MR. DUM BROWNE'S EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. / )) Htiiarptt from tt)e Sprmaft'ei^ 3kepuoltcan. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: H. P. B. JEWETT. 185 7. • j LIBRARY! OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1857, by JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE: ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS. I 6 ? INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. Many of the inferior animals are migratory as it were in the positive degree ; man is migratory in the comparative degree ; and the Yankee is the most superlatively migratory of all animals, biped, quadruped, or centipede ; winged, fin- ned, or scaled; that are in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. Being then a genuine, Massachusetts, Connecticut River Valley Yankee by birth and education, I am of course a traveller by right as well as by choice. In order to be able to appreciate fully the advantages of being born in that fa- vored spot, by comparing it with other regions more or less remote, I have wandered rather extensively up and down our own fair land, " out West " and " down East," to say nothing about the " sunny South ; " and am now about to enlarge my view by crossing the Atlantic ; in other words, to complete my sphere of observation by taking in the other ^em^-sphere. Divesting myself of prejudice and investing myself with as many of the attributes of wisdom as possible, IV INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. I shall endeavor to contemplate the institutions of the Old "World with the eye of a philosopher, to behold her ancient ruins with the eye of an antiquary, to view the grand ob- jects in nature with a poet's eye and the great works of the old masters with an artist's eye, to scan the operations at the seat of war with the eye military, and the movements in the political arena with the eye diplomatic ; in short to keep wide open my eye financial, agricultural, commercial, architectural, legal, critical, metaphysical, and quizzical. I shall also take a bird's eye view of the feathered tribes, cast a sheep's eye at the flocks and herds, and obtain dissolv- ing views of the beet sugar crop and salt mines. I shall general-eyes, and particularises, real-eyes, and ideal-eyes, scrutin-eyes, anal-eyes, very likely moral-eyes, and possibly satir-eyes, and dramat-eyes. I shall not lion-eyes, nor probably botan-eyes, geolog-eyes or natural-eyes in any way. But I will not victim-eyes you any longer with this train of eye-deas. In order that the Old World may appear as young and fresh as practicable, the " mirror held up to nature " will be kept bright and free from specks so far as may be, but no rouge will be laid on the face of the old lady, and no artifi- cial helps resorted to, to improve her beauty ; no milliner's fripperies, trinkets, and jewels, but a simple dress. Mine shall be a " plain, unvarnished tale : " no quips and quiddi- ties, sly inuendoes and oddities of language to disturb the digestion of an after dinner reading. If a joke is intended INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. V it will be brought out fair and above-board, with a good honest breathing-place for the laugh. The philosophical and metaphysical speculations will be clothed in words of seven syllables and upwards with no conjunctions shorter than "nevertheless" and "notwithstanding:" while the more familiar chit-chat will of course be done up in the simplest language, or if any word or phrase should chance to have more than one meaning, the extra one will be thrown in gratis, without any extra charge. The similes, tropes, and figures used will all be of the strictest rhetorical orthodoxy ; not a metaphor admitted but will be warranted tame as any sheep. The didactic, historical, and moral discourses will appear of course in their appropriate, grave, and serious costume. The poetry will be easily distinguishable by the capital letters at the commencement of each line, as well as by the capital words and thoughts that run through each line ; while the " fine " sentences in prose (to suit the con- venience of those who love that style of writing) will be marked at the end with a little point called, in punctuation, a period, at each of which the reader will be able, and is hereby requested, to stop (long enough to count four) and admire. In treating of the Irish, naturally enough, a bull may be frequently expected ; in writing from London, the " haitches " and the " wes " may be hoccasionally taken liberties vith ; in France my expressions will perhaps be sometimes " vine-clad " like her own hills. From the summit of Mont A* VI INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. Blanc, seated on an ice bank, I shall write you a cool epis- tle, from the apex of the Cheops Pyramid a pointed one, and from the Bridge of Sighs of course a doleful one. With these brief explanations it is hoped that most readers of common sense will be able to follow the thread of the dis- course with ease, or, if they do occasionally wander off the track, will succeed in regaining it, so that, though they lose themselves, yet at the end of their journey, at least, they shall find themselves 'Very respectfully, Dunn Browne. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. page WEIGHS ANCHOR 1 CHAPTER II. COMES TO SOUNDINGS 6 CHAPTER IH. TERRESTRIAL SEA-SICKNESS 11 CHAPTER IV. THE CITY OF PRINCE BLADUD 16 CHAPTER V. IN "town" 20 CHAPTER VI. LEAVES " TOWN " 25 CHAPTER VII. " UNDERGROUND RAILROAD " TO PARIS 30 CHAPTER VIII. FRENCH TALKING AND TALKING FRENCH 34 CHAPTER IX. PARIS BY GASLIGHT AND BY DAYLIGHT 38 viu CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. KNICK-KNACKS 42 CHAPTER XI. THE CHURCHES OF PARIS 46 CHAPTER XII. MUSEUMS AND ART IN PARIS 50 CHAPTER XIII. HIS FEELINGS ARE TOO MANT FOR HIM 54 CHAPTER XIV. THE EXPOSITION AND THE EMPEROR 58 CHAPTER XV. WOMEN, RABIES AND DOGS .62 CHAPTER XVI. " DEMANDS HIS PASSPORTS," NOT BEING INVITED TO A GREAT PUB- LIC FESTIVAL 66 CHAPTER XVII. WAITING AT THE STATION 70 CHAPTER XVIII. BRUSSELS, (WITH WATERLOO OMITTED,) 74 CHAPTER XIX. COLOGNE 78 CHAPTER XX. GERMAN RAILWAYS AND FIRES 82 CHAPTER XXI. \J A UNIVERSITY TOWN 86 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XXII. CHRISTMAS AT THE " KRONE " 91 CHAPTER XXIII. STARTS FOR THE ORIENT 95 CHAPTER XXIV. ERFURT TO DRESDEN 99 CHAPTER XXV. DRESDEN, THE SPLENDID 103 CHAPTER XXVI. PRAGUE, THE HOMELY 107 CHAPTER XXVII. A DOOR OPENS, AND SHUTS AGAIN 112 CHAPTER XXVIII. VIENNA, THE MAGNIFICENT .116 CHAPTER XXIX. TRIESTE AND VENICE, PROSE AND POETRY 121 CHAPTER XXX. SUMMIT OF THE CHEOPS PYRAMID 126 CHAPTER XXXI. INTRODUCES YOU TO SUNDRY INTERESTING PEOPLE 131 CHAPTER XXXII. A VOICE FROM THE TOMBS 136 CHAPTER XXXIII. CAIRO, THE PICTURESQUE 141 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIV. JOHN BULL SEES MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR 146 CHAPTER XXXV. ALEXANDRIA TO JERUSALEM 151 CHAPTER XXXVI. THE HOLY CITY 156 CHAPTER XXXVII. MARE ASPHALTICUM 162 CHAPTER XXXVIII. DOES NOT " TARRY AT JERICHO " 168 CHAPTER XXXIX. SAMARIA AND GALILEE 173 CHAPTER XL. OVERLAND TO BEYROUT 178 CHAPTER XLI. THE .EGEAN AND THE DARDANELLES . . . 182 CHAPTER XLII. THE CRIMEA . 189 CHAPTER XLIII. MODERN RUINS 195 CHAPTER XLIV. DOWN THE MEDITERRANEAN 199 CHAPTER XLV. ATHENS 203 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XL VI. QUARANTINE 207 CHAPTER XLVII. RETROSPECTIVE FROM THE ETERNAL CITY .........211 CHAPTER XLVIII. IN A VETTURA 217 CHAPTER XLIX. HERETICAL VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT OF RUINS 221 CHAPTER L. FLORENCE, THE BEAUTIFUL 227 CHAPTER LI. THE BIRTH-PLACE OF COLUMBUS 281 CHAPTER LII. THE NIGHT DILIGENCE 235 CHAPTER LIII. ON FOOT AMONG THE ALPS 239 CHAPTER LIV. INDEPENDENCE AMONG THE CLOUDS 243 CHAPTER LV. DOWN THE RHINE 247 CHAPTER LVI. REPOSES IN HOLLAND 252 CHAPTER LVIL UTTERLY DISREGARDS THE CONSEQUENCES 257 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER LVIII. MERRIE ENGLAND 261 CHAPTER LIX. ENGLISH UNIVERSITY TOWNS 265 CHAPTER LX. THE JEDBURG BORDER GAMES 270 CHAPTER LXL EDINBORO, THE LITERARY 276 CHAPTER LXIL IN AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR 281 CHAPTER LXIIL ANOTHER TASTE OF THE BRINE 286 CHAPTER LXIV. EXPERIENCES IN HIS NATIVE LAND 291 CHAPTER LXV. THE BEST, BECAUSE IT IS THE LAST 296 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. CHAPTER I. WEIGHS ANCHOR. Atlantic Ocean (top of it and pretty well along towards the east side). ) On board cupper ship Quickstep, Sept. 18, 1855. J. After several days of delay beyond the appointed time of sailing, owing partly to man, (want of men,) and partly to Providence, (want of wind,) we did finally succeed in sailing from the quarantine sta- tion in New York harbor on Monday, August 27th. The pilot, appearing on board early in the morning, in spite of a rather unfavorable wind and an im- mense amount of swearing, (I could hardly tell which was the greater obstacle to the execution of his or- ders,) was successful in taking us out of the beauti- ful bay into the open sea. Since, one o'clock the same day, we have seen no land except that portion 1 2 mr. dunn Browne's of our native soil which still remains on the faces of some of the sailors. But we hope, if our favorable wind holds, to make Land's End to-morrow, and London early next week. However this is all guess- work with us, (passengers,) for the officers of the ship take particular pains to tell us the most ridicu- lous and conflicting stories as to our whereabouts and progress. This, and frightening the women with fearful tales of the dangers of the sea, constitute their idea of wit in its highest development. First day out : Strong N. E. wind, which, as that was precisely the direction we wished to go, was not on the whole favorable to our progress. The ship persisted in leaning over at an angle of 45°, so that you could walk with equal ease on the floor and on the leeward side of the cabin. Passengers were to be seen leaning over the bulwarks contemplating the ocean waves with signs of deep emotion, and occa- sional outpourings of feeling very touching to the beholder. Second day : Precisely similar to the first. Third day : If any thing a little more so ; the wind a little stronger ; the ship a little steeper, and the pas- sengers a little sicker; every thing, in short, slightly aggravated. The evening was delightful. Sat sev- eral hours at the stern in the moonlight, watching the bubbles of fire in the waves, and musing upon EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. S home and friends. " Sail on the lee bow," shouted the look-out, and gradually a dark shadow became visible in the dim distance, glided like a spectre slowly past, and vanished. "Waxing decidedly poet- ical under the combined influence of the moon, the waves, and the phantom ship, I was recalled to the realms of the real by a huge wave leaping over the taffrail and depositing at least a barrel of the " briny" in my lap. Thus pickled I retired dripping to my state-room, " a wiser and wetter man." Fourth day : A lurch of the ship sent three cups of coffee, two men, (one pf whom was not your humble servant, the other was,) one bowl of sugar, a woman and baby, three plates of ham, one hairbrush, six roasted potatoes, a jar of pickles, and a wash basin of water with a soapy boy in it, all into a corner of the cabin together. Selecting ourselves out of that heap of miscellaneous articles, and leaving the rest to be picked up by the steward, resumed our breakfast as if nothing had happened. Smart ship is the old Quickstep, only rather playful. The first few days are a fair sample of the whole passage hitherto, fair, beautiful, dull, and stupid in the extreme. Life at sea is very poetical one hour perhaps out of the twenty-four, but prosaic enough the other twenty-three ; may answer very well one day in the week, but deliver me from the other six. 4 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S We are but a dozen of us, passengers, mostly Cockneys returning in disgust from a brief sojourn in Yankee land to blessed Hold Hengland, the 'orae of their hinfancy. Every one of us disagreeing with every other one on all possible subjects, we yet live together in great harmony, performing mutual offices of kindness and good-fellowship ; a little bullet- headed Ducfhman offering a share of his cherished Schiedam Schnapps to the sick wife of a Hungarian refugee ; a Kentuckian and a Londoner ending a wrangle of an hour and a half about the merits of their respective countries in a couple »of friendly brandy punches ; a freethinking London bookseller and your humble servant, after spending the whole afternoon in the main-top-mast cross-trees in dis- cussing, metaphysically, theologically, and scriptu- rally, the Noachian deluge, afterwards discussing a bottle of porter together, (thoroughly exhausting both subjects). Though the Maine law be an admirable institution on land, yet if anybody argues in favor of it here, we silence him directly by presenting to his mouth and nose a glass of the diluted emetic which goes under the name of water on board ship. One dose is sufficient. The patient recovers immediately from his delusion, and pronounces the Maine law eminently a terrestrial animal. If our tea and cof- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. fee were decent, the case would be different ; but as it is, we are absolutely driven to porter, and some of the Englishmen, I am afraid, even to stronger pota- tions. 6 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER II. COMES TO SOUNDINGS. Friday, Sept. 14, 1855. — For the last few days, with a strong S. S. W. wind, we have been rushing through the waves at a tremendous rate, frequently twelve or fourteen knots an hour, getting up such a momentum indeed that we begin to fear we shall not be able to put on the brakes and stop in time to keep from running down the small island of Great Britain, (an accident which would exert an important influ- ence upon the course of Mr. Browne's future travels, and also upon the issue of the war). Saturday, Sept. loth. — Great Britain may con- sider herself safe for the present. We have n't mo- . mentum enough to-day to run down a fishing smack. In fact it is a dead calm, and very provoking too, so near land. Obtained soundings to-day for the first time in about eighty fathoms water. So there is an Eastern continent here at last, if we only go down deep enough for it. My first impressions of Europe EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 7 are, I must confess, rather vague and indefinite. Its splendors don't strike me yet very forcibly. If the rest of it is like that portion which I have already seen (what was brought up on a deep sea lead), I think the soil must be poor. Wednesday r , Sept. 19th. — I have been sick; sick at sea ; and, worse than all, sick in a calm at sea, with the ship pitching and tossing at random, instead of regularly. Woke the other night from my first sleep with quite a number of unpleasant sensations that I was already familiar with, besides several new acquaintances. A redhot needle in each eye ; sharp knives thrust through the temples ; a boa constrictor squeezing my chest and shoulders ; the hugest kind of an elephant trampling on the small of my back ; legs broken on the wheel and stretched on the rack and burned in the fire all at once ; this can only give a faint idea of the disagreeables of that night. I felt enormously large and heavy ; my head a perfect mountain ; my limbs big trunks of trees ; my body as large as the Colossus at Rhodes, and all made of lead. I had ever so many things to do which could n't possibly be done ; impossible numbers to count, im- possible burdens to lift, impossible mountains to climb and seas to cross. Every thing that can't be done I felt obliged to do at once. I had to square 4 8 MR. DUNN BEOWNE'S the circle, to discover perpetual motion and the phi- losopher's stone, and the philosophy of the spiritual rappings ; to inscribe a four-sided equilateral triangle in a circle whose diameter should be five times its cir- cumference, and several other geometrical problems of equal ease. Remained in this delightful state of body and mind through the night and part of the next day, but am now "complaining" of being a little better, though I can't possibly get well or calm again till this calm in the wind ceases. Thursday, Sept. 20th. — With what joy did we rush on deck last evening to catch the first faint fannings of a southerly breeze as they began to fill the great sails of our ship and bring her round to the proper course (she had been perversely heading south-west for several hours after completely boxing the compass during the day), and started us on our way with con- stantly accelerated velocity; and all, too, as gently as 't were the breath of an infant. Truly a ship is a great thing, but it is moved by a little wind and guided by a small helm, turned by the strength of a single man. Friday, Sept. 21st. — I am much better, but the breeze, poor thing, is dead, and a whole brood of hopes buried with it. A government steamer (for EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 9 the Mediterranean probably) has just crossed, our bows, gliding along quietly eleven or twelve knots per hour I consider it a decided insult to us that she should pass thus near just to aggravate our feelings. But now to avenge us on her, the wind is springing up again. Unfortunately it is dead against us, but a head wind is better far than none, for a ship is a contrary sort of a female, (quite unlike the rest of the sex,) and will go right in the teeth of an oppos- ing force, but let her alone and she won't go at all. The old Quickstep will coquette along up the chan- nel, now steering for the Parlez-Vous, and now back again to the embrace of John Bull, till it is a wonder if she does n't miss both parties and get off to Norway. Monday, Sept. 2ilh. — A pilot came on board yes- terdav afternoon, and cheered us with the informa- tion that in a week or ten clays we should probably arrive in London, beating up under the present wind. Weary with the nine days we had been already tossed about without any perceptible progress, four of us chartered his boat and came to land last evening at Torquay, a town of some 15,000 inhabitants, about 40 miles to the eastward of Plymouth. The situa- tion of the town on the bold headlands of Torbay is delightful in the extreme, and all that wealth and 10 mk. dunn Browne's art can do to improve nature has been added. Either my eye never beheld such a scene of cultivated beauty, or thirty days at sea warps one's judgment somewhat in reference to the dear old solid land. Yours, once more safe on " terra firma." EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 11 CHAPTER III. TERRESTRIAL SEA-SICKNESS. An English inn of the good, old-fashioned sort, is just the most comfortable place in the world next to your own home. Small, quiet, clean, with good beds, the most admirable cookery and best of servants, giving you just what you ask for and at. any hour of day or night; a man who would grumble under such circumstances ought to attend his own funeral as soon as possible, and leave this beautiful world to more reasonable people. -Early Monday morning, after enjoying a nice " mutton-chop," (I never under- stood the full meaning of that tender, juicy, delicious word till our bright, tidy, black-eyed, and rosy-cheeked Susan, with her coquettish muslin cap and her merry laugh, having spread the table for four in our own little parlor, brought them in all smoking hot, with the proper accompaniments,) I sallied out for a stroll, taking an umbrella, for though the morning was bright and fair, yet I knew by the accounts of travel- 12 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S lers that it always rains in England before night, and was determined to show the weather that I wasn't to be taken in by appearances. Every thing about an English town is strange to a Yankee ; the buildings all of solid stone, and gable end to the street ; the tiled and thatched roofs ; the immense walls about the gentlemen's residences (so that you might call an Englishman's house not only " his castle, " but almost his prison) ; the narrow and crooked streets ; and above all the infinite variety of vehicles you see therein, of the most fantastic shapes, and generally four times as strong and heavy as they need be. Then there are the multitudes of donkeys, in carts and in carriages, with huge panniers and packsaddles, driven by little ragged urchins, ridden by big men and women, and unmercifully beaten with sticks. But I was too much intoxicated with the freedom of the land after being shut up so long in a ship to confine myself to the streets or roads even, but quickly branched off into the fields, wandering over hill and dale without any regard to direction or dis- tance, unmindful of hedges, walls, gates, and boards full of warnings to trespassers ; picked the cunning little flowers under my feet, patted all the donkeys (four-legged ones) I met ; one of whom ungratefully EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 13 kicked me in return (I patted him considerably harder next time) ; chased the sheep (who were so fat and tame they wouldn't make much sport) ; plunged by and by into a village school among a hundred of the noisiest little rogues I ever saw ; scrambled a hun- dred yards down some steep cliffs and took a sea bath; took a bath of another sort before I got up again; straying a while longer, found a little one- story village, and went into a funny, black, smoky ale-house, made of stones, brick, and mud, with thatched roof sixty years old they told me, (the house may have been, for ought I know, six hundred) ; purchased of a smiling woman, as little, old, and queer as the house itself, four-pen'orth of bread and cheese and a mug of ale ; found that I was five miles from Torquay, that one of my feet was blistered, and that, after all, an ocean voyage is n't the best prepara- tive for a long walk in the country, %o far as legs are concerned. To shorten the distance back, I left the road, went over a steep hill and some twenty hedges, took a wrong turn and went two miles past the town. Ac- cordingly proceeded to negotiate with the driver of a fish cart, whom I happened to find going the same way, to carry me back, he stipulating that I should stand a pot of half-and-half, and binding himself to 14 mr. dunn Browne's set me down at the toll-gate about half a mile from my inn, which treaty was carried out to our mu- tual satisfaction. Hobbled home, lame, hungry, and sleepy, about 7 P. M., from my first walk in the mother country. My Cockney companions being bound for London by the night express, I bade them adieu at an early hour and left them in company with sundry flagons of beer, industriously preparing for their departure*, but was somewhat surprised to find one of them next morning left behind, having been detained by a sudden attack of sea-sickness, accompanied by vom- iting and other disagreeable symptoms. He recov- ered sufficiently, however, with a light breakfast and a cup of coffee, to take the rail with me for the North, on through beautiful Exmouth and cathedral- crowned Exeter, till at last I stopped at Bristol and left him with the farewell prescription of total absti- nence from ale, as most likely to prevent the recur- rence of that sea-malady which had troubled him the previous night. This Bristol is a low, dirty, smoky, old, dilapidated town which would n't pay for visiting except as a contrast to some other fine ones in its vicinity. After visiting two or three fine old churches, I walked out to Clifton, two miles, to St. Vincent's Rocks, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 15 where is a scene which amply atones even for Bristol ; a gorge about 300 feet deep with a river running be- tween its banks, on which gay, sharp little steamers some seventy feet long and about three feet wide were plying, and then the most romantic and enchanting scenery in the distance. All the hills, trees, houses, fields, and hedges for miles around are arranged with an especial reference to the view from Clifton Heights ; even the flocks of sheep, I noticed, had men and dogs employed to keep them in picturesque attitudes. Tried to throw a stone across the river below. The first one fell short amongst a parcel of children playing on the bank ; the next just missed one of the little steamers above mentioned, which was crowded with people ; and the thought, about that time occurring to me that this was a rather dan- gerous amusement, I desisted, and proceeded to in- vest a couple of shillings in the purchase of some specimens of the rock, which is in part composed of petrified animals and vegetables, and becomes very brilliant when properly polished. 16 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER IV. THE CITY OP PRINCE BLADUD. The air at Bristol being composed of every thing but oxygen and nitrogen, at least every thing that is black and smoky and noxious, I decided not to risk myself through the night in such a location, and came on twelve miles towards London to the famous city of Bath, " the Queen of the West." Now it is no great matter to arrive in a strange place at eleven o'clock at night ; but when that place happens to be full of soldiers, and all the hotels crowded to over- flowing, (an English inn will accommodate from four to six individuals in an emergency,) why the case is different, and the symptoms are aggravated by every new negative to your request for a bed. After being repulsed from the " Blue Boar " and the " Golden Lion " and the " Green Dragon," as well as several other impossible animals, after attacking sev- eral "Castles" in vain, being cut loose from the " An- chor," discharged from the " Queen's Arms," and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 17 hissed away from the " Goose and Gridiron ; " I fol- lowed the ragged boy whom I had engaged as guide up a dark lane about three feet wide, of various heights and longer even than " that lane which has no turning," for this had six or seven at least, to the " Rose and Crown," which had already its complement of half a dozen lodgers, but by per- suading two acquaintances to sleep together, I found here rest at last for my weary feet. In the morning, during the two hours that inter- vened between breakfast and the departure of our train for London, I made a minute and detailed ex- amination of this city of 70,000 inhabitants ; visited the Pump Rooms, going several streets out of the way in order not to see a review of those soldiers who had troubled me so much the previous night : ana- lyzed the waters of Prince Bladud's Fount (by drink- ing a couple of glasses) : detected therein very plainly Sam Weller's " Killibbyate " taste, and two or three other distinct villanous flavors : so that, being also lukewarm, it is exactly one of those delightful com- pounds which the doctors delight to force down peo- ple's throats in gallons for the benefit of their health : visited the Old Abbey Church, one of the most beau- tiful, both externally and internally, in the kingdom ; the Crescents, Parks, Circus, etc. : climbed up from 2 18 mr. dunn browne's the bowl to the rim of the great basin in which the city is situated, and should have spilled myself over into the adjacent lovely country, but my time was up, my train was waiting and engine puffing in haste to take me away to London. Railway travelling is in several respects different in England from the same thing in America. You are not annoyed by the dust and cinders which are the inseparable abomination of our cars ; you enter the car at the side instead of at the end ; nobody can get in without a ticket ; you are locked in ; and the conductor whistles instead of the engine. The pas- senger cars are much smaller and less splendid than the American; have larger wheels and no brakes at- tached. No road or street crosses the track, all are either above or below. In general, all the business of the road is managed in a much more clumsy and more safe way than with us, and by six times more men, who know each his own duty and nothing else. For instance, I asked eleven, railway employe's (at least they had on the railway uniform, though they didn't seem to be very busily employed) and two of them engineers, before I could find out the width of the gauge of the Great Western road on which we were riding, and the last man could only answer, after measuring, that it was seven feet. Would any EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 19 Yankee be lounging about the track months, or years perhaps, and not find out how far apart the rails were ? I trow not. Shortly after leaving Bath, we plunged into the bowels of the earth, and remained in total darkness so long that our emerging at the Antipodes really be- gan to seem a thing quite to be expected. Feeling after my next neighbor and instituting inquiries, I found we were in the " Box " tunnel, which is only three miles long, though it seems ten at least. Our engine did open its mouth here for the first and last time, and uttered one shriek of triumph as we came forth into daylight again. But after all, the noise of an English engine is a mere baby's squeak compared with the hideous, terrific, unearthly roar of a Yankee locomotive. "We passed over and under and through several fine towns and a great deal of lovely and fer- tile country during the day, and about five o'clock began to smell and taste London, which we also saw and heard half an hour later, and which place is the present abiding place of your humble pilgrim andi servant. 20 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER V. IN " TOWN." If London could be cut up into a dozen parts and taken in twelve separate, distinct doses, the effect might perhaps be pleasant and healthful ; but as it is, all together, swallowed whole, it nearly kills one. Yes, I am compelled to say, London is entirely too big. And yet the infatuated inhabitants, far from acknowledging and seeking to remedy this defect, go on adding house to house, and street to street, till one begins to feel that it is by a wise dispensation of Providence, England is an island, that so a limit must come some time to the growth of this monster. The streets have used up all the names and several times over, so that in many instances a dozen differ- ent streets are called by the same appellation, and a surname has to be taken up behind, as, " Broad st, Bloomsbury," that is, that particular Broad street, which intersects Bloomsbury street. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 21 Taking a stroll the morning after my arrival, I came upon a little, muddy, narrow, insignificant stream, with a few boats moving about on it and a great many more lying high and dry on either side. " Does this little creek run * into the Thames ? " inquired I of a very prim looking gentleman standing near. " Run into the Thames ! " repeated he, darting from beneath his spectacles a look of mingled aston- ishment, grief, and indignation, (which would cer- tainly have withered me if the spectacles had 'nt for- tunately been present to break somewhat the shock,) " That, my dear sir, is the noble river Thames." Of course I did not prolong the conversation under the circumstances, but couldn't help thinking the river as much too small as the city too large. Taking how- ever another view in the afternoon when the tide had risen upwards of twenty feet, I felt that I had done Father Thames an injustice, to atone for which, I have ever since admired his docks, bridges, and ships, every thing that is his, to the utmost extent. There is nothing brilliant about London, but every thing is made for service. The houses are rough, black, and grim, with walls two or three feet thick ; the carts and carriages heavy, huge, and not to be broken by any number of concussions ; and the horses that drew them, especially the dray and 22 mr. dunn browne's brewer's horses, perfect elephants in size and strength. Every thing is done slowly and methodically in London. It is as difficult to hurry an Englishman as it is to check a Yankee. The one can't be dragged out of a regular routine of duty, the other can't be driven into it. The English guide, how- ever, who conducts you over the public buildings, must be most emphatically excepted from the above remark. He is any thing but slow, and annihilates time and space in a way to make railways and electric telegraphs hide their diminished heads. With him a thousand years are but as a quarter of an hour, and a whole empire full of poets, states- men, and heroes, only a five minutes' walk. Having pocketed the shillings, or the sixpences, as the case may be, the object is to get rid of us in the shortest possible time, to be ready for the next pocket full of small change. An usher of the black robe conducted a dozen of us sixpences through that large and ancient portion of Westminster Abbey, which is not open to the public, in fifteen minutes ; and an old fat fellow in flame color (how he came to be fat I can't imagine) circulated some twenty of us shil- lings through the Tower, with its ten thousand ob- jects of interest, in less than half an hour, including « the visit to the jewel room where a glib-tongued EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 23 matron rattled off to us in a sing-song tone, with- out once stopping to take breath, what I presume to have been (for I could n't distinguish the words) a description of the various crowns, sceptres, swords, rings, bracelets, and other baubles which we saw glittering in a glass case before us. After she had finished her rigmarole and the old fellow in spangled scarlet had dragged off the party, wishing to obtain one item of definite information if possible, I asked the woman which was the great Koh-i-noor diamond, but she could not inform me, though upon reflection she pointed out the Koh-i-noor bracelet, where sure enough I saw the monster gem sparkling in the midst of a cluster of inferior stones like a sun among stars. They learn every thing by rote and are puz- zled by the simplest question, if it require an answer not precisely contained in their catechism. - St. Paul's cathedral again, is sold in small parcels to suit purchasers, a sixpence to go down here, one and sixpence to go up there, etc., so that it costs you something over a dollar to see the whole, and the hurrying process practised here is still more shameless than in the other places. In fact we spent about three minutes in the crypts beneath the church, and I was threatened with a locking down for lingering a moment beside Nelson's tomb. I 24 mr. dunn browne's knew however that another party would be along soon, and so was not greatly terrified. Now if these plump old churchmen must make the house of God a source of profit, why can't they pocket the shil- lings, and then have a few sentinels on guard about the building to see that it sustains no detriment, and leave the spectator to roam about at his leisure, and indulge in the appropriate emotions without the abominable nuisance of an illiterate blockhead of a guide ? I pause for a reply. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 25 CHAPTER VI. LEAVES "TOWN." The best thing about London, the most healthful, the loveliest, finest, and most magnificent, the super- lative of all the good adjectives, that only which redeems London from the curse of its vastness, is, the parks, hills and meadows, groves and forests, right in the heart of the city where you can hide yourself away from all its sights and sounds as completely as if a tliousand miles away ; quiet, lovely green islands in the ocean of London, against which the waves of toil and business beat in vain. The palaces and prisons of the great metropolis I have seen, but, receiving no pressing invitation to enter either, have had experience only of their most comfortable side — the outside. ' The gloom- iest, least desirable residence of them all is St. James' palace, and Newgate prison the next. The others are very much after the common sort. Buckingham 26 mr. dunn Browne's •palace is a large, substantial, plain, comfortable-look- ing, three-story house, a very respectable tenement for the queen or any one else, only the rent is rather high. About Lambeth palace I cannot speak very definitely. Walked round it the other morning, some two miles, under the shadow of a high, black wall, to see if there was any place to enter or get a view of it, and there isn't the smallest spot, save that at one corner you can get a glimpse of a few of the highest towers. How the poor old arch- bishop manages to get in and out, unless he uses a balloon, is a puzzle to me. With regard to the new Parliament Houses, which are consuming the people's money at such a ruinous rate, I really cannot make up my mind as yet whether to admire them greatly or not ; the work however will not be suspended to await my decision. There is one notable circumstance, though, which I can't help mentioning. In all that immense pile of building, covering acres of ground, there isn't a room capable of containing five hundred people. Even the hall of the House of Commons, which numbers six hundred and fifty-six members, I think, can only seat three hundred persons at most (a tall policeman and I counted the benches) ; so you see that a seat in Parliament requires something more EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 27 than an election. I do n't wonder now at there being so many " contested seats," but should think trouble of that sort would occur every night. The intelligent policeman, above referred to, however, gave me a tolerably satisfactory explanation of the matter, i. e. that one half the members of the house were always in the refreshment rooms recruiting exhausted na- ture, the illiberal public sentiment of England not allowing legislators to devour peanuts and ham- sandwitches in the house during the sittings, as is practised so generally in our own more enlightened Congress. The only wonderful thing about the world-re- nowned Thames Tunnel is that it should cost so much money to dig so small a hole. The difficulty of its completion is only surpassed by its uselessness, now it is done. The penny admission fee, however, is well expended, for it presents the cheapest method T know of, of descending from the heights of fancy to the depths of reality. The British Museum and the Crystal Palace at Sydenham are, each, a great world into which one needs to be born and live a whole life in order to describe it, and as my existence was but an infantile one of a single day in each, of course a description is out of the question. You see every thing that 28 mr. dunn Browne's you expected to see, and every thing that you didn't expect to see. Wonders upon wonders rise before you till the eye is tired with seeing, and you are glad to take one parting look of the huge Bulls of Nineveh, to catch one last flash of light reflected from the glorious palace of glass, and go home ex- hausted from very fulness. One portion of the magnificent grounds of the Sydenham Palace is profusely adorned with Ichthyosauri and Iguanodons and all the other imaginary and impossible monsters with which poetical geologists have delighted to people our world during those vast periods that elapsed before its creation. These animals are mostly built of bricks and stucco, rather in the grotesque style of architecture, with a decided leaning to the Tusk-mi style in ornament. The general effect is nightmareish and bugbeary and hobgoblinical in the extreme. Young England and its nurses pass through these walks with suppressed breath and trembling steps. The Bank of England is a suspicious, ill-looking building, without any windows and shockingly low as if it had been driven into the ground a couple of stories, but it is very richly gilded within. One of the cashiers politely requested my name and resi- dence upon a bit of paper I had in my pocket, and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 29 then very handsomely presented me with five golden sovereigns therefor ; with which sum I decided to leave London at once, before I fell among any more thieves and guides. On my journey I called at Brighton with its beauti- ful beach, its suspension pier, and its pretty houses built of pebbles laid up in cement ; Chichester, with its ancient cross and fine old cathedral containing many of Flaxman's choicest groups of sculpture ; Portsmouth, with its grim fortifications and huge war-ships, (among which I visited the " Victory " on which Nelson died,) and its enormous dockyard, where I was refused admission because I was an American, and told them I would willingly wait till we came over and captured Portsmouth and could examine at our leisure ; wandered a day over the lovely Isle of Wight, a perfect paradise of verdure, and reluctantly, with many a lingering look at the romantic scenery about Osborne house, (one of the Queen's summer residences,) passed over to South- ampton and embarked for Havre. So good-by to glorious old England for the present, and " bon- jour " to her sprightly ally. 30 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER VII. "UNDERGROUND RAILROAD" TO PARIS. Custom-houses are certainly among the customs which ought to be abolished as soon as practicable, but if the evil be still a necessary one, it is, surely, managed at Havre in a way to produce as little in- convenience and vexation as possible. The trav- eller's baggage is subjected to a merely nominal ex- amination without any of that searching and rum- maging which I had been led to expect. The only trouble about the matter is the delay of an hour or two, or three, consequent thereupon. There being nothing of especial interest here save a fine quay, perhaps we may as well skip Havre and rush on to Rouen as soon as possible, which place we will reach as soon as I have finished one remark by way of episode in reference to railroads. It is astonishing how many tunnels they build in France and England. They go out of their way any time to find a hill to bore through, in order to EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 31 save land damages, I suppose. The road to Rouen is mostly subterranean. We passed through the cellars of one or two towns (and the attics of one at least by way of compensation), and at last emerged from one grand, long, and hideously dark tunnel into the very midst of the ancient capital of Normandy. Rouen is the strangest, queerest place I was ever in ; there is not a thing in it which is not strange and queer, for if you should chance to light on any thing common-place, that would be the strangest of all from its very rarity. No two streets are on the same level or run in the same direction, or in any particular direction at all ; and no two houses in the same street are alike in height, width, or nearness to the centre of the street. They are of all sorts of materials, and the windows and doors are thrown in entirely at random. It is called a Gothic town I think, but if you can't find specimens of all the orders or at least disorders of architecture in every street, then I have studied Eschenburg's manual in vain. I made no inquiries for a map of the town, for I knew of course that such a thing would be im- possible to construct, but strolled about all the morn- ing, asking no questions for the reason that the people in France don't talk good French, and it is a wonder to me now how I ever escaped from the 32 ME. DUNN BEOWNE'S labyrinth or found any of the public buildings, but fortune favored me in both respects more than I had any right to expect. The cathedral is a most noble and venerable edi- fice, shockingly disfigured by stacks of miserable little houses and shops leaning up against its walls ; its facade covered with delicate tracery in stone ; its three towers of beautiful proportions and lofty, one (of iron) three hundred and eighty feet high, if I un- derstood the French numerals correctly. The huge church of St. Ouen rivals the cathedral itself in all except antiquity. Here, finding a little door in one of the pillars I availed myself of the opening, crawled up a circular stone staircase some one hundred and fifty feet in the dark, and strolled over the towers and battlements a half hour, having the good for- tune not to find myself locked up when I came down. And six or seven more ancient and costly churches I visited in that morning walk, each of which would make the fortune of any other town in the way of the picturesque, but which seemed noth- ing wonderful here ; also the ancient Palace of Jus- tice and Parliament House; the statue of Joan of Arc in the market-place ; a curious old archway and tower containing a huge clock ; a very old church changed into a blacksmith's shop, and other curious sights at every step. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 33 A few more tunnels, and a great deal of lovely scenery along the valley of the Seine, (a punster would say that was only what we might expect,) bring us to Paris where I have just arrived, weary, sleepy, and deperately hungry. 34 MR. dunn Browne's CHAPTER VIII. FRENCH TALKING AND TALKING FRENCH. Most people have a particular set of organs to be used in talking, called vocal organs ; but a French- man's organs are all vocal. He talks with every member and muscle of his body and every article of dress he wears. I don't think a parcel of Parisians in straight waistcoats could understand each other. A shrug of his shoulders is a whole sentence. A wave of the hand dispenses flowers of rhetoric. He emphasizes with his elbows and punctuates with his fingers. A flourish of his coat tail is a figure of speech. He shakes metaphors from the folds of his pocket handkerchief, and at a' pinch, even his snuff- box serves to round a period. You ought to have seen the eloquence of one old lady's petticoat, the other day, as she was enlarging upon the advantages of an apartment, for the rent of which your humble servant was negotiating. The grace with which she flourished that article of wearing apparel about the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 35 room, the striking attitudes it assisted her in assum- ing, the great variety of meanings it conveyed, cer- tainly gave me new ideas with reference to the capabilities of dress as a medium of thought. Of course, in this case, the petticoat was the outside garment. If its voice had been stifled under the folds of a long, awkward dress, in all human proba- bility the result would have been totally different, for my own unassisted judgment would have prompted me, I confess, to have chosen some other apartment. The earnestness, energy, and passion which the French throw into even the most ordinary conversa- tion is wonderful. I have been several times on the point of interfering to prevent a quarrel, or quicken- ing my steps to get out of its reach (according as my benevolence or self-love for the moment preponder- ated), when my fears have been removed by seeing the supposed combatants wave each other a smiling adieu, and separate in peace. I have been hitherto so much engaged in seeing people talk, observing the queer expressions and movements of the face and the grotesque contortions of the body, that I have had lit- tle leisure for hearing, or for displaying my own pro- ficiency by talking. Whatever remarks I have had occasion to make, however, have been readily under- stood, while of the gibberish addressed to me in re- 36 mr. dunn Browne's turn, I could hardly make out two words in a sen- tence ; which shows very plainly who speaks the best French. Indeed, it must be acknowledged by the greatest admirer of Paris, that very few indeed of her inhabitants speak French with that purity and cor- rectness of pronunciation which are imparted in most of our American schools and colleges. I find, how- ever, that they are improving every day, as I can un- derstand them much better now than a week since, when I first arrived. Every thing is done here in the dramatic style, as might be expected in a city where thirty thousand people attend the theatres every night. Two market women, parting for the night, bid each other adieu with all the pathos of captive princesses ordered to immediate execution. The driver of an omnibus cracks his whip and shouts to his horses with the ar- dor of a warrior charging the enemy. The vender of cabbages and carrots arranges his vegetables with an eye to the scenic effect. The blind and lame beggars asking alms at the doors of the churches, form them- selves into picturesque " tableaux." All are acting a part. Everybody down to the very children at their play, and every thing, even to the soups of your din- ner and the tie of your cravat, is u a la" somebody or something else. And not only a theatrical but also a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 37 military air pervades the whole community, not con- fined either to the inhabitants, but extending over the face of nature. The trees in the parks are all drilled and disciplined into regular battalions, cropped, pruned, and trimmed into perfect soldierly uniformity, not a single rebellious branch left to grow in its own wild luxuriance, not a leaf daring to rustle out of its rank and file. So also the flowers and plants in the public gardens are drawn up with the same military precision, marshalled in battle array over against each other, poor inoffensive little things, with no weapons to discharge, save perfumes. Monsieur l'Empereur, is n't this pushing military tactics a little too far ? 38 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER IX. PARIS BY GASLIGHT AND BY DAYLIGHT. Paris has two sides, like a Brussels carpet, a right side and a w ong side, which latter must be kept out of sight, if one wishes only to admire. Two thirds of the city is made up of narrow, dirty, crooked, ugly streets, inhabited by poor, half-starved, ill-clad, wooden-shod operatives ; the other third is the abode of princely luxury and splendor. In one of the great Cafes on the fashionable Boulevards, a hundred francs is very often paid for a dinner, and one can scarcely get wherewithal to satisfy his appetite for less than thirty francs ; while in a little eating-house not fifty paces distant, the laborer gets a meal for ten eous. Although the palaces, monuments, fountains, church- es, and public edifices are numerous and costly almost beyond belief, and many parts of the city real- ize all one's anticipatory dreams of the glory and mag- nificence of the gay capital, yet on the whole, there EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 39 is a little disappointment at finding this paradise of the world built of very common looking stones, bricks, and mortar, like other cities, the streets not very sweet smelling, and the men therein all disfig- ured about the mouth, by hair of every possible shade of the dirty colors. Every thing here is too artificial. There is not one bit of pure, unadulterated nature left within the city limits. There are trees enough, but they are all shaven and shorn as I have before told you ; hills enough, but they are hills that man has piled up ; lakes, streams, and fountains enough, but they are only a series of ingenious hydraulic experiments by skilful engineers. A Frenchman cannot let Nature alone. Nothing that God has made is quite perfect till it has also passed under his own finishing hand. Luckily he cannot reach the clouds, or he would doubtless set himself to cut and shave them down into more regular shape, and out of the parings carve a parcel of Grecian statues to set up on the arch of the rainbow. But however Paris may appear by day, by night the scene is magnificent beyond description. Fairy tales, the Arabian Night's Entertain ments, all that you have seen, read, or dreamed of that is glorious and brilliant, glimmers, fades, goes entirely out in the 40 mr. dunn browne's comparison. The streets all in a blaze of gas-light and crowded with bustling vehicles and gay prome- naders ; the hundreds of theatres and other places of public amusement, brilliantly illuminated and send- ing forth peals of joyous music and laughter; the thousand and one long arcades, covered with glass and lined with a continual succession of shops full of all manner of tempting wares; the gorgeously fur- nished cafes and saloons filled with merry guests of both sexes, eating and drinking together ; the hum of the ten thousand voices, the glare of the myriad lights, the ever-changing panorama of brightness, that is passing before you, charms, dazzles, confuses, intoxicates, fairly stuns you into a state of staring wonder and amazement. You know that there is very little substance to all this show, but you none the less admire. You have seen the other end of the kaleidoscope, how it is only little bits of painted glass that are the basis of these enchanting visions, still they are none the less lovely for that. But in the morning, when the gas is turned off, and the fog*is turned on, when the elegant carriages have given place to the lumbering drays, when the blouses and wooden shoes have the pavement all to themselves, and the dull shutters conceal from your view the treasures of the shops, then comes the disenchant- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 41 ment. Bright poetry, stripped of her feathers, turns out to be only plain prose after all. You see noth- ing of your last night's banquet but the broken bot- tles strewed about the floor, the chairs upside down, and the tables covered with bones and crumbs. You find that nothing is more stupid than a theatre by daylight ; you are disgusted in fact, and turning into the first restaurant that appears, call for a cup of strong coffee and some eggs, for yourself and your humble servant, Dunn Browne. 42 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER X. KNICK-KNACKS. Paris is one vast, grand, magnificent toy-shop, for children of all ages, where every thing which can't possibly be of the slightest use to you, and which you will be sure to break in carrying away, is ex- posed for sale in endless variety and profusion. Ten thousand little images, busts, and statuettes of mar- ble, plaster, sugar, chocolate, bronze, gingerbread, soap, and porcelain, illustrating all the Heathen My- thologies and Pagan Divinities ever invented, the natural history of all animals and unnatural history of all nations : jewelry enough to supply all the in- habitants of the globe to the last naked Hottentot, with each a gold watch, half a dozen rings for the fingers, ears, or nose as fashion shall dictate, a brace- let or two, and a gold tooth-pick : a million walk- ing-sticks with ivory heads carved into such fantastic shapes and covered with such delicate tracery that the purchaser dares not lay hand upon one, but car- EXPEKIENCES EN" EOKEIGN PAKTS. 43 ries it daintily under his arm : an infinite assort- ment of portmonnaies decreasing in size as they increase in price, on the very reasonable principle that the more you pay for one, the less money you will have left to put into it : dolls with staring eyes and painted cheeks, from the size of a full-grown woman away down till the waist becomes invisible to the naked eye : fans enough to blow a fleet of the line across the Atlantic : ten thousand flimsy articles of dress of which I no more know the names than I do what part of the body they are intended to cover or reveal: a world of perfumery of more strange scents than the sharpest nose ever dreamed of: in- numerable and indescribable knick-knacks to eat, twisted into an infinite variety of forms without any substance, delightful to the taste but melting into utter nonentity long before they reach the stomach : every thing in short, from a Jews-harp up to a ten thousand dollars Sevres vase, and all arranged with such taste, so temptingly displayed, that you are certain to buy something, and equally certain to be sorry for it after. Your whistle is so beautifully gilded, and is delivered to you with such fascinating grace, that you never think till too late, how dearly you are paying for it. The French are just the nicest, pleasantest, most 44 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S accommodating, and most graceful shopkeepers in the world. They are perfect with but one little ex- ception to show that they are mortal after all, and that is in the matter of honesty. Their prices are entirely extempore, and vary according to the weather and their opinion of your ignorance of the article in question. It is amusing to go into a shop and get the price of the same article on different days. I de- termined not to purchase a hat till I found a man who would tell me the same sum twice in succes- sion, and was a fortnight in the operation, and pre- sume that it was only by accident that I succeeded at last. Perhaps, however, there is no intentional dishonesty in the thing. Nearly all the articles on sale are such as have no intrinsic value, and it is only natural, therefore, that their price should be a thermometer of the ever-varying fancy of the seller. Speak of buying and selling, and of honesty, nat- urally leads us to the Exchange, or Bourse, the great centre of financial operations, where two or three thousand merchants meet daily, a place which, more than any other, has produced an impression on my organs of hearing, if not on my mind. Any one who has visited the New York Exchange, vividly recol- Jlects the effect of the reverberations of sound under the dome. But even with that for a basis, no stretch EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 45 of the imagination can enable one to form an ade- quate idea of the " noise and confusion " of the Paris Bourse. I just begin to see for the first time why- brokers are called bears and bulls. If there had been 2,000 literal bears and bulls shut up under that dome, all bellowing and roaring with might and main, and each with a speaking trumpet to increase the sound,, they might have roared themselves hoarse before they could rival their human prototypes. They shut up about a hundred of the noisiest between the two- concentric circular railings towards one end of the vast hall, and it is highly interesting to stand in the gal- lery and look down upon their frantic gesticulations.. " Operations at the Bourse" were truly "lively" the day I visited it. That Niagara of sound has beeni ringing in my ears ever since ; though Niagara is a very feeble and inadequate comparison for it, believe* me. 46 mr. dunn Browne's CHAPTER XI. THE CHURCHES OF PARIS. The churches are the most impressive of all the 'buildings in this city of palaces and splendid edifices. Their great antiquity and interesting historical asso- ciations ; the solemnity of this grand old Gothic ar- chitecture, more in unison with a place of worship *than with a building for secular purposes ; their lofty "arches, curiously carved ornaments, stained windows, and the fine paintings and statues which adorn them, combine to give them an interest which nothing else possesses in the same degree. And yet while the general effect is impressive and edifying in the high- est degree, when one comes to examine more mi- nutely, he is constantly stumbling upon such quaint and funny carved work, or such ridiculous and shock- ing taste in painting, or in selecting subjects to paint, that ten to one he doesn't go out of the church in any better frame of mind than he has on entering. Side by side with the most delightful pictures illustrating EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 47 the Gospel history, you will find a herd of seven- headed and ten-horned beasts from the Apocalypse, and some of the most incredibly silly passages from the lives of the Romish saints that the wildest imag- ination can conceive. And then just on the line be- tween the ridiculous and sacrilegious, come their altar pieces with all sorts of representations of the Deity, the Virgin Mary usually occupying a promi- nent position on the left hand of the Father, while the Son is on His right. Over the door of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, appears in bas-relief " The Holy Trinity," the Father, a stern-looking man, something like the Jupiter of Grecian mythol- ogy, with black hair and beard, the Son, a milder personage, with light hair and blue eyes, at his side, and the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove, perched on a cloud over their heads. Apropos of pictures and graven images, I was interested in the groups which appear on the huge bronze doors of the Madeleine ; illustrations from Scripture history of the consequences of breaking the several commandments ; not only from their marvellous beauty, but from the fact that the second commandment does not appear at all, and the num- ber is made up by splitting the tenth ; " Thou shalt not covet the wife of thy neighbor," forming the ninth, illustrated by a most magnificent representa- 48 mr. Dunn Browne's tion of the scene between Nathan and David. I had heard this accusation brought against the Ro- man Catholics before, but never saw any proof of it until now, as the Douay Bible, I think, has the whole decalogue correctly. There is no situation so fitted to solemnize the mind, and fill it with devotional feeling, as standing under the nave of one of these grand old churches (or still more splendid modern ones, the Pantheon and Madeleine,) always provided it be done any day of the week but Sunday, when the case is en- tirely altered. I have attended high mass one or two sabbaths, and such a conglomeration of excellent music and muttered Latin, gilt angels, holy water, wax candles, and little boys in white with red caps on, and kneelings and kissing crucifixes, and ringing little bells, and tossing censors in the air, I never saw before, certainly under the name of religion. However the audience appear extremely devout, pay the strictest attention to all the exercises, cross them- selves with holy water at the door of the church, and then go out to enjoy a fine holiday and visit the theatre in the evening, for this is the great gala-day when all Paris is to be seen in the streets and at the places of amusement, except about half the work- men, who continue their labors as on other days. The priests are a pleasant, polite, benevolent-look- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 49 ing class of men, round and rosy-faced, wearing rather a graceful costume, especially the hat and feather, and, what seems to me a little strange, I confess, looking precisely alike, of exactly the same height, features, and weight, to a pound, for all the world like coins stamped in the same moukJi and differing only in the different degrees of wear and tear caused by the circulation. I haven't yet made a sufficient number of observations to establish the general principle, but that is the result of my inves- tigation so far. 50 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER XII. MUSEUMS AND ART IN PARIS. I AM a lover of the fine arts, and manifested a taste in that direction at a very early age, by draw- ing portraits of my schoolmates on the slate that should have been covered with arithmetical prob- lems, as well as by executing several fine statues in snow. I admire pictures, and think the face of nature reflected on canvas, almost as beautiful as the original, and the faces of men and women even usually a trifle better looking than their originals. But moderation is desirable in all things. The ap- petite of the eye is not insatiable any more than that of the stomach. For myself, having examined, dur- ing the past month, several hundred acres of cele- brated paintings and a corresponding amount of fine statuary, to say nothing about endless collec- tions of miscellaneous odds and ends of broken ancient cities and several immense palaces full of EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 51 Gobelin tapestry and interesting historical associa- tions, I begin to confess to a feeling of weariness coming over my powers of admiration ; and to no small joy in the thought that I have only about a dozen more museums to visit in Paris. Really, it is astonishing, bewildering, discouraging, the amount of the fine arts one is here obliged to undergo. It affords one sincere pleasure to remember that the Allies carried away about half in 1815, and it even begins to appear an alleviating circumstance to be mentioned in favor of the revolutions, that the mob usually amuse themselves by tearing in pieces some half a dozen palaces with their precious con- tents ; though not much is gained thereby, after all, for these same revolutions in turn furnish such a world of striking scenes for the next crop of artists to illustrate, that the loss is quickly made up, and thus the temple of the arts ever rises anew out of its ashes, built of its own cinders, by the hands of its own destroyers, in the light of its own expiring flames. (I have a faint idea that I am indebted for the last part of the foregoing sentence to the com- position of a remarkably promising sophomore, sub- mitted to my friendly critical inspection in days of yore.) In the first place, there is the Louvre, with its 52 mr. dunn browne's twenty-three separate grand museums, (one of which occupies a room more than a quarter of a mile in length,) enough in itself to satisfy any reasonable city of a million inhabitants, and certainly enough to give any reasonable man business for a lifetime of study and meditation. Here are gathered mas- ter-pieces of all the ages and nations of history ; several ancient cities exhumed from the grave of oblivion, and transported hither bodily by sea and by land ; the sepulchres of the dead, the warlike trophies, the sacred utensils of worship, and the com- mon household furniture of all the nations, kingdoms, and tribes under the sun ; works of art illustrating every stage of its development, every epoch of its history ; the dusty and mutilated glories of antiquity as well as the still untarnished glories of modern times ; all brought together into one grand repository, the children of a most prolific mother, all entertained around one hospitable hearth. Next comes the young and mighty " Exposition des Beaux Arts," with its six acres of paintings, its drawings, engravings, and sculpture, a collection, in the opinion of many judges of no mean authority, absolutely unrivalled, at the present time, in the world. But we have even now only just begun the enumeration, for there are yet to mention the gallery EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 53 of the Luxembourg ; the splendid collection of the " School of the Fine Arts ; " the score of Palaces in and around Paris, all lavishly adorned with the works of the most celebrated masters ; Versailles, which in many respects surpasses all the collections yet spoken of, and whose glories positively cannot be described nor imagined ; and aside from mere paintings and statuary, the museums at the im- perial manufactories of Gobelin tapestry and Sevres porcelain, those rare pictures in wool and in mud;, then the vast collection of coins and medals at the* Mint, and a collection of ancient seals at the Im- perial Library, besides numerous other smaller, museums at the various public buildings throughout the city. All these are open to the public during the great exhibition, and from all these comes that weariness of which I have spoken, and with whichi doubtless you are in a state to sympathize, now that you have endured the enumeration. 54 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XIII. HIS FEELINGS ARE TOO MANY FOR HIM. As it is one of the very first principles of Art that no amount of nakedness is indecency, and clothing is on the whole dispensed with, except an occasional Toga for some man who is as unYike an old Roman as possible, and a sort of a nondescript flowing robe which sometimes partly conceals the lower half of the female form, leaving the beholder greatly puzzled as to the way in which it is fastened up, why one gets at last somewhat reconciled to the thing and learns to look at naked realities and historical scenes stripped of all extrinsic appendages without being greatly shocked. But occasionally the paucity of apparel seems so glaringly opposed to all the circum- stances connected with the incident represented, that the sense of fitness will rebel against this rule of art. I didn't mind seeing a very lightly clothed Delilah caressing a great, silly, naked Sampson to sleep on EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 55 her lap, because the probabilities do not greatly op- pose such a view of the case, nor disturb myself very greatly at seeing a polite, naked old gentleman of a dark brown color (the servant of Abraham) offering necklaces and bracelets to a half-naked damsel of a few shades lighter complexion, whom I took to be Rebecca, for it was a warm day and they were under the shade of some trees, and the artists must have some license. But when the very next picture that met my eye was poor Ruth out in the hot sun, gleaning among the rough wheat-sheaves, with nothing on but the above-mentioned nondescript gar- ment and insanely hugging an armful of bearded grain against her tender breast, it really seemed to me that as the case is now out of Boaz' reach, somebody ought to interfere, and I have accordingly spoken out. Mr. Artist, I appeal to you, would it not have been better, by a few strokes of your brush, to have ex- tended that garment up to her shoulders, or at the very least, to have covered the poor creature's head with a broad-brimmed palm-leaf hat, as a matter of mere humanity, to avoid harrowing people's feelings with the sight of so much apparent suffering ? And then, again, two thirds of the female figures, besides being represented nude, are also in a state of repose without a line of expression in their faces or 56 mr. dunn browne's of movement in their bodies, all regular and fault- less and beautiful and stupid as images cut in blanc mange, and at last you get thoroughly disgusted with wandering about among a parcel of character- less Venuses, Graces, Nymphs, and Virgins, with their everlasting monotony of well-rounded limbs, plump bodies, and smooth faces. These are not all the materials necessary to the composition of a true woman, either in the world of real life, or in the ideal world of art, and therefore I pronounce half the stat- ues and paintings of females in the Great Exposition as veritable shams as the wax concerns which the dress-makers put up in their windows to illustrate the fashions. There are a few women there, though, especially the portraits, (I noticed two or three among the Eng- lish portraits this very day,) whom I should be hap- py to receive into my very selectest circle of acquaint- ances. I wonder whether these portraits are real likenesses of anybody or not. But their very superi- ority over the vapid Goddesses and fancy sketches around them, shows that they must be reflections of a real beauty which exists somewhere besides in the brain of the artist. After all the ecstacies, however, into which people pretend to fall over works of art, a real live woman and a bona fide tree are as much EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 57 superior to all artificial imitations of them, as the stripes of a rainbow to those of a calico bed-quilt, and, thank Heaven, we have both, women and trees in our country in a perfection not to be attained in the Old World, so it is no great matter if our "show" of pictures at the Exposition be meagre, which it must be confessed it is, decidedly. There is a re- spectable picture of Franklin arguing the cause of the Colonies before the French king, a rather striking one of a wounded soldier leaning on the shoulder of his beloved, a spirited Broadway sleighing scene, and another whose coloring seemed to me very fine, a sharp little negro boy holding an umbrella over the head of a beautiful Odalisque, besides several por- traits, two little views of Niagara, etc. etc. 58 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XIV. THE EXPOSITION AND THE EMPEROR. The Exposition of '55 is henceforth to be spoken of among the things that were. It is already shorn of most of its glories, and on Thursday next, Novem- ber 15th, it is to be finished, extinguished, fairly blown out by a grand blast of 1,500 trumpets and other mu- sical instruments. On the whole, considering that it had not the charm of novelty like its London proto- type, and that a state of war is n't exactly favorable to such an enterprise (though the Russian trophies displayed in great abundance have attracted much attention), it has been as successful as could well be expected. Many have pronounced the thing a failure, indeed, but on what grounds I cannot see, unless, for- sooth, it is a failure not to have gathered there every single object animate and inanimate in all creation, for I can think of nothing now, save Dr. Hitchcock's bird tracks, of all that is in the heaven above and the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 59 earth beneath and the waters under the earth, of which a specimen could n't be found in some corner of the great palace of industry. I was in momen- tary expectation of putting my foot into one of them even, but by some strange fatality, not one is to be found not only in the Exposition, but not even in the vast geological museums of the city, the magnificent and costly collections at the Garden of Plants and the School of Mines. And so the great Exhibition being closed, the Emperor will be obliged to provide something else to amuse the people with. His office is certainly no sinecure, as his very appearance shows. I have n't met in all the streets of Paris a more care-worn countenance than that of their ruler. He has labor to provide for all the workers, and amusement for all the idlers. Moreover, bread is getting exceedingly high, and the pulse of the Parisian populace always rises with the price of food. The symptoms are already slightly feverish. A little incident was whispered in my ear yesterday, which is not with- out meaning, though I cannot vouch for its truth any further than to say that it was a very respectable person who told it to me. The Emperor was pass- ing two or three days since through the midst of a large body of laborers engaged upon one of the 60 mr. dunn browne's bridges now in progress, and noticing that they did not take off their hats as usual, he paused a moment, and the following brief but expressive dialogue took place: Emperor — "My friends, you are discon- tented." Laborers — (Looking rather sheepish and some of them removing their hats,) " Bread is too high." Emperor — " My friends, I am occupying my- self about you ; " and passed on without another word. But it takes a very powerful decree to make the price of bread fall when the crops are short, and it is difficult to induce butchers to sell meat for much less than they are obliged themselves to pay for it. However, things are very quiet, and Louis Napoleon knows how to manage the French people probably as well as any one ; but, as I have just said, it is no sinecure. They need to be kept very busy. It is wonderful, though, how they love the name of Napoleon and reverence his memory. I have never heard his name spoken here even by a child without a visible feeling of pride and reverence. The splen- dor of his tomb under the dome of the " Invalides " tells the same story, as well as the crowds who flock to visit it on the two public days in the week, when the top of the Sarcophagus is removed, and you can look down into the receptacle and almost see the dust of the Great Departed. The mothers lift up EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 61 their little children to allow them to gaze upon it, as I have seen mothers do at funerals to give their little ones a last look at the features of a deceased friend. The care with which every thing is preserved that belonged to the Emperor, the rooms in the Louvre and other Palaces full of sacredly preserved relics, are all evidences of the same affection. Every article of dress that he wore, every table that he wrote upon, chair that he sat upon, handkerchief that he wiped his face withal, every sword that" he drew in battle, every knife and fork that he wielded at the table, whatever he touched, has become more pre- cious than gold in the eyes of this hero-worshipping people. They bare their heads at the mention of his name, they recount his exploits with burning en- thusiasm, little incidents of his private life they re- late with tears in their eyes, they know by heart the history of all his battles and the minutest event, of his career. They hate the English, I verily believe, more from the treatment he received at their hands, than from the many centuries of hereditary hostility between the two nations. \ 62 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XV. WOMEN, BABIES, AND DOGS. The women of Paris, generally speaking, are not very beautiful. Their naturally dark complexion is not improved any by constant exposure, (they wear nothing on their heads but a little muslin cap,) and then the wear and tear of countenance, resulting from their energetic manner of talking, materially aids Father Time in ploughing furrows in their cheek. But, if not remarkable for beauty, they are very keen looking, with their bright black eyes, sharp features and quick movements, and make the best possible shopkeepers and accountants. Even in the eating- houses, where the waiters are men, and in the shops where salesmen of the masculine gender are em- ployed, there is a nice, neat little woman, with smooth, dark hair, and black silk dress, nine times out of ten at the desk, to attend to the money mat- ters ; and I give you leave „to cheat or catch one in an error if you can. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 63 Passing naturally from the women to the babies, these are the funniest, most serious, old looking little bits of well-behaved humanity that it is possible to conceive of. I counted more than forty, with their nurses, the other afternoon, down on the Boulevard, at a .sort of a baby-show, which takes place every fine day in front of the Cafe de Paris, and there wasn't one of the whole score who didn't deserve a gold medal for its perfect propriety of demeanor and correct general deportment. " Cry ? " They would laugh you to scorn if you suggested such a thing. You might as well expect to see a cry started in an assembly of Indian chiefs, gathered in stately conclave about their council fire. Gray hairs might have learned a lesson in good behavior from these tiny things, that had no hair at all to speak of, at least I didn't see any, possibly because they all wore little white caps. On the whole it was a very edify- ing and entertaining spectacle, especially when the refreshments were served. They have four or five places called Creches, immense reservoirs of babies, which receive in the morning the infantry of the la- boring women of the whole district, and distribute them again at night, several matrons of experience taking charge of the cradle and pap department through the day. I don't know whether this is a 64 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S peculiar institution or not, but it strikes me as a good one, and especially adapted to a Republic, as it ac- customs the young citizens at an early age to public assemblages and teaches them to trust to their own resources. From babies, which are a species of quadruped, it is but a step to dogs, and I am constrained to say that the French taste as displayed in this direction, is truly deplorable. Every dog in the city, so far at least as my observation has extended, is of some miserable, dirty color or combination of colors, with coarse hair, of various lengths, having no shape at all, any more than a nightmare, with a most valla- nous bark, a tail without any wag to it, and a moral character worse even than its physical traits. And yet, such is the Frenchman's love for this vile beast, that no strictness of police regulations, no amount of taxes, nor muzzles, can persuade him to give up his dog. Nay, even his love increases with every fresh act of persecution, and will doubtless continue till the last dog has had his day and died. The tailors and dressmakers show a similar depraved taste by filling their windows with horrid little monkeys, dressed out in the extreme of fashion, with velvets and laces and flounces, miraculous cravats, and gorgeous rib- bons, fans, canes, and opera glasses, till they really EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 65 bear a frightful resemblance to some of the figures you meet in the streets, and are ashamed to acknowl- edge as human, like yourself and your humble ser- vant, Dunn Browne. 5 66 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XVI. "DEMANDS HIS PASSPORTS," NOT BEING INVITED TO A GREAT PUBLIC FESTIVAL. Have spent the past week, this last week of my stay in the city, before departing to the depths of Germany to den up for the winter, amidst the meer- schaums and the gutturals, in finishing up a variety of promiscuous and miscellaneous sight-seeing, and in getting my passport vise at some twenty different legations in all quarters of the city. This ast pro- cess is a trifle more serious than one would be likely, at first, to imagine. That part of Europe which I am about to visit being divided into a series of king- doms, duchies, principalities, and republics, each about the size of a good Illinois farm, and their agents being scattered over all Paris, and changing their residence continually, and each requiring at least two visit's, one to find out the two hours or so in a day during which the office is open, and the other to get your business attended to certainly the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 67 patriarch of Uz is the only man on record who would be likely to find this a pleasant and agreeable duty. And I believe that even Job, when he found that, be- sides all his trouble, he must sell a camel or two to pay fees at about half these legations, would wish himself back again among the Chaldeans. Have just returned frorrf the office of the Prefect of the po- lice, from whom I have obtained permission to leave Paris, after informing him of my age, residence, pro- fession, destination, time of departure, and route by which I intend to go. (I did not mention the num- ber of shirts I shall carry, nor say any thing about a large paper bag of sandwiches just prepared for re- freshment on the way.) By some unaccountable mistake, or perhaps by some intentional diplomatic slight, I did not receive an invitation to be present at the closing of the Pal- ace of Industry on Thursday, and so was obliged to take an outside ticket, and stand an hour amongst a crowd of people who were all taller than I, waiting to see the imperial procession pass by. Obtained a fine view, however, (under the arm of a tall coachman in livery,) of the emperor and empress, as they rode slowly and smilingly past in an eight horse coach completely covered with gold and diamonds and spangled footmen. The royal couple endured their 68 MR. DUNN BKOWNE'S part in the pageant very gracefully, yet looked as if they fully agreed with me in thinking the whole thing a decided bore. The imperial luminaries hav- ing set, (behind the doors of the great palace,) your unworthy correspondent departed from that vast concourse of the living, to find himself soon in the midst of an equally numerous' but not so noisy, multitude of skeletons of the dead, at the immense anatomical museum of the School of Medicine, a collection of wonderful interest and beauty, without any thing repulsive or shocking. Not so the Museum Dupuytren, of morbid, diseased anatomy, which I visited next; the most ghastly and horrible place I was ever in, full of all manner of monsters, abortions, and unsightly malformations ; skeletons twisted into every possible species of deformity ; all the members and organs of the human system exhibited in every stage of the most frightful and disgusting diseases ; loathsome tumors, cancers, and ulcers which seemed to emit offensive odors though only modelled in wax; in short an abominable collection, fitted to give one the nightmare, and which ought never to be seen by anybody in a world of hope and happiness. (Re- marks to the same effect had been previously made to me, and were my chief inducement for visiting it.) Stepped into the Morgue on the way home, and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 69 saw the body of a poor drowned man stretched out on one of those dismal benches, where so many- thousands of friendless wretches have taken their turn before him, waiting for some chance passer-by to recognize and claim the remains for burial. Having proceeded so far in this line of sight- seeing, I attempted next to get into the Catacombs, and failing of that, went out to the cemetery of Pere le Chaise, a regular city of the dead, with narrow streets, and crowded with inhabitants. I never could rest comfortably, I am certain, with my mortal re- mains confined to such a narrow space, and packed in among such a miscellaneous multitude. Mount Auburn, or Greenwood, or the cemetery at Spring- field, or any one of a dozen others I could name, is infinitely more beautiful, yet Pere le Chaise is full of the most costly and splendid monuments, and hallowed by thousands of illustrious names. The tomb of Abelard and Heloise is the oldest, the grave of Marshal Ney the most interesting, from the fact that it has no stone and no record ; a little iron- inclosed plat of ground planted with flowers, and that is all. The common people are packed in just as closely as the coffins can lie, and the graves are marked with simple wooden crosses, which, in a few years, are all swept away, and a new generation buried on the same ground. 70 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XVII. WAITING AT THE STATION. Having rashly entangled himself in the intricacies and perplexities of a French railway guide, your unfortunate friend and correspondent finds himself, in consequence, writing this present epistle in the Paris station, instead of being half way to Brussels on the wings of steam. Tumbled out of bed at six o'clock this morning, and hurried away coffeeless, through the cold, drizzling rain, for the sake of an early start, and now find that our train leaves at half past nine. What nuisances railroads are, in- deed ! And for people to pretend that they save time ! Let them come and stop two hours in this cold depot, that's all, pinned down here, too, as I am by a lot of baggage which can't be checked till just before the train starts. Ah ! my dear reader, let me warn you never to bring any thing with you on a foreign voyage but a single change of linen, and a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 71 t heart possessed of patience. The amount of money and mental anxiety that two carpet bags have cost me is almost incalculable. There, I will leave the things here, while I go to yonder restaurant for coffee and a "bifteck," and may the man who steals that baggage find it as great a plague as its present possessor has done, is the worst I can wish him ! * * Those stars indicate, not the suppression of any part of this precious epistle, but only the lapse of time necessary to fill an "aching void" in a region just below the heart of the writer thereof; and may also symbolize the brightness of the pair of glorious black eyes which would doubtless have made an impression on the susceptible heart above mentioned, had not the face to which they belonged, been slightly dirty. The hair, too, of the gentle maiden was uncombed, and her dress decidedly dishwatery in its general effect, besides bearing dark evidences of a recent visit to the coal-hole ; in short, that restaurant demoiselle had not expected visitors to breakfast at quite so early an hour ; nevertheless, the grace of a true French woman did not desert her, and, by some mysterious process, those grease stains and coal-spots grew less and less noticeable, and finally disappeared altogether, like spots on the sun when you throw away the sjnoked glass. As I came 72 mr. dunn browne's out of the room, she seemed a very neatly attired young person indeed. My baggage, unfortunately, is all safe, and clings to me with the pertinacity of an inveterate bore, which, in truth, it is. You never need fear having any thing stolen in Paris, however. They know tricks here worth a dozen of that, and will entice the money out of your pocket in the most gentlemanly, courteous, friendly, and truly agreeable manner, with- out once resorting to that stupid, obsolete practice which may bring them into unpleasant relations with the police. Ah, what a volume of sound to come from the throat of such an infinitesimal of a boy ! Here, thou very linnet of a gargon, what hast thou to sell ? The " Journal pour Eire ? " Well, let us see what the Parisians have been laughing at this week. " Reserved places for the monster instrumental con- cert at the Palace of Industry." And where do you think those same places are ? Why, out around the fountains of the Place de la Concorde, about a half a mile distant. And next, here is a picture of a fat butcher, committing suicide by falling upon his own knife, having been reduced to that desperate act by reading the police regulations of the price of meat. " An ingenious method of making in a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 73 few minutes a pair of excellent shoes," which the picture shows us is done by cutting off the tops of a pair of new boots. " Fifty years hence, the man who will invent stage-coaches will make his for- tune." This little hit at railways is very consonant with my feelings, at the present time. " Fifty years hence, the journals will record this interesting dis- covery : ' It has just been ascertained that feathers from the wings of geese, prepared in a certain man- ner, form a delightful substitute for those abominable little bits of pointed iron with which we now write. So this much calumniated animal is about to render us a new service by delivering us for ever from the nuisance of steel pens.' " And here is a column of most execrable French puns, to deliver me from which there goes, in good time, the bell for our train "long looked for, come at last," and just ready to go with, Yours in perils, by land and sea, and by rail- « road. 74 mr. dunn Browne's CHAPTER XVIII. BRUSSELS, (WITH WATERLOO OMITTED). I have arrived in safety at the end of my first day's journey, as, indeed, could not well have happened otherwise, for, when an individual is once ticketed and labelled for any place by a French railway, it is utterly impossible for him, willing or unwilling, to avoid getting there at the precise time specified. He is so watched and guarded and locked in, and constantly looked after, that no matter how com- plicated may be the route, no matter how many changes of cars, he is not allowed to stay in, or get into, the wrong place for a single instant, he cannot get himself left behind at a way station if he tries, he cannot lose himself, nor commit suicide under the wheels, nor escape his destination in any other imag- inable way. One can hardly help, under such ex- cessive care, being a little suspicious of a prison at the other end of his route, and looks down, from EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 75 time to time, almost involuntarily to see if his panta- loons are particolored. The country we have passed through is rather uninteresting, as indeed is*almost any country in November, full of forests planted in regular rows, women working in the beet fields just like the men, ploughs with two or three wheels and machinery enough for a locomotive, moss-covered, thatched houses, and clumsy wind-mills. Among the most remarkable incidents of travel to day, I saw a man in a railway station eating hard-boiled eggs shells and all, and another in the cars making his break- fast of a piece of bread and a cigar, taking alter- nately a whiff and a bite. I was greatly interested, as we stopped a few min- utes in an old French town, to see a score of little girls play hide and seek in wooden shoes on the stone pavement. The way the little, tiny creatures stole along on tiptoe over the stones in their awkward clogs, about as silently as a yoke of oxen with an empty cart, and pretended not to hear one another's echoing steps, and went spying away into corners where they knew there was n't anybody, and passed resolutely by others where half a dozen little curly heads were peering anxiously out, and so sacrificed themselves and suspended the use of several of their 76 mr. dunn Browne's senses for the good of the game, was an instance of the pursuit of fun under difficulties such as one rarely sees. And they laughed so joyously and in such good English that it was quite delightful ; and I could have found it in my heart to stop and take a game with them, if our watchful guards would have allowed me. In a bit of difficulty I fell into at the frontier, owing to the custom-house officers not understand- ing their native language very well, a handsome young Dutchman addressed me in very good Eng- lish, helped me out of my quandary, and has been my very amusing and obliging companion ever since. And indeed these Flemish people are altogether the most polite and kind, and agreeable folks I have yet seen, though they do, it must be confessed, drink the most unseemly and incredible quantities of beer ; some of the old guzzlers positively swallowing thirty or forty pints in a single evening. The great room 'of the hotel where I am now sitting, (with a glass of that same refreshing liquid standing by the side of my inkstand,) contains nearly a hundred people, every one drinking beer, and talking — let us see — I can distinguish French, German, Flemish, and English, at least four different languages. The young Dutchman above spoken of and myself have EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 77 taken a stroll round the town since our arrival. It is an exceedingly well-built city with a delightful little park full of noble elms and oaks ; at least two fine old churches containing not much in the way of pictures, but some good statues and very curious oak carving ; a tolerable palace ; an arcade decidedly more magnificent than any thing of the kind in either Paris or London; and an equestrian statue of God- frey of Bouillon which is really worth a voyage across the Atlantic to see. The noble crusader has just that air of mingled valor and devotion whicb befits the heroic conqueror of Jerusalem, who refused to wear a crown of gold in the city where his Re- deemer had borne a crown of thorns. 78 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XIX. COLOGNE. Succeeding by a desperate effort in getting up suf- ficiently early, I breakfasted and left the pleasant cap- ital of Belgium before 6i o'clock, A. M. Passed through a series of prettily built towns and some of the most romantic and delightful scenery along towards the Prussian frontier, but after entering Prussia, a rather flat and dull country again, and at last, after enjoying a cold ride of eight hours and meeting no obstructions save a few police officers, we reached the ancient walled town of Cologne, (name in good odor all over the world,) with its un- finished cathedral and " no end " of guides. I never was so pestered in my life. Started from my hotel to visit the cathedral. Several beset me at once in three different languages to take a guide. I pointed to the stately old pile in plain sight before us, and politely answered them in the same number of Ian- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 79 guages that I didn't want any guide and wouldn't have one if he would pay me for the privilege. They polyglotically persisted in assuring me that I never could find the cathedral alone, and followed hard af- ter me a street or two, but by preserving a resolute silence, I at length shook them off; defeated two more detachments of the enemy on my way, by ask- ing them if they spoke Choctaw, and obstinately re- fusing to understand any other language whatever, and so at last came along-side the object of my search. Being fairly beaten off by the numbers who attacked me at the side door, I proceeded round to the front, and made up my mind to enter at all hazards, and enter accordingly I did, with a foe attached to each coat-tail, and others spread out behind like a pea- cock's train. Affairs getting thus desperate, I turned about just inside the door, facing my pursuers: " Gen- tlemen, I do not desire your assistance in the least. I wish to look at this old church a few moments in peace without anybody to bore me with the precise height of all the arches and age of every pillar, and name of every musty old archbishop who is buried in the chapels. I will never pay one of you a red cent. Will you be kind enough to leave me alone ? " This broadside scattered that party, but the conflict had to be renewed in every corner of the edifice. It is un- 80 mr. dunn browne's doubtedly much the cheapest way to hire one of these pertinacious individuals just to scare away the others, and probably by the payment of a double fee you might prevail upon him to follow you in silence, and keep his superabundant information till it was called for. The cathedral itself, apart from the guides and the scaffoldings, is wonderfully beautiful and dreadfully shabby, so old that it is crumbling to pieces, and so new that it is n't yet half finished, and probably never will be till the world and all things therein are finished together. Having read and admired the great " poem in stone" for a considerable time, I proceeded to pay my respects to the " 11,000 virgins," who have left their bones piled up in the church of St. Ursula as a sort of anatomical museum for the edification of the faith- ful through many generations. They are very fantas- tically arranged, arms in one place, ribs in another, etc. ; the skulls mostly under glass cases, each with its own pious legend and little embroidered cap, all very pretty and affecting. In the evening I walked over the Rhine on the cu- rious bridge of boats, also circulated promiscuously about the queer old city, (which is more like Rouen than any place I have seen,) causing the greatest anxiety on the part of my good landlord, who thought EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 81 I must surely be deranged to rush out into the crooked streets of a strange town where I couldn't speak the language of the inhabitants. I told him it was ridiculous to think of losing a Yankee in a lit- tle city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, sur- rounded, too, by a high wall. He shook his head and remarked that the Americans were a strange people, and I noticed a look of great relief pass over his countenance as I entered, at nine o'clock, safe and sound. The most noticeable thing about the inhab- itants of Cologne and the German people generally, is their intolerable stupidity. Coming from France, where every official answers your questions with the utmost readiness and precision, I had neglected pro- curing Bradshaw's Continental railroad guide, and could not in all Cologne find out the proper route to Gottingen, a little more than a hundred miles distant, was misdirected at last at the ticket office of the road that connects directly with that to Gottingen, sent twenty-five miles out of the way, and compelled to spend two days in getting where I might have ar- rived in eight or nine hours. In short, or rather, at length, I feel on arriving at this place that, if never before, now certainly, I have acquired a full and per- fect right to subscribe myself, yours truly, Dunn Browne. 6 82 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XX. GERMAN RAILWAYS AND FIRES. The railway is certainly one of the best ways in which to study the character of a people. The mu- sical tendencies of the people of Belgium and Prus- sia appear in the circumstance that the conductor invariably carries a bugle to announce the departure of the trains, and its cheerful " Tra ra la " is a very pretty improvement on the groans and shrieks with which an American locomotive suggests to the pas- sengers the propriety of getting ready for a start; those ominous sounds which seem to forewarn the thoughtless traveller of the fate that very probably awaits him at the next bridge. The notes of the horn have the further advantage of enabling the guard to convey considerable information as to the size and importance of the various stopping places. A single, short, contemptuous toot of the trumpet announces a mere hamlet, not worth the trouble of looking out the windows at; a more prolonged note, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 83 or a fragment of a tune, proclaims a place of consid- erable size ; and a fine, large city calls out from the gracious official all his skill in a regular little instru- mental concert. Once, however, happening to look back, I observed quite a populous city at a station where our conductor had vouchsafed but a single note. Here, no doubt, was some private pique, some personal feud with the inhabitants, which led to their being thus slandered by the revengeful bugle, but taking for granted an honest guard, with no private animosity to gratify, I can almost promise to give you the precise number of inhabitants along the whole route without once looking at the map, with no other data than that nicely discriminating bugle- horn. To the eastward from Cologne, however, the music is not heard on the railroads, and the scream of the old engine sounds out again hoarser and harsher than ever. An ordinary train upon one of these German roads is about the most leisurely method of getting over the ground that I have ever tried except walk- ing, and I did make a calculation one day whereby I concluded it would be easy to gain two miles an hour by going on foot, but that was before I knew the difference between a German and an English mile, so those figures were wasted. The train stops 84 MR. DUNN BKOWNE'S at every station, a man walks quietly along its whole length and unlocks the doors ; the guards, engineers, etc., go in and take a few glasses of beer ; by-and-by the man walks along again slowly and locks up the doors ; pretty soon a large bell strikes, then the loco- motive whistles, then a little bell tolls a few minutes, then the conductor bids the smiling bar-maid, with whom he has been chatting, good-by, and blows his little tin whistle ; then the large bell strikes again, the engine whistles once more, and very soon, if no new passengers have arrived meanwhile, makes two or three false motions forward and backward, and gets gruntingly under way, to repeat the same per- formance with variations at the next town. One consolation under this mode of progression is that there is not the slightest danger of accidents, for even if two trains were approaching each other, the passengers would have ample time to get out before the collision, or if they chose to abide the shock within, would probably meet with no more serious injury than a slight disarrangement of curls or the downfall of a hat. A German fire, though, is a decidedly slower op- eration than even the railroad. Fortunately the houses are built in such a substantial manner that it is almost impossible to burn one, and a fire doesn't EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 85 occur, for instance, here in Gottingen, once in five years, I am told. A house managed to get kindled, however, the other night, and the ten or twelve thou- sand inhabitants of the place, with the exception of a few sick and infirm people, assembled by beat of drum, and sought to drown the fire with noise, screaming themselves hoarse, ringing the bells and blowing trumpets. Three or four little antiquated engines which had long since fallen into their second child- hood, came out and made wheezy efforts to throw water upon the burning roof, but could n't possibly play higher than the third story windows, and so, having sprinkled a part of the thick stone wall with a few pails of water, (which was brought by a long line of men in buckets and poured into them,) ceased their efforts and left the fire to expire of itself, after leisurely burning up every thing combustible within its reach. 86 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XXI. A UNIVERSITY TOWN. Gottingen is a sort of German " Sleepy Hollow," admirably adapted for a university town, for one is absolutely driven to study as the only attainable amusement. Nothing can be more primitive and homely, and comfortable, and monotonous, and hon- est, than the entire arrangement of things, the whole system of operations, the business, manners, and cus- toms throughout the city. Every thing here was fin- ished long, long ago, and has become gray and ven- erable, crumbling and moss-covered. There isn't a sharp corner nor a fresh bit of paint anywhere to be seen or run against. The houses are bowed down with years at various angles from the perpendicular, and each has a character of its own, worn and wrinkled into its expressive old features. Not a sin- gle young upstart tenement has dared to rise in their midst for centuries, and carpenters and masons are become quite an obsolete institution. None of these EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 87 houses have but one entrance, a pair of huge doors, or gates rather, through which come and go car- riages, horses, ladies and gentlemen, loads of hay, children, servants, dogs, cows, and pigs, without in- terfering with each other, all alike eminently respect- able and well-behaved. Any kind of dress which is comfortable is in the fashion, and you can get a pair of boots made large enough for you. An old watch- man perambulates the streets through the night sing- ing out the hour in a monotonous, sleep-inspiring tone, together with various pious precepts and some sound advice in regard to raking out fires and fas- tening up doors, which have thus been nightly re- peated in the somnolent ears of the inhabitants from time immemorial, and without which doubtless no Paterfamilias could rest comfortably between his two feather beds. A German bedstead is a sort of coffin about five feet long and two wide, into which a body squeezes himself and passes the night com- pletely buried in feathers, and digs himself out in the morning exhausted and suffocated by the un- wholesome covering, unless indeed he has had sufficient strength to kick it off at the first experi- ence of its stiffing effects. I never endured the thing but one night, during which I dreamed of un- dergoing no less than four distinct deaths, one by an anaconda necklace, one by a hempen ditto, one by 88 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S the embrace of a grizzly bear, and a fourth in the press of a cider-mill. A German coffin on the other hand is a large, exceedingly heavy box with four stout legs, something like a French bedstead, roofed over, (the roof is just like that of a house, the two boards which compose it being placed at an angle with one another,) and is hung with festoons of flowers and ribbons. The funeral services are very impressive ; but the church fees and funeral expenses are so enormous that I don't see how any but a few of the very wealthiest people can afford to die. There are some ten or fifteen Americans now con- nected with the Gottingen University, most of them studying chemistry under the celebrated Wohler. Not having much taste for the natural sciences, and especially considering chemistry as an unpleasantly smelling branch of study, I have confined my re- searches in that direction to attendance upon a sin- gle lecture of Prof. Wohler. He is a small, thin, scholarly-looking man, with prominent features, sharp eyes, and a feeble voice, who lectured in a quiet, familiar way, without any ceremony, talking in all directions, sometimes towards the heavens, some- times against the blackboard facing the class, so that they had to catch the w T ords as they rebound- ed, very frequently into the neck of a jar or bottle, and sometimes pouring a sentence or two into a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 89 drawer he chanced to open, into the coal hole or up the chimney ; so that on the whole, I did not un- derstand it very clearly, that part which was to be heard, that is, that part which was to be seen and smelled, (as the subject happened to be the various compounds of sulphur,) was very easy of comprehen- sion, a great deal clearer in fact than the atmosphere of the lecture room. The professor is in delicate health, looks much worn, and very likely will not give many more courses of lectures. He is rather proud of his American students, and pays them a little extra attention. They are a fine set of young fellows who have made my stay here very agreeable, and to whom I owe many thanks. I trust each one of them will rise to the head of his profession when he returns to his country. Of the German students, I have seen very little. They are a rather fine looking body of youngsters, I thought, as they passed in procession at the funeral of the late Professor Fuchs, and study probably as hard as the same class of persons in other countries, certainly infinitely better than American boys would if left to themselves without any daily recitations to attend. It seems to me that a German student's life is the most perfectly independent life that a man can live, and it is no wonder they have ever been leaders in the revolutions of Germany. 90 mr. dunn Browne's The scenery in this vicinity is the most like that of New England of any which I have yet found, and the weather also is real New England weather, cold, sharp, and bracing. We have had about a week's sleighing, and amusing enough is it to see the way they have here of posting a man on a little project- ing seat behind the sleigh, for nothing else but to crack the whip. He is not the driver at all, but has an immense supernumerary whip which goes off con- tinually with a report like a pistol. Now take a dozen two-horse sleighs with such an accompani- ment behind, and the horses covered with great bells and going at full speed, and you can get a little idea of a grand student sleigh ride in Gottingen. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 91 CHAPTER XXII. CHRISTMAS AT THE "KRONE." To-night is Christmas eve, and all the Americans are invited to spend it with Herr Bettmann, mine host at the " Krone," (name ever dear to the Ameri- cans who have visited Gottingen,) where is to be a Christmas tree and a general jollification. We are to draw tickets in a lottery of knick-knacks and little trinkets. We are to see the annual presents which good Father Bettmann bestows upon his children and domestics, and the little tokens which they hang on the " Tree " for him and for each other. We are to hear beautiful music and make ourselves agreea- ble to the Herr's pretty daughters in the best German we can muster, as well as listen to the Herr's gra- cious speech in English in honor of his American guests, and such English ! I fear me much our ut- most stretch of politeness will not enable us to un- derstand it very perfectly. We are to have a bit of a supper and see the color of our Host's best wine, 92 mr. dunn browne's and find out perhaps whether the real juice of the grape, without any drugs or dye-stufTs in it, is a proper article to taste or not. We are, in short, to get a little glimpse of a German family Christmas gathering, to have a quiet pleasant time to-night ; and then to-morrow your humble servant leaves for Vienna, Trieste, Alexandria, and the Pyramids, hop- ing to return by way of Palestine and Greece. What do you think of that for a bold enterprise for an individual with less than two hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket? I think the expedition of Na- poleon into those same regions wasn't a circum- stance in comparison. I haven't the slightest idea how much it will cost to get from anywhere to any- where, nor how many camels and Bedouins it will be necessary to buy, but I have already travelled so far with one two hundred dollars, that I consider it a sinful distrust of Providence to doubt my ability to get considerably further with another ; and then as for coming back, why, whatever goes up must come down, whatever goes east must naturally come west again, along with the sun, moon, and the star of empire, and the general tendency of things, all which is in that direction. I have studied German in the last month just enough to forget my French, and now talk a jar- EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. 93 gon hashed up from the odds and ends of three different languages. When to my present attain- ments are added a smattering of Arabic, Turkish, Syriac, modern Greek, and Italian, I shall not ex- pect to be understood at all, unless perchance I should visit the site of the ancient Tower of Babel. I have greatly enjoyed studying German. My teachers have been two bright boys of seventeen who are learning English, and the way we have mu- tually slaughtered the two poor languages, has been amusing enough. They couldn't pronounce my "th" and I couldn't pronounce their "ch." I have stumbled over their " g's," and they have tripped against our " w's," and we have corrected each other's mistakes, read, talked, and disputed with one another, and been of the greatest mutual advantage. It is the very best way of acquiring a language in my opinion, besides being the cheapest, as you pay the teacher in his own coin. The German, although much harder to learn, is much easier to hear than the French, but both are six times as difficult to learn as the English, because they insist on attaching an arbitrary gender to all inanimate objects instead of leaving them neuter as God made them, and as the English language wisely allows them to remain. What reason is there, for instance, why "spoon" 94 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S should be masculine and "fork" feminine? And yet to talk German you must remember it, reason or no reason. I will not enter just now, however, into a philological dissertation. May something happen before I write again. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 95 CHAPTER XXIII. STARTS FOR THE ORIENT. There is no country life in Germany, as in our own beautiful New England. Everybody lives crowded together in cities and city-like villages. You will travel for miles through a beautiful region, over hills and dales, where you expect every mo- ment to see the pretty country residences and farm- houses and cottages, and find not a habitation till you come down into a little dirty low village, with the houses joining one another like a city, and the gutters in the middle of the narrow, roughly-paved streets, and the dogs, pigs, and still dirtier women and children occupying the gutters, streets, and houses all in common, promiscuously grunting, squealing, jabbering, crying, and barking in villa- nous Low German. I have never seen any thing more disgusting than three or four of these filthy hamlets, which we passed through in getting from Gottingen to Cassel by post. 96 me. dunn Browne's The German post-wagon or mail-coach is a huge, lumbering, inconvenient contrivance, at least four times as heavy as an American one, carrying two coachmen and having accommodations for only four or six passengers, which makes the expense needlessly great. We were seven hours with four sets of horses (four each) - in making that distance of seven or eight German miles, or about thirty English miles, over a most excellent road, too, but these stupid people can't be persuaded to make any change in. the good old ways handed down from former generations. It is very hard for a Yankee to have any patience with this kind of travelling, especially in the winter, but the natives wrap themselves up in two overcoats and a vast fur cloak, put their feet into a monstrous fur bag, lay in a large stock of sausages and other favorite provisions, a couple of bottles of wine and one of brandy, bring along a meerschaum, a bundle of cigars, and a box of matches, shut up all the win- dows closely, and in this atmosphere of comfort and smoke care not for the length of the journey. Cassel is no doubt a delightful city in summer, with its mountain and beautiful parks, but in winter has nothing of especial interest except a fine statue of that one of its sovereigns who sold his subjects to EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 97 England for the American war, and an immense un- finished palace, which was built with the money thus obtained. Some five millions of dollars were expended in raising the walls about ten feet high, and then the work was abandoned, and remains a monument of princely folly. So perish all the treas- ures thus acquired ! The present ruler is a very in- ferior-looking personage who has a rather pretty wife, and rides in a carriage drawn by the two finest black horses I have seen. The next place of interest on the route to Dresden is the castle of Wartburg, where Luther was im- prisoned in the house of his friends. It crowns the summit of a mountain hard by the little town of Eisenach, and commands a most magnificent pros- pect in all directions. The interior of the castle has nothing remarkable in its appearance, and the armor and other curiosities there preserved, hardly pay for the trouble of seeing, so the whole interest of the place centres in the Luther's chamber. I of course inscribed my name amidst the ten thousand that are written under and around the ink-spot on the wall that marks the place where the Devil had such a narrow escape from becoming a shade blacker than his natural color. The spot remains quite dis- tinct and fresh, and has, I have no doubt, a new ink- 7 98 mr. dunn browne's bottle thrown at it every year for preservation. The room is not in the castle itself, but in an adjoining building now used as a beer saloon, and infested by all the roisterers of the neighborhood ; at least on the day I visited it, there were collected at least a hundred, drinking and smoking and singing at a rate which would have seriously disturbed the great re- former's meditations if he were still a resident of his " Patmos." I had barely time to examine the relics and furniture of the apartment, and sit a few moments on the whale's vertebra, which was used by Luther as a footstool, take another last glimpse at the grand and varied scenery, and slip down the icy mountain in time for the train to Erfurt, where I have just arrived, at nine o'clock Wednesday evening, December 26, 1855. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 99 CHAPTER XXIV. ERFURT TO DRESDEN. Made an exploration of this fortified Prussian city from nine to eleven, P. M., wandering about alone, as usual, gathering information from all the people I fell in with, meeting with a variety of little amusing adventures, and getting a magnificent moonlight view of the odd old two-storied cathedral, which is a rather stupid building by daylight I am told, but was perfectly enchanting and poetical by Luna's gentle beams. Forgot the name of my hotel, and lost my points of compass a little in wandering around and under and over the cathedral, so that I began to think it would be necessary to seek other quarters for the night, but rambling along with a young soldier who was just off duty as sen- tinel, and was much interested in talking about America, we came to a house which looked a little natural, and going in found it was all right, so the 100 mr. dunn Browne's young sentinel bade me a very affectionate farewell, and I soon retired to the everlasting two feather- beds, but succeeded at last in making arrangements with the chambermaid for the removal of the upper one. She imparted to me several items of interest- ing information, one of which was, that there are no other beds in Germany than these little narrow ones, and so husband and wife have two ranged side by side, and she evidently considered the American custom rather improper. Early in the morning after effecting an entrance almost by violence into the old monastery, where Luther first found the Bible, (which building is now occupied as an orphan asylum,) I spent a few mo- ments in his little cell, which contains most of his furniture and even his venerable inkstand, (not the same one probably which was used as a projectile at Wartburg,) wherein to I also dipped my pen, and without breaking off from the train of reflections inspired by such a visit, succeeded in getting on to the train for Leipsic, having enjoyed my little hur- ried moonlight glimpse of Erfurt as well perhaps as if time had permitted a week's visit. Stopped a half hour at the dull old university town of Halle, and spent the afternoon in busy, bustling Leipsic; busy at least now, in the time of the great Christ- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 101 mas fair ; the streets crowded with booths and thronged with buyers and sellers from all Germany, and the rest of the world too, if one were to judge by the variety of costumes presented to the eye. The most curious was that of the peasant girls, clad in long black stockings with red garters at the knee, a coarse blue or green petticoat reaching down to the same point, so close as hardly to allow any movement of the limbs, and a loose tunic of some gay color fastened with a knotted girdle at the waist.. Not wishing to be a mere idle spectator of the- busy scene, and noticing that leather seemed to be the leading article in the market, your humble ser- vant proceeded to examine a whole street full of sole leather, assisted by the anxious sellers of the same,, setting down a variety of prices and qualities on a bit of paper, with a view to very extensive pur- chases, but before bringing any negotiation actually to a crisis, became weary of business and tired of the smell of leather, so ceasing the scrutiny of a merchant and assuming the more careless air of a mere observer, passed through the city in two or three directions, walked around the Boulevards,, (which are very fine, planted with noble trees) ;. reconnoitred the castle of Pleissenburg with an in- tensely military look; conversed a few minutes in* 102 me. dunn Browne's reference to its strength with a very erect officer with mustachios actually at least five inches in length ; took a glass of wine with the same fiercely polite individual in the famous " Auerbach's cellar," where Goethe has laid one of the most striking scenes of his " Faust," (every one will recollect the German students' drinking scene, where Mephistophiles draws all sorts of liquors out of a hole in the table,) and hurried away to Dresden, the splendid capital of rich Saxony; at which place we -arrived too late for my usual evening exploration of the city, and T could only contrive one little adventure by losing my way to the hotel to which I had been recom- mended, and accepting the guidance of a little curly- headed boy, who took me very naturally to an inn kept by his own father, which although perhaps not remarkably elegant in its accommodations, has at least the merit of being cheap enough, (five groschen, or twelve and a half cents, for lodgings). The kind old lady, my hostess, has a son in America, (Rio Janeiro to be sure, but she, good old soul, doesn't know but that Brazil and Massachusetts are adjoining states or different names for the same,) and so fixes up for my meals all sorts of German luxuries and delicacies, (I have tasted five different kinds of sausages yesterday and to-day). EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 103 CHAPTER XXV. DRESDEN, THE SPLENDID. I have seen Raphael's famous " Madonna di San Sisto," and, unlike most famous and celebrated things, it surpasses all one's expectations. The face of the Virgin is the most lovely, pure, and holy countenance I ever gazed upon, or ever dreamed of, or ever pic- tured to my fancy. It is a perfect ideal of female beauty and heavenly virtue. And it is praise enough to say of the other figures of the picture, that they are worthy of a place beside that loveliest creation of earthly artist. The sweetness and innocence of the Divine Child, and in the lower part of the painting the noble features of the pious old man (San Sisto) in contrast with the youthful countenance of Santa Barbara, both upturned in rapt adoration, as also the two lovely cherubs who look admiringly up from be- neath, are all in harmony, and form one simple, uni- ted whole, which produces an effect all gentle and soothing, elevating, devotional. Even the little, 104 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S chubby-faced, blue angels which form the sky in the* background, and which are an intolerable nuisance in most pictures of the kind, are so faintly portrayed and the coloring is so admirable, that they add to, rather than detract from, the general effect. After strolling through the whole Dresden gallery, I sat half an hour in communion with this glorious paint- ing, (which deservedly has a whole apartment to itself,) and again just before leaving for Prague, went in to take a farewell look; and it was like parting with a dear friend whose memory will ever abide with me, sweet and precious while I live, and such faces hope I to see in Heaven when I die. There are plenty more fine paintings in this gal- lery, but the most noted one, " La Notte " of Correg- gio, does n't at all suit the taste of the writer hereof, quite the contrary ; in fact it is decidedly ugly. Every thing about it appears strained and unnatural, full of affectation and striving after effect. It may, no doubt, be decidedly original, but many original things besides original sin are not beautiful. There is a beautiful " Mary Magdalen " by Correggio though, that one does n't need to be an artist to admire. Here are also Guido's " Christ crowned with thorns," of which everybody has seen a copy, and the celebrated " Tribute money " of Titian, and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 105 several fine modern paintings, one of which espe- cially, I greatly admired, representing Napoleon in his imperial robes, by Gerard. On the whole, the Dres- den gallery is an exceedingly satisfactory one to visit, admirably arranged in a noble new building, and not huge and endless like the Louvre to weary one by its vastness. The city of Dresden, too, is worthy of its reputa- tion, adorned with magnificent buildings, having an unrivalled terrace along the bank of the Elbe, two costly stone bridges, any number of palaces and col- lections of antiquities and the fine arts, beautiful parks, one of the finest theatres in the world, and two remarkable churches, one of which, the Frauenkirche, or church of the women, (why so called, I haven't any idea ; to be sure, only women go there usually, but that is true also of all the German churches,) deserves a whole letter of description to itself. It is of wonderful solidity, and has a lofty dome. The central portion of the edifice is a perfect circle, in whose circumference are eight massive pillars, which divide the outer portion into as many separate com- partments, each of which — save one for the altar — has five stories of galleries, and all have separate entrances and winding stone staircases built in the wall ; and then these galleries have such complicated 106 mr. dunn Browne's internal arrangements, such varieties of seats and pews and boxes closed up like rooms with win- dows in front, such unexpected nooks and corners and hiding-places, that I felt it quite a mercy to get out of the labyrinth in safety. It is possible to see and hear the preacher only in a few of the most prom- inent parts of the building, which is more of a thea- tre than a church, and more of a beehive than a the- atre, but not much like any thing in the world save itself, and needs to be seen to be appreciated. Dresden is the first place where women have been in attendance to carry baggage from the station to the hotel. Here they do every thing. I saw three dogs and two women drawing a load of bricks not an hour ago, and a woman with an enormous basket of wood on her back leading a donkey with just about the same quantity on his back in panniers. Ah, in no country in the world are the women held in such consideration as in America, and no other country either has such women to care for. Thank God I am the son and the brother, and would that I could add also the husband, of an American woman. With which outburst of patriotic gallantry I think I may safely close this chapter. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 107 CHAPTER XXVI. PRAGUE, THE HOMELY. Through Saxon Switzerland, along the banks of the Elbe to Bodenbach, the Austrian frontier, is a most romantic country, a virgin earth that has never been defiled by the plough, an uncivilized region that has defied the weapons of man and retained its prim- itive independence. Rough cliffs rise up abruptly from the river, some one hundred, some three hun- dred, and some a thousand feet, full of chasms and abysses, dark, grim, and frowning, yet many of them wearing a glittering crown of snow, and covered down their sides with a green mantle of firs, wher- ever a tree or a bush can catch hold, or be tied on, or driven in. Here you see how an old moss-covered house has climbed up in its youth to a dizzy height, and fearing to descend, has remained seated on a pro- jecting ledge, and grown old and shaky and venerable; there you see a stone bridge by some magic thrown across a frightful ravine hundreds of feet in depth, 108 mr. dunn browne's and yonder a little village squeezed into a crevice or fastened with mortar on to the steep mountain-side. Believe me, the winter is the time to travel through a wild, mountainous region. I have lost much I fear by deferring my visit to Switzerland till the approach- ing summer. The white snow, the green forests and the black cliffs, uniting in a thousand combinations, form such striking pictures, changing continually before our eyes, (an occasional tunnel answering for a curtain during the shifting of the scenes,) and pre- sent such a succession of glorious landscapes, that I feel exceedingly thankful that I am not an artist, lest I too should be tempted to put on canvas some of those caricatures of the face of nature which I have seen shamelessly paraded in the galleries, and admired and bepraised by those who pass with per- fect indifference through the most magnificent natu- ral scenery. Pictures of men and women and horses and animals and battles are all well enough in their way, but show me the man who can paint a tree as it ought to be painted not to be a mockery of that beautiful work of God, a single tree, or even but one branch, and it will be what I have not yet seen in any collection of landscapes. At the delightful little town of Bodenbach, with its great castle, graceful suspension bridge, its two EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 109 railway tunnels in solid rock, and above all, its curi- ous houses with cunning little curved windows pre- cisely like eyes peeping out of the roof, first appears the gray Austrian uniform, and thenceforward polite police, officers hover ever about us and examine our passports just about as often as the conductor does our tickets. Everybody and every thing assumes a kind of subdued, governed aspect ; even nature her- self seems here at last to surrender to the arbitrary power of man. The proud craggy mountains hum- ble themselves into docile submissive hills, and allow their sleek sides to be curried into fertility by the har- row and the plough ; the free mo n arch s of the forest cower down into the tamest of fruit-trees ; all nature fairly ''flats out" into a big orchard, and presents such an aspect of cowardly servility that it is quite a comfort that night approaches to throw a veil of darkness over the degenerate scene. . . . Three hours refreshing sleep by the side of a plump Austrian dame, (don't be shocked, my dear friends, remember it was in a railway car,) and we are in Prague, another of those dear old towns, like Rouen and Cologne, which are not handsome nor well built, but are more interesting than twenty fine cities, if one will but ramble about in its nooks and corners to search out its curious sights. 110 mr. dunn browne's After a hasty supper I sailed forth for a stroll, and it was like plunging into a bath of darkness. The lights are few and far between, and the whole city is full of tunnels and arches. You cannot get from one street into another, or on to a bridge or into a house even without creeping under a low arched passage, most curious arc/iitecture every- where I assure you. Didn't see very much in such a state of things, but talked an immense quantity of rather indifferent German with various victims who fell into my society on the way. One young musician wished to know what his prospects would be in America, and took out his flute to show me in the middle of a long bridge where it was so dark I could^not tell it from a pistol. Considering that a not very sharp action, I advised him not to go to America, saying that the Yankees were not very fond of any music but that of the hard dollars ringing on the counter. Conversed with several soldiers also, who were greatly shocked to hear of the smallness of our army in the United States, and wondered how order could be preserved, property protected, etc. But I will not bore you with a de- tail of all the little adventures of an evening in Prague, which would not probably be so amusing told in the day as they were acted in the dark among EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. Ill total strangers, speaking a foreign language. Suffice it to inform you of the safe arrival, before eleven o'clock, at his hotel, without a guide, of your humble traveller and servant. 112 mr. dunn Browne's CHAPTER XXVII. A DOOR OPENS, AND SHUTS AGAIN. First I wish you a happy New- Year just as the clock has finished striking twelve, Tuesday morn- ing, January 1, 1856, in the coffee-room of a rail- way station at Briinn, some sixty miles or so from Vienna, where we stop two or three hours in the middle of the night and improve the time in eat- ing beefsteaks and drinking coffee, to which delight- ful employment I now turn, devoting the first hour of the new year to recruiting the system from the fatigues of the last ten hours of the old year There are about a dozen soldiers and as many fur- coated travellers lounging about the room, eating, smoking, and drinking beer, several pleasant ladies with immense muffs, several poor women with big bundles, and the usual number of railway officials. They are all exceedingly curious in regard to the " Americaner," ask me innumerable questions, re- peat my answers to one another and talk about me EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 113 as freely as if I could n't understand a word they say, and now that I unscrew my little inkstand and sit down to write, they gaze at me with great atten- tion as if I were a sort of learned pig, and it was quite a treat to see that I knew how to use a pen. It is a little uncomfortable for so modest an individ- ual as myself to be the subject of such extreme curiosity, but travellers soon get over the weakness of blushing. A grave old gentleman in gray hair and gray fur coat has just been warning me very impressively not to gamble when I get to Vienna,, and I have at last satisfied him, I think, that my weakness doesn't lie in that particular direction. A little black-eyed Bohemian lass of a dozen years, asked me a few minutes ago if my mother knew where I was spending my New- Year's night. Do you, my dear mother? Then is maternal clairvoyr ance most clear-sighted of all. But I enjoyed good, motherly old Prague so well that I must even say a few things more about her... There are lots of churches within her bounds, built with no sort of taste, according to no rules of ar- chitecture, and within all gilt and tinsel, yet rather- interesting after all. One has two queer towers with* funny little towerets bursting out on all sides o£" them like top-onions. 8 114 mr. dunn browne's The fortifications are very strong, especially a sort of castle on a high hill in one corner. In my stroll this morning I walked up, as far as possible, till at last I came to an immense iron gate reaching quite across the street, and was turning to go away when lo, the massive folds unlocked with a tremendous crash, and swung majestically open, while two tall mus- tachioed sentinels, in steel breast plates and gray pan- taloons, armed with bayoneted muskets and swords drawn, appeared and, touching their helmets, begged to know what I wanted. Summoning up my polit- est German, I made the best explanation possible, and my interrogators, finding that no distinguished general or sovereign was seeking admittance, but only one of the sovereign Yankees taking a morning airing, retired with another grim salute, while the formidable iron jaws shut again with a snap as it were of disappointment at not catching me. This rehearsal of "much ado about nothing" being well over, your wanderer next found himself stumbling along a sort of out of door market, over all sorts of odds and ends, old iron, tin ware, wooden ware, earthen ware, old clothes, rags, straps, and buckles, as if all the garrets in the world were emp- tied there and their contents assorted and arranged for sale, under the superintendence of sharp women, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 115 seated on high stools, all wrapped in shawls and knit- ting with big wooden needles as if for dear life, with the thermometer all the while nearly down to zero. And the way they accosted me with " My pretty gen- tleman," " My darling prince, what will you buy ? " " Bless your handsome face, are you in want of a tea-kettle to day ? " etc, was certainly a caution to a timid gentleman, and a lesson in German affec- tionate epithets that it would take a dictionary some time to teach you. I swallowed more sugar-coated German in a half hour than I could digest in a week. 116 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XXVIII. VIENNA, THE MAGNIFICENT. Vienna, beautiful, gay, lively, rich, aristocratic Vienna : the streets thronged with liveried carriages and magnificent horses driven at a furious rate, to the imminent peril of all foot-passengers: a gor- geously dressed, fur-mantled porter with a long gilt wand, standing proudly at each nobleman's door: warlike Vienna, with armed soldiers confronting you at every turn, and every great building a casern (barracks) which isn't a palace ; pious Vienna, where people go to church at all hours of the day, men, women, and children: suspicious Vienna, where every thing you say and do is watched, and your let- ters broken open, (much good may this do them,) where you cannot change your hotel without going to the police for permission : paper-money Vienna, where you pay for a cup of coffee with two or three bank-notes of eight cents each, and don't see a bit of specie (save copper) once a week : cold, frosty Vi- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 117 enna, where you buy frozen apples at the markets, and the manners of the people are as cold as their noses exposed to the icy air of the Danube : Vienna, (a great many more adjectives might be applied but time fails,) is a truly imperial city, full of imposing buildings and interesting places to visit, and yet somehow I like it less than any great city I have vis- ited. There isn't anything homely, good-natured, and jolly here, but all is proud, grand, ceremonious, stiff, and splendid. Have visited one or two picture- galleries, twenty or thirty churches, a great many cabinets of natural history, a few palaces, and, most interesting of all, the imperial stables, where six hun- dred noble steeds are lodged most royally and fare sumptuously every day, dutifully attended by three hundred two-legged servants. The apartments of their Equine Highnesses are at once splendid and comfortable, free from the scent of the stable and clean as a lady's parlor. Their blankets are em- broidered with the imperial crest, their harnesses, saddles, and all their equipments, are of the most costly kind, and generally in excellent taste. In one large hall are some two hundred carriages, of which the cheapest cost two or three thousand dollars, and the coronation carriage, adorned with paintings by Rubens, and covered with diamonds and gold, 118 ME. DUNN BKOWNE'S wheels and all, cost about two hundred and fifty- thousand dollars. Another hall, filled with state saddles and trappings of various descriptions, is still more magnificent. But the animals themselves, un- like most occupants of palaces, far outshine all their exterior adornments. The bright, fiery, intelligent eye, the proudly arching neck, (the horse is the only animal whom pride really becomes,) the form of per- fect symmetry, the delicate but powerful limbs, the grace of every movement, the gentleness and cour- tesy with which they receive every little attention bestowed upon them, the high-bred nobleness and dignity of their whole deportment, filled me with ad- miration. I would rather have my choice from those six hundred horses, than the imperial crown of their owner. The carriage horses are all white, but those for riding are of all colors, some magnificently black. The imperial collections of natural history are not remarkable, except the collections of birds and espe- cially the mineralogical cabinet, which is gorgeous almost beyond description. There are about one thou- sand diamonds, some rough, and some cut and set in rings, a great bouquet a foot high, all glittering with jewels, and bees, bugs and butterflies made of pre- cious stones, settling on the flowers of like material. There are huge goblets cut from crystal ; necklaces, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 119 cups, boxes, and all kinds of trinkets, of onyx, agates, opals, and emeralds; a glorious rock crystal from Mad- agascar, three feet long, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, of almost perfect clearness and purity; a splendid collection of petrified woods ; great quan- tities of gold and silver and platina, some lumps of eight, ten, twenty, and even sixty pounds weight ; all sorts of ores, metals, meteorites, fossils, etc., etc. I won't bore you with a description of the pictures I have seen, although there are some exceedingly good ones in the Lichtenstein palace, nor of the churches except to say that they are very numerous and costly and in execrably bad taste, all crowded with miserable pictures and images, relics and all manner of abominations that can unite to spoil the simplicity that ought to characterize the house of God. Even St. Stephen's, which has, I think, the finest tower I have seen, of exquisite propor- tions and most curious carving, and whose inte- rior is very striking and impressive, has a great re- dundancy of ornament, and is disfigured by tinsel and gilding. But it is a delightful place to visit in the evening for the music, to wander about in the dark aisles and corners of the church, and hear the solemn tones of the organ reverberating amidst the columns and arches. In the Italian church is a eel- 120 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S ebrated copy in Mosaic, of immense size, of " The Last Supper," of Leonardo da Vinci, which was carried by Napoleon to Paris from a church in Italy, retaken by the allies in 1815, and finally brought to Vienna; a splendid work of art, for the sight of which, as well as of several other interesting things, I am indebted to the kindness of an art-loving tailor whom I met in the streets, and who, seeing I was a stranger, left his business and spent the afternoon in visiting places of interest about the city with me. May he be appointed tailor to His Royal Imperial Catholic Apostolical Highness (that is the right title, I believe,) Francis Joseph, and make his fortune. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 121 CHAPTER XXIX. TRIESTE AND VENICE, PROSE AND POETRY. From Vienna to Trieste is a long, hard, miserable journey, about eighty miles of it by post, through a desolate chaos of a country, apparently made up of the odds and ends that were left at the creation, pitched in together in one grand jumble of rocks, mountains, chasms, and precipices. The inhabitants speak German, ever pronouncing it rougher and harder, however, this side Vienna, so that at last 1 was obliged to remain silent half a day, because I can only speak broken German, and this was so hard it wouldn't break. Towards Trieste the people in the miserable villages we passed through don't seem to speak any thing in particular, but communicate with each other mostly by signs, assisted a little by a Sclavonic dialect composed of equal parts of Rus- sian, German, and Italian, with a slight sprinkling of very bad Latin. From this barren desert of a coun- try we emerged at last on the verge of some tremen- 122 mr. dunn browne's dous cliffs where we had a fine view of — the thick fog which covered the Adriatic, and then zigzagged down the mountain some fifteen hundred feet into the dirty, bustling town of Triest^, which is squeezed in between the sea and the cliffs, and has suffered considerably in the process. There being absolutely nothing to see here, proceeded to see when I could get out of it by calling at the office of the Lloyd steamship company. Finding there were three days to spare before the steamer for Egypt left, I started at once for Ven- ice and have spent that little morsel of time in the most poetical of cities ; have made the tour of the grand canal in a gondola, (and been shockingly cheated by a gondolier,) have stood on the Rialto and the Bridge of Sighs, explored the dungeons of the palace of the Doges, have walked in the most lovely of all places, the Place St. Mark, by daylight, by gas- light, and by moonlight ; and have seen as much of the romantic city of Lagunes as could well be seen in the time I believe, at least I was as tired when I came back on board the steamer for Trieste as I ever was after a week's hard labor in my father's hay-field. The most striking thing about the city is of course the canals and the utter absence of horses and vehicles in the streets, which are usually only EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 123 little alleys about three feet wide, with occasion- ally a bit of a square in front of a church. The churches are very magnificent and full of the monu- ments of distinguished Doges and other remarkable individuals of whom I never heard. The church of St. Mark is by far the most interesting of them all, covered with mosaic outside and in, above and below. The floor is very curious, with all manner of quaint figures and of all possible colors, and sunk in many places so that it presents a succession of hill and dale to your footsteps. The walls have the quaint- est mosaic pictures and queer inscriptions and strange carved figures and old gilding, and there are so many domes, and every thing is so totally different from any other church that was ever built, and so rich in a sort of old-fashioned, faded way, and has such an Oriental, Arabian Nights kind of look, that you can't really believe in it even while you are standing therein. So it is with all Venice. I can hardly make up my mind whether it is a dream or a waking reality ; whether I have really seen the winged lion of St. Mark and the four celebrated bronze horses, and climbed the high bell tower for a morning look at the Queen of the Seas, or it is only a vision ; if the latter, then somebody has stolen ten or a dozen dollars out of my meagre and 124 mr. dunn Browne's fast collapsing purse, that is all. And I find in my memorandum-book also a veritable cobweb which I have a pretty distinct recollection of gathering in the deepest under-water dungeon of the Ducal Palace. Of the paintings of Venice, I only saw one gal- lery, and there is one picture worth all the rest a hundred times told, Titian's " Assumption," almost equal to Raphael's Madonna at Dresden, and with more character and expression in the countenance, I think, than in the sweet, girlish face of Murillo's " Assumption " in the Louvre at Paris. And now at last I am actually on board the steamer bound for Alexandria, and have glided past many beautiful mountainous islands in the Adriatic and Mediterranean, and have stopped a few hours at Corfu, green, beautiful, strong, fortified Corfu, and have eaten freshly plucked oranges, and to-morrow will actually be in Egypt, and see Pompey's Pillar, and Cleopatra's Needle ; unless another storm burst upon us, for we have had a storm ; a dreadful, wild, raging storm on a dangerous coast ; a sudden, ter- rific white squall that nearly carried us into eternity at the first crash ; a hard, persevering, tenacious storm that has thumped and pounded our strong, brave old ship for a day and two nights with heavy leaden blows, and has knocked into a thousand EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 125 pieces and carried away two of our boats and some of the upper works of the ship ; a storm such as I have always had a secret longing to see, but am per- fectly satisfied with once 'beholding ; not a poetical storm where the waves rolled mountain-high and all that nonsense, but an actual storm where two strong winds met and struggled for the mastery, and the poor ship trembled and groaned between them, where the waves were not very high but fierce and dreadfully angry and dashed against us and over us with earnest, fearful malignity, with " malice pre- pense ; " but our Father in Heaven hath preserved us, and in a measure calmed the waves, and we have every prospect of reaching Alexandria in safety to-morrow. 126 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER XXX. SUMMIT OF THE CHEOPS PYRAMID. Rather poetical is n't it, this inditing an epistle, sitting on the highest stone of the greatest and old- est pyramid, with the green valley of the Nile before me and an infinite sea of desert all around ; with the Sphynx a little speck at my feet, and the mummies of half a dozen ancient cities in sight, or rather just sinking out of sight into the remorseless sand that is drifting upon them ; sitting upon the crumbling old pyramid, which the jaws of Time himself have found too tough a morsel to crush, and must be content with gnawing off crumbs from its surface, and smoothing its sides down into a sleek mountain which posterity shall forget to have been the work of men's hands ; perched on the crown of the ragged, dilapidated old giant, whose smooth granite coat has been stripped off his shoulders to adorn the up- start Cairo, an infant of a thousand years or so on the other side of the Nile. Rather romantic, writing EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 127 you from the top of the Cheops, amidst a picturesque group of Bedouins, Englishmen, and Yankees, who are noisily engaged in all the different occupations that can possibly be carried on in such circumstan- ces ; talking poetry, discussing the sites of lost cities, cracking jokes at the expense of the respectable old Egyptians who piled up the pyramids, selling and buying various rather dubiously authenticated antiquities, paying sundry shillings to see an Arab go up and down the second pyramid in ten min- utes, drinking Nile water and champagne, laughing, lunching, and dealing in relics, a foot of a mummy per- haps ill one hand and a leg of a turkey in the other. Rather a case of the pursuit of literature under difficulties, is n't it, this writing when one's hand is a little shaky with the fatigue of climbing a couple of hundred three feet steps without any help, with a little quill two inches long, paper spread out on a stone, and a Bedouin boy holding the inkstand, (a German pocket inkhorn which unscrews in half a dozen places and is as complicated as a Yankee pa- tent rat-trap) ; but I promised to date you an epistle from the pyramids, and my promise is fulfilled, even though I stop here and partake of the cold fowl which my companion offers me, leaving the re- mainder of the sheet to be filled in Cairo 128 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S And so at last one part of my pilgrimage is ended. I have seen the great monuments of Egypt from afar and near at hand; have walked around them, gathered a handful of sand at their feet, climbed to their summit and crawled into their heart, surveyed their desolations, felt their grandeur, been disap- pointed at their shabbiness, sympathized with their loneliness, picked up stones that have rested against the bosom of the Sphynx, descended into the old, broken tombs, and transported myself in a granite sarcophagus three thousand years up the stream of time. The emotion of beauty is inspired only at a distance, that of sublimity only close at hand, but the feeling of sadness and desolation everywhere in their vicinity. The desert is their appropriate place ; the mutilated Sphynx, the ruined causeways, the de- serted tombs, the broken fragments of marble and granite, the half obliterated inscriptions, and the de- caying pyramids themselves, are all in perfect har- mony, harmoniously mournful; one grand Necropolis, and worse than that a deserted burial-place, so gloomy that even its dead inhabitants have aban- doned it, and the last trumpet itself shall stir into life no dust in those tenantless tombs. I was disappointed to find the stone of the pyra- mids of so poor a quality and the courses so irregular. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 129 Even the hundred feet of facing that remains at the apex of the second in size is crumbling away, and has so many crevices that the ascent is by no means difficult, though the descent in one or two places where the crevices are four or five feet apart, is so slippery an operation that some of his friends watched with a little anxiety Mr. Browne's down- ward progress, and expected to pick him up in sev- eral pieces on the plain below. The accommodations in the interior of the great pyramid are much more limited than a survey of its exterior would naturally lead one to imagine, consist- ing of a very small cellar one hundred and fifty feet deep, a diminutive drawing-room on the first floor,, and a .tolerable bedchamber in the second story, with two or three miserable attics, and the arrange- ments for ventilation are so poor that a fat English- man in our company fainted and had to be carried out. My experience would not lead me to recom- mend it as a residence for any great length of time, though I believe the builder intended to take up his> permanent abode therein. The greatest nuisance of the visit to Ghizeeh is the swarm of dirty, half-naked Arabs, who faster^ themselves upon you, and cannot be shaken off, not even by the payment of money, for they build up their- 9 130 mr. dunn browne's demands upon you on the model of the pyramids themselves, first laying down a large sum for a foun- dation, and then when you have paid that, superad- ding another not quite so large, and another, and another, like the different courses of stone, decreas- ing as they go up, till at last you get out of all patience, and knock off their apex with the biggest club you can lay hands on. Be careful to hit them on the head, however, or you may do them some se- rious injury. Yours, out of the land of Egypt. • EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. 131 CHAPTER XXXI. INTRODUCES YOU TO SUNDRY INTERESTING PEOPLE. Would you like to call upon me at my lodgings in Cairo ? Ah, well, I can easily direct you. After you come, by a rather complicated route, to the Italian Bazaar, turn up a narrow lane to the left, (not the one by the old shoemaker's with a long pipe in his mouth, but further on at the corner where the young woman sells oranges sitting on the ground with a baby in her lap,) then take the right along a ruined wall and some ragged beggars, and bear to the left again through a low, arched gateway, down a street lined with donkey-boys, till you come to a small door on which a torn theatre- bill is pasted, which door you enter, pass under the house, through the stable in the rear, out into another street about three feet wide, where you will probably meet a long train of camels laden with stones and with dripping water-skins, take the second turning to the left round the decayed mosk painted in red 132 mr. dunn Browne's and white horizontal stripes, and then, as the way- becomes now rather difficult to find, you had better go back to the street of donkey-boys above men- tioned, and engage one of them, (the little fellow with one eye and a remarkably wicked-looking crop-eared donkey knows where " Milord Browne" lives,) and ride the remaining distance. We are in a very aristocratic part of the city, in the vicinity of several legations and consulates, near several eminent bankers, etc., and like our quarters very much, both myself and the recently arrived — Oh, I am afraid I haven't mentioned yet, the arrival of a party of old college friends, pale- faced devotees of the Muses, you know, who have burned down their lamp of existence, in midnight studies, to about the last flicker, and come out here to get rilled and trimmed again ; men who have climbed to the very summit of the Hill of Science, and are now come down on the other side to rest a little; who have disentangled themselves from Greek roots, and the horns of logical dilemmas, and metaphysical paradoxes, to come out and take a look at the pyramids and get acquainted with the sphynx and make a cruise on " the ship of the desert." Ah, well, it was better than a circus to see them ride in on donkeys, night before last, at the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 133 north-western gate of the city, surrounded by a halo of dusky Arabs bearing their portmanteaus, shawls, and mackintoshes. You see I was just starting out, after my custom, to take a little evening air and a bit of Egyptian sunset, with a couple of pyramids in it, and was meditating as I walked along, upon the advisability of setting off alone for Joppa and Jericho, or of waiting here a little longer, on the remote possibility that my friends might have health enough to reach these distant shores and accompany me on my pilgrimage, when my thoughts were interrupted by an approaching tumult, and there quickly appeared, emerging from a cloud of dust and donkey-drivers, a round, rosy, aldermanic individual, ambling along on an aged gray donkey, who seemed to me so much like an enlarged and improved edition of my young friend " Dick — — ," that he was seized and greeted under that familiar appella- tion in less time than I could describe the additional twenty pounds of him that I had never seen before. And the rest of that imposing cavalcade, as they successively came up, were attacked in a similar manner and robbed — of a good deal of anxiety which they professed to have felt at not finding me in Alexandria. Let us see, first there was " George, the Magnificent" he of tall stature and stately mien, 134 mk. dunn Browne's with beard and moustache black as jet, sitting in upright dignity on the smallest of donkey-kind, obliged to lift up his feet considerably lest his steed should go out from under him. Next, vigorously belaboring with an umbrella the most refractory of asinine species, preceded by a pair of gold spectacles and a formidable moustache, looking the very personi- fication of health, came the " Professor" (whose modesty prevents my designating him any more particularly,) who a year ago was nothing but an untied bundle of unstrung nerves, but now can bear any amount of fatigue, does n't know the meaning of the word " nerve " except by tracing it out etymo- logically, and will explore more ruins and catacombs and such antique trumpery in a day than any person I know of, unless it be perhaps — well I am a mod- est individual and will pass on to the next topic, which is one of no less importance than our " Wil- liam the Conqueror" who approaches, guiding with unequalled skill his . prancing steed, in all the glory of an oriental beard reaching wellnigh to his girdle, a regular Arab shekh in grace and solemnity of bearing, distinguished for a certain wild, poetical enthusiasm of character and an utter contempt and disregard of every thing of a pecuniary or business nature, all which therefore devolves upon his intimate EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 135 friend, the practical " Isham" (good old Scripture name you see,) who rides up next on a very demure donkey, " Isham, the Blond" as we • usually call him, on account of a peculiar delicacy of complexion. He is our main reliance in all matters of business, but of singular obtuseness in reference to every thing of a jocular nature, so that his friends delight to perpetrate puns in his presence, in order to watch the workings of his countenance as he vainly endeavors to find out what they are all laughing at. And here is at last our glorious " Ned" who, if good looks were a capital offence, could n't disguise him- self so as to escape hanging six months, unless the executioners were perhaps women, in which case they never could find it in their hearts to choke him, in that way at least. Last of all appears our Nimrod, our Jehu, our lion-slayer, our horse-tamer, " W. H. P., the Impetuous" a Curtius, ready for any gulf you can open before him, (he will leap over it, not into it though,) a Richard the Third, ready to give his kingdom for a horse, who can ride any thing quadrupedal from a kicking donkey like that he is now cudgelling, up to a wild elephant. He is otherwise remarkable as an early riser and also for an intense determination never to be " humbugged." So now you are introduced to the whole company. May the acquaintance be a pleasant one. 136 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER XXXII. A VOICE FROM THE TOMBS. Being unanimously elected dragoman of the newly-arrived party, I of course, proceeded at once to arrange an excursion to the pyramids, although I had already once made the trip. Wishing to make thorough work and visit every thing of interest in the vicinity, we determined to take provisions for two days and sleep in a tomb at Sakkara. Mounted our donkeys at an early hour, and, taking an extra one for baggage, accomplished our journey to Ghi- zeeh with great success, keeping the Bedouins at a tolerable distance ; pushed on to Sakkara in the afternoon, taking a half dozen ruined pyramids on the w T ay. On our arrival at nightfall, inquired of our guide for some tombs, in order to make our selection for lodgings, and were told by him in the most posi- tive manner that there were no tombs at all in that vicinity, and we must put up for the night in the Arab village about a mile distant. Disbelieved him, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN' PARTS. 137 r of course, which is the only way in which you can get any good from an Arab guide, and scattered in all directions in the search, determined not to be cheated out of the romance of a tomb-hotel. As it was getting dark and the whole region is full of deep pits (out of which several millions of ancient Egyp- tians have recently been dug), this search for a tomb was quite likely to be successful in a way different from what we intended, but at last the Professor, who is a capital guide among pits and snares and temptations of all sorts, hailed to inform us of his suc- cess. Dismissed our donkeys and guide, shouldered the blankets and provisions and before the total Egyptian darkness was quite upon us, had all reached the quarters indicated, which were a rocky cliff all perforated with hewn sepulchres, with hiero- glyphics over the entrance, representing men mowing and reaping, and various jars and baskets filled with bread and fruits, which we very naturally interpreted, " Good entertainment for man and beast," and ac- cordingly invited ourselves in and took such apart- ments as suited our tastes. For our dining-room we chose a vaulted chamber, curiously .painted and adorned with bas-reliefs of various agricultural oper- ations, fishes, fruits, birds, and flowers; for bedcham- bers, those which had figures of men and women 138 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S combi ng their hair and performing different opera- tions of the toilet. We were soon visited by some Bedouins who brought us a jar of water, whereupon we brought out our chickens, etc., and made a hearty meal, then explored a quarter of a mile of tombs by candlelight and retired to rest. Slept rather comfortably, though before morning found the tomb somewhat cold, but that I think is a quality usually ascribed to tombs, and therefore no more than was to have been expected. The " boys " amused themselves in the morning by shooting at the skull of an ancient Egyptian, at three rods dis- tance, with revolvers, and came near perforating the skull of a modern Egyptian, who appeared suddenly round a corner, bringing water for our ' breakfast. We made a rather successful breakfast and then pro- ceeded to visit the Serapseum, which is described in none of the guide books and has only been discov- ered within two or three years, and which consists of a series of subterranean galleries hewn out of the rock containing thirty-four enormous sarcophagi of red granite, for the reception of the mummied bulls of the ancient Egyptians. They are on an average about twelve feet long, six feet wide, and seven feet high, only one or two of them covered with inscrip- tions, but all polished externally and internally, and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 139 each hewn from a single block. The walls are four- teen inches thick, and the cover or lid to each, from fourteen to thirty inches thick, one entirely removed and the others slipped back two or three feet, to allow the removal of the bull. They are all now empty and were found in their present condition, or with only fragments of mummies in them, by the Frenchman who has superintended the excavations. How these immense sarcophagi ever came into their present po- sition, down under the earth in narrow galleries hewn out of the rock, is a mystery I am unable to solve, and this whole subterranean bull-cemetery impresses one with as strange ideas of the old Egyptians as per- haps the pyramids themselves. And then there are the sepulchres of the Ibis mummies, where hundreds of thousands of those sacred birds were carefully pre- served enbalmed, wrapped in cloths and packed in earthen jars. The crocodile mummy pits are further up the Nile, and we did n't see them. But while they took so much pains to save the carcasses of beasts and birds and reptiles, the bodies of men, at least the common people, were tumbled in together, into great pits a hundred feet deep, multitudes of which have lately been opened at Sakkara, and the whole earth is covered with the bones and skulls, which latter are of wonderful thickness, though tolerably well-shaped. 140 mk. dunn browne's Wonder if, some thousands of years hence, anybody will be kicking our skulls about and commenting upon their thickness ! We next visited the site of Memphis, of whose ruins nothing now remains except a few broken col- umns and mutilated statues, and especially one gigan- tic granite king who lies with his face in the mud, and if the water rises six inches higher will certainly be stifled. This colossus, if he ever had any legs, (which he has not at present,) must have been fifty or sixty feet high, is very well proportioned, and has a fine face, wearing a benevolent smile, which to be sure loses something of its effect in the mud puddle, but nevertheless shows a spirit not to be ruffled even in the most adverse circumstances. Having paid our respects to his majesty and offered him our condo- lence upon his fallen condition, we resumed our don- keys and took up our march for Cairo, prepared to appreciate the advantages of a habitation built for living men, (even though it must be occupied jointly with the fleas and musquitoes,) after a night in the tombs of Sakkara. Ever yours, alike among the liv- ing and in the abodes of the dead. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 141 ) CHAPTER XXXIII. CAIRO, THE PICTURESQUE. The ten plagues of Egypt, or at least of Cairo, at present are — Donkey-boys, who surround you the moment you set foot in the street, .and block up your path till you have cleared the way with a cane : Dragomen, who beset you in every passage of your hotel, and* throng into your room to bore you with big pocketbooks full of recommendations, and who are ready to take you up the Nile, over the desert to Jerusalem, Ethiopia, or China, at a pound sterling a day and find you in provisions : Musquitoes, who defy nets and curtains and puncture you at all hours of the day and night: Fleas, in countless numbers and of unmitigated ferocity, who never leave you an instant's peace, who crawl up your pantaloons and down your neck, and take delight in biting you in aggravating places where you can't possibly get at them : Cocks, who crow at all hours of the night in the shrillest of tones : wild, masterless, wolfy Dogs, 142 mr. dunn browne's who bark always and bite whenever they dare: Flies, which completely cover face and eyes of the little Arab babies, and carry ophthalmia from one to another: Dust, which double and triple windows cannot keep out of your bedroom, and no amount of green veils or spectacles keep out of your eyes : Darkness, unrelieved by the glimmer of a single street lamp, and which of necessity confines you to your lodgings after six o'clock in the evening : and " Backsheesh," which rings in your ears and empties your pockets, wherever you go and wherever you stay, when you rise up and when you sit down, when you go out and when you come in, a perpetual, universal, unavoidable nuisance. Barring these and a few other little inconveniences that I haven't time to men- tion, Cairo is a truly delightful residence. The city is much larger than I expected to find it ; seems of ample size for half a million inhabitants, though many of its buildings are in a ruinous state, and 1 think the usual estimate of population is from two to three hundred thousand. Two or three of the streets are wide enough for a narrow carriage to pass through, but the usual width will just allow me and a donkey (or two donkeys as the case may be,) to meet without interference. The houses project as in German cities, and the upper windows are within EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PAETS. 143 " short kissing distance," as one of the younger mem- bers of our party, (who is familiarly addressed by his friends as " Dick,") remarked to me yesterday, and I consider him good authority in this instance, for I saw a pair of black eyes peeping through the lat- tice opposite his room the other day. Speaking of lattices, they are one of the most striking and pecul- iar features of an Egyptian house, most fancifully carved and of every variety of pattern. We prosecute our researches through the crooked bazaars and streets of the city in the asinine method, that is, mounted on donkeys, which is a pleasant enough kind of proceeding when the beast does n't stumble and pitch you over his head into a mud pud- dle. The mosks of Cairo are nearly all old, unre- paired, and falling to pieces, though the so called " New Mosk," built by Mohammed Ali in the cita- del, is very splendid, entirely lined with beautiful alabaster, with an admirable dome and painted win- dows and a fine court paved with marble. The Mosk Hassan, also, which was built from the out- side coating of the pyramids, is of vast size, and has four magnificent arches of fifty or sixty feet span ; but in general the mosks are interesting rather as ruins of past glory than as existing living buildings. The view from the citadel (on a lofty eminence at 144 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S the back of the city,) is the most striking landscape I have seen. The two mountainous, treeless deserts parted asunder by the green valley of the Nile ; the groops of pyramids in the distance, the ruins of mosks, palaces, and tombs all around the city ; the groves oT palms and acacias to the west and north, through which here and there gleam the white walls of a country residence ; and the city itself, with its hundreds of graceful minarets, its palaces and gar- dens, narrow streets, flat roofs, and ornamented domes, its old battlemented wall with picturesque towers, its winding canal whose course is marked with verdure and occasional palm trees ; its mud liuts side by side with lofty edifices of stone : such another view I don't believe exists in the world, desolation and cultivation, barrenness and fertility, splendor and squalor, mud, marble, and wood, ancient and mod- ern; broken and whole, barbarous, civilized, and Turk- ish ; it is inimitable and indescribable and unimag- inable, and I only wish you were here to take don- keys and ride up with me to see it for yourselves, and save me the trouble of writing about it. The Arabs are a very picturesque and decidedly dirty race. Their dress is graceful and elegant — sometimes, but to dress in the common Arab cos- tume, one need only get into an old, torn night-shirt EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 145 and tie a handkerchief about his head, and even two of these articles may be dispensed with without be- ing greatly out of fashion. The women (like the ostriches we read of who put their heads into a bush and think themselves entirely safe) take a little pains, most of them, to cover their faces, but no great care as to any other part of the person. The houses are miserable mud huts, and the peo- ple are so filthy that I have been astonished to find the dogs, sheep, goats, and donkeys willing to oc- cupy as joint- tenants with those who are so much more degraded in the scale of being than them- selves. 10 146 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XXXIV. JOHN BULL SEES MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR. February 5th. — A queer little incident of travel happened hereabouts last week. The steamer which has just made a voyage up the Nile stopped at Sak- kara on her return, to permit the passengers to go out and see the pyramids, Serapseum, Ibis pits, etc. An Englishman belonging to the party unfortunately became entangled in the passages of a pyramid and couldn't get out. His companions by and by miss- ing him, searched the whole region about an hour and a half and finally concluded he had preceded them in the return to their steamer, and went away without him. The poor fellow at last, half dead with the fright and the bad air combined, succeeded in getting out into daylight, what little there was left of it, for it was almost night, and by signs signi- fied to some Bedouins, whom he discovered, his wish to be taken to the river, which they complied with, first relieving him of most of his superfluous EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 147 cash. But they ignorantly or wilfully conducted him too far up the river, and found no steamer, so carried him back again three or four miles to the pyramids, and were for detaining him till further advices. Dur- ing the night, however, he effected his escape, found his way on foot, over canals and ditches, through palm groves, grain fields, and sugar cane patches to the Nile, cut loose a boat and floated down stream to Cairo. But his troubles were by no means over yet. Scarcely had he landed when the city guards seized him as a marauder and thief, and, not being able to understand his explanation, pricked him about with their bayonets from one guard-house to another, in search of some one who could talk with him, but not succeeding, thrust him at length with much abuse into a dark, filthy, flea-y prison, and it was only on the next afternoon that he found him- self free, having had nothing to eat for twenty -four hours, but being himself eaten all that time by ver- min, his clothes torn and covered with mud, his whole appearance more that of a dilapidated dust- man than a trim, spruce, neatly shaved, English traveller. I think that man will retain some vivid recollections of his Egyptian experiences, and as an Englishman always values a thing by what it costs him, doubtless that Cairo cell will ever remain very dear to his memory. 148 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S A friend related the above to me as we were re- clining on a divan smoking chibouks and drinking coffee with the howling dervishes, and therefore, al- though you may not see the particular connection be- tween the two subjects, I shall proceed to give you a short account of the proceedings of that fraternity on the afternoon of last Friday, which, as everybody knows, I need not say, is the Mohammedan Sabbath. After partaking of the above-mentioned refreshments, we all adjourned to the mosk connected with the es- tablishment, leaving our slippers and boots at the entrance. The head dervish, after one or two pros- trations, seated himself in a little niche, which is al- ways found on the Mecca side of a mosk, cross-leg- ged, on a beautifully embroidered mat, and the brethren (about thirty in number) arranged them- selves in a semicircle, on sheep skins, in front of their leader, each having bowed reverently before him and kissed his hand, taking pains also to retire backwards to his own place. Then with a few pre- liminary ejaculations they began to repeat a formula which, as near as I could find out, was, " There is no other God but Allah," at first in a quiet and sol- emn voice, afterwards in a more rapid and excited manner, waving their bodies to and fro. After con- tinuing this a wearisome while, (my friend said a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 149 thousand and one times,) they were silent a few minutes, the motions continuing however, then be- gan anew with the repetition of the single word " Allah," bowing their heads in concert, ever lower and lower, getting constantly more and more excited. At last they all rose simultaneously, kicked away the sheep skins, took off their outer garment and their high red cap, leaving their long hair to flow at random over their shoulders, and commenced a sin- gular and most doleful groaning which is still ring- ing in my ears, but is not enough like any other known sound for me to describe, at the same time bowing their bodies till the dishevelled hair swept the floor in front of them and nearly touched it behind, ever faster and more furious, one of the shrillest voices from time to time throwing in an unearthly yell, and the whole scene getting more maniacal, not to say diabolical, every instant. Now glide into the circle, one, two, three, four pale-faced boys and young men, clad in a long purple or gray or white mantle, with a hoop at the bottom, and commence whirling with ever increas- ing velocity and wonderful endurance, (I counted over a thousand evolutions of one little fellow not more than ten years old, and didn't begin till he had been going some time). Various musical 150 mr. dunn browne's instruments also strike up, drums, fifes, flageolets, and cymbals, and introduce a new element into the mass of discordant sound, yet serving to give it a sort of harmony and cadence. And so the thing goes on an hour and a half, two hours, I don't know but three hours, one of the leaders going round inside the circle to encourage and direct their movements, the whirlers occasionally relieving one another, the voices of the howlers growing hoarser, and the perspiration streaming from their foreheads, things verging towards a crisis, and the thing ends rather unceremoniously, brings up with a sort of a jerk, all stopping at once, save one poor fellow who don't seem to have any brakes to put on, and continues bobbing up and down till he falls in a fit, which is considered as the highest attainable state of devotion, and peculiarly accept* able to God. The rest, embracing their leader and each other all round, resume their garments and ad- journ to another cup of coffee and chibouk, and we retire to our hotel. Such is the choicest worship of the most holy of the Mussulmen. EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. 151 CHAPTER XXXV. ALEXANDRIA TO JERUSALEM. My dear Reader, — Did you ever wait a week in the stupid Egyptian town of Alexandria for a miserable French steamer, which was behind her time, and then when at last she did appear, find the machinery out of order and be obliged to stop a few days more in a hotel where you are bitten by alternate swarms of mosquitoes and fleas, besides being bled by the landlord to the tune of three dollars a day and no "roast beef?" If so you can perhaps appreciate the feelings of our party when we went on board and found ourselves " out of the frying-pan into the fire," alternating between a dirty, dark, ill-flavored, flea-y cabin and a sooty deck cum- bered with a crowd of ill-flavored and ill-favored Arabs and negroes covered with fleas, and not half covered with any thing else. Travelling in the East should be most carefully eschewed by every thin- skinned individual who is endowed with the sense 152 mr. dunn Browne's of smell. These were the only circumstances in which I ever really longed for a severe attack of sea-sickness as the least of two evils. But alas! that happy relief was denied me, and I continued miserably well the whole two days of our trip to Jaffa. This little doll of a city sits up very erect on a bit of a promontory, and really presents quite a bold front to the boisterous old Mediterranean, who dashes his impudent waves over her walls, and will not allow the steamers to land their passengers more than two times out of three. Our star was in the ascendant, however, and we all reached the shore in safety, including one or two Jerusalem passengers who had been vibrating several passages between Beyrout and Alexandria. But we found several poor fellows on shore who had been waiting three weeks in Joppa in no very amiable frame of mind, and then again the steamer that came the week after ours, by way of a pleasant variety, just landed her passengers, but, the wind rising suddenly, carried all their baggage on to Beyrout. After paying our respects to the United States consul, who can't speak a word of English but is a capital consul notwithstanding, and to the American missionaries, who received us with great EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 153 kindness and hospitality, we made our preparations to depart at one, P. M., for Jerusalem, thirty-five miles distant. And now came our first experience of genuine Oriental travelling, for in Egypt we had found all the comforts of an excellent railway, had been borne on the wings of steam up within sight of the pyramids, for all the world as if we were travelling in Yankee land except that we felt our- selves much safer. But here we engaged a Drag- oman, who interpreted between us and our consul, who sent his Janizary, w T ho brought us a venerable, gray-haired muleteer, who assembled before our door an assortment of rusty horses, spiteful mules, and ragged donkeys, from which we selected the best- looking, (except your humble servant who acted on a directly contrary principle and in the end proved to be the best mounted of the crowd,) and started off at every pace from a limp to a gallop, through the beautiful groves of orange and lemon trees, bend- ing under their burden of luscious fruit, the peach, cherry, almond, and pomegranate in richest fragrance of blossom, and the earth all carpeted with the sweetest of flowers. A ride of three hours over the fertile vale of Sharon brought us to Ramleh, where we rested two hours at the house of the American consul, who can speak neither English* 154 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S French, German, nor Italian, and therefore our con- versation with him was carried on principally by- means of pipes and coffee and . a very tolerable sup- per of rice and chickens. We set out again for Jerusalem at eight, P. M., having exchanged with our host a profusion of polite speeches, of which neither party understood the other's, but which doubtless answered the pur- pose just as well. Our path at first led over the same lovely plain enamelled .with flowers, (what a pity that my "roses of Sharon" all proved, upon a. closer inspection, to be poppies!) but after a little, as we began to ascend the mountain, came a road over which you would rather ride one mile than two. Sometimes a smooth, slippery path cut and worn deep into the limestone rock ; sometimes a moun- tain gully, full of large, round stones, washed clean from all soil which could fill up the crevices and relieve the steps of the poor horses ; sometimes rude stairs cut in the face of the mountain and some- times places where none of these things were prac- ticable, and our animals must scramble up by their own unaided genius without artificial helps, and with unerring step those little Syrian steeds bore us over places that would give an American horse the nightmare to dream about. A lively French EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 155 lady in Jerusalem declared to me that she could ride her little gray charger up the side of any six story house in Paris or London. Now I wouldn't vouch for the strict literal truth of this statement, but it wouldn't frighten me much to see her equestrianizing on the roof of any house that isn't inclined more than forty-five degrees. We arrived at the Jaffa gate of the Holy City at six o'clock in the morning, and never were poor pil- grims more glad to reach their destination, for we had scarcely snatched a moment's sleep in the two pre- vious nights on that delectable steamer, and would have broken our necks the moment we attempted such a thing on horseback, amidst the ravines and rocks which we passed over and through and around and under and up and down, during that long, long ten hours ride by moonlight from Ramleh to Jerusa- lem. But now our pilgrimage was accomplished. Fatigue and desire to sleep were forgotten in the joy of entering the gates of Zion. 156 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XXXVI. THE HOLY CITY. Our first approach to Jerusalem was in the dead silence that precedes the dawn ; in the gray morning twilight which makes things look dim and mysteri- ous and supernaturally large ; and very stately and imposing was our view of the walls, battlements, tow- ers, and domes of the old city, as we reached the heights on the North-west, and drew near the Jaffa gate. But the most beautiful view was when we returned from the Jordan, (also in the night,) and approached from the East over the Mount of Olives at two o'clock in the morning, by a most glorious moonlight. I shall never forget that scene. In and about Jerusalem are many things that need the sil- vering of the moonbeams. Then the rough, craggy hills were softened and lighted up with a gentle glory. The frightful ravines were filled with fanci- ful shadows ; the old rusty domes of the city glis- tened in silver; the crumbling towers stood out EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 157 sharp and fresh as of newly cut stone ; all the rough places were made smooth ; all deficiencies were cov- ered up ; the unsightly transformed into loveliness, and what was before beautiful made absolutely glo- rious. But seen in the daytime, looked i^pon in a matter of fact kind of way, without regard to the glorious and sacred associations connected with it, (if indeed such a thing be possible,) Jerusalem appears much as I had expected. T was sure I had seen it often before ; that uneven, irregular, decaying old city, mourning over her desolations, sitting soli- tary amidst the ruins of her former glory. The hills about the city are even more rocky and barren than they are described ; the valleys are exceedingly pre- cipitous, deep, -abysmal ; and the whole region is full of caverns, grottos, tombs, all sorts of natural fis- sures, and excavations by the hand of man. The valley of the brook Kedron, (which is no brook at all,) contains some green spots, about Gethsemane are some ancient olive trees, the Mount of Olives has a few fruit-trees and is cultivated in spots, the hills to the southward toward Bethlehem are green and toler- ably fertile, but generally the whole region around is one mass of rocks, rough, craggy, terrible rocks, with- out a tree or a shrub. The town itself, which is supposed to contain 158 mr. dunn browne's nearly twenty thousand inhabitants, is a filthy, muddy, Oriental town, full of dogs and vermin, and intolerable smells, habitable by decent people only on Mt. Zion and near the Ja*ffa gate. The so-called sacred places have been described a thousand times, and even if they had not been, are not worth the trouble, as no one now believes in their genuineness. In Gethsemane one feels sure that he is at least near the place where our Saviour agonized in the Garden, in going up the Mount of Olives we doubtless fol- lowed the path so often trodden by the feet of Jesus and his disciples, but you are thankful to know that Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre could not possibly have been where the Greeks and Catholics locate them, and quarrel so fiercely about their possession that the Turk is obliged to interfere as a peacemaker in these Christian brawls. Without speaking then of the " Holy Places" about Jerusalem, I will only give you a bit of an account of our visit to the mosk Omar, the sacred enclosure carefully guarded so many centuries against the intrusion of any Christian foot, but which of late years has been on several oc- casions opened for the admission of parties of Euro- peans, usually the train of some prince, and will soon, in all probability, become comparatively easy of ac- cess to the public. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 159 Having our consul for Egypt and the brother of the United States ambassador at Constantinople with us, it seemed a favorable opportunity to intro- duce an American party, and finally, after many vex- atious delays and excuses, the required firman was obtained, allowing us, on the payment of a pound sterling each, to see all that is to be seen on the site of the old temple. The Dervishes and other fanati- cal Moslems, who guard the mosk and amuse them- selves by throwing stones at any infidel dogs who dare to approach, having been removed and shut up, and a guard of thirty soldiers accompanying us,. we entered and spent an hour and a half in examining the mosks Omar and El Aksa which, with a large enclosed space, occupy Mt. Moriah. The Mosk Omar, which is generally supposed to stand on the site of Solomon's temple, is an octagon with a huge dome, covered all over with glazed tiles, painted blue and green like China ware, which coating has broken and crumbled away in many places, giving a very ancient look to the building, which is natural enough, for it is twelve hundred years old. There are four entrances, and the interior has two concentric circles of columns, forming two circular aisles, and a space perhaps forty feet in diameter within the inner col- umns that support *the dome, which is all occupied 160 mr. dunn browne's with the sacred stone that was suspended in the air at Mohammed's command, as it was accompanying him on his ascension to heaven. On this rock, the Moslems say, was the Holy of Holies of the ancient temple, and under it is a chamber excavated in the natural rock where are the places of prayer of Mo- hammed, Christ, Moses, Elijah, and Solomon. The •hole in the top of the rock is shown, through which the prophet ascended. The stone remained hanging in the air, by his command, without any visible sup- port, for many centuries, but at last to relieve the fears of the faithful, especially the females, who dared not go under it, the present walls and pillars, (which really have nothing to do w T ith supporting it,) were placed beneath. The floor of the mosk is of beautiful marble, and the sides are lined with marbles ; the pillars are of the Corinthian order, of Porphyry and Verd Antique. There are several beautiful painted windows in the dome, and some rich mosaics and gilding. The Mosk El Aksa has the form of a cross like a church, as indeed it was, is of vast size, but not especially beautiful. Below are vaults and galleries which probably formed one of the entrances to Solomon's temple, and contain many of the vast bevelled stones and two or three of the massive pillars of its original EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 161 construction, about three thousand years old. There are fine remains, also, of the ancient " Beautiful Gate," on the east side of the temple inclosure, and the immense reservoirs of water which undermine the whole hill are still full and of great interest, but we could only peep down through the openings and make their vaults resound with the thundering echoes of our voices. The curb-stones of these reser- voirs are worn all round their inner surface, to the depth of six or eight inches, by the friction of the well ropes. My boots having been stolen by some of the faith- ful, while I was within the mosque, I remain yours, in a pair of Turkish slippers. 11 162 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XXXVII. MARE ASPHALTICUM. On a fine February morning in the year 1856, might have been seen, issuing from the western gate of Jerusalem, and winding along over the rocky but verdant hills towards Bethlehem, two solitary horse- men, oh no, I beg Mr. James's pardon, a cavalcade of sixteen sunburned, weather-beaten travellers, clad in a combination of all the various costumes of the countries they had visited ; mounted upon fifteen ugly, rough-coated, awkwardly-saddled, shovel-stir- ruped, Syrian horses and one abstracted, intro- spective, metaphysical donkey ; accompanied by the usual Oriental suite of dragomen, muleteers, servants, and Bedouin guards. Had any curious observer seen the above-mentioned interesting company and inquired (in a polite and respectful manner) respect- ing their destination, he would have been told in Arabic, Armenian, French, Italian, or English, accord- ing to his selection of an informant, that they were EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 163 a party of Yankees, Canadians, Scotch, etc. etc., go- ing to Jericho, by way of Bethlehem, the Dead Sea ; and the Jordan. Thankful and glad for the bright morning sun, instead of the rain we had the previous evening anticipated, on we go, cheerfully prancing and galloping and laughing and chatting, amidst the singing of birds, through the fields of grain, over the stones, trampling underfoot the pretty flowers, throwing into the air clouds of dust with the hoofs of our mettlesome steeds, and devouring the distance at the rate of six miles an hour at the very least. We pass on the left the identical tree, (possibly two hundred years old,) on which Judas hanged himself, then on the right a lovely valley and sloping ascent covered with olives, and after a while just to tne right of our path a plain white building, the tomb of Rachel ; then, the road getting very rough and rocky, at the end of two hours we reach the famous pools of Solomon, three in number, irregu- larly shaped, from thirty to sixty feet deep, of vast size, one above another in the narrow valley, in tol- erably good repair, but now empty. The old aque- duct still conveys a small stream of water from a cool fountain just above the pools, quite to Jerusa- lem, I think. Following the course of this aqueduct eastward, we soon look down upon the narrow rib- 164 mk. dunn browne's bon of meadow, like a stream of living verdure flow- ing between the barren limestone hills, or like a huge green serpent winding down the valley, which was purchased a few years since by some Americans for the purpose of testing the agricultural capabilities of the country. The experiment has proved, I believe, rather a failure ; but a prettier little farm could n't be found in all Palestine and a long journey besides. Chancing to pour into the ear of my friend " Wil- liam, the Conqueror," some rather poetical remarks upon the loveliness of this verdant valley, that enthusiastic monarch turned his bland countenance upon the charming scene for a moment, and re- marked, in his inimitable way, " Yes, it is rather green." In about three quarters of an hour, we climbed a high hill, (so steep that one of our horses fell over backwards, rider, saddle, and all,) into Bethlehem, where we were hospitably entertained at the con- vent, and shown the manger (of stone) where the infant Saviour was laid, in a hewn grotto deep under the ground, and the precise spot where he was born marked by a silver star, directly over which stood " the Star in the East." Around the star is a Latin inscription, " Here was born Jesus Christ of the Virgin Mary," and many silver lamps are constantly EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 165 burning both in this place and over the manger, and two or three exquisite little pictures by Murillo are also to be seen. The church and adjoining build- ings are so divided up and partitioned off to keep asunder the belligerent Greeks and Catholics, as to spoil all the harmony of proportion and beauty of architecture. Three hours more eastward bring us to the strange old Greek convent of San Saba, built into and hewn out of the rocky side of a tremendous gorge five or six hundred feet in depth, which is a continuation of the valley of Jehoshaphat down to the Dead Sea. As we approached from the west down the hill, nothing but two solitary towers, perhaps thirty rods apart, were visible. After knocking a while at a gate near the foot of one of them, a basket was let down from an upper window, and our letters of rec- ommendation from Jerusalem drawn up and exam- ined, whereupon we were admitted and cordially greeted by a brown monk with a rope about his waist, and, dismounting, we followed him down flights of steps, through strong doors and curious passages cut in the rock, down more flights of stairs, ever down, down, down, till we thought the bottom of the old building had fallen out, and ourselves were destined to become an infinite descending 166 me. dunn browne's series, but we obtained soundings at last, and an- chored in safety in a large apartment surrounded by a sort of divan, on which we slept such a sleep as only travellers on horseback over stony mountains can enjoy. In the morning we made an exploration of the convent, saw forty thousand skulls of hermits who have died, within the last one or two thousand years, in the rock-hewn cells of this vicinity, and resumed our journey over the conical, volcanic looking hills which surround the Dead Sea. The country is, to be sure, rather desolate, but by no means the fright- ful wilderness I had anticipated. The scenery is very soft and beautiful, the hills all curves and no angles, smooth and covered with a thin verdure which thousands of goats are cropping. The sea seemed but a few steps distant, yet we have been four long hours in reaching it, and I hope never to have so much down hill travelling again. It makes one feel mean to have such depths to descend into. Having read much of the disagreeable effects of bathing in the Dead Sea, we now proceed at once to make trial of the same, and as this chapter is growing considerably long, perhaps you may as well leave us for the present, disporting ourselves in these clear, buoyant waters, like a school of porpoises let EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. 167 out to play, in a short recess from their severe nauti- cal studies. You need not fear for our safety, as none of our party have sufficient specific gravity to be able to drown themselves in these anti-suicidal waters, which are called, so improperly, the Dead Sea. Yours, bituminously. 168 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER XXXVIII. DOES NOT " TARRY AT JERICHO." We all enjoyed our bath wonderfully, and experi- enced none of those disagreeable consequences of which so many travellers have spoken, except indeed an incrustation of salt over our faces, and a slight oily sensation of the skin, an impression as if we were saturated with grease and would burn if lighted. (My friend Isham, who is standing by my side, sug- gests that there is a little exaggeration about that last remark. Very well, my dear fellow, I will not insist that you would become " a burning and shining light" even after a dozen baths in the Dead Sea. But what would become of all the poetry of the world if a body couldn't color his descriptions a bit? So don't be interrupting me any more, please, it makes such long parentheses.) The wonderful buoy- ancy of the water made manifest such a compara- tive lightness of our bodies and such an exhilarating lightness of spirits too, that we indulged in a thou- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 169 sand amusing gambols such as you would scarcely expect, perhaps, from the dignified personages to whom you have recently been introduced. You can take any sort of position you choose, stand, sit, lie on your back, fold your arms and go to sleep, read, eat your lunch, or even write a letter, I verily believe, re- clining on those luxurious cushions of waves. But woe be to you if any portion of your cuticle is bro- ken or removed, and those briny drops gaining ad- mittance to your eyes, are sure to return with other briny drops as usury following them. The taste of the water is a combination and concentration of whatever is unpleasant to the palate. Having gone through a variety of striking tableaux and satisfied our philosophical curiosity in reference to this wondrous lake, we remounted, and putting our steeds upon their mettle, (they have a deal more spirit than their looks indicate and are capital on a gallop,) we made in forty minutes the two hours' ride over the salt plain to the Ford of the Jor- dan. It is a salt plain indeed. In many places you can gather it in handfuls, almost pure. Of course nothing grows in this region. It is much more des- olate and appareutly accursed than the country west of the sea. The Jordan itself is not visible till you come to its very shores, and doesn't present any very 170 mr. dunn browne's inviting appearance even then, being a dreadfully muddy, unpicturesque stream, rushing along at a tremendous rate between two banks, about twenty yards asunder, lined with dirty willows ; in short, though I had made up my mind to be disap- pointed in the Jordan, I was much more disap- pointed than I expected. Our party of course pro- ceeded at once to rinse off the slime of the Dead Sea by a bath in the sacred stream. Those who were swimmers, headed by the Professor, in spectacles, passed very readily over to "the other side Jordan," by going a little up stream where the water was deeper and not quite so swift, but your humble ser- vant, attempting to wade across at the Ford where the depth is not much over four feet, found the cur- rent so rapid that it lifted him up bodily, (the gravity of his body not being so great as that of his disposi- tion,) and would have borne him down to be pre- served in asphaltum in the Dead Sea but for the powerful arm of a tall Bedouin Arab Shekh, who was making the passage by his side, and who was satisfied with the very reasonable sum of four pias- tres for saving to the world the author of this verita- ble history. Having thoroughly tested the effect of the water externally, we proceeded to make an internal appli- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 171 cation in connection with our lunch, and really for a mixture of clay, limestone and water, it was n't very bad to take. Taking one last farewell look of the old Jewish river, and carrying up with us for a me- morial, like the Israelites, a few stones from its bed, (though not quite so large pebbles as they took,) and also an assortment of ugly canes from the w T illow trees above referred to, we turned our faces again westward, and in two hours arrived at the site of an- cient Jericho, having suffered considerably from the intense heat in our journey across the plain, although it was the 23d of February and in latitude some- where about that of the city of Washington. It must be perfectly intolerable in summer. In this valley we thought we could see the snow-crowned summit of Hermon away north of the Sea of Gali- lee, eighty or ninety miles distant. Being utterly disgusted with Jericho, and our beards having al- ready a tolerable growth, we resolved not to tarry, but ordered out our horses and started at seven and a half P. M. in a glorious moonlight for Jerusa- lem, which is six or seven hours distant, and those same tough little horses who had carried us since seven in the morning, and engaged in several sharp little races in the bargain, bore us unflaggingly through that long night ride, over roads, too, where 172 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S an American horse would bring up dead lame in two hours. I think we were on horseback fifteen hours out of that twenty-four. The scenery in this region, (the hill country towards Jerusalem,) is extremely wild, savage, and stern, and we became as tired of riding up hill before we reached the Mount of Olives as we had been the day previous of descending. What difficult creatures we are to satisfy, indeed ! We passed, during the night, several picturesque Bedouin encampments. They would have proved something more than picturesque to us, doubtless, if we hadn't mustered so strong a force, for these tall, grim fellows are equally adepts at both their trades of shepherd and robber, and with their sheep- skins over their shoulders, suggested to our minds very readily the idea of " wolves in sheep's clothing." EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 173 CHAPTER XXXIX. SAMARIA AND GALILEE. After one has seen all that is of interest above ground, in and about Jerusalem, there still remains to him who is fond of burrowing, at least a year's subterranean explorations in the vicinity. All the rocky hills about the city are full of excavations, some- times connecting with one another, tomb after tomb, for fifteen hundred feet underground. Mount Moriah is all undermined with a series of stupendous reser- voirs, which have not yet been fully explored, and be- neath the whole city are vast quarries, where you may wander miles and miles ere you begin to retrace your steps, where are caves and grottos, fountains, streams of running water, etc. The only entrance to this ' last described series of quarries, is by a little hole in the wall just east of the Damascus gate, outside the city, into which a slender man can barely crawl, as the Professor and myself can testify from actual ex- perience. We wriggled in through this muddy aper- 174 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S ture, (it was a rainy day,) a distance of eight feet, and then climbed down a wall six feet, head fore- most, at least I did, but the Professor profiting by my experience, entered in the reverse order, with eminent success, and we proceeded to explore, with no guide but our own sagacity, to the extent of our six inches of spermaceti. . . . "We departed from the Holy City as we entered it, in the gray light of the early morning, and as we caught our last glimpse from the distant northern hills, the sun had just broken forth over the top of Olivet, and was gilding with a halo of glory, those venerable domes and battlements, covering them with beauty and brightness in our remembrance, as if we had caught a passing glimpse of the heavenly Jerusalem, rejoicing in the beams of the great Sun of Righteous- ness himself. A nd thus we bade adieu to the Holy City, and passed on by the lofty " Nebi Samwill " on the left, surrounded by beautiful slopes covered with olives, and then on our right the ruins of Bethel, rode a half hour in a heavy shower of rain, dried our- selves in the bright sun which succeeded it, stopped to lunch in a pretty green valley by the side of a spring, sitting on the first bit of real turf that I have seen in Syria, (we took the precaution to spread our blankets over it before sitting down however,) then EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 175 mounting again our untiring steeds, after a long day of eleven hours in the saddle, we found welcome rest at last in the pleasant town of Nablous, the ancient Shechem, a garden-surrounded little city of twelve thousand inhabitants, snugly ensconced in the nar- row valley which keeps asunder the grim, stony, bel- ligerent-looking mountains Ebal and Gerizim. At the entrance of this valley we turned a little off our road through a ploughed field to see Jacob's well, but did n't see it, as the proprietor of those grounds, in order to check the curiosity of travellers, has bro- ken in the roof of the room which covered the well's mouth, and you can't get the slightest glimpse of the water or any thing that looks like a well. Perhaps you can imagine with what revengeful delight we spread out our company of horse over that man's field, and took pains to trample down his young wheat. I should make it a point always to ride out to that well if I were going past every day. From Nablous three hours in the bright morning sun, over a thick carpet of variegated flowers, brought us up to the head of the valley to ancient Samaria, absolutely the finest situation for a city that I have seen yet, but occupied at present by a set of ill-mannered wretches who threw 'stones at us as we were examin- ing the ruins of an ancient church, and then brought 176 mr. dunn browne's a parcel of long striped guns to bear upon us, merely because we drew our revolvers and threatened to shoot them if they did n't take their departure. Hav- ing compromised this slight difficulty, and effected a truce with the barbarians through the agency of our excellent Michael, the prince of Dragomen, if I may be allowed to speak electrically, a prime conductor, we proceeded to lunch amidst a grove of marble col- umns, (granite though upon second thought,) whereof something less than a thousand remain standing in witness of the splendor of the ancient city, and then rode over several rough, uninteresting hills, and through several fertile valleys, catching glimpses on the heights, of the sea and of snowy Herman, till at last we came to the entrance of the great plain of Esdraelon, to the Arab village of Janin, a place which has made a deep impression on my memory, as the scene of the most utterly miserable night of my experience. The " miserable night" of the wretched Clarence in Richard the Third could n't compare with it at all, because his was capable of description and mine isn't, and his was a dream, while mine was quite the contrary, and besides, a guilty conscience, (which seemed to be the principal source of his trouble,) as far as my experience goes, is nothing to a myriad of fleas. We were eleven, in a room eight EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 177 feet by ten, which was full, before we entered it, of vermin, of dirt, of stagnant tobacco smoke, and of un- pleasant Arab smells. The journal of the next day, (the third from Jeru- salem,) if there were time to write it, would make mention of the troop of gazelles we saw bounding over the rolling plain of Esdraelon, would speak in fitting terms of the oft described Mount Tabor, which rises in lonely beauty just to the left of our path after we have ascended from Esdraelon between Gilboa and Little Hermon, would enlarge upon the beauty and fertility of this country of Galilee, and at last go into perfect raptures as, at sunset, we stand on the brow of the high hill which overlooks the Sea of Tiberias, and look down upon that fair, sweet lake, on whose borders Jesus loved to dwell, and whose waters once bore up his steps. 'Twas Saturday night, and slowly and quietly we descended to the little town of Tiberias to spend a Sabbath, for once in our lives, by the Sea of Galilee. 12 178 mr. dunn Browne's CHAPTER XL. OVER LAND TO BEYROUT. The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by smooth green hills, very high and steep on the north and south- west, sloping gently down to the water's edge on the north-east and north-west, with even a bit of plain on the west, but to the south-east, the ancient country of the Gadarenes, rises abruptly a wall of chalk cliffs six hundred feet high, like the shore of the Dead Sea itself. Tiberias, the only town now remaining on its shores, is a city-like village surrounded by an imposing wall, (which is, however, fast falling into ruins,) con- taining, I should think, five hundred, but according to our host, fourteen hundred, inhabitants, mostly Polish and Spanish Jews, very dirty but learned ; indeed, this is the principal seat of learning among the Jews, and every third man you meet is a rabbi with his head crammed with Talmudical lore, which he imparts, (for a consideration,) to the youthful Hebrews, who resort hither from various quarters of the world to complete their theological education. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 179 A violent storm of wind and rain arose Sunday afternoon, so' that we saw the lake not only in its peaceful calm, but also when the waves were lashed into fury. I looked out from my window, and could almost see the scene of walking on the water, and our Saviour stretching forth his hand to save the trembling Peter from the watery grave into which his unbelief was sinking him. Monday morning, after taking a bath in the pure waters of the lake, and visiting the hot springs a little below Tiberias, we wound our way up the hill again, cast one last lingering look at the lovely scene below us, and took up our route to Nazareth, six hours distant. But scarcely were we settled in our saddles when the clouds gathered thick and pitiless over our defenceless heads, and it began first to drizzle, then to rain, and then to pour down upon us in torrents, and for three mortal hours did we plod along in that driving, drenching rain, find- ing no mercy from the clouds above and no shelter on the earth beneath. . Your humble servant, who had caught cold the evening previous, in a shower which fell upon him as he was walking up towards Capernaum, began to be sick, and to have shooting pains and chills and gloomy forebodings of a Syrian fever, and fell gradually behind the rest of the party, 180 mr. dtjnn browne's then behind the muleteers and the baggage, till he was left alone, a couple of miles in the rear, just able to keep in the saddle, fast losing his interest in things generally, and ready to surrender without a struggle to the first Bedouin who should accost him with the Arabic for " your money or your life." In this forlorn state he was picked up by a detachment sent back from the main body, who had first dis- covered his absence on their halt at Cana of Galilee, and brought in so weak in body and mind as abso- lutely to believe for a few moments in the stone jars which are shown at that place as the identical jars that contained the water made wine at the mar- riage feast. A draught from the company's spirit- flask restored a little his strength, (and of course his unbelief,) and without further accident we all arrived in safety at Nazareth, and were received with great hospitality by the Fathers of the Latin convent. Nazareth has a fine situation overhanging a pretty green valley of fruit-trees, about four thousand in- habitants, and a thriving well-to-do appearance, rare enough to find in oppressed, tax-ridden Palestine. One day more over the plain of Esdraelon again, with no incidents of travel save plenty of gazelles, foxes, jackals, and Bedouin robbers, all of whom seemed to avoid our company, brought us to the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 181 bold promontory of Carmel, where rest is found in the ever-hospitable convent, (certainly a most com- fortable institution in such a country as Syria). The next day a magnificent gallop of four hours over the hard beach of fine sand, where the horses' hoofs scarcely left a trace, gave us abundant time to visit the fortifications of Acre, which the Bashaw politely sent an officer to show us, after we had drank coffee and smoked long amber-mouthed pipes with him. One other day's journey amidst broken pillars and ruins of huge aqueducts and bridges, to the small town which occupies the site of ancient Tyre, and still another day just like the last, to Si- don, and one final, long, hard day, with a rapid river to ford, and rocky promontories to climb, and deep sand to wade through, bring us to the end of the week, and to Beyrout, the end of our journey, and me to the end of this chapter, for all which blessings I am truly thankful and trust you are the same. 182 mr. dunn Browne's CHAPTER XLI. THE AEGEAN A1ND THE DARDANELLES. March 22cl. — On board the French steamer Tamise, (Thames,) in the Archipelago, in sight of Scio and Cos and Patmos, and just out of sight of Rhodes, opposite which, in a little cove in the main land, we have been waiting two days for the equi- noctial storm to come and go by, but as the weather has continued calm and the passengers have mani- fested an unreasonable desire to get somewhere some time, our prudent French officers have started out to-day, running the risk of getting to Smyrna be- fore the storm comes, (of which there isn't the slight- est appearance). We shall have been about ten days crawling from Beyrout up to Smyrna, a pas- sage which a Yankee boat would make in two days easily, stopping a day or two at every little dirty town on the way, (and it is astonishing what a number of them there are,) and putting into port whenever there is any appearance of a breeze. At EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 183 Rhodes, the ancient stronghold of the famous Knights of St. John, and the only place of any in- terest along the whole coast, we were unable to land, but were taken, much against our will, into the little cove above mentioned, where the only in- cident of interest for two days was the hunt, capture, and slaughter, by our sailors, of a terrific wild boar. His struggles, (in the arms of the stout seaman who brought him on board,) were fearful to behold, and he weighed, when dressed, nearly one hundred pounds. Nothing can be more striking than these count- less islands of the iEgean, with their bold, abrupt shores rising defiantly out of the waves, their rough, treeless mountain sides, and queer little nests of harbors. Striking but not very beautiful, save at a distance. Some of them are exceedingly small, mere specks on the surface of the waters. This must be the birthplace of the islands, I am sure, and as they grow up big enough to take care of themselves, Father Neptune doubtless cuts them adrift from their nursery here, to seek their fortune and settle down in the world where they best can. Some of them have become very celebrated in fable and in song, some have married ambitious penin- sulas and never been heard of more, some have 184 me. dunn Browne's raised up nice little families of their own, away in a distant ocean, some have remained crusty old bach- elors, venting their spleen in explosive volcanoes, some have lived gay lives and given themselves up wholly to wine, some have flatted out into humdrum wheat-fields, some have turned their attention to war and became famous military and naval stations, a few have taken to piracy, and a great many to reputable commerce. But whatever be their grown- up fate, the little infants here are very pert and saucy in appearance, rise boldly out of the waves, and look as if they wouldn't be imposed upon, even by a continent. Beyrout, (which I ought to have mentioned be- fore, only that the objects nearest me first attracted my attention,) is beyond comparison the finest town on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, surrounded with rich gardens, fig orchards, and the most beauti- ful olive groves in the world. And then the scenery; there is the sea on the west and north, the stately ridge of Lebanon, with snowy peaks nine thousand feet high, overhanging it on the east, in contrast with the green, black, blue, and brown hills below, and then toward the south, the fertile plain, sprinkled with all manner of fruit-trees and covered with oceans of flowers, and even yet I have n't mentioned EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 185 the sand hill which has been cast up by the sea, and is slowly advancing from the west to overwhelm the city. It is truly a charming place, and healthful, too, save that the cholera will come along occasion- ally. This is the centre of the American missionary operations in Syria, and we found several old friends and acquaintances among the missionaries, who made our stay in Beyrout exceedingly pleasant, so that for once we didn't regret the tardiness of our steamer which arrived as usual four or five days be- hind time. It afforded me very great gratification to see how comfortably, not only here but throughout the East where I have come in contact with them, our missionaries live. They have good houses, good furniture, good servants, and good living, and are thus enabled to devote themselves entirely to the appropriate duties of their calling, without that con- stant burden of anxiety as to what they shall eat, drink, and wear, and how they shall support their families, which paralyzes the energies of so many clergymen in country towns here at home, and es- pecially in our Western Home Missionary field. Our missionaries in Western Asia are well sup- ported, held in high estimation by both natives and foreigners in those regions, enjoy considerable good society, and are, in general, every way a credit to thenselves, to the Board, and to our country. 186 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S March 23d. — Stopped at Smyrna on the Sab- bath, (Easter,) attended a service about two and a half hours long at the English chapel, and at four o'clock resumed our voyage. You would think Smyrna a very beautiful place, with its dark cypress groves and streets rising one above another on the side of the hill, if you were only wise enough not to land, but that destroys the illusion. March 25th. — Constantinople. — We have had a lovely passage from Smyrna, by Lesbos, Tenedos, Troy, Mount Ida, the Dardanelles, Abydos, etc., beautiful in themselves and all steeped in historical and poetical recollections. The scenery up the straits is very fine, though the shores are not fertile, as I ex- pected, but generally bleak and barren. I suspect we are a little too early to see Constantinople in its beauty. There needs the verdure of May, and withal a greater variety of trees, to sustain its reputation of being the most beautiful spot in the world, even limiting the world to that small portion of it seen by the writer hereof. There is an incredi- ble activity and energy in these regions. We passed some three hundred vessels from the Dardanelles up to this place, and here the Golden Horn is crowded with ships of every nation and flag. All is bustle and confusion, and red coats and clanking swords and mustachios and ammunition wagons, and young EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 187 middies and drunken sailors and cannon and bomb- shells and abominably high prices and other warlike symptoms. After finding one of the cheaper hotels, where the price is only three dollars a day, we, that is, " W. H. P." and myself, (our party split at Bey- rout, on the subject of going to Damascus, and our half divided again at Smyrna, on account of the sickness, wellnigh unto death even, of our beloved Isham,) proceeded to explore the city a little. Crossed the Golden Horn, from Galata to Stamboul proper, by the old bridge of boats, (they have two beautiful new ones for show, but use them scarcely at all,) engaged for guide an arbitrary little Jewish boy who insisted on taking us to the bazaars before visiting St. Sophia, but after an obstinate struggle we drove him on before us to the great church, where we found several of our English fellow passengers standing forlornly before a locked door, threatening, in bad French and wicked English, all manner of vengeance from British ambassadors and consuls and armies, if the entrance was not unbarred, but a little quiet talk from those who were used to that sort of people, and a shilling backsheesh from each, soon operated as a talisman for our admission. As, however, the full and accurate description of the ven- erable edifice, which I should give, would occupy 188 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S nearly a chapter by itself, perhaps you had better take leave of us standing under the lofty dome with our boots in our hands, (taking warning from our experience in the Mosk Omar,) in which position please allow the curtain to drop. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 189 CHAPTER XLTI. THE CRIMEA. Ah well, I have been to the Crimea, and seen camps and real armies, the "pomp and circumstance" of glorious war, (two days after the news of peace arrived,) slept at Sebastopol, picked up a broken bayonet on the heights of the MalakofT, seen a great town roofless and in ruins, and a country covered for miles and miles with cannon balls and broken shells. And one such sight is enough for a lifetime. But to particularize a little. We took passage in the British transport " Tynemouth," a steamer as I supposed from the smoke pipe and the puffing, bufc as our jovial old captain informed me " only a sail- ing vessel with a bit of a screw in the stern just to assist in steering." By making the most of her va- rious means of locomotion we succeeded in running the three hundred and fifty miles or so to Balaklava in three days. The passage up the Bosphorus is the loveliest imaginable, one constant succession of 190 mr. dunn Browne's picturesque villages, wooded promontories, quiet little bays, castles, palaces,' gardens, groves, and cot- tages ; just one of those delightful trips where one wishes all his frends were with him to share the en- joyment. The Black Sea, however, is dull and stu- pid as any other waste of waters, and right glad were we when it was announced at last that the har- bor of Balaklava was in sight. Going upon deck, however, I found that it was visible only to the eye of faith, for not a break or cleft could I discern in a long line of high white cliffs which rose like a hostile wall forbidding our approach. But when, after cruising off and on for an hour or two till our boat came off with permission from the admiral to enter the harbor, we approached at last that formidable wall, a narrow line appeared which widened and opened like the folds of a door into a passage just wide enough to admit the ship, and turning a tolerably sharp corner to the right, we found ourselves in as snug a little miniature pocket edition of a harbor as you will find in a year's sailing. And crowded as it already was with shipping, our immensely long unwieldy craft found difficulty in getting a berth, and ran her bow- sprit into the rigging of one vessel, and bumped her stern against another, a beautiful Sardinian steamer, destroying and producing a considerable amount of railing on her quarter-deck. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 191 Landing as soon as was practicable, we strolled through the streets of the extempore, California-like town of shanties, which lines the harbor, climbed over several steep hills, and wandered about a couple of hours among the tents of the soldiers, entered sev- eral of them and even took a bit of a lunch with some jolly fellows of the eighty-ninth regiment, (English). Their shanties, which accommodate sixteen or eigh- teen soldiers each, are generally perhaps twenty feet long and fourteen wide, with a door at one end and a little window at the other, a platform six feet wide and a foot high, running the whole length each side, and a long narrow table standing on the ground in the space between, and a little stove beyond it at the further end, the clothing and accoutrements hang- ing all around. They have not many chairs, the platform referred to answering therefor as well as for floor and bedstead. On the whole the soldiers find these residences very comfortable, certainly much superior to tents in this respect if not so picturesque. The Sardinians and the French have very generally made little gardens about their huts, and planted evergreens, giving them quite an air of rustic beauty and elegance. We visited also the clean, comfortable Hospitals of the English and Sardinians, where the most ad- mirable neatness and order reign throughout all the 192 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S arrangements, and the sick and disabled are cared for almost with the kindness of a home. Even wo- man's gentle hand was there to smooth the pillow, and her quiet step gliding among the couches, to call up visions of mothers' and sisters' care. Those Sisters of Charity, in plain dress of drab and closely- fitting muslin cap, have often seemed, no doubt, to those poor, mangled victims of bombshells and Minie bullets, like angels ministering to their suffer- ings. The roads throughout this region, from camp to camp and from hospital to burying-ground, every- where indeed, are truly excellent, and will be one permanent blessing bestowed by the Allies upon the country. Returning from the inhospitable shore, (no lodgings to be had for love or money,) to the hospitable bosom of our ship to rest for the night, we rose betimes in the morning and proceeded to walk to Sebastopol, eight or nine miles distant. We walked simply because we chose, (catch a free and enlightened American citizen doing any thing upon compulsion). To be sure there wasn't a horse or mule to be had in Balaklava even at the estab- lished rate of a pound sterling per day, and the rail- road built by the British doesn't carry passengers, and cabs haven't yet been introduced into the Crimea. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 193 All the way is one great camp. I had no idea armies occupied so much room. And very gay and splendid was the whole scene ; the clouds of white tents, (I was talking about huts a moment since, but it would be too much work to describe huts for the whole army, to say nothing about building them,) the streaming banners, the vast bodies of in- fantry performing their evolutions, (it was a kind of review day and everybody was in the field,) the bright uniforms, the glittering bayonets and dancing plumes, the soul-stirring music, the splendid cavalry, the grim and terrible cannons, and above all the thought that it was n't a mere sham militia muster, but the stern reality of blood-steeped armies that I was looking upon, made the pageant of that day something to be long remembered. But impressive as was the sight of the living armies moving in stately pride before us, I was yet more affected by the vast cemeteries that we passed,, where repose the armies of the dead, the common soldiers with no record on their graves, in great in- closures surrounded by a deep ditch, the officers in small plots of ground, usually one for each regiment, inclosed by a neat, substantial wall, and planted with beautiful evergreens. Every thing is in good taste, the stones well wrought and of the best mar- 13 194 mr. dunn browne's bles, the inscriptions generally brief but many of them very affecting. I could not but notice how many youth had found their graves in the Crimea. " Charles E , aged seventeen, fell on the Heights of Inkerman." " Edward, son of Lord , aged eighteen, died of wounds received in leading his men to the attack upon the Redan," and scores of similar inscriptions, we read. Nearly all the amputations and severe surgical operations were fatal to the younger sufferers, while the tough vet- erans survived to return home cripples, " honorably discharged." A cannon ball lay usually at the head and foot of each officer's grave. The extent of these " camps of the dead " is fearful to look upon, acres upon acres, and square miles almost, all ridged into new-made graves, appearing in the distance like the furrows of newly-ploughed fields. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 195 CHAPTER XLIII. MODERN RUINS. Before we were within two miles of Sebastopol, the ground began to be cut up into trenches and piled up into breastworks, and to be covered with cannon balls and fragments of shells, lying so closely together that you might walk any distance on them as a pavement, without once touching the earth. I could n't have believed that so much good useful iron had been perverted into death-dealing projectiles since the devil first taught Friar Bacon the invention of gunpowder. Why, there is enough lying within a circle about Sebastopol of five miles diameter, to build all the iron steamers now afloat, and give each of them a cargo in the bargain. As we came over the brow of the hill which com- mands a view of the town, the first thing to strike us was the beauty of the harbor, and the next, the strangeness of a city without roofs. I wasn't aware before that the roof was so important a feature of 196 mr. dunn Browne's the house, considered in the light of a picture. Un- cover Boston and look down upon it from Bunker Hill monument. That's the easiest way I can sug- • gest to you of getting an adequate idea of the thing. If this does n't answer the purpose, why, put the roofs on, come down again and give it up ; it 's no use trying. Drawing nearer we came to a hill evidently once fortified, but now so torn and tortured out of all resemblance to any thing natural or artificial, and withal covered with such a chaos of broken military iron-mongery, as to arrest our attention at once and put us upon making inquiries of a sentinel near by. This was the Redan. The earth bears now no traces of the blood here spilt, but is covered with a perfect hail of bullets beaten into all sorts of shapes and shapelessness. The soldier pointed out to us the different varieties of Minie ball used by the several armies, and we carried away a pocketful of the leaden specimens. Descending through trampled vineyards and fields ploughed with cannon balls, we were soon in the streets of the ruined town. I shall never need read i any more sermons and dissertations on the horrors of war. There were churches burned and battered down, monuments mutilated, splendid buildings in ruins, bridges destroyed, costly docks blown up, the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 197 harbor encumbered with sunken ships, all business at an end, no children playing in the streets, no woman's face at the casement, no workman's hammer heard, only soldiers to be met on the pavement, desolation) cinders, blackened walls, tottering chimneys, fallen arches, shattered columns, every thing combustible burned, every thing in pieces that was breakable, devastation, ruin, war, — Sebastopol. Spent the entire afternoon in visiting the ruins of the forts Nicholas, Paul, and Alexander, (nothing now but mere heaps of stone,) the Malakoff and the stu- pendous works of attack and defence, all around the south side. I suppose so much labor and treasure and powder and blood were never before spent for the possession of a single town. The Malakoff is a fearfully strong looking place. With my ignorance of military matters I would consider it a much easier matter to carry the Redan ; however, if you will re- ceive my opinion implicitly on every thing else, you may take it for what it is worth in affairs of war. The Malakoff, like the Redan, is covered with a wreck of broken cannon, and gun-carriages, and all kinds of military implements, and so tossed about and rent in pieces and perverted out of all form and comeliness, that one might easily imagine it the Mil- tonic scene of conflict between the holy and the rebel angels. 198 mr. dunn Browne's Spent the night in one of the dozen houses in the place that have a roof still, on a sofa, in a room of which one corner has been shot away, and having a hole in the ceiling made by the passage of a ball or bomb, with just three panes of glass all told in the windows, (the rest patched out with paper, cloth, and wood,) and furnished with costly mahogany and rose- wood articles of various names, bureaus, secreta- ries, book-cases, etc., all razeed into tables, because this was a restaurant. Walked about the city again an hour or two in the morning, then down to Kami- esch, seven miles, through more camps, (the French make each camp of theirs a miniature Paris in boards, with gay cafes, restaurants, and all sorts of shops with flaming signs,) saw the same town of shanties and the same crowd of ships as at Balaklava, though more of the latter, because the harbor is larger ; and embarked for Constantinople, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 199 CHAPTER XLIV. DOWN THE MEDITERRANEAN. Indited on board the steamer " Thabor," which is at present rather full, Mr. Browne sleeping upon a table at night, (strapped on when the sea is very rough,) eating his breakfast from the same in the morning, and writing upon it the rest of the day. The tide of travel is setting very strongly to the west- ward at the present time in these Mediterranean re- gions. It is indeed necessary to " submit to circum- stances " as our philosophical first mate with a flour- ish of his cigar and a French shrug of his shoul- ders, remarked to me last night, when I ventured a gentle remonstrance against being "laid on the table" instead of in a state-room. What with the three gentlemen who occupy a similar tabular position with myself, and the four gentlemen who spread themselves under the tables, and the five slim gentle- men who sleep on the narrow cushioned seats which surround our cabin, and the very fat Turkish gentle- 200 mr. dtjnn browne's man who covers the remaining space of the floor at our end of the room, and the three waiters who hud- dle promiscuously in the pantry among the knives and forks ; considering also that two of my room mates snore and a third persists in throwing slippers and brushes at their heads to wake them, and that several others are desperately sea-sick, and that the French officer on my right invariably smokes a cigar after retiring, and that a young family of teething children haunts a state-room at my head ; a lively imagination may assist this unexaggerated sketch in giving you a tolerable idea of the comforts of travel- ling at ten dollars a day, as exemplified on the steamer Thabor down the Mediterranean. Our deck is encumbered with a regiment or so of French soldiers, with mustachios and baggy panta- loons, both of a dirty red. Their officers are a rather gentlemanly set of fellows, dressed in the " shabby genteel" style, (which is to be sure quite to be expected after a campaign in the Crimea,) whose thoughts are much occupied with eating and drink- ing, and who hate the English most cordially. I have been somewhat surprised to find so much ill- feeling existing everywhere between the Allies. I don't believe the English and French can thoroughly like each other. Their union is a mixture of oil and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 201 water. The Russians, however, who were begin- ning to come back to Sebastopol, and even down to Constantinople, when we were there, were received with open arms by the French. I saw an amusing scene, just by the ruins of Fort Nicholas, between a party of French soldiers and some Russians who were just ready to embark in a boat to return to the north side after a visit to the ruins of their captured city. Both parties were most pathetically and affec- tionately drunk, and the embraces and maudlin pro- testations of eternal friendship and kisses were extremely ludicrous. One in a transport of ardor would throw his arms around the neck of his " brave ennemi," and the momentum thus imparted would bring both to the ground, where they would roll around, kissing and hugging each other, till they were set on their feet again by their comrades, and all would walk quietly on till another ebullition of vinous friendship would bring on another similar scene. The performances closed with an affectionate couple's falling into the water and nearly drowning. But returning from this digression to the Crimea, I will stop at Constantinople a moment by the way, to explain the reason for not sending yon that accu- rate description of St. Sophia at which I hinted in one of the former chapters. In the first place, I did 't have time to make the additional visit I 202 mr. dunn browne's intended, for the purpose of counting the pillars again and the number of iron bands that had been placed around to strengthen them, and to measure the inclination of one which was thrown out of the perpendicular by an earthquake ; and then again if I were to let strict accuracy go, and " aggravate " the description a little, I couldn't possibly tell so large a story as Murray in his Handbook, who says the gilded crescent which ornaments its dome is fifty yards across ; but the main reason perhaps after all, is that a friend in whose critical judgment I have the greatest confidence, has recently written me that my letters would be " more interesting " (which I sup- pose is polite for " less tiresome,") if I said not so much about things and something more about per- sons. So I shall for the future strive to avoid descriptions and going into transports over fine scen- ery and such hackneyed nonsense, and devote my- self more to animate objects, become in short, more personal, though I hope not more first personal than in the present epistle at least. You may expect here- after, such things as the interview I had with King Otho and Mrs. Otho at Athens, the audience I expect with His Holiness the Pope, and an interest- ing sketch of a pimple-faced Italian Count with whom I lately came in contact, (owing to a lurch of the ship,) etc. etc. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN * PARTS. 203 CHAPTER XLV. ATHENS. " Modern Athens ought to be removed. It is a very clean, bright, well-built, regular, enterprising town, and therefore one wouldn't really wish to see it destroyed, but it certainly ought to be re- moved. It is dreadfully in the way of ancient Athens and seriously injures the effect of the old ruins. If it were a dirty Arab mud village like those that occupy the sites of ancient cities in Egypt and Western Asia, where you will see an exquisite marble column built into the clay wall of a donkey-stable, and mutilated statues thrust- ing their broken noses and stumps of arms out among the rude stones of miserable huts, the thing wouldn't in that case be so open to criticism, be- cause barbarism and ruins go naturally enough together and even heighten each other's effects. But these prim, smirking, upright, self-conceited, civilized edifices, all chequered off into parallelo- 204 'mr. dunn browne's grams, hemming in and crowding upon those glorious old temples of Greece's golden age, are an impertinent intrusion of the utilitarian upon the poetical by no means to be tolerated. It is no wonder that the graceful structures crumble away and sink into the earth before such shocking en- croachments." The above is a portion of a philippic delivered on the eighteenth of April last, by Mr. Browne from the very bema where Demosthenes used to thunder against the enemies of his country. The audience in the case mentioned, was of the kind usually spoken of as " select rather than numerous," consisting of a few Yankee friends occupying the steps below the orator, a group of gentle Athenian maidens (barefooted) in the distance, and nearer at hand two huge peasants who were shearing a don- key, together with the donkey himself, which latter auditor caused the speaker to conclude his remarks rather hastily, by the strong symptoms of a bray which appeared on his countenance, whether of ap- probation or otherwise could not be ascertained. Mr. B. has roamed over the Acropolis by moon- light, and felt poetical emotions in reference to the Parthenon, the Temple of Theseus and that of Olympian Jove, but refrains from a description EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 205 under the impression that there is one somewhere already extant. Having heard any quantity of frightful accounts of the banditti in these regions, and learning that about a dozen were still lurking in the caves of Mt. Pentelicus, ten miles from Athens, our party of six Yankees took horses (and plenty of revolvers), for an excursion to the summit of that mountain, on the day after our arrival. Saw plenty of* robbers, if looks can convict a man, but as every one of them was engaged (for a pretence probably) in some peaceful occupation, such as attending sheep or hoeing cabbages, we did not feel justified in shooting any, and returned adventureless, having repeated the old performance of going up a hill and coming down again. The magnificent view of the plain and bay of Marathon, the straits of Salamis, and Attica with its lovely coast and islands adjacent, pays for the journey, however, if you don't bag a single bandit. King Otho and Mrs. Otho bowed very politely to us, as we met in the street about five o'clock, but unfortunately were not at home the next day when we called at the palace, and our acquaintance remains very limited. We went over the huge palace though, which is much finer than one would 206 mr. dunn Browne's expect of such a sort of fourth-rate king, and has a garden attached which is fit for a firstrate king, or an emperor, or a president of the United States. The king dresses in the fall Albanian costume, but the queen in the Parisian. He is slight, she is very plump. He is a Catholic and she a Protestant, and their subjects being of the Greek church, certainly religious toleration ought to be the result of so many different* opinions. The royal pair are patrons of a sort of orphan asylum in their own palace, sup- porting and educating thirty or forty bright looking children of both sexes, whom we saw gathered into one of the great rooms, practising vocal music, un- der the care of their teachers. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 207 CHAPTER XLVI. QUARANTINE. Naples Harbor, April 26th. — After making the whole tour of the Mediterranean, (at least that part of it which is generally considered the worst,) without let or hinderance, except that which arose from the fact that every French steamer has been behind time save one, (which we missed in conse- quence,) here we are brought up at last against a ten days' quarantine imposed by the enlightened and liberal Neapolitan government, although our ship has a clean bill of health and there isn't a particle of epidemic or fever or any thing conta- gious at Malta, Constantinople, Athens, Smyrna, or any of the Eastern ports from which we come. And we must shut ourselves up in a prison (literally true) ten days in this hot weather without even permission to take an hour's row on the bay, or go through the farce of sailing three or four hundred miles up the coast to Leghorn and coming directly 208 mr. dunn browne's back again by a return steamer, consuming a week's time and fifty dollars. I am utterly disgusted with the whole arrangement, and consider the Egyptians and Turks a civilized and well-behaved people com- pared with the Italians. Naples is a dirty-looking old town, the celebrated bay quite an ordinary affair, and Vesuvius itself only a large sized coal-pit. Naples, one week later.— When not seen through the spectacles of quarantine this is truly a most charming city, the bay, with its lovely islands and beautiful circle of towns, all that its most enthusiastic admirers ever claimed in its behalf, and Vesuvius as fine an old mountain as ever spoiled its digestion by falling into the bad habit of smoking. Enjoyed our trip up and down the coast of Italy as well as could be expected considering the frame of mind we were in. Stopped all day at every place, for which I could see no reason, as we held no other than oral intercourse with the shore, except by little billets carried in fumigated tin boxes. At Civita Vecchia we found the beautiful United States steamer Saranac lying at anchor. One of our American passengers, wishing to do the polite towards his countrymen, sent his servant to hail the Saranac, and inform the officers that he had late United States newspapers which were very much at their EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 209 service. The servant, who was a Maltese and did n't speak much English, of course blundered with his message, and the lieutenant of the Saranac, think- ing that some American citizen in distress wished his assistance, dons his most splendid unifqrm, girds on his longest sword, orders out his largest boat, (of sixteen or twenty oars,) and with a couple of dozen brave tars comes to the rescue. In answer to his hail our friend is obliged to appear on the quarter- deck, and explain matters, (at the top of his voice,) finds that the Saranac can't receive his newspapers without being put in quarantine thereby, and more- over that there are on board papers of some five or six days' later date. So you see politeness, though an admirable virtue, is sometimes a little trouble- some, and like roast beef should n't be overdone. Arrived at Leghorn at five o'clock, A. M., and found that a fast steamer was to leave at twelve for Naples and run through in a day. Rejoiced very greatly at the opportunity, but found we were quite too fast in our calculations, for we could by no means be permitted to go from one vessel to the other, (they were along-side,) but must first land, for which; our permission arrived on board at half past ten, and for this permission we paid one dollar each ; then, we were obliged to search out the police office, and 14 210 mr. dunn Browne's wait in a crowd till two lazy officials could select our passports and give them up to us, and then go to another part of the city for the vise of the Neapoli- tan consul, for which we paid one and a half dollars each, angl then returning on board, we found ourselves too late for the steamer, and were forced to disembark our goods and chattels, take them through the cus- tom-house and settle ourselves in a hotel two or three days, waiting for the next steamer. There is nothing like paying a due respect to forms. The custom-house officers here have very sharp noses for the scent of tobacco, as one of our company, who was taking a few pounds of nice Turkish home to his father, found to his cost. But a poor little Frenchman, more unfortunate still, besides losing a hundred cigars which he showed, was fined five dol- lars because he said there was no tobacco in his trunk, and on opening it two solitary Havanas, which he had forgotten, were found lying on the top. Leghorn is &free port, very. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 211 CHAPTER XLVII, RETROSPECTIVE FROM THE ETERNAL CITY. Being at Rome, I shall now proceed to write you a little about Naples, just as at Naples I gave you a bit of a sketch of our sea adventures, and on a steamer wrote you a letter from Athens, and at Athens one from Constantinople, etc. I shall en- deavor to overtake myself as soon as possible, so as to be able to give a contemporaneous history of events, yet this writing a little behind the time is not without its advantages, especially in point of brevity, one can forget so much in a week or two ; moreover it gives a little more room for the imagina- tion to exercise itself. Of course it will be necessary to say a word or two about the weather first of all. As it is gener- ally admitted that Naples has the finest climate in the world, it must be true. It is also true that in the first half of the month of May, 1856, there were in Naples only two days which were not rainy, and 212 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S only one clear enough to make a pleasant ascent of Vesuvius. These two statements being both true cannot be contradictory, therefore I have not said any thing prejudicial to the character of the " Italian skies," and cannot be accused of grumbling in this chapter at least. The next thing to be spoken of in Naples, you will doubtless expect to be, the Laz- zaroni, but as no amount of search enabled me to find any, that topic must needs be passed over. Vesuvius also shall go unnoticed, because he has ob- stinately persisted in postponing, till after our depart- ure, the eruption which he has promised ever since the new crater was formed four months ago. He did give us a fine view, however, of the bay and its circumjacent towns, and it was worth something to stand round the edge of the crater and see the huge masses of earth crack off almost under our very feet, and go rumbling and thundering down into the bot- tomless pit, that sent up its sulphurous fumes into our faces, and flashed occasionally up from its black depths a demon smile of flame, that absolutely star- tled us, and suggested the idea of very unpleasant company nearer than was quite agreeable to contem- plate, standing on such treacherous foundations. I thought of the passage of Scripture about the wicked, " Their feet shall slide in due time," and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 213 thenceforth gave the crater a wide berth. We did some rather " tall walking " in our descent. A long Yankee that accompanied us made twelve steps, I think, from top to bottom. Herculaneum is a very 'damp cellar of long narrow passages, where you see occasionally fragments of ancient brick walls, and fall down the slippery steps of the old theatre. But Pompeii does n't disappoint you at all. You see precisely what you expect, one half a city buried fifteen feet deep, with orchards, gardens, and vineyards flourishing over it, and the other half, from which this earthen cover has been lifted, lying roofless and desolate, like a sacked and captured town. The resemblance to Sebastopol struck me at every step. Widen the streets a little, and sprinkle a thousand tons of cannon balls over it, and you would need stop and think, to say which was which. One walks dreamily and in a moral- izing mood about old Pompeii and always wants to come again. The only truly beautiful ruins, however, anywhere in the vicinity of Naples, are, as everybody knows or ought to know, (if they have ever read the infallible, indispensable, and interminable Murray,) at Paestum, fifty miles down the coast. Our getting there was a specimen of Italian travelling of which I would like 214 mr. DUNisr Browne's to give you a sketch, but the time which has since elapsed has dimmed the vividness of the impressions. I recollect that it rained hard all the time, that we came at last to a river so rapid and swollen that the large ferry-boat could not cross with our carriage, and we were told that we must turn back. That word " must " not being very palatable to a party of the "free and enlightened" we declared we wouldn't go back, and left our guide, who was afraid to cross, to take care of our team, while we chartered a skiff half full of water and bare-legged boatmen, crossed the stream in safety, mustered up bad Italian enough to make a bargain with some bad Italians on the other side, engaged another carriage and saw Paes- tum at last, rain and rivers to the contrary notwith- standing. Returned to Naples triumphant, but dreadfully wet; took a bath, (rather an unnecessary operation you may say,) and such a dinner as I wish you had been at the Cafe Europa to share with us. The next day, not feeling exactly in the mood for ordinary sight-seeing, we went to see the grand mira- cle, whose annual recurrence secures the prosperity of the city. The blood of St. Januarius, the patron of Naples, dried and clotted on to the inner surface of two little bottles, once a year, in answer to the prayers of the faithful, becomes liquid and flows as EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 215 readily as if freshly drawn. The miracle was suc- cessful, this year, to the eyes of all good Catholics, but for myself, not having the eye of faith, I couldn't see that any change had been effected. If those who have the most interest in such things are satisfied, however, we outsiders need n't find any fault. But bssides one or two miracles, I saw also, at Naples and in some of the towns in its vicinity, a great many other rare and curiQus things, fragments of nearly all the Apostles, the whole of several of the early martyrs, and even duplicate heads of St. An- drew, several teeth of the Virgin Mary and three hairs (all of different colors) from her head, pieces of the true cross, parts of the crown of thorns, etc., etc. The museums of Naples are among the things that must be seen and that can't be described. Among the acres of bad pictures, nearly the only one that I recollect is Domenichino's " Guardian Angel" extending his wings over a little confiding child, (Innocence,) to guard against the Evil Spirit who is creeping near, with malice in his eye and a pitchfork in his hand, to attack the little fellow. Among the sculptures the group of the Farnese Bull is the most magnificent marble story I have ever 216 mr. dunn browne's read. The Herculaneum and Pompeii objects are more interesting than can be believed without seeing, but the kitchen utensils are not so valuable as I had supposed, most of the copper kettles and basins hav- ing holes worn through the bottom. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 217 CHAPTER XL.VIII- IN A VETTURA. His Lordship, the very Reverend Bishop of Cork, two young Irish priests with an O at the beginning of their names, one rather fast young gentleman from Hartford who delights in coming out in a white suit on all the sunshiny days, another somewhat staid young American from North Carolina who re- fuses to walk with the above-mentioned gentleman in white, on account of the attention which his sin- gularity of dress attracts, and your correspondent, started from Naples early on the morning of Tues- day, May 13th, to perform the journey to Rome in a Vettura, a rather heavy, awkwardly made coach, with seats for four inside and two in the coupe in front. His Reverence and your humble servant being the extremes of the party as regards size, our Vetturino, who has an Italian eye to the fitness and harmony of things, very naturally requested us to occupy a seat together ; and certainly if three hun- 218 mr. dunn browne's dred weight of bishop can ever be agreeable on the same seat in a hot carriage in June, this was one of the instances. He is as learned and well informed and courteous as he is large, endured all the hard- ships of the trip with exemplary cheerfulness, fasted strictly one whole day in the dust and heat, accord- ing to the rules of his church, and on the whole he and his two young companions are the most liberal Catholic priests I have yet met with. We discussed some of the points of difference with the utmost free- dom, especially in reference to the unrestricted circu- lation of the Scriptures among the people, a very dangerous liberty according to their reverences, whose evil effects are especially apparent in the United States, in the great variety of perverse and conflicting sects who are perpetually disputing over that Bible which is thus injudiciously put into their hands, to become only a weapon of controversy. It was also gently hinted that by our own erroneous interpretation of some passages quoted in the course of the conversation we furnished an argument on their side of the question. But we refused to ac- knowledge the force of that argument, considering that the interpretation of three of the u free and en- lightened " is quite as valuable any day as that of three Irishmen. In other matters we differed very EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 219 little, save, perhaps, in regard to the Pope's domin- ions being the very best governed portion of the world. Our friends in black robes promised to obtain an audience with His Holiness for us, if we wished, but learning that a court-dress would be necessary, (or if not a court-dress at least a dress that not one of us had on our return from the East,) and having been brought up from our infancy to consider kissing the Pope's toe as an indispensable part of the cere- mony, we declined the honor. As we approached the Eternal City the people grew better looking, and I think I have never seen a finer, more robust and noble-looking race than the sunburned peasant men and especially peasant wo- men in some of the districts between Naples and Rome. These latter, (i. e. the women,) usually wear a silver bodkin nearly a foot in length, thrust through the mass of raven locks which is tumbled up rather promiscuously at the back of their heads. I can only conjecture whether this is a mere matter of ornament, or of defence, or to show that they are ready to imi- tate the example of the great Lucretia of old, at a moment's warning, without having to hunt up a dagger. All the peasant girls wear rather costly neck ornaments of gold or coral, and those who can afford it wear also shoes, but these latter are a rare luxury, and as for stockings I doubt if I saw on an 220 mr. dunn browne's average a pair in a day's ride. Oar trip occupied three days, all which I greatly enjoyed except the meal hours and the nights. The reason for this im- portant exception might be given, but I dare not trust my feelings to speak on the subject as yet. Believe me, there are things in Italian travelling which are not down in the books. If a person has the temper of an angel, the purse of a nabob, the stom- ach of an ostrich, the skin of a rhinoceros, is not pressed for time and has not the sense of smell, I see no reason why he should not enjoy a leisurely tour over the whole of this most beautiful land. But as your humble servant is endowed only with the first of the above-mentioned qualifications, the agreeable reminiscences are slightly mingled with others. Still since the great works of art which Napoleon very sensibly and justifiably carried away to a more comfortable country, have been brought back, why there is no use talking. One must come to Italy through all ingenious obstacles wiiich the inhabitants and the governments have devised to render him un- comfortable. In obedience to this necessity, there- fore, this present epistle dates itself from Rome, from which place at least a hundred other epistles would need to emanate, to express all Mr. B.'s im- pressions upon the art, architecture, and ruins, but there is a possibility that he may abridge a little. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 221 CHAPTER X L I X. HERETICAL VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT OF RUINS. All the ruins of Rome, with the exception of two or three arches and stray columns in the vicinity of the Forum, and perhaps also the Pantheon, besides the tremendous, magnificent exception of the Colise- um, aren't worth an old brick-kiln, and if they were not in Rome and people were not so desperately afraid of being convicted of a want of taste, this undoubted fact would be more generally acknowl- edged. But with this fear before their eyes and sev- eral books full of printed admiration under their arms, people go stumbling about old shapeless masses of tottering brickwork with a few weeds growing out of the clefts, down into damp vaults covered with green slime over, under, and around what might be the ruins of a decayed machine-shop or a disused railway station, and merely because these crumbling heaps of building material are dig- nified with the names " Hadrian's Villa," " Baths of 222 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S Titus," " Palace of the Cassars," etc., not one dare whisper to his neighbor his real thoughts, but all vie with each other in hypocritical rhapsodies and pretty- interjections; nothing but ecstacies and exclamation- points from beginning to end ; and then go home with torn boots and soiled dresses and a bad cold, a judgment no doubt for their disingenuousness and lack of moral courage. Of all humbugs deliver me from these tiresome, trumpery, old, brick and stucco humbugs of ancient ruins. There is enough in Rome that is beautiful, in her exhaustless treasures of art and of architecture too, in the unrivalled glories of St. Peter's and many other living buildings, and in a few mutilated frag- ments of her departed grandeur, without educating one's reluctant taste into an admiration of things, that are not admirable, just because they are old and moss-covered and weed-grown. There is enough that is beautiful and interesting and wonderful to see in Rome and it takes you a long time to see it. If there happens to be a masterpiece of painting in any church in the city, it is morally certain to have a green curtain over it, (the withdrawing of which is a perquisite of the sexton,) and it is equally certain to be just the commencement of service when you arrive, so that it is impossible for you to see it and EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 223 you must come again. I have spent all my leisure time for a fortnight in going to the church of St. Augustine to see Raphael's Fresco of Isaiah, pur- posely choosing different and out of the way hours so as to avoid service. But it is of no use. The old organ is always going as if it had never a stop to it, the monotonous drone of the priests perpetually salutes me at my entrance. I know every ring of that everlasting old faded green curtain, but can never prevail upon the solemn-visaged sacristan to withdraw it, and have never had a glimpse of the Prophet underneath. But if it takes considerable time to finish up the sight-seeing of the Eternal City, you are easily rec- onciled to the slowness of the process, for a more comfortable place to live in would be hard to find. Quarters fit for a prince, not beyond the purse of the poorest traveller, all the necessaries of life cheap and abundant, the noblest works of art, the very most beautiful things in the whole world, to be seen every day, the finest of languages uttered by the most melodious of voices ever within hearing, and the most select society of your own nation, (what- ever that nation happens to be,) accessible to you, certainly I know many more disagreeable places to be detained in than Rome. 224 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S Let us see, what have we done to-day ? A rather miscellaneous day's work I think. First, the church of the Capuchins, where we saw the famous " Mi- chael, the Archangel, crushing Satan," of Guido, and then went down into the cellar-cemetery of the monks, where their bones are piled up in regular order on shelves and labelled, occupying a series of rooms extending under the whole church. I asked the young friar who accompanied us if he too would get in there at last. He smiled faintly, and echoed back the syllables " at last." Then we went to the Spada Palace and saw the statue of Pompey, at whose base " great Csesar fell " and the Colonna Palace, where the gallery is much finer than any of the pictures in it, where we noticed a painting of " Christ preaching to the spirits in prison," in which a woman was represented with a lapdog in her arm. So, according to that artist, one doesn't have to leave all his possessions behind him when he goes out of this world. And then we rode out of the city and went into the Catacombs and into the city again and called at Crawford's studio, ad- mired his spirited group, "America," of which we saw only casts, ♦ as the originals have departed to adorn the Capitol at Washington, also two figures of the unfinished Richmond monument, Patrick Henry EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 225 and Thomas Jefferson, both excellent. Last of all we went to St. Peter's to hear the music at Vespers, and wander about in the solemn twilight amidst the arches and under the dome of that grandest of temples " made with hands." I said last of all, but no, the last and perhaps the best of all was the Coliseum by moonlight, the huge relic of Rome's greatness and her barbarism, silent now, but once resounding with the shouts of one hundred and fifty thousand human monsters applauding the brute monsters who tore one another or helpless Christians, perhaps, on the bloody arena. Now stands the cross in. the centre of that arena where thousands of its followers have fallen martyrs to their faith. About like this is our usual day's work in Rome. One great Festival has occurred during our stay, Corpus Christi, when the pope and all the cardi- nals and bishops arrayed in gold and scarlet and fine linen, and troops of barefooted friars equally proud in their coarse woollen frock and hempen girdle, and hundreds of portly priests in robes of black, with book and candle, walked in stately pro- cession round the porticos in front of St. Peters, and thousands upon thousands, crowds upon crowds, acres upon acres of people poured into that vast building to receive the pope's benediction. Then 15 226 mr. dunn browne's first did I begin to get some idea of the size of that wonderful structure, when I saw those throngs that filled the streets of a great city, all flowing as it were rivers into that great sea, and found that there was still room, that there were great vacant spaces, that I could walk freely every where, and could find no jostling or interference or any appearance of a crowd in any part. The pope himself was borne on men's shoulders, kneeling on a cushion before a little table on which stood a crucifix of gold, his hands clasped as if in prayer. He is a good and venerable looking man, and an ornament to any procession. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 227 CHAPTER L. FLORENCE, THE BEAUTIFUL. If you come to Florence to stop more than a few days, don't go to a stupid hotel and pay two dollars a day, but go right to housekeeping, and have all the fun of a home of your own, besides saving a dollar a day to buy mosaics for your female relatives. Why, here are five of us who occupy a suite of apart- ments looking forth upon the Arno, on the aristo- cratic first floor, with four front windows and a balcony, two parlors, a dining saloon, each of us a bedroom, one or two bath-rooms and a kitchen which we don't occupy, all furnished in the most costly and tasteful manner, with a grand piano and plenty of rosewood and damask all about us, and for the whole, including the service, (which is per- formed by a rather tidy young woman with one eye, who limps a little,) we pay a quarter of a dollar each per day. Then for breakfast we drop into the magnificent cafe* Doney, the very best coffee-house 228 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S in the whole world, and have the most delightful coffee or chocolate and rolls and eggs and a bit of steak, and you will hardly be able to order so extrava- gant a breakfast as to cost more than twelve or fif- teen cents, and eight will commonly be enough. From three to five o'clock, according to circum- stances, we dine, either at a restaurant or in our own rooms, and have an abundant dinner of three or four courses for less than fifty cents, so you can have a cup of tea in the evening and an ice when it is warm and yet come easily within a dollar a day. Florence is another of those pleasant places where one wishes to stay weeks and months, and enjoy the pleasant climate, and ride and drive about the beautiful suburbs, and lounge frequently and leisurely into the magnificent galleries of art, and take time to get thoroughly acquainted with the " Venus de Medici " and Guercino's " Sybil," and the hundred other masterpieces that adorn the " Tribune" of the " Ufficii," and the Pitti Palace. Beautiful things and beautiful places ought to be looked at leisurely and many times, that they may feed our taste, make our sense of the beautiful grow within us and do us that good they are intended to do. We have enjoyed our visits to the artist's studios very much indeed. Powers' " America " is one of EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 229 the finest statues in the world of modern art, and has more life and spirit, and glory about it, than a dozen Greek slaves and Eves. Mr. Hart, from Ken- tucky, has a curious machine to take measurements for busts and copies, which he says, saves about two thirds the labor, and increases the accuracy, whose method of operating he showed to us, nearly putting out our eyes in the process, with the needles that are used for taking the "points." He has an excellent bust of Mr. Fillmore, made in this way in a few days, from one or two sittings. I was very much interested in seeing an unfinished statue in one of the workshops, where a most lovely female head, all perfect and complete, was rising, so to speak, out of a rough, shapeless block of marble, the ideal of the artist effecting its escape from its hard prison of stone. A very pretty institution about Florence is the flower girls, who go about the streets every morn- ing, and into the cafes where you are at breakfast, giving you a cheerful "good morning" and a sweet nosegay of fragrant flowers. There is n't any bar- gain and sale about the thing. You slip a piece of money occasionally into her hand as your liberality prompts you, (I never saw one of them ask for money,) and she supplies you regularly, and if your 230 mr. dunn Browne's gifts are generous, will occasionally bring you a regular beauty of a bouquet for your " inamorata." There is a faded, old-fashioned, passed-away splendor about the old ducal palace and the ca- thedral with its attendant buildings in Florence, as well as those of Pisa which is indescribably affecting. You somehow feel tenderly towards them, walk softly over the crumbling pavements, speak low under the venerable arches, that you may not disturb the sleeping echoes, you are shocked to hear conceited visitors make flippant, disparag- ing remarks about them, you would as soon think of criticizing your grandmother's shroud at her funeral, you dislike even to read books of descrip- tion of them, it seems an irreverent curiosity to examine too minutely into their details, but you love to walk in and around them and meditate, you feel kindly in that atmosphere, indisposed to fret and grumble, and really get into a more ami- able frame of mind, the longer you remain in their presence, or write about them or even read of them. Don't you ? The interior of the vast old cathedral at Florence, is so severe in its sim- plicity and entire freedom from ornament, that you would hardly think yourself in a Roman Catholic fane, but rather in a huge puritan meeting-house. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 231 CHAPTER LI. THE BIRTH-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. [Mr. B. falls into financial difficulties, and attempts to go third class in a Sardinian steamboat.] Scene — Steamer Office. Mr. B., (in a prompt business way,) " One ticket third class to Genoa." Agent, (after a scrutinizing glance at the exterior of Mr. B.,) " Can't be done, sir." Mr. B., (expostulatingly,) " What do you mean, sir ? Why do you advertise third class tickets and then refuse to sell them ? " Agent, (explanatorily,) " We do sell them, sir, but you are not the sort of a person to go third class." Mr. B., (indignantly,) " Can't I judge for myself what passage to take ? " Agent, (blandly,) " Not at all, we sell third class tick- ets only to sailors and servants." Mr. B., " Well, then, I am a servant." Agent, (a little taken aback,) " What is the name of your master ? Does he go on the same boat ? " Mr. B., " My master at present is Necessity. I rather think he goes along with me." 232 mr. dunn Browne's Agent, (perceiving the joke,) "Monsieur Necessity is not booked for this trip, and the servant must always accompany his master, so you can't go in that capac- ity you see." Mr. B., finding that steamboat com- panies have no bowels, reluctantly drags out his last Napoleon from the shrunken recesses of his ex- hausted purse, pays for a second class ticket, and wonders how much of a breakfast he can get in Genoa for the franc and a half change he receives. Genoa is a city of bookbinders and the very para- dise of bill-stickers. There is here no defence against paste. Every wall, house, palace, and shop is cov- ered with notices, advertisements, all sorts of hand- bills. The palaces of this " city of palaces " are shams mostly, nothing but an imposing front and magnificent staircase. Recollecting that there ought to be some autograph letters of Columbus to be seen somewhere in Genoa, proceeded to make inquiries w T hich became at last rather extensive and resulted in the statistical facts, that there are probably in all five Genoese who have heard of Christopher Colum- bus, one of whom is the proprietor of the " Hotel of the Great Columbus," and another of the " Cafe Co- lumbus ; " that three persons in the city have heard of the letters and assigned to me three distinct places of deposit for them, all which I visited inef- EXPERIENCES IN" FOREIGN PARTS. 233 fectually, but did at last find them in a palace where the porter had twice sent me away with the most strenuous denial of their existence. They are in Spanish, very legible, and have recently been placed under glass, because a gentleman from Boston tore off and carried away a corner of one of them. Here I ought to mention the most remarkable and astonishing incident that ever'occurred in the whole range of my experience. The custodian- of those let- ters deliberately and decisively refused the two francs fee I offered him for showing them to me ! And he manifested no other evidence of derangement either. The people of Genoa seem the busiest of all races? especially in contrast with the lazy Italians and Turks whom we have been accustomed to see for the last few months. They make velvets and silk goods, oceans of books, vast quantities of cabinet furniture, and iron bedsteads enough for all the world to sleep upon, as well as enough to keep all the world awake with the clatter of making them. The women are not so universally black-eyed as in the rest of Italy, dress somewhat plainly, but wear a very neat and graceful headdress consisting of a simple breadth of white lace thrown over the head and falling about the shoulders. 234 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S P. S. — Mr. B. has relieved himself from the pecu- niary difficulties above referred to, after the manner of most of the great European Powers, by negotiat- ing a loan. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 235 CHAPTER LI I. THE NIGHT DILIGENCE. Probably you have all of you a more or less definite idea of the meaning of the word "frontier," but if you wish to go into all its niceties, to get a realizing sense of its length, breadth, and depth, you must come to Italy. Here is the Italian for " Crossing- a Frontier" The Diligence which left Turin (I should say No- vara, which is connected with Turin by railway,) at nine, P. M., is rolling sluggishly along over the mac- adamized road. The six inside passengers, whereof your correspondent is (a corner) one, are coiled up in various uncomfortable positions, trying to unite to- gether little broken naps into a connected sleep. A cloud of pulverized stone is depositing itself in gray strata over the persons of the slumbering travellers, settling in their hair and whiskers, filling up the wrinkles, drifting into the corners of the eyes and mouth, titillating the nasal passages, gradually chok- 236 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S ing Dp the air-vessels in the lungs, and diffusing it- self generally along with the atmosphere. Suddenly, all these interesting processes are suspended by the coach's stopping in front of a low, black building, recognizable at once by an old traveller as a custom- house. The everlasting policeman calls for the ever- lasting passports, and the conductor requests the pas- sengers to descend, and descend we accordingly do, coughing, spitting, and choking with the avalanches of dust which take that opportunity to descend also from our coats and hats. Ladders are placed against the sides of the huge diligence, porters mount and bring down all our sacks, trunks, portmanteaus, and bandboxes, not forgetting to ask a " buono mano," which is the Italian for " backsheesh," from each one of us for the operation. Then the baggage all goes into a large room, on one side of a great bench, and we on the other, every thing is unlocked, rummaged, re-locked and packed again on the top of the Dili- gence, the porters not forgetting to ask you for another " buono mano " for putting it up again. Then we are marched off in Indian file to the pass- port room, and one by one, answering to our names, (dreadfully mispronounced,) receive back the docu- ments with the small charge of four francs attached to each. " For what?" ask we. " Oh, for the per- EXPERIENCES IN EOEEIGN PARTS. 237 mission to leave Sardinia, the vise of the Minister of Foreign Affairs." " Ah, the Minister of Foreign Af- fairs lives here in this little frontier town, does he, and sits up till one o'clock at night to attend to our passes? " " No, he lives at Turin, but has an agent here." " All right, happy to pay any reasonable amount for the privilege of leaving your blessed coun- try," exclaimed my friend in the opposite corner, who wasn't apt to be in a very amiable frame of mind when broken of his rest, and we rolled on in a cloud of entirely new dust, evincing by its taste a totally different geological formation of the country we were, entering from that we nad just left. But scarcely had the grumblings of my irritable friend ceased, as his head subsided again into the dusty cushions, when, lo ! the coach draws up for the second time before a long, low building, the very counterpart of the other, and the demand for pass- ports is renewed by a policeman in a dress of differ- ent and still uglier pattern. " What," exclaimed my friend, starting to his feet in a theatrical manner, " must I go over this confounded performance again, in my dreams ? " Having enlightened him as to the precise state of the case, and succeeded at last in fully waking him, we descended, and composedly went through the examination of selves, passes, and 238 ME. DUNN BEOWNE'S baggage for entering Austrian Lombardy, in the same manner as we had already done for leaving Sardinian Piedmont. When the officer asked me if I had any thing subject to duty among my effects, I showed him the little carpet bag weighing eight pounds which had formed my only " impedimenta " for six months, and told him I really didn't know whether shirts were dutiable in the Austrian domin- ions or not, but there were three which had been ex- amined thirteen times within a few weeks, and he was welcome to inspect them again. He smiled as he told me I need n't trouble myself to unlock, and passed on. Now this little sketch of frontier experience is only a simple, unexaggerated, every-day incident of travel in Italy, — examination to go out of and to go into every separate state, if it isn't larger than an Il- linois corn field. And the trouble and expense incur- red in the capitals in the way of vise's and police ex- penses is far greater than at the frontiers. Already has my poor passport cost me twenty-five dollars in six weeks' Italian experience, a sum considerably greater than I have yet contributed in taxes to my own government. But perhaps we ought not to grudge to these poverty-stricken Italian governments one of their chief sources of revenue. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 239 CHAPTER LI II. ON FOOT AMONG THE ALPS. Sivitzerland, July, 1856. You may think this is so small and insignificant a country that the above is quite a definite location for the date of a letter, but after walking over its hills and mountains a couple of weeks, as I have done, you would change your mind, and conclude that Switzerland is a land of respectable size after all. Indeed, my only reason for not being more precise in dating is that I have really forgotten exactly where I am when inditing this epistle, so long a time has since elapsed, for though I am ap- parently here and now, yet as a matter of fact I am away down in Holland, and in the latter part of next week. Hoping that this somewhat meta- physical explanation may be perfectly satisfactory, I proceed to remark that the reason why Switzer- land occupies no larger space on the map, is prob- ably the same which led the Scotchman to assert 240 mr. dunn browne's that his own country was larger than England, if it were only flattened out. This country is so folded and wrinkled up like the hide of a rhinoceros that, of course, it does n't get its rights among the family of nations. I hope that when the Great Powers " revise the map of Europe," as they have so often threatened to do of late, they will bear this in mind, and not crowd Switzerland into a mere little red daub between great yellow France and blue Austria, as has hitherto been done. The experiences of your correspondent amidst the Alps have not been very remarkable, save that, of course, every clay he has walked it has rained hard, and every day he has proceeded by diligence it hasn't rained at all, but been quite hot and dusty. The "order of our going," during our recent pedes- trian excursion of ten or twelve days, over the .prin- cipal mountain passes, has been something on this wise. First advances our forlorn hope, the Professor, with enthusiasm in his eye, and a stick cut from the top of Parnassus in his hand, (which stick he is perpetually dropping and picking up,) with unflag- ging step, and unfailing cheerfulness, with an eye for every picturesque view, an ear for each echo of the Alpine horn, and a handful of coppers for every beggar that accosts him. Deeming it his duty to be EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 241 romantic, at least this once in his life, he conscien- tiously goes into ecstacies over every glacier, scru- pulously makes the appropriate quotations at the sub- lime points of view, hears the roar of an avalanche in every thunder crash, looks sharp for a chamois on each projecting crag, and sees a William Tell in every mountain shepherd boy. Next, with alert step and beaming countenance, with a quotation from Byron or a scrap of song on his lips, bearing a huge Alpenstock, to which he pertinaciously clings under some insane notion that the heavy thing assists him in climbing, comes our youthful Richard. He sports an unexceptionable moustache, is our oracle on all matters of dress, and gives very liberally to the little maidens who lie in wait for us at every corner to sing the " Ranz des vaches." He has a habit of occasionally indulging in a "quiet laugh," which can be easily heard at a dis- tance of three miles, and fully intends to purchase an umbrella if the rain does n't cease within a fortnight. Last of all, under a slouched hat which the Pro- fessor has at last, after repeated controversy, ac- knowledged to be a worse looking tile than his own, appears your veritable historian, bringing up the rear with plodding steps, caring little for the pelting of the rain upon his own person, but watching as a 16 242 mr. dunn browne's mother for an infant over the safety of a small packet of provisions which he refuses to intrust to any- other care, stopping occasionally to pluck a dande- lion, (of which he has an extensive collection gathered in various quarters of the world,) delighting at times in getting before his companions by a short cut, so as to sit down quietly on a stone, and enjoy their astonishment on coming up, rejoicing especially to get to the end of the day's journey, and, if the truth must be told, not quite able to perceive the amusement of walking thirty miles a day in the rain. The Professor is classical, Richard is poetical, and Mr. Browne is decidedly practical. When we pass along the base of a perpendicular Alpine peak of granite, Richard calls it a cloud-capped giant, the Professor terms it one of nature's grand old Gothic cathedrals, — while to Mr. Browne's matter-of-fact eyes it is just a great stone mountain. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 243 CHAPTER LIV. INDEPENDENCE AMONG THE CLOUDS. Summit of Rigi, July 4, 1856. Now mind, I don't wish to be understood at all as attempting to disparage clouds, in a general way. They are exceedingly poetical, no doubt, floating in the blue ether over our heads, of a summer's day, or in a storm, forming the dark background for the lightning's fiery pictures. They are also not only ornamental but useful occasionally, in shielding us from the burning rays of the sun, hot days, and on rainy days, in promoting the growth of vegetables, as well as the sale of umbrellas. But when you come up into the region of clouds, and can't see, feel, or taste any thing but cloud ; when you are soaked, drenched, completely satu- rated with cloud ; are compelled to eat cloud, drink cloud, breathe cloud ; thick cloud shutting off all prospect from your eyes and all hope from your heart ; cold cloud chilling the very marrow of your 244 mr. dunk - browne's bones, and standing in clammy drops on your brow; intrusive cloud that will not be shut out of your room by double windows, which forms a foggy halo round your candle, hangs a pall-like curtain about your bed, and piles itself in heavy folds upon you as you sleep, inspiring nightmare, unpleasant dreams of drowning, suffocation, boa-constrictors — ugh! I assure you, the enchantment of clouds diminishes in- versely as the square of the distance, and an inti- mate acquaintance with them destroys all poetry. Clouds, in short, like candies, gingerbread, kisses, courtship, and all other luxuries, mustn't be made too common. On the whole, it must be confessed this is not a favorable morning for ascending an Alpine moun- tain to get a view. There is not that variety and extent of prospect sometimes spoken of by travel- lers. My whole visible horizon at present com- prises a plat of ground three rods in diameter, one forlorn cow, three of the meekest of sheep, and several dripping, low-spirited hens. Indeed, " not to put too fine a point upon it," this climbing the Eigi to spend the Fourth of July, is a humbug, — a weary, moist, up-hill, tiresome, puffing, perspir- ing, chilly, foggy humbug ; to be surpassed only by that [national independence we this day celebrate, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 245 which is the most stupendous and deplorable hum- bug on the face of the earth if we are to judge by the goings on in Washington and in Kansas for the last twelvemonth. I cannot help thinking that the clouds and darkness which envelop us here on this Alpine summit, as we forlornly celebrate our nation's birthday, are a fitting emblem of the present condition and future prospects of our beloved country. We discern one gleam of light, however, in the great republican movement. now happily inaugurated, and send up a united shout for "Freedom and Fremont," which quite astonishes the inhabitants of these be- nighted regions, and calls forth a responsive crow from the undismayed chanticleer of the establish- ment. We have just been examining by (means of an excellent map) the magnificent panorama (in) visi- ble from the summit of Rigi, and surely the most vivid imagination can hardly picture to itself any thing at all approaching the glorious reality. Far in the distance the lofty peaks of the Bernese Alps, thrusting their heads up through their covering of snow, like naughty giants that won't stay buried, • but must be continually poking their noses out of their windingsheet; near at hand the peaceful lakes of Lucerne and Zug, slumbering below us, like gen- 246 me. dunn browne's tie maidens taking their rest, with a drapery of green forests wrapped gracefully about them, and white villages glittering like gems upon their breast; north, east, and west, good old Mother Earth smiling upon us, clothed in her rich gingham of cultivated fields, with the rivers Reuss and Aar flowing like silver rib- bons over her ample bosom, and doubling themselves into more curious knots and bows than ever blessed the dreams of Parisian milliner; to the south-west the white veiled novice Jungfrau, lifting her head in virgin purity towards heaven as it were in worship ; while over against her, to the north-west, grim Pila- tus, with a wreath of thunderclouds round his brow T , frowns upon the edifying spectacle. Dear me! I am not at all certain I could have written you so poetical a description if it were not for the clouds and mists that have concealed the reality from my view. Yours, dimly. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 247 CHAPTER LV. DOWN THE RHINE. Everybody goes down the Rhine, and therefore, of course, I did. Everybody has written a descrip- tion of it, and therefore, of course, I shall not. An equally good reason in both cases, though the con- clusions arrived at are a little contradictory. Be- cause, for instance, everybody wears coats, therefore you and I must needs do the same, but if everybody were becoming tailors that would not be a good reason for our taking to the goose ; on the contrary, we should be geese if we did. Because everybody reads the Republican is a sufficient reason (even if there were not others still better) for my reading it, but if everybody should take to writing for it, I should stop. The Rhine is a very large river, (although it is not in America,) with its scenery generally flat and un- interesting, bnt about one hundred miles of it, from Rudesheim to Bonn is just as picturesque and beau- 248 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S tiful as it has been, or can be described to be ; an ever varying succession of the wildest ravines, the raggedest cliffs, the most verdant meadows, the neat- est vineyards, the most delightful old brigand castles, mountains, villages, churches, ruins, echoes, palaces, forests, historical associations, fairy legends, ghosts, giants, grottos, and caverns ; nothing but poetry, chivalry, romance, and enchantment, all which our party entered into with the greatest zest, seated on the deck of our steamer, wrapped in all the overcoats, shawls, and blankets we could muster; for this month of July here in Europe has been so much like a New England March, that you couldn't tell the two apart if you saw them side by side, unless it were by an occasional patch of snow-bank on the back of the latter. The Professor rubbed his hands together, sometimes with the cold, and sometimes with enthu- siasm, as a sudden turn in the river unfolded a par- ticularly glorious scene before our eyes. "Our Richard" shivered, now with emotion at the recital of some dark legend connected with a ruined tower we were passing, and now from the effects of the blast which swept up against us from the north. As to the third individual in that trio of worthies, (ex- cuse my not being more definite ; " modesty," etc.,) it would have done your heart good to see with what EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 249 bravery and constancy he clung to his Murray through rain and cold, with an eye on either bank to catch every tower and ruin and castle as we glided by, and a finger to check off the same on the page of the infallible red-covered handbook. Ah who so happy as he when his task was over, and we were relieved from our watch on deck by the announce- ment of the veracious Murray that the scenery below Bonn was tame and uninteresting. And here I think I may be allowed an apostrophe, a figure of speech, in which you must acknowledge, dear reader, I don't often indulge. Oh, thou pre- cious companion of continental travellers, indispen- sable Murray ! Who can estimate the blessings which thy score of ponderous volumes (at the small charge of ten and sixpence each) have inflicted on tourists of every age, sex, and condition ? How comfortable, on all occasions, amidst the works of nature and of art, before a cascade or a cartoon, to know exactly when to admire, and how much to ad- mire, what to praise and what to criticize, to have your emotions measured out to you in appropriate doses, your canons of criticism always ready charged under your arm, to be never in danger of making mis- takes in praising or sneering at the wrong thing, to have your whole tour properly punctuated for you, the 250 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S exclamation points and notes of admiration thrown in correctly. Ah me! What a pity that the diminutive size of my carpet-bag has prevented me from carrying this whole red-covered library around with me! I am afraid I have admired many things at which I ought to have turned up my nose in disgust, and found fault with other things which were faultless, thus misleading and perverting the taste of others in these poor letters of mine, which were intended solely for their instruction and improvement. And then, looking at the matter merely in a pe- cuniary point of view, just see how well Murray re- pays the various ten shillings and sixpences invested in him. By his aid, even in this short ramble of four weeks through Switzerland and down the Rhine, I have seen no less than four " magnificent views," each of which " is worth the journey from England to see," that is, at a low estimate, one hundred dol- lars apiece, two that " repay one for crossing the At- lantic," and of course, at the present high rates of passage couldn't be called less than three hundred dollars each, three or four others (say three) that are unrivalled, and therefore must be worth as much as the preceding, but to be moderate we will call them two hundred dollars each and see how the bill foots up:— EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. . 251 Four landscape views of Alps, etc., $100 each, $400 Two " " " at 300 " 600 Three " " " 200 " 600 Total, $1,600 This, too, not including sundry smaller affairs, cas- cades, waterfalls, glaciers, picturesque hamlets, etc. etc., which, at the most liberal discount for "taking the lot," would probably swell the amount to two thousand dollars at least, and all, be it remembered, in four weeks. As I had firmly resolved never to return to Amer- ica till I had seen Holland, I left my companions at Cologne and went on down the Rhine to Utrecht and Middleburgh and Amsterdam, in which, as well as the other Dutch cities, I climbed up all the high towers, resolutely disregarding the complaints of my pedal extremities, and thus probably saw as much of this delectable country as most travellers do, at least I saw it all several times over, and very refresh- ing to the eye is the tame, regular, chequered scenery of Holland, the straight rows of trees and the placid canals, after the wild, ragged, irregular, rough-and- tumble landscapes of Switzerland. After all the ecstasies people go into over the picturesque, roman- tic, and sublime, give me a good, honest Dutch landscape, with some fat cows and a few rows of cabbages in it. 252 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER LVI. EEPOSES IN HOLLAND. I have just returned from Broek, " the cleanest village in the world," containing twelve hundred in- habitants, situate about five miles (or three hours ride in a Dutch canal boat) from Amsterdam. It is indeed a very clean place, but a strict regard for truth compels me to say that I saw considerable dirt in one of the cabbage gardens, and the gate handle of one backyard was not scoured to that degree of brightness I had been led to expect. Moreover, in the only stable that I visited, the cows' tails were not tied up to the beams above with blue ribbons, as I had read in the accounts of travellers, and the in- quiries which I instituted on this point have resulted in convincing me that this is a mere pleasant exag- geration indulged in by those waggish narrators, and bv no means a literal fact. The streets are not streets at all, but neat, little, brick-paved walks wind- ing about in various directions among the houses, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 253 sometimes in front and sometimes in the rear, con- fined by curiously-wrought wooden or iron fences, or perhaps here and there by a hedge closely clipped and. carved into fantastic shapes. The houses have no resemblance to one another, and are so difficult to be described and to get a proper idea of when de- scribed, that I shall leave them to your imagination, assuring you that whatever pictures you may form to yourselves of them will be certain to be totally wrong. The trees are short, chubby, and symmetrical, having a decidedly artificial appearance, educated quite too much like many persons of my acquaintance. The men seemed to be all absent from the town. The women had their dresses pinned up behind, every one a scrubbing brush in her hand, and a pail of soap-suds by her side. The children were just let out from school, and ranging themselves in rows each side of the way, cap in hand, slate under the arm and satchel on the back, saluted me with great gravity and politeness. Obtained the guidance of a pair of them, little blue-eyed, white-aproned girls, with caps on such as my grandmother used to wear, who conducted me to a large dairy, where I was in- itiated into all the curious mysteries of Dutch cheese-making by a damsel as fair and round, and solid, as any cheese of them all. Returned to my 254 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S canal boat in a state of great self-satisfaction at hav- ing seen so much of this paragon of Dutch towns, and rode dreamily back to Amsterdam, seated by the side of the huge skipper, who only opened his mouth to emit smoke, and directed all the move- ments of his crew, (i. e. the helmsman and the boy who rode the horse,) by waving his pipe. The canals hereabouts are ten or fifteen feet higher than the adjacent country, and it is curious enough to see the canal boats in the distance, and even sometimes a large ship with its masts all standing, gliding along on a level with the housetops, plunging into a group of windmills or haystacks, and bringing up at last on the roofs apparently of a remote vil- lage. Amsterdam is an amphibious city, half land and two-thirds water ; most of the streets being canals and drawbridges ; very nearly another Venice with- out the gondolas and faded palaces and historical associations ; in short, a neat, clean, Dutch Venice built of bricks and colored tiles. It is the finest brick- built city in the world without a doubt. Nothing but seeing can give you any idea of the wonderful variety of beautiful and picturesque forms into which Dutch architects will contrive to pile up bricks. No two houses will be alike, each will be a EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 255 study of itself, and yet there will be a general resem- blance enough to preserve the proper uniformity of a street. I wandered about Amsterdam nearly a week without ever getting tired of its streets and ca- nals, of its clean, healthy-looking people, (it is my deliberate opinion, which I am prepared to defend to the last extremity, that the Dutch are the handsome- est and the politest race of people on the face of the globe,) of its plump jolly ships, its warehouses, wharves, bridges, and dykes, of its tall spires, huge organs, fat palaces, and resplendent picture galleries. Leaving Amsterdam, your correspondent attended a festival at Haarlem where seventy-five thousand Dutchmen were assembled to do honor to the mem- ory of Coster, an ingenious ancestor of theirs, whom they persist in calling the true, first, and sole inventor of the art of printing, to the utter exclusion of the claims of Guttemburg, who, not being a Dutchman, of course could n't have hit upon the invention. Afterwards, we proceeded to the Hague, where is the finest park of beech trees that can be imagined, and Paul Potter's celebrated picture of the Bull, to say nothing about a few palaces and kings and princes that we hadn't time to visit: buried our- selves one day in the dead old city of Leyden, of Pilgrim memory, and passed through Rotterdam on 256 mr. dunn beowne's out of Holland into Belgium to the good city of Ant- werp, where is the only really admirable picture Rubens ever painted, the "Descent from the Cross," as well as many other notable things, and whence we shall soon embark for " Merrie England." EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 257 CHAPTER LVII. UTTERLY DISREGARDS THE CONSEQUENCES. [Mr. B. bids an affecting farewell to his Passport as the chalky cliffs of England come again in sight.] Pooe, torn, ragged, patched, and mended, Thou hast been to me a friend most dear,, But now 's thy faithful service ended, For at length old England's shores are near> Thine eagle oft hath been my guard Amidst officials fat and saucy : Full oft the soldier grim and hard Hath quailed before the name of Marcy. Police no more shall scrutinize Thy vises, stamps, " permis de sejour," No more "gens d'armes" o'er thee look wise,. Thou hast received thy last " bon pour." My purse for thee shall bleed no more, Grim sentinel shall not harass, Besetting me at gate and door With that provoking, " Please Sir, your Pass." 17 258 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S How many sovereigns owe thee thanks ! Full oft the Pope on thee hath fed, Napoleon's had from thee some francs, For Bomba thou hast freely bled. Thou'st greased Emmanuel's moustache, As well as lined the Sultan's pockets, Thou'st helped Franz Joseph cut a dash, And paid for Leopold's festive rockets. From thee and from thy fellows, too, The Duke of Tuscany extracts his Most important revenue ; You are his best and surest taxes. Of every tongue and language, on thy back, Thou hast, I do believe, a scrawl : 'T would puzzle Elihu, the " Learned Black- ..Smith's" self, I ween, to read them all. 'O'er thee hath many a Dutchman sputtered, Italian raved and Saxon swore, il Sacre " full oft the Frenchman's uttered, Thou'st vexed the German's patience sore- Wise men and fools have o'er thee pondered, Drunken men and sober, men of sense and asses, Sane men, men whose wits had wandered, Men with glass eyes, men with eye-glasses. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 259 Some -who would hold thee upside down, And some again who would n't ; Some who could read thy name, " Dunn Browne," And others still who could n't. To be sure it has been a terrible bore, A year to carry thee ever about me, But I fear that it would have troubled me more, To have started away without thee. Go, then, my Pass, hide thee in peace 'Way down in the depths of my valise ; Ah, well, my dear Muse, if any one else is wait- ing for you, don't let me detain you. I am aware that such verses must cause you. considerable lacera- tion of nerves, so I- won't trouble you again if I can possibly help it. That's the way the sea acts upon me ; instead of making me sick it makes me produce sickly rhymes. This is London, is it? Of course it is. I know it by the whole five of my senses, especially those of taste and smell; I know it by the thick cloud of black smoke, by the grim, sooty houses, by the hor- rible swearing of the sailors and porters, by the crowding and hustling, the universal atmosphere of fog and of freedom, of industry and incivility, of comfort and grumbling. I know it by the everlast- 260 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S ing thunder of the 'buses and drays, and by the mur- mur of the perpetual crowd of foot-passengers ; I know it by the " haitches " and the " wes " of the cockney pronunciation, by the cut of the whiskers, by the ruddy faces and portly forms, signs of health and unlimited beer,, I know it by the dark dome of St. Paul's, (which I saw once before during the three weeks of my former visit to London,) by the Monu- ments, by beautiful Westminster Abbey, and the gingerbread work of the Houses of Parliament. In fact I am quite certain that it is London, and that is enough. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 261 CHAPTER LVIIL MERRIE ENGLAND. England is the only country in the world that is all finished, perfectly complete, the scaffoldings taken down and the rubbish picked up. There are no odds and ends lying around loose, no out of the way corners where the work has been slighted, nothing any where but will bear the closest inspection. It doesn't make any difference which direction you take for an excursion into the country. Go down to the south-west to the region of Plymouth and Exeter and Bath, and you will think yourself in the loveliest part of England and of the world. Go on up to Stratford on Avon and Warwick Castle and Kenilworth, and you will find it hard to believe such beauty can exist anywhere out of paradise besides. Come back to the immediate vicinity of London, to Windsor Park, Richmond Hill, Hampton Court, or off again to Derbyshire, visit Chatsworth and Mat- lock Bath, go down into fertile Kent, or away north 262 MB. DUNN BROWNE'S to the Cumberland Lakes, or across into Yorkshire, or take the opposite direction and roam a week over the Isle of Wight, go anywhere, take any train, or if you miss that, take any other train and stop at any station, or better still get on the top of any stages coach and ride till it stops. You can't go amiss. Wherever you go you will be thankful you took that particular direction rather than any other. Go by rail, 'bus, coach, or cab, but don't take a private con- veyance. If you allow any fat, smooth-faced inn- keeper to seduce you into hiring a one-horse " trap " to take you across the country at " a shilling a mile," in the first place you will find that it is an incredible number of miles to the place you wish to reach, then again you will come to a toll-gate with a sixpence to pay every two or three miles, you will have a six- pence to pay for "'olding your hoss" at every place you stop, you will have an unexpected demand made at the end of your journey of three-pence a mile for the driver, and lastly you will have the consolation of being passed on the road by a coach which left the place you started from about an hour after you, bound for the same place with yourself, and which would have carried you there in half the time at one fifth of the price. I speak from experience. Be- ware of " traps," especially of " one-horse traps." EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 263 Then, when you stop at a place, go by all means to an inn and not to a hotel. They have the best inns and the worst hotels in England of any country in the world. The stiff staring hotels are fast crowd- ing out the good old-fashioned, straggling, many-ga- bled inns, so that soon, alas, England will be worse than Egypt to travel in, but so long as a single inn of the old style remains, don't fail to take up your quar- ters there if you. wish to know what real comfort is. The most astonishing thing about England is the immense expenditure of money everywhere, the rich- ness, solidity, and expense of all the public works and the private buildings also, even in the remotest nooks and corners of the island. ] never saw real estate so condensed, so much of it occupying so little ground. I never saw gold spread out so thickly over the whole face of a country. Every thing you see appears to be steeped in money, fed on money, made of money, representative of a vast money value. The fog looks as if it would coin up into dollars, the crops waving over the fields are rich golden harvests, the sheep and cattle grazing in the pastures are fat, solid, peri- patetic bank-notes, every acre of ground is a bursting purse of gold, the very roads are macadamized with pounded golden ore, the sturdy old oaks seem to have been nourished with the true " circulating me- 264 me. dunn Browne's dium," the houses stand up firm and strong as if no amount of mortgages could have the slightest effect upon them, real estate seems nowhere else so real and substantial as here. It is here more than any- where else difficult to realize the fact that riches may- take to themselves wings and fly away. What broad, strong wings would it take to bear away those solid stone buildings, those apoplectic factories, those broad acres, those rich mines, those inexhaustible coal-beds ! Could I charter sufficient wing-power I would at least fly away to America with one of the beautiful English parks, with its verdant turf and its tastefully arranged trees, even if I had to transport also a whole skyful of mists and showers to keep it fresh and green. I am afraid we can't have, in our country, with its bright skies, a real English park, any more than they can have one of our glorious many-colored autumnal landscapes. But the Eng- lish landscape retains its freshness nearly through the year. Ours is beautiful a little while in the spring and glorious again in the autumn for a few days be- fore its death. So the fogs and rains of Old England are not without their redeeming features, if such things can be said to have features indeed. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 265 CHAPTER LIX. ENGLISH UNIVERSITY TOWNS. 1 AM going to see at once about getting a Fellow- ship in one of the rich old colleges at Oxford or Cam- bridge. A nice suite of rooms in one of those jolly nooks of halls, with smoothly shaven lawns and noble groves to study and take one's pleasure in, with cultivated companions and endless stores of books to solace one's self withal, with an abundance of lit- erary leisure and the best of society, with a wise pro- vision against your committing the folly of matri- mony, with nothing at all to do, and twelve or fifteen hundred dollars a year to do it with, it really strikes me that such a path in life as that would present about as few thorns and briars as almost any that a man can walk in. And yet there is occasionally an infatuated son of Adam who will allow some fair daughter of Eve to tempt him even from such a paradise as this. Such is mankind, since the for- bidden fruit was tasted ! 266 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S It was vacation when we visited the university towns, and so we had to content ourselves with look- ing at the empty hives and the stores of honey that had been collected, without seeing the bees, either workers or drones, either the " reading " men or the " rowing " men. The two towns are very nearly of equal beauty. The Oxford building material crumbles more easily, and hence the old towers and colleges look more ancient and venerable, but I cannot help thinking Cambridge quite as lovely. King's College Chapel at Cambridge is much finer than any thing of the kind at Oxford, but the latter again can show the most splendid dining hall, and this last is the great institution of an English college or any thing else that is English. The dinner is the great centre about which an Englishman's thoughts and plans all re- volve, and when he founds a college, the first thing to be attended to, is to provide a magnificent dining saloon for its inmates ; the next, a beautiful chapel, and if there happen to be any funds left, why, the li- braries and professorships, and such minor matters may come in for the crumbs, so to speak, that fall from the dinner-table. Another curious feature, and which shows the exclusiveness of the English charac- ter everywhere is, that there is no public room of EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 267 any size connected with either of the universities, any more than there is for the accommodation of the Lords and Commons in the new Houses of Parlia- ment in London, or for any one else's accommoda- tion in any other place that I think of now. The number of undergraduates in Oxford, or in Cam- bridge, is from fifteen hundred to two thousand, and the Senate House in each university, where the dig- nitaries meet on anniversary occasions to confer honorary degrees, where addresses and poems are delivered, etc, will not seat more than five hundred persons conveniently, and cannot, I should think, hold in any way, sitting or standing, a thousand. It is only for a few privileged individuals to get access to any thing in this country. There is more trouble and difficulty, very frequently, in getting in to hear a debate in Parliament, than there is in getting elected to our Congress, if you are of the right party, that is. Nothing is made large enough to hold half the peo- ple who want to get into it, or if it is, the admission is hedged about with so many annoyances and de- lays that you give it up rather than take the trouble. Such a simple thing as getting admission to the li- brary of the British Museum I couldn't accomplish, at least without taking more pains than the thing was worth. But we are getting back to London 268 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S again, I see, in obedience to the irresistible townward tendency of every thing in England, so perhaps it won't be worth while for us to return to Cambridge for the sake of visiting together John Milton's mul- berry tree in Christ College garden, and one or two other interesting things I had thought of taking you to see. Let us go to the zoological gardens instead, and see the Hippopotamus, for "seeing the elephant" is quite out of date in London, and cockneys for two or three years past have devoted their zoological attention exclusively to the hippopotamus, who is much more of a sight, weighing, (though yet com- paratively in its infancy.) from two to three tons, and opening a mouth like the crater of a volcano, about as destructive, too, to the wheat-fields, as any moder- ate volcano I ever read of. Perhaps we may as well step in also at Madame Tussaud's and see her star- ing wax models of the principal murderers, orators, warriors, lawyers, kings, and other scourges of human- ity, all in the " 'ighest style of hart," the delight and pride of the cockneys. Then, to finish up the even- ing, we may drop into Evans' Eating Rooms for a bit of supper, accompanied by the greatest variety of music it was ever your lot to hear and see, a perfect jumble of the sentimental and the warlike, the EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 269 pathetic and the funny, the love-madrigal, the Ethi- opian minstrel and the " ghost in Hamlet," presented by a man dressed half in scale armor and half in a shroud, half Hamlet and half ghost. 270 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER LX. THE JEDBURG BORDER GAMES. Attracted by the announcement, on a huge pla- card pasted hard by the entrance of Melrose Abbey, that the ancient and honorable athletic games of the Scottish border were to be celebrated at Jedburg, -on the young Marquis of Mid-Lothian's birthday, my friend, " William the Conqueror," and myself crowded Abbotsford into a short morning pedes- trian excursion, and at nine o'clock wedged ourselves into an overloaded special train which was " drag- ging its slow length " along to the appointed scene of the sports. Our old anaconda having disgorged its thousand victims, happy in our escape, we wended our way through the crooked streets of the straggling town, which was all gay with flags and banners and bonnie lassies streaming with ribbons ; past the old abbey, which allowed a few smiles of sunlight to play across its dilapi- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 271 dated red sand-stone countenance, as if in honor of the great occasion ; away on to a pretty, modest hill, all blushing with heather, where some thousands of people, mostly of the laboring classes, but well dressed and very well behaved, were assembled to witness the contests. A quadrangle, perhaps five hundred feet by three hundred, with ranges of seats rising above each other all around, with a band of music under a canopy at one end, and a large tent for the accommodation of the performers at the other, occupied the brow of the hill. Hundreds of booths and tents were erected outside for the refreshment of the spectators. Just within the inclosure, hung on the little banners, were the prizes to be awarded to the victors in the various games, consisting mostly of gay articles of dress and or- namental wear, coats of many colors, embroidered vests, Highland caps, plaids, a nice pair of boots for the victor in the foot-race, a richly embroidered girdle valued at fifty dollars for the best wrestler, etc., which articles, when awarded, were exhibited to the admiring crowd on the persons of the victors, with a great air of triumph and exultation. Within the quadrangle strutted the umpires and judges and marshals, looking as wise as owls, as dignified as donkeys, and as proud as turkey-cocks. 272 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S The performances going on at our arrival were feats of leaping, the perpendicular and the hori- zontal leap, the " hop, step, and jump," and various other varieties. Next came wrestling by little boys, some of whom were not more than six years old, and it was altogether as pretty a display of science and agility as the day had to afford us. The gravity with which the little fellows shook hands to show that they bore no malice, the magnanimity they dis- played in raising a fallen foe, and the stoicism they manifested to the praises of the spectators, were lessons in human nature. The victor was a little ten year old, who spread out half a dozen larger boys just as fast as they could come on and take hold. The next performance was a smart shower of rain, which was thinly attended by the spectators, most of whom preferred a wetting up of a different kind in the booths above referred to. Then suc- ceeded feets of hurling, cannon balls of various. sizes being the projectiles used. A slight, consumptive looking youth carried away the first prize in this sturdy contest, having thrown the fifty-six pound cannon ball nearly thirty feet, if I understood the announcement correctly. The interest of the crowd now became greatly excited in a hurdle race. The competitors, about a dozen in number, ran out from EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 273 the inclosure three hundred yards, leaping six hur- dles or bars four feet high, in their course, and then returned over the same ground. It was quite a spirited affair, the victor passing no less than three men in the last thirty feet, and coming in less than half a yard before the favorite, who had kept the lead from the first, and was a famous runner from England. After a recess of half an hoar for rest, (which op- portunity was faithfully improved by the rain,) we gathered again together to witness the grand affair of the day, the wrestling match, the most famous champions of this time-honored border sport being gathered from all quarters. The wrestlers wore flesh-colored tights and stockings only ; clasped hands together behind each other's shoulders, one arm over, the other under, and the contest was usually very quickly decided. Some of the feats of strength were tremendous. A noted young champion, Scott of Carlisle, pulled from his feet a gigantic antagonist, nearly twice his own weight, whirled him completely round in the air twice, and left him gently extended on his back. First, there were many separate single matches, and then one grand trial where winners were" matched with winners, and the last man up was to be the victor. Finally, 18 274 ME. DUNN erowne's Scott of Carlisle, who had thrown every opponent in a long series of encounters, and a young shepherd from Jedburg, who had been successful against all comers, in a series alternating with the first, were - brought into the lists for the last decisive struggle, to decide which should be champion. The shep- herd, a tall lad, rough and ungainly, but of tremen- dous strength, was hitherto unknown to fame, and now trembled with hope and fear as the final trial approached. Scott, slight, but a perfect model of manly strength and grace, came smilingly and care- lessly forward, looking really as if he would be glad to have the shepherd boy gain the prize. They shook hands, the heralds waved a little yellow flag over the head of each, and proclaimed their name and residence, then, amidst a breathless stillness in that vast and excited crowd, the combatants threw their arms about each other as if for a fraternal em- brace. Scott experienced much difficulty in bringing his hands together about the burly shoulders of his tall opponent, but succeeding at last in clasping them, he bowed that huge frame together in a grasp like that of a tiger seizing a buffalo, and in the twinkling of an eye extended him on the sand with face to the sky. But the valiant young shepherd, gathering courage from defeat, claimed his right to demand EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 275 three trials instead of one, in the last contest, and in the next encounter, seized Scott in his long arms, with a strength perfectly irresistible, lifted him from the ground like a baby to his breast, and laid him gently on his back. And the third trial, too, after a long and doubtful struggle between superior skill and superior strength, was decided against the re- doubted Scott, and Jemmy Davidson, the raw shep- herd boy, whom nobody knew as a wrestler, re- ceived the first prize, and was declared the champion of all the border. The joy of the crowd, especially those from Davidson's own neighborhood, was in- tense, and their enthusiasm unbounded. They hugged him and kissed him, carried him upon their shoulders, and shouted his name till they were hoarse. His good-natured antagonist joined his congratulations to those of the crowd, and seemed in nowise cast down by his defeat. The rest of the games, the blindfold hurdle race, the jumping in sacks, the wheelbarrow race and oth- er comical sports which concluded the day, we did not stop to see, for the day, which had been unusu- ally fair for the British Isles, having only indulged in two showers and three drizzles, about this time re- lapsed into a settled rain, and we took the cars for Edinburgh, whither, I suppose, you wish we had started a good deal sooner. 276 mr. dunn Browne's CHAPTER LXI. EDINBORO THE LITERARY. This " modern Athens " has really quite a resem- blance to her Grecian prototype, even if we say nothing about the Parthenon out on Calton Hill which she has commenced erecting and which, with its dozen finished Doric columns, is already becoming a ruin that likens it still more to its great model. The hills about Edinboro are a little like those around Athens, the Edinboro Castle is something like the Acropolis, and there is a similar contrast be- tween the old and the new buildings, between the ancient and the modern towns of Edinboro and of Athens. The old and the new cities of Edinboro are on op- posite sides of a valley, and are still more opposite in character than in situation. One is as shabby as a New England deacon's every-day hat, and the other as clean and prim as his go-to-meeting one. They do all the dirty work, perform all the business, build EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 277 the sooty furnaces, make the noxious gases and en- gage in the every-day drudgery in the Old Town, and then go over into the New Town Sundays and holidays to church and to enjoy themselves. The Old Town is full of narrow, filthy lanes, which would be abated as nuisances in the most miserable Arab or Turkish or (worst of all) Italian city. The houses, tottering eleven-storied abominations, frequently fall. One had just crushed half a dozen people the day before we arrived. But the New City, with its broad streets, handsome squares, houses all of hewn stone, stately monuments, and rich churches, is as fine as gold and good taste and the absence of all business can make it. Holy rood Palace is interesting especially as show- ing what poor, miserable, ridiculous, accommoda- tions kings and queens had to put up with in former times. Why, Queen Mary's apartments in the shab- by old corner tower at Holyrood are not fit for a modern poet's garret. Queen's horses are better sta- bled now-a-days. Her supper room, where she was sitting at tea when Rizzio's murderers entered, is n't large enough for a tea-table to be spread in. She must have sat with her cup in her hand, if indeed she was drinking tea, I forget precisely the circum- stances. The door of her dressing-room is so low 278 # mr. dunn Browne's that she must have stooped to enter it, and the rest of her rooms are built altogether too much after the snail-shell order of architecture to suit the enlarged ideas of any modern queen. Her entire suite of apart- ments made into one, the whole second floor of the tower which she occupied, with the partitions knocked out, would but just contain a lady in the present full dress, and as for getting her in or out through any of the doors, it would be a ridiculous impossibility. The Gothic " Memorial to Walter Scott," of free- stone, two hundred feet high, is the finest monument I have ever seen, which is not saying much to be sure, for monuments are generally ugly things and insensibly induce us to associate some of their own deformity with the character of those they commem- orate, thus serving perhaps as useful warnings against ambition, but for all purposes of ornament to a city, a very useless expenditure. I put it to your conscience now, my dear reader, to tell me candidly, if you can say, on approaching a strange city, which are monuments and which are chimnies. I am free to acknowledge, (in confidence,) that I can't distin- guish the difference, -except that those tall, slender chimnies, of the steam manufactories and the gas works, seem much more elegantly shaped, and have EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 279 in addition graceful wreaths of smoke adorning their summits, which the monuments and columns cannot boast. And yet I never heard of a city's being proud of the number and beauty of its gas-chimnies, that I recollect. These remarks must be understood as applying to monuments in general- and not to the Scott memorial, which is really an ornament for any town to be proud of. These Scotch are a very nice people, both sensible and good-natured, who make you feel at home among them, just as the English, unless you have a hatful of introductions, make you feel that you are not at home, and several other nations I could name make you you wish you were at home. It has rained so constantly and perseveringly during our stay in Scotland, that we have confined our excursions to a simple crossing the country by way of Stirling, Callander, Lochs Katrine and Lo- mond, Dumbarton, and Glasgow. We were driven •. from Stirling to the Trossachs, past Bannockburn, over Allan water, and within sight of several roman- tic castles, by a poetical, red-nosed coachman, who spouted Scott's poetry the whole distance, and what with the fatigue of listening to him, and holding an umbrella over several unprotected females during a S heavy shower, and supporting a hysterical lassie over 2S0 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S all the bad places in the road with my encircling arm, I assure you, nothing but a strong sense of duty done, and the gratitude with which she pressed my hand as we descended from the top of the coach, could have adequately rewarded me for that day of sacrifice. The Scotch lakes are so so, and Glasgow is a tolerably well-built city. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 281 CHAPTER LXII. IN AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR. We have been in Ireland just long enough to ascer- tain that it really is inhabited by Irishmen, real gen- uine Paddies as ever voted the " Dimmycratic " ticket six times in a day at a New York city election. At the Killarney Races which we attended one rainy day, near the celebrated lakes of the same name, were gathered four or five thousand of the peasantry of that district, every man " with a stick in his fist," and a brave show they made of it. I have seen nothing that reminded me of America so much since & I left it. The countenances seemed familiar, I could recognize about half the faces as having been seen before. I should have expected that nearly all of them would affirm, upon inquiry, that they were " thrue native-born 'Merikan citizens." Fifty years ago there could n't have been such a gathering as met at the races, without a regular " faction fight," but the belligerent spirit of the race is getting much 282 mr. dunn Browne's calmed down of late. I saw no fight that day, nor indeed any day of our week's trip in Ireland, though one fiery little fellow, in the cars as we were ap- proaching the Cove of Cork, had to be prevented by his friends from demolishing a couple of Italians, who had the impudence to doubt his assertion, that an Irish soldier could easily whip three of any other nation on the globe. The country from Dublin to Cork is mostly level wheat and potato land, agreeably diversified with peat-bogs, and under poor cultivation, at least com- pared with England and Scotland. The stream of English gold, however, which has been turned upon the country of late years, is fast changing the bogs into meadows, redeeming the waste places, making the desert blossom with beautiful fields of grain and vegetables. There is no sort of irrigation that fertil- izes like a stream of gold. It is a manure that is adapted to all soils, and to seasons wet and dry. A thick coating of it, whether ploughed in or applied as a top-dressing, is pretty sure to tell on almost any kind of crop, and if I were about to commence farm- ing on a large scale in any country, I can think of nothing I should value more highly than a large ac- cumulation of this admirable yellow dust to apply as a fertilizer. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 283 The conveyances of every country are peculiar^ but the Irish Jaunting Car is the most peculiar and original, the drollest, craziest piece of locomotive fur- niture ever invented. It is eminently Irish ; every fragment of it (and it is all made up of fragments,) smacks of the brogue ; it seems a ridiculous bull to get into it at all. A shaky oblong box, mounted upon two rickety wheels about three feet apart, un- folding in the middle, lengthwise, into two seats that hang over outside the wheels, where you sit in pairs, back to back, with your rollicking driver in front, flogging his rawboned horse to the top of his speed, turning sharp corners, plunging through the crowded streets of a city, and rattling over the rough roads in the country, at the same headlong pace, if you can think of any more ridiculously danger- ous method of getting over the ground, I am sure it must be an Egyptian donkey-racing you are thinking of, and I can't quite agree with you there. And then the inimitable politeness with which your Jehu touches his hat and hopes "your honor is satisfied with the dhrivin' sure," and will "bestow a small thrifle to spind in dhrinkin' your health," is quite ir- resistible. Moreover I'm thinking that if you should encoun- ter that little girl, who s*old us some bog-oak orna- 284 MR. DUNN BKOWNE'S ments and laces in Dublin, you would be pretty cer- tain to invest a trifle in her wares, if there is any soft spot in you where the most " deludherin' " flat- tery can enter. Nearly all the Irish must have made a pilgrimage to kiss the " Blarney stone," and the Irish beggar is the one of all others to whom you give with the least compunction. Two or three days in the noble city of Dublin and two more in the beautiful vicinity of Cork, with a hurried glimpse of the lovely Killarney Lakes, was all the time we could afford to the Emerald Isle. Our return was by steamer to Holyhead, thence by rail across the wonderful tubular bridge to Bangor, then an excursion to Caernarvon Castle and Snow- don, then a Sabbath spent in sleepy old Chester, hearing a sleepy old bishop preach in the sleepy old Cathedral. It is astonishing what an amount of dull preaching one hears in England. Ideas are as care- fully excluded from the pulpit as if they were bomb- shells with the fuse lighted and liable to explode at once. There is more life and energy and thought and nourishment in the poorest sermon I ever heard in a New England pulpit than in the best I heard (with two exceptions in London) during a constant attendance of three months, in England. An Eng- lishman doesn't like to be* startled into any thought EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 285 while sitting on the soft pew-cushions of his old Par- ish Church. The peculiarities of Chester, as every- body knows, are, its old wall, carefully preserved as a promenade for the citizens, a beautiful elliptical race-course just outside the wall, for all the world like an ancient circus, and especially its system of quaint porticos along the second story of the prin- cipal streets. This last feature is a very odd one, as the style and height of the portico varies with almost every house, and drawbridges are frequently thrown over the 'cross-streets to prevent a break in the cov- ered promenade. It is a capital idea for rainy days and for the children's romping. Many of the houses are curiously carved, and, one has on its front the date 1003, which is generally believed in Chester to be authentic. 286 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S CHAPTER LXIII. ANOTHER TASTE OF THE ERINE. On leaving such a country as England, Liverpool is a capital place to embark, because whatever re- grets one may feel in going away from the country, taken as a whole, probably no person ever visited Liverpool without being glad to get away from it as soon as possible. And the Steamer Companies seem to sympathize with this feeling in their passen- gers, for the vessels start with great punctuality at the precise advertised time of sailing. At nine o'clock A. M., August 27th, 1856, (the anniversary of my sailing from New York, outward bound,) we embarked, with about three hundred other passen- gers, on board the Canadian steamer " Canadian " for Quebec. We selected this as the most favorable season in the whole year to cross the Atlantic, after the icebergs were melted away and before the equi- noctial storms came on, but as a punishment for our presumption in making his moods a matter of calcu- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 287 lation, Old Atlantic brewed up for our benefit one of the strongest and bitterest storms he has concocted, summer or winter, for years, and poured it out upon us all the way over. « Immense number of babies on board. Squalls ahead," remarked the sententious Isham, after a brief exploration of the cabin. The prediction proved too true. The voice of infantile wailing was never entirely silent through the whole passage. We all felt like fathers of families and picked up the children out of the scuppers, when a big wave washed them off their legs, without stop- ping a moment to think whether they were ours or somebody's else. Perpetual motion was the order of the day, and the night too, for things animate and inanimate. At dinner, plates flew in our faces, knives and forks danced about tumultuously with coquettish spoons for partners, fat tumblers nodded roguishly to sharp vinegar-cruets who jerked their heads stiffly in re- sponse, slender wine-glasses tossed themselves off to the health of rich soup-tureens who overflowed in greasy acknowledgments, legs of mutton, joints of beef and roast geese plumped themselves into our laps, " help yourself to potatoes," was a superfluous exhortation, the vegetables invited themselves on to your plate and into your napkin, every thing went G 288 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S on the self-acting principle, and your success in mak- ing a dinner depended on your skill in stabbing vi- ( ands with a fork as they flew past. After dinner it was much the same. Ladies rushed distractedly (and distractingly) into our arms, children tumbled promiscuously under our feet. , " Harum scarum," " helter skelter," " topsy turvy " and such like words of Latin Dutch and Anglo-Saxon origin, are the only words to express the state of things on that voyage. Our vessel was a great cradle that rocked us unceas- ingly, anywhere but to sleep. Or perhaps it was more like a great churn where we, the cream of sev- eral nations, were shaken up together incessantly, in the hope of our " coming " at last. The " Impetu- ous " declared that it was more than any thing else, like the whale's belly in which Jonah once took a cruise, but none of us took any notice of that sugges- tion, ascribing it to his peculiar feelings as he lay tossing about in his berth looking rather pale. The beard of our " William the Conqueror " had now attained such an enormous growth, that we used to hoist him on deck, as a sail to steady the ship in the rough weather, and take a reef in the beard with a shawl, or take him, in altogether, when the captain thought it unsafe to spread too much canvas. Neglecting once this precaution, a tremen- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 289 dous wave, which had somehow got astray, came tumbling over the stern, deluging the " Conqueror " and several friends, besides nearly sweeping them overboard as it retired. " What a narrow escape ! " exclaimed one of the bystanders, as soon as he could recover from his astonishment so as to find words. " Humph, call that an escape, do you, then I just hope you will meet with the next instead of me," growled our gasping monarch, as he shook half a hogshead of brine from his garments and went down the hatchway the source of as many streams as a melting glacier. A row of splendid icebergs stretching across from Newfoundland to Labrador, like ghostly sentinels to challenge our approach, were the first land we saw on the Western Continent. (Green Erin was the last we saw of the Eastern Hemisphere, which ac- counts for the bull in the previous sentence.) They look like frozen clouds and are much more beautiful objects than I expected to find them, especially after being so greatly disappointed in the miserable, sloppy, dirty Swiss glaciers. Somehow I had always associated icebergs and glaciers together in my mind, but they are no more alike than clean linen and dirty . linen, or a boy that has been eating molasses candy and the same boy after his face has been washed. 19 290 mr. dunn browne's Both have beautiful blue crevices and caverns in them, which look in the distance like bits of congealed sky, and are doubtless the abode of the ice-fairies. Some of these ice-mountains that we passed, were, I should think, four or five hundred feet high and perhaps a half-mile in circuit, all of them aground, poor things, and looking piteously at our Steamer, as if expecting us to tow their old helpless hulks out to sea again. We couldn't stop to take any active meas- ues for their relief, though our admiration was with- out bounds, and we unhesitatingly pronounced them the very (ice) cream of all Nature's performances. The passage up the St. Lawrence was quite too grand to be beautiful. One can't exactly realize that he is on a river, when he has to take a telescope to make out the houses on either side. We seemed to be taking a broad strip of the Atlantic, with his huge- waves smoothed out a little, along up with us and not till three hundred miles inland did we entirely shake off his grasp upon us. The approach to Quebec, with the noble Falls of Montmorenci on the right, a great river tumbling down out of the sky, and the bold highlands all around, is one of the finest scenes in the world and a fitting introduction to the glories of our Western Hemisphere. EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 291 CHAPTER LXIV. EXPERIENCES IN HIS NATIVE LAND. Well, it is a hard thing to be obliged to own up to, but that unhesitating regard for truth which has borne him safely through so many perilous narrations, where the temptations to color a little were very strong, where almost any one else would have exag- gerated more or less, that stern, unflinching historical veracity which has been the striking feature of Mr. Browne's " Experiences " hitherto, compels him to acknowledge, however reluctantly, that he has be- come at last " a suspicious character," that he has been very nearly arrested as a genteel swindler, that at one time the chances seemed dolefully in favor of lodging your unfortunate wanderer in a Green Mountain jail as the leader of a gang of pickpockets. After having passed unscathed through a two months' surveillance by the watchful eyes of the Paris police, after passing unsuspectedly through the heart of Austria, and sustaining the most friendly relations 292 mr. dunn Browne's with the police department of suspicious Vienna, after escaping the sack and bowstring, the ear-crop- ping and bastinadoing of despotic Turkey, after hav- ing ranged unharmed through the whole length of Italy, passing under the very nose of King Bomba, casting himself as it were right upon the horns of a papal bull, and harmlessly braving the horrors of a dungeon in Florence and Venice, after having es- caped innumerable perils by Arabs and Dutchmen, by Cockneys, by Highlanders, and by Hibernians, here at last, on his native soil, almost in sight of the hills on which his "father feeds his flocks," the Green Mountain boys have proved wellnigh too many for him. Lend your ears to the plain unvar- nished tale. On the last day of the State Agricultural Fair at Burlington, Mr. Browne was waiting at the steamer landing for the arrival of the " Canada," which had unfortunately carried off to Whitehall the baggage of himself and his friend Isham, (last survivors of the original eight who formed our " army in the East,") when he gradually became aware of his being the object of considerable attention among the crowd that was gathering there. Supposing this to be ow- ing to his striking personal appearance and to the polish acquired by his friction against the aristocratic EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 293 old world, he merely continued his walk, with perhaps a slight accession of dignity to his gait. But finding the excitement rather on the increase, seeing young ladies slily pointing him out to one another with their parasols, observing knots of people conversing together in whispers, and two, after some consulta- tion with the others, coming out of a group towards him, a new thought struck Mr. B. " Col. Fremont is also a good-looking man and wears a moustache and hair ' au naturel.' Can it be that these good people suspect they have here the Great Pioneer in disguise, and so are sending these two men as a committee to ask him to avow hinself? Perhaps they won't believe a denial, ascribing it to excessive modesty. What a bore it is to be made a lion of in spite of one's self!" The two individuals ap- proached. The elder, a hard-looking personage, with a dreadfully stiff beard of a week's growth? opened the conversation. " I say, Mister, are you the feller 't sold me a suit of cloze up to the Fair ground, this mornin' ? " "A suit of clothes, man, do I look like a tailor? These somewhat dilapidated garments which I now wear, constitute my whole wardrobe at present. When I have any clothes to sell you can have them at a bargain, but just now I am not in that line." " Never you mind, young man, 294 mr. dunn Browne's what I want to know is this, was you or was you not on the Exhibition ground this forenoon ? " To be called " young man ! " Mr. B. was indignant, and put an abrupt end to the conversation by answering sharply, " When I learn what right you have to ask me impertinent questions, I will see about answering them. Till then I would recom- mend you to mind your own business." The two departed, the old man muttering, "I'll larn you what right I have to ask questions, special quick." Mr. B. quietly continued his promenade, being most carefully watched lest he should attempt to escape before the officers arrived. Several burly men soon came down to the landing, who looked as if they might be constables, but whether they were or not remained a mystery, for, after considerable con- sultation and discussion, another committee, headed by the same individual who had been spokesman before, came to Mr. B. and informed him that there had been for several days a gang of pickpockets and swindlers in town, committing all manner of depre- dations upon the inhabitants and strangers gathered at the Fair, and that he, (Mr. B.,) looked so precisely like a man who had been selling damaged clothing, all that morning, for about ten times its worth, rep- resenting the same to be new, just purchased in Bur- EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 295 lington, bat sold because the owner had been robbed and couldn't otherwise raise the money to get home, which person was supposed also to be the ringleader of a gang of thieves, that they had felt bound to take measures for apprehending him, (Mr. B.,) but if he could give them any references or proofs that he was a respectable and well-conducted individual, they should be exceedingly sorry to have caused him any inconvenience. Mr. B. thought the inconvenience was mostly on the other side, and after the verdancy they had shown in purchasing clothes the way they had described, he was not even surprised that they should have taken himself for a rogue. He then brought his huge passport and various other formi- dable documents to bear upon his adversaries, put them to utter silence and confusion, then departed in triumph on board the " Canada," which had just come up, to search for his baggage. 296 mr. dunn browne's CHAPTER LXV. THE BEST, BECAUSE IT IS THE LAST. The writer of these preceding sketches, having now accomplished his object of comparing various other regions with the valley of the Connecticut, his own native home, feeling himself fully quali- fied to render a decision, accordingly, in the most ww-qualified manner, pronounces that the Connec- ticut River Valley with its tributaries, is just the most beautiful region in the whole world, both hemispheres and all the zones included, not except- ing any of its five quarters nor even the islands and such like smaller fractions, tt is the sweetest smile on the whole face of the globe. Set in its frame of lovely hills and mountains, it is the finest picture Nature ever painted. Since man was driven out of Eden, it is the best paradise yet discovered. In its fresh spring morning, in its effulgent summer noontide, in its gorgeous autumnal sunset hues, and in its silvery winter moonlight, it surpasses all other EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 297 most favored climes, each, too, in its own especial perfection. The " skies of Italy " are not half so " sunny," the banks of the Rhine can't compare in variety of beautiful scenery, the Alps can show no finer dells and valleys, I doubt if even Holland has any more regular cultivated parallelograms than some of our broom-corn fields and tobacco patches. In taking leave of those who have had the pa- tience to pursue these rambling sketches to the end, or who have perchance skipped over a wide inter- vening space to read the last chapter, it may be well to remark, in explanation, that Browne is not the real family name of the author. He was originally Greene, and in his early years was remarkable for a certain ingenuousness and simplicity of character, which was perhaps the occasion of his being sub- jected to so much of that peculiar experience, which teaches the subject of it some rather rough, but possibly salutary lessons, scorches as it were his verdancy into a sober russet hue, in consequence of which experience the writer has, in the lapse of years, (without once applying to the legislature for a change,) gradually come to be called Browne. In short, if he had not been born Greene, very likely he would never have been Dunn Browne. « If he has occasionally, in these epistles, relapsed 298 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S into that original, unsophisticated simplicity which was his normal state of mind, the author hopes to obtain the indulgence of his critical readers by the candid explanation he has made, as also if he should yet once more relapse, yielding to his tenderer feel- ings as he attempts to express his gratitude towards an old and tried friend, who has steadfastly stood by him in all his wanderings and on whom he has at times greatly leaned, to pay in short, a debt, OWED TO HIS CANE. When Eve her first-born son did see, She thought no more of grief and pain, Nor what a wretch he 'd grow to be, But thanked the Lord, and called him " Cain.' To Arctic regions lone and cold, When Mercy called, nor called in vain, Then volunteered a Yankee bold In Mercy's cause ; 't was Dr. Kane. In southern climes a plant there grows That sweetness yields from every vein, By Negroes mostly raised, I s'pose, This plant I speak of 's Sugar-Cane. When Southern Chivalry's valiant son A name of glory sought to gain, EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 299 As glory in his section 's won, He used his Gutta Percha cane. My cane, thou hast no murder done Like that first Cain, who Abel slew, Nor spent six months without the sun With Dr. Kane and his brave crew. Like Sugar-cane, will not thy grain My cup of coffee sweeten, Nor yet like bully Brooks's cane, Give unarmed foe a beating. But sturdily thou hast upheld me Up many a mountain steep ascending, And oft right cheerily impelled me On dusty road my slow steps wending. The monstrous steps of Pyramid My puny steps thou 'st made to fit, And many a saucy Arab's head The while, thou'st been obliged to hit 'Gainst Bedouin dog and dogs of Bedouins, Thou didst thy master's rights maintain, Their bark thy bark on their head wins, Thinking me to taste, they tasted cane. O'er Jordan's stream I've had thine aid, Up Carmel, on Mt. Lebanon, And when I in the Crimea strayed O'er Malakoff and Mamelon. 300 EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. In Greece, thy help was not denied, At Athens, scaling Lycobettus, Up steep Pentelic's craggy side, As -well as climbing sweet Hymettus. About Vesuvius' smoking crater, O'er Alpine passes, down the Rhine, I found thee everywhere so great a Help, I bless the day that made thee mine. I hope in future years to use thee, Yet other rugged mountains climbing, I promise never more t' abuse thee, With such a lame attempt at rhyming. ja