Travel takes this and many other conceits out of a man. One of the first things he learns, if he is capable of learning any thing, is that he knows very little of what is going on in the world. Then he finds that people whom he thought slow and only half civilized are far ahead of him in many things, and by degrees he comes to the conclusion that there is much in the world to be learned that he had never dreamed of. But if he sticks to it that what he does not know is not worth knowing, like my fellow countryman who insists that there is more art in Illinois than in all Europe, then you may be sure that he answers to the cane shown to Sydney Smith by one of this sort of travellers who said:
“This stick, sir, has been all around the world, sir.”
“Is it possible,” replied Mr. Smith, “why it’s nothing but a stick for all that!”
A COUPLE of English commercial travellers arrived to-day and were very conversable at dinner. No class of men one meets abroad are more free to impart what they know, than these agents of trading houses in England, who infest all countries, and push their way into every company that is willing to hear their ceaseless flow of talk. At dinner one of them asked a Frenchman in what country of Europe Egypt was situated, and the Frenchman did not know; they discussed the subject for some time, neither of them thinking it was not in Europe at all. But the two having failed to settle the geographical position of Egypt came back to matters nearer at hand, and the invasion of Russia by the French and the downfall of Napoleon, made the conversation lively. For when did or will a Frenchman and Briton agree upon the character, the genius, or the deserts of the Man of Destiny. And this led to the mention of the Sparrow Hills , and to an excursion thither, from which we have just returned.
On our way out of the city, we passed the church of the Saviour, the largest church in Moscow, with the most splendid dome, which, being covered with gilding, looks like a mighty sun rising. The church has been in process of building more than fifty years, and is far from being finished yet. It is intended as a memorial of the French invasion and its awful fate; and it was begun in the year 1812, so memorable for that critical event in the history of Russia, 360 of France, and of mankind. And it was on the Sparrow Hills that Napoleon first saw Moscow.
An hour’s ride from the hotel brought us to the Simonoff Monastery, which has been here through all the storms of weather and war these last five hundred years. Rich in lands with thousands of serfs, and the treasury into which emperors and princes poured their royal gifts, it has been sacked again and again by invading hordes, but has lived on, with six churches within its walls. A lake near by is reached by an underground passage, and miracles of healing are said to be wrought upon the sick who come here with faith, and stay until they get well. In the midst of the enclosure rises a tower more than three hundred feet, and a blind bell-ringer delights in leading you to the look-out loft, and answering every question you can ask respecting every object in your sight. You may be sure that he is right in his answers, though he is blind as a bat.
The Novo-Devichi Convent, with six churches and a romantic history, the Donskoi Monastery, and the Novospaski Monastery, are scattered through this region, and are all visible and accessible in the visit to the hill country around Moscow. But the roads are wretched and the weather hot; the sun is getting low in the west, and we are in haste to enjoy the glories that are to burst upon our sight when we come to stand where Napoleon stood at the head of his proud legions and first saw Moscow!
At the foot of the hill flows the river Moskva, and row-boats are plying back and forth to carry the many passengers, chiefly of the humbler classes of people, who are going to and from the hills, on this feast-day in the Church, and so a holiday for them all. Leaving the carriage, we were ferried across and then climbed the hills, where hundreds of the Muscovites were enjoying themselves on the green slopes, eating, drinking, and laughing gaily, playing tricks upon one another, and making themselves merry, as the 361 same class of people do in every part of the world. And it is pleasant to think that other people have “a good time” as well as we, in what clime soever they chance to live, and however much they lack the things that we think indispensable to enjoyment. Some of them were playing cards on the ground, some were drinking quas , a strong spirit; and some who had already taken too much for their manners, called out saucily to us to come and take a drink of gin .
Before us, as we turned on reaching the brow of the hill, stood the holy city of Russia, its ancient capital, the border city between the Eastern and the Western worlds! The sun unclouded and intensely glowing is behind us, and shedding its golden radiance in floods upon the domes and pinnacles of three hundred and seventy churches, countless towers and roofs and walls, the Kremlin standing above the rest in its majesty, with its crown of cathedrals and palace, a constellation of splendor rarely equalled in the cities of the world. The river makes a circular sweep through the plain at our feet, and then flows through the city.
It was June, 1812, when Napoleon, at the head of the French army, crossed the Niemen and pushed on to Wilna, from which the Russian army retired, drawing him on in pursuit, and, with masterly foresight, involving their enemy in more and more hopeless difficulties. Napoleon would have been glad to meet the Russians in signal battle, but the leader of the Russians understood his ground too well to risk an engagement. The Emperor Alexander, however, had not the sagacity to perceive nor the patience to bear the policy of his general, and, displacing him, put another man in his place, who gave battle at Borodino on the first day of September, when 80,000 men were killed or wounded, and the Russians retired to Moscow. The French were sadly crippled by the losses in this battle, and their provisions 362 were now nearly exhausted. They were hastening on to the capture of Moscow to save their own lives. On the 12th of September the Russian army silently marched out of the city, carrying with them every thing that could be removed. Of three hundred thousand inhabitants, only the convicts and a few others remained to take the chances of war.
On the very next day, the advance of the French army reached the brow of the hill where we were standing a few hours ago; and Napoleon, excited by the sight of the sunny domes and roofs of the golden city, cried out, “All this is yours.” The soldiers caught up the cry, “Moscow! Moscow!” and it ran like fire along the ranks till the whole army shouted in concert, “Moscow! Moscow!” An hour or two more and they made their triumphal entry into a city whose gates were open without a defender, and to the dismay of the conqueror the city was a desert without food or inhabitants. Through the deserted streets and up to the sacred gate of the Kremlin the conqueror took his silent and sullen way, and ascended the steps of the palace which was left ready for his reception. He had reached the end of his awful march of two thousand miles, but one was before him more terrible by far. His army was starving, and the city was empty. On the morning following his occupation, a fire broke out and defied all efforts to arrest it. Perhaps the wretched remnant of inhabitants were the incendiaries. This is not a settled question. But the soldiers sought to save the city, and could not. The hospitals, in which 20,000 wounded had been left, were consumed. The glorious churches were now shining in flames. The palaces and houses of the rich were given up to the soldiery, and the sacredness of temples and altars was no protection against the lawless rabble that rioted in the ruin and plunder of the town. The liberated convicts and ragged poor ravaged the homes of princes and the vestries of 363 priests, and now roamed the streets in furs and robes. What the fire spared the battle-axe destroyed. Works of art and elegance and luxury, the vast accumulations of wealth and ages, all went down in the vortex of remorseless war.
And now Napoleon sought to make peace with the enemy whose chief city he had in his possession. But his enemy was his master, and refused to hear of peace. After a month of delay, and the dreadful winter of the North at hand, he set off with his shattered hosts to return. And the story of that return is frozen into the memory of man. Its horrors the pencil has sought to portray, and no pen can do it justice. The frost and snow made havoc with the miserable soldiers: they froze by thousands and died on the march. Wild disorder reigned, and death was the only commander whom officer or man obeyed. Napoleon, always true to himself, deserted his faithful army and fled to Paris. Of the half a million of men who composed his troops when he began the invasion of Russia, about 200,000 were made prisoners, 125,000 were slain in battles, and 130,000 perished by cold, hunger, and fatigue! A disaster without a parallel in the annals of the race.
And this was the beginning of the end. The powers of Europe combined against him, and the world knows the story.
Moscow is a city of so much historical interest, and it is so peculiar in its architecture, plan, and people, that we have lingered longer than perhaps has been agreeable to you. But the time was when Moscow was far more of a city than it is now. Two hundred and thirty years ago (it is written in history), Moscow had two thousand churches; but the statements of the former population of this city are so astounding as to be scarcely credible. In 1600 the plague made such ravages here that 127,000 persons were dead in the streets at one time, and 500,000 died in the city. All of these stories, including the number of 364 the churches, must be greatly exaggerated, and yet they are some index to the former extent and power of this splendid capital. But all this greatness must have been when the people were only a little removed from barbarism. Dr. Collins, physician to the Czar, says in 1670, “the custom of tying up wives by the hair of the head and flogging them, begins to be left off .” It was certainly time, though it was two hundred years ago. No traces of that ancient custom remain. The doves that inhabit the streets, are held to be sacred birds, emblems of the Holy Spirit, and more of the spirit of love, than would be indicated by such rough treatment of wives, may be counted upon as prevailing within the houses where these peaceful birds are cherished. In no country that I have been in, is there more kissing done in public. At the railroad stations and in the market places, when a party of friends meet, they rush into each other’s embrace, and all kiss; the men the men, the women the women, and the men and women kiss each other. These are the peasants. I could not say that it is common among the more cultivated people.
Our host, M. Billot, sent us to the station with extra style; his wife was going into the country to see her children at school, and in her private carriage we were to ride to the depot with her, as a special mark of attention. During our stay in Moscow the family had done every thing in their power to make the visit agreeable, and it was crowned with this last act of attention, an escort to the station when we took our leave.
There is but one train in twenty-four hours from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and as it is to be a ride of twenty hours, it is important to have some accommodations for sleeping. Our experience in going to Moscow had been so unhappy that we sought to improve upon the matter on the return trip. We learned that the first-class cars were arranged in compartments for six persons, and that the seats at night 365 were to be converted into berths, so that each passenger buying a ticket was also the holder of a berth for sleeping in. The compartments were elegantly fitted up, and we (two of us) found ourselves upon setting off, on one side, and two Russian ladies on the other. They spoke the French language, and being as innocent of English, as we of Russ, the conversation that soon sprang up, was in the only tongue we could use in common. The apartment was hot to the verge of suffocation. We put up a window, which in a bright June day would be considered pleasant in any country, but the ladies gave instant signs of apprehensions that they would take cold. Soon one of them shut the window with a decision that forbade appeal. We ventured to set the door open to admit the air from the open window across the passage, but this was too much for the sensitive women, and we had to close it. I found the same dread of cold in hot weather to be common to all the natives. An omnibus, the body of which was made of sheet iron, which I was riding in on a blazing summer-day, was heated literally like an oven. I was obliged to leave it, but the people evidently enjoyed the baking. They have it so cold in cold weather, that the brief hot season seems to be refreshing, and the hotter the better they like it. At four P.M. we stopped at Klin for dinner—thirty minutes—all seated at table, and dinner was decently served: soup, boiled chicken and rice, quails, vegetables, jelly: price one rouble (sixty-four cents), wines and fruit extra. The natives at table were well mannered, with just such exceptions as you meet with in all countries; one man left in disgust because there was too much confusion, and another refused to pay for his dinner until after he had eaten it. But the order, the dinner, the price of it, and the time to enjoy the meal, were all more agreeable to travellers than they would have been on most of the routes in our own beloved and well-regulated country.
366 At Tver, on the Volga, we halted for a few moments only. A little girl, four or five years old, barefoot and poorly clad, came before the car window begging. She bowed to us as if before a picture of the Virgin, crossed herself, touched her forehead, bent her head low, the hair falling over her face, and then, raising her head quickly, threw the hair back, and so amused the people. We threw her money, which she caught in her lap, crossed herself, blessed us, and asked for more. Three girls came up and joined her, going through the same motions, and got some coppers; and now a big boy made his appearance and put in his claims which proved unsuccessful. Then he turned upon the little girl, knocked her about for a minute, robbed her of her alms and fled. Boys are boys all the world over. I wish the cars would wait long enough for me to catch the little rascal, and recover the money for the girl.
This is a city of nearly 30,000 inhabitants; its splendid domes and beautiful Greek temples, as seen in passing, speak of a city of unusual culture.
Night came, according to the watch, but no darkness. Nine, ten, twelve, no signs of night, except that sunshine was gone. We wished to go to sleep. But here an unexpected difficulty arose. The two ladies declared it to be impossible for them to sleep in the cars, and therefore they did not wish the seats disturbed. We proposed to the conductor to arrange ours into berths, and let the others remain in statu quo ante bellum . He said they must be worked together: all or none. In vain we argued the case with these implacable women; and, when we found that our appeals to their pity and their sense of justice were alike without avail, we gave it up. Each of us four settled into a corner, and the two ladies soon gave certain infallible signs that they were sound asleep, and so they continued until long after the break of day. The truth was, and the conductor understood it, but we did not, there was an 367 extra charge for making up the berths, and the ladies saved the money by sleeping perpendicularly.
At midnight it was as light as noon often is with us. I could write at any hour, and these lines you are now reading are written at half-past two o’clock in the morning. At three, the east began to glare with the rising splendor of another day. The heavy clouds that skirt the horizon are robes of fire. Gorgeously the colors of the rainbow are painted one by one on these shifting scenes,—orange, red, purple, violet, I could count them all. How mean, tame, pale, all earthly pageants seem: the domes, the minarets, the golden-jewelled orbs and crowns of Czars, compared with this wasted wealth of glory that the King of kings scatters from his full hand with the rising of each day’s sun. I had never seen the sun rise in a latitude so far north. Its splendors charmed me out of all my hard feelings towards these sleeping Russian dames, who deprived me of a night’s repose and gave me such a magnificent morning.
Sitting up all night with a couple of Russian ladies might, or might not, suggest the idea of telling you something of the marriage customs of this strange country. A French writer, whose name I forget, has said “the Russians are a nation of polite savages,” a remark that is not very apt, but it helps us toward a proper understanding of the social condition of the people. The rich are very rich; the poor are very poor. The nobles are courtly, polite, and as refined in manners as those of the same social class in Germany; but the serfs, or those who belonged to the nobles with the soil, before the emancipation, are rude, and not half civilized. The two classes, or rather the extremes of the two classes, would justify the description of the Frenchman, who, like many writers of his country, would not be specially tied by the truth, if he wished to point an epigram.
368 It was no uncommon thing in those days of serfdom for the proprietor to order this matter of marriage among his people, telling the young men to get a wife when he thought it time, and providing them, if the young men were slow in making their choice. And in the peasant class the marriage was liable to all the caprices and irregularities to be expected in a state of things where the will of the master was scarcely restrained by law or custom, so that he had the social happiness of his people very much in his own hands. In such a country, and under such circumstances, it would not be strange if some social evil was suffered.
Almost as soon as a girl is born, in the better ranks of society, her parents begin to prepare the dowry she must have when she goes to her husband. For this is indispensable in the eyes of any Russian young gentleman who proposes to be married. She must furnish every thing for an outfit in life, even to a dozen new shirts for her coming husband .
I have just heard of a lady of rank and wealth who had prepared a costly dowry of silks, linen, jewels, plate, &c., for her beloved daughter, who died as she came to be twenty years old. The mother resolved to endow six girls with these riches, and actually advertised for them. A host of applicants came, and she selected six. None of them had lovers. But now they had a respectable dowry secured, each girl was speedily engaged, and with the husband took the dowry, and paid the rich lady by promising to pray for the repose of her daughter’s soul.
In no country is this arrangement of terms carried on with more caution and completeness than in Russia. The young man goes to the house of his proposed bride, and counts over the dresses, and examines the furniture, and sees to the whole with his own eyes, before he commits himself to the irrevocable bargain. In high life such things are conducted with more apparent delicacy, but the facts 369 are ascertained with accuracy, the business being in the hands of a broker or a notary. The trousseau is exposed in public before the wedding day. And this publicity has long been as unblushing as the customs that are now becoming fashionable in New York. The publication in the newspapers of intended marriages; of descriptions of bridal dresses and presents; of the names and toilettes of guests at fashionable parties; the value of jewels worn, &c., now common and approved in the highest circles of American society, is the same thing with the exposure to the public gaze of a bride’s dowry in Russia.
At Whitsunday there is a curious custom, which is gradually giving way with the advance of civilization. The young people of a neighborhood come together, and the girls stand in a row, like so many statues, draped indeed, and not only draped, but dressed in their best, and painted too; for the young ladies, and the older ones also, of this country use cosmetics freely, and a box of lady’s paint is a very common present for a young man to make to the girl he likes. Behind the row of girls are their mothers; the young men having made known their choice, the terms are settled between the parents of the parties.
The ladies in Russia are very anxious to marry, because they have no liberty before marriage. They are kept constantly under the maternal eye until they are given up to the husband, and then they take their own course, which is a round of gayety and dissipation, only regulated by their means of indulgence. The Greek Church, like the Roman, permits no divorce, but the Emperor, like the Pope, can grant special dispensations.
The marriage ceremonies vary, as in all countries, according to the rank and wealth of the parties. A procession is sometimes met in the streets; and the Emperor’s carriage would, at any time, turn out and give the right of way to a bridal party.
370 It pleases me always, in a strange country, to find that social enjoyments are so equally distributed over the earth, varying in kind and degree, indeed, according to the religion and civilization of the people, but still all of them having their own ways and means of making themselves happy.
AT nine in the morning we were to be on board the steamer Wyborg , Captain Nystrom, to go from St. Petersburg to Finland, and thence to Sweden. When we reached the wharf, so great was the crowd of passengers and the crush of luggage and the pressure of freight, that it seemed doubtful if we should be able to get on board. It was summer time, very hot, and the people who had not yet escaped from the city heat, and were able to, were rushing to their rural residences on the sea-coast. They are as much in the habit of this, as our rich people at home are of flying in midsummer to the hills or the sea-shore.
Americans are abroad. Four or five families from the city of New York met on the deck of this steamer, all of whom were making this northern tour, and none of whom were known to each other as away from home. As the boat was to be our hotel for several days, this sudden accession of neighbors was very agreeable, and made the prospect of the excursion more pleasant. And gradually this circle widened, till it embraced Russians and Finns and Swedes and English, with whom our own tongue was more easily a means of communication than it was in Italy or Spain.
We are steaming out of one of the four mouths of the Neva, as it widens into the Gulf of Finland, and for several miles the intricate channel is staked out with care. Cronstadt is the famous port of St. Petersburg, one of the 372 strongest fortifications in the world, and we had expected to see a frowning precipice, a long and lofty range of rocks, defying attack, a Gibraltar in the north of Europe. There is no rock at all. The fortifications are low, and all the more impregnable for that; but we were taken down by their appearance, the situation being so widely different from our anticipations. Napier came here with the British fleet, at the opening of the war that was afterwards called the Crimean , for the very good reason that when the Admiral hurled the whole power of the navy of England against Cronstadt in vain, the war was prosecuted to its close in the southern part of the Russian empire, the Crimea.
The approach to Cronstadt is difficult, and the channel easily defended by the immense fortifications which successive emperors have constructed, well knowing that this is the northern gate of the empire. The dry docks are on a gigantic scale, to meet the demands of a first-class naval power, which Russia is not, and will never be till she moves her seat of government and field of operations to the Bosphorus. Forests of masts, denser forests of masts than we had seen since leaving New York, stood along the docks of Cronstadt. A steamer crowded with passengers, from stem to stern, passed us as we were lying here; she was bound to Revel, and all the Russian coast of the Gulf of Finland. The people are apparently as given to travel as the Americans.
By this time we had begun to get accustomed to the people around us. The Russian children had fur caps on and the ladies wore woollen cloaks, though the weather was so hot as to make the shade of an awning indispensable. Smoking was strictly forbidden, but the captain and all who chose, smoked in the face of the signs that were posted up to prohibit the practice. The Gulf of Finland, on which we are now, is smooth as a summer lake; the day is lovely, skies bright, the breeze delicious, the air 373 bracing; if we have associated chills and fogs and ice and bitter cold with Finland, we must come in winter to find them, for the Hudson River in summer was never more quiet, nor its banks more brilliant in the noontide, than this region to-day. The day has been one to be remembered, among pleasant memories of travel, and toward sunset we run into the harbor of Wyborg. The ancient city stands on an arm of the gulf that sets up six or eight miles, the lumber station of Tronsund being at the mouth. Near this are saw-mills that cut up 160,000 logs in a year, and ships from all parts of Europe come here for lumber; one vessel, rejoicing in the name of Pius IX., was lying at anchor waiting her turn to get northern pine to carry home to Italy. The channel was obstructed in 1854 to prevent the British under Napier from getting up to Wyborg, and now the trouble is just as great for friends as foes, only that the Russians have put the poles into the water, each pole being made to hold a flag above the waves, to designate the tortuous channel. Two large islands lie in front of the town, and make a safe, snug harbor. An arm of the sea stretches away between the lines of fortification and the old town, and in the midst of the water a mighty rock rises majestically, crowned with a tower of other times, partly in ruins now, for the storms of heaven and the storms of earth and sea have often beaten upon it in peace and war. Its roof is gone, but it is a prison still, and its hollow sides have secrets never to be revealed till the final day. The sun is in the west, as we approach the city, and its domed churches blaze in its setting glory. The old castle, now in ruins, has a history of just six hundred years, a history of courage, endurance, and heroism, while it resisted the might of Russia, until in 1710 it yielded to Peter the Great. Then followed, with an interval of a few years only, the submission of Finland to the yoke of Russia, which it still wears.
374 Finland is a Protestant country, Lutheran being the established religion of the country. The Greek and Roman churches are regarded with equal dislike. All native Finlanders are obliged to have their children baptized in the Lutheran Church. They must also be able to read before they can be married, or take any part in the government of the country.
The public officers are appointed by the Russian government, but the Finns pay no tribute to Russia, except the support of the civil list for their own officers. The Grand Duke of Finland is the Emperor of Russia himself. Under him are four orders, the nobles, clergy, citizens, and peasants. Each of these orders is represented in the legislature of Finland, meeting annually to regulate the domestic affairs of the state, subject to the veto of the Emperor of Russia.
For the last ten years every harvest has failed, being cut off by untimely frosts. Great famines have therefore prevailed, with diseases incident to want, and many have perished. Men on salaries have voluntarily paid fifteen per cent of their incomes to feed the poor, and they will do so for a few years more; but if the same destitution should continue five years, the country will be depopulated. So severe has been the distress, that the inhabitants have eaten the bark of trees, and as little or no nourishment can be found in bark, they are rapidly dying out. The Russian government is preparing to transport all who are willing to go, to some portions of Russia where there is land in abundance, and a population is wanted.
The Emperor is popular among the Finns, who have ceased to regard him as a conqueror, and now look up to him as a protector and friend. He is bound by an oath to preserve the integrity of their constitution, and they trust him. The Finns are not drafted into the Russian army. They enlist in it freely, under the temptation of bounty money. But they have a strong national feeling of their 375 own, refusing to be called Russian, or to admit that they are part of that empire.
Wages are very low. A skilled mechanic gets only about a rouble (eighty cents) a day, and a farm hand is glad to earn ten cents a day. But with this terrible state of things, poor pay and no food, emigration is not allowed, either by Finnish or Russian law, and there is no prospect before the peasantry but to perish on the ground.
The country is more thoroughly sunken in the water than any other inhabited part of the globe. It seemed to me that the inhabitants might have been called Finlanders, because they ought to be amphibious. But the name comes from the ancient fen , or fennen, which is also an English word for bog or morass. The Laplanders were the original settlers on the southern shore of the Baltic, but they have retired to more northern regions still. The interior of the country is almost filled with lakes, irregularly shaped, and making travelling by land exceedingly tedious, as one must wind his way far around these arms and branches. There is one lake, Saima, two hundred miles wide, in which there are a thousand and more of islands. The largest is called Amasara, or mother-island; on this island there are seventy-seven lakes, and in these lakes fifty islands. This great lake is connected with Lake Ladoga, in Russia, and, by a canal here at Wyborg, with the Gulf of Finland. Now it will pay you to take a map, and, with this description, see what a stretch of water communication extends through Finland into Russia. If you were to go by this canal to Lake Saima, and so to Lake Ladoga, you would not see much of the people, but you would find it easier and pleasanter getting through than to take the only other conveyance, that of the drosky. This is a low sulky, in which only one person can sit, though a driver, if you must have one, manages to get a seat by the horse’s heels. The horses are small, nervous, and wiry, and have learned from 376 colthood to go on the jump all the time, up hill and down hill, and on a level. Ladies who come travelling here must and do adapt themselves to this unsocial mode of travel, and ride all day alone, or with the company of a ragged boy, who speaks no word the traveller understands, and spends his time in walloping the beast, to quicken his rapid canter. Between the lonely post-houses it is rare to meet a human being, or to pass a habitation; but the solemn pine-trees make the gloom more gloomy, and huge boulder stones rise, like towers of giant builders waiting for their masters to return. Some of them have been utilized by the progress of art and science. It was one of these great boulders that was cut into the splendid Alexander column we saw in St. Petersburg, the largest monolith in the world. The enginery required to move it from its place, where, perhaps, the deluge left it, and transport it to the heart of a distant city, fairly rivals the skill of the Egyptian pyramid builders, or the men who set Pompey’s Pillar on its base.
A crowd of five hundred people or more were on the dock at Wyborg waiting for the steamer, when we touched the shores of Finland. At least a hundred droskies and other conveyances, with little horses attached, swelled the concourse. Many of the persons were expecting to receive their friends who were coming by the steamer, and as there are but two arrivals from St. Petersburg in a week, every steamer brings a goodly number. Many were well dressed, “fashionable” ladies and gentlemen, who welcomed their friends with cordial greetings, the kissing being quite as affectionate and common as in Russia. But more of the people on shore were the poor, the toilers, looking for a little something to do; and the drivers of the droskies were as importunate and impudent as the donkey boys in Alexandria or the hackmen in New York, and none in the wide world are worse.
377 A gentleman of Wyborg, with whom we had formed a speaking and very agreeable acquaintance on board, proposed an excursion through the town into the country, as the steamer was to lie at the wharf till after midnight. It was now only nine o’clock at night , and there was plenty of time before sunset to take a ride of a few miles into the interior! A long line of droskies was therefore engaged, and in single file we set off, at a break-neck pace, but according to the custom of the horses and the country.
The town of Wyborg has about six thousand inhabitants,—Swedes, Russians, Germans, and Finlanders. The churches are numerous, the Lutherans being more in number than all the rest, which are chiefly Greek for the Russians. The town is ancient and uninviting in its appearance, with nothing to indicate enterprise or progress.
Through it we were carried, all flying, by the tower or castle or prison of the year 1300, and out into the country where villas were here and there planted, and some little culture was displayed. Our destination was the summer residence of Baron Nicolai, a wealthy Russian, who has made himself the possessor of a peninsula, and here has laid out a park and grounds with the novel and beautiful idea of making a miniature Finland ,—a little representation, with the aid of nature and art, of the lakes and islands, the rocks and hills, of the very country of which this princely domain is an insignificant part. At the gate we were very properly required to pay an entrance fee, which goes to the relief of the poor of the neighborhood, and the visitor is not forbidden to enlarge his fee to any amount more agreeable to himself. The villa we soon pass has nothing imposing in its aspect, but in the midst of a park of ancient shade trees has an air of quiet contentment that justifies the name its first owner gave it, “Mon Repos”— My Rest . Passing it we pursue the shaded walks, by the borders of little lakes and along running streams, till we come to a 378 wooded islet, reached by a foot-bridge and crowned with a monumental tomb, and this is the family sepulchre. Fittingly did the master of all these grounds call the spot to which he had retired “My Rest;” for he who spent such vast sums of money to convert these rocks and wilds into a garden of Eden now sleeps in the tomb, and his son reigns in his stead, rarely, however, coming here, and only for a few days in summer.
Such had been our associations with Finland, that we were more than surprised to find so much culture and taste, elegance indeed, within an hour of landing on its coasts. And as we emerged from the woods in our walks we came suddenly upon the shore of the bay, and the glorious sun was sinking to his “repose” at ten o’clock! It seemed very late for the sun to be going to bed; he keeps earlier hours in our country, and it is odd to be out sight-seeing at this time of day!
Yet in the midst of this Finnish paradise there was a pest as bad as the serpent in Eden. We were nearly devoured by mosquitoes! They beset us behind and before and bit us horribly. With handkerchiefs over our faces, and with bushes to drive them away, we were pursued as if they were starving like the other inhabitants, and they sent in their bills with no more mercy than landlords in Spain. I would not take the place, with all its splendor and natural attractions, for a gift, if it were encumbered with the condition of being obliged to live in it through the summer season. But some people get used to these little plagues. Nature is fond of setting off one thing against another, and it may be that the inhabitants of mosquito regions have some compensating advantages that make these evils a luxury rather than otherwise. They do prevail in the cold climates of the north, as well as in malarious southerly regions, and there is good reason to believe that they are not very troublesome to the settled inhabitants, however 379 savage they are upon strangers. For I have observed in the United States, and within a very few miles of New York, if a man purchases a home, a “Mon Repos” like this we are now visiting, and says to himself, “this is my rest,” he is able to say, in answer to the inquiries of friends as to mosquitoes, “We are not troubled with them at all.” And if the fever and ague has been there through all generations, he is free to declare, “There is nothing of it around us.” From which we infer that mosquitoes and other plagues like them, and the chills, respect the manorial rights of the owners of the soil, and only draw the blood and shake the bones of strangers, who in all ages and countries have been considered as lawful prey.
We stood on the shore and saw the sun go down in clouds of glory, and then returned, in the same style in which we came, to our ship. A great amount of freight was to be left and more taken in, and this kept the vessel in such confusion that sleep was quite out of the question. At two o’clock I was sitting at my cabin window writing without a candle, and a carriage came to the wharf with a gentleman and lady to come on board. No one would have thought of its being night to see the arrival. It was difficult to adjust one’s mind to the fact that we had come into such a latitude, that night could be told from day only by looking at your watch.
The ride to “Mon Repos” brought our steamer passengers into pleasant relations. We had come to feel less like strangers, and more like acquaintances, not to say friends. I came on deck early this morning, and had a cup of coffee at the same little table with a lady whose grace and beauty had rendered her somewhat a point of attraction yesterday. Two little children were playing at her feet, and a nurse for each was in waiting. I soon learned from her, as we fell into conversation naturally, that she spoke all the languages of northern Europe, as Russ, German, Swedish, Finnish, 380 and the French besides, but not a word of English, and this she regretted all the more, she said, since so many Americans are now travelling through her country. Her native tongue was Finnish, and her education would have been finished had she known mine .
Rarely in any country is a lady to be found with a wider culture and more accomplished manners than this Finland wife and mother has. She reads the English language, but has never attempted to speak it; and the standard authors of our country and of England were her study and delight, as the best French and Italian writers are familiar to educated persons among us.
The company by degrees came on deck, and all nationalities were soon merged into one family. Two or three from the capital are talking in English to an English party on their way to the interior of Finland, going a-fishing. Norway is farmed out to English gentlemen, so that it is hard to find a good stream for salmon and trout that is not the private property of some one in England, who keeps it for his own enjoyment. Finland is now persecuted by these piscatorial parties. One of the English gentlemen was loud in his praises of the fish of Finland, and his own wonderful skill in “killin’ of them.” The streams are very swift, and the true sportsman uses only the fly hook. This gent said, “I kill them loyally , with fly only; sometimes, when they will not rise to it, I take a bait, but in that case I throw them back into the water, even if they weigh twenty or thirty pounds. It’s the pleasure of killin’ of them that I enjoy; it’s not for the fish, it’s the killin’ of them.” The “parties” expect to enjoy two or three months in Finland fishing and shooting. It was an entertainment to note the pleasurable anticipations of these pleasant people, on their way to enjoy what to me and many must be about as great a bore and punishment as could be endured in the name of sport.
381 The Gulf of Finland, as we are running along the coast, is full of islands, to the very edge of which our vessel often comes,—romantic, rocky, hilly islands, to the right of us and left of us, without the sight of an inhabitant. The weather is glorious, cool, bracing, breezy, a cloudless sky and a brilliant sun covering the smooth water and these green isles with a blaze of beauty as we plough our way northward. How widely does all this differ from what we had expected when meditating a cruise along the coast of Finland!
We come to Fredericksham by a tortuous channel, among islands and rocks strongly fortified; but, verily, it seems scarcely worth while to make special provision to prevent people from coming up into these regions. The domes and spires of the city tell us that God is worshipped there; and, as the morning sun tips the temples with fire, we send up our matin prayers with the people of the town, whose God is also ours.
We passed the ruined fortress of Sclava , of some importance once, but now only a monument of the times when Russia and Sweden were fighting for the poor bone of Finland, from which all the meat, if it ever had any, was picked before the war was over.
The war is nominally over, and Russia is the master now; but the people keep up the old spirit of patriotic love for the mother land and tongue. The Russ is the language taught in the schools. If a scholar speaks in his own language the teacher flogs him, according to law; and if the scholar speaks in the Russian language, the other boys flog him when the school is out. So that flogging would seem to be the fate of speaking at all.
We chatted freely with the ladies respecting the social customs of Finland. There is much less freedom of social intercourse among unmarried young men and women, in polite circles, than in England, or even France. Parties of 382 young men by themselves are common, and of young ladies by themselves; balls for dancing bring them together, and their parents come with them, but one young lady said archly, “They are not always near enough to hear what we say.” These fashions are common to Russia and Finland, and other countries in the north. I had seen it written, in an English book of travels, that at dinner parties the ladies sit by themselves, apart from the gentlemen, but have met with nothing of the kind, and am assured it is a mistake. Yet it is true that the ladies generally enter the dining-room by themselves, in advance of the gentlemen, and then sit promiscuously. There is more freedom of manner and less stiffness and formality than in the same social rank in England or Germany.
It is not probable that the practice of bringing up children in this exclusion from social intercourse tends to improve their morals or manners. On the contrary, it makes matters worse. In well-ordered households, where the virtues are inculcated in the first lessons that youthful minds receive, and where parental example, more powerful than lessons or discipline, is such as children may safely follow, it will be found that as boys and girls are apt to be mixed up in the family, so they should be in social life.
Helsingfors.
AT the close of a delightful day’s sail along the coast of Finland, we reached the harbor of Helsingfors. The distant sight of the city is imposing, and one’s admiration is doubtless heightened by the surprise he feels when first finding such splendid structures in this part of the world.
The Fortress of Sweaborg, commanding the approach to the city, is rather a series of fortifications than a single fort. The works of nature have been turned to as good an account at this point as in the Straits of Gibraltar. Seven islands were placed by the Great Maker in just the right position for the purpose of being fortified to protect the city, and they have been so strongly fortified as to defy the force of any foe. The combined fleets of France and England tried their guns upon it in 1855, and retired from the trial, quite content to get away.
384 Peace is reigning now. The fortress fell into the hands of the Russians in 1808, after the garrison was reduced to the last extremity by famine, and it was the last stronghold that Sweden held in Finland. When this was gone, all was gone, and the Finns changed masters. But their subjection is rather nominal than real, as we shall see when we enter the town. On the shore where we land is the “Society House,” or, as we should call it, “The Company’s Hotel;” and we find similar houses in many parts of northern Europe. They are hotels built by the company running the steamers, or by associations, and they combine many of the features of the first-class hotels at watering-places in England or America. Near it is the palace in which the Emperor of Russia, who is also the Grand Duke of Finland, resides when he makes his brief visit, now and then, to this remote and “outlandish” part of his empire. His accommodations here are very narrow, but just as comfortable as those in the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg, holding five thousand people.
On the ship we had formed the acquaintance of a gentleman of Helsingfors, whose pleasant manners and intelligent conversation had greatly interested us during the voyage. As we had now reached his home, and were going ashore, he gave us a warm invitation to his house, which, of course, we declined, and then he insisted upon being our guide to see the famous old town. It is one of the richest in historical interest in the north.
On a grand square stand the chief public buildings, and they present an appearance that would be commanding in Paris or London. The senate-house stretches across one side of the square, the Lutheran church adorns another, the university fills a third, and from the fourth a broad avenue opens, half a mile long, to the foot of a hill crowned with an OBSERVATORY .
The University of Finland! In our ignorance, we had 385 associated Finlanders with the Laps and the Esquimaux, and had never thought of letters and science and art in connection with this race. Among the pleasures of a visit to Finland we had not reckoned an introduction to a venerable university, endowed, sustained, and flourishing on a par with those of Germany. In fact, very few of the German universities have accommodations and advantages equal to this at Helsingfors. It would be considered first-class in England or France, and there is nothing comparable to it in the United States. It has a magnificent stone edifice of architectural proportions and finish, that make the building a perpetual lecture on the beautiful and sublime in art; and within is the most complete system of rooms for every department of knowledge here pursued,—for museums, laboratories, lectures, recitations. The professors were in session in the great audience-room as we entered it; the place was adorned with a full-length portrait of the Emperor Alexander I., who is styled, in the Latin inscription, “the father of his country and the university.” The prophecy is added that art will preserve his features, and his fame will fill the whole earth. The professors seemed an earnest set of men, mostly young, all fine-looking and well dressed. I took them to be happy and successful in their calling, and I wished much that I understood their language, so as to enter into the sympathies of a set of scholars giving their lives to the pursuits of science in Finland.
The university has five separate departments, law, medicine, theology, &c., with thirty-one professors , and it is older than any university in Russia. It was founded in 1630 by the Empress Christina, eleven years before the art of printing was introduced into Finland. Its charter was signed by Axel Oxenstiern, a famous name in his country’s annals. The library contains 200,000 volumes, in all languages and in every realm of human learning. It is admirably 386 arranged in a series of beautiful rooms, in niches and galleries, having an air of repose and seclusion inviting to quiet study, such as Ptolemy anticipated when he put over the Alexandrian doors the fitting inscription, “The food of the soul.”
And the halls, floors, walls, and the whole interior, are kept with a scrupulous neatness unknown in any institution of learning claiming the dignity of a college, or university, that my feet ever entered, in the most enlightened, civilized, and beloved land in the world. Yet there is little in the way of literature in the Finnish language, which is spoken only by the peasants, the Swedish being the language of law and social life among the other classes. Some rich treasures of popular poetry have been discovered floating about in the memories of the people, and these have been gathered as curious specimens of an unlettered, but imaginative race. Kalewala, an epic poem, was first printed in 1835, and an earnest effort has been made to rouse young Finland to seek laurels in the fields of song. Two of the professors deliver lectures in Finnish. Schiller and Shakespeare have been done into the native tongue of the Finns. And the imperial decree has gone forth that after 1883 the Finnish language shall be the official tongue of the country. If Russia would be as kind and considerate of the feelings of Poland, she would conciliate her southern subjects as readily as she has her northern.
We were now led to the Senate-house. The Diet, or Congress of Finland, consists of four chambers, the nobles, the clergy, the citizens, the peasants. Each of them has a hall of its own for meeting; that of the nobles has a large chamber, with two hundred or more handsome chairs. On the walls is placed the coat-of-arms of each noble family in Finland, with the name inscribed upon it, an ostentatious display indeed, but very interesting. We came upon one familiar name; it was that of our friend who was our 387 guide. His brother is the head of the family, and, in his absence, the next in order, our friend, takes his seat in the senate.
We rode out of town a mile to the beautiful Botanical Garden, one of the resorts of the ladies and gentlemen of the city. Here they come toward evening, and enjoy themselves in social intercourse, and take a cup of tea in the grounds. The park is laid out tastefully,—beautiful shaded avenues, green meadows, banks of flowers, and the walks lead up to rocky heights overlooking the bay and sea; and these heights have been fortified to resist the coming foe. The guns, which were brought up here in the Crimean war time, are now lying about useless; but they are doing as much service when dismounted and rusting on the ground as they did in the fight, for they were not big enough to reach the ships of the enemy, whose bombs went easily over these heights into the town.
Below, and in front of a beautiful “House of Refreshments,” tables are scattered about in great numbers, and at one of these our company sat, to enjoy the hospitality of Herr Edelfelt, our new-made friend, who insisted upon entertaining us at tea in the Finland fashion out of doors, as we had declined his invitation to his own house. This custom of taking dinner, tea, or supper at a garden or restaurant is prevalent among respectable people in many parts of continental Europe, and, by the accession of Europeans into the United States, is gradually becoming an accepted custom there.
Near to this garden is a health establishment of great repute. All the medicinal springs of Europe and America, and of Asia and Africa too, I presume, are reproduced by skilful doctoring, and whosoever drinks may be cured of whatsoever disease he has, provided the disease is curable by any of the waters of the world. To this many-mouthed fountain of life thousands resort in the morning and drink 388 the waters. As they are required by the rules of health to take a brisk walk up the heights and down again, before and after taking the refreshing draught, there can be no manner of doubt that strangers resorting hither must derive great benefit. The air is salubrious, the scenery magnificent, the climate bracing, the regimen judicious, and the morning exercises quite as edifying for invalids as those prescribed by Dr. Jay, of Bath. It is quite probable that this artificial fountain in Finland has cured as many patients as Baden or Kissingen, and yet it has not been celebrated half so widely. Besides drinking, bathing is plentifully enjoyed; and his case must be hard that is not softened somewhat by the internal and external application of pure cold water, with plenty of exercise in the open air, on the heights of Helsingfors, in Finland. I drank none of the water, inhaled the air, took the constitutional walk, and was perfectly well when I came away. As I stayed there only about an hour, the inference is fair that if I had used the waters and remained a week or two, I should have been competent to give the cure a first-rate certificate.
We are now at the sixtieth degree of north latitude, eighteen degrees further north than New York city, or more than a thousand miles nearer the North Pole. We have returned to the ship, and night is nominally about us, but no darkness settles on the world. We can read and write all night without a candle, if we are so disposed. And there is no sleep to be had, for all the livelong night the natives are pouring on board with freight; passengers are coming; they fill up the cabin and spend the parting hours with friends, eating, drinking, laughing, and talking obstreperously; and the leaving-taking, with the inevitable indiscriminate kissing, keeps the place in a constant uproar, that knows no alleviation until at four in the morning we put to sea, and find rest in the cradle of the deep.
We are now going further north, by narrow passages 389 among islands simply masses of rocks, utterly barren, washed by the waves till they are perfectly smooth; and not a tree, nor shrub, nor blade of grass is in sight upon them. The channel is very tortuous, marked by poles, and sometimes it is so near the rocks that we seem to be grazing their precipitous sides. The weather is cool, clear, and delightful; though midsummer, the overcoat or shawl is agreeable; and the exhilaration of the day and the passage among the islands became general among the passengers, who throng the hurricane-deck to enjoy the scenery. Some of the islands that we pass in the course of the day have some available land and a few inhabitants, whose chief pursuit is fishing. And these scattered islands, and the adjoining shores on the mainland, furnish sailors that enter the service of other countries, and are among the most hardy, healthful, and valuable seamen to be found. The subjects of the Russian government, either here or in any other part of the empire, are not allowed to expatriate themselves at their own pleasure, as thousands would gladly do, if they could make their way into some more hospitable portion of the globe. But they can often find opportunities to get on board merchant vessels as seamen, and they are not slow to avail themselves of such opportunities. The soil does not give them food. They have no market for the fish that the sea would furnish. They are therefore very poor, and in bad seasons famine overtakes them. The people that have money, the well-to-do people,—and there are many such in Finland,—have plenty of dried salmon, and fresh too, beef and potatoes, which, with bread and butter, make good enough living for anybody; and to these staples they add some of the luxuries that money will command anywhere. But the poor are very poor, and they constitute the masses of the people,—the great multitude whose condition we go to look into when we visit foreign lands.
Abo is pronounced Obo. It is the name of the northernmost 390 town of any note in Finland, and a famous old town it is. We were told that the hotel is the farthest north of any hotel in the world. Away up above us on the borders of the Gulf of Bothnia,—and Abo is at the dividing line between the Baltic and Bothnia,—is Bjonneborg, and Christireestad, and Wasa, and Uleaborg, and Tornea on the very head of the gulf, where there is something in the way of a house of refreshment for travellers, I have not a doubt. Perhaps this is the last that aspires to the distinction of a hotel on the European plan, and we will enjoy the comfortable satisfaction of thinking that, as we are going no farther north, there is no place of rest and entertainment to receive us if we should.
A large crowd of people was standing at the wharf to see the steamer, to greet friends expected, and to hear the news. They were quiet, orderly, and well-looking. There was no rush to the gangway, no pulling and hauling to get on, or get baggage and passengers, though there were hundreds waiting for any kind of a job by which a little money could be made. The hotel—the Society House, as it is called—is close by the landing, and affords all the substantial comforts a traveller requires.
The old castle, historic, romantic, and famous, is in full view; a massive stone tower on which the storms of centuries, in war and peace, have spent their fury. The streets of the town are wide and the houses low, and one looks in vain for the appearances of a city that was founded by Eric the Saint, who reigned from 1157 to 1160, the time when the Sun of Christianity first softened the rigor of this northern clime. The castle was founded then, and for long centuries held in check the Russians who sought the conquest of Finland.
The cathedral has been an object of intense interest for ages past, as the first monument of Christianity in this region, and the burial-place of the most illustrious persons 391 in the history of the country. One of the tombs bears the name of Catharine Monsdotter, who was taken from humble life and married to the King of Sweden, and by one of those strange reverses, now ceasing to be strange, she returned to Finland and died in obscurity, and her husband perished in prison. Her remains repose among queens and princes, but she finds no compensation in this for the loss of a diadem. Two white marble statues, life-size, stand on a sarcophagus in one of the chapels, over the dust of a man and wife who were celebrated for their wealth and noble birth, having the blood of kings; and the statue of the wife is even now decked (not adorned) with necklace and bracelets,—gaudy jewelry indeed to garnish a whited sepulchre.
In 1827 an awful conflagration swept over this city of only 20,000 inhabitants, and consumed two-thirds of all the houses in it; the inside of the cathedral was destroyed, the university and its great library, and the chief public edifices fell a prey to the flames, and the town will never recover from the disaster. Its university was removed to Helsingfors, where we have already visited it. Its trade is now of no account. The interior of the country furnishes little or nothing for export, and the glory of Abo—for it once had some glory—is departed for ever.
The Gulf of Bothnia extends six degrees to the north of Abo, but there is no trade or travel that requires a steamer, and ours is now to strike across the gulf, through the Aland Isles to Stockholm. We are bound there to visit Sweden and Norway. Those who have not this trip in view, and wish to see more of the country, can remain at Abo and go back to Wyborg and St. Petersburg by land. There is semi-occasionally a coach for travellers in Finland, but the more excellent way is by private carriage, or carriole , the carriage of the country; a narrow low sulky, with room enough for one, hardly for two, besides the driver. It has 392 no top; but there is another trap called a kibitka , a long, narrow wagon with no springs, and a leathern hood which you can draw over you in case of rain, and with a bed in the bottom of it, on which, if not too long, you can stretch yourself out, while the driver attends to the little animal ahead, that tears up and down hill, through the sand, at a fearful pace, regardless of an occasional break-down and turn-over. This is a Russian innovation, and in the Paris Exhibition there were several very handsome specimens of the vehicle, which is far more pleasant to read about than to ride in. The bondkara is still another wretched contrivance, about the same thing as our buck-board ; with this essential, not to say fatal difference, that ours has four wheels, and the board extending from the forward to the hind axle makes an agreeable spring; an experienced driver sitting before, and the passenger behind him, holding on with both hands, can ride astride and not suffer much. The bondkara of Finland has but two wheels, and the bench, without a back, is fastened to the axle-tree, the driver before, the traveller behind; the equilibrium must be preserved with care or the load goes to the ground, and when the wild horse tears down hill as if running away, the passenger must hold on tight with both hands on the sides of the seat, and the other—but he has no other, unless he’s a little behindhand, in which case he would do well to use it as best he can. The average speed of ten miles an hour is made, and that is pretty well in such a country as this.
It is very strange that the intercourse of nations does not lead to the more rapid adoption of improvements which have been found to be useful. Nations are slow to learn of one another. We in America have railroad arrangements that Europeans know, but will not introduce. They have many things in their system that we ought to apply, but will not. People of different countries have an idea that what they do not know is not worth knowing, and so 393 they prefer a poor way of their own to a better way of others. But we have nothing to learn from Finland in the line of travel. Patient endurance is something, and the people of Finland deserve credit for the spirit with which they have borne themselves through the long period of their dreary history. They are not numerous, the entire population amounting to but 1,800,000 souls: 40,000 are members of the Russian or Greek Church; the rest are Protestants, mostly Lutherans. It embraces only 6,844 geographical miles of surface, and no other country is so much covered with water. Yet it has a splendid university, with thirty-one professors; it abounds in churches, it has a peaceful, moral, and intelligent population, and some of the gentlemen and ladies whom it was my pleasant fortune to meet were among the most agreeable and cultivated persons I have encountered abroad.
The day was bright as we left the harbor of Abo, and struck out into the sea among the Aland Isles. The wind was strong, but not enough to disturb the weaker brethren who are easy victims of the sea. Breakfast was served at ten and a half o’clock, and already the Swedish customs at meals began to show themselves. Before sitting down to the table, or immediately on taking a seat, as you prefer, little glasses of gin schnapps are passed around, and each one is expected to take a nip as an appetizer. The same at dinner. Ditto at supper. Also after meals a punch, not like the American drink of that name, but something that looks thick, oily, amber-colored, and inducing a smacking of the lips, which, without uttering a word, say, “It ees goot.” Breakfast, after schnapps, comprised radishes sent around as the first course, with Bologna sausages, tongue and dried beef, salt fish, bread and butter, beefsteak and potatoes, ham and eggs, with coffee if you insisted on having it. There is evidently no need of starving when you get all that for breakfast, and about four hours afterwards sit down to dinner and take soup (if you can ), with fish following, and beef, poultry, game, salad, cucumbers, puddings, fruit, nuts, &c., and wine at your order. Eating is one of the principal institutions in these northern climates. There is but one other institution more highly valued, and that is drinking. They keep at one or the other or both pretty steadily. Besides the four regular meals, lunch and supper, 395 in addition to those I have named, they are fond of intermediate refreshments, and a drink never comes amiss. The amount of strong liquor they can carry without apparent inconvenience is something wonderful. And it is more remarkable as we get along into the north toward the Pole. They say it is the bracing climate which induces such an expenditure of vital force, that the supply must be replenished with nourishing food and stimulating drink.
We were crossing the Baltic. It was warm off the coast of Finland. It was cold in the middle of the sea, so cold at noon that we had to wrap up with shawls and blankets, and then be uncomfortable on deck, and were finally driven below. But when at four o’clock we ran in among the islands off the Swedish coast, we found it warm again. So there are belts about the globe itself.
We approach Stockholm through a thousand isles and more, so near each other that we seem to be winding our way along a narrow river. Now and then a tower, solitary and sublime, starts up from some grand cliff. An ancient castle stands among the rocky headlands. Suddenly the city rises, like Venus or Venice, from the bosom of the sea, beautiful in the sunlight that gilds her palaces and domes. The entrance to Stockholm is magnificent. I have not been more impressed by the approach to any other city but Constantinople.
As our steamer touched the wharf the captain’s wife and children and a few friends came on board to welcome him home. He had been absent nearly two weeks! Had crossed the Baltic and sailed or steamed along down the coast from Abo to Petersburg and back again, and his friends were here to receive him as if he had been around the world! And it was good to see the greeting. His young and beautiful wife the captain was proud to present to his new-made friends on the ship, while two charming children clung to his legs as if they would not let him go again.
396 Porters from the hotels were ready to take the luggage, and the passengers, ladies and gentlemen, went ashore and walked up the streets at their leisure. There was a quietness about this quite refreshing. No bustle, no pulling and hauling, no loud talking and swearing; the landing in Sweden was a pleasant contrast to that of more highly cultured countries, our own for instance.
Stockholm Steamers.
Hotel Rydburg received us,—large enough to entertain two or three hundred guests,—and a curiously arranged house it was, the geography of which I have not learned, after its careful study of several days. I know that to get to my room I have to go up two flights of stairs, then out upon a balcony, then down one flight of stairs, then ring 397 a door-bell and get admission into a room that is not mine, then across this apartment into my own, which is a spacious and handsomely furnished room,—sofa, lounge, ottomans, piano, secretary, bookcase containing a set of Voltaire’s works in seventy French volumes, pictures, engravings, stuffed birds, and other specimens in natural history, all suggesting the idea that the mysterious passages through which I have been conducted have led me out of the hotel proper into some private house attached, and that some Swedenborgian philosopher has rented his premises to the hotel. He certainly has things comfortable if such be the fact, and I will use them as not abusing them while I stay.
Scandinavia includes the peninsula of which Sweden is but a part, Norway and Denmark making up the rest of it; and its history, is it not all written by Pliny and Tacitus in pagan antiquity times? and a thousand years after they wrote of it, did not Saxo Grammaticus the Dane, and Snorrow Sturleson, of Sunny Iceland, bring down the story to their times? Not far from the same time when the Saxons invaded England, the Gothic tribes under Odin migrated to Sweden, and founded an empire on the borders of Lake Malar, with Sigtuna for its capital. Odin was a god, in his own esteem and that of his followers, and he combined in his sublime and mysterious person all the offices of priest and king and teacher; he was the law-giver and judge. With lofty aspirations for power, he conquered by his will, his arms, and his address, and finally he became the object of religious worship through the north of Europe. The Sagas, or sacred books of the ancient Swedes, give us the fullest insight into the views of the Scandinavians in religion, as to the creation of the world, the government of the universe, and the destiny of man. It was in the ninth century that Christianity was openly preached in Sweden for the first time, and the dynasty of 398 pagan kings did not terminate till the beginning of the eleventh century, when Eric V., in 1001, being converted, destroyed the great temple at Upsala, where, to this day, are the graves of Thor and Woden and Freytag, on which this Eric, the first Christian king, was slain by his pagan people in their fury, excited by the destruction of their temple.
The history of Sweden since Christianity became its religion has been glorious among the nations, although she has been a small and inconsiderable power. Under Gustavus Wasa, in 1529, the Roman Catholic religion was abolished and the Lutheran established, and just one hundred years afterwards, Gustavus Adolphus, the grandson of Wasa, was called upon by the Protestant powers of Europe to put himself at their head to resist the Roman Catholic movement to obtain universal dominion in Christendom. He was triumphant in his masterly generalship, and fell covered with glory at the battle of Lutzen. His name is now inscribed with that of Washington, among the noblest characters the human race has ever produced.
At the present time the King of Sweden must be a Lutheran, the government is a hereditary constitutional monarchy, restricted in its descent to the male line. The congress is composed of four separate houses,—nobles, clergy, burgesses, and peasants; and the unanimous consent of these four houses, and the approbation of the king, are required to make any alteration in the constitution, which is therefore not likely to be very suddenly amended. In other measures a majority in three houses may pass a bill, but if two houses vote aye , and two vote no , then a committee of eighteen, from each house, takes the subject in hand, and their decision, approved by the king, is final. This arrangement works well for conservatism, but is not favorable to progress. It is easy to retard legislation, and difficult to press things through.
399 Having a letter to Dr. Stolberg, of Stockholm, I was directed to call at the Caroline Institute to learn his address. A walk of a mile into the outskirts of the city took me to what proved to be a hospital, with ample grounds and excellent arrangements. A woman answered my ring at the door, and led me to the study of one of the professors, and left me there to await his coming. It was so simple in its furniture, and yet so well fitted up for business, I could plainly see it was for work, not rest, that he had that den made. And when he came, a thin, bent, pale student, cap on his head and pipe in his mouth, and working-wrapper on, I felt at once that he lived in his books and his thoughts. He would have me go to his chemical laboratory, and when he found me interested in the experiments he was making, he became enthusiastic in his descriptions, and would have cheerfully given up the day to the “pursuit of science” with a stranger from a distant land. Yet I had but one question to ask him, and he was able to give me the address of the man I was seeking.
Here was a hospital, or rather an asylum for invalids, into which, on easy conditions, a poor body could get admission, and be kindly cared for at the expense of the state. Many of these institutions are scattered over the world, the fruit of Christianity, and when I find them in places where I least expect, they tell me that love works the same results everywhere. I soon found Dr. Stolberg, in a modest dwelling, in a garden retired from the street, and he received me with great courtesy and warmth.
In Sweden a physician makes no charge whatever for medical attendance; and, what is more remarkable still, very many of the people who can afford to pay for the services of a doctor are willing to avail themselves of such aid without paying any thing for it. One physician told me that of ninety-six cases that he had treated within a 400 certain time, only six paid him at all! It is customary for those who do pay to pay by the year, and fifty-six dollars, or about twelve American dollars, would be a large sum for persons in good circumstances to give for the benefit of a physician’s counsel for a whole year. There is, therefore, no great inducement, in the way of profit, to go into the medical profession. Nor is it an introduction to society, the physician not being in this respect materially above the apothecary in social standing.
The clergy, as a profession, are not materially better off than the physicians. Their pay comes from the state, but their salaries are very small, and, with only here and there an exception, they have very little influence, social or political. They are not men of learning, and perhaps they are as influential as they could be expected to be. The established religion is Lutheran, with one archbishopric, eleven bishoprics, with 3,500 clergymen. They are said to be “highly educated,” but I was assured that there is a great lack of education among the clergy, and the very small salaries which even the dignitaries receive would confirm the statement that the church does not retain the aid of learned and able men.
The press is free, and when a man is called to account for the abuse of this freedom, the case goes to a jury, whose action is final, and there is no appeal from it.
Only one in a thousand of the population is ignorant of letters; they can read, and nearly all can write.
A common laborer gets about twenty-seven cents of our money for a day’s work, and a mechanic at his trade earns a little more. The cost of living must be very little, where the working classes can support themselves and families on incomes so small as these!
Yet they do live comfortably, and if it were not for drinking intoxicating liquors, they would be well off.
They are, as a people, as little given to other vices as in 401 any country of Europe, perhaps I might say, in the world. The statistical tables show that many, very many, children are born into the world whose parents are not lawfully married, and it is therefore set down to the discredit of Sweden and Norway that they are very lax in their social morals. There is this, however, to be said on this delicate subject, the law forbids the marriage of any parties who have not taken the Lord’s Supper, and many do not wish to become communicants in the church, who are also quite willing to be married. But the church will not sanction their union, and they live together in the marital relation, true to each other, but without the blessing of the church. Their children are returned in the census to the discredit of the morals of Sweden! Here is an interesting point for moralists to study. The practice is wrong, and so is the law that has made the practice so common.
The mysterious words, Riddarholm kyrkan, provided always your education has not extended into the language of Sweden, are used to define a kyrkan or kirk, the Riders’ or Horsemen’s or Knights’ Church in Stockholm, decidedly the most peculiar and interesting of all I have seen in the north of Europe.
Divine service is celebrated within its walls but once a year. It is not a house for the living to pray in, but for the dead to lie in. It is not for the dead of common clay, but for the dust of kings only,—a royal mausoleum. It is a structure of nameless architecture, once Gothic doubtless, but worked over until small trace of its original design appears. A spire once almost reached the clouds, and when the lightnings played too fiercely on it, it was replaced by one of cast iron, which tapers finely to a lofty height, and defies the thunders.
It is a symbol, the whole church is, of a rude age and land. The doors were opened at noon of a bright summer day, and yet as we entered, a sense of gloom, of ruin, of 402 vast antiquity, and the utter emptiness of this poor life of ours, came over me like a thick cloud. Every stone of uneven, broken pavement was a tomb, and the inscriptions long since were worn away by the feet of strangers. In dumb silence, for centuries the royal remains of successive dynasties have been resting here, and their names are forgotten, rubbed out, and unwritten elsewhere. The flags, spears, drums, swords, guns, and implements of war unused in modern times, are hung around the walls, as if this were an arsenal and not a sepulchre. In front of the high altar, with recumbent effigies of ancient kings, and in the midst of inscriptions hard to read and some still harder to understand, was one epitaph in these words:—
On either side of the door, and on elevated pedestals, are equestrian statues, cased, both horse and rider, in solid armor; and that of Charles IX. is said to have been made by Benvenuto Cellini. The armor is more interesting from its association with the name of its maker than the king who wore it. Such is fame.
On the right of the high altar, and within the choir, is the tomb which every Protestant who comes to the north visits as a shrine,—not to pray for the repose of a soul, but to testify his reverence for the name of Gustavus Adolphus. The trophies of his victories adorn his sarcophagus of green porphyry, which was made in Italy to receive his remains. His own “garments rolled in blood,” in which he fell while fighting on the field of Lutzen, November 16, 1632, are preserved remarkably in their stains, for more than two centuries! His epitaph is short and fitting: “Moriens triumphavit,”—
403 The cause of truth, religious liberty, and the rights of man, all denied and crushed by the Papal power,—the cause which woke the soul of Luther and inspired the Reformation for these three centuries,—has been struggling on toward the universal empire of the human soul. That was the cause in which Gustavus Adolphus died covered with wounds and glory, and his epitaph says that he triumphed when he died. I think he did. True, the battle goes on still, and many a hard field is to be fought over yet, before He whose right it is shall reign unquestioned in His dominion over the souls of the race. But the grand foe of the Church of Christ was then the civil power of the Papacy. Rome had the armies of all papal kings at her command, and they moved at her ghostly will, propagating her religion, like that of the Moslem, by the sword. It was to roll back this tide, more terrible than the waves of the Crusades, that Gustavus Adolphus was called to lead the armies of the Protestant powers, and the result was complete success. There is not now one crowned head on earth that acknowledges the supremacy of the popes. Austria has cast off its allegiance, and it was Austria that led the South of Europe against Gustavus Adolphus. Italy is independent of Rome. And Spain, the birthplace of the Inquisition, and the most abject to the Pope, has cast out the principle of intolerance, and proclaimed the rights of worship. What Luther did for the truth in the pulpit, Gustavus Adolphus did for the same cause in the field.
We went down the stone stairway, worn deeply by the tread of generations, into the lower regions, where lie whole rows of dead kings turned to dust, coffins tucked away on shelves and in niches, reminding me of the Bible words: “All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.” What’s the glory, though, of such a resting-place, it is hard to say. Their dust is no 404 better than that of other men. Their names, even among kings, have ceased to be distinguished from other names. No man could go among these walks of tombs, these shelved kings, and pick out one or another, and say who is who. And if he could, I do not see that it would be any particular satisfaction to the quiet gentleman on the shelf. If the visitor should say, “Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms?” no answer would come back from the tomb.
We did not set foot within the gates of his majesty, the King of Sweden, and this neglect was much to the disgust of some of our Swedish friends, who consider the royal residence a marvel of architectural grandeur and beauty. We could not see it, even when they pointed to its magnificence with the same exalted opinion of its splendor that possessed the Jews in sight of their temple. The Lion’s Staircase, rising from the water’s edge and leading to the main entrance, adorned with two bronze, and therefore quiet, lions, presents a grand front to the palace, and within the same interminable suites of apartments, and the same gaudy furniture, and the same sort of pictures and statuary, with nothing that has a title to any distinction above what is common in all palaces.
The picture-gallery has some five hundred paintings, some by Van Dyck, Paul Veronese, Domenichino, and others equally well known to fame, and the sculpture gallery boasts a sleeping Endymion, and a few other gems; but we are out of the enchanted zone, and must not expect to be charmed with the brush or the chisel in Sweden. We shall find Thorvaldsen when we come to Denmark.
But the royal library has 75,000 volumes, and if it had the library that Queen Christina sent to the Vatican at Rome, it would be still a greater wonder, and then would be increased if the ancient collection made by Charles X., 405 and consumed by fire in 1697, had been preserved. The Codex Aureus , a Latin manuscript of the gospels, dating in the sixth or seventh century, “is written in Gothic characters of gold, on folio leaves of vellum, alternately white and violet.”
“This book is additionally interesting, from its containing an Anglo-Saxon inscription, of which the following is a translation: ‘In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I, Alfred Aldorman (Senior or Prince), and Werburg, my wife, got up this book from a heathen war-troop, with our pure treasure, which was then of pure gold. And this we got for the love of God, and for our souls’ behoof, and for that we would not that this holy book should longer abide in heathenesse; and now will we give it to Christ’s Church, God to praise, and glory, and worship, in thankful remembrance of his passion, and for the use of the holy brotherhood, who in Christ’s Church do daily speak God’s praise, and that they may every month read for Alfred, and for Werburg, and for Alhdryd (their daughter), their souls to eternal health, as long as they have declared before God that baptism (holy rites) shall continue in this place. Even so I, Alfred, Dux, and Werburg, pray and beseech, in the name of God Almighty, and of his saints, that no man shall be so daring as to sell or part with this holy book from Christ’s Church, so long as baptism there may stand. (Signed) Alfred, Werburg, Alhdryd.’ No trace appears to exist of the history of this volume from the time it was thus given to Canterbury Cathedral until it was purchased in Italy, and added to this library. Here also is a huge manuscript copy of the Bible, written upon prepared asses’ skin. It was found in a convent at Prague, when that city was taken by the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War. A copy of Koberger’s Bible, printed at Leyden, 1521, and the margins of which are filled with annotations by Martin 406 Luther. Besides these, the library is rich in manuscripts and rare editions.”
The King of Sweden is the most affable and approachable monarch in Europe. In his daily walks, or while going about in the public steamers that ply through the waters of the city, as omnibuses do in New York, he enters freely into conversation with the people. To strangers, especially Americans, he is exceedingly kind, or, as his subjects would say, gracious . I saw him frequently while he was riding, but came no nearer to his Majesty. He had one of the most splendid reviews that I had ever seen, when the whole of the Swedish army that is stationed in this part of the country, together with the militia, all liable to be called on to do military duty, are put through a drill for a few days and nights every year, in the summer season. A vast open country, hill, wood and plain, is chosen, tents pitched, and for a few days mimic war goes through all its motions, saving and except that there is no blood shed. This annual exercise does something to keep up a martial spirit, and makes a few grand holidays, when the whole city is agog with the excitement. A fête day in Rome, an emperor’s day in Paris, or Derby day in London, would not exceed the annual review in Stockholm. The nobility and fashion, the beauty and folly, the masses of people in all sorts of conveyances, and more on foot than on wheels, were out at the parade. The squadrons were set on the hills, so far apart that a telescope was needed to see what was going on, and the marching and countermarching made a pretty show that delighted the people, and gave the soldiers a taste of the amusements they would have when rushing into battle under a blazing sun, and blazing guns in front of them.
The wars of Sweden occupy a large place in European history. Yet when we see how small the population, how 407 limited the resources, and remote the situation of the country, it seems incredible that human wisdom has been so foolish as to permit a race of kings to waste the lives and wealth of a nation of honest men, in the miserable game of war.
But the genius of Sweden is seen in a very clever arrangement to make the burden of soldiering as light as possible. The standing army proper is very small and has little to do at present. But the reserve is large, and consists of men who are distributed about the kingdom and quartered on the government lands, which they work in time of peace, and thus earn their own support. If the crown lands are leased to others, a certain number of these soldiers is set apart for, or quartered on the land; and the lessee has their labor, and is responsible for their support. In this ingenious way the government makes its land pay the expenses of its army in peace. We might take a leaf out of the royal book of Sweden, and, by a wise administration of our vast national landed property, make it contribute something to the support of the government, while we improved its value. That would be certainly more statesmanlike than to give it away by millions every year to speculators. The Swedish soldiers are also employed in making roads, and on other public works, as ours might be, greatly to their own moral benefit, and to the advantage of the country.
It strikes me that there is more order and less crime in this northern part of Europe than in any other country I have yet visited. I see little evidence of abject poverty and low vice. By night or day I have not seen a person on the streets at Stockholm who seemed to be of the abandoned class. Longer acquaintance may correct this impression and reveal another state of facts. Two American travellers were robbed of their watches and money, 408 at the hotel where I am lodged, but a few days ago. It is not at all likely the thief is a native of these regions. He has probably followed the travellers, or, what is quite as likely, been one of their travelling companions. The landlord paid the losses without a lawsuit, and the Americans went on their way.
BY the beautiful island of Drottningholm, on which the king’s mother resides in a palace within a park, that seems the abode of peace and plenty, and along the shores of other islands small and picturesque, but lovely to look on as we pass them on our way, we sail out into Lake Malar.
It is a wide, winding, beautiful sheet of water,—one of the many noble lakes that Sweden holds in her bosom. Two islands in it come so nearly together, that a drawbridge for a railroad stretches across, and opens for us to pass through, and then we sweep out into another expanse of water, the shores skirted with pines and hemlock; no hills in sight, but the scenery is lovely, though lacking grandeur. We are going into the heart of Sweden. Now the shores are cultivated to the water’s edge, and fine farms rise to view, with here and there a red cottage, with a tile roof: all the peasant houses and fisherman cottages are painted with red ochre, cheap, but unpleasant to the eye. Now the shores are bolder, rocky, and great forest trees, fir and spruce, are abundant.
The oldest place in Sweden, and that carries us back into far antiquity, is Sigtuna , and we have come to it, on the shores of Lake Malar, about four hours from Stockholm. We are in the midst of the remains of the old pagan worship of Scandinavia, where the altars to heathen deities, whose graves (!) we are going to see to-day, have smoked with human sacrifices.
410 Odin or Woden (whence comes our Wedensday or Wednesday), a hero of the north,—in time to which history, at least reliable history, runneth not back,—here established the seat of his power, and it took its name from his original title, which was Sigge, and Tuna, which is our word town. Here Sigge, or Odin, reared stone temples, of which the ruins are before us. Here his power became so great, and such the reverence of rude peoples for power, that the temples and altars which he reared to gods whom he worshipped, became, in the eyes and hearts of the people, dedicate to him, whom they came to revere and worship as a god. From this spot the worship of Odin, and afterwards of his son Thor (whence our Thursday), spread through the whole of the North of Europe, and, in spite of the subsequent triumph of Roman Christianity, and then of the Lutheran Reformation, the Odin superstition—a secret, unconfessed, but controlling reverence for those heroic human deities, the hero worship of the human soul—still obtains among the more ignorant classes of the people over all this northern country. The legends that have come down from sire to son, keep alive in successive generations the hidden fear of these false gods, and form the largest part of the unwritten poetry and romance of all Scandinavia.
Pirates from Finland came here and laid waste the fortified town of Odin, and it has again and again been built and destroyed; but here is the remnant of an ancient temple or church, and three towers, which have the highest interest of antiquity (whatever that is) hanging, like mantling ivy, all about them. No one but an antiquary would wish to spend more than a moment in Sigtuna, among its 400 inhabitants. Tyre and Sidon on the sea coast are not so desolate as this spot, which seems accursed for its pagan crimes and impostures in days long since gone by.
Sweet pictures of rural life in Sweden were seen this 411 morning as we sailed through this Lake Malar. Opposite Sigtuna, and a little farther on, we touched the shore, and landed Professor Olivecrona, of the University of Upsala, with his wife and a party of English friends. He had been to Stockholm to meet them, and bring them up the lake to his country residence in summer. It was a beautiful mansion, very near to the water’s edge, in the midst of woods and delightful walks. The children and servants came down to the landing just in front of the house, to a private wharf, and as the parents went ashore, and four lovely children in their light summer dresses welcomed them, and greeted the friends coming with them, it was a scene of domestic beauty and happiness that quite touched an old man’s heart some three or four thousand miles from home.
More islands, among which our boat makes its tortuous course, coming so near to the rocks that we might easily scrape them; now and then a bare white rock holds its peak solitary above the water, and a bird of prey perches on its top, looking into the deep for his dinner. Now the shores are clothed with green forests, and again we emerge among meadows, and in the bright sun the contrasts of light and shadow, as we pass by the pines and fir trees, are constantly pleasing. An air of infinite quietude pervades the region, and it is painful to believe that it was once a “habitation of cruelty.”
Suddenly a grand old chateau, the ancient residence of the Brahe family, one of the oldest and most illustrious in Sweden, opened on our view. It was built in 1630, and each one of its four towers is surmounted by an orrery, in honor of the famous astronomer whose name alone has made the family famous. A boat comes off from the shore, and takes passengers who wish to visit the house. Its library and museum and galleries of art make it a popular resort. On its walls are portraits of Tycho, and the Ebba Brahe, whom Gustavus Adolphus loved, and would have 412 married but for more ambitious schemes of her mother that never came to pass.
During this delightful passage of six hours through Lake Malar, in one of the loveliest days of summer, we have not seen a sail nor a steamer, except the return boat of the line that has brought us. And this fact is sufficient to show the utter stagnation of commercial life in the interior of Sweden.
I confess to surprise on coming to Upsala and finding the ancient university here in high prosperity, with all the appliances of education that first-class institutions require. Linnæus, the great botanist, was professor here, and his statue is one of the ornaments of the university. The Hospital,—a new and extensive building,—a royal palace on a hill, the Agricultural College, the Library, &c., with a Botanical Garden and ample parks, suggest to the traveller that in Sweden one might find a home to his mind, if his lot had been cast in this part of the earth.
You have a fondness for old books and manuscripts. Here they are in abundance; not of the sort, perhaps, that most antiquarians would run after, but, nevertheless, very precious and costly.
Bishop Ulfilas, toward the close of the fourth century, translated the four gospels into the Gothic language, and his translation was copied in letters of silver upon vellum of a pale purple color, in characters very like the Runic. This manuscript is the very oldest extant in the Teutonic tongue, and was probably made by the Ostro-Gothic scribes in Italy. It was once owned by an abbey in Westphalia. Then it was treasured up in Cologne; then by the fortunes of war it passed to Konigsberg, and to Amsterdam, with Vossius, on whose death the Swedish chancellor bought it and presented it to the University of Upsala. It is known among biblical scholars as the Codex Argenteus , or Silver Copy, from the style of the lettering.
Upsala.
If you have a taste for Icelandic literature, so refreshing in the heats of summer, here you can find the oldest and coldest of the Eddas; and alongside of them is a Bible with the marginal notes of Luther and Melancthon. Students in and out of the university have free access to these treasures, and the reading-room is a pleasant resort for those 414 who love to refresh themselves in the midst of a hundred thousand books, in all tongues and every realm of human thought.
About fifty professors and fifteen hundred students compose the faculty and attendance of this famous university. It was founded in 1477, and has but one rival in Sweden, that at Ludd, founded in 1666. The expense of a student’s education, including board, fees, &c., is about three hundred dollars a year.
No one can be admitted to practise in any of three professions,—law, medicine, or divinity,—without taking his degrees at one of the two universities. This ensures a high order of acquirements in professional men, and when we state one fact in addition, that one male person in every 688 in Sweden enjoys an education at the universities, it will be seen that these institutions reach the whole people, and extend their advantages into the midst of the masses. Sweden, and in this respect she is not singular in Europe, has not made the mistake which we in the United States have been making, of multiplying little colleges, and little theological seminaries, one-horse institutions, with the idea that, by bringing a school to the door of every man, or of every church, we should be enlarging the area of education, and multiplying the number of educated men. Thus we have reduced the standard of fitness for professorships. Thus we have diminished the number of students. Lowering the mark to which scholars should aspire, we have cheapened education, suppressed literary ambition, made the professions less attractive, and filled them with an inferior order of men, compared with what they would have been had the standard of great universities, with their high qualifications of professorships and degrees, been maintained. If all the money which has been expended in the maintenance of feeble and famishing colleges and divinity schools had been applied to the education of youth in two, 415 three, or four universities, they would have been far better taught, and the surplus of money over and above the expenses of their education would endow a new university as often as the extension of territory and the increase of population render it necessary.
A student of the university is required to wear a cap of peculiar make, to distinguish him, not in the university town only, but wherever he may travel in Sweden. The cap is white, with a black border, and a rosette of the national colors in front. This requisition is useful in keeping the student upon his good behavior, and also as a peripatetic advertisement of the educational institutions of the country. It is only by slow degrees that our people come into the habit of putting classes into uniform. It is but recently that the police were so clad: now we have letter-carriers, railway officials, &c. The clergy formerly were generally known by a white neckcloth, but that has ceased to be their distinction.
The old cathedral had the appearance of neglect; it was out one side from the busy haunts of men, and this was in its favor, but it seemed to be neglected. Twenty-four whitewashed columns support the roof. In side chapels are the tombs and the remains of the old kings of Sweden. And when I had spelled out some of the Latin inscriptions, and had linked the names of these sleepers with the old-time stories of the land, the venerable cathedral began to take upon itself the form of a great monument of the dead past. And well it might, for the first stones were laid for its foundation in the year 1289, and it was consecrated in 1435. Its dimensions rise into the sublime, for it is 370 feet long, 141 feet wide, and 115 feet high.
The columns within are capped with carvings of grotesque beasts, strangely out of taste in the house of God. Linnæus lies buried here, and a splendid mural tablet and bronze medallion portrait of him adorn the wall. Here lie Gustavus 416 Wasa and two of his wives, and a long series of fresco paintings in seven compartments celebrate the great events in the life of this illustrious man. Here, too, is a tomb of John III., remarkable for this,—that it was made in Italy, was lost at sea on its way here, was fished up sixty years afterwards, and brought to this spot.
The sacristan was very kind in revealing to our not very reverent eyes the precious things here kept for special exhibition to those who would pay for the privilege. With this understanding we were permitted to behold crowns and sceptres, a gold cup two feet high, a dagger that had been stuck into a king, and a statue of the old god-king Thor! This last is not worshipped here, but is cherished as a memorial of the times when paganism was prevalent, and as a trophy of the triumph of Christianity over the powers of darkness.
About three miles north of Upsala, the seat of the great university, is Old Upsala, more sacred than any other spot in Sweden: for here are the lofty mounds which tradition has consecrated as graves of the gods,—the gods who aforetime were held in reverent awe and honor by the Scandinavian race, and who, to this day, hold some sort of sway over the rude masses of the North.
We rode out in carriages from the university, and passed in sight of the house which covers the Mora Stone, on which the kings of Sweden were chosen and crowned. It is made of about twelve different stones joined and inscribed with the names of the monarchs who have been elected by the voice of the people. In 1780 the house was built over it by Gustavus III., but that was seven centuries after the first inscription upon it; for here it is written that Sten Kil was chosen in 1060, and seven others, down to Christian I., in 1457. Gustavus Wasa met his subjects here in mass-meeting and addressed them from this stone in 1520. The hoar of ages, with all the memories of the 417 revolutions of these centuries, gathers on this spot. It is now only a shrine for pilgrims with antiquity on the brain, who wander the world over to see what the world has been. I have a large development of that weakness, and it has a great gratification in this part of Europe: more, indeed, than it had in Egypt; less than in Palestine. In the Holy Land the sacred associations with the religion we love makes every acre of it dear to the heart: we take pleasure in every stone, and favor all the dust of Judea. With less awe,—indeed, with no awe,—but with wonder, we now come to Old Upsala, to the graves of the pagan deities.
They are three conical mounds, about fifty feet in height, very regular in shape, with a broad plateau at the summit, and the unvarying tradition of the country is, that the largest of the mounds is the grave of Odin; the next, that of Thor; and the smallest, the grave of Freytag, Odin’s daughter. In all probability these are natural hillocks artificially reduced to these regular forms, and superstitiously set apart in the minds of the people as the graves of persons to whom their ancestors paid divine honors. To this hour, the name of Odin is used as that of a demon king, and “Go to Odin” is the profane execration which answers to the modern imprecation, “Go to the devil.”
On this spot the great temple to Odin was erected, and his worship maintained with horrid rites and ceremonies. The altars here have smoked with human blood and burnt sacrifices. In the sacred groves that surrounded the temple these savage deities were propitiated with all manner of offerings, parents laying their children with their own hands upon the altars, and slaying them in the face of heaven. A record still exists of seventy-two bodies being seen suspended at one time from the limbs of trees in this grove; men, and lower animals than men, if any animals are lower than such men, being offered in company to please the deities of the wood.
418 We entered the old church, the tower of which is said to be a part of the temple. This tower is the most ancient building in Scandinavia. A rude stone image of a human being, uncared for and lying in total neglect and dirt, was pointed out as an idol of Thor, that had once and often been worshipped on this spot and honored with these human sacrifices. It seemed more likely that it was a bogus image, and, therefore, all the more fitting to be presented as one of the false gods of a superstitious race, whose reverence is not yet so thoroughly extinguished as to prevent them from leaving hay on the highway at night, to feed the horses of Odin when he comes riding through the country on his missions of destruction.
On the reach of the Reformation to this region, the great battle of faith was fought on this spot. Here Gustavus Wasa, in his robes of royalty, addressed the crowds of pagan people, and besought them to turn from their idols to the living God. They replied with sullen rage, and threatened him with death. He finally flung off his robes, and told them they might have Odin for their king if they would, but he would not be their king unless they would worship the Lord God Almighty and his Son Jesus Christ. This was the decisive hour and word. They yielded, but only an outward obedience, a lip service, and it required long years and generations to extirpate the pagan worship from the minds of the people. One king of Sweden, Domold, was actually offered in sacrifice on Odin’s altar to propitiate the gods when the people were suffering by famine. And when Eric V., in 1001, embraced the Christian religion and destroyed the temple, the tower of which is said to be standing now as part of this church, the people in their fury put him to death.
From Odin, or Woden, as he was called, comes our Weden’s-day, and from Thor our Thur’s-day, and from Fry-tag our Fri-day; and these every-day words make links 419 of association to connect our times with those fearful days, now past and gone for ever.
I was surprised by finding the practice of dining out of doors in summer quite as common here as in France. On our return from Upsala to Stockholm, Dr. Scholberg went with us to spend part of a day at the Deer Park, a vast tract of land in easy reach from the capital, that has been set apart for the use of the people. It is entered through a grand gateway, ornamented with a bronze deer on each side; within are villas and cafes, and theatres and concert-rooms. Long drives over country roads take us under majestic old trees,—oaks and elms, pines and spruce; and now and then we pass parties taking their mid-day or evening meal under the trees, or among the beautiful gardens that surround their houses. Our ride takes us up and down hill, in sight often of the sea: one has a taste of the country, rare indeed to be had so near the town. The quickest way to get there is to take one of the many little steamers that ply, like our omnibuses or street-cars, among the waters of this northern Venice; but many of them do not hold as many passengers as a horse-car carries. They are just like a large row-boat, with sharp bows and stern, and a boiler in the middle. They require but very little coal, and, being driven with great care, very seldom, if ever, blow up the people sitting so near to the boiler and all its works, as to suggest continually the idea that it would require no great effort to scald the company. If our American people could do any thing with moderation, they might introduce these little iron steamers with great usefulness into the North and East Rivers, and, indeed, into the waters of all our great cities. We often availed ourselves of them, for they run everywhere, and the fare is lower than in our city cars. A few minutes of fast running brought us to Deer Park, and our Swedish doctor led us to what was considered the best restaurant in the place. Hundreds of people were 420 already there to dine, and at the middle of the day. It did not speak well for the industry and habits of the people, that so many of them could thus quit business at such an hour and go off out of town to their dinner. And Stockholm is the only city in the North where there is such a class of people. The city has the name of being very like Venice in this matter. And here they were in the middle of the day, hundreds of people, away from home, and making a business of eating and drinking.
Dinner was a study and an art. They had some science in it. There was an ante-prandium and the prandium, and the dessert and the post-prandium, and more post that I did not see; but what I did may be set down to give you an idea of the Swedes at dinner. First, every gentleman steps to a side table and takes a glass of schnapps, or gin, or other liquor that he prefers, and appetizes himself by eating of salt fish, dried tongue, cold meats, bread and cheese, making a very satisfactory snack or lunch, which would serve most of men for a fair dinner. The second course is soup, and one who is recently from Paris needs a little education to make it pleasant to his taste. Then follow salmon, chicken, roast beef, pudding, ice cream, jellies; and with these dishes, which are served one after another, and all to be eaten, are the usual trimmings of bread and butter, with vegetables to any extent. When this bill of fare—a dinner to order, and exquisitely cooked and served in good style—is disposed of, you are expected to indulge in the national punch, an oily, fiery, pungent liquor, that should not be taken without medical advice; yet it may be that it assists digestion after the organs have been overladen with such a dinner as I have just eaten and described. Now, it is not unlikely that such dinners are very largely enjoyed by the people, for all that I have mentioned may be had for seventy-five cents! And as you pay for just what you order, and no more, it is possible to make a sufficient dinner 421 for half the money, and thousands do. We protracted our stay till the evening (not the dark) came on, and rode to the charming rural retreat for the royal household, and had the pleasure of gratifying our democratic eyes by seeing the ladies of the family taking their tea out of doors, so much 422 in the same way that other people take theirs, we should not have suspected them of being any thing more than common, had we not been told of it, and actually had seen the august servant, with a white wig and pompous strut, bringing the “tea things” out to the little table in the garden. So many other little family circles did we see enjoying themselves in the same way, that we could readily see it was a national habit, and quite in harmony with those domestic pictures which Frederika Bremer has made us so familiar with in her letters about Swedish homes.
Costumes of Sweden.
One thing impressed me daily in these north countries of Europe,—the general content and comfort of the people. The climate has not helped them to this, for it is far less favorable to general enjoyment than that of the south. But there is an amount of industry, intelligence, and morality, that make a contrast easily marked between the people of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and the inhabitants of Spain and Italy. I find no such masses of squalid vice and misery here, as one may easily see in Naples or Seville.
Sweden has all the elements of a great and good people. She is making progress, too, in moral and intellectual culture, and her people are rising in the scale of social enjoyment. I notice these things in the rural districts even more than in the cities, which are so much the same all the world over.
WE are going across the kingdom, from Stockholm to Gottenburg. We might be carried through by rail in a day; but what should we see of life in Sweden if we went flying over it in that style? We will take the slower and better way, by the raging canal. This canal is the Erie of Sweden. It extends from lake to lake, and so connects sea with sea, the Baltic with the Atlantic; it leaves Malar lake, and takes lakes Wetter and Wener in its way, and all the chief towns of the interior; and as the travelling is rationally moderate, the pauses frequent and long, we have a fine opportunity to study the country and the people whom we have come to see.
It is a steam canal; that is, a canal for steam navigation, as the Erie and other canals of our country ought to be, and might be, but for the penny-wise and pound-foolish policy of politicians. The steamers are small. We embarked for this inland voyage on the Oscar , a royal name. The cabin had ten state-rooms, with two berths in each; a wash-stand in the middle had a movable cover, making a table, on which I am writing. The boat is furnished with great simplicity, but is comfortable. It is crowded with passengers; several families, with children and luggage immense, probably emigrants on their way to the land of promise. Their friends in troops thronged the wharf to see them go, and when the hand-shakings and hugging and kissing were finished, the boat was off, and the tears and waving of rags continued as we steamed away.
424 The clouds wept too, for a few moments, and then, like the passengers, dried up; smiles and the sun came out again, and beautiful Stockholm seemed more beautiful as we left it than it did while we were in it. The green slopes around the city were joyous in the sinking sun. The iron steeple of the Ridderkolm, and the white palace, and many spires, glistened in the light. Gems of islands, with pretty bridges uniting their shores, neat villas, with lawns carpeted with rich verdure, abodes, we may hope, of sweet content and comfort, are on either hand, and now and then, from a window or balcony, a white handkerchief greets a friend on board, who responds, and we have a telegraphic communication at once with the people we are leaving. I do love to find in strange lands, and among those whose language is all unknown to me, the same ties, the same loves and hopes, that fill our own hearts at home. It makes me know that all these people are my kin, children of my Father.
We have been passing across Lake Malar. But now, at seven in the evening, we enter a lock, and the Gota Canal begins. The village of Sodertelje receives us here. So sweet does it seem to be, in its quiet repose, that every house appears to invite you to stop and make a visit. It was at this point that St. Olaf, when a viking, was shut in by the fleets of the Swedes and Danes, and he cut his way out, not through the enemies’ fleets, but by digging a canal to the Baltic! This was in the eleventh century, and no such feats of rapid canalling were known from that time down to the Dutch Gap ditch, during the late war in America. The story of the saint is history, and the other one will not be forgotten.
The passage of the lock from the lake to the canal is tedious, but in the mean time the villagers come on board and greet friends, the children, as in all other countries, ply their sales of cake and fruit, till we are out and enter 425 the Gota Canal. The banks for some time are fifty feet high, but they slope away gradually, and are beautiful in their green sod. Neat cottages and wooded walks and gardens, signs of taste and culture, and plenty, are on our right hand and left; and these dwellings are so near that the canal seems a street like those of Venice, where you step from the gondola to the marble threshold of your house. Passengers on board recognize their acquaintance, and exchange salutations. Now and then an old mansion, with many out-buildings, shows that an extensive farm is behind; and occasionally we pass a village which appears to be of modern creation, as if progress was making even in Sweden. We are following the course of the very same canal that St. Olaf, the viking, cut in such a hurry eight hundred years ago, and we soon come to the end of it, and run again into the sea, or a bay of the Baltic, and keep along the coast, among a wilderness of islands, touching now and then at one of them to drop or take a passenger. Heaps of rock on the points are painted white to guide us in the mazes of these intricate passes, and sometimes trees have been moored in the water to mark the pathway of the ship. Ruins of castles, each one of which has its legends as romantic as those of the Rhine, still haunt these rocks. Stegeborg Castle is the most picturesque in its solitary grandeur and desolation, and the traditions of the country associate it with many a hard-fought fight in times so far gone by that history is rather too romantic to be credited.
The night is now about us, but in these latitudes it makes little difference for seeing the country whether it is night or day. There was no sleeping to be done, for some of the rising generation rose all night, and made the little cabin vocal with their cries, so that only those who enjoy the music of sleepless babes could be said to have a pleasant night in that vicinity. Out of my little window I see 426 the islands, with their stunted firs, shores rarely rising so as to be entitled to the dignity of hills, sometimes a forest, and here and there a house, red and neat, with no signs of slovenliness or poverty.
It was very early in the morning when we left the canal-boat, and in the midst of a drizzling rain followed a porter who had been directed by the captain to take our luggage to a hotel, the best hotel in the village of Soderkoping.
This was the village we had selected as a quiet, retired, obscure, but pleasant place to pass a sabbath in, to see the Swedes in their rural churches and in their humble homes.
It was so early when we came to the little wooden tavern that no one was astir. We went around to the back door, as the porter led us, and there knocked long and loud, till a maid thrust her head out of the window, and made signs that she would come down and let us in, which she did. The American language was of no use now. French was no better. But we managed to let her know, morning as it was, we wanted beds. She led us to the chambers, and when we pointed to the sheets as having already seen service since the last wash, she took the hint in a moment, and, pulling them off, supplied their places with linen without wrinkles. After a few hours sleep we rose for breakfast, taking what should be set before us. It proved to be comfortable. Coffee with delicious cream, bread and beefsteak on a novel plan, chopped fine, made into cakes and fried in butter with spices.
It was our first sabbath in Sweden . An ancient brick church with a spire, a venerable structure, stood near a swiftly flowing stream of water, embowered in majestic trees, and surrounded with the graves of buried generations of those who had worshipped within its old walls. It was a solemn, yet beautiful spot, and all its surroundings were in 427 keeping. The graveyard was laid off in little plats, and the graves were bordered with flowers. On some graves pots of flowers were set, and on others fresh-plucked flowers were strewn, soon to wither and to be replaced. The bell was tolling and the people were assembling; all came on foot and by walks leading through the yard from various parts of the village. Some had come evidently from a distance in the country, with books in their hands. All were decently devout in their deportment as they came; even among the young there was no levity, they were on a solemn errand, and were sensible of the time and place.
The sexton sat at the door, with a big key in his hand, and opened the door to let the people in, but locked it when prayer began, and kept it locked till prayer was ended, and then admitted those who had gathered. Earthen pitchers or jugs stood on stools near the door to receive the offerings, and many cast in what they had. The floor was of stone, and many were tombstones, the inscriptions worn by the footsteps of the living, so that the names of the dead were illegible. Eight immense whitewashed pillars supported Gothic arches on which the roof rested. The pulpit was of wood, elaborately carved, with Scripture scenes and figures. A sounding-board above it was ornamented with quaint devices, and surmounted by a human figure, perhaps an image of the Saviour. On the front the word Jehovah , in Hebrew letters, was inscribed. The pews were very plain, unpainted slips, with doors locked until the owners came, whose names were on slips of paper attached. On the sides of the church, long rude seats were free. We occupied them. The congregation was very slow in getting in. The same variety of dress that would mark one of our rural churches was apparent. Rich and poor met together. Some of the ladies were dressed elaborately with the flat French bonnet; others in a costume of the country, a small black shawl or kerchief thrown over 428 the head and pinned under the chin. The men were all rustic in garb and manner, accustomed to out-of-door hard work. All appeared devotional, respectful; old and young, on coming in, bowed in silent prayer; all stood in singing. The service was Lutheran, the established religion. All had books of the service, which was read with a loud voice and much intonation by the clerk. The preacher was a handsome young man, with great energy of voice and no action. His text had the name Jesus Christ in it, and the words were often repeated with tenderness and earnestness. I could understand no other words, and could only hope that as even those were sweet to my ears, the preacher was commending him to the congregation as the chief among ten thousand, the one altogether lovely.
Many of the men took snuff. The man on my right, two on my left, two in front of me, held the box under their noses to catch what fell back in the operation. They also offered the same boxes to me. One of the men sneezed immoderately four or five times. The sexton going up the aisle, and standing on the tombstone of some old saint, blew his (the sextons, not the saint’s) nose with his fingers, wiped it with a blue cotton handkerchief, polished it off with the back of his hand, and then walked up to the pulpit to do his errand.
Bating the snuff-taking and the nasal twang in the singing, the service was pleasing even to us who heard no words that we could understand. We worshipped in spirit, and felt at home among the children of our Father, not one of whom knew that two strangers from beyond the sea were in their village church on this pleasant summer sabbath morning.
Soderkoping proved to be more of a place than we had anticipated. It was, and is even a watering-place. Pleasantly planted on the banks of the great canal, with historic and towering heights rising by its side, and rejoicing also 429 in the possession of a mineral spring, whose healing virtues have been spread among the people of this and other countries, it has become a resort for invalids. It maintains at one end of the village a series of bathing-houses, and modest lodgings for visitors, and a “conversation hall” of moderate dimensions, and some hundreds of the ill-to-do may be carefully cared for, and, perhaps, cured at the same time. But there is no hotel, nor any thing worth the name. The village is primitive, simple, neat as a new pin, not the sign of a new building going on anywhere. It might have been finished years ago, and kept in order to be looked at as a curiosity. The dwellings are, all of them, low, unpretending, small, and usually of wood.
Dr. Gustaff Bottiger, physician and surgeon, called at our lodgings in Soderkoping. He spoke the French well, and English tolerably, and we were able to get on with him delightfully. He is a fine looking man, accomplished in manners, and superintendent of the “Water Cure.”
The mineral waters of this locality have had a reputation in Europe through the long period of eight hundred years. They were formerly resorted to by invalids from Italy and Spain, as well as other countries. But in the course of time, and after the discovery of other springs, and the invention of more, the fame of these in Sweden declined. The town declined also. But when the modern water-cure idea sprang into being, an establishment was opened here, which has proved to be a wonderful success. It is resorted to by a thousand persons every year, who come as patients, and patiently submit to the hydraulic, hydrostatic, and hydropathic, and all the hydra-headed processes of scientific treatment requisite to purify the system and make the patient clean inside and out. The cure is sure for nearly all diseases to which flesh is heir, but is specially efficient in expelling such monsters as rheumatism, gout, and dyspepsia. The College of Health in Sweden, a national institution, 430 has the establishment under its control, and the company that have taken out a royal charter, and built the bath and packing houses, have made provision for ninety patients, who are constantly lodged, fed, and water-cured at public expense, and one hundred and thirty more are treated gratuitously, with the use of the establishment, while they pay for their board and lodging. Six hundred patients can be supplied with baths at one time.
The establishment thus combines the advantages of a free and pay hospital, as do many of our asylums for the afflicted in America. But I am not aware that any of our States have made provision for sending their invalid poor to water cures. Our inebriate asylums may be called water cures in the best sense of the term, and it is quite certain, whether intemperance be a sin or a disease, or both, there is no hope of a cure without the use of cold water.
Here at Soderkoping the rich and the poor are so mingled and packed and purified, that the distinction is not palpable, and the institution is a model of social and medical propriety and equality.
Dr. Bottiger is enthusiastic in his pursuit of the grand idea he is here set to work out, and the patients catch his enthusiasm, believe in him and in the cure, and that helps the cure amazingly. It is not worth while to discuss the reason of the thing, or to inquire whether the mineral water here flowing at least eight centuries, and probably eighteen and many more, is any better for the cure than other waters. I am inclined to believe that there is superior virtue in the springs. But any waters are good enough, with the advantage of air, exercise, temperance, and recreation, to make most people whole who are only partially broken down. Nine-tenths of these invalids, especially of the richer classes, are victims of their own imprudences. God gave man reason, but he makes a poor use, or rather no use of it, when he works his brain so 431 much as to overwork it, and loads his stomach so as to overload it, and by neglect of the laws of health, which are just as well defined as the moral laws of God, brings upon himself dyspepsia, and that long catalogue of evils that haunt the victim. He must be a bad liver who has a diseased liver. It was his own fault, in the first place, and the warning that he had he neglected, and now when he comes to Soderkoping, or goes to Kissingen, Spa, or Kreusnacht, for the benefit of his health, he is suffering the penalty of his own indulgence or neglect. If an ante-mortem coroner’s inquest should be held on his arrival at the springs, the verdict would be served him right .
There are six or eight water-cure establishments in Sweden, one in Norway, none in Denmark. The system is popular in this part of Europe, and in Germany. Patients appear to be attracted to them not so much by advertisements of special advantages, but by the reports which patients spread abroad, when they go away relieved of their maladies.
Just after the doctor left us a young man called who had heard that two Americans were here, and he wished to get information respecting the United States. He brought with him a phrase-book in German and English, or rather in German and American , for the book was called “The Little American,” and was made to teach the American language. The most it could do was to aid the young to pick up a few phrases of the language, and to stimulate their desire to emigrate to the western world. The book was evidently issued by the steamship or emigration companies, for it gave all needful directions as to the expense and mode of getting to America, and it held out the most encouraging prospects to those who might be tempted to go. The desire is wide-spread—to seek a home in the New World. Books and papers and pictures are industriously spread among the village and rural population to stimulate 432 this desire. The wages of labor are represented as so great in contrast with their own earnings, while nothing is said of the cost of living,—the price of land is said to be so low in comparison with land here, which is not to be bought at all,—that they are filled with the idea of going to a country where they suppose they may get all they want for little or nothing. To what a sad reality they wake up when they set their feet on our shores, and find themselves in the midst of the harpies of New York!
Our bill for boarding and lodging, every thing included, at this village tavern, where we were well cared for, and had all that we could reasonably desire, was less than a dollar a day for each person. Board at private houses can be procured for much less. And if you are not able to pay any thing, and have the dyspepsia, it is quite likely that I could give you a line of introduction to the doctor, who would put you on the free list, pack you, duck you, all but drown you, cure you, and send you on your way rejoicing, with refreshing memories of Soderkoping.
WE went on board the canal steamer very early in the morning, and found the deck covered with passengers taking their coffee as comfortably as if they were at home. This was not breakfast, that was to come by and by; but they turned out early, and all wanted coffee immediately.
The steamer was large, adapted to the canal, the lake, and sea, for all these waters are to be ploughed in going from Stockholm to Gottenburg. One of the sailors hearing us speaking the English, addressed us in the same language, for he had been in the British service until he spoke the English as well as his own tongue. Indeed, I have rarely heard the English spoken by a foreigner so well as by this Swedish sailor; yet he had acquired it solely by the ear.
Locks are now frequent, and the passage very slow. One of them was tended by a comely maiden, not more than sixteen years old, dressed neatly with an embroidered petticoat, which she had to expose in pushing the beam around to open and close the lock. This was a novel application of female influence, but not very pleasing, being the first thing I had seen in Sweden that was uncivilized and offensive. Lock after lock, slowly and tediously we made our way through a pretty country, the fields well tilled, woods and green meadows interchanging often, and the land fenced off into smaller divisions than we had 434 noticed in any other country. The soil appeared to be good from the abundance of the growth. The houses were neat, and the out-buildings numerous and well arranged, showing signs of thrift and taste. The look was that of a farming people well to do.
We enter another lake, short, but very pretty, by name Asplagen, with richly cultivated shores and sweet homes nestling among the trees; and on the rising grounds we see beautiful pictures of Swedish life, rich and prosperous residences, where it is evident that the good things of this life are enjoyed, and plenty of them.
An elderly Russian gentleman and a Swedish professor of physics in Stockholm were among the passengers; the Swede had travelled in America, and was very happy to meet an American, while the Russian was greatly interested in learning of that wonderful country. He spoke five languages, and he said that his countrymen, if educated at all, could speak both English and French. While these gentlemen were my constant companions on board, they cordially hated each other’s country, the old antipathy of Russian and Swede cropping out continually, and making it a difficult task to keep the peace between them.
Roxen Locks.
Another stretch of the canal brought us to Lake Roxen, a wide and beautiful expanse, the passage through it requiring an hour. At the western end of it is the town of Berg, where a hill is to be surmounted by a series of locks, eleven in number, opening one into another, and the process requires so much time that we can leave the ship and make an excursion to an interesting and ancient church in the neighborhood. It is the Vetra-Kloster, Gothic in style, and built in 1128, when Inge II. was king in Sweden, and he is buried in it. The Douglas family of Scotland, in the time of Cromwell, came to this place to find a safe retreat, and they became famous in the wars of Sweden. They are interred right royally in this sanctuary. The mansion they 435 occupied stands conspicuously on the borders of the beautiful lake, commanding splendid views of this lovely scenery. Villages are scattered over a rich country, and the spires of churches pointing heavenward tell the pious hopes of a people whose God is the Lord. The church stands in the midst of a large graveyard, and this is filled with flowers and shrubs and shade trees, and the monumental stones bear dates of great antiquity. The portal of the church was once the prison of a convent which was attached to the church, for this was built when Romanism ruled this region as well as southern Europe. The floor is of stone, and the aisles are of tombstones bearing inscriptions in German, Swedish, and Latin; epigrammatic 436 and striking some of them are, and have silently preached to the passer-by for some centuries. “ Mors certa, hora incerta ,” and “ Hodie mihi, cras tibi ,” are not very sententious, but they have their point on a gravestone.
In a stone sarcophagus of very singular form, with a long inscription upon it, lies the body of Inge II.; wooden effigies of unknown personages, divine or human alike unintelligible to me, keep the dead monarch company in his sleep of the ages. Another chapel contains two sarcophagi, in which side by side through successive centuries the royal ashes rest of those whose names are now forgotten, but might be spelled out, if it were worth the trouble. And in another chapel are the tombs of the Scotch Douglases, who fled their own country and found glory and graves, that’s all, in this retired spot in the heart of Sweden. For this is purely a rural church, far from the town and all the busy haunts of men, a fitting place for worship, and a comely spot for graves. It has been used for both, more than seven hundred years. The avarice of man has not encroached upon its acres, nor coveted its stones.
Returning from our excursion, we heard the sound of children’s voices, and were led to a neat school-house in a pleasant enclosure, retired from the street, and being in the pursuit of knowledge we turned in to see and hear. About fifty children were receiving instruction from a master, who courteously bade us enter, and proceeded with his work. All the scholars, and they were of both sexes, were standing, and reading in concert from a history of Sweden. The reading being finished, the teacher put questions to them on the portion they had read, which they answered promptly, and showed lively interest in the lesson. Around the walls were suspended maps of the world and of the several countries, and there were black-boards and all needful appliances, such as would belong to a well appointed school. In the Universal Exhibition at Paris I had seen a 437 Swedish school-house with its furniture, &c., and had remarked that no country made a better exhibition of the apparatus for educating children than Sweden.
Returning from the visit to the Vetra-Kloster, and its graves of the kings and the Douglases, we found that the boat had made its way through the eleven locks and was once more fairly launched on the peaceful bosom of the grand canal. It was the hour for dining, and the table was spread on deck, awnings overhead and at the sides to shelter us from the cool wind while eating. The Swedish dinner, even on a canal-boat, was good, preceded by the inevitable schnapps and radishes and other appetizers, and followed by a tolerable soup, fine fish, veal, puddings, and various trimmings needless to mention. I give you the bill of fare merely to show that there is enough to eat all the world over, and that you are not likely to suffer for want of comfortable food, even on a canal in the heart of Sweden.
We pass through many villages, each with its venerable church, and houses shaded with overhanging trees, farms well tilled, and now smiling with growing harvests and heavy clover. I saw no Indian corn, though I looked for it often. Probably the warm weather is too short-lived for the crop to ripen. No women were working in the fields. But we came to a drawbridge, and whistling for some one to open it, a woman ran from her house with the lever in her hand, ground away as for dear life, and by the time we reached it the draw was open for us to pass through. The poor woman was exhausted by the severe exertion, her lips were white as snow, and she looked ready to faint as we glided by her, and the pilot gave her a caution to keep a better lookout next time.
And now we cross another lake, Boren by name, the most beautiful of any we have yet seen. This frequent change from the monotony of the canal to the lovely 438 scenery of these lakes, imparts a charm to the journey across the country which we did not anticipate. We now come to Motala , where the greatest Swedish iron-works are located. An English company has possession of one of the most valuable iron-mines, and the Swedish government has set up a vast establishment here for the building of locomotives, iron-clad steamers, monitors, &c., which are said to be equal to any that are made in the world. The boat had to lie here for freight long enough for us to go through all the works, which were freely open to our inspection.
We enter Lake Wetter, one of the largest lakes in Europe. We are soon out at sea, at least so far that we cannot see the land. It is very rough, with high wind. One of the sailors assured me that old salts, for whom the ocean itself had no terrors, are sometimes made sick by the pitch and toss of Lake Wetter. We touch at Wadstena, a large town from which our good ship takes its name: a place of great importance in the commerce of the country, with shops on the docks, like those of a seaport. What I supposed were bags of grain, lying in great heaps to be taken on board, proved to be dried peas, and they, with beans, must be largely grown in these parts. In the suburbs of the place were elegant residences, with fine parks and beautiful gardens, old and wide-spreading trees, flower-beds and ornamental shrubbery, some of them evidently public resorts for the people, and others the appendages of private residences. Wealth, culture, and enjoyment were thus revealed, and I had that pleasure which so often greets me in travel,—the consciousness that a new and strange people, whom I shall probably never see again, are taking just as much comfort in life, and working out the ends of living just as well as the inhabitants of other lands with whom we are more familiar. The Swedish peasantry live well, generally, and are not exposed to the evils of want, as the hard-working classes 439 in Poland and Russia. Labor is cheap, and provisions are cheap also. The houses of the well-to-do people are often made with double windows; they are rarely more than one story high, the ceilings are low, and thus they are more readily kept warm in winter. Indeed, I am assured that the inhabitants in these northern countries, including Russia, often suffer more from heat than cold in their houses during the severe weather of their cold season. Education is generally diffused in Sweden, nearly all being able to read and write; and, taken as a whole, the people being moral, industrious, frugal, and contented, what could they have more?
The captain came to my cabin, where I was writing, and asked me on deck to see the sunset and the loveliest view as we approached the village of Forsvik. It stands at the head of a small lake, and is embosomed with field and forest—a sweet picture; the manor-house, whose owner is also at the head of the iron-works, is large and elegant. Here we pass into the canal again, and through a dense forest, the banks of the canal being bold and rock-bound, and we just graze them as we pass; indeed, we seem to be more on land than water; and in fifteen minutes we have cut through the woods, and rush out into another lake, coming soon to the highest level between the two seas. We are three hundred and twenty feet above the sea level, all of which has been surmounted by locks, and now we must begin the descent by the same means, seventy-five locks in all being required to take us up from one sea, on one side of Sweden, and set us down in another sea, on the other side.
The evening had been delicious on deck, but as it drew nigh to midnight, I would turn in. My companion for the night was the Russian gentleman whose friendship I had secured during the day. His long, white beard had commanded my respect. He had asked me innumerable questions 440 of my country and myself, all of which I had answered to the best of my ability. He had learned my name,—which he pronounced Preem , as all the continental Europeans do,—and somewhat of my profession, and he determined to do the polite thing, and in English too, before going into retirement for the night. His berth was on one side of the little cabin, mine on the other. We could shake hands across, but we did not. He arrayed himself in his robes of the night: a red night-cap surmounted his head, making a fiery contrast with his snow-white beard. Sitting up on his couch, he addressed me with great dignity and formality: “My Reverend Preem, I wish you good-night,” and subsided into the pillow.
In the course of the night we steamed out of the canal into Lake Wenner, the largest in Sweden, and the third in size of all the lakes in Europe. Even in bed we could perceive that we were at sea, for the roll of the ship was as if we were on the Mediterranean. But we made the most of the passage before morning, and touched the next day at Johkoping, one of the most important inland towns in the kingdom.
This Lake Wenner abounds in trout, and to catch them of the modest weight of forty pounds is nothing remarkable. It would have been remarked, however, if we had had the luck to catch one of that weight, or any thing like it.
A Swedish ship-captain entertained me with stories of his life on this canal, with vessels worked by sails, pulled by man, and sometimes bullock power, creeping cautiously through the lakes, and running in shore whenever the wind was up. He said that he had lived all his days in this way, and was now taking his ease. All day, as we were making our way slowly along, we had been hearing the praises sounded of the Falls of Trollhatten, which we were to reach in the afternoon. The scenery had been improving, rising sometimes into the grand, and always picturesque and 441 pleasing, as we passed well-tilled farms and the abodes of prosperous peasants. A range of locks must be worried through to get by the Falls, and this gives us the time we want, to see and enjoy one of the finest cataracts in Europe! You know they have nothing very great in that line. I have seen them all, and written them up as much as they would bear, but they do not amount to any thing very wonderful, nothing indeed to be compared with ours. We have half a dozen falls that would outleap and outroar all theirs, and we must praise them as an off-set to their palaces and pictures and stone women. They have marvels of art; we, wonders of nature, especially Niagara. Foreigners enjoy a description of Niagara by one who has seen it more than to hear of any thing else in America. But they have often been sullenly incredulous when I have assured them that a mighty river, with the water of half a dozen inland seas, gathers itself within banks a mile asunder, and then makes one prodigious plunge over a precipice 150 feet deep, into an unfathomed gulf!
Trollhatten does not attempt such a feat. But the river is caught among a mass of rocks in a narrow gorge, just where the mountains break down to the valley, and the stream comes roaring, tumbling, foaming, rushing headlong with power, fury, madness, indescribable. Water in motion is always beautiful, and when a mighty volume of it is struggling with resisting forces, tearing its way over and down the jagged rocks, and among the green trees of overhanging precipices, what is beautiful becomes sublime and fearful, and admiration rises into awe. In one place the rocks have been actually cut away by art to allow the passage of the water for use, and then the torrent leaps seventy feet at one bound into a frightful abyss. One lofty rock, with a broad, smooth face, like a great tablet, is inscribed with the names of kings, and the dates of their visit to this romantic and interesting spot.
442 We are now to take the river. The canal is at an end for us. Already we have a taste of more exciting navigation. To get the steamer into the river the sailors are working away as if for dear life. One poor fellow is caught by the leg in a hawser-line, carried overboard, and when brought on deck is found to have one of his legs broken. It was a sad termination to our pleasure excursion of three days. We had been brought into such constant intercourse with the men that we knew them all, and felt a personal interest in the poor seaman now stretched helpless on the deck. He was carried to the forecastle, and put away to be taken to the hospital at Gottenburg, but we could not put him out of mind so easily. After the excitement was over, I asked the captain what the owners would do for a sailor thus injured in their service, and learned that they would pay his hospital charges, and nothing more; in the mean time, while he was getting well, his family must look out for themselves. I then proposed to the captain and the Swedish professor that we should take up a collection among the passengers to help the man’s family in their want. To my surprise, they said it was a thing unknown among them, and would not meet with any favor if attempted. They regarded the idea as quite fanciful and preposterous. Well, I said, “In my country the passengers would do it; if you will interpret for me I will make a little speech, and you will see that they will not only give, but be greatly pleased with the opportunity of doing something.” The professor consented to be the interpreter, and we called the passengers together. I told them that “two or three Americans travelling with them through their beautiful and interesting country had greatly enjoyed the pleasant voyage of the last few days; but its pleasure had been marred by the sad accident that had just occurred to one engaged in our service. Though he was unknown to us, he was a man and a brother, and in the country from which I came, when such an event took 443 place, we were in the habit of showing our sympathy for the injured by giving him money to lighten the calamity that had befallen him. You would gladly do so if you were permitted, and we propose to go around with a hat and let every one who is disposed contribute what he or she is pleased to give.” The professor turned the speech into Swedish, or at least said as much in that tongue, probably more and better. I could not understand a word; but his remarks were received with lively applause, and at his allusions to the Americans I nodded most intelligently, taking it for granted that he was saying something complimentary. We then received the gifts, and I believe that every passenger, male and female, gave something, and with a cheerfulness beautiful to observe.
A lone tower, rising above a mass of ruins, with a single wall surmounted by a heap of stones, strikingly resembling a huge lion, is all that remains of Hongfel, one of the most extensive of the old-time castles of Sweden. Here the river divides into two. We enter the left branch, passing near a fertile island; and, as the sun is going down behind a bank of threatening clouds, the city of Gottenburg, a seaport on the German ocean, rises upon our view with commanding beauty as we approach, and see the towers of its churches and the roofs of its principal buildings glistening in the last rays of the summer’s setting sun. The harbor is well protected, and the forest of masts presented all the appearances of a busy seaport. The usual crowd was on the wharf as our boat came to, but perfect order prevailed. No rush was made for baggage or passengers, but each one waited to be called for,—a model of good breeding that might be shown to advantage in the wilds of western civilization. Those of us who had become well acquainted in three days’ companionship now shook hands and bade each other farewell in our several tongues, the broken-legged sailor not being forgotten, as he lay in his bunk waiting to 444 be taken to the hospital. We were soon distributed in our several directions, and parted, perhaps not to meet again, certainly not all of us, in this world.
It will give you an idea of the prices that rule in this country if I tell you that at the wharf we stepped into a carriage with two horses, our luggage was put on, we were driven to the hotel Gotha Kallare , the luggage was taken up to the chambers, and the price for the whole service was less than fifty cents of our money. Sweden still bears the palm of cheapness over all the countries I have seen.
Gottenburg proved to be an interesting place, though noted more for its commerce with Britain and America than for any thing else. The Merchants’ Exchange is a model in its way, combining a hall, and rooms for social entertainments, concerts, &c., which are managed by municipal authority. A museum of antiquities, illustrating the history and condition of the country, is well arranged, and would profitably detain the traveller a day or two to study it. The paintings are also interesting, where they preserve the memory of men and things belonging to Sweden, and of these there were many. The landlord of our hotel having learned from some of the Americans in our party that I was connected with the press, took pains to bring me into contact with my brethren of that fraternity in Gottenburg. Mr. Rubenson called and led me to the office of the Daily News , a paper devoted chiefly to the interests of merchants and sailors. I went through their press-rooms, composing and editorial apartments, and found them remarkably like those I was quite familiar with at home. This paper has a circulation of 8,000 daily, and on Saturday is published an edition of 3,000 extra, because on that day the poorer classes buy a paper for Sunday reading.
Mr. Rubenson took me to visit an institution the like of which I never heard of in any other city, and yet so useful in its object and result, that I had great satisfaction in 445 visiting it. I am very anxious to have it known to the ladies of my own afflicted land. It was established by the energetic benevolence of one of the ladies of the city, who succeeded in getting a building specially erected and fitted for the purpose of giving young women instruction and practice in the arts of domestic life.
Impelled by a desire to benefit both the servant and the mistress, by improving the qualities of the one, and adding thus to the comfort of the other, this Swedish lady, with charity equal to her countrywoman Jenny Lind, or Fredrika Bremer, established this school. Girls of good moral character, who wish to go out to service, are received, and, under the direction of a competent matron, are made adepts in the sublime mysteries of the kitchen and laundry. The establishment takes in washing and baking and cooking for private families, hotels, and restaurants, and the money thus earned goes far toward paying the current expenses. The girls are taught to put their hands to every thing that must be done in the household. By turns they wait upon table, and the matron is at its head to give instruction, that they may become expert in serving the dinner as well as in cooking it, and those who sit at table may also learn to be decent in eating it.
And it was pleasant to learn that admission to this training-house is regarded as a great privilege. It is even secured as a reward for proficiency in the free schools; so that a young woman who has distinguished herself for good conduct in school, is entitled to still further education in this house as a reward of merit. These young women are in constant demand by families, who are ready to pay them higher wages, because they are graduates of a training-school where they have learned the theory and practice of household labor.
One of the greatest enjoyments of wanderings in foreign lands has been found in the discovery that there are good 446 people all over the world; that they are toiling and praying for the good of their fellow-creatures, trying to make society better, the burden of the poor more easy to be borne, and this by helping them to help themselves. The future of these northern countries is more hopeful because of the enlightened philanthropy of such as the friends I have just met.
UP in this part of the world you must be very careful to look out for yourself, in all matters that require certainty as to times and ways of travel. It was hard to learn when a steamer would go north from Gottenburg, and all that we did learn from captains and porters and landlords proved to be erroneous. But at last it was settled that a boat would be along the next morning from Copenhagen, bound to Christiania, and if we were at the wharf at four A.M. we could go! We were called at three, and it was just as light as noonday. The luggage was taken by hand-carts, and the travellers, a goodly company, trudged to the wharf, a sleepy, grumbling set of Americans, who were sore vexed at being waked so early; four families, who met at Gottenburg, and were now embarking on the German Ocean to visit Norway. We suffered on deck from the cold, and were obliged to seek shelter in the cabin, but every berth, settee, chair, and peg, were occupied, so great was the crowd of passengers on the Viking to-day. Breakfast was served early, beginning with Norwegian cheese, quite equal to basswood, followed by eggs, caviar, beefsteaks, salt fish, and other things, and by the time this was over, the day was fairly opened; one of the brightest and most beautiful, with its cool, bracing, stimulating air, that we had ever seen. The Skager-rack (we had been familiar with the Skager-rack and Cattegat in the geography from school-days) stretched away to the horizon, seemingly to our own loved land in the west.
448 At Freidericksvern we landed a large number of our passengers. This is a naval station, and the residence of officers with their families. The hills about the picturesque town are attractive to the mineralogist, and the “crystals of shining feldspar are seen at a distance.” I did not see them. Entering a bay, and keeping near to the rock-bound coast, we steamed up a river for several hours, touched at Moss, crossed over to Hosten, a great naval station, and found a host of people on the wharf, to wait the steamer’s arrival. Here the fiord, or bay, divides into two, one leading to Dremmen, and the other, which we pursue, to Christiania , the capital of Norway. The mountains on the left are bold; sometimes lofty perpendicular rocks rise from the water. The sight is striking, grand indeed. Night approaches, but not darkness. It is nine, ten, eleven o’clock, and still the daylight lingers. At midnight we arrived at our destined port. We have been steaming almost due north twenty hours. Our baggage must be searched, for Norway has its own customs, though under the same crown with Sweden. But the search was slight and soon over. Perhaps you will be as much surprised to hear as I was to see that the city of Christiania is so much like other cities; if I had awoke out of sleep and found myself in it, I would not have supposed myself in the northernmost kingdom of Europe, and on the confines of the frozen zone. It has indeed a frigid look, a barrenness of ornament, a precise, severe, and perfectly plain style of building, if that may be called a style which is no style at all. But there is nothing about it to excite observation, except it be that it is more of a city, with greater attractions in objects of interest to visit, than one would look for in Norway.
The house at which I am stopping, Hotel du Nord, has rooms for two hundred guests; it is a hollow square, with a balcony on the four sides of the quadrangular court within, and each room on the balcony has a door opening 449 upon it. On the piazza of the central building is a platform covered with awning, and surrounded with shrubs and flowers, with a fountain of water playing in the midst. I find in these hyperborean regions the people take pains to adorn their houses with plants and blooming flowers, to cheat themselves with the pleasing delusion that they are just as well off as those who dwell in more genial climes. This is true of the dwellers in the cities, and in the rural villages also, where I have noticed that windows are filled with plants exposed to the sun and the passer’s eye.
The stove in my room is of cast iron, and wood is the fuel. As it is now midsummer (July 6), we do not intend to use it, but it is a curiosity. It is four stories high, the lower one for the fuel, and the others are chambers to hold dishes for warming, and also to increase the surface for radiation of heat. We enjoy the sight of it, hoping that in the dreadful weather to come some of our successors may enjoy the heat thereof.
This morning we took our first breakfast in Norway, and, according to our usual custom of giving you a bill of fare in each country, to let you know how we live in strange lands, I will just mention that we had for our simple repast coffee, cold lobster, beefsteak, ham, tongue, corned beef, fried sole, boiled salmon, herring, with bread, butter, cheese, strawberries, and all other things needed to make out a meal.
The city has about fifty thousand people in it, and makes progress very slowly. It has a palace, which I positively did not visit, having made a resolution not to be tempted to go through any more, and a museum, which greatly entertained me for an hour or two.
In these Scandinavian countries (meaning Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), they are very curious to discover and to preserve all remnants of the heathen worship of Odin which once prevailed, and this museum has some very 450 precious relics of that dead past. A massive gold collar, and various ornaments, which were found buried in the earth, are very naturally referred to the days of idolatry, when they adorned a statue of Odin. And I am more and more convinced that to this day there is a lurking reverence among the ignorant peasantry for the deity of those old-time heroes, whom their fathers worshipped. So prone is human nature to superstition, and so hard is it to blot out of the popular mind and heart those ideas which, even in remote generations, got firm hold.
Another very remarkable memorial of past times and customs treasured in the museum is the girdle and the knives which the gentlemen of Norway used in the good old days, now lost, when they pitched into one another in duels. First, each one of the combatants took a butcher-knife (we call them bowie-knives now), and plunged it as deep as he could into a block of wood. The blade, so much as was not in the wood, was then wound round tight with strips of leather, and the knives were cautiously drawn out, and each man took his own. It therefore had now a longer or shorter point, according to the strength he had to plunge it into the wood. Their girdles were then fastened together, so that they could not get away from one another. Now they went at it hip and thigh, cut and slash, till one or both were killed. If modern duellists were put to such tests of strength and courage, there would be few challenges.
Much more pleasant to look upon, and a memento of a very curious and perhaps a pleasing custom, which, however, is not of the by-gone times, but still common in Scandinavia, at least in the Bergen district, is the crown and girdle and frontlet worn by the bride on the wedding day. But all brides are not allowed to wear such ornaments as these: only brides who have been good girls all the time before. If they have been naughty, they must be married 451 without these distinctions, and we may well believe that they are therefore very highly esteemed among young women in the north country. It seems to intimate, also, that it is not altogether a rare thing for a bride to be deprived of the privilege of being thus distinguished, for it is hardly possible that such a state of society can exist anywhere as to have an advertisement made at a wedding that a bride is no better than she should be. But the manners and customs of the world are very queer to the notions of those whose manners and customs are very different, and in no part of domestic life are these habits so monstrously diverse as in the matter of wedding ceremonies.
While wandering through the museum I found that the collection of heathen relics was comparatively small. They are often found by the peasants in their tillage of the land, but they keep them secret and sacred, attaching peculiar value to them as charms and medicines, averting evil and healing diseases. So powerful still is this hereditary heathenism in the vulgar mind.
The university is beautifully situated, and handsomely appointed for the instruction of about a thousand students, that great number flocking here to enjoy the lectures of its distinguished professors. But Norway has done very little for science or literature, though such names as Holberg and Wessel are well known abroad. The men of learning in Norway generally publish their writings in the German language, to find readers. Norway would furnish a limited field. Education is general, and it is rare to find a person who cannot read and write. Nearly every town has its newspaper, and at the capital there are reviews and magazines which evince learning and ability.
In the afternoon we set off to go by rail and boat a hundred miles into the interior, to spend the sabbath among the natives in the heart of the country. Going north from 452 Christiania we found the scenery tame, but cheerful, as we passed among well-tilled farms, through small villages, with low but comfortable houses, and in each village a neat church, which told us, as we rode by, of two good things, first, that the people were Christians, and, secondly, that they were not split up into sects. Long may it be before a little village in Norway, with five hundred inhabitants, shall require five places of worship! Now and then in the open country a white mansion gave evidence of wealth and taste. A stream of water and frequent ponds, with saw-mills, rafts of logs and piles of lumber, showed the staple of this region; and we saw forests of fir, pine, spruce, and birch, the hardy natives of the North. Occasionally we caught fine views of distant hills, with long intervals of field and forest and villages.
At Eidsvold we came to Lake Mjosen . You can’t pronounce the name of the lake? Well, you must do as well as you can. The lake is a beautiful expanse of water sixty miles long, four or five wide, full of salmon and trout, and navigated by steamers, on one of which we are speedily embarked. The company is a curious mixture. Three or four American families, some English, many natives, and all social and friendly, for they are beyond the restraints of society, and are willing to give and take, as people should be, but are not, all the world over. We do not know how many kind-hearted neighbors we have in travel or at home until we break our respective shells and speak out.
The English commercial traveller is everywhere, and, of course, was on this boat. He is altogether ahead of the smartest, cutest, and most inquisitive Yankee. He will ask more questions and tell you more of his business than our communicative countrymen are disposed to mention. One of them was near me this afternoon; he was on his annual excursion among the inland towns of Norway, to get orders for his employer’s house (iron goods was the line of trade) 453 in England. When he began his travels, a few years ago, he was the only agent from the city where the business was located; now, he said, there are twelve houses in the same trade, each one of which has its “commercial traveller” persecuting the natives of Norway into buying their goods. They must learn the language, of course, and then go from village to village all the summer, driving their business with energy, followed by other travellers of other houses, in other lines of traffic. So the shops of England are open at the door of every trader in the most obscure parts of this secluded country. So the iron and cotton and woollen goods of Sheffield and Birmingham and Manchester are forced out of the little island of their production into all the earth. I presume we do our share of the same kind of pushing; but John Bull is the master of the business.
On this boat were files of newspapers and a neat library of well selected books in Norse, and German, and in English, for the use of passengers. The large number of volumes in our own tongue showed that they made special circulations on having English-speaking travellers. Indeed, in the summer season Norway is taken possession of by the English. All the streams are bought or hired by sportsmen in England, who come annually, and thus secure the exclusive right to catch the fish in them. Many who are not aware of this “pre-emption” come to Norway, and are disappointed of their sport.
Close by the hotel stands an ancient church, well preserved, and very interesting. The pastor resides five miles away; but he arrived at the hotel before service, for the good people of the inn were his parishioners, and they make him welcome every Sunday morning for a little refreshment after his ride and before his labors begin. He was a very fat man, with a face that did not bespeak the scholar and divine any more than did the faces of my lamented friends Bethune and Krebs, both eloquent and learned, but not 454 spirituel in their physique . He spoke neither English nor French, and our conversation was, therefore, only of the most general character, patched out of German and Latin.
At eleven o’clock we went over to the church. It is built of logs, in the form of a cross; the logs fitted nicely together, and boarded rudely on the outside. No plaster or paint was on the inside. Pine-tree branches, with projecting sticks, were convenient hat stands. In front of the pulpit the altar was railed off, and over the railing was the national coat of arms. Over the altar were little images, a crucifix, Virgin Mary, and such signs of lingering superstition as the Lutheran Church in these countries still retains.
The women sat on one side of the middle aisle, the men on the other. The men were fine looking, generally of good height and stalwart. The women were not good looking. They wore no peculiar costume. Many had bonnets on. Some had only a handkerchief on their heads, of white, yellow, red, or spotted, as the taste of each suggested. Some elderly ladies wore white lace or muslin caps, extending in front, and some had a black silk cap on the back of their heads. The men wore plain, black clothes, coarse, but clean and decent.
They were devout in appearance and very attentive. The preacher was earnest, and in his manner patriarchal, pastoral, affectionate. He had no Bible, and no notes before him, but discoursed with great fluency and fervor.
After sermon the Lord’s Supper was celebrated. The whole congregation communed. The house was packed full of people, and it appeared to me that every individual came forward to partake. They went up in successive groups, knelt, and the pastor placed his hand on the head of each one and pronounced words of absolution. When this was done the assistant came out and put a white gown on the pastor, over the black with a white ruff, in which he had preached. The assistant said a prayer while the pastor 455 was kneeling, and then intoned a service, in which there were no responses, except from the organ. Each communicant received, while kneeling, both bread and wine from the hands of the pastor.
The service was very long, and it appeared longer to us who did not understand a word of the language used. But it was very affecting. There was so much earnestness and devotion in pastor and people; they approached with such evident solemnity and becoming fear, and yet with such strong desire, and the venerable pastor, like a father in the midst of his children, gave them the emblems of redeeming love with such gracious kindness of tone and manner that I was constrained to ask my companion what he thought of it, and he answered, “I should like to go and join them.” This would not have been proper, as we were strangers to all present, and it may be that it would have been inconsistent with their rules to receive us. But our hearts were with them, and we came away refreshed. We had been in communion with them, though they knew it not, and with our common Lord and Master, whose table in Norway is the same, and spread with the same simple but delicious fare in the north as in the south. And when we all come, as we shall come, from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, I hope to meet my Norway pastor and his people at the Supper of the Lamb.
It made very plain to me the essential oneness of the church on earth. What did they,—these simple-hearted Christians in the heart of Norway,—what did they but testify their faith in Him whose sacrifice is their salvation?
It was pleasant to observe that the village was throughout the sabbath as quiet and orderly as any place in our own or any land could be. The scenery around it is picturesque and beautiful. Sombre mountains, sweet valleys, romantic waterfalls, green hillsides, these are the natural 456 features of this secluded region, where I came to get into the very heart of Norway, and spend a sabbath among the people.
Cheap as living is in Sweden it is cheaper in Norway. In Lillehammer,—this pleasant village at the head of Lake Mjosen, in the midst of beautiful scenery, where a fire is a luxury in midsummer, and the windows of the cottages blossom with flowers, and the streams laugh loudly as they tumbled along among the hills, where the linen on the beds and the table is as white as the snow of the long winters,—here in Lillehammer I spent one day and two nights, and my hotel bill for five meals, two sleeps, and three rides, was three dollars of our money. That is cheap enough, I am sure; for the eating and sleeping and riding were just as good as you would get at Niagara Falls, where the prices are so high that the Falls appear low in comparison.
Early in the morning we returned to the steamboat on the lake, to go back to Christiania. A young woman, a cripple, was brought in an arm-chair by two men, and tenderly placed on board. The care they seemed to take of her was touching, and her gentleness made me wish that I had the Norse language at command that I might learn something of life among the lowly and the suffering, in this part of the world.
At Eidsvold we touched, and saw the people launching an iron steamer , for lake navigation, of course, and it was new to me to see a vessel launched sideways .
TRAVELLING IN CARIOLES IN NORWAY.
At Christiania a large party of Americans—and we were certainly in the midst of them—spent the afternoon in seeing the sights of the town, and riding about in the carioles of the country. A cariole is not a carry-all, for its capacity is to hold one, and no more. A boy may hang on behind to hold the little horse when you stop, but you ride alone and drive. Not much driving is required; you take your seat in this low, uncovered, rattling, comfortless concern, 457 and away goes the rat of a horse, tearing along like mad; and as each person has to have a machine to himself, a dozen of them make a long string of vehicles, which, dashing over the stones, create a sensation. Young ladies from America are fond of this exciting exercise. It is almost equal to horseback riding. Some English ladies of title and wealth are making the tour of Norway this summer with no attendants, travelling only in the cariole. The government makes all needful provision for travellers that they may not be imposed upon by the post-keepers. Licensed houses are planted along the highways at intervals of about ten miles, where the keeper is obliged to keep a certain number of horses for hire, and if all are out, when a traveller comes he is required to get horses from his neighbors. You buy your cariole,—a cheap and miserable thing it is,—hire a bit of a horse, and are off. At the first post-house you leave your horse, take another, paying the legal price for its use, enter your name in a book with any complaint you may have to make of the treatment you have received, which the Government Inspector is to read when he comes in his regular tours. These post-houses could, at a pinch, give you something to eat and a place to sleep in; and a few days and nights of travel in Norway will make fare and quarters tolerable, at which you might have slightly elevated your nose in Paris or Broadway. I have been in several countries and have passed some years in travel, but never spent twenty-four hours in my life without food convenient for me, and a better place to sleep in than his who had not where to lay his head.
So we set off from the tavern in the capital of Norway, in a dozen carioles, rushing amain down the rough streets and out into the country to Oscar Hall , and marvelled exceedingly at the taste and beauty of its decorations within and without: nature adorned by art, in lovely grounds about the house, and the views of the Fiord, the mountains and plains.
459 The castle of Agershaus commands magnificent views, and keeps in its strongholds the regalia of Norway and the records of its romantic history. Old guns, relics of an effete system of warfare, bear on their faces rude pictures in brass of barbarians in war. The old castle is a prison now. And if you suppose that it takes an Englishman or even a United-Statesman to make a cute rogue, just read the story of the Robin Hood of Norway.
In the castle of Agershaus , in Christiania, in a cage of thick iron bars, is immured for life, Hoyland, the Robin Hood of Norway. His robberies were always confined to the upper classes, while his kindness and liberality to those in his own rank of life rendered him exceedingly popular amongst them. His crimes never appear to have been accompanied with personal violence. He is a native of Christiansand, where he began his career. On being imprisoned for some petty theft, he broke into the inspector’s room, while he was at church, and stole his clothes; these Hoyland dressed himself in and quietly walked out of the town unobserved and unsuspected. He was subsequently repeatedly captured, and imprisoned in this castle, and often made his escape. On one occasion he was taken on board a vessel just leaving the Christiania Fiord for America. Previous to his escape, all descriptions of irons having been found useless, he was placed in solitary confinement in the strongest part of the basement of the citadel—his room was floored with very thick planks. Here he had been confined for several years, when one night the turnkey said to him, “Well, you are fixed at last, you will never get out of this, and you may as well promise us you will not attempt it.” To this he only replied, “It is your business to keep me here if you can, and mine to prevent your doing so if possible.” The following day, when his cell was opened, the prisoner was gone, apparently without leaving a trace of the manner in which he had effected his escape. 460 After a repeated and careful search, on removing his bed, it was found that he had cut through the thick planks of the flooring. On removing the planks cut away (and which he had replaced on leaving the cell) it appeared he had sunk a shaft, and formed a gallery under the wall of his prison—this enabled him to gain the court-yard, from which he easily reached the ramparts unseen, dropped into the ditch and got off. No trace of him could be found. About twelve months afterwards, the National Bank was robbed of 60,000 dollars, chiefly paper money, and in the most mysterious manner, there being no trace of violence upon the locks of the iron chest in which the money had been left, or upon those of the doors of the bank. Some time afterwards a petty theft was committed by a man who was taken and soon recognized to be Hoyland. He then disclosed how he had effected his last escape, which had taken him three years of steady patient labor to accomplish; while others slept he was at work, and with a nail for his only tool. Having money concealed in the mountains he was sheltered in Christiania—disguised himself—made acquaintance with the porter of the bank—gradually, without his knowledge, took impressions of the various locks—made keys for them—and thus committed the robbery before mentioned. He is said to carve beautifully in wood and stone, but is no longer allowed the use of tools. His sole occupation is knitting stockings with wooden pins. Twice during the day, while the other prisoners are not at work, he is allowed to leave his cell for air and exercise, and he occasionally gets the amusement of a chat with the governor, by writing to him that he will disclose where the rest of the bank money is concealed which he did not get rid of while at liberty.
Then we rode on and took a look at the Asylum for the Deaf, and Dumb, and at the Home for the Aged, and at the Orphan Asylum, and at the Workhouse, and all these institutions 461 had the appearance of being the fruit of intelligent philanthropy and Christian charity.
Manufacturing villages were in the immediate vicinity of the city, with cotton and iron mills driven by water power, and every thing about them suggested thrift and comfort.
We rode out to the oldest church of the city, and found in the adjoining cemetery the grave of Bradshaw , whose guide everybody carries and nobody understands. I thought he was living and working in London, but it seems that several years ago he came up here, with one of his own guides, and found a grave.
WE are coming down to Denmark. Down from Norway and along the coast of Sweden. First through the Skagerack and then the Cattegat, in the steamer Excellent Toll , by name, with twenty American passengers. Fleets of sailing vessels were in sight, the crews engaged in the mackerel fishery, a great business off this coast. The day was as lovely as the suns of Italy ever show, and the sunset revealed such splendors as I never saw except in Mantua, under Italian skies.
The sun went down as if into the western ocean, where poets often tell us he “quenches his beams.” A few clouds were lying along the horizon, in long rifts stretching a quarter of the way around the great circle of the heavens. 463 They were burnished with golden splendors, and among the rifts the sky seemed painted with the hues of the rainbow. The passengers stood on the upper deck, and all were in raptures of admiration gazing upon the magnificent scene. Long after the sun was gone the great picture hung on the northern sky, and we watched it till the many-colored painting gradually and finally faded into the sombre tints of evening. The moon then gave us silver for gold, and for some hours after sunset it looked as though the sun were rising!
We passed the night on this voyage, touching at Gottenberg at midnight, for an hour only. The next day (July 10) was equally brilliant with the first, and the run along down the coast was exciting and pleasant. About midday we entered the Sound and soon came to Elsinore, where we had no Sound duties to pay. From time immemorial—so long that the date of the origin of the custom is lost in the fogs of the region—the Danes have been accustomed to demand and receive toll from every vessel passing Elsinore. No end of trouble was the result of this. The Vienna treaty of 1815, after Napoleon’s downfall, confirmed the Danes in their enjoyment of this imposition. Some nations afterwards commuted with Denmark, and the whole thing was abolished in 1857.
In the time of Tycho Brahe, the famous astronomer, whose house we saw on one of the lakes in Sweden as we were going to Upsala, the Danes built a mighty castle here, called Kronborg , and mounted big guns, so as to sweep the Sound and make it very desirable for vessels to stop as they were going by and pay their toll. If they refused to do so they were spoken to by these guns. And sometimes it was a word and a blow. This castle is famous in the legends and history of Denmark, and within the last hundred years it has held distinguished and royal prisoners, who have exchanged dungeons for the scaffold. Down in 464 the subterranean casemates a thousand men may be stored away—soldiers to defend the castle, or prisoners to pine in captivity. In one of these secret hiding places, where neither light nor pity finds its way, a noted mythical giant of Danish story is said to reside. He never comes up to the surface of the earth, but when the State is in danger, and then he takes the head of the army and leads it on to victory. His grasp is so strong that his fingers leave their imprint on an iron crowbar when he holds it in his fist.
The views from the castle and from any of the elevations in Elsinore embrace the town, the fortifications, Helsingborg on the other side of the Sound, the Great Belt, the Baltic dotted with sails,—a grand panorama indeed.
Shakespeare was kind enough to make this vicinity classic and famous by his Hamlet, whose grave is said to be here, and travellers come to find it, as they look for Romeo and Juliet’s at Verona. In vain we are told that Hamlet did not live nor die in these parts; that Jutland and not Zealand, was his country. But they pay their money and they take their choice, and most of people choose to believe that Hamlet was buried hereabouts, and any heap of stones with Runic characters upon them would answer the purpose, but they cannot find even this. Drop the letter H and we have Amlet, and that signifies madman , and so you have the beginning of the story on which the tragedy was founded. And the story runs in this wise in the gossipy guide-books, so useful to travellers, and especially to those who have to write about their travels.
According to the Danish history of old Saxo Grammaticus, Hamlet was not the son of a Danish king, but of a famous pirate-chief, who was governor of Jutland in conjunction with his brother. Hamlet’s father married the daughter of the Danish king, and the issue of that marriage 465 was Hamlet. Hamlet’s father was subsequently murdered by his brother, who married the widow and succeeded to the government of the whole of Jutland. As a pagan, it was Hamlet’s first duty to avenge his father. The better to conceal his purpose, he feigned madness. His uncle, suspecting it to be feigned, sent him to England, with a request to the king that he would put Hamlet to death. He was accompanied by two creatures of his uncle, whose letter to the English king was carved upon wood, according to the custom of the period. This Hamlet during the voyage contrived to get possession of, and so altered the characters as to make it a request that his two companions should be slain, and which was accordingly done on their arrival in England. He afterwards married the daughter of the English king: but subsequently returning to Jutland, and still feigning madness, contrived to surprise and slay his uncle, after upbraiding him with his various crimes. Hamlet then became governor of Jutland, married a second time to a queen of Scotland, and was eventually killed in battle.
I wish we could stop at Frederiksborg, but we must come back to it from Copenhagen. For here is the royal castle of Denmark, built in 1600, and now the repository of works of art and objects of antiquarian interest connected with the reigning house. It was in this castle that the unfortunate queen of Christian VII. died at the early age of twenty-three, a broken-hearted victim of slander and conspiracy. In one of the private rooms in which this beautiful woman was a prisoner, she wrote with a diamond upon the window pane this touching and self-sacrificing prayer:—
The woodland scenery around the castle is charming. The Royal Forest covers a vast extent laid out with lovely 466 walks and drives, and the whole island of Zealand is preserved for royal pleasures in forest and field.
A drive through this forest brings you to the Castle of Peace , so called because a treaty of peace was concluded in it with Sweden; and perhaps it keeps its name the more fittingly, as the palace is now cut up into apartments which are occupied by families, once rich, now poor, belonging to the aristocracy . They find it very convenient to live in a palace free of rent, and as the neighbors are all in the same condition with themselves, they are not mortified by the fact that they are dependents of the State. We would call such a place the royal poor-house. In England, the splendid palace at Hampton Court, which Cromwell built and gave to his king for fear he would take it without, is used for decayed families of the British aristocracy, who live genteelly in kings’ houses at very little expense.
Denmark is not one of the great countries of the earth, but very far from being least among the kingdoms. It has a history, and a future too, civilization, religion, science, art, and enterprise. It made a fine show at Paris in the World’s Industrial Exhibition, and has no reason to be ashamed of her agriculture, manufactures, and fish . I was surprised to notice in the fields so many of the productions common in the northern States of America. A kitchen garden looked homelike, with its pease and beans and cabbage and potatoes and turnips, and all the ordinary vegetables cultivated in the same way with our own; and the crops on the broader farms, wheat and rye and oats; so that the children, playing the games of the country and singing as they played, were doubtless familiar with the farmers’ song,—
Let us study the history of Denmark for a moment. Time was when Denmark was the ruling power in Scandinavia, 467 which name includes her and Norway and Sweden. Time was when Denmark conquered all England, and Sweyn I., the king of Denmark, was on the throne that the Georges and Victoria have since filled. Canute the Great was also king of Denmark and England, and a line of kings after him swayed the same double sceptre. This was when the Christian era was in the 1000’s, and perhaps Denmark has never had a more illustrious period of history than in the first part of the eleventh century. Then England and all the north, with part of Prussia, were under her crown.
She fell. And not by the superior prowess of any rival foreign prince, but through the treachery and violence of one of her own subjects. Those were turbulent times doubtless, and it is wonderful that the mighty monarch of such a kingdom could be seized, as Valdemar II. was (by one of his own subjects) while he and his son were hunting in the woods, carried on board a sloop and off to a foreign castle and immured in prison for three years. The proudest king in Europe was thus insulted and bearded and degraded, while Europe looked on without raising a hand to deliver him. At length the Pope threatened, and one word from him did what the kings of the earth could not. Valdemar was released and restored, but his prestige was destroyed and he never recovered from the effects of his fall. Provinces revolted and became independent. England set up for herself again. In 1387, Queen Margaret came to the throne of Denmark and Norway, and subdued Sweden. For a hundred years the three Scandinavian countries were under the same government. In 1448, the king of Denmark died, and for a whole century no male heir was left by any sovereign for the throne. Then the German dynasty came in, and the Duchy of Schleswig was united with Holstein, which was annexed to Denmark under Christian I. There begins that Schleswig-Holstein 468 question, which bothered Europe and has plunged the country into war even in our day. The very next king, Christian II., lost Sweden; and then Denmark became a little monarchy, all by itself, which you will find embracing a peninsula and several islands on the north-west coast of Europe.
England and Denmark have been good friends notwithstanding the unpleasant relations that once existed. Three or four times the royal families have intermarried, and the Prince of Wales of the present day depends far more on the popularity in England of his Danish wife, than on any merits of his own for his future success on the British throne. These pleasant relations were disturbed in the early part of the present century when the British destroyed the Danish fleet and commerce; and, since that time, Denmark has cultivated the arts of peace, making for herself a name better than the glory of arms or extent of territory.
Christianity fought with paganism in Denmark during the eighth and ninth centuries; and, after a terrible struggle, triumphed over Thor and Odin, whose superstitious power is still felt in the minds of the more ignorant of the people. Then the Romish religion reigned, until the Luther reformation came with healing in its beams, and Protestantism became the religion of Denmark. The Lutheran form of worship is established, but, under the constitution, toleration is enjoyed.
In no one department of public interest have I been more pleased to be disappointed, than in the general intelligence prevailing among the people of these northern countries of Europe. They are Protestants, and, therefore, knowledge is diffused; the people wishing it, and the government encouraging it. No Roman Catholic government favors free schools and the universal elevation of the people. The Danes have a school in every parish, and every child is 469 obliged to go to school and learn to read and write. There are higher grades of schools in all the towns, and two universities,—one at Copenhagen and one at Kiel. Thus the means of education being brought within the reach of the humblest, the whole country is enlightened.
A Domestic Scene in Denmark.
470 The women are good-looking, and in this matter there are national peculiarities worth noticing. At a fair or public entertainment, where men and women of the working classes are brought together in great numbers, the women of Denmark will be pronounced above the average for good looks, and, perhaps, the same thing would not be said of the men.
Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark, and the capital of Copenhagen is Thorvaldsen’s Museum. Copenhagen has other and many attractions, but this museum is the crown and glory of Denmark. Art has her victories, and those of war are not so enduring in their glory as the fruits of genius and peace. Here in this ancient and beautiful city, in 1770,—a hundred years, save one, ago,—was born Albert Thorvaldsen, the son of an Iceland ship-carpenter. Poor, obscure, and friendless, but inspired with the genius of his future art, the boy made his own way to Rome. He found employment in the studio of Canova, and his talents soon commanded respect. But he lacked the aid of a patron and friend, and he was about to abandon Italy in despair, when an English banker, by the auspicious name of Hope , appreciated the artist, ordered a marble statue of Jason , which was standing in the clay, and from that glad hour his career was onward and brilliant, till he attained wealth and fame unsurpassed by any sculptor of ancient or modern times. He loved his native Scandinavian climes, and often visited the city of his birth, which he enriched with the noblest creations of his marvellous hand. But he dwelt in Rome, unmarried, save to his art; and when he returned, at the age of sixty-eight, to Copenhagen, he was received as a conqueror, was domiciled in the palace, and, six years afterwards, died in the midst of the lamentations of the people, who loved him and whom he loved.
Façade of the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen.
As he made the people the heir of his glorious works—in large part the models of the statuary he had executed for 471 kings and nations and wealthy individuals—it was resolved to erect a monument to his name, which should be at once a museum of his creations and a mausoleum for his remains. In the midst of the city, and on an open square, a building—a vast parallelogram with a court-yard in the centre of it—has been reared; the successive stories filled with the productions of the genius of this one man, including the minutest specimens, up to the model of his “Christ,” the highest achievement of his, not to say of human, art. In the midst of the little court-yard, surrounded on its four sides by the walls of this museum, so that every window on the inner side looks down into the court, there lie in solemn and sublime repose the ashes and bones of the man who made all these things! It is silent; but oh! how eloquent the lesson of the greatness and the vanity of genius! It is something, it is a grand thing, to have made all these marbles for the joy and instruction of mankind; and it is sweet to die with the consciousness of leaving for after generations the works that shall teach them lessons of virtue and strength and beauty. But to die and leave them 472 all! To lie and moulder in the midst of them! To be rotting while even the clay that one’s fingers moulded into life-like shapes is admired—this makes the cup of life an insipid draught, and the wise man cries it is vanity, all vanity, after all. Yet not so vain after all! No man liveth unto himself; and one would gladly take the pay that a good, great man gets, who adds to the material wealth of the world the glorious creations of art for all time to come, and then dies in the midst of them. It is more also to be useful than to be great; and he who lives to make others happy, though not an artist in stone or oil, lives to a noble purpose, and his mausoleum is in the hearts made glad by his kindness while he lived.
On the outside of this museum the walls are covered with fresco paintings illustrating the mechanical processes by which the statuary was brought to its place. This is the antique Grecian, and even Egyptian, idea of celebrating an historical event. It might be called Thorvaldsen’s triumph. Within the frieze of the grand hall is the triumph of Alexander the Great. The Hall of Christ contains the casts of the Saviour and all his disciples—that wondrous group which in marble illuminates the chief church in Copenhagen. And as we ascend from floor to floor, and pass through successive chambers—all of them filled with the handiwork of the same great artist who sleeps in sight of every window—one is filled with admiring awe, while charmed with the beauty of the design and execution. Beauty is not the word, though much here is very beautiful. Thorvaldsen was one of the first to appreciate and encourage our own sculptor Powers, whose works are more beautiful than the Dane’s. Strength, majesty, power—these are the attributes that cover as with a garment the face, the head, the limbs of the heroes whom Thorvaldsen by his magic chisel turned into stone. The divine is revealed in his conception of the Redeemer of men. The 473 god-like is in Moses and Peter and John the Baptist; and his ancient heroes are inspired with a sentiment that is easily drawn from the mythology of Scandinavia, in which the worship of Thor and Odin seems to be incorporated ineffaceably.
Portrait of Thorvaldsen. ( By Horace Vernet. )
Away in the farthest corner of the museum is a collection of gems and bronzes and vases and coins and antique sculpture, which his taste and money had gathered in Italy. Here is the furniture of his sitting-room as it was the day he died, and here is a cast of Luther , which on that day of his death he had begun to work! Here are sketches he had made with pen and pencil, the dawn of his gigantic conceptions, afterwards made perfect in marble—now interesting as the outlines we have of the first thoughts of Raphael and Michael Angelo and others on their immortal works!
Never was an artist so honored by his countrymen; never was one’s fame more precious in the memory of his 474 fellow-men. And I may easily convey to you an impression of the reverence in which he is held by saying that Thorvaldsen is to-day in Denmark what in our country is the name of Washington .
Vor Frue Kirke , the Notre Dame , the Church of our Lady, is the royal church—the Cathedral of Copenhagen.
I worshipped there yesterday; and of all the days in the year, and of all the churches in Europe, not one could have been selected more crowded with interest to a traveller whose tastes flow in the channels of religion and art.
For as I came to it there were standing on one side of the portal a statue of David, and on the other one of Moses, in bronze, both of them by the hand of Thorvaldsen, and sublime with the inspiration of his power. I stood a few moments before them, and thought of the royal poet and the inspired law-giver, and wondered at the art which could embody and express their spirit and mission with such silent eloquence. And then I entered the church itself, and it was all ablaze, not with five thousand candles, as I had seen at St. Peter’s at noonday, not with flaring gaslights, nor even the glorious sunlight alone, but with the greatest of modern statues, the Christ in marble, standing over the altar, and the twelve apostles, six on one hand and six on the other, along the sides of the house (Paul being put in the place of Iscariot), and all by the hand of the same master. Thorvaldsen chose this sanctuary as the place to be made beautiful and glorious with his works,—his triumphs. The Saviour is represented with extended arms, as if he were saying the sweetest of all his words, “Come unto me,” and on the face of his disciples rests the expression that sacred art might desire to present as characteristic of each one of the chosen group. In the middle of the chancel a marble angel, of loveliness unspeakable, is kneeling and holding in his hands a shell, which is the font for baptism. Copies of this are multiplied till the world is familiar with it. Near the door is a group representing 475 a child walking with his face heavenward, and an angel follows, pointing with his finger over the child’s head. And on the other side of the door is a Mother’s Love in marble.
Those who worship here from day to day become familiar with all this sculpture, and are not distracted, if they are not aided by the beauty and the majesty of such a wealth of art. But a stranger within the gates, for a morning only, seeing it all at once for the first and the last time, would find it difficult to withdraw his soul from the marble and contemplate for an hour the unseen and eternal. And this would be more difficult when the worshipper is unable to understand a word of the service.
The church was full of people, going out and coming in, as in Romish churches. The officiating minister had on a white robe, ruffles, and red mantle, with a broad gilt cross on his back. He stood before the altar, on which was an image of the crucifixion, and two candles four feet high, and burning. After a brief service and sermon, he administered the sacrament of the Lord’s supper to a few who remained to receive it, kneeling; he gave them the bread, with a few words to each, and an assistant followed, putting the cup to the lips of the communicant. The formalities of the ceremony, the tones of the priest, the tergiversations, the responses of the choir, &c., were similar to the forms in use in the Church of Rome.
When this sacrament was concluded, I was about leaving the house, which was now nearly deserted, when I noticed something going on in the chancel. Twenty mothers, each with a babe in her arms, and a female attendant, entered and arranged themselves in a large circle around the kneeling marble angel holding the baptismal font. Twenty women, twenty babes, twenty female friends, not nurses, but god-mothers; not a man appeared. It was a beautiful spectacle; perhaps it would be impossible to invent a more lovely tableaux. The mothers, the 476 infants, the friends, all clothed in white, all before the altar in a circle, in the midst of which was this white angel kneeling, and above the whole the finest statue on earth of Jesus, with open arms, as when he said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.”
The priest read a form of baptism, and then, passing around the circle, made the sign of the cross on the face of each child; he then read again; again he went to each child, and laid his hand upon its head as if in blessing: then he read again. The service was now so protracted that the mothers were allowed to sit down, and then, one by one, each came up with the attendant, and, the cap being removed, the babe was held over the font, the priest took water and poured it three times from his hand upon the head of the child, pronouncing its name and that of the Triune God.
This being concluded, and as I was coming out of the church, a carriage arrived with an elegantly dressed lady and her attendant with a babe, to be baptized after the people of the humbler class had received the sacrament. Alas! I said to myself, is aristocracy in religion the same everywhere?—and cannot the noble of this world be humble before God? So I would not return to the baptism of this “better born” infant, but went on my way praying that all alike might be washed in the blood of Christ, and made children of the kingdom.
It will surprise you—it certainly did me—to find that the people of these northern countries of Europe give far more time to mere amusements than the Americans do. I was struck with this on coming to Sweden, and saw something of it, but not so much in Norway; and here in Copenhagen they are as much given to it as the Athenians were to news.
Perhaps the French and Italians are more disposed to make themselves merry in crowds. But on recalling the habits of the masses as they are seen in public places in 477 Paris and Florence, I think that I was never in any city in the world where so many people in proportion to the whole number go from home to be amused. On the outskirts of the city—but not so far away as to be difficult of access—there are large gardens, so called, laid off with walks and shrubbery and fountains, and in the midst are all sorts of spectacular games and plays, combining in one enclosure theatre, circus, gymnastics, music and dancing, concerts, orations, and whatever is usually found scattered in different parts of a city, and to be visited only after paying a fee for each admission. To enter this garden—for one is a type of many—you pay about ten cents, and that gives you the entrée to nearly all the shows. The theatre may charge another trifling fee, but the one admission makes all these amusements open to the visitor. Around every stage are little tables and chairs, and refreshments are served, if you choose to call for them, at an extra charge. To such places as this thousands upon thousands of respectable people resort night after night, usually coming before dark , for the days are long and nights short; men bring their wives and children, and take their evening meal together in little stalls provided for the purpose, and go home in good season. This is their refreshment after a day of toil, and it is not unlikely that it helps them to bear with patience the burdens of a working life.
These gardens are the institutions of Copenhagen, for the entertainment of the people. They are cheap , so as to be within the reach of all; and they are cheap , as one of the proprietors told me, because low prices bring more money than high. Doubtless there are other and more intellectual enjoyments provided for those who prefer them; but when you consider the enormous expense incurred to fit up and furnish every night such entertainments as these, you see it requires the attendance of many thousands, at the insignificant charge, to make them pay at all.
478 On certain days, the Royal Picture Galleries and Thorvaldsen’s Museum are thrown open to the people, and the throngs of working people, evidently in very humble life, as their dress and manner indicate, who pack the halls and rooms, show that the people have also a taste for something higher and better than plays. Something might be said of the effect of so much amusement upon the morals of the masses; but it is not safe for a transient visitor to speak with certainty of any thing but what he actually sees as he goes along. To me it is a pleasant, and only a pleasant reflection, that the people in these northern countries, who do not accomplish much beyond making a decent subsistence from year to year, find both time and money to spend in amusements that are not in themselves as demoralizing as the sensual and intoxicating pleasures which so many of our own poor pursue to their ruin.
You would have to go far and search long before you would find a more interesting museum than that of Northern Antiquities , which occupies part of the Christiansborg Palace. This northern country abounds in curious relics of past ages, defunct systems of religious worship, modes of warfare now wholly unknown; and by law all these remains, wherever found, belong to the crown. In every parish in Denmark the minister is made the agent of government, to have every thing discovered, and that promises to be of any interest, sent to the museum, where a fair price is paid for it to the finder.
There is scarcely an end to the number and variety of these curious objects, illustrating the manners and customs of the long-buried past. Weapons of war form the most conspicuous feature of such an exhibition, and stone is the material from which the most formidable are made; clubs and axes, arrow-heads of flint, chisels and knives most singularly and beautifully wrought; urns from ancient sepulchres, with bones of other animals than human, are here; and tradition tells us that the old Norse heroes were buried 479 with their dogs and horses, to bear them company in the world of spirits. It is hard to say what part in the funeral rites a sieve could perform, but it is often found in the ancient tombs.
The Runic monuments are the most remarkable objects in the collection; and the one that has excited the closest scrutiny came from Greenland, in latitude 73, and is said to bear a date 1135.
Among the fire-arms of the earliest years of their use, we have old cannons to be loaded at the breech, and guns on the revolving principle, though we have been in the habit of thinking that both of these are inventions of our own times.
Besides these collections, there is the Royal Arsenal, and the Museum of Natural History, and the Royal Museum, and many others, which are but the repetition and extension of these and like objects of interest,—interesting, indeed, to look at for a few hours, tiresome after a while; and I will not weary you with the details.
Setting off by rail from Copenhagen to Hamburg, I encountered a gentleman who claimed to be a countryman of mine, because he hailed from South America. He was German born, in England bred, and he went to Uruguay, S. A., where he had been twenty-four years in business. He was now travelling with his family in the North of Europe. He was a shipping-merchant, and vessels in which he was interested come from Hamburg and Havre and England with furniture, tin-ware, and a thousand manufactured articles, and carry away hides, tallow, and so forth. It was easy to see that he had an eye to business in the midst of his pleasure travel, and that he was learning what wants of the North of Europe could be supplied from the South of America. My conversation with him developed the beautiful relations of the different parts of the earth to each other: the climate, the soil, the position of one country supplementing another, and showing that no country 480 “liveth unto itself” any more than a man lives to himself. There is a thorough mutual dependence running through society and the whole world.
Hamburg.
Our rail ride was across the island of Zealand—flat, poor, wet, cold soil; the peasants’ houses were low, of stone, and thatched. The windows were so few and small, they must be ill ventilated, and probably unwholesome. Mustard was 481 growing in large quantities, fields of rye were fair, and grass was looking well. Cattle abounded in the meadows,—not on the hills, for those were not in sight.
At ten o’clock at night, and while it was yet light, we reached the steamer at Corseow. It was a large, commodious, and well-furnished vessel, excepting that it had no state-rooms. The berths were good, but were all in one open cabin. The decks were crowded with live-stock,—pigs, calves, cows,—whose squeals, bleating, and moaning were to be our serenade till the morning light. A bountiful supper was served,—tea and coffee, meats, eggs, &c.,—and the charge for the whole was twenty-seven cents! And this being over, I spent the livelong night fighting, not wild beasts, nor the tame ones overhead, but those pestering fleas, which seem to be one of the pet annoyances of the travelling world.
We arrived at Kiel very early in the morning, and went ashore through mud and rain; and the only way to ride was on the outside of an omnibus, to the railroad station. This is a famous seaport, and like all other seaports, so that Kiel will not have a sketch. We make no stay, but by rail set off for Hamburg. Wheat and rye and buckwheat cover the fields. Little Indian corn is raised in these countries, where the soil and climate are as well suited to it as parts of our country where it flourishes. The gardens are filled with the same vegetables as our own,—potatoes, pease, beans, lettuce, radishes, beets, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage,—making it pleasant to know that the good things at home are just as abundant here. The flowers, too,—roses and lilies and lilacs, others wild, and cultivated,—make the wayside and the court-yards of the humble dwellings smile. All the fields of grass and grain are ridged, and a ditch is made about every twenty feet for a drain. Small tiles are used for underground draining. Few evidences appear of high cultivation; very little attention is paid to scientific 482 preparation of manures, which might greatly enhance the value of the land.
At Elmshorn,—a very pretty village where we stopped a few moments, and large numbers of people gathered about the train, as if they were quite at leisure,—old women brought baskets of strawberries and cherries to the cars for sale; as large and of as fine a flavor, and of such varieties as were quite familiar to the eye and taste.
The train moves slowly on, and the spires of Hamburg appear in the distance. We are now fairly out of Scandinavia. With hearts full of thanksgiving to Him who has safely led us through our journey, we turn away from the land of Odin and Thor, and in a few weeks are
Home Again.
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