M 
 
 .iinu^fim 
 
 Ll lid 
 

 A^\ - " ^ ' ^ 
 
 .^■> -;^. 
 
 .*^'" 
 
 C>. \\'\,^ '^ ^ A^ ^' ''' ^ 
 
 
 ,^^' _. 
 
 
 •^. ,^" 
 
 ^oo^ 
 
 O v) 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/alhambrakremlinOOprim 
 
THE GENERALIFFE. 
 
THE 
 
 Alhambra and the Kremlin, 
 
 THE SOUTH AND THE NORTH 
 OF EUROPE. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL IREN^US PRIME, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "TRAVELS IN EUROPE AND THE EAST. 
 
 
 NEW YORK: ^ 
 AxVSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 
 
 770 Broadway. 
 
iTHE LIBRARY 
 or CONGRESS 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND COMPANY, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 0^ 
 
 Ipress 0f 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, 
 
 Cambridge. 
 
 ^iitbfiTj of 
 
 ROBERT RUTTER, 
 
 82 and 84 Beekman St., 
 New York^ 
 
TO 
 
 MRS. E'LOUISA L. PRIME 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 
 
The South and the North of Europe are 
 contrasted in this volume. Not by any- 
 formal comparison of the morals and 
 manners, the institutions and condition 
 of the peoples in different latitudes, but 
 by candid statement and description, I 
 
 have sought to give a fair view of life as it is in Spain 
 
 and Scandinavia. 
 
 Since the journey was made, the Queen of Spain has 
 
 fled, and the Emperor of France has perished from 
 
 among men. But the social life of the nations remains 
 
 the same from age to age. 
 
VJll PREFACE. 
 
 The Alhambra Is a type of the South. The Kremlin 
 Is a symbol of the North. Both of them are fortresses 
 enclosing palaces : the glory of Spain In ruins, the pride 
 of the North In Its strength and beauty. 
 
 Vague and Indefinite ideas of these wonderful edifices, 
 and of the countries they represent, have been enter- 
 tained by many, who may find in these pages pictures 
 of things as they are, which the wrlte^ trusts are faithful 
 and portable. 
 
I: Ml I; 
 
 f flmoBSKflsinD 
 
 The Generaliffe Frontispiece, 
 
 Bridge, Gateway, and Cathedral of Burgos i6 
 
 The Cid 17 
 
 The Escorial 22 
 
 The Royal Palace, Madrid 40 
 
 Toledo 54 
 
 The Alcazar 59 
 
 Cordova 82 
 
 Court of Oranges, Cordova 87 
 
 The Great Mosque, Cordova . 89 
 
 " La Geralda," Seville 93 
 
 She wept and told her Beads . 96 
 
 The Bull-Fight loi 
 
 The Picador 106 
 
 In the Alameda, at Malaga 118 
 
 The Diligence 125 
 
 Outer Wall of the Alhambra 130 
 
 Portion of a Door 138 
 
 The Vermilion Tower 142 
 
 The Alhambra 156 
 
 Geneva and the Rhone 166 
 
 Merle d'Aubignd 167 
 
 D'Aubign^'s Birthplace and Residence 169 
 
 Lausanne, and the Lake of Geneva 17' 
 
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Castle of Chillon 173 
 
 The Lake and City of Geneva 175 
 
 Cathedral and Platform at Berne 182 
 
 On the Lake of Thun 184 
 
 Pilatus, Lake of Lucerne 190 
 
 Monument to the Swiss Guard. {By 1 horvaldseti) 195 
 
 Tell's Chapel, Lake of Lucerne 198 
 
 Swiss Horn Blowers 211 
 
 Peasants of Eastern Switzerland 212 
 
 Female Costumes in Appenzell 217 
 
 Death of the Chamois 231 
 
 On the Rhine 241 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle 245 
 
 Frankfort Dining-Table 269 
 
 Polish Peasants 283 
 
 Scene at Railway Station 294 
 
 A Rainy Day in a Russian City 309 
 
 Street Scene in a Russian City 315 
 
 A Russian Porter 321 
 
 The Kremhn 331 
 
 Plan of the Centre of Moskva City 335 
 
 The Russo-Greek Service 342 
 
 Helsingfors 383 
 
 Stockholm Steamers 396 
 
 Upsala 413 
 
 Costumes of Sweden 421 
 
 Roxen Locks 435 
 
 Travelling in Carioles in Norway 457 
 
 Palace of PVederiksberg 462 
 
 A Domestic Scene in Denmark 469 
 
 Fagade of the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen 471 
 
 Portrait of Thorvaldsen. {By Horace Vertiet) .... ... 473 
 
 Hamburg 480 
 
 Home Again 482 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GRANADA. 
 
 Page 
 
 Lodgings at the Alhambra. — Restoration. — Webs of False- 
 hood. — The Sierra Nevada Mountains. — Fruits. — Progress 
 of the Peasantry. — The Moors. — Adam's Visit to Spain. — 
 Expulsion of the Moors. — Decline of the Empire. — Rail- 
 roads. — Mines. — Early Settlers. — Iberians. — Phoenicians. — 
 Goths. — Moors. — Waning of the Crescent. — Capture of 
 Cordova. — Flight of the last Moorish King i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN. — THE BASqUE PROVINCES. 
 
 Biarritz. — Chateau Eugenie. — Dangerous Coast. — Breakwater. 
 
 — The Virgin's Partiality. — Bathing Grounds. — Couriers. — 
 Antanazio. — His Honesty and Zeal. — Crossing the Boun- 
 dary. — Island of Conference. — Spanish Courtesy. — The 
 Basque Provinces. — Peculiar Customs. — Ancestry. — The 
 Language. — Spanish Stupidity. — La Fayette. — St. Sebas- 
 tian. — Duke of Wellington's Sack of the City. — Bull-ring. 
 
 — Likeness of the Country to Switzerland. — Physique of 
 the Inhabitants. — Productions. — Industries. — Primogen- 
 iture. — Tolasa. — Vittoria. — Wellington's Victory. — Mi- 
 randa. — Roderick, the last King of the Goths 6 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 BURGOS. — THE ESCORIAL. 
 
 A sleepy Town. — Origin of the Name. — Fusion of the Crowns 
 of Leon and Castile. — The Coffer of the Cid. — Swindling a 
 Jew. — Moorish Lies. — Hotels. — A Change of Base. — The 
 Cathedral. — Statues. — Carvings. — ^''erdict of Charles V. 
 and Philip II. — Devil beating the Railroad. — Carving by 
 Nicodemus. — Miracles. — Castle. — Engineer hoisted by his 
 own Petard. — Burgos Taverns. — Philip II. His Character. 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 — Conception of a Palace, Monastery, and Tomb. — The 
 Escorial. — Dimensions. — St. Lawrence. — Turning-point of 
 his Life. — Description of the Palace. — Death of Philip IL — 
 Mausoleum. — The Segrario. — A toe-ta.1 Loss. — Cellini Cru- 
 cifix. — Library 15 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MADRID. — A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL. 
 
 A polyglot Valet. — Missionary Schools. — Foreign Chaplains. 
 
 — The Church Militant. — Upper Chamber. — Religious In- 
 tolerance. — Inquisition. — Persecution. — Spanish Sabbath. 
 
 — Devotion. — Infidelity. — The Prado. — Bull-ring. — Wine 
 Shops. — Frolicking. — Dancing. — Cheap Wines. — Carni- 
 val. — Costumes. — Politeness. — Maskers. — Ancient Belle. 
 
 — Hobbling Monk. — Pope. — Natural Goose. — Devil. — 
 Orang-outang. — General Abandon. — Religion and Folly. 
 
 — Good Humor 29 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MADRID. — PALACE. — BANK. — PICTURE-GALLERY. 
 
 Napoleon's Epigram. — Royal Palace. — Cavalry. — Military Pa- 
 rade. — Plains of Castile. — Armory. — Swords of Gonzalo 
 de Cordova, Ferdinand, and Charles V. — Armor of Boab- 
 dil. — Revolvers. — Mighty Men of War. — Toledo Blade. — 
 Stables. — Spanish Horses. — Merino Sheep. — Royal Equi- 
 page. — Crazy Jane's Carriage. — Her Effigy. — Mischievous 
 Display. — French Language and Influence. — Slow Coaches. 
 
 — Cheap Labor. — Architecture. — Banking-house. — Bank of 
 Spain. — Repose of Manner. — Gold at last. — Railroads. — 
 Post-office. — Personal Identity. — Rebel General. — Lost Let- 
 ters. — Telegraphs. — Progress. — Picture-gallery. — The 
 Immaculate Conception. — Vision of St. Bernard. — Christ 
 sinking under his Cross. — Equestrian Portrait of Charles V. 
 
 — Titian. — Correggio. — Mary in the Garden. — Bias del 
 Prado. — Hidden Gems. — Murillo. — Material and Ideal 
 
 Art 39 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 TOLEDO. — ITS FLEAS, LANDLORDS, ANTiqUITIES, AND LUNATICS. 
 
 Progress. — Hotel Lino. — The wicked Flea. — Easy Manners. — 
 Breakfast. — Model Landlord and Waiters. — Toledo Butter. 
 
CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 — City set on a Hill. — Monuments of departed Peoples. — 
 Romance. — Architecture. — Oldest Citj in the World. — 
 Mjthic Founders. — Perfidy of Roderick. — Reign of the 
 Archbishops. — Decline of Power and Glory. — Cathedral. — 
 Descent of the Virgin. — A fair Penitent. — Orthodoxy of the 
 Priesthood. — Burning of the Missals. — The Muzarabe. — 
 The dead Lion better than a living Dog. — Eloquent Epitaph. 
 
 — Honors paid the Virgin. — The Alcazar. — Derivation of 
 Mango. — Spanish Pride. — Peacocks. — Foreign Impres- 
 sions. — Moorish Gates. — San Juan de los Reyes. — Thank- 
 offerings. — St. Florinde. — Cave of Hercules. — Legend of 
 the Cid. — Cafe. — Toledo Blades. — Virtues of the Tagus. — 
 Sword of Boabdil. — Lunatic Asylum. — Don Quixote. — 
 Crazy Editors. — Statistics. — Causes of Insanity. — Spanish 
 Slowness and Temperance. — Sophomores 53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LA MANCHA. — ANDALUSIA. 
 
 Smoking. — Cigarettes at Dinner. — Taking Sanctuary. — Retort. 
 — Tobacco Culture. — Cuban Monopoly. — Chewing tabooed. 
 
 — Early Smoking. — Children and Ladies. — Tobacco Fac- 
 tory. — Cigareras. — Flavored Cigars: — Potash. — Soda. — 
 Opium. — Intemperate Clergyman. — La Mancha. — Don 
 Quixote. — Treeless Landscape. — Sheep. — Corn. — Primi- 
 itive Ploughing. — Husbandry. — Primogeniture. — Lands 
 of Church and Crown. — Agricultural Schools. — Period- 
 icals. — Sierra Morena Mountains. — Cautious Engineer. 
 
 — Manzibar. — Pickled Chicken. — Moving on. — Perfumes 
 of Arabia. — Resting-place. — Transatlantic Indigestion. — 
 Andalusia. — Ignorance and Crime. — Government Educa- 
 tion. — Statistics. — Salamanca. — Influence of Climate. — 
 Population. — The Aloe and Olive. — Oranges and Lemons. 
 
 — Hills of Andalusia. — Sheep 69 
 
 CHAPTER VIII." 
 
 CORDOVA. 
 
 Cleanliness. — Paved Streets. — Bridge over the Guadalquiver. — 
 Age of the City. — Wholesale Butchery. — Government. — • 
 Mosques. — Baths. — Inns. — Schools. — Library. — Rural 
 F6te. — Departed Glory. — Palace of Abdurhama. — Beauti- 
 ful Evergreens. — Fruits. — Interior of an Ancient House. — 
 Moorish Style. — Cathedral. — Converted Mosque. — Gate of 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Pardon. — Court-jard. — Orange Grove Fountains. — 
 
 Gold Fish. — Elders in the Gate. — The Mecca of Europe. — 
 Holy Shrine. — Symbolism. — Indulgences. — Bronze Orna- 
 ments. — Inscription in Gothic and Arabic. — Dimensions. 
 — Precious Stones. — The Mihrab. — The Kalif's Oratory. — 
 Mosaics. — Devout Mussulmans. — Chapels. — Etching on 
 Stone. — Impressive Monuments 8^ 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SEVILLE, ITS CATHEDRAL AND BULL-FIGHTS. 
 
 Delicious Climate. — Customs. — Exile of the Moors. — Conse- 
 quent Decay. — The Alcazar. — Barbaric Splendor. — A 
 Christian Kmgdom. — Cathedral. — A House of God. — 
 Giant Columns. — High Mass. — Unconscious Worshipper. 
 
 — Beautiful Women. — Venus-worship. — Port of Saville. — 
 Fruits. — Don Juan. — Barber of Seville. — Murillo's House. 
 
 — Mosaics — .Moorish Castle. — Auto-da-fe. — The Qiiema- 
 daro. — Field of St. Sebastian. — Circulation of the Bible — 
 Tow^er of Gold. — Treasure House. — Prison. — Bins of Gold. 
 
 — Decline and Fall of Spain. — Demoralizing Influences. — 
 Corruption and Robbery. — Yellow Fever. — Guadalquiver. 
 
 — Amphitheatre. — A Delicate Lady. — Warlike Husband. — 
 Her Description of a Bull-fight — The Ring. — Spectators. 
 
 — Trumpet-blast. — Picadors. — Entrance of the Bull. — 
 Charge. — Horseman — Terrible Sight. — Chulos. — Ban- 
 derilleros. — Squibs. — Matador. — Applause. — The Ladies. 
 
 — Different Tastes. — Squeamish Husband 92 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SEVILLE. 
 
 La Caridad. — Art Treasures. — St. John. — Miracle of the Loaves 
 and Fishes — Moses striking the Rock. — Recovery of Pic- 
 tures at Waterloo. — Fi'ench Thieves. — Venus de Medici. — 
 Thoughtful Amateur. — Museum Fees. — Guardian Angels 
 of Seville. — Martyrdom. — Murillo's Pages of the Gospel. — 
 Old Masters. — Decay of Art. — Bull-fighting. — The Sea- 
 son. — Exaggeration. — Curious Development. — Effect on 
 the National Character. — Street-plays. — Feats. — Demoral- 
 ization. — Spanish Pride. — Morality. — Contrast between 
 the North and South of Europe. — Costume of Andalu- 
 sia. — Fashion. — Life of the People. — Price of Labor. — 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Food. — Climate. — Beer. — Wine cheaper than Water. — 
 Sack. — Intemperance. — Physical Circumstances. — Social Bur- 
 dens. — Beautiful Trait. — Obedience. — Veneration of the Aged 107 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MALAGA. 
 
 An ill Wind that blows no Good. — Curious Excuse for Crime. — 
 Old World like the New. — Resort for Invalids. — Genial 
 Clime. — Range of Thermometer. — Mineral Waters. — Sun- 
 shine. — Rainfall. — Heavenly Skies. — Advice to Consump- 
 tives. — Grapes. — Raisins. — Wine and Oil. — A Sabbath. — 
 Service at the British Consulate. — Mrs. Partington. — Eng- 
 lish Chaplain. — Sermon. — Narrow Streets. — Sweet Mem- 
 ories of Cologne. — Picturesque Moors. — Cathedral. — High 
 Mass. — Florid Architecture. — Fruits. — Prayer of a Dying 
 Moor. — Florinde. — Chronicles of Washington Irving. — 
 Luxuries of Travel.- — Diligences. — Out of Malaga. — Obsti- 
 nate Mules. — Night. — Mountains. — ; Setting Sun. — Lovely 
 Scenery. — Orchards. — Armed Guards. — Gentlemen of the 
 Road. — Loja. — Inn. — Flock of Fleas. — A Stimulant. — 
 Setting out for Granada. — Santa Fe'. — Its History. — Gra- 
 nada at Last. — In the Grounds of the Alhambra .... 118 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 THE ALHAMBRA. 
 
 The Paradise of the West. — Rivers of Eden. — New Damascus. - 
 Granada. — Origin of the Name. — Fruits. — Mountains. — 
 Skies. — Moorish Empire broken. — Zawi Ibu Zeyri. — Al- 
 hambra. — Meaning of the Name. — Extension of the Castle. 
 
 — Original Grandeur. — Its first Prince. — His Improve- 
 ments. — Roads. — Colleges. — Hospitals. — Canals. — Arts. — 
 Sciences. — Degeneracy. — Intrigues and Murders. — Ruin. 
 
 — Final Overthrow of Mooiish Power. — Ferdinand and 
 Isabella. — Columbus. — Fleas and Cake. — Blessing and 
 Gold — New World in the West. — Bookstore. — Irving's 
 Tales. — Gate of Judgment. — Plateau. — Desolation. — Court 
 of Myrtles. — Court of Lions. — Boabdil. — Abencerrages. — 
 Treachery. — Hall of Ambassadors. — Bensaken. — Walking 
 Cyclopedia. — Prudence. — Washington Irving. — Dolores. — 
 Queen's Garden. — Hall of Two Sisters. — Harem. — Lin- 
 daraka Gardens. — Queen's Dressing-room. — Gypsies. — 
 Perfume Bath. — Water Bath. — Governor's Court. — Bowed 
 Slab. — The Morning Star 129 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE ALHAMBRA {continued). 
 
 The poor Cobbler of Granada. — Spanish Rule of Living. — Xan- 
 tippe. — Search for Gold. — Messenger Dove. — Dreams. — 
 Landslip. — Fever cured. — Conversion. — The Watch Tower. 
 Magic Bell. — Parapanda Mountains. — Reign of Law. — Gift 
 to the Duke of "\!Vellington. — Bloodj Pass. — Vega. — Water 
 Gates. — The Last Sigh of the Moor. — His Mother's Re- 
 proof. — Moorish Race. — Political Prisoners. — Birthplace of 
 Eugenie. — The GeneralifFe. — Ancient Tree. — Suspected 
 Queen. — Women of Spain. — Sins of Climate 144 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GRANADA. 
 
 Troubadour and Gypsy Life. — Dwarf. — Horse. — Fair. — Physique 
 of the Gitanas. — Habits. — Habitations. — Moral Principle. 
 Chastity. — Swindling. — Superstition. — Fortune-tellers. 
 
 — Credulity. — Trickery. — Parisian Spiritualist. — Gypsy 
 Creed. — Musings. — Causes of Astonishment. — Paintings 
 and Cathedrals. — Unworthy Ambition. — Silence in Church. 
 
 — Cathedral of Granada. — Chapel Royal. — Tomb of Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella. — Tomb of Philip and Crazy Jane. — 
 Obliging Priest. — Fees. — Leaving Granada. — Disguised 
 Thief. — Seizure and Imprisonment. — Out of Granada . . 155 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GENEVA. — FREYBURG. — BERNE. 
 
 Geneva. — Color of the Rhone. — Csesar's Wall. — Cathedral. — 
 Calvin. — Lady Jane Grey. — Rousseau. — Voltaire. — Madame 
 de Stael. — Byron. — Jura. — Mont Blanc. — Celebrities. — 
 Coppet. — Ninon. — St. Protais. — Lisus. — Morges. — Grand 
 Muveran. — Diablerets. — Mont Rosa. — Mont Blanc. — Lau- 
 sanne. — St. Anne. — Sacred Rat. — Cathedral. — Convention 
 of Reformers. — Gibbon. — Classic Ground. — Chillon. — 
 Bonnivard. — Torture Chamber. — Hotel Byron. — Railroad. — 
 Ice. — Swiss Valleys. — Freyburg. — Suspension Bridge. — 
 Great Organ. — Cathedral. — Wonderful Music: its Power 
 and Sweetness. — Berne. — Morat. — Burgundian Custom. — 
 Public Bears. — Unfortunate Englishman. — Curious Clock 
 Market Women. — Federal Palace. — Swiss Cantons. — Ber- 
 nese Alps. — Thun. — Jungfrau 165 
 
CONTENTS. XVll 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE BRUNIG PASS. — LUCERNE. 
 
 Pleasant Ride. — Interlaken. — Lakes Thun and Brienz. — Abend- 
 berg. — Faulhorn. — Giesback. — Illumination. — Ascent of 
 the Brunig. — Vale of Meyringen. — Falls of Reichenbach. — 
 Lungern. — Splendid Courage. — Cheap Suffering. — Modern 
 Reformers. — Mount Pilatus. — Mjths. — Lucerne. — Popula- 
 tion. — St. Leger. — Service. — Crucifix. — A Devotee. — 
 Mass. — Organ. — Cloisters. — Lake Lucerne. — Lion of Lu- 
 cerne. — Dance of Death. — Striking Scenery. — Gersau. — 
 Brunnen. — Bay of Uri. — Sir James Mackintosh. — Swiss 
 Patriots. — Chapel of Tell. — Cascades. — Fluellen. — Altorf. 
 
 Captain Lott ' i86 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE BLACK VIRGIN OF EINSIEDELN. — LIFE IN SWITZERLAND, ETC. 
 
 The Hermit Meinrad. — His Black Virgin. — Murder. — Detec- 
 tive Ravens. — Monastery. — Miracle. — Shrine. — Pilgrims. 
 
 — Revenue. — A Barefooted Penitent. — Village Church. — ' 
 Fountain. — Gallery. — Abbot. — Hospitality. — Library. — 
 College. — Monastic Life. — Adieu. — Pleasant Qiiarters. 
 
 — Meals. — Hotel Life. — John Bull. — A Charming Couple. — 
 Americans. — A National Feature. — Slang. — Language. — 
 Manners. — An Elegant Lady. — Selfishness. — French and 
 Sw^iss Railroads. — Improvements. — Accidents. — Accommo- 
 dations 200 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 CANTON APPENZELL. — SWISS CUSTOMS. 
 
 Trogen. — Convent. — Memento mori. — Scenery. — Religion. — 
 German Service. — Curious Custom. — Constance. — Mar- 
 tyrs. — Dividing Line. — Remarkable Change. — Cause. — 
 Pillory. — Evening Bell. — Watchman's Song. — Bridal Cus- 
 tom. — Athletic Sports. — Democracy. — Assembly. — Office 
 Seekers. — Council. — Roads. — Taxation. — Schools. — 
 Foreign Pupils. — Pedestrians. — Moral Culture. — Treatment 
 of Women. — Cows. — Farm Work. — Manufactures. — Me- 
 chanics. — God's Acre — Graves. — Funeral Ceremonies. — 
 Simplicity. — Lonely Burial. — Unpleasing Custom. — Cos- 
 tumes. — The Upper Classes. — Refinement and Culture. — 
 
 Manners. — Patriotism. — A Challenge 212 
 
 b 
 
XVm CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 GERMAN WATERING-PLACES. — BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 
 
 A German \yatering-place. — Land of Salt. — Salt Works. — 
 Last of the Barons. — Homburg. — Kursaal. — Palace. — 
 Gaming. — Kreusnach. — Spas. — Salt Springs. — Cure-house. 
 
 — Kissingen. — Baths. — Cures. — Long Sledge-ride. — 
 Princess of Mecklenburg. — Clerical Postman. — Whey- 
 cure. — Grape-cure. — Rest. — Rheingraffenstein. — Ebernburg. 
 
 — Relics of Reformers. — French Cannon Balls. — The Bingen 
 of Poetry. — The Real Bingen. — Bishop Hatto's Tower. — ■ 
 Maiise-thurme. — Southey. — Ehrenfels. — Rudesheimer Vine- 
 yards. — Wine-making. — Shallow Soil. — Johannisberg Vine- 
 yard. — The Rhine. — Mayence. — Printing. — Guttenberg's 
 Statue. — Cathedral 232 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 
 
 Tomb of Charlemagne. — The Dead Emperor. — Cathedral. — 
 Consecration. — Holy Shrine. — Healing Waters. — Palace. 
 
 — Holy Relics. — Remarkable List. — Septennial Exhibition. 
 
 — Sultan of Turkey. — Crowd. — Order and Devotion. — 
 Sultan and Suite. — Stolidity. — Priests and Women. — A 
 Crush. — Pageant opened. — Procession. — The Relics. — 
 Puseyite Priest. — On the Road to Rome. — Superstition. — 
 Pictures. — Virgin's Garment. — Modern Style. — Holy Shirt. 
 
 — Other Relics. — Pilgrims. — Revenue. — Waters. — Foun- 
 tain. — Music. — Invalids. — Kurhaus. — Social Ease. — 
 Baths. — Sulphur Water. — Antiquities. — Tower of Granus. 
 
 — Statue of Charlemagne. — Bust and Skull 245 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 FRANKFORT. 
 
 Graveyard. — Childish Plays. — Cheerful Graves. — Grave of 
 Goethe's Mother. — Inscription. — Lovely Sentiment. — Cof- 
 fin of Goethe. — Wealthy Jew. — Humiliation. — Ancient 
 Glory. — Ariadne. — Elegant Cars. — Smokers. — Pine For- 
 ests. — Women's Rights. — Beer Drinking. — A Good Ar- 
 rangement. — Frnnkfort-on-the-Oder. — Krewz. — Dinner. — 
 Gardens. — Scenery. — Nakal. — Bromberg. — Wedges. — At- 
 tentive Servant. — Frontier. — Passports. — The Vistula. — 
 Poland. — Warsaw 264 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Historic Legend. — The Jesuits. — Partition. — Last Insurrection. 
 — Nationality crushed out. — Attempted Insurrection. — De- 
 feat. — Warsaw. — Armed Despotism. — Discontent. — Preca- 
 rious Prosperity. — Russian Rule and Language. — Fate of a 
 Spy. — Consequence. — Russian Soldiery. — Ill-manners. — 
 Botanical- Gardens. — Observatory. — Palace. — Sobieski's 
 Monument. — Grave Error. — Illumination. — Sti-eets. — 
 Drunkenness. — Climate. — Lutheran Church. — Relics of 
 Romanism. — Mendicants. — Jewish Quarter. — Hospital. — 
 War of Religions. — Statue of the Virgin. — Little Russia. — 
 Funeral. — English Cock 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 Pretentious Hotel. — Splendid Bridge. — Polite Ticket-seller. — 
 Cars. — Prairie. — Wretched Peasantry. — Jews. — Railroad 
 Employes. — Lap3^ — Mother and Son. — Bialystok. — 
 Grodno. — Diet of Poland. — Last King of Poland. — Jewish 
 Holiday. — Lithuania. — Plains. — Napoleon's Hill. — Monu- 
 ment. — Wilna. — Ruins. — Insurrection. — Babel. — Duna- 
 berg. — Captive. — Short Night. — Serfs. — Reform. — Board 
 of Arbitrators. — Emancipation. — Pskof. — Lady Smoker. — 
 St. Petersburg 284 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 Searching Process. — Peculiar Costumes. — Rough Streets. — 
 Russian Bath. — Dinner. — Model Guide — Elegant Diction. 
 
 — Peter the Great. — Catharine I. — Striking Contrasts. — 
 Accommodating Weather. — Palace of the Emperor. — Col- 
 umn of Alexander. — Statue of Peter the Great. — Boy Czars. 
 
 — Peter's Lawyers. — Devotion. — Cathedral. — Trophies. — 
 Isaac's Cathedral.- — Amazing Splendor. — Worship. — Offer- 
 ings. — Holy of Holies. — Behind the Scenes. — Careful Hus- 
 bands. — Greek and Romish Churches. — Lent. — Sabbath. 
 
 — Exorcism. — Honors paid the Virgin 293 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS. 
 
 Winter Palace. — Ways of Royalty. — Crown Jewels. — Orloff 
 Diamond. — Hermitage. — Art Galleries. — Curious Code of 
 Laws. — Royal Museum. — Peter's Walking-stick. — Art 
 Culture. — Condition of the Masses. — Laborers. — Me- 
 chanics. — Prices, — Rent. — Food. — Dress. — Peculiar Cus- 
 tom. — Polite Bankers. — Despot. — Justice. — Verdicts. — 
 Story of LabanofF. — Siberia. — Abuses. — Academy of 
 Science. — Zoological Museum. — Sunset on the Neva. — 
 Boatman. — Light at Evening- tide 310 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 
 
 American Engineers. — Sleeping Arrangements. — Newspapers. — 
 Drama. — Courtesy. — Lubanskaia. — Dinner. — Villages. — 
 The Volga. — Murdered Bishop. — Sleeping Car. — Ladder. 
 
 — Russian Jargon. — Pathetic Appeal. — Board. — Refresh- 
 ments. — Greek Ecclesiastic. — Patriarch Nicon. — New Jeru- 
 salem. — Profanity. — Tyranny. — Revolt. — Pope of the 
 North. — Emperor's Slight. — Nicon's Humility. — Banish- 
 ment. — Patriarchates. — Dead Level. — Flight of Freedom . 322 
 
 CHAPTER XXVn. 
 
 THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW. 
 
 A Swiss Landlord. — Fleas. — Shrines. — Palaces, Cottages, and 
 Churches. — The Moskva. — Circular City. — Kremlin Walls. 
 
 — Gates. — Chief Entrance. — Picture of the Redeemer. — 
 Respect. — Cannon. — Miracle. — Splendid Scene. — Tower 
 of Ivan. — Bells. — Medium of Worship. — Holy City. —Pil- 
 grims. — Bell- making. — Precious Metals. — Silver Bells. — 
 Chapel of the Betrothed. — Music of the Bells 330 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL 
 
 THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 Cathedral of the Assumption. — Bones of the Patriarchs. — The 
 Iconastasis. — Sanctuary. — Archbishop's Throne. — Coro- 
 nation Ceremony. — Tombs. — Cathedral of the Archangel 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 Michael. — Religious Freedom. — Churches. — Cathedral of 
 St. Basil. — Archangel Cathedral. — Pilgrims. — Golgotha. 
 — Sacristy. — Religion. — Holj Oil. — Baptism. — Making 
 of the Holy Chrism 340 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW. 
 
 Royal Palace. — Empress's Drawing-room. — Empress's Cabi- 
 net.— Hall of St. George. — Hall of St. Andrew. —Gold 
 Court. — Napoleon's Descent. — Treasures. — Historical Cu- 
 riosities. — Precious Orb. — Foundling Hospital. — Mortality 
 of Foundlings. — Orphan Asylum. — Sheep's Clothing. — 
 Harvest Season. — Jews. — Peasants. — Riding School. — 
 Wax-show. — Ethnological Society. — Travel. — Sydney 
 Smith's Stick 350 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 Commercial Travellers. — Sparrow Hills. — Church of the 
 Saviour. — Simonoff Monastery. — Novo-Devichi Convent. — 
 The Moskva. — A Holiday. — Napoleon's March. — Borodino. 
 
 — Evacuation of Moscow. — French Enthusiasm. — Triumphal 
 Entry. — Surprise. — Incendiarism. — Return of the French. — 
 Horrors of the March. — Russian Barbarism. — Public Kissing. 
 
 — From Moscow to St. Petersburg. — Fussy Ladies. — Klin. 
 
 — Dinner. — Tver. — Beggars. — Night without Darkness. — 
 The Fussy Ladies again. —Sunrise. — Marriage Customs . 359 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Americans. — Cronstadt. — Fortifications. — Vessels. — Smoking. 
 
 — Wyborg. — Saw-mills. — Channel. — Ruined Tower. — 
 Submission of Finland. — Religion. — Government. — Har- 
 vests. — Famines. — Army. — Wages. — Fens. — Lakes and 
 Islands. — Drosky. — Huge Stones. — Excursion. — Eden in 
 the North. — Serpent in the Garden. — Long Bills. — At- 
 tentions paid Strangers. — A Finnish Lady. — Fishermen. — 
 A Killing Man. — Gulf of Finland. — Fredericksham. — Sclava. 
 
 — Hard Case. — Social Customs 371 
 
XXll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 FINLAND {conthiued). 
 
 Helsingfors. — Sweaborg. — Fortified Islands. — Society House. 
 
 — Ducal Palace. — Finnish Gentlemen. — Senate House. — 
 University. — Observatory. — Library. — Literature. — Kale- 
 wala. — Schiller and Shakespeare. — Language. — Congress. 
 
 — Coats of Arms. — Botanical Garden — House of Refresh- 
 ment. — Health Establishment. — Mineral Fountain — Rocky 
 Islands. — Fishing. — Peasantry. — Abo. — Hotel. — Good 
 Manners. — Castle. — Cathedral. — Tombs. — Conflagration. 
 
 — Carriole. — Kibitka. — Bondkara. — Finns 383 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIIL 
 
 Harbor of Abo. — Swedish Customs. — Eating and Drinking. — 
 Climate.— The Baltic. — Stockholm. — Porters. — Hotel Ryd- 
 burg. — Pleasant Quarters. — Scandinavia. — Odin. — Sagas. 
 
 — Christianity. — Lutheran Religion. — King. — Congress. — 
 Hospital. — Physicians. — Clergymen. — Education. — Relig- 
 ious Toleration. — The Press. — Cost of Living. — Vice. — 
 The Riddarholm's Kyrkan.— Tomb of Gustavus Adolphus. 
 
 — Reformation. — Royal Palace. — Picture Gallery. — Li- 
 brar3^ — Codex Aureus. — King of Sweden. — Mimic War. — 
 Standing Army. — Order. — Thieves 394 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 SWEDEN {continued). 
 Drottningholm. — Lake Malar. — Sigtuna. — Odin. —Superstition. 
 
 — Pirates. — Rural Life. — Professor Olivecrona- — Islands. — 
 Chateau. — Commercial Life- — Manuscripts. — University of 
 Upsala. — Codex Argenteus. — Icelandic Literature. — Stand- 
 ard of Education. — Students. — Costume. — Cathedral. — 
 Statue of Thor. — Old Upsala. — Mora Stone. — Mass Meet- 
 ings. — Graves of Pagan Deities. — Temple of Odin. — An- 
 cient Tower. — Battle-field of Faith. — Deer Park Restaurant. 
 
 — Social Customs. — Swedish Homes. — Content. — Moral 
 Progress 409 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 SWEDEN {continued). 
 Steam Canal. — The Oscar. — View of Stockholm. Sodertelje. 
 St. Olaf. — The Gota Canal.— Castles and Legends. — So- 
 
CONTENTS. XXlll 
 
 derkoping. — Tavern Breakfast. — Sabbath in Sweden. — 
 Church. — Costumes. — Service. — Snuffing and Nasal Sing- 
 ing. — Watering-place. — Physician. — College of Health. — 
 Baths. — Mineral Waters. — Emigration. — Lodging and 
 Board 423 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 SWEDEN {continued). 
 
 On the Gota Canal again. — Working-girl. — Lake Asplagen. — 
 Swedish Professor. — Lake Roxen. — Berg. — The Vetra-Klos- 
 ter. — Graveyard. — Tombs of the Douglases. — School- 
 house. — Dinner on the Canal. — Crops. — Lock-keeper. — 
 Lake Boren. — Motala. — Iron-works. — Lake Wetter. — 
 Wadstena. — Pea-crop. — Peasantry. — Labor. — Cold. — Sun- 
 set. — Forsvik. — Russian Gentleman.^ — Lake Wenner. — 
 Trout. — Falls of Trollhatten. — River. — Unfortunate Sailor. 
 
 — Collection. — Hongfel Castle. — Gottenburg. — Cheap 
 Lodgings. — Museum. — Daily News. — Training House for 
 Servants. — Philanthropy 433 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIL 
 
 NORWAY. 
 
 Embarkation. — Breakfast. — Skager-rack and Cattegat. — Frei- 
 dericksvern. — Christiania. — Hotel du Nord. — Flowers and 
 Fountains. — Stove. — Norwegian Breakfast. — Museum. — 
 Superstition. — Duel of the Girdle. — Bridal Ornaments. — 
 Heathen Relics. — Learning and Letters. — Lake Mjosen. — 
 English Commercial Traveller. — Boat Library. — Sports- 
 men. — Church. — Fat Pastor. — Remnants of Popery. — 
 Costumes. — The Lord's Supper. — Service. — Devotion and 
 Reverence. — Oneness of the Church. — Lillehammer. — 
 Cheap Living. — Cripple. — Christiania. — Carriole. — Post 
 Horses and Boys. — Agershaus. — Robin Hood of Norway. 
 
 — Benevolent Institutions. — Grave of Bradshaw 447 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIIL 
 
 DENMARK. 
 
 Skager-rack and Cattegat. — Magnificent Sunset. — Elsinore. — 
 Toll. — House of Tycho Brahe. — Kronborg. — Treaty of 
 Vienna. — Danish Giant. — Fortifications. — Hamlet's Grave. 
 
XXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 — True History. — Royal Castle. — Queen of Christian II. — 
 Touching Prayer. — Royal Forest. — Castle of Peace. — Den- 
 mark. — Her History. — Valdemar II. — Schleswig-Holstein. 
 
 — Christianity. — General Intelligence. — Education. — Co- 
 penhagen. — Thorvaldsen's Museum. — Statues. — Vanity. — 
 Hall of Christ. — Gems and Bronzes. — Vor Frue Kirke. — 
 Religion and Art. — Church Service. — Baptism. — Love of 
 Amusement. — Theatres. — Public Gardens. — Museum. — 
 Ruins. — Monuments. — South American Gentleman. — Zea- 
 land. — Fleas. — Kiel. — Elmshorn. — Home Again . . . 462 
 
 ^ 
 
SPAI N. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GRANADA. 
 
 TN the grounds of the Alhambra, the ancient palace of the 
 -*- Moorish kings of Granada, what time those conquerors 
 of Spain here held their right regal court, I have come to 
 sit down and to rest. 
 
 My lodgings are just under the walls of the old castle, in 
 sight of its crumbling towers, in hearing of its many falling 
 waters, and under the shadow of its English elms, which 
 the Duke of Wellington gave to Spain. At any moment a 
 few steps take me into the courts and halls and chambers 
 of the Alhambra. In years past, while this pearl of Arab 
 art and Oriental splendor was silently suffered to fall into 
 ruin, with the lapse of centuries, it has been the habit of 
 some travelled authors more addicted to. romance than 
 others, to get the easy privilege of sharing lodgings with 
 the bats in some deserted chamber, and they doubtless 
 fancied themselves inspired with the genius of the place, 
 as they dreamed and wrote where fair sultanas with their 
 charms eclipsed the splendors of the fairy place itself. 
 
 As it is no part of my purpose to indulge in romance 
 while writing these sketches of the Alhambra and of Spain, 
 and as the walls of a comfortable inn are much more to the 
 taste of a weary traveller than the stone floors and open 
 
2 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 windows of a tumbling old castle, it is my preference to 
 take up my abode for the present with the good people in 
 the Alhambra Hotel, and not with the keepers of the palace 
 itself. Besides, there is no choice left. The government 
 has undertaken the work of restoring the Alhambra to its 
 pristine beauty, and this process is now going onward under 
 the direction of Sr. Contreras. ' He has already displayed 
 so much skill in imitating the arabesque decorations of the 
 walls, that only a practised eye perceives the difference when 
 the ancient and the modern art appear in the same chamber. 
 Architects as well as amateur travellers from all parts of 
 the civilized world, for centuries past, have made artistic 
 and pleasure journeys hither to study and admire the style 
 that has nothing like it except in Spain, and here only 
 where the Moors held sway. And perhaps no work of art 
 in the whole world has been more frequently and fully 
 described than the Alhambra of Granada. History, poe- 
 try, and science have tried their several hands upon it. 
 Romance has been so busy with it that it is not an easy 
 task to disentangle the web of fiction, and get the only part 
 of the tale worth knowing. So dear is truth, the simple, 
 naked truth of history, to every true soul, that he is a great 
 doer of evil who seizes upon history, and while professing 
 to write it, weaves into his story the fancies of his own pro- 
 lific genius, and that so deftly and so charmingly that the 
 whole is accepted as veritable history, and the romance as 
 the most credible and interesting of the whole. Early 
 English history has thus been illustrated and inextricably 
 confused. The spell of the magician's wand has thus made 
 the conquest of Mexico a poem rather than a reliable nar- 
 rative. And Spain, more than any other land, is now hope- 
 lessly given up to legends and doubtful chronicles, modern 
 and antique, so that one who reads must have either the 
 credulity of a devotee, or the indifference of folly, to read 
 with satisfaction the ancient history of the Peninsula. 
 
GRANADA. 3 
 
 But the Alhambra is here I Granada is where it was a 
 thousand years ago ! The same deep blue sky, the bluest 
 sky that covers any land, hangs over its magnificent Vega 
 or plain, through which the Darro and the Genii, united, 
 flow ! The hills, each one with a story that can be scarcely 
 heard without a tear, stand where and as they did when the 
 Moors were masters of this region, which they thought the 
 terrestrial paradise of man, and immediately under the celes- 
 tial mansions where the Prophet and the Houris await the 
 coming of all true believers. The Sierra Nevada, covered 
 with perpetual snow, seems close at hand, as it lies on the 
 eastern horizon, and in this cloudless sky and brilliant at- 
 mosphere the long range shines like silver mountains in 
 the noontide, as it did when fleet horsemen brought its ice 
 in baskets to cool the drinks of Wall Zawi Ibu Zeyn, its 
 first Moorish king. Those snowy summits reminded the 
 Arabs when they came here of Mount Hermon, and this 
 plain seemed to them to surpass in fertility and beauty the 
 Vega around Damascus. 
 
 And to this day the palm-tree, the pomegranate, and the 
 fig, the orange and lemon, the •olive and vine, flourish under 
 the genial sun. In these declining years of the nineteenth 
 century, with a railroad running into the city across the 
 heart of this paradise, and telegraphs finking it with Madrid 
 and London and Washington, the peasants still scratch the 
 ground with the root of a tree for a plough, and carry their 
 produce to market on the back of a donkey. 
 
 The creations of the Moors in Spain form the most 
 remarkable chapter in human art. To me, Spain has been 
 a new discovery; a sudden revelation of a world within a 
 world ; the monuments of an extinct or departed race 
 standing alone in a desert. The generation that now pos- 
 sesses the soil has nothing of the genius or taste or spirit 
 of the barbaric tribes that were once their masters. And 
 the Alhambra at Granada, the Mosque at Cordova, and the 
 
4 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Alcazar at Seville, look like the wrecks of a stranded 
 empire, whose people live only in their glorious ruins. 
 
 In the language of a brilliant historian, " Spain stands to- 
 day a hideous skeleton among living nations." 
 
 They have a legend here that Adam made a visit to the 
 earth a few years ago, to see how his farm was getting on. 
 He ahghted in Germany, and found schools and colleges 
 and books, and the people intent on learning. He soon 
 left it for France, where the people dressed in fantastic 
 styles, and were mad upon works of art and improvements 
 unknown to our great ancestor. Disgusted with all he saw, 
 he came down to Spain, and, with delight, exclaimed, " This 
 is just as I left it." 
 
 Adam was nearly right. Of all the countries in Europe 
 this is more as it zvas than any other. The greatest calam- 
 ity that ever happened to Spain was its expulsion of the 
 Moors ; and it will be a century, perhaps many centuries, 
 before the arts and sciences will flourish on this soil as 
 they did before that year, so memorable for the discovery of 
 the New World by Columbus, and the overthrow of the 
 kingdom of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella. Both 
 those events, forming * the most momentous epoch in the 
 history of Spain, occurred in the year 1492, from which 
 period we may date the decline of an empire enriched by 
 the untold wealth of a new world added to its possessions, 
 and strengthened by the destruction of the last stronghold 
 of its former conquerors and masters. Foreign capital and 
 enterprise have forced railroads across her mountains and 
 plains, but the capital and enterprise of the world cannot 
 make them profitable, when the people have no industry 
 and no ambition. The mines of Spain are so rich that she 
 has no need of possessions in the gold fields of the western 
 hemisphere ; and they have been known and worked ever 
 since the days of the Phoenicians, when Andalusia was the 
 Tarshish of Holy Scripture. Yet Spain is more distin- 
 
GRANADA. 5 
 
 guished to-day, as being behind the world, than for aught it 
 has done or is doing for itself or others. And it often 
 seems to a traveller here in Spain that he is in the Orient, 
 so many manners and customs, so many works, and, much 
 more, such a want of things he is wont to meet with in the 
 more civilized nations, remind him that he is among a 
 people who have derived much of what they have and are 
 from lands at the other end of the Mediterranean Sea. 
 
 It has a mixed race of inhabitants. It would not be 
 strange if it had a mixed government also. Successive 
 tides of people have swept over it, and the vestiges of all 
 are left on the surface of the nation. Very little, indeed, is 
 known of the days when the Iberians from Caucasus, and 
 the Celts from Gaul, were the rude settlers of Spain ; but 
 the traces are more plain of the Phoenicians, who came here 
 1500 years before the birth of Jesus, and founded Cadiz and 
 Malaga, and Cordova and Seville. In the year 218 before 
 Christ the Romans came, and, of course, conquered all 
 Spain, and reigned here just six centuries. Then came the 
 Goths, sweeping the Romans out of Spain as they crushed 
 Rome in Italy. And the Goths ruled Spain precisely 300 
 years. Then came the Moors, and, in two pitched battles, 
 smote the Gothic Christian power to the earth ; and, like 
 a hurricane from the African coast, rushed up from the 
 south, and never stayed its destructive course till the cres- 
 cent had supplanted the cross on every tower in Spain. 
 The Moors were lords of Spain just seven centuries. Grad- 
 ually the crescent waned, as the Cathohc Christian kings 
 recovered strength, until St. Ferdinand captured Cordova, 
 in 1235, and Ferdinand and Isabella completed the work 
 at Granada, on the third day of the year 1492, and the last 
 of the Moorish kings fled from the Alhambra. 
 
ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN — THE BASQUE PROVINCES. 
 
 A WAY down in the south-west corner of France, on the 
 -^ Bay of Biscay, was a hamlet on a rock-bound coast, 
 which has of late years suddenly sprung into the notice of the 
 world. The sunshine of imperial favor ripened the modest 
 bud of a humble village into a flower of remarkable beauty. 
 What was a short time since quite unknown, is now the 
 fashionable watering-place of France. Selected by the late 
 Emperor as his autumnal resort, he built a handsome 
 chateau, and named it Eugenie^ and thus made the fortune 
 of Biarritz. 
 
 Here we spent a few days of rest after a long and weary- 
 ing journey. The coast is dangerous. The bay is rough 
 to a degree that has become a proverb. An attempt was 
 making under government direction to construct a break- 
 water, so as to enclose a " harbor of refuge," and one is 
 greatly needed. A process, new to me, but perhaps com- 
 mon, was going on : that of building rocks, or blocks, to 
 make the projecting pier. Thousands of square feet of 
 rock are here in the hills, but, for some reason, it is pre- 
 ferred to form a concrete mass with stone and cement. 
 These are made in cubes of six or eight feet, with two 
 grooves underneath them, and when they have stood long 
 enough to be proof against water, levers are thrust under 
 them, a derrick hoists them upon a platform which is moved 
 on a railway to the pier, where they are launched off into 
 
OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN. 7 
 
 the deep. The fury of the waves at this point, especially 
 in rough weather, is frightful. The new breakwater was 
 recently swept away. Two or three workmen were caught 
 by the waves rushing higher than was expected, and the 
 poor fellows were carried off into a deeper ocean. This 
 terrified the others, and they declined to expose themselves 
 to such dangers. The priests came to the rescue. They 
 set up an image of the Virgin on an overhanging rock. 
 She looks down benignly on the work and the workmen. 
 Not one has been swept away since she stood there I ! 
 Confidence is restored. The breakwater is gradually ex- 
 tending. It will cost an immense sum, and if the Virgin is 
 so successful in saving the lives of the landsmen in building 
 it, one would think she might just as easily save the sailors, 
 and so render the harbor unnecessary. 
 
 On this stormy coast, where the surf breaks over huge 
 rocks, and sometimes rushes curiously through them by 
 passages worn in ages of incessant roll, there are several 
 coves where the beach slopes gradually to the sea, and the 
 smooth sand floor furnishes delightful bathing grounds. 
 Here, in the season, the court used to disport itself in other 
 robes than those of royalty, and among the crowds of fash- 
 ionable people, who in fantastic deshabille indulge in the 
 ocean bath, were daily seen the Emperor and Empress and 
 the remarkable boy who astonished the mayor by being the 
 son of an Emperor when only ten years of age ! 
 
 A courier, or travelling servant, is usually more of a 
 nuisance than assistance, but I had to have one. He had 
 the Spanish name of Antanazio, was of course familiar with 
 the language, and he spoke French also, but not a word 
 of English. He was a half devout Catholic, and professed 
 to be very discriminating in his faith, rejecting many of the 
 notions of his countrymen, and swallowing others without a 
 strain. He was a big fellow, so big that he could easily 
 have taken me under one arm and my companion on the 
 
8 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Other, and marched into or out of Spain at any moment. 
 He was the terror of the cabmen and porters and waiters, 
 bullying, swearing, and pushing his way through the thickest 
 of the fight, in those .struggles that attend every arrival of 
 a passenger in any part of the world. He was just about 
 as honest as the race to which he belongs. Every traveller 
 thinks his own courier a pattern of honesty. I have had 
 them in a dozen different countries, and never yet was able 
 to put the word honest into the certificate which they craved 
 at the end of the journey. Some are better than others. 
 Any one of them is worse than none, if you have a slight 
 knowledge of the country. Antanazio was in league with 
 every hotel man to get as much out of us as he could, and 
 he made up for his frauds on a large scale by an excess of 
 zeal to save a few coppers for us when a poor porter or 
 sacristan was to be paid for service. The gnat and the 
 camel were familiar to Antanazio. Yet he was one of the 
 best couriers to be found, and he shall have the benefit of 
 this notice. 
 
 Just before we leave France to go into Spain we pass a 
 village, here mentioned only to cite an eloquent epigram 
 inscribed around the dial of the clock on its tower : " Vul- 
 7ierant omnes^ ultima necatP Even so ; each flying moment 
 wounds : the last slays. And after quitting the Hendaye 
 station, we dash across the river Bidassoa, which divides 
 the two kingdoms. It would take us the rest of the day 
 merely to read the history that invests this crossing with 
 interest for all time. A little dry spot is in the bed of the 
 river. There kings and queens and generals have met to 
 settle affairs of state as on neutral ground, and the petty 
 patch has come to be called the Island of Conference. 
 Here, in the middle of the dividing river, Louis XIV. of 
 France had his first meeting with Maria Theresa, daughter 
 of PhiUp IV. of Spain, and they were married in the cathe- 
 dral of St. Jean de Luz on the French side of the river. On 
 
OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN. 9 
 
 the same spot the kings of France and Spain met in 1463 
 to negotiate; and here too, in 1645, Isabella the daughter of 
 Henry IV. was excJianged for Anna of Austria, the one to 
 be the wife of the king of Spain, and the other of France. 
 In 1526, Francis I., who was a prisoner of Charles V., was 
 here given up, and his two sons accepted as hostages in his 
 stead. We go thousands of miles to visit a spot that has 
 thus been made sacred and famous, yet one can hardly tell 
 why he looks with interest upon ground so sanctified. The 
 grass and the weeds grow just as freely, and the birds are 
 as careless in their songs, and the water flows on as it 
 always flows ; but still no thoughtful traveller can pass 
 such landmarks in the march of great events, without paus- 
 ing to observe the effect which those events have had on 
 the history of the world. And this is one of the greatest 
 objects before us as we enter and traverse Spain, It is a 
 land of history : of romance too ; and perhaps both are 
 equally interesting. For every line we cross, and every 
 city and province we visit, is rich in association, even if the 
 land is now but a great sepulchre of great peoples. 
 
 And we were in Spain. On the northern frontier, and in 
 instant contact with the people of France, is a race that is 
 Spanish only in name, and hardly that; a race that has, 
 through all the mutations of government in this unstable 
 country, maintained a sort of independence, with rights and 
 privileges, manners and customs so peculiar to themselves, 
 that they may be said to be in Spain, but not of Spain. 
 
 On the anniversary of the death of one of their number, 
 the friends gather at the grave, and offer to the departed 
 gifts of bread and fruit, as if they required supplies of food 
 for the endless journey in another world. On the holidays, 
 which are many in a year, they are wild in the dance, with 
 the tambourine and bagpipe and castanet, being far more 
 demonstrative in the height of their excitement than the 
 more southern inhabitants of Spain. They are a proud 
 
10 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 race, and more proud of their ancestry than any thing else, 
 the poorest peasant among the hills displaying on the door 
 of his hut a coat of arms, and claiming descent from some 
 ancient and illustrious house. As a race they have no 
 trouble in reckoning their pedigree back to Tubal and 
 Noah, and unless your tree of genealogy has branches 
 springing out of a trunk that bears the name of Adam, 
 these people are far ahead of you in the line of their an- 
 cestry. 
 
 They occupy the Basque Provinces, three divisions, small 
 in extent, lying among the Pyrenees and on the Bay of 
 Biscay. They are probably lineal descendants of the first 
 settlers of Spain, and may be correct in their boast that 
 they are not tainted with Roman or Moorish or Gothic- 
 German blood. They still speak a language so strange and 
 so formidable to a foreigner that it is said no one has been 
 able to master it. There is a tradition among them that 
 the devil himself spent five years in studying it, and was 
 able to learn three words only. But after much inquiry I 
 could not trace this tradition to any reliable source. In 
 fact, it is said that one or two bold and persevering scholars 
 have actually made some inroads into the language, but the 
 discoveries made were a very poor reward for the time and 
 labor spent. 
 
 Into this new yet ancient country we enter at once, for 
 it is the northern gateway of Spain. At the outset of our 
 journey we must " change cars," for the Spanish govern- 
 ment, in granting license for a railroad to enter its domains, 
 refused to allow it to be made of the same width with that 
 of France, as it would in that case afford to the French 
 facilities for invasion in case of war! The idea is very 
 characteristic of Spain. And the same stupidity that dic- 
 tates such an impediment to travel forgets that every train 
 of passengers coming in from the north is an invasion that 
 is just as fatal to the regime of Spain as would be another 
 
THE BASQUE PROVINCES. II 
 
 incursion of Goths or Gauls. Ideas, rather than arms, 
 work revolutions now-a-days. 
 
 The mountains have stretched themselves across this 
 frontier to the verge of the ocean, and on our right as we 
 go south is a narrow pass between two precipitous hills, 
 and thus a safe and easily defended path for ships is made. 
 Within is a snug harbor, where the largest fleet may lie 
 unseen, and unreached by the storms at sea. Out of this 
 little port once sailed a man whose name is dear to the 
 American heart ; for in the days that tried the souls of our 
 fathers La Fayette came here into Spain and took passage 
 to the Western world, to give his sword and his fortune and 
 his life to the cause of liberty. A little farther on, a high 
 castle-crowned hill defends the city of St. Sebastian. It is 
 the first place of any importance after entering Spain. 
 Being so near to France, and so easy of access by rail, it is 
 common for Englishmen and others to take a trip to St. 
 Sebastian, from Biarritz, which is only two or three hours 
 distant, and then they can say they have been to Spain. 
 There is nothing of interest here to attract the traveller. 
 The Duke of Wellington, after losing 5,000 men in storming 
 it, drove out the French, and when his army got possession 
 of the town, they sacked it, set it on fire, and enacted such 
 scenes of wild debauchery as are not remembered without a 
 blush of shame after the lapse of more than half a century. 
 To please visitors from the north, and to make their town a 
 fashionable resort in the season, the people of St. Sebastian 
 have a bull-ring, and exhibit on a small scale the national 
 entertainment of a weekly bull-fight. For it must not be 
 supposed that Spanish blood only is delighted with this 
 savage sport. The French love to see blood ; and the Eng- 
 lish, whose highest national sport is the prize-fight ; and 
 Americans, who have been known to allow a prize-fighter to 
 be sent to their national Congress, — all take great pleasure 
 in seeing horses, bulls, and men, in one grand meUe^ wounded, 
 
12 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 bleeding, dying ; and the fairest of some of the most delicate 
 little women of these Christian countries clap their hands 
 when the bull gets the advantage and tosses his bleeding 
 victim into the air. 
 
 We are now in the midst of the mountains. The road 
 gradually rises as we advance, and frequently makes its way 
 through the heart of the hills. The valleys lie sweetly far 
 below. If the road followed the line of the valleys it might 
 be exposed to frequent injury by floods. And'as this range 
 must be crossed, it is better to make the ascent as easy as 
 possible. We might be in Switzerland, so like it are these 
 farms on the hill-sides and in the valleys ; the sounds that 
 break on the ear are the same : the houses scattered in cosy 
 nooks, or clustered in little villages which the church crowns 
 with a blessing as of heaven. The oxen have their head 
 and necks covered with a sheepskin or a woollen blanket to 
 protect them from the rain. They drag a cart of which the 
 wheels are a solid block of wood secured with a tire. There 
 has been a fair to-day in some one of the villages, and men 
 and women are going home, leading cattle they have pur- 
 chased. The men are well formed, athletic, straight, and 
 good-looking. The women are a superior race, and even 
 when leading a calf the peasant woman steps proudly along 
 as if she were entering her drawing-room. Their hair is 
 their glory, worn pendant on their backs. Of their moral 
 and mental culture little is known, as they have slight inter- 
 course with the outer world. From the beginning they 
 have had a government of their own, sometimes being cut 
 up into republics, and managing the most of matters in 
 their own way. Even when they have claimed their own 
 congress, and tariff, and army, the Spanish government 
 has thought it the part of discretion to humor them. When 
 emerging from these provinces into Castile, our luggage was 
 searched to find any tobacco we might be smuggling : for 
 this is one of the privileges of the Basque Provinces, that 
 
THE BASQUE PROVINCES. 1 3 
 
 they may import tobacco free of duty, but it is under a 
 tariff the moment we pass beyond. In this region the In- 
 dian corn of our own country is the principal production. 
 Peaches, apples, and cherries are abundant. Iron mines 
 are worked, and furnaces are frequently seen in full blast. 
 Cloth and paper mills are in operation. The inhabitants 
 have an energy and enterprise far superior to that of the 
 people farther south. Many of them become seamen. 
 Some have made discoveries in distant seas. One of the 
 most peculiar of their ideas, and one that may account for 
 the lofty bearing of their women, is, that the right of primo- 
 geniture exists among them, but it applies to the first-born 
 child, whether son or daughter! This often places the 
 woman at the head of the house, so that she can say, as 
 few women elsewhere can say, " What's yours is mine, and 
 what's mine is my own." 
 
 Property is very widely diffused among the people ; farms 
 seldom comprise more than ten acres, so that there can be 
 no great practical distinctions among them on account of 
 wealth. They divide their farms with hedges instead of 
 fences or walls, while in the more southern parts of Spain 
 they put up no fences of any sort, but merely mark the 
 bounds of land with a stone, which cannot be moved with- 
 out incurring a curse. 
 
 In a charming valley, among hills clothed with chestnut- 
 trees, and the meadows with orchards of apples and pears, 
 lies the village of Tolosa, and farther on we rested at 
 Vitoria, a famous city, the capital of the Province of Alava, 
 and celebrated as the scene of a great battle between the 
 Enghsh and the French in 1813. The Duke of Wellington 
 led the British and beat the French under Joseph Buona- 
 parte, who fled in such disorder and haste that all the 
 pictures he had stolen in Spain, and five millions of dollars, 
 fell into the hands of the Duke. 
 
 We are now leaving the Basque Provinces : Miranda is 
 
14 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the first town in Castile at which we stop. An immense 
 railroad station is in progress of erection, showing the ex- 
 pectation at least of a great amount of business. We hope 
 the hope may be realized. Crossing the river Zadorra, and 
 now the Ebro, and along the Oroncillo, we are again in the 
 midst of the wildest and grandest mountain scenery, as we 
 take our iron way through the frightful gorges of Pancorbo. 
 And even here the legends of Spain begin to invest the 
 crags and ruined castles with the interest of romance. For 
 on these heights are the remnants of the castle where 
 Roderick, the last king of the Goths, brought the beautiful 
 Florinda, whom he saw as David saw Bathsheba, and see- 
 ing loved, not wisely but too well, and loving, lost his crown, 
 his honor, his kingdom, and his life. 
 
BURGOS. IS 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BURGOS — THE ESCORIAL. 
 
 1VT0THING purely Spanish comes in sight till we get to 
 ^ Burgos. This old city is half-way from the frontier 
 to Madrid, and is just so slow, sleepy, and sluggish a town 
 as one should see to get a correct impression of Spain at 
 the start. About a thousand years ago, Diego Porcelos, a 
 knight of Castile, had a beautiful daughter, Sulla Bella, who 
 was loved and won by a German, and they founded this 
 city, calling it from a German Btirg^ a fortified place, 
 Burgos. For many long years it was independent, gov- 
 erned by a council. Afterwards, Gonzales was made the 
 governor, as Count of Castile, who and his heirs reigned 
 until, under Ferdinand I., in 1067, by a happy marriage, 
 the crowns of Leon and Castile were fused into one. 
 
 The legendary hero of Spain, whose exploits are only less 
 than those of Hercules, was born in Burgos, and what is 
 more and better, his bones are here in the Town Hall ; and 
 if any doubt is entertained of the fact that he actually lived 
 and died and was a wonderful man, between the dates of 
 his birth and death, such doubts ought to be dispelled by a 
 sight which I had of an old brass-bound, mouldering chest, 
 sacredly preserved in one of the inner and holy chambers 
 of the cathedral, and called the coffer of the Cid. Once on 
 a time the Cid had occasion to borrow a large sum of money 
 of two Jewish bankers in Burgos, and he left with them as 
 security this trunk, with, as he said^ all his jewels and gold 
 in it. He did not pay the money when it was due, and the 
 
BURGOS. 
 
 17 
 
 chest being opened by the lenders was found full only of 
 sand ! It was thought in those days a merit to cheat a 
 Jew, and the Romanists show their estimate of the trick to 
 this day by keeping the swindling coffer among their pre- 
 
 The Cid. 
 
1 8 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 cious relics. But it is hardly probable that a Jew ever lived 
 who would lend money without first seeing the security, and 
 the story therefore lacks probability. However this may 
 be, we are now in the city of the Cid, and though a Chris- 
 tian knight, he had read the words of the Prophet of the 
 Moor, — " There are three sorts of lies which will not be 
 taken into account at the last judgment: ist. One told to 
 reconcile two persons at variance. 2d, That which a hus- 
 band tells when he promises any thing to his wife ; and 3d,- 
 A chieftain's word in time of war." Such is the morality 
 of Mahomet, and there is not a httle of the same Jesuitism, 
 under other names. 
 
 The city has 25,000 inhabitants, and one of the most 
 splendid cathedrals of Europe; but not a hotel that is 
 decent. We went to the best, and its entrance was strong 
 with the smell of the stables. The first flight of steps in- 
 side was littered with dust and straw, and it looked as if we 
 were to be led to a manger, which word is, indeed, the same 
 with the French salle a manger^ a dining-room. Yet this 
 proved to be as fair a hotel as Spain at present offers to its 
 friends from abroad. They are all inferior to second-rate 
 hotels in France or Switzerland, and many that profess to 
 be first-class are execrable. The charges are higher than 
 in better houses in countries where living is dearer, so that 
 the business of entertaining strangers in Spain is an organ- 
 ized imposition. The roads are now free from robbers who 
 formerly infested them and made travelling dangerous. 
 The robbers have evidently left the highway and gone to 
 keeping the hotels. They still rob travellers, with less risk 
 and trouble than in the olden time. 
 
 An Englishman by the name of Maurice, being high in 
 the favor of Ferdinand, the saint and hero, laid the foun- 
 dation, A. D. 1 22 1, of the Burgos cathedral, which fairly 
 challenges comparison with any or all of the finest speci- 
 mens of ecclesiastical architecture in the world. Having 
 
BURGOS. 19 
 
 been built in successive periods, and these at long distances 
 from each other, there is a want of harmony in the parts, 
 but this is observed only by the professional eye, while to 
 others, and especially on one who enters this first of the 
 great edifices of Spain, its interior bursts with a blaze of 
 grandeur covered with beauty, that fairly dazzles while it 
 awes and dehghts him. And after having visited and 
 leisurely studied half a dozen others, including those of 
 Toledo and Seville, I regard the cathedral of Burgos as 
 exhibiting a degree of perfection in detail, an elaborate exe- 
 cution to adorn and embellish a sanctuary, not equalled by 
 any of its rivals in Spain. 
 
 And it is to Spain that we must come to see what the art 
 and consecrated wealth of princes and priests can do to 
 build temples in honor of God. Italy has nothing like 
 them. St. Peter's is the largest Christian church in the 
 world, and perhaps more labor and money have been ex- 
 pended upon it. But as a Christian church it is a failure, 
 without and within. Not so with any of these magnificent 
 monuments of human power and devotion. The towers of 
 this, at Burgos, with their graceful, open-worked pinnacles, 
 spring up as if seeking the sky. The gates are grand, and 
 surrounded and crowned with bas reliefs. Around the 
 towers are seventy statues, of prophets and apostles, and 
 over the transept are twenty-four life-size statues of female 
 saints, each covered with a canopy, as guardian angels on 
 this house of prayer. Moses and Aaron, in stone, stand by 
 one of the doors, with Peter and Paul, and in the vestibule 
 is the Saviour, and around him the four evangelists are 
 writing the holy gospels, while at least fifty statues, apos- 
 tles, angels with candlesticks, seraphs, and cherubs, add to 
 the ornament of this one gate. 
 
 It is quite impracticable to convey by words, and it is a 
 fact that drawings or photographs of interiors fail to convey 
 an idea of the view which one meets on entering a vast 
 
20 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 cathedral. The impression is on a devout mind, whether 
 of the same faith with that professed by the ministers at 
 these altars or not, the impression is one of solemnity and 
 sublimity. When the enlightened stranger comes near to 
 study the wretched additions which superstition has made 
 to the simplicity of Christian worship as established by its 
 founder, his taste and principles may be shocked and re- 
 volted by what he sees and hears in gorgeous and glorious 
 cathedrals. But these are abuses that have crept in : fungi 
 on the trunks of grand old forest trees, under whose branches 
 it is a delight to sit and think of him who dwells in a nobler 
 temple not made with hands. Three hundred feet long, and 
 two hundred feet and more wide within, and chapels yet 
 beyond, each one large enough for a church, and two hun- 
 dred feet to the roof, which is supported by vast pillars of 
 stone, and each one of them wrought elaborately with gar- 
 lands, and fruits, and images of angels, and historic scenes 
 and incidents in Scripture, — such is the first grand view 
 that lies before us, as we enter the gates of this cathedral 
 in Burgos. It is in the form of the Latin cross, and at the 
 intersection, the crucero^ as it is called in Spanish, the effect 
 of the vaulted dome, and of the whole minute and elegant 
 workmanship, is so exquisite that the Emperor Charles V. 
 is reported to have said it should be placed under glass, and 
 Philip II. pronounced it the work rather of angels than 
 men. I could discern nothing worthy of such exaggerated 
 eulogy, while admiring the harmonious proportions and the 
 graceful combinations that enhance the effect of elaborate 
 sculpture and ingenious decorations. 
 
 Four massive columns, embellished with allegorical sculp- 
 tures, form the transept, and above them the main arches 
 spring. Angels bear aloft a banner, inscribed, " I will 
 praise thee in thy temple, and I will glorify thy name, thou 
 whose works are miracles." 
 
 Just here, for we were coming toward the high altar, 
 
BURGOS. 21 
 
 Antanazio dropped upon his knees, on the marble floor. 
 A little bell had been rung, and all the Catholics in the 
 cathedral bent to the ground as the host was elevated for 
 their adoration in the celebration of the mass. We stood 
 before the high altar, resplendent above and about it with 
 wrought silver and gold and rich carving and sculpture, in 
 which the life and death of the blessed Saviour are inscribed 
 in mute yet expressive symbols. In the choir are more 
 than a hundred stalls or seats of carved walnut, each one 
 of them an elaborate work of art, rich with figures of men 
 and beasts, the virgin and saints in martyrdom and in 
 glory; and one of these saints is astride of the devil, in 
 memory of the fact that the devil did carry this saint from 
 Spain to Rome in one night. That's better time than any 
 of the Spanish railroads can make. 
 
 We were led by a kind sacristan through the various 
 chapels, all rich in tombs of costly workmanship, and some 
 containing relics which, to the believer in their virtue, are 
 of priceless value ; one of these precious treasures being a 
 statue of Christ on the cross, which we were expected to 
 behold with deep reverence. It is asserted and believed to 
 have been carved by Nicodemus just after he had buried 
 the Saviour. It is, therefore, an authentic likeness ; and if 
 any doubt existed of its being a genuine work, it is removed 
 by the facts that the hair, the beard, the eyelashes even, 
 and the thorns, are all natural, real ; that it sweats every 
 Friday ; that it sometimes actually bleeds ; and that it has 
 performed many miracles. It would have been more im- 
 pressive on my unbelieving mind if it had not been girt 
 about with a red petticoat ! 
 
 The castle has a history in which the names of all the 
 great warriors of the last thousand years have a part; it 
 has been the prison of some kings, and the bridal-chamber 
 of queens, and the birth-place of more. In modern times 
 Napoleon conquered it. And what is more remarkable, 
 
THE ESCORIAL. 23 
 
 Wellington tried to drive out the French, and failed. It is 
 now a heap of ruins ; for when the French abandoned it 
 they blew it up, but so bunglingly that some three hundred 
 of them went up with it. The explosion destroyed the 
 painted windows of the cathedral, an irreparable loss. 
 
 There is nothing in Burgos to see but the cathedral ; and 
 that is worth going to Spain to see, though you may have 
 to put up at and zvith a Burgos tavern. 
 
 Philip 11. came to the throne of Spain in 1556, less than 
 twenty years before the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day 
 in France, and in the same century with the Reformation 
 led on by Luther. His history and his character are famil- 
 iar to the world. Cold, cruel, bigoted, intolerant, morose, 
 gloomy, superstitious, the grandson of a woman who was 
 known by the name of Crazy Jane, and who earned the 
 title, the son of the great Emperor of Germany, Charles V., 
 who was also Charles I. of Spain, this Philip II., thus 
 descended and thus endowed, was less a king than a monk, 
 and in the cloister or the cell was more at home than on 
 the throne. He was the husband of Bloody Mary of Eng- 
 land, and, like her, verily thought to please God by perse- 
 cuting the saints and mortifying himself. Perhaps his 
 queer grandmother had put the idea of a palace and a mon- 
 astery and a tomb into his head. Perhaps his father, in the 
 gloomy hours when he meditated retirement and abdication 
 of his sovereignty, inspired the son with this strange pur- 
 pose. Or, more likely, the conception with him was orig- 
 inal, and as no monarch, before him or since, had such a 
 heart under the guide of such a head, it is only just to give 
 him all the credit of devising and achieving one of the most 
 stupendous follies and gigantic monuments that was ever 
 executed by the hands of men. 
 
 The Spaniards reckon the Escorial as the eighth wonder 
 of the world ! 
 
 About twenty-five miles north of Madrid, in the midst of 
 
24 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the dreariest wilderness of barren, rocky, all but uninhabita- 
 ble hills, a region where no beauty of scenery cheers the 
 eye, no silver river winds along through fertile vales, no 
 verdant slopes are covered with grazing herds, and no 
 forests with their cool shades invite the tired traveller or 
 the weary citizen to seek repose, — here, in the last of all 
 places for such an edifice, is placed the Escorial, the largest 
 and grandest .edifice in Spain, and the most remarkable build- 
 ing now standing on the earth. What Egypt had when 
 Karnak and Thebes were in their prime, what Babylon 
 and Nineveh knew in the days of their now buried glory, 
 we have but faint knowledge. This house covers a square 
 of five hundred thousand feet ! It is about 750 feet long, 
 and 600 feet wide. It is a royal palace. It is a monastery. 
 It is the sepulchre of the royal family of Spain. It is a 
 church ; and in that church, the chapel of this strange house, 
 there is more wealth lavished on the pulpits and altars than 
 on any other that I have seen, in this or any other country. 
 Yet all this is in a wilderness, far away from cities and the 
 abodes of men who might be supposed to admire and enjoy 
 such grandeur, — a temple in a desert, a palace and a 
 sepulchre. 
 
 Passing on by the rail from Burgos, we might stop at 
 Valladolid, once the most renowned of all the cities of Spain, 
 now so utterly decayed as to be of interest only to anti- 
 quarians. Here Ferdinand and Isabella were married in 
 1469. Here Columbus, the worn and Veary, died in his 
 own house in 1506. Here he slept in death six years, and 
 then his bones were removed to Seville, and again to Cuba, 
 that they might rest in the New World he found. Philip 
 II., whose Escorial we are going to see, was born here in 
 Valladolid, and after he grew to manhood had the pleasure 
 of seeing at one time fourteen Protestants, and thirteen at 
 another, burnt alive, in the Grand Square of the city: a 
 most edifying spectacle, which strengthened his faith so 
 
THE ESCORIAL. 2$ 
 
 much that he afterwards dedicated his mighty structure to 
 the good St. Lawrence, who was broiled to death on a grid- 
 iron, enduring his torments with so much fortitude that he 
 said to his executioners, " I am done on this side, perhaps 
 you had better turn me over," — whence comes the expres- 
 sion, " done to a turn." 
 
 PhiUp II. made Madrid the capital of his kingdom, hold- 
 ing his court there or at the Escorial, at his pleasure, for 
 they were only a few hours apart. 
 
 It is a long but pleasant walk from the station to the 
 palace, and it is better to stroll along the shaded avenues, 
 resting at times on the solid stone seats, looking upward at 
 the solitary pile ahead, and musing on the wonderful dead 
 past; the pomp and pageantry, the vast processions of 
 priests and kings and countless armies of Spain, of France, 
 of England, that have marched up this same street, in 
 triumph, in penitential grief, or in funeral array. Away 
 from the world, the world has often come hither, under the 
 many garbs the world wears, according as it is in glory or 
 in shame. Entering the grand quadrangle by the chief 
 gate, the colossal edifice presents its central front and the 
 two lateral projections in one view; the main fagade is 
 adorned with statues of the principal personages in Old 
 Testament history. Crossing the court, paved with great 
 granite blocks, we enter, and the massive walls, the cold 
 damp halls, gloomy in their naked, solid grandeur, make 
 us feel that we are entering a fortress, and not a palace. 
 It would be impossible to find your way without a guide. 
 There are sixteen courts within, and out of each of them 
 long passages lead to eighty staircases, and up these we 
 may go, if we have time, to twelve thousand doors, and 
 look out of two thousand six hundred windows, and worship 
 at forty altars ! ! You wish to be excused from such climb- 
 ing and kneeling. Come, then, with me at once into the 
 church. It is more than 300 feet long, and 230 feet wide, 
 
26 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 and 320 feet high : of granite all ; its columns are majestic 
 in their proportions, severe in Doric simplicity, supporting 
 twenty-four arches, so beautifully sprung that, wherever you 
 stand, the eye takes in the whole at a glance. The pulpits 
 surpass, in the splendor of their finish, any thing in Italy. 
 The richest, variegated, and most precious marbles, used as 
 freely as though they were common wood, are adorned with 
 gold and silver, strangely in contrast with the severity of 
 the church itself. The altar is reached by a flight of several 
 steps, and on the right, as we stand in front of it, a window 
 opens into a little chamber, which we sought with more 
 interest than any other apartment of this remarkable struc- 
 ture. We went out of the church and into the room. It 
 was scarcely ten feet by six in dimensions ; but it was the 
 favorite closet, the study and the bedchamber of the 
 monarch who built the whole. This was all he wanted for 
 himself. It was in sight and hearing of the service at the 
 high altar. At midnight and before daybreak he could rise 
 from his couch, and join in the service of the church. I 
 sat down in the plain old chair, by the table, the same that 
 he used, and put up my feet on the camp-stool that often 
 held his diseased and agonized limbs, and looked down from 
 the little window on the priests and people in the church 
 below. And here in this room death came and called for 
 Philip II. For long months he had suffered anguish not 
 less than that he had inflicted on better men than he. Let 
 us leave it for others to say if like Herod he was smitten for 
 his sins, and destroyed with the same disease. But when 
 he saw that his end was near, at his order his servants bore 
 him on a couch through the palace, and the monastery and 
 the church, that his poor dying eyes might rest once more 
 on all that he had done, and then they brought him back to 
 his lonely, comfortless cell, and left him to die. It was on 
 a September Sabbath morning, in 1598, while listening to 
 the service at this altar, and holding in his hand the same 
 
THE ESCORIAL. 2/ 
 
 crucifix that fixed the dying eyes of the Emperor his father, 
 that PhiHp yielded his spirit into the hands of a just as well 
 as merciful God 1 
 
 We left this sad chamber, and descending a flight of steps 
 made of precious stones, the walls lined with beautiful, 
 polished marbles, we stood in a subterranean chapel, a 
 mausoleum, shelves on each of the eight sides, and on each 
 shelf a bronze sarcophagus, and in each coffin a dead king 
 or queen. The name of each occupant is inscribed on the 
 outer shell. One of the queens scratched her name on her 
 coffin with a pair of scissors before she was put in. She 
 could not have well done it after. There is an altar in this 
 dungeon, and here the late queen of Spain, who is very 
 devout in her way, came once a year and had a service at 
 midnight. It adds nothing to the solemnity to have mass 
 here in the night, for at noonday we had to hold candles in 
 our hands to see our way in and out. 
 
 The Sagrario was a more interesting apartment than 
 this. It has some fine paintings. I valued them more 
 than the 7,400 relics which are here preserved with pious 
 care, including the entire bodies of eight or ten saints, 
 twelve dozen whole heads, and three hundred legs and 
 arms. It once had — but the fortunes of war have deprived 
 the house of the treasure — one of the bars on which St. 
 Lawrence was burnt, and one of his feet, with a piece of 
 coal still sticking between its toes ! but the coal and the 
 toes are lost in toto. 
 
 One of the priests, who was leading a company of 
 strangers visiting the place, overheard me asking for the 
 Cellini crucifix, and immediately took us to the choir, and 
 opened the door of a closet in which this remarkable work 
 is carefully preserved. It is a Carrara marble statue of 
 Christ on the cross, and marked by the great Benvenuto 
 himself with his name and the date, 1562. He was the 
 first who made a crucifix in marble, and the patient toil and 
 
28 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 great genius expended on this work have made it justly 
 esteemed as his master-piece of sculpture. 
 
 Yet have I alluded to but one or tv/o out of a thousand 
 things that fix the attention, and impress one rather with 
 astonishment than delight. I have not even mentioned the 
 library, which is the crown of the whole, designed to be the 
 repository of all learning, and in spite of all its sufferings by 
 violence, it is still rich in rare and valuable books and man- 
 uscripts. The cases are of ebony and cedar. Jasper and 
 porphyry tables stand through the hall, about 200 feet long, 
 and allegorical paintings adorn the ceilings. 
 
 It was refreshing to get out of it, after walking through 
 the palace and the cloisters, and to enjoy the warm sunshine 
 beyond the gloomy walls. Two or three cottages have been 
 built among the groves planted here, and it seems a mercy 
 to children to provide a more cheery home for them than a 
 sepulchral palace could be, though of wrought gold. 
 
MADRID. 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MADRID — A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL. 
 
 A VALET-DE-PLACE who was leading us to church on 
 -^ ^ Sunday morning in Madrid, spoke very fair English, 
 and I asked him where he had learned it. He said, " At the 
 missionary's school in Constantinople." He was quite a 
 polyglot, professing to be able to speak seven languages 
 fluently. It was interesting to meet a youth who knew our 
 missionaries there, and entertained a great respect for his 
 old teachers, — and it gave us an idea, too, of the indirect 
 influence which such schools must be exerting, when youth 
 are trained in them, and afterwards embark in other callings 
 than those that are religious in their purpose. 
 
 He led us to the Prussian ambassador's, where the chap- 
 lain preaches in the French language. No Protestant 
 preaching was then allowed in Madrid, — none, indeed, in 
 Spain, — except under the flag of another government. 
 The ambassador, or the consul, had the right, of course, 
 to regulate his own household as he pleases ; and, under 
 this necessary privilege^ he has, if he is so disposed, a 
 chaplain, and divine service on Sunday, when his doors are 
 opened to all who choose to attend. The practical working 
 of it is that a regular congregation comes to be established 
 under each flag, if there are so many persons of that coun- 
 try and of a religious tendency as to make it important. In 
 most of the great capitals of Europe there are people of 
 other countries resident for business, health, or pleasure, 
 and they find a place of worship in their own tongue. 
 
30 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 The Germans resident in Madrid speak the French 
 language, as well as their own, and the present chaplain 
 preaches in French. He is an earnest, excellent man, and 
 his pulpit abilities would make him greatly useful in a 
 wider sphere than this. In an upper chamber, that would 
 seat fifty persons, a little congregation, not more than 
 twelve or fifteen, had come together to hear the Word. 
 The desk, or pulpit, was habited after the fashion in Ger- 
 many, with black hangings, embroidered neatly by the 
 hands of the wife of the Prussian ambassador, and with 
 the words in French, "Go ye into all the world and preach 
 the gospel." I was told that on Christmas and Easter 
 festivals of the church some two or three hundreds of Ger- 
 man Christians come to church and to the communion ; but 
 the rest of the year their spiritual wants do not require the 
 weekly ordinances, and the congregation rarely exceeds 
 thirty people. 
 
 We w^nt after church to the old Palace of the Inquisi- 
 tion. It is now converted into dwellings*. Over the main 
 entrance was the inscription, common all over these 
 foreign countries, as in some parts of our own, '•'- Insured 
 against Fire.^^ The poor victims who in former years 
 were dragged under that portal would have been glad to 
 read such words, if they could be interpreted into an assur- 
 ance that they were to be safe from the fire of an atUo dafe. 
 
 The Spanish Inquisition affords the saddest story in the 
 annals of the human race. Whatever the name or creed of 
 the persecutor, — Jew or Gentile, Roman, Greek, Protes- 
 tant, or Mahometan, — the saddest of all possible facts is 
 this, that man has put to torture and to death his fellow- 
 man on account of his religious opinions. Let God be 
 praised that in all the earth men now may worship him in 
 their own way, with none to molest or make them afraid. 
 
 And it is very well to bear in mind that persecution has 
 its spirit, and some of its power, even where the victims are 
 
A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL. 3 1 
 
 by law insured against fire. In the press and in the pulpit 
 the venom of bigotry and the bitterness of intolerance may 
 be poured on the heads of those who are guilty of other 
 opinions than ours, and in God's sight such persecution 
 may be as offensive as the rack and boot of the Inquisi- 
 tion. The spirit of the Master rebukes the use of the 
 sword, even in the hands of Peter, to cut off a servant's 
 ear, and the same spirit forbids us to be uncharitable 
 towards the meanest of those who have not the light of the 
 grace to see as we see, or to defend Christ in our way. 
 
 They have no cathedral in Madrid, but their churches are 
 many, and on Sunday morning they, women especially, go 
 to church. The Spaniards are more devout than the Ital- 
 ians. There is a proverb that to go to Rome is to dis- 
 believe. The people in Spain have not seen Romanism as 
 it has been seen in Italy, until the popular mind is sick of 
 it. But they make short work in Spain of their devotions. 
 
 The Prado is their park, on the skirts of the town. And 
 this is not enough for them on Sundays. We saw the 
 crowds pouring out towards one of the gates, some in car- 
 riages, but most of them on foot, — men, women, and chil- 
 dren, hundreds, thousands, in holiday attire, — and we 
 followed. Beyond the Alcala gatd, near which is the bull- 
 ring, half a mile into the country, we came to the meadows 
 over which these pleasure-seeking Castillians had spread 
 themselves to enjoy their national and favorite pastime. A 
 little later in the season, when the weather is warmer, 
 thousands of these people would stop at the bull-ring, and 
 see the battle of men and beasts. It is too cool as yet, and 
 the bulls do not fight well except in hot weather. But it is 
 not too cool to dance out of doors, and for this divertise- 
 ment these thousands have come. On the wide meadows 
 there is not a house, not a shanty, not a shed or booth. 
 We have passed on the way scores of wine-shops ; and there 
 the people can resort if. they choose. But on the grounds 
 
32 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 there is nothing to be had but the pure and blessed air. 
 The people are distributed in groups all over the plain. 
 The grass is green. The sun, a winter sun, is kind and 
 genial. The city lies in full view, with palaces and domes 
 and pinnacles. And in the distance, but in this blazing 
 sun and lucid atmosphere apparently very near, long ranges 
 of mountains stand covered with snow, white, pure, glisten- 
 ing like silver in the sunlight, and forming a magnificent 
 background to the gay picture at our feet. In the centre 
 of each of these many groups a dozen, more or less, of 
 young men and women are dancing to music. This is 
 furnished by one, two, or three musicians, strolling bands, 
 with guitars and violins. Often one is an old man, blind. 
 His wife and daughter are with him, with their instru- 
 ments. The airs are not wild, not even lively, as compared 
 with those of Italy. But they are spirited, and sometimes 
 familiar to a foreign ear ;•. for the airs of music, like the airs 
 of heaven, travel all around the world. The dances are 
 pretty and modest, singularly tame, and far from being as 
 full of frolic and abandon as one would expect to see in the 
 out-of-door amusements of the common people. For these 
 are the lower classes only. It is the pastime of the sons 
 and daughters of toil, and perhaps want. They were not 
 ill dressed, and most of them were well dressed. But they 
 appeared to be the class of people who had but this day in 
 the week for pleasure, and were now seeking and finding it 
 in a way .that cost them little or nothing. More were 
 looking on than danced. Yet the sets changed frequently, 
 and the circle widened as the numbers of dancers grew, and 
 there was always room for more ; for the meadows were 
 wide, and the heaven was a roof large enough to cover 
 them all. 
 
 And the strangest part of this performance is yet to be 
 mentioned; more than half the men in this frolic of the 
 fields were soldiers of the regular army, in their uniforms, 
 
A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL. 33 
 
 without arms, enjoying a half hohday. They and all the 
 rest, men and women, seemed to be as happy as happy 
 could be. If we had thought the people of Spain, and espe- 
 cially of Madrid, where the government is felt and seen 
 more severely and nearly than elsewhere, to be gloomy, 
 sullen, discontented, miserable, and ready to rise in revolt, 
 such a thought would be put to rout by seeing these sol- 
 diers and others, men and women, thousands and thou- 
 sands, making themselves so easily happy of a Sunday 
 afternoon. 
 
 In one of the circles of dancers two young men, better 
 dressed than the rest, were either the worse for liquor, or 
 were feigning to be tipsy. As the other dancers paid no 
 attention to them, and let them amuse themselves in their 
 own way, it is quite probable they were playing the fool. 
 These were the only persons in that multitude, of the lower 
 orders of the city, who gave any sign of having 'been drink- 
 ing any thing that could intoxicate. There were scores of 
 wine-shops on the street, within the easy walk of all who 
 wished liquors. It was necessary to pass them going and 
 coming to and from the city. And thousands doubtless 
 " took something to drink," both going and coming. The 
 young men would treat the girls, and, of course, all would 
 have as much wine as they wished. For it is almost as 
 cheap as water, — cheaper than water in New York perhaps ; 
 for there the tax that somebody pays for the use of Croton 
 is something, but here in Spain wine is so cheap that what 
 was left of last year's vintage has often been emptied on the 
 ground, or used instead of water to mix mortar with ! Yet 
 drunkenness is not one of the common vices of Spain. 
 
 And so passed my first Sabbath in Spain, worshipping in 
 French with a dozen Christians in the morning, and look- 
 ing at thousands of the people dancing on the green in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 Three days before Lent begins the people give them- 
 
 3 
 
34 ' ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 selves up to the wildest kind of frolic, with a looseness of 
 manner that to a grave and thoughtful foreigner unused to 
 such scenes at home is at first sight exceedingly foolish, 
 and then very stupid. The Carnival is a carne-vale, a fare- 
 well to flesh ; a grand celebration of the approach of Lent, 
 or the season when lentiles^ beans or vegetables only, are 
 to be eaten for forty days. As the people see the time 
 coming when for more than a month their religion requires 
 them in a very special manner to abjure the world, the flesh, 
 and the devil, it seems to be their idea to give the last three 
 days of liberty to the enjoyment of these three forms of 
 mammon-worship. If afterwards they served the Lord with 
 half the zeal of these three days of devil-worship, they 
 would be the most pious people on the earth. But to one 
 whose religious prejudices are quite vivid against the non^ 
 sense of a Catholic carnival, it seems the queerest way in 
 the world to get ready for serving God by plunging head- 
 long into a scene of mad revelry that utterly abjures all 
 sense and reason, and converts an entire city for three days 
 into a pandemonium. 
 
 Yet it is all in such perfectly good humor, so free from 
 riot and violence and drunkenness, that the only fault to be 
 found with it is simply this, that the whole community 
 make fools of themselves. The Romans had a proverb, 
 " It is well to play the fool sometimes," and perhaps it is. 
 But when the whole town takes leave of its senses, and goes 
 frolicking day after day, if it is a good thing, it is too much 
 of a good thing, and that spoils it all. 
 
 Our windows look out upon the Puerta del Sol, the great 
 square of the city. From it radiate the eight chief streets, 
 and through it every moment the tide of life is flowing. 
 Now it is the great centre of the carnival. Along the 
 streets are seen parading small companies of men in masks 
 and fantastic costumes, with all sorts of musical instru- 
 ments, making harsh melodies as they march. Two or 
 
A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL. 35 
 
 three of the set are constantly soliciting gifts from those 
 they meet, or holding a cap to catch money thrown to them 
 from the people in the windows and balconies, who are look- 
 ing down to see the sport. Some of these rangers are 
 women in men's clothes ; more are men in petticoats and 
 crinoline, ill concealing their sex, which a close shaven 
 chin and hard features too plainly reveal. In this disguise, 
 great liberties are taken. A young woman stops a man on 
 the sidewalk, claps him on the shoulder, asks him for money, 
 perhaps chucks him under the chin, and sometimes more 
 demonstrative still, she throws her arms around his neck 
 and gives him an affectionate salute in the broad light of 
 day on the most public and crowded thoroughfare. Even 
 this boldness is taken in good part, and seldom or never 
 leads to any quarrel. The men were polite to the women. 
 In no case did I see any rudeness offered by a person in 
 male attire to a female on the street. The maskers were 
 only out in hundreds, while the others, looking on and 
 enjoying, were thousands on thousands. These were in the 
 usual dress of ladies and gentlemen. They expected to 
 find walking somewhat rough, but they were prepared for 
 it, and would have been disappointed had it been otherwise. 
 The maskers wore costumes as various as the fancy of the 
 wearers or the makers could invent them. Some were 
 clothed in white from head to foot, with stripes of red or 
 black ; their faces painted white like ghosts, or with horns 
 to look as much like devils as possible. Many were imita- 
 tion negroes, and this seemed to be a fashionable attire, as 
 if the African were popular among the Spaniards, who once 
 had a great horror of the Moors. Some wore a fantastic 
 head-gear that excited shouts of laughter as they passed. 
 One man strode along with a false head five times the life 
 size, so nicely fitted to his shoulders that it looked to be a 
 sudden expansion of his head into that of a monster. Sol- 
 
36 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 emnly the bearer of this prodigious topknot walked the 
 streets, apparently unconscious of the presence of the little- 
 headed race of beings who were laughing at his swelled 
 head. 
 
 Carriages, open, splendid barouches, and some with 
 seated platforms prepared for the purpose, drawn by four or 
 six horses, passed by, with six, eight, and even twelve 
 maskers, all clad in the most inconceivably ludicrous robes, 
 with queer hats and trimmings ; and some of them with 
 musical instruments, singing, gesticulating, bowing to the 
 ladies in the windows, and exchanging salutations with the 
 people in the way. The drivers and postilions and footmen 
 were all rigged in livery to match the costumes of the com- 
 pany in the carriage, who thus aped the nobility and even 
 royalty itself in its mockery of stately grandeur. And in 
 the midst of these maskers, carriages with elegant ladies, 
 in full dress for riding, go by, and among them, with his 
 legs hanging over the side of the carriage, is one of the 
 most fantastically got-up maskers, whose outlandish cos- 
 tume and ridiculous situation call out tremendous applause. 
 
 On the Prado, the great park of the city, thousands of 
 elegant equipages are out in the afternoon, and the most 
 fashionable people of Madrid are in the frolic. The ladies 
 are loaded with sugar-plums to throw among the maskers, 
 and these gay fellows will rush up to any carriage, leap on 
 the steps, and demand a supply. On the walks, an old 
 dowager in a splendid velvet cloak and dress, masked and 
 representing an ancient belle, got up regardless of expense, 
 attracts marked attention as she displays her fan and 
 feathers, and struts as if in a drawing-room where she im- 
 agines herself admired. An old monk hobbles along, as if 
 broken down with age and poverty. A procession of priests 
 mocks at religion itself, in a country where we had thought 
 it a capital crime to make fun of the priesthood. 
 
A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL. 3/ 
 
 And there goes the Pope himself ; a man has actually 
 mounted a hat like the Pope's, and with white robes and 
 gold lace has made a disguise that tells its story instantly. 
 And the people laugh to see it. Nothing is too sacred nor 
 too dignified to be travestied here. A company of mock 
 soldiers pretend to keep order by making confusion more 
 confounded. By some strange metamorphosis a man has 
 turned himself into a very creditable goose, and waddles 
 along most naturally, having some wires at his command 
 with which he works his bill, his wings', and tail. A bear 
 on horseback rides up, and Bruin is received with bravos. 
 An ox is mounted also on a horse, and then a wolf ; and 
 even the devil is represented on horseback, and a woman 
 rides astride behind him and her arms around him, a hide- 
 ous, incongruous, but exceedingly ludicrous spectacle. Her 
 hoops spread far behind, covering the horse's hips and tail, 
 so that the figure is half horse, half devil, and the other half 
 woman. One man, as an orang-outang, leads and exhibits 
 another dressed in the same way. Parties of dancers, all in 
 these ridiculous costumes, form a ring and dance the fan- 
 dango, with castanets and cymbals and guitars, executing 
 the freest flings and giving themselves to the wildest aban- 
 don in the public streets. Others, men and women, dis- 
 guised as if in their night-clothes and ready to go to bed, 
 are wandering about, pretending to be lost, and their appear- 
 ance is so comical that one almost forgets it is play, and 
 pities the poor wanderers. 
 
 But the description is growing more wearisome than the 
 scene itself. Nonsense all, but such nonsense as makes 
 one laugh at first and then feel sad that grown-up men and 
 women can find amusement, day after day, in such infinite 
 folly. And where the religion comes in, it is hard to see. 
 Yet we observe that our American and English friends who 
 have leanings through their own church towards the Church 
 
38 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 of Rome, take a wonderful interest in the carnival. They 
 have some associations with it, and the fast that follows, 
 that give to all this sport some significance quite incompre- 
 hensible to the uncovenanted unbelievers in the outer 
 courts. 
 
MADRID. 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MADRID — PALACE — BANK — PICTURE-GALLERY. 
 
 "XT 7HEN Napoleon, as conqueror of Spain, entered the 
 ^ ^ royal palace of Madrid (it was in 1808, his brother 
 Joseph, the new-made king of Spain, being at his side), the 
 great captain paused on the splendid marble staircase ; and, 
 as the magnificence of the mansion burst upon him, he 
 turned to his brother, and said, in his epigrammatic way of 
 putting his thoughts, " My brother, you will be better 
 lodged than I." 
 
 It is far more splendid than the Tuileries, or any palace 
 in France, England, Germany, or Italy. It cost more than 
 five millions of dollars a hundred years ago ; and that was a 
 much greater sum of money than now. It has been en- 
 larged and embellished from year to year ever since. When 
 we drove up to the grand court, it was so formidably filled 
 with cavalry that we thought the predicted insurrection was 
 imminent, and the army had been summoned to the defence 
 of the palace. Not at all. These mounted soldiers are 
 only the regular guard. In this inner court, or square, the 
 cavalry, in long line and fierce array, are ready for a fight 
 with the revolutionists, if they are brave enough, or mad 
 enough, to try their hands in a tussle with the troops of 
 government, trained and paid to defend the existing order 
 of things. From the windows of the armory this martial 
 parade was imposing, though there were but a few hun- 
 dreds of mounted men. The officers were clad in polished 
 steel back and breast plates, which flash brightly in the 
 

PALACE. 41 
 
 sun. The uniform is brilliant, and the riding splendid. 
 Artillery companies, with cannon mounted, drawn by 
 horses, manoeuvre in the square, crossing and recrossing 
 constantly, under the eye of the royal household. A long 
 line of lounging people look on also ; and, as they go and 
 come all day, an impression is certainly insinuated by this 
 military parade that the government is always ready to take 
 care of itself. 
 
 The palace stands on the verge of a height that com- 
 mands a wide and exciting view of the plains of Castile. 
 The thought of what those plains have seen in the last two 
 thousand years makes them of more than romantic interest 
 to one who takes in the past with the present. What suc- 
 cessive tides of conquest have there ebbed and flowed ! 
 To know that Charles V. and Napoleon and Wellington 
 have followed one another up those shaded avenues to this 
 summit, with their legions, is enough to invest them with 
 grandeur. 
 
 And here in this armory is the very sword that Gonzalo, 
 of Cordova, wore, and the sword with which Ferdinand, the 
 saint and hero, smote the Moors ; and the sword of Charles 
 v., and the complete suit of armor which the great emperor 
 often wore, and in which he was painted by Titian ; and the 
 suit of armor worn by Boabdil, the last Moorish king who 
 sat on the throne in this Alhambra, and who left it behind, 
 doubtless, when he delivered his sword into the hands of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, at the foot of the hill on which I 
 am writing. We had thought revolvers a modern invention, 
 but here are elegant pistols, on the same principle, used in 
 the seventeenth century, and now as good as new. A 
 crown, a sword, a helmet, or something else, illustrates the 
 life of all the heroes of Spanish history ; and the number of 
 warlike memorials here displayed is about three thousand. 
 How men managed to fight while clad from head to foot in 
 these suits of steel armor is to me, a non-combatant, one 
 
42 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 of the mysteries of the art of war. We read of tourna- 
 ments, and — more to be wondered at — of battle-fields, 
 where all the knights are clothed from head to foot in the 
 identical garments that are now before us, or in others 
 made after the same pattern ; and how, with such a weight 
 of steel and so constrained in the freedom of action, they 
 could manage to wield their swords and thrust their spears, 
 I do not understand. They were not men of more physical 
 power than our soldiers. Some of them were less than the 
 present average size of men. But they were mighty men 
 with the sword. ' The Toledo blade was quite equal to that 
 of Damascus ; and the helmet was often insufficient to save 
 the brain, when the sword, in a strong hand, came down, 
 cleaving through steel and skull. 
 
 Two or three hundred horses stood in the stables ; and 
 the grooms are only too happy, for a consideration to be 
 paid at every door, to show these pampered and famous 
 steeds. Each one of them has a name, in large letters, 
 over his head, and on his blanket. Spain has some cele- 
 brated breeds of horses, but, like every thing else in Spain, 
 they are run out, and the stock is only kept up by importa- 
 tion. It is so even with the Merino sheep, which belongs 
 to Spain, but would have been extinct ere this, if it had not 
 been perpetuated and improved abroad. You may see five 
 hundred finer horses any pleasant afternoon in the Central 
 Park, in New York, than any one of these pet horses of 
 royalty. But you will never see, I hope, such a wealth 
 and folly of equipage as the hundred carriages, and more 
 sets of harness, and plumes, and liveries, and coachmen's 
 hats, and velvet saddles, and embroidered hammer-cloths, 
 which fill long apartments, and are shown together with the 
 gilded chairs of state in which the king or queen is borne 
 by hand in processions, and the chariot on which the royal 
 personage is enthroned, with a canopy overhead, trumpeters 
 below, and herald angels above, for the coronation parade. 
 
PALACE. 43 
 
 The carriages used by successive monarchs are here pre- 
 served in long lines of antiquated grandeur, even to the one 
 in which Crazy Jane, the widow, carried about with her the 
 corpse of her handsome husband, Philip the First. Queer 
 woman that she was, jealous to insanity, she would not let* 
 her husband be buried while she lived ; and now she lies by 
 his side, down here in Granada, in the cathedral, and her 
 marble effigy gives her an expression so gentle and loving, 
 you would not believe she was ever the victim of the fiercest 
 and meanest passion that makes hell of a woman's heart. 
 
 I have been taking you with me through the palace and 
 armory and royal stables, to give you a type of Spain. The 
 poorest of all the governments, compared with its popula- 
 tion and resources, it has these contrasts of wealth and 
 poverty that mark its want of judgment, principle, and 
 power. In the stables is invested a capital of more than 
 half a million of dollars ! This prodigality is royal, but also 
 absurd. The people see it, and the world has gone by the 
 age, when gilt trappings and gorgeous pageants struck the 
 multitudes dumb with the reverence of royal glory. 
 
 The city of Madrid is well built, and has the appearance 
 of a modern French town. Indeed, it is more French than 
 Spanish in its out-of-door look, and the French language 
 is very largely spoken in the shops and private families of 
 culture. The intercourse now so frequent and ready with 
 France by means of the railway and telegraph, and the 
 abolition of all passport regulations and annoyances, have 
 given the Spanish capital a start, and it will undoubtedly 
 make rapid advancement. 
 
 But there is nothing rapid in Spain just yet. Opposite 
 the hotel in Madrid where I was staying, an old building 
 had been torn down to make room for another. Workmen 
 were engaged in removing the debris to renew the founda- 
 tion. You would suppose that horses and carts, or wheel- 
 barrows and shovels, would be in use. Such modern 
 
44 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 improvements had not reached the capital of Spain. One 
 man with a broad hoe hauled the dirt into a basket made of 
 grass, holding half a bushel ; another man took the basket 
 and carried it a rod to another man, who handed it to 
 another a few feet above him, and he emptied it on a pile 
 of dirt up there, and sent the basket back to be filled again. 
 And so, day after day, a job that with our tools and appli- 
 ances would be done in a few hours, was here spun out in- 
 definitely. Yet the palaces and cathedrals and fortresses 
 of the southern climes have all been erected at this snail's 
 pace, numbers and cheapness making up for enterprise and 
 force. In Paris, in the street, a small steam-engine was at 
 work to mix mortar, and the ease with which the process 
 was put through revealed the secret of the wonderfully 
 rapid transformations going on in that ever increasingly 
 beautiful city. Here in Spain, to this day, where there are 
 smooth, good roads for wheels, they still put a couple of 
 baskets across the back of a donkey, and fill them with dirt 
 or brick or stones, and so transport them, even when they 
 are putting up the largest buildings. The architecture of 
 Spain is more imposing than that of any other country in 
 Europe. It is the chmate that makes men differ so much 
 in their physical as well as mental manifestations. 
 
 To see the mode of doing business in Spain, take the 
 simple story of one day's work of mine in getting some 
 money in Madrid. Holding a "letter of credit" which is 
 promptly honored in any part of the world, and is just as 
 good for the gold in Cairo or Calcutta as it is in London, I 
 went in search of a Spanish banker to draw a hundred 
 pounds sterling, say five hundred dollars. Anastazio led 
 the way, and soon brought us to the house where the man 
 of money held his court. Being shown up stairs, through 
 two or three passages and an ante-chamber, we v/ere at 
 length ushered into the presence. Senor Romero, the 
 banker, was a man of fifty, dressed, or rather undressed, in 
 
BANK. 45 
 
 a loose morning gown or wrapper, a red cap on his head, 
 slippers on his feet, and a pipe in his mouth. A clerk was 
 sitting near to do his bidding. I presented my letter. It 
 was carefully read, first by the clerk, then by the principal. 
 A long, consultation followed, carried on in a low tone, and 
 in Spanish, quite unintelligible to me, if it had been audible. 
 It was finally determined to let me have the money, and 
 after an amount of palaver sufficient for the negotiation of 
 a government loan from the Rothschilds, and taking the 
 necessary receipt and draft from me, I was presented with 
 a check on the Bank of Spain. When I had fancied the 
 delays were over, they had only just begun. The bank was 
 in a distant part of the city, and thither we hastened, taking 
 a cab, to save all the time we could. The bank is a large 
 and imposing edifice of white stone. In the vestibule was a 
 guard of soldiers. A porter stopped us as we were about 
 to enter the inner door. We must await our turn as some 
 one else was inside ! One at a time was the rule. Benches 
 were there, and we sat down, admiring silently the inodera- 
 tion of banking business in Spain. At length our turn 
 came. We entered a room certainly a hundred feet long. 
 Tables extended the whole length. Behind them sat clerks 
 very busy doing nothing. We were told to pass on, and on, 
 to the lower end of the room, where we entered another, the 
 back parlor, or private room of the officers. They were 
 closeted out of sight, smoking, of course, and giving their 
 wisdom to the business in hand. I presented the check at 
 a hole out of which a hand was put to take it. I saw noth- 
 ing more. We sat down and waited. Waiting is a Spanish 
 institution. Everybody waits. Nobody gets any thing with- 
 out it. We waited, and waited, and waited, and at last the 
 little hole opened again, the mysterious hand was thrust out 
 
 with the money, you suppose ; not a bit, but with the 
 
 check approved. We must present it at the table or counter 
 for payment. Returning to the long room, we presented 
 
46 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the check, and were directed to the proper bureau. And 
 here, of course, we got the money. Not yet. Bills of the 
 Bank of Spain were given us, and when I required the gold, 
 I was told that gold was paid only at the bureau of the bank 
 in another street. Thither we now pursued our weary way. 
 It was a rear entrance of the same bank building. A long 
 line of gold hunters was ahead of us. We stood in the cue, 
 and at last were inside. In the ante-room we had to wait 
 so long that we took to the bench again. At last, admission 
 being granted, we were told that only one could be admitted 
 with a single draft. We sent Antanazio in, and returned to 
 the door. Here we were told that no exit^ only entrance^ 
 was allowed at the rear ! Explaining the case, we got out, 
 and returning to the front, patiently as possible, we looked 
 for the appearance of Antanazio loaded with gold. At last, 
 for the longest delay has an end, the man emerged with the 
 money in his hands. It had cost me from two to three 
 hours in the middle of the day to draw this money, which 
 in New York, London, Paris, or any city out of Spain, 
 would have cost five minutes or less. And I have been so 
 particular in the detail, because it lets you into the mode of 
 doing business in the capital city, and the greatest bank of 
 this country. 
 
 Until the French and English companies pushed railways 
 into Spain, travel and mails were on the slow-coach system. 
 When the royal person made a journey, it was like the 
 march of an army, such was the retinue required for- comfort 
 and display. And as the railways are now completed only 
 along a few great routes, the mails are largely carried in the 
 diligences and coaches expressly made for the purpose. It 
 is said, and there is no reason to disbelieve it, that down to 
 the year 1840, when a Spaniard proposed to himself the 
 danger and toil of a journey, it was his invariable custom to 
 summon his lawyer and make his will; his physician, to 
 learn if his health were adequate to the undertaking ; and 
 
POST-OFFICE. 47 
 
 finally his priest, to confess his sins and get timely absolu- 
 tion. It is not regarded now so formidable an excursion to 
 go across the kingdom, but the native travel is so little that 
 the railroads are very unprofitable. If it were not for freight 
 they would not be supported at all. They have, however, 
 greatly increased the correspondence of the country, and 
 the rate of postage has been reduced, so that it is about as 
 low as in other European countries. But the government 
 keeps a sharp look-out upon the letters that come and go. 
 In times when conspiracies are snuffed in every breeze, it 
 would be quite unsafe for any one to entrust a secret in a 
 letter going by mail. A government spy would be sure to 
 have his hand on it and his eye in it, before it reached its 
 address. The letters in the post-office at Madrid are held 
 four hours after the arrival of the mail, before they are 
 ready for delivery. The mail from the north, the London 
 and Paris mail, comes in at ten o'clock a.m. We must wait 
 until two o'clock p.m. for our letters. Then a list of all letters 
 not directed to some particular street and number, or to 
 some post-office box, is posted up in the hall of the office, — 
 an alphabetical list. You look over the list, and if you find 
 a letter for yourself, you ask for it at the proper window. 
 If you are a stranger, your passport is demanded. But you 
 had been told before coming to Spain that no passports are 
 required, and now you must have one merely to get your 
 letters. In default of a passport, you must in some way 
 establish your identity. This is not always easy in a foreign 
 country, but then nothing is easy in Spain. I got no letter 
 from the post-office addressed to me while I was in Spain ! 
 The noted rebel. General Prim, was a dreadful bugbear to 
 the authorities, and all letters addressed to me were sus- 
 pected by the local postmasters to be intended for the 
 General. They were therefore sent to the government, or 
 otherwise disposed of. No efforts to recover them were 
 successful. Much good may they do the people who had 
 to read them. Some of them had hard work, I know. 
 
48 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Telegraphs are spreading over Spain, as they are over 
 the world, civilized or not. Spain is one of the last coun- 
 tries where they could become popular; but the business 
 of any kingdom that has relations with the outside world 
 must be armed with the telegraph, or it cannot hold its own. 
 In traversing wild and secluded parts of the Peninsula, I 
 have been surprised by finding the telegraph poles set up, 
 and the wire stretching on, over hill and dale. Spain is 
 slow, and the telegraph is not demanded here by the energy 
 and enterprise of the people as it is elsewhere. Despatches 
 of more than a hundred words are not sent. To or from 
 any part of the Peninsula ten words may be sent for about 
 twenty-five cents, twenty words for fifty cents, thirty words 
 for seventy-five cents ; but the count includes each word 
 written by the sender, date, address, signature, and if a 
 word is underscored it counts two. Great precautions are 
 taken to insure accuracy in transmission, and a small extra 
 charge is made for delivery. 
 
 Before coming to Spain I had been told that the picture- 
 gallery in Madrid is the richest in the world. It seemed to 
 me an idle tale, the boast of boasting Spaniards, repeated 
 until perhaps somebody believed, as I certainly did not. 
 But having seen it, day after day, for a week, I cheerfully 
 cast a vote in its favor. It is superior to any other in 
 Europe ; and, of course, in the world. It is not complete 
 in the series of art studies. There are gaps of time which 
 the student may desire to see filled. But there are few who 
 visit these great European galleries as learners. The world 
 comes to see them for the momentary pleasure to be found 
 in the contemplation of the pictures. And they will be 
 astonished to find that so many and so splendid pictures 
 have been gathered and preserved in the Spanish capital. 
 
 The gallery is open to the public only on Sundays^ but 
 the director allows it to be shown every day to strangers, 
 who are expected to give a fee to the attendants. On rainy 
 days it is always shut ; an obvious reason is, that visitors 
 
PICTURE-GALLERY. 49 
 
 will soil the floors with their shoes, but a better reason is 
 that the gallery is so badly lighted that in gloomy weather 
 some of the pictures are quite invisible. 
 
 Who would suppose that sixty pictures by Reubens are 
 to be seen in one gallery in Spain ! and fifty-three by 
 Teniers ; and ten grand pictures by Raphael ; and forty-six 
 by Murillo ; and sixty-four by Velasquez, some of them very 
 large and magnificent ; and twenty-two by Van Dyck ; and 
 forty-three of Titian^ who spent three years in Madrid, by 
 invitation of Charles V. ; ten of Claude Lorraine ; and 
 twenty-five by Paul Veronese ; and twenty-three by Snyder ; 
 and more than thirty by Tintoretto ! ! ! There are more 
 than two thousand here. Among so many, of course, some 
 are good for nothing, as in every large collection. But one 
 gallery in the world has masterpieces only, — that is in the 
 Vatican. And there you have less than a hundred pictures, 
 all told. But they are all great. Here, as in Florence and 
 Dresden, good, bad, and indifferent have been hung to- 
 gether; and perhaps the contrast makes the good appear 
 better, and the bad worse. 
 
 Murillo, the greatest of Spanish painters, is here in his 
 glory. We have associated his name with his " Immaculate 
 Conceptions " more than with any other of his works. One 
 copy was brought to America a few years ago, and is now 
 in the gallery of W. H. Aspinwall, Esq. A duplicate is in 
 the Louvre, at Paris. And still another is in Madrid. 
 These are three originals, undoubtedly, and they have been 
 copied in every style of human art, especially in Paris, until 
 they are as common as heads of the Saviour, all the world 
 over. Yet this is not the Mtirillo^ — not his " Conception." 
 It is a grand conception by the artist, but it is not the great 
 picture of that subject on which, more than any other, his 
 fame is founded. This is in another attitude, with another 
 expression ; the Virgin is looking downward, and not gaz- 
 ing, in an ecstasy, heavenward. The artist, in this picture, 
 
 4 
 
50 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 imagines the Virgin Mary at the moment she becomes con- 
 scious of the fact that by the overshadowing of the Holy 
 Ghost she is to be the mother of the Son of God ! The 
 accessories of the painting are of no account, but into the 
 countenance of the Virgin he would throw the expression 
 such as a spotless maiden might be supposed to have when 
 first alive to such a wondrous, awful, yet transporting and 
 delightful thought, " I, — I, — of all the daughters of Israel, 
 am the highly favored among women. Of me is to be the 
 Messiah ! I am the mother of the promised Saviour ! " 
 
 Not far from this is a picture of the Vision of St. Bernard, 
 exhibiting marvellous skill. The head is one of those 
 prodigies of the painter's art, that is to haunt the memory 
 in after years. Like the " Communion of St. Jerome," in 
 the Vatican, to see it is to have it photographed in the 
 mysterious chamber of the brain. Raphael painted one of 
 his most remarkable pictures, " The Christ sinking under 
 His Cross," for a convent in Sicily. It is said by some to be 
 a greater work than the " Transfiguration," which is held to 
 be the finest picture existing. To me, this in Madrid is 
 the most impressive, the most nearly perfect. It is taken 
 at the moment when Simon, the Cyrenian, attempts to lift 
 the crushing cross, while the patient sufferer, with a face 
 radiant with love and holy resignation, says to the weeping 
 women near, " Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me 
 but weep for yourselves and for your children." 
 
 Titian's equestrian portrait of Charles V. is sublime, — 
 like a majestic mountain, or a mighty rock in a desert. 
 The solemn grandeur of the picture is indescribable. The 
 man and his times, a whole volume of biography and his- 
 tory, on one grand tableau, seen and remembered. Perhaps 
 it would be as well to forget the women that Titian seems 
 to have been fond of painting. Two of them here are not 
 less perfect, many think they are more perfect, than the 
 Venus of the Tribune. In other times the zealous priest- 
 
PICTURE-GALLERY. 5 1 
 
 hood condemned these nudities to the flames, with heretics, 
 as corrupters of the people ; but some have been saved. 
 
 The picture that I desired more than any other to carry 
 away and cherish as a life-long treasure, is one by Cor- 
 reggio. After his resurrection the Saviour appeared to 
 Mary, and she supposed it was the gardener; but Jesus, 
 turning, said to her, "Mary," — and the truth burst upon 
 her, it was her Lord ! That moment of transport is the 
 time the artist has seized for the representation of the 
 kneeling and rejoicing Mary and Jesus. The love and 
 tenderness in his look, the joy and reverence in hers ! 
 What beauty, too : how the yellow hair falls in living lustre 
 on her fair shoulders, and her eyes speak the full expres- 
 sion of her yearning soul. " Jesus said unto her, ' Mary.' " 
 
 In another hall I found a picture of great merit, unmen- 
 tioned by the guide-book, and by a painter unknown to me 
 even by name before. It is a Virgin and Child, with four 
 venerable saints kneeling before them. The artist is Bias 
 del PrMo. Few pictures in any gallery deserve more admi- 
 ration than this. The heads of the old men are done with 
 great power, and the thoughtful feeling in the face of the 
 Virgin shows that the artist had both the genius to con- 
 ceive, and the skill to create, an idea on the canvas, quite 
 equal to the best of many others who have won a world- . 
 wide fame. And scattered through these long apartments, 
 in narrow halls and basement rooms, in bad lights, and 
 some almost in the dark, are many gems of rare value, 
 " blushing unseen," and worth a better place, and deserv- 
 ing wider renown. It would be tedious to read even a brief 
 mention of the celebrated pictures of the famous old masters 
 here, and that form so large a part of the attractions of 
 Europe. 
 
 There are very few minor galleries in Madrid. Probably 
 there has been a lack both of private wealth and taste to 
 make collections. In one of these we found Murillo's 
 
52 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 " Queen Isabel of Hungary healing the Lepers," a picture 
 that would be admired as one of his greatest and best, if it 
 were not so true to life as to make one almost sick to look 
 at it. But this is the height of the highest art. Birds have 
 been deceived by painted fruit. Bees have sought honey in 
 flowers on the walls. And perhaps this cheating of the 
 senses, even to disgust, is the perfection of human skill. 
 But the imitation of the material is easy. If portrait paint- 
 ing were merely the reproduction of the form and features, 
 it is the lowest department of the art. But to conceive 
 the expression that belongs to the character of a saint, a 
 prophet, a hero, a sibyl, a Madonna, and thus to create an 
 ideal that will demonstrate its reality and truthfulness to an 
 unbelieving or indifferent world, challenging admiration 
 and asserting its own immortality, this is the attribute of 
 genius only, and such is not the birth of every day or age. 
 
TOLEDO. 53 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TOLEDO — ITS FLEAS, LANDLORDS, ANTIQUITIES, AND 
 LUNATICS. 
 
 TGNORANT of the state of civilization in the ancient 
 -*• city of Toledo, the capital of Gothic Spain, the glory 
 of the Jews and the Moors when they lived luxuriously on 
 its airy heights, we had imagined it easy enough to find 
 lodgings for a night. Unconscious of the fate awaiting 
 us, we put up at the Hotel Lino, the largest and best in 
 the city ; and here we sought sleep. The search was vain. 
 For the fleas are always going about seeking whom they 
 may devour. We fell a prey to them and to the landlords 
 too. Surviving the bloody night, we left a weary, wretched 
 bed at eight in the morning, and ordered breakfast with 
 coffee. At nine it was announced as ready. In the room 
 where it was served three waiters attended us, each one 
 smoking a cigar in our faces, as we sat and they stood 
 around. The coffee was not on the table. On asking for 
 it we were told there was none in the house. 
 
 " And is there none in Toledo ? " 
 
 ." Perhaps so." 
 
 " Well, we will wait until you bring it. Give us some 
 butter." 
 
 " There is no butter in the house." 
 
 " Is there none in Toledo ? " 
 
 " None that is fit to eat ; it is all rancid." 
 
 After a time some wretched stuff for coffee was brought 
 from a restaurant, and we made a breakfast, paid as much 
 
,h'' J 
 
 fff 
 
 \ 
 
 %MMmnmi 
 
 m imw§ 
 
 , '''I ',' 111 ' ni ' ill i,Miiiiii I'll 
 if' "i ( ' II i 
 
 L , , 'I 
 
 I' li ' 
 
 i ;'i i' 
 
 V" n'tll'l' 
 
 ! ',11 I i^ii'i' I 1 
 ,iii]i,i 
 
 .I'lVii-'i 
 
 ,i,!Bi|iii'i 
 
 ' illilflMi I 
 
 !' 'j'i'J':" 
 
 
TOLEDO. 55 
 
 for it as if we had been in Paris, and left the house in dis- 
 gust. 
 
 The city stands on a hill ; it is up, up, up, in a succession 
 of narrow, irregular, crooked", clean, and curious streets, 
 showing at every step the vestiges of successive stages of 
 civilization, and often suddenly revealing monuments of 
 departed peoples that arrest the attention and excite won- 
 dering interest. The Goths succeeded the Romans. The 
 Moors drove out the Goths, and, like eagles perched among 
 these rocks, defied the storms of centuries. Here the 
 master of empires, the great Charles V., reigned in gran- 
 deur, and gave laws to the world. It is a fitting place for 
 such a history as it has ; and no other city has a more 
 romantic life. Indeed, romance has done so much to 
 embellish the story of Toledo, it is difficult to be in it, and 
 study it here on its own rocks, without asking for its 
 enchanted towers, and haunted caves, and knights, with 
 magic swords and spectre horses, and its 200,000 mighty 
 men and beautiful women, that once made this castle- 
 crowned crag the glory of Spain, and as famous in the 
 earth as Babylon or Damascus. 
 
 It is more Oriental in its appearance than any city we 
 have yet seen in Spain. But it is too far north, and too 
 far up in the air, to be adapted to the life of Orientals. Its 
 houses are usually low; and they have the court in the 
 midst of them, out of which doors open into the several 
 apartments. Many of them are very old, five hundred 
 years, at least, and repetitions of those that stood on the 
 same site before ; for this reproduction of itself, from age 
 to age, is a feature of the peoples and climes with which 
 Scripture history has made us famihar. Many of these old 
 houses are fine specimens of the Moorish manner of build- 
 ing ; but with this, perhaps the predominant style, is 
 blended more or less of the Roman, the Gothic, and the 
 Saracenic, and every style except the modern ; for Toledo 
 
$6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 is a city of the dead past, and no resurrection is before it. 
 The Spanish chroniclers claim that Toledo was founded at 
 the same time with the creation of the world, but who lived 
 in it before the human race was made they do not help us 
 to understand. Others less ambitious find that Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, and others that Hercules, laid the first stones. 
 
 The last of the Goths who sat on the throne of Toledo 
 was Roderick. And when weighed down with the guilt of 
 a seducer and a betrayer of his friend, he went forth from 
 Toledo in his chariot of ivory, and, with his mailed legions, 
 marched to the banks of the Guadalquiver, and at Guadalete 
 encountered the flood of Moorish barbarism just then set- 
 ting in upon Spain, he disappeared, the city began its 
 downward career, and no emperors, no bishops, no kings, 
 have since been able to purge it from the sin and the shame 
 of the perfidious Roderick. 
 
 In after centuries, when the Moors were expelled and the 
 cross again supplanted the crescent, the archbishops of 
 Toledo were more than kings, and lived here in luxury, and 
 wealth, and grandeur, without a parallel in the history of 
 the church. Great patrons of art and science, they founded 
 universities and cultivated the arts of peace, while they 
 were often plunging the country into war, which they 
 waged with valor and skill. Under them the city reached 
 a degree of splendor unsurpassed in the dreamy reign of 
 Oriental voluptuousness and taste. But when it succumbed, 
 as it did to the great German Czar, and the court was 
 removed to Valladolid, its sun went down, never to rise 
 again. 
 
 The cathedral is a glory, even in Spain, which is richer 
 in cathedrals than any other country. Toledo has always 
 been favored by the Romish Church. It is believed by 
 many that the Virgin Mary came down from heaven, in 
 person, to attend the investiture of one of its archbishops, 
 and there is not to be found a grander and more beautiful 
 
TOLEDO. 57 
 
 Gothic temple than this. As we entered it the dim light 
 that was chasing away the shades from among the vast 
 columns and the lofty arches gradually brightened as we 
 became more accustomed to it, and a sense of majestic pro- 
 portions and solemn grandeur took possession of the soul. 
 A service was in progress, and we paused till it was con- 
 cluded, for it matters not what the form of religious worship, 
 and however much our views may differ from those engaged 
 in it, it is unseemly to be gazing at the temple while its 
 ministers are serving at its altar. In the midst of the ser- 
 vice a priest was receiving a young woman's confession. 
 As she put up her lips to his ear to whisper her penitential 
 words, she beat upon her breast with one hand, as if she 
 were in agony of soul. Her tale of sin completed, she rose 
 from her knees, bowed low again, kissed her confessor's 
 extended hand, and went away. 
 
 Toledo and its priesthood have been famous for their 
 devotion to the strictest orders and dogmas of the church, 
 till Rome itself scarcely stands higher for holiness and 
 orthodoxy. In the disputes that have at different times 
 agitated the Romish communion, they have not been afraid 
 to appeal directly to the judgment of God, and to claim his 
 verdict in their favor. In the great contest about the proper 
 form of words in the mass, when the old missals were used 
 in Spain, in spite of the orders to substitute the Gregorian 
 mass, or the Roman improved form, the first appeal to the 
 divine judgment was in favor of Toledo, and the early mis- 
 sals. Again the trial was demanded ; and the old and newer 
 missals were brought out, great folio volumes, into one of 
 the public squares, and, in presence of the city, fire was 
 applied to them. The older was burnt to ashes, and the 
 newer survived the ordeal. Toledo was not willing to abide 
 even by this very conclusive test, and finally it was settled 
 by blending the two masses into one. 
 
 Their richest and most sacred chapel in the cathedral is 
 
58 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the Muzarabe, or Mixed Arabic ; so called because it was 
 built to preserve the forms of the old Gothic service, such 
 as was used when the Goths consented to live under the 
 dominion of the Moors while allowed their own religious 
 rites. In this cathedral lie the ashes, and over them are 
 the tombs of some of the early kings of Spain, and several 
 of those grand archbishops whose reign was not less kingly 
 than that of kings. Cardinal Albornoz died in Italy, and 
 the Pope sent his body home to be buried here. To save 
 the expense of transportation, for there was no express 
 company, not even a steamboat then (1364) to bring it, — 
 Urban V. issued a decree granting a plenary indulgence to 
 all who would lend a hand in carrying the dead cardinal on 
 his long journey. Gladly did the poor peasantry bear the 
 body on their shoulders from one town to another till it 
 reached Toledo. In front of one of the chapels I was sud- 
 denly arrested by a strange Latin inscription in a brass 
 jDlate in the pavement. It was in these words : — 
 
 " HiC JACET PULVIS, CINIS, NULLUS." 
 
 Here lies dust, ashes, nothing else. Over the bones of 
 one of the most powerful cardinals who ever reigned in 
 Spain, and himself called a king maker, the epitaph is 
 eloquent : perhaps an affectation, however, of humility, a 
 virtue for which Fernandez de Portocarrero was not illus- 
 trious in his life. 
 
 The Virgin Mary has been pleased to come, from heaven 
 to this cathedral, as I have said, and if any one doubts it, 
 he can see the very stone on which she first set foot as she 
 alighted from her aerial excursion. And now the faithful 
 kiss this precious stone, touching with their loving lips the 
 very spot which her foot once pressed. Her image is clad 
 with gold and precious stones and costly raiment, crowns 
 and bracelets and chains, the gifts of royal hands, and the 
 greatest ladies of the kingdom are her maids of honor. On 
 
TOLEDO. 
 
 59 
 
 gala-days she is borne in state through the streets, and 
 honors are paid to her at every step, as the Queen of 
 Queens. 
 
 A sleepy old porter let us into the Alcazar. Al-casa- 
 czar is the house of Caesar, or the czar's house, the king's 
 house, the palace. 
 
 The Alcazar. 
 
 The palace, or what was once a palace, crowns the sum- 
 mit of the hill on which the old city of Toledo stands. 
 Around the base of the rock below the Tagus rushes 
 rapidly, and away in every direction stretches the wide 
 plain, gloomy, desolate, and yet grand in its storied past. 
 It is not certain that the Moorish, still less certain that the 
 
60 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Gothic kings preceding them, had their royal residence on 
 this bleak height.. But the Catholic kings for centuries 
 held their courts on this spot, and the prints of their hands 
 are visible everywhere. The porter who opened the door 
 for us is a model of a Spanish official. Too proud to be a 
 door-keeper, and, with nothing else to do, he would impress 
 even a stranger with the idea that he was born with a 
 higher destiny than to tend a gate. It was a pleasure to 
 him, evidently, to tell us we must not go here, nor there, 
 nor anywhere, except where it was of no use to go ; and 
 the scanty information he was willing to impart was ex- 
 tracted with difficulty, and worth nothing then. 
 
 We stood in the midst of a spacious square, the patio, or 
 court, and on its four sides rose the walls of the ancient 
 palace. Charles V. and Philip II. rebuilt the most of it on 
 the ruins holding some of the apartments that date as far 
 back as Alonzo X. ; and in modern times the hoof of the 
 war demon has trodden the stairways and galleries and 
 gorgeous halls, until what with English and French sol- 
 diery, and some of other nations more barbarous still, the 
 Alcazar of Toledo is a more comfortable residence for bats 
 and owls than kings and fair princesses. Two or three 
 proud peacocks were strutting in the warm sunshine of the 
 patio, displaying their gaudy plumes and arching their 
 graceful necks, reminding us of other beauties who had 
 often gone blazing through these doors, with radiant jewels 
 and shining robes, yet, in all their glory, were not arrayed 
 like one of these. This -patio shows, on its four sides, two 
 rows of galleries, one over the other, supported each of 
 them by thirty arches, with columns crowned v/ith Corin- 
 thian capitals, embellished with the arms of the many 
 kingdoms that Charles V. had conquered. A staircase, 
 designed by Philip II. while he was in England, and built 
 under orders sent by him while there, leads up to the royal 
 apartments, long since deserted, and now worth seeing only 
 
TOLEDO. 6l 
 
 because they were once the home of men and women 
 whose names are part of the history of the world. 
 
 An Enghsh gentleman said to me in the rail-car in 
 Spain one day, " I should be glad to have you tell me 
 what it is that impresses you the most in coming from 
 America and travelling in Europe." I answered that it 
 required some time to make a fitting reply to so great an 
 inquiry. " Well," he said, " will you take fifteen minutes 
 to think, and then give me the result ? " I replied, " I am 
 ready to answer now: what impresses me more than all 
 else is, that these old countries, having been what they 
 once were, are wAa^ I find them now.'^ 
 
 It is the law of the earth, I suppose, and what has been 
 will be, and so on to the end of time. 
 
 We left the melancholy palace to its porter, its peacocks, 
 and the bats, and wound our way down and around the 
 corkscrew streets, narrow, close, and dirty, admiring the 
 ancient Moorish gates and doors, studded with iron balls. 
 The older doors have two knockers, one high for a horse- 
 man to use without dismounting ; and, the gate being 
 opened, he would ride right into the court. We were look- 
 ing for the Church of San Juan de los Reyes, and soon 
 found it, a church that dates back to the Moorish-Gothic 
 period, or the time when the severity of Gothic grandeur 
 was adorned with the more florid embellishments which 
 Moorish art introduced into Spain. On the outer walls are 
 suspended the massive iron chains which were found on 
 the limbs of the Christian captives when Granada was 
 conquered by Ferdinand and Isabella; and the rescued 
 prisoners hung up their chains on this church as thank- 
 offerings. And still farther down the hill we come to the 
 Bridge of St. Martin, and here are plainly the ruins of 
 the old Moorish castle and palace. A square tower on 
 the water's edge bears the name, to this day, Floriiide, and 
 tradition says it was here that Roderick unluckily saw her 
 
62 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 while she was bathing. The rest of the story we have 
 hinted at already. 
 
 Irving, in his bewitching Spanish tales, gives a marvel- 
 lous account of the Cave of Hercules, which is said to 
 extend three leagues beyond the river, and is full of 
 chapels and genii and enchanted warriors. To visit it 
 has cost kings their crowns ; and the terrible sounds that 
 are heard, and the rushing winds assailing the bold ex- 
 plorer, make the attempt too formidable for modern valor. 
 The entrance is from the Church de San Gines, but is now 
 walled up. In fact, it was never unwalled, except in the 
 fancies of romantic historians. 
 
 One day, long time ago, as the Cid was riding through 
 Toledo, his horse stopped suddenly, and knelt before a wall 
 built against a bank of earth. The hill was opened, and 
 within was found a niche, and in the niche an image of the 
 Saviour, with the same lamps burning in it which the Goths 
 had put there long centuries agone. A Moorish mosque is 
 standing opposite, which has been converted into a Chris- 
 tian church, and in it the first mass was celebrated in 1805. 
 It takes its name from the legend of the Cid, and is called 
 Christo de la Luz. It is perhaps the smallest church in 
 Toledo, only twenty-two feet square, yet the quaintest and 
 most curious thing to be found in the city ; short columns 
 support arches in the shape of a horse-shoe, and three narrow 
 naves, crossing each other, cut up the church into nine 
 vaults. There is nothing in it worth seeing. 
 
 It took us half an hour to find the sacristan to open the 
 door of Santo Tome, or St. Thomas, where we went to see 
 a famous picture by El Grecco, a burial scene, of consider- 
 able power, and were it not that Spain has hundreds of 
 finer pictures than this, it would be worth the time it cost 
 us to see it. 
 
 Passing through the Zodocover, the largest public square 
 in the city, where in the " good old times " of torture for 
 
TOLEDO. 63 
 
 the church, the poor unbehevers in papal faith have been 
 made spectacles before the world, I met a boy with a pop- 
 gun, anxious to show his skill in shooting with that formi- 
 dable weapon. Yielding to his urgent desires, I set up a 
 bit of money which he was to hit and take. A dense 
 crowd, a hundred certainly, were the idle gazers on this 
 ridiculous scene, forming a ring around me and the boy ! 
 I confess to a sense of great amusement when I stood 
 where cardinals and bishops and priests, with armed 
 soldiers and executioners, had burnt heretics in sight of 
 kings, and multitudes thronging the tiers of balconies that 
 look down into this square. It was certainly more human, 
 not to say Christian, for me to divert this idle crowd by 
 setting up coppers for a boy to shoot at with a pop-gun, 
 than for my illustrious predecessors to entertain the popu- 
 lace of Toledo with the sight of martyrs burning at a stake. 
 Tired of walking, for Toledo is so up-and-down, that you 
 might as well ride on a ladder, we entered a cafe for refresh- 
 ments. In the wide, open court was a deep well sunk into 
 the solid rock on which the city stands, and the water 
 thereof was as cool and sparkling and delicious as that 
 which the woman of Samaria gave to him who told her all 
 things that ever she did. The saloon was fifty feet long or 
 more, filled with marble-top tables, and men were eating 
 and drinking, playing dominoes, and smoking. It was 
 toward the close of the day. Of all the people there, none 
 called for spirits, scarcely any asked for wine. Coffee and 
 chocolate were the principal drinks. There was no noise, 
 no gambling. It was chilly, and the servant brought in a 
 brazier filled with live coals, and set it near us. Others 
 drew around it, as they did in the high priest's court-yard 
 when Peter denied his Lord. Many Oriental customs 
 brought in by the Moors are still retained in Spain. I 
 made an excuse for wandering up to the house-top, and 
 found the houses so closely built against each other, with 
 
64 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 no intervening spaces, that you could easily look into your 
 neighbor's, and sometimes see what was quite as well not 
 seen. 
 
 While here we looked about for some specimens of the 
 famous blades, which have made Toledo as celebrated as 
 Damascus itself in this line. But we found nothing worth 
 seeing. The manufactory of arms is outside of the town, 
 and has no reputation beyond that of others in Spain. 
 England or Connecticut will furnish as perfect a sword 
 to-day as Toledo. Yet this is only another, and a very 
 striking illustration of what Spain is, compared with what 
 Spain was. As far back as under the Romans, Toledo had 
 a character for the perfection of its weapons of steel. The 
 Toledo blade has been a proverb for temper ever since. 
 
 The idea has prevailed, and the workers in metals in 
 Toledo have not been unwilling to encourage it, that the 
 w^aters of the river Tagus have virtues to impart peculiar 
 firmness to the steel that is cooled in them. The manu- 
 facturers, of course, have long been constituted into a guild, 
 or corporation, and the secrets of the trade preserved with 
 care. So long ago as in the ninth tentury Abdur-rhaman 
 II. gave a great impulse to the art in Toledo, and its fame 
 was spread still wider. A thousand years have rolled away 
 since that time, and now, in the nineteenth century, they 
 do not make as good weapons as they did then. 
 
 In the museum at Madrid we saw the splendid swords 
 which the famous warriors of Spain have worn, and, in the 
 saloon of the Director of the Generaliffe, in Granada, the 
 identical sword of Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings ; 
 but they make no such steel now. Indeed, the steel they 
 use is imported from England, just as they keep up the 
 stock of horses and cattle and sheep, by importations 
 from other countries. It is very probable that long, thin 
 blades, that may be curled up like a ribbon, can be produced 
 in China, or Persia, or Sheffield, as well as here. The men 
 
LUNATICS. 65 
 
 of Milan and Florence made as good swords as these. The 
 use of fire-arms naturally diminishes the value of 'a sword 
 as a weapon of war. 
 
 Spanish people do not go crazy ! Now and then there 
 is a lunatic in Spain, but, as compared with the United 
 States, or England, or France, the Spanish people manage 
 to keep what wits they have. Just outside of Toledo there 
 is a lunatic asylum. It is the successor of the one that 
 Don Quixote ought to have been kept in, and which is 
 mentioned in that knight-errant' s biography, the first work 
 of fiction that I ever perused, and which then, in childhood, 
 fired me with a desire to visit Spain. Don Quixote was 
 crazy ; and there may be thousands crazy whom the world 
 do not reckon so. 
 
 In London the latest tables show that one person in 
 every 200 is insane. In Paris one in every 222 is in a lun- 
 atic asylum, or ought to be. In Madrid, the capital of 
 Spain, only one in every 3,350. In the year i860 there 
 were 2,384 lunatics in Spain, when the population "was 
 15,673,481 ; and this would show one insane person to 
 6,566 inhabitants. In 1864 there were 3,818 persons in 
 houses for the insane, but they do not regulate these insti- 
 tutions with the same strictness that prevails in some other 
 countries, and they confine in them many of those criminals 
 who would otherwise be let loose on the community to 
 pursue their career of crime under the cloak of monomania. 
 It would therefore appear, and there is no good reason to 
 doubt the fact, that comparatively little insanity exists in 
 Spain. One report of 1861 gives the following as the 
 percentage of the cases, when pathologically classified: 
 "Maniac exaltation, 31.91 ; monomaniacs, 11 ; melancholy, 
 6; derangement of mental faculties, 20.53; imbecility, 
 6.15; epileptic madness, 11; undetermined, 10.41." 
 
 The medical faculty will understand this classification, 
 but I do not know the difference between some of the 
 
 5 
 
66 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 sections into which the victims are thus divided. But 
 when we come to the proximate causes of insanity, we are 
 in a region level to the uninstructed mind, and here we 
 find that moral and mental excitements growing out of love, 
 such as jealousy and disappointment, are prolific causes : 
 that physical ailments badly attended or wholly neglected 
 frequently result in derangement ; and the political tur- 
 moils of the State are followed by the same effects. But, 
 on the other hand, there are at least three common causes 
 of insanity in the United States, and probably in England 
 also, that have a limited, if any, influence in Spain. These 
 are religious excitements, haste to be rich, and intemper- 
 ance in drinking. In Spain they take things easily. The 
 people do not work the brain unduly in matters of religion 
 or trade. The church takes care of the souls of the people : 
 the law or the government excludes all disturbing elements 
 that might come from the efforts of others to proselyte the 
 people, and in their ignorance of any other way of getting 
 to heaven than the church teaches them, they are quiet 
 on that subject. Religion never made any one crazy; 
 on the contrary, it has soothed the madness and healed the 
 malady of many a crazed brain and distracted soul. But 
 the wild and unenlightened excitement, begotten of blind 
 fanaticism and erroneous teaching, has often driven men 
 and women mad, as statistics of American insanity fear- 
 fully show. And in Spain there is not energy enough, not 
 life enough, to make speculation dangerous in philosophy, 
 morals, or even in money. I think it very unlikely that 
 they will ever go wild after tulips, or mulberries, or 
 petroleum. They are making railroads, but the French 
 and English furnish the capital and send the engineers. 
 And the great safety-valve, or rather the great preserver 
 of the people's intellects, is found in the fact that they 
 are never in a hurry about any thing. The old Romans 
 had a good motto, Festina lente^ hasten slowly ; but the 
 
LUNATICS. 6j 
 
 Spaniards never hasten at all. They despise punctuality. 
 An hour after the time when a positive appointment 
 had been made with me, a man in Seville said, when I 
 told him I had been waiting, " Why, the Queen never 
 comes till an hour after the time announced for her arrival." 
 And this utter indifference to the value of time, which is 
 money all the world over, begets, or is begotten, for it is 
 hard to say if it be the cause or the effect, of that perfect 
 sense of ease, content with one's condition, idle careless- 
 ness, that dismisses all anxiety for the future. Such people 
 do not go crazy. 
 
 And far above all other immediate causes of insanity in 
 northern climes, is the use of spirituous liquors. The 
 scholar drinks to keep up his mental fire, and when he 
 becomes insane his malady is marked " excessive study." 
 The banker or merchant drinks too much, and when he is 
 put into an asylum his madness is ascribed to his devotion 
 to his business. The millions of our people drink, drink, 
 drink, — and this vice of the north of Europe and of 
 America yields thousands on thousands of cases of insanity 
 every year. But in those countries where cheap wines, 
 with little alcohol in them, are the common drink of the 
 people, intemperance is comparatively rare. An English 
 engineer, employing hundreds of men in building and 
 repairing Spanish railways, assured me that intemperance 
 is wholly unknown among them. The class of men who 
 would be the most addicted to the vice with us in the United 
 States, are here more temperate than any class of people in 
 England or America. It is not to be supposed that this tem- 
 perance is the result solely of the culture of the vine and 
 the abundance of weak wine. It would be a false conclusion, 
 from very inadequate premises, to infer such an idea. It 
 is due in most part to the climate itself, which is at once 
 favorable to the vine, and unfavorable to that elevation or 
 excitement which strong drink begets. And in this de- 
 
68 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 lightful clime, where to live and breathe is a luxury, and to 
 keep cool is at once a virtue and a joy, the heating stimulus 
 of ardent spirits would not be sought as one of the pleas- 
 urable vices of the land. 
 
 Therefore, and to this conclusion we are easily led, the 
 people here in Spain are not likely to be, as a general thing, 
 insane. And if we of colder climes could be so humble as 
 to take a lesson from poor, old, decrepit Spain, we might 
 learn from these facts to moderate our desires, to pursue 
 the good we seek with less haste and more speed, to use 
 the world as not abusing it, and resting now and then, 
 avoid the lunatic asylum on our journey to the grave. 
 
 At dusk we went to the station to take our departure 
 from Toledo. In the train going up to Madrid was a large 
 party of young men. Noisy, boisterous, rude, they cheered 
 every lady who came to the cars, calling out to the good- 
 looking ones to come to their apartment, and making sport 
 of others ; and all this with a freedom and indecorum that 
 would not be tolerated even in our land of universal liberty. 
 I was surprised both at their impudence and its impunity, 
 and asked who the fellows were. 
 
 " Oh," said Antanazio, " they are college boys : the same 
 all the world over ! " 
 
 Even so, I do believe. 
 
 I 
 
LA MANCHA. 69 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LA MANCHA — ANDALUSIA. 
 
 A S I took my seat in a " first-class " car and left Toledo, 
 "^ ^ a gentleman in the same compartment asked me, 
 " Is smoking disagreeable to you ? " 
 
 It was the first time that such a question had been put to 
 me in Spain. I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days 
 before, but generally no one pretends to ask the privilege of 
 smoking in the cars, or the parlor, or anywhere. Every- 
 body smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted in any 
 department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some 
 hotels, I notice a rule posted in the dining-room, " Smoking 
 not allowed." But nobody heeds it. An attempt to en- 
 force it would probably lead to the sudden departure of all 
 Spanish guests from the house. At the largest and best 
 hotel in Madrid, sixty or seventy persons, ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, were at dinner, (table-d'hote), and in the midst 
 of dinner, between the courses, gentlemen lighted their 
 cigarettes, smoked them, and resumed their eating. Yet the 
 notice forbidding smoking was in full view, or was until 
 the clouds of smoke obscured it. In the reading-rooms of 
 the hotels, oftentimes small and unventilated, nine out of 
 ten are smoking all the time, and the thought never occurs 
 to one of them that this may be a nuisance to others. I 
 am told, that at the theatres in Spain, in the midst of the 
 play, the audience smoke in their seats, and if any man- 
 agers attain to such a moderate height of civilization as to 
 publish a rule restraining the odious habit, the Dons of 
 
70 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Spain pay no sort of attention to it. All attempts at re- 
 form end only in smoke. 
 
 I asked Antanazio if smoking is allowed in the churches 
 of Spain. " Oh no, no," he answered, with a pious horror; 
 " it was shocking to think of such a desecration." " Then," 
 said I, " when I come to Spain to live, I will get a little 
 church for myself, for nowhere else in this country can a 
 man find refuge from this intolerable nuisance." 
 
 " Ah, yes," he replied ; " but perhaps the incense will 
 make a smoke quite as disagreeable as the American^Q.^^r 
 
 This was a double hit, as it reminded me of my Protes- 
 tant aversion to incense in churches, and also of the fact 
 that the weed and the habit of using it came from my part 
 of the world. 
 
 By this time the compartment was so densely filled with 
 smoke that I opened the window and put out my head for 
 breath, as a signal of distress, in the hope, but vain, of 
 enlisting the sympathies of the smokers, and inducing 
 them to forego their pleasures while I recovered. I de- 
 tected grim smiles of satisfaction on the dark faces of my 
 fellow-travellers, who puffed away the more vigorously, as 
 they looked on my woe-begone face. 
 
 Perhaps by advertising a reward for the discovery, it 
 might be possible to find a man in Spain who does not 
 smoke.. Yet, strange to say, the culture of tobacco in 
 Spain is forbidden by law. The soil and climate are favor- 
 able, and its cultivation has been a great success. But by 
 that kind of legislation or decree peculiar to Spain, and 
 constantly reminding one of the Chinese, the mother coun- 
 try, Spain, is prohibited from raising tobacco in order that 
 the daughter, Cuba, may have the monopoly. The right of 
 importation is sold to contractors, who make a great busi- 
 ness of it. In the middle of the fifteenth century the 
 Spaniards began to get tobacco from America, and they 
 have been getting more and more of it ever since. In i860 
 
LA MANCHA. yi 
 
 they smoked seven millions of cigars, and cigars are not the 
 thing they usually smoke. They have their tobacco rolled 
 up in little bits of paper, and these they carry in their 
 pockets, with matches. Often they carry the tobacco and 
 the paper separately, and make a cigarette when they want 
 it, making one while smoking another. These interesting 
 manufactures are not peculiar to Spain ; they are common 
 in our own country, but not so general. The weed is used 
 only for smoking and snuffing in Spain. I cannot learn that 
 it is chewed at all. 
 
 Children smoke at an earlier age in Spain than in other 
 countries. It is not uncommon for them to begin at six, or 
 even five years of age. And they never leave it off till they 
 die. Ladies smoke. Not often do we see them with a 
 cigarette in their pretty mouths on the street or in the 
 cars, but in the cafe and in the drawing-room they enjoy 
 it, as well as in the boudoir and the bath. By cool foun- 
 tains, in a marble-paved patio, among the orange-trees, or 
 lolling at noon on their silken-hung couches, they love to 
 smoke, and their lords have spoiled their own breaths and 
 taste too effectually to make any objection. Where both 
 eat garlic it amounts to the same thing. 
 
 In Seville we saw a tobacco factory, erected more than a 
 hundred years ago, at a cost of nearly two millions of dollars 
 then! It is 652 feet long and 524 feet wide. Five thou- 
 sand persons are at work in it all the time, putting the im- 
 ported tobacco into cigars or cigarettes, and making snuff, 
 and they use two millions of pounds of tobacco every year. 
 Most of these workers are women. Mothers who bring 
 their children have nursery arrangements provided for 
 them during the hours of work. But the most of them are 
 young women, a class by themselves, known as cigareras^ 
 or cigar-girls. Smart at their busmess in the factory, they 
 are wild as hawks and gay as larks at the bull-fight on Sun- 
 days, or the dance on the green. This is the largest estab- 
 
72 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 lishment of the kind in Spain, and produces as good an 
 article as any other, but the cigars made in Spain are not 
 as popular with good judges as those brought directly from 
 Cuba. The manufacturers there prefer sending the best 
 to London, New York, or Paris, where they find a readier 
 market for the high-priced article. And the Cubans are as 
 cute in concocting peculiar flavors for their cigars, as the 
 French or the Italians for their wines, or Jerseymen for 
 their cider. The connoisseur in tobacco pays a quarter of 
 a dollar (more or less) for a " first-rate " cigar, and smokes 
 it with delicious enjoyment at his club, or after dinner in 
 his study, rejoicing in the dreamy, balmy languor that 
 softly steals upon his senses, soothes his nerves, and 
 makes him sweetly oblivious of the cares and toils of the 
 day just passed. He is sure it does him good. And he 
 does not know, and will not believe when he is told, what 
 every one knows who looks into the subject to learn, that 
 at the very root and source of the business there is as 
 much concoction of tobacco as there is of coffee or wine. 
 Potash and soda are in abundant use to impart peculiar 
 pungency to the plant. And many in the excited atmos- 
 phere of New York or London life demand a sedative 
 cigar more soporific than the narcotic plant in its natural 
 state. For them, cigars are made of tobacco leaves steeped 
 in opium. Many of our clergymen, renowned for eloquence 
 and piety and learning, denounce with blazing zeal the 
 baneful practice of smoking or chewing opium^ a habit 
 becoming almost as common in the United States as in 
 China. But these same excellent men are daily smoking 
 opium in their cigars, quite unconscious of the evils, physi- 
 cal and mental, they are gradually but surely inhaling with 
 every breath they draw through this venomous weed. The 
 cigar burns freely when first lighted, its ashes are grayish 
 white, and the ring is faint at the end, the smoke rises 
 lightly, and the taste, if any, is nearly imperceptible ; there- 
 
LA MANCHA. 73 
 
 fore they know it is a good cigar. But the opium-eater is 
 not more surely a suicide than they. Dyspepsia often fol- 
 lows ; and nervous debility, despondency, melancholy, in- 
 somnia, maladies supposed to be relieved by what is their 
 producing cause. Epilepsy and apoplexy are not unknown 
 effects. 
 
 We now cross the wide pastoral regions of La Mancha. 
 Readers of Don Quixote recollect these plains as the scene 
 of many a gallant exploit by the knight-errant who took his 
 title from this province. And we had no sooner called him 
 to mind than we saw a windmill, and then another, and 
 soon many more, brandishing their huge arms, as when the 
 crazy hero supposed them to be challenging him to fight, 
 and with mad courage rushed to the encounter. Flocks of 
 sheep are roaming over the plains as when he mistook them 
 for hostile armies. His trusty squire Sancho proposed that 
 they should wait until they saw which side was likely to 
 come off conqueror, and join that ; but the hero of the 
 windmill denounced the counsel as worthy only of a craven, 
 insisting it would be more becoming a valiant knight to 
 join the weaker side, and insure it the victory. 
 
 No trees are seen. This is the peculiar feature of the 
 Spanish landscape. Across vast plains that reach the 
 horizon the eye seeks in vain to find a single tree to relieve 
 the monotony of the view. And when the hills stretch 
 away in graceful lines, bending and rising with voluptuous 
 swells that seem to be carved and set against the sky, they 
 are destitute of trees. In centuries past these have been 
 stripped off, and none have been planted since ; and the 
 country is as bare as the back of your hand. 
 
 The sheep are tended by shepherds, who migrate from 
 the higher to the lower pastures, according to the season 
 of the year. They constitute a large part of the wealth 
 of the people. Ten years ago there were seventeen mil- 
 lions of sheep in Spain. The number is, doubtless, much 
 
74 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN, 
 
 greater now. The wool trade of Spain was at one time of 
 vast importance to the world, but England and Germany 
 now far outstrip it, and the trade with Syria, in the coarser 
 wools, has opened an outlet for the produce of Lebanon and 
 the plains of Mesopotamia. 
 
 Corn, including cereals of all kinds, does well in this 
 central part of Spain. It thrives in spite of the stupidest, 
 or rather the most primitive style of agriculture, still pre- 
 vailing. " Tickle the ground with a hoe," and the crop 
 will spring. But there is little tickling done with a hoe. 
 They plough to this day with a tree, the root sticking into 
 the ground and scratching it a little ; or they leave a branch 
 shooting out at an angle from the stem of the tree, and 
 sometimes they cover this stick with a bit of iron, and with 
 mules or oxen drag it along the field. They sow broadcast, 
 and plough it under. They use no harrows. It is barely 
 possible that one of the modern civilized ploughs has found 
 its way into Spain, but I saw none, and heard of nothing 
 better than the but-end of a small elm-tree. Yet agri- 
 culture is the great business of Spain, suited to the habits 
 and genius of the people, who love the sun and enjoy the 
 open air, and dislike trade or mechanics of any kind. And 
 more than any other people in Europe the Spanish do as 
 their fathers did, despising all innovations as unworthy of 
 their ancestral dignity. The farmers of Virgil and Homer, 
 and the rural scenes which are described in the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures, are the counterpart of what may be seen 
 in Spain to-day. I am reminded daily of the fields in Asia 
 Minor, in Syria, and Greece. If it were strange that im- 
 provements in husbandry had made very little progress 
 there, much more surprising it is to find that all things in 
 this country continue to be as they were. They are so 
 near the rest of the world, and the means of communication 
 are now so ready, it is a marvel of marvels that they are still 
 in the same ruts their fathers were in a thousand years ago. 
 
LA MANCHA. " 75 
 
 But there are signs of better times. The law of primo- 
 geniture has been abolished, and this new measure tends 
 rapidly to the multiplication of owners of real estate. The 
 lands of the church have been sold and divided. Vast 
 tracts held by the crown have also been distributed by law 
 among the people, at a moderate price. Agricultural soci- 
 eties have been formed, and cattle shows and fairs are 
 becoming common. These things are in the right direc- 
 tiono The government has established agricultural schools 
 and model farms. A few periodicals are published, with 
 the intent of spreading useful information among the 
 people; and those who can read will get some good out 
 of them. 
 
 After crossing the plains of La Mancha we reach the 
 Sierra Morena range of mountains, and are to work our 
 way through and over them. The daring of the engineers 
 who would push a road into such recesses is prodigious. 
 The precipices are frightful. Peaks of mountains start up 
 suddenly, and seem to pierce the clouds. Rocks of gigantic 
 grandeur rise abruptly, and sometimes stand apart in soli- 
 tary dignity. Deep gorges are to be spanned by the iron 
 road. Long and frequent galleries lead, in gloomy state, 
 through the bowels of the mountains. The road is sub- 
 lime, if safe, and it appears to be well made. We come to 
 a bridge under repairs. All the passengers are requested 
 to walk. In single file we march over the bridge, and then 
 await the train. It comes across, lightened of its load, 
 slowly and safely. It is quite likely that in America the 
 engineer would have put on all steam, and dashed across in 
 a second, or, if not, he would have gone down a hundred 
 feet, into a frightful chasm, and the verdict, if any were 
 sought, would have been, " nobody to blame." Fret as we 
 do about the railroad management in Europe, it is safer and 
 surer than ours. They err generally on the safe side, pro- 
 voKing us by their delays, but very rarely breaking our 
 
'jS ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 necks. And, on the whole, their way of doing things is 
 the best. 
 
 At Manjibar we stopped for lunch, or breakfast, or din- 
 ner, whichsoever any one might call it. It was hard to say 
 where or when our last meal was, and what was the name 
 of this. Still more difficult was it to ascertain the names 
 of the dishes set before us. One dish had been chicken, 
 but in some advanced stage of its post-mortem existence it 
 had been consigned to a bath of pickle, and was now offered 
 for our consumption. A single taste sufficed. It probably 
 returned to its brine, to wait a bolder customer, with a 
 better appetite. Then they gave us a stew. I suggested 
 that it was hare. My companion thought it a cat. I gave 
 it the benefit of the doubt, and turned away. The price of 
 this meal that we tried in vain to eat, was the same as the 
 table-d'hote dinner at many hotels in Paris, — four francs. 
 
 Sick, I went into the air. I sat down on a trunk out- 
 side, sighing for other lands, and something to eat. A ser- 
 vant came out and drove me off the trunk, saying, " It is 
 forbidden to sit here." Into the waiting-room I directed 
 my steps. It was full of dirty, disgusting people, some of 
 them beggars, some gypsies, some in queer costumes, some 
 in rags. The fragrance was too much for me, and I walked 
 out again. Over the way was a table with candies and 
 liquors to be sold. It was in front of a door that opened 
 into the side of a hill. There was no' other sign of a 
 house. I went across the railway, and entered the open 
 door. It let me into a small room, nicely cemented above 
 and on all sides ; a fire in a neat arrangement for it, and a 
 chimney reaching out of the ground above. A man was 
 sitting by the fire ; a babe was in a cradle ; the wife was 
 busthng about. It was a very comfortable affair. Another 
 room was the bed-chamber ; and a third was a storeroom ; 
 and the three completed the underground cottage. In 
 other climates it might be damp. Here it was dry enough ; 
 
ANDALUSIA. 
 
 17 
 
 cool in summer and warm in winter. I spent a few minutes 
 very cheerfully with these people, and they seemed to be 
 pleased with a visit from a stranger. It was a far better 
 house than the rude huts we had seen on the way. 
 
 We are now in Andalusia, and in one of the worst parts 
 of Spain. True, it is Andalusia, and the very sound of 
 the name is musical, suggesting beauty and pastoral 
 delights. But in the province of Jaen, and we are near 
 the city of that name, out of a population of 360,000, more 
 than 300,000 are unable to read ; and as ignorance and 
 crime go hand in hand, the number of murders is between 
 350 and 400 every year, and nearly as many robberies. 
 Such is a picture of much of Spain. This is, perhaps, as 
 dark a picture as could be honestly drawn, but there are 
 hundreds of towns, of which the mayor or chief officer does 
 not know how to read or write. 
 
 Ten years ago, when the last census was made, in a 
 population of 15,613,536, there were actually 12,543,169 
 who could not read and write, leaving only 3,070,367 people 
 in Spain possessed of these accomplishments. In i860 
 there were 1,101,529 children in the public schools of Spain, 
 and they must learn something. 
 
 It is encouraging to learn that the government is paying 
 increased attention to the subject of education. There are 
 25,000 primary schools in the kingdom, which ought to be 
 exerting a powerful effect upon the people. Spain has ten 
 universities, and the number of students in them is far 
 greater than one would expect under the low state of pop- 
 ular education. They are thus distributed : — 
 
 Madrid 4,194 
 
 Barcelona 1,365 
 
 Seville 887 
 
 Valladolid 828 
 
 Granada 617 
 
 Valencia 624 
 
 Santiago 403 
 
 Saragossa 389 
 
 Salamanca 242 
 
 Oviedo 155 
 
 The course of study pursued in these institutions is sub- 
 
78 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 stantially the, same as that in other countries : 2,040 of the 
 students are in the Philosophical and Literary course, 1,617 
 in the Exact Sciences, Physics, and so forth ; while Law, 
 Theology, and Medicine include the rest. Some of these 
 universities once had a reputation as wide as the civilized 
 part of the world, and students from all nations flocked to 
 them as to the purest and sweetest fountains of knowledge 
 in the earth. At Salamanca, where now there are less than 
 250 students, there were 10,000 in the fourteenth century, 
 and its reputation has been higher than Oxford's. It was 
 at this university that the Copernican system of astronomy 
 was held and taught, when the Romish Church denounced 
 it as heretical and contrary to the Holy Scriptures. Yet 
 even here Columbus could make no impression in favor of 
 his theory of another continent, but all his arguments were 
 treated with the greatest contempt by the learned men of 
 the university of Salamanca. The professors of the modern 
 school, which still retains the name and distinctions of the 
 days of its glory, get $600. a year for their services, and 
 that is probably an index of the estimation in which learn- 
 ing is held in these decayed and benighted regions. 
 
 The present population of Spain, making due allowance 
 for increase since the last estimate, is about 16,400,000. 
 It is therefore the eighth of the European powers in num- 
 bers, Italy and Turkey being both ahead of it. The 
 increase of population in Spain is only at the rate of less 
 than the half of one per hundred annually. At this rate 
 the number would double only once in 181 years, placing 
 Spain behind every country in Europe, in this respect, 
 except poor Austria. She doubles once in 198 years ; then 
 Spain; then France, once in 122 years; Holland, once in 
 80 years ; Scotland, once in 46 years ; Prussia, once in 41 
 years ; England and Wales, once in 29 years. 
 
 One of the most curious questions in morals, politics, 
 and physiology, is started by these facts. They furnish 
 
ANDALUSIA. . 79 
 
 food for thought. One class of speculators will find moral 
 causes to explain the circumstances, and they may easily 
 gather a pile of facts to sustain their positions. Climate, 
 too, has its influence. The civil government, with the 
 physical condition of the people, is to be considered. But 
 when the physical, the moral, the civil, and the social state 
 of Austria, Spain, France, Holland, Prussia, Italy, and 
 England is duly examined, it still remains to be ascertained 
 why it is that the number of inhabitants increased more 
 rapidly among the colored people of the Southern States 
 of North America while they were slaves, and now increases 
 more rapidly among the Irish portion of the American 
 population, than it does among these highly favored coun- 
 tries of Europe. The statistics of births in New England 
 and other parts of the United States unhappily show that, 
 with the increase of the cost of living, and of luxury and 
 effeminacy, the number of children born is less and less 
 from year to year. There is no truth in social economy 
 better established by the comparison of an adequate number 
 of facts than this, that the diminution in the number of 
 births is attended by, if not consequent upon, the deterio- 
 ration of the health and the morals of any people. Oppres- 
 sion which makes a wise man mad may depress the spirits, 
 exhaust the energies, and retard the increase of a population, 
 not supernaturally sustained as were the Hebrews in Egypt, 
 who, the more they were afflicted, the more they multiplied 
 and grew. But favored as the middle and southern coun- 
 tries of Europe are by climate and soil, affording the people 
 an easy and comfortable subsistence, they might and would 
 increase in numbers as rapidly at least as the northern, if 
 they were so disposed. 
 
 We are now coming down into the region of the aloe, the 
 olive, the orange, and the vine. Since we have crossed the 
 Sierra Morena, the climate has softened. At this season 
 of the year (February), the vegetation is not far advanced. 
 
80 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 but the leaves of the olive are always green, and the orange 
 and the lemon bear leaves and fruit and flowers at the same 
 time. The orange should, in some climates, like this and 
 the south of France, remain on the tree, after it appears to 
 be ripe, for two years, before it is sweet. Much of that 
 delicious fruit which we have in our country is too sour to 
 be good, because gathered and sent to market before it is 
 fully ripe. Here, and all over the southern parts of Spain, 
 it is a glorious fruit. It is very large, very yellow, and very 
 sweet ; and being abundant, is very cheap. A cent of our 
 money will buy the largest, and the natives get them much 
 cheaper than that. Sweet lemons are also common. But 
 they are not agreeable. They seem to me a miserable 
 attempt to be an orange. And the good sour lemons grow 
 to an enormous size. I got one in Cordova to measure, 
 and my hat would hold one lemon only ! The skin was at 
 least an inch thick ; the juice not so acid as of the lemon 
 generally, and there was no more of it than in one of ordi- 
 nary size. These large lemons are used in preserves, the 
 skin being the only available part of the fruit. 
 
 We are now on the plains, in sight of the graceful hills 
 of Andalusia. In the soft sunlight of this warm winter's 
 day the hills appear to be sleeping and enjoying theii 
 repose. All nature, even now, invites to rest. We begin 
 to feel the languor of the clime. There are no trees but 
 the olive. No birds are singing, or we should know that 
 summer is nigh. We stop frequently at little stations, to 
 leave and take the mail. The letters and papers are tied 
 up in a packet with a string, and are handed from the mail- 
 car to a boy or a woman on hand to receive them. The 
 letters /r^7^ the place are delivered to the mail-agent in the 
 same way. No bag, no box, no lock or key, not even a 
 wrapper around the letters protects them. It is the way 
 they do things in this country. 
 
 Over these wide plains there are few or no habitations to 
 
ANDALUSIA. 8 1 
 
 be seen. The peasants must travel many miles to their 
 daily work, for they live in villages far away from the lands 
 they till. Few cattle are to be seen ; now and then a flock 
 of sheep. More black sheep than white ones were in sight, 
 and many of the blacks were singularly marked, having but 
 one white spot on them, and that at the tip of their tails. 
 
CORDOVA. 83 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CORDOVA. 
 
 A NEW, but old world, a sudden vision of the Orient, 
 ■^^ rose on the sight, when we reached the city of Cor- 
 dova. Never did I enter a city that filled me with a deeper 
 sense of the transient, temporal, and fleeting nature of all 
 things material. It is not in ruins. It shows no tokens of 
 decay to the coming traveller. A cleaner city is not in the 
 world. It w^as the first city in Europe whose streets were 
 paved, and the traditional habits of the people are so well 
 preserved, that although it was a thousand years ago (in 
 850, under Abdurhaman) that this work was done, it has 
 been done again and again, and the stones in the streets 
 are kept as clean as the floor of a house. The Guadal- 
 quiver flows gently by the side of it, and under the shade- 
 trees planted on its banks the idle and the fashionable 
 have their favorite lounge and promenade. The bridge 
 over this widely famed river was first built by Octavius 
 Caesar and rebuilt by the Moors. Standing on sixteen 
 arches, it is a striking monument of two departed dynasties 
 and forms of civilization. The city itself was great before 
 Christ came into the world, and Julius Csesar writes of it as 
 it was in his day, when his armies swept over Spain. In 
 the civil wars of Rome, Cordova declared for Pompey, and 
 then Csesar put 28,000 of its inhabitants to the sword. 
 
 After the Moors came over from Africa, and, in the 
 battle of Guadalete, struck down the power of the Goths, 
 this city was governed by the Caliph of Damascus, until it 
 
84 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 became independent and the capital of Moorish Spain. 
 Then began its career of glory. In the tenth century it 
 had 300,000 inhabitants (now 40,000), and for these de- 
 vout and cleanly and hospitable and learned Mussulmans 
 there were six hundred mosques, and nine hundred baths, 
 and six hundred inns, and eight hundred schools, and a 
 library of 600,000 volumes. 
 
 Outside of the city the people had gone in crowds to a 
 Yutal fete. Men, women, and children, old and young, rich 
 and poor, on foot, on horse, on mules or donkeys, and in 
 carriages, — any way to go, —all had gone to have a jolly 
 time in the country, as the custom is in Spain. It was a 
 gay sight, but rising among the grounds were scattered 
 here and there the remnants of ancient buildings, broken 
 columns, fragments of capitals, and blocks of stone, that lay 
 there silently speaking of departed glory. For here once 
 stood the fairy palace of the Moorish Abdurhama, which 
 that prince built for his favorite sultana, whose name it 
 bore, and whose statue stood above the principal gate. 
 The whole palace was of marbles and precious stones, 
 adorned with the florid architecture which the genius of the 
 East would invent. More than four thousand marble 
 columns did this luxurious monarch bring from France 
 and Italy and Africa to adorn his halls. And when he had 
 spent more than fifty millions of pounds sterling upon it, 
 he brought into his harem four thousand and three hundred 
 women ! Guarded by twelve thousand valiant men, he 
 gave himself up to the pleasures of '' the life that now is." 
 The city of Cordova was the city for such a king ! 
 
 It is Moorish, Oriental, languid, voluptuous, in its decay. 
 Walking along its quiet, almost noiseless streets, we looked 
 in upon the courts that form the central /?atw around the 
 four sides of which the house is built. In the midst, a 
 fountain springs, and the water falls back into a marble 
 basin. Around it shrubs with blooming flowers fill the air 
 
CORDOVA. 85 
 
 with fragrance and beauty. In some of them evergreen 
 trees, of unknown age, are growing, and these have been 
 trained so curiously, as to produce surprising effects. 
 Planted at the four corners of a square, their tops are 
 brought over to meet each other, the branches are joined, 
 the redundant leaves and twigs being pruned away, they 
 grow together, the whole four, like one tree of arch over 
 arch, a perpetually verdant bower. The windows of the 
 dwelling look down into this court ; and in them, or on its 
 marble pavements in the heat of the day, the women sit 
 with their needle-work, enjoying the fragrant shade and the 
 music of the falling water. The gardens abound in oranges, 
 lemons, and limes, hanging over the walls in clusters of 
 extraordinary size. 
 
 The interior of these ancient houses is no less interesting. 
 One, to which we were invited, was said to be the best 
 example of the Moorish domestic architecture extant in 
 Cordova. A few jasper columns were standing under the 
 archway by which we passed from the court. The modern 
 whitewash had covered the most of the arabesque embel- 
 lishments upon the walls. We ascended a flight of broad, 
 brick steps, with a solid beam of wood at the outer edge of 
 each step, and at the head of the stairs the venerable master 
 of the house met us kindly and made us welcome. We 
 heard a piano as we were coming up the steps, but it sud- 
 denly ceased, and a young lady flitted out of view. The 
 house is said to be more than a thousand years old. It may 
 be so, but the Moorish style is so imprinted on the tastes 
 of the people that they build age after age with substantially 
 the same models, and it is not safe to aflirm that the hands 
 of the Moors laid any of these stones. The ceihngs are 
 very low, the rooms small, the furniture, as in all lands, is 
 according to the taste or means of the owner, but Eastern 
 in its style, and adapted to the quiet, languid type of the 
 modern as well as the ancient inhabitants of this and all 
 such climes. 
 
86 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 The wonder o£ Cordova is also one of the wonders of the 
 world. Its cathedral has been a mosque of the Moors. To 
 see it once is an adequate reward for all one has endured in 
 travelling thus far through the most comfortless country in 
 Europe. To see it often, and study it in the minute details 
 of its extraordinary plan and finish, is to lay up a store of 
 imagery for dreams of memory through the rest of a life- 
 time. At least so it seems to me now, since entering its 
 magnificent Gate of Pardon, and suddenly standing in the 
 midst of a thousand variously colored columns, — marble, 
 jasper, porphyry, granite, — all surmounted by Corinthian 
 capitals, a forest in a temple, a petrified grove of trunks of 
 majestic trees, enclosed in walls. Perhaps the memory of 
 it will fade, so that a year or two hence the impressions 
 of wonder, of sublimity, of vastness, will not be so strong 
 as they are now. But at the moment when the interior 
 first broke upon my sight, it was as strange to me that the 
 art of men cou/d construct such an edifice, as that the great 
 Architect should build the walls over which the Niagara 
 rushes for ever. 
 
 Stepping out of the street through a gate in a solid wall, 
 we are in the midst of a court-yard some 400 feet long : an 
 orange grove, venerable trees that have been bearing fruit, 
 as now, a century or more ; and three fountains send up 
 jets of waters that fall back into large marble basins filled 
 with goldfish which groups of children are feeding. Near 
 the gate, on benches, elderly men are sitting, smoking, and 
 enjoying the sunshine. The elders sat in the gate in the 
 Scripture times, and do now in Eastern towns, and here 
 also, where Oriental manners still obtain. In former years 
 this court became a great resort for the people who made a 
 mart, or exchange, as in all ages men have been tempted 
 to make the house of prayer a market-place, and so it often 
 becomes a den of thieves. Now, this Court of Oranges, as 
 it is called, is the resort of old men and children, who enjoy 
 
CORDOVA. 
 
 87 
 
 the warmth and shade and waters of the holy precincts. 
 Passing through this court we come to the sacred edifice 
 itself. Its history is as eventful as that of Spain. It was 
 built by the Moors as a mosque, and when the Christians 
 
 Court of Oranges, Cordova. 
 
 conquered Cordova, they converted the mosque into a 
 church, though they could not convert the Moors into 
 Christians. And this nOw-called cathedral is the one that 
 Abdurhaman began to build A. d. J%6^ and his son com- 
 pleted in 796, pushing on the work with such tremendous 
 energy that in ten years he constructed one of the most 
 remarkable edifices in the world. His father's idea was to 
 surpass every temple on earth in extent and strength and 
 splendor. It was to be the Mecca in Europe ; and when 
 the Western world was subdued to Islam, as he and all the 
 believers beheved it would be, the holy place to which pil- 
 grimages from all these lands would be made was Cordova. 
 
SB ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 It is, therefore, the finest example that Spain possesses of 
 that pecuhar style of architecture and ornamentation which 
 the Moors introduced, and which have been gradually dis- 
 appearing with the lapse of centuries. It doubtless has a 
 symbolism behind its material forms, and the student of art 
 and religious thought will read in the plan and a thousand 
 details, a meaning that does not meet the unanointed eye of 
 the simple traveller. 
 
 The Gate of Pardon is so called because, under the 
 Roman Catholic dispensation, indulgences were granted to 
 those who entered by it into the temple. There is one 
 gate of the same name in each of the cathedrals that I have 
 visited in this country. The bronze ornaments upon the 
 doors are very curious, the royal arms are displayed, and 
 while the Christian inscription, in Gothic letters, of the 
 word Deus, proclaims the true God, the Arabic letters also 
 testify that the Mahometans worshipped him, for they write, 
 '' The empire belongs to God." 
 
 Within the temple there is at first a sense of gloom, 
 almost of oppression, arising from the vastness of the area 
 and the want of height. The roof cannot be more than 40 
 or 50 feet high, while the floor stretches away 640 feet in 
 length and 460 feet in breadth. A thousand columns in 
 long lines, like trees planted in the garden of the Lord, are 
 each of one single stone, — the spoils of temples in the East 
 and the West, and some of them imperial gifts, and hence 
 a variety of colors and size, showing all sorts of marbles, 
 the green and red jasper, black, white and rose, emerald 
 and porphyry. Crossing each other, at right angles, these 
 rows of pillars form nineteen naves one way and twenty- 
 nine the other ; long-drawn aisles, over which the horse- 
 shoe-shaped arches, standing one upon the other and sup- 
 porting the roof, produce a marvellous effect. 
 
 The Holy of Holies in the mosque was the Mihrab, and 
 it has been preserved in the converted temple, with religious 
 
90 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 care, as at once a curiosity and a memorial that the Mahom- 
 etan has ceased to defile these courts. It is a recess in 
 the wall of the temple, in which the Koran was kept, and 
 where the Kalif came to say his prayers, looking out of a 
 little window toward Mecca, It is a small six-sided room, 
 about twelve feet across, the floor one piece of marble, and 
 the roof, in the shape of a shell, is also, we were assured, of 
 a single block, and up the six sides rise marble pilasters, the 
 whole adorned with strange Arabic art and mysterious 
 inscriptions. When Hakem was Caliph of Cordova, he 
 sent messengers into the East to ask for skilful artificers 
 in painting glass and giving this strange effect to tracery in 
 metals and stone ; for there is in mosaic work, when well 
 done, something superior to the softest painting, and quite 
 incomprehensible. The workers in mosaic came, and their 
 skill now shines in this miracle of Oriental art, which has 
 been here since 965, and is as fresh and beautiful as when 
 it shone at the feast of the Rhamadhan, in the light of a 
 thousand lamps. In the marble floor is worn a deep groove, 
 by the knees of devout Mussulmans, who have thus gone 
 around it while at their devotions. 
 
 On the sides of the cathedral are many chapels, each with 
 its altar, its pictures, its relics, and its history. By one of 
 them, once a Moorish sanctuary paved with silver, is a rude 
 painting of a crucifixion, and an inscription in Spanish 
 which tells us that — 
 
 " While the Mahometans celebrated their orgies in this temple, a 
 Christian captive uttered the name of Christ, whom he held in his 
 heart, and he engraved this image with his nails on the hard stone of 
 this pillar, for which his death has purchased this aureole." 
 
 On the stone column is etched a crucifixion which tradi- 
 tion says the' prisoner scratched in with his finger nails. 
 The stone is very hard, and the story harder. 
 
 Come again and again, and this strange pile, with its 
 
CORDOVA. 91 
 
 thousand columns and its thousand years of history, grows 
 on you with every visit. We come from a land where all is 
 fresh and new, and these old temples fill us with awe. But 
 if we are impressed with a ruin as in Rome, where Paganism 
 built its temples to become the sites of Christian churches, 
 which themselves have been buried and again dug up to be 
 the wonder of the present age, how much more impressive 
 is a building still fresh and unbroken by the march of cen- 
 turies, where the pomp and ceremony of a religion, corrupt 
 indeed, yet recognizing God the Father as the only true 
 God, are perpetuated year after year till their number be- 
 comes a thousand years. 
 
92 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER IXo 
 
 SEVILLE, ITS CATHEDRAL AND BULL-FIGHTS. 
 
 "IVJOT until reaching Seville does one feel what a luxury it 
 ^^ is to live, — just to breathe, — to inhale the delicious 
 air and rejoice in being. Other climates had been cold, or 
 damp, or chilly ; some hot, debilitating; but this was just 
 right, and when a man comes to the place where the 
 weather just suits him, it is time to sit down and enjoy it. 
 It was a privilege to be any thing that could breathe in this 
 delightful clime. It is the latter part of February. If one 
 of my lungs was out of order, or both of them, I would stay 
 here till they were well, or until the weather became too 
 hot for comfort, and that will be but a few weeks hence. 
 
 The city is clean, well-built, and in the evening the in- 
 habitants throng some of the streets so as to make it diffi- 
 cult to walk. The courts around which the houses are 
 built are beautifully adorned with flowers and shrubs, and 
 trees ; in warmer weather awnings are spread over them, 
 and here the family enjoy themselves with the piano and 
 guitar, the song and the dance. Here, too, the table is 
 spread, and all Seville, it is said, takes tea out of doors. 
 
 It was a dreadful day for Seville, and indeed for Spain, 
 when the Moors were driven out of the country ; they had 
 conquered it, and ruled eight hundred years. Four hun- 
 dred thousand Moors, Jews and Arabs, left this city of 
 Seville in a few days after it was surrendered to St. Fer- 
 dinand. Wealth, learning, taste, art, and the charm of 
 Eastern life went out with them, and Spain has been lo.wer 
 
"LA GERALD A," SEVILLE. 
 
94 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 in the scale of morals and manners ever since. This is no 
 compliment to Mahometanism. To compare the present 
 condition of Spain with any thing that has gone before it, 
 and say that the former days were better than these, is say- 
 ing very little for the better times. In this old city of 
 Seville we found the Alcazar or palace, being the first spe- 
 cimen of Moorish magnificence we had seen. It consists 
 of a group of palaces, on the banks of the Guadalquiver, 
 and exhibits the same style of architecture and mural deco- 
 rations that are so much admired and celebrated in the 
 Alhambra. Indeed, the pavements and columns and arches 
 and apartments have been preserved or restored with so 
 much greater care than the Alhambra itself, that the latter 
 appears to be a feeble example of Moorish taste and skill, 
 compared with these glorious rooms in Seville. Fancy 
 must people these chambers with men and women, of flesh 
 and blood ; clothe them in Oriental and gorgeous raiment, 
 surround them with every luxury that gold and labor and 
 power can give ; hang these passages with curtains whose 
 richness has not been excelled by any thing that modern art 
 has produced. When the sleepy janitor opens the outer 
 gate and leads you through these deserted and empty halls, 
 in which your footfalls make the only sound, into apart- 
 ments that for centuries have been silent as the grave, yet 
 on every hand is beauty of . coloring and carving and curi- 
 ously wrought adorning that you must pause to admire; 
 even in the midst of admiration one cannot but mourn that 
 the barbaric splendor of Moorish glory has departed, and 
 the degenerate race of effete Spanish civilization has taken 
 its place. A thousand wives of a proud Moor once made 
 these walls jocund with their mirth, and the adjoining gar- 
 dens and the beautiful Guadalquiver were gay with their 
 revels and song, and the moral tone of the palace was as 
 high, and the happiness of the people just as great as 
 when a dissolute queen and a profligate court, and an igno- 
 
SEVILLE. 95 
 
 rant, depraved, and impoverished people, constituted the 
 government and inhabitants of a nominally Christian 
 kingdom. 
 
 Instead of a mosque, is the cathedral of Seville. It is 
 the noblest example of the Gothic ecclesiastical architecture 
 in the world. St. Peter's at Rome produces no such effect 
 on the soul when first you enter it. The Cologne cathe- 
 dral is nearer it in power. I have no superstitious feeling 
 that compels me to be awed by a place. But I cannot 
 enter this temple without worshipping ! Instantly, as you 
 stand within its walls, its giant solemn columns rising 
 around, scarcely visible in the twilight at the noon of a 
 brilliant southern day, its vastness, its amazing height, the 
 roof like a firmament, and resting on arches, dividing it into 
 sixty-eight compartments, one feels that this surely ought 
 to be none other than the house of God. High mass was 
 celebrated during one of my many visits to the cathedral. 
 When the tinkling of the bell gave the signal for the 
 " elevation of the host," the faithful, wherever they chanced 
 to be in the vast area, fell on their knees and silently 
 adored the idol which superstition had just held aloft for 
 the worship of an ignorant multitude. A woman entered 
 one of the chapels and knelt before an image of the Virgin 
 and poured out her soul in prayer. As if unconscious that 
 spectators were all around her, she wept and told her 
 beads. 
 
 The women of Seville are celebrated for their beauty. In 
 the Central Park of New York, Hyde Park of London, or 
 the Bois de Boulogne of Paris, you notice that many of the 
 most splendid equipages carry very plain women, and one 
 often admires the compensation system that gives the signs 
 of wealth to some and saves the good looks for others. But 
 you may stand by the fashionable drive of Seville and the 
 first hundred carriages that pass shall have four handsome 
 
ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 women in each of them. As " you would scarce expect one 
 of my age "to be a connoisseur in this matter, I will give 
 in the words of my guide the types of Spanish beauty : 
 
 She wept and told her Beads. 
 
 " Deep blue-black eyes, ado^^milados sometimes, and at 
 others full of flashes, each a picnalada ; a small forehead ; 
 raven hair, long and silky, which they might almost turn 
 at night into a balmy soft pillow, and a long flowing man- 
 
SEVILLE. 97 
 
 tilla by day ; a peculiar meneo, sal^ and indescribable charm, 
 naturalness, and grace in every movement, together with 
 liveliness and repartee, — form the principal features of their 
 appearance and character." 
 
 The dance and the song, the bull-fight more than any 
 thing else in the season of it, make this city the home of 
 the gayest, wildest, most dissolute men and women in the 
 south of Europe. Corinth, in the days of Venus-worship, 
 was not more wholly given up to the lust of the flesh and 
 the pride of life than Seville to-day. Yet it was once the 
 emporium of the New World. From its port set sail the 
 fleet that carried Columbus to a land beyond the sea and 
 brought back the wealth of the Western Ind. It has been 
 the residence of kings ; and successive dynasties, faiths, and 
 customs have in turn made Seville their capital and terres- 
 trial paradise. It is girt on every side by fertile plains, the 
 orange and lemon trees hang loaded all the year with their 
 golden fruit, and the silver river, whose name is poetry and 
 whose banks are haunted with the memories of Eastern 
 delights, washes the feet of this beautiful city. 
 
 If there was ever an original to Byron's Don Juan, and 
 there was perhaps an original to him as to Cooper's Spy or 
 Irving's Schoolmaster, then the tradition may be true that 
 points to a low white-washed house, close to San Leandro, 
 and belonging to the nuns of that convent, where that 
 graceless scamp once lived. And the " Barber of Seville," 
 of course, had his shop somewhere in town, and it has been 
 conveniently located in the same neighborhood, so that 
 when you visit the St. Thomas Square you can see them 
 both. They are nothing to see, unless you are at that age 
 when the poetry of Byron has charms they lose as you get 
 older and wiser. 
 
 The house of Murillo, the painter of Spain, and not far 
 from being the painter of the world, is an object of.attrac- 
 
 7 
 
98 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 tion, and Seville has it, and also some of the greatest pic- 
 tures of this master. The Queen of Spain would send the 
 Pope a present worthy of a sovereign to give to another, 
 and she sent two of Murillo's paintings. The Pope had 
 them copied in mosaic, and sent the copies to the Queen of 
 Spain. It is surpassingly wonderful that stone can be set 
 so skilfully as to make a picture with all the softness of 
 shade and color that belongs to the finest work in oil. We 
 will look up some Murillos on our way, but just now we are 
 near the site of the Old Moorish Castle, which is not more 
 distinguished for the tales of Oriental life and love and war 
 than it is for being the place in which the Inquisition was 
 first established. What tales of horror its stones might tell 
 if they were permitted to cry out ! Nowhere on this planet 
 has the notion of converting men to believe a lie, by roasting 
 them if they will not believe, been carried to a higher finish 
 than in Spain. In each of its chief cities a spot is still 
 cherished with affectionate regard by the faithful, where in 
 the good old times of their fathers the auto-da-f^ was cele- 
 brated with pompous processions, when priests and soldiers 
 and hosts of men and women marched to the public square 
 with a company of those who had been condemned to the 
 stake ! The Quemadaro^ or burning place of Seville, is 
 outside of the city, and the plain is called the Field of 
 St» Sebastian. Aceldama would be a more appropriate 
 name. 
 
 On the banks of the Guadalquiver, near the Moorish 
 Alcazar, stands a famous pile called the Tower of Gold, as 
 well so called from its ancient color as the uses to which it 
 has been put. Its summit gives an outlook far upon the 
 plain across the river, and in times of old it has been a 
 fortress of huge strength, to resist the enerAy when threat- 
 ening the palace itself. It was built by the Moors as a 
 treasure-house. When the Spaniards got possession of it, 
 
b 
 
 SEVILLE. 99 
 
 Don Pedro made it a prison for his friends, men and women, 
 who fell under his disfavor. And then came a time when it 
 was wanted for the purpose of holding heaps of gold, for 
 when Columbus had gone from Seville to a new world, and 
 the stream of gold began to flow back to Spain, this Seville, 
 which had sent out the great discoverer, received the return- 
 ing treasures, and this tower became the reservoir to contain 
 it. Eight millions of ducats and more have been stored 
 here at one \!m\^^ private and public funds, and the mon- 
 archs of Spain often put their arms deep into the bins of 
 gold, and helped themselves. 
 
 The decline and fall of Spain would be the fitting theme 
 for another Gibbon, and the lesson it teaches might be 
 studied with advantage in the new world, whose discovery 
 had so much to do with enriching, and then destroying the 
 kingdom. It is very hard to speculate or philosophize on 
 the causes that led to the prostration of a great power like 
 this, when the element of religion is excluded from the 
 study. Without the demoralizing influences of a political 
 religion, there were causes enough to work the ruin of 
 Spain, and foremost among these was the influx of wealth, 
 that made every man greedy of a chance to get rich, at the 
 expense of the State. It is useful to recur to it now, and in our 
 own country, because the same causes are working mightily 
 in the same direction, and producing the same deplorable 
 effects. It was always so, but increased opportunities in- 
 crease temptation and multiply the consequences. Men 
 now seek and obtain oflice not for honor and the power of 
 usefulness, but to get rich. Government in the hands of 
 such men is an instrument of robbery, an engine of corrup- 
 tion, and it has in itself disease and death. The influx of 
 gold from California has corrupted the American people in 
 the same way, if not to the same degree that the Mexican 
 gold and silver demoralized Spain. 
 
100 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Antanazio proposed to drive out of town, along the banks 
 of the river, to the ruins of an ancient city. A charming 
 ride of an hour, in a deUcious winter day, without the winter, 
 brings us to the ruins of an amphitheatre built by Scipio 
 Africanus, A. u. c. 546. Here, away in this end of the 
 then known world, three men were born, each one of whom 
 became a Roman emperor ! The glory of nations was once 
 over all the palaces, temples, and theatres that distinguish 
 this spot. But now the ruins themselves are ruined. We 
 can mark, or rather we can believe when we are pointed to, 
 the places where the nobles sat to see the games of blood in 
 the arena of the amphitheatre, the dungeons of the wild 
 beasts are laid open, and the chambers where gladiators 
 stripped for the fight, that gladdened the hearts of men and 
 women two thousand years ago. Yet they were quite as 
 rational and refined, quite as Christianable and decent, as 
 the bull-fights of to-day. 
 
 " Have you been to see a bull-fight ? " was one of the first 
 questions put to me by a delicate little lady-friend whom I 
 met. 
 
 " No ; have you ? " I answered and asked in the same 
 breath. 
 
 Her husband was sitting by ; a splendid soldier-like look- 
 ing man, six feet high, and well proportio,ned, who could 
 take the bull by the horns when he pleased, -and would do 
 it were there any occasion. He did not wait for his pretty 
 wife to answer my inquiry, but laughingly replied ; 
 
 " Yes, she has, and I went with her, but could not stand 
 it ; the sight made me sick, and I had to leave in disgust ; 
 but she staid it out, and saw — how many killed was it, 
 dear?" 
 
 " Six bulls and five horses," she said with a smile of 
 supreme delight. 
 
 '' Killed I " I cried. 
 
102 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 "Yes, killed," they both answered, and he went on to 
 say, " butchered ; — horrid ! " 
 
 " Tell me all about it, please ; I would like to hear^ at 
 least." 
 
 " Well," said the amiable husband, " if you are going to 
 talk biill^ I will go into the reading-room and have a smoke." 
 He went out, and she went on : — 
 
 "These men^^ she said; "but I ought to ^2,y^you men, 
 are so squeamish ; you faint at the sight of a little blood ; 
 what would you do in a fight, a real battle with bullets and 
 brains flying all about you and men bleeding to death by 
 hundreds, if you can't bear to see a bull cut down or a horse 
 ripped up. Why, I saw a horse run all about the bull-ring 
 with his entrails trailing on the ground, and a bull with his 
 hamstrings cut, and making splendid fight on his knees. 
 You must go and see it; now there's my husband, poor 
 fellow, he ought not to go to such places, it doesn't agree 
 with him ! " 
 
 " Well, I would rather have you describe a fight," said I, 
 " than to go and see it. I have no particular taste for 
 blood, but any thing would be agreeable that you would 
 undertake to describe." 
 
 " Thank you. You have seen the ring ; every city in Spain 
 has its bull-ring : a circular theatre, open to the sky, with 
 seats rising from the arena in the centre. The seats on 
 the east and southerly quarters are covered to protect the 
 grandees, while the multitude sitting in the sun hold fans 
 before their faces or take it as it comes. This ring will 
 seat some fifteen to twenty thousand people, and a gayer, 
 grander sight it is rare to see, than these bright-colored, 
 dressy people; the women are the most beautiful in the 
 world ; they are far handsomer than American women, you 
 know they are, don't you ? " 
 
 " Perhaps so, present company excepted, and one or two 
 
BULL-FIGHTS. IO3 
 
 Others : but pray go on, — I am more anxious to hear of 
 bulls than women." 
 
 " A blast of trumpets sounds the hour for the spectacle 
 to begin, and the eager shout of the multitude shows their 
 impatience to see the fun. A great show precedes, the 
 magistrates riding in with a troop to give something like 
 dignity to the occasion, and when they have swept around 
 the circle and retired, the spectators sit in breathless silence. 
 Two mounted men, called picadors^ ride in, each with a 
 long spear at rest, and take their position, some fifty feet 
 in front of the gateway through which the beasts are to 
 enter. All things being ready, and the breathless throng 
 thirsting for the fray, the huge door unfolds, and a fierce 
 bull dashes into the arena. The multitude greet him with 
 a shout of ecstasy. He makes straight upon the picadors, 
 if he is a bull of spirit. There's a great difference in the 
 animals ; some of them go scouring all around the ring, head 
 down and tail up, pursued by the picador ; but a real bull 
 of Navarre — they are the fiercest and pluckiest — pitches 
 right ahead for the first enemy he sees. The horseman 
 levels his lance to meet the tremendous monster as he 
 comes; sometimes catches him on the shoulder, and the 
 blood spouts from the wound. But he does not stop for 
 trifles. It takes more than a scratch to stop a good bull ; 
 he rushes on and sometimes buries the iron deeper in his 
 flesh, or tosses it off, and catching the horse on his horns, 
 hoists him and his rider into the air, and as they come down 
 in a heap, he drives on to meet other antagonists lying in 
 wait, and ready to do him mischief., The very last time I 
 was there, it was this sight that made my husband sick ; 
 the horse scrambled up, and actually went trotting around 
 the ring, when there was more of him outside than in, he 
 was so terribly ripped open by that one lunge of those 
 splendid horns, I was in hopes that the bull would beat 
 
104 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the whole of them ; now he met the men on foot, with red 
 cloaks on their arms, which they shake to attract the excited 
 gentleman's attention. He sees them and bears down gal- 
 lantly upon them like a Monitor or a Miantonomoh, and 
 the wily cJmlos^ or cloakers, leap dexterously to one side, 
 and sometimes they jump over the barriers among the 
 spectators, where they have been followed by the raging 
 bull himself. This is not often, however. He has still 
 another set of fighters to drive out of the ring. These are 
 the bander iller OS ^ who throw fiery darts into the bull's 
 neck ; these darts are provided with a powder squib which 
 explodes when it strikes in the flesh, and puts his majesty 
 into a horrid rage: by this time, the bull, hunted by all 
 these foes, charging upon one and speared by another, is 
 becoming exhausted, or the spectators are wearied with the 
 sameness of the fight, and want a new victim. The mata- 
 dor^ or chief butcher, then enters the field in a full court 
 dress, with a scarlet robe in one hand and a sharp stiletto 
 in the other. He brandishes the red skirt to draw the bull 
 on, and as he comes he aims a stab at his neck, and, if he 
 is a master at his work, takes him in the right spot, and 
 the huge fellow falls dead at his victor's feet. Once I saw 
 the matador miss his aim, the bull wheeled suddenly, one 
 horn took him in the side, and he went over the head of 
 the bull and came down a mangled corpse. Then a shout 
 went up as if to shake the skies. I felt badly myself, but 
 these Spanish people seemed to relish it amazingly, and I 
 suppose they get used to it. But the bull generally gets 
 the worst of it. When he has had the finishing stroke, a 
 team of mules is driven in, the dead beast is hitched on by 
 a hook and chain and drawn out rapidly, and the ring is clear 
 for another fight. All this has not taken half an hour, and 
 a similar scene is repeated until four, five, or six bulls, and 
 often as many horses, are killed. 
 
BULL-FIGHTS. 10$ 
 
 " When a good hit is made the spectators rise en masse 
 and shout their applause. This is the triumph of the glad- 
 iators in the sand. A little riband on the bull's mane is a 
 prize which the combatant seeks to capture, and this he 
 presents to his lady-love as the evidence of his bravery and 
 skill. The ladies are evidently quite as enthusiastic in 
 their love of the national sport as the men, and they show 
 it by clapping their little hands or fans and crying bravo, 
 as eagerly as any." 
 
 " And do yoiL really find pleasure in this bloody spec- 
 tacle ? " I inquired somewhat anxiously, for I had been quite 
 interested in her graphic description, and could readily see 
 that she had spoken with feeling. 
 
 "Well, I must say that I do like the excitement of it. 
 I never could see any sport in looking on when two or three 
 or four horses were thrashed to make them run faster ; yet 
 many women think it the height of enjoyment to see a 
 horse-race. The noblest men of England delight to stand 
 in a ring around two men who beat each others' faces into 
 a jelly, and they call it the ' manly art' ! The ladies of 
 New York go to theatres and operas with their necks and 
 more exposed to the gaze of men, and the ladies look at 
 the licentious dancing of ballet girls who have been tortured 
 into the art of showing themselves disgustingly to every 
 virtuous taste. And I have come to the conclusion that in 
 all parts of the world people have their own ideas about 
 amusement, and there is no great difference in the moral 
 of it. For my part I like a good fair stand-up bull-fight 
 more than any of them." 
 
 My fair enthusiast rested ; I thanked her for the informa- 
 tion she had given, and added : 
 
 " I agree with you entirely, my dear madam, as to the 
 moral of the sports you speak of ; only I think the New 
 York amusements are the most corrupt and corrupting. 
 
io6 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 And when I write on ' Bull-Fights in Seville,' I shall do 
 my best to put it in your words." 
 
 " If you do," said she, " send me a copy of your book ; 
 I want my husband to read it. He can't bear bull- 
 fights." 
 
SEVILLE. 107 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SEVILLE. 
 
 T^ON MIGUEL DE MANARA, a Spanish rake, one 
 ^^ of many like the Don Juan who stands as type of his 
 race, having spent his Ufe in the way rakes love to live, 
 undertook to be religious in his later years. He had sowed 
 his wild oats, and never got much of a crop, and now that 
 death was likely to call for him soon, he thought to get 
 ready for his coming by making over to some pious uses 
 what he had not spent upon his lusts. According to the 
 theory of that church which takes care of all Spanish souls, 
 he made a sure thing of it by founding a hospital, to which 
 was given the name of " La Caridad." A brotherhood, 
 whose special vocation was to minister to persons sentenced 
 to death, and to bury their bodies, took charge of it. It is 
 famous far beyond Seville and Spain. Its patients are 
 tended by young men of good families in the city, who min- 
 ister by turns to the sick and dying brought to this Charity. 
 Perhaps some of the young gentlemen nurses, like the 
 founder, have an eye to a compromise of their own infirm- 
 ities, by giving attention to these miserably sick poor. 
 
 But the fame of the hospital is so great because it has 
 within its walls some of the noblest paintings in the world ! 
 
 The building stands in an obscure part of the town, and 
 we had a long search to find it, Antanazio, our guide, being 
 quite unused to take his travellers to hospitals and out-of- 
 the-way churches, as theatres and bull-fights and fandangoes 
 among the gypsies are much more attractive. But we found 
 
I08 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 it ; an old woman janitor let us in, and led us to the chapel 
 where the art-treasures are to be seen. 
 
 This church is the guardian of the masterpieces of Mu- 
 RiLLO. His manner is as distinctly marked as Raphael's 
 or Titian's, and the power of none of the Italian masters, 
 unless we except Leonardo da Vinci, is greater than his. 
 It was difficult to believe this in Italy, where Murillos are 
 comparatively rare, but here, where alone his greatest and 
 best works are to be found, it is easy to believe that he is 
 among the first. Several of his pictures in this church are 
 of St. John, and in one of them an angel assists the saint 
 in carrying a sick man, and in another the same saint washes 
 the feet of a pauper. The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes 
 is a wonderfully faithful presentation of that sublime scene. 
 But the great picture, the one we specially came to see, is 
 " Moses striking the Rock in the Desert." Its eloquence 
 tells and pleads its own story : a famished multitude press- 
 ing 'to the gushing stream and gathering the precious waters 
 in their hands ; mothers drinking, while their children, with 
 parched lips, are pleading for the life-saving draught ; even 
 the beasts declare their joy at the sight of water, and grat- 
 itude lights up the faces of the thronging Israelites. But 
 the central, majestic figure in the group, on which the 
 painter's high art is lavished with a wealth of skill, is Moses, 
 with folded hands and upturned eyes, acknowledging the 
 goodness and the power which this miracle, almost as won- 
 drous to him as to his people, has so suddenly revealed. 
 Near him is his brother Aaron, scarcely less than Moses in 
 the scene, for he, priest-like, is still in the act of prayer. 
 And in the people every form and feature of human life 
 and feeling are portrayed, each after its own kind, with the 
 hand of a master. 
 
 There are several pictures here by others, as well as other 
 Murillos, that I have not space to mention. Marshal Soult 
 carried off five of the great pictures by Murillo, and two 
 
SEVILLE. 109 
 
 of them, "Abraham entertaining the Angels," and the 
 " Prodigal Son," were bought by the Duke of Sutherland. 
 Wellington recovered, at Waterloo, some of Soult's spoils 
 of the galleries of Spain. The French are great thieves 
 when they get among pictures or statuary. They once had 
 the Venus de Medicis boxed and ready for Paris. War is 
 pretty much the same game all the world over, and always. 
 The picture-gallery of Seville was saved from French 
 spoliation by the forethought of a Spanish amateur, who 
 sent all the paintings to Gibraltar before the French reached 
 Seville. We found, to our disappointment, that the museum 
 was closed for repairs, and a special order from the gov- 
 ernor was necessary. Instead of sending the order, he 
 promised to send us a guide to conduct us through the 
 gallery the next day. An hour after the time he came, and 
 the only service he came to perform was to lead us to the 
 door of the museum, which was close to our lodgings, and 
 then to receive his fees for this needless service. That was 
 very Spanish. The porter then admitted us and received 
 his fees. Another led us across the court into the hall 
 where the pictures were standing along the walls, unhung, 
 and he received his fees. When the convents in Spain were 
 suppressed, the best pictures among them were gathered 
 into this museum. Murillo painted some of his finest works 
 for the Capuchin convent, which stood near the Cordova 
 gate. One of the sweetest and most perfect of paintings 
 is that of the two saints of Seville, the maidens Justa and 
 Rufina, who held up the giralda, or tower of the cathedral, 
 when it was likely to be blown down in a tempest. In the 
 days of Pagan Spain a procession was passing through the 
 streets bearing an image of Venus, to which the people 
 made homage. Two young women, lately converted to the 
 Christian religion, by name Justa and Rufina, refused to 
 worship the idol, and the multitude in their madness made 
 martyrs of them on the spot. When the Christians became 
 
no ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 masters of the city, the maidens became its tutelar saints, 
 and are painted as holding the giralda in their hands, in 
 honor of their kind interposition in a storm. 
 
 Here is Murillo's first and last page of the gospel, — the 
 Annunciation is the first page, with the beauty and joyful 
 hope of the motherhood of him who is the desire of all 
 nations ; 'the last page is the Mother of Jesus weeping over 
 the death of him who was to have redeemed Israel. The 
 St. Thomas giving alms, by Murillo, has been praised by 
 the best critics as not excelled by any of his works. Wilkie 
 placed it among the finest. 
 
 It is a question often asked, and never answered. Why can 
 we not have these pictures, or such as these, in the Western 
 World? Few of the many who would enjoy and appreciate 
 them ever can come to Spain or Italy, and must they live 
 and die without the sight of all these glorious works of art ? 
 It would be an easy matter to have copies made of the most 
 celebrated and magnificent pictures, and transported to New 
 York, into a national gallery. Copies may be made so as 
 to challenge comparison with the original, and to give a fair 
 idea of the distinctive manner of each of the artists. It 
 does not require the same genius to make a perfect copy 
 that it does to conceive and give birth to the original. And 
 there are no living artists, and have been none in the last 
 three hundred years, to paint character, soul, thought, feel- 
 ing, as those men did whom we call the Old Masters. We 
 have as great painters now as they. But not in their line 
 of things. England and France and America have had, 
 and now have, artists whose works could not have been 
 produced by Da Vinci, Giotto, Raphael, Michael Angelo, 
 Titian, Carlo Dolce, or Murillo. But there is no one alive 
 now to paint the Last Supper, the Judgment, the Trans- 
 figuration, the Charles V. on horseback, or the Smitten 
 Rock, comparable with those majestic transcripts of senti- 
 ment which stand up in the world of art among man's 
 
SEVILLE. Ill 
 
 works, as Niagara and Mont Blanc are sublime among the 
 works of God. 
 
 After writing the account of the bull-fight in a former chap- 
 ter, it occurred to me that you might ask whether I went to 
 see the sport myself, or relied altogether on the descriptions 
 of the ladies and others. That is a fair question, and I am 
 therefore obliged to say that I did not ; that I have never 
 seen a bull-fight. Three reasons prevented me from going. 
 First, they are usually to be seen only on Sunday, and I 
 never go to places of amusement on that day, at home or 
 abroad. Secondly, I have no taste for sights of blood, and 
 would rather go the other way than into the bull-ring at any 
 time. And thirdly and lastly, in the way of reasons for not 
 going, there was not a bull-fight while I was there ! It 
 was and is yet the winter season, when the weather is cool 
 compared with spring and summer, and the bulls do not 
 fight well except when the weather is hot. The " season," 
 which is even more distinctly marked than that of opera in 
 Paris or New York, begins the first Sunday after Lent, and 
 a performance takes place every Sunday afterwards, if the 
 weather permits, till the height of summer suspends it for 
 a few weeks when the heat is excessive. It is resumed from 
 the latter part of August until the first of October. Then 
 the fall and winter are made dull by its absence, and the 
 Spaniards long for the return of hot weather and the 
 beasts. 
 
 There is a great deal of exaggeration in the descriptions 
 given by those who enjoy the sport. The horses selected 
 for the sacrifice are miserable jades, that are fit for nothing 
 else but to be killed, and the bulls are rarely so fierce as to 
 be dangerous, unless goaded or provoked into phrensy by 
 the tricks of the combatants. The men who go into the 
 fight are all hired butchers or fighters, who are paid regular 
 salaries, like actors in a theatre, and they make a business 
 of it. And so universal is the rage of the people to see 
 
112 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 this, the national sport and pastime, that the ring must fur- 
 nish seats for ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand people, and 
 the price of admission for such a multitude readily supplies 
 the means to meet the great expenses of the entertainment. 
 
 One of the most curious facts developed by the bull-fight 
 is the fondness that women have for such scenes. It is no 
 fiction that ladies, whose refinement cannot be called in 
 question, are in raptures when the fight is the most savage 
 and bloody. It always was so. In the amphitheatres of 
 Italy, when martyr Christians were compelled to fight with 
 wild beasts, the fairest and proudest of women were among 
 the spectators, who looked on with delight when their fellow- 
 creatures were torn limb from limb. I have often heard it 
 said, here and elsewhere, that women are more fond of 
 these bloody spectacles than men are. We know they are 
 more sympathetic with suffering, and in the hospital and 
 chamber of sickness and anguish, they minister with a long- 
 suffering patience and fortitude from which the sterner stuff 
 that men are supposed to be made of revolts at once, or 
 soon shrinks worn out, " used up," as we say. 
 
 What is the effect of these scenes of blood and butchery 
 on the national character? In the streets the boys play 
 bull-fight : one holds up a red handkerchief and shakes it in 
 the face of another boy, who makes a lunge at him with his 
 head, and then pursues him, and another sets off after hiifiy 
 and so the bull-ring is enacted in the highway. As all the 
 large towns 'have bull-rings, and the poorest classes of peo- 
 ple manage to get money enough to see the show, and the 
 country boy can give his girl no greater treat than to take 
 her to a bull-fight, the thing is in the widest sense national, 
 and its influence reaches down to the lowest ranks, while 
 it is the pet of the nobility and gentry. And its effect 
 must be degrading, brutifying, and demoralizing. If there 
 were any thing in the Spanish character to work upon, for 
 good or evil, the influence of such a decided national pas- 
 
SEVILLE. 113 
 
 time would be more distinctly pronounced. But the sense- 
 less pride of the Spaniard, — pride with nothing to be proud 
 of; pride with idleness, ignorance, and poverty; pride of 
 the meanest and most contemptible sort, — is the warp and 
 woof of Spanish character, and there is hardly any thing 
 more in them than there would be in a nation of peacocks. 
 
 When you have excepted the vice of intoxication, and a 
 great exception it is, you have said all that can be said in 
 favor of the moral habits of the Spanish people. They do 
 not steal from one another, that I know of, any more than 
 other people do. But they certainly commit murders more 
 frequently than other nations do, unless the slayer is mad- 
 dened by drink. In estimating the comparative morality 
 of peoples, this matter of intemperance holds the balance. 
 It is the prolific parent of the greater part of the crimes of 
 a people where it is the prevailing vice, yet very few mor- 
 alists are disposed to reckon it the crime of crimes. In 
 Spain the women are said to be almost universally corrupt. 
 As a matter of course, the men must be just as bad. I 
 have been assured here in Granada, by those who ought to 
 know, having long resided here and become thoroughly 
 acquainted with the state of things, that there is no social 
 morality among men and women in Spain : that from the 
 highest to the lowest they have all gone out of the way, 
 and that they are known — the women are — as divided 
 into four classes, with different degrees of refinement in 
 vice, but all four classes lost to virtue and without con- 
 science of sin. It is quite probable that such a statement 
 is to be taken with many grains of allowance. But making 
 all deductions that one's good nature demands, there still 
 remains a sediment of truth that one shudders to admit. 
 In this plane of inquiry we are met with the truth that 
 Austria, Italy, France, and Spain are the Roman Catholic 
 countries where the vice of' licentiousness corrupts the 
 moral of social life. The Protestant countries of Europe 
 
 8 
 
114 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 are in colder climes, and intemperance is the vice that 
 among the poorer people breeds misery more ruinous to 
 their health and prosperity. 
 
 At the railway station, when we were leaving Seville for 
 the Alhambra by the way of Malaga, a group of natives in 
 the costume of Andalusia presented a picturesque and not 
 unpleasing appearance. In the cities of Europe it is rare 
 to see any thing national and peculiar- in the dress of the 
 people. Fashion is an empire that extends over every 
 nation, and reigns in London, Berlin, Vienna, and Madrid 
 with resistless sway. The seat of government is in .Paris, 
 and her edicts are obeyed in free America as well as in 
 France. But when you get into the rural districts, the 
 people cling to an ancient regime ; a fashion, indeed, who 
 sat on the throne long years ago, and has never been put 
 aside by any revolutions of modern invention. These rural 
 Andalusians, in breeches and sandals, with red belt or sash, 
 and loose jacket, and conical hat and wide rim turned up 
 all around, are dressed as their great-grandfathers were, 
 and as their own great-grandchildren will be, and others, 
 for generations to come. They had been to the city on an 
 excursion, and were now going home again, none the better, 
 but a deal the worse for the change of life they had suffered 
 in town. 
 
 It was a good opportunity to learn something of the life 
 of these people, who form, after all, the great mass of any 
 nation, and the part of the people with whom every true 
 heart is in sympathy. The rich and the gay, the fashion- 
 able people who throng in cities, can live as they please. 
 The poor, who live from hand to mouth, and cannot choose 
 for themselves, but must live as they can, these are the 
 people in every country whose condition we want to inquire 
 into ; and when we have learned of their state, we know 
 what their country is. It is the average of human comfort 
 that we want to get at. 
 
SEVILLE. 115 
 
 And it is a real help towards one's satisfaction with the 
 condition of a people to know that it does not take a vast 
 amount of the good things of this life to make one happy, 
 if he has never had any thing more or better than the little 
 he has been contented with. These Andaiusians work on 
 the farms of large proprietors, and get six to ten cents a 
 day and their food, when they are working by the season. 
 This sounds small. The wages of laboring men who fmd 
 themselves, and who work by the day, will average forty or 
 fifty cents a day. To know what such pay is worth we 
 must know how they live, and what it costs to buy the food 
 they have. Their food is chiefly soup of bacon oil and veg- 
 etables, with bread and fruit. They take a kettle of this 
 thick soup, more like a pudding than a soup, to the fields 
 with them ; and day after day, year in and year out, eat 
 substantially the same thing. And this food costs the 
 peasants a very little more than nothing. The ground is 
 easily worked, the climate is so favorable to growth and 
 land so abundant, that what can be raised for food is almost 
 as accessible to the poor as if vegetables were spontaneous 
 and free to everybody. So it is that these /^<9r people are 
 quite as well off, as to the mere physical comforts of life, as 
 those who get one, two, and five dollars a day in other lands, 
 and have to pay so much for food and lodgings as to be 
 sorely puzzled to do what a cat often tries to do, — make 
 both ends meet. 
 
 These Spanish peasants appear to be lively, intelligent, 
 and wide-awake. They give a reason for doing any thing, 
 when they are asked ; and that is more than the Irish or 
 English peasantry can do at home, or in the land of the 
 soaring eagle. Except in Russia, there is not a people 
 on the continent of Europe that appear more stolid and 
 unthoughtful, more like mere cattle or machines, than the 
 farm peasantry of merry England. This may be in appear- 
 ance only ; but the truth is that you can get more out of an 
 
Il6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 ignorant laborer on the continent of Europe, whose lan- 
 guage you do not more than half understand, than out of 
 an English farm hand who is supposed to speak English. 
 
 Beer has something to do with this matter of stupidity. 
 These southern climates in Europe and this soil are favor- 
 able to the culture of wine-grapes, and wine is the solace 
 and stimulus of the commonest people. You may buy as ' 
 good a bottle of wine for thirty cents in Spain as you would 
 have to pay three or four dollars for in New York. And if 
 you will not give thirty cents for it, you can have as much 
 as you want for little or nothing. Until the railroads were 
 built and transportation made easy and cheap, it was com- 
 mon, when the new vintage came in, to empty the, casks that 
 held what was left over of former years. And a church 
 was pointed out to me that was built with mortar made 
 with wine instead of water, there being a scarcity of water 
 in the vicinity but plenty of wine that was to be thrown 
 away. Sherry wine, which • is the sack of Shakespeare and 
 Ben Jonson, is the leading wine of Spain, and is made 
 now and here just as wine was made in the times of Hesiod 
 and Isaiah ; for in such climes as this the people keep on 
 doing things as their ancestors or others did in the same 
 place thousands of years ago. They drink wine as freely 
 as the English drink beer, and as Americans drink rum and 
 water. But they do not get drunk as our people do, and 
 they are not so stupid as the beer drinkers of England are. 
 They are stimulated, of course, and the exhilaration is car- 
 ried to excess sometimes. It is not true to say there is 
 no drunkenness in wine-growing countries, but the best 
 informed men, who had the most abundant opportunities of 
 learning the facts in the case, assured me that inte7nperanc€ 
 is not common ; that it is very rare among the working 
 people of Spain. This is not to be used as an argument in 
 favor of wine raising and wine drinking in America. It 
 would indeed be better for the health of the drinking men 
 
SEVILLE. 117 
 
 to drink pure wine than bad whiskey, or the vile compounds 
 that are sold as wine in our country. But if wine were as 
 cheap in the United States as in Spain, there would be just 
 as much intemperance in the United States as now. The 
 climate and the strife of such a country as ours furnish 
 causes for the use of stimulating drinks that do not exist in 
 Italy or Spain ; and philanthropists who discuss and legislate 
 on the subject of temperance, without regard to the physical 
 circumstances of a people, are in the same case with the 
 traveller who reckoned his bill without his host. It is well 
 to multiply and fortify wholesome laws to restrain men from 
 evil indulgence, and it is our duty to ply all possible moral 
 agencies to reform and save our fellow-men ; but our duty 
 does not end with legislating and preaching. There are 
 social burdens to be raised from the poor by the voluntary 
 action of the rich, and by the application of the gospel prin- 
 ciple of brotherhood, which will so ameliorate the condition 
 of the lowly that they will not be tempted as now, by the 
 pressure of weariness, care, and woe, to fly to the intoxi- 
 cating cup for help to bear their load, or to forget that it is 
 on them. But this disgression is getting dry, if it is on 
 drinking. 
 
 A beautiful trait of character and a lovely custom of the 
 (Spanish peasantry appear in their love for parents. They 
 yield to them obedience^ respect, veneration, and love, after 
 they are aged, and the children are men and women grown. 
 The married children delight to have their parents to direct 
 and govern them as in childhood, and these children even 
 quarrel among themselves to get and keep possession of 
 their aged parents. This trait of character is said to mark 
 a slow country, where the past, the ancient, is held in 
 honor; while progress has no such reverence for old 
 age. Would to God that we had a little more Spain in ! 
 young America, if it is Spanish to honor one's father and 
 mother. 
 
 L 
 
Tl8 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 In the Alameda, at Malaga. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MALAGA. 
 
 THE wind blowing from the north-west, — that is, aland 
 breeze, at Malaga, excites the nervous system so 
 much, that in courts of law it is held to be an extenuating 
 circumstance in case of crime. It is therefore of great 
 importance to know which way the wind blows when you 
 
MALAGA. 119 
 
 are proposing to kill your neighbor or to commit a forgery. 
 In our country we have hardly got to that point, but in 
 Boston, where easterly winds prevail, the phrenologists set 
 up a plea in behalf of the Maiden murderer that was quite 
 as absurd as the Malaga weather. In New York, the doc- 
 trine of mental and moral disturbance is held to be an 
 extenuating circumstance in crime. And some of our emi- 
 nent citizens, merchants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and 
 ministers have united in representing the strong excite- 
 ment engendered by stock speculation, as an excuse for 
 forgery. From all of which it is fair to infer that the guilt 
 or innocence of a man in the New World, as well as the 
 Old, depends very much upon the way the wind blows. 
 
 Malaga is one of the most celebrated resorts for invalids. 
 It is not a resort of fashion, like Nice and Mentone, and 
 perhaps Sicily is more sought by those whose maladies are 
 partly imaginary and the other part nervous. But Malaga 
 is a place to which intelligent physicians send hundreds of 
 patients who are in a bad way, and yet have a fair chance 
 of getting well if they spend a few winters in this uniform, 
 genial," mild, but not enervating clime. The warm south 
 wind comes in upon it from the sea, on whose shore it lies, 
 and the mountains in the rear shield it from the northern 
 blasts. In an ordinary room, without fire, the thermometer 
 (Fahr.) ranges all winter long from fifty-two to seventy deg., 
 never higher or lower, unless when an extraordinary fit of 
 weather is on, and the average temperature is about fifty-five 
 deg. from November to March. It is six degrees warmer 
 than Rome, which is one of the dampest, chilliest, and most 
 disagreeable places for an invalid to winter in. I tried hard 
 to get well in Florence and Rome and Nice, and then fled 
 to Spain, and found what neither Italy nor Southern France 
 would furnish, — an equable clime ; warm, but not debilitat- 
 ing. Nature has a laboratory for making mineral waters that 
 chemists in vain attempt to imitate, and there are peculiar 
 
120 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 combinations of atmospheric elements in divers places, that 
 must be tried on the spot if you would get the good of 
 them. The invalid who wishes a climate that braces him 
 up without exciting him to cough, will have to breathe in a 
 great many places, perhaps, before he finds those opposite 
 qualities blended, and if an unprofessional opinion is worth 
 any thing, it is here given, that the south of Spain is the 
 paradise desired. But nothing is more important for con- 
 sumptives than uniformity of climate, and the argument in 
 favor of Malaga is complete, when you learn that the range 
 or variation of its temperature is less than that of any other 
 place on the continent of Europe ! Pau, that beautiful 
 little nest in the Pyrenees, so sheltered by the hills that no 
 wind visits it too roughly, has a range of no less than sixty- 
 eight degrees during the year, and Rome has sixty-two, and 
 even Nice, fairest of watering-places for winter, ranges 
 sixty, but Malaga has only a range of forty-nine degrees 
 in the year. 
 
 It rained almost every day in Rome. It rains in Flor- 
 ence implacably, just when you wish it would not. Nice is 
 fairer, but not always fair. Malaga is so uniformly pleasant, 
 that a day without sunshine is very unusual in the months 
 of November, December, and January. Good authority 
 says there are not, during the whole year, more than ten 
 days on which rain would prevent an invalid from taking 
 exercise. It seemed to me that the winter weather in 
 Malaga is more nearly like to that of Cairo, in Egypt, than 
 any other place, and there are but four degrees of difference 
 in the average temperature. 
 
 But take it summer and winter through, and in the last 
 nine years it has rained only 262 times, or thirty-nine 
 times in the course of each year: and think of it, O ye 
 dwellers in London, or Paris, or New York, it has been 
 foggy or misty but sixteen days in three times three years ! 
 And this bright, beautiful atmosphere gives a blue sky so 
 
MALAGA. 121 
 
 deep and pure, that it would take a poet of more than aver- 
 age fancy power to invent a firmament of superior glory, or 
 to find a sunset in Greece or Italy to be mentioned in the 
 same day with the gorgeous splendors that clothe the skies 
 of Southern Spain at shut of day. 
 
 If you have consumption, or bronchitis, or any malady 
 that is working mischief with your breathing apparatus, do 
 not be governed, nor even guided, by the hasty generaliza- 
 tions of a man who writes from what he sees and hears in a 
 tour for health and pleasure through half a dozen countries 
 in the course of a season. The most that he can tell you is 
 that such a climate as this is said to be excellent for those 
 who have consumption already, and is likely to engender it 
 where it is not ; and if you cannot reconcile those two say- 
 ings of the books and the people, it is well enough to know 
 that a sickly plant may be saved by being cared for in a 
 hot-house, that might have been made to droop if taken in 
 when it was in healthful vigor. Dr. Lee, whose opinion is 
 of great weight, regards the climate of Madeira, Pau, or Pisa 
 better than that of Malaga, for incipient tubercular disease, 
 in persons of an excitable habit. And so much caution is 
 to be used in deciding upon the means to be used for saving 
 life by change of clime, that I would not write a line on this 
 subject if I supposed that any one would be foolish enough 
 to make a voyage on the strength of it. 
 
 When a miserly client attempted to get an opinion out of 
 a lawyer by asking him at dinner, " What would you advise 
 me to do in such and such a case ? " the lawyer answered, 
 " I should think the best thing you could do would be to 
 take advice." And this is what I advise. 
 
 No finer grapes than those of Malaga do we enjoy at 
 home in the winter season, and the trade in raisins is enor- 
 mous. We have been familiar with a raisin-box, but it was 
 something quite novel to see extensive factories making 
 nothing else but these rude little cases, all to be used for 
 
122 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 packing raisins. The raisin stores or depots where the 
 boxes are waiting to be exported were so vast as to aston- 
 ish me, but when one thinks of the extent to which they are 
 distributed throughout the civiUzed world, it is only wonder- 
 ful that the trade is not far greater. 
 
 The country around is flowing with wine and oil. It 
 might easily be made to yield cotton and sugar enough to 
 supply the market of Europe. But it is in Spaijz^ and 
 nothing thrives in Spain but Romanism and its sister. 
 
 Through a succession of streets so narrow that no wheel 
 carriages can pass, and designed only for bipeds and quadru- 
 peds to go on foot, reeking with smells that made fragrant 
 the memory of Cologne, we wound our way, meeting 
 Moors from Morocco, in their picturesque costume, caps, 
 togas, or shawls, with bare legs and sandals ; meeting gypsy 
 women and gypsy men whose home is Spain, and whose 
 story is part of life in Spain, we plied our devious walk on 
 Sunday into the little square in front of the Malaga Cathe- 
 dral. Built of white stone, on the site of a mosque, and 
 still retaining part of the old Mahometan structure, it rises 
 in a mass about three hundred feet square, to the height of 
 130 feet, and the tower rises 220 feet above the roof. High 
 mass was celebrated v/hen we entered, and few worshippers 
 were present : most of these were women of some " relig- 
 ious " order, and some priests, not serving at the altar but 
 on their knees before it, on the beautiful pavement of blue 
 and white marble. Perhaps the interior is too light and 
 florid : the various decorations have been added at periods 
 so remote from each other that they lack harmony. But 
 what is wanting in severity and solemn majesty is made up in 
 the variety of ornament, portals, statues, and wood carvings. 
 
 The tribes of Jordan, in Palestine, once held this city and 
 region, reigning and rejoicing in the climate, the soil, and 
 the sea. They sent the luscious grapes away to China, 
 and Ibu Bathula, who was here in 1630, was quite as 
 
MALAGA. 123 
 
 delighted with what he had to eat and see as we are, who 
 come 230 years after him, for he says : " I have seen eight 
 pounds of grapes sold for twopence ; its pomegranates are 
 like rubies, and unequalled in the whole world ; its courts 
 have no rivals in beauty, and are shaded by wonderful 
 groves of oranges." He adds that he saw a preacher col- 
 lecting money to ransom some Moors whom a Spanish fleet 
 had captured. He rejoiced in the wine of Malaga, and all 
 the more, it is probable, because its use was forbidden by 
 the Koran : for we have the highest authority to say that 
 stolen waters are sweet. And is it not Al-Makkari who 
 tells the story of a dying Moor who prayed : " O Lord, of 
 all things which thou hast in Paradise, I only ask for two ; 
 grant me to drink Malaga and Muscat wine ! " 
 
 The old fortress once stood here, from which the beauti- 
 ful Florinde threw herself into the sea, and by her death 
 roused the rebellion that was headed by her father, and 
 drove from the throne her betrayer, Roderick, the -last of 
 the Gothic kings. But all these stories, are they not written 
 in the chronicles of Washington Irving, and is there any 
 one so incredulous as to doubt the truthfulness of the thou- 
 sand-and-one legends of that fascinating and most learned 
 historian ? For my part, since I have been dreaming here 
 in the Alhambra, I have no more doubt of the Spanish 
 tales that he told than I have of the verities of the Arabian 
 Nights or the legend of Sleepy Hollow. 
 
 What travel was in Spain before the invention of diligences 
 I know not, but probably the rich rode on horse or mule 
 back, and the poor footed it ; now that railroads have 
 brought distant cities near each other, it is only occasion- 
 ally that you are treated to an old-time ride in a coach, and 
 perhaps you may be glad that once at least, in Spain, it was 
 hecessary for us to undergo this species of locomotion. 
 
 Between Malaga, a great seaport, and Granada, the an- 
 cient and glorious city of the Alhambra, there is no com- 
 
124 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 munication except by diligence. The time is fourteen 
 hours. And the hour for starting is six in the evening ! 
 You have before you this luxury, of one long, jolting, 
 execrable night ride, with no rest, no change from dewy 
 eve till morn. You may be a delicate lady, or a feeble old 
 man, or a middle-aged invalid, seeking rest and finding 
 none; but you must go by the diligence, and go in the 
 night and all night, or hire a carriage for yourself, and then 
 there is no certainty that you will ever get to the other end 
 of your journey. 
 
 The Spanish diligence is divided into two inside compart- 
 ments, the berlina or coupe of three seats in front, and 
 interior of six. By waiting over a day or two, we were 
 able to get possession of the three seats in front, and 
 though the fare was more than in the interior, we had 
 the comfort of escaping suffocation by tobacco smoke, and 
 of seeing the fun ahead. 
 
 At least a hundred ladies and gentlemen, evidently of 
 the higher class, assembled at the coach office to take 
 leave of some one who was going to Malaga to hold an 
 office under government. It was a genteel and decorous 
 company, and a sight quite peculiar to the country. In 
 America or England, men are often escorted to and from 
 the station, but this was a social, rather than a public 
 ovation, and was a quiet and handsome farewell to a popu- 
 lar man in society. 
 
 Wherewithal shall I give you an idea of the team that 
 took us out of Malaga that lovely winter evening ! Ten 
 mules, the most refractory, ill-mated, and discordant beasts 
 that have served a master since the days of Balaam, were' 
 hitched together and to the diligence with rope harness Oi* 
 primitive construction. On one of the leaders rode r 
 postilion : by the side of the midway pairs ran a mau 
 whose duty and privilege it was to beat them ; and the 
 wheel mules were guided by reins in the hands of the 
 
126 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 driver on the top of the diligence. The driver thrashed 
 the mules at his feet ; the whipper thrashed the three 
 pairs in the middle of the team, and the postilion thrashed 
 the leaders. All thrashing at once as fast and as hard 
 as they could. All shouting at once at the top of 
 . their voices, the lumbering vehicle is at last fairly launched 
 and away it goes. The postilion on the forward beasts 
 blows his horn to signal the people in the narrow and 
 crooked streets that the thing is coming. The driver 
 snaps his whip like a revolver, and after the snap brings 
 the lash around the flanks of the lazy brutes : the whipper 
 is now on one side and now on the other ; whip, whip, 
 whip all the while ; kicking, punching, shouting, the mules 
 spread themselves all abroad, never pulling in concert, but 
 each one on his own hook, and as we got along out of the 
 suburbs and into the broader ways of the country, the 
 rebellious creatures seemed to grow frantic under the cease- 
 less blows rained upon them by their tormentors, and 
 plunged and kicked till one of them made confusion all 
 confounded by turning a somerset out of his harness and 
 bringing the whole concern to a standstill. It was a short 
 process, putting him in again, and then away they all 
 scampered, more like a drove of cattle than a harnessed 
 team, but the beating was redoubled the more they ran, till 
 i really began to think it was time for these dumb beasts 
 to open their mouths and speak some words of remon- 
 strance. And yet how soon we became so demoralized, as 
 rather to enjoy the excitement and frolic of the ride. 
 
 Night was drawing on. We begin to ascend the moun- 
 tains behind Malaga. The city lies at their feet, all glorious 
 in the golden light of a setting sun. The bay is a lake of 
 loveliness ; and the sea, unbounded, stretches off under 
 the southern sky. Orchards of olives, always green, and 
 hills that are vineyards in the season of grapes, and 
 orange-trees, are around us, — evidence of a rich and fertile 
 
MALAGA. 127 
 
 country. Yet every half mile or so an armed patrol guards 
 the road to make it safe for travellers, and we have two 
 or three on the top of the diUgence with their guns loaded 
 to give a welcome to any " gentleman of the road " who 
 might be disposed to make free with unsuspecting travel- 
 lers. And so, with the excitement of the novel mode of 
 transportation, and listening with ears erect to the tales of 
 robbers with which Antanazio beguiled the mortal hours, 
 we passed a long and wretched night, winding among 
 craggy mountains on the verge of precipices, and crossing 
 deep ravines. 
 
 It was three o'clock in the morning when we reached 
 Loja, where we were to stop for refreshments ! Out of 
 the diligence tumbled a miserable set of people, sleepy but 
 sleepless, cross and hungry, and made a general rush to 
 the hostelry — by courtesy called an inn. Nobody was 
 up, but in the course of ten or fifteen minutes a dirty old 
 man brought in a pot of chocolate and put a plate of cakes 
 in the middle of a table which had been spread with a 
 cloth overnight. I noticed little black spots around on 
 the cloth, and putting my finger at one of them, away 
 hopped a flea, and a flock of them were soon in motion. 
 The chocolate was good, and the fleas were stimulating. 
 In twenty minutes we were caged again, and, with fresh 
 teams and good spirits, set off for Granada. 
 
 About six o'clock in the morning we were passing 
 through Santa Fe, — a large town — in the streets of which 
 hundreds of men and women were seen standing, about to 
 march off in gangs to distant fields to work. The inhabi- 
 tants do not live in scattered houses over the country, — 
 here and there a farmer's cottage, as with us, — but, dwell- 
 ing for safety in villages, they must go miles and miles 
 away to and from their fields of daily labor. This Santa 
 Fe has a history. It was built by Ferdinand and Isabella 
 while laying siege to Granada, and here Columbus came 
 
128 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 and successfully made his plea for their royal favor and 
 help to go out into the ocean in search of a new world. 
 He found it that same year. Granada fell in 1492, and 
 the last of the Moorish strongholds yielded to Spanish 
 power. 
 
 As we rode across the wide and fertile plain that lies in 
 front of Granada, the lofty mountains appeared ; the east 
 was in shadow, and the west tinged with the rising sun- 
 light. Soon the city on a hill rose on the right, crowned 
 with the Alhambra. One could not fail to be excited as 
 the dreams of childhood and youth were becoming real. 
 An hour more and we were in peaceful possession of 
 Granada, and comfortably lodged within the grounds of 
 the Alhambra. 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 1 29 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ALHAMBRA. 
 
 "XT 7HEN the followers of Berber, the Moorish chieftain, 
 ' ^ some of whom came from the regions of Damascus 
 and the valley of the Jordan, first entered the plain that 
 lies in front of Granada, they imagined, in the fervor of 
 their Oriental fancies, that they had struck Paradise itself. 
 Perhaps they had come back to Damascus, the blessed 
 and glorious city of the East, but that and Paradise to 
 them were about the same thing. The wide and fertile 
 plain was and is watered by two streams like those that 
 flowed round about the Eden of sacred story, and if the 
 earthly gardens of man's delight were to be an emblem and 
 foretaste of the flowers and fruits, the beauty and plenty 
 of the gardens of the skies, they were certainly now before 
 their eyes. They gave the name of " Damascus of the 
 West " to the city that crowned the hill, and shone in the 
 summer sun like the great dome to the temple of the King 
 of kings. This city was called Granada, from the granates, 
 or pomegranates, that then as now grew in abundance, 
 with luscious grapes, figs and citrons and olives, and all the 
 fruits of a southern and delicious clime. Near by, the 
 snow-clad Sierra Nevada reminded them of their own 
 Mount Hermon, and over all these was hung a canopy of 
 blue, so deep and pure and clear that the sea, reversed and 
 lightened by the sun by day, and set with stars at night, 
 could not have been more lovely to behold. 
 
 When the empire of the Moors in Spain was broken into 
 hostile factions, preparatory to its final extinction, the city 
 
 9 
 

THE ALHAMBRA. 131 
 
 of Granada fell into the hands of Zawi Ibu Zeyri, who was 
 its first king, and established his royal residence here. The 
 towers or castle on the summit of the hill, and commanding 
 the whole city, were called Alhambra^ which means red 
 castle^ and to this color the stones turn after exposure to the 
 air, from the oxide of iron they contain. 
 
 Within the walls of this castle, covering an area of seve- 
 ral acres, the successive Moorish kings erected palaces, and 
 embellishing them according to their own tastes, joined 
 walls and towers, and courts and fountains and gardens, 
 until in process of time the great enclosure became filled 
 with the edifices which this luxurious and extravagant race 
 of monarchs desired for themselves, their wives and concu- 
 bines, and the hosts of servants and dependants which such 
 a style of life, in such a country, must demand. At this 
 moment, the palace of the Russian emperor holds five 
 thousand persons, all actually required to wait upon the 
 Czar and his household and one another. In the Seraglio 
 of the Sultan of Turkey 40,000 oxen were eaten yearly, and 
 400 sheep a day. An army would therefore be as easily 
 lodged as the family of a Moorish king in the palace at 
 Granada. What it was in the days of Abu-Abdallah, who 
 has the traditional honor of having built the palace itself, or 
 of Yusef I., who added lustre to its walls by his gorgeous 
 decorations, we can form but a faint conception from what 
 we see of it now that it is stripped of its purple and gold, 
 and has nothing of its former splendors but the mouldering 
 walls and shattered stairs and broken floors. 
 
 The first prince who took up his abode in the Alhambra 
 itself was Alhamar, from whom it has been by many sup- 
 posed that the palace itself was named. He was a wise, 
 gentle, and noble ruler, so widely differing from most of his 
 race that he actually preferred peace to war ; and, to make 
 it possible for him to pursue without interruption his vast 
 beneficent plans for the improvement of the condition of 
 
132 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 his people, he consented to pay an annual tribute to Ferdi- 
 nand, King of Arragon. Alhamar constructed roads to the 
 distant parts of his empire, which then reached to Gibral- 
 tar ; he built colleges and hospitals ; and the canals that 
 carried waters far into the plains for irrigation were the 
 work of this barbarian king. Under his reign the city rose 
 to its zenith of splendor. The arts and sciences flourished 
 as the vine and fig-tree in a genial soil. Wealth, learning, 
 genius, taste, and chivalry lent their aid to heighten the 
 attractions of this fair city. Yusef, one of his successors, 
 added many buildings to those that he had left, and others 
 were crowded into the arena in after reigns, so that for two 
 hundred and fifty years it was growing in such magnificence 
 and beauty, as the soft, languid, and effeminate tastes of a 
 luxurious, debauched, and decaying race of irresponsible, 
 licentious, and decaying monarchs, with a host of wives to 
 prompt them to indulgence in every whim of fancy, could 
 invent to add to the delights of their terrestrial paradise. 
 What could be looked for as the result of such lives but 
 the ruin of the empire. Kings had but short reigns, for 
 intrigue, lust, ambition, and murder made one after another 
 give place to a rival who sought his bed quite as much as 
 his throne. The usurper soon became the enfeebled volup- 
 tuary of the harem, and the arm that was as strong as 
 Hercules in the battlefield became as weak as a woman's 
 when love, not war, was the passion of the hour. A king- 
 dom divided against itself cannot stand. The cities of the 
 Moors no longer were in league, but each, jealous of the rest, 
 was in succession sieged and sacked. 
 
 At last Granada stood alone in its independence and its 
 impending ruin. Mohammed Ibu Otsman had bowed his 
 neck to the Queen of Castile, and the Alhambra was the 
 only Moorish gem which remained to be transferred to the 
 Christian crown. Ferdinand of Arragon, by marriage with 
 Isabella of Castile, formed at once a union of hearts and 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. I33 
 
 arms that prepared the way for the overthrow of the last 
 remnant of Moorish power in Spain. Columbus, repulsed 
 from his native country, had strangely sought aid in this 
 distracted land. As if a higher will than his own were 
 directing his weary steps, he had pursued these conquerors 
 of the Moors over the mountains, and found them in their 
 tents within sight of the red towers on the heights of 
 Granada. They had other conquests than of unknown 
 worlds in view. The prize they sought was gleaming, like 
 a sun, between them and the snows of Sierra Nevada. 
 They turned a deaf ear, in the din of war, to the tales of 
 the adventurous sailor. And he went away. 
 
 He had gone a day's journey on his solitary way to 
 Seville and had reached Loja, where we had fleas and cake 
 for our lunch this morning, when a messenger from the 
 queen arrested his steps and brought him back to the royal 
 presence and favor. They gave him the blessing and the 
 gold he needed, and then they conquered the Moors, and 
 Granada, with its Alhambra, fell into their hands. And in 
 the same year Columbus gave them a new world in the 
 West. 
 
 Years and years since, even in the long time ago when 
 the sunny days of childhood were yet in the glow of their 
 noon, I remember wondering " what the Alhambra is." It 
 had to me then, and all the way along the lengthening 
 years of life, a dreamy rather than a real existence, and if 
 at times I read its story, the "Tales of the Alhambra" 
 rather increased than weakened the sense of dream-life in 
 which alone it was to be enjoyed. 
 
 In Malaga I went into a Spanish bookstore and asked 
 for English books on Spain. The bibliopole sent me into 
 the garret of his shop, where in a corner was heaped a pile 
 of odds and ends of English literature, such as might have 
 been left behind by some poor invalids who had perished in 
 their perusal, while seeking to get a new lease of life in this 
 
134 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 delicious clime. But among them were several copies, in 
 paper covers, of Irving's " Tales of the Alhambra," whose 
 uncut leaves showed them to have been unread and kept for 
 sale to passing pilgrims like myself. I carried one off. It 
 would be pleasant to read on the spot : and I have read 
 them with fresh delight, while every court and wall and 
 tower, every fountain, stream, plain, hill is linked with the 
 stories that the old master told while he dreamed within 
 the ruins of the palace that his fiction has made more 
 famous than its history. But reading tales about the 
 Alhambra do not tell us what it is, and it is quite likely 
 that my account will give you no more intelligible an idea 
 of it. 
 
 We have ascended the hill through a long avenue shaded 
 with elms, and approach a massive gate, the gate of judg- 
 ment, a seat of justice in olden times, where in the open 
 air, as was common in Oriental climes, the magistrates, the 
 elders, were accustomed to administer the law. " Then he 
 made a porch, where he might judge, even a porch of judg- 
 ment." I Kings, vii. 7. Many other passages of Scripture 
 allude to the same custom. A square tower surmounts the 
 gate, and the pillars are inscribed with Arabic legends. 
 The horse-shoe arch has a mighty hand in bas-relief, with 
 the fingers pointing upward, and on the second arch is a 
 key in stone, and the tradition is that the gate was impreg- 
 nable until the stone hand should take the stone key and 
 unlock the gate for the enemy to enter. Without waiting 
 for such a miracle, we pass through the two-leaved gates, 
 and by a winding and still ascending path we reach the 
 terrace on which the palaces and villas of the Moorish kings 
 were built. This plateau is about half a mile long, and 
 narrow, surrounded by red walls six feet thick and thirty 
 feet high, and made strong by many towers, each one of 
 which was the residence of some of the household of royalty. 
 The various styles of architecture within and on these walls 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 135 
 
 are the best illustrations of the successive races and tastes 
 and power of the men who have ruled on this lofty emi- 
 nence. Rome and Carthage has each in its turn been mas- 
 ter here, and left his sign-manual in characters that time 
 has spared. More incongruous, than any thing else is the 
 Tuscan palace of Charles V., and a modern parish church 
 has risen on the ruins of a mosque. Napoleon's soldiers 
 were followed by the English, and modern war is not a 
 whit more mindful of the proprieties of art and sentiment 
 than the old savagery which we despise. Ruin, deso- 
 lation, decay is now the spirit of the place. It is im- 
 pressive, eloquent indeed ; perhaps more so than those 
 ruins in Egypt and Greece and Rome that have the hoar 
 of more centuries upon them. It is not so strange, nor so 
 mournful, that the columns and walls should now be in the 
 dust that did their duty two, three thousand years ago. It 
 seems to be almost becoming that the temples of old pagan- 
 ism should moulder in the dispensation of faith that wor- 
 ships in spirit only. But it is painfully suggestive of the 
 transient nature of all human art and power that these 
 massive structures with gorgeous decorations, whose splen- 
 dor is only equalled by the fancies of romance, have had 
 their rise, their reign, and their ruin all within the lapse of 
 the last ten hundred years. 
 
 Antonio Aguilo 'y Fuster, Conseije del Palacio Arabe, 
 Alhambra, gave me his card, as we entered a small door in 
 the side of a plain wall, and were informed that we were 
 now in the palace of the Moors, the veritable Alhambra 
 itself ! The important personage whose card was in my 
 hand was the guardian of this mysterious realm, and would, 
 for the usual consideration of a dollar to him paid, introduce 
 us to the several apartments. The contract was concluded, 
 and the porter led the way. 
 
 He brought us first into the Court of Myrtles. It is a 
 vast open oblong, 170 feet by 74, with a lake in the centre, 
 
136 • ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 surrounded by a marble pavement and myrtle-trees, from 
 which it takes its name. In this lake the wives of the 
 Moorish monarch bathed, of course secluded from all eyes 
 but his own, and the eunuchs, whose " sentrj boxes " still 
 remain. Light and. beautiful columns, with graceful arches 
 springing from the capitals, support a gallery on all sides. 
 Out of this court open many rooms, whose floors and walls 
 and ceilings, with their inscriptions, their delicate tracery 
 work, not worth the name of sculpture, but beautiful as 
 perishable, are the types of the race that revelled here in 
 the beginning of the fourteenth century. Right here Mo- 
 hammed III. had his head cut off, and his body was pitched 
 into the water where the usurper king Nasr often enjoyed 
 the luxury of a bath with his wives. 
 
 The governor, or more properly the janitor, made brief 
 comments on the architecture and uses of the various apart- 
 ments, and then led us to the Court of Lions. Above all 
 other portions of the Alhambra this gives the most correct 
 idea of the palace as it was in its ancient and early glory. 
 A process of restoration has been going on for some years, 
 under the direction of government, and Sr. Contreras hav- 
 ing the work in charge, has succeeded so happily that Yusef 
 himself, who was the first monarch to indulge in these Ori- 
 ental shawl-pattern tracery and tawdry designs, would have 
 been delighted to have the modern architect to help him 
 from the beginning. And the Emperor of Russia has heard 
 such reports of the wonderful restorative powers of this 
 skilful manipulator of plaster, that he has ordered an 
 Alhambra for himself, a copy of this series of ruined pal- 
 aces, which he will keep for a curiosity on the banks of the 
 Neva. In the midst of the court is a fountain supported 
 by twelve marble lions, in the centre of a vast alabaster 
 basin. Standing on the four sides of it are 124 white mar- 
 ble pillars, sustaining a light gallery and a pavilion project- 
 ing into the court, elaborately adorned with filagree-worked 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 1 37 
 
 walls, and a domed roof that admits the tempered light 
 and excludes the heat of the sun. This fountain too has 
 been filled with blood, for here in the midst of all this 
 luxury of splendid decorations the children of Abu Hazen 
 were beheaded by the order of their own father. One only 
 was spared, and he lived to regret it ; for he lived to be 
 the famous and unhappy Boabdil, the last of the Moorish 
 kings of Granada. The next hall into which we will enter 
 is that of the Abencerrages^ an illustrious family, who fell 
 under suspicion of disloyalty to the throne. The wily mon- 
 arch invited all the leaders of this line to a feast, and when 
 they had been sumptuously entertained, they were invited, 
 one by one, to the Court of Lions, which we have just left, 
 and each man's head was cut off as he entered. The dark 
 spots on the marble floor are, of course, kept sacredly dark 
 from year to year, in memory of the treacherous punish- 
 ment of imaginary treason. 
 
 The most magnificent of all the halls is that of the 
 Ambassadors. It is the largest of the apartments, and is 
 seventy-five feet high. It was the grand reception-room, 
 where the throne of the Sultan was placed, and around the 
 sides of the room are niches where each one of the ambas- 
 sadors of foreign courts was seated in state, on great occa- 
 sions. The ceiling is curiously wrought in different colors, 
 — blue, white, and gold, inlaid wood in crowns and stars 
 and wheels. All around are inscriptions celebrating the 
 praises of the kings, and couched in the panegyric imagery 
 of the Oriental style. 
 t It would be tedious to read, if 1 had patience to describe, 
 
 ■ the many courts and halls and baths, saloons and chambers, 
 K the galleries leading to them, the little gardens where the 
 
 ■ sun looks kindly down upon a few plants and flowers, and 
 
 ■ to tell you of the thousand-and-one tales with which so 
 
 ■ many of these towers and chambers have been made 
 
 I" ~ '" "" ■'" " •■ 
 
138 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 jealousy, in all ages, and under a system that makes 
 intrigue and lust the great amusement of life, the history 
 of the harem has always been a story of suspicion and 
 blood. 
 
 
 ''01 
 
 Portion of a Door. 
 
 Bensaken is ^/le guide to the Alhambra. Others are 
 willing to lead you through the labyrinth, and will talk to 
 you as they go, in a mixture of Spanish, Italian, French, 
 and English, with a dash of Arabic, which they have 
 picked up from the translations of inscriptions on the 
 walls ; but they are all ignorant fellows, who live by the 
 ignorance of those to whom they tell their stories. Now 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 1 39 
 
 Bensaken is an Englishman, born in Gibraltar, and has 
 lived to be seventy years old in Spain ; has been through 
 all these years adding to his knowledge of the country, its 
 history and its condition, especially all that relates to the 
 Moors, Granada, and the Alhambra, until he has grown 
 into a walking cyclopedia of Spanish lore. And this 
 learning of his he guards so cautiously that when other 
 guides and interpreters, with travellers so unhappy as to 
 have fallen into their hands, would come near to us while 
 our learned Bensaken was discoursing to us of the wonder- 
 ful mysteries of the Alhambra, its legends and its uses, he 
 would suddenly pause in his interesting narrations, and 
 begging pardon for his silence, would wait until they had 
 passed beyond hearing ; for, said our veracious and most 
 agreeable Bensaken, " I cannot afford to let them fellows 
 know what I have been learning all these years of my life, 
 I have forgot enough to set all of them up in business." 
 
 " Did you know our countryman, Washington Irving, 
 when he was here ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Oh yes, and a nice, worthy gentleman he was : so kind, 
 so pleasant always ; but he did not keep very closely to 
 the facts : to tell you the truth, those are very beautiful 
 stories of Mr. Irving, but the most of them are all in your 
 eye, sir." , 
 
 " He speaks of the good people who lived here when he 
 lodged in the Alhambra, and a fair maiden to whom he 
 gave the name of Dolores, and a noble young man, Molina, 
 or something like that ; what ever became of them, can 
 you tell me .'' " 
 
 Bensaken gave a low little laugh, and said that Dolores 
 was a coarse and dowdy drudge, whom the warm imagina- 
 tion of the author had invested with purely rhetorical 
 charms, and the other occupants of the palace had no 
 claims to distinction. One of them whom he mentioned 
 was murdered in a street brawl, and the whole family had 
 
140 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 passed into oblivion. Yet their names will live in the sto- 
 ries of the Alhambra while the genial and smoothly flowing 
 pages of Irving are read as the pleasantest and most 
 reliable account of the traditions of this wondrous pile. 
 
 We went down into the garden of the Queen's prison, 
 and on a little patch of green we stood while Bensaken 
 pointed to the gallery where she was permitted to walk 
 and take the air and enjoy the sunlight, but the various 
 chambers to which she was restricted had no exit. This 
 was not very close confinement, to be sure, but it becomes 
 intolerable, even the luxury of a palace, with a flower gar- 
 den in its court, and gorgeous hangings and gilded ceihngs 
 and marvellous sculptures, if the royal lodger is a prisoner, 
 and hopes for no exit but through the gate that opens in 
 the tomb. 
 
 And then we visited the " Hall of Two Sisters," so fanci- 
 fully named because of two immense marble slabs, which 
 form a part of the pavement. The decorations of this 
 apartment are exceedingly beautiful. The stalactite roof 
 is said to consist of 5,000 pieces, and though all this plas- 
 ter ornamentation is supported only by reeds, it remains 
 almost unbroken as it was when first put up. These were 
 the private apartments of the wives and slaves of the Sul- 
 tan,- and were furnished with couches and divans, and the 
 walls are covered with love poems, in the glowing language 
 of the East, celebrating the sensual delights of these 
 voluptuaries of the harem. All that architecture and 
 upholstery, poetry and taste could supply for the embel- 
 lishment of chambers of pleasure, were lavished with 
 wasteful profusion here, or, to use the more familiar terms 
 of our Western phraseology, " they were got up regardless 
 of expense." 
 
 Passing out upon a balcony we looked down upon the 
 Linderaka gardens, which once were the delight of a prin- 
 cess whose name, Linda Raxa, was the same as Pretty 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. I4I 
 
 Rachel ; she became a Christian, and her story, if put into 
 the hands of a skilful manufacturer, would make a beautiful 
 romance, with more truth than is necessary for half a dozen 
 modern historical novels. The dressing-room of the Queen 
 in one of the towers has a look-out upon the surrounding 
 country; the Sierra Nevada, rising ii,ooo feet, and so near 
 in this clear atmosphere that it seems close at hand, and 
 one feels the coolness of the snow-cliffs on its sides ; there 
 is the house, now a college, where Christians suffered 
 martyrdom under Domitian and Nero ; those huts in the 
 hill in front and those holes into the hill itself are the habi- 
 tations of gypsies, whose home is Spain, and who are very 
 numerous in these parts ; the city of Granada itself lies at 
 our feet; once it had more than a thousand towers, and 
 now it" has more than 500, and they are monuments of 
 departed glory. Yet there is nothing in the city so mourn- 
 fully eloquent of human folly and frailty as the ruin in which 
 we are standing. Here is a wide marble slab, pierced with 
 twelve holes, and below the slab is the chamber where the 
 perfume was prepared, and as it ascended the Queen stood 
 over these holes, and was made suitably fragrant I In the 
 days of Esther similar means were evidently in use, and 
 they were probably quite as salutary and agreeable as the 
 modern condensations which in a bag or bottle furnish the 
 necessary facilities for making lovely woman odorous to her 
 friends. 
 
 Down below was a suite of rooms where the baths for 
 the Sultan and the children were arranged, with pipes for 
 the supply of hot and cold water, as convenient as in "' a 
 house with all the modern improvements." Places for 
 couches, galleries for musicians whose melodies would 
 make the luxury of the bath more enjoyable ; the pavement 
 is of white marble, the roof is pierced with holes like stars, 
 and the whole arrangement corresponds with the baths of 
 Turkey and Cairo at the present day. 
 
142 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 And the long passage through which we were now con- 
 ducted led to the dungeons of the castle ; most of them are 
 walled up, but one was left open that we might see how 
 
 The Vermilion Tower. 
 
 short and easy was the mode of disposing of an unhappy 
 victim of jealousy or revenge, who could be built into a 
 recess and find it a dying bed and grave. It was a long 
 subterranean walk till we came out to the governor's court. 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 143 
 
 Here* I saw what I had not supposed to be possible, — a 
 marble slab bent into the shape of a bow by the weight of a 
 wall falling and resting upon it. 
 
 On every balcony and at every window the wise Bensaken 
 was ready with a tale of love, or blood, or gold ; and it 
 would be hard to say in which he most delighted to indulge. 
 He was sure that out of this window the beautiful Zoraya, 
 the "Morning Star" of Abu Hazen, she that was once 
 Dona Isabel de Solis, a fair Christian captive who became 
 the favorite Sultana, and the mother of Boabdil, let him 
 down by a basket into an abyss from which he escaped and 
 saved his life, to become afterwards the last of the race of 
 princes here. But I must tell you one of his stories that 
 he knows to be true, and which has never yet been entered 
 into any chronicles of the Alhambra. 
 
144 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE ALHAMBRA {Contmued). 
 
 TDLASICHO, or, in good English, poor Bias, was an 
 ^^ honest worker in leather, a mender of soles, in the 
 city of Granada. There are streets in this queer old town 
 wholly given up to one or another handicraft, and it is 
 rather pleasing than otherwise to see the rule disproved 
 that two of a trade can never agree. Perhaps it is easier 
 for a whole street full of cobblers, or tinkers, or carders, or 
 smiths, to live in peace, than it would be for only two rivals 
 in trade, who would be jealous of each other as natural 
 foes. It was curious to follow the walks along and see 
 the little shops, sometimes not more than five or ten feet 
 square, filled with the wares and the workmen, so that a 
 customer would have had hard work to wedge himself in 
 if he would be measured for a coat or boots, or examine 
 the goods for sale. It looked as if there were some people 
 willing to work, though we heard of a shoemaker who was 
 called upon by a traveller like ourselves to repair his dilapi- 
 dated shoe : the cobbler called out to his wife to tell him 
 how much money there was on hand, and learning that she 
 had enough to get them supper, he declined doing the 
 work. This was in literal compliance with the Spanish rule 
 which requires a man never to do to-day what can be put 
 off till to-morrow. 
 
 Blasicho had a hard time of it to get work enough to 
 earn the bread that his wife and his little ones must have 
 from day to day, and he hated work, as all his neighbors 
 did, and all his race do. If he had a wife with a cheerful 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 1 45 
 
 temper, to cheer him as he beat his leather on his knee, per- 
 haps it would have been better for him and his, for it does 
 make work light and easy to have a good-natured woman 
 near at hand, to say a pleasant word and hear even one's 
 complaints with a sympathetic smile. But the wife of 
 Blasicho was neither fair to look upon nor gentle in her 
 temper, and she led the poor cobbler a vexed and weary life 
 of it. His lapstone was not harder than the heart of his 
 spouse, and the blows that he gave it were more in number, 
 but not more severe, than she rained upon him, when their 
 words grew into quarrels that always ended in the thorough 
 discomfiture of the man of the house. Her great sorrow 
 was that she had not wealth : her sisters had found hus- 
 bands who could give them the be^t of every thing, and as 
 much as they required to make fine ladies of them, but she 
 had married a cobbler too poor to live without work, and 
 too lazy to work, and the only blessing they had in abun- 
 dance was a flock of children that grew in stature and 
 numbers every year, and demanded more and more to 
 keep them alive. She dinned her woes into his ears, and 
 his poor soul was worried to despair by the ceaseless 
 pother of her querulous tongue. 
 
 He wanted money. If California had been part of the 
 known world in the day of Blasicho's misery, his greed 
 would have driven him to the mines in search of gold. 
 But gold he must have, or his wife would worry him to 
 death. He had heard that the Moors had left heaps of 
 gold in the earth all around him, and if he had some rod 
 to guide him to the sacred spot where the treasure was 
 concealed, it would be the making of him for life, to dig 
 it and carry it home to gladden the heart of his discon- 
 tented wife, and stop the everlasting run of her complain- 
 ing tongue. Day after day he walked around the hill of . 
 which the Alhambra in its glory and decay is still the 
 crown, and he studied the projecting rocks and the graceful 
 
146 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 curves and gentle depressions, and the peculiar growth 
 of the citron and pomegranate, to discover some signs 
 of a place where it might be that in the olden time some 
 Moorish miser, or in later time some Spanish pirate com- 
 ing home from foreign pleasures, had buried his gold. 
 His hope was suddenly kindled into certainty. One sunny 
 morning he was taking his daily, walk about the sacred hill, 
 and passing through the deep cut on the eastern side, 
 where far above his head the aqueduct with the waters of 
 the river run into the Alhambra with its refreshing and 
 ceaseless flow, he sat down to rest awhile and muse upon 
 his hapless lot, and the hopeless search in which he was 
 wasting his days. He looked up at the craggy side through 
 which the red rock cropped, and on the scanty soil in which 
 the almond shrubs were struggling to hold their own, and 
 he was wishing that one of those red rocks were a ruby or 
 even a lump of gold, when a dove, whose home was in the 
 Tower of Comares, flew down upon a projecting rock, and 
 cocking his eye most knowingly, looked below as if it saw 
 something there that would be worth having. Blasicho ob- 
 served the motion, and the thought came to him that the 
 dove was a messenger to point him to the spot where his 
 treasure lay. He took note of the rock, and drew a line, 
 with his eye, to the foot of the hill where the bird's eye 
 had guided his search. A few feet from the path, up the 
 cliff-side, was a ledge of rock, and it was easy to see that, 
 a century or two ago, a man might have stood on it and 
 worked into the mountain and buried his gold. The ledge 
 would be the mark by which he could find it, and its height 
 was such that no one would suspect that such a spot would 
 be chosen as a hiding-place for money. 
 
 Poor Bias went home with his head full of the dove and 
 the gold. All day as he sat on his bench pretending to work, 
 the beautiful neck of the dove, with his head turned side- 
 ways, and his one eye down looking to the ledge, was before 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 147 
 
 him. That night he dreamed that he went there and broke 
 into the hill with a pick and found a heap of gold. The 
 next morning he went there and the dove came again, and 
 again she peered into the ledge from above, and again Bla- 
 sicho was comforted with the strengthened hope. He 
 dreamed the second time the same, and came the third 
 morning and the dove met him as before ; and again, the 
 third night, he dreamed that he burst into the mountain 
 and was the possessor of more gold than his insatiable 
 spouse had ever dreamed of having. This was more than 
 the anxious cobbler could endure. and be quiet. That night 
 in the darkness and alone, for there was no one in Granada 
 he could trust with his discovery, Blasicho sought the 
 ravine, climbed cautiously to the ledge with a bar of iron to 
 aid him in his burglary. He struck in vigorously, for it 
 might be a long night's work, and time was precious. The 
 hollow sound that answered his blows quickened his heart- 
 beats, for it assured him there was a chamber within. The 
 debris was fast piling at his feet. He was already inside 
 the hill. He heard something grating, rattling above and 
 near him ; he rose to his feet only to be struck with a 
 land-slip which his digging had started : it caught him, 
 dashed him off his perch, buried him, bruised him, half 
 killed him, at the foot of his golden hill. The poor fellow 
 struggled from underneath the mass of dirt and stones, and 
 luckily finding no bones were broken, but more dead than 
 alive, he crept home and went to sleep, while his wife was 
 dinging into his ears her reproaches for his bad habits of 
 being out late at nights. He was cured of hunting for gold 
 in the dark. He became a new man, a new cobbler. His 
 early hammer advertised his conversion. Business revived. 
 He had to have some more help in the shop. The shop was 
 soon too small. He wanted to enlarge it, and for that pur- 
 pose he got permission of his landlord to dig away the hill 
 in the rear to make room for an extension. This work he 
 
148 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 performed with his own hands after the day's work in the 
 shop. That digging made him rich ! What he found he 
 had wit enough to keep secret, even from his wife, for if 
 his landlord should hear of it, he would lay claim to it as in 
 his soil. But Blasicho went on with his cobbling and build- 
 ing. He bought a few lots in one of the fashionable quarters 
 of Granada, and to each of his daughters, to whom suitors 
 came in numbers, now that he was evidently prosperous, he 
 gave a handsome house and portion. 
 
 More than all, and better, his wife's temper improved. 
 He and she still lived over the shop, but the apartments 
 were embellished with all the comforts that the amiable 
 woman wanted, and she was proud, and not humbled, when 
 her sisters came to see her. None of them knew the source 
 of his sudden wealth, and indeed he was cunning enough 
 to develop gradually, so that it was attributed to his in- 
 creasing business, and his good luck in trade. 
 
 He knew that it all came of his being cured of money 
 digging, and sticking to his work. He had never heard of 
 the Latin proverb, ne sittor ultra crepidam^ — let the cobbler 
 stick to his last, — but he knew the soundness of the prin- 
 ciple. And he taught his grandchildren, who were fond of 
 visiting him, that when he tried to get rich in a hurry he 
 got nothing but wounds and bruises ; but when he worked 
 faithfully and steadily at his trade, prosperity followed his 
 labors, and his days were crowned with plenty, contentment, 
 and love. 
 
 An old woman sat at the foot of the stone stairway, and 
 took the fee that admitted us to the Watch Tower. On the 
 southern edge of the hill, and rising high above the rampart, 
 the broad flat roof of the tower affords an off-look that 
 scarcely has an equal for beauty of prospect and interest 
 in historical association. A bell swings in a turret ; the 
 rope hangs within reach ; and there is magic in the ring. 
 For the second day of January is a great fete day in Gran- 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. 1 49 
 
 ada, — the anniversary of the capture of the city by Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella in 1492, — and every maiden who ascends 
 this tower on that day, and rings the bell with her own hand, 
 is sure to have a wedding ring on her hand in the course 
 of the year. The bell therefore rings right merrily on the 
 fete day from early morn to set of sun, and the sign is as 
 sure as any of the many that love and folly have conjured. 
 
 And in the far west, across the plain, rise the Para- 
 panda Mountains, on whose top a cloud resting is a sign of 
 rain, and when it hangs there they say it will rain " if God 
 wills ; " but if the cloud descends the mountain-side they 
 say " it will rain if God wills or noT 
 
 There too, off on the verge of the plain, lies a farm of 
 4,000 acres which the Spanish government gave to the 
 Duke of Wellington for his expulsion of the French, and 
 his heirs now derive a revenue of some $20,000 annually 
 from the land. 
 
 And that gap in the mountains is the pass where Moor 
 and Christian, the Cross and Crescent, have encountered 
 each other in murderous fight, when knights in armor met 
 hand to hand, and in protracted battles far more bloody 
 and fierce than in our modern warfare they contended for 
 the possession of this beautiful vale. 
 
 It is called the vega, or the plain, and from the watch- 
 tower on which we are now standing we have the best 
 view of it. Two rivers, like those that watered Paradise, 
 flow across it, — the Darro, which the Moors called Hadaroh 
 and the Romans Calom, and the Genii, which the ancients 
 knew as the river Singilis. This fertile and beautiful 
 plain stretches thirty miles or more away from the city of 
 Granada, like a vast amphitheatre, a prairie sea : now 
 and then a white cluster of houses, a little village, like an 
 island on the surface of this great ocean of corn and wine. 
 The snow-clad heights of Sierra Nevada rise to the bluest 
 of blue heavens that cover it as an infinite dome, and 
 
150 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the five-hundred-towered city stands on this rocky height 
 in the midst of this magnificent panorama, the green mead- 
 ows and vineyards of the vega below, the white-capped 
 mountains around, and the cerulean skies, so pure, so deep, 
 so lovingly bending over and embracing the whole. 
 
 But the bell on the watch-tower answers a better pur- 
 pose than merely to ring husbands for the lively Spanish 
 girls. This plain is to be watered by these rivers, and 
 they must be led away from their own banks by artificial 
 channels to the thousands of plantations into which it is 
 divided. But the rivers are not sufficient to allow the 
 continuous flow of water through all these canals for irri- 
 gation, and the time and quantity of water are regulated 
 by law. Each man has his water-gate, through which the 
 stream is to come, and the hour when he is to open his 
 gate and when to close is announced from the tower. At 
 the stroke of one, all within a certain distance open their 
 gates, and the water ficw^s in upon their fields, until 
 the bell strikes again, when they close, and the next open 
 theirs, and so the supply is extended from one to another 
 and the whole plain is watered. 
 
 The " Sigh of the Moor " is the name of that mountain 
 in the south-east horizon, on the way to the sea-coast, and 
 it gets its name from the tradition that when the last of 
 the Moorish kings, the unhappy Boabdil of whom we have 
 been speaking often, was flying from the city, he paused 
 here, and as he looked back upon Granada " he saw a 
 light cloud of smoke burst from the beautiful and beloved 
 Alhambra, and presently a peal of artillery told that the 
 throne of the Moslem kings was lost for ever. 'AlUh 
 Achbar, God is great ! ' he exclaimed ; and, unable to refrain 
 his grief, he burst into a flood of tears. ' Weep not,' said 
 his mother, -the stern proud Azeshah, 'weep not as a 
 woman for the loss of a kingdom which you knew not 
 how to defend as a man.' " 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. I5I 
 
 As Bensaken pointed to the mountain of " El Ultimo 
 Suspiro del Moro," and told this sad story of the Sigh of 
 the Moor, the tears stood in the old man's eyes, and he was 
 actually in sympathy with the Moor Boabdil who ran away 
 from this tower nearly four hundred years ago. 
 
 Behind those hills, and in the valley beyond, there are to 
 this day villages inhabited by a race of people who retain 
 the Moorish manners and customs, mingling the Roman 
 and Mahometan forms of worship, using no knives or 
 forks, but eating with their fingers, in the Oriental style, 
 and preserving with traditional jealousy the prejudices of 
 the race that has been so long extinct in Spain. Rarely 
 does a traveller climb the heights that stand between those 
 settlements and the higher civilization of the plains and 
 cities, but the few who push their adventurous way into 
 those uninviting regions find themselves suddenly carried 
 back into life and times of which we read now-a-days as if 
 in the pages of romance. 
 
 Walking across the tower, we look down into a court, 
 where a guard of soldiers is keeping watch over a prison ! 
 And, to our amazement, we find that we are in the very 
 midst of the walls that contain four or five hMndxQd politi- 
 cal prisoners, who are here in durance vile for real or 
 suspected offences. It is not the fashion at present to 
 put to death political offenders, and the poor fellows that 
 are shut up in these walls, hopeless and helpless, are per- 
 haps on the whole disposed to think themselves better 
 off than if they had lost their heads. Once the late 
 queen punished the whole of her congress, some hundred 
 and fifty, and sent them to prison, or foreign parts, think- 
 ing that their room was worth more than the advice 
 they were disposed to give her. Some of the prisoners 
 here confined are men of high social standing and of com- 
 manding influence in the country, but in the miserable 
 strife for power and wealth, and the game of politics, which 
 
152 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 is more corrupt, if possible, here in Spain than in our own 
 country, they have fallen victims to successful rivals, and 
 are now wasting away in the dungeons of the Alhambra. 
 Some of them had obtained the special favor of working in 
 the gardens and among the flowers and shrubbery ; and, 
 under the genial beams of the bright sun in winter, they 
 found a grateful mitigation of their sufferings. 
 
 We had seen enough for one day, and took a ride over 
 the city. Bensaken pointed out, as we passed the modest 
 mansion in which the late beautiful Empress of the French 
 was born. Her father. Count Montejo, fell in love with a 
 daughter of the British consul at Malaga, Mr. Kirkpatrick, 
 whose name unites Scotland and Ireland. The count mar- 
 ried her, and Eugenie is their daughter. Her grandfather 
 is therefore a Scotch-Irish-English gentleman. Some of 
 her relatives are not of much account. One of them 
 asked of me the gift of a glass of whiskey. 
 
 Not far from the Alhambra, and a pleasant walk across 
 the fields, is the Generaliffe, a pleasure-palace in olden 
 time, a retreat in the country from the more stately gran- 
 deur and closer confinement of the citadel. 
 
 It has been preserved with greater care, or perhaps 
 restored from time to time, and is now one of the most 
 interesting remnants of the Moorish dynasty. Its courts 
 are paved with marbles, gladdened with fountains and flow- 
 ers, and from 'some of them tall cypresses rise, which in 
 other countries would rather adorn a burial-place than a 
 palace court. One of them is the famous tree under which 
 the beautiful Sultana Zoraya was sitting when one of the 
 Abencerrages came to prefer a petition, and being seen to 
 kneel before her, was suspected of making love, and her 
 life and that of all his family was the forfeit. Bensaken 
 was greatly provoked by the evident disposition of the 
 writers of historical tales to insinuate that the Queen was 
 actually receiving a lover, while he makes out a case of 
 
THE ALHAMBRA. I 53 
 
 innocence and positively merciful virtue that would melt 
 a heart of stone. 
 
 But if Bensaken was kind in his judgment of the ancient 
 Queen, whose guilt or innocence will never be made the 
 subject of inquiry before a court of impeachment in this 
 world, he was less inclined to say a good word for the 
 women of Spain. And in this matter he was no harder 
 on them than others who have lived long enough in this 
 demonstrative country to know the facts in the case. The 
 women of Spain are, as a nation, more beautiful than those 
 of any foreign country in which I have travelled, and this 
 average beauty covers the peasant classes as well as the 
 better-born. This is to be mentioned in connection with 
 the fact stated by all who are familiar with Spain, that 
 virtue is scarcely known. It is impossible, without dis- 
 regard of the proprieties, to go into the statistics which 
 an illustration of this fact would require. I was repeatedly 
 assured that ladies would regard it as a reproach, an evi- 
 dence that they were slighted, if they had not an acknowl- 
 edged lover besides their legal lord. Of course the men 
 are worse than the women, if worse can be, and little or 
 no disgrace can be said to accrue when the vice is so com- 
 mon that virtue is an exception, and is despised at that. 
 If it be asked, how can such a state of things be, when 
 the church embraces in its bosom all the people, young 
 and old, and confession is required of all who commune ? 
 the answer is easy. The forced celibacy of the priests 
 tends to corruption, and they have no moral power over 
 the people, unless it be a moral power for evil. And this 
 vice is not necessarily a vice of a Roman Catholic people : 
 it is the vice of the climate : as genial to the south as 
 intemperance in drink is to the north. We must be chari- 
 table in our judgments of our neighbors and our fellow- 
 sinners everywhere. It is a very common impression that 
 the sins of a people are fashioned by the type of the reli- 
 
154 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 gion they profess ; and that this vice, which prevails all 
 over the south of Europe, has some relation to the Roman 
 Catholic religion, which is also the ruling influence of 
 church and state. Doubtless the reformation of the 
 church would reform the state also, but human nature 
 will remain substantially the same, and the vices peculiar 
 to the climate would still discover themselves to a greater 
 or less extent. Under the Protestant influences of the 
 north of Europe, intemperance prevails fearfully. So it 
 does in our country, in spite of the highest moral culture 
 and the best opportunities of education. Religion in its 
 purest forms does not reach the masses of mankind in any 
 country so as to save all of them from vice, and in its 
 imperfect development, as in Romish or half-reformed 
 countries, it is even less powerful to deter the multitude 
 from evil. 
 
GRANADA, 1 55 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GRANADA. 
 
 "\T THEN we came down this evening from the Generaliffe, 
 ^ ^ we found a curious group in the vestibule of the 
 inn where we were lodged, and a picture of troubadour and 
 gypsy life in Spain was before us suddenly. A dwarf, so 
 stout and short as to be a monster in his appearance, and 
 two or three girls to sing and play with a rude tambourine, 
 made hideous dancing. The landlord and landlord's wife, 
 the two daughters of the landlord and their husbands, — 
 two lazy fellows who helped one another do nothing all day 
 long, — were seated around, enjoying the scene. The short 
 fellow was short mainly in his legs, which, indeed, were 
 not much longer than his neck ; and the antics he cut up 
 were grotesque and ludicrous in the extreme. But who 
 could refrain from joining in the dance to the music, rude 
 as it was ? The landlord's daughters could not, and with a 
 little coaxing the dandy husbands were brought upon the 
 floor ; other young people, hearing the fun, dropped in, the 
 frolic became general, and we were treated to an impromptu 
 Spanish fandango, of which I do not propose to be the re- 
 porter. It was not amusing merely, but interesting also to 
 observe the phase of lower life among these people, and to 
 see how easily they could find entertainment without going 
 out of doors to get it. The ugly dwarf went through the 
 company, cap in hand, gathered a few pence, and with his 
 little troupe hobbled off to try his luck at some other place. 
 They told me that he lives in the mountains, many leagues 
 
GRANADA. 15/ 
 
 away from Granada, but comes down to town, during the 
 season of company, to exhibit himself. And in this, too, 
 he is not unhke the degraded in other parts of the world, 
 who are always Avilling to make a living by their deformities, 
 if they can get a chance. 
 
 The gypsies held a horse fair in Granada to-day. We 
 found them in great numbers, from distant parts of the 
 country. It was a new scene and phase of life. Gypsies 
 are seen in England, in America, in Germany, in Italy, 
 indeed there is hardly a country unvexed by gypsies. 
 Wandering over the world, having no continuing city or 
 abiding place, like the frogs of the land from which they 
 get their name, they find their way into king's houses and 
 everybody's house, — lying, cheating, stealing, peddling, 
 and meddling, a nuisance and a curse. But the gypsies of 
 Spain are a race by themselves, and not the ancestors nor 
 the children of the gypsies of the other lands I have named. 
 They have indeed a language with many words in common, 
 and their habits are similar all the world over, but these 
 gypsies of Spain are a race by themselves. Where they 
 came from, and who they are, it is hard to say. They are 
 usually spoken of as from Egypt, and being once called 
 Egyptians, then gyptians, — the name easily runs into 
 gypsies in the English tongue. But they are called gitanos 
 in Spanish, and the race has no relations with the wander- 
 ing tribes or families that roam throughout Europe and the 
 Western World. 
 
 They are, as a people, — at least they seemed to me, — 
 larger and stouter than the Spanish ; and by no means so 
 well-favored. Dark complexions, black eyes, long straight 
 black hair, high cheek-bones, and short noses, they re- 
 semble North American Indians more than any European 
 race. They are not cleanly in their persons, nor their 
 dwellings ; their roaming habits lead them to eat and sleep 
 anywhere, with their dogs and donkeys ; they dwell in 
 
158 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 caves if no better houses are at their command, and the 
 hill behind the city, which we see from the towers of the 
 Alhambra, is pierced with holes that lead into the chambers 
 where they make their homes. They have also one quarter 
 of the town where they have dwellings, but the walls of a 
 city are not agreeable to the freedom of their wills, and they 
 prefer the hills and the country. 
 
 They have no moral principle. There is but one virtue 
 known among them, and that is so rare in Spain, and so 
 remarkable among such a people, that it must be set down 
 to their credit at the very start. The women are chaste, 
 and that to a degree that perhaps no other people in the 
 world can claim. It is the one feature of their character 
 that redeems them from the curse of utter and hopeless 
 vagabondism, and, standing out as it does like an ivory 
 tower in the midst of a waste of moral ruin, its beauty is 
 the more lovely and its existence the more wonderful. I 
 cannot say what I would of the care with which mothers 
 guard their daughters from contamination with their own 
 race and the outside world ; and I cannot add another word 
 in their praise. They live by fraud. Known to the world 
 as swindlers and liars and thieves, they are nevertheless 
 tolerated, and perhaps because feared ; their ill-will being 
 dreaded, and their friendship supposed to be conciliated by 
 complying with their demands. 
 
 They get power over people in the same way that spirit- 
 nalists do : by appealing to that latent superstition which 
 lurks in almost every human bosom, and is much stronger 
 in some than others, and is often strongest in those who 
 would be the least suspected of such a weakness. Thus 
 the women of this gypsy race are fortune-tellers. The 
 young women of Spain, like the young women of every 
 country that I have seen, have some curiosity and crediility, 
 upon which a shrewd impostor will easily play and extort 
 money as the reward of her trickery. To these young 
 
GRANADA. 1 59 
 
 women lovers are promised, and when the pride or the pas- 
 sion of the young is tickled with the promise, the prophet 
 is not very sharply questioned or judged. One very common 
 trick performed by the gypsy women in Spain has been 
 reproduced in our country and in England again and again, 
 and will be repeated as long as rogues can find fools to be 
 duped. As love is the ruling passion of the young, avarice 
 is of older people, and to make a heap of money out of a 
 handful is the great desire of the soul. The gypsy woman 
 promises a lady to teach her how to make a trunkful of 
 gold out of a few hundred dollars. The lady is to take all 
 her gold, and to get as much as she can, and tie it up in a 
 white handkerchief in the presence of the gypsy, then to 
 keep it carefully by her side, night and day, for three days, 
 then the gypsy is to return and they are to deposit it in a 
 trunk over which the gypsy is to say her form of words, and 
 then the trunk is to be carefully locked and guarded for 
 three weeks, and when opened is to be found filled with 
 gold. The gypsy, returning after three days' absence, comes 
 with a bundle of rubbish tied up in a white handkerchief 
 concealed under her mantle, and easily substitutes it for the 
 one which the lady has watched for three days, and after 
 the other is well locked up she disappears, to be heard of 
 no more in that quarter. A trick so stupid and silly one 
 would hardly believe could be practised once ; but it is 
 played every year, upon many victims, in all countries. 
 Last summer a spiritualist woman in Paris assured a gen- 
 tleman that large treasures were buried in the grounds about 
 his house, and he spent thousands and thousands in tearing 
 up his place to find it. The woman got the most of the 
 money spent, and he is hunting yet. But these gypsies are 
 not mere fortune-tellers, they are traders and tinkers ; they 
 deal in horse-flesh particularly, and are a striking illustration 
 of the curious fact that trading horses, buying and selling 
 horses, all the world over, has some affinities with trickery. 
 
l6o ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Why it is, perhaps, the attention of psychologists has not 
 been sufficiently long directed to the subject to say ; but 
 gypsies and jockeys are usually reckoned as belonging to 
 the same class, and nobody is expected to trust either. 
 
 Bensaken went with us among these strange people, and 
 as he understood their language, he made our visit among 
 them exceedingly entertaining, and the facts that we 
 gathered from him and them of their haunts and habits 
 are perhaps as reliable as those which Borrow and others 
 have furnished. I could not learn that they have any 
 religious system. They believe in one God, but they have 
 more to do with the devil, whether they believe in him or 
 not. They have no faith in anybody. Why should they, 
 or rather how could they .? Intending to keep faith with 
 nobody, and living only to deceive, they cannot be expected 
 to believe. If they are not lineal descendants of Ishmael, 
 they are like the Arabs, a nomadic race, and their hands 
 are against every ma.n, and every man's against them. 
 
 I fell to musing over the change that three or four hun- 
 dred years had made in the state of things on this famous 
 spot. For we are within the grounds of the Alhambra. 
 And the time was when the splendor of Oriental courts 
 was shining here in its brightest array, and the luxury of 
 kings and queens was spread about these seats that are 
 now the scene of this low revelry and mirth. The vanity of 
 earth is impressed upon me by this miserable show. The 
 fashion of this world passeth away. And, indeed, the les- 
 son of the Alhambra is the strangest, saddest lesson that 
 ruins teach. Its walls, its towers, its turrets, its g^tes, in 
 their decay, as they yet linger on the heights overlooking 
 the city and the plain, seem to say, We are witnesses to- 
 day that the glory of kings is fleeting as the dew of the 
 morning : 
 
 "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples — " 
 
GRANADA. l6l 
 
 have dissolved ; and the wreck behind is the monument of 
 a departed race, an extinct dynasty, a better, wiser, nobler 
 race by far than that which now inhabits the land. For 
 when the Moors went out of Spain, they carried with them 
 arts, science, enterprise, energy, strength, and taste. They 
 left a people in possession ignorant, proud, ' bigoted, and 
 indolent : a people that now, in the midst of an advancing 
 age, is making no advance ; a people who carry earth in 
 baskets instead of wheelbarrows, and wood on donkeys 
 instead of using carts ! 
 
 Two things astonished me in Spain : the one, that 
 the pictures in her galleries were so great and good, 
 and the other that her cathedrals so far excel the rest of 
 European temples in the grandeur of their architecture. 
 Poor as Spain is now, we must not forget that it was 
 once the most powerful of kingdoms, and the mistress 
 of a world of its own. And the arts and sciences once 
 flourished here as they did in the brightest days of 
 Grecian and Roman glory. The paintings that are 
 gathered in Madrid are probably as valuable in the eyes 
 of the artistic world as those of any other gallery ; and 
 there are half a dozen cathedrals in Spain that are not 
 equalled by the same number in all the rest of the Con- 
 tinent. One who visited them will not be apt to forget 
 the florid beauty of the one at Burgos, the massive 
 grandeur of that in Toledo, the thousand columns that 
 sustain the arches on which rests the roof of the converted 
 mosque at Cordova, or, the most majestic of them all, 
 the vast and solemn pile that stands in Seville ; nor will 
 he readily lose the impressions made upon his soul by the 
 cathedral at Granada, into which we are now entering, as 
 we are about to take leave of the Alhambra, and go to 
 the north of Europe. 
 
 It was the design of the founders of this temple to make 
 it the most splendid in the world ; and this weak and un- 
 
1 62 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 worthy ambition has doubtless given to us many noble 
 monuments of genius and labor which a less exciting 
 motive might have failed to produce. We are met with 
 a notice, on entering, that we are not to converse during 
 service ; and it is a caution that might well be put up 
 in the Protestant as well as Catholic places of worship. 
 Five naves are divided with massive pillars ; the pavement 
 is marble, and very beautiful ; the interior 425 feet long 
 and 250 feet wide, with chapels on the sides, on which 
 private wealth has been lavished with a profusion that 
 seems absolutely incredible ; one of them was built by an 
 archbishop, whose wealth was so great that he imitated 
 the royal manner of living, and preferred to be like his 
 Master a king, rather than like his Master a servant. 
 
 Charles V. called upon the artists of the world to come 
 and embellish this house, and to assist him in building the 
 sepulchres of his father and mother, and the kings .of 
 Spain. The chapel royal is the rnost impressive mauso- 
 leum in the whole kingdom ; for here, in full view, are the 
 tombs, and upon them the images, in marble, of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, and beneath these monuments repose the ashes 
 of those illustrious monarchs whose names are so indis- 
 solubly linked with the history of our own distant land. 
 By them lie the relics also of Philip and his wife, who 
 was called Crazy Jane. There are no more elaborate 
 sepulchral monuments than these. Four statues of learned 
 divines and twelve apostles surround the royal tombs, as 
 if keeping eternal guard over the inevitable dust. The 
 statues of the royal dead are said to be good likenesses, 
 and I hope they are, for these people had so much care 
 and trouble in life, it is certainly pleasant to see them 
 looking so quiet in their stone beds. Even Crazy Jane, 
 the wife of Philip, is as calm and peaceful, in the effigy 
 that lies at our feet, as if she never had been in the habit 
 of carrying the corpse of her husband about with her from 
 
GRANADA. 1 63 
 
 place to place, refusing to have it buried, and insisting on 
 the pleasure of embracing it whenever she took a notion 
 for so cold a comfort. 
 
 Isabella, the fair patron of Columbus, desired to be 
 brought here and buried ; and here she lies, one of the 
 noblest women that ever sat upon a throne : a wonderful 
 contrast with the late Isabella who came from Madrid to 
 Granada, a few years ago, descended into the vaults, and 
 caused mass to be performed for the souls of the departed ; 
 which souls are quite as well off without any masses as 
 hers will be with many. Her visit was made here in 1862, 
 and Ferdinand and Isabella took possession of the city in 
 1492, nearly four hundred years between the visits of the 
 two Isabellas ; and there is as great contrast between 
 thp characters of the two women as there is between 
 the condition of the country under the reign of the one 
 and the other. 
 
 A very obliging priest led us from chapel to chapel, and 
 pointed out to us the several distinguishing marks of 
 antiquity and sacredness that make the cathedral a joy 
 to the believer, and one of the most — in many respects 
 the most — sacred in Spain. He was not unmindful of a 
 trifling fee when we parted, and one cannot but be amused 
 with the solemn gravity with which this office of guide to 
 the hoHes is performed by the priests, who doubtless have 
 the mixed motive of displaying the charms of their sacred 
 places, and of getting the little money that grateful travel- 
 lers leave in their hands. It is best to have their services, 
 for they answer a hundred questions that without them 
 would be unanswered, and their weary life seems to be 
 lightened by the brief companionship of strangers. 
 
 In the evening we set off from Granada by diligence, 
 leaving the place in the same style that marked our 
 entrance. A crowd gathered at the office to witness our 
 departure. A woman at the window put down her money 
 
164 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 to buy a ticket to take a seat with us. Before she had 
 received the ticket, a couple of officers of justice rushed in 
 and seized her. They stripped off her bonnet and her 
 hixurious head of hair : they tore off her mantilla, and, 
 shocking to relate, her loosely-flowing dress fell at her 
 feet, in the midst of the derisive shouts of an admir- 
 ing multitude ; and, thus stripped, she remained a well- 
 dressed man I He had helped himself freely to the money 
 in the shop where he was employed, got together all he 
 could borrow and steal of others, and, in the disguise of a 
 woman, was about to abscond to parts unknown ! Probably 
 he was going to that happy land far, far away, which is 
 still believed by them to be the paradise of thieves. His 
 career was suddenly arrested. The crowd followed hoot- 
 ing at his heels as the officers led him off to prison ; the 
 horn of the postilion rang out its call on the evening air, 
 the dozen horses and mules at last consented to pull 
 together, and we plunged out of Granada. 
 
GENEVA. 165 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GENEVA — FREYBURG — BERNE. 
 
 "D Y a very circuitous route, over which I will not ask 
 -^ you to follow me, I came to Switzerland, on my way 
 to the north of Europe. 
 
 When I was a boy of nine, I read in Csesar's Commen- 
 taries, " Extremum oppidum Allobrogum, proximumque 
 Helvetiorum finibus est Geneva," and rendered it into Eng- 
 lish, " the farthest town of the Allobroges, and nearest to 
 the frontiers of the Helvetii is Geneva." Out of the lake 
 flows the river Rhone, with waters so blue that they seem 
 to have been colored with indigo,. and Sir Humphrey Davy, 
 who died here, attributed the deep color to the presence of 
 iodine. The outlet of the lake is crossed by several bridges, 
 and the city stands on both sides. The old wall on the 
 left bank was originally built by the men of Julius Caesar, 
 as is attested by coins and other remains of those days, to 
 this day occasionally found. Its antiquity, its remarkable 
 history, its past greatness, and its present beauty, the many 
 eminent men who have here spent their lives, and more than 
 all its situation on this lake, give the city of Geneva an 
 attraction that no other place in Switzerland possesses. 
 
 The cathedral here in Geneva is the venerable edifice 
 in which John Calvin and his peers in the Reformation 
 preached the doctrines that are now working their way into 
 the minds of the entire Christian world, as the real basis 
 for civil and religious liberty and progress. 
 
 As we entered it, we trode upon the nearly worn-out epi- 
 taphs in the stones of the floor, to the memory of Roman 
 
GENEVA. 167 
 
 Catholic dignitaries who ruled here before the Reformation, 
 for the edifice is more than five hundred years old. A 
 chapel of the Virgin Mary, no longer needed for her wor- 
 ship, holds the tomb of the Duke and Duchess of Rohan, 
 
 /V^'Z^^;^^^^.- — 0^^ ^i>€.^/ /y ^t-x^ 
 
 1638, and in another part of the church is the monument 
 to the memory of Agrippa d'Aubigny. 
 
 In the old library, just behind the cathedral, are many 
 interesting manuscripts of Calvin, forty-four volumes of his 
 
1 68 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 sermons, twelve of letters written to him, his own letter to 
 Lady Jane Grey while she was a prisoner in the Tower of 
 London, and 394 other letters by his own hand. Besides 
 these, there is nothing more than the severe simplicity and 
 solidity of the edifice, with its remarkable history and asso- 
 ciations, to make it interesting. 
 
 It appears like a slow old town. But the names of good 
 great men, and great bad men, are so identified with Geneva, 
 that it is never spoken of without being associated with 
 their works and influence. Calvin came here three hundred 
 years ago and more, — the three hundredth anniversary of 
 his death was commemorated a few years ago, — Rousseau 
 was born here, Voltaire and Madame de Stael and Lord 
 Byron have resided here ; and a long list could easily be 
 made longer, of illustrious men, some of them flying from 
 religious persecution, some from the reach of the sword of 
 justice, some hiding from themselves, for it has been, and 
 still is, an asylum for all, of every name, faith, and aim, 
 who would be free to think and speak, while they yield 
 wholesome obedience to the laws. I was quite surprised 
 to-day when the excellent United States consul at this place 
 showed me in one of the infidel Rousseau's works a note in 
 which that brilliant writer speaks in the highest terms of 
 John Calvin, not only as a theologian, but a statesman whose 
 views, he says, will be always held in reverence. 
 
 At the foot of the lake, and near the city, are many beau- 
 tiful villas, with the water in front of them, the Jura moun- 
 tains on the north to be seen by those on one side, and the 
 mountains of Savoy on the south-east in full view from the 
 other. Mont Blanc towers above them, " the monarch of 
 mountains," his white head and shoulders seen above the 
 dark ranges in front of him, like the bare form of a giant 
 among the hills. Rev. Dr. Merle d'Aubigne, the historian 
 of the Reformation, Sir Robert Peel, and other eminent 
 men, have had their residences on the south-east side, and 
 
GENEVA. 169 
 
 Baron Rothschild has a splendid palace on the opposite 
 shore. Voltaire's house, and the residence of the Empress 
 Josephine, are also there. The shores, as we go up the lake, 
 are covered with vineyards, and every village that we pass 
 
 ^'t'<'.<t^0M^:I^-- '^..==r^ 
 
 D'Aubigne's Birthplace and Residence. 
 
 is marked with some features of historical interest. Madame 
 de Stael formerly resided at Coppet, a little village where is 
 a Roman tombstone with this inscription, " Vixi ut vivis : 
 morieris ut sum mortuus : sic vita traditur, vale viator et 
 abi in rem tuam." Ninon is an old town that boasts of 
 Julius Caesar as its founder, and under its castle are those 
 gloomy dungeons which are the terrible witnesses of the 
 cruel customs of past ages. On the left shore as we ad- 
 vance we notice a village on the extremity of a cape, which 
 is called St. Protais ; this saint was the Bishop of Avenches, 
 the Roman Aventicum, who died in 530, and was buried 
 here, tradition says, because " his body did not seem inclined 
 to go any further." And in 1400, nearly a thousand years 
 
I/O ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 after his burial, it was proposed to remove him to Lausanne, 
 but he showed such signs of repugnance, that it was deemed 
 improper to disturb him any more. Near this was once a 
 town named Lisus, which was destroyed in 563 by a sudden 
 rise of the lake occasioned by the fall into its waters of an 
 entire mountain on the Savoy side. It was an important 
 place, as the remains of vases, statuary, and mosaics attest 
 to this day. As we reach the town of Morges the scenery 
 of the lake has opened upon us with grandeur and beauty 
 which is impossible to describe. The snow-clad summits 
 of the Grand Muveran, the rocks of the Diablerets, and the 
 tapering jagged peaks that are appropriately called teeth, 
 and have their several names, which one is scarcely expected 
 to remember, now rise in full view, and the excitement of 
 the voyage is fairly begun. Away in the distance is Mont 
 Combin, one of the stupendous Mont Rosa group, and there 
 are the mountains of Abondance and the cragged peaks of 
 Meillerie, while in the background, overlooking all, glows 
 and blazes in the splendors of this summer sun the ever- 
 lasting snow-crown of Mont Blanc. 
 
 That square tower in Morges is the old donjon of Wuf- 
 flens. It rises 170 feet, and towers above a group of turrets, 
 all of brick. It was built in the tenth century by Bertha, 
 whose memory is so sacred, the good queen of the Burgun- 
 dians, who visited every part of her kingdom on horseback 
 once a year, with a distaff in her hand, to set her subjects 
 an example of industry. 
 
 The most picturesque in its situation, and the most 
 famous city on the lake, except Geneva, is Lausanne^ the 
 capital of the canton of Vaud, built on three hills, along 
 the slope of the Jorat, and dating back to the year 563. 
 And then, oh wonderful to relate ! it became in 580 the see 
 of a bishop, the prelate Marius bringing hither the relics of 
 St. Anne, from whom the town is named, Laus AnncB^ and 
 a part of the true cross, and some of the Virgin Mary's 
 
GENEVA. 
 
 171 
 
 hair, and, more than all, a rat^ — a veritable rat, which had 
 devoured some of the bread after it was consecrated, and was 
 thus converted into the body of our Lord ! These valuable 
 possessions drew immense numbers of pilgrims, and raised 
 
 Lausanne, and the Lake of Geneva. 
 
 the celebrity of the place, which afterwards had a remark- 
 able history, civil and religious. Its cathedral was conse- 
 crated by the Pope himself. In 1479 the whole region was 
 overrun with a species of beetles like locusts, devouring 
 every green thing. The invaders were excommiLiiicated by 
 the bishop, but the sentence had no effect ! Farel and 
 Viret and Calvin, with other reformers, were here in con- 
 vention in 1536. Here Gibbon finished his work, "The 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," and the principal 
 hotel bears his name, while the house he lived in and the 
 
1/2 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 terrace where he often walked, are pointed out as objects of 
 interest to travellers. We rode through the quaint old 
 place, and then continued our journey. 
 
 But if we pause even to mention the places on the 
 northern shore of the lake, and allude to the events that 
 have made them classic, we shall not get over the ground 
 or the water to-day. We have now reached the upper 
 section of the lake, and the mountains round about it have 
 been rising in sublimity and beauty as we advance. The 
 water is a thousand feet deep. On the right hand the 
 mountains rise precipitously from the water's edge, and 
 on the left vineyards cover the sloping hills : sometimes 
 walls sixty and eighty feet high have been built to support 
 the soil, and on the terraces so formed luxurious vines are 
 flourishing, and in the days of the old Romans a temple to 
 Bacchus, the god of wine, was standing here, the ruins 
 remaining to this day. The view from Vevey is regarded 
 by many as the most delightful on the lake, and the situa- 
 tion of the town is so picturesque and healthful, so cool in 
 summer and so warm in winter, that it is sought for as a 
 residence by strangers all the year round, and in this 
 strangely ordered region, in sight of everlasting snows, the 
 pomegranate and the rose-laurel and myrtle blossom in the 
 open air, as in the south of France. And now we come to 
 the upper end of the lake, and such an amphitheatre of 
 mountains, rocks, and hills, sure no other lake in the wide 
 world presents. The sun was low in the west as we ap- 
 proached this eastern end, and a flood of golden light was 
 poured in upon the bosom of the waters, and covered the 
 stupendous battlements on either side with a living glory. 
 
 Close down on the edge of the lake is the old Castle of 
 Chillon, more than six hundred years of age, where the 
 Dukes of Savoy ruled with terrible power. Down into its 
 dungeons we were led, to one where on a flat rock the 
 condemned prisoners spent the last nights of their lives ; 
 
GENEVA. 
 
 173 
 
 to another where, on a cross-beam still here, they were 
 hung ; to the stone column, one of the supports of the 
 castle, where for seven long years the Prior of St. Victor, 
 Francis Bonnivard, for his heroic defence of the liberty of 
 
 ■"<5^ 
 
 i:::^VXD^«^- 
 
 Castle of Chillon. 
 
 Geneva, was chained to a ring yet remaining in the pillar, 
 the chain passing around his body, and allowing him space 
 only to walk around it, year after year, or to lie down and 
 sleep by its side. In this dungeon many of the reformers 
 were imprisoned. 
 
 In an upper room we found the chamber of torture, in 
 which was a wooden column, to which prisoners were put 
 to the question, chained, and tormented with fire, or drawn 
 and stretched with rings and pulleys ; and in another room 
 a trap-door is open, and a spiral stone staircase leads down- 
 ward, — the prisoner, unconscious of what was before him, 
 steps down three steps into the darkness, and the fourth is 
 eighty feet below, where he is dashed to pieces on the 
 
174 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 rocks. Yet in this castle, and near to these horrid places, 
 are the bed-chambers and parlors and dining-rooms of 
 dukes and duchesses, men and women like ourselves, who 
 could eat, drink, and be merry under the same roof with all 
 this cruelty and misery. 
 
 And this is at the head of the Lake of Geneva. Within 
 ten minutes' walk is the Hotel Byron, one of the best 
 places to stop at in all Europe. It is in the centre of a semi- 
 circular sweep of beetling crags, and snow-peaked moun- 
 tains, and wine-growing hill-sides ; it looks away down the 
 lake, and not another house, not a sound disturbs its deep 
 tranquillity, while nature, history, poetry, and art invite us 
 to repose. 
 
 Leaving Chillon in the morning by rail gave us a new 
 idea of the way that Switzerland is now explored by tour- 
 ists. When I was here, a dozen years ago, it was to be 
 seen only by footing it through the passes, or riding on 
 horseback, with now and then a lift in the diligence^ or 
 antiquated stage-coach. Now railroads have been made to 
 connect so many of the principal places and points of inter- 
 est, that only the younger and more vigorous of travellers 
 strike out into the mountain fastnesses, and toil over the 
 hills where as yet no roads have been made. I inquired of 
 the porter this morning how to get across from Martigny 
 to the Vale of Chamouny. " You takes von leetel boss," 
 he said, from which I knew that the ponies still do the 
 work through that finest of all the day's rides in Switzer- 
 land. There are hundreds of interesting tours yet to be 
 made where no rail or coach will ever intrude, and no other 
 locomotive, unless Professor Andrews makes his air-ship a 
 success : in which case it would be admirably adapted to 
 travel in this country. One of the last places in the world 
 I should have thought practicable for a railroad is the border 
 of this lake, and yet here it is entering the valley where the 
 Rhone empties, and so extending to Martigny and to Sion. 
 
iiiiiiiiiiii 
 
 it 
 
 'N 
 
 III" 
 
 l||i|!iB!l 
 
 ■ ■■ 
 
 Im^ 
 
 ii 
 
 iiiillii: 
 
 f";Ti'i'''l''i;!' 
 
 !f:i 
 I III 
 
 ^ 
 
176 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Penetrating secluded regions where frost has been king 
 since the world began, the rail has made even the ever- 
 lasting glaciers, these frozen cataracts, articles of merchan- 
 dise. As the quarries in the mountains are worked by the art 
 and spirit of man, so the icebergs that here grow from age to 
 age, and scarcely seem to melt at all, are cut into blocks, 
 and transported by the rail to Paris. The glacier of the 
 Grindelwald is drank in brandy punches at the Grand Hotel 
 and the Louvre. To get the ice, these mighty frozen seas 
 are excavated in galleries and chambers, and magnificent 
 saloons. The depths of snow on the surface exclude the 
 sunbeams, but calcium lights shed a brilliant lustre, reflected 
 as from a thousand mirrors of glass, and in small apart- 
 ments fitted up for the purpose, the furniture of a well 
 appointed parlor, sofas, chairs, and cushions, invite to cold 
 but not inhospitable repose. When the Mer de Glace is 
 taken by rail down into Italy, and thence by ship to the 
 East Indies, ice will be reasonably cheap in Calcutta. And 
 this will be more readily done than to tow an iceberg from 
 the North Pole. 
 
 As I said, we left Chillon in the morning, and retraced 
 our course a part of the way by the railroad which passes 
 on the hill-sides, away above the lake, through luxuriant 
 vineyards, and over stupendous gorges, spanned by stone 
 bridges, and arrived before noon at Lausanne. Here we 
 struck out into the interior of Switzerland. And I was at 
 once impressed with the great progress, even in this sta- 
 tionary country, made in the last thirteen years. Then we 
 traversed this wild and wonderful country mainly over 
 paths that no wheel had ever marked, and sometimes by 
 ways that only the footstep of the most cautious traveller 
 might tread. Now, we take the coiip^, or front compart- 
 ment of an elegantly fitted up rail-car. It has seats for 
 four persons only, with rests for the head and the feet, and 
 a table before you, and windows in front and sides, so that 
 
FREYBURG. I // 
 
 you can see all that is around you, or write of what you 
 see and feel. Before us are the peaks of untrodden hills, 
 all covered deep in perpetual snows, the pink color on the 
 white like the hues of roses, as the sun shines on but 
 never melts them; here, on the right, I see the lake that 
 yesterday we sailed through from end to end ; now it is 
 smooth as a silver sea, and as beautiful ; reflecting majestic 
 mountains, and cities and villages where wealth and art 
 and letters and taste have for ages delighted to dwell. 
 And on the other hand, and sometimes on both sides of 
 us, we see Swiss valleys teeming with a busy, peaceful, 
 happy people, whose homes suggest to me the thought 
 of contentment, and therefore happiness. The old city of 
 Romont we pass below, as it stands on a hill with an 
 ancient wall and towers surrounding it ; good enough in 
 those old times when bows and spears and stones were 
 the weapons of war, but of no account in these times of 
 Columbiads and Paixhan guns. At the foot of the hill on 
 which it stands, the fields are laid off with walks and 
 garnished with groves, showing that the people of these 
 regions delight in those enjoyments that indicate culture 
 and taste. 
 
 The city of Freyburg, where we passed the night, is 
 remarkable as being the seat of the chief power of Ro- 
 manism in Switzerland. It has as many as ten convents 
 and monasteries and high seminaries of learning. The 
 suspension bridge is said to be the longest in the world, 
 nine hundred feet : it is not so beautiful as the one at 
 Niagara, but may be longer. 
 
 The organ of Freyburg has been long celebrated as one 
 of the best instruments in the world, and there is proba- 
 bly but one superior to it. Yet the performances upon it 
 are so unequal, varying with the skill or the humor of the 
 organist, that very different reports are made of it by par- 
 ties hearing it at different times. Perhaps it was my good 
 
1/8 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 fortune to hear it under circumstances the most favorable, 
 Certainly the music was the most effective of any that I 
 have ever heard, more so than any I expect to hear till the 
 "nobler, sweeter strains" of the divine melodies break on 
 the spirit's ear among the harmonies of heaven. 
 
 The cathedral dates back to 1285. Over the front 
 entrance is a queer old bas-relief, representing the last 
 judgment. The Father, God himself, done in stone, sits 
 aloft, with angels blowing trumpets around him. At his 
 feet, on the right, the righteous are led off in triumph to 
 their places in glory, and on the left a devil is weighing 
 souls in a pair of scales ; another devil, with the head of 
 a pig, is carrying a lot of poor sinners in a basket on his 
 back, and is about to cast them into a great kettle where 
 others are boiling, while little imps are blowing the fires 
 with bellows, and hell itself, represented by the jaws of a 
 monster, yawns near, and Satan sits on his throne above. 
 We studied this strange device until the evening shades 
 were too dense to permit us to see it, and then entered 
 the portals. Darkness and silence reigned within. Two 
 candles on the columns near the altar gave all the '^dim 
 religious hght," that only served to deepen the gloomy 
 grandeur of the venerable pile. A few persons had al- 
 ready been admitted, and were conversing in whispers, 
 invisible and scarcely audible in the distance. We sat as 
 far away from the organ as we could, and where it was 
 probable it could be heard to the best advantage. As the 
 hour approached (it is played from half-past eight to half- 
 past nine every evening), the strangers, who pause here 
 on their travels, entered in little groups, and then a large 
 crowd of gentlemen, who, as I learned the next day, were 
 the teachers, professors, and other literary men of Switzer- 
 land, came in together, filling every available place. They 
 were in Freyburg in convention, and by invitation were 
 now present to enjoy the musical feast. It may be that 
 
FREYBURG. 1/9 
 
 owing to this unusual attendance o£ the learned and cul- 
 tivated men of the country, we had the highest possible 
 development of the powers of the instrument and the 
 abilty of the organist. 
 
 Something in the circumstances doubtless added to the 
 dramatic effect of the exhibition. The cathedral seemed 
 to be full of people, but a few only could be seen, and a 
 sense of solemnity, devotion, awe, began to steal upon me 
 as I sat waiting for the first notes of the organ, which was 
 lighted only by a single candle, and that unseen, so that 
 the instrument seemed away among the stars. Some of 
 its pipes are thirty-two feet long. They are 7,800 in num- 
 ber, with sixty-four stops. As I looked up expectant, I 
 thought, "Oh, if it had only a soul!" And then, just 
 then, a breath of melody, so soft, so sweet, so soul-like, 
 came along on the still air, it might have been the first 
 notes of the advent song of peace that fell like this by 
 night over Bethlehem. This gentle stream of music rose 
 and swelled into a river of melody that soon burst its 
 banks and became a rushing torrent of sound, mighty in 
 its power, almost awful in its expression. This was but 
 the prelude. Then came, in successive anthems, songs 
 and passages of master-pieces of the great composers ; 
 some of them familiar, all of them exquisite in their ef- 
 fect, to illustrate the wondrous faculties of this uninspired, 
 untenanted mechanism, that was yet able to represent with 
 such fidelity the deep and lofty, the softest and strongest 
 emotions of the soul. 
 
 Now, the imitation of the human voice was so perfect, 
 it required an effort of the mind to believe that a living 
 being was not rendering those plaintive strains in some dis- 
 tant chamber of this vast hall ; and now, the ring of bells 
 broke musically on the ear, and the far-away toll of some 
 solemn church-bell added its voice to the harmony. The 
 Alpine horn, the flute, and other instruments were so dis- 
 
l80 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 tinctly given, it was hard to comprehend the truth that, in 
 the midst of one grand performance, on a single instru- 
 ment, so many and so distinct and perfect imitations of 
 others could be introduced. Perhaps nothing was more 
 beautiful than the tinkling of water dropping into a foun- 
 tain ; yet, when one effect had been enjoyed, as if the 
 most complete, another soon^ succeeded, so delicate and 
 so touching, that it seemed as if the last were more lovely 
 than all which had been heard before. 
 
 It is quite impossible to speak of the closing perform- 
 ance without being suspected, by those who have not 
 heard it, of exaggeration. And, indeed, so differently are 
 we. constituted, that some will be charmed with a picture 
 or statue, ravished with eloquence of oratory or music, 
 and delighted with a landscape or waterfall, while others 
 exposed to the same influences are as unmoved as the 
 marble or the instrument. I know that I am not one of 
 them, thanks to him who made us to differ ; and I know, 
 too, that they who sat near me, when the last grand move- 
 ment of this organ was made, are not of them. For when 
 the strong wind began to shake the walls of the old cathe- 
 dral, the rain to pour in torrents on the roof, the thunder 
 rolling in terrific majesty, 
 
 " Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God, 
 Marching upon the storm in vengeance seemed," 
 
 we bowed our heads, with such a sense of awe and adora- 
 tion, as could scarcely have been increased if the war of 
 elements had indeed been bursting on us, and the voice of 
 the Almighty had suddenly filled his temple. 
 
 I will not describe the effect of this music : how it 
 soothed, subdued, and melted the heart when its tenderest 
 utterances fell like balm on a wounded spirit ; how it carried 
 me away to other days, and far-away lands, and lifted me 
 again to thoughts of heaven and the harmonies of the 
 
BERNE. l8l 
 
 saints ; and so pure, so holy were the strains and the asso- 
 ciations they brought with them, I wept that I had ever 
 hved but in the hallowed atmosphere of the Good, the Un- 
 seen, and Infinite ! Nor was this a transient sentiment, 
 fading when the hour of such strange teaching was ended, 
 and the gothic temple ceased to tremble with these majestic 
 tones. It has followed me for days and nights among these 
 stupendous mountain fastnesses, over ice-clad plains, where 
 '' motionless torrents, silent cataracts," proclaim the power 
 of him who " clothes them with rainbows," only less lustrous 
 than the one around his throne. I hear the voice of God 
 everywhere, in this sublime and awful land. But if these 
 silent works of his are eloquent to speak his praise, how 
 much more is such a voice as that organ, the great achieve- 
 ment of a mind and hand that God made, endowed, and 
 guided in their work. 
 
 I have thought in years past that words are not essential 
 to a train of thought : we think in words, always and only 
 in words. But now I know that we need no words to make 
 us feel, and words are not made that are capable of express- 
 ing what we feel. As we sat in silence beneath the 
 majestic harmonies of this surpassing instrument, even so 
 it were better that I had made no attempt to portray with 
 pen what is not in the compass of words to utter. It is to 
 be heard and felt and enjoyed. 
 
 Just beyond Freyburg, as we go to Berne, is the battle- 
 field of Morat, which battle was fought four hundred years 
 ago, but is famous to this day : for the bones of the slain were 
 gathered into a heap, and some of them are still to be seen. 
 It was formerly the custom for every Burgundian who 
 passed to carry a bone home with him to bury in his own 
 country, and Lord Byron said that he took away enough to 
 make a quarter of a man. But they are mostly gone now, 
 and an obelisk is set up to mark the field. 
 
 By stopping over from one train to another you will see 
 
:82 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 all that is worth seeing in the quaint old city of Berne, — the 
 German for Bear, — the city of Bears, so called because it is 
 built on the spot where its founder, Berchthold, of Zahrin- 
 
 Cathedral and Platform at Berne. 
 
 gen, slew a bear long time ago. -So the people keep three or 
 four of them in a stone pit, at the public expense, for the 
 idle and youthful to look at and feed and see them climb 
 a tree. It is amusing to see a city worshipping bears. 
 
BERNE. 183 
 
 Therefore go to see the bears, when you go to Berne. Do 
 not fall over the parapet, for if you do, the bears will tear 
 you to bits, as they did an unfortunate Englishman on the 
 3d of March, 1861. If you happen to be at the old clock tower 
 when it is striking the hour, you will see a curious proces- 
 sion, which presents a very striking appearance ; and, indeed, 
 every fountain and statue and mountain is deformed with 
 ugly bears, till you cannot bear to see them. You will be 
 quite willing to leave the city after walking through its 
 principal streets, where the second story of the houses pro- 
 jects over the sidewalks, making a covered promenade, and 
 the shops are half-way in the street, and the market-women 
 sit all along the way with their baskets of vegetables, and 
 the chicken vendors are ready to cut off the heads of the 
 fowls over a drain that carries off the blood, and so forth. 
 
 Besides the hotels, the only notable edifice is the Federal 
 Palace, a new and truly beautiful building. Here the 
 National Diet, or Congress of Switzerland, meets annually 
 in July. There are twenty-two cantons, or states, in the 
 Swiss Confederation, and they are severally independent, 
 but unite in this council for purposes of mutual protection 
 and support. Each canton has a dialect, or patois, peculiar 
 to itself, and sometimes unintelligible to its neighbors ; and 
 the French, the German, and the Italian languages are so 
 generally spoken in distinct cantons, that they are obliged 
 to have an interpreter in Congress to redeliver a speech, or 
 restate an argument in two other languages after a member 
 has made it first in the only one that he understands. 
 What a blessed thing it is that our congressmen under- 
 stand, at least, each other's language, for if their speeches 
 had to be repeated three times, when would the assembly 
 ever break up ? 
 
 The grandest sight in Berne is the range of Bernese 
 Alps, and a grander spectacle, perhaps, the country itself 
 cannot present. When that long, white, rifted, mountain- 
 
1 84 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 boundary of the world stands up in its majesty, lighted as 
 we saw it by a blazing noonday sun, it is sublime as well 
 as beautiful. - 
 
 It is only an hour by rail to Thun, and then we are on a 
 lovely little lake ten miles long, with lofty mountains on 
 each side of it ; so lovely indeed is this lake, that days after 
 
 On the Lake of Thun. 
 
 we had left it, when other views were spoken of, Thun 
 always had its admiring advocates, who claimed for it the 
 pre-eminence in beauty over all that we had seen. And 
 so in this land of glorious natural scenery, where every 
 valley is a subject for a picture, every mountain a study, 
 and every lake a gem, it is easy to exhaust the words of 
 
BERNE. 185 
 
 admiration, and then fail to convey any adequate idea of 
 the constant succession of splendors that greet the travel- 
 ler's never-wearied eye. 
 
 Writing these last words, I look up, and before me is the 
 Jungfrau, clothed in white raiment from crown to foot. 
 The sky kisses her cold brow. As the mountains are round 
 about Jerusalem, so are the everlasting hills about her now 
 and ever. But no words can give to you, beyond the sea, 
 the faintest conception of what one feels who exposes his 
 soul to these visions of grandeur and beauty, and rejoices 
 as he thinks " My Father made them all." 
 
1 86 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE BRUNIG PASS — LUCERNE. 
 
 TF it were required of me to name the pleasantest day's 
 ride thus far of this summer's tour in Switzerland, I 
 should give the palm for beauty to the day that took me 
 with two friends from Interlaken to Lucerne by way of 
 Brienz and the Brunig Pass. 
 
 Interlaken, as its name implies, is between the lakes 
 Thun and Brienz. Thun is a beautiful gem of a sea ; Brienz 
 is a little smaller, but fortified by formidable mountains and 
 scarcely less lovely than her sister Thun. Our carriage- 
 road, after leading us out from Interlaken, — that great 
 English boarding establishment with a road running through 
 it, and interesting only as a fiat valley in sight of the Jung- 
 frau, and so full of people all summer long that you can 
 find no sense of quiet or retirement, though the hotels are 
 good, and the rides pleasant, and the mountain scenery 
 sublime, — our road led us along on the western shore of 
 Lake Brienz, and is cut into the hill-side so far up that all 
 the way along we were able to survey the whole lake. I 
 looked back to the Abendberg^ a mountain which I once 
 climbed to visit the Institution for the Relief of Cretins, the 
 idiots of Switzerland, which Dr. Guggenbulre established 
 there. That remarkable philanthropist and physician, in 
 whom and his labors I became intensely interested when 
 here before, has since that tirae been removed by death, 
 and no one being found to carry on his benevolent and 
 self-denying work, it was suspended, and the building is 
 now a hotel. 
 
THE BRUNIG PASS. 1 8/ 
 
 On the east side of the lake some of the finest mountains 
 in the country are to be seen, and the flat summit of the 
 Faulhorn is even more inviting than the Rigi, which now is 
 visited by scarcely more tourists. Cascades are leaping 
 frequently from lofty heights into the abyss below, and we 
 have scarcely exclaimed at the beauty of one before another 
 rushes into sight. • By and by we come to one more impos- 
 ing than all the rest ; at first we catch but a single fall ; as 
 we advance it takes another plunge, and then another, and 
 soon the whole reach and all the leaps of the Giesback are 
 roaring and tumbling down the lofty precipices before us. 
 I had been under it and around it, at its base, but had not 
 before stood, as now, where its successive falls are all 
 blended into one, and the white crystal flood pours more 
 than a thousand feet, through the green fir-tree borders, 
 into the lake. If you have a night to spare, when you come 
 here, you may cross from Brienz and spend it at the Falls, 
 which are illuminated with Bengal lights, producing a spec- 
 tacle of enchanting and bewildering magnificence and 
 beauty. But if you have not time, get some one who has 
 just been there, and who knows that you have not been, to 
 tell you about it, and you will get an idea from his descrip- 
 tion that will quite surpass the original ! 
 
 After passing the little village of Brienz, — where the 
 Enghsh-speaking landlord of the Bear (Ours) will enter- 
 tain you well if you give him a call, — we soon began the 
 ascent of the Brunig mountain. It gives you at once some 
 conception of the immense expenditure of money, time, and 
 science of engineering required to construct these Swiss 
 roads. As smooth as those of Central Park, and as solid, 
 they are made to wind around and about so as to render the 
 ascent gradual. Sometimes we seem to be returning on 
 our track, but always singing Excelsior^ and yet so gradu- 
 ally that the strain is not severe on the horses, and you feel 
 no sense of danger as you are borne along without jolting 
 
1 88 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 or fatigue. And what a lovely vale is every moment in 
 view at the foot of the mountain ! A rapid river sweeps 
 through it, and by its side a white, smooth road : sweet 
 Swiss homes in the midst of green farms dot the valley, 
 that may well be the pride of the whole land. Now we are 
 looking down into the Vale of Meyringen. For two or 
 three hours we have seen in the distance a splendid cascade, 
 and now that we have approached it, we find it the lower 
 leap of the celebrated Reichenbach Falls, and into the valley 
 so many are pouring constantly, that you are not surprised 
 to learn the inhabitants have often suffered sadly from the 
 swelling of these mountain torrents, which come down so 
 rapidly and fearfully as to bear away every thing before 
 them. A hundred years ago, almost the whole village of 
 Meyringen was buried twenty feet deep in the sand and 
 rocks and rubbish. A mark on one of the principal build- 
 ings shows the height to which the waters rose in that 
 memorable deluge. And as we are wound along up the 
 Brunig, we enter the clouds and find the rain descending, 
 so that we are obliged to shut the carriage up till we pass 
 through the cloud, and emerge as we come down into a 
 sunnier region. At the foot, the village of Lungern offers 
 us dinner, and we rest. One of my friends had been suffer- 
 ing all day with toothache, and had at last reached the 
 reckless determination to have it out, if a dentist, or even a 
 blacksmith, could be found in the place. I admired his 
 courage more than his discretion, but probably had only a 
 feeble sense of his suffering. The village doctor was sum- 
 moned, a fine-looking, self-reliant, intelligent young man. 
 The landlord stood with solemn face at the door of the 
 room where the dread operation was to be performed. The 
 landlady wrung her hands in sympathy. The head waiter 
 held the sufferer's head. I held my peace. In a moment 
 it was done ! And then the charge, it was one franc ! 
 twenty cents ! ! Think of that, ye man tormentors, who, 
 
THE BRUNIG PASS. 1 89 
 
 with forceps dire, tear a tooth by the roots from one's 
 bleeding jaw and charge him two dollars, or five ! 
 
 Lungern, where now lies the bone of one of my country- 
 men, stands by a lake of the same name, which was once 
 much larger than it is now. But the people, more in need 
 of land than water, at the cost of $25,000 dug a tunnel 
 under a hill that held the lake, put 1000 pounds of gun- 
 powder at the end of the hole and touched it off. Away it 
 went, and away went the lake, and the village itself was 
 nearly whelmed too. Down went the lake 120 feet, 
 leaving several hundred acres of ground which is now 
 tilled. But not enough to pay for the work. God has 
 given the seas and the lakes their bounds, and man is a 
 poor tinker when he tries to blow the world up and make 
 it over. I sympathize with the poet who rejoices that the 
 sun and moon are swung out of reach, 
 
 " Lest some reforming ass 
 Should take them down and light the world with gas." 
 
 The whole region beyond is historic, and the quaint 
 villages we pass through have their several stories of 
 battles, sieges, and victories. Every step of the way pre- 
 sents a new picture of loveliness or sublimity. At last we 
 are brought into sight and now are riding along the base of 
 Mount Pilatus, his head as usual crowned with clouds and 
 storm. The tradition is, — and you must believe in all the 
 traditions of this country, or you lose half the interest of 
 travel in it : even the life and exploits of William Tell are 
 traditional rather than historic, yet who that lives here or 
 travels here thinks William Tell a myth } If he does, he 
 had better not tell anybody he doesn't believe in Tell, — the 
 tradition is that Pontius Pilate, after condemning the Saviour, 
 wandered over the world with a conscience goading him to 
 death ; that finally he committed suicide on the top of this 
 mountain, which is almost always, in consequence of this 
 
IQO 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 awful event, begirt with tempests. And the popular beUef 
 that these storms were of infernal origin was so prevalent, 
 that for a long time it was forbidden by law to make the 
 ascent. But the mountain is the first great barrier the 
 clouds meet as they are marching southerly into the Alpine 
 regions. There they break, and around the peak of Mount 
 Pilate the thunder and lightning play with vengeance, 
 when elsewhere it is " clear shining after the rain." The 
 carriage-path is now along the shore of Lake Lucerne and 
 
 PiLATUs, Lake of Lucerne. 
 
 at the foot of the mountains, — ahead of us it seems as 
 though we were coming to the sudden terminus of travel, 
 but the narrow way opens as we advance, and we sweep 
 securely under a frowning precipice, and over a solid rock 
 for the bed of the road, and having made the circuit of the 
 mountain we emerge upon a plain which lies between us 
 and Lucerne. 
 
 The sun was just sinking to rest as we were bringing to 
 
LUCERNE. 191 
 
 a close our journey of ten hours, memorable for the pictur- 
 esque views that were constantly before us, the four lakes 
 that we had skirted in our ride, the uncounted waterfalls, 
 majestic mountains, alternate rain and sunshine, and that 
 pleasant friendly converse which an easy-going carriage 
 permits and encourages, when, with tastes to enjoy the 
 beautiful world that God has made, we sit all day under the 
 open sky and admire, wonder, and adore. 
 
 Lucerne is one of the most beautiful spots in Switzer- 
 land. We have often laughed at the guide-books for call- 
 ing each and every place, castle, river, waterfall, temple, or 
 tower, the most beautiful, the oldest, largest, most romantic, 
 or something quite as superlative. But we get into the 
 same habit, and readers must make allowances for the 
 enthusiasm of travellers. Take off as much as you please, 
 and Lucerne is very lovely. 
 
 It was my first Sabbath, on this journey, in a place 
 almost wholly given up to Romanism. The population is 
 about 13,000, and less than a thousand are Protestants. At 
 nine o'clock in the morning, with two American friends, I 
 went to the cathedral or church of St. Leger, and found it 
 already crowded and a sermon in progress. The preacher 
 was arrayed with so much magnificence that I supposed 
 he must be some very distinguished personage in the 
 church of Rome. The Papal Nuncio, or representative of 
 the Pope of Rome, has his official residence in Lucerne, 
 but I presume he does not officiate as a preacher. The 
 audience filhng the seats and thronging the aisles were 
 giving devout attention, each one on entering bending his 
 knee and crossing himself. The women occupied one 
 half, and the men the other, of the house. I could find no 
 seat, but a young man in a pew rose, gave me his seat, and 
 stood up himself, a politeness not common in any Protes- 
 tant church in any part of the world to which my weary 
 steps have been directed. The preaching was in German, 
 
192 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 and more unintelligible to me than if it had been in Greek 
 or Latin, so that I was at liberty to study the surroundings. 
 Over the altar was a statue of Christ crucified : the body 
 made of wood painted to the life, and life-size, suspended 
 so low that the face, with all its expression of intense 
 agony, was perfectly visible. The blood had settled all 
 below the knees and the lower part of the chest, and was 
 trickling from the spikes through the hands and feet. The 
 altar was richly adorned with gold, and candles were burn- 
 ing on it. On either side of it were minor altars ; over one 
 of them was an inscription in Latin recording the sacred 
 relics there treasured. These are to be found in all the 
 great churches on the continent, but have lost none of their 
 hold on the reverence of these superstitious people. The 
 toe-nail of the prophet Jeremiah would be the fortune of 
 any relic-hunter who should light upon it. Over another 
 altar, called Privileged, but why I did not learn, was a rep- 
 resentation, in full life-size, of the descent from the cross. 
 The weeping women had very sorrowful faces, and the 
 wound in the Saviour s side was gaping fearfully, and the 
 blood still oozing out. As I was looking at it, a lady 
 elegantly dressed, leading two children, four or five years 
 old, entered a side door, and approaching this altar knelt 
 before it, and turning her face upward to these images of 
 the Saviour's death, gazed long, and I suppose was praying. 
 The sermon was still in progress, but she gave no heed to 
 it. Perhaps, like myself, she was not able to understand it, 
 and had come to worship, not to hear. When she had 
 closed her protracted devotions, she took the little boy and 
 girl and made them both kneel, where she had been kneel- 
 ing, and look up as she had done, and when they had thus 
 performed the service which she evidently prescribed, she 
 led them out. Others cast themselves down before this 
 and other altars, and with no attention to the service in 
 progress, went on with their own prayers, and then left, or 
 
LUCERNE. 
 
 193 
 
 joined with the rest according to their pleasure. When the 
 sermon was ended, long, and well delivered, in a persuasive, 
 conversational tone, without notes, and with an evident air 
 of earnest feeling, another priest, in gorgeous apparel, came 
 to the high altar, and, attended by two or three boys to hold 
 up his robes and move his missal-book from place to place, 
 as he had to change his position, he proceeded to celebrate 
 the mass. The officiating priest was an elderly man whose 
 face indicated great intellectual force, and his appearance 
 was that of a student and man of learning. As he took a 
 golden chalice and laid his hands over it, and prayed, and 
 then lifted it up while all the people bowed themselves with 
 profound reverence, it filled me with amazement that such a 
 man as he seemed to be could suppose that the wine in that 
 cup had been miraculously and instantly converted into the 
 blood of the Son of God ! ! ! And when he held up in the 
 same way a bit of bread in the shape of a wafer or thin 
 cracker, two inches or so in diameter, and again all the 
 people bent themselves in adoration, he himself, with up- 
 lifted hands and downcast eyes and moving lips, appeared 
 to regard the ceremony as an immediate exhibition of a 
 present and new-born God. Then he took the cup again 
 and drank it, and drank once more, turning it bottom 
 upward over his face ; and when this was done he took a 
 white napkin and dried the inside thoroughly, as if no drop 
 of the sacred blood must , remain within, and the door of a 
 golden casket or closet on the altar being opened, he placed 
 it within, with the bread he had converted, and locked it 
 safely there. While this ceremony was going on, a priest 
 had emerged from behind the altar, and with a brush in 
 hand went up and down among the people, sprinkling them 
 with holy water. A splendid organ and a choir of singers 
 took part in the service, which was in all its parts imposing 
 to the senses, fitted to make a deep impression on the 
 ignorant masses. 
 
 13 
 
194 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 The cloisters that surround the church are filled with 
 tombs and memorial paintings and inscriptions, and the 
 windows on the south command charming views of the 
 lake and mountains. 
 
 From this service, which was rather to be called inter- 
 esting than edifying, we went to the English church ser- 
 vice. The Protestant Germans have a new and very 
 pretty edifice, which they permit the English-speaking 
 residents and travellers to enjoy for two services on the 
 Sabbath. The sermon we heard was on the nature and 
 blessed effects of prayer. It was evangelical and useful, 
 some passages very touching and impressive. The prayers 
 were read by a young American clergyman, and the audi- 
 ence, which was quite large, filling the church, was proba- 
 bly one-half American. 
 
 I have never found a more romantic, more sublime, more 
 classic and beautiful lake in the little part of the world I 
 have seen, than the Vier-Wald-Statter See, the Four For- 
 rest Cantons, or, as it is more often called, Lake Lucerne. 
 
 You will come to Lucerne, to the Schweitzer Hof, the 
 best hotel in Switzerland. From the wharf in front of it 
 steamers go five times a day the whole length of the lake 
 and return, making the excursion in five hours. 
 
 It is the lake of William Tell. Unbelieving sceptics in- 
 timate a doubt that such a man as Tell ever lived ; but the 
 apothecary in whose house I am lodging now has his scales 
 in the form of a cross-bow, with a gilt apple on the top, 
 to represent the great exploit of the hero's life, and every 
 house has its memento of the man without whom there is 
 no Swiss history. You might as well tell me that George 
 Washington is a myth, and that he never hacked his 
 father's cherry-tree with a hatchet. I have a piece of the 
 tree, and know it to be true. And every Swiss patriot 
 knows that William Tell shot the apple off his son's head, 
 and the monster cruelty of the order that made him do it 
 
LUCERNE. 
 
 195 
 
 roused the fires of indignant resistance to tyranny, and 
 resulted in the independence of the country. It is neces- 
 sary to beheve this, to enjoy the scenes made sacred by 
 the story. 
 
 You will leave the city of Lucerne, having seen the lion 
 cut in a solid rock as a monument to some Swiss soldiers 
 
 Monument to the Swiss Guard. {By Thorvaldsen-) 
 
 who were killed in Paris fighting for pay in 1792, and hav- 
 ing also walked through the covered bridge that is distin- 
 guished, but not adorned, with a series of paintings by 
 Holbein, representing the Dance of Death ; and after the 
 boat has gone from the landing about fifteen minutes, you 
 must look back on the crescent city rising from the water's 
 edge, flanked by the ancient wall on which the useless 
 towers still stand ; and on the spires of the cathedral whose 
 organ claims equal honor with that of Freyburg ; and the 
 old tower in the centre of the river which was once a liEht- 
 
196 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 house, Lucerna, whence the name of the town ; and on the 
 green hills, behind and on either side of the city, elegant 
 residences of opulent citizens, and of some who from Paris 
 and more distant parts come here to enjoy the summer in 
 a dehcious and healthful clime. Naples is grander, but 
 hardly more beautiful, as she lies around her lovely bay, 
 with Vesuvius, like the Rigi, keeping watch over her 
 Italian charms. 
 
 For an hour or two out we are in the midst of the same 
 bold and striking scenery which is common to all the Swiss 
 lakes, with nothing of special interest except the historic 
 associations that cluster about the little villages at the foot 
 of the hills on the shores. We would be slow to believe 
 that a population even of a few hundreds could hold on 
 upon the sides of the mountains, or find the means of sup- 
 port among those green meadows, where lies the little 
 village of Gersau, and there are only about 1,500 people in 
 it. Yet so tenacious are these Swiss of independence, that 
 this Httle, secluded, poor, portionless community, not more 
 than two miles square, maintained its existence as a sep- 
 arate state for more than four centuries, and was then 
 swallowed up by the French in the devouring fires of 1789. 
 It is now part of one of the Swiss cantons. We cross the 
 lake again and come to Brunnen, where the figures of the 
 three historic patriots of Switzerland stand with each a 
 hand held up to heaven, on the outside of the Sustenhaus, 
 on the bank of the water. But when we leave Brunnen, 
 and through a narrow pass enter the Bay of Uri, the gran- 
 deur of the view breaks instantly upon us with such a 
 power as to set at defiance the attempt at description unless 
 one has a bolder pen than mine. Philosophers have tried 
 it. Poets have done what they could to illustrate and repeat 
 it. So prudent, and yet so capable a writer as Sir James 
 Mackintosh says it makes " an impression which it would 
 be foolish to attempt to convey by words." I will there- 
 
 I 
 
LUCERNE. 197 
 
 fore not be foolish. Yet you may look with my eyes upon 
 precipitous mountains starting from the bosom of the lake 
 and pointing with silent and solemn majesty into the sky: 
 here and there as we pass are verdant meadows, few and 
 far between, but beautiful- as they nestle at the feet or on 
 the breasts of these gigantic cliffs, not a human habitation, 
 sometimes for miles, to be seen, but all still, serene, and 
 impressive in its solitude, and awful in its manifestation of 
 the stupendous works of God. 
 
 A sharp rock rises perpendicularly from the water on the 
 western shore, and some foolish people have put a gilt let- 
 ter inscription on it : as if the words were of use to perpet- 
 uate the histories of these shores. We come to a low 
 pasture, a narrow ledge, the most hallowed spot in Switzer- 
 land, for here the three great patriots whose portraits we 
 saw at Brunnen, — Furst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal, — 
 were wont to meet to concert their plans. And here at 
 midnight, Nov. 7, 1307, they, with thirty trusty men whom 
 they had chosen, took the oath that bound them in a sol- 
 emn league to break the hated yoke of Austria, or die. 
 They fought and conquered, and they perished too, but 
 their names and deeds live, in revolving centuries, and pil- 
 grims from lands that were then unknown now come and 
 look with reverence upon the spot thus consecrated, for the 
 lands of Tell and of Washington are lands of liberty, and 
 the sons of each are brothers. 
 
 And across the See, a few miles on, is the chapel of Wil- 
 liam Tell. It marks the spot where the hero jumped from 
 the boat to the rock and bounded away into the woods, 
 when the tyrant Gessler was carrying him to prison. A 
 storm had overtaken them : the tyrant, a coward of course, 
 was afraid, and, as Tell was an expert in the boat, he ordered 
 him to be unbound, that he might manage the little bark. 
 Tell steered her close to the rock, and leaped ashore, and 
 was gone. A little chapel, open en the lake front, is erected 
 
1 98 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 here, preser/ed with pious care, adorned with art and taste, 
 and once a year a long procession of Swiss, in boats, ap- 
 proach the sacred place and listen to a discourse in honor 
 of their sainted hero. 
 
 Tell's Chapel, Lake of Lucerne. 
 
 Adown the sides of these majestic mountains frequent 
 cascades leap and hang and play, and not far from the 
 chapel two fountains spring directly out of the mountain 
 side and pour two copious streams into the lake below. 
 They are said to flow from a lake in the valley on the other 
 side of the mountain ; but whether this is true or not, it is 
 an illustration of the way in which the veins of water run 
 
LUCERNE. 199 
 
 along beneath the earth, rising even on the sides and sum- 
 mits of the hills, and springing to the surface when reached 
 by art, or, as in this case, discharging by a natural outlet. 
 The earth has its mysteries yet unsolved. Some of these 
 bare mountain rocks are laid in convoluted strata, a few feet 
 only in thickness, but wrapped over and over, as if they 
 were a heap of great sheets once, easily thrown into these 
 forms. It is easy to say that they are of volcanic origin, 
 and that these hills were once flowing down in presence of 
 the Lord. But this explains nothing. The philosopher is 
 no wiser than the poet. And neither sees any farther into 
 the bowels of these mountains than the Christian pilgrim 
 who sits with me on the boat, and, as he sees the water 
 gushing out of the rock as if smitten by the rod of Moses, 
 he says : " Who hath divided a watercourse for the over- 
 flowing of the waters ? Out of whose bosom came the ice } 
 There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vul- 
 ture's eye hath not seen." And this is the way the waters 
 go, through chambers cut in the rocks by Infinite skill, that 
 they may flow just where they are wanted to bless or beau- 
 tify the world. 
 
 Reaching the end of the lake at Fluellen, we enter at 
 once upon the highway over the St. Gothard into Italy. 
 Two miles on is Altorf, where William Tell shot the apple 
 on the head of his son. And still farther on is the place 
 where he finally lost his life, drowned while seeking to save 
 the life of a child. The road beyond is one of the grandest 
 and most historic of the Swiss passes, but I am not going 
 that way now, as Capt. Lott said. What did /le say ^ Why, 
 this, — a passenger asked him why the ship was going so 
 slow : the captain told him the fog was too thick to make 
 much headway. "But," said the passenger looking up, 
 *' it's clear enough overhead." " Yes," replied the Captain, 
 " but we're not going that way just now." 
 
200 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE BLACK VIRGIN OF EINSIEDELN — LIFE IN SWITZER- 
 LAND, &c. 
 
 1\ /TORE than a thousand years ago, a holy hermit, by the 
 -^^-^ name of Meinrad, of royal blood, sought the wilds of 
 Finsterswald, and here (for I am now on the spot) lived 
 in a hut, and spent his days in prayer, with a little black 
 image of the Virgin and Child which had been given him by 
 the Abbess of Zurich. But his piety and the Holy Virgin 
 did not shield him from the violence of wicked men. He 
 was murdered in his hut by two robbers, who would never 
 have been caught but for the interposition of the Virgin, 
 who sent two ravens after them. These birds followed 
 them to Zurich, and there hunted them till their guilt was 
 detected, and they were put to death. 
 
 The odor of Meinrad' s sanctity spread far and wide, and 
 the Benedictine monks came and established a community, 
 built a monastery and a church, and have flourished on this 
 spot ever since. So long ago as 948 the Bishop of Con- 
 stance came here to consecrate the newly erected church, 
 and in the night before the ceremony was to be performed 
 he was awakened by the music of angels filling the place, 
 and a voice from heaven came to him, saying that he need 
 not proceed with his holy services, for in the night the 
 house had been sanctified by the coming of the Saviour 
 in his own proper person. This was reported to the Pope, 
 who pronounced it a genuine miracle ; and in obedience to 
 his decree a plenary indulgence is granted to all pilgrims 
 who come here, and on the church is inscribed, " Here is 
 
 I 
 
BLACK VIRGIN OF EINSIEDELN. 20I 
 
 full remission from the guilt and punishment of sins." 
 During all these thousand years that have since revolved, 
 this spot has been the shrine to which not less than 200,000 
 human beings each year, with heads and hands and feet 
 like other people, have journeyed, to bring their offerings, 
 and worship a black image of the Virgin Mary holding a 
 black baby in her arms. Why the image is painted jet 
 black I cannot learn. So great is the concourse of pil- 
 grims here, and so large are their offerings, that this monas- 
 tery, in a bleak Alpine vale, 3000 feet above the sea, and 
 off from all highways, has become one of the richest in the 
 world. One in Styria, one in Spain, and a third in Italy, 
 are, perhaps, more numerously visited. But the annual 
 revenue of this is immense. The abbot has his banking 
 house in Zurich, where he deposits the funds, and the in- 
 vestments are constantly increasing. They are buying 
 lands largely in the United States of America, especially in 
 Indiana, and the order of Benedictines at Vincennes is in 
 constant correspondence with Einsiedeln. 
 
 Hither have I just raade a pilgrimage, not on foot, as 
 many do. An old woman of seventy-five, carrying her 
 shoes in her hand and toiling up with bare, sore feet, said 
 the priest had bade her travel so to Einsiedeln, and her 
 sins would be pardoned. But I came by the steamboat 
 from Zurich to Ricksterwyl, and was then brought up the 
 hill in a nice covered carriage, a much pleasanter way of 
 doing a pilgrimage than walking barefoot, or even yv^ith 
 peas in your shoes. It is a two hours' ride from the lake, 
 the ascending road being alive with travellers going and 
 coming, and public-houses to entertain the pilgrims invite 
 you to rest. The village itself consists of a multitude of 
 taverns and shops for the sale of images, crosses, medals, 
 &c. Passing through it, we come to a large paved square. 
 On one side of it, and at the foot of a hill which rises be- 
 hind it, stand the sacred edifices : a vast temple, with the 
 
202 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 monastic buildings on each side of it, imposing in their 
 appearance among these wilds of nature, where it seems 
 almost a miracle that they can ever have been reared and 
 enjoyed by man. The church itself is adorned with extrav- 
 agant pictures and marble chapels and shrines, and just at 
 the entrance stands the image of " Our Lady of the Her- 
 mits," the only black image of the Virgin I ever saw. She 
 and the Holy Child wear crowns of gold, and glitter with 
 diamonds and embroidered garments, their faces of ebony 
 shining in the blaze of jewelry and tinsel finery. Before 
 them, worshippers are always kneeling, counting their 
 beads. At the other shrines others are bowing and mur- 
 muring their prayers. Painted skeletons of celebrated saints 
 lie exposed in marble shrines. The offerings of those who 
 have had their prayers answered hang around on the walls. 
 All sorts of prayers are here made, and they who make them 
 believe they are answered. 
 
 In the square in front of the church is a fountain with a 
 dozen jets of water, and each pilgrim drinks from each one 
 of them, to be certain that he drinks of the one out of 
 which the Saviour refreshed himself nine hundred years 
 ago! 
 
 The monastery is freely opened to strangers. Through 
 long halls, on each side of which are guest-chambers where 
 their many visitors are lodged, we were led to a gallery, 
 adorned with several splendid paintings, presented by 
 CathoUc monarchs : Louis Napoleon and his Empress, the- 
 Austrian Emperor, and several historical pictures. Out of 
 this we walked into the reception-room, where the abbot 
 himself was so condescending as to meet us. He speaks 
 only German and Latin. A very large man, of command- 
 ing form and presence ; with a face shining like the sun 
 with good humor, good living, and content, he answered 
 perfectly to your idea of the abbot of a Romish monastery. 
 He gave me a cordial greeting, and understanding that I 
 
BLACK VIRGIN OF EINSIEDELN. 203 
 
 was from America asked if we enjoyed universal peace. 
 When I assured him we did, he spoke of the late contest in 
 Europe, which he pronounced " bellum atrocissimum," — a 
 most atrocious war. Then he inquired about the President, 
 and produced from his private rooms a photograph of the 
 late Lincoln in the arms of Washington in heaven ! 
 
 After a little further general conversation he withdrew. 
 He is by virtue of his office a prince of the Austrian 
 empire, and is so addressed by all the Roman Catholic 
 cantons of Switzerland. I was highly pleased with the 
 interview, and not less with one of the monks to whose kind 
 care I was now committed. He led me to the interior of 
 the monastery, where the cells of the monks are arranged 
 on the several stories or floors : each one is a comfortable 
 room, with one window looking into the walled garden and 
 the hill that rises behind. When we reached his own he 
 unlocked it and showed me in ; placing its only chair, he 
 bade me be seated, while he went to look for the key of the 
 library. " While I am absent," said he, " enjoy yourself as 
 you please, examine every thing, and be quite at home." A 
 few books were in a case over his writing-desk, by which he 
 could sit or stand and the closets, shelves, every thing was 
 bare of paint, and plain as could be. A little bed was in 
 one corner near the door, simple enough for an anchorite. 
 No images, pictures, or crucifixes were in sight. In a few 
 minutes he returned, and led me through the cabinet of 
 natural history, into the library of 30,000 volumes, neatly 
 arranged in niches. When we came to the folios of the 
 fathers, I pointed to the works of Iren^us, and said: I 
 have the name of that father, my own father having 
 given it to me because he admired the writings of the old 
 author, the disciple of Polycarp, who sat at the feet of 
 the apostle John ; I was thus in the line of the succession. 
 We took down the folio and looked at its imprint. Then 
 he asked me if I would like to see the manuscripts, and 
 
204 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 upon my expressing a strong desire to do so, he raised an 
 iron trap-door, and conducted me by a flight of stairs into a 
 room below, where an immense number are deposited, and 
 admirably preserved and disposed. None of them, how- 
 ever, are very ancient. 
 
 A college of two hundred students is maintained in the 
 same range of buildings, and taught by some of the monks. 
 Of these monks there are about forty, besides the priests 
 who minister at the altars, and receive confessions in Ger- 
 man, French, Italian, and Romanesch languages, according 
 to the nationality of the pilgrims. The monks spend their 
 time in reading, writing, and in the refectory, where they 
 eat together, and enjoy the good things of this life as well 
 as other people. Some of them are quite old. Death 
 comes here as elsewhere, and closes up a life of apparent 
 indolence, yet possessing some strange fascination that is 
 hard to be comprehended by the outside world. It cer- 
 tainly is not favorable to the highest usefulness, for these 
 men might be doing far more for God and their fellow-men 
 in the pursuit of some honest calling, preaching the gospel, 
 or working with their hands. They consume and do not 
 produce. Nor is this mode of life friendly to holiness. 
 Passions are part of man's nature, and they are not 
 quenched or dwarfed by seclusion from intercourse with 
 the outer world. Human sympathies, which are cultivated 
 and refined by the practice of social virtues, and so tend to 
 make us better, are not apt to flourish in the cell of a 
 monk. And although the walls of this magnificent monas- 
 tery, in a sterile Alpine valley, shut out the pomps and 
 vanities of the world, they cannot be made so high or so 
 strong as to confine the wandering desire, which will sap 
 the foundations of the sternest virtue, and make the bosom 
 the seat of vice to which the soul consents, and therefore 
 suffers. The pure in heart see God. Not in the cloister of 
 the anchorite, the monk's lonely cell, nor the hermit's 
 
LIFE IN SWITZERLAND. 205 
 
 cave ; but in the steadfast pursuit of the Good, the True, 
 and the Great, in the daily walks of life. It is virtue to live 
 above the world, while living in it. None but the children 
 of the Holy One can walk through the furnace without the 
 smell of fire on their garments. 
 
 Such were my thoughts as I left the monastery, shaking 
 hands with Father Reifle, the Benedictine, who had so 
 kindly waited upon me, and by his intelligent conversation 
 and lively interest in my enjoyment had won my warm 
 regards. He put the key into the lock of the iron gate at 
 the head of the stone stairs, and unlocking it let me out, 
 and we bade each other Adieu, as he stood within and I 
 without the door. 
 
 Returning to Zurich, and going thence to St. Gall, I 
 mounted a diligence, and rode an hour and a half into the hill 
 country, up hill all the way, to a place unheard-of in the 
 guide-books, and unvisited by travellers, unless business or 
 the search for solitude should call them there. It is at 
 least a thousand feet above the lake, of which a distant view 
 is had, and in the midst of beautiful high valleys, green past- 
 ures, and thrifty villages, three or four of which are in sight, 
 each with its single church spire or tower. Not a boarding- 
 house was to be found in the place. There is a hotel, but 
 hotels had been my dwelling-place long enough, and now I 
 would have a home, and such a home as the people around 
 me enjoy. In a private family, the village apothecary's, I 
 learned that, perhaps, a room could be had, and thither I 
 bent my steps. Happily for me, they were willing to take 
 me in, and in a short time the apartments were ready and I 
 was duly installed. 
 
 My quarters are a parlor and bedroom, on the front of 
 the house, first floor, up stairs over the shop. The floor is 
 uncarpeted, made of various Swiss woods laid in mosaic, in 
 diamond shapes, of three different colors. A large, earthen, 
 polished, white, monument-like thing, gilt at the corniced 
 
206 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 summit, stands on one side, and I soon learn that it is a 
 stove, the door of which is out in the hall, where the fire is 
 kindled, and now in the middle of August a fire is needed 
 all the time. On the corners of this ornamental as well as 
 useful pile stand two Parian busts, one of Goethe and the 
 other of Schiller. An engraving of Schiller reading one of 
 his poems to his friends hangs on the wall, and a portrait of 
 Columbus, and another of Luther and other celebrities are 
 around me. The windows extend without interruption over 
 the entire length of the room, and a row of flowers in pots 
 are' on the sill outside, and embroidered curtains within. 
 The shutters are closed by raising them with a strap, as the 
 windows of • a rail-car. A sofa, an easy chair covered with 
 leather, three tables, a divan, and a chair or two, with rugs 
 lying around, and little gems of art with books scattered 
 about, complete the furniture of this perfectly comfortable 
 and delightful room. The walls and ceiling are all panel- 
 work in wood, painted white, and as purely white as the 
 Alpine snows. In the bedroom, the floor, the wall, and 
 ceiling are as in the parlor, only the color is a light salmon, 
 very chaste and clean. The bed has a down comforter on 
 the top of it, and two pillows, with double cases, the inner 
 of figured green silk, showing at the open embroidered end 
 of the outer linen. It is almost too pretty to sleep in, in 
 the dark. Over the head of the bed is a beautiful engraving 
 of Uhland's " Landlord's Daughter." On the stand at the 
 bedside is a little basket of confectionery, a porcelain trans- 
 parency of the Saviour standing among the clouds and 
 pointing heavenward; a china night-lamp burning with a 
 bowl of water over it, kept hot by the lamp ; and every little 
 nick-nack that delicate taste and an appreciating sense of 
 what comfort is would be likely to suggest. 
 
 I am asked, before retiring, at what hour I will breakfast, 
 and I reply, " When the family do ; and let every thing be as 
 you are in the habit of having it." 
 
LIFE IN SWITZERLAND. 20/ 
 
 - The times of eating and the food were not to my taste 
 the first day. It took me a little while to get adjusted to 
 the change. But in every country I would live as the well- 
 to-do people of the country live. And here I soon learned 
 that the number of meals and the hours of eating were 
 regulated by the climate, which is so bracing as to indicate 
 frequent eating and substantial diet. I am writing this at 
 ten o'clock at night, and I will give you the journal of the 
 day. 
 
 Breakfast at /i a.m., consisting of coffee, bread and butter, 
 with honey and cold meat. 
 
 Dinner at 12, noon, soup, fish, boiled beef, beef a la 
 mode, vegetables, salads, cucumbers, apricots, pears, plums, 
 apples, preserves, pastry, &c. 
 
 Lunch at 4 p.m., coffee, bread and butter and honey. 
 Everybody takes this meal as well as the others. They 
 come in from the fields and the shops to their coffee 
 at 4. 
 
 Supper at 8 p.m. I am almost ashamed to say that at 
 8 this meal was served in my parlor, for me only: soup 
 and a roast chicken, which disappeared, leaving scarce a 
 wreck behind. And I forgot to say that at six o'clock I 
 took tea out with a private family in the village, where the 
 table was spread with the richest cream, butter, straw- 
 berries, currants, bread, and honey, — all but the tea being 
 the fruit of the gentleman's own grounds. And at my 
 table there were presented several dishes not enumerated 
 above, the names of which were worse than Greek, and 
 the compound of a color and odor that did not enlist my 
 sympathies. However, I try a Httle of every thing, and 
 eat all the time. I understand there is a doctor in the 
 village, whose fame extends to distant cities, and ere the 
 week is out I may have to test his skill. 
 
208 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 IN THE HOTELS AND ON THE ROAD. 
 
 It is one thing to travel in a country, stopping only at the 
 great hotels, and quite another to get off the highways, 
 among the people, and live as they live. At the hotels, the 
 aim is to give you the kind and quality of food you are ac- 
 customed to in your own land, to put you into a good bed, 
 and charge you just as much as you will pay. It is my way, 
 when I can, to get out of the beaten paths of travel, and 
 mingle, if possible, with the natives of the country, and 
 those, too, who are not in the habit of entertaining stran- 
 gers, and soon learning that they are fair game to be plucked 
 as long as they have any feathers. 
 
 More than half the guests in the Swiss hotels are Amer- 
 icans. The English complain — John is generally grum- 
 bling — that the Americans get the best rooms at the 
 hotels, and that travelling on the continent is not half so 
 agreeable. It was my misfortune to travel last week in the 
 same compartment of the rail-car with an English clergy- 
 man and his wife [and, by the way, she called him Jmbby^ 
 for husband, whenever she spoke to him, — an appellation 
 for the head of the house that was new to me, and not very 
 agreeable]. He said he would write a letter to the Times, — 
 that is an Englishman's universal refuge when he thinks 
 himself imposed upon in travel. " I sh^ll write to the Times 
 about this country, and I sh^ll say that the cookin' is exceed- 
 in'ly mean, the scenery very dull, and the travellin' decid- 
 edly uncomfortable." But he was as near being a fool as a 
 man could well be, and be at large. His tongue ran inces- 
 santly, and he talked so loud that no other conversation 
 could be had, and everybody must listen to his twaddle and 
 complaints. " The 'ills were too 'igh " for him to think of 
 climbin' any of them, and not " 'igh " enough to interest him 
 in lookin' at them ; and on the whole he thought Switzer- 
 land a failure. 
 
LIFE IN SWITZERLAND. 2O9 
 
 It is curious to observe how soon Americans are known 
 to be such, anywhere in Europe. In England, a hotel waiter 
 or a porter at a lodge or castle would know you to be an 
 American, certainly the moment you spoke, and perhaps 
 before. A woman said to me when I had said that I was 
 an American, '' You don't speak like one." When I pressed 
 for an answer to the question, "What is the difference 
 between my speech and others," she replied, after much 
 hesitation, "Why, I thought all your countrymen talked 
 through the nose." 
 
 That educated Americans, and all of them accustomed to 
 good society at home, speak the English language with as 
 much propriety and purity as the most cultivated Enghsh- 
 men, is certainly true, and it may safely be added that the 
 masses of the people in America, born to the manner, speak 
 it far better. Small as England is, the dialects of the prov- 
 inces are so diverse, that one is often .sorely puzzled to 
 understand a commonplace remark or inquiry. It was very 
 amusing, too, to perceive that many slang phrases, or tech- 
 nical terms, that we had supposed to be of local origin and 
 use in the United States, were as common in England as 
 with us at home. " You'll 'ave lots of time," says the coach- 
 man. " I'll pop out your luggage," when he would tell us 
 that it would be done instantly, said the conductor. 
 
 But the language is not more marked by its peculiarities 
 than the manners. There are all sorts of people in every land. 
 Some of each variety go abroad, so that we must expect to 
 meet them, and it is very absurd to judge of a country by 
 the few specimens you meet on the road. But while I am 
 heartily ashamed of some of my own countrymen who are 
 abroad, and make themselves ridiculous by an extravagance 
 of independence that amounts to a contempt of every thing 
 and everybody except themselves and their country, still I 
 think that, as a whole, they are the best behaved people 
 abroad. At the Baur du Lac Hotel, Zurich, day before 
 
210 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 yesterday, at breakfast, a German lady took her seat at the 
 head of a long table, rested both elbows upon it, and taking 
 a roll of bread eight inches long, held it in both hands, and 
 without taking it from her lips, or taking her elbows down, 
 she ate the whole of it- from end to end. I sat next to her, 
 on the corner, and saw it done. She then took another 
 roll, a round one, and devoured that ; all this while waiting 
 for her coffee. What more she ate, or how, I did not see, 
 having turned away in disgust. It is not probable that any 
 woman from America would go through such an exercise at 
 home or abroad. 
 
 Yesterday, in the rail-car in which I was riding, an Eng- 
 lish gentleman and family entered the compartment in 
 which I was seated, the only passenger. There were four 
 seats, two on each side of a little table, on which we could 
 lay books or papers. Overhead were racks and pegs for 
 bags and bundles. He piled his, and his wife's, and his 
 wife's sister's, on the top of the table, usurping the whole 
 of it, and utterly ignoring the righ-t of anybody else to any 
 of it. Jonathan would put a thing in its place, and be 
 ashamed to interfere with the convenience of his neighbor. 
 John Bull looks out for number one. This selfishness ex- 
 tends to neglecting those little attentions to women, on 
 which an American prides himself, and which makes it so 
 easy for women in America to travel alone. 
 
 On the French and Swiss railroads has been introduced 
 an improvement that may be commended to our directors. 
 In every train there is a car with one compartment, marked 
 on the outside, " For women unattended." Into this carriage 
 ladies who have no male escort enter, and are properly cared 
 for by the conductor. They can travel in this way in seclu- 
 sion and with entire safety ; but after all it is quite prob- 
 able that the women in America would be quite as willing 
 to take their chances with the men ; and, perhaps, the 
 experiment, if tried, would be a failure. One thing the 
 
LIFE IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 211 
 
 railway people might learn of us, and that is, to check the 
 baggage. In place of it, here they give you a slip of paper 
 with a number on it, and paste a corresponding slip on your 
 trunk, which is some protection, but not so safe nor so 
 convenient as our plan. In many respects the European 
 railroad system is far, very far, superior to ours. Its safety 
 is incomparably greater than ours. An accident is very 
 rare. I have not heard of one since coming abroad. The 
 connections are invariably made. The track is more solid 
 and secure. The road is made for ages. There are grades 
 of fare according to the accommodation. The first class is 
 better than any of ours. The second is not equal to ours, 
 and the third is inferior to the second. 
 
212 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 CANTON APPENZELL— SWISS CUSTOMS. 
 
 Peasants oi<- Eastern Switzerland. 
 
 "VrOU have never been in Trogen. You have never heard 
 of Trogen. You do not know where on the map to 
 look for 'Trogen, and you probably would not find it, if you 
 looked for Trogen. 
 
CANTON APPENZELL. 213 
 
 Trogen is one of the little villages in Canton Appenzell, 
 in Switzerland. It is reached by carriage from St. Gall, a 
 large town on the railroad from Zurich to Constance. As 
 soon as you leave the line of the rail, you begin to ascend, 
 and it is all the way up, up, up, till you get here. We 
 passed a convent about half the way up, inhabited by 
 nuns, who were once expelled from St. Gall. They have 
 now a rich establishment, very secluded, and perfectly im- 
 penetrable in its interior mysteries. You can see the re- 
 ception rooms and the chapel, and the grating that separates 
 the nuns from you and all the world : that's all, — no, not 
 quite all ; in the chapel they will show you a human skele- 
 ton, decked with magnificent jewelry, enough to adorn a 
 princess ; and this may teach you that the pomps and 
 vanities of the world are wasted on one who is soon to be 
 a bundle of bones. 
 
 When you reach the summit of the hill, a scene of ex- 
 traordinary grandeur and loveliness lies around and below 
 you. As far as the eye reaches, it is a succession of 
 green, cultured, and peopled hills, often crowned with 
 villages, but mostly marked by scattered dwellings in the 
 midst of beautiful farms, white roads winding around and 
 over the hills, and in the distance, through an opening, lies 
 the lake of Constance, a picture of silver in a fair setting of 
 emerald. Trogen is the largest of the villages ; but there 
 are three more in sight, Speicher, Wald, and Rechdobell, 
 each with its single church tower ; for the people are 
 all Protestants, and all Lutherans. In this village and 
 Speicher, close by, there is not one Roman Catholic family, 
 and I believe that is a very unusual fact in this country, 
 v/here there are nearly as many of the one as the other, 
 and they are mingled closely in many of the cantons. 
 
 Here there is only one church, and that German. Ser- 
 vice is held on Sunday at nine o'clock in the morning. 
 The church is a well-built edifice of stone, about one hun- 
 
214 • ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 dred years old, with frescoed ceilings, representing the 
 Ascension, Christ blessing the children, and other scenes 
 not intelligible to me. The women sat by themselves and 
 made three-fourths of the congregation. As each one 
 came in, he or she stood in silent prayer, reverently bend- 
 ing ; the women then sat down, the men remained standing. 
 They stood patiently till the minister came in and opened 
 the services, and they did not take their seats until the 
 sermon was begun. On this occasion there was an un- 
 usual number of children present, as in one of the large 
 schools there had been during the week past the death 
 of a scholar, and now all the pupils came in procession, 
 and took their seats together. All the men, who were 
 relatives of the deceased, wore black bombazine gowns, 
 swinging loosely on their backs, a badge of mourning. The 
 service opened with a voluntary hymn by the children in 
 the gallery, well sung. Then the pastor read a psalm, 
 which was sung by the entire congregation, — there was no 
 organ. I should think every one in the house had a voice, 
 and used it with the spirit and the understanding also. 
 Prayers were then read by the pastor, all the people stand- 
 ing. At the close, the minister announced his subject, and 
 then the people — the men for the first time — sat down. 
 
 He was a young man, clothed in a black gown, with a 
 blue silk or woollen ruffle about his neck. He read his 
 text, '' On earth peace, good-will toward men," and, shutting 
 the book, delivered his discourse without notes, with great 
 ease, fluency, animation, and much eloquence. His manner 
 was good, and the attention of the congregation was kept 
 closely fixed. His leading idea was that peace is to be 
 found only by union with God through Jesus Christ. And 
 he pursued this thought beyond the experience of the indi- 
 vidual to the wants of the community and the nation, 
 insisting with great earnestness that wars come from the 
 want of Christian love, that good-will which Christ came 
 
CANTON APPENZELL. 21 ^ 
 
 to bring, and he warned his people and the people of Swit- 
 zerland, that now, as in ages past, their only hope for 
 national unity and peace was in union with God, on whom 
 alone they could depend. 
 
 At the close of the sermon he read prayers again, the 
 people all standing. Then he proclaimed the names of cer- 
 tain parties intending marriage, and also he mentioned the 
 names of any who had died during the past week. After a 
 hymn had been sung, he descended from the pulpit. The 
 people, still standing, bowed their heads reverently in silent 
 prayer for a moment, and just then a man in the body of 
 the church cried out an advertisement of an auction sale to 
 take place in the neighborhood. The women now left the 
 house, not a man sitting down, or moving from his place, 
 till all the females, old and young, had reached the door. 
 The minister next walked out, and the men followed. The 
 service was over in one hour and a half. An hour-glass 
 stood on the pulpit, but was not in use, as the large clock 
 was in full sight, and the bell clanged every quarter of an 
 hour, as it does day and night. 
 
 It was a kind and beautiful providence that turned my 
 weary footsteps to this remote and unfrequented canton of 
 Switzerland. Harper's Hand-book, an invaluable guide for 
 American travellers in Europe, has not even the name of 
 the place in its index. Murray's Hand-book, which all the 
 English go by, says " it is but Httle visited by Enghsh 
 travellers." To get into it by any other than the easy road 
 through the north-eastern passage, you must cross the high 
 Alps and glaciers which bound it, and add as much to its 
 picturesque beauty as they take from the comfort of travel- 
 ling. But if you visit Constance, — where John Huss was 
 tried and condemned and burnt at the stake, — it is easy 
 to come to Appenzell. 
 
 And speaking of Constance leads me to that memorable 
 spot, on the border of the lake that for a week past has been 
 
2l6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 always under my eye, a spot that deserves a monument, 
 a beacon to warn the church of the guilt and shame of 
 religious bigotry and intolerance. It is almost like a judg- 
 ment that the city itself, which for four years harbored the 
 ecclesiastical council that murdered John Huss and Jerome 
 of Prague, has now but one-fifth of the population that once 
 inhabited it. As I stood on the place where it is said the 
 martyr's stake was planted, and remembered the glorious 
 truths which he witnessed in the flames, I thought how 
 little is the world improved even to this day, where the civil 
 and ecclesiastical powers are still in the same hands. For 
 as we travel in these European countries, the line that 
 divides the Protestant from the Roman Catholic canton, or 
 part of a canton, is just as clear as if a wall of adamant, 
 high as the sky, were set up between. Even Murray's 
 Guide-book, which does not pretend to any religious 
 opinions, speaking of the two parts of Canton Appenzell, 
 says : 
 
 "A remarkable change greets the traveller on entering Roman 
 Catholic Inner Rhoden, from Protestant Outer Rhoden. He ex- 
 changes cleanliness and industry for filth and beggary. What may be 
 the cause of this is not a subject suitable for discussion here." 
 
 Yet the moral philosopher, the philanthropist, the patriot, 
 above all the Christian, even a Christian traveller, wishes 
 to consider " the cause," whether it is proper or not for a 
 guide-book to discuss it. As travelling tends to promote 
 liberality of sentiment, to enlarge one's charity, and to 
 convince even a strict adherent to his hereditary faith, that 
 many, far from his way of thinking, are just as sure of 
 heaven as he is, so travelling opens one's eyes to the effect 
 of the different systems of religion upon the social, tem- 
 poral, political, as well as moral condition of men. And I 
 have been amazed to find how powerful is this effect upon 
 mere men of the world, men who have never given a 
 thought before to the influence of one religion rather than 
 
SWISS CUSTOMS. 
 
 217 
 
 another on the face of society. Even the guide-books call 
 attention to the shameful fact that "filth and beggary" are 
 the distinguishing features of a part of one country that 
 differs from the rest only in being Roman Catholic. The 
 same laws, the same climate, the same facilities for acquir- 
 
 Female Costumes in Appenzell. 
 
 ing the means of living, and just as much soap and water 
 in one as the other, but the thrift and the neatness of one 
 are in brilliant contrast with the poverty and nastiness of 
 its neighbor. 
 
 The customs of the canton are somewhat peculiar. I 
 was informed that they still adhere to the use of the pillory 
 for the punishment of petty offences, and the machine 
 stands by the wayside, with a hole for the neck, a padlock, 
 and a chain. But I did not see any thing of the kind. Nor 
 did I see the bone-house, in any churchyard, where it is 
 
2l8 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 said the bones are deposited of those who have been buried 
 a certain number of years, and who must then give place to 
 others. Their bones are taken up, properly labelled and 
 laid away on shelves in the bone-house, so that their friends 
 can get them, or any part of them, when wanted. As the 
 graveyards are usually small, and no attention is paid to 
 the relationship of the parties buried side by side, it is 
 quite likely that, after the lapse of thirty or forty years, 
 there would be no objection to this arrangement, which 
 strikes us as exceedingly unpleasant, if not positively revolt- 
 ing. 
 
 Every evening at half -past eight o'clock the church bell 
 is rung, and all the children must immediately go home. 
 If they are abroad after that, they are taken into custody 
 by the patrol of the streets, and either delivered to their 
 parents, or, if frequent offenders, they are kept in durance 
 overnight. This is an admirable regulation, which I com- 
 mend to imitation in free America. It is adopted here in a 
 pure democracy, and works admirably well. In the cities 
 it would be a great moral life preserver, worth millions of 
 dollars and as many souls, that would be saved by the plan. 
 
 At eleven o'clock the watchman sings a set of phrases in 
 a clear, loud voice, which often disturbs me as he shouts, 
 just under my window, " Put out lights, cover up your fires, 
 lock your doors, say your prayers, and go to bed." 
 
 I learned here a bridal custom of this region, so sensible 
 and proper, that I shall mention it for the benefit of the 
 young folks. The custom of making gifts to the bride pre- 
 vails here, as everywhere, but it is better regulated. The 
 bride makes out a written list of things that she will require 
 in beginning to keep house, especially those things that are 
 over and above what would naturally be furnished by her 
 parents. This list is taken by her friends, and one of them 
 says, " I will give her this," and marks that as provided for ; 
 another will give her that, and sometimes two or three or 
 
SWISS CUSTOMS. 219 
 
 more will combine and furnish a more expensive present 
 than any one would give alone. After the wedding, the 
 couple usually start off on an excursion, and on their return 
 they find their dwelling filled with these presents, each 
 marked with the giver's name. 
 
 These people are very fond of athletic sports and exercises, 
 games that call forth prodigious strength, and make the 
 inhabitants of this canton famous for their skill and power. 
 Every holiday, and many a Sunday, is given up to wrest- 
 ling and boxing. They are like the Scotch in hurling a 
 heavy weight. They will throw a stone of 50 or 100 
 pounds. A man some fifty years ago threw a stone ten 
 feet that weighed 184 pounds. But their great sport is 
 shooting for a prize. They are splendid shots. Shooting 
 matches are held every year in the villages, and sometimes 
 they are matches between the people of the whole canton, 
 and again of the whole country. As we travel we see the 
 targets standing at the foot of a hill, and buildings that are 
 put up for the purpose of accommodating the companies that 
 are formed for the encouragement of this national accom- 
 pHshment. 
 
 So ignorant was I of the forms of government existing 
 in this part of the world, I did not know that six out of the 
 twenty-two cantons, or states, of Switzerland are purely 
 democratic in their government. It is true that this is 
 modified, in a measure, by their confederation with the 
 others, and that they have delegated to their general gov- 
 ernment the power of declaring war, coining money, and 
 regulating a system of mails. And, by the way, postage 
 is cheap in Switzerland : five centimes, or one cent of our 
 money, conveying a letter anywhere within the country, 
 and, in all the villages and cities, delivering it at the 
 residence of the receiver. These several cantons are, in 
 other matters, independent of each other ; and, in times 
 long past, have had fearfully bloody wars among them- 
 
220 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 selves. They are at peace now, but from father to son 
 is handed down the story of the wars. 
 
 This canton, containing a population of about 50,000, is 
 a simple democracy, and as primitive and pure as ever 
 could have existed in the earliest days of Greece or Rome, 
 before an oligarchy or a monarchy was known. Here the 
 people, all the males over eighteen years old, actually 
 assemble, personally, and in one place, to choose the nec- 
 essary officers, and to make their own laws. This popular 
 meeting is held annually, in April, and on Sunday always. 
 
 On that day there is no preaching in any church in the 
 canton, except the one where the election is held. All 
 the ministers come with the people. At the close of the 
 morning service, the election is opened by prayer, and then 
 the people proceed to the discharge of this serious duty, 
 the act of their individual sovereignty. Every man wears 
 a sword by his side, a token of his being a freeman ; for, 
 centuries ago, when serfdom prevailed, only freemen could 
 vote, and they wore swords. Now, all wear swords on 
 election day, for all are free. 
 
 The canton is not so large but that they can all come 
 and return on the same day, and, for the most part, they 
 come on foot. It is expected that they will all come. And 
 where the power of voting is equally distributed in this 
 way, and every man feels that he is an equal part of the 
 government, there is little danger of any one's staying 
 away who is physically able to come. They meet some- 
 times in one place, and sometimes in another, but mostly 
 in this village of Trogen, on the public square. Here a 
 platform is erected, and the officers chosen last year con- 
 duct the proceedings. The landeman, or chief, presides, and 
 the clerk announces the name of any one nominated for 
 public office. All in favor hold up their right hands. All op- 
 posed then do the same. If there is any doubt, a count 
 would be resorted to, but that is never necessary. Office 
 
SWISS CUSTOMS. 221 
 
 is not sought with any great rapacity, and the people are 
 not divided into parties fighting for the spoils. The 
 several officers thus elected are charged with the execu- 
 tion of the laws.. A council is appointed, which meets 
 from time to time, in the state-house here, and consults 
 in regard to the internal affairs of the canton. If any new 
 legislation is necessary, they frame the law, put it into 
 print, and a copy of it is then placed in every house in the 
 entire canton. It is not yet a law ; it is thus distributed 
 that the people, who are the law-makers, may examine it, 
 talk it over among themselves, and make up their minds as to 
 its expediency. If it is of importance sufficiently pressing 
 to require immediate action, a meeting of the people may 
 be held four weeks after the law has been proposed ; but 
 generally this is avoided by having the measures submitted 
 to the annual assembly in April. Then the law is sub- 
 mitted to the mass meeting, and they vote for or against it, 
 by the uplifted hand. As ample time has been given to 
 the people to discuss the matter, there is no call for long 
 speeches, nor would they be tolerated by an assembly that 
 was bound to break up and get home the same night. And 
 the laws thus adopted are put in force by the magistrates 
 appointed by the popular vote, and often" at the same time 
 that the laws themselves are adopted. 
 
 Among the principal cares of such officers must be the 
 construction and repairs of the highways. Oh that our 
 American people would send a commissioner of their coun- 
 try pathmasters over here ! Within the last four years two 
 of these cantons have built a road along the eastern side of 
 Lake Lucerne that would do honor to Napoleon in the 
 days of his mightiest power. For miles it is cut into the 
 edge of solid rock, which makes the bed of the road, and 
 a parapet ; sometimes it is a tunnel, and once a tunnel with 
 windows looking out on the lake. All are made by the 
 voluntary, self-imposed taxation of a hard-working people. 
 
222 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 And SO far as I can judge or learn, this community, so 
 governed, is as orderly and happy as any other. Whatever 
 good government can do for a people is done for this, and 
 the people do it for themselves. Switzerland is an en- 
 lightened country, and probably as moral a people as any 
 other. By law every child is required to attend school 
 from three to four hours every day till he is twelve years 
 old, and a certain number of hours every week afterwards 
 till he is sixteen. This makes education a necessity, unless 
 the children are incompetent to learn. And there is an 
 enthusiasm on the subject of education surprising even to 
 an American. The various grades of schools meet the 
 wants of all, and fit the young for any department of 
 life's great work. In this village the cantonal college, 
 or high school, is located. Any parent may send his son 
 here from any part of the canton, and he is educated at a 
 trifling expense. Young men go from this school, at once, 
 into mercantile employment in Asia, in France, England 
 and America. And there are pupils in it from India, from 
 Smyrna, from South America, Mexico, and New York. I 
 heard a tramping in the street last evening, and, looking 
 out of my window, saw a host of boys marching by. I 
 learned, by inquify, that they were a school of one hundred 
 and twenty, making a pedestrian tour through a part of 
 their native country, Switzerland. Accompanied by their 
 teachers, they thus walk day after day, getting health and 
 knowledge and fun, for they make play of it as they go. 
 Early this morning I was awakened by hearing them 
 again. They had been lodged, how I know not, at the 
 inns in the village, and now at three o'clock, a.m. (for I 
 looked at my watch), they were up and off. Just then they 
 struck up one of their merry songs, and serenaded the 
 sleeping villagers as they took their leave. And even now, 
 while I am writing these lines, I am called to the window 
 to look out again, and here is a large school of girls, some 
 
SWISS CUSTOMS. 223 
 
 of them small, and others young ladies grown, making a 
 pedestrian tour. Both of these companies are three or four 
 days' journey from their homes. They will be absent, 
 perhaps, a week or a fortnight. And they will be wiser, 
 healthier, and happier for the little tour. 
 
 I mention these pleasant incidents to show the interest 
 which teachers, parents, and pupils must take in the busi- 
 ness of education, when the school is thus made a part of 
 the pleasure, as well as the labor, of the young. Nor is the 
 moral culture of the young neglected. Far, very far from 
 it. These schools are not godless schools. Religious in- 
 struction is not legislated out of education in this country. 
 In this canton they are nearly all Protestants. But in St. 
 Gall, where they are nearly equally divided, the Romanists 
 have their own schools, and the Protestants have theirs, 
 both supported by the same system, and working harmoni- 
 ously, so far as any co-operation is required, but kept 
 distinct in the matter of instruction. 
 
 If the treatment of women, of the higher or lower order 
 of creation, is a fair test of the civilization of a country, 
 this Switzerland will rank very low. Good roads are con- 
 sidered an evidence of a high standard of civihzation, and 
 very justly; yet there must be some exceptions, for here 
 in Switzerland, where they harness the cows and make 
 them draw heavy loads, the roads are first-rate, smooth as 
 a floor, and solid in all weathers. 
 
 Probably this glorious land that I am now rejoicing in, 
 can find some excuse for the sin and shame of making the 
 cows and women do so much of the hard and heavy work ; 
 and they may pretend that the women like it, and the cows 
 are all the better for it. But it strikes me that nature has 
 required certain duties of the gentler sex, that are so 
 incompatible with the severer labors of the country, that 
 they may be fairly excused from a service that requires the 
 
224 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 greater strength which God has given to men and oxen. 
 In the beautiful city of Zurich, the most enhghtened, culti- 
 vated, and refined city in the interior of Switzerland, where 
 the most learned of her sons are educated, the city of 
 Zuingle and Lavater and Pestalozzi, — and that boasts a 
 monument to Nagel, a university, and polytechnic institute, 
 — in that fair city I met a team, composed of a horse and 
 cow, harnessed side by side, drawing a heavy load., the 
 driver walking by the side of the cow, whose side was in 
 welts, raised by the stout whip which he carried, and used 
 mainly on her to make her keep up with the horse. It is 
 more common still to see a single cow in harness drawing a 
 load, and a yoke of oxen is a sight that I have very rarely 
 seen in travelling here. Whether the males are more gener- 
 ally sold for beef or not I cannot learn ; but it does not 
 appear to any one here that it is out of the way to make 
 this use of the cows. And I was rather pleased than other- 
 wise, in conversation with a great and good philanthropist 
 and reformer, to find that he professed to be ignorant of the 
 fact that cows were put to such service, and when I 
 assured him that I saw one in harness going by his door 
 that day, he said it must have been an ox ! 
 
 And to understand why it is that women work so much in 
 the fields, we must see what is the principal employment of 
 the people. I have seen forty women at work in the same field 
 here, and not a man among them. No sort of work on the 
 farm is considered too heavy for the women. How could it 
 be, when at Boulogne we had crossed the British Channel, 
 and landed in France, women rushed on board the steamer 
 to carry our baggage ashore ! And here the women dig 
 the fields, when a plough would do the work far better and 
 more quickly. They carry out manure, or drive a cow that 
 drags a load of it, and spread it on the soil. They mow. 
 They rake and pitch hay. They plant and sow, and reap 
 
SWISS CUSTOMS. 225 
 
 and pull, and manage the farm as they would do if the men 
 were all off at war. And where are the men .'* 
 
 They are not idle, nor dissipated, nor away from home. 
 They are at work, and in the house, not tending the baby, 
 nor baking the bread, nor washing the clothes ; but they 
 are industrious, and what are they at ? The Swiss are a 
 frugal, saving, thriving people. The amount of arable land 
 is not enough to meet their wants. They are a manufac- 
 turing, not an agricultural people, though they export cattle, 
 butter, and cheese. Watches, jewelry, muslins, embroidery, 
 and carved wood-work, are the principal articles of manu- 
 facture for export, and these, with a few other branches, 
 employ the most of the men ; for the work is done in the 
 country very largely. The city of Geneva sells 75,000 
 watches yearly ; but as you are riding in a diligence among 
 the mountains, a man will step out from a little cottage and 
 hand a neat, small package to the postilion, who puts it 
 carefully into a place prepared for such deposits. It is the 
 works of watches, or some jewelry, which the man has 
 made in his own house, and is now sending to his em- 
 ployer in Geneva. In the retired village where I am now 
 writing, so secluded that if a man should commit a murder 
 and come here to live, the New York detectives would 
 never find him, even here the cellars of small houses are 
 filled with machinery to weave Swiss muslins, and to 
 embroider it exquisitely. The buyers from the Broadway 
 stores have learned where to come, and boxes are lying in 
 front of my window directed to Stewart, and to Arnold and 
 others in New York. The places where this delicate work 
 is done are damp and unhealthy ; but unless it is done in a 
 damp room the gossamer thread becomes so brittle that it 
 breaks in weaving. 
 
 And all through the mountainous parts the carving of 
 wood is the great business of the people. Saw-mills are run 
 
226 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 to cut up the trees to be made into ornamental articles for 
 sale, and these extend from mantel clock cases worth 
 $i,ooo to some gimcrack not worth a cent. The centre 
 tables and chairs, the game pieces and desks, knives and 
 forks, and whatnots, are far too numerous to mention ; but 
 they display a degree of skill and taste in execution that 
 would do no discredit to Greece or Italy in the days when 
 sculpture was their glory. And all this mechanical work 
 is done by men, and men only. 
 
 The tendency of things is always to extremes, and here 
 in the working-classes, and nearly all are in those classes 
 in Switzerland, the men have pushed the women too largely 
 out of doors, usurping employments that women might 
 follow with success, while the men should take upon them- 
 selves the labors that are too heavy for their wives. But 
 Switzerland itself is an exceptional country. It has no fair 
 chance in the world as a nation ; and so large a part of its 
 surface is impracticable for the use of man, and it has be- 
 come so great a resort for foreign tourists, they are ex- 
 pected to spend all the money they can afford in the works 
 of art which the natives produce. 
 
 Walking out with a young German friend, who did not 
 understand a word of the English language, I saw at a 
 little distance an enclosure, neat gravel walks and shrub- 
 bery, with flowers showing through the iron railing that 
 surrounded it. I asked what the enclosure was, and the 
 answer, in German, struck me pleasingly : " Gottesacker." 
 
 I had never heard the word for graveyard before in Ger- 
 man, though the EngUsh of it, " God's Acre," is familiar, 
 and has often been the theme of poetry and prose. Gottes 
 Acker is the acre or piece of ground that belongs not to 
 man of all the land in the earth that he claims as his own, 
 but is the Lord's. And why is it his ? The earth is the 
 Lord's, and the fulness. The mountains and the valleys, 
 
SWISS CUSTOMS. 227 
 
 the plains also, and all that are therein. Why is this small 
 enclosure, a petty piece of ground in the midst of a wide, 
 magnificent domain, alone called God's*? 
 
 Yes, it is his, because all who inhabit this place have 
 gone to him. We walked into the sacred enclosure, for 
 the gate was open, inviting the passer-by to come in. The 
 paths were neatly gravelled, and the plots surrounded with 
 flowering shrubs, and the graves not raised above the ground 
 as ours often are, but levelled, and each grave bordered with 
 boxwood and planted with flowers. Few were marked 
 with a headstone, but most of them had a staff set up in 
 form of a cross, and on it a plate with a brief inscription. 
 The centre of the graveyard was laid off in a circle, planted 
 with trees and furnished with seats, where friends could 
 sit in the shade, and meditate among the graves of departed 
 friends. 
 
 " And is Gottesacker the only word for this place in your 
 German tongue ? " I asked. 
 
 " It is also called Friedhof." 
 
 Fried means peace, and Hof is the yard or a court of a 
 house, and Friedhof is " the Court of Peace." This was 
 another beautiful and fitting name. It speaks for itself, 
 and sweetly expresses the feeling of this place. It is 
 peace, all peace here. The battles of life are fought, and 
 there is no strife in this court of peace. The struggles, 
 cares, anxieties, rivalries, jealousies, fears, all that disquiet, 
 harass, fret, and annoy, all, all are buried here. The tramp 
 of a million men in arms awakens no sleeper here. The 
 church itself may be rent and torn and shaken to its base, 
 but its members in this court of peace are not distressed. 
 These hearts that once panted, burned, and bled in the race, 
 the stripes and sorrows of the world, are all at peace now. 
 Blessed is the rest that cannot be broken till the trumpet 
 calls. 
 
228 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 " That is a beautiful word," I said ; " and does your lan- 
 guage furnish any other than these two, Gottesacker and 
 Friedhof." 
 
 " Yes, we sometimes speak of it as Todtengarten." 
 
 The Garden of the Dead ! And so they plant flowers 
 among the graves, and along the walks, and make the rural 
 village graveyard an attractive, not a repulsive spot, a gar- 
 den where friends, members of the same family, are at rest. 
 Jesus was laid in a garden when he was dead. His mem- 
 bers slept with him, and will blossom in the Paradise above, 
 where the flowers never fade. 
 
 Long before Abraham asked a burying-place to put his 
 dead out of sight, the living had their funeral rites and 
 ceremonies. And it is wonderful how widely they differ, 
 in different parts of the world. There is, doubtless, a great 
 difference in the customs of the various cantons of Switzer- 
 land, for though the whole twenty-two of them would not 
 make a state larger than New Jersey, they have a costume, 
 or dress, peculiar to each, and many of their habits are 
 equally singular. If the weather will permit, it is customary 
 here to defer the funeral until Sunday, even if the person dies 
 on Monday ; and thus it often occurs that there are two or 
 three on the same day, and sometimes more. In a pop- 
 ulation of three thousand, all belonging to one church, and 
 the funerals being held in it, the number is frequently more 
 than one or two at the same hour. The average number 
 of deaths is about ninety in a year. Last Sunday there 
 were three funerals here. The friends of the several 
 deceased met in front of the respective houses where the 
 dead were lying. None but the relatives enter the house. 
 The three funerals were to be attended at the village church, 
 and all' at the same hour, as early as nine in the morning. 
 The body is placed in a plain deal coffin, sometimes, but 
 rarely, painted. And the custom of the country forbids 
 
SWISS CUSTOMS. 229 
 
 the rich to have a coffin more elegant than the poor ; the 
 idea being that death abohshes all distinctions, and a plain 
 coffin is good enough to be hid away in the ground. At 
 the hour, the coffin with the dead is brought out of the 
 house, and on a bier is borne on the shoulders of the near- 
 est male relatives or friends. One of these funerals was 
 that of an aged mother. She left eight sons and two 
 daughters ; six of the sons were grown men, and they bore 
 their mother on their shoulders to the grave. The three 
 processions met near the church, and the three coffins were 
 then borne in the order of the ages of the deceased, to the 
 church, but not into it. The body is never taken into the 
 church. But when the relatives and friends have entered, 
 the body is carried by the bearers immediately into the 
 Gottesacker, God's Acre, the graveyard, which usually 
 adjoins the church. It is there buried, while none are 
 present except those who do the work. I stood at a little 
 distance while this melancholy service was performed. It 
 was not pleasing to me that the dead should be thus put 
 away unwept. And another custom was equally unpleasant 
 to me. The graves are arranged in regular order, without 
 any distinction of families, and as each person in the place 
 dies, he is buried in the grave- next to the one who was 
 buried before him. It may have been a neighbor with 
 whom he was at enmity, but now in death they sleep side 
 by side, and know it not. Families are separated by the 
 grave, as well as by death, and no two of them, unless they 
 die together, may be laid together in the grave. This is 
 surprising when we notice the remarkable attention they 
 bestow on the Garden of the Dead. For when the dead 
 are buried, the friends come, day after day, and adorn the 
 grave with flowers, and surround it with a border of green, 
 and water it with their tears of love. 
 
 While the body is thus cared for by the bearers, the 
 
230 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 funeral service is proceeding in the church. This is sim- 
 ilar to the service in our own country, the prayers and 
 selections of Scripture being read, and a sermon preached, 
 the same discourse answering, of course, for all who are 
 buried on the same day. At the funeral, all the men in 
 attendance wear a black mantle, of bombazine or serge, 
 which they may get, for a trifle, of the undertaker, who 
 keeps them for hire. Persons of property have them of 
 their own, to wear only on funeral occasions, but the most 
 of the people hire them when wanted, and thus every man 
 at the funeral appears as a mourner. All the women dress 
 in black when attending a funeral, and they never go to 
 church in any other than a black dress. This is a very 
 peculiar custom, but is invariably followed by all the peo- 
 ple of this country. Not a light-colored dress appears in 
 the great congregation on the Sabbath-day, or at a funeral. 
 If I have not already spoken to you of the cultivation, 
 refinement, and manners of the intelligent, wealthy, and 
 *' upper " classes of the people, I say that a very erroneous 
 and unjust opinion has been formed on this point, by trav- 
 ellers whose observations have been confined to hotels and 
 highways, their only intercourse with men who make it 
 their business to get as much as possible out of all who 
 fall into their hands. It has been my pleasure this summer 
 to meet in social life among the Swiss some of the pleas- 
 antest, most intelligent, and agreeable women and men that 
 will be found in any country. Their manners and minds, 
 as well as their persons, would grace any assembly, and 
 they appeared to be only the fitting representatives of the 
 best circles of society in this remarkable land. They admire 
 their own country. Patriotism burns as brightly among 
 these mountains as on our own shores. And when it was 
 mentioned that I might write a book on Switzerland, a 
 beautiful and accomplished lady bade me be careful, or she 
 
SWISS CUSTOMS. 
 
 231 
 
 would make another and set me right if I failed to do jus- 
 tice to her beloved Switzerland. I could only say to her, 
 in reply, that the threat was a temptation to error. But 
 any one who becomes familiar with the inner life of this 
 people, will find as much to admire and esteem as in any 
 European country. 
 
532 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 GERMAN WATERING-PLACES — BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 
 
 A GERMAN watering-place, with its nauseous springs, 
 its inviting groves and garden and shady walks and 
 rustic seats and bowers, its conversation house, and sweet, 
 clean beds and airy rooms and quiet halls, was in our way, 
 and a Sabbath was just ahead of us. So we would rest 
 there according to the commandment. 
 
 I have been left alone, or with my little party only, in a 
 wayside inn, among the Swiss valleys, and have seen troops 
 of travellers, some of them with white cravats and straight 
 coat collars, go on their way of a bright, glad, summer 
 Sabbath morning, when it seemed to me the mountains 
 looked down with a divine benediction and invited us to sit 
 all day under their shadows and worship toward the holy 
 hill of Zion. And a Sabbath in a wilderness, alone, is well 
 spent, if the soul is at peace, and the wearied limbs of a 
 pilgrim are suffered also to have rest. 
 
 If a land impregnated with salt is cursed, this region 
 ought to be barren ; but it is not. It is a rich, pictu- 
 resque, rolling country, and a beautiful river flows through 
 its waving harvest-fields, just now white for the sickle. 
 Sometimes a bold chff stands majestically on the river- 
 side, and an old feudal castle hangs on the summit, where 
 once the lord of the domain held high revel and strong rule, 
 a robber on land and a pirate on the river he would be 
 called now, since his race has run out, and kings who do 
 the same things that he did are reckoned as the lawful 
 
GERMAN WATERING-PLACES. 233 
 
 plunderers as well as rulers of the people. So the robber 
 told Alexander, and the king couldn't see it, but it was true 
 nevertheless. 
 
 They make salt curiously in these parts. The water is 
 pumped up from springs or wells into troughs, which are 
 raised on scaffolding thirty or more feet high ; and below 
 these troughs a solid mass of brush is piled, a wall some 
 ten feet thick, standing on a reservoir ; this brush wall 
 reaches hundreds and thousands of feet along, according 
 to the extent of the works employed. The pumps are 
 moved by water-power, and slowly and steadily, cease- 
 lessly, day and night, they raise the water into the troughs 
 above, through which it trickles upon this brush and drops 
 down, down, down into the basins below ; this exposes the 
 water to the action of the air and rapidly evaporates it ; 
 so that what runs through the heap and finally reaches the 
 reservoir below is exceedingly strong, and by completing 
 the process with boiling is readily converted into salt. 
 
 The vicinity of these works is a healthful resort for in- 
 valids, who find the atmosphere more highly charged with 
 saline particles than the shores of the sea itself. In the 
 neighborhood of the mighty wall of wood are boarding- 
 houses, as at the sea-shore, and in the pleasant, shady side 
 the ladies sit with their needle-work or books in hand, 
 inhaling the invigorating air, and enjoying the quietest, 
 coolest, and most bracing climate in hot weather, and on 
 the outskirts of the fashionable world. On the bank of the 
 river we found a place to stay, and from it made excursions 
 into the regions beyond. A rock, rising one thousand feet 
 perpendicularly from the water, held on its giddy summit 
 the tottering remnants of the fortress of one of the petty 
 tyrants of the olden time, and a circuit of five or six miles, 
 in a broiling day, brought us by a path that no wheels can 
 traverse to the height. Tradition tells of the last of the 
 barons who held his court in these walls ; how his daughter 
 
234 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 was loved and wooed by his rival chieftain, whose castle still 
 stands erect across the river a few miles below and in full 
 view of this ; how the " cruel father " refused to give his 
 daughter to his foe, and the lover lured her by the arts of 
 love to aid him in his daring scheme to capture her father's 
 castle and compel him to surrender her in exchange for his 
 liberty and his home ; how the stratagem succeeded, and 
 the circumvented parent threw himself headlong from the 
 rampart into the frightful abyss, and the lovers, after de- 
 stroying the stronghold, removed to their castle below, and 
 became the ancestors of a distinguished family of an unpro- 
 nounceable German name. All this tradition tells, and to 
 write it all out would be perhaps worth the while of some 
 one who has nothing better to do. 
 
 Our next stopping-place was Homburg, one of the more 
 modern, but the most brilliant of the watering-places in 
 Europe. Like some of our own cities, it has rapidly rushed 
 into notoriety ; that is just the word for the reputation it has 
 made for itself, and by which it has made its fortunes and 
 ruined the fortunes of thousands who have sought its 
 hospitalities. 
 
 A very few years ago a wide waste of marshy meadows, 
 swamps we would call them, lay around and over the spot 
 that now gathers and holds for the season the fashion and 
 style and rank of the gayest European capitals, — the largest 
 and most distinguished circle of " the upper classes " to be 
 found at any fashionable resort in the world. It is a city of 
 hotels, and these on a scale of elegance that is not sur- 
 passed. But between these hotels and the waters of health 
 that first drew the crowds hither, are these original mea- 
 dows, now covered with young woods, and intersected by 
 numberless walks and drives, in which a stranger might 
 easily be lost, and left to wander hours and hours without 
 finding his way out. Beyond these shaded groves we come 
 to the springs, several, with various properties, very kindly 
 
GERMAN WATERING-PLACES. 235 
 
 arranged to meet the many maladies of man, and all of 
 them sufficiently disagreeable to be medicinal. Neatness, 
 order, elegance reign everywhere. Around . the springs, 
 through the avenues overhung with venerable trees, along 
 the rows of beautiful lodging-houses and residences of 
 those who permanently pass the summer here, the quiet- 
 ness of private life rests with a grace and charm quite rare 
 in a great watering-place. This gives to Homburg such an 
 attraction that thousands of the quietest class of people in 
 the world love to come here for refreshment and repose. 
 They need not go into the Kursaal, though that word 
 means cure-hall or cure-house. I would call it Kursaal, or 
 curse-all, because it is the curse of all who are drawn into 
 its vortex. 
 
 It is a palace. In its extent, its proportions, and appoint- 
 ments, it is fit for a royal residence, all the arts of orna- 
 mentation being exhausted to make it a splendid temple of 
 pleasure, instead of a hospital or asylum for the sick and 
 suffering. This palace, with its broad piazzas looking upon 
 beautiful gardens, where elegant women are sitting under 
 the shade, with their books or fancy needle-work, while a 
 German band fills the soft and fragrant atmosphere with 
 delicious waves of music ; this palace, with its concert- 
 rooms and ball-rooms and reading-rooms, filled with all 
 the choicest periodicals of all nations, which studious old 
 men are diligently pondering ; this palace, so still, so beau- 
 tiful, so gorgeous in its decorations, and so well fitted to 
 bear the inscription which Ptolemy Soter put upon his 
 library at Alexandria, ''The Medicine of the Soul," — this 
 palace was also the great gambling-house in Europe. 
 
 A grand saloon that stretches across the house holds two 
 long tables, around which are seated thirty or forty men 
 and women, intent, silent, more statue than life-like. With 
 your eyes closed you would scarcely be conscious that any 
 one was in the room. The clicking of gold and silver on 
 
236 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the table, the few words of the manager as he decides a 
 point, an occasional deep-drawn sigh as pent-up emotion 
 finds escape, with now and then an involuntary exclamation, 
 evidently out of order and quite disagreeable to all con- 
 cerned, — these are the only interruptions to \\i^ solemn, 
 painful stillness of the Homburg gaming-table. I have 
 heard that something more startling thar^ an oath or a 
 groan sometimes has interrupted the current of the play, 
 , and that a gambler, in a paroxysm of rage and despair, has 
 blown out his brains at the table. But such incidents are 
 not of every-day occurrence. Besides, people who play 
 here have not many brains to blow out. They are not 
 insane. But as a class, they are below the average of the 
 human family in intellectual force, because they stake their 
 money with the knowledge that the chances are not even, 
 are always against them, and in favor of the bank, or 
 managers of the table. In playing roulette^ or rouge et noir^ 
 the two games which are constantly going on, a bystander 
 sees that the taker draws in more than he shoves out, and 
 that the tendency of things is steadily in favor of the bank, 
 while chance id.xox'^ the victims just often enough to keep up 
 the hope that they will make a grand hit by and by and make 
 up all their losses. Yet the game is so transparently in the 
 hands of the managers, that one wonders any one can be 
 so big a fool as to lose all his money in such hopeless ven- 
 tures. The bank sets up a certain amount of money every 
 day, as the capital for that day, and stories are told of some 
 heavy gambler now and then breaking the bank, but that 
 means only that by a fortunate run he has cleaned out what 
 was set up for the time, and to-morrow it is all right again 
 with the same or a larger capital. But these stories are 
 mostly fictitious, set afloat by the bank itself, which, by 
 pretending to be broken^ encourages the idea that it is just 
 as apt to lose money as those who are playing against it. 
 Some of these people are historic characters. One of 
 
GERMAN WATERING-PLACES. 23/ 
 
 them here now is the brother of the Viceroy of Egypt, 
 and he plays heavily, but stops when he has had excite- 
 ment enough. A fatalist by profession, he takes his chances 
 as decrees, and consoles himself with other pleasures when 
 these go against him. A German princess, who is the 
 model of all the virtues at home, gratifies a darling passion 
 during the summer months by wasting half her income in 
 this gambling-house. American travellers are the most 
 cautious of all the company ; but now and then a dissipated 
 youngster takes a plunge into swifter ruin in the waters of 
 this terrible stream. Most pitiable it is to see fair women, 
 and sometimes women that are known to be exemplary in 
 society beyond the sea, trying it just once, tempting luck ; 
 and if they lose they usually stop after the first loss, but if 
 they win they try again, and so on, until they lose all they 
 have about them and can borrow of their friends. 
 
 A few hours' ride across the country brought us to 
 Kreusnach. The name of this watering-place had never 
 reached me before, and it added one more to the many 
 springs or spas with vv^hich Germany abounds. An army of 
 servants rushed out to the carriage, as we drew up to the 
 door of the Hotel Hollande, and in good English proffered 
 their services to take us and our luggage in. The luggage 
 we leave on the carriage until the rooms and the terms are 
 found agreeable, and as we could have a handsome parlor 
 and bedroom adjoining, on the front of the house, second 
 floor, for one thaler, or six francs (1 1.20) a day, we were 
 not long in deciding that this was the place to stay in. 
 
 The salt springs of this region have long been known, 
 but only of late have the wonderful medicinal properties of 
 the waters been understood. Nov/ some sixty thousand 
 persons come here annually, and the number is increasing. 
 The people, waking up to the idea that they have a foun- 
 tain of wealth as well as of health in the bubbling spring, 
 have erected a cure-house on an island in the river Nahe, 
 
238 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 and hotels and lodging-houses have sprung up along the 
 stream ; a regimen has been prescribed, by which the 
 greatest good of the healing waters may be had, but it is 
 left to the choice of the visitor whether he will follow the 
 rules or disobey them, and go away no better than he came. 
 
 At Kissingen it is not so. In that dehghtful little town, 
 where royal blood comes to be purified, and nobles as well 
 as commons gather in. great numbers every year, they are 
 so jealous of the honor of their waters, that no visitor is 
 permitted to tarry in the place who will not comply with 
 the rules of eating and drinking and bodily exercise which 
 are prescribed by the medical authorities. These rules are 
 simple and wholesome, and it will do you good to take the 
 course, but if you will not, they take their course with you, 
 which is to send you out of town forthwith, lest you should 
 lose your health by your imprudence, and so bring dis- 
 credit on the Kissingen waters. Fancy such a law as that 
 at Saratoga ! It is said that more sick people go away 
 from the springs than come, but this is not to be affirmed 
 of Kissingen, beautiful Kissingen, the cheapest and prettiest 
 of the health-giving spas of Germany. A clergyman in 
 Paris told me that he spends a month in Kissingen every 
 summer, fifty dollars paying all his expenses, — going, stay- 
 ing, and coming home ! 
 
 You can live nearly, — not quite, — as cheaply here at 
 Kreusnach. The band, a fine German band, discourses 
 sweet music in the park near the spring, at six o'clock in 
 the morning; we drink, — faugh! yes, we drink the salt 
 and horrid water and return "to breakfast at eight, after a 
 promenade in the groves ; at eleven a bath is to be taken 
 in the hot«l, to which the water is carried in barrels and 
 emptied into a reservoir, from which it is led into the baths ; 
 it is artificially warmed to the temperature of the blood ; it 
 is strengthened by the addition of the strong, boiled salt 
 water that remains uncrystallized at the salt-works in the 
 
GERMAN WATERING-PLACES. 239 
 
 vicinity ; and this water, sold for this purpose, brings more 
 money, by a third, than the salt itself. This drinking and 
 bathing are good for scrofulous and all cutaneous com- 
 plaints ; for bad livers, that is, for those whose livers are 
 bad ; for dyspeptics, rheumatic people, and all kindred ail- 
 ments. Indeed, these German springs are a pretty sure 
 cure for almost any of the ordinary, perhaps extraordinary, 
 ills of the flesh, because the climate, is good, the mountain 
 air is bracing, and the regimen requires a fair amount of 
 temperance and exercise ; and he must be in a very bad 
 way who will not get well under the simple, exhilarating, 
 purifying, and strengthening influences of this kind of life. 
 
 Here in Kreusnach we meet with men and women from 
 the most distant parts of the Continent, attracted by the 
 fame of this salt water. A Russian gentleman and wife, 
 with an infant child, on whose account they came, had 
 travelled six weeks in a sledge to St. Petersburg. Their 
 children had died of scrofula, and they brought this live 
 one over that vast tract of country, through northern cold, 
 that its system in infancy might be renovated by this 
 modern Bethesda. The Princess of Mecklenberg is here 
 now, and last Sunday she proposed to attend the English 
 Church service. The good rector heard of her intention, 
 and thought it his duty to call and pay his respects. Un- 
 happily he could not speak a word of German, and when he 
 attempted to introduce himself at the door of the Princess' 
 lodgings, the servant understood him to be the postman, 
 and brought him the letters ready to go to the post-office. 
 His call was only deference to rank, and there was no need 
 of it, except as every sinner needs a pastor's care, and the 
 Princess took no notice of it. 
 
 At a cell in the hill-side near the spring, whey is dis- 
 pensed to those who daily drink it for the whey-cure. It 
 has a great repute. So has the grape-cure in August and 
 September. Either of them is just as good as the salt- 
 
240 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 water-cure, and that is good beyond a doubt. I have great 
 faith in any kind of doctoring that includes rest from busi- 
 ness, with moderate eating and drinking, and plenty of 
 exercise in the open air. Give the waters the credit of it, 
 or the whey, or the grapes, or the doctors, it makes no dif- 
 ference what or who has the credit, if you have the cure. 
 
 But stop this everlasting rushing after the world that is 
 perishing, and wait a little while at Kreusnach, or Kissin- 
 gen, or one of a dozen places I could name. Here take 
 your ease. Eat, drink, and be happy. ^ Bathe your weary 
 limbs in these youth-renewing waters. Walk out among 
 these surrounding forests and hills. There stands the 
 ruined Castle of Rheingraffenstein, on a crag that overhangs 
 the Nahe ; wind your way up one side, and when you have 
 rested on the height, pick your way down the other side to 
 a garden on the banks of the river ; there refresh again ; 
 then in one of the little boats be rowed down to Ebernburg, 
 the site of an ancient castle, which has now been remodelled 
 into a hotel ; but the relics of Luther and other Reformers 
 who once were sheltered here are still preserved, as well as 
 the balls with which the French blew the old towers off the 
 hill into the waters below. Rusty swords, spears, chains, 
 and old keys are laid in heaps, as some slight index of the 
 good time coming, when spears and swords shall be turned 
 into ploughs and pruning-knives. 
 
 Where the Nahe flows into the Rhine, there or about 
 there, stands Bingen, and no amount of pretty poetry that 
 has been said or sung about " Bingen on the Rhine " can 
 make it any thing but a dull, dry, flat, dusty village, and 
 horribly disagreeable at noon on a scorching hot day, such 
 as this. We footed it half a mile from the station under a 
 blazing sun, as there was no way to ride, and found a cool 
 shade, while waiting for the steamboat to come up the 
 river. The sight was romantic and picturesque. In the 
 water, a little way above us, stand the ruins of Bishop 
 
BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 
 
 241 
 
 Hatto's tower, the story of which is too famihar to be told 
 again. He had hoarded corn in a time of famine, and the 
 rats pursued him for his wickedness. He fled to this 
 tower in the river. The rats swam out to it, ran up the 
 walls, found their way in, and cleaned the Bishop's bones 
 for him. Southey has done the story into a ballad. 
 
 n 
 
 On the Rhine. 
 
 The Castle of Ehrenfels is on the side of the hill across 
 the river, and the Rudesheimer vineyards on the hill-sides 
 furnish that celebrated variety. All the Rhine wines are 
 named from the castle, chateau, or neighborhood where 
 they are made. The flavor depends more on the soil than 
 on the art with which the wine is made. The process is 
 substantially the same in all the vineyards, but the flavor of 
 
 16 
 
242 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the liquor is decidedly different. The hill-sides are so 
 steep, and the rains are sometimes so heavy, that the soil is 
 often carried down into the bed of the rivers. It can then 
 be recovered only by scooping it from the bottom, and 
 carrying it up in baskets. This is done every year. We 
 might fear it would be spoiled by being carried into the 
 river, but the loss of strength is not enough to alter the 
 nature of the original. Some of the brands are famous, and 
 the prices vary accordingly ; but the cheapness of these 
 wines here on the ground, compared with New York, 
 makes one readily believe that the importation of wines 
 must be among the most money-making of all kinds of 
 business. Vinegar and water is quite as good a drink as 
 much of this wine, and a little sugar added makes it better. 
 Prince Metternich owns the famous Johannisberg vineyard, 
 a little farther on, of seventy acres, of which many and 
 fabulous tales are told of the small quantity and great 
 prices of the wine, of the celebrated men who have owned 
 the vineyard, and how very costly the wine becomes by age. 
 But I will not weary you with them. The river itself is 
 identified with the history of Europe. Taking its rise in 
 the St. Gothard Pass in Switzerland, it receives tributaries 
 all the way down, yet it is a small and comparatively insig- 
 nificant stream. But kings have often fought for it, and it 
 was the late French Emperor's highest ambition to water 
 his horses in the Rhine. 
 
 The art of printing makes Mayence immortal, and here 
 we stopped to look at the monument to Guttenberg, its 
 inventor, a grand statue by Thorvaldsen. It is the fate 
 of few inventors to get their due in their lifetime ; some of 
 them want bread, and the public will not give them even a 
 stone till long after they have been starved to death. It 
 was the fate of Guttenberg to struggle hard for years 
 against rival claimants to the credit and the profit of his 
 invention, and so incredulous is the world of the truth, — 
 
BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 243 
 
 though ready enough to believe a lie, — that his existence 
 was called in question, and his name has been pronounced 
 a myth. And to this day there are people who think that 
 Faust, who is popularly reported to be the — or in league 
 with the — devil, had more to do with the black art inven- 
 tion than Guttenberg. They, that is Guttenberg and 
 Faust, were in partnership for a while, but that was long 
 after the real inventor had made the art a success, and the 
 claims of Faust and his son-in-law Schoffer, both of whom 
 were willing to be credited with the invention, have now 
 given way to the hght of evidence, and Guttenberg holds 
 his own against the field. It is in legal proof that as early 
 as 1438 Guttenberg was at work with his press and mov- 
 able types. In 1450 he formed a partnership with Faust 
 to carry on the business of printing, and he died in 1468. 
 In a book published at Mayence in 1505, Johan Schoffer 
 states " that the admirable art of printing was invented in 
 Mentz (Mayence), in 1450, by the ingenious Johan Gut- 
 tenberg, and was subsequently improved and handed down 
 to posterity by the capital and labor of Johan Faust and 
 Peter Schoffer." The writer of this was the son of Peter 
 Schoffer. He is mistaken in the date, for it is easily 
 proved that Guttenberg was printing many years before 
 1450, which was the date not of the invention, but of his 
 entering into partnership with Faust. 
 
 As I stood in front of this monument to a man whose 
 genius and industry gave to the world this great boon, the 
 statue itself appeared to be sublimely eloquent, as if from 
 those lips, representatives of the lips long since returned 
 to dust, was now going forth the streams of wisdom and 
 knowledge and power that make up the rivers of happiness 
 and usefulness in the art of printing as it has blessed man- 
 kind for four centuries, and will continue to flow with 
 increasing volume to the end of time. Perhaps somebody 
 else would have invented the art if he had not. It may 
 
244 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 be that God would have made another man whose brain 
 would be the womb from which this grand invention would 
 have sprung. But there stands the man who first began 
 to print with movable types, and from his beginning the 
 work has gone forward, widening in its reach and power, 
 and is yet only in the infancy of its career. If he could 
 have anticipated even the present extent of its influence, 
 what mighty emotions would have swelled his heart ! And 
 as I look upon this image of him, I feel that beyond any 
 other mere man who has ever lived in the annals of time, 
 he is entitled to stand pre-eminent as the benefactor of the 
 human race. And it is worth remarking that scarcely any 
 art has made so little real improvement for the last three 
 hundred years, as the art of type-making. The types were 
 as clear cut, and the impression just as perfect then as now. 
 We do work faster and cheaper, but not better. 
 
 I walked into the cathedral and fell to musing among the 
 ruinous tombs ; a few children were gathered in one corner 
 and a priest was engaged in giving them instruction ; the 
 setting sun was lighting up the colored arches and naves 
 of red sandstone, giving a peculiar effect to the shabby 
 temple, but there was nothing here to divert my thoughts 
 from the statue, the man, and the work commemorated. 
 It was glory enough for one city to have been the birth- 
 place of such an art. Pilgrims will come hither with in- 
 creasing reverence in far distant years. And I hope they 
 will have a cooler day than I had. The mercury is now at 
 96 in the shade. 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 
 
 245 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 
 
 Aix-la-Chapklue, 
 
246 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 TT is now nigh upon a thousand years since King Otto 
 "^ ordered the tomb of Charlemagne to be opened. The 
 floor of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle was broken up, 
 the sacred mausoleum that cherished the remains of the 
 mightiest of emperors was entered ; and there he sat in the 
 chamber of death, as in a hall of state, on a marble chair, 
 in the vestments of his imperial office, a sword at his side, 
 a crown on his head, and a Bible in his hand ! 
 
 Charlemagne was born in this place in the year 742. 
 The cathedral is his monument, and under the central dome 
 is a slab in the floor with the simple inscription, " Carolo 
 Magno." The cathedral was adorned with the richest mar- 
 bles the world could furnish, and the highest art of the age 
 was lavished in its structure and ornament. The windows 
 reach from the roof nearly to the ground, and with their 
 rich decorations give a peculiar beauty to the interior. The 
 city has again and again been ravaged by enemies ; other 
 buildings have been razed to their foundations, but this has 
 steadily stood in the midst of war and fires and centuries 
 of decay and change. Long has it been the shrine of 
 Roman worship, for Pope Leo consecrated it in 804 ; and 
 thus, a thousand years and more, it has been gathering 
 treasures of wealth, of association, and interest. It is now 
 the most sacred shrine in the north, and, indeed, it is not 
 likely that any spot this side of Rome has half so much to 
 excite the veneration of the faithful. 
 
 Perhaps Rome herself has not more holy relics. This is 
 a bold supposition. But the hst of sacred things here col- 
 lected ' is so long and so wonderful, and the estimate in 
 which they are held is so high, that the city fairly lays 
 claims to the first rank among the favored. Therefore 
 pilgrimages are made to these shrines as to the Holy 
 City itself. 
 
 My pilgrimage hither was accidental, or, rather, providen- 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 24/ 
 
 tial. As I came into it at the close of a summer's day, the 
 streets were thronged with men and women, moving up 
 and down, apparently without an object, swaying like the 
 waves of the sea, and I asked if this was the usual crowd 
 on the streets of an evening. It was at the height of the 
 season for visitors to its famous fountains of water ; for 
 long before it was a shrine for pilgrims coming to pray, it 
 was known for its mineral springs and their remarkable 
 healing virtues. What more could be desired than a charm 
 to cure diseases both of the bodies and the souls of stran- 
 gers. The old pagan Romans knew the efficacy of these 
 waters ; and through all the centuries, since their rule, the 
 city has been a fashionable watering-place. It was once 
 the seat of empire, and the palace of Charlemagne, whose 
 name invests it with more than romantic interest, has now 
 passed away. Yet the city is frequented annually by thou- 
 sands from distant parts, drawn here by the well-established 
 reputation of the springs. It was, therefore, natural for me 
 to ask if these crowds were the usual concourse of people 
 on the streets of a summer evening. 
 
 The answer to my inquiry indicated as much surprise as 
 the disciples exhibited when they said, " Art thou only a 
 stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things 
 which are come to pass there in these days ? " 
 
 I was told that it was the last day but one of the pilgrim- 
 age to the holy relics, and that this was the grand eve of the 
 procession, the most remarkable pageant that is ever to be 
 seen in these parts of the world. Of course this led to 
 further inquiries, and I found myself suddenly and acci- 
 dentally participating in one of the most extraordinary spec- 
 tacles that I had ever seen or heard of. It will be a long 
 story, but you must read it. 
 
 How the many precious relics came to be collected here 
 I cannot learn ; but the antiquity and wealth of the cathe- 
 dral, and the vast power wielded for centuries by the 
 
248 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Catholic emperors who were here crowned, would easily 
 make this spot the nucleus around which superstition and 
 faith would rally all their strength. So it came to pass in 
 the lapse of time that the number and value of the offer- 
 ings which popes and kings and others made to this shrine 
 became immense, and no money would now be considered 
 an equivalent for the priceless treasures. Here is a list of 
 them, to be read with all the faith you can summon : — 
 
 THE RELICS OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 
 
 A. The stiperior relics^ 
 known under the popular name of the "great " relics. 
 
 1. The white garment of the mother of our Lord. 
 
 2. The swathing-clothes of our Saviour. 
 
 3. The cloth in which was laid the body of St. John the Baptist after 
 
 his decapitation. 
 
 4. The cloth which our Saviour wore around his loins in the dread- 
 
 ful hour of his death. 
 These superior relics are shown every seventh year only, or excep- 
 tionally to crowned heads on their special demand. 
 
 B. The inferior relics are 
 
 5. The woven linen girdle of the Holy Virgin, in a reliquary 
 
 (liburium). 
 
 6. The girdle (cingulum) of Jesus, made of leather, in a precious 
 
 vessel. 
 
 7. Part of the rope with which our Saviour was tied in his passion. 
 
 8. Joined in a reliquary : 
 
 a. A fragment of the sponge that served to refresh our dying 
 
 Lord upon the cross. 
 
 b. A particle of the holy cross. 
 
 c. Some hair of the Apostle St. Bartholomew. 
 
 d. Several bones of Zachary, father to St. John the Baptist. 
 
 e. Two teeth of the Apostle St. Thomas. 
 
 9. In a rehquary : Part of an arm of old St. Simeon, and in a vial of 
 
 agate some oil that once came forth from out the bones of St. 
 Catherine. 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 249 
 
 10. In a gothic chapel : 
 
 a. The point of a nail with which our Lord was nailed to the 
 
 cross. 
 
 b. A particle of the holy cross. 
 
 c. A tooth of St. Catherine. 
 
 d. Part of a leg (tibia) of the Emperor Charlemagne. 
 
 11. In a shrine representing a gothic church, richly enamelled and 
 
 adorned with pearls and precious stones : 
 
 a. A fragment of the reed that served to make a mock of our 
 
 Saviour. 
 
 b. A part of the linen cloth which was spread over his holy face 
 
 in the grave. 
 
 c. Some hair of St. John the Baptist. 
 
 d. A rib of the first martyr, St. Stephen. 
 
 12. In a rehquary, in the form of a great arm, is enclosed the upper 
 
 part of the right arm of Charlemagne. 
 
 13. The bugle-horn of Charlemagne. 
 
 14. A bust of Charlemagne, containing a part of the scull of the great 
 
 emperor. 
 
 15. A golden cross, containing a particle of the holy cross. 
 
 16. In a shrine representing a Greek chapel, the scull of the holy 
 
 monk St. Anastasius. 
 
 17. A statue of St. Peter the Apostle, showing in his hand a ring 
 
 from the chain with which this man of God, who has suffered 
 so many persecutions and trials, was chained in the prison. 
 
 18. Bones of the holy bishop and martyr Spei, in a httle ivory chest. 
 
 19. A great gilt silver shrine, containing several bones of Charle- 
 
 magne. 
 
 C. The principal works of art in the treasure of the 
 
 cathedral. 
 
 20. A shrine, the depository for the great rehcs. 
 
 21. A chest richly ornamented, used when the relics are borne to the 
 
 gallery for the public show. 
 
 22. A vessel, containing the pectoral cross of Charlemagne. 
 
 D. Relics and other remarkable objects of the other 
 
 churches of the town. 
 a. In the parish church of St. Adalbert. 
 I. The scull of the bishop and martyr St. Ethelbert, conveyed to 
 Aix-la-Chapelle by Otto III. 
 
250 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 2. A shoulder-bone and a leg-bone of St. Mary Magdalen. 
 
 3. Two small particles of the sponge with which our Lord was re- 
 
 freshed on the cross. 
 
 4. Two particles of the scull of St. Quirinus. 
 
 5. The scull of St. Hermetis, of which Henry II. made a donation 
 
 to this church. 
 
 6. Bones of St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Mira. 
 
 7. The shoulder-blade of St. Laurence the martyr. 
 
 8. A leg-bone and a fragment of the coat of St. Benedict. 
 
 9. An arm-bone of St. Sebastian. 
 
 10. The hunting-knife of the Emperor St. Henry, founder of this 
 
 church. 
 
 1 1 . The veil of St. Gertrude. 
 
 12. A leg-bone of St. Agnes. 
 
 13. The jaw-bone with a tooth of St, Denis Areopagita. 
 
 14. A bone and some blood of St. Stephen. 
 
 15. A part of the coat of St. Walpurgis. 
 
 16. A part of the holy cross. 
 
 17. The arm-bone of St. Christopher. 
 
 18. A fragment of the crib in which our Lord was laid at his birth. 
 
 19. Some bones of St. Marcellus and other saints. 
 
 b. In the church of St. Theresa. 
 
 1. A piece of the linen cloth that covered the face of our Lord in the 
 
 house of Caiphas, when he was beaten, and asked, " Now, 
 do prophesy us," &c. 
 
 2. A "corporale," reddened with the holy blood that an inattentive 
 
 priest shed while he was consecrating the chalice. 
 
 3. A linen cloth of the Holy Virgin. The knight-german of Rander- 
 
 aidt carried it from the Orient, and by the intercession of the 
 father Lector Arnold, of Wallhorn, it was deposited in the con- 
 vent of St. Augustin in Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 4. The scull of the holy martyr Theodore. 
 
 5. A piece of the hnen cloth in which was laid the body of St 
 
 Laurence when taken from the fire. 
 
 6. A part of the soutane in which deacon St. Laurence served at the 
 
 altar. 
 
 7. Some oil that is recorded to have come from the bones of St. 
 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 8. A part of the holy cross. 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 25 1 
 
 c. In the parish church of St. yohn the Baptist at Burtschied, 
 
 near Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 1. A cross containing two pieces of the holy cross, pieces of the 
 
 clothes of Jesus Christ, of the pillar and the whip serving at 
 the scourging of our Lord, of the garment of the Holy Vir- 
 gin and bones of St. Paul and St. James the younger, and 
 finally a piece of the rod of Aaron and Moses. 
 
 2. A silver gilt bust, with a large piece of the scull of St. Laurence. 
 
 3. A silver gilt bust, with an arm-bone of St. John the Baptist. 
 
 4. A bust, with the scull of St. Evermarus. 
 
 5. The scull of the Holy Virgin and martyress St. Agatha. 
 
 6. A relic shrine, containing in its top a piece of the holy cross ; in 
 
 the centre, bones of St. Andrew the Apostle, teeth and bones 
 of the apostles Simon Juda, James the younger, Matthias, and 
 of the evangelists St. Luke and St. Mark, of the levites and 
 martyrs St. Timotheus, Vincent, of the martyrs St. Fabian and 
 St. Sebastian, of St. Stephen, St. Barbara, and the saints Vitus 
 and Fortunatus ; in the four corners, reHcs of the saints John 
 the Baptist, Donatus, Emerentia, Cornelius, the pope and 
 martyr, of the saints Cyprianus, Hermet, Aegidius, Pancra- 
 tius, and Luzia ; and in its base, a rehc of St. Adrian and an 
 arm-bone of St Laurence. 
 
 7. A shrine, containing in its top a piece of the holy cross ; in the 
 
 centre, different bones of St. Laurence, a piece of the scull of 
 St. Sixtus ; in the four corners, relics of St. John Chrysosto- 
 mus, of St. Calixtus, of St. Gregorius, and pieces of the sculls 
 and bones of St. Apolinaris, and of St. Maurice ; in the base, 
 relics of St. Damasus and an arm-bone of St. Alexis. 
 
 8. A shrine, with bones of St. Maxirnus and his colleagues, viz. : Of 
 
 the saints Lambert, Gervasius. and Protasius, of St. Peter 
 Justinianus, of the apostles St. Andrew, Matthias, and Matthew, 
 of the saints Gregorius, Chrysostomus, Servatius, FeHx, Luzia, 
 and Elizabeth, mother to St. John the Baptist. 
 
 9. A shrine, with relics of St. Valerius and Germanus, St. Cosmas 
 
 and St. Damianus, St. Martin and St. Constantia, teeth of 
 the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, of St. Cordula, teeth of St. 
 Sixtus, St. Cassius, St. Juliana, St. Matthias, St. Evermarus, 
 and of the holy queen Binosa. 
 10. A pyramid, with reHcs of St. Barbara, St. Peter, St. Juhana, St. 
 ApoUonia, and St. Apollinarus ; in the base, a relic of the holy 
 martyr Laurence. 
 
252 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 11. A pyramid, with a tooth of the holy apostle St. Matthias, bones of 
 
 St. Vitahs, of John the Baptist, and the apostles St. James and 
 St. Bartholomew, and of St. Marcellus and St. Laurence. 
 
 12. Little fragments of the swathing-clothes of our Lord. 
 
 13. A bone of the Holy Virgin and martyress Luzia. 
 
 14. The penitential coat of St. Margaret, royal princess of Hungaria. 
 
 15. In a small vial some blood of St. John the Baptist. 
 
 16. A portrait of the holy bishop Nicholas in Greek mosaic. 
 
 17. A grave wherein lie the bones and relics of St. Gregorius, son to 
 
 the Greek Emperor Nicephorus, who was the first abbot of this 
 church, that once had been a free imperial chapter. 
 
 18. A fragment of hnen tinged with blood of the priest St. Francis, of 
 
 Jerome, S. J. 
 
 19. A particle of the bones of St.. John the Baptist. 
 
 20. A little box, containing a particle of the scull of St. John the 
 
 Baptist, particles of the bones of St. Raynerus, of St. Lewis, 
 king of France, and of the Holy Virgin, and martyress Cath- 
 erine. 
 
 21. A fragment of the cloak of St. Francis, of Assisi, 
 
 22. A particle of the bones of the innocent children. 
 
 Several hundred years ago it was the custom to expose 
 these relics every year in the month of July ; but it was 
 found that in some stormy war times the precious things 
 were in danger of being carried off, and it was ordered that 
 once in seven years they should be exhibited to the be- 
 lievers. It was the year and the day of the septennial 
 demonstration when the Sultan of Turkey and I arrived at 
 Aix-la-Chapelle. The unbelieving Mohammedan did not 
 stay and see the show, but I did. 
 
 It was now dark ; but I walked around the cathedral. All 
 the streets leading to it were thronged with people, and 
 through the crowds it was hard to thread one's way. At 
 the door, which I finally reached, the people were coming 
 out, and the guards informed me that the only entrance was 
 on the other side. It was a long way, and not very pleasant ; 
 but at last I gained the court, where the blessed pilgrims 
 were permitted to enter. Two lines of men, women, and 
 children, in single file, stretching far away into the dark- 
 ness and into some remote part of the city, were marching 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 253 
 
 steadily into the cathedral, saying their prayers aloud as 
 they walked slowly, devout in their appearance, and full of 
 anxiety to get a sight of the precious treasures within. The 
 prayers they were repeating are prepared for this service, 
 and have reference to the sacred relics whose sovereign 
 virtues they are now hoping to enjoy. When the remains 
 of President Lincoln were for one day and night exposed 
 in the City Hall of New York, the public were admitted to 
 view them, and the line extended some miles up town, and 
 marched steadily into the park all night long. Except that 
 procession of gazers, I never saw a crowd intent on such a 
 sight to equal the number of these pilgrims. It was impos- 
 sible to enter the cathedral under these circumstances, and 
 I was told that by coming early the next morning I could 
 be admitted alone. But the next morning the gates were 
 closed aga^st all comers, and preparations were on foot for 
 the grand septennial procession of the relics. The court 
 and the streets leading to it were filled with rude benches, 
 and thousands were seated where they could look with 
 reverential awe on the cathedral in which these holy things 
 were preserved. From the multitude there was rising on 
 the air, like the sound of many waters, the voice of prayer. 
 Away up one of the towers was a gallery passing around it, 
 and on that gallery a procession of priests was making a 
 frequent circuit, while the crowd gazed upwards with 
 evident edification, as the holy utensils and the cross were 
 borne aloft between them and heaven. There in the sun 
 they sat, and thousands stood gazing and praying, the per- 
 fect embodiment of superstition, and the easy dupes of a 
 cunning priesthood. They were of the lowest class of the 
 population, if we could judge correctly by their dress and 
 appearance. Yet were they orderly and devout, and only 
 when some special spectacle led them all to rush to get the 
 best place was there any need of the many guards who 
 were on hand at all times to prevent disorder. 
 
254 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 The grand procession was to emerge from the cathedral 
 at two o'clock P.M. Then all these relics were to be 
 carried in pomp in the hands and on the shoulders of the 
 prelates through the streets of the city. " Good places to 
 see the procession " were advertised for sale on the walls 
 of the houses, and selecting one whose windows looked 
 out upon the court of the cathedral and near its great 
 door, I entered and hired half of one of the windows, taking 
 a ticket that was to secure my seat when I returned. 
 
 Thus sure of the wonderful privilege of seeing the 
 wealth of holy things which had brought these thousands 
 here, I went off, and " assisted " in a demonstration with 
 the Sultan of Turkey. He was on his way home from 
 England, and was expected to reach Aix-la-Chapelle in the 
 evening. But in consequence of delays on the road he did 
 not arrive until five o'clock in the morning. H^ was then 
 escorted to the palace, a modest mansion which the King of 
 Prussia occupies when he is here, a rare event. When the 
 Sultan had taken a brief rest and breakfast, he was to de- 
 part for Coblenz at ten a.m., and the better part of the 
 city turned out to see him as he rode through the streets 
 to the railroad. He is a much better-looking man than 
 his predecessor on the Ottoman throne, whom I saw in 
 Constantinople some years ago. This man is stout, short, 
 grave, with heavy black beard, and very Turk in his ap- 
 pearance. His visit to the west is regarded by his subjects 
 as a part of the great work he is supposed by them to have 
 on his hands, — the government of the world. To this day 
 the most of them believe that France and England simply 
 obeyed his orders when they came to the aid of the Sultan, 
 and that he has now been out west to look after his prov- 
 inces there. " 
 
 In front of the palace and all along the streets dense 
 masses of people pressed to get a sight ; two Romish 
 priests stood by me, and were intensely curious to see 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. ' 255 
 
 the Turk. After a dozen carriages with his suite had 
 passed, the state coach, with two fat horses and one very 
 fat coachman, — coach, horses, and coachman covered with 
 gold lace and trimmings, — came along with the solitary 
 Sultan inside. The people sent up a very faint cheer, but 
 he took no more notice of it than he would if the dogs had 
 barked ; looked stolidly down into the coach and rode out 
 of sight. 
 
 At one P.M. I returned to my hired window. The 
 crowd was vastly increased, dense masses of humanity 
 filling every inch of space in sight of the line of march. 
 But the court of the cathedral had been cleared, and a 
 strong bar, guarded by soldiers, forbade the ingress of the 
 multitude. The house where I was to enter was opposite 
 to the door of the baptistery, and the whole court which 
 was to be the scene of the great display was in full view 
 from my window. I was early on the ground, and when I 
 took possession of the humble chamber was the only 
 person in it. To get to it I had to pass through the bed- 
 room of the house, and in that was a double bed, two or 
 three single beds, and a crib, in which the whole family 
 slept side by side. Presently three Romish priests and two 
 women entered, having also previously engaged places in 
 this eligible apartment. The priests appeared to be intel- 
 ligent men, and we conversed freely in French. They told- 
 me they had come from Holland to see the holy relics, and 
 to participate in the solemnities of the occasion, and were 
 then going to make a tour in Germany. The women were 
 travelling in company. Presently one of the priests took 
 out his prayer-book, and, retiring to one side of the room, 
 entered upon his devotions. One of the women called my 
 attention to him, and, giving me a wink of the eye, put up 
 her finger to the side of her nose, and expressed the great- 
 est possible contempt of the man at prayer. She was very 
 lively, sometimes put her foot on the table, slapped her 
 
256 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 sister on the back heartily, drank three glasses of beer, 
 which the priests paid for, and said it was goot. 
 
 A band of musicians arrived, and took their stand in 
 the court. Officers in black dress with staves appeared. 
 The crowd pressed more and more densely on the bar, and 
 in the struggle to get nearer, I feared some would be 
 crushed to death. In years past, there have been many 
 disasters of that kind here. Roofs of houses, overloaded, 
 have sunk down with their living burden. And as far as 
 my eyes could see, the picturesque multitude swarmed and 
 heaved. Many in blue blouses ; women with red shawls 
 over their heads ; and every color was seen in their vari- 
 egated costumes, yet none but the commonest of the 
 common people were there. 
 
 At two o'clock, a few horsemen rode into the crowd and 
 opened a passage for the procession soon to emerge from 
 the church. Where the people were to retire, how they 
 could be compressed into a smaller space, it was impossi- 
 ble to see. Walls on all sides, but down the streets they 
 had to go, and, as they were pressed against the houses, 
 fright was on the faces of many ; children were held up 
 overhead to save them from being crushed ; closer and 
 closer they were stowed away ; women put up their hands 
 imploringly, but the horses tramped among them, and a 
 way was at last cleared through the solid mass of human 
 beings. It was not yet time for the procession to come 
 out : this was only to let the officiating ecclesiastics, and 
 servants bearing vestments, and boys in white with ban- 
 ners to pass in. But the time wore on, and at last the 
 bells began to ring, a cannon was fired, a strong sensation 
 swayed the waiting multitude, there was a sound of martial 
 music, there was the roar of the voices of the crowds who 
 could not restrain their feelings, the door of the cathedral 
 opened, and the great pageant began. 
 
 In front marched a band of boys in white raiment, with 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 25/ 
 
 banners in their hands ; a few Capuchin monks came next, 
 in the coarse costume of their order ; then followed a com- 
 pany of ecclesiastics, in white robes, with prayer-books in 
 their hands, reading aloud as they walked ; a large number 
 in red and gold embroidered robes followed ; a choir of young 
 men singing ; a brass band, making fine music ; and then, 
 wonderful to behold ! in the midst of all this pomp appeared 
 the dignitaries of the church, gorgeously attired, and bear- 
 ing in succession the various relics which have already 
 been named. They were enclosed in glass, some of them, 
 and others were in magnificent chests of gold and silver, 
 borne aloft on the shoulders of six men each, and sur- 
 rounded with the richest trappings, as if the wealth of the 
 universe might well be lavished on such precious treasures 
 as these. The sacred procession was greeted everywhere 
 as it proceeded with the prayers of the people, kneeling 
 while it passed them. It took its way up into the city, 
 through various streets by a prescribed route, in the midst 
 of living masses of people, the windows and roofs filled 
 with anxious spectators, who might never see the like 
 again, ' and thousands of whom had come from afar, and 
 had never seen it before. The march was about an hour 
 long, and then they returned to the same court. But the 
 procession was now largely increased. Two hundred *' sis- 
 ters," of some order, had joined in, dressed in white, and 
 perhaps as many of another order, in black ; companies of 
 infirm old men and women, as if from some asylum, and 
 hundreds of lads in uniform, bearing flags, and four of 
 them in white, with branches of lilies and green leaves in 
 their hands. The procession entered the court, and, open- 
 ing to the right and left, filled the area ; the holy relics were 
 borne into the midst, while the vast company lifted up their 
 voices in singing, the band played, the bells rung, the 
 cannon roared. It was a mighty choir in the open air, 
 under the walls of a cathedral that had stood there a 
 
 17 
 
258 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 thousand years ; the vast multitude were hushed to si- 
 lence to hear the music of this holy band of monks and 
 priests and women and children, and while the whole 
 atmosphere was full of song, the pageant passed into the 
 temple. 
 
 My companions at the windows, the priests and their 
 women, took leave of me, as they were in haste to take the 
 railroad for Cologne. I stepped down into the court, and 
 on the heels of the procession entered the cathedral. The 
 relics were deposited in the holy places ; the great golden 
 chests were placed in front of the altar, and high mass 
 was celebrated with the splendor of ceremonial becoming 
 this great occasion. 
 
 When the procession was finished, the holy relics in their 
 several repositories for another seven^ years, and mass duly 
 celebrated, I returned to the hotel to dinner. About twenty 
 persons were at the table. On my right sat a party of 
 French people, gentlemen and ladies, and the fun they 
 made of what they had seen on the street was immense. 
 They ridiculed as ludicrous in the extreme, and as the 
 very height of absurdity and nonsense, the idea that the 
 clothes and sponge and garments worn two thousand 
 years ago, and constantly exposed to air and all the 
 chances and changes of these eighteen centuries, should 
 be here to-day in good condition ; and, of course, the 
 priests and church came in for a good share of denun- 
 ciation. In front of me, and on my left, was an English- 
 speaking party, the central and principal personage in the 
 group being an English priest. His garb was that of 
 Rome, and his conversation was becoming his garb ; but 
 whether he had ever been received into the full communion 
 of Holy Mother, or was only aping her manners and wearing 
 her vestments, it is impossible to say. It makes little 
 difference, however. He was disgusted by the infidelity 
 of these French people, and, supposing none at the table 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 259 
 
 understood the English, he went on to say that it was 
 highly improper to come into a foreign country and ridi- 
 cule the customs and faith of the people. "For my part," 
 said he, " I think they are very stupid, as well as very ill- 
 bred, to make such remarks at a public table where there 
 are others who hold these relics in high honor as memo- 
 rials of their holy religion." The ladies of the party joined 
 him fully in these sentiments, and, to my surprise, I soon 
 discovered that the two ladies between whom he was 
 sitting, and whom he always addressed as " My dear," 
 were both Americans, and evidently destined to become, 
 if they had not already, excellent Romans. All of them, 
 and the party was six or seven in number, had been gazing 
 on. the same spectacle that I had seen with mingled indig- 
 nation and pity, and these enlightened, cultivated English 
 and American people received the whole exposition as a 
 glorious manifestation to their eyes of the veritable ob- 
 jects that were used at the time and in the midst of the 
 scenes of the sufferings and death of our blessed Lord, 
 and, therefore, justly to be held in reverence by all the 
 faithful in all coming time. 
 
 Pictures of the relics were for sale in all the shops, and I 
 bought a few as souvenirs of my pilgrimage. Particularly 
 I sought for a good representation of that one which is first 
 on the list and first in the admiration of the people. As 
 the Virgin Mother Mary is held in higher honor by all good 
 Catholics than the Son of God himself, so they likewise 
 venerate with a deeper reverence the linen garment that 
 she wore than the cloth which was around the loins of the 
 Saviour on the cross. Having found two or three good 
 copies of this peculiar garment, my curiosity was gratified 
 to see the style which the ladies of Judea wore it in the 
 year of our Lord i and onwards. Fashions change, and 
 with the ladies they change more frequently than among 
 the other sex. But the Virgin's " linen garment " is exactly 
 
260 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 in the form and pattern of those in use in modern times. 
 It has short sleeves, reaching but a Uttle over the shoulder ; 
 it has a lace frill or something of the sort around the neck, 
 with a place for drawing strings in front. It looks, in fact, 
 like any other shirt with the sleeves cut off. 
 
 Now, just imagine, if you can, a company of fine-looking 
 men, fifty or sixty years old, in gorgeous costume, with the 
 symbols of priesthood and the pomp of kings, marching 
 through the streets of a city, and bearing aloft, for the admira- 
 tion of a gaping multitude, an old shirt. That is the mild- 
 est way of putting it ! That the Virgin Mary ever had it 
 on, there is not the slightest possible reason to suppose. 
 That such garments were then worn is contradicted by our 
 knowledge of the costume of the Orientals of the present 
 and former times. But to argue the question is as absurd 
 as to believe in the shirt. Faith in these relics comes not 
 by reason or argument, but is hereditary, blind, morbid, and 
 against the senses. To doubt is fatal, and nobody here 
 doubts. They believe in the holy linen of Mary, her girdle, 
 the rope, the sponge, Bartholomew's hair, Thomas' teeth, 
 Simeon's arm, St. Catherine's oil, Stephen's rib, Peter's 
 chain, and the child Jesus' crib. If they believe in these 
 things, what will they not beheve ? And English and 
 American men and women come here and profess their 
 faith in the whole ! 
 
 Pilgrimages to this shrine have been made for the last 
 six or seven hundred )^ears. The number of believers 
 crowding in at one time has sometimes been so great that 
 it was found necessary to shut the gates of the city in order 
 t© prevent the increase. Every pilgrim was expected to 
 pay a penny, and in one year these amounted to 80,000 
 florins, or 1,600,000 pence. In that year 142,000 persons 
 were present in one day. In that period the numbers 
 were so great that separate quarters of the town were 
 assigned to different nationalities, and they were allowed to 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 26 1 
 
 see the relics in their turn. They approached the relics on 
 their knees, and in regular order, each bearing a pure wax 
 candle. Great preparations were required to feed these 
 multitudes, and it is not to be wondered at that it was 
 found too much of a job to have this thing going on every 
 year. Once in seven is certainly quite often enough. But 
 the same forms and ceremonies of opening and displaying 
 the treasures have been preserved from age to age. The 
 exhibition begins July loth and terminates July 24th. The 
 rush became so great at one time that it was determined to 
 dispense with the farce. But the inhabitants of the city, who, 
 like the Diana smiths, make great gains out of the pilgrims, 
 raised such a clamor that the show was resumed ; and it is 
 now as fixed in the routine of rehgious rites in this Protes- 
 tant country of Prussia as. the toting of the Pope on men's 
 shoulders at Christmas in Rome. Once in seven years the 
 people flock hither for two weeks in July, and on the 24th 
 the grand procession takes place. 
 
 But if the sight of these relics does the souls of the 
 pilgrims no good, you may rest assured that the waters of 
 these fountains will prove a Siloam to you if you have gout, 
 rheumatism, or any cutaneous disease. Perhaps it is not 
 well for me to prescribe without knowing the pecuHar 
 symptoms of your case ; but for so many centuries have 
 these waters been flowing for the healing of the people, 
 that I have great faith in their secret virtues. Over the 
 principal fountain is a temple, and from it extends a covered 
 walk. The visitors take the water early in the morning, 
 and, as it is too hot to drink off at once, they walk up and 
 down, glass in hand, sipping as they go. Near by is the 
 garden where, under shade-trees and by the side of foun- 
 tains, they sit and chat, or hsten to sweet music which the 
 band discourses. As I was lounging here, a young English- 
 man was helped in by his sisters, and he was placed near 
 me, so that I heard all their conversation concerning his 
 
262 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 progress toward being cured. Then a lady on two crutches 
 hobbled in, and, arranging herself as comfortably as her 
 evident lameness would permit, sought a little rest from 
 pain. An elderly man with his leg in splinters had two 
 servants to hold him up, and his condition seemed to sug- 
 gest that the waters were sought even for the benefit of 
 broken limbs. The variety of diseases is not so great 
 perhaps as at other springs ; but the gouty, the lame, and 
 the halt, seem to lie around among these orange-trees, 
 flowery shrubs, gravel walks, and cool shades. But by far 
 the greater part of the visitors to the springs come for 
 pleasure only. There is a large KiLrhaus, in which are rooms 
 for concerts and balls, for reading and conversation, and in 
 the court a beautiful garden, into which subscribers are 
 admitted. There the ladies take their work or their book, 
 and, around little tables on which is a cup of tea or glass of 
 light wine, they spend the afternoon, the gentlemen smoking 
 if they please, and an orchestra of splendid performers play- 
 ing. It is a scene of social and elegant ease, the do Ice far 
 niente to perfection, with really more enjoyment in it than 
 is often to be found where people have nothing to do. 
 There is no gambling here, and that drives off a class of 
 men and women that infest every watering-place where 
 gaming-tables are licensed. The company is therefore 
 select, compared with the Badens and Homburg. And the 
 baths are splendid. They are furnished at all the hotels, and 
 there are establishments specially fitted up for them. Into 
 ■one of these I went to enjoy the luxury. Each bath has a 
 dressing-room adjoining it, out of which when ready you 
 go down four or five stone steps into a large cemented 
 bath, while the water from two large pipes is pouring in. 
 On a stone bench at one end of the bath you sit down till 
 the water comes up to your chin, and then it ceases to flow. 
 At first the smell of sulphur is strong ; but this ceases to 
 be disagreeable. The temperature is perfect, the water 
 
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 263 
 
 abundant, plenty of towels, and a sheet besides, and the 
 price is about 25 cents. I enjoyed it exceedingly, and com- 
 mend it before all other bathing establishments this side of 
 Turkey. 
 
 The antiquary finds much to interest him in this old 
 town. It is something to be where Charlemagne was born 
 and buried, and to see the works of his mighty hand ; to 
 visit the town-house, a tower of which still bears the name 
 of Granus, a brother of Nero, who is said to have built it, 
 and to have founded the city 124 years after Christ. In 
 this house is a great hall, where for many successive cen- 
 turies the Emperors of Germany were crowned. In front 
 of it is a statue of Charlemagne, and the priests carry a 
 silver bust of him in their septennial procession, with a bit 
 of his skull in the top of it. 
 
264 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 FRANKFORT. 
 
 '"\T 7ITH faces at last fairly turned towards Russia, we 
 ^ ^ stopped to rest for a day at the old town of Frankfort 
 — the Ford of the Franks, Towards evening I wandered 
 out to an old graveyard. 
 
 Like some in our own cities, it had ceased to be used for 
 interments, and its walks and shade and vacant squares 
 had become places of recreation for the children of the 
 town. The gates were never shut, and, indeed, the walls 
 were broken, so that it was a public. square for the living 
 rather than a quiet resting-place for the dead. A party of 
 little folks were amusing themselves with children's plays, 
 and I paused in my solitary stroll to see them go through 
 the old-time game of " Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow," 
 the same that our children from generation to generation 
 play with so much zest on the grass or the carpet at home. 
 It was pleasant to know that the young ones, in another 
 language, were singing the same simple song that millions 
 on the other side of the sea have sung and will sing in 
 their childish glee. It was a queer place for children to 
 make a playground. Our children would not fancy it. The 
 Germans have more pleasing associations with the burial- 
 places of their dead than we have. They indulge in cheer- 
 ful sentimentalism more than we do, in this direction. 
 These old graves are covered with flowering shrubs ; some 
 of them are cared for by the children or friends of the 
 sleepers who have been here so many years' that their names 
 
FRANKFORT. 26$ 
 
 might be forgotten but for the tombstones. I read the in- 
 scriptions on many, and sought and found names famihar 
 in history. 
 
 One grave was covered with wreaths and flowers. Yet 
 it was an old grave, and evidently some special interest 
 attached to it. I drew near and read in German, — 
 
 "The Grave of the Mother of Goethr. Born Feb. 
 19, 1731. Died Sept. 13, 1808.' 
 
 It was her request that this inscription should be put 
 upon her headstone. The mother's pride is in it, but so 
 beautiful and so just ! No man of this century has wrought 
 himself more thoroughly into the German mind, and only 
 one writer has led captive more minds in the world at large, 
 than Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe, whose mother lies under 
 this brick wall, with deep shade-trees hanging over her 
 grave, and fresh flowers lying on it, though she was laid 
 here sixty years ago. " From my dear little mother," said 
 the poet in one of his poems, '' I derive my happy dispo- 
 sition and my love of story-telling." And she said of her- 
 self, " Order and quiet are my chracteristics. I despatch 
 at once what I have to do, the most disagreeable always 
 first, and I gulp down the devil without looking at him. I 
 always seek out what is good in people, and leave what is 
 bad to Him who made mankind, and knows how to round 
 off the angles." 
 
 If this saying of Goethe's mother could be told in all the 
 world as a memorial of her, it is quite likely it would do as 
 much for the good of mankind as all that her son ever 
 wrote, though he was the prince of German poets, and the 
 master intellect of the age. 
 
 His coffin lies in the Duke's vault at Weimar, or did 
 when I was there, by the side of Schiller, and not by the 
 side of the Duke, as royal etiquette forbade, even in the 
 grave, such common dust as that of these two great poets to 
 
266 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 be laid along with that of royal clay. Yet the Duke is 
 more honored by having had the friendship of the poets 
 than by his crown or kingdom. 
 
 Twelve years after the birth of Goethe's mother, in 1743, 
 a Jew was born in Frankfort, whose name and power in 
 the world are quite as great as that of the poet. It is a 
 question for the debating societies, whether money or mind 
 rules in this age ; but there is little doubt that the Roths- 
 childs have been more of a power in Europe during the 
 present century than Goethe and all the poets put together. 
 This man was named Anselm. He had five daughters and 
 five sons : all of the sons becoming bankers like the father, 
 and establishing themselves in various cities, London, Paris, 
 Vienna, and Frankfort, came to control the finances of 
 Europe, and to wield an influence before which the con- 
 querors of kingdoms were often compelled to bow. They 
 furnish one good lesson that is rarely mentioned or thought 
 of : the father and five sons, and their children, have con- 
 tinued in one firm, — the five brothers were at one time the 
 firm, — and, thus standing by one another, have been strong 
 and prosperous ; in this particular, Jews as they are, they 
 set an example for Christians to follow. So great is their 
 wealth and credit, that when the revolutions of 1848 in 
 Europe instantly robbed them of forty millions of dollars, 
 it did not disturb them, nor the confidence of the world in 
 their stabiUty. Kings and emperors are their guests as 
 well as their customers ; and this summer, one of them on 
 the banks of Lake Leman, and another at his palace in 
 Paris, has entertained royalty in right regal style. To us 
 sovereigns in our own right, this is nothing very remark- 
 able; but here, in the land of kings and princes, it is a 
 matter always of wonderment, and it is also just a little 
 detriment to dignity, when a crowned head condescends to 
 eat off the plate of anybody but a brother of blue blood. 
 
 This old city of Frankfort has had its ancestral pride 
 
FRANKFORT. 26/ 
 
 sadly humbled in being swallowed by all-devouring Prussia. 
 A lady said to me, " I hate the Prussians ; I know it is not 
 very Christian, but I do hate them ; and I believe the royal 
 family will be poisoned yet ! " This venerable city was 
 once the capital of the German empire, the seat of its 
 Congress ; here the German emperors were elected, for 
 successive generations. The glory that invests a spot so 
 sacred has now departed ; and the firm pohcy of Bismark, 
 and the unification of Germany, have reduced the proud 
 old town to one of the many second-rate cities of Europe. 
 A city, now-a-days, cannot live on the past. Trade and 
 travel will not obey traditions. Frankfort still holds a 
 financial importance that is fast passing away ; and more 
 people will linger here for a day to see the marble Ariadne, 
 by Danneker, than to visit the " Hall of the Caesars," where 
 the portraits of the emperors are hung. 
 
 We left by rail at nine in the morning. The cars were 
 large, convenient, and elegant. For first-class passengers 
 they were divided into apartments for six, and were lined 
 with red plush. The second class were quite as good, but 
 lined with drab ; and the chief difference was in the price, 
 which, being high in the first class, makes the company 
 more select. In all the cars smoking \^ allowed, unless notice 
 is posted on the outside to the contrary. In our compart- 
 ment, which was one of the interdicted^ there were three 
 ladies and as many men, only one of them a smoker ; and 
 he kept on, regardless of the notice and the company. The 
 third-class cars had plain board seats with no backs ; but they 
 were clean, and very decent-looking people rode in them. 
 A fourth class were like our cattle cars, only not so good, 
 for ours are well ventilated, whereas these were close, and 
 were filled with dirty people, standing up, and getting what 
 air they could through one or two little windows. Yet 
 these people were generally smoking, their poverty com- 
 pelling them to ride like cattle, but not prevailing to make 
 them give up tobacco. 
 
268 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 We passed through large pine forests. Wind-mills were" 
 frequent, as they are in flat countries, where no waterfall 
 power can be had. Women were at work repairing the 
 railroads ; showing that here woman has her " rights," as 
 the women reformers call the privilege of doing any thing 
 that men do. Of course they are degraded, as they will be 
 with us just as fast as public sentiment allows them to 
 assume the duties that do not belong to their sex. The 
 waiting-rooms at the stations are restaurants also, and beer 
 is guzzled incessantly. Little children drink beer with 
 their parents. 
 
 Vast tracts of level country are on our right and left. 
 Not a hill is in sight. The scenery is uninterrupted prairie. 
 Passengers are informed, by notice posted in the cars, that 
 they can have a dinner served at certain stations ahead, 
 and that the conductors will send on the order by telegraph 
 without charge. At all the stations cake and beer are 
 passed along by waiters at the windows of the cars, and you 
 may take in the dishes if you please, and leave them at the 
 next station. 
 
 Fraiikfort-o7t-thc-Oder is a venerable town of 37,000 in- 
 habitants, memorable as the scene of a great battle in 1759, 
 when Frederick the Great was defeated by the Russians 
 and Austrians. We crossed the Oder at Castion, the 
 bridge being strongly fortified, as if war were imminent or 
 guns relied on as the best peace preservers. Immense 
 tracts of peat-beds are on the route, and women are at 
 work wheeling heavy loads of it just cut out, and men cut- 
 ting it, the women being made to do the hardest work. 
 
 At Krewz we stopped for dinner. We had sent forward 
 our names by telegraph, and were curious to see what was 
 the result. It proved to be a good soup, a stew of beef and 
 potatoes, roast veal with stewed prunes, and the usual con- 
 diments, but no dessert or wine, unless extra. The tables 
 for dinner were set out on the platform, under shade, and 
 
FRANKFORT. 
 
 269 
 
 every thing neat and clean, and the table furniture good. 
 Beautiful gardens are around the railroad stations : large 
 peonies and lilacs, seringas and roses, and other flowers like 
 our own, in full bloom. We met an excursion train with 
 
 Frankfort Dinner-Table. 
 
 two or three hundred people, who had left the cars at a 
 way-station to get water ; and as our train came between 
 them and theirs, they were thrown into the greatest alarm 
 and confusion, lest they should be left behind. The cot- 
 tages of the peasantry are very neat and comfortable ; no 
 signs of great poverty, no beggars at the stations, I have 
 
270 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 scarcely been solicited by a beggar in Germany. As we 
 are going north, the country appears less fertile : there is 
 more grass and less grain ; few fruit-trees, some apples, 
 cherries, and pears ; poplar trees, sycamores, and some wil- 
 lows are seen. We have ceased to see forests on the line of 
 the road : we pass another peat-bed, and a dozen women 
 are working it, one man overseeing them. 
 
 At Nakal twenty peasants were standing, each with a 
 staff in hand, as if they had just arrived from a journey on 
 foot, and were waiting for a train to take them on to the 
 seaboard to emigrate. They were swarthy, stout, and well 
 clad. They will all be voters soon on the other side of the 
 sea. 
 
 Two hundred miles from Berlin, on our way to Warsaw, 
 we came to Bromberg. We had marked it down as the half- 
 way place, and here we were to pass the night. We found 
 an elegant railroad station ; porters from three hotels, with 
 plates on their hats, begged the pleasure of our company at 
 their respective houses. The Englischer Hqf h.3.d the honor 
 of taking us in, and we were hospitably and comfortably 
 cared for. This city was once in Poland. When the kingdom 
 was carved and partitioned, this fell to Prussia. But Polish 
 names predominate upon the signs, and the Polish language 
 still prevails. Its trade is in wool and iron and steel, by canal 
 connecting it with Oder and Wexsel. W^e went to the top of 
 a hill near the hotel, and found beautiful walks and seats, 
 commanding fine views of the town. The churches are both 
 Protestant and Catholic. We were near a cemetery, and all 
 the tombstones had their inscriptions in Hebrew. It was a 
 Jewish burial-place. Adjoining it was a dead-house, into 
 which every dead person of this people is brought, and 
 washed, and ceremonially prepared for the grave. A young 
 man showed us over the apartments. He seemed to be the 
 solitary dweller in this gloomy house. A fine monument in 
 the grove near by is in memory of the good citizen who had 
 
FRANKFORT. 2/1 
 
 given the grounds, and embellished them, as a resort for the 
 people. 
 
 Only in Germany have we had bolsters in shape of a 
 wedge, hard, and designed to be laid with the edge under the 
 shoulders, making an inclined plane, from which one is 
 slipping down all the time. The old feather-bed comforter 
 on top is now dispensed with ; but in place of it is a quilt 
 inside of a sheet, like a bag to hold it, and a very uncom- 
 fortable thing to manage. It requires a deal of patience to 
 put up with the curious ways of other people ; but when 
 one gets used to them, they are just as well as his own. 
 
 We were to take an early start, and the servant was so 
 anxious to do his whole duty, that he called us, as Samuel 
 the prophet was called, three times in the course of the 
 night, and finally succeeded in getting us out an hour too 
 soon. But that was better than to be an hour too late, and 
 so we had breakfast, and were off again by the rail at six in 
 the morning. By eight we were at the frontier of Poland, 
 now Russia. Our passports were demanded, and our baggage 
 searched. Even the little bags were taken out of the cars 
 and examined. The only article sought for was tobacco, 
 and nobody ever found a bit of that in any luggage of mine. 
 At the station signs of progress were evident. Carts drawn 
 by oxen were loaded with brick, each brick twice as large as 
 one of ours. Large iron pipes for aqueducts were lying 
 around. A photographic apparatus, of a pattern quite novel 
 to me, was in use, taking views of the works going on. The 
 names of all the passengers were copied from their passports 
 into a register ; the passports were returned to their several 
 owners, then each passenger was asked if he had his pass- 
 port, and, the formality being over, we were allowed to pro- 
 ceed after an hour's detention. 
 
 We are now travelUng in Poland. We soon pass misera- 
 ble dwellings, half under ground, and with stagnant water 
 about them, giving every appearance of unhealthiness and 
 
272 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. ' 
 
 wretchedness. Yet the country was better tilled than in 
 Northern Germany. We are now on the Vistula. At one 
 of the stations we saw a meeting of friends, men kissing 
 each other ; young people stooped down, and old men kissed 
 them on the back of their heads. Elegant parks and gar- 
 dens surrounded the villa of the Princess Racziwill. For 
 centuries it has been the residence of the titled and rich. 
 
 At half-past three p.m. we arrived at Warsaw. All the 
 passengers, as they left the cars, were required to give up 
 their passports again ; were led into a room where all ingress 
 and egress was cut off ; here to each person was given a 
 receipt for his passport, and he was required to give the 
 name of the house at which he intended to stay, also to 
 state when he expected to leave. He was then allowed to 
 go. At the door a metal check was handed him, having on 
 it the number of the hack in which he would ride ; and thus, 
 with a deep conviction that we are at last in a country 
 where we are to be looked after, we were taken to our 
 hotel. 
 
WARSAW. 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 WARSAW. 
 
 /^N the banks of the Danube, but just where the story 
 ^^ does not say, and when it is quite uncertain, lived three 
 brothers, whose names were Lekh, Teckh, and Russ. They 
 were of the Slavonian race. Ambitious to found distinct 
 dynasties of their own, they set off on their travels. Pres- 
 ently, three eagles appeared, flying in as many directions, 
 and the brothers instantly agreed to follow the birds and 
 the example. Russ went after one of the eagles, and the 
 region he went into he called Russia ; Teckh went to 
 Bohemia, whose people were anciently called Teckhs ; and 
 Lekh, led by a white eagle, came to Poland. The people 
 adopted the white eagle as their national emblem, and they 
 were called Polekhs, or Polaks, and in Shakespeare the 
 people of Poland are Polaks. In some parts of this country 
 the Poles are yet called Lekhs. The great importance of 
 this recondite history is not very apparent ; but it is enough 
 to intimate that the origin of nations is often involved in 
 obscurity, and this is specially true of these northern 
 peoples. 
 
 The history of Poland, through its early centuries down 
 to 1772, is one of the most romantic in the "book of time." 
 With the coming of the Jesuits into Poland came trouble, 
 as trouble always comes with those pests of the human race. 
 War with Russia followed, and the Polish territory east of 
 the Dnieper, or Little Russia, was subjected to the Czar ; 
 and by and by, when the kingdom of Poland lay at the 
 mercy of three surrounding powers, it was " partitioned " 
 
 18 
 
2/4 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 between Russia and Prussia and Austria. This was but the 
 beginning of her trials. Never conquered, though always 
 overcome, fighting for independent existence again and 
 again, she has in her death-struggles shown a tenacity of 
 life that has commanded the admiring sympathy of man- 
 kind. Three times she has been divided among these de- 
 vouring kingdoms ; and at the settlement of 1815, after the 
 battle of Waterloo, when a new map of Europe was made, 
 it was decided that a part of Poland, Galicia, should belong 
 to Austria, Posen to Prussia, and the large part which 
 Napoleon had made into the Duchy of Warsaw, should be a 
 constitutional monarchy under the Russian Emperor as 
 King. In 1830 the Poles made another insurrection, and 
 when crushed they were deprived of their constitution, 
 their language was proscribed, and the last vestige of their 
 nationality was beaten out. 
 
 There is a savage wickedness in this cutting up of nations, 
 that does not touch the moral sentiment of the world as it 
 ought. To murder a man is something palpable, and so 
 obviously damnable. But to blot a nation out of being, to 
 strike down the life of a people and bury it out of sight for 
 ever, this is what has been done for poor Poland, and we 
 have only to drop a tear over her grave, enter a protest in 
 the name of human rights, and pass on. The most exten- 
 sive portion of ancient Poland is under Russia, the most 
 populous in the grasp of Austria, and the most commercial 
 is held by Prussia. Warsaw is the unwilling serf of Russia. 
 The present Emperor has sought to gild the chains that bind 
 this people ; but the iron chafes them, and will. He restored 
 their language and schools ; a council of state was formed ; 
 all the local officers were Poles. But nothing will satisfy a 
 noble race but to be their own masters: in 1863 Warsaw 
 was again in insurrection ; the men rushed to arms, the 
 women to the altars ; the streets ran blood, the weak sank 
 under the strong, and the end came. 
 
WARSAW. 275 
 
 The city of Warsaw has nearly 200,000' inhabitants. It 
 is a well-built town, modern in its appearance, with many 
 of its streets straight, and having large and handsome 
 houses. It stands on the Vistula. It is more gay and 
 attractive than you would expect to find it, under the heel 
 of an oppressor, and after years of fruitless struggle with a 
 crushing power. On every hand we see the signs of the 
 ruler's presence, in the persons of his armed deputies, the 
 soldiers of Russia, who are here to keep order in Warsaw. 
 In our hotel, the dining-room is always occupied by soldiers, 
 who are eating and drinking, especially drinking. " Sherry 
 cobblers " in quart tumblers are in front of them, and they 
 are sucking at them diligently. Venice, under Austrian 
 rule, was not more vigilantly guarded than Warsaw is at 
 this day, after a subjugation that has been endured for forty 
 years ! It will take two or three generations to make 
 Poland contented under foreign rule, and then the heredi- 
 tary love of nationality will remain, and rise to the surface 
 whenever it gets a chance for demonstration. 
 
 The city has a very unfinished appearance : there are 
 splendid public edifices near by others that seem only begun, 
 or neglected in the midst of building. Revolutions and the 
 fears of revolution have made its prosperity precarious, and 
 the inhabitants lack the highest stimulus to enterprise and 
 exertion, the hope of permanent possession and enjoyment. 
 The splendid government houses are in many cases the 
 palaces of the old Polish nobility, now decayed or extinct 
 families. Many of the former owners, who once rolled in 
 hereditary wealth, have long since been exiled to the deso- 
 late wilds of Siberia, and their places will never know them 
 again. A pall, like a perpetual cloud, is on the face of 
 Poland, and by degrees the spirit of liberty will be ex- 
 tinguished. The language and rule of Russia will become 
 universal. There is no hope in the future for the nation- 
 ality of Poland. 
 
2/6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 In 1863 a spy of the Russian government was stopping 
 at the Hotel de V Europe in Warsaw, where we are now 
 writing ; and, his business being suspected, the patriotic 
 Poles, who are not likely to abide the presence of such a 
 fellow if they know him, took the liberty of murdering him 
 in his bed. The Russian government seized the house, 
 shut it up, and for some years it has stood closed, a monu- 
 ment and a warning. Russia will not allow her spies to be 
 murdered without visiting her vengeance on the house itself 
 in which the murder is committed. As this hotel was for- 
 merly the palace of one of the noble Polish families, and 
 the only hotel of large proportions, it was a serious injury 
 to the city as well as to the proprietors. And I do not 
 apprehend that the Poles will be any more gentle in their 
 treatment of Russian spies, because their largest tavern was 
 shut up half a dozen years. 
 
 Out of my window I see a soldier standing with his back 
 against the wall ; he has a soldier's cap and long cloak 
 reaching nearly to the ground ; he has been there five or • 
 six hours, marching now and then a few rods and returning 
 to his post : five soldiers come and stand in front of him, 
 one of them takes off the cloak and puts it on his own 
 shoulders, and, stepping into his place, mounts guard ; and 
 this process is continued and repeated all over the city, day 
 and night, year after year. Thousands of Russian soldiers 
 are thus quartered on the city continually : lazy, intemperate, 
 and licentious, they are a moral pestilence ; using their 
 power to compel the subject people to submit to their inso- 
 lence, and corrupting by their example and association those 
 with whom they come into contact. 
 
 With this admixture of foreign and native people, it is 
 impossible to discriminate between them ; but a more un- 
 mannerly set of people I have never met at public places ^^ 
 than they are here. The servants have no manners but ^H 
 bad manners. They enter your private room without ^ 
 
WARSAW. 277 
 
 knocking ; they are grouty in their address, sulky in their 
 answers, and generally disagreeable. The same may be 
 said of the officers of the hotel : disobliging, inattentive. 
 The women appeared to be lively in each other's company, 
 but the men of Warsaw are grave and thoughtful. 
 
 We rode in the afternoon through the beautiful parks 
 and meadows and groves where the Russian military exer- 
 cises are held, and through the Botanical Gardens, and to 
 the Observatory, for the pursuit of science has not been 
 arrested by the revolutions that have overturned the govern- 
 ment ; and then we came to Lazienki, a splendid rural 
 palace, built by King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski. 
 PI ere the Emperor of Russia has his temporary abode when 
 he visits Warsaw, which, by the v^^ay, he does not often, 
 for his presence is not specially agreeable to the people. 
 Beautiful villas are scattered through the park, the resi- 
 dences of persons connected with the court ; fountains 
 lay, a beautiful stream flows by, and a monument to Sobi- 
 eski, John IIP of Poland, stands conspicuous, the sight of 
 which is said to have led the Emperor Nicholas, in 1850, 
 after the war in Hungary, to make the remark : " The 
 two kings of Poland that committed the gravest error are 
 John IIP and myself ; for we both saved the Austrian mon- 
 archy."- It is hard to say whether such reflections are 
 sound or not ; the rise and fall of kingdoms are all in the 
 plans of Infinite Wisdom, and what to us seems exceedingly 
 desirable may be the height of folly in the eye of Him who 
 reads the future. It is certainly not human wisdom that 
 has spared Austria or Turkey and sacrificed Poland, but the 
 end may yet be well. 
 
 It was dark when we returned to the city. A feeble 
 attempt at illumination was going on in some of the public 
 buildings. Dim lights were hung along some of the walls, 
 and now and then a private house had an extra lamp or two 
 in its windows ! We inquired the cause of this miserable 
 
278 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 imitation of rejoicing, this abortive demonstration. The 
 telegraph had brought the intelhgence that to-day an unsuc- 
 cessful attempt had been made to assassinate the Emperor 
 Alexander. The illumination was thus very satisfactorily 
 and exactly explained. The assassination was attempted 
 by a Polander, and Poland would have madly rejoiced if it 
 had been a success. I was at a loss to know whether the 
 illumination signified joy at the Emperor's escape from death 
 or joy that his death had been so nearly accomplished. The 
 melancholy exhibition of lights was just enough to suggest 
 the two conflicting sentiments ; and if the Russian soldiers 
 and officials and dependants did their duty in hanging out 
 the lamps, the inhabitants of Warsaw almost without excep- 
 tion will go to bed regretting that the shot of the assassin 
 did not lodge in the heart of the Emperor whom they regard 
 as their oppressor. 
 
 The streets of Warsaw are badly paved ; riding in some 
 of them is a protracted punishment. They are badly lighted, 
 and it is not unusual for an ordinance to be in force requir- 
 ing every one going out after dark to carry a light, under 
 pain of arrest. 
 
 The first drunken person I saw in the streets of a city on 
 the Continent of Europe was here. In the southern capi- 
 tals, as of Spain and Italy, and even of France, there was 
 gayety, but not intemperance. I had not been long in the 
 city before I saw a woman lying on the pavement dead 
 drunk. And nobody seemed to heed the spectacle, always 
 and everywhere disgusting as the most shameful exhibition 
 of fallen humanity. They have their favorite vices in the 
 south of Europe, but this of drunkenness is not one of 
 them. The use of wine, light wine, is not the cause of the 
 sobriety of the people, though it is a fact beyond all denial 
 that the wine-growing countries are the most temperate 
 countries in the world. Yet they are not temperate because 
 they have wine to drink. They would be just as temperate, 
 
WARSAW. 279 
 
 and perhaps more so, if they had no wine. They are tem- 
 perate because the chmate does not invite them to the 
 stimuhis of alcohol. That's all. It is not their virtue, nor 
 their wine, that makes them so. They are not tempted to 
 drink strong drink. As soon as we get into these northern 
 countries we find the people making free use of distilled 
 liquors and getting drunk: and intemperance is the pre- 
 vailing vice of the clime, as licentiousness is the vice of the 
 south of Europe. Climate is to be considered in all our 
 studies of the habits of a people, and it must be allowed its 
 proper effect when we are estimating the virtues and vices 
 of our fellow-men. Climate is no excuse for wrong-doing, 
 but it helps to know why people fall into one or another 
 class of sins. 
 
 On Sunday, after searching in vain to find the English 
 service which was said to be performed in an evangelical 
 chapel by a clergyman of the Church of England, we went 
 to the Lutheran Church. Its dome, rising from an open 
 square, is a prominent object in the city. The building 
 itself is a rotunda, and very large. The yard was filled with 
 all sorts of carriages, wagons, droskies, and carts, with 
 horses of various grades, by which the people had come in 
 from the surrounding country. Some of these vehicles were 
 the rudest kind of rustic wagons, and being covered with 
 mud, and filled with straw as the only seat, having no springs, 
 and long and narrow, indicated that the roads were bad, and 
 that the people had encountered some difficulties in getting 
 to the house of God. It is rare to see such a show of 
 teams about a city church. It was all the more interesting 
 in Warsaw, in the heart of the old kingdom of Poland. 
 
 I entered the porch, and it was crowded by people unable 
 to get into the thronged church. Looking over their heads, 
 I saw three successive galleries rising above each other ; 
 and, following the winding staircase in the vestibule, we 
 reached the first, and, unable to get admission there, we 
 
280 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 mounted to the second, which was also full, and then to 
 the third, where there was plenty of room. A singularly 
 imposing spectacle was presented. The vast audience-room 
 was a perfect circle ; the three galleries sweeping com- 
 pletely around to the pulpit and organ behind it. The 
 pews on the ground floor were occupied by a class of persons 
 by their dress and manner more elevated in rank than the 
 others. The pew doors were kept locked, until the sermon 
 was to be commenoed, when they were opened, and the 
 crowd in the porch were permitted to take those not occu- 
 pied by their owners. The first gallery pews were filled 
 with plainer people. The second gallery had a set of wor- 
 shippers whose coarse and humble attire indicated the 
 harder worked and poorer people ; but their dress was 
 cleanly, and an air of comfort pervaded the whole assembly. 
 The third gallery, into which I found access, was not 
 seated, and the few persons in it stood at the front. It was 
 a sublime spectacle, this crowded sanctuary, perhaps three 
 thousand people, worshipping in a strange tongue, and all 
 animated with the spirit of the hour. Behind the pulpit 
 was a life-size statue of the Saviour on the cross. In front 
 of it four immense candles, each four feet high, were burn- 
 ing. These candles and statue would lead us to suppose 
 that the Lutheran was not wholly reformed, and that some 
 relics of Romanism still lingered. The minister read a 
 hymn, and around the organ a large choir of young men 
 and boys, no females in it, stood up and sang, — the whole 
 assembly, men and women, — with the organ, singing with 
 a mighty noise. The sermon followed. The Polish is not 
 one of the tongues with which I am familiar, and I shall 
 not undertake to pass an opinion upon the eloquence or the 
 orthodoxy of the discourse. But the clear rich tones of the 
 preacher's voice fell upon attentive ears, and the earnest- 
 ness of his manner spoke well for him, though I could not 
 understand a word. 
 
WARSAW. 281 
 
 At the door, as I came out, there was a row of mendi- 
 cants, not asking alms, but willing and expecting to receive 
 the charities of those who passed, and they were remem- 
 bered by many. It was an inoffensive way of begging. 
 Whoever gave was moved to do a good thing without being 
 importuned. 
 
 The principal streets of the city had as many people in 
 them, going to and from church, as you would see in New 
 York, and so widely do the fashions of Paris prevail in the 
 west and east and north, that the fashionable people of War- 
 saw, riding or walking, looked to be the same sort of people 
 that one meets in cities with which he is more familiar. 
 
 I walked into the Jewish quarter of the town. Their 
 Sabbath was yesterday ; but to-day is one of their feast- 
 days, and they were all out of doors, "a peculiar people" 
 everywhere. The men wore long frock-coats reaching to 
 the ground. Their dwellings were mostly mean and low ; 
 but we saw women going in and out of them dressed in rich 
 silks, with splendid velvet mantillas, and they were doubtless 
 as Avell off for this world as their people seem to be in all 
 countries where they have a chance to live and trade. They 
 have the best hospital in Warsaw. They retain their 
 nationality, the expression of countenance, the curve of the 
 nose, the faculty of making and keeping money wherever 
 they go. And they are strangely hated in the Christian 
 world since they crucified the Lord of Glory, as the serpent 
 has been among men since he tempted the woman in Eden. 
 Of the five or six millions of people in Poland, nearly one 
 million are Jews. This is a large proportion, perhaps larger 
 than any other country in Europe. 
 
 There are only' about 300,000 Protestants in Poland, and 
 when you learn that of the Russian or Greek church there 
 are but five or six thousand, out of the five or six miUions, 
 you will see one grand reason why Poland will never be 
 submissive to the rule of Russia. Their religions are at 
 
282 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 war. Poland is intensely bigoted in its Romanism. In the 
 public square we see a statue of the Virgin Mary, with an 
 iron railing around it ; flowers in pots are kept before it, 
 lamps by night are burning in its presence, tumblers of oil 
 with lighted wicks in them, and an old woman to light them 
 as often as the wind blows them out, and here the people 
 are constantly coming and throwing themselves down on 
 the stones and saying their prayers : one young man was 
 so earnest in his devotions, that he prayed with a loud 
 voice, regardless of those around him, as if he knew the 
 statue was quite deaf and could hear no common prayer. 
 In 1863, the frightened people rushed to this image, when 
 they saw that the insurrection was not to be successful, 
 and the Russian troops charged upon the praying multitude 
 of men and women and scattered them on their knees. 
 
 ' Before one of the churches two crosses are erected, to 
 commemorate the union of Poland and Russia. Tradition 
 says that they also mark the scene of the strangest duel 
 that was ever heard of, — two brothers being jealous of each 
 other on account of their own sister's love, fought here 
 and slew each other. The province of " Little Russia " 
 lies between Russia proper and Poland, and for the posses- 
 sion of it the two kingdoms have fought till it has some- 
 times been thought they would devour each other. 
 
 As I saw people going into a court -yard I followed them, 
 into a little chapel, where a corpse was lying in state. It 
 was of an old man ; thirty or forty candles were burning 
 around him, but he was raised on a platform so high that 
 his face could not be seen. Leaving him, I came out and 
 met a funeral procession. The body was borne in a hearse, 
 surmounted with a gorgeous crimson canopy, and drawn by 
 six horses richly caparisoned and led by six grooms. The 
 Emperor could not have desired a more ostentatious funeral ; 
 all hats were removed as the procession passed, and this 
 practice, which prevails on the Continent generally, and 
 
WARSAW. 
 
 283 
 
 especially in France, is a beautiful and becoming tribute of 
 respect, which I would be glad to see prevalent at home. 
 They uncover their heads when the King passes by ; and 
 what monarch is mightier than he to whom the stateliest 
 head must bow. 
 
 Ours were the only English names on the register of the 
 hotel, the largest in the city ; we called at another hotel, 
 and not an English name was there, and during the three 
 days we were in Warsaw we did not hear a word of our 
 tongue, except when we spoke ourselves. We were not, 
 however, as much disturbed by this as the lady was in Paris, 
 who was out of all patience and spirits hearing nothing but 
 French day after day. One morning she heard a cock 
 crowing, and exclaimed, "Thank God, there's somebody 
 who speaks English." 
 
 Polish Peasants. 
 
284 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 "X T ^E were to leave Warsaw in the course of the forenoon. 
 
 ^ ^ At half-past eight we came downstairs, and found 
 the breakfast-room closed, and nobody up in the house who 
 could provide the morning repast. As time was precious, 
 we went out to another hotel, and it was still closed ; when 
 at nine o'clock we succeeded in getting in, there was no one 
 stirring but -the landlord himself, and he managed to get 
 breakfast for us with his own hands. Returning to our 
 own hotel we called for the bill, and found the prices for 
 rooms and board one-third more than we were assured they 
 would be, by the same man who now made the charges. I 
 mention all these little things to show the ways of the world 
 we are travelling in. We do not remember any country, 
 nor any hotel, where we were more systematically imposed 
 on, and where we got so little for so much, as at the Hotel 
 I'Europe, the largest and most pretentious house in Poland. 
 
 We rode from the hotel across the Vistula, over a new 
 and splendid bridge, and found the railroad station a mile 
 beyond. It is put at this safe and very inconvenient dis- 
 tance from the town to be secure against sudden outbreaks 
 of popular violence. The people are of the excitable order, 
 and this road is the grand route between Warsaw and 
 St. Petersburg, over which their Russian masters come to 
 govern the Poles. The young man selling tickets was civil, 
 and he was the first man who had spoken civilly to us since 
 we entered unhappy Poland. The Russian officials at the 
 
FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 285 
 
 Station were all civil. Before we could purchase our tickets 
 our passports were examined, and a " ticket of leave " was 
 given us, for which we paid thirty copakes, about twenty 
 cents. We paid a cent for the baggage check. The cars 
 were splendid ; the first and second class had spring seats, 
 cushioned, with racks for parcels ; and the second class was 
 quite as good as the first in France or Germany. The pas- 
 sengers were very few ; the train, the only one for the day, 
 had but three cars, and none were full. We had an apart- 
 ment for six entirely to ourselves, two of us. 
 
 We rush out into a vast prairie country, very sparsely 
 inhabited, but well cultivated ; large herds of cattle were 
 grazing on the plains ; pine groves were frequent ; the 
 north side of trees was torn by winter storms ; houses 
 were thatched with straw, and appeared to be miserable 
 abodes for the poor inhabitants ; they became poorer as we 
 went north, sometimes partly under ground. They are 
 now more scattered ; fewer villages ; but they are doubtless 
 more frequent off the line of railroad, which may be laid 
 through parts of the country less settled than others. The 
 peasants in their rude working clothes had a wretched 
 look, and the women were all barefooted. We passed a 
 village that seemed to be Jewish, the men and boys being 
 clad in long coats, such as we saw on the Jews in War- 
 saw. Once in every half-mile, on the road, was a neat 
 house for the railroad man, whose duty it is to see that 
 the road is in perfect order. These houses are numbered 
 in order, over the whole route ; they are of brick or stone, 
 small, warm, and substantial, with a little ornament. The 
 idea is excellent. A man thus provided for is impelled by 
 his highest interests to be vigilant and faithful ; and it 
 would be strange, indeed, if the road were ever suffered to 
 be out of order for a moment with such care. The road 
 is soHd, a single track with frequent turnouts, and the 
 cars run smoothly. At every cross-road for wagons a man 
 
286 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Stands keeping guard. Accidents must be very rare on a 
 road so managed. 
 
 We stop at Lapy, on the river Narev, for dinner ; they 
 give us good soup, stewed veal, and potatoes, and a ball of 
 forced meat, and charge us about fifty cents, two or three 
 times as much as it was worth, but they do not expect to 
 entertain you twice ; certainly we do not expect to dine "at 
 Lapy again. 
 
 At Bialystok, the next station, a lady left the cars and 
 was met by a young man, perhaps her son, in military 
 dress ; they kissed each other four times, and he then 
 kissed her hand, and the salutations were completed. 
 Many Jewish women were out to-day, which is one of 
 their feasts ; the cross-roads were thronged with Jews, 
 who seemed to be gathering there to see the cars pass- 
 ing ; they were not allowed on the track or on the side 
 of the railroad, but must keep themselves on the wagon-- 
 roads, where they crossed the track. This town of Bialy- 
 stok is quite an important place of 16,000 people, on the 
 borders of the old kingdom, and in the cutting up of the 
 country it has sometimes been Prussia, sometimes Russia, 
 and aforetime Poland. It is now Russia, of course. We 
 come on to Grodno, with its 20,000 inhabitants, which is a 
 large town in Russia proper, and we feel a pleasant relief 
 in being within the bounds of the empire itself, though 
 even this was once in Poland, and the residence of some 
 of her kings. Here sat the diets, or congress, of Poland, 
 and even that most celebrated of all of them, the diet of 
 1793, which gave its consent to the partition of Poland. 
 Here, too, the last king of Poland, Stanislaus Augustus 
 Poniatowski, laid down his sceptre. We find the Jews, 
 in great numbers, out on a holiday ; the grand-high-priest, 
 with his gorgeous breastplate on, with long hair, as if it 
 had never been cut and he were a Nazarene from his birth. 
 We are now travelling in Lithuania, once a duchy, whose 
 
FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 28/ 
 
 duke married the Queen of Poland, by name Hedwiga, in 
 1386. This union made Poland powerful to resist the 
 Tartars and the Dukes of Moscow, and to maintain the 
 independence of the kingdom for a long series of years. 
 The union of Lithuania and Poland continued until the 
 third partition in 1795. The country appears poorer as 
 we advance ; the soil is less fertile ; there is more sandy 
 and barren waste. Pines and firs and white birches are 
 the trees we see now ; the houses of the peasants are low 
 and poor ; we have long since ceased to see improvements 
 about the railroad stations ; we are getting into regions of 
 less civilization. As far as the eye reaches away to the 
 horizon, no hills are in sight. It was across these wide 
 plains that the great French captain led his hosts to in- 
 vade Russia, sixty years ago ! We shall be frequently on 
 the track of that army's awful march, and its disastrous 
 retreat. We have come to Kowno, where the rivers Vilia 
 and Niemen meet. Here the French army crossed the 
 Niemen, June 23, 18 12, on their way to Moscow, and a 
 gentle rise of ground, on the bank, is still called Napo- 
 leon's Hill. It was a mighty host when it was here in 
 June. All the annals of war and of the world furnish 
 no parallel to the story of that campaign ; it was an 
 epitome of Napoleon's whole career. But it is rare that 
 marble is so modest as the monument which the Russians 
 have set up at Kowno to commemorate the miserable 
 failure of Napoleon's stupendous plan of subjugating 
 Russia. In the centre of the market-place they have set 
 up a stone bearing this significant inscription, — 
 
 " In 1812, Russia was invaded by an army numbering 700,000 men. 
 The army recrossed the frontier, numbering 70,000." 
 
 When Napoleon entered Wilna on his fatal march to 
 Moscow, he occupied the same rooms in the episcopal 
 palace that the Emperor Alexander had hastily vacated the 
 
288 A1.HAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 day before. We shall not have the same apartments, but 
 we are here at the same season of the year ; it was June 
 28, 1812, when the French army took possession of Wilna, 
 the Russians having evacuated it in the night. 
 
 We had been riding eleven hours steadily, yet the cars 
 were so comfortable, the road so smooth, and the motion 
 so easy and gentle, that we had suffered little fatigue. 
 The scenery had been improving. The country was 
 more uneven, rolling, and actually rising sometimes to 
 the dignity of hills, until we were able and obliged to pass 
 through a tunnel, being our first experience of the kind in 
 some days, so level had been the regions through which 
 we had travelled. Wilna is surrounded by hills, and en- 
 joys a river flowing out of the valley, and the ravines are 
 filled with birch and larches, giving something of the life 
 and beauty of. verdure, which is quite inspiring in this 
 latitude. In the fourteenth century the people here were 
 pagans, and a fire was kept burning day and night at 
 the foot of one of the castle-crowned hills. The ruins of 
 the castle, which was reared in 1323, are still visible on the 
 summit. What a history of war, famine, and fire these 
 intervening centuries have seen. Thirty thousand inhab- 
 itants were destroyed by famine in one year, 17 10, and five 
 years afterwards nearly the whole town was burned. The 
 people are still impatient of the Russian yoke. They are 
 always ready for an outbreak. In 1831, they tried and 
 failed ; and in 1862 they made a desperate effort, and the 
 leaders of the movement were summarily hung or shot. 
 
 The beauties of travel in Russia begin to be seen even 
 in the dark. We are in the station, in the midst of a crowd 
 of people, who seem to be talking all the languages of 
 Babel ; such a jargon does the Russian, Polish, and German 
 make, when all are spoken at the same time by an im- 
 patient multitude. We are to wait an hour for the train 
 to leave, and that will bring it near to midnight. If we 
 
FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 289 
 
 spend the night here, there is no train until to-morrow 
 night at the same hour, and we shall therefore be as badly 
 off when it comes. It is better to go on and make a night 
 of it. Twelve hours will bring us to St. Petersburg, and 
 then we can rest. There are no sleeping cars. We must 
 sit up or lounge the best way we can. It is now eleven 
 o'clock and is getting to be dark. But we are so far north 
 that the days are long, and the night will be very short. 
 At midnight we curl up in the corner of the seat, and the 
 train starts as we go to sleep. At two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing we awake, and it is broad daylight ! At three we enter 
 Dimaberg, a large town of small houses ; 27,000 inhabitants : 
 the most of the buildings are of wood, and only one story 
 high, like the little farm-houses scattered over the country. 
 It is well fortified, though it is hardly worth fighting about. 
 John the Terrible captured Dunaberg in 1577, and the 
 Swedes took it in 1600. The railroad station-house towers 
 above the dwellings, that look like ant-hills scattered 
 around. We stop a few minutes only, and push on through 
 vast quantites of charcoal and railroad fuel collected here, 
 and pine forest succeed, and white birch-trees, and over a 
 flat, uninteresting country. The sun rose between four and 
 five o'clock, and at a wayside station we were refreshed 
 with a cup of coffee. The night was over, and the shortest 
 I ever spent with my clothes on. We now pass tilled fields, 
 and at one time we counted twenty villages of low, small 
 houses in sight at one time, as we rushed along. The 
 grain is well up, and with a warm summer will come to 
 maturity. Wide tracts of land are destitute of vegetation ; 
 and with the evidences of want of agricultural knowledge, 
 and the brevity of the summer, it is easy to see that these 
 crowded villages may be pinched for want of food in a bad 
 season. These famines have sometimes reached the cities, 
 and the sufferings of Moscow in 1600 were not exceeded 
 by the horrors of Jerusalem besieged by Titus. One hun- 
 
 19 
 
290 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 dred and twenty-seven thousand dead bodies remained for 
 some days unburied in the streets, and 500,000 perished. 
 
 The peasants are astir in the early morning at their work 
 in the fields. They are decently clad, and have the appear- 
 ance of being " comfortable ; " they and their houses indi- 
 cating that they have time and inclination to take care of 
 themselves. They are no longer serfs. This term is not 
 the same as slave. The serf was sold with the land on 
 which he worked, not away from it, or without it. So long 
 ago as 1597, a decree was issued forbidding peasants to 
 leave the lands on which they were at that time employed. 
 This made every working-man a fixture on the land of the 
 landholder. At a date even earlier than this, they were 
 forbidden to leave except at stated periods, but the com- 
 plete attachment by statute of the husbandmen to the soil 
 did not take place until the sixteenth century. This con- 
 tinued to be the established order of things until the acces- 
 sion of Alexander II. to the throne in 1856. The serfdom 
 of Russia was not absolute slavery. It did not subject the 
 man to the unrestricted will of the master. The peasant 
 remained the tiller of the same soil, and changed his master 
 only when the soil changed owners. But the grievance 
 was inexpressibly great. In some cases it worked extraor- 
 dinary results. The serf sometimes by energy and ability 
 became a man of wealth and power. But he was under a 
 social ban that kept him down as color depresses the black 
 man. The reign of the present Emperor has been marked 
 by the introduction of great and beneficent reforms. Rail- 
 ways were begun, and a new impulse given to trade at 
 home and foreign, commerce. The manumission of the 
 serfs had long been discussed, but an opposition from the 
 nobility had been too formidable to make it safe. In 1838, 
 some of the nobles petitioned for the abolition. In 1859, 
 the nobles of Lithuania offered to free their serfs. A gen- 
 eral plan was then devised for the whole empire, and by a 
 
FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 29 1 
 
 decree of March 3, 1861, about twenty-three milKons of 
 people were raised to the enjoyment of civil rights. A cer- 
 tain amount of land, varying in different districts from two 
 and a half to ten acres, was allotted to each peasant. He 
 is allowed to acquire more land by purchase. A board of 
 arbitrators, in different parts of the country, regulate the 
 price and terms of payment to the original owners. The 
 government advances the purchase-money to the peasant in 
 the form of a five per cent bond, and this the proprietor 
 receives for his land, and the government takes the pay- 
 ment of the peasant by instalments, through a series of 
 years. The districts, or towns, being made responsible for 
 this repayment to the government, a wholesome restraint 
 is put upon the inhabitants, by which they are kept within 
 bounds until this debt is paid. Thus the entire population 
 is made interested in the accomplishment of the great 
 work. The nobles who were the proprietors of the soil, 
 receive government bonds bearing interest, and thus de- 
 rive a fixed income, while each peasant becomes an inde- 
 pendent landed proprietor. The change has been effected 
 with no convulsion, and is gradually becoming a settled and 
 peaceful state of things. A few outbreaks occurred at the 
 time, chiefly from want of understanding the plan, and on 
 the whole it has worked well. 
 
 This beneficent reform has been effected without passion, 
 and with the intelligent approbation of the masters who 
 were by a single decree deprived of 23,000,000 of bondmen. 
 The original owners of the soil are not reduced to poverty 
 by the emancipation of their men. The men are not 
 turned loose upon the world without means to earn their 
 living, and without incentives to industry. The govern- 
 ment is not made to bear the expense of supporting them, 
 or of finding work for them to do. The emancipated man 
 is at once put into a position to earn his living where he 
 has always lived. The master is left with a large surplus 
 
292 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. "t 
 
 of soil, which he may cultivate with hired labor, which must 
 be abundant, when the peasants have but small farms of 
 their own, which are easily and chiefly tilled by the women. 
 And this work has been accomplished with so much moder- 
 ation, wisdom, and justice, as to compel the approbation of 
 every enlightened judgment and conscience. It is in most 
 aspects of the case a model plan of emancipation. 
 
 It seems strange to me that this rapid travel is hurrying 
 me on to St. Petersburg ! The cathedral and churches of 
 PsKOF are before us, and we stop for breakfast. We enter 
 the breakfast-room and find the dishes laid ; each one helps 
 himself to whatever he wishes, and pays for what he takes ; 
 not a word being necessary, except to learn the price of the 
 food. 
 
 A lady and gentleman were walking up and down on 
 the platform, both smoking. We are coming to a city where 
 smoking in the streets is prohibited by law. The peculiar 
 garb of the rustic Russian is seen on the men around the 
 station-. They wear long woollen coats, reaching nearly 
 to the ground. A girdle is about the middle. The hat 
 is a low-crowned beaver, and rapidly expanding toward 
 the top. 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 293 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 ^T 7E were in Russia, at Warsaw. At that point in the 
 ^ ^ journey we were put through a searching process, 
 and the result having satisfied the officials that we were not 
 of the dangerous classes, and had no designs upon the life 
 of the Emperor, or the emancipation of Poland, we had 
 been allowed to enter. And now that we had come to 
 St. Petersburg, there was no need of overhauling us again, 
 for we had been certified to already. We were as free on 
 arriving at the capital as if we had come to New York. 
 
 At the station-house we were reminded at once that we 
 were in a strange land, by the peculiar costume of the por- 
 ters and drivers, who were as numerous and noisy as at 
 home. They wore low-crown hats, with bevelled rims ; 
 long coats reaching to the feet, and a belt about their loins. 
 They were as clamorous for hire as in more civilized coun- 
 tries, but they pulled and hauled less. It was easy to see 
 that the hand of government was upon this most ungovern- 
 able class of men. We found the same kind of omnibuses 
 that run in our own streets, and on the one inscribed with 
 the name of the hotel to which we were bound we took our 
 seats, and were soon riding over the roughest paved streets 
 that ever disgraced a city. For a long series of years 
 St. Petersburg was unpaved. At length an imperial decree 
 was issued that every vehicle coming into the city should 
 bring a certain number of stones to be left for paving. If 
 each carriage had dumped its load, without regard to size 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 295 
 
 or order, just where it happened, the result would have 
 been about the same as we found and felt the state of the 
 streets to be, as we were bounced and tumbled on our way 
 to the Hotel de France. 
 
 The manager of the hotel bade us welcome in good Eng- 
 lish. We were grimed with the dust of thirty hours' steady 
 railroad travel, and the luxury of a bath was more enjoyable 
 than bed or board. The Russian is a very different bath 
 from the Turkish, where to the preliminaries of warm air 
 to set the system into a perspiration is added the thorough 
 and plentiful scrubbing with hot water, poured on merci- 
 lessly. The Russian is the vapor bath only, and its effect 
 is to open all the pores of the skin, to empty them com- 
 pletely as the streams of perspiration gush from every little 
 mouth, and to incite a pleasurable languor, when all sense 
 of weariness, soreness, or stiffness is gradually steamed 
 away. The Russian dinner that followed was of the best : 
 soup, fish, cutlet, roast beef, partridges, vegetables, and 
 varied dessert. Wines or not, as you choose to order. 
 
 To see a city whose language is not one of your accom- 
 plishments, you must have a guide, a commissionaire, a 
 valet de place. Now we knew precious little of the Russ. 
 We had picked up a httle Polish — mark, I do not say pol- 
 ish — at Warsaw, and had startled the natives by sudden 
 outbreaks in what we supposed to be perfectly proper lan- 
 guage, but which only served to awaken their pity or make 
 them laugh ; but the Russian is another thing, and not 
 expecting to spend a winter here, nor to study the literature 
 of the country, we had given no time to the language. We 
 must have some one to be our mouth to the people, some- 
 body who could answer a thousand questions out of his 
 own stores of information, or serve as our interpreter when 
 we attempted to get it out of others. 
 
 In the city of St. Petersburg resides an old Englishman 
 whose name is Russel. He has an understanding with the 
 
296 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 hotel men that whenever a guide is wanted by travellers, 
 he is to be sent for, and at our intimation ' he made his 
 appearance, and very respectfully offered his services to 
 make us familiar with the lions of the town. Mr. Russel 
 is a venerable man in years, having completed his three- 
 score and ten some time since. Half a century of these 
 years he has dwelt in this capital of the Russian empire, 
 and toiled in this interesting service of expounding its 
 wonders to the visitors from other countries. Mr. Russel 
 has become so familiar with the objects of interest in his 
 adopted city, that he imagines his strangers to be equally 
 familiar with them, and in no need of being enlightened. 
 He is so far gone in the loss of his faculties, if he ever 
 had any great quantity to lose, that a question must be 
 proposed to him often and in many forms, before he com- 
 prehends it, and when he answers, you are not sure that 
 he understood you, or that he knows any thing about the 
 matter. He never speaks except when he is spoken to, 
 unless to tell you something you knew before, or that was 
 not worth knowing. He would pass the most important 
 and interesting buildings or monuments or historic places 
 in the city, and not mention them, unless you asked him, — 
 " What's that .? " Yet he v/as very English. He dropped 
 the H invariably. He exaspirated his vowels most unmer- 
 cifully. Pointing to the tombs of the kings and royal 
 family, he said : " That's the /uij'-e to the throne ; that's 
 his haunt, and there's his huncler In a picture-gallery we 
 came to Danae, and he was kind enough to say, *' That's a 
 woman, I believe," and there was not much room for doubt 
 on the subject ; and in a group of mythological sculpture 
 he remarked for our information, " That's Jupiter, — these 
 is all gods." 
 
 This was the intelUgent man who was to make us ac- 
 quainted with the city of St. Petersburg. If you are to 
 be told only what he could tell me, it would not be worth 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 29/ 
 
 while to read any further. But we have eyes and ears of 
 our own, and already the barbaric splendor of this northern 
 capital is breaking upon us. You shall have our first im- 
 pressions and our last, for we have made two visits here, 
 and have become familiar with the city, if not in love with 
 it. It is not a city to go into raptures over. Perhaps it 
 will become beautiful one day. But nothing in it is fin- 
 ished. Streets with palaces on them are still disfigured 
 with insignificant and miserable dwellings. Palaces are 
 not completed. Wealth has been lavished, but nothing is 
 done. It resembles our own capital in this, that its public 
 buildings are far apart, and the city is not half built up. 
 
 In the year 1703, Peter the Great began to build a city, 
 to be called after his own name. He selected a miserable 
 site on the banks of the Neva, and here he gathered a host 
 of Russians, Tartars, Kalmucks, and Fins, and set them 
 at this stupendous work. We expect to grow as the 
 people want houses to live in. Peter built a city, and 
 then looked for people to come and find it. The little 
 cottage that he built for himself on the shore is still 
 standing where he placed it, and the tools with which 
 he worked, with his own industrious and skilful hands. 
 For several successive years, 40,000 men were annually 
 raised by draft, as for an army, to come from distant parts 
 of the empire and build. The nobility of Russia came and 
 caused residences to be reared for them, when they saw 
 that Moscow was no longer to be the capital. Peter died, 
 and Catharine I. did not push on the work with energy. 
 Her successor, Peter II., loved Moscow more, and died 
 there. Anne, the empress, adopted Petersburg as her 
 residence, and it flourished under her reign. Catharine 
 strove hard to defend it from the inroads of the river, but 
 it lies so low that no art can avert inundations. It lies in 
 the midst of waters, a vast morass. Canals easily traverse 
 its bosom. Bridges and islands and quays are part of the 
 
298 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 streets and squares of the city. The houses are too many 
 for the inhabitants. The thoroughfares are never thronged. 
 You may walk long streets and scarcely meet a person. 
 Half a million is the number of its inhabitants, but there 
 is room for many more. 
 
 The contrasts are more sudden and striking than in 
 other capitals. The rich are very rich ; the poor are very 
 poor. Society is rigid in its laws. The nobles have no 
 sympathies with the serf, though a serf no longer. Caste 
 is stronger in Russia than in England. 
 
 But I am impatient to be out in the town, sight-seeing. 
 It is a very hot day, and I asked Russel if they often had 
 such hot weather in June. "Well," he said,." sometimes 
 it is 'ot as this, and sometimes not so 'ot : it depends very 
 much on the weather ; " and with this profound observation 
 he led the way into the city. 
 
 It was but a step from our lodgings, under the arch that 
 divides and connects the state apartments into the grand 
 square in front of the Winter Palace, the residence of the 
 Emperor of Russia. 
 
 But before us rises a red granite column, the grandeur 
 and beauty of which instantly fix the eye. A single stone, 
 eighty-four feet high and fifty feet in circumference, — 
 the loftiest single shaft of modern times, only less in 
 height than Pompey's Pillar, — stands in the midst of the 
 square, surmounted by an angel and the cross. The ped- 
 estal bears a brief inscription, but it tells the whole story, — 
 " Grateful Russia to Alexander I." Originally this stone 
 was cut out of the mountain, 104 feet long, and the order 
 was to make the loftiest monolith in the world ; but from 
 fear that it was too long to stand firmly on its base, which 
 was fourteen feet in diameter, it was shortened to its 
 present length. With incredible labor it was erected upon 
 a pedestal twenty-five feet high, and there, polished, . it 
 stands, perhaps the most splendid shaft that now presses 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 299 
 
 upon the earth. It seemed to grow as I gazed upon it. 
 And daily as I caught sight of it from other parts of the 
 city, or as I drove into the magnificent area of which it is 
 the central figure, its simple majesty and exceeding beauty 
 impressed me more and more. What vast labor it cost to 
 bring this block from the mountains of Finland, and plant 
 it perpendicularly on the banks of the Neva, in the heart 
 of the city ! 
 
 In the Admiralty Square is a more famous statue, and 
 one of which we have heard from childhood ; pictures of it 
 had made it so familiar that it seemed an old acquaintance, 
 — Peter the Great, the founder of the city, its inventor 
 and builder, is on horseback, riding up a rock, to the verge 
 of which he has come, when he reins in his steed and sits 
 looking upon the river and the city he has raised upon its 
 banks. The horse is rearing, and the immense weight 
 rests upon his hinder legs and the tail, which touches a 
 huge serpent, coiled at the horse's feet. This is deservedly 
 reckoned one of the finest equestrian statues, and it honors 
 the most extraordinary man of his age. 
 
 Two boys were together crowned as Czars of Russia, at 
 Moscow, by the Greek patriarch, on the 15th of June, 1682. 
 They were brothers, and one of them soon yielded to the 
 superior energy of the other, and resigning his share of 
 the government, left Peter the sole sovereign of an empire 
 but little above the range of barbarism. This Peter, who 
 became Peter the Great, was then but seventeen years 
 old. He was far in advance of every one, and his reign 
 marks the era of Russia's rise to greatness among the 
 nations. Yet this man never rose to the conception of 
 what must be a nation's true glory. His ideas all ran 
 in the line of material grandeur, and not in the direction 
 of moral and mental progress. He was a born mechanic, 
 and he built a nation. He thought to build a people just 
 as he built the city that bears his name. His superstitious 
 
300 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 nobles considered it wicked for him to go abroad, but he 
 had heard of the arts of civiHzation, that made France and 
 Holland and England glorious in the world, and he de- 
 termined to see for himself what it was that made them 
 so. He laid aside his imperial purple (if he ever had any), 
 and travelled into distant lands. Sometimes he concealed 
 his royal person in the garb of a common workman, and 
 wrought in the shops with his own hands. I have seen 
 many specimens of his handicraft that would do credit to 
 any artisan who earned his bread by his industry and skill. 
 He was a capital ship carpenter. Russia was in want of 
 a navy. Peter learned how to build ships, and made a navy 
 for Russia. In foreign countries he studied every thing, 
 but learned nothing truly great in the art of government. 
 Going into the courts of Westminster with a friend one 
 day, in London, and seeing many men with wigs, he asked 
 who they were. 
 
 " They are lawyers," said his friend. 
 
 " Lawyers ! " he exclaimed ; " why, I have only two lawyers 
 in my dominions, and I mean to hang one as soon as I re- 
 turn." 
 
 In all that he saw in England and Holland, where he 
 spent most of his time abroad, he never learned that mind 
 makes nations great ; that intelligence is the security of 
 national progress and prosperity, and that the people, even 
 under despotic governments, have the power to help them- 
 selves if their rulers will give them a chance. But he came 
 back with the idea of making his empire greater by making 
 it broader, and he took the sword as the instrument of suc- 
 cess. He was partially successful. After a reign of half a 
 century, he died and left his empire on the highway to 
 civilization and glory. It is wonderful that Russia has 
 made so little progress since his death in 1725. Yet no 
 monarch ever reigned who descended to such minute details 
 in legislating for his people. Inured to hardships himself, 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 3OI 
 
 and possessed with the idea that nothing was invincible 
 which his will was set to overcome, he undertook to force 
 his subjects into sudden and astounding reforms, from 
 which they revolted. He could not make them see with his 
 eyes, nor work with his hands. He made his clergy shave 
 their faces, and the enemies of his innovations called him 
 the antichrist. No man ever lived who impressed himself 
 more indelibly upon a people than Peter the Great. His 
 name is held in honor second only to the Divine. The 
 relics of his handiwork are preserved with religious care. 
 Every museum has some specimen of his genius and in- 
 dustry, and the lapse of a hundred and fifty years since 
 these things were made by imperial fingers invests them 
 with interest approaching reverential awe. 
 
 But the greatest of all his works, and one that is the 
 most characteristic of the man, is the city of St. Peters- 
 burg itself. Why he selected such a site for it, it is im- 
 possible to say, unless its very unfitness and apparent 
 impracticability developed that faculty for which he was so 
 remarkable, and impelled him to undertake what to others 
 was an impossibility. From the summit of a monument, or 
 the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral, the city seems to float in 
 the waters. And this would not be a fatal objection to the 
 site if it stood in such relations to the rest of the empire or 
 the world as to make it important to fix it here. But it 
 does not. Winter shuts it out from communication with 
 the sea about half the time. 
 
 As we were walking on the most thronged of the 
 thoroughfares in St. Petersburg, the Nevski Perspective, 
 a well-dressed gentleman paused, and, turning toward a 
 church which he was passing, took off his hat and offered 
 a silent prayer. What at first appeared the eccentricity of 
 a single individual, or excessive devotion, I soon perceived 
 was the practice of many, and indeed a custom of the coun- 
 try. In passing a church, of course one passes an altar ; 
 
302 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 and it may be, and indeed is, out of sight, but the devout 
 beUever recognizes the fact by a token of reverence, sHght 
 perhaps, but nevertheless sincere. Women hurrying by 
 with baskets of market stuff were often wilhng to put down 
 their burdens before the cross and pass a moment in thoughts 
 of their Saviour. 
 
 I went into the church, the Kazan Cathedral, with a 
 colonnade in feeble imitation of St. Peter's at Rome. The 
 Greek religion is as nearly like the Romish as this church 
 is like St. Peter's : it is a copy after it^ and a good ways 
 after it, but still so near that it amounts to the same thing. 
 They do not make unto themselves graven images, because 
 that is forbidden by the second commandment ; but they 
 do make the likeness of things in heaven and earth, although 
 that is forbidden, and they do bow down and worship these 
 likenesses, or pay apparently the same honors to a picture 
 of the Virgin that the Romanist does to a statue. The 
 distinction is without a difference. But when I entered the 
 cathedral, I saw a sight that never met my eye in Rome 
 or any Roman Catholic city. In the middle of the day, 
 and on a week-day too, respectably appearing, well-dressed 
 gentlemen were standing or kneeling before the altar offer- 
 ing their devotions. Women were there numerously, and 
 the poor, whose garb denoted their poverty ; and these 
 classes are largely represented in Romish churches every- 
 where ; but the Greek religion had such hold upon the 
 people of another set, as to excite remark. The same lavish 
 expenditure upon the churches is to be seen here as in Italy 
 and Spain, though the architecture is far from being so 
 effective as that which prevails in Spain and Italy. This 
 church was built sixty years ago, at an expense of three 
 millions of dollars then. A colonnade inside in four rows 
 extends from the centre pillars supporting the dome, which 
 is 230 feet above the floor, and from the three great doors. 
 These columns are fifty-six in number, each one a single 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 303 
 
 stone, thirty-five feet high, with bronze Corinthian capitals. 
 In the midst of the main door the name of God is recorded 
 with precious stones, and a miraculous painting of the 
 Virgin blazes with gold and jewels of untold value. And 
 in the midst of this temple of religion, sacred to the wor- 
 ship of the Prince of Peace, hung trophies of victories over 
 France, Turkey, and Persia. 
 
 But this church i-s not the wonder of the city. You 
 must go with us to the Isaac Cathedral, whose gilded dome 
 has attracted our eye from every part of the city, and whose 
 glittering cross above the crescent we have studied with an 
 opera-glass, again and again, at a distance. Peter the 
 Great built a church of wood just here, and Catharine 
 another when the first was destroyed, but that gave way to 
 this glorious pile, which was forty years in building, and 
 was completed in 1858. It is far more imposing in its ex- 
 ternal appearance than St. Peter's. Its proportions are 
 perfect and stupendous. Like all other Greek churches, it 
 is four square and in the form of the Greek cross. A 
 grand entrance on each side is approached by a broad 
 flight of red granite steps, vast blocks of stone from the 
 quarries of Finland. Each flight of steps is surmounted by 
 a peristyle, each pillar of which is sixty feet high, one solid, 
 polished, red granite column ! Above them, thirty pillars 
 support the central cupola, and on the crown of this vast 
 hovering cupola is a miniature of the temple below, a beauti- 
 ful finish to the whole, on the summit of which stands the 
 shining cross. 
 
 Within, the splendor is amazing. Think of columns of 
 solid malachite fifty feet high ! A bit of this stone is a gem 
 to be set in gold for an ornament on a lady's dress. But 
 here it is in lofty pillars, and steps for altars, with lesser 
 pillars of lapis lazuli standing near. The worship is in the 
 form and manner of the Greek Church, and is strikingly 
 Oriental, more so than that we see in the Church of Rome. 
 
304 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Men and women not merely bow and kneel and cross them- 
 selves, touching their fingers to their foreheads and breasts, 
 but they prostrate themselves with their faces on the cold 
 stone floor, and lie there as if dead. Women thus lying in 
 a heap looked more like a bundle of rags or old clothes, than 
 human beings worshipping the Almighty. Others brought 
 candles and lighted them, to be burned before the images, 
 that is, the pictures of the Virgin Mary and the Holy 
 Child. Some of the people lighted the candles themselves, 
 repeating a prayer ; the verger lighted them for others, and 
 presented them to the Virgin as he proceeded with the 
 service. 
 
 One woman brought a napkin or some cloth embroidered, 
 and gave it to the verger, who opened a golden door into 
 the Virgin's panel, and placing the offering in it, locked it 
 again. This was as truly idolatrous as any worship you 
 would see in Romish churches, and wherein it differs from 
 offerings to idols in pagan temples I do not see. 
 
 A collection was now taken up, by assistants going 
 around with bags, and gathering from the multitude stand- 
 ing before the altar. Every one seemed to put in some- 
 thing, and their alms and prayers went together. 
 
 Three priests were officiating. One went about swinging 
 a censer with burning incense. A choir of men-singers 
 stood near the altar and made the responses with great 
 power and singular sweetness of tone. The sacristan came 
 to us and offered to show us the sacred things in the tem- 
 ple, and when we objected that the service was in progress, 
 and we did not wish to be sight-seeing at such a time, he 
 assured us it was all right, and we need not stand upon 
 ceremony. He led us to the holy places, and pointed out 
 the sacred relics, which were useful to him in extracting a 
 fee from the stranger, and that is the only miracle they are 
 able to work. If they do this every day, and often enough 
 every day, they will be held in honor as long as the temple 
 stands. 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 305 
 
 In the course of our wanderings under the lead of the 
 sacristan, we found ourselves behind the veil, or the hang- 
 ing curtain which was opened for the priests to go out and 
 in during the service. Fearful of intrusion, we were about 
 to retire, when one of the priests came from his place, and 
 invited us into the apartment where he was standing, and 
 responding as his associate read the service. The inmost 
 shrine, perhaps it may be called the Holy of Holies, is in a 
 round temple, whose dome is held by eight pillars of solid 
 malachite, and the walls and floors are of polished marbles 
 of various colors. The steps by which we ascend to it are 
 of polished porphyry. 
 
 The freedom with which a stranger was admitted " behind 
 the scenes " in the midst of the service was surprising to 
 me, and I had an opportunity not expected, of coming into 
 contact with the priests and ministers of the Greek rehgion, 
 while in their ser\4ce. The priests are a very inferior order 
 of men ; very unlearned, of low extraction, and in their ap- 
 pearance and manners what you would expect after such a 
 statement. They are obliged to be married once, and if 
 the wife die, they are not allowed to marry a second time, 
 but the widower continues to serve at the altar as before. 
 It is said that the priests are very watchful of the health of 
 their wives, on the principle that a good thing which can- 
 not be replaced must be preserved with the greatest care. 
 This is better than the celibacy of Romish priests, which is 
 offensive to nature and good morals, a curse to the church 
 and the world. You cannot be long in any country where 
 the Romish priests abound without hearing of their bad 
 morals, but the reputation of the priests in the Russo- 
 Greek Church is better. In their religious services, the 
 most effective part is the singing, and indeed the praying 
 is intoning, which is a drawling kind of singing, now com- 
 ing into use in the ritualistic churches, which are only 
 feeble imitations of the Romish and Greek. Boys are em- 
 
306 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 ployed in the choirs, and for some parts of the service, the 
 solos particularly, they get the deepest bass voices that can 
 be hired, and sometimes they render the sublime passages 
 with great effect. I have said the men, as well as the 
 women, appear to be religious in Russia. And it struck 
 me as very strange to see a fine-looking, full-grown man 
 coming in at noonday into a church, bringing a little wax 
 candle, walking up to a shrine over which is a picture of 
 the Virgin, kneeling before it, bowing his head to the floor, 
 crossing himself again and again, lighting his candle and 
 sticking it into a hole prepared for the purpose, and once 
 more prostrating himself to kiss the pavement, and then 
 retire ! This lighting of candles is an emblem of life, and 
 is designed to keep the spiritual nature of man continually 
 in view. The Russians have no religious ceremonies with- 
 out this symbol of the Spirit. It is fast finding its way 
 into the churches of England and America that copy 
 after these Oriental customs, without apprehending their 
 meaning. 
 
 Nothing in the mode of worship distinguishes the Greek 
 from the Roman Catholic. I would not speak with confi- 
 dence, but it appeared to me that the people were more 
 deeply religious than they are in Roman Catholic countries. 
 It is not, as with the people in Italy and Spain, and more 
 especially in France, merely a matter of form to be gone 
 through with, and that the end of it. In the Romish 
 cathedrals, it was rare that I could get into sympathy 
 with the worshippers so as to feel devotional in a service 
 foreign from that with which I. was familiar. For . any- 
 where on earth where men are worshipping God in their 
 way and we are present, from curiosity, or any other 
 motive, I would desire also to be a worshipper, and offer 
 among strangers the incense of a loving heart, touched 
 with a sense of sin, and longing for divine favor. There 
 is no danger of becoming an idolater by worshipping 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 30/ 
 
 the only living and true God in the midst of idolaters. 
 The soul goes out to him who heareth prayer for those 
 who are bowing down to stocks and stones. And he 
 whom they ignorantly worship I would find in their tem- 
 ples, for the way to him is through the open door in the 
 side of his crucified Son. But the Roman Catholics do 
 not get so near to God as these Greek Christians do, for 
 the former seem to be so much engrossed with saints and 
 the mother of Jesus, that they lose the joy and blessedness 
 of coming right to Christ, who is in the Father, and by 
 whom they are saved. 
 
 The Russians keep Lent very rigidly, and are also care- 
 ful to fast every Wednesday and Friday. They have four 
 great fasts in the year : Lent, Peter's fast, Conception fast, 
 and St. Philip's fast. The children are taught the cate- 
 chism of the Greek Church. The Sabbath is not observed 
 with any more regard to rest and worship than it is in 
 France or Italy. They make long pilgrimages to monas- 
 teries and holy places. There are no pews or seats in the 
 churches ; all stand, the rich and poor, the emperor and 
 empress, high and low alike on a level in the presence of 
 God. When the Emperor was assailed in the park by 
 an assassin, a few years ago, and escaped the blow aimed 
 at his life, he rode directly to this Isaac Cathedral, and 
 here in the midst of the thronging multitude, gave 
 thanks for his deliverance from sudden death. The lan- 
 guage of the church service is the Slavonic, and it is 
 quite as unintelligible to the masses as the ora pro 
 nobis and the rest of the Latin to the Roman CathoHcs 
 in our country. The whole service is quite as im- 
 posing as the Romish, wdth processions and banners and 
 sonorous responses. Religious services are often cele- 
 brated in private houses to cast out evil spirits ; and 
 always the fortieth day after a person's death is ob- 
 served in memory and improvement of the event. In 
 
■308 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 one corner of every room that you enter from the street 
 is the image of the Virgin, and you are expected always 
 to remove your hat on coming in ; at first, it seems to be 
 required as a token of respect to the persons in the house, 
 but it is solely to honor the Virgin in the corner. The 
 Russians are a very superstitious people, and they believe 
 in houses haunted with good and evil spirits, especially the 
 evil, and the constant presence of a pictured Mary is a 
 protection ; at least they think so. 
 
310 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS. 
 
 T HAD always supposed the Winter Palace of the Em- 
 peror was an edifice prepared with some special reference 
 to the climate of this northern country. It is called the 
 Winter Palace only because the Emperor has, as a matter 
 of course, other palaces in the country in which to spend 
 the summer. This is a vast structure on the very border 
 of the river Neva, and in the midst of the city. It is built 
 of brown stone, and makes some pretence to architectural 
 elegance. 
 
 It, the palace, has five thousand inhabitants ! I confess 
 that those figures of speech seem to be very large, and it is 
 a wonder how so many people can find employment in the 
 service of one household. But the ways of royalty are not 
 readily comprehended by mortals of common clay, and per- 
 haps if we knew how many servants there are who have 
 servants to wait upon them, how all these have families of 
 their own, and these are all to be fed and lodged within 
 these walls, we may begin to understand that one house 
 may become a village, and quite populous also. 
 
 But if this number of dependents exceeds that of any 
 other palace in Europe, as it probably does, it is safe to say 
 that it is the most gorgeously decorated and furnished. 
 Whatever extravagance the wit of man could devise to 
 adorn a house has been lavished here, and the result is 
 what might be expected, — a great display without that 
 quiet elegance which distinguishes true from meretricious 
 
RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS. 3II 
 
 art. The Russian is between the Eastern and Western. 
 The Russian is not a barbarous people, nor yet thoroughly 
 civilized. On the borders of the two, he delights in the 
 barbaric splendor of the Orientals, and has not yet reached 
 the point where simplicity imparts the highest charm to 
 elegance and grandeur. This accounts for the architecture 
 of Russian palaces and temples. More emphatically it 
 shows itself in the immense amount of gold which overlays 
 every thing they wish to adorn. Even the domes of their 
 churches blaze in gold, so that each one looks like a rising 
 sun. 
 
 The crown jewels of Russia are the chief object of interest 
 in the Winter Palace, for it is dreadfully tiresome to be led 
 over miles of polished floors to look through room upon room, 
 in endless mazes lost, seeing the same things substantially 
 everywhere, and hearing the same story over and over again 
 about the kings and queens that slept here and died there ; 
 though, as it was built since 1840, there is little or no his- 
 toric interest about it. But the crown jewels are worth 
 seeing. One loves to look at a diamond worth a million, 
 though he cannot use it for a button. The Orloff diamond 
 is as famous as the Koh-i-noor, and was, perhaps, at one 
 time part of the same stone. Its history is romantic. It 
 was once the eye of an idol in a temple in India, and being 
 plucked out and stolen by a soldier, it passed through many 
 hands till Count Orloff bought it and gave it to the Empress 
 of Russia. It cost the Count or the Empress about three 
 hundred thousand dollars. It weighs 194 carats, being eight 
 carats more than the Koh-i-noor weighed when it came from 
 India. The Orloff is the largest of the crown jewels in 
 Europe. The imperial crown itself is radiant with the 
 most magnificent gems, forty or more in number, and the 
 crown of the Empress contains the most beautiful mass of 
 diamonds known to be set together ; a hundred of them at 
 least. Some of the richest are precious stones presented 
 
312 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 to Russia by sovereigns in the East who would conciliate 
 this mighty power. And what are they good for, when 
 gathered into such a treasury ? They are the playthings of 
 royalty ; baubles that delight the eye, pure carbon that is 
 sold by the ton for a few dollars, but in the form of a dia- 
 mond, it has a value scarcely to be reckoned, when they lie 
 around in such heaps as we see them here. 
 
 The Hermitage is a palace near to the other, in which 
 are the Russian galleries of art. If it was surprising to 
 find in Madrid the most valuable collection of paintings in 
 Europe, it was not less astonishing to find in Russia such 
 magnificent pictures and so large a number of those that 
 deserve admiration. For many years past the government 
 has been spending large sums of money in the purchase of 
 pictures. It has had and has its agents in "Italy, and in 
 every picture mart in Europe, ready to pay any price for 
 " an old master." 
 
 And it has shown its good sense in this, that when it 
 cannot compass the original, it gets the best possible copy, 
 and hangs it on its walls, with its story fairly told. This is 
 the true way to cultivate the taste, and instruct the intel- 
 lect of the nation in art. Catharine the Great built a pavil- 
 ion on the end of the Winter Palace, to which she might 
 retire from the cares of State, and here she drew around her 
 the wits of the age. She called it the Hermitage, and that 
 it might be a real refuge, into which royalty and its stilted- 
 ness could not intrude, she made a curious code of laws to 
 govern the company that she here assembled. 
 
 The Hermitage is now the Royal Museum, and its gran- 
 deur and extent are unequalled. It is 515 feet long and 375 
 feet wide. The roof of this vast hall is supported by six- 
 teen columns, each one a single block of granite from Fin- 
 land, with Corinthian capitals of Carara marble. Successive 
 stories on the same scale are filled with statues and pictures, 
 and curious works of art, in which the genius and skill of all 
 
RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS. 313 
 
 schools and nations are represented. Even to mention 
 them would take up more of your time than would be 
 proper for me to consume, and I let them pass unnoticed. 
 I was even more interested in Peter the Great's gallery, 
 where his turning-lathes and other tools that he used with 
 his own hands are preserved ; and what is even more re^ 
 markable, the instruments that he manufactured for him- 
 self, from a telescope to a walking-stick. His iron staff that 
 he carried about with him would not be credited as genuine, 
 were it not that a wooden rod tells of his gigantic stature, 
 and thus makes it quite probable that he could walk with a 
 rod of iron. 
 
 Art-culture in Russia has advanced to a far higher point 
 than we would expect to find. The painting and sculpture 
 of Russia in the Paris exhibition astonished the outside 
 world, and the galleries in the Hermitage devoted to native 
 art "are marvellously illustrated with splendid achievements 
 of the chisel and pencil. 
 
 In all countries I am more interested in studying the 
 condition of the masses than the "upper classes." In all 
 countries the rich and the titled, the " well-to-do in the 
 world," can take care of themselves, and they are substan- 
 tially the same kind of people in all civilized lands. The 
 nobles of England, of France, of Germany, of Russia, have 
 plenty to eat and to drink and they know wherewithal they 
 are to be clothed, and when one is travelling in their country, 
 he has no need to ask whether or not they are enjoying 
 themselves after their own fashion, and have any need of 
 human sympathy. But when we pass through a Russian 
 town with a thousand huts in it, all about the same size, 
 and not one aspiring to the dignity of a respectable Ameri- 
 can farm-house, and see vast tracts of land well tilled, but 
 not a house nor a man in sight, then I wonder how the people 
 live in these parts ; what do they eat and drink, and do 
 they have enough } . Are they contented and happy, or do 
 
314 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 they hunger and pine, and drag out a miserable sort of life 
 of it, here in these far-away lands ? 
 
 In the agricultural districts of Russia, not very far away 
 from the chief cities, a laborer gets for a day's work his 
 food and about fifty copeks, or, of our money, about forty 
 cents a day. A mechanic gets about one rouble, which is 
 a hundred copeks, or about eighty cents of our money, for 
 a day's work, and he finds his own food. In the winter 
 season beef is sold in St. Petersburg for ten or twelve 
 cents a pound, and in summer it is as low as eight cents. 
 This will enable you to compare the rate of wages with the 
 price of food, and to see that there is not so great a differ- 
 ence in the cost, to the poor, of living in that country and 
 ours, as might at first be supposed. 
 
 The rent of the hotel at which I am staying in St. Peters- 
 burg — and it is one of the largest in the kingdom — is 
 about fifteen thousand dollars per annum, and that is 
 about seven per cent on the valuation of the property. 
 
 The food of the peasantry is largely composed of cab- 
 bage soup, which is a great article among them, and they 
 consume it day after day, year in and year out, and are 
 always fond of it. This is one of the pleasantest com- 
 pensations of Providence, that people may continue to be 
 fond of a dish that they have to eat every day. Their 
 bread is black, and they have some meat, for it is not 
 costly, and on the whole they are comfortably fed. So 
 they are decently clothed. Their dress has the appearance 
 of warmth and comfort, too much for the hot weather 
 that is now raging ; but they have so much cold and so 
 little heat, that they do not care to make a change for the 
 brief summer. A poor peasant swelters in a jacket of 
 sheepskin with the wool on it, or we^rs a fur collar if he 
 can afford it, and sticks to it under a blazing hot sun, as 
 well as in midwinter. 
 
 A peculiar custom is observed in Russia that I never 
 
3l6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 noticed elsewhere. You are expected always to take off 
 your overcoat on entering the house to make a call, of busi- 
 ness or pleasure. Even when you call at the bank, to draw 
 or deposit your money, a liveried servant in the hall con- 
 ducts you to an anteroom, where you lay aside .your over- 
 coat and hat, and then enter the business-room as if you 
 were to be presented to the lady of the mansion. My 
 bankers here are Wynken & Co., at the end of the iron 
 bridge over the Neva, and, upon entering, I was shown to 
 a seat, and my letter of credit taken by a clerk to one of 
 the firm, who immediately came out from his office, and 
 after a few complimentary inquiries, asked me what he 
 could do for me, and in a few minutes the business was 
 done. 
 
 A despot is the Emperor of Russia. We have come to 
 associate only a bad meaning with the word despot. It had 
 not such a sense as we liberty worshippers give it. Now 
 it means a tyrant, a hard master, one who has unlimited 
 power and uses it to oppress. Despotes is the Greek word 
 for master in the New Testament, and sometimes the Lord 
 himself is spoken of and addressed under this name. The 
 apostle Paul says : " Let as many servants as are under 
 the yoke, count their own despots worthy of all honor." And 
 again : "they that have believing despots ;" and again, he 
 commands servants to be obedient unto their own despots. 
 So Peter tells them to be subject to their own despots. And 
 good old Simeon cries : " Despotes, now lettest thou thy 
 servant depart in peace." And Peter speaks of those who 
 deny the despotes that bought them ; and in Rev. vi. lo, we 
 read : " Plow long, O despotes, holy and true," &c. These 
 quotations show us the good sense in which the word was 
 once used ; and now, when we speak of a despotic govern- 
 ment, we do not understand that it is necessarily an 
 oppressive government, but one in which the power is 
 concentrated in the hands of one man, who can use it at 
 his pleasure, unrestrained by constitution or legislature. 
 
RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS. 317 
 
 Justice is administered under laws the issue of the sove- 
 reign will, and liable to be repealed at his pleasure. Trial 
 by jury is of recent introduction, and may be considered as 
 an experiment. In the court-room I inquired of an intelli- 
 gent gentleman how it was working. He said, quite well ; 
 and then related the following incident to show how the 
 royal will comes in, even to the smallest affairs of private 
 citizens : An officer under the government promised to 
 give a certain place of profit to a man, who was soon sur- 
 prised to find that it was given to another. Such mishaps 
 are not unusual in milder governments, I believe. But the 
 disappointed office-seeker sought the man who had prom- 
 ised it to him, and slapped his face in open court, charging 
 him with a breach of faith. He was arraigned and tried by 
 jury for the assault and battery, and the jury brought in a 
 verdict of not guilty, or more accurately, — " Served him 
 right." The verdict was received with great applause. The 
 Emperor gave the office-seeker and the office-holder also, 
 the striker and the struck, appointments in distant parts 
 of the empire, where neither of them wanted to go or to 
 stay, and thus he punished them both : one for breaking 
 his word, and the other for breaking the peace. There is 
 a vein of humor in such administration of justice. 
 
 " The bookkeeper of a mercantile house in Thorn was 
 arrested in the Russian town of Rieszawa, by the burgo- 
 master of that place, on a perfectly unfounded charge of an 
 intention to smuggle. Although the bookkeeper succeeded 
 in establishing his respectability, he was thrown into a 
 dirty prison cell, and kept there twenty-four hours. His 
 principal, of course, complained of this most unjustifiable 
 treatment, and has lately received an official communication 
 that the burgomaster has also been imprisoned twenty-four 
 hours, and in the same prison in which he had shut up the 
 unhappy bookkeeper." 
 
 M. Andreoli, a Russian writer, who was exiled some 
 years ago to Siberia, is now contributing to the Revue 
 
3l8 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Moderne^ under the title of " Souvenirs de Siberie," his re- 
 collections not only of Siberian but also of Russian life. 
 In the last number of the Revue he tells a story, the end of 
 which belongs to the present reign, the beginning to the 
 reign of Paul, of whose period it is strikingly characteristic. 
 The Emperor's favorite was at that time a young French 
 actress, of whom he was madly jealous. One evening, at a 
 ball, he noticed that a young man named Labanoff was pay- 
 ing her a great deal of attention. He did not lose his tem- 
 per, but at the end of the ball gave orders that Labanoff 
 should be arrested and thrown into the citadel. He only 
 intended to keep him there a few days, " to make him more 
 serious," after which he proposed to reprimand him and to 
 appoint him to an office which had been solicited for him. 
 Labanoff, however, was forgotten. At the death of Nicholas, 
 Alexander H., then full of magnanimity, liberated all the 
 prisoners in the citadel, without exception. In a vaulted 
 tomb, in which it was impossible to stand upright, and 
 which was not more than two yards long, an old man was 
 found, almost bent double, and incapable of answering when 
 he was spoken to. This was Labanoff. The Emperor 
 Paul had been succeeded by the Emperor Alexander I., and 
 afterwards by the Emperor Nicholas ; he had been in the 
 dungeon more than fifty years. When he was taken out 
 he could not bear the light, and, by a strange phenom- 
 enon, his movements had become automatic. He could 
 hardly hold himself up, and he had become so accus- 
 tomed to move about within the limits of his narrow cell 
 that he could not take more than two steps forwards without 
 turning round, as though he had struck against a wall, and 
 taking two steps backwards, and so on alternately. He 
 lived for only a week after his liberation. 
 
 We often read such facts as these, and they are sad and 
 awful illustrations of what unlimited power may be left to 
 do. Recently there have been horrible stories of cruelties 
 inflicted by the agents of the Russian government, but 
 
RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS. 319 
 
 they are not worse than have sometimes been perpetrated 
 in the name of Hberty and justice in other and more en- 
 Hghtened countries. 
 
 Look on the map of Asia and see that vast country of 
 Siberia, a part of the colossal empire of Russia. The tales 
 that are told of the exiles of Siberia have formed a large 
 part of the sensational literature of other days. In that 
 lone, distant, cold, inhospitable clime, is the region where for 
 many long years this government has sent its prisoners of 
 state, and many others who have incurred the despotic dis- 
 pleasure. Banished for life is to all intents and purposes 
 death. The wife of the exile, if not allowed to go with him 
 and share his sorrows in a wretched land, is free to be married 
 again. His property goes to his heirs as if he were dead. 
 He has not even his own name in Siberia, but is known by 
 the number that he receives when he enters upon his new 
 estate. 
 
 It is terrible to think that one imperfect man holds in his 
 own hand such power. The mere possession of it tempts 
 to evil. And limit it as we may, divide it among many, 
 apply checks and balances, there will yet be abuses under 
 all systems of human government. Even our own boasted 
 democratic republican form has its defects. We have made 
 ignorance and vice too mighty in our popular elections, and 
 have come to know that no despot is more irresponsible 
 than the many-headed monster of a corrupt and unthinking 
 multitude. 
 
 Taking a boat on the Neva and being rowed across to the 
 Academy of Science, we made an interesting visit to the 
 Zoological Museum, which has some things of interest far 
 beyond that of any other museum in the world. Here we 
 have something more tha i fossils, we have the veritable 
 meat of the mammoth and mastodon and elephant, and 
 perhaps they may all belong to one and the same animal. 
 But the Siberian rivers have furnished ice-tombs in which 
 these beasts have been buried for centuries, and when they 
 
320 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 are brought to light by the change in the course of the 
 streams, or by accidental discovery, they are certainly the 
 most interesting of all the remains of extinct races. The 
 great mammoth in this museum was found in 1799, on the 
 banks of the river Lena in Siberia, and the flesh was so 
 fresh upon it that the beasts and birds of prey were ready 
 to devour it as soon as it was exposed. 
 
 The chief interest in this Russian collection lies in the 
 actual skin and hair and flesh of these animals so remarka- 
 bly preserved. Here is a rhinoceros, but of a species- now 
 extinct, with its head almost entirely covered with the origi- 
 nal skin, and its feet also, the fine hair being still visible. 
 The seals and otters, sharks and sea-horses, sword-fish and 
 alligators, lions, tigers, bears, elks, and mooses ; birds of 
 countless kinds, — make up an assortment wonderful in its 
 extent and variety, and the more interesting as the pursuit 
 of science has led to the gathering of splendid specimens 
 from the tropical regions, to be contrasted with the aborigi- 
 nal growth of these Arctic climes. 
 
 It was the edge of evening as we returned from this ex- 
 pedition, and the declining sun was flooding the river and 
 the eastern shore with golden glory. We were tired; the even- 
 ing was cool and refreshing ; the scene was beautiful, indeed 
 exciting, as other boats and barges and steamers swept by 
 us and ships and schooners swung listlessly in the stream. 
 
 The Winter Palace and the Hermitage, the Alexander 
 Column, the Admiralty Buildings, and other splendid edi- 
 fices were on the western bank, the fortress and arsenal 
 and academy on the east, and the domes of the Isaac and 
 Kazan Cathedrals hung like suns in the sky. We seemed 
 to be far away from home, and lost in an enchanted sea. 
 We rowed along under the stern of a vessel and read her 
 name, " Favorite, Arbroath ; " it sounded Scotchy, and 
 hailing a sailor leaning over the ship's side, I asked him, , 
 " Where's Arbroath ? " 
 
 " Aboot twelve miles from Dundee," he said. 
 
RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS. 
 
 321 
 
 " And what brings you here ? " 
 
 " The ship," he answered, and then added that the cargo 
 was fire-brick, made in England, and brought here for the 
 Russians, who make great use of it in their stoves. He did 
 not hke the Russians, he said, and hoped he should never 
 have to come there again. 
 
 Our boatman landed us on the western shore, and as we 
 walked up and down the river enjoying the evening breeze, 
 he soon passed us with another company in his boat, and 
 taking off his cap saluted us as old customers with a grace 
 that would do credit to a Paris waterman. 
 
 It was half-past nine o'clock when we saw the last rays 
 of the sun on the spire of the arsenal church, and we then 
 went home. It is now eleven o'clock at night, and I am 
 writing by the light from the window opening into a court. 
 It would be easy to write all night without a candle. 
 
 A Russian Pokter. 
 
Z22 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 
 
 IV /TY roughest railroad ride in Europe was from St. 
 Petersburg to Moscow. It did not improve the 
 road to be told, as I was, that it was built by American 
 engineers ; but it did jolt me so naturally that I felt at 
 home as soon as we were under way. And there was a slight 
 infusion of a familiar morality in the excuse made for the 
 present condition of the road, that the managers of it under 
 the government were seeking to buy it, and were letting it 
 run down that they might get it at a lower figure ! 
 
 A great throng of friends were at the station to take 
 leave of the passengers about to set off for Moscow. It is 
 a ride of about twenty hours ; hardly a journey to call for 
 as much leave-taking as with us demands a voyage over sea. 
 The journey of four hundred miles includes the whole night 
 and part of two days, and only one train a day, with no good 
 place to stop for the night, so that we are literally shut up 
 to the necessity of going through at once. The arrange- 
 ments for sleeping are of the rudest kind. Into the cars 
 the passengers brought pillows and blankets, preparing to 
 make themselves as comfortable as circumstances would 
 permit. The fare through was $15, and my little trunk of 
 less than fifty pounds weight was 1 1.50 extra. As soon as 
 we were off, a man decorated with three medals entered 
 with an armful of newspapers for sale, and as many bought 
 them and read them as in a car going out of New York or 
 Boston. It was a good sign. Small thanks are due to the 
 
FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 323 
 
 government from the press, however. It is subjected to 
 the strictest censorship. No foreign papers are allowed to 
 come into the country, unless they are subscribed for by 
 permission, and then they are interdicted if any thing dan- 
 gerous to the existing order of things is in them. Nothing 
 unfriendly to good morals is allowed to be printed, and an 
 excellent regulation requires the examination and approval 
 of all plays before they can be put upon the stage. These 
 barbarians of the north will not have the luxury of the 
 " dirty drama " which is so fascinating to the highly culti- 
 vated Parisians and New Yorkers. 
 
 A lady and gentleman entered the car as we were just 
 starting, and could not get a double seat ; it was a long car 
 like our own, with seats on each side of the passage. They 
 could find separate seats, but they were to ride all night, and 
 of course desired to sit side by side. They sought to make 
 exchanges, but in vain. Seeing their distress, my son and 
 I agreed to separate and surrender our places to them. 
 Their gratitude was equal to their surprise. "We were 
 French, they were sure." Not at all. " Ah no, we were 
 English." By no means. " And pray, would we tell them 
 of what nation .? " Americans : and they were nearly over- 
 come with pleasure, and poured out their grateful ackowl- 
 edgments. 
 
 At Lubanskaia we stopped to dine, and you will be more 
 amused by reading the names of some of the places we 
 touched in passing, than by the names of the dishes we 
 had for dinner. Thus we passed through Kolpinskaia, 
 Sablinskaia, Ouschkinskaia, Babinskaia, Tehondoskaia, 
 Volkhooskaia, Guadskaia, Mainvisheskaia, Bourgurnskaia, 
 Borooenskaia, Okouloviskaia, Zarebchenkeskaia, Kalosch- 
 kooskaia, Ostaschkooskaia, Reschchilkooskaia, Paadsulnel- 
 chookaia ; but I am getting a headache in copying them 
 out of the time-table, and will spare you. Wales is nothing 
 to Russia for hard names. 
 
324 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 The Station-houses are well built, and refreshment rooms 
 well supplied; so that you get comfortable meals on the 
 route. 
 
 At Tver we crossed the Volga, and here we had the first 
 sight of that famous river. It is at this point downward 
 navigable for steamers, and we might step on board of one 
 and steam away two thousand miles to Astrachan ! Tver 
 is a place of remarkable historical interest, which lingers 
 around the cathedral and the monastery in which a bishop 
 was murdered by order of John the Terrible, though his 
 death was reported as occasioned by the fumes of a stove. 
 
 As night drew on we learned that one car in the long 
 train was fitted up for sleeping, and we were glad to pay a 
 couple of roubles apiece for the chance of a horizontal nap. 
 Toward midnight the process of reconstruction commenced. 
 The long car is divided into four compartments, each eight 
 feet square ; across each side is swung a shelf, the seats 
 below are converted into berths, and two more are made tip 
 on the floor ; a pillow of homoeopathic proportions is assigned 
 to each passenger, and unless a man is afraid it will get 
 into his ear he takes it. By a ladder of seven steps I 
 ascended to the topmost perch, and there sought to rest. 
 Alas ! the search was vain. My refuge in sleeplessness is 
 to old-time hymns, and Watts often composes me to slum- 
 ber as his cradle lullaby did when the best of mothers sang 
 it in my infancy. But now the only lines that haunted me 
 were these, and perfectly descriptive of my present expe- 
 rience, — 
 
 " So when a raging fever burns, 
 We shift from side to side by turns ; 
 And 'tis a poor relief we gain, 
 To change the place and keep the pain." 
 
 For half a dozen Russians sat together in this little cham- 
 ber; all smoking, all laughing, all talking, and in that jar- 
 gon of a language worse to hear than any other that ever 
 
FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 325 
 
 crashed upon my auricular nerves. There was no railroad 
 law to be invoked to stop them. We were two, they were 
 six. They wanted to smoke and talk all night ; we were 
 invalids, fighting for a wink of sleep. As the night wore 
 on, they grew more earnest. At frequent stops by the way 
 they rushed out and returned fortified with strong drink ; 
 the smoke, the breaths, the smells, the talk became intoler- 
 able. I put my woe-begone visage over the edge of the 
 shelf, and arresting their attention by a groan, asked if any 
 of them spoke the French language ? A military officer in 
 uniform rose and said he did. Then in tearful accents I 
 said, " You behold two American travellers who have paid 
 for these luxurious couches to get a little rest in their weary 
 travels. If you gentlemen are to keep up this discourse, 
 sleep is as impossible as if we were under the tortures of the 
 Inquisition ; is it too much to hope that you will soon suf- 
 fer this discourse of yours to come to an end for the night, 
 to be renewed at some future day." Before my speech was 
 finished he had begun to laugh, and assuring me of his re- 
 gret that we had been disturbed, he represented to his friends 
 the wishes of two Amerikaners, and they soon turned in. 
 
 In the morning, looking down from the shelf, I counted 
 thirty-two stumps of cigars lying on the floor, in one quar- 
 ter, and at least a. hundred must have been consumed in 
 that one compartment. 
 
 At half -past seven we stopped for coffee. A forlorn-look- 
 ing set of men and women crept out for fresh air and re- 
 freshment. They had been badly stayed with, all of them. 
 But the longest night has its morning, and so had this. 
 The coffee was good ; we paid five times as much for it as 
 it was worth, even there, but we were comforted with the 
 beverage. At one end of the car was a wash-bowl and 
 water, and over it a notice : " Towel, 5 copakes ; soap, 1 5 
 copakes," — so for about 20 cents you could have the use of 
 everybody's towel and soap ! 
 
326 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 The face of the country improves as we get on. More 
 trees, more hills, more culture, and signs of thrift on every 
 hand. 
 
 Into the car came a venerable ecclesiastic of the Greek 
 type. A heavy gold cross was suspended from his neck 
 and hung on his broad breast ; and his gray hair rested in 
 curls on his shoulders. The scarlet and gold on his robes 
 attracted the eye of the stranger, but he seemed to challenge 
 no special attention from the people with whom he came in 
 contact. We called him the Patriarch Nicon at once, for 
 he came in upon us as at Krukova, which is the station where 
 we would stop, if we had time to make a visit at the Monas- 
 tery of New Jerusalem, or Voskresenski, which, being inter- 
 preted, meaneth Resurrection. This monastery was founded 
 in 1657 by the Patriarch Nicon, whose story is told by Dean 
 Stanley in his lectures on the Greek Church, and condensed 
 into the travel books in the hands of wanderers in these 
 wilds. 
 
 At this village of the Resurrection, Nicon, a patriarch 
 of the Greek Church, was wont to stop in his journeys 
 through the country, and in 1655 he built a church here, 
 and the Czar of all the Russias did him the honor to come 
 to its consecration and name it the New Jerusalem. Nicon 
 obtained a model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at 
 old Jerusalem, and he made one like it here. He found 
 hills and vales and brooks like those in the Holy Land, and 
 gave them names to correspond, which they bear to this day, 
 though two hundred years have since gone by. The river 
 Istra became Jordan, and he made a little one for Kedron, 
 and called a village at a distance Nazareth, and one nearer 
 by was Bethany; and with these sacred associations he 
 gathered around him the odor of sanctity, and with it 
 came dreams of power and glory, such as priests are apt 
 to have when they leave the service of God and substitute 
 their own imaginings for the teachings of his word. The 
 
FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 32/ 
 
 Czar saw -what he was at, and soon let him down from his 
 Jerusalem. The Patriarch began to claim civil as well as 
 sacerdotal power. Just as the Bishop of Rome became a 
 king as well as priest, so Nicon would sway a sceptre as 
 well as a shepherd's crook. He put stringent laws upon 
 his inferior clergy, and they became restive under his au- 
 thority. He rode into town on an ass in profane imita- 
 tion of Christ, and the people could not see the sense of 
 being compelled to cast their garments in the way of him 
 who was so unlike the meek and lowly Jesus whom they 
 would have loved to honor. His tyranny drove them to 
 revolt, and many sects sprang up which even now continue 
 to maintain their existence in the empire and in a certain 
 hostility to the regular Greek Church of the empire. Ni- 
 con grew more and more despotic, as his enemies grew 
 formidable in numbers and power. He seized in the 
 houses of the nobles, wherever he could find them, all 
 pictures not painted in the style that pleased his royal 
 will. In all his dealings with them he claimed the au- 
 thority of the sovereign. He was fast becoming the pope 
 of the north. At last the Emperor, no longer willing to 
 acknowledge the lordly assumptions of this proud subject, 
 refused to honor his festivals with the royal presence, or 
 to recognize the Patriarch as spiritual father. Nicon was 
 enraged at this slight, and thinking to humble the Czar, 
 threw off his robes of office, resigned his crozier, and 
 retired to his monastery at Resurrection. The sepulchre 
 would have been a more fitting place for retirement. 
 Hither he supposed the Czar would hasten, and with 
 apologies, penitence, and tears beseech him to return and 
 resume his reign. He reckoned without his host. The 
 Czar could make and unmake such ecclesiastics, and he 
 put another man in his place, and left poor Nicon to chew 
 the cud of regret in his ignominious solitude. He stood 
 it six years, and then sent word to the Czar that, after 
 
328 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 long fasting and prayer, he had been honored with a vision 
 of the prophet Jonah, in a dream, who had told him it was 
 his duty to resume his seat on the patriarchal throne of 
 Moscow. But the Czar could not see it. Jonah said 
 nothing to him about it, and he had an idea that un- 
 happy Nicon might, indeed, have had a great many 
 dreams of the same kind, but that Jonah was not the 
 man to make patriarchs for him. He called a council of 
 Eastern patriarchs, presided in the midst of it himself, and 
 this council came very naturally to the decision that Nicon 
 should be degraded and banished to a monastery in Nov- 
 gorod. The next Czar who came to the throne pardoned 
 Nicon, who soon after died. 
 
 Such was the sad career of a great genius, whose brief 
 reign was signalized by the aggrandizement of the Rus- 
 sian Church, for he magnified five patriarchates, — Con- 
 stantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Moscow. 
 And now his remains are lying in the Church of the 
 Holy Sepulchre, which he built, in the chapel of Melchis- 
 edek, at the foot of the Golgotha, and over his tomb hang 
 the heavy chains which, to mortify his body, he wore 
 around his person, while he put heavier chains on the 
 souls of those whom • he reduced beneath his ghostly 
 power. 
 
 I think there is a lesson in the life and death of such 
 a man, and that we may read in it the workings of 
 human ambition and pride, even under the garments of 
 holy offices ; we see the conflict between church and state, 
 whenever they are allied, and the doom that awaits the 
 men who pervert the institutions of religion to their own 
 glory and the oppression of others. 
 
 We are now approaching Moscow. Two thousand miles 
 by rail we have come. The whole region over which we 
 are now passing seems to be one dead level of lowly toil- 
 ing, dreary living, without one sign of such enterprising 
 
FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 329 
 
 life and energy as we would find in France or England, 
 not to speak of that young world in the West, to which 
 freedom seems to have taken her flight. 
 
 The train is moving slowly into town. We have come 
 to Moscow. We are at the gates of the Kremlin ! 
 
330 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW. 
 
 '\/T BILLOT is a Swiss landlord, who keeps a good 
 • hotel in Moscow. He has a charming wife and 
 family around him, a well-trained corps of servants, and 
 makes his house a home for American and English guests. 
 It is something for a weary traveller to find a home when 
 he gets to Moscow. 
 
 I have but one fault to find with Moscow's bed and board. 
 Mind, it is not a complaint against mine host, M. Billot. 
 It is the fault of the city, that it is full of fleas. We 
 charged upon them with a flea powder, the second night of 
 our sojourn there, but the powder about M. Billot's pillows 
 was as troublesome as the fleas. 
 
 We had heard of this house and landlord ; for the Swiss 
 go into all the countries of Europe, and some others, to 
 keep the hotels. We found a connected line of them all 
 through Spain, and in Italy, and they commend travellers 
 to each other, as old neighbors ought to do. So, when we 
 arrived at Moscow, we gave our baggage to M. Billot's 
 man, he put us into a carriage, and away we were whirled 
 over the roughest roads that we had ever endured in a city. 
 Moscow seemed to be too small for its people, as the people 
 appeared to be too sparse for St. Petersburg. The streets 
 were thronged with people in the pursuit of business, and 
 their market-places presented the liveliest scenes imagin- 
 able. 
 
 Frequent churches and shrines arrest us as we pass, for 
 every Christian crosses himself before each of them ; even 
 
1,' ; ■ 1m liil 
 
 ''^^^ PI ' ,1 V- .! 
 
 1,1 ;!. ^ 
 
332 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the coachman in front of us drops his whip from his right 
 hand, and makes the sacred sign on his breast, as he drives 
 by the holy place. Some stand before it and humbly bow 
 themselves at a great distance from the altar. 
 
 Our way was winding, through streets that had no aim 
 apparently, for after the city committed suicide in 1 8 1 3, on 
 the coming of Napoleon, it was rebuilt in haste, without 
 plan or purpose, but to get shelter for living and trade. 
 But the city was spread out to a greater extent, and grad- 
 ually houses of more architectural taste arose, with gardens 
 about them, even in town. Here and there rises a splendid 
 palace in the midst of the white cottages of humble neigh- 
 bors, and the three hundred and seventy churches are inter- 
 spersed, with their green or gilded cupolas and shining 
 stars. We pass long rows of uniformly painted houses 
 that belong to some public institution, and then we break 
 in upon a wide square where the people seem to be gath- 
 ered for some special purpose, and out of this square the 
 streets extend on every side. Then we come to the high 
 banks of the river Moskva, which flows through the midst 
 of the city, and on either side of it are splendid edifices 
 crowning the hills that rise from its side. The map of the 
 city makes it appear circular. The circumvallation is twenty 
 miles in extent, and within this are two concentric Hues of 
 fortification, rendered necessary perhaps for defence, as this 
 remarkable city is the outpost of civilization on the borders 
 of barbarism. 
 
 THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW. 
 
 I never had a very definite idea of the Kremlin of Mos- 
 cow. It has been mentioned in books about Russia as a 
 part of the city that every one must understand. The 
 Acropolis of Athens and of Corinth, and the Capitoline 
 Hill of Rome, enclosed with a wall to shut them off from 
 the rest of the city, a refuge for the people in time of peril, 
 
THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW. 333 
 
 the site for the most sacred temples and the most gorgeous 
 palace for the sovereign, would be the Kremlin of Athens, 
 or Corinth, or Rome. As far back as in 1340, walls of oak 
 enclosed these heights. A few years afterwards, to resist 
 the Tartars, the wooden walls gave place to stone, but trea- 
 son gave the fierce barbarian hordes possession of the 
 citadel, and the walls were destroyed. They were built 
 again and again, but in 1485, when it was needful to pro- 
 tect *the Kremlin against the attack of artillery, the walls 
 were rebuilt on a scale never before attempted. The solid 
 and lofty stone walls now enclose an area of about a mile 
 and a half in circumference. Five massive gates admit the 
 flow of life to the temples of religion and of justice within 
 this enclosure. The chief entrance is called the " Redeemer " 
 Gate. The passage through the wall by this gate is like 
 going through a railroad tunnel. It is a holy hole, for over 
 it is a picture of the Redeemer of Smolensk, and lio one 
 may pass under it without taking off his . hat. Formerly, 
 whoever was so hasty or forgetful as to neglect this mark 
 of respect, was punished by being compelled to prostrate 
 himself fifty times before the insulted picture. The Em- 
 peror of all the Russias never fails to uncover his head as 
 he enters this gate. Hundreds were going in as I ap- 
 proached : on foot, in droskies, in carriages, but all were 
 mindful of the place, and entered as if they were going 
 into a holy place. Between the Nicholas and Trinity Gates 
 are the arsenal and great cannons, some of them monster 
 guns, quite antiquated by modern progress, but formidable 
 in their proper place ; and the long rows that are marked 
 as left behind by the French in their retreat, tell a grim tale 
 of the madness and folly of that disastrous campaign. 
 Through this very Gate Nicholas, the French troops under 
 Napoleon entered the Kremlin. Short as the stay of the 
 Emperor was in the city, it was long enough for him to 
 attempt to blow up the tower over this gate ; but a miracle, 
 
334 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 as the superstitious Russians believe, was wrought to pre- 
 serve it ; for over the gate is a picture of St. Nicholas, " the 
 comfort of suffering humanity," and when the explosion 
 took place which was to blow this massive structure into 
 ruins, it made a rent indeed, extending upward to the frame 
 of the picture, and there it suddenly stopped, not cracking 
 the glass over the picture, nor the glass lamp hanging 
 before it ! And Alexander I. caused an inscription to be 
 put up in memory of the miracle. 
 
 We ascend the hill and stand upon a wide paved plateau, 
 or esplanade, with a scene immediately around, before, and 
 below us, of interest, grandeur, beauty, and novelty. A 
 cloudless sky and a blazing sun are over us. All the build- 
 ings are dazzling in whiteness, and the domes of thirty-two 
 churches within the Kremlin, and hundreds below and 
 around, are blazing at noon-tide in their gold and green. 
 Each one of three hundred and seventy churches has sev- 
 eral domes, and besides them there are theatres and palaces, 
 and convents and other public buildings, roofs painted 
 green, sides white, and gilt overlaying domes, turrets, and 
 spires. Gardens filled with trees, among the dwellings, 
 as in more Oriental cities, and the river circling its way 
 into and out of the town, give us some idea of what Baby- 
 lon or Nineveh might have been in their vast enclosure 
 and picturesque rural attractions within their massive 
 walls. 
 
 In the midst of the Kremlin, and above every other 
 structure in Moscow, rises toward the sky the white, solid, 
 simple Tower of Ivan ; majestic in its simplicity and height, 
 as if it were the axis about which this fairy world of Mos- 
 cow was revolving, it stands sublimely there, with a bell of 
 444,000 pounds at its foot, and another of 130,000 swing- 
 ing in its crown. 
 
 At the foot of the Ivan Tower, supported by a pedestal 
 of stone, is the largest bell in the world, and probably the 
 
THE KREMLIN AND, THE BELLS OF MOSCOW. 
 
 335 
 
 rJLAK OI THE CENTEIE Of 3iO SlOA CITY; 
 
 SvalaafReb, 
 
 A, THE KREMLIN. 
 
 1. Uspenski Sohore, or Cathedral. 
 
 2. Archangehkoi Sobore. 
 
 3. Anniinciatio7t Church. 
 
 4. Spass 11a Born Church. 
 
 5. Birth of the Virgin Church. 
 
 6. Granovitaya Palata. 
 
 7. Cotirt Church. 
 
 8. Uair the Martyr Church. 
 
 g. Cojistantine and Helen Church. 
 10. Ivanovskaya Kolokolnya. 
 
 ri. Twelve Apostles Church, 
 
 12. Holy Synod Office. 
 
 13. Chudor Monastery 
 
 14. Voznesenskoi Nujinery. 
 
 15. Our Saviour's Gate. 
 
 16. >S"/?. Nicholas^ Gate. 
 
 17. Trinity Gate. 
 
 18. Borovitskiya Gate. 
 
 19. Z'/i^ Secret Gates. 
 
 B. THE KITAI GOROD. 
 
 1. Pokrovskoi Sobore. 
 
 2. Kazanskoi Sobore. 
 
 3. Jverskaya Chapel 
 
 4-25. Churches atid Monasteries ; amongst 
 which No 7 2'^ ^A^ Church of the Mother of 
 God of Vladimir ; aiid No- 15, tJte Church 
 of the Mother of God of Georgia', 
 
 26. Varvarskiya Gate> 
 
 27. Ilyinskiya Gate. 
 
 28. Nikolskiya Gate. 
 2q. Voskrescnskoi Gate. 
 
 30. Monumefit of Minim and 
 Pojarskii- 
 
336 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 largest that ever was in the world. A piece is broken out 
 of its side, and the fragment is lying near. The breadth 
 of the bell is so great, — it is twenty feet across, — that the 
 cavity underneath has been used as a chapel, where as 
 many people can stand as in a circle ^ixty feet around. 
 
 In Russia, the bell is an instrument of music for the wor- 
 ship of God as truly and really as the organ in any other 
 country ! This fact is not mentioned in the accounts we 
 have of the wonderful, enormous, and almost incredibly 
 heavy bells that have been cast in Moscow. But it is the 
 key to what would otherwise be difficult to explain. It 
 appears absurd to cast bells so large as to be next to im- 
 possible for convenient use ; in danger always of falling and 
 dragging others to ruin in their fall. But when the bell is 
 a medium of communication with the Infinite, and the wor- 
 ship of a people and an empire finds expression in its ma- 
 jestic tones, it ceases to be a wonder that it should have a 
 tongue which requires twenty-four men to move, and 
 whose music should send a thrill of praise into every 
 house in the city, and float away beyond the river into 
 the plains afar. 
 
 Moscow is the holy city of the Greek Church. Pil- 
 grims come hither from thousands of miles off, and on 
 foot, and sometimes without shoes. I have seen them 
 with staves in their hand, and their travel-worn feet 
 wound up in cloths, wending their way to the sacred hill. 
 And when they draw nigh unto the city, and on the even- 
 ing air the music of these holy bells is first borne to their 
 ears, they fall upon their faces, prostrate, and worship God. 
 If they could go no further, they would be content to die 
 there, for they have heard the bells of Moscow, and on 
 their majestic tones their souls have been taken up to 
 heaven. This is the sentiment of the superstitious peas- 
 ant, and it is a beautiful sentiment, ideal indeed, but all 
 the more delicate and exalted. 
 
THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW. 337 
 
 As long as five hundred years ago, this casting of bells 
 was an art in Russia. It is one of the fine arts now. Per- 
 haps our great bell-founders will not admit that the found- 
 ers there have any more skill in their manufacture than 
 we have, and I am not sure that their bells have any tones 
 more exquisite than ours would have if we would put as 
 much silver and gold into our bell-metal as they do. But 
 so long as those precious metals are at the present pre- 
 mium, little or none of them will find its way into our 
 church bells. We have not the idea of the Russian as to 
 the use of a bell. We use it to call the people to the house 
 of worship. They use the bell for worship. Our bells 
 speak to us. Their bells praise God. They cast their 
 silver and their gold into the molten mass, and it becomes 
 an offering, as on an altar, to him who is worshipped with 
 every silvery note and golden tone of the holy bell. 
 
 This one great bell is the growth of centuries. In 1553 
 it was cast, and weighed only 36,000 pounds. It fell in a 
 fire, and was recast in 1654, being increased to the aston- 
 ishing weight of 288,000 pounds. This was too vast a 
 weight to be taken up to the top of the tower, and it was 
 sustained by a frame at the foot of it. In 1706, it fell in 
 another fire and was broken into fragments, which lay 
 there on the ground about thirty years. It was recast 
 in 1733 ; four years afterwards a piece was knocked out 
 of the side of it, and it has been standing here on the 
 ground more than a century. It weighs 444,000 pounds ! 
 In the thickest part it is two feet through. It has relief 
 pictures on it of the Emperor and Empress, of the Saviour 
 and the Virgin Mary, and the evangelists. 
 
 Ascending the Ivan Tower, we find on three successive 
 stories bells to the number of thirty-four. Some of these 
 are of a size to fill one with astonishment had he not seen 
 the giant below. The largest is on the first story above 
 the chapel, and weighs more than sixty tons. It swings 
 
<33S ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 freely and is easily rung. I smote it with the palm of my 
 hand, supposing that such a blow could not produce the 
 slightest vibration in such a mighty mass of iron, but it 
 rung out as clear and startling as if a spirit within had 
 responded to my knock without. Two bells are of solid 
 silver, and their tones are exquisitely soft, liquid, and pure. 
 It was exciting to go from one to another and strike them 
 with their tongues, or with your hand, and catch the va- 
 riety and richness of their several melodies. 
 
 The chapel below is dedicated to the patron saint of all 
 ladies about to be married, and it may be readily believed 
 that the bell that gives expression to their prayers will 
 have, at least to their ears, the sweetest tone of all the 
 bells in Moscow. 
 
 I came down from the Kremlin to my lodgings at Bil- 
 lot's, and, wearied with the wanderings of the day, have 
 been lying on the bed and looking out on the city. It is 
 just before sunset, and the day has been oppressively warm. 
 A delicious glow from the gorgeous west is bathing all the 
 domes and roofs with splendid colors, and silence is steal- 
 ing in with the setting sun upon the crowded town. It is 
 the eve of one of their most holy festivals of the church. 
 One vast church edifice is directly in view of my window 
 and but a short way off. As I lie musing, from this church 
 comes the softest, sweetest tone of an evening bell. An- 
 other tone responds. A third is heard. The Ivan Tower 
 on the height of the Kremlin utters his tremendous voice, 
 like the voice of many waters. And all the churches and 
 towers over the whole city, four hundred bells and more, in 
 concert, in harmony, *' with notes almost divine," lift up 
 their voices in an anthem of praise, such as I never thought 
 to hear with mortal ears : waves of melody, an ocean 
 of music, deep, rolling, heaving, changing, swelling, sink- 
 ing, rising, overwhelming, exalting. I had heard the great 
 organs of Europe, but they were tame and trifling com- 
 
THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW. 339 
 
 pared with this. The anthem of Nature at Niagara is 
 one great monotone. The music of Moscow's bells is 
 above and beyond them all. It is the voice of the people. 
 It utters the emotions of millions of loving, beating, long- 
 ing hearts, not enlightened, perhaps, like yours, but all 
 crying out to the great Father, in these solemn and 
 inspiring tones, as if these tongues had voices to cry : 
 " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth 
 are full of thy glory." 
 
340 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW. 
 
 T T 7E were alone in the holiest of all the holy places in 
 ' ' the empire of Russia : a church and a sepulchre ; the 
 place where the emperors crown themselves and the pri- 
 mates of the church are lying in their grave-clothes all 
 around ; the grandest of all earthly grandeur, and the 
 solemn evidences of the mightier power of King Death 
 staring at the pageant in mockery of all that man is and 
 does. 
 
 We were alone in the Cathedral of the Assumption ; four 
 gigantic gilded and pictured columns in the midst of it sup- 
 port five great domes ; and on the sides are arranged the 
 huge sarcophagi in which repose the bones of old patriarchs 
 whose names are part of the history of the church, and 
 whose relics are thus kept near at hand impressing the 
 worshipper with something of awe, as one will feel it in the 
 presence of the dead. There was no attendant in the church 
 when we entered, and the deep silence reigning seemed be- 
 fitting the place. We were silent, for the grandeur of the 
 scene, the historic associations with the place, the evidences 
 around us that this spot is holy in the eyes and hearts of 
 the millions of this vast empire, made us solemn. Before 
 us is the Iconastasis, or screen for sacred pictures, and 
 behind this screen are the pictures of the patriarchs and 
 fathers of the church. No woman may enter this holy place. 
 It is very plain that the woman's rights ideas of equality 
 have not penetrated this veil. Here, too, are views of the 
 final judgment scene, and of the life and death of the Virgin 
 
THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW. 34I 
 
 Mary. These sacred pictures surround the sanctuary, the 
 holy of hoUes, before it is the principal altar, and behind it 
 the throne of the Archbishop of Moscow. In the centre 
 of the church, with the four great pillars at each corner, is 
 the coronation platform, on which takes place the most 
 august ceremony known to the Greek Church or the Rus- 
 sian people. We cannot enter fully into the sentiment of 
 awe that possesses the minds of a half-civilized race, who 
 receive their sovereign with a mingled conception of the 
 divine and human in his person. He seeks to perpetuate 
 this reverential sentiment. He secludes himself from the 
 world before he comes to take the imperial crown ; he mor- 
 tifies himself by fasting and prayer ; and when the appointed 
 day arrives for his investiture with the high office to which 
 God has called him, there is none in all his realm that is 
 high and holy enough to put on him the emblem of the 
 power he is to take. This cathedral is thronged with the 
 highest dignitaries of church and state, and the representa- 
 tives of other empires, eastern and western, with the rich- 
 est display of all that can illustrate the glory of this scene. 
 They surround this empty platform, and gaze upon it with 
 fixed expectancy. A solitary man enters and ascends alone ; 
 he speaks, but it is to repeat the words in which is expressed 
 his faith in the doctrines of the church ; he kneels to pray 
 for his empire ; he takes his own golden crown, and with 
 his own unaided hands he places it upon his head ; he de- 
 scends, and entering the holiest sanctuary takes the bread 
 and wine from the altar, and thus alone with God, whom 
 alone he confesses to be his superior, he consecrates him- 
 self to the throne of Russia. Thus from Ivan the Terrible, 
 all the way down to the Alexander who was shot at in Paris 
 during the exhibition, have the Czars been self-crowned on 
 this sacred spot. 
 
 In a side chapel near the altar lies Peter, the first metro- 
 politan of Moscow, with a nail of the Saviour's cross and a 
 
THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW. 343 
 
 part of his seamless robe. On the right is the coffin of 
 PhiHp, who had the courage to rebuke the Terrible Ivan, a 
 terribly brutal ruler, murdering his nobles without mercy, 
 and when Philip became too troublesome he murdered him. 
 Now the dead prelate lies here with one of his skeleton 
 hands exposed to view on his breast, and it is part of the 
 Emperor's service, when he approaches this tomb, to kiss 
 the holy bone, that is left convenient for the purpose. 
 
 Very like this cathedral is that of the Archangel Michael 
 close by; and here lie the coffins and relics of the early 
 rulers of the Runic and Romanoff dynasties, all the way 
 down to Peter the Great. The tomb of Demetrius, son of 
 Ivan the Terrible, is the most sacred of all ; he disappeared 
 mysteriously, and the country was plunged into a long and 
 bloody civil war ; and, finally, his murdered body and coffin 
 were brought to view by a miracle, and the forehead of the 
 dead prince being exposed, or a hole about an inch in 
 diameter being cut through the coffin and the forehead 
 raised up to it, or what is just as good, a bone being put 
 across the hole, the people approach with reverence and 
 press their lips upon this holy and disgusting skull. 
 
 Our meditations among the tombs were disturbed by the 
 entrance of visitors, many of them natives of the country, 
 whose reverence in the midst of so much that to them was 
 specially sacred, we could not fail to respect. I cannot kiss 
 a bone with any enthusiasm ; but there is no accounting 
 for the tastes of people ; and disgusting as is the idolatry 
 of the Greek Church to me> I know that many English and 
 American Christians wish to have that church united to 
 theirs. I would like to see it reformed first. 
 
 There are no restrictions on religious worship in Russia ! 
 On one street in the capital of Russia, where the Emperor 
 himself resides, and the Greek Church reigns in all its glory, 
 there are six churches of as many different religious per- 
 suasions, all protected by the law. 
 
344 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 The English have a church of their own in Moscow, and 
 a rectory, for there are a large number of English-speaking 
 people in these cities, not only men in trade, but tutors and 
 governesses who are induced to come to Russia from Eng- 
 land to teach the children and youth the English language. 
 It is quite as great an accomplishment to speak English, as 
 with us it is to speak French. And such is the extension 
 of business westward, it is quite important that one who 
 is in commercial pursuits of any kind should understand a 
 language which more rapidly than any other is spreading 
 over the world. We meet more Russians speaking our 
 own tongue than of almost any other people. 
 
 During the Crimean war complaint was made to the 
 Emperor that the English chaplain in Moscow offered 
 prayers every Sunday that Queen Victoria might be vic- 
 torious over all her enemies, and the Emperor replied that 
 the chaplain might pray for the Queen or anybody else. 
 
 In the city of Moscow there are three hundred and 
 seventy churches of the Greek faith, two Roman Catholic, 
 and four Protestant ; of these four, two are for those who 
 worship in the German language, one French, and one 
 English. 
 
 On the Sabbath I attended the Greek service in the St. 
 Basil Cathedral. The crowd was so vast that multitudes 
 were unable to get within the doors. A narrow door at 
 the side yielded to the touch, and the sacristan received us 
 as st'rangers and conducted us into the holy place where 
 the priests were performing service. A choir of five — two 
 old men, two young men, and a boy — made the responses 
 and sang parts of the service with an energy and power 
 that was exciting and astonishing as we stood by them and 
 saw the effort they made to give effect to their utterances. 
 The devotion of the crowded auditory was affecting. If 
 one may judge of emotion by what he sees of people wor- 
 shipping in a strange language, he must believe that these 
 
 I 
 
THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW. 345 
 
 are truly devout, and deeply impressed with the services in 
 which they are earnestly engaged. 
 
 It is Trinity Sunday. Wagon loads of green branches 
 of trees are carried through the streets for sale. Every 
 house, shop, shrine, church, and station is adorned with 
 evergreens ; windows and doors are garlanded ; the hum- 
 blest house in the poorest quarter we passed through had 
 its sprig of green, and where the poverty of the person pre- 
 vented any display, it was evident that no one was ashamed 
 to do what he could in honor of the day. The women and 
 children carried flowers, the lily of the valley seeming to 
 be the favorite ; and bunches of it were constantly offered 
 for sale, by those who would do a little business for them- 
 selves and help the rest to worship after their fashion. 
 
 We went up the Kremlin to the Archangel Cathedral. 
 Thousands on thousands of people, a countless multitude, 
 were standing around the Ivan Tower and the big bell, un- 
 able to gain entrance into any church, for these were all 
 filled to overflowing by the densest mass of sweltering 
 humanity. Many of this crowd were common and unclean 
 people, like the very poor everywhere ; they were ragged, 
 unshod, and dirty. Those in better order had long frock- 
 coats on, reaching to the ground nearly, with high boots 
 over their pantaloons. These crowds were quiet, lounging 
 around as if they had nothing to do and were doing it 
 patiently, but not earnestly. They seemed to me a dull, 
 phlegmatic race, incapable of emotion; but this is a judg- 
 ment of no great account, for it is not unlikely the Russians 
 may be as easily roused to action, for good or evil, as the 
 Germans or English. 
 
 Work of all sorts was going on in the city, with not the 
 slightest indication that the day was a sabbath. It was 
 only wonderful that so many people could be busy with the 
 work of every day, and such multitudes at leisure to enjoy 
 a holiday. 
 
34^ ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Now and then a procession of poor pilgrims passed along, 
 with sandals of bark bound upon the soles of their feet, for 
 they had come a long distance from the far interior to wor- 
 ship in this holy city. Weary and foot-sore they were, men 
 and women, in scanty, but heavy clothing, even in this hot 
 weather, and wearing a look of solemn suffering as they 
 trudged along with staves in their hands. They have not 
 yet learned that the hill of Zion is now as near to them as 
 in the Kremlin, and that God is worshipped acceptably 
 only by those who worship in heart and truth. Some of 
 these pilgrims may be beggars so disguised, for here, as at 
 home, there is no form of swindling more common than 
 religious imposture. The Russians are very kind and ten- 
 der to idiots, and beggars go about barefoot even in winter, 
 pretending to be underwitted ! 
 
 On the wide area in front of St. Basil is the Golgotha, or 
 skull place, a name given to a circular stone platform, said 
 to be the place of public executions in old times, but if so, 
 it has long since ceased to be used for any such purpose. 
 Here the Czar sometimes stands in the midst of myriads of 
 his subjects. Here the Patriarch blesses the people. Here 
 the Patriarch has mounted an ass and the Emperor of all 
 the Russias has led the beast by the bridle to the Cathe- 
 dral of the Assumption. But the church has no such 
 supremacy over the state now, as such a ceremony would 
 imply. The Czar is a devout member as well as head of 
 the Greek Church, and the Patriarch is his friend and co- 
 adjutor. The progress of the truth on the great question 
 of religious liberty has made itself felt here as well as in 
 western nations, and with all the ignorance and despotism 
 and superstition, and the semi-civilization of this people, the 
 government does not obstruct the spread of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, nor interfere with liberty of worship in any part of 
 the mighty empire. 
 
 One of the priests of this church very kindly led us into 
 
THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW. 34/ 
 
 the sacristy of the former patriarchs and now of the Holy 
 Synod, where he would show us the treasury, the library, 
 and the vestry of the ancient metropolitans of Russia and 
 the patriarchs of Moscow. It was the same old story which 
 had been told us over and over again in the cathedrals of 
 the Romish Church, ad nauseam ; and unless we had been 
 advertised of the fact, we would not have supposed that we 
 had taken a departure from Italy or Spain. 
 
 A reliquary containing a part of the purple robe which 
 the Saviour of sinners was clad with in mockery of his 
 kingship, and a bit of the rock of Calvary, are among the 
 most precious relics which this rich collection boasts ; yet 
 they are not more admired by the faithful than the robes 
 which were worn by the metropolitans five hundred years 
 ago, and are now exhibited ; a sakkos of crimson velvet, 
 covered with great pearls, rubies, emeralds, almandines, 
 garnets, and diamonds, making it weigh more than fifty 
 pounds. And it is said that the Czar John the Terrible 
 presented this priceless robe to the church as an expiatory 
 offering after he had caused his own son to be murdered. 
 The crimson garment, price of blood or not, is cherished 
 with religious care as one of the most valuable things in 
 the treasury of the Holy Synod. 
 
 But it is more wearisome to read of, than it is to see and 
 note the robes and mitres and images worn by the bishops, 
 figures of the Virgin and infant Saviour and St. John, cut 
 in precious stones, the crucifixion scene done on an onyx 
 stone, and others in gold and silver. Yet all these yield 
 in value and religious interest to a few pots and kettles 
 which are used in this chamber, and were now presented 
 to what were presumed to be our admiring eyes. It may 
 be that our instantaneous conversion to the Greek faith was 
 anticipated as the effect of the sight. We stood it un- 
 moved, and will venture to describe the things seen with 
 no expectation that the perusal will make a convert of you. 
 
348 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Here is prepared the Holy Oil, or Mir, with which every 
 orthodox Russian subject is baptized. The same mixture 
 is used to consecrate every emperor who comes regularly 
 to the throne, and to sanctify every church in the empire 
 that is to be used for worship by the orthodox Greek com- 
 munion. Now, if all the oil to be used for all these pur- 
 poses, in an empire of sixty millions of people and by the 
 adherents of the same church in other countries, is to be 
 prepared in this room and by the priests here employed, it 
 is plain they must have their hands and kettles full pretty 
 much all the time. 
 
 The ceremony of oiling a child in the Greek Church, at 
 its baptism, is performed by the priest taking a little brush 
 or feather, dipped in the holy chrism, and touching with it 
 the mouth, eyes, ears, hands and feet, back and breast ; the 
 eyes are thus anointed that the child may see only what is 
 good, the ears to prevent him hearing the evil that is in the 
 world, the lips that they may speak the truth, the hands 
 and feet that they may be always found in the right way. 
 Whence this oil that has such wondrous properties } When 
 Christianity was first introduced into Russia, Constantinople 
 furnished an infinitely little portion of holy oil that was 
 then in use in the church for these sacred purposes ; and 
 this portion being used by the priests in preparing a large 
 quantity, and some of that being used in preparing more, 
 and thus from time to time each new supply being com- 
 posed in part of what was prepared before, it comes to pass, 
 on the strictly philosophical principle of the infinite divisi- 
 biUty of matter, some of the same unguent that came from 
 Constantinople many centuries agone, is now used in an- 
 ointing the eyes, ears, and mouth of every child that is 
 baptized in Russia. If you do not believe it, it still comes 
 to the same thing, and I do not see that it makes any dif- 
 ference. 
 
 The holy chrism is made by the clergy during Lent, 
 
THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW. 349 
 
 with great care and solemnity ; about thirty different in- 
 gredients being used, gums, balsams, and spices. These 
 are put into two large silver kettles and a huge caldron, 
 scrupulously clean ; and when the mixture is thoroughly 
 made it is poured out into sixteen silver jars, which are 
 distributed among the several bishops of the empire. The 
 silrer utensils used in this work, and all of which are ex- 
 hibited as the most sacred treasures of the church, are said 
 to weigh thirteen hundred pounds. And with them is a 
 vessel of copper with mother-of-pearl coating, that con- 
 tained the original oil as it came from Constantinople ; and 
 each year a few drops are taken out of it, and as many of 
 the new mixture returned, so that the supply is always 
 kept good, and the faithful of the church believe that this 
 is the true succession of the oil with which Mary anointed 
 the feet of her Saviour. 
 
350 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW. 
 
 TF you are weary reading of royal palaces, you will be 
 sorry to be invited to the one more gorgeously adorned 
 and illustrated than any other which you and I have en- 
 tered in company. You have often heard of, and perhaps 
 have seen, some specimens of barbaric splendor ! You 
 have associated with the word barbaric^ ideas of Oriental 
 and excessive magnificence, laid on without the more 
 refined and chastened taste of modern civilization. It is 
 a word the old Romans used to define foreign people^ and 
 whatever came to Rome from foreign parts : all the world 
 was barbarous or Roman. We do not use the word in the 
 same sense as barbarous. But with it, in connection with 
 gold and pearls and decorations of the palace, we associate 
 a wealth of luxury and brilliancy of ornamentation, that 
 would suit the meridian of Persia rather than of Paris. 
 
 Not having seen the palaces of the interior of Asia, I 
 cannot draw a comparison between them and the royal 
 residences of European monarchs. But we are now on the 
 border between the East and the West, between Asia and 
 Europe, between barbarism in its best estate and civiliza- 
 tion. Take a map of the world and see where Moscow 
 stands ! What vast, uncultured, desolate regions lie at the 
 east of it, and still further on, what empires and peoples 
 that make up the bulk of the human race ! Out of the 
 barbarism of that eastern portion of the earth's plane, 
 Russia is emerging, and Moscow is her frontier town ; a 
 
PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW. 35 1 
 
 wall and a monument : a sign and guide, signifying what 
 Russia has been, and leading on to something higher and 
 better, though the future is still in the depths of political 
 and moral uncertainties. 
 
 The Tartar hordes have in ages past been fond of making 
 raids upon Moscow, and leaving her palaces heaps of smok- 
 ing ruins. In old times the Russians built them of wood 
 for the most part, though one of stone erected in 1484 is 
 still standing. Then the Czars removed the capital to 
 St. Petersburg, and for a long time the Kremlin was with- 
 out a palace or an emperor. The celebrated Empress 
 Anne gave Moscow a palace, and her presence now and 
 then, and Catharine II. designed a royal residence so vast 
 and gorgeous as to rival the palaces of the world, but it 
 was never finished ; its model is preserved as a curiosity in 
 the treasury. What she did build, the French wantonly 
 burned when they were compelled to desert the city which 
 its own inhabitants had consigned to destruction. This 
 house, at the doors of which we have been standing while 
 I have given you these historical facts, is the work of the 
 late Nicholas, and is only about twenty years old. It has 
 no likeness in the various orders of architecture ; there is 
 no correspondence or harmony between the within and 
 without of it : yet the whole interior is a blaze of gold and 
 upholstery that leaves all rules of taste and art out of the 
 question. We pass through the Empress's drawing-room, 
 hung with white silk, her cabinet in crimson, her dressing 
 and bath rooms with malachite mantels and priceless orna- 
 ments ; the Emperor's cabinet, with magnificent paintings of 
 the proud French coming into Moscow, and the poor French 
 skulking out, — grim satires these on the horrors and for- 
 tunes of war ; the state apartments, with huge crystal 
 vases at the entrance ; the Hall of St. George, with the 
 names of regiments and soldiers inscribed in gold upon the 
 walls, who have been decorated with this order for bravery 
 
352 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 on the field ; the Hall of St. Andrew, hung with blue silk, 
 and inscribed with the names of heroes ; the Emperor's 
 throne, more ostentatious and imposing than any other in 
 Europe ; the audience-chamber and banqueting-room, on 
 which is lavished the last resource of gilt and paint to 
 make a show, — and yet when we are ushered into the Gold 
 Court, all former magnificence is for the moment forgotten 
 in the dazzling splendor that fills the place, as if the walls 
 were blazing with living golden light. A flight of steps at 
 one end of the room, called '' the red stair case," is never 
 trodden upon but when the Emperor, on the greatest of all 
 occasions, goes to the Cathedral of the Assumption. This 
 is part of the old palace begun by Catharine, and has a his- 
 tory running back to the time when John the Terrible stood 
 here and saw the comet that he construed into an omen of 
 his doom. And up this flight of stairs came Napoleon, the 
 greatest of actors, when he took possession of the palace 
 of the Kremlin. And when he went down these stairs he 
 began that descent which never stopped till he touched the 
 bottom of his tomb. 
 
 The right wing of the palace is the treasury building, 
 with the most remarkable collection of objects to be seen 
 in Russia. The Tower of London illustrates England as 
 this museum tells the history of the Russian empire. Her 
 past and present intercourse with the Asiatic nations, and 
 her more modern commercial relations with the West, have 
 made Moscow the emporium of all that distinguishes her 
 ancient and modern commerce, and exchange of presents 
 when treaties have been made. What riches of plate, 
 jewels, silks, manufactures, which China, India, Persia, 
 Armenia, and other powers, peoples, and tribes have poured 
 into the lap of this colossal power in the progress of centu- 
 ries ! When the French were coming, the prudent Rus- 
 sians, foreseeing the evil, removed these pearls and diamonds 
 and rubies, these vessels of gold and silver, these costly 
 
PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW. 353 
 
 fabrics of art and toil which could never be replaced, and 
 concealed them far in the interior, where the feet of the 
 enemy would not be apt to follow them. 
 
 Among the historical curiosities here preserved with 
 religious care, the traveller from the land of liberty views 
 with sorrow and indignation the throne of Poland ! Other 
 thrones, as trophies of conquered kingdoms, stand near. 
 One of ivory was brought from Constantinople in 1472. 
 Another is from Persia, taken as long ago as 1660. It 
 is covered with ^yG diamonds, 1,223 rubies, and many other 
 precious stones. Blazing in front of these thrones is an 
 orb, which the Greek emperors, Basilius and Constantine, 
 sent to Wladimir Monomachus, Prince of Kief, with a 
 piece of the true cross ! This orb is adorned with fifty- 
 eight diamonds, eighty-nine rubies, twenty-three sapphires, 
 fifty emeralds, and thirty-seven other stones, and with 
 enamels colored in the highest style of Grecian art, to 
 tell the story of King David, of the land of Israel. 
 
 One of the most wonderful institutions of Moscow is the 
 hospital for foundlings, into which about twelve thousand 
 children are taken yearly. As many, if not more, are 
 received into a similar institution in St. Petersburg. It is 
 said that no cities in the world surpass those of Russia in 
 the comforts provided for the care of these outcasts from 
 the birth, the most forlorn and helpless of all the objects 
 that appeal to human sympathy. The government makes 
 a yearly grant of about a million of dollars to this hos- 
 pital in Moscow, and it has large resources besides, so that 
 there is no lack of funds to meet the wants of these unfor- 
 tunate little people, whose fathers and mothers forsaking 
 them are taken up by the Lord. 
 
 In some cities I have seen a table made to revolve outside 
 the walls of the asylum, and in, so that a child could be 
 placed upon it outside, and on the door-bell being rung the 
 table would be set in motion, and the infant is gently rolled 
 
 23 
 
354 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 into the house. The mother or friend who brought the child 
 and laid it upon the table would thus be relieved of its 
 charge, and would silently depart, leaving the child, yet 
 utterly unseen and unknown. This system has its advan- 
 tages, and many attendant evils. But here in Moscow they 
 affect no such mystery about the matter. The hospital 
 receives the infant children of poor and honest parents 
 who are willing to give their babes to the state, and it also 
 takes the offspring of sin and shame who are brought by 
 their mothers or left on the highway and picked up by the 
 police or the wayfarer. A reception-room is always open. 
 A man or woman enters with a babe. No question is 
 asked but these : — 
 
 ^' Has the child been baptized ? " 
 
 If yes, " By what name ? " If it has not been baptized, 
 that sacrament is at once administered, and the name given 
 is registered opposite a number, which is hereafter worn as 
 a sign around its neck, and this number is handed to the 
 person who brings the child. This number entitles the 
 bearer to come back any time within ten years and claim 
 the child. The nurses are mothers who have left their own 
 children in the country, and come here to get the wages 
 and living in the hospital, which are far better than they 
 enjoy at home. And some of the nurses are the mothers 
 whose children are here, and as they have the number that 
 marks their own, they can easily change about till they get 
 the care of the babe they seek to watch, without its ever 
 being known to be theirs. 
 
 Nothing is now wanting that medical skill and good 
 nursing can supply to preserve the lives of these orphans. 
 We go from ward to ward, admiring the cleanliness, 
 order, and comfort on every side. The babes are bathed 
 in copper tubs, convenient in shape, and lined with thick 
 flannel. They are not laid on the hard knees or sharp 
 hoops of unfeeling nurses to be dressed, but they are suf- 
 
PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW. 355 
 
 fered to lie on pillows of down while this operation is 
 performed. After four weeks of such tender care, and 
 when the child may be supposed to have gained some 
 strength, they are sent with their nurses into the coun- 
 try. They are, however, exposed to such a climate, and 
 the fare of the peasantry is so coarse, that it takes a tough 
 child to weather the first year of life, and at least one-half 
 of them die before they are twelve months old. Half of 
 the remainder who survive the year fall by the way before 
 they grow up ; and so it comes to pass that only one quar- 
 ter, twenty-five out of a hundred, of these children of the 
 state live to be men and women. This is a small pro- 
 portion, and it is quite likely that full as many of them 
 would have lived to grow up, if there had been no hospital 
 to care for them. 
 
 Another institute we find here in Moscow that has 
 nothing to match it, and cannot have in our democratic 
 country. The female orphan children of servants of the 
 Emperor are taken into it, and eight hundred are constantly 
 receiving an education to fit them for being teachers ! 
 They are bound to devote six years after they leave the 
 institute to the business of teaching in the interior of the 
 empire. They have a small salary, and thus provide for 
 themselves while they are doing a good work for the state. 
 No foundlings are admitted into this house. The orphans 
 are all supposed to be children of honest parents, and this 
 supposition keeps up a higher tone of self-respect than 
 would be possible among a thousand children who did not 
 know who their parents are. 
 
 Wolves in sheep's clothing we have read of in the figure 
 language of the Bible, but men in sheep's clothing I had 
 never seen till I met them to-day, in midsummer, in the 
 market-places of Moscow. They could have but one suit 
 of clothing, and to cover their nakedness must wear it 
 summer and winter. It was made, " coat and pants," of 
 
356 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 sheepskin with the wool on, and was worn by some with 
 the wool outside, and by others with the wool in. On a 
 day like this of sweltering heat, when it was not safe for 
 us to walk in the sun without parasols, these natives of the 
 north, with their winter clothes on, were not apparently 
 oppressed ; and it was a comfort to believe that they had 
 become accustomed to it, and had no idea of any thing 
 more enjoyable than an indefinite degree of heat. 
 
 As winter is the longer half of the year, it is the harvest 
 time for those who are in the line of buying and selling 
 meats and all provisions that are preserved by frost. As 
 soon as the cold weather fairly sets in, the fatted cattle and 
 pigs and poultry are doomed to die by the hands of the 
 butcher. The carcasses are instantly frozen and sent to 
 market. Here it is packed up in enormous heaps, and 
 families who are able to buy at wholesale prices lay in their 
 winter supplies, and those who live from hand to mouth 
 can buy at any time fresh meat that was killed in the fall. 
 The weather is so uniformly cold that little danger of a 
 thaw is apprehended, but if it comes, away goes the meat. 
 And it must at any time be cooked immediately on thaw- 
 ing, so that it is rather a precarious mode of preserving 
 provisions. But it is adapted to the country and climate, 
 it saves packing and salting, and has the advantage of 
 furnishing fresh meat, at moderate prices, at all times. 
 The fish from the White Sea are also kept, like wood- 
 piles, in heaps with oxen and sheep and deer. The flesh 
 of mammoths and elephants of past ages has been found 
 in perfect preservation in the icy regions of the north, and 
 it is certainly one of the remarkable provisions of nature 
 that cold, which is so destructive of animal life, should also 
 be the preserver of flesh, for indefinite periods, after the 
 life principle has been extinguished. 
 
 The Jews in Chatham Street, New York, who press 
 their wares upon the notice of passers by, are modest 
 
PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW. 2>S7 
 
 compared with the vendors of old clothes and miscellane- 
 ous matters in the markets of Moscow. It was hard to get 
 away from them without making an investment in the most 
 undesirable of all worldly goods, — a coat that somebody 
 else had cast off. And such a jumble of things ! remind- 
 ing one of the sign on the country store window-shutter 
 of an alHterative dealer: ''Bibles, Blackball, Butter, Tes- 
 taments, Tar, Treacle, Godly-books, and Gimlets, for sale 
 here." Ironware, pot-metal, in the shape of utensils for 
 cooking, seemed to abound ; and if the poorer people, who 
 are the buyers here, have any thing to cook, it is very 
 pleasant to know it. Their food is mainly milk, eggs, 
 pickles, cabbage, and black bread, with beef and mutton 
 according to their ability to buy it. As a general thing the 
 Russian peasants are not underfed ; the land being so 
 largely in the immediate care of the laborer himself, he 
 can manage to get food for himself and family. And as 
 they clothe themselves in the rudest and most primitive 
 way, literally using skins of beasts, and in their natural 
 state, they ought to be able to live comfortably without 
 handhng much money. 
 
 The " Riding School " of Moscow is the building in 
 which a remarkable museum is gathered. This building 
 is one of the longest with an unbroken area in the world, 
 the roof, without a column to support it, covering a space 
 560 feet long and 160 wide. It is constructed on this enor- 
 mous scale for the exercise of regiments, cavalry and foot, 
 in winter, when the weather is so severe as to render drills 
 out of doors impossible. The Ethnological Society of the 
 North of Europe had selected this place — and it was my 
 good fortune to be here at the time — for the exhibition of 
 the Slavonic races in wax ! Here they are in all their 
 varied employments, according to the climate, habits, and 
 necessities of the several peoples ; with their actual sur- 
 roundings of forest, ice, snow, sea, river ; the men, women, 
 
358 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 and children, with dogs, poultry, oxen, reindeer, and sledges, 
 hunting and fishing, freezing and trying to keep warm, 
 marrying and trading and travelling ; here are Albanian 
 costumes, and there- a cavern and human skeletons sitting 
 in it, telling a story I could not understand, and here a 
 cottage out of whose roof the smoke curls gracefully, 
 and the open door and chickens and children playing near, 
 need no interpreter to speak of comfort and content. 
 
 If one were writing a volume of the manners and customs 
 of the Slavonic races, he would learn more of them by the 
 study of this museum than in months of travel among the 
 people. The society is composed of learned and thought- 
 ful men of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, &c., who 
 meet annually for the collection and diffusion of useful 
 knowledge on the subject of their own race specially and 
 the family of man. We are very apt to think that, outside 
 of our own English-speaking countries, there is little doing 
 to promote the civilization and thus the happiness of the 
 human race. Travel takes this and many other conceits 
 out of a man. One of the first things he learns, if he is 
 capable of learning any thing, is that he knows very little 
 of what is going on in the world. Then he finds that 
 people whom he thought slow and only half civilized are far 
 ahead of him in many things, and by degrees he comes to 
 the conclusion that there is much in the world to be learned 
 that he had never dreamed of. But if he sticks to it that 
 what he does not know is not worth knowing, Hke my fel- 
 low countryman who insists that there is more art in 
 Illinois than in all Europe, then you may be sure that he 
 answers to the cane shown to Sydney Smith by one of this 
 sort of travellers who said : 
 
 " This stick, sir, has been all around the world, sir." 
 " Is it possible," replied Mr. Smith, " why it's nothing but 
 a stick for all that ! " 
 
FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 359 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 A COUPLE of English commercial travellers arrived 
 to-day and were very conversable at dinner. No 
 class of men one meets abroad are more free to impart what 
 they know, than these agents of trading houses in England, 
 who infest all countries, and push their way into every 
 company that is willing to hear their ceaseless flow of talk. 
 At dinner one of them asked a Frenchman in what country 
 of Europe Egypt was situated, and the Frenchman did not 
 know ; they discussed the subject for some time, neither of 
 them thinking it was not in Europe at all. But the two 
 having failed to settle the geographical position of Egypt 
 came back to matters nearer at hand, and the invasion of 
 Russia by the French and the downfall of Napoleon, made 
 the conversation lively. For when did or will a Frenchman 
 and Briton agree upon the character, the genius, or the 
 deserts of the Man of Destiny. And this led to the men- 
 tion of the Sparrow Hills, and to an excursion thither, 
 from which we have just returned. 
 
 On our way out of the city, we passed the church of the 
 Saviour, the largest church in Moscow, with the most 
 splendid dome, which, being covered with gilding, looks like 
 a mighty sun rising. The church has been in process of 
 building more than fifty years, and is far from being finished 
 yet. It is intended as a memorial of the French invasion 
 and its awful fate; and it was begun in the year 1812, so 
 memorable for that critical event in the history of Russia, 
 
30O ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 of France, and of mankind. And it was on the Sparrow 
 Hills that Napoleon first saw Moscow. 
 
 An hour's ride from the hotel brought us to the Simonoff 
 Monastery, which has been here through all the storms of 
 weather and war these last five hundred years. Rich in 
 lands with thousands of serfs, and the treasury into which 
 emperors and princes poured their royal gifts, it has been 
 sacked again and again by invading hordes, but has lived on, 
 with six churches within its walls. A lake near by is 
 reached by an underground passage, and miracles of heal- 
 ing are said to be wrought upon the sick who come here 
 with faith, and stay until they get well. In the midst of 
 the enclosure rises a tower more than three hundred feet, 
 and a blind bell-ringer delights in leading you to the look- 
 out loft, and answering every question you can ask re- 
 specting every object m your sight. You may be sure that 
 he is right in his answers, though he is blind as a bat. 
 
 The Novo-Devichi Convent, with six churches and a ro- 
 mantic history, the Donskoi Monastery, and the Novo- 
 spaski Monastery, are scattered through this region, and are 
 all visible and accessible in the visit to the hill country 
 around Moscow. But the roads are wretched and the 
 weather hot ; the sun is getting low in the west, and we 
 are in haste to enjoy the glories that are to burst upon our 
 sight when we come to stand where Napoleon stood at the 
 head of his proud legions and first saw Moscow ! 
 
 At the foot of the hill flows the river Moskva, and row- 
 boats are plying back and forth to carry the many passen- 
 gers, chiefly of the humbler classes of people, who are going 
 to and from the hills, on this feast-day in the Church, and 
 so a holiday for them all. Leaving the carriage, we were 
 ferried across and then climbed the hills, where hundreds 
 of the Muscovites were enjoying themselves on the green 
 slopes, eating, drinking, and laughing gaily, playing tricks 
 upon one another, and making themselves merry, as the 
 
FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 36 1 
 
 same class of people do in every part of the world. And 
 it is pleasant to think that other people have " a good time " 
 as well as we, in what clime soever they chance to live, and 
 however much they lack the things that we think indis- 
 pensable to enjoyment. Some of them were playing cards 
 on the ground, some were drinking qiias^ a strong spirit ; 
 and some who had already taken too much for their man- 
 ners, called out saucily to us to come and take a drink of 
 
 Before us, as we turned on reaching the brow of the hill, 
 stood the holy city of Russia, its ancient capital, the border 
 city between the Eastern and the Western worlds ! The 
 sun unclouded and intensely glowing is behind us, and 
 shedding its golden radiance in floods upon the domes and 
 pinnacles of three hundred and seventy churches, countless 
 towers and roofs and walls, the Kremlin standing above 
 the rest in its majesty, with its crown of cathedrals and 
 palace, a constellation of splendor rarely equalled in the 
 cities of the world. The river makes a circular sweep 
 through the plain at our feet, and then flows through the 
 city. 
 
 It was June, 1812, when Napoleon, at the head of the 
 French army, crossed the Niemen and pushed on to Wilna, 
 from which the Russian army retired, drawing him on in 
 pursuit, and, with masterly foresight, involving their enemy 
 in more and more hopeless difficulties. Napoleon would 
 have been glad to meet the Russians in signal battle, but 
 the leader of the Russians .understood his ground too well 
 to risk an engagement. The Emperor Alexander, however, 
 had not the sagacity to perceive nor the patience to bear 
 the policy of his general, and, displacing him, put another 
 man in his place, who gave battle at Borodino on the first 
 day of September, when 80,000 men were killed or wounded, 
 and the Russians retired to Moscow. The French were 
 sadly crippled by the losses in this battle, and their provi- 
 
362 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 sions were now nearly exhausted. They were hastening on 
 to the capture of Moscow to save their own lives. On the 
 1 2th of September the Russian army silently marched out 
 of the city, carrying with them every thing that could be 
 removed. Of three hundred thousand inhabitants, only the 
 convicts and a few others remained to take the chances of 
 war. 
 
 On the very next day. the advance of the French army 
 reached the brow of the hill where we were standing a few 
 hours ago ; and Napoleon, excited by the sight of the sunny 
 domes and roofs of the golden city, cried out, " All this is 
 yours." The soldiers caught up the cry, " Moscow ! Mos- 
 cow!" and it ran like fire along the ranks till the whole 
 army shouted in concert, " Moscow ! Moscow ! " An hour 
 or two more and they made their triumphal entry into a city 
 whose gates were open without a defender, and to the dismay 
 of the conqueror the city was a desert without food or in- 
 habitants. Through the deserted streets and up to the sacred 
 gate of the Kremlin the conqueror took his silent and sullen 
 way, and ascended the steps of the palace which was left 
 ready for his reception. He had reached the end of his 
 awful march of two thousand miles, but one was before 
 him more terrible by far. His army was starving, and 
 the city was empty. On the morning following his occu- 
 pation, a fire broke out and defied all efforts to arrest it. 
 Perhaps the wretched remnant of inhabitants were the in- 
 cendiaries. This is not a settled question. But the sol- 
 diers sought to save the city, and could not. The hospitals, 
 in which 20,000 wounded had been left, were consumed. 
 The glorious churches were now shining in flames. The 
 palaces and houses of the rich were given up to the sol- 
 diery, and the sacredness of temples and altars was no 
 protection against the lawless rabble that rioted in the ruin 
 and plunder of the town. The liberated convicts and rag- 
 ged poor ravaged the homes of princes and the vestries of 
 
FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 363 
 
 priests, and now roamed the streets in furs and robes. 
 What the fire spared the battle-axe destroyed. Works of art 
 and elegance and luxury, the vast accumulations of wealth 
 and ages, all went down in the vortex of remorseless war. 
 
 And now Napoleon sought to make peace with the enemy 
 whose chief city he had in his possession. But his enemy 
 was his master, and refused to hear of peace. After a 
 month of delay, and the dreadful winter of the North at 
 hand, he set off with his shattered hosts to return. And the 
 story of that return is frozen into the memory of man. Its 
 horrors the pencil has sought to portray, and no pen can do 
 it justice. The frost and snow made havoc with the miser- 
 able soldiers : they froze by thousands and died on the march. 
 Wild disorder reigned, and death was the only commander 
 whom officer or man obeyed. Napoleon, always true to 
 himself, deserted his faithful army and fled to Paris. Of 
 the half a million of men who composed his troops when he 
 began the invasion of Russia, about 200,000 were made 
 prisoners, 125,000 were slain in battles, and 130,000 perished 
 by cold, hunger, and fatigue ! A disaster without a parallel 
 in the annals of the race. 
 
 And this was the beginning of the end. The powers of 
 Europe combined against' him, and the world knows the 
 story. 
 
 Moscow is a city of so much historical interest, and it is 
 so peculiar in its architecture, plan, and people, that we 
 have lingered longer than perhaps has been agreeable to 
 you. But the time was when Moscow was far more of a 
 city than it is now. Two hundred and thirty years ago 
 (it is written in history), Moscow had two thousand 
 churches ; but the statements of the former population of 
 this city are so astounding as to be scarcely credible. In 
 1600 the plague made such ravages here that 127,000 per- 
 sons were dead in the streets at one time, and 500,000 died 
 in the city. All of these stories, including the number of 
 
364 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the churches, must be greatly exaggerated, and yet they 
 are some index to the former extent and power of this splen- 
 did capital. But all this greatness must have been when 
 the people were only a little removed from barbarism. Dr. 
 Collins, physician to the Czar, says in 1670, "the custom 
 of tying up wives by the hair of the head and flogging them, 
 begins to be left off.'' It was certainly time, though it was 
 two hundred years ago. No traces of that ancient custom 
 remain. The doves that inhabit the streets, are held to be 
 sacred birds, emblems of the Holy Spirit, and more of the 
 spirit of love, than would be indicated by such rough treat- 
 ment of wives, may be counted upon as prevailing within 
 the houses where these peaceful birds are cherished. In 
 no country that I have been in, is there more kissing done 
 in public. At the railroad stations and in the market 
 places, when a party of friends meet, they rush into each 
 other's embrace, and all kiss ; the men the men, the women 
 the women, and the men and women kiss each other. 
 These are the peasants. I could not say that it is common 
 among the more cultivated people. 
 
 Our host, M. Billot, sent us to the station with extra style ; 
 his wife was going into the country to see her children at 
 school, and in her private carriage we were to ride to the 
 depot with her, as a special mark of attention. During our 
 stay in Moscow the family had done every thing in their 
 power to make the visit agreeable, and it was crowned with 
 this last act of attention, an escort to the station when we 
 took our leave. 
 
 There is but one train in twenty-four hours from Moscow 
 to St. Petersburg, and as it is to be a ride of twenty hours, 
 it is important to have some accommodations for sleeping. 
 Our experience in going to Moscow had been so unhappy 
 that we sought to improve upon the matter on the return 
 trip. We learned that the first-class cars were arranged in 
 compartments for six persons, and that the seats at night 
 
FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 365 
 
 were to be converted into berths, so that each passenger 
 buying a ticket was also the holder of a berth for sleep- 
 ing in. The compartments were elegantly fitted up, and 
 we (two of us) found ourselves upon setting off, on one 
 side, and two Russian ladies on the other. They spoke 
 the French language, and being as innocent of English, as 
 we of Russ, the conversation that soon sprang up, was in 
 the only tongue we could use in common. The apartment 
 was hot to the verge of suffocation. We put up a window, 
 which in a bright June day would be considered pleasant 
 in any country, but the ladies gave instant signs of appre- 
 hensions that they would take cold. Soon one of them 
 shut the window with a decision that forbade appeal. We 
 ventured to set the door open to admit the air from the 
 open window across the passage, but this was too much 
 for the sensitive women, and we had to close it. I found 
 the same dread of cold in hot weather to be common to 
 all the natives. • An omnibus, the body of which was made 
 of sheet iron, which I was riding in on a blazing summer- 
 day, was heated literally like an oven. I was obliged to 
 leave it, but the people evidently enjoyed the baking. They 
 have it so cold in cold weather, that the brief hot season 
 seems to be refreshing, and the hotter the better they like 
 it. At four p. M. we stopped at KUn for dinner — thirty 
 minutes — all seated at table, and dinner was decently 
 served : soup, boiled chicken and rice, quails, vegetables, 
 jelly : price one rouble (sixty-four cents), wines and fruit 
 extra. The natives at table were well mannered, with just 
 such exceptions as you meet with in all countries ; one 
 man left in disgust because there was too much confusion, 
 and another refused to pay for his dinner until after he had 
 eaten it. But the order, the dinner, the price of it, and the 
 time to enjoy the meal, were all more agreeable to travel- 
 lers than they would have been on most of the routes in 
 our own beloved and well-regulated country. 
 
366 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 At Tver, on the Volga, we halted for a few moments 
 only. A little girl, four or five years old, barefoot and 
 poorly clad, came before the car window begging. She 
 bowed to us as if before a picture of the Virgin, crossed 
 herself, touched her forehead, bent her head low, the hair 
 falling over her face, and then, raising her head quickly, 
 threw the hair back, and so amused the people. We threw 
 her money, which she caught in her lap, crossed herself, 
 blessed us, and asked for more. Three girls came up and 
 joined her, going through the same motions, and got some 
 coppers ; and now a big boy made his appearance and put 
 in his claims which proved unsuccessful. Then he turned 
 upon the little girl, knocked her about for a minute, robbed 
 her of her alms and fled. Boys are boys all the world 
 over. I wish the cars would wait long enough for me to 
 catch the little rascal, and recover the money for the girl. 
 
 This is a city of nearly 30,000 inhabitants ; its splendid 
 domes and beautiful Greek temples, as seen in passing, 
 speak of a city of unusual culture. 
 
 Night came, according to the watch, but no darkness. 
 Nine, ten, twelve, no signs of night, except that sunshine 
 was gone. We wished to go to sleep. But here an unex- 
 pected difficulty arose. The two ladies declared it to be 
 impossible for them to sleep in the cars, and therefore they 
 did not wish the seats disturbed. We proposed to the con- 
 ductor to arrange ours into berths, and let the others re- 
 main in statu quo ante bellunt. He said they must be 
 worked together : all or none. In vain we argued the case 
 with these implacable women ; and, when we found that our 
 appeals to their pity and their sense of justice were alike 
 without avail, we gave it up. Each of us four settled into 
 a corner, and the two ladies soon gave certain infallible 
 signs that they were sound asleep, and so they continued 
 until long after the break of day. The truth was, and the 
 conductor understood it, but we did not, there was an 
 
FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 36/ 
 
 extra charge for making up the berths, and the ladies saved 
 the money by sleeping perpendicularly. 
 
 At midnight it was as light as noon often is with us. I 
 could write at any hour, and these lines you are now read- 
 ing are written at half-past two o'clock in the morning. 
 At three, the east began to glare with the rising splendor 
 of another day. The heavy clouds that skirt the horizon 
 are robes of fire. Gorgeously the colors of the rainbow 
 are painted one by one on these shifting scenes, — orange, 
 red, purple, violet, I could count them all. How mean, 
 tame, pale, all earthly pageants seem : the domes, the min- 
 arets, the golden-jewelled orbs and crowns of Czars, com- 
 pared with this wasted wealth of glory that the King of 
 kings scatters from his full hand with the rising of each 
 day's sun. I had never seen the sun rise in a latitude so 
 far north. Its splendors charmed me out of all my hard 
 feelings towards these sleeping Russian dames, who de- 
 prived me of a night's repose and gave me such a magnifi- 
 cent morning. 
 
 Sitting up all night with a couple of Russian ladies 
 might, or might not, suggest the idea of telling you some- 
 thing of the marriage customs of this strange country. 
 A French writer, whose name I forget, has said " the Rus- 
 sians are a nation of polite savages," a remark that is not 
 very apt, but it helps us toward a proper understanding of 
 the social condition of the people. The rich are very rich ; 
 the poor are very poor. The nobles are courtly, polite, and 
 as refined in manners as those of the same social class in 
 Germany; but the serfs, or those who belonged to the 
 nobles with the soil, before the emancipation, are rude, and 
 not half civilized. The two classes, or rather the extremes 
 of the two classes, would justify the description of the 
 Frenchman, who, like many writers of his country, would 
 not be specially tied by the truth, if he wished to point an 
 epigram. 
 
368 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 It was no uncommon thing in those days of serfdom for 
 the proprietor to order this matter of marriage among his 
 people, telHng the young men to get a wife when he thought 
 it time, and providing them, if the young men were slow in 
 making their choice. And in the peasant class the mar- 
 riage was liable to all the caprices and irregularities to be 
 expected in a state of things where the will of the master 
 was scarcely restrained by law or custom, so that he had 
 the social happiness of his people very much in his own 
 hands. In such a country, and under such circumstances, 
 it would not be strange if some social evil was suffered. 
 
 Almost as soon as a girl is born, in the better ranks of 
 society, her parents begin to prepare the dowry she must 
 have when she goes to her husband. For this is indis- 
 pensable in the eyes of any Russian young gentleman who 
 proposes to be married. She must furnish every thing for 
 an outfit in life, even to a dozen new shirts for her coming 
 husband. 
 
 I have just heard of a lady of rank and wealth who had 
 prepared a costly dowry of silks, linen, jewels, plate, &c., 
 for her beloved daughter, who died as she came to be twenty 
 years old. The mother resolved to endow six girls with 
 these riches, and actually advertised for them. A host of 
 applicants came, and she selected six. None of them had 
 lovers. But now they had a respectable dowry secured, 
 each girl was speedily engaged, and with the husband took 
 the dowry, and paid the rich lady by promising to pray for 
 the repose of her daughter's soul. 
 
 In no country is this arrangement of terms carried on 
 with more caution and completeness than in Russia. The 
 young man goes to the house of his proposed bride, and 
 counts over the dresses, and examines the furniture, and 
 sees to the whole with his own eyes, before he commits 
 himself to the irrevocable bargain. In high life such things 
 are conducted with more apparent delicacy, but the facts 
 
FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG. 369 
 
 are ascertained with accuracy, the business being in the 
 hands of a broker or a notary. The tj'ousseau is exposed 
 in pubHc before the wedding day. And this pubHcity has 
 long been as unblushing as the customs that are now 
 becoming fashionable in New York. The publication in 
 the newspapers of intended marriages ; of descriptions of 
 bridal dresses and presents ; of the names and toilettes of 
 guests at fashionable parties ; the value of jewels worn, 
 &c., now common and approved in the highest circles of 
 American society, is the same thing with the exposure to 
 the public gaze of a bride's dowry in Russia. 
 
 At Whitsunday there is a curious custom, which is grad- 
 ually giving way with the advance of civilization. The 
 young people of a neighborhood come together, and the 
 girls stand in a row, like so many statues, draped indeed, 
 and not only draped, but dressed in their best, and painted 
 too ; for the young ladies, and the older ones also, of this 
 country use cosmetics freely, and a box of lady's paint is a 
 very common present for a young man to make to the girl 
 he likes. Behind the row of girls are their mothers ; the 
 young men having made known their choice, the terms are 
 settled between the parents of the parties. 
 
 The ladies in Russia are very anxious to marry, because 
 they have no liberty before marriage. They are kept con- 
 stantly under the maternal eye until they are given up to 
 the husband, and then they take their own course, which 
 is a round of gayety and dissipation, only regulated by their 
 means of indulgence. The Greek Church, like the Roman, 
 permits no divorce, but the Emperor, like the Pope, can 
 grant special dispensations. 
 
 The marriage ceremonies vary, as in all countries, accord- 
 ing to the rank and wealth of the parties. A procession is 
 sometimes met in the streets ; and the Emperor's carriage 
 would, at any time, turn out and give the right of way to 
 a bridal party. 
 
 24 
 
370 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 It pleases me always, in a strange country, to find that 
 social enjoyments are so equally distributed over the earth, 
 varying in kind and degree, indeed, according to the religion 
 and civilization of the people, but still all of them having 
 their own ways and means of making themselves happy. 
 
FINLAND. 371 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 FINLAND. 
 
 A T nine in the morning we were to be on board the 
 ^ ^ steamer Wyborg, Captain Nystrom, to go from St. 
 Petersburg to Finland, and thence to Sweden. When we 
 reached the wharf, so great was the crowd of passengers 
 and the crush of luggage and the pressure of freight, that 
 it seemed doubtful if we should be able to get on board. 
 It was summer time, very hot, and the people who had not 
 yet escaped from the city heat, and were able to, were rush- 
 ing to their rural residences on the sea-coast. They are as 
 much in the habit of this, as our rich people at home are 
 of flying in midsummer to the hills or the sea-shore. 
 
 Americans are abroad. Four or five families from the 
 city of New York met on the deck of this steamer, all of 
 whom were making this northern tour, and none of whom 
 were known to each other as away from home. As the 
 boat was to be our hotel for several days, this sudden acces- 
 sion of neighbors was very agreeable, and made the pros- 
 pect of the excursion more pleasant. And gradually this 
 circle widened, till it embraced Russians and Finns and 
 Swedes and English, with whom our own tongue was more 
 easily a means of communication than it was in Italy or 
 Spain. 
 
 We are steaming out of one of the four mouths of the 
 Neva, as it widens into the Gulf of Finland, and for several 
 miles the intricate channel is staked out with care. Cron- 
 STADT is the famous port of St. Petersburg, one of the 
 
372 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 strongest fortifications in the world, and we had expected 
 to see a frowning precipice, a long and lofty range of rocks, 
 defying attack, a Gibraltar in the north of Europe. There 
 is no rock at all. The fortifications are low, and all the 
 more impregnable for that ; but we were taken down by 
 their appearance, the situation being so widely different 
 from our anticipations. Napier came here with the British 
 fleet, at the opening of the war that was afterwards called 
 the Crimean, for the very good reason that when the Ad- 
 miral hurled the whole power of the navy of England against 
 Cronstadt in vain, the war was prosecuted to its close in the 
 southern part of the Russian empire, the Crimea. 
 
 The approach to Cronstadt is difficult, and the channel 
 easily defended by the immense fortifications which succes- 
 sive emperors have constructed, well knowing that this is 
 the northern gate of the empire. The dry docks are on a 
 gigantic scale, to meet the demands of a first-class naval 
 power, which Russia is not, and will never be till she moves 
 her seat of government and field of operations to the Bos- 
 phorus. Forests of masts, denser forests of masts than we 
 had seen since leaving New York, stood along the docks of 
 Cronstadt. A steamer crowded with passengers, from stem 
 to stern, passed us as we were lying here ; she was bound to 
 Revel, and all the Russian coast of the Gulf of Finland. 
 The people are apparently as given to travel as the Ameri- 
 cans. 
 
 By this time we had begun to get accustomed to the 
 people around us. The Russian children had fur caps on 
 and the ladies wore woollen cloaks, though the weather 
 was so hot as to make the shade of an awning indispensa- 
 ble. Smoking was strictly forbidden, but the captain and 
 all who chose, smoked in the face of the signs that were 
 posted up to prohibit the practice. The Gulf of Finland, 
 on which we are now, is smooth as a summer lake ; the 
 day is lovely, skies bright, the breeze delicious, the air 
 
FINLAND. 373 
 
 bracing ; if we have associated chills and fogs and ice and 
 bitter cold with Finland, we must come in winter to find 
 them, for the Hudson River in summer was never more 
 quiet, nor its banks more brilliant in the noontide, than 
 this region to-day. The day has been one to be remem- 
 bered, among pleasant memories of travel, and toward sun- 
 set we run into the harbor of Wyborg. The ancient city 
 stands on an arm of the gulf that sets up six or eight miles, 
 the lumber station of Tronsund being at the mouth. Near 
 this are saw-mills that cut up 160,000 logs in a year, and 
 ships from all parts of Europe come here for lumber ; one 
 vessel, rejoicing in the name of Pius IX., was lying at an- 
 chor waiting her turn to get northern pine to carry home 
 to Italy. The channel was obstructed in 1854 to prevent 
 the British under Napier from getting up to Wyborg, and 
 now the trouble is just as great for friends as foes, only 
 that the Russians have put the poles into the water, each 
 pole being made to hold a flag above the waves, to desig- 
 nate the tortuous channel. Two large islands lie in front 
 of the town, and make a safe, snug harbor. An arm of the 
 sea stretches away between the lines of fortification and 
 the old town, and in the midst of the water a mighty rock 
 rises majestically, crowned with a tower of other times, 
 partly in ruins now, for the storms of heaven and the storms 
 of earth and sea have often beaten upon it in peace and 
 war. Its roof is gone, but it is a prison still, and its hol- 
 low sides have secrets never to be revealed till the final 
 day. The sun is in the west, as we approach the city, and 
 its domed churches blaze in its setting glory. The old 
 castle, now in ruins, has a history of just six hundred years, 
 a history of courage, endurance, and heroism, while it re- 
 sisted the might of Russia, until in 17 10 it yielded to Peter 
 the Great. Then followed, with an interval of a few years 
 only, the submission of Finland to the yoke of Russia, 
 which it still wears. 
 
374 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Finland is a Protestant country, Lutheran being the 
 established religion of the country. The Greek and Roman 
 churches are regarded with equal dislike. All native Fin- 
 landers are obliged to have their children baptized in the 
 Lutheran Church. They must also be able to read before 
 they can be married, or take any part in the government of 
 the country. 
 
 The public officers are appointed by the Russian govern- 
 ment, but the Finns pay no tribute to Russia, except the 
 support of the civil list for their own officers. The Grand 
 Duke of Finland is the Emperor of Russia himself. Under 
 him are four orders, the nobles, clergy, citizens, and peas- 
 ants. Each of these orders is represented in the legislature 
 of Finland, meeting annually to regulate the domestic affairs 
 of the state, subject to the veto of the Emperor of Russia. 
 
 For the last ten years every harvest has failed, being cut 
 off by untimely frosts. Great famines have therefore pre- 
 vailed, with diseases incident to want, and many have per- 
 ished. Men on salaries have voluntarily paid fifteen per 
 cent of their incomes to feed the poor, and they will do so 
 for a few years more ; but if the same destitution should 
 continue five years, the country will be depopulated. So 
 severe has been the distress, that the inhabitants have 
 eaten the bark of trees, and as little or no nourishment can 
 be found in bark, they are rapidly dying out. The Russian 
 government is preparing to transport all who are willing to 
 go, to some portions of Russia where there is land in 
 abundance, and a population is wanted. 
 
 The Emperor is popular among the Finns, who have 
 ceased to regard him as a conqueror, and now look up to 
 him as a protector and friend. He is bound by an oath to 
 preserve the integrity of their constitution, and they trust 
 him. The Finns are not drafted into the Russian army. 
 They enlist in it freely, under the temptation of bounty 
 money. But they have a strong national feeling of their 
 
FINLAND. 375 
 
 own, refusing to be called Russian, or to admit that they 
 are part of that empire. 
 
 Wages are very low. A skilled mechanic gets only 
 about a rouble (eighty cents) a day, and a farm hand is 
 glad to earn ten cents a day. But with this terrible state 
 of things, poor pay and no food, emigration is not allowed, 
 either by Finnish or Russian law, and there is no prospect 
 before the peasantry but to perish on the ground. 
 
 The country is more thoroughly sunken in the water 
 than any other inhabited part of the globe. It seemed to 
 me that the inhabitants might have been called Finlanders, 
 because they ought to be amphibious. But the name comes 
 from the ancient fen, or fennen, which is also an English 
 word for bog or morass. The Laplanders were the original 
 settlers on the southern shore of the Baltic, but they have 
 retired to more northern regions still. The interior of the 
 country is almost filled with lakes, irregularly shaped, and 
 making travelling by land exceedingly tedious, as one must 
 wind his way far around these arms and branches. There 
 is one lake, Saima, two hundred miles wide, in which there 
 are a thousand and more of islands. The largest is called 
 Amasara, or mother-island ; on this island there are seventy- 
 seven lakes, and in these lakes fifty islands. This great 
 lake is connected with Lake Ladoga, in Russia, and, by a 
 canal here at Wyborg, with the Gulf of Finland. Now it 
 will pay you to take a map, and, with this description, see 
 what a stretch of water communication extends through 
 Finland into Russia. If you were to go by this canal to 
 Lake Saima, and so to Lake Ladoga, you would not see 
 much of the people, but you would find it easier and 
 pleasanter getting through than to take the only other 
 conveyance, that of the drosky. This is a low sulky, in 
 which only one person can sit, though a driver, if you must 
 have one, manages to get a seat by the horse's heels. The 
 horses are small, nervous, and wiry, and have learned from 
 
3/6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 colthood to go on the jump all the time, up hill and down 
 hill, and on a level. Ladies who come travelling here must 
 and do adapt themselves to this unsocial mode of travel, 
 and ride all day alone, or with the company of a ragged 
 boy, who speaks no word the traveller understands, and 
 spends his time in walloping the beast, to quicken his 
 rapid canter. Between the lonely post-houses it is rare to 
 meet a human being, or to pass a habitation ; but the 
 solemn pine-trees make the gloom more gloomy, and huge 
 boulder stones rise, like towers of giant builders waiting 
 for their masters to return. Some of them have been 
 utilized by the progress of art and science. It was one 
 of these great boulders that was cut into the splendid 
 Alexander column we saw in St. Petersburg, the largest 
 monolith in the world. The enginery required to move it 
 from its place, where, perhaps, the deluge left it, and trans- 
 port it to the heart of a distant city, fairly rivals the skill 
 of the Egyptian pyramid builders, or the men who set 
 Pompey's Pillar on its base. 
 
 A crowd of five hundred people or more were on the 
 dock at Wyborg waiting for the steamer, when we touched 
 the shores of Finland. At least a hundred droskies and 
 other conveyances, with little horses attached, swelled the 
 concourse. Many of the persons were expecting to re- 
 ceive their friends who were coming by the steamer, and 
 as there are but two arrivals from St. Petersburg in a week, 
 every steamer brings a goodly number. Many were well 
 dressed, ''fashionable" ladies and gentlemen, who wel- 
 comed their friends with cordial greetings, the kissing 
 being quite as affectionate and common as in Russia. But 
 more of the people on shore were the poor, the toilers, 
 looking for a little something to do ; and the drivers of 
 the droskies were as importunate and impudent as the 
 donkey boys in Alexandria or the hackmen in New York, 
 and none in the wide world are worse. 
 
FINLAND. 377 
 
 A gentleman of Wyborg, with whom we had formed a 
 speaking and very agreeable acquaintance on board, pro- 
 posed an excursion through the town into the country, as 
 the steamer was to lie at the wharf till after midnight. It 
 was now only nine o'clock at night, and there was plenty 
 of time before sunset to take a ride of a few miles into the 
 interior ! A long line of droskies was therefore engaged, 
 and in single file we set off, at a break-neck pace, but 
 according to the custom of the horses and the country. 
 
 The town of Wyborg has about six thousand inhabi- 
 tants, — Swedes, Russians, Germans, and Finlanders. The 
 churches are numerous, the Lutherans being more in num- 
 ber than all the rest, which are chiefly Greek for the 
 Russians. The town is ancient and uninviting in its 
 appearance, with nothing to indicate enterprise or progress. 
 
 Through it we were carried, all flying, by the tower or 
 castle or prison of the year 1300, and out into the country 
 where villas were here and there planted, and some little 
 culture was displayed. Our destination was the summer resi- 
 dence of Baron Nicolai, a wealthy Russian, who has made 
 himself the possessor of a peninsula, and here has laid out 
 a park and grounds with the novel and beautiful idea of 
 making a miniature Finland, — a little representation, 
 with the aid of nature and art, of the lakes and islands, the 
 rocks and hills, of the very country of which this princely 
 domain is an insignificant part. At the gate we were very 
 properly required to pay an entrance fee, which goes to the 
 relief of the poor of the neighborhood, and the visitor is 
 not forbidden to enlarge his fee to any amount more agree- 
 able to himself. The villa we soon pass has nothing im- 
 posing in its aspect, but in the midst of a park of ancient 
 shade trees has an air of quiet contentment that justifies 
 the name its first owner gave it, " Mon Repos " — My Rest. 
 Passing it we pursue the shaded walks, by the borders of 
 little lakes and along running streams, till we come to a 
 
37^ ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 wooded islet, reached by a foot-bridge and crowned with a 
 monumental tomb, and this is the family sepulchre. Fit- 
 tingly did the master of all these grounds call the spot to 
 which he had retired " My Rest ; " for he who spent such 
 vast sums of money to convert these rocks and wilds into 
 a garden of Eden now sleeps in the tomb, and his son 
 reigns in his stead, rarely, however, coming here, and only 
 for a few days in summer. 
 
 Such had been our associations with Finland, that we 
 were more than surprised to find so much culture and taste, 
 elegance indeed, within an hour of landing on its coasts. 
 And as we emerged from the woods in our walks we came 
 suddenly upon the shore of the bay, and the glorious sun 
 was sinking to his " repose " at ten o'clock ! It seemed very 
 late for the sun to be going to bed ; he keeps earlier hours 
 in our country, and it is odd to be out sight-seeing at this 
 time of day ! 
 
 Yet in the midst of this Finnish paradise there was a 
 pest as bad as the serpent in Eden. We were nearly 
 devoured by mosquitoes ! They beset us behind and before 
 and bit us horribly. With handkerchiefs over our faces, 
 and with bushes to drive them away, we were pursued as if 
 they were starving like the other inhabitants, and they sent 
 in their bills with no more mercy than landlords in Spain. 
 I would not take the place, with all its splendor and natural 
 attractions, for a gift, if it were encumbered with the con- 
 dition of being obliged to live in it through the summer 
 season. But some people get used to these little plagues. 
 Nature is fond of setting off one thing against another, 
 and it may be that the inhabitants of mosquito regions 
 have some compensating advantages that make these evils 
 a luxury rather than otherwise. They do prevail in the 
 cold climates of the north, as well as in malarious south- 
 erly regions, and there is good reason to beheve that they 
 are not very troublesome to the settled inhabitants, however 
 
FINLAND. 379 
 
 savage they are upon strangers. For I have observed in 
 the United States, and within a very few miles of New 
 York, if a man purchases a home, a " Mon Repos " Hke 
 this we are now visiting, and says to himself, ** this is my 
 rest," he is able to say, in answer to the inquiries of friends 
 as to mosquitoes, " We are not troubled with them at all." 
 And if the fever and ague has been there through all 
 generations, he is free to declare, " There is nothing of it 
 around us." From which we infer that mosquitoes and 
 other plagues like them, and the chills, respect the mano- 
 rial rights of the owners of the soil, and only draw the 
 blood and shake the bones of strangers, who in all ages and 
 countries have been considered as lawful prey. 
 
 We stood on the shore and saw the sun go down in 
 clouds of glory, and then returned, in the same style in 
 which we came, to our ship. A great amount of freight 
 was to be left and more taken in, and this kept the vessel 
 in such confusion that sleep was quite out of the question. 
 At two o'clock I was sitting at my cabin window writing 
 without a candle, and a carriage came to the wharf with a 
 gentleman and lady to come on board. No one would have 
 thought of its being night to see the arrival. It was diffi- 
 cult to adjust one's mind to the fact that we had come' into 
 such a latitude, that night could be told from day only by 
 looking at your watch. 
 
 The ride to " Mon Repos " brought our steamer passen- 
 gers into pleasant relations. We had come to feel less like 
 strangers, and more like acquaintances, not to say friends. 
 I came on deck early this morning, and had a cup of coffee 
 at the same little table with a lady whose grace and beauty 
 had rendered her somewhat a point of attraction yesterday. 
 Two little children were playing at her feet, and a nurse for 
 each was in waiting. I soon learned from her, as we fell 
 into conversation naturally, that she spoke all the languages 
 of northern Europe, as Russ, German, Swedish, Finnish, 
 
38o ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 and the French besides, but not a word of English, and 
 this she regretted all the more, she said, since so many 
 Americans are now travelling through her country. Her 
 native tongue was Finnish, and her education would have 
 been finished had she known mine. 
 
 Rarely in any country is a lady to be found with a wider 
 culture and more accomplished manners than this Finland 
 wife and mother has. She reads the English language, but 
 has never attempted to speak it ; and the standard authors 
 of our country and of England were her study and delight, 
 as the best French and Italian writers are familiar to 
 educated persons among us. 
 
 The company by degrees came on deck, and all national- 
 ities were soon merged into one family. Two or three 
 from the capital are talking in English to an English party 
 on their way to the interior of Finland, going a-fishing. 
 Norway is farmed out to English gentlemen, so that it is 
 hard to find a good stream for salmon and trout that is not 
 the private property of some one in England, who keeps it 
 for his own enjoyment. Finland is now persecuted by these 
 piscatorial parties. One of the English gentlemen was loud 
 in his praises of the fish of Finland, and his own wonder- 
 ful skill in " killin' of them." The streams are very swift, 
 and the true sportsman uses only the fly hook. This gent 
 said, "I kill them loyally, with fly only; sometimes, when 
 they will not rise to it, I take a bait, but in that case I 
 throw them back into the water, even if they weigh twenty 
 or thirty pounds. It's the pleasure of killin' of them that I 
 enjoy; it's not for the fish, it's the killin' of them." The 
 "parties" expect to enjoy two or three months in Finland 
 fishing and shooting. It was an entertainment to note the 
 pleasurable anticipations of these pleasant people, on their 
 way to enjoy what to me and many must be about as great 
 a bore and punishment as could be endured in the name of 
 sport. 
 
FINLAND. 381 
 
 The Gulf of- Finland, as we are running along the coast, 
 is full of islands, to the very edge of which our vessel often 
 comes, — romantic, rocky, hilly islands, to the right of us 
 and left of us, without the sight of an inhabitant. The 
 weather is glorious, cool, \)Y3.cmg, breezy, a cloudless sky 
 and a brilhant sun covering the smooth water and these 
 green isles with a blaze of beauty as we plough our way 
 northward. How widely does all this differ from what we 
 had expected when meditating a cruise along the coast of 
 Finland ! 
 
 We come to Fredericksham by a tortuous channel, among 
 islands and rocks strongly fortified ; but, verily, it seems 
 scarcely worth while to make special provision to prevent 
 people from coming up into these regions. The domes and 
 spires of the city tell us that God is worshipped there ; and, 
 as the morning sun tips the temples with fire, we send up 
 our matin prayers with the people of the town, whose God 
 is also ours. 
 
 We passed the ruined fortress of Sclava, of some impor- 
 tance once, but now only a monument of the times when 
 Russia and Sweden were fighting for the poor bone of Fin- 
 land, from which all the meat, if it ever had any, was picked 
 before the war was over. 
 
 The war is nominally over, and Russia is the master 
 now ; but the people keep up the old spirit of patriotic love 
 for the mother land and tongue. The Russ is the language 
 taught in the schools. If a scholar speaks in his own 
 language the teacher flogs him, according to law ; and if 
 the scholar speaks in the Russian language, the other boys 
 flog him when the school is out. So that flogging would 
 seem to be the fate of speaking at all. 
 
 We chatted freely with the ladies respecting the social 
 customs of Finland. There is much less freedom of social 
 intercourse among unmarried young men and women, in 
 poHte circles, than in England, or even France. Parties of 
 
382 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 young men by themselves are common, and of young ladies 
 by themselves ; balls for dancing bring them together, and 
 their parents come with them, but one young lady said 
 archly, " They are not always near enough to hear what we 
 say." These fashions are common to Russia and Finland, 
 and other countries in the north. I had seen it written, in 
 an English book of travels, that at dinner parties the ladies 
 sit by themselves, apart from the gentlemen, but have met 
 with nothing of the kind, and am assured it is a mistake. 
 Yet it is true that the ladies generally enter the dining-room 
 by themselves, in advance of the gentlemen, and then sit 
 promiscuously. There is more freedom of manner and less 
 stiffness and formality than in the same social rank in 
 England or Germany. 
 
 It is not probable that the practice of bringing up chil- 
 dren in this exclusion from social intercourse tends to 
 improve their morals or manners. On the contrary, it 
 makes matters worse. In well-ordered households, where 
 the virtues are inculcated in the first lessons that youthful 
 minds receive, and where parental example, more powerful 
 than lessons or discipline, is such as children may safely 
 follow, it v/ill be found that as boys and girls are apt to be 
 mixed up in the family, so they should be in social life. 
 
FINLAND. 
 
 383 
 
 Helsingfors. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 FINLAND {Continued). 
 
 \ T the close of a delightful day's sail along the coast of 
 ■^ -^ Finland, we reached the harbor of Helsingfors. The 
 distant sight of the city is imposing, and one's admiration 
 is doubtless heightened by the surprise he feels when first 
 finding such splendid structures in this part of the world. 
 
 The Fortress of Sweaborg, commanding the approach to 
 the city, is rather a series of fortifications than a single fort. 
 The works of nature have been turned to as good an ac- 
 count at this point as in the Straits of Gibraltar. Seven 
 islands were placed by the Great Maker in just the right 
 position for the purpose of being fortified to protect the 
 city, and they have been so strongly fortified as to defy the 
 force of any foe. The combined fleets of France and 
 England tried their guns upon it in 1855, and retired from 
 the trial, quite content to get away. 
 
384 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Peace is reigning now. The fortress fell into the hands 
 of the Russians in 1808, after the garrison was reduced to the 
 last extremity by famine, and it was the last stronghold 
 that Sweden held in Finland. When this was gone, all 
 was gone, and the Finns changed masters. But their sub- 
 jection is rather nominal than real, as we shall see when 
 we enter the town. On the shore where we land is the 
 " Society House," or, as we should call it, " The Company's 
 Hotel;" and we find similar houses in many parts of 
 northern Europe. They are hotels built by the company 
 running the steamers, or by associations, and they com- 
 bine many of the features of the first-class hotels at 
 watering-places in England or America. Near it is the 
 palace in which the Emperor of Russia, who is also the 
 Grand Duke of Finland, resides when he makes his brief 
 visit, now and then, to this remote and " outlandish " part 
 of his empire. His accommodations here are very narrow, 
 but just as comfortable as those in the Winter Palace of St. 
 Petersburg, holding five thousand people. 
 
 On the ship we had formed the acquaintance of a gentle- 
 man of Helsingfors, whose pleasant manners and intelligent 
 conversation had greatly interested us during the voyage. 
 As we had now reached his home, and were going ashore, 
 he gave us a warm invitation to his house, which, of course, 
 we declined, and then he insisted upon being our guide to 
 see the famous old town. It is one of the richest in his- 
 torical interest in the north. 
 
 On a grand square stand the chief public buildings, and 
 they present an appearance that would be commanding in 
 Paris or London. The senate-house stretches across one 
 side of the square, the Lutheran church adorns another, 
 the university fills a third, and from the fourth a broad 
 avenue opens, half a mile long, to the foot of a hill crowned 
 with an observatory. 
 
 The University of Finland ! In our ignorance, we had 
 
FINLAND. 385 
 
 associated Finlanders with the Laps and the Esquimaux, and 
 had never thought of letters and science and art in connec- 
 tion with this race. Among the pleasures of a visit to Finland 
 we had not reckoned an introduction to a venerable univer- 
 sity, endowed, sustained, and flourishing on a par with those 
 of Germany. In fact, very few of the German universities 
 have accommodations and advantages equal to this at Hel- 
 singfors. It would be considered first-class in England or 
 France, and there is nothing comparable to it in the United 
 States. It has a magnificent stone edifice of architectural 
 proportions and finish, that make the building a perpetual 
 lecture on the beautiful and sublime in art ; and within is 
 the most complete system of rooms for every department 
 of knowledge here pursued, — for museums, laboratories, 
 lectures, recitations. The professors were in session in 
 the great audience-room as we entered it ; the place was 
 adorned with a full-length portrait of the Emperor Alexan- 
 der I., who is styled, in the Latin inscription, " the father 
 of his country and the university." The prophecy is 
 added that art will preserve his features, and his fame 
 will fill the whole earth. The professors seemed an ear- 
 nest set of men, mostly young, all fine-looking and well 
 dressed. I took them to be happy and successful in their 
 calling, and I wished much that I understood their lan- 
 guage, so as to enter into the sympathies of a set of 
 scholars giving their lives to the pursuits of science in 
 Finland. 
 
 The university has five separate departments, law, medi- 
 cine, theology, &c., with tJiirty-one professors, and it is 
 older than any university in Russia. It was founded in 
 1630 by the Empress Christina, eleven years before the art 
 of printing was introduced into Finland. Its charter was 
 signed by Axel Oxenstiern, a famous name in his country's 
 annals. The library contains 200,000 volumes, in all lan- 
 guages and in every realm of human learning. It is admi- 
 
386 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 rably arranged in a series of beautiful rooms, in niches 
 and galleries, having an air of repose and seclusion inviting 
 to quiet study, such as Ptolemy anticipated when he put 
 over the Alexandrian doors the fitting inscription, *' The 
 food of the soul." 
 
 And the halls, floors, walls, and the whole interior, are 
 kept with a scrupulous neatness unknown in any institution 
 of learning claiming the dignity of a college, or university, 
 that my feet ever entered, in the most enlightened, civilized, 
 and beloved land in the world. Yet there is little in the 
 way of literature in the Finnish language, which is spoken 
 only by the peasants, the Swedish being the language of 
 law and social life among the other classes. Some rich 
 treasures of popular poetry have been discovered floating 
 about in the memories of the people, and these have been 
 gathered as curious specimens of an unlettered, but im- 
 aginative race. Kalewala, an epic poem, was first printed 
 in 1835, and an earnest effort has been made to rouse 
 young Finland to seek laurels in the fields of song. Two 
 of the professors deliver lectures in Finnish. Schiller and 
 Shakespeare have been done into the native tongue of the 
 Finns. And the imperial decree has gone forth that after 
 1883 the Finnish language shall be the official tongue of 
 the country. If Russia would be as kind and considerate 
 of the feelings of Poland, she would conciliate her southern 
 subjects as readily as she has her northern. 
 
 We were now led to the Senate-house. The Diet, or 
 Congress of Finland, consists of four chambers, the nobles, 
 the clergy, the citizens, the peasants. Each of them has a 
 hall of its own for meeting ; that of the nobles has a large 
 chamber, with two hundred or more handsome chairs. On 
 the walls is placed the coat-of-arms of each noble family in 
 Finland, with the name inscribed upon it, an ostentatious 
 display indeed, but very interesting. We came upon one 
 familiar name ; it was that of our friend who was our 
 
FINLAND. 387 
 
 guide. His brother is the head of the family, and, in his 
 absence, the next in order, our friend, takes his seat in the 
 senate. 
 
 We rode out of town a mile to the beautiful Botanical 
 Garden, one of the resorts of the ladies and gentlemen of 
 the city. Here they come toward evening, and enjoy 
 themselves in social intercourse, and take a cup of tea in 
 the grounds. The park is laid out tastefully, — beautiful 
 shaded avenues, green meadows, banks of flowers, and the 
 walks lead up to rocky heights overlooking the bay and 
 sea ; and these heights have been fortified to resist the 
 coming foe. The guns, which were brought up here in the 
 Crimean war time, are now lying about useless ; but they 
 are doing as much service when dismounted and rusting on 
 the ground as they did in the fight, for they were not big 
 enough to reach the ships of the enemy, whose bombs went 
 easily over these heights into the town. 
 
 Below, and in front of a beautiful " House of Refresh- 
 ments," tables are scattered about in great numbers, and at 
 one of these our company sat, to enjoy the hospitality of 
 Herr Edelfelt, our new-made friend, who insisted upon 
 entertaining us at tea in the Finland fashion out of doors, 
 as we had declined his invitation to his own house. This 
 custom of taking dinner, tea, or supper at a garden or 
 restaurant is prevalent among respectable people in many 
 parts of continental Europe, and, by the accession of 
 Europeans into the United States, is gradually becoming 
 an accepted custom there. 
 
 Near to this garden is a health establishment of great 
 repute. All the medicinal springs of Europe and America, 
 and of Asia and Africa too, I presume, are reproduced by 
 skilful doctoring, and whosoever drinks may be cured of 
 whatsoever disease he has, provided the disease is curable 
 by any of the waters of the world. To this many-mouthed 
 fountain of life thousands resort in the morning and drink 
 
388 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the waters. As they are required by the rules of health to 
 take a brisk walk up the heights and down again, before 
 and after taking the refreshing draught, there can be no 
 manner of doubt that strangers resorting hither must derive 
 great benefit. The air is salubrious, the scenery magnificent, 
 the climate bracing, the regimen judicious, and the morning 
 exercises quite as edifying for invalids as those prescribed 
 by Dr. Jay, of Bath. It is quite probable that this artificial 
 fountain in Finland has cured as many patients as Baden 
 or Kissingen, and yet it has not been celebrated half so 
 widely. Besides drinking, bathing is plentifully enjoyed ; 
 and his case must be hard that is not softened somewhat 
 by the internal and external application of pure cold water, 
 with plenty of exercise in the open air, on the heights of 
 Helsingfors, in Finland. I drank none of the water, inhaled 
 the air, took the constitutional walk, and was perfectly well 
 when I came away. As I stayed there only about an hour, 
 the inference is fair that if I had used the waters and re- 
 mained a week or two, I should have been competent to 
 give the cure a first-rate certificate. 
 
 We are now at the sixtieth degree of north latitude, 
 eighteen degrees further north than New York city, or 
 more than a thousand miles nearer the North Pole. We 
 have returned to the ship, and night is nominally about us, 
 but no darkness settles on the world. We can read and. 
 write all night without a candle, if we are so disposed. And 
 there is no sleep to be had, for all the livelong night the 
 natives are pouring on board with freight ; passengers are 
 coming ; they fill up the cabin and spend the parting hours 
 with friends, eating, drinking, laughing, and talking obstrep- 
 erously ; and the leaving-taking, with the inevitable indis- 
 criminate kissing, keeps the place in a constant uproar, that 
 knows no alleviation until at four in the morning we put to 
 sea, and find rest in the cradle of the deep. 
 
 We are now going further north, by narrow passages 
 
FINLAND. 389 
 
 among islands simply masses of rocks, utterly barren, 
 washed by the waves till they are perfectly smooth ; and 
 not a tree, nor shrub, nor blade of grass is in sight upon 
 them. The channel is very tortuous, marked by poles, and 
 sometimes it is so near the rocks that we seem to be graz- 
 ing their precipitous sides. The weather is cool, clear, and 
 delightful ; though midsummer, the overcoat or shawl is 
 agreeable ; and the exhilaration of the day and the passage 
 among the islands became general among the passengers, 
 who throng the hurricane-deck to enjoy the scenery. Some 
 of the islands that we pass in the course of the day have some 
 available land and a few inhabitants, whose chief pursuit 
 is fishing. And these scattered islands, and the adjoining 
 shores on the mainland, furnish sailors that enter the ser- 
 vice of other countries, and are among the most hardy, 
 healthful, and valuable seamen to be found. The subjects 
 of the Russian government, either here or in any other 
 part of the empire, are not allowed to expatriate themselves 
 at their own pleasure, as thousands would gladly do, if they 
 could make their way into some more hospitable portion of 
 the globe. But they can often find opportunities to get on 
 board merchant vessels as seamen, and they are not slow to 
 avail themselves of such opportunities. The soil does not 
 give them food. They have no market for the fish that the 
 sea would furnish. They are therefore very poor, and in 
 bad seasons famine overtakes them. The people that have 
 money, the well-to-do people, — and there are. many such in 
 Finland, — have plenty of dried salmon, and fresh too, beef 
 and potatoes, which, with bread and butter, make good 
 enough living for anybody ; and to these staples they add 
 some of the luxuries that money will command anywhere. 
 But the poor are very poor, and they constitute the masses 
 of the people, — the great multitude whose condition we go 
 to look into when we visit foreign lands. 
 
 Abo is pronounced Obo. It is the name of the northern- 
 
390 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 most town of any note in Finland, and a famous old town 
 it is. We were told that the hotel is the farthest north of 
 any hotel in the world. Away up above us on the borders 
 of the Gulf of Bothnia, — and Abo is at the dividing line 
 between the Baltic and Bothnia, — is Bjonneborg, and Chris- 
 tireestad, and Wasa, and Uleaborg, and Tornea on the very 
 head of the gulf, where there is something in the way of a 
 house of refreshment for travellers, I have not a doubt.. 
 Perhaps this is the last that aspires to the distinction of a 
 hotel on the European plan, and we will enjoy the comfort- 
 able satisfaction of thinking that, as we are going no farther 
 north, there is no place of rest and entertainment to re- 
 ceive us if we should. 
 
 A large crowd of people was standing at the wharf to 
 see the steamer, to greet friends expected, and to hear the 
 news. They were quiet, orderly, and well-looking. There 
 was no rush to the gangway, no pulling and hauling to get 
 on, or get baggage and passengers, though there were hun- 
 dreds waiting for any kind of a job by which a little money 
 could be made. The hotel — the Society House, as it is 
 called — is close by the landing, and affords all the sub- 
 stantial comforts a traveller requires. 
 
 The old castle, historic, romantic, and famous, is in full 
 view ; a massive stone tower on which the storms of cen- 
 turies, in war and peace, have spent their fury. The streets 
 of the town are wide and the houses low, and one looks in 
 vain for the appearances of a city that was founded by Eric 
 the Saint, who reigned from 1157 to 11 60, the time when 
 the Sun of Christianity first softened the rigor of this 
 northern clime. The castle was founded then, and for long 
 centuries held in check the Russians who sought the con- 
 quest of Finland. 
 
 The cathedral has been an object of intense interest for 
 ages past, as the first monument of Christianity in this 
 region, and the burial-place of the most illustrious per- 
 
FINLAND. 391 
 
 sons in the history of the country. One of the tombs 
 bears the name of Catharine Monsdotter, who was taken 
 from humble hfe and married to the King of Sweden, and 
 by one of those strange reverses, now ceasing to be strange, 
 she returned to Finland and died in obscurity, and her hus- 
 band perished in prison. Her remains repose among queens 
 and princes, but she finds no compensation in this for the 
 loss of a diadem. Two white marble statues, life-size, stand 
 on a sarcophagus in one of the chapels, over the dust of a 
 man and wife who were celebrated for their wealth and 
 noble birth, having the blood of kings ; and the statue of 
 the wife is even now decked (not adorned) w^ith necklace 
 and bracelets, —gaudy jewelry indeed to garnish a whited 
 sepulchre. 
 
 In 1827 an awful conflagration swept over this city of 
 only 20,000 inhabitants, and consumed two-thirds of all the 
 houses in it ; the inside of the cathedral was destroyed, the 
 university and its great library, and the chief public edifices 
 fell a prey to the flames, and the town will never recover 
 from the disaster. Its university was removed to Helsing- 
 fors, where we have already visited it. Its trade is now of 
 no account. The interior of the country furnishes little or 
 nothing for export, and the glory of Abo — for it once had 
 some glory — is departed for ever. 
 
 The Gulf of Bothnia extends six degrees to the north of 
 Abo, but there is no trade or travel that requires a steamer, 
 and ours is now to strike across the gulf, through the Aland 
 Isles to Stockholm. We are bound there to visit Sweden 
 and Norway. Those who have not this trip in view, and 
 wish to see more of the country, can remain at Abo and go 
 back to Wyborg and St. Petersburg by land. There is 
 semi-occasionally a coach for travellers in Finland, but the 
 more excellent way is by private carriage, or carriole^ the 
 carriage of the country ; a narrow low sulky, with room 
 enough for one, hardly for two, besides the driver. It has 
 
392 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 no top ; but there is another trap called a kibitka, a long, 
 narrow wagon with no springs, and a leathern hood which 
 you can draw over you in case of rain, and with a bed in 
 the bottom of it, on which, if not too long, you can stretch 
 yourself out, while the driver attends to the little animal 
 ahead, that tears up and down hill, through the sand, at a 
 fearful pace, regardless of an occasional break-down and 
 turn-over. This is a Russian innovation, and in the Paris 
 Exhibition there were several very handsome specimens of 
 the vehicle, which is far more pleasant to read about than 
 to ride in. The bojidkara is still another wretched contriv- 
 ance, about the same thing as our buck-board ; with this 
 essential, not to say fatal difference, that ours has four 
 wheels, and the board extending from the forward to the 
 hind axle makes an agreeable spring ; an experienced driver 
 sitting before, and the passenger behind him, holding on 
 with both hands, can ride astride and not suffer much. 
 The bondkara of Finland has but two wheels, and the bench, 
 without a back, is fastened to the axle-tree, the driver before, 
 the traveller behind ; the equilibrium must be preserved 
 with care or the load goes to the ground, and when the 
 wild horse tears down hill as if running away, the passen- 
 ger must hold on tight with both hands on the sides of the 
 seat, and the other — but he has no other, unless he's a 
 little behindhand, in which case he would do well to use it 
 as best he can. The average speed of ten miles an hour 
 is made, and that is pretty well in such a country as this. 
 
 It is very strange that the intercourse of nations does 
 not lead to the more rapid adoption of improvements which 
 have been found to be useful. Nations are slow to learn 
 of one another. We in America have railroad arrange- 
 ments that Europeans know, but will not introduce. They 
 have many things in their system that we ought to apply, 
 but will not. People of different countries have an idea 
 that what they do not know is not worth knowing, and so 
 
FINLAND. 393 
 
 they prefer a poor way of their own to a better way of 
 others. But we have nothing to learn from Finland in the 
 line of travel. Patient endurance is something, and the 
 people of Finland deserve credit for the spirit with which 
 they have borne themselves through the long period of 
 their dreary history. They are not numerous, the entire 
 population amounting to but 1,800,000 souls : 40,000 are 
 members of the Russian or Greek Church ; the rest are 
 Protestants, mostly Lutherans. It embraces only 6,844 
 geographical miles of surface, and no other country is so 
 much covered with water. Yet it has a splendid university, 
 with thirty-one professors ; it abounds in churches, it has a 
 peaceful, moral, and intelligent population, and some of the 
 gentlemen and ladies whom it was my pleasant fortune to 
 meet were among the most agreeable and cultivated per- 
 sons I have encountered abroad. ^ 
 
394 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 SWEDEN. 
 
 'T'^HE day was bright as we left the harbor of Abo, and 
 -*- struck out into the sea among the Aland Isles. The 
 wind was strong, but not enough to disturb the weaker 
 brethren who are easy victims of the sea. Breakfast was 
 served at ten and a half o'clock, and already the Swedish 
 customs at meals began to show themselves. Before sitting 
 down to the table, or immediately on taking a seat, as you 
 prefer, little glasses of gin schnapps are passed around, and 
 each one is expected to take a nip as an appetizer. The 
 same at dinner. Ditto at supper. Also after meab a punch, 
 not like the American drink of that name, but something 
 that looks thick, oily, amber-colored, and inducing a smack- 
 ing of the lips, which, without uttering a word, say, " It ees 
 goot." Breakfast, after schnapps, comprised radishes sent 
 around as the first course, with Bologna sausages, tongue 
 and dried beef, salt fish, bread and butter, beefsteak and 
 potatoes, ham and eggs, with coffee if you insisted on having 
 it. There is evidently no need of starving when you get all 
 that for breakfast, and about four hours afterwards sit down 
 to dinner and take soup (if you caii), with fish following, 
 and beef, poultry, game, salad, cucumbers, puddings, fruit, 
 nuts, &c., and wine at your order. Eating is one of the 
 principal institutions in these northern climates. There is 
 but one other institution more highly valued, and that is 
 drinking. They keep at one or the other or both pretty 
 steadily. Besides the four regular meals, lunch and supper, 
 
SWEDEN. 395 
 
 in addition to those I have named, they are fond of inter- 
 mediate refreshments, and a drink never comes amiss. The 
 amount of strong Hquor they can carry without apparent 
 inconvenience is something" wonderful. And it is more re- 
 markable as we get along into the north toward the Pole. 
 They say it is the bracing climate which induces such an 
 expenditure of vital force, that the supply must be replen- 
 ished with nourishing food and stimulating drink. 
 
 We were crossing the Baltic. It was warm off the coast 
 of Finland. It was cold in the middle of the sea, so cold at 
 noon that we had to wrap up with shawls and blankets, and 
 theji be uncomfortable on deck, and were finally driven 
 below. But when at four o'clock we ran in among the 
 islands off the Swedish coast, we found it warm again. So 
 there are belts about the globe itself. 
 
 We approach Stockholm through a thousand isles and 
 more, so near each other that we seem to be winding our 
 way along a narrow river. Now and then a tower, solitary 
 and sublime, starts up from some grand cliff. An ancient 
 castle stands among the rocky headlands. Suddenly the 
 city rises, like Venus or Venice, from the bosom of the sea, 
 beautiful in the sunlight that gilds her palaces and domes. 
 The entrance to Stockholm is magnificent. I have not been 
 more impressed by the approach to any other city but 
 Constantinople. 
 
 As our steamer touched the wharf the captain's wife and 
 children and a few friends came on board to welcome him 
 home. He had been absent nearly two weeks ! Had crossed 
 the Baltic and sailed or steamed along down the coast from 
 Abo to Petersburg and back again, and his friends were 
 here to receive him as if he had been around the world ! 
 And it was good to see the greeting. His young and 
 beautiful wife the captain was proud 'to present to his new- 
 made friends on the ship, while two charming children 
 clung to his legs as if they would not let him go again. 
 
39^ 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Porters from the hotels were ready to take the luggage, 
 and the passengers, ladies and gentlemen, went ashore and 
 walked up the streets at their leisure. There was a quiet- 
 ness about this quite refreshing. No bustle, no pulling and 
 hauUng, no loud talking and swearing ; the landing in 
 
 Stockholm Steamers. 
 
 Sweden was a pleasant contrast to that of more highly cul- 
 tured countries, our own for instance. 
 
 Hotel Rydbttrg received us, — large enough to entertain 
 two or three hundred guests, — and a curiously arranged 
 house it was, the geography of which I have not learned, 
 after its careful study of several days. I know that to get 
 to my room I have to go up two flights of stairs, then out 
 upon a balcony, then down one flight of stairs, then ring 
 
SWEDEN. 397 
 
 a door-bell and get admission into a room that is not mine, 
 then across this apartment into my own, which is a spa- 
 cious and handsomely furnished room, — sofa, lounge, 
 ottomans, piano, secretary, bookcase containing a set of 
 Voltaire's works in seventy French volumes, pictures, 
 engravings, stuffed birds, and other specimens in natural 
 history, all suggesting the idea that the mysterious passages 
 through which I have been conducted have led me out of 
 the hotel proper into some private house attached, and that 
 some Swedenborgian philosopher has rented his premises 
 to the hotel. He certainly has things comfortable if such 
 be the fact, and I will use them as not abusing them while 
 I stay. 
 
 Scandinavia includes the peninsula of which Sweden is 
 but a part, Norway and Denmark making up the rest of it ; 
 and its history, is it not all written by Pliny and Tacitus in 
 pagan antiquity times t and a thousand years after they 
 wrote of it, did not Saxo Grammaticus the Dane, and 
 Snorrow Sturleson, of Sunny Iceland, bring down the 
 story to their times } Not far from the same time when 
 the Saxons invaded England, the Gothic tribes under Odin 
 migrated to Sweden, and founded an empire on the bor- 
 ders of Lake Malar, with Sigtuna for its capital. Odin 
 was a god, in his own esteem and that of his followers, and 
 he combined in his sublime and mysterious person all the 
 offices of priest and king and teacher ; he was the law-giver 
 and judge. With lofty aspirations for power, he conquered 
 by his will, his arms, and his address, and finally he be- 
 came the object of religious worship through the north of 
 Europe. The Sagas, or sacred books of the ancient Swedes, 
 give us the fullest insight into the views of the Scandi- 
 navians in religion, as to the creation of the world, the 
 government of the universe, and the destiny of man. It 
 was in the ninth century that Christianity was openly 
 preached in Sweden fpr the first time, and the dynasty of 
 
39^ ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 pagan kings did not terminate till the beginning of the 
 eleventh century, when Eric V., in looi, being converted, 
 destroyed the great temple at Upsala, where, to this day, 
 are the graves of Thor and Woden and Freytag, on which 
 this Eric, the first Christian king, was slain by his pagan 
 people in their fury, excited by the destruction of their 
 temple. 
 
 The history of Sweden since Christianity became its re- 
 ligion has been glorious among the nations, although she 
 has been a small and inconsiderable power. Under Gus- 
 tavus Wasa, in 1529, the Roman Catholic religion was 
 abolished and the Lutheran estabhshed, and just one 
 hundred years afterwards, Gtfstavus Adolphus, the grand- 
 son of Wasa, was called upon by the Protestant powers of 
 Europe to put himself at their head to resist the Roman 
 Catholic movement to obtain universal dominion in Chris- 
 tendom. He was triumphant in his masterly generalship, 
 and fell covered with glory at the battle of Lutzen. His 
 name is now inscribed with that of Washington, among 
 the noblest characters the human race has ever produced. 
 
 At the present time the King of Sweden must be a 
 Lutheran, the government is a hereditary constitutional 
 monarchy, restricted in its descent to the male line. The 
 congress is composed of four separate houses, — nobles, 
 clergy, burgesses, and peasants ; and the unanimous con- 
 sent of these four houses, and the approbation of the king, 
 are required to make any alteration in the constitution, 
 which is therefore not likely to be very suddenly amended. 
 In other measures a majority in three houses may pass a 
 bill, but if two houses vote aye, and two vote no, then a 
 committee of eighteen, from each house, takes the subject 
 in hand, and their decision, approved by the king, is final. 
 This arrangement works well for conservatism, but is not 
 favorable to progress. It is easy to retard legislation, and 
 difficult to press things through. 
 
SWEDEN. 399 
 
 Having a letter to Dr. Stolberg, of Stockholm, I was 
 directed to call at the Caroline Institute to learn his ad- 
 dress. A walk of a mile into the outskirts of the city- 
 took me to what proved to be a hospital, with ample 
 grounds and excellent arrangements. A woman answered 
 my ring at the door, and led me to the study of one of 
 the professors, and left me there to await his coming. It 
 was so simple in its furniture, and yet so well fitted up for 
 business, I could plainly see it was for work, not rest, that 
 he had that den made. And when he came, a thin, bent, 
 pale student, cap on his head and pipe in his mouth, and 
 working - wrapper on, I felt at once that he lived in his 
 books and his thoughts. He would have me go to his 
 chemical laboratory, and when he found me interested in 
 the experiments he was making, he became enthusiastic in 
 his descriptions, and would have cheerfully given up the 
 day to the " pursuit of science " with a stranger from a 
 distant land. Yet I had but one question to ask him, and 
 he was able to give me the address of the man I was 
 seeking. 
 
 Here was a hospital, or rather an asylum for invalids, 
 into which, on easy conditions, a poor body could get ad- 
 mission, and be kindly cared for at the expense of the 
 state. Many of these institutions are scattered over the 
 world, the fruit of Christianity, and when I find them in 
 places where I least expect, they tell me that love works 
 the same results everywhere. I soon found Dr. Stolberg, 
 in a modest dwelling, in a garden retired from the street, 
 and he received me with great courtesy and warmth. 
 
 In Sweden a physician makes no charge whatever for 
 medical attendance ; and, what is more remarkable still, 
 very many of the people who can afford to pay for the 
 services of a doctor are willing to avail themselves of such 
 aid without paying any thing for it. One physician told 
 me that of ninety-six cases that he had treated within a 
 
400 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 certain time, onl}^ six paid him at all ! It is customary for 
 those who do pay to pay by the year, and fifty rix dollars, 
 or about twelve American dollars, would be a large sum for 
 persons in good circumstances to give for the benefit of a 
 physician's counsel for a whole year. There is, therefore, 
 no great inducement, in the way of profit, to go into the 
 medical profession. Nor is it an introduction to society, 
 the physician not being in this respect materially above 
 the apothecary in social standing. 
 
 The clergy, as a profession, are not materially better off 
 than the physicians. Their pay comes from the state, but 
 their salaries are very small, and, vv^ith only here and there 
 an exception, they have very little influence, social or po- 
 litical. They are not men of learning, and perhaps they 
 are as influential as the}^ could be expected to be. The 
 established religion is Lutheran, with one archbishopric, 
 eleven bishoprics, with 3,500 clergymen. They are said to 
 be " highly educated," but I was assured that there is a great 
 lack of education' among the clergy, and the very small 
 salaries which even the dignitaries receive would confirm 
 the statement that the church does not retain the aid of 
 learned and able men. 
 
 The press is free, and when a man is called to account 
 for the abuse of this freedom, the case goes to a jury, 
 whose action is final, and there is no appeal from it. 
 
 Only one in a thousand of the population is ignorant of 
 letters ; they can read, and nearly all can write. 
 
 A common laborer gets about twenty-seven cents of our 
 money for a day's work, and a mechanic at his trade earns 
 a little more. The cost of living must be very little, where 
 the working classes can support themselves and families on 
 incomes so small as these 1 
 
 Yet they do live comfortably, and if it were not for 
 drinking intoxicating Uquors, they would be well off. 
 
 They are, as a people, as little given to other vices as in 
 
SWEDEN. 401 
 
 any country of Europe, perhaps I might say, in the world. 
 The statistical tables show that many, very many, children 
 are born into the world whose parents are not lawfully 
 married, and it is therefore set down to the discredit of 
 Sweden and Norway that they are very lax in their social 
 morals. There is this, however, to be said on this delicate 
 subject, the law forbids the marriage of any parties who 
 have not taken the Lord's Supper, and many do not wish 
 to become communicants in the church, who are also quite 
 willing to be married. But the church will not sanction 
 their union, and they live together in the marital relation, 
 true to each other, but without the blessing of the church. 
 Their children are returned in the census to the discredit of 
 the morals of Sweden ! Here is an interesting point for 
 moralists to study. The practice is wrong, and so is the 
 law that has made the practice so common. 
 
 The mysterious words, Riddarholm kyrkan, provided 
 always your education has not extended into the language 
 of Sweden, are used to define a kyrkan or kirk, the Riders' 
 or Horsemen's or Knights' Church in Stockholm, decidedly 
 the most peculiar and interesting of all I have seen in the 
 north of Europe. 
 
 Divine service is celebrated within its walls but once a 
 year. It is not a house for the living to pray in, but for the 
 dead to he in. It is not for the dead of common clay, but 
 for the dust of kings only, — a royal mausoleum. It is a 
 structure of nameless architecture, once Gothic doubtless, 
 but worked over until, small trace of its original design 
 appears. A spire once almost reached the clouds, and when 
 the lightnings played too fiercely on it, it was replaced by 
 one of cast iron, which tapers finely to a lofty height, and 
 defies the thunders. 
 
 It is a symbol, the whole church is, of a rude age and 
 land. The doors were opened at noon of a bright summer 
 day, and yet as we entered, a sense of gloom, of ruin, of 
 
 26 
 
402 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 vast antiquity, and the utter emptiness of this poor life of 
 ours, came over me Hke a thick cloud. Every stone of 
 uneven, broken pavement was a tomb, and the inscriptions 
 long since were worn away by the feet of strangers. In 
 dumb silence, for centuries the royal remains of successive 
 dynasties have been resting here, and their names are for- 
 gotten, rubbed out, and unwritten elsewhere. The flags, 
 spears, drums, swords, guns, and implements of war unused 
 in modern times, are hung around the walls, as if this were 
 an arsenal and not a sepulchre. In front of the high altar, 
 with recumbent effigies of ancient kings, and in the midst 
 of inscriptions hard to read and some still harder to under- 
 stand, was one epitaph in these words : — 
 
 JusTiTiiE Splendor 
 Patriae Pater 
 Vivas in Eternum 
 O Magne Beate. 
 
 On either side of the door, and on elevated pedestals, are 
 equestrian statues, cased, both horse and rider, in solid 
 armor; and that of Charles IX. is said to have been made 
 by Benvenuto Cellini. The armor is more interesting from 
 its association with the name of its maker than the king 
 who wore it. Such is fame. 
 
 On the right of the high altar, and within the choir, is 
 the tomb which every Protestant who comes to the north 
 visits as a shrine, — not to pray for the repose of a soul,, but 
 to testify his reverence for the name of Gustavus Adolphus. 
 The trophies of his victories adorn his sarcophagus of green 
 porphyry, which was made in Italy to receive his remains. 
 His own " garments rolled in blood," in which he fell while 
 fighting on the field of Lutzen, November i6, 1632, are 
 preserved remarkably in their stains, for more than two 
 centuries ! His epitaph is short and fitting : '' Moriens 
 triumphavit," — 
 
 "Dying he triumphed." 
 
SWEDEN. 403 
 
 The cause of truth, religious liberty, and the rights of 
 man, all denied and crushed by the Papal power, — the 
 cause which woke the soul of Luther and inspired the 
 Reformation for these three centuries, — has been strug- 
 gling on toward the universal empire of the human soul. 
 That was the cause in which Gustavus Adolphus died 
 covered with wounds and glory, and his epitaph says that 
 he triumphed when he died. I think he did. True, the 
 battle goes on still, and many a hard field is to be fought 
 over yet, before He whose right it is shall reign unques- 
 tioned in His dominion over the souls of the race. But the 
 grand foe of the Church of Christ was then the civil power 
 of the Papacy. Rome had the armies of all papal kings at 
 her command, and they moved at her ghostly will, propa- 
 gating her religion, like that of the Moslem, by the sword. 
 It was to roll back this tide, more terrible than the waves 
 of the Crusades, that Gustavus Adolphus was called to lead 
 the armies of the Protestant powers, and the result was 
 complete success. There is not now one crowned head 
 on earth that acknowledges the supremacy of the popes. 
 Austria has cast off its allegiance, and it was Austria that 
 led the South of Europe against Gustavus Adolphus. Italy 
 is independent of Rome. And Spain, the birthplace of the 
 Inquisition, and the most abject to the Pope, has cast 
 out the principle of intolerance, and proclaimed the rights 
 of worship. What Luther did for the truth in the 
 pulpit, Gustavus Adolphus did for the same cause in the 
 field. 
 
 We went down the stone stairway, worn deeply by the 
 tread of generations, into the lower regions, where lie whole 
 rows of dead kings turned to dust, coffins tucked away on 
 shelves and in niches, reminding me of the Bible words : 
 " All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, 
 every one in his own house." What's the glory, though, 
 of such a resting-place, it is hard to say. Their dust is no 
 
404 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 better than that of other men. Their names, even among 
 kings, have ceased to be distinguished from other names. 
 No man could go among these walks of tombs, these' 
 shelved kings, and pick out one or another, and say who is 
 who. And if he could, I do not see that it would be any 
 particular satisfaction to the quiet gentleman on the shelf. 
 If the visitor should say, " Is this the man that made the 
 earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms ? " no answer 
 would come back from the tomb. 
 
 We did not set foot within the gates of his majesty, the 
 King of Sweden, and this neglect was much to the disgust 
 of some of our Swedish friends, who consider the royal 
 residence a marvel of architectural grandeur and beauty. 
 We could not see it, even when they pointed to its magni- 
 ficence with the same exalted opinion of its splendor that 
 possessed the Jews in sight of their temple. The Lion's 
 Staircase, rising from the water's edge and leading to the 
 main entrance, adorned with two bronze, and therefore 
 quiet, lions, presents a grand front to the palace, and 
 within the same interminable suites of apartments, and the 
 same gaudy furniture, and the same sort of pictures and 
 statuary, with nothing that has a title to any distinction 
 above what is common in all palaces. 
 
 The picture-gallery has some five hundred paintings, 
 some by Van Dyck, Paul Veronese, Domenichino, and 
 others equally well known to fame, and the sculpture 
 gallery boasts a sleeping Endymion, and a few other gems ; 
 but we are out of the enchanted zone, and must not 
 expect to be charmed with the brush or the chisel in 
 Sweden. We shall find Thorvaldsen when we come to 
 Denmark. 
 
 But the royal library has 75,000 volumes, and if it had 
 the library that Queen Christina sent to the Vatican at 
 Rome, it would be still a greater wonder, and then would 
 be increased if the ancient collection made by Charles X., 
 
SWEDEN. 405 
 
 and consumed by fire in 1697, had been preserved. The 
 Codex AtirenSy a Latin' manuscript of the gospels, dating in 
 the sixth or seventh century, " is written in Gothic char- 
 acters of gold, on folio leaves of vellum, alternately white 
 and violet." 
 
 '^ This book is additionally interesting, from its contain- 
 ing an Anglo-Saxon inscription, of which the following is a 
 translation : ' In the name Of our Lord Jesus Christ, I, 
 Alfred Aldorman (Senior or Prince), and Werburg, my 
 wife, got up this book from a heathen war-troop, with our 
 pure treasure, which was then of pure gold. And this we 
 got for the love of God, and for our souls' behoof, and for 
 that we would not that this holy book should longer abide 
 in heathenesse ; and now will we give it to Christ's Church, 
 God to praise, and glory, and worship, in thankful remem- 
 brance of his passion, and for the use of the holy brother- 
 hood, who in Christ's Church do daily speak God's praise, 
 and that they may every month read for Alfred, and for 
 Werburg, and for Alhdryd (their daughter), their souls to 
 eternal health, as long as they have declared before God 
 that baptism (holy rites) shall continue in this place. Even 
 so I, Alfred, Dux, and Werburg, pray and beseech, in the 
 name of God Almighty, and of his saints, that no man shall 
 be so daring as to sell or part with this holy book from 
 Christ's Church, so long as baptism there may stand. 
 (Signed) Alfred, Werburg, Alhdryd.' No trace appears to 
 exist of the history of this volume from the time it was 
 thus given to Canterbury Cathedral until it was purchased 
 in Italy, and added to this library. Here also is a huge 
 manuscript copy of the Bible, written upon prepared asses' 
 skin. It was found in a convent at Prague, when that city 
 was taken by the Swedes during the Thirty Years* War. A 
 copy of Koberger's Bible, printed at Leyden, 1 521, and the 
 margins of which are filled with annotations by Martin 
 
4P6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Luther. Besides these, the library is rich in manuscripts 
 and rare editions." 
 
 The King of Sweden is the most affable and approacha- 
 ble monarch in Europe. In his daily walks, or while going 
 about in the public steamers that ply through the waters 
 of the city, as omnibuses do in New York, he enters freely 
 into conversation with the people. To strangers, especially 
 Americans, he is exceedingly kind, or, as his subjects would 
 say, gracious. I saw him frequently while he was riding, 
 but came no nearer to his Majesty. He had one of the 
 most splendid reviews that I had ever seen, when the 
 whole of the Swedish army that is stationed in this part 
 of the country, together with the militia, all liable to be 
 called on to do military duty, are put through a drill for a 
 few days and nights every year, in the summer season. A 
 vast open country, hill, wood and plain, is chosen, tents 
 pitched, and for a few days mimic war goes through all its 
 motions, saving and except that there is no blood shed. 
 This annual exercise does something to keep up a mar- 
 tial spirit, and makes a few grand holidays, when the whole 
 city is agog with the excitement. A fete day in Rome, an 
 emperor's day in Paris, or Derby day in London, would not 
 exceed the annual review in Stockholm. The nobility and 
 fashion, the beauty and folly, the masses of people in all 
 sorts of conveyances, and more on foot than on wheels, 
 were out at the parade. The squadrons were set on the 
 hills, so far apart that a telescope was needed to see what 
 was going on, and the marching and countermarching 
 made a pretty show that delighted the people, and gave 
 the soldiers a taste of the amusements they would have 
 when rushing into battle under a blazing sun, and blazing 
 guns in front of them. 
 
 The wars of Sweden occupy a large place in European 
 history. Yet when vv^e see how small the population, how 
 
SWEDEN. 407 
 
 limited the resources, and remote the situation of the 
 country, it seems incredible that human wisdom has been 
 so fooUsh as to permit a race of kings to waste the hves 
 and wealth of a nation of honest men, in the miserable 
 game of war. 
 
 But the genius of Sweden is seen in a very clever 
 arrangement to make the burden of soldiering as light 
 as possible. The standing army proper is very small 
 and has little to do at present. But the reserve is 
 large, and consists of men who are distributed about the 
 kingdom and quartered on the government lands, which 
 they work in time of peace, and thus earn their own sup- 
 port. If the crown lands are leased to others, a certain 
 number of these soldiers is set apart for, or quartered on 
 the land ; and the lessee has their labor, and is responsible 
 for their support. In this ingenious way the government 
 makes its land pay the expenses of its army in peace. 
 We might take a leaf out of the royal book of Sweden, 
 and, by a wise administration of our vast national landed 
 property, make it contribute something to the support of 
 the government, while we improved its value. That would 
 be certainly more statesmanlike than to give it away by 
 millions every year to speculators. The Swedish soldiers 
 are also employed in making roads, and on other public 
 works, as ours might be, greatly to their own moral benefit, 
 and to the advantage of the country. 
 
 It strikes me that there is more order and less crime in 
 this northern part of Europe than in any other country I 
 have yet visited. I see little evidence of abject poverty 
 and low vice. By night or day I have not seen a person 
 on the streets at Stockholm who seemed to be of the 
 abandoned class. Longer acquaintance may correct this 
 impression and reveal another, state of facts. Two Amer- 
 ican travellers were robbed of their watches and money, 
 
408 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 at the hotel where T am lodged, but a few days ago. It is 
 not at all likely the thief is a native of these regions. 
 He has probably followed the travellers, or, what is quite as 
 likely, been one of their travelling companions. The land- 
 lord paid the losses without a lawsuit, and the Americans 
 went on their way. 
 
SWEDEN. 409 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 SWEDEN (Continued). 
 
 T3 Y the beautiful island of Drottningholm, on which the 
 ^^ king's mother resides in a palace within a park, that 
 seems the abode of peace and plenty, and along the shores 
 of other islands small and picturesque, but lovely to look 
 on as we pass them on our way, we sail out into Lake 
 Malar. 
 
 It is a wide, winding, beautiful sheet of water, — one of 
 the many noble lakes that Sweden holds in her bosom. 
 Two islands in it come so nearly together, that a draw- 
 bridge for a railroad stretches across, and opens for us to 
 pass through, and then we sweep out into another expanse 
 of water, the shores skirted with pines and hemlock ; no 
 hills in sight, but the scenery is lovely, though lacking 
 grandeur. We are going into the heart of Sweden. Now 
 the shores are cultivated to the water's edge, and fine farms 
 rise to view, with here and there a red cottage, with a tile 
 roof : all the peasant houses and fisherman cottages are 
 painted with red ochre, cheap, but unpleasant to the eye. 
 Now the shores are bolder, rocky, and great forest trees, 
 fir and spruce, are abundant. 
 
 The oldest place in Sweden, and that carries us back into 
 far antiquity, is Sigtuna, and we have come to it, on the 
 shores of Lake Malar, about four hours from Stockholm. 
 We are in the midst of the remains of the old pagan wor- 
 ship of Scandinavia, where the altars to heathen deities, 
 whose graves (!) we are going to see to-day, have smoked 
 with human sacrifices. 
 
4IO ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN, 
 
 Odin or Woden (whence comes our Wedensday or Wed- 
 nesday), a hero of the north, — in time to which history, at 
 least rehable history, runneth not back, — here estabhshed 
 the seat of his power, and it took its name from his original 
 title, which was Sigge, and Tuna, which is our word town. 
 Here Sigge, or Odin, reared stone temples, of which the 
 ruins are before us. Here his power became so great, and 
 such the reverence of rude peoples for power, that the 
 temples and altars which he reared to gods whom he wor- 
 shipped, became, in the eyes and hearts of the people, 
 dedicate to him, whom they came to revere and worship 
 as a god. From" this spot the worship of Odin, and after- 
 wards of his son Thor (whence our Thursday), spread 
 through the whole of the North of Europe, and, in spite of 
 the subsequent triumph of Roman Christianity, and then 
 of the Lutheran Reformation, the Odin superstition — a 
 secret, unconfessed, but controUing reverence for those 
 heroic human deities, the hero worship of the human soul — 
 still obtains among the more ignorant classes of the people 
 over all this northern country. The legends that have come 
 down from sire to son, keep alive in successive generations 
 the hidden fear of these false gods, and form the largest 
 part of the unwritten poetry and romance of all Scan- 
 dinavia. 
 
 Pirates from Finland came here and laid waste the forti- 
 fied town of Odin, and it has again and again been built and 
 destroyed ; but here is the remnant of an ancient temple or 
 church, and three towers, which have the highest interest 
 of antiquity (whatever that is) hanging, like mantling ivy, 
 all about them. No one but an antiquary would wish to 
 spend more than a moment in Sigtuna, among its 400 
 inhabitants. Tyre and Sidon on the sea coast are not so 
 desolate as this spot, which seems accursed for its pagan 
 crimes and impostures in days long since gone by. 
 
 Sweet pictures of rural life in Sweden were seen this 
 
SWEDEN. 411 
 
 morning as we sailed through this Lake Malar. Opposite Sig- 
 tuna, and a little farther on, we touched the shore, and landed 
 Professor Olivecrona, of the University of Upsala, with his 
 wife and a party of English friends. He had been to 
 Stockholm to meet them, and bring them up the lake to 
 his country residence in summer. It was a beautiful man- 
 sion, very near to the water's edge, in the midst of woods 
 and delightful walks. The children and servants came 
 down to the landing just in front of the house, to a private 
 wharf, and as the parents went ashore, and four lovely 
 children in their light summer dresses welcomed them, and 
 greeted the friends coming with them, it was a scene of 
 domestic beauty and happiness that quite touched an old 
 man's heart some three or four thousand miles from home. 
 
 More islands, among which our boat makes its tortuous 
 course, coming so near to the rocks that we might easily 
 scrape them ; now and then a bare white rock holds its 
 peak solitary above the water, and a bird of prey perches 
 on its top, looking into the deep for his dinner. Now the 
 shores are clothed with green forests, and again we emerge 
 among meadows, and in the bright sun the contrasts of 
 light and shadow, as we pass by the pines and fir trees, are 
 constantly pleasing. An air of infinite quietude pervades 
 the region, and it is painful to believe that it was once a 
 " habitation of cruelty." 
 
 Suddenly a grand old chateau, the ancient residence of 
 the Brahe family, one of the oldest and most illustrious in 
 Sweden, opened on our view. It was built in 1630, and 
 each one of its four towers is surmounted by an orrery, in 
 honor of the famous astronomer whose name alone has 
 made the family famous. A boat comes off from the shore, 
 and takes passengers who wish to visit the house. Its 
 library and museum and galleries of art make it a popular 
 resort. On its walls are portraits of Tycho, and the Ebba 
 Brahe, whom Gustavus Adolphus loved, and would have 
 
412 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 married but for more ambitious schemes of her mother 
 that never came to pass. 
 
 During this delightful passage of six hours through Lake 
 Malar, in one of the loveliest days of summer, we have not 
 seen a sail nor a steamer, except the return boat of the 
 line that has brought us. And this fact is sufficient to 
 show the utter stagnation of commercial life in the interior 
 of Sweden. 
 
 I confess to surprise on coming to Upsala and finding the 
 ancient university here in high prosperity, with all the ap- 
 pliances of education that first-class institutions require. 
 Linnaeus, the great botanist, was professor here, and his 
 statue is one of the ornaments of the university. The 
 Hospital, — a new and extensive building, — a royal palace 
 on a hill, the Agricultural College, the Library, &c., with a 
 Botanical Garden and ample parks, suggest to the traveller 
 that in Sweden one might find a home to his mind, if his 
 lot had been cast in this part of the earth. 
 
 You have a fondness for old books and manuscripts. 
 Here they are in abundance ; not of the sort, perhaps, that 
 most antiquarians would run after, but, nevertheless, very 
 precious and costly. 
 
 Bishop Ulfilas, toward the close of the fourth century, 
 translated the four gospels into the Gothic language, and 
 his translation was copied in letters of silver upon vellum 
 of a pale purple color, in characters very like the Runic. 
 This manuscript is the very oldest extant in the Teutonic 
 tongue, and was probably made by the Ostro-Gothic scribes 
 in Italy. It was once owned by an abbey in Westphalia. 
 Then it was treasured up in Cologne ; then by the fortunes 
 of war it passed to Konigsberg, and to Amsterdam, with 
 Vossius, on whose death the Swedish chancellor bought it 
 and presented it to the University of Upsala. It is known 
 among biblical scholars as the Codex Ai^genteiLs, or Silver 
 Copy, from the style of the lettering. 
 
SWEDEN. 
 
 413 
 
 If you have a taste for Icelandic literature, so refreshing 
 in the heats of summer, here you can find the oldest and 
 
 
 Upsala. 
 
 coldest of the Eddas ; and alongside of them is a Bible with 
 the marginal notes of Luther and Melancthon. Students 
 in and out of the university have free access to these treas- 
 ures, and the reading-room is a pleasant resort for those 
 
414 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 who love to refresh themselves in the midst of a hundred 
 thousand books, in all tongues and every realm of human 
 thought. 
 
 About fifty professors and fifteen hundred students com- 
 pose the faculty and attendance of this famous university. 
 It was founded in 1477, and has but one rival in Sweden, 
 that at Ludd, founded in 1666. The expense of a student's 
 education, including board, fees, &c., is about three hundred 
 dollars a year. 
 
 No one can be admitted to practise in any of three pro- 
 fessions, — law, medicine, or divinity, — without taking his 
 degrees at one of the two universities. This ensttres a high 
 order of acquirements in professional men, and when we 
 state one fact in addition, that one male person in every 
 6ZZ in Sweden enjoys an education at the universities, it 
 will be seen that these institutions reach the whole people, 
 and extend their advantages into the midst of the masses. 
 Sweden, and in this respect she is not singular in Europe, 
 has not made the mistake which we in the United States 
 have been making, of multiplying little colleges, and little 
 theological seminaries, one-horse institutions, with the idea 
 that, by bringing a school to the door of every man, or of 
 every church, we should be enlarging the area of educa- 
 tion, and multiplying the number of educated men. Thus 
 we have reduced the standard of fitness for professorships. 
 Thus we have diminished the number of students. Lower- 
 ing the mark to which scholars should aspire, we have 
 cheapened education, suppressed literary ambition, made 
 the professions less attractive, and filled them with an infe- 
 rior order of men, compared with what they would have 
 been had the standard of great universities, with their high 
 qualifications of professorships and degrees, been main- 
 tained. If all the money which has been expended in the 
 maintenance of feeble and famishing colleges and divinity 
 schools had been applied to the education of youth in two. 
 
SWEDEN. 415 
 
 three, or four universities, they would have been far better 
 taught, and the surplus of money over and above the ex- 
 penses of their education would endow a new university 
 as often as the extension of territory and the increase of 
 population render it necessary. 
 
 A student of the university is required to wear a cap of 
 pecuhar make, to distinguish him, not in the university 
 town only, but wherever he may travel in Sweden. The 
 cap is white, with a black border, and a rosette of the 
 national colors in front. This requisition is useful in keep- 
 ing the student upon his good behavior, and also as a peri- 
 patetic advertisement of the educational institutions of the 
 country. It is only by slow degrees that our people come 
 into the -habit of putting classes into uniform. It is but 
 recently that the police were so clad : now we have letter- 
 carriers, railway officials, &c. The clergy formerly were 
 generally known by a white neckcloth, but that has ceased 
 to be their distinction. 
 
 The old cathedral had the appearance of neglect ; it was 
 out one side from the busy haunts of men, and this was in 
 its favor, but it seemed to be neglected. Twenty-four 
 whitewashed columns support the roof. In side chapels are 
 the tombs and the remains of the old kings of Sweden. 
 And when I had spelled out some of the Latin inscriptions, 
 and had linked the names of these sleepers with the old- 
 time stories of the land, the venerable cathedral began to 
 take upon itself the form of a great monument of the dead 
 past. And well it might, for the first stones were laid for 
 its foundation in the year 1289, and it was consecrated in 
 1435. Its dimensions rise into the sublime, for it is 370 
 feet long, 141 feet wide, and 115 feet high. 
 
 The columns within are capped with carvings of grotesque 
 beasts, strangely out of taste in the house of God. Lin- 
 naeus lies buried here, and a splendid mural tablet and bronze 
 medallion portrait of him adorn the wall. Here lie Gustavus 
 
41 6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Wasa and two of his wives, and a long series of fresco 
 paintings in seven compartments celebrate the great events 
 in the life of this illustrious man. Here, too, is a tomb of 
 John III., remarkable for this, — that it was made in Italy, 
 was lost at sea on its way here, was fished up sixty years 
 afterwards, and brought to this spot. 
 
 The sacristan was very kind in revealing to our not very 
 reverent eyes the precious things here kept for special exhi- 
 bition to those who would pay for the privilege. With this 
 understanding we were permitted to behold crowns and 
 sceptres, a gold cup two feet high, a dagger that had been 
 stuck into a king, and a statue of the old god-king Thor ! 
 This last is not worshipped here, but is cherished as a 
 memorial of the times when paganism was prevalent, and 
 as a trophy of the triumph of Christianity over the powers 
 of darkness. 
 
 About three miles north of Upsala, the seat of the great 
 university, is Old Upsala, more sacred than any other spot 
 in Sweden : for here are the lofty mounds which tradition 
 has consecrated as graves of the gods, — the gods who 
 aforetime were held in reverent awe and honor 'by the 
 Scandinavian race, and who, to this day, hold some sort 
 of sway over the rude masses of the North. 
 
 We rode out in carriages from the university, and 
 passed in sight of the house which covers the Mora Stone, 
 on which the kings of Sweden were chosen and crowned. 
 It is made of about twelve different stones joined and in- 
 scribed with the names of the monarchs who have been 
 elected by the voice of the people. In 1780 the house was 
 built over it by Gustavus III., but that was seven centuries 
 after the first inscription upon it ; for here it is written 
 that Sten Kil was chosen in 1060, and seven others, down 
 to Christian I., in 1457. Gustavus Wasa met his subjects 
 here in mass-meeting and addressed them from this stone 
 in 1520. The hoar of ages, with all the memories of the 
 
SWEDEN. 417 
 
 revolutions of these centuries, gathers on this spot. It is 
 now only a shrine for pilgrims with antiquity on the brain, 
 who wander the world over to see what the world has been. 
 I have a large development of that weakness, and it has a 
 great gratification in this part of Europe: more, indeed, 
 than it had in Egypt ; less than in Palestine. . In the Holy 
 Land the sacred associations with the rehgion we love 
 makes every acre of it dear to the heart : we take pleasure 
 in every stone, and favor all the dust of Judea. With less 
 awe, — indeed, with no awe, — but with wonder, we now 
 come to Old Upsala, to the graves of the pagan deities. 
 
 They are three conical mounds, about fifty feet in height, 
 very regular in shape, with a broad plateau at the summit, 
 and the unvarying tradition of the country is, that the 
 largest of the mounds is the grave of Odin ; the next, 
 that of Thor; and the smallest, the grave of Freytag, 
 Odin's daughter. In all probability these are natural hil- 
 locks artificially reduced to these regular forms, and super- 
 stitiously set apart in the minds of the people as the graves 
 of persons to whom their ancestors paid divine honors. 
 To this hour, the name of Odin is used as that of a demon 
 king, and " Go to Odin " is the profane execration which 
 answers to the modern imprecation, " Go to the devil." 
 
 On this spot the great temple to Odin was erected, and 
 his worship maintained with horrid rites and ceremonies. 
 The altars here have smoked with human blood and burnt 
 sacrifices. In the sacred groves that surrounded the tem- 
 ple these savage deities were propitiated with all manner of 
 offerings, parents laying their children with their own 
 hands upon the altars, and slaying them in the face of 
 heaven. A record still exists of seventy-two bodies being 
 seen suspended at one time from the limbs of trees in this 
 grove ; men, and lower animals than men, if any animals 
 are lower than such men, being offered in company to 
 please the deities of the wood. 
 
 27 
 
41 8 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 We entered the old church, the tower of which is said 
 to be a part of the temple. This tower is the most ancient 
 building in Scandinavia. A rude stone image of a human 
 being, uncared for and lying in total neglect and dirt, was 
 pointed out as an idol of Thor, that had once and often 
 been worshipped on this spot and honored with these hu- 
 man sacrifices. It seemed more likely that it was a bogus 
 image, and, therefore, all the more fitting to be presented 
 as one of the false gods of a superstitious race, whose 
 reverence is not yet so thoroughly extinguished as to pre- 
 vent them from leaving hay on the highway at night, to 
 feed the horses of Odin when he comes riding through the 
 country on his missions of destruction. 
 
 On the reach of the Reformation to this region, the great 
 battle of faith was fought on this spot. Here Gustavus 
 Wasa, in his robes of royalty, addressed the crowds of 
 pagan people, and besought them to turn from their idols 
 to the living God. They replied with sullen rage, and 
 threatened him with death. He finally flung off his robes, 
 and told them they might have Odin for their king if they 
 would, but he would not be their king unless they would 
 worship the Lord God Almighty and his Son Jesus Christ. 
 This was the decisive hour and word. They yielded, but 
 only an outward obedience, a lip service, and it required 
 long years and generations to extirpate the pagan worship 
 from the minds of the people. One king of Sweden, 
 Domold, was actually offered in sacrifice on Odin's altar to 
 propitiate the gods when the people were suffering by 
 famine. And when Eric V., in looi, embraced the Chris- 
 tian rehgion and destroyed the temple, the tower of which 
 is said to be standing now as part of this church, the people 
 in their fury put him to death. 
 
 From Odin, or Woden, as he was called, comes our 
 Weden's-day, and from Thor our Thur's-day, and from 
 Fry-tag our Fri-day ; and these every-day words make links 
 
SWEDEN. 419 
 
 of association to connect our times with those fearful days, 
 now past and gone for ever. 
 
 I was surprised by finding the practice of dining out of 
 doors in summer quite as common here as in France. On our 
 return from Upsala to Stockhohn, Dr. Scholberg went with 
 us to spend part of a day at the Deer Park, a vast tract of 
 land in easy reach from the capital, that has been set apart 
 for the use of the people. It is entered through a grand 
 gateway, ornamented with a bronze deer on each side ; within 
 are villas and cafes, and theatres and concert-rooms. Long 
 drives over country roads take us under majestic old trees, 
 — oaks and elms, pines and spruce ; and now and then we 
 pass parties taking their mid-day or evening meal under 
 the trees, or among the beautiful gardens that surround 
 their houses. Our ride takes us up and down hill, in sight 
 often of the sea : one has a taste of the country, rare 
 indeed to be had so near the town. The quickest way to 
 get there is to take one of the many little steamers that 
 ply, like our omnibuses or street-cars, among the waters of 
 this northern Venice ; but many of them do not hold as 
 many passengers as a horse-car carries. They are just like 
 a large row-boat, with sharp bows and stern, and a boiler in 
 the middle. They require but very little coal, and, being 
 driven with great care, very seldom, if ever, blow up the 
 people sitting so near to the boiler and all its works, as to 
 suggest continually the idea that it would require no great 
 effort to scald the company. If our American people could 
 do any thing with moderation, they might introduce these 
 little iron steamers with great usefulness into the North and 
 East Rivers, and, indeed, into the waters of all our great 
 cities. We often availed ourselves of them, for they run 
 everywhere, and the fare is lower than in our city cars. A 
 few minutes of fast running brought us to Deer Park, and 
 our Swedish doctor led us to what was considered the 
 best restaurant in the place. Hundreds of people were 
 
420 • ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 already there to dine, and at the middle of the day. It did 
 not speak well for the industry and habits of the people, 
 that so many of them could thus quit business at such an 
 hour and go off out of town to their dinner. And Stock- 
 holm is the only city in the North where there is such a 
 class of people. The city has the name of being very like 
 Venice in this matter. And here they were in the middle 
 of the day, hundreds of people, away from home, and mak- 
 ing a business of eating and drinking. 
 
 Dinner was a study and an art. They had some science 
 in it. There was an ante-prandium and the prandium, and 
 the dessert and the post-prandium, and more post that I did 
 not see ; but what I did may be set down to give you an 
 idea of the Swedes at dinner. First, every gentleman steps 
 to a side table and takes a glass of schnapps, or gin, or 
 other liquor that he prefers, and appetizes himself by eating 
 of salt fish, dried tongue, cold meats, bread and cheese, 
 making a very satisfactory snack or lunch, which would 
 serve most of men for a fair dinner. The second course is 
 soup, and one who is recently from Paris needs a little edu- 
 cation to make it pleasant to his taste. Then follow salmon, 
 chicken, roast beef, pudding, ice cream, jellies ; and with 
 these dishes, which are served one after another, and all to 
 be eaten, are the usual trimmings of bread and butter, with 
 vegetables to any extent. When this bill of fare — a dinner 
 to order, and exquisitely cooked and served in good style — 
 is disposed of, you are expected to indulge in the national 
 punch, an oily, fiery, pungent liquor, that should not be 
 taken without medical advice ; yet it may be that it assists 
 digestion after the organs have been overladen with such a 
 dinner as I have just eaten and described. Now, it is not 
 unlikely that such dinners are very largely enjoyed by the 
 people, for all that I have mentioned may be had for 
 seventy-five cents ! And as you pay for just what you 
 order, and no more, it is possible to make a sufficient dinner 
 
SWEDEN. 
 
 421 
 
 for half the money, and thousands do. We protracted our 
 stay till the evening (not the dark) came on, and rode to 
 the charming rural retreat for the royal household, and had 
 
 Costumes of Sweden. 
 
 the pleasure of gratifying our democratic eyes by seeing the 
 ladies of the family taking their tea out of doors, so much 
 
422 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 in the same way that other people take theirs, we should 
 not have suspected them of being any thing more than 
 common, had we not been told of it, and actually had seen 
 the august servant, with a white wig and pompous strut, 
 bringing the " tea things " out to the little table in the 
 garden. So many other little family circles did we see 
 enjoying themselves in the same way, that we could readily 
 see it was a national habit, and quite in harmony with those 
 domestic pictures which Frederika Bremer has made us so 
 familiar with in her letters about Swedish homes. 
 
 One thing impressed me daily in these north countries of 
 Europe, — the general content and comfort of the people. 
 The climate has not helped them to this, for it is far less 
 favorable to general enjoyment than that of the south. But 
 there is an amount of industry, intelligence, and morality, 
 that make a contrast easily marked between the people 
 of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and the inhabitants 
 of Spain and Italy. I find no such masses of squalid 
 vice and misery here, as one may easily see in Naples or 
 Seville. 
 
 Sweden has all the elements of a great and good people. 
 She is making progress, too, in moral and intellectual cul- 
 ture, and her people are rising in the scale of social enjoy- 
 ment. I notice these things in the rural districts even 
 more than in the cities, which are so much the same all 
 the world over. 
 
SWEDEN. 423 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 SWEDEN (^Continued). 
 
 "\T7E are going across the kingdom, from Stockholm to 
 ^ ^ ■ Gottenburg. We might be carried through by rail 
 in a day ; but what- should we see of life in Sweden if we 
 went flying over it in that style ? We will take the slower 
 and better way, by the raging canal. This canal is the Erie 
 of Sweden. It extends from lake to lake, and so connects 
 sea with sea, the Baltic with the Atlantic ; it leaves Malar 
 lake, and takes lakes Wetter and Wener in its way, and all 
 the chief towns of the interior ; and as the travelling is 
 rationally moderate, the pauses frequent and long, we have 
 a fine opportunity to study the country and the people 
 whom we have come to see. 
 
 It is a steam canal ; that is, a canal for steam naviga- 
 tion, as the Erie and other canals of our country ought to 
 be, and might be, but for the penny-wise and pound-foolish 
 pohcy of poUticians. The steamers are small. We em- 
 barked for this inland voyage on the Oscar, a royal name. 
 The cabin had ten state-rooms, with two berths in each ; a 
 wash-stand in the middle had a movable cover, making a 
 table, on which I am writing. The boat is furnished with 
 great simplicity, but is comfortable. It is crowded with 
 passengers ; several families, with children and luggage 
 immense, probably emigrants on their way to the land of 
 promise. Their friends in troops thronged the wharf to 
 see them go, and when the hand-shakings and hugging and 
 kissing were finished, the boat was off, and the tears and 
 waving of rags continued as we steamed away. 
 
424 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. • 
 
 The clouds wept too, for a few moments, and then, Hke 
 the passengers, dried up ; smiles and the sun came out 
 again, and beautiful Stockholm seemed more beautiful as 
 we left it than it did while we were in it. The green 
 slopes around the city were joyous in the sinking sun. 
 The iron steeple of the Ridderkolm, and the white palace, 
 and many spires, glistened in the light. Gems of islands, 
 with pretty bridges uniting their shores, neat villas, with 
 lawns carpeted with rich verdure, abodes, we may hope, of 
 sweet content and comfort, are on either hand, and now 
 and then, from a window or balcony, a white handkerchief 
 greets a friend on board, who responds, and we have a tele- 
 graphic communication at once with the people we are 
 leaving. I do love to find in strange lands, and among, 
 those whose language is all unknown to me, the same ties, 
 the same loves and hopes, that fill our own hearts at home. 
 It makes me know that all these people are my kin, chil- 
 dren of my Father. 
 
 We have been passing across Lake Malar. But now, at 
 seven in the evening, we enter a lock, and the Gota Canal 
 begins. The village of Sodertelje receives us here. So 
 sweet does it seem to be, in its quiet repose, that every 
 house appears to invite you to stop and make a visit. It 
 was at this point that St. Olaf, when a viking, was shut in 
 by the fleets of the Swedes and Danes, and he cut his way 
 out, not through the enemies' fleets, but by digging a canal 
 to the Baltic ! This was in the eleventh century, and no 
 such feats of rapid canafling were known from that time 
 down to the Dutch Gap ditch, during the late war in Amer- 
 ica. The story of the saint is history, and the other one 
 will not be forgotten. 
 
 The passage of the lock from the lake to the canal is 
 tedious, but in the mean time the villagers come on board 
 and greet friends, the children,. as in all other countries, 
 ply their sales of cake and fruit, till we are out and enter 
 
SWEDEN. 425 
 
 the Gota Canal. The banks for some time are fifty feet 
 high, but they slope away gradually, and are beautiful in 
 their green sod. Neat cottages and wooded walks and 
 gardens, signs of taste and culture, and plenty, are on our 
 right hand and left ; and these dwellings are so near that 
 the canal seems a street like those of Venice, where you 
 step from the gondola to the marble threshold of your 
 house. Passengers on board recognize their acquaintance, 
 and exchange salutations. Now and then an old mansion, 
 with many out-buildings, shows that an extensive farm is 
 behind ; and occasionally we pass a village which appears 
 to be of modern creation, as if progress was making even 
 in Sweden. We are following the course of the very same 
 canal that St. Olaf, the viking, cut in such a hurry eight 
 hundred years ago, and we soon come to the end of it, and 
 run again into the sea, or a bay of the Baltic, and keep 
 along the coast, among a wilderness of islands, touching 
 now and then at one of them to drop or take a passenger. 
 Heaps of rock on the points are painted white to guide 
 us in the mazes of these intricate passes, and sometimes 
 trees have been moored in the water to mark the path- 
 way of the ship. Ruins of castles, each one of which 
 has its legends as romantic as those of the Rhine, still 
 haunt these rocks. Stegeborg Castle is the most pictur- 
 esque in its solitary grandeur and desolation, and the tra- 
 ditions of the country associate it with many a hard-fought 
 fight in times so far gone by that history is rather too 
 romantic to be credited. 
 
 The night is now about us, but in these latitudes it 
 makes little difference for seeing the country whether it is 
 night or day. There was no sleeping to be done, for some 
 of the rising generation rose all night, and made the httle 
 cabin vocal with their cries, so that only those who enjoy 
 the music of sleepless babes could be said to have a pleas- 
 ant night in that vicinity. Out of my little window I see 
 
426 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the islands, with their stunted firs, shores rarely rising so 
 as to be entitled to the dignity of hills, sometimes a forest, 
 and here and there a house, red and neat, with no signs of 
 slovenliness or poverty. 
 
 It was very early in the morning when we left the canal- 
 boat, and in the midst of a drizzling rain followed a porter 
 who had been directed by the captain to take our luggage 
 to a hotel, the best hotel in the village of Soderkoping. 
 
 This was the village we had selected as a quiet, retired, 
 obscure, but pleasant place to pass a sabbath in, to see 
 the Swedes in their rural churches and in their humble 
 homes. 
 
 It was so early when we came to the little wooden 
 tavern that no one was astir. We went around to the 
 back door, as the porter led us, and there knocked long 
 and loud, till a maid thrust her head out of th« window, 
 and made signs that she would come down and let us in, 
 which she did. The American language was of no use 
 now. French was no better. But we managed to let her 
 know, morning as it was, we wanted beds. She led us to 
 the chambers, and when we pointed to the sheets as hav- 
 ing already seen service since the last wash, she took the 
 hint in a moment, and, pulling them off, supplied their 
 places with linen without wrinkles. After a few hours 
 sleep we rose for breakfast, taking what should be set 
 before us. It proved to be comfortable. Coffee with 
 delicious cream, bread and beefsteak on a novel plan, 
 chopped fine, made into cakes and fried in butter with 
 spices. 
 
 It was our first sabbath in Sweden. An ancient brick 
 church with a spire, a venerable structure, stood near a 
 swiftly flowing stream of water, embowered in majestic 
 trees, and surrounded with the graves of buried generations 
 of those who had worshipped within its old walls. It was a 
 solemn, yet beautiful spot, and all its surroundings were in 
 
SWEDEN. 427 
 
 keeping. The graveyard was laid off in little plats, and the 
 graves were bordered with flowers. On some graves pots 
 of flowers were set, and on others fresh-plucked flowers 
 were strewn, soon to wither and to be replaced. The bell 
 was tolling and the people were assembling ; all came on 
 foot and by walks leading through the yard from various 
 parts of the village. Some had come evidently from a dis- 
 tance in the country, with books in their hands. All were 
 decently devout in their deportment as they came; even 
 among the young there was no levity, they were on a 
 solemn errand, and were sensible of the time and place. 
 
 The sexton sat at the door, with a big key in his hand, 
 and opened the door to let the people in, but locked it when 
 prayer began, and kept it locked till prayer was ended, 
 and then admitted those who had gathered. Earthen 
 pitchers or jugs stood on stools near the door to receive 
 the offerings, and many cast in what they had. The floor 
 was of stone, and many were tombstones, the inscriptions 
 worn by the footsteps of the living, so that the names of 
 the dead were illegible. Eight immense whitewashed pil- 
 lars supported Gothic arches on which the roof rested. 
 The pulpit was of wood, elaborately carved, with Scripture 
 scenes and figures. A sounding-board above it was orna- 
 mented with quaint devices, and surmounted by a human 
 figure, perhaps an image of the Saviour. On the front the 
 word Jehovah, in Hebrew letters, was inscribed. The 
 pews were very plain, unpainted slips, with doors locked 
 until the owners came, whose names were on slips of paper 
 attached. On the sides of the church, long rude seats were 
 free. We occupied them. The congregation was very 
 slow in getting in. The same variety of dress that would 
 mark one of our rural churches was apparent. Rich and 
 poor met together. Some of the ladies were dressed elab- 
 orately with the flat French bonnet ; others in a costume 
 of the country, a small black shawl or kerchief thrown over 
 
428 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the head and pinned under the chin. The men were all 
 rustic in garb and manner, accustomed to out-of-door hard 
 work. All appeared devotional, respectful ; old and young, 
 on coming in, bowed in silent prayer ; all stood in singing. 
 The service was Lutheran, the established religion. All 
 had books of the service, which was read with a loud voice 
 and much intonation by the clerk. The preacher was a 
 handsome young man, with great energy of voice and no 
 action. His text had the name Jesus Christ in it, and 
 the words were often repeated with tenderness and earnest- 
 ness. I could understand no other words, and could only 
 hope that as even those were sweet to my ears, the preacher 
 was commending him to the congregation as the chief 
 among ten thousand, the one altogether lovely. 
 
 Many of the men took snuff. The man on my right, two 
 on my left, two in front of me, held the box under their 
 noses to catch what fell back in the operation. They also 
 offered the same boxes to me. One of the men sneezed 
 immoderately four or five times. The sexton going up the 
 aisle, and standing on the tombstone of some old saint, 
 blew his (the sexton's, not the saint's) nose with his fingers, 
 wiped it with a blue cotton handkerchief, polished it off with 
 the back of his hand, and then walked up to the pulpit to 
 do his errand. 
 
 Bating the snuff-taking and the nasal twang in the sing- 
 ing, the service was pleasing even to us who heard no words 
 that we could understand. We worshipped in spirit, and 
 felt at home among the children of our Father, not one of 
 whom knew that two strangers from beyond the sea were 
 in their village church on this pleasant summer sabbath 
 morning. 
 
 Soderkoping proved to be more of a place than we had 
 anticipated. It was, and is even a watering-place. Pleas- 
 antly planted on the banks of the great canal, with historic 
 and towering heights rising by its side, and rejoicing also 
 
SWEDEN. 42q 
 
 in the possession of a mineral spring, whose healing virtues 
 have been spread among the people of this and other 
 countries, it has become a resort for invaHds. It maintains 
 at one end of the village a series of bathing-houses, and 
 modest lodgings for visitors, and a " conversation hall " of 
 moderate dimensions, and some hundreds of the ill-to-do 
 may be carefully cared for, and, perhaps, cured at the same 
 time. But there is no hotel, nor any thing worth the name. 
 The village is primitive, simple, neat as a new pin, not the 
 sign of a new building going on anywhere. It might 
 have been finished years ago, and kept in order to be looked 
 at as a curiosity. The dwellings are, all of them, low, un- 
 pretending, small, and usually of wood. 
 
 Dr. Gustaff Bottiger, physician and surgeon, called at 
 our lodgings in Soderkoping. He spoke the French well, 
 and English tolerably, and we were able to get on with him 
 delightfully. He is a fine looking man, accomplished in 
 manners, and superintendent of the " Water Cure." 
 
 The mineral waters of this locality have had a reputation 
 in Europe through the long period of eight hundred years. 
 They were formerly resorted to by invalids from Italy and 
 Spain, as well as other countries. But in the course of 
 time, and after the discovery of other springs, and the in- 
 vention of more, the fame of these in Sweden declined. 
 The town declined also. But when the modern water-cure 
 idea sprang into being, an establishment was opened here, 
 which has proved to be a wonderful success. It is resorted 
 to by a thousand persons every year, who come as patients, 
 and patiently submit to the hydraulic, hydrostatic, and 
 hydropathic, and all the hydra-headed processes of scientific 
 treatment requisite to purify the system and make the 
 patient clean inside and out. The cure is sure for nearly 
 all diseases to which flesh is heir, but is specially efficient 
 in expelling such monsters as rheumatism, gout, and dys- 
 pepsia. The College of Health in Sweden, a national in- 
 
430 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 stitution, has the estabUshment under its control, and the 
 company that have taken out a royal charter, and built 
 the bath and packing houses, have made provision for 
 ninety patients, who are constantly lodged, fed, and water- 
 cured at public expense, and one hundred and thirty more 
 are treated gratuitously, with the use of the establishment, 
 while they pay for their board and lodging. Six hundred 
 patients can be supplied with baths at one time. 
 
 The establishment thus combines the advantages of a 
 free and pay hospital, as do many of our asylums for the 
 afflicted in America. But I am not aware that any of our 
 States have made provision for sending their invalid poor 
 to water cures. Our inebriate asylums may be called water 
 cures in the best sense of the term, and it is quite certain, 
 whether intemperance be a sin or a disease, or both, there 
 is no hope of a cure without the use of cold water. 
 
 Here at Soderkoping the rich and the poor are so min- 
 gled and packed and purified, that the distinction is not 
 palpable, and the institution is a model of social and medi- 
 cal propriety and equality. 
 
 Dr. Bottiger is enthusiastic in his pursuit of the grand 
 idea he is here set to work out, and the patients catch his 
 enthusiasm, believe in him and in the cure, and that helps 
 the cure amazingly. It is not worth while to discuss the 
 reason of the thing, or to inquire whether the mineral 
 water here flowing at least eight centuries, and probably 
 eighteen and many more, is any better for the cure than 
 other waters. I am inclined to believe that there is 
 superior virtue in the springs. But any waters are good 
 enough, with the advantage of air, exercise, temperance, 
 and recreation, to make most people whole who are only 
 partially broken down. Nine-tenths of these invalids, 
 especially of the richer classes, are victims of their own 
 imprudences. God gave man reason, but he makes a poor 
 use, or rather no use of it, when he works his brain so 
 
SWEDEN. 43 1 
 
 much as to overwork it, and loads his stomach so as to 
 overload it, and by neglect of the laws of health, which are 
 just as well defined as the moral laws of God, brings upon 
 himself dyspepsia, and that long catalogue of evils that 
 haunt the victim. He must be a bad liver who has a dis- 
 eased liver. It was his own fault, in the first place, and 
 the warning that he had he neglected, and now when he 
 comes to Soderkoping, or goes to Kissingen, Spa, or Kreus- 
 nacht, for the benefit of his health, he is suffering the 
 penalty of his own indulgence or neglect. If an ante- 
 mortem coroner's inquest should be held on his arrival at 
 the springs, the verdict would be served him right. 
 
 There are six or eight water-cure establishments in 
 Sweden, one in Norway, none in Denmark. The system is 
 popular in this part of Europe, and in Germany. Patients 
 appear to be attracted to them not so much by advertise- 
 ments of special advantages, but by the reports which 
 patients spread abroad, when they go away relieved of their 
 maladies. 
 
 Just after the doctor left us a young man called who had 
 heard that two Americans were here, and he wished to get 
 information respecting the United States. He brought 
 with him a phrase-book in German and English, or rather 
 in German and American, for the book was called " The 
 Little American," and was made to teach the American 
 language. The most it could do was to aid the young to 
 pick up a few phrases of the language, and to stimulate 
 their desire to emigrate to the western world. The book 
 was evidently issued by the steamship or emigration com- 
 panies, for it gave all needful directions as to the expense 
 and mode of getting to America, and it held out the most 
 encouraging prospects to those who might be tempted to 
 go. The desire is wide-spread — to seek a home in the New- 
 World. Books and papers and pictures are industriously 
 spread among the village and rural population to stimulate 
 
432 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 this desire. The wages of labor are represented as so great 
 in contrast with their own earnings, while nothing is said 
 of the cost of living, — the price of land is said to be so 
 low in comparison with land here, which is not to be bought 
 at all, — that they are filled with the idea of going to a 
 country where they suppose they may get all they want for 
 little or nothing. To what a sad reality they wake up when 
 they set their feet on our shores, and find themselves in the 
 midst of the harpies of New York ! 
 
 Our bill for boarding and lodging, every thing included, 
 at this village tavern, where we were well cared for, and had 
 all that we could reasonably desire, was less than a dollar a 
 day for each person. Board at private houses can be pro- 
 cured for much less. And if you are not able to pay any 
 thing, and have the dyspepsia, it is quite likely that I could 
 give you a line of introduction to the doctor, who would put 
 you on the free list, pack you, duck you, all but drown you, 
 cure you, and send you on your way rejoicing, with refresh- 
 ing memories of Soderkoping. 
 
SWEDEN. 433 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 SWEDEN {Continued). 
 
 "\T 7E went on board the canal steamer very early in the 
 ^ ' morning, and found the deck covered with passen- 
 gers taking their coffee as comfortably as if they were at 
 home. This was not breakfast, that was to come by and 
 by; but they turned out early, and all wanted coffee im- 
 mediately. 
 
 The steamer was large, adapted to the canal, the lake, 
 and sea, for all these waters are to be ploughed in going 
 from Stockholm to Gottenburg. One of the sailors hear- 
 ing us speaking the English, addressed us in the same lan- 
 guage, for he had been in the British service until he 
 spoke the English as well as his own tongue. Indeed, I 
 have rarely heard the English spoken by a foreigner so 
 well as by this Swedish sailor ; yet he had acquired it 
 solely by the ear. 
 
 Locks are now frequent, and the passage very slow. 
 One of them was tended by a comely maiden, not more 
 than sixteen years old, dressed neatly with an embroidered 
 petticoat, which she had to expose in pushing the beam 
 around to open and close the lock. This was a novel ap- 
 plication of female influence, but not very pleasing, being 
 the first thing I had seen in Sweden that was uncivilized 
 and offensive. Lock after lock, slowly and tediously we 
 made our way through a pretty country, the fields well 
 tilled, woods and green meadows interchanging often, and 
 the land fenced off into smaller divisions than we had 
 
 28 
 
434 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 noticed in any other country. The soil appeared to be 
 good from the abundance of the growth. The houses 
 were neat, and the out-buildings numerous and well ar- 
 ranged, showing signs of thrift and taste. The look was 
 that of a farming people well to do. 
 
 We enter another lake, short, but very pretty, by name 
 Asplagen, with richly cultivated shores and sweet homes 
 nestling among the trees ; and on the rising grounds we see 
 beautiful pictures of Swedish life, rich and prosperous res- 
 idences, where it is evident that the good things of this life 
 are enjoyed, and plenty of them. 
 
 An elderly Russian gentleman and a Swedish professor 
 of physics in Stockholm were among the passengers ; the 
 Swede had travelled in America, and was very happy to 
 meet an American, while the Russian was greatly interested 
 in learning of that wonderful country. He spoke five lan- 
 guages, and he said that his countrymen, if educated at all, 
 could speak both Enghsh and French. While these gen- 
 tlemen were my constant companions on board, they cor- 
 dially hated each other's country, the old antipathy of 
 Russian and Swede cropping out continually, and making 
 it a difficult task to keep the peace between them. 
 
 Another stretch of the canal brought us to Lake Roxen, 
 a wide and beautiful expanse, the passage through it re- 
 quiring an hour. At the western end of it is the town of 
 Berg, where a hill is to be surmounted by a series of locks, 
 eleven in number, opening one into another, and the process 
 requires so much time that we can leave the ship and make 
 an excursion to an interesting and ancient church in the 
 neighborhood. It is the Vetra-Kloster, Gothic in style, and 
 built in 1 128, when Inge II. was king in Sweden, and he is 
 buried in it. The Douglas family of Scotland, in the time 
 of Cromwell, came to this place to find a safe retreat, and 
 they became famous in the wars of Sweden. They are in- 
 terred right royally in this sanctuary. The mansion they 
 
SWEDEN. 435 
 
 occupied stands conspicuously on the borders of the beau- 
 tiful lake, commanding splendid views of this lovely scenery. 
 Villages are scattered over a rich country, and the spires 
 of churches pointing heavenward tell the pious hopes of a 
 people whose God is the Lord. The church stands in 
 the midst of a large graveyard, and this is filled with 
 
 RoxEN Locks. 
 
 flowers and shrubs and shade trees, and the monumental 
 stones bear dates of great antiquity. The portal of the 
 church was once the prison of a convent which was at- 
 tached to the church, for this was built when Romanism 
 ruled this region as well as southern Europe. The floor 
 is of stone, and the aisles are of tombstones bearing in- 
 scriptions in German, Swedish, and Latin ; epigrammatic 
 
436 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 and striking some of them are, and have silently preached 
 to the passer-by for some centuries. ''Mors certa, Jiora 
 incerta!' and " Hodie miJii^ eras tibVy' are not very senten- 
 tious, but they have their point on a gravestone. 
 
 In a stone sarcophagus of very singular form, with a long 
 inscription upon it, lies the body of Inge II. ; wooden 
 effigies of unknown personages, divine or human alike un- 
 intelligible to me, keep the dead monarch company in his 
 sleep of the ages. Another chapel contains two sarcophagi, 
 in which side by side through successive centuries the 
 royal ashes rest of those whose names are,now forgotten, but 
 might be spelled out, if it were worth the trouble. And in 
 another chapel are the tombs of the Scotch Douglases, who 
 fled their own country and found glory and graves, that's 
 all, in this retired spot in the heart of Sweden. For this 
 is purely a rural church, far from the town and all the 
 busy haunts of men, a fitting place for worship, and a 
 comely spot for graves. It has been used for both, more 
 than seven hundred years. The avarice of man has not 
 encroached upon its acres, nor coveted its stones. 
 
 Returning from our excursion, we heard the sound of 
 children's voices, and were led to a neat school-house in a 
 pleasant enclosure, retired from the street, and being in 
 the pursuit of knowledge we turned in to see and hear. 
 About fifty children were receiving instruction from a mas- 
 ter, who courteously bade us enter, and proceeded with his 
 work. All the scholars, and they were of both sexes, were 
 standing, and reading in concert from a history of Sweden. 
 The reading being finished, the teacher put questions to 
 them on the portion they bad read, which they answered 
 promptly, and showed lively interest in the lesson. Around 
 the walls were suspended maps of the world and of the 
 several countries, and there were black-boards and all need- 
 ful appliances, such as would belong to a well appointed 
 school. In the Universal Exhibition at Paris I had seen a 
 
SWEDEN. 437 
 
 Swedish school-house with its furniture, &c., and had re- 
 marked that no country made a better exhibition of the 
 apparatus for educating children than Sweden. 
 
 Returning from the visit to the Vetra-Kloster, and its 
 graves of the kings and the Douglases, we found that the 
 boat had made its way through the eleven locks and was 
 once more fairly launched on the peaceful bosom of the 
 grand canal. It was the hour for dining, and the table 
 was spread on deck, awnings overhead and at the sides to 
 shelter us from the cool wind while eating. The Swedish 
 dinner, even on a canal-boat, was good, preceded by the in- 
 evitable schnapps and radishes and other appetizers, and 
 followed by a tolerable soup, fine fish, veal, puddings, and 
 various trimmings needless to mention. I give you the 
 bill of fare merely to show that there is enough to eat all 
 the world over, and that you are not likely to suffer for 
 want of comfortable food, even on a canal in the heart of 
 Sweden. 
 
 We pass through many villages, each with its venerable 
 church, and houses shaded with overhanging trees, farms 
 well tilled, and now smiling with growing harvests and 
 heavy clover. I saw no Indian corn, though I looked for it 
 often. Probably the warm weather is too short-lived for 
 the crop to ripen. No women were working in the fields. 
 But we came to a drawbridge, and whistling for some 
 one to open it, a woman ran from her house with the lever 
 in her hand, ground away as for dear life, and by the time 
 we reached it the draw was open for us to pass through. 
 The poor woman was exhausted by the severe exertion, her 
 lips were white as snow, and she looked ready to faint as 
 we glided by her, and the pilot gave her a caution to keep a 
 better lookout next time. 
 
 And now we cross another lake, Boren by name, the 
 most beautiful of any we have yet seen. This frequent 
 change from the monotony of the canal to the lovely 
 
438 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 scenery of these lakes, imparts a charm to the journey 
 across the country which we did not anticipate. We now 
 come to Motala, where the greatest Swedish iron-works are 
 located. An English company has possession of one of 
 the most valuable iron-mines, and the Swedish government 
 has set up a vast establishment here for the building of loco- 
 motives, iron-clad steamers, monitors, &c., which are said 
 to be equal to any that are made in the world. The boat 
 had to lie here for freight long enough for us to go through 
 all the works, which were freely open to our inspection. 
 
 We enter Lake Wetter, one of the largest lakes in Eu- 
 rope. We are soon out at sea, at least so far that we 
 cannot see the land. It is very rough, with high wind. 
 One of the sailors assured me that old salts, for whom 
 the ocean itself had no terrors, are sometimes made sick 
 by the pitch and toss of Lake Wetter. We touch at Wad- 
 stena, a large town from which our good ship takes its 
 name : a place of great importance in the commerce of the 
 country, with shops on the docks, like those of a seaport. 
 What I supposed were bags of grain, lying in great heaps 
 to be taken on board, proved to be dried peas, and they, 
 with beans, must be largely grown in these parts. In the 
 suburbs of the place were elegant residences, with fine 
 parks and beautiful gardens, old and wide-spreading trees, 
 flower-beds and ornamental shrubbery, some of them evi- 
 dently pubhc resorts for the people, and others the ap- 
 pendages of private residences. Wealth, culture, and 
 enjoyment were thus revealed, and I had that pleasure 
 which so often greets me in travel, — the consciousness 
 that a new and strange people, whom I shall probably 
 never see again, are taking just as much comfort in life, 
 and working out the ends of living just as well as the in- 
 habitants of other lands with whom we are more familiar. 
 The Swedish peasantry live well, generally, and are not 
 exposed to the evils of want, as the hard-working classes 
 
SWEDEN. 439 
 
 in Poland and Russia. Labor is cheap, and provisions are 
 cheap also. The houses of the well-to-do people are often 
 made with double windows ; they are rarely more than one 
 story high, the ceilings are low, and thus they are more 
 readily kept warm in winter. Indeed, I am assured that 
 the inhabitants in these northern countries, including Rus- 
 sia, often suffer more from heat than cold in their houses 
 during the severe weather of their cold season. Educa- 
 tion is generally diffused in Sweden, nearly all being able 
 to read and write ; and, taken as a whole, the people being 
 moral, industrious, frugal, and contented, what could they 
 have more ? 
 
 The captain came to my cabin, where I was writing, and 
 asked me on deck to see the sunset and the loveliest view 
 as we approached the village of Forsvik. It stands at the 
 head of a small lake, and is embosomed with field and 
 forest — a sweet picture '; the manor-house, whose owner is 
 also at the head of the iron-works, is large and elegant. 
 Here we pass into the canal again, and through a dense 
 forest, the banks of the canal being bold and rock-bound, 
 and we just graze them as we pass ; indeed, we seem to 
 be more on land than water ; and in fifteen minutes we 
 have cut through the woods, and rush out into another 
 lake, coming soon to the highest level between the two 
 seas. We are three hundred and twenty feet above the 
 sea level, all of which has been surmounted by locks, and 
 now we must begin the descent by the same means, seventy- 
 five locks in all being required to take us up from one sea, 
 on one side of Sweden, and set us down in another sea, on 
 the other side. 
 
 The evening had been delicious on deck, but as it drew 
 nigh to midnight, I would turn in. My companion for the 
 night was the Russian gentleman whose friendship I had 
 secured during the day. His long, white beard had com- 
 manded my respect. He had asked me innumerable ques- 
 
440 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 tions of my country and myself, all of which I had answered 
 to the best of my ability. He had learned my name, — 
 which he pronounced Preem, as all the continental Euro- 
 peans do, — and somewhat of my profession, and he de- 
 termined to do the polite thing, and in English too, before 
 going into retirement for the night. His berth was on one 
 side of the little cabin, mine on the other. We could shake 
 hands across, but we did not. He arrayed himself in his robes 
 of the night : a red night-cap surmounted his head, making 
 a fiery contrast with his snow-white beard. Sitting up on 
 his couch, he addressed me with great dignity and form- 
 ality : " My Reverend Preem, I wish you good-night," and 
 subsided into the pillow. 
 
 In the course of the night we steamed out of the canal 
 into Lake Wenner, the largest in Sweden, and the third in 
 size of all the lakes in Europe. Even in bed we could per- 
 ceive that we were at sea, for the roll of the ship was as if 
 we were on the Mediterranean. But we made the most of 
 the passage before morning, and touched the next day at 
 Johkoping, one of the most important inland towns in the 
 kingdom. 
 
 This Lake Wenner abounds in trout, and to catch them 
 of the modest weight of forty pounds is nothing remarkable. 
 It would have been remarked, however, if we had had the 
 luck to catch one of that weight, or any thing like it. 
 , A Swedish ship-captain entertained me with stories of his 
 life on this canal, with vessels worked by sails, pulled by 
 man, and sometimes bullock power, creeping cautiously 
 through the lakes, and running in shore whenever the wind 
 was up. He said that he had lived all his days in this way. 
 and was now taking his ease. All day, as we were making 
 our way slowly along, we had been hearing the praises 
 sounded of the Falls of Trollhatten, which we were to reach 
 in the afternoon. The scenery had been improving, rising 
 sometimes into the grand, and always picturesque and 
 
SWEDEN. 441 
 
 pleasing, as we passed well-tilled farms and the abodes of 
 prosperous peasants. A range of locks must be worried 
 through to get by the Falls, and this gives us the time we 
 want, to see and enjoy one of the finest cataracts in Europe ! 
 You know they have nothing very great in that line. 1 have 
 seen them all, and written them up as much as they would 
 bear, but they do not amount to any thing very wonderful, 
 nothing indeed to be compared with ours. We have half a 
 dozen falls that would outleap and outroar all theirs, and we 
 must praise them as an off-set to their palaces and pictures 
 and stone women. They have marvels of art ; we, wonders 
 of nature, especially Niagara. Foreigners enjoy a descrip- 
 tion of Niagara by one who has seen it more than to hear 
 of any thing else in America. But they have often been 
 sullenly incredulous when I have assured them that a mighty 
 river, with the water of half a dozen inland seas, gathers 
 itself within banks a mile asunder, and then makes one 
 prodigious plunge over a precipice 150 feet deep, into an 
 unfathomed gulf ! 
 
 Trollhatten does not attempt such a feat. But the river 
 is caught among a mass of rocks in a narrow gorge, just 
 where the mountains break down to the valley, and the 
 stream comes roaring, tumbling, foaming, rushing head- 
 long with power, fury, madness, indescribable. Water in 
 motion is always beautiful, and when a mighty volume of it 
 is struggling with resisting forces, tearing its way over and 
 down the jagged rocks, and among the green trees of over- 
 hanging precipices, what is beautiful becomes sublime and 
 fearful, and admiration rises into awe. In one place the 
 rocks have been actually cut away by art to allow the pas- 
 sage of the water for use, and then the torrent leaps seventy 
 feet at one bound into a frightful abyss. One lofty rock, 
 with a broad, smooth face, like a great tablet, is inscribed 
 with the names of kings, and the dates of their visit to this 
 romantic and interesting spot. 
 
442 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 We are now to take the river. The canal is at an end for 
 us. Ah'eady we have a taste of more exciting navigation. 
 To get the steamer into the river the sailors are working 
 away as if for dear life. One poor fellow is caught by the 
 leg in a hawser-line, carried overboard, and when brought 
 on deck is found to have one of his legs broken. It was a 
 sad termination to our pleasure excursion of three days. 
 We had been brought into such constant intercourse with 
 the men that we knew them all, and felt a personal interest 
 in the poor seaman now stretched helpless on the deck. He 
 was carried to the forecastle, and put away to be taken to 
 the hospital at Gottenburg, but we could not put him out of 
 mind so easily. After the excitement was over, I asked the 
 captain what the owners would do for a sailor thus injured 
 in their service, and learned that they would pay his hospital 
 charges, and nothing more ; in the mean time, while he was 
 getting well, his family must look out for themselves. I 
 then proposed to the captain and the Swedish professor that 
 we should take up a collection among the passengers to help 
 the man's family in their want. To my surprise, they said 
 it was a thing unknown among them, and would not meet 
 with any favor if attempted. They regarded the idea as 
 quite fanciful and preposterous. Well, I said, "In my 
 country the passengers would do it ; if you will interpret 
 for me I will make a little speech, and you will see that 
 they will not only give, but be greatly pleased with the op- 
 portunity of doing something." The professor consented 
 to be the interpreter, and we called the passengers together. 
 I told them that "two or three Americans travelling with 
 them through their beautiful and interesting country had 
 greatly enjoyed the pleasant voyage of the last few days ; 
 but its pleasure had been marred by the sad accident that 
 had just occurred to one engaged in our service. Though 
 he was unknown to us, he was a man and a brother, and in 
 the country from which I came, when such an event took 
 
SWEDEN. 443 
 
 place, we were in the habit of showing our sympathy for 
 the injured by giving him money to Ughten the calamity 
 that had befallen him. You would gladly do so if you were 
 permitted, and we propose to go around with a hat and let 
 every one who is disposed contribute what he or she is 
 pleased to give." The professor turned the speech into 
 Swedish, or at least said as much in that tongue, probably 
 more and better. I could not understand a word ; but his 
 remarks were received with lively applause, and at his allu- 
 sions to the Americans I nodded most intelligently, taking 
 it for granted that he was saying something complimentary. 
 We then received the gifts, and I believe that every pas- 
 senger, male and female, gave something, and with a cheer- 
 fulness beautiful to observe. 
 
 A lone tower, rising above a mass of ruins, with a single 
 wall surmounted by a heap of stones, strikingly resembling 
 a huge lion, is all that remains of Hongfel, one of the most 
 extensive of the old-time castles of Sweden. Here the 
 river divides into two. We enter the left branch, passing 
 near a fertile island ; and, as the sun is going down behind a 
 bank of threatening clouds, the city of Gottenburg, a sea- 
 port on the German ocean, rises upon our view with com- 
 manding beauty as we approach, and see the towers of its 
 churches and the roofs of its principal buildings glistening 
 in the last rays of the summer's setting sun. The harbor 
 is well protected, and the forest of masts presented all the 
 appearances of a busy seaport. The usual crowd was on 
 the wharf as our boat came to, but perfect order prevailed. 
 No rush was made for baggage or passengers, but each one 
 waited to be called for, — a model of good breeding that 
 might be shown to advantage in the wilds of western civi- 
 lization. Those of us who had become well acquainted in 
 three days' companionship now shook hands and bade each 
 other farewell in our several tongues, the broken-legged 
 sailor not being forgotten, as he lay in his bunk waiting to 
 
444 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 be taken to the hospital. We were soon distributed in our 
 several directions, and parted, perhaps not to meet again, 
 certainly not all of us, in this world. 
 
 It will give you an idea of the prices that rule in this 
 country if I tell you that at the wharf we stepped into a 
 carriage with two horses, our luggage was put on, we were 
 driven to the hotel GotJia Kallare, the luggage was taken 
 up to the chambers, and the price for the whole service was 
 less than fifty cents of our money. Sweden still bears the 
 palm of cheapness over all the countries I have seen. 
 
 Gottenburg proved to be an interesting place, though 
 noted more for its commerce with Britain and America than 
 for any thing else. The Merchants' Exchange is a model in 
 its way, combining a hall, and rooms for social entertain- 
 ments, concerts, &c., which are managed by municipal 
 authority. A museum of antiquities, illustrating the his- 
 tory and condition of the country, is well arranged, and 
 would profitably detain the traveller a day or two to study 
 it. The paintings are also interesting, where they preserve 
 the memory of men and things belonging to Sweden, and 
 of these there were many. 'The landlord of our hotel hav- 
 ing learned from some of the Americans in our party that I 
 was connected with the press, took pains to bring me into 
 contact with my brethren of that fraternity in Gottenburg. 
 Mr. Rubenson called and led me to the office of the Daily 
 News^ a paper devoted chiefly to the interests of merchants 
 and sailors. I went through their press-rooms, composing 
 and editorial apartments, and found them remarkably like 
 those I was quite familiar with at home. This paper has a 
 circulation of 8,000 daily, and on Saturday is published an 
 edition of 3,000 extra, because on that day the poorer 
 classes buy a paper for Sunday reading. 
 
 Mr. Rubenson took me to visit an institution the Hke of 
 which I never heard of in any other city, and yet so useful 
 in its object and result, that I had great satisfaction in 
 
SWEDEN. 445 
 
 I am very anxious to ' have it known to the 
 ladies of my own afflicted land. It was established by the 
 energetic benevolence of one of the ladies of the city, who 
 succeeded in getting a building specially erected and fitted 
 for the purpose of giving young women instruction and 
 practice in the arts of domestic life. 
 
 Impelled by a desire to benefit both the servant and the 
 mistress, by improving the qualities of the one, and adding 
 thus to the comfort of the other, this Swedish lady, with 
 charity equal to her countrywoman Jenny Lind, or Fredrika 
 Bremer, established this school. Girls of good moral char- 
 acter, who wish to go out to service, are received, and, under 
 the direction of a competent matron, are made adepts in 
 the sublime mysteries of the kitchen and laundry. The 
 establishment takes in washing and baking and cooking for 
 private families, hotels, and restaurants, and the money thus 
 earned goes far toward paying the current expenses. The 
 girls are taught to put their hands to every thing that must 
 be done in the household. By turns they wait upon table, 
 and the matron is at its head to give instruction, that they 
 may become expert in serving the dinner as well as in cook- 
 ing it, and those wlio sit at table may also learn to be 
 decent in eating it. 
 
 And it was pleasant to learn that admission to this train- 
 ing-house is regarded as a great privilege. It is even se- 
 cured as a reward for proficiency in the free schools ; so 
 that a young woman who has distinguished herself for good 
 conduct in school, is entitled to still further education in 
 this house as a reward of merit. These young women are 
 in constant demand by families, who are ready to pay them 
 higher wages, because they are graduates of a training- 
 school where they have learned the theory and practice of 
 household labor. 
 
 One of the greatest enjoyments of wanderings in foreign 
 lands has been found in the discovery that there are good 
 
446 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 people all over the world ; that they are toiling and praying 
 for the good of their fellow-creatures, trying to make 
 society better, the burden of the poor more easy to be 
 borne, and this by helping them to help themselves. The 
 future of these northern countries is more hopeful because 
 of the enlightened philanthropy of such as the friends I 
 have just met. 
 
NORWAY. 447 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 NORWAY. 
 
 T TP in this part of the world you must be very careful 
 to look out for yourself, in all matters that require 
 certainty as to times and ways of travel. It was hard to 
 learn when a steamer would go north from Gottenburg, and 
 all that we did learn from captains and porters and land- 
 lords proved to be erroneous. But at last it was settled 
 that a boat would be along the next morning from Copen- 
 hagen, bound to Christiania, and if we were at the 
 wharf at four a.m. we could go ! We were called at 
 three, and it was just as light as noonday. The luggage 
 was taken by hand-carts, and the travellers, a goodly com- 
 pany, trudged to the wharf, a sleepy, grumbling set of 
 Americans, who were sore vexed at being waked so early ; 
 four families, who met at Gottenburg, and were now em- 
 barking on the German Ocean to visit Norway. We suf- 
 fered on deck from the cold, and were obliged to seek 
 shelter in the cabin, but every berth, settee, chair, and peg, 
 were occupied, so great was the crowd of passengers on 
 the Viking to-day. Breakfast was served early, beginning 
 with Norwegian cheese, quite equal to basswood, followed 
 by eggs, carviar, beefsteaks, salt fish, and other things, and 
 by the time this was over, the day was fairly opened ; one 
 of the brightest and most beautiful, with its cool, bracing, 
 stimulating air, that we had ever seen. The Skager-rack 
 (we had been familiar with the Skager-rack and Cattegat 
 in the geography from school-days) stretched away to the 
 horizon, seemingly to our own loved land in the west. 
 
44^ ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 At Freidericksvern we landed a large number of our 
 passengers. This is a naval station, and the residence of 
 officers with their families. The hills about the picturesque 
 town are attractive to the mineralogist, and the " crystals of 
 shining feldspar are seen at a distance." I did not see 
 them. Entering a bay, and keeping near to the rock- 
 bound coast, we steamed up a river for several hours, 
 touched at Moss, crossed over to Hosten, a great naval 
 station, and found a host of people on the wharf, to wait 
 the steamer's arrival. Here the fiord, or bay, divides into 
 two, one leading to Dremmen, and the other, which we 
 pursue, to Christiania, the capital of Norway. The moun- 
 tains on the left are bold ; sometimes lofty perpendicular 
 rocks rise from the water. The sight is striking, grand 
 indeed. Night approaches, but not darkness. It is nine, 
 ten, eleven o'clock, and still the daylight lingers. At mid- 
 night we arrived at our destined port. We have been steam- 
 ing almost due north twenty hours. Our baggage must be 
 searched, for Norway has its own customs, though under the 
 same crown with Sweden. But the search was slight and 
 soon over. Perhaps you will be as much surprised to hear 
 as I was to see that the city of Christiania is so much like 
 other cities ; if I had awoke out of sleep and found myself 
 in it, I would not have supposed myself in the northern- 
 most kingdom of Europe, and on the confines of the frozen 
 zone. It has indeed a frigid look, a barrenness of ornament, 
 a precise, severe, and perfectly plain style of building, if 
 that may be called a style which is no style at all. But 
 there is nothing about it to excite observation, except it be 
 that it is more of a city, with greater attractions in objects 
 of interest to visit, than one would look for in Norway. 
 
 The house at which I am stopping, Hotel du Nord, has 
 rooms for two hundred guests ; it is a hollow square, with 
 a balcony on the four sides of the quadrangular court 
 within, and each room on the balcony has a door opening 
 
NORWAY. 449 
 
 upon it. On the piazza of the central building is a plat- 
 form covered with awning, and surrounded with shrubs and 
 flowers, with a fountain of water playing in the midst. I 
 find in these hyperborean regions the people take pains to 
 adorn their houses with plants and blooming flowers, to 
 cheat themselves with the pleasing delusion that they are 
 just as well off as those who dwell in more genial climes. 
 This is true of the dwellers in the cities, and in the rural 
 villages also, where I have noticed that windows are filled 
 with plants exposed to the sun and the passer's eye. 
 
 The stove in my room is of cast iron, and wood is the 
 fuel. As it is now midsummer (July 6), we do not intend 
 to use it, but it is a curiosity. It is four stories high, the 
 lower one for the fuel, and the others are chambers to hold 
 dishes for warming, and also to increase the surface for 
 radiation of heat. We enjoy the sight of it, hoping that in 
 the dreadful weather to come some of our successors may 
 enjoy the heat thereof. 
 
 This morning we took our first breakfast in Norway, and, 
 according to our usual custom of giving you a bill of fare 
 in each country, to let you know how we live in strange 
 lands, I will just mention that we had for our simple repast 
 coffee, cold lobster, beefsteak, ham, tongue, corned beef, 
 fried sole, boiled salmon, herring, with bread, butter, cheese, 
 strawberries, and all other things needed to make out a 
 meal. 
 
 The city has about fifty thousand people in it, and makes 
 progress very slowly. It has a palace, which I positively 
 did not visit, having made a resolution not to be tempted 
 to go through any more, and a museum, which greatly 
 entertained me for an hour or two. 
 
 In these Scandinavian countries (meaning Sweden, Nor- 
 way, and Denmark), they are very curious to discover and 
 to preserve all remiiants of the heathen worship of Odin 
 which once prevailed, and this museum has some very 
 
 29 
 
450 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 precious relics of that dead past. A massive gold collar, 
 and various ornaments, which were found buried in the 
 earth, are very naturally referred to the days of idolatry, 
 when they adorned a statue of Odin. And I am more 
 and more convinced that to this day there is a lurking 
 reverence among the ignorant peasantry for the deity of 
 those old-time heroes, whom their fathers worshipped. So 
 prone is human nature to superstition, and so hard is it to 
 blot out of the popular mind and heart those ideas which,, 
 even in remote generations, got firm hold. 
 
 Another very remarkable memorial of past times and 
 customs treasured in the museum is the girdle and the 
 knives which the gentlemen of Norway used in the good 
 old days, now lost, when they pitched into one another in 
 duels. First, each one of the combatants took a butcher- 
 knife (we call them bowie-knives now), and plunged it as 
 deep as he could into a block of wood. The blade, so much 
 as was not in the wood, was then wound round tight with 
 strips of leather, and the knives were cautiously drawn 
 out, and each man took his own. It therefore had now a 
 longer or shorter point, according to the strength he had to 
 plunge it into the wood. Their girdles were then fastened 
 together, so that they could not get away from one another. 
 Now they went at it hip and thigh, cut and slash, till one 
 or both were killed. If modern duellists were put to such 
 tests of strength and courage, there would be few chal- 
 lenges. 
 
 Much more pleasant to look upon, and a memento of a 
 very curious and perhaps a pleasing custom, which, how- 
 ever, is not of the by-gone times, but still common in Scan- 
 dinavia, at least in the Bergen district, is the crown and 
 girdle and frontlet worn by the bride on the wedding day. 
 But all brides are not allowed to wear such ornaments as 
 these: only brides who have been good girls all the time 
 before. If they have been naughty, they must be married 
 
NORWAY. 45 1 
 
 without these distinctions, and we may well believe that 
 they are therefore very highly esteemed among young 
 women in the north country. It seems to intimate, also, 
 that it is not altogether a rare thing for a bride to be de- 
 prived of the privilege of being thus distinguished, for it is 
 hardly possible that such a state of society can exist any- 
 where as to have an advertisement made at a wedding 
 that a bride is no better than she should be. But the 
 manners and customs of the world are very queer to the 
 notions of those whose manners and customs are very 
 different, and in no part of domestic life are these habits 
 so monstrously diverse as in the matter of wedding cere- 
 monies. 
 
 While wandering through the museum I found that the 
 collection of heathen relics was comparatively small. They 
 are often found by the peasants in their tillage of the land, 
 but they keep them secret and sacred, attaching peculiar 
 value to them as charms and medicines, averting evil and 
 healing diseases. So powerful still is this hereditary heath- 
 enism in the vulgar mind. 
 
 The university is beautifully situated, and handsomely 
 appointed for the instruction of about a thousand students, 
 that great number flocking here to enjoy the lectures of its 
 distinguished professors. But Norway has done very little 
 for science or literature, though such names as Holberg 
 and Wessel are well known abroad. The men of learning 
 in Norway generally publish their writings in the German 
 language, to find readers. Norway would furnish a limited 
 field. Education is general, and it is rare to find a person 
 who cannot read and write. Nearly every town has its 
 newspaper, and at the capital there are reviews and maga- 
 zines which evince learning and ability. 
 
 In the afternoon we set off to go by rail and boat a 
 hundred miles into the interior, to spend the sabbath among 
 the natives in the heart of the country. Going north from 
 
452 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 Christiania we found the scenery tame, but cheerful, as we 
 passed among well-tilled farms, through small villages, with 
 low but comfortable houses, and in each village a neat 
 church, which told us, as we rode by, of two good things, 
 first, that the people were Christians, and, secondly, that 
 they were not split up into sects. Long may it be before a 
 little village in Norway, with five hundred inhabitants, shall 
 require five places of worship ! Now and then in the ojjen 
 country a white mansion gave evidence of wealth and taste. 
 A stream of water and frequent ponds, with saw-mills, rafts 
 of logs and piles of lumber, . showed the staple of this 
 region ; and we saw forests of fir, pine, spruce, and birch, 
 the hardy natives of the North. Occasionally we caught 
 fine views of distant hills, with long intervals of field and 
 forest and villages. 
 
 At EiDsvoLD we came to Lake Mjosen. You can't pro- 
 nounce the name of the lake ? Well, you must do as well 
 as you can. The lake is a beautiful expanse of water 
 sixty miles long, four or five wide, full of salmon and trout, 
 and navigated by steamers, on one of which we are speedily 
 embarked. The company is a curious mixture. Three or 
 four American families, some English, many natives, and 
 all social and friendly, for they are beyond the restraints of 
 society, and are willing to give and take, as people should 
 be, but are not, all the world over. We do not know how 
 many kind-hearted neighbors we have in travel or at home 
 until we break our respective shells and speak out. 
 
 The English commercial traveller is everywhere, and, of 
 course, was on this boat. He is altogether ahead of the 
 smartest, cutest, and most inquisitive Yankee. He will ask 
 more questions and tell you more of his business than our 
 communicative countrymen are disposed to mention. One 
 of them was near me this afternoon ; he was on his annual 
 excursion among the inland towns of Norway, to get orders 
 for his employer's house (iron goods was the line of trade) 
 
NORWAY. 453 
 
 in England. When he began his travels, a few years ago, 
 he was the only agent from the city where the business was 
 located; now, he said, there are twelve houses in the same 
 trade, each one of which has its " commercial traveller " 
 persecuting the natives of Norway into buying their goods. 
 They must learn the language, of course, and then go from 
 village to village all the summer, driving their business with 
 energy, followed by other travellers of other houses, in other 
 lines of traffic. So the shops of England are open at the 
 door of every trader in the most obscure parts of this se- 
 cluded cbuntry. So the iron and cotton and woollen goods 
 of Sheffield and Birmingham and Manchester are forced 
 out of the little island of their production into all the earth. 
 I presume we do our share of the same kind of pushing ; 
 but John Bull is the master of the business. 
 
 On this boat were files of newspapers and a neat library 
 of well selected books in Norse, and German, and in 
 English, for the use of passengers. The large number of 
 volumes in our own tongue showed that they made special 
 circulations on having English-speaking travellers. Indeed, 
 in the summer season Norway is taken possession of by the 
 English. All the streams are bought or hired by sportsmen 
 in England, who come annually, and thus secure the exclur 
 sive right to catch the fish in them. Many who are not aware 
 of this " pre-emption " come to Norway, and are disap- 
 pointed of their sport. 
 
 Close by the hotel stands an ancient church, well pre- 
 served, and very interesting. The pastor resides five miles 
 away ; but he arrived at the hotel before service, for the 
 good people of the inn were his parishioners, and they make 
 him welcome every Sunday morning for a little refreshment 
 after his ride and before his labors begin. He was a very 
 fat man, with a face that did not bespeak the scholar and 
 divine any more than did the faces of my lamented friends 
 Bethune and Krebs, both eloquent and learned, but not 
 
454 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 spirittcel in their physique. He spoke neither Enghsh nor 
 French, and our conversation was, therefore, only of the 
 most general character, patched out of German and Latin. 
 
 At eleven o'clock we went over to the church. It is built 
 of logs, in the form of a cross ; the logs fitted nicely to- 
 gether, and boarded rudely on the outside. No plaster or 
 paint was on the inside. Pine-tree branches, with project- 
 ing sticks, were convenient hat stands. In front of the 
 pulpit the altar was railed off, and over the railing was the 
 national coat of arms. Over the altar were little images, a 
 crucifix. Virgin Mary, and such signs of lingering supersti- 
 tion as the Lutheran Church in these countries still retains. 
 
 The women sat on one side of the middle aisle, the men 
 on the other. The men were fine looking, generally of good 
 height and stalwart. The women were not good looking. 
 They wore no peculiar costume. Many had bonnets on. 
 Some had only a handkerchief on their heads, of white, 
 yellow, red, or spotted, as the taste of each suggested. Some 
 elderly ladies wore white lace or muslin caps, extending in 
 front, and some had a black silk cap on the back of their 
 heads. The men wore plain, black clothes, coarse, but clean 
 and decent. 
 
 They were devout in appearance and very attentive. The 
 preacher was earnest, and in his manner patriarchal, pastoral, 
 affectionate. He had no Bible, and no notes before him, but 
 discoursed with great fluency and fervor. 
 
 After sermon the Lord's Supper was celebrated. The 
 whole congregation communed. The house was packed 
 full of people, and it appeared to me that every individual 
 came forward to partake. They went up in successive 
 groups, knelt, and the pastor placed his hand on the head 
 of each one and pronounced words of absolution. When 
 this was done the assistant came out and put a white gown 
 on the pastor, over the black with a white ruff, in which he 
 had preached. The assistant said a prayer while the pastor 
 
NORWAY. 45 5 
 
 was kneeling, and then intoned a service, in which there 
 were no responses, except from the organ. Each communi- 
 cant received, while kneeling, both bread and wine from the 
 hands of the pastor. 
 
 The service was very long, and it appeared longer to us 
 who did not understand a word of the language used. But 
 it was very affecting. There was so much earnestness and 
 devotion in pastor and people ; they approached with such 
 evident solemnity and becoming fear, and yet with such 
 strong desire, and the venerable pastor, like a father in the, 
 midst of his children, gave them the emblems of redeeming 
 love with such gracious kindness of tone and manner that 
 I was constrained to ask my companion what he thought of 
 it, and he answered, " I should like to go and join them." 
 This would not have been proper, as we were strangers to 
 all present, and it may be that it would have been incon- 
 sistent with their rules to receive us. But our hearts were 
 with them, and we came away refreshed. We had been in 
 communion with them, though they knew it not, and with 
 our common Lord and Master, whose table in Norway is 
 the same, and s])read with the same simple but delicious 
 fare in the north as in the south. And when we all come, 
 as we shall come, from the east and the west, and sit down 
 with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, 
 I hope to meet my Norway pastor and his people at the 
 Supper of the Lamb. 
 
 It made very plain to me the essential oneness of the 
 church on earth. What did they, — these simple-hearted 
 Christians in the heart of Norway, — what did they but 
 testify their faith in Him whose sacrifice is their salvation ? 
 
 It was pleasant to observe that the village was through- 
 out the sabbath as quiet and orderly as any place in our 
 own or any land could be. The scenery around it is pictur- 
 esque and beautiful. Soml)re mountains, sweet valleys, 
 romantic waterfalls, green hillsides, these are the natural 
 
45 6 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 features of this secluded region, where I came to get into 
 the very heart of Norway, and spend a sabbath among the 
 people. 
 
 Cheap as living is in Sweden it is cheaper in Norway. 
 In Lillehammer, — this pleasant village at the head of Lake 
 Mjospn, in the midst of beautiful scenery, where a fire is a 
 luxury in midsummer, and the windows of the cottages 
 blossom with flowers, and the streams laugh loudly as they 
 tumbled along among the hills, where the linen on the beds 
 and the table is as white as the snow of the long winters, 
 — here in Lillehammer I spent one day and two nights, and 
 my hotel bill for five meals, two sleeps, and three rides, was 
 three dollars of our money. That is cheap enough, I am 
 sure; for the eating and sleeping and riding were just as 
 good as you would get at Niagara Falls, where the prices 
 are so high that the Falls appear low in comparison. 
 
 Early in the morning we returned to the steamboat on 
 the lake, to go back to Christiania. A young woman, a 
 cripple, was brought in an arm-chair by two men, and 
 tenderly placed on board. The care they seemed to take 
 of her was touching, and her gentleness made me wish that 
 I had the Norse language at command that I might learn 
 something of life among the lowly and the suffering, in this 
 part of the world. 
 
 At Eidsvold we touched, and saw the people launching 
 an iron steamer^ for lake navigation, of course, and it was 
 new to me to see a vessel launched sideways. 
 
 At Christiania a large party of Americans — and we were 
 certainly in the midst of them — spent the afternoon in 
 seeing the sights of the town, and riding about in the 
 carioles of the country. A cariole is not a carry-all, for its 
 capacity is to hold one, and no more. A boy may hang on 
 behind to hold the little horse when you stop, but you ride 
 alone and drive. Not much driving is required ; you take 
 your seat in this low, uncovered, rattling, comfortless con- 
 
45^ ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 cern, and away goes the rat of a horse, tearing along Hke 
 mad ; and as each person has to have a machine to himself, 
 a dozen of them make a long string of vehicles, v^hich, 
 dashing over the stones, create a sensation. Young ladies 
 from America are fond of this . exciting exercise. It is 
 almost equal to horseback riding. Some English ladies of 
 title and wealth are making the tour of Norway this 
 summer with no attendants, travelling only in the cariole. 
 The government makes all needful provision for travellers 
 that they may not be imposed upon by the post-keepers. 
 Licensed houses are planted along the highways at intervals 
 of about ten miles, where the keeper is obliged to keep a 
 certain number of horses for hire, and if all are out, when a 
 traveller comes he is required to get horses from his neigh- 
 bors. You buy your cariole, — a cheap and miserable thing 
 it is, — hire a bit of a horse, and are off. At the first post- 
 house you leave your horse, take another, paying the legal 
 price for its use, enter your name in a book with any com- 
 plaint you may have to make of the treatment you have 
 received, which the Government Inspector is to read when 
 he comes in his regular tours. These post-houses could, at 
 a pinch, give you something to eat and a place to sleep in ; 
 and a few days and nights of travel in Norway will make 
 fare and quarters tolerable, at which you might have slightly 
 elevated your nose in Paris or Broadway. I have been in 
 several countries and have passed some years in travel, but 
 never spent twenty-four hours in my life without food con- 
 venient for me, and a better place to sleep in than his who 
 had not where to lay his head. 
 
 So we set off from the tavern in the capital of Norway, 
 in a dozen carioles, rushing amain down the rough streets 
 and out into the country to Oscar Hall, and marvelled ex- 
 ceedingly at the taste and beauty of its decorations within 
 and without : nature adorned by art, in lovel}'' grounds 
 about the house, and the views of the Fiord, the mountains 
 ana plains. 
 
NORWAY. 459 
 
 The castle of Agershaus commands magnificent views, 
 and keeps in its strongholds the regalia of Norway and the 
 records of its romantic history. Old guns, relics of an effete 
 system of warfare, bear on their faces rude pictures in brass 
 of barbarians in war. The old castle is a prison now. And 
 if you suppose that it takes an Englishman or even a United- 
 Statesman to make a cute rogue, just read the story of the 
 Robin Hood of Norway. 
 
 In the castle of Agershaus, in Christiania, in a cage of 
 thick iron bars, is immured for life, Hoyland, the Robin 
 Hood of Norway. His robberies were always confined to 
 the upper classes, while his kindness and liberality to 
 those in his own rank of life rendered him exceedingly pop- 
 ular amongst them. His crimes never appear to have been 
 accompanied with personal violence. He is a native of 
 Christiansand, where he began his career. On being im- 
 prisoned for some petty theft, he broke into the inspector's 
 room, while he was at church, and stole his clothes ; these 
 Hoyland dressed himself in and quietly walked Out of the 
 town unobserved and unsuspected. He was subsequently 
 repeatedly captured, and imprisoned in this castle, and often 
 made his escape. On one occasion he was taken on board 
 a vessel just leaving the Christiania Fiord for America. 
 Previous to his escape, all descriptions of irons having been 
 found useless, he was placed in solitary confinement in the 
 strongest part of the basement of the citadel — his room 
 was floored with very thick planks. Here he had been 
 confined for several years, when one night the turnkey 
 said to him, " Well, you are fixed at last, you will never get 
 out of this, and you may as well promise us you will not 
 attempt it." To this he only replied, ** It is your business 
 to keep me here if you can, and mine to prevent your doing 
 so if possible." The following day, when his cell was 
 opened, the prisoner was gone, apparently without leaving 
 a trace of the manner in which he had effected his escape. 
 
460 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 After a repeated and careful search, on removing his bed, 
 it was found that he had cut through the thick planks of the 
 flooring. On removing the planks cut away (and which 
 he had replaced on leaving the cell) it appeared he had 
 sunk a shaft, and formed a gallery under the wall of his 
 prison — this enabled him to gain the court-yard, from 
 which he easily reached the ramparts unseen, dropped into 
 the ditch and got off. No trace of him could be found. 
 About twelve months afterwards, the National Bank was 
 robbed of 60,000 dollars, chiefly paper money, and in the 
 most mysterious manner, there being no trace of violence 
 upon the locks of the iron chest in which the money had 
 been left, or upon those of the doors of the bank. Some 
 time afterwards a petty theft was committed by a man who 
 was taken and soon recognized to be Hoyland. He then 
 disclosed how he had effected his last escape, which had 
 taken him three years of steady patient labor to accomplish ; 
 while others slept he was at work, and with a nail for his 
 only tool. Having money concealed in the mountains he 
 was sheltered in Christiania — -disguised himself — made 
 acquaintance with the porter of the bank — gradually, with- 
 out his knowledge, took impressions of the various locks — 
 made keys for them — and thus committed the robbery 
 before mentioned. He is said to carve beautifully in wood 
 and stone, but is no longer allowed the use of tools. His 
 sole occupation is knitting stockings with wooden pins. 
 Twice during the day, while the other prisoners are not at 
 work, he is allowed to leave his cell for air and exercise, 
 and he occasionally gets the amusement of a chat with the 
 governor, by writing to him that he will disclose where 
 the rest of the bank money is concealed which he did not 
 get rid of while at liberty. 
 
 Then we rode on and took a look at the Asylum for the 
 Deaf, and Dumb, and at the Home for the Aged, and at the 
 Orphan Asylum, and at the Workhouse, and all these in- 
 
NORWAY. 
 
 461 
 
 stitutions had the appearance of being the fruit of intelli- 
 gent philanthropy and Christian charity. 
 
 Manufacturing villages were in the immediate vicinity of 
 the city, with cotton and iron mills driven by water power, 
 and every thing about them suggested thrift and comfort. 
 
 We rode out to the oldest church of the city, and found 
 in the adjoining cemetery the grave of Bradshaw, whose 
 guide everybody carries and ncbody understands. I thought 
 he was living and working in London, but it seems that 
 several years ago he came up here, with one of his own 
 guides, and found a grave. 
 
462 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 DENMARK. 
 
 "XT ?"£ are coming down to Denmark. Down from Ndr- 
 ^ ^ way and along the coast of Sweden. First through 
 the Skagerack and then the Cattegat, in the steamer Ex- 
 cellent Toll, by name, with twenty American passen- 
 gers. Fleets of sailing vessels were in sight, the crews 
 engaged in the mackerel fishery, a great business off this 
 coast. The day was as lovely as the suns of Italy ever 
 show, and the sunset revealed such splendors as I never 
 saw except in Mantua, under Italian skies. 
 
 The sun went down as if into the western ocean, where 
 poets often tell us he " quenches his beams." A few clouds 
 were lying along the horizon, in long rifts stretching a quar- 
 ter of the way around the great circle of the heavens. 
 
DENMARK. 463 
 
 They were burnished with golden splendors, and among 
 the rifts the sky seemed painted with the hues of the rain- 
 bow. The passengers stood on the upper deck, and all 
 were in raptures of admiration gazing upon the mag- 
 nificent scene. Long after the sun was gone the great 
 picture hung on the northern sky, and we watched it till 
 the many-colored painting gradually and finally faded into 
 the sombre tints of evening. The moon then gave us 
 silver for gold, and for some hours after sunset it looked 
 as though the sun were rising ! 
 
 We passed the night on this voyage, touching at Got- 
 tenberg at midnight, for an hour only. The next day (July 
 10) was equally brilliant with the first, and the run along 
 down the coast was exciting and pleasant. About midday 
 we entered the Sound and soon came to Elsinore, where 
 we had no Sound duties to pay. From time immemorial 
 — so long that the date of the origin of the custom is lost 
 in the fogs of the region — the Danes have been accus- 
 tomed to demand and receive toll from every vessel passing 
 Elsinore. No end of trouble was the result of this. The 
 Vienna treaty of 1815, after Napoleon's downfall, confirmed 
 the Danes in their enjoyment of this imposition. Some 
 nations afterwards commuted with Denmark, and the whole 
 thing was abolished in 1857. 
 
 In the time of Tycho Brahe, the famous astronomer, whose 
 house we saw on one of the lakes in Sweden as we were 
 going to Upsala, the Danes built a mighty castle here, 
 called Kronborg, and mounted big guns, so as to sweep 
 the Sound and make it very desirable for vessels to stop as 
 they were going by and pay their toll. If they refused to 
 do so they were spoken to by these guns. And sometimes 
 it was a. word and a blow. This castle is famous in the 
 legends and history of Denmark, and within the last hun- 
 dred years it has held distinguished and royal prisoners, 
 who have exchanged dungeons for the scaffold. Down in 
 
464 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 the subterranean casemates a thousand men may be stored 
 away — soldiers to defend the castle, or prisoners to pine in 
 captivity. In one of these secret hiding places, where 
 neither light nor pity finds its way, a noted mythical 
 giant of Danish story is said to reside. He never comes 
 up to the surface of the earth, but when the State is in 
 danger, and then he takes the head of the army and leads 
 it on to victory. His grasp is so strong that his fingers 
 leave their imprint on an iron crowbar when he holds it in 
 his fist. 
 
 The views from the castle and from any of the elevations 
 in Elsinore embrace the town, the fortifications, Helsing- 
 borg on the other side of the Sound, the Great Belt, the 
 Baltic dotted with sails, — a grand panorama indeed. 
 
 Shakespeare was kind enough to make this vicinity clas- 
 sic and famous by his Hamlet, whose grave is said to be 
 here, and travellers come to find it, as they look for Ro- 
 meo and Juliet's at Verona. In vain we are told that 
 Hamlet did not live nor die in these parts ; that Jutland 
 and not Zealand, was his country. But they pay their 
 money and they take their choice, and most of people 
 choose to believe that Hamlet was buried hereabouts, and 
 any heap of stones with Runic characters upon them 
 would answer the purpose, but they cannot find even 
 this. Drop the letter H and we have Amlet, and that 
 signifies madman^ and so you have the beginning of the 
 story on which the tragedy was founded. And the story 
 runs in this wise in the gossipy guide-books, so useful to 
 travellers, and especially to those who have to write about 
 their travels. 
 
 According to the Danish history of old Saxo Grammat- 
 icus, Hamlet was not the son of a Danish king, but of a 
 famous pirate-chief, who was governor of Jutland in con- 
 junction with his brother. Hamlet's father married the 
 daughter of the Danish king, and the issue of that mar- 
 
DENMARK. 465 
 
 riage was Hamlet. Hamlet's father was subsequently 
 murdered by his brother, who married the widow and suc- 
 ceeded to the government of the whole of Jutland. As a 
 pagan, it was Hamlet's first duty to avenge his father. The 
 better to conceal his purpose, he feigned madness. His 
 uncle, suspecting it to be feigned, sent him to England, 
 with a request to the king that he would put Hamlet to 
 death. He was accompanied by two creatures of his 
 uncle, whose letter to the English king was carved upon 
 wood, according to the custom of the period. This Ham- 
 let during the voyage contrived to get possession of, and 
 so altered the characters as to make it a request that his 
 two companions should be slain, and which was accord- 
 ingly done on their arrival in England. He afterwards 
 married the daughter of the English king : but subse- 
 quently returning to Jutland, and still feigning madness, 
 contrived to surprise and slay his uncle, after upbraiding 
 him with his various crimes. Hamlet then became gov-' 
 ernor of Jutland, married a second time to a queen of 
 Scotland, and was eventually killed in battle. 
 
 I wish we could stop at Frederiksborg, but we must 
 come back to it from Copenhagen. For here is the royal 
 castle of Denmark, built in 1600, and now the repository 
 of works of art and objects of antiquarian interest con- 
 nected with the reigning house. It was in this castle that 
 the unfortunate queen of Christian VH. died at the early 
 age of twenty-three, a broken-hearted victim of slander and 
 conspiracy. In one of the private rooms in which this 
 beautiful woman was a prisoner, she wrote with a diamond 
 upon the window pane this touching and self-sacrificing 
 prayer : — 
 
 "0 keep me innocent, make others great." 
 
 The woodland scenery around the castle is charming. 
 The Royal Forest covers a vast extent laid out with lovely 
 
 30 
 
466 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 walks and drives, and the whole island of Zealand \'& pre- 
 served for royal pleasures in forest and field. 
 
 A drive through this forest brings you to the Castle of 
 Peace, so called because a treaty of peace was concluded in 
 it with Sweden; and perhaps it keeps its name the more 
 fittingly, as the palace is now cut up into apartments which 
 are occupied by families, once rich, now poor, belonging to 
 the aristocracy. They find it yery convenient to live in a 
 palace free of rent, and as the neighbors are all in the 
 same condition with themselves, they are not mortified by 
 the fact that they are dependents of the State. We would 
 call such a place the royal poor-house. In England, the 
 splendid palace at Hampton Court, which Cromwell built 
 and gave to his king for fear he would take it without, is 
 used for decayed families of the British aristocracy, who 
 live genteelly in kings' houses at very little expense. 
 
 Denmark is not one of the great countries of the earth, 
 but very far from being least among the kingdoms. It has 
 a history, and a future too, civilization, religion, science, 
 art, and enterprise. It made a fine show at Paris in the 
 World's Industrial Exhibition, and has no reason to be 
 ashamed of her agriculture, manufactures, ?ind fish. I was 
 surprised to notice in the fields so many of the productions 
 common in the northern States of America. A kitchen 
 garden looked homelike, with its pease and beans and cab- 
 bage and potatoes and turnips, and all the ordinary vegeta- 
 bles cultivated in the same way with our own ; and the 
 crops on the broader farms, wheat and rye and oats ; so 
 that the children, playing the games of the country and 
 singing as they played, were doubtless familiar with the 
 farmers' song, — 
 
 "Oats, pease, beans, and barley grow.'* 
 
 Let us study the history of Denmark for a moment. 
 Time was when Denmark was the ruling power in Scan- 
 
DENMARK. 46/ 
 
 dinavia, which name includes her and Norway and Sweden. 
 Time was when Denmark conquered all England, and 
 Sweyn I., the king of Denmark, was on the throne that the 
 Georges and Victoria have since filled. . Canute the 
 Great was also king of Denmark and England, and a line 
 of kings after him swayed the same double sceptre. This 
 was when the Christian era was in the looo's, and perhaps 
 Denmark has never had a more illustrious period of history 
 than in the first part of the eleventh century. Then 
 England and all the north, with part of Prussia, were 
 under her crown. 
 
 She fell. And not by the superior prowess of any rival 
 foreign prince, but through the treachery and violence of 
 one of her own subjects. Those were turbulent times 
 doubtless, and it is wonderful that the mighty monarch of 
 such a kingdom could be seized, as Valdemar 11. was (by 
 one of his own subjects) while he and his son were hunting 
 in the woods, carried on board a sloop and off to a foreign 
 castle and immured in prison for three years. The proud- 
 est king in Europe was thus insulted and bearded and 
 degraded, while Europe looked on without raising a hand 
 to deliver him. At length the Pope threatened, and one 
 word from him did what the kings of the earth could not. 
 Valdemar was released and restored, but his prestige was 
 destroyed and he never recovered from the effects of his 
 fall. Provinces revolted and became independent. Eng- 
 land set up for herself again. In 1387, Queen Margaret 
 came to the throne of Denmark and Norway, and subdued 
 Sweden. For a hundred years the three Scandinavian 
 countries were under the same government. In 1448, the 
 king of Denmark died, and for a whole century no male 
 heir was left by any sovereign for the throne. Then the 
 German dynasty came in, and the Duchy of Schleswig 
 was united with Holstein, which was annexed to Denmark 
 under Christian I. . There begins that Schleswig-Holstein 
 
4^8 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 question, which bothered Europe and has pkinged the 
 country into war even in our day. The very next king, 
 Christian IL, lost Sweden ; and then Denmark became a 
 httle monarchy, all by itself, which you will find embracing 
 a peninsula and several islands on the north-west coast of 
 Europe. 
 
 England and Denmark have been good friends notwith- 
 standing the unpleasant relations that once existed. Three 
 or four times the royal families have intermarried, and the 
 Prince of Wales of the present day depends far more on 
 the popularity in England of his Danish wife, than on any 
 merits of his own for his future success on the British 
 throne. These pleasant relations were disturbed in the 
 early part of the present century when the British de- 
 stroyed the Danish fleet and commerce; and, since that 
 time, Denmark has cultivated the arts of peace, making 
 for herself a name better than the glory of arms or 
 extent of territory. 
 
 Christianity fought with paganism in Denmark during 
 the eighth and ninth centuries ; and, after a terrible struggle, 
 triumphed over Thor and Odin, whose superstitious power 
 is still felt in the minds of the more ignorant of the people. 
 Then the Romish religion reigned, until the Luther 
 reformation came with healing in its beams, and Protest- 
 antism became the religion of Denmark. The Lutheran 
 form of worship is established, but, under the constitution, 
 toleration is enjoyed. 
 
 In no one department of public interest have I been more 
 pleased to be disappointed, than in the general intelligence 
 prevailing among the people of these northern countries of 
 Europe. They are Protestants, and, therefore, knowledge 
 is diffused ; the people wishing it, and the government 
 encouraging it. No Roman Catholic government favors 
 free schools and the universal elevation of the people. The 
 Danes have a school in every parish,, and every child is 
 
DENMARK. 
 
 469 
 
 obliged to go to school and learn to read and write. There 
 are higher grades of schools in -all the towns, and two uni- 
 versities, — one at Copenhagen and one at Kiel. Thus the 
 
 A DoftlHSTIC SCliNE IN DENMARK. 
 
 means of education being brought within the reach of the 
 humblest, the whole country is enlightened. 
 
470 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 The women are good-looking, and in this matter there 
 are national peculiarities worth noticing. At a fair or 
 public entertainment, where men and women of the working 
 classes are brought together in great numbers, the women 
 of Denmark will be pronounced above the average for good 
 looks, and, perhaps, the same thing would not be said of the 
 men. 
 
 Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark, and the capital of 
 Copenhagen is Thorvaldsen's Museum. Copenhagen has 
 other and many attactions, but this museum is the crown 
 and glory of Denmark. Art has her victories, and those of 
 war are not so enduring in their glory as the fruits of genius 
 and peace. Here in this ancient and beautiful city, in 1770, 
 — a hundred years, save one, ago, — was born Albert Thor- 
 valdsen, the son of an Iceland ship-carpenter. Poor, obscure, 
 and friendless, but inspired with the genius of his future 
 art, the boy made his own way to Rome. He found em- 
 ployment in the studio of Can ova, and his talents soon 
 commanded respect. But he lacked the aid of a patron and 
 friend, and he was about to abandon Italy in despair, when 
 an English banker, by the auspicious name of Hope, appre- 
 ciated the artist, ordered a marble statue of Jason, which 
 was standing in the clay, and from that glad hour his career 
 was onward and brilliant, till he attained wealth and fame 
 unsurpassed by any sculptor of ancient or modern times. 
 He loved his native Scandinavian climes, and often visited 
 the city of his birth, which he enriched with the noblest 
 creations of his marvellous hand. But he dwelt irt Rome, 
 unmarried, save to his art ; and when he returned, at the 
 age of sixty-eight, to Copenhagen, he was received as a 
 conqueror, was domiciled in the palace, and, six years after- 
 wards, died in the midst of the lamentations of the people, 
 who loved him and whom he loved. 
 
 As he made the people the heir of his glorious works — 
 in large part the models of the statuary he had executed for 
 
DENMARK. 
 
 471 
 
 kings and nations and wealthy individuals — it was resolved 
 to erect a monument to his name, which should be at once 
 a museum of his creations and a mausoleum for his remains. 
 In the midst of the city, and on an open square, a building 
 — a vast parallelogram with a court-yard in the centre of 
 
 Facade of the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen. 
 
 it — has been reared ; the successive stories filled with 
 the productions of the genius of this one man, including 
 the minutest specimens, up to the model of his *' Christ," the 
 highest achievement of his, not to say of human, art. In the 
 midst of the little court-yard, surrounded on its four sides 
 by the walls of this museum, so that every window on the 
 inner side looks down into the court, there lie in solemn 
 and sublime repose the ashes and bones of the man who 
 made all these things ! It is silent ; but oh ! how eloquent 
 the lesson of the greatness and the vanity of genius ! It 
 is something, it is a grand thing, to have made all these 
 marbles for the joy and instruction of mankind ; and it is 
 sweet to die with the consciousness of leaving for after 
 generations the works that shall teach them lessons of 
 virtue and strength and beauty. But to die and leave them 
 
472 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 all ! To lie and moulder in the midst of them ! To be 
 rotting while even the clay that one's fingers moulded into 
 life-like shapes is admired — this makes the cup of life 
 an insipid draught, and the wise man cries it is vanity, all 
 vanity, after all. Yet not so vain after all ! No man liveth 
 unto himself ; and one would gladly take the pay that a 
 good, great man gets, who adds to the material wealth of 
 the world the glorious creations of art for all time to come, 
 and then dies in the midst of them. It is more also to be 
 useful than to be great ; and he who lives to make others 
 happy, though not an artist in stone or oil, lives to a noble 
 purpose, and his mausoleum is in the hearts made glad by 
 his kindness while he lived. 
 
 On the outside of this museum the walls are covered 
 with fresco paintings illustrating the mechanical processes 
 by which the statuary was brought to its place. This is the 
 antique Grecian, and even Egyptian, idea of celebrating an 
 historical event. It might be called Thorvaldsen's triumph. 
 Within the frieze of the grand hall is the triumph of Alex- 
 ander the Great. The Hall of Christ contains the casts of 
 the Saviour and all his disciples — that wondrous group 
 which in marble illuminates the chief church in Copen- 
 hagen. And as we ascend from floor to floor, and pass 
 through successive chambers — all of them filled with the 
 handiwork of the same great artist who sleeps in sight of 
 every window — one is filled with admiring awe, while 
 charmed v/ith the beauty of the design and execution. 
 Beauty is not the word, though much here is very beau- 
 tiful. Thorvaldsen was one of the first to appreciate and 
 encourage our own sculptor Powers, whose works are more 
 beautiful than the Dane's. Strength, majesty, power — 
 these are the attributes that cover as with a garment the 
 face, the head, the hmbs of the heroes whom Thorvaldsen 
 by his magic chisel turned into stone. The divine is re- 
 vealed in his conception of the Redeemer of men. The 
 
DENMARK. 
 
 473 
 
 god-like is in Moses and Peter and John the Baptist ; and 
 his ancient heroes are inspired with a sentiment that is 
 easily drawn from the mythology of Scandinavia, in which 
 the worship of Thor and Odin seems to be incorporated 
 ineffaceably. 
 
 Portrait of Thorvaldsen. (By Horace Vertiet.) 
 
 Away in the farthest corner of the museum is a collection 
 of gems and bronzes and vases and coins and antique sculp- 
 ture, which his taste and money had gathered in Italy. Here 
 is the furniture of his sitting-room as it was the day he 
 died, and here is a cast of Luther, which on that day of 
 his death he had begun to work ! Here are sketches he 
 had made with pen and pencil, the dawn of his gigantic 
 conceptions, afterwards made perfect in marble — now in- 
 teresting as the outlines we have of the first thoughts of 
 Raphael and Michael Angelo and others on their immortal 
 works ! 
 
 Never was an artist so honored by his countrymen ; 
 never was one's fame more precious in the memory of his 
 
474 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 fellow-men. And I may easily convey to you an impression 
 of the reverence in which he is held by saying that Thor- 
 VALDSEN is to-day in Denmark what in our country is the 
 name of Washington. 
 
 Vor Frue Kirke, the Notre Dame^ the Church of our 
 Lady, is the royal church — the Cathedral of Copenhagen. 
 
 I worshipped there yesterday ; and of all the days in the 
 year, and of all the churches in Europe, not one could have 
 been selected more crowded with interest to a traveller 
 whose tastes flow in the channels of religion and art. 
 
 For as I came to it there were standing on one side of 
 the portal a statue of David, and on the other one of 
 Moses, in bronze, both of them by the hand of Thorvald- 
 sen, and sublime with the inspiration of his power. I stood 
 a few moments before them, and thought of the royal poet 
 and the inspired law-giver, and wondered at the art which 
 could embody and express their spirit and mission with 
 such silent eloquence. And then I entered the church it- 
 self, and it was all ablaze, not with five thousand candles, 
 as I had seen at St. Peter's at noonday, not with flaring 
 gaslights, nor even the glorious sunlight alone, but with the 
 greatest of modern statues, the Christ in marble, standing 
 over the altar, and the twelve apostles, six on one hand and 
 six on the other, along the sides of the house (Paul being 
 put in the place of Iscariot), and all by the hand of the 
 same master. Thorvaldsen chose this sanctuary as the 
 place to be made beautiful and glorious with his works, — 
 his triumphs. The Saviour is represented with extended 
 arms, as if he were saying the sweetest of all his words, 
 " Come unto me," and on the face of his disciples rests the 
 expression that sacred art might desire to present as char- 
 acteristic of each one of the chosen group. In the middle 
 of the chancel a marble angel, of loveliness unspeakable, 
 is kneeling and holding in his hands a shell, which is the 
 font for baptism. Copies of this are multiplied till the 
 world is familiar with it. Near the door is a group repre- 
 
DENMARK, 4/5 
 
 senting a child walking with his face heaven^vard, and an 
 angel follows, pointing with his finger over the child's head. 
 And on the other side of the door is a Mother's Love in 
 marble. 
 
 Those who worship here from day to day become famil- 
 iar with all this sculpture, and are not distracted, if they are 
 not aided by the beauty and the majesty of such a wealth 
 of art. But a stranger within the gates, for a morning 
 only, seeing it all at once for the first and the last time, 
 would find it difficult to withdraw his soul from the marble 
 and contemplate for an hour the unseen and eternal. 
 And this would be more difficult when the worshipper is 
 unable to understand a word of the service. 
 
 The church was full of people, going out and coming in, 
 as in Romish churches. The officiating minister had on a 
 white robe, ruffles, and red mantle, with a broad gilt cross 
 on his back. He stood before the altar, on which was an 
 image of the crucifixion, and two candles four feet high, 
 and burning. After a brief service and sermon, he admin- 
 istered the sacrament of the Lord's supper to a few who 
 remained to receive it, kneeling ; he gave them the bread, 
 with a few words to each, and an assistant followed, putting 
 the cup to the lips of the communicant. The formalities 
 of the ceremony, the tones of the priest, the tergiversa- 
 tions, the responses of the choir, &c., were similar to the 
 forms in use in the Church of Rome. 
 
 When this sacrament was concluded, I was about leav- 
 ing the house, which was now nearly deserted, when I 
 noticed something going on in the chancel. Twenty 
 mothers, each with a babe in her arms, and a female 
 attendant, entered and arranged themselves in a large 
 circle around the kneeling marble angel holding the bap- 
 tismal font. Twenty women, twenty babes, twenty female 
 friends, not nurses, but god-mothers ; not a man appeared. 
 It was a beautiful spectacle ; perhaps it would be impossi- 
 ble to invent a more lovely tableaux. The mothers, the 
 
47^ ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 infants, the friends, all clothed in white, all before the altar 
 in a circle, in the midst of which was this white angel 
 kneeling, and above the whole the finest statue on earth 
 of Jesus, with open arms, as when he said, " Suffer little 
 little children to come unto me." 
 
 The priest read a form of baptism, and then, passing 
 around the circle, made the sign of the cross on the face 
 of each child ; he then read again ; again he went to each 
 child, and laid his hand upon its head as if in blessing : 
 then he read again. The service was now so protracted 
 that the mothers were allowed to sit down, and then, one 
 by one, each came up with the attendant, and, the cap 
 being removed, the babe was held over the font, the priest 
 took water and poured it three times from his hand upon 
 the head of the child, pronouncing its name and that of the 
 Triune God. 
 
 This being concluded, and as I was coming out of the 
 church, a carriage arrived with an elegantly dressed lady 
 and her attendant with a babe, to be baptized after the 
 people of the humbler class had received the sacrament. 
 Alas ! I said to myself, is aristocracy in religion the same 
 everywhere ? — and cannot the noble of this world be 
 humble before God ? So I would not return to the bap- 
 tism of this " better born " infant, but went on my way 
 praying that all alike might be washed in the blood of 
 Christ, and made children of the kingdom. 
 
 It will surprise you — it certainly did me — to find that 
 the people of these northern countries of Europe give far 
 more time to mere amusements than the Americans do. I 
 was struck with this on coming to Sweden, and saw some- 
 thing of it, but not so much in Norway ; and here in Co- 
 penhagen they are as much given to it as the Athenians 
 were to news. 
 
 Perhaps the French and Italians are more disposed to 
 make themselves merry in crowds. But on recalling the 
 habits of the masses as they are seen in public places in 
 
DENMARK. 477 
 
 Paris and Florence, I think that I was never in any city in 
 the world where so many people in proportion to the whole 
 number go from home to be amused. On the outskirts of 
 the city — but not so far away as to be difficult of access 
 — there are large gardens, so called, laid off with walks 
 and shrubbery and fountains, and in the midst are all sorts of 
 spectacular games and plays, combining in one enclosure 
 theatre, circus, gymnastics, music and dancing, concerts, 
 orations, and whatever is usually found scattered in differ- 
 ent parts of a city, and to be visited only after paying a fee 
 for each admission. To enter this garden — for one is a 
 type of many — you pay about ten cents, and that gives 
 you the entree to nearly all the shows. The theatre may 
 charge another trifling fee, but the one admission makes all 
 these amusements open to the visitor. Around every stage 
 are little tables and chairs, and refreshments are served, 
 if you choose to call for them, at an extra charge. To such 
 places as this thousands upon thousands of respectable peo- 
 ple resort night after night, usually coming before dark^ for 
 the days are long and nights short ; men bring their 
 wives and children, and take their evening meal together 
 in little stalls provided for the purpose, and go home in 
 good season. This is their refreshment after a day of toil, 
 and it is not unlikely that it helps them to bear with pa- 
 tience the burdens of a working life. 
 
 These gardens are the institutions of Copenhagen, for 
 the entertainment of the people. They are cheap, so as to 
 be within the reach of all ; and they are cheap, as one of 
 the proprietors told me, because low prices bring more 
 money than high. Doubtless there are other and more 
 intellectual enjoyments provided for those who prefer 
 them ; but when you consider the enormous expense in- 
 curred to fit up and furnish every night such entertain- 
 ments as these, you see it requires the attendance of many 
 thousands, at the insignificant charge, to make thpm pay 
 at all. 
 
47S ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 On certain days, the Royal Picture Galleries and Thor- 
 valdsen's Museum are thrown open to the people, and the 
 throngs of working people, evidently in very humble life, 
 as their dress and manner indicate, who pack the halls and 
 rooms, show that the people have also a taste for something 
 higher and better than plays. Something might be said of 
 the effect of so much amusement upon the morals of the 
 masses ; but it is not safe for a transient visitor to speak 
 with certainty of any thing but what he actually sees as he 
 goes along. To me it is a pleasant, and only a pleasant 
 reflection, that the people in these northern countries, who 
 do not accomplish much beyond making a decent subsist- 
 ence from year to year, find both time and money to spend 
 in amusements that are not in themselves as demoralizing 
 as the sensual and intoxicating pleasures which so many of 
 our own poor pursue to their ruin. 
 
 You would have to go far and search long before you 
 would find a more interesting museum than that of North- 
 ern Antiquities, which occupies part of the Christians- 
 borg Palace. This northern country abounds in curious 
 relics of past ages, defunct systems of religious worship, 
 modes of warfare now wholly unknown ; and by law al] 
 these remains, wherever found, belong to the crown. In 
 every parish in Denmark the minister is made the agent 
 of government, to have every thing discovered, and that 
 promises to be of any interest, sent to the museum, where 
 a fair price is paid for it to the finder. 
 
 There is scarcely an end to the number and variety of 
 these curious objects, illustrating the manners and customs 
 of the long-buried past. Weapons of war form the most 
 conspicuous feature of such an exhibition, and stone is the 
 material from which the most formidable are made ; clubs 
 and axes, arrow-heads of flint, chisels and knives m^ost sin- 
 gularly and beautifully wrought ; urns from ancient sepul- 
 chres, with bones of other animals than human, are here ; 
 and tradition tells us that the old Norse heroes were buried 
 
DENMARK. 479 
 
 with their dogs and horses, to bear them company in the 
 world of spirits. It is hard to say what part in the funeral 
 rites a sieve could perform, but it is often found in the 
 ancient tombs. 
 
 The Runic monuments are the most remarkable objects 
 in the collection ; and the one that has excited the closest 
 scrutiny came from Greenland, in latitude 73, and is said to 
 bear a date 1135. 
 
 Among the fire-arms of the earliest years of their use, 
 we have old cannons to be loaded at the • breech, and guns 
 on the revolving principle, though we have been in the 
 habit of thinking that both of these are inventions of our 
 own times. 
 
 Besides these collections, there is the Royal Arsenal, and 
 the Museum of Natural History, and the Royal Museum, 
 and many others, which are but the repetition and exten- 
 sion of these and like objects of interest, — interesting, 
 indeed, to look at for a few hours, tiresome after a while ; 
 and I will not weary you with the details. 
 
 Setting off by rail from Copenhagen to Hamburg, I en- 
 countered a gentleman who claimed to be a countrym.an of 
 mine, because he hailed from South America. He was 
 German born, in England bred, and he went to Uruguay, 
 S. A., where he had been twenty-four years in business. 
 He was now travelling with his family in the North of 
 Europe. He was a shipping-merchant, and vessels in 
 which he was interested come from Hamburg and Havre 
 and England with furniture, tin-ware, and a thousand man- 
 ufactured articles, and carry away hides, tallow, and so forth. 
 It was easy to see that he had an eye to business in the 
 midst of his pleasure travel, and that he was learning what 
 wants of the North of Europe could be suppHed from the 
 South of America. My conversation with him developed 
 the beautiful relations oi the different parts of the earth to 
 each other : the climate, the soil, the position of one coun- 
 try supplementing another, and showing that no country 
 
48o 
 
 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 " liveth unto itself " any more than a man lives to himself. 
 There is a thorough mutual dependence running through 
 society and the whole world. 
 
 Hamburg. 
 
 Our rail ride was across the island of Zealand — flat, poor, 
 wet, cold soil ; the peasants' houses were low, of stone, and 
 thatched. The windows were so few and small, they must 
 be ill ventilated, and probably unwholesome. Mustard was 
 
DENMARK. 48 1 
 
 growing in large quantities, fields of rye were fair, and 
 grass was looking well. Cattle abounded in the meadows, 
 — not on the hills, for those were not in sight. 
 
 At ten o'clock at night, and while it was yet light, we 
 reached the steamer at Corseow. It was a large, commo- 
 dious, and well-furnished vessel, excepting that it had no 
 state-rooms. The berths were good, but were all in one 
 open cabin. The decks were crowded with live-stock, — 
 pigs, calves, cows, — whose squeals, bleating, and moaning 
 were to be our serenade till the morning light. A bounti- 
 ful supper was served, — tea and coffee, meats, eggs, &c., — 
 and the charge for the whole was twenty-seven cents ! And 
 this being over, I spent the livelong night fighting, not 
 wild beasts, nor the tame ones overhead, but those pester- 
 ing fleas, which seem to be one of the pet annoyances of 
 the travelling world. 
 
 We arrived at Kiel very early in the morning, and went 
 ashore through mud and rain; and the only way to ride 
 was on the outside of an omnibus, to the railroad station. 
 This is a famous seaport, and like all other seaports, so that 
 Kiel will not have a sketch. We make no stay, but by rail 
 set off for Hamburg. Wheat and rye and buckwheat cover 
 the fields. Little Indian corn is raised in these countries, 
 where the soil and climate are as well suited to it as parts 
 of our country where it flourishes. The gardens are filled 
 with the same vegetables as our own, — potatoes, pease, 
 beans, lettuce, radishes, beets, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, 
 — making it pleasant to know that the good things at home 
 are just as abundant here. The flowers, too, — roses and , 
 lilies and lilacs, others wild, and cultivated, — make the 
 wayside and the court-yards of the humble dwellings smile. 
 All the fields of grass and grain are ridged, and a ditch is 
 made about every twenty feet for a drain. Small tiles are 
 used for underground draining. Few evidences appear of 
 high cultivation ; very little attention is paid to scientific 
 
 31 
 
40 2 ALHAMBRA AND KREMLIN. 
 
 preparation of manures, which might greatly enhance the 
 value of the land. 
 
 At Elmshorn, — a very pretty village where we stopped 
 a few moments, and large numbers of people gathered about 
 the train, as if they were quite at leisure, — old women 
 brought baskets of strawberries and cherries to the cars 
 for sale ; as large and of as fine a flavor, and of such vari- 
 eties as were quite famihar to the eye and taste. 
 
 The train moves slowly on, and the spires of Hamburg 
 appear in the distance. We are now fairly out of Scandi- 
 navia. With hearts full of thanksgiving to Him who has 
 safely led us through our journey, we turn away from the 
 land of Odin and Thor, and in a few weeks are 
 
 Home Again. 
 
 ;. '1® 
 
 Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Jolin Wilson and Son. 
 

 
 
 
 '% " 
 
 % 
 
 
 A^" 
 
 °.'" To'* .#' 
 
 
 V 
 
 '\^ 
 
 s^% 
 
 .0^ 
 
 
 t ^ 
 
 ^.,^' 
 
 s*''^ 
 
 CO' 
 
 vOo. 
 
 
 
 OO 
 
 o^' y " 
 
 \ 
 
 X * ,, ' > 
 
 
 
 
 A^' 
 
 '<>.. v-^' 
 
 a'^^' *^^•l■:^ 
 
 
 
 \. 
 
 o^ 
 
 
 ,0c 
 
 'M 
 
 
 o 0^ 
 
 .^^° .^^"^ ''^' 
 
 %<<f :.m^'h'-^ '\^^ 
 
 V ^ -r^y^-'^- 
 
 
 ^''^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 I' 
 
 ,0 o^ 
 
 
 
 ^ .J^ 
 
 vV '^^ 
 
 ^ * ^ > 
 
 
 .%; 
 
 
 5?. "^I , ^ -^ O 
 
 ^e^/ 
 
 <^ 
 
 
 V ^^ ^^m-'.\. ^ 
 
 o 
 
 V' 
 
 
 ,0- 
 
 
 o5 '^ci' 
 
 ^11^. 
 
 
 f4'» %..^ 
 
 .-^- 
 
 
 
 
 » X "* ^G 
 
 .^G 
 

 ■f^. 
 
 "-.^ c^ 
 
 
 o5 -n^ ^- 
 
 
 ,-0- 
 
 
 
 'OO 
 
 %/. 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 
 
 ■/ 
 
 F ^' 
 
 r ^0 
 
 
 
 >0^ 
 
 
 <:/. c;- 
 
 
 ?5 -^c. 
 
 I <6 
 
 f|: ^^ 
 
 
 
 
 "--'■'-"^f. 
 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 020 666 764 3 
 
 m 
 
 .'ill-. ''l^ 
 
 u 
 
 ♦ (';•;') 
 
 [mm 
 
 
 
 mm