*!"* . V ::'! : ,. : 
 

 
 THE FORGOTTEN PALACE or MALCONTENTA 
 
UNVISITED 
 PLACES OF 
 OLD EUROPE 
 
 By 
 
 ROBERT SHACKLETON 
 
 Author of "The Quest of the Colonial" Etc. 
 
 Illustrations by 
 WALTER HALE AND RALIH L. BOYER 
 
 THE PENN PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 1914 
 
p 
 
 COPYEIGHT 
 
 1904 1910 
 1913 BY 
 THE PENN 
 PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY 
 
 First printing, October, 1913 
 Second printing, December, 1913 
 
 Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 O 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL 7 
 
 II. FINDING THE STRANGEST CORNER or EUROPE 16 
 
 III. IN THE SCILLY ISLANDS 21 
 
 IV. GETTING TO GUERNSEY 40 
 
 V. WHERE KING GEORGE is STILL DUKE or NOR- 
 MANDY 45 
 
 VI. A PENINSULA OF PATRONYMICS 60 
 
 VII. THE NORMAN HOME OF THE BRUCE 83 
 
 VIII. UNEXPECTED SURVIVALS IN AND NEAR PABI&. .... 102 
 
 IX. IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN V.i.iC* liS 
 
 X. FREE AND INDEPENDENT LUXEMBOURG ... ..,,.-.... 136 
 
 XI. NEUTRAL MORESNET 157 
 
 XII. WATERTOCHTJES IN HOLLAND 175 
 
 XIII. THE OLD RED CITY OF ROTHENBURG 189 
 
 XIV. LIECHTENSTEIN: A SOVEREIGN STATE 204 
 
 XV. THE PASSES OF THE ALPS IN SNOW AND ICE 228 
 
 XVI. THROUGH THE DOLOMITES IN WINTER 236 
 
 XVII. A WILLIAM TELL OF UNVISITED MOUNTAINS 252 
 
 XVIII. AN UNFAMILIAR NAPLES 273 
 
 XIX. ALONG THE BRENTA: ONCE A HIGHWAY FOR THE 
 
 WORLD 285 
 
 442279 
 
Illustrations 
 
 THE FORGOTTEN PALACE OF MALCONTENTA Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IN A LAND BEYOND LAND'S END 18 
 
 TROPICAL TREES ON THE SCILLY ROCKS 26 
 
 FIELDS or NORTHERN MID- WINTER FLOWERS 36 
 
 AN ENGLISH CAPITAL UNDER OLD FRENCH LAWS 48 
 
 THE FASCINATING SHORE or GUERNSEY 56 
 
 A BYWAY IN A NORMAN TOWN 68 
 
 A VILLAGE OF THE COTENTIN 78 
 
 AT THE NORMAN HOME OF THE BRUCE 94 
 
 IN A TOWN OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR: VALOGNES 98 
 
 THE CASTLE OF GODFREY DE BOUILLON 122 
 
 A TOWERED GATEWAY LEFT FROM OLD FORTIFICATIONS.. 140 
 
 IN INDEPENDENT LUXEMBOURG 148 
 
 A PROCESSION IN NEUTRAL MORESNET 172 
 
 A SHADED WATERWAY OF HOLLAND 178 
 
 WINDMILLS SEEN ON A WATERTOCHTJE 186 
 
 THE WALL OF ROTHENBURG 192 
 
 A CORNER IN THE OLD RED CITY 200 
 
 A THOUSAND YEARS OLD AND NEVER CAPTURED 210 
 
 THE DELECTABLE VALLEY OF LIECHTENSTEIN 220 
 
 A FAMOUS PASS THAT CAN BE CROSSED IN WINTER. 232 
 
 SEEN FROM A SLEDGE EN THE DOLOMITES 240 
 
 WINTER IN THE ITALIAN ALPS 248 
 
 PIEVE DI CADORE WHEN DEEP IN SNOW 254 
 
 A FUNERAL WITH MASKED ATTENDANTS 274 
 
 A STAIRWAY STREET OF NAPLES 278 
 
 IN A PALACE OF THE BRENTA: AT STRX 294 
 
UNVISITED PLACES 
 
 OF 
 
 OLD EUROPE 
 
 I. THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL 
 
 "X 7~OU are the first American," said 
 
 \ / the hostess of the inn, beaming 
 j coincident hospitality, curiosity, 
 s*== JL an d surprise; "you are the first 
 American to enter this principal- 
 ity!" 
 
 And that was really the begin- 
 ning of it; the incitement, the 
 stimulus, the cause. For there 
 * S comes a thrill, in the very heart 
 
 of the old and traveled Europe, 
 in learning that you are the very first of your own 
 people to find out something new; something im- 
 portant and interesting and new. It made me real- 
 ize the charm of it, and I felt that this should but 
 
 [7] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 be the beginning of seeking out interesting and un- 
 visited places. 
 
 And next day the feeling was conclusively con- 
 firmed, for the Governor called upon me and said, 
 with a dignity which carried his full impression of 
 the distinction of the fact: "You are the first 
 American to enter the limits of Liechtenstein! 
 We know of America, and letters come from Amer- 
 ica, for to your land some few of our people have 
 gone, but never before has any one from America 
 entered this principality." 
 
 Yet it is an autonomous, independent principal- 
 ity, nooked among mountains, between Switzer- 
 land and Austria. It gave me a new idea of the 
 possibilities that lie before the traveler who wishes 
 to find the unknown or little known, yet would 
 like to find it in connection with the usual tourist 
 journeyings, but has neither time nor money and 
 perhaps not even the inclination to travel far from 
 the usual paths. And the very fact that an un- 
 visited place is near the beaten track gives a tang 
 and a zest. 
 
 In Liechtenstein there came a keener pleasure, 
 a finer savor of discovery, in the knowledge that 
 the old white castle, perched precipitously upon its 
 cliff of white rock, is every year seen from car 
 windows by hundreds of Americans going past 
 Liechtenstein on the other side of the valley. 
 
 There are two Europes. There is the Europe 
 
 [8] 
 
The Beginning of It All 
 
 visited of Americans and the Europe unvisited; 
 the Europe known and the Europe unknown; the 
 Europe of the well-traveled routes and the Europe 
 so much away from them that, so far as the mass of 
 tourists are concerned, it might just as well be non- 
 existent. 
 
 And unless one visits the unvisited it is impos- 
 sible to have a just understanding of what Europe 
 really is; unless one goes where few or none, among 
 travelers, have been before him, he misses the most 
 subtile of traveler's pleasures. For the sake, there- 
 fore, of really knowing Europe, and for the sake 
 of one's own enjoyment, satisfaction, gratifica- 
 tion, both the unfamiliar Europe and the familiar 
 Europe should be seen. 
 
 For Europe is more than the tourist hotels, the 
 famous cathedrals, the dimly glorious Old Masters, 
 the great cities; it is all these, and very properly 
 these, but it is also life and customs that have 
 remained unspoiled by thronging visitors, castles 
 that have never known the footsteps of the traveler 
 from across the sea, regions where one finds all the 
 fascination of discovery. 
 
 And there is another and delightfully unexpected 
 side. It is, that if one learns the charm of seeking 
 out the unvisited or little visited, it adds so vividly 
 to his experiences that ever afterward he seeks 
 for the unknown even in the best-known places. 
 Yield to the fascination of the long and lonely roads 
 
 [9] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 of the Forest of Arden, and you will seek for the 
 unusual in the very heart of Paris; follow the- an- 
 cient line of travel into ancient Venice, and you will 
 look with confidence for the unexpected along 
 Fleet Street and the Strand. 
 
 But acquiring a love for half-hidden corners 
 ought not in the least to cause one to lose his sense 
 of proportion and belittle the places that are com- 
 monly seen. Because you come to know and appre- 
 ciate the charm of Vaduz as one of the independent 
 capitals of Europe, you should not underrate the 
 value of such capitals as Vienna or Rome. It is the 
 man who knows Germany best who will most appre- 
 ciate Moresnet, the man who knows England best 
 who will most appreciate the Scillys. 
 
 The charm of seeking out the little known is 
 infinitely enhanced by the fact that it may so easily 
 be done. For there is a vast deal of the unvisited 
 that is readily reachable, lying as it does in an ac- 
 cessible seclusion, off the usual routes, but delight- 
 fully near. Yet the mistake should not be made of 
 going to places that have remained unvisited be- 
 cause they are not particularly worth visiting; it is 
 better to go to places that are of essential signifi- 
 cance and charm. Fortunately there are many 
 such places, and each discovery is an incentive to 
 the search for more. 
 
 Throughout, in Liechtenstein, the first of my un- 
 visited places of old Europe, I felt like a Colum- 
 
 [10] 
 
The Beginning of It All 
 
 bus. For a discoverer needs not to find an unin- 
 habited region; it need only be new to his own 
 people. Columbus discovered America, but the 
 native American was there before him; Living- 
 stone explored Africa, yet none the less there were 
 Africans there before his explorations; and so any 
 of us may truly discover a region, so far as we our- 
 selves are concerned, even though we find the native 
 Europeans there. The fact that I found Liechten- 
 steiners in Liechtenstein did not at all affect the 
 point of view of those Liechtensteiners that I was a 
 discoverer, nor did it affect my own. 
 
 The old inn was delightful, with its floors of 
 stone or of waxed and polished wood, and for the 
 first day I ate in a delightful old room with walls of 
 paneled wood that had long since mellowed to a 
 soft nut-brown. The tables were hand-hewn and 
 bare, and the chairs were products of peasant handi- 
 craft, not without sturdy distinction of outline. 
 The hostess was eager to please the stranger, and 
 I was given the best of the inn's few rooms, a room 
 low-ceilinged, immaculately clean, with an ancient 
 smell of wood-fires and beeswax, the beeswax being 
 on the floor, and the wood-fire (for it was in winter) 
 being within a great cube of stone, at the side of the 
 room; an ancient stone stove, stoked only from the 
 hall the stoking being frequent and generous, 
 with much dull and deadened noise of stirring poker 
 and hurtled logs. There was vin de Faduz; there was 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 peasant bread baked by the village baker from home- 
 grown village-milled wheat bread that made fra- 
 grant half the capital when the oven was drawn 
 there were vegetables that had been grown in the 
 inn's own garden and stored in its great cellars. 
 And there was the daughter of the hostess, the 
 pretty maid of the inn, she of the black hair and 
 lips of dewy red, and frock and apron in a harmony 
 of brown and black, and a manner of shy curiosity 
 as to the explorer who had ventured into Liechten- 
 stein. It was charming to hear her prettily talk 
 long-syllabled German, and still more charming 
 to hear her chirp a pretty French, which she, like 
 the other children of the principality, could freely 
 learn at the liberal schools of the liberal ruler. 
 In all, I felt as if living a traveler's tale of old, for 
 all was so different from the usual impersonal service 
 of these modern times. 
 
 With the coming of the second day I had to relin- 
 quish the delight of dining in the paneled room, 
 and must sit in state in a stiff and formal apart- 
 ment on the second floor, while the hot dishes, 
 devotedly cooked for me alone, cooled as they 
 were carried through cold corridors and up the 
 stairs a room, however, which gloried in shelves 
 of fine old pewter. And I yielded to the change, 
 for I saw that it was due alike to the dignity of the 
 house and of myself; it was because of the call of 
 the Governor, beyond which there could not be 
 
 [12] 
 
The Beginning of It All 
 
 greater local honor, for the Prince himself lives in 
 Vienna. 
 
 When I add that the name of the Governor is 
 Carl von In der Maur, auf Strelburg und zu Freifeld 
 (I quote his card), that to his title of Cabinets rat 
 he adds that of Landesverweser im souveranen 
 Fiirstentume Liechtenstein (Governor of the sover- 
 eign Principality of Liechtenstein), and that he is 
 the trusted personal representative of his absent 
 Prince, it will not seem surprising that the innfolk 
 and townspeople stood properly in awe, not only 
 of him, but of any to whom he unbent. 
 
 I returned his call, and the day following that 
 he came again to the inn, this time to cicerone me 
 to the ancient Liechtenstein castle that stands in 
 perched ruin far above. 
 
 To do proper honor to Liechtenstein and to 
 America, we were to go in the Governor's carriage 
 (the only carriage in the principality, so far as I 
 remember), in full form, with coachman and foot- 
 man in brilliant liveries, and it was amid the re- 
 spectful awe of a group of gathered onlookers that 
 we made our triumphal start. 
 
 But the road shortly became steep, and then 
 steeper; it had really been made for a period ante- 
 dating carriages, when men rode only on horses 
 and trained their horses to climb like goats. Un- 
 obtrusively, the footman dropped off and fell in 
 close behind, thus becoming a footman in fact as 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 well as in name. Up and up, higher and higher, 
 steeper and steeper, the road mounted, and soon 
 the horses were laboring so hard that the coach- 
 man was fain also to take the ground and coax and 
 lead his panting pair of roans. It was evident 
 that seldom before, if ever, had the horses been 
 set to clamber up this mountain road. 
 
 Meanwhile, with fine detachment, the Landes- 
 verweser im souveranen Fiirstentume Liechtenstein 
 spoke, charmingly conversational, of this thing 
 and that, of world-politics, of the splendid scenery, 
 of my own journeyings and of America. 
 
 But the time came when he could no longer 
 remain oblivious. "I am about to get out and 
 walk," he said, "but I beg of you " 
 
 But, of course, then I also walked, and thus, 
 through groves of noble beech trees, we attained 
 the splendid cliff and drew up in front of the castled 
 ruin; yes, "drew up," for the horses were still with 
 us, and liveried coachman and liveried footman 
 were still with us, dignity demanding that there 
 be no such weak giving up as would have been in- 
 volved in halting twelve legs of the party on the 
 mountain side and sending them back crestfallen 
 to the capital; we drew up, I say, upon the noble 
 cliff, beside the noble old ruin, and looked off at the 
 noble view. 
 
 That was the beginning of it. Once tasting the 
 fine flavor of untrodden ways, I determined not to be 
 
The Beginning of It All 
 
 content with a single success, but to find other un- 
 known or little known places quite as important 
 and quite as interesting. And from time to time, 
 since then, I have sought such places out, without 
 ever departing widely from the paths followed by 
 those who go to London, to Paris, to Venice, to 
 Berlin. 
 
 And in this book I write of some of the places I 
 visited, reaching them by train, by diligence, by 
 wagon, by little boat, by sledge; a number of locali- 
 ties that make an easy zigzag from Land's End to 
 the Adriatic; localities that can be visited as a series 
 or which can readily be explored on little trips just 
 off the customary routes. And I found a never- 
 failing joy in thus journeying about old Europe. 
 
 
 . 
 
II. FINDING THE STRANGEST CORNER 
 OF EUROPE 
 
 HAD long been impressed 
 by the bleak savagery of 
 the Scilly rocks, the dan- 
 gerous and desolate as- 
 pect that they offer 
 to those who view them 
 from the decks of the 
 passing liners; the low 
 black reefs, and the 
 rounded, wicked heads 
 
 of rock, some greened over with slippery growths, 
 some bare, that seem to emerge and sink as the water 
 goes over them; and so, when it came to me that 
 there was another side to it all; that those rocks, 
 so bare and black and ominous, so apparently un- 
 inhabited and uninhabitable, really sheltered a dis- 
 trict glowing with a lush and tropical growth and 
 lived in by a unique community, it seemed as if it 
 must be particularly worth visiting. And it was. 
 I went there from Plymouth, leaving my steamer 
 there and taking a train for Penzance, the sailing- 
 point for the Scillys. 
 
 Plymouth itself no longer has anything of the 
 past to show the visitor. It is a clean, comfortable, 
 
Finding the Strangest Corner of Europe 
 
 pleasing little city, neat and new far newer than 
 the Plymouth of America! but in connection with 
 its harbor there are two impressions that will be 
 forever memorable. For it was from Plymouth 
 that the Pilgrims sailed to a future, for themselves 
 and their descendants, beyond their wildest imagin- 
 ings, and it was in Plymouth harbor that the great 
 Napoleon, a captive on an English ship, had his 
 first and last view of the country that he had so 
 recently dreamed of conquering, but which was, 
 instead, sending him from his empire of Europe to 
 exile and nothingness. 
 
 From Plymouth to Penzance is a charming ride of 
 eighty miles; and the English trains, of whose 
 swiftness such wonderful tales are told, cover the 
 distance in the dignified dilatoriness of from three 
 to four hours. But you have no desire for haste; 
 you are in England to see England, and this is one 
 of its most picturesque regions; for the gardens and 
 fields and trees, the hedges and winding roads, the 
 gently rolling land, the houses of weathered stone, 
 all glimpsed successionally, are a delight to the 
 eye. From London the ride to Penzance is a little 
 longer; take a night express, and you will leave 
 London at nine and reach Penzance for breakfast, 
 but it is more pleasurable to take a day train and 
 reach Penzance in time for dinner. In fact, the 
 wise traveler in Europe to whom time and money 
 are important, seldom travels at night except between 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 England and the Continent, for so much that is of 
 interest and importance, in any of the countries, 
 may be seen from the car windows. 
 
 Penzance itself is a pleasant town, but when that 
 has been said all has been said. In spite of operatic 
 fame there are not even pirates there! no, not 
 even, so far as my experience goes, among hotel 
 folk or shopkeepers. It is itself ten miles from 
 Land's End, but there is no town nearer than it to 
 that point of jagged rocks, and so, being the far- 
 thest of towns and harbors, it is the point of depart- 
 ure for the Scillys, and little steamers ply from the 
 town to the islands several times a week; in summer 
 for the English boarder and casual tripper, and in 
 winter for the chief industry of the islands. Thirty 
 miles out beyond the supposititious ultima thule, 
 Land's End, and completely out of sight from where 
 its sentinel rocks watch over the sea, the bleak-black 
 islands lie; and there are somewhere from two 
 score to two hundred of them, the computation 
 being dependent upon whether a good many of the 
 islands are classed as rocks or a good many of the 
 rocks as islands. It takes some four hours or more 
 to reach the Scillys from Penzance, and as they are 
 right out in the ocean, with nothing between them 
 and North America, the winds come sweeping with 
 such force as often to rouse tremendous seas. I 
 thought the passage over was rough, with the little 
 steamer standing first on one end and then upon the 
 
 [i 8] 
 

 IN A LAND BEYOND LAND'S END 
 

 
 ^ 
 
 
Finding the Strangest Corner of Europe 
 
 other, but it remained for the return trip, some 
 days later, to show what the sea thereabouts could 
 really do. 
 
 But one ceases to notice the roughness when, out 
 of the sea, there begin to rise rock after rock, and 
 one low promontory after another; and finally the 
 little boat is steered precariously between jagged 
 reefs, and through a narrow passage, and into an 
 interior island-locked bay, and up to the pier of 
 the capital of the archipelago, on one of the five 
 islands that are inhabited. 
 
 The islanders will tell you how, one morning 
 scarce a dozen years ago, they awoke to find that 
 in the night a fleet of British warships, without 
 the aid of a local pilot and following only the leader- 
 ship and signals of the flagship, had quietly entered 
 through the narrow, reefed and rocky channel and 
 lay at anchor there; and they say with awe (for, 
 descendants of generations of sailors, they are them- 
 selves always ready to honor good sailing) that the 
 captain of every British warship must be able to 
 enter, unassisted, any harbor in the world. 
 
 And if you should say that it was not always so, 
 even in the good old days of wooden walls, for the 
 greatest of all disasters in English naval history hap- 
 pened on the Scillys because an admiral lost his 
 bearings and ran his ships upon the rocks, they will 
 hesitate for a moment, impressed, and then will 
 reply that it is not precisely a case in point, for the 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 admiral was not steering to enter the haven, but was 
 trying to avoid the Scillys altogether. 
 
 St. Mary's is the principal island and Hugh 
 Town is the capital; a little, low-set town, looking 
 out quietly over the land-locked water. There I 
 landed, and I put up at one of the two little inns, 
 and was fairly within the strangest corner of Eng- 
 land. 
 
III. IN THE SCILLY ISLANDS 
 
 ERE is fantastic, impossible 
 England romantic, prepos- 
 terous England. Also, it is 
 practically an unknown Eng- 
 land. Rarely has an Ameri- 
 can come here except when 
 wrecked, and usually, then, 
 f he has been in no condition 
 _ to continue his journey, and 
 
 has been fortunate if he was 
 
 found and a stone placed over him. Even to most 
 of the English the region is unknown. Add to this 
 that it is tropical England, and even then the 
 enumeration of its peculiarities is not complete, 
 for it is a place of contradictions, of contrasts, of 
 incongruities. 
 
 And the people set here in the midst of the sea, 
 within barriers of bleakness, within these naked 
 shores of windy desolation, are not principally fol- 
 lowers of the sea. They are tillers of the soil! In 
 the Scillys it is the unexpected that one must al- 
 ways come to expect. Beginning with the contra- 
 dictoriness of being land far out beyond Land's End 
 and continuing with the contrast of palm trees and 
 savage reefs, not in the Indian Ocean, but here in 
 
 [21] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the North Atlantic, there comes then this further 
 touch that the men of these sea-girt islands have 
 little to do with things of the sea. 
 
 The government of the Scillys may be termed an 
 absolute despotism. So the people consider it, and 
 they like it, and they love to refer to their ruler as 
 "the King." And this beneficent despot, this lord 
 of the isles, this ruler who saith unto one man Come, 
 and he cometh, and to another, Do this, and he 
 doeth it, is plain Mr. Smith! It is the glorification, 
 the apotheosis of Smith. In a land where rank is 
 worshipped, no marquis or duke wields such un- 
 qualified power as does this simple "Mister." 
 
 And, marvels on marvel's head accumulating, he 
 does not even own the islands. He is but lessee 
 from the English government, and while lessee is 
 looked upon as their lord proprietor. 
 
 He pays all the taxes, and thereby his people are 
 inordinately pleased. True, they pay "rates" for 
 roads and schools, but they draw a distinction, per- 
 haps not always discernible by strangers, and for 
 that very reason the more delightful, between these 
 payments and taxes. 
 
 "What power does Mr. Smith possess?" I asked 
 an islander. 
 
 "Oh, he has all power," was the reply. 
 
 "But what can he do to you?" 
 
 "We'd better be good, for he can do anything to 
 us," came, in awed sincerity. 
 
 [22] 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 As a matter of fact, he can punish, as chief of the 
 justices of the peace, to the limit of a few months' im- 
 prisonment, and if there is any right of appeal from 
 his decisions the islanders have neglected to learn it. 
 
 But that is only a small part of his power. He 
 wields absolute control over rents, leases, steamer- 
 landings, all the pleasures and all the business of the 
 islands. He is not reticent in expressing his will, and 
 everywhere his will is supreme. 
 
 The people bitterly resent being called " islanders " 
 as if this were not pre-eminently what they are! 
 Yet they equally resent all reference to their islands 
 as "rocks." Their name, so they insist, is "Scil- 
 lonians." 
 
 In the old days the Scillonians were not a farmer 
 folk. They were, in order of importance, wreckers, 
 smugglers, sailors, pilots, fishermen. Well may 
 wrecking be considered the principal industry of the 
 past, for the wrecks of the Scillys are numbered in 
 thousands. Every rock has its remembered wreck 
 or wrecks, and the number of unremembered wrecks 
 is legion. 
 
 Steam changed the Scillys. Wrecks grew fewer. 
 Steam fishing-boats competed too successfully with 
 sails and oars. Few ships sought refuge in the road- 
 stead. Poverty impended. And then, three-quarters 
 of a century ago, came the advent of the first Mr. 
 Smith, Augustus Smith, an uncle of the present 
 lessee. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Augustus Smith was a wise, farseeing, arbitrary 
 man; a beneficent tyrant. He instituted an iron 
 rule, and exerted vigorous oversight. He ordained 
 compulsory education forty years before it became 
 the law of England. And education was needed. 
 It was only a century ago, so old men say, that there 
 were no books upon the islands except a Bible and a 
 Doctor Faustus. The people decided to secure a 
 new library and sent to Penzance for another 
 copy of Faustus. 
 
 This greatest of all Smiths was a miracle worker, 
 in the sense, that highest and best sense, that a man 
 can be a worker of miracles who is able to perceive 
 the possible at the very heart of apparent impos- 
 sibility. He saw that here and there in sheltered 
 nooks the primrose and the violet grew wild and the 
 wall-flower tossed its perfume to the winds, while 
 snow fell swirling in London streets. But to him it 
 was more than a phenomenon; it was an inspiration. 
 It was more than a curious contradiction; it pointed 
 out the way to give to his unprosperous people 
 prosperity. If a few flowers could grow by chance 
 on those windswept islands, a great many flowers 
 could be grown by cultivation; whereupon he insti- 
 tuted the growing of early flowers for the London 
 market. He showed his amazed people how to make 
 the almost deserted islands to blossom with narcissus 
 and jonquil and daffodil and lily. 
 
 He divided the arable ground into little holdings, 
 
 [24] 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 and taught the protective virtues of hedges and 
 stone walls. And he decreed that no family should 
 keep more than one son at home, to make his living 
 from the tiny patch, nor more than one daughter to 
 assist with the flowers and with the household 
 tasks. Surplus sons and daughters were to go to 
 sea, or the army, or the mainland, or find definite 
 employment, or marry and secure little holdings of 
 their own. Many were banished; but the grief and 
 rage of the islanders gradually turned to devoted 
 love, for prosperity came; and now, from early 
 January and throughout February and March, the 
 shipments of flowers are estimated only in tons. 
 
 And winter is the time for the seeing of the Scillys. 
 True, the sea is rougher, and the night wind is more 
 chill, but it is in winter that the splendid fields of 
 flowers may be seen. They are not on every island; 
 like the inhabitants, they are on but few, making of 
 those few, to quote a Swinburne line: "a small 
 sweet world of wave-encompassed wonder." 
 
 And Despot Smith did more. He planted trees 
 and plants where there was but windswept heath. 
 And what trees and what plants! Giant palms of 
 the tropics; rhododendrons twenty feet in height; 
 camellias flowering gloriously. There are bamboo 
 and aloe and magnolia. Within his private estate,, 
 on Tresco, where he has wrought all this, are the 
 crumbling arches of an ancient abbey, now tropically 
 embowered, where anciently monks prayed in an 
 
 [25] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 infinite bleakness. He has made Tresco a garden 
 which, considering everything, is the most remark- 
 able garden in the world. 
 
 But Smith died, and another Smith reigned in 
 his stead. Like his uncle and predecessor, whose 
 rule of almost forty years was despotism tempered 
 and controlled by wise beneficence, the present 
 Smith wields a similar power in a similar way. He 
 does nothing illegal, and all is for his people's good, 
 but in practice it is an anomaly. And as if with 
 intent to accentuate the glorification of the family 
 name, his forebears doubled his cognomen, he being 
 not only a Smith, but a Smith-Dorrien-Smith ! 
 
 For centuries islands predominantly of wreckers 
 and smugglers, they are now islands of the law- 
 abiding. Schools and lighthouses, churches and 
 wireless telegraphy have come, but wrecks have 
 decreased, and crime is rare. Yet there are no 
 lawyers, the people having inherited deep-grained 
 dislike of all legal procedure. The four subjustices, 
 seldom disturbed by official duty, foregather every 
 Saturday evening for friendly confabulation. The 
 police force of the islands is never overworked. 
 
 That force consists, to be precise, of part of one 
 entire man. The sole policeman is contrived more 
 than a double debt to pay, for by day he winds the 
 town clock, inspects sundry school and sanitary 
 matters, sweeps the council-chamber, busies himself 
 diversitively, and not until nightfall does he assume 
 
 [26] 
 

 
 
 TROPICAL TREES ON THE SCILLY ROCKS 
 
abl 
 Bir 
 
 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 the simple insignia of his rank. "A man must live," 
 he says, with a futile attempt to veil his pride as 
 cap is assumed and baton grasped- Proudly he 
 parades; and when, once a year or so, he goes to the 
 mainland with a prisoner requiring more than the 
 simple restraint of the Scilly lock-up, it is with ap- 
 prehension, for he realizes that he leaves an archi- 
 pelago unprotected. 
 
 There is a town-crier, too. He labors with hands 
 more than voice, for it is seldom that there is forth- 
 coming the needful shilling. As with the policeman, 
 there is no pomp or panoply. A cap, a bell (diverting 
 juxtaposition), and he is translated indeed. The 
 thatched roof of his cottage caught fire recently, 
 and, while neighbors worked to save it, his own dis- 
 tress was deep, perplexed as he was as to whether 
 to join the fire-fighters or for once go through the 
 town shouting news that was worth while. 
 
 Seen from the ocean-liners the Scillys are but 
 naked shore and windswept reef. But the liners are 
 of vast interest to the islanders! They are far 
 nearer to Scillonian Jife than is the nearest land. 
 These sons of the sea not only differentiate line 
 from line, but often ship from ship, and have come 
 to know peculiarities of the courses steered by dif- 
 erent captains uncanny, this silent watch by these 
 people who have the blood of countless generations 
 of wreckers in their veins. 
 
 A taciturn, reticent folk; yet, coming to know 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 them, you will be told such tales as that, but a few 
 months ago, one of the islanders saw, looming out 
 of the close-clinging mist, a giant liner bearing 
 straight upon his little patch of flowers. There was 
 no opportunity for warning but, by some miracle 
 of swift reversing, the great steamer quivered and 
 stopped, then slowly vanished into the deep, shiver- 
 ing grayness. 
 
 They point out, gravely and quietly, these folk, 
 where they expect the next great wreck to be. Not 
 by that flower garden; that was of the aberrant. 
 Nor on the rocks beside that most exposed of all the 
 lighthouses of the world, the Bishop; although there, 
 years ago, a steamer from New York lost more 
 than three hundred of its passengers. No, it is upon 
 a certain obscure reef that the islanders expect 
 some twentieth-century racer to rush; for the cap- 
 tains of that line steer too close to it, they say. 
 
 The talk one evening turned to tales of that great 
 Bishop wreck. "The islands were covered with 
 American money," croaked an old man who had 
 dodderingly listened. My silence, thinking of what 
 this vivid indirectness implied, seemed to them to 
 imply criticism. "Why should we not have what we 
 find?" said one, defensively. "It would only go to 
 the government!" 
 
 As far back as the time of Henry the First there 
 were royal grants of "the islands and their wrecks," 
 and frequent was the phrase in centuries following. 
 
 [28] 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 With royal encouragement, why should they not be 
 wreckers ! 
 
 One Sunday, long ago, service was in progress 
 when there came the cry of "Wreck!" The men 
 started from their seats. In a' moment there would 
 have been a stampede. But they cowered back as 
 the minister sternly thundered a warning. He 
 strode to the door. There was a moment of sus- 
 pense. Again his voice arose. "Let's all start fair!" 
 he shouted, throwing off impeding cassock as he ran, 
 while his congregation labored at his heels. 
 
 Most curious of all wrecks was that of a bark, 
 with a cargo of beads, that went ashore more than 
 two hundred years ago. Nothing was ever known 
 of it, for only some unidentifiable wreckage and a 
 single dead body were found an uncanny custom 
 of the currents is to carry dead bodies away so, 
 nothing was ever known but that it was a ship with 
 a cargo of beads; and so generous has been the ocean 
 with this treasure, that throughout these two cen- 
 turies it has intermittently been tossing beads ashore, 
 yet so frugally that the supply is not yet exhausted, 
 for in a few minutes' search I found some that 
 had been thrown there since the last search of the 
 islanders. 
 
 Dire tales cling grimly to these reefs: of false 
 lights, of lights extinguished at most bitter need, of 
 shipwrecked men fighting off apparent rescuers and 
 deeming the sea the less ferocious foe. 
 
 [29] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Upon St. Agnes there is a frightful cove which 
 bears St. Warna's name; rock-hemmed, with merci- 
 less rock covering what ought to be a beach, and with 
 nothing to relieve the rocky savagery. At the edge 
 of the rocky shore is a well; and beside that well, 
 in ancient days, islanders gathered, once a year, to 
 pray to St. Warna to send them plethora of wrecks. 
 They prayed for wrecks, those men, as the inhab- 
 itants of happier regions pray for harvests. They 
 were sincere; and they deemed that the answers 
 justified their faith as, indeed, the number and 
 frequency of wrecks in the old days of sailing ships 
 might not unfairly seem to imply. 
 
 A religious-minded folk, judging from the sainted 
 cognomens of the isles, the Scillonians must an- 
 ciently have been. St. Helen, St. Warna, St. Mary, 
 St. Agnes, St. Martin such are names which the 
 old-time devoutness applied. 
 
 And, grim though are the islands and their history, 
 the Scillonians are not without a certain sense of 
 salty humor. 
 
 A ship was sailing home from the Indies. The 
 night was tempestuous and fog crept over the sea. 
 The captain feared the Scillys. "Is there any one 
 who knows the rocks?" said he. 
 
 A Scillonian responded and was given the helm 
 and suddenly there came a crash. 
 
 "You said you knew the Scillys!" cried the 
 captain, furious and aghast. 
 
 [30] 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 "Yes; and this is one of them," was the reply, as 
 the ship went shivering to pieces. 
 
 And the sombre tale of Sir Cloudesley Shovel is 
 still told; of how, with a gallant fleet, he was sailing 
 home from the Mediterranean and, nearing these 
 reefs, was warned by a Scillonian of his crew. 
 
 But the admiral paid no heed. The weather was 
 thick and foggy, and the admiral's bearings were 
 lost, but he arrogantly refused to believe that there 
 could be danger. When he was told that the Scil- 
 lonian insisted that they were steering for the Scilly 
 rocks he ordered the man hanged as an example to 
 others who might mutinously hold opinions con- 
 trary to their officers. 
 
 The man yielded stoically to his fate, begging 
 only the single boon that he be permitted to choose 
 a psalm to be read before he died. The psalm was 
 read, the 109th, with its maledictory lines: 
 
 " Let his days be few; and let another take his office. 
 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 
 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither 
 
 let there be any to favour his fatherless children. 
 Because that he remembered not to shew mercy." 
 
 The man was hanged. In a little while breakers 
 were discovered in the very path of the ships; it 
 was too late to escape, and the ships were dashed 
 upon the rocks with the loss of the admiral himself 
 and two thousand of his men. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 The admiral's body was tossed ashore, high in a 
 grassy cove; but never afterward did grass grow 
 on the spot where the body lay. A punishment, 
 this such is the na'ive view-point of the true Scil- 
 lonian not for losing two thousand lives, but for 
 cruelty to one of the islanders. 
 
 Alas, poor admiral! As if all this were not enough, 
 he is commemorated in Westminster Abbey with so 
 absurd a monument as moved Horace Walpole to 
 the jibe that it made men of taste dread such 
 honors. 
 
 Franklin, in his autobiography, records that just 
 fifty years after the wreck of this great fleet the ship 
 on which he himself was going to England was al- 
 most wrecked on the Scillys. It was midnight, 
 and the captain was fast asleep; all sails were set, 
 and Franklin, who was on deck, tells of how unex- 
 pectedly the ship was almost upon the rocks, and of 
 how it was saved only by the dangerous operation 
 of veering swiftly around with all sails standing. 
 It was probable, he adds, that they were in the 
 grip of the "strong indraught which caused the 
 loss of Sir Cloudesley Shovel." 
 
 Behind the ragged-tempered sea, the wrinkled 
 rocks, are long slopes covered thick with yellow 
 gorse, with furze, with sturdy grass, with tossing 
 fern. Rocks are gray with fungi and lichens in in- 
 numerable hues, and seaweed clings in endless variety. 
 There are puffins and shags and terns; there are the 
 
 [32] 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 kingfisher and the giant cormorant. And gulls 
 love to whiten the rocks like snow. 
 
 Inside the roadstead, the island-locked bay, are 
 wimpling waves and stretches of white-gleaming 
 sand; yet even this roadstead is often rough for small 
 craft, and the people watch anxiously when the 
 doctor is rowed over by twelve sturdy volunteers. 
 As to dentists, there is none; although the teeth of 
 the islanders give way early, owing, so they believe, 
 to the preserved rain-water which they perforce drink. 
 
 Less than two hundred feet is the greatest height 
 upon the islands, and yet from many a headland there 
 is a far-reaching and delectable view. 
 
 Although the Scillonians have mostly ceased to 
 be men of the sea, there are still splendid boatmen 
 there, and it is a keen delight to go sailing with one 
 of them. On a windy day, with the never quiet surf 
 raging furiously, it is thrilling to be with him as he goes 
 veering and tacking in and out and around with his 
 flying craft, missing a deadly reef by a hand's-breadth 
 and the next moment just escaping a foaming rock. 
 
 Right brave blood there is in these island folk. 
 Charles, afterward king, found for six long weeks 
 a refuge here from the Parliamentarians. Later, 
 the islanders gallantly but vainly fought for royalty 
 against a powerful fleet, and a stone fort of that 
 period frowns over one of the channels. Another 
 stone fort was built in the time of Elizabeth. 
 
 It was natural that this region should stand for 
 
 [33] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the monarchy, for legendary belief holds that the 
 Scillys are all that are left of royal Lyonesse, the 
 land that sank in the depths of the sea. 
 
 Lyonesse! There is magic in the very name. 
 It stretched out from Cornwall, this land of Round 
 Table history, and the Scillys were the projecting 
 headlands or islands at the very end. Within the 
 land that sank in the turbulent ocean were a hun- 
 dred and forty parishes, so the old chroniclers aver, 
 and one tells of seeing ruins far beneath the water. 
 Seen with the eye of faith? Perhaps. And what 
 a touch! Yet when mists of the mighty Atlantic 
 close between Land's End and Scilly, even the most 
 meagre imagination may be touched with venture- 
 some insight, and even the dullest ear may hear 
 the vague echoing of ancient parish bells. Curious, 
 too, that from time immemorial the island folk have 
 called the intervening sea the "Lioness," and that 
 tradition has insistently pointed out the reef of 
 Seven Stones as the site of the principal city of the 
 kingdom. Where there is so much smoke of legend 
 there is surely some fire of truth. 
 
 It is as unscientific as it is unjust to require 
 that an ancient legend shall absolutely prove it- 
 self. Justice and science alike demand that a 
 legend of a respectable appearance should be con- 
 sidered innocent unless it be proved guilty, and this 
 more especially when it has so charming a savor 
 of the saltness of time. 
 
 [34] 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 From Lyonesse King Arthur came; it was across 
 the dales of Lyonesse that his followers fled when he 
 was slain; and Lyonesse is inseparably connected 
 with the story of Tristram and Ysolte, for Tristram 
 was the son of its king. It is more logical to believe 
 in the essential existence of a Lyonesse than to 
 doubt. Geology notes the similarity between the 
 granite of Cornwall and that of the Scilly rocks; 
 and there are so many Druidical remains, so many 
 rude stone crosses, as to point out the unlikeliness 
 of these islands always having been so far from 
 the mainland as now. And for some centuries his- 
 torical records are scanty. There are also ruins of 
 ancient castles and churches, but of these few ves- 
 tiges remain. Fishermen and wreckers, finding 
 blocks of stone ready to their hands, built these 
 seats of the mighty into huddled huts. 
 
 One feels the fascination of what may have hap- 
 pened many and many a year ago in this kingdom 
 by the sea. Walking at random, I came to a path- 
 way on the top of a wall. Below me lay an ancient 
 moat, long since dry. The pathway led me to a 
 flight of stone steps, at the foot of which, in solid 
 rock, were ancient grooves for the oaken doors and 
 chain of a portcullis. An underground passage 
 led from this sally-port, and opened upon a charm- 
 ing little garden, the ghost of a garden fronting 
 the sea, where the ladies of the vanished castle 
 whiled away the hours till their knights returned. 
 
 [35] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 In a shadowed corner is an old stone bench, narcis- 
 sus and jonquil grow rich and lush, and the enclosing 
 wall dips straight down to the rocks and the rest- 
 less water. 
 
 Tennyson wrote feelingly of "the sad sea-sounding 
 waves of Lyonesse"; of its "trackless realms," of 
 its glens, all "grey boulder and black tarn." And 
 he visited Lyonesse. But local tradition retains 
 nothing pleasant in regard to him; on the contrary, 
 it holds only the memory of a bitter dispute with his 
 landlady as to the cost of some broken china. It is a 
 pleasanter literary tradition that fixes, upon the now 
 deserted island of Samson, the ruined house supposed 
 to have been the home of the heroine of that most 
 charmingly named of novels, Armorel of Lyonesse. 
 
 There is no middle class in Scilly, and the good 
 policy of this is evident from the standpoint of an 
 absolute ruler. To compensate for the littleness 
 of public power, there are many to wield it. Al- 
 most every man is councillor or justice, alderman 
 or health officer, or has to do with rates, schools, 
 police, or other department Lilliputian. And it 
 keeps the people contented and proud. 
 
 With such a subdivision of honors one should 
 expect the pluralist to be unknown. But herein 
 lies another of the delightful contradictions. Not 
 only does the policeman perform duties multi- 
 farious, but there is another man who is at the same 
 time clerk to the guardians of the poor, clerk to the 
 
 [36] 
 
FIELDS OF NORTHERN MID-WINTER FLOWERS 
 

 
 on! 
 fari 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 magistrates, clerk to the council, registrar of births, 
 marriages, and deaths, clerk to the education com- 
 mittee, and officer to the coroner! Yet time often 
 hangs heavy on his hands. 
 
 For v centuries there has been a curious cosmo- 
 politanism here. In the blood of the islanders there 
 are strains from every maritime nation. The reefs 
 took their toll of the Armada. Wounded British 
 were landed from the battle of Bunker Hill. And 
 from time to time the wrecked and the refugee 
 made their home here. 
 
 But the cosmopolitanism of the living is as noth- 
 ing to that of those who came so far to drown. 
 They that went down into the sea in wrecks were of 
 every nationality, of every variety of wealth and 
 power, fame and obscurity. 
 
 Some of the old-fashioned headstones of the 
 islanders carry the very flavor of the sea; such as 
 the one which piously tells that, "Though he's 
 been where billows roar, still, by God's help, he's 
 safe on shore," and which concludes with the as- 
 severation that "Now he's safe among the fleet, 
 waiting for Jesus Christ to meet." 
 
 Ever, at Scilly, the thoughts return to wrecks. 
 And frightful as are the waves in great storms, 
 when deep calls unto deep, it is not from storm, 
 but fog, that the greatest disasters have come. 
 Scillonians themselves, before they became flower- 
 growers, paid with usury the ocean's claims, and it 
 
 [37] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 used to be said that for one Scillonian who died a 
 natural death nine were drowned. And so fierce 
 and treacherous are the currents that the strongest 
 swimmer may be carried away before the eyes of 
 the stoutest rowers. Recently, two boats, return- 
 ing in company to the roadstead, chose different 
 courses to pass one of the islands. One was never 
 heard of again, neither men nor boat; for the wild 
 current that had capsized and seized the craft 
 had borne it and its sailors far out to sea. 
 
 These people, some two thousand in all, huddle 
 upon these rocks like sea-birds in a storm. Their 
 very capital, Hugh Town, has been inundatingly 
 driven from its location, and even now is so exposed 
 that it will infallibly be driven to move uneasily 
 anew. 
 
 It is only those who love water who should go to 
 Scilly. One is not permitted to shoot the birds; 
 but one may fish and float and dream. 
 
 Often an icy wind sweeps over the flower-patches, 
 and often, at night, a bitter chill creeps stingingly 
 in from the sea. And, oddly enough except that 
 it is another of the expected incongruities the 
 picturesqueness of fact is not reflected in pictur- 
 esqueness of appearance, for they look only common- 
 place. Yet their very commonplaceness makes it 
 possible that men and women are here who have 
 never traveled so far as the mainland. 
 
 Always, in the Scillys, romance seems near at hand; 
 
 [38] 
 
In the Scilly Islands 
 
 it is a region to stir the heart and the imagination 
 and give a tingle to the blood. 
 
 Yet much has suffered a land change. Ships' 
 planking has been eagerly seized upon for fences. 
 Now and then a prow becomes a gate-post. Ships' 
 bells that sounded the knell of sailors now ring 
 gayly for these dwellers on rock. And many a 
 figure-head which erstwhile stood at the prow of 
 some stately ship sentinels a gateway or stares im- 
 passively over a field of narcissus. For these people 
 love figure-heads, and describe them with uncanny 
 pride. This was from a Spanish ship; that, a Dutch; 
 this one, a saint, bore to safety the sole survivor 
 from a Portuguese bark. Thus the long list goes on. 
 The estate on Tresco is particularly rich in this 
 spoil of the sea. And, final incongruity of all, a 
 noble Neptune watches patiently in the garden of 
 that beneficent untitled ruler, Mr. Smith. 
 
IV. GETTING TO GUERNSEY 
 
 T seemed particularly de- 
 sirable to go to Guern- 
 sey, even more than to 
 Alderney or Jersey or 
 Sark, those others of the 
 islands that are still 
 > more French than Eng- 
 ' lish, although they have 
 been in English pos- 
 session since the time 
 of the Conqueror Wil- 
 
 Jiam; for I understood that in Guernsey, to even 
 a greater extent than in her sister islands, were 
 retained the ancient ways. 
 
 And there are various ways of getting there. I 
 might have taken a boat that runs, for at least part 
 of the year, from Plymouth, but was told that it 
 was temporarily out of commission. Steamers sail 
 twice daily, except Sundays, from Southampton 
 and from Weymouth, direct to Guernsey, giving 
 passengers the choice of a ride by daylight or at 
 night, the trip taking some four or five hours. But 
 I learned that a little boat puts out twice a week or 
 so from Cherbourg, and, as I had a steamer stop- 
 
Getting to Guernsey 
 
 over at Plymouth, from the liner by which I had ar- 
 rived there, and could conveniently arrange to be 
 at Plymouth on the necessary day, I decided to cross 
 the Channel from there and then take the Cherbourg 
 boat. This insured, too, a pleasant crossing of the 
 Channel, for however rough it may be for the ordi- 
 nary boats, the big liners are seldom affected by it. 
 
 That matter of steamer stop-overs is one that is 
 worth noticing. I found it convenient, this time, 
 on my way to Cherbourg; another time I ran back 
 to Plymouth from London and caught a liner to 
 Hamburg, thus making a delightful and restful way 
 of getting there; and the same thing may con- 
 veniently be done with stop-overs at Gibraltar and 
 at Naples. 
 
 The steamer from Cherbourg for Guernsey was 
 more tiny than the one that had taken me to the 
 Scillys. A sudden storm had delayed its arrival for 
 a day, and I watched it come bobbingly in. The 
 captain, exasperated by having his schedule of 
 sailings interrupted, exclaimed in picturesquely de- 
 termined language that he would return at once, 
 even though the shades of night were falling fast. 
 Within three minutes, however, the deserting tide 
 so left his boat in the mud, such being the excellence 
 of vaunted foreign harbors for craft that venture 
 to the piers, that, unsubmissively acquiescent to 
 fate, he announced postponement until six in the 
 morning. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 An uncivilized hour, I protested, but he declared 
 that needs must when a floatable tide drives. So at 
 six I was there only to learn that he was still fast 
 asleep in the hotel I had reluctantly left! Yet I 
 am glad I went in that particular way, for there was 
 far more of amusement than annoyance in the man's 
 declarations and shortcomings. And the very boat 
 itself, so impossibly tiny for a rough voyage, seemed 
 a joke. After all, too, we cross the Atlantic for 
 things that are different. If all one looks for is a 
 good boat, to run on time in an ordinary way, it is 
 not necessary to leave America. 
 
 Cherbourg is an ancient city, in modern dress, 
 which has hid its few vestiges of the past by tucking 
 them out of sight and out of mind in narrow and 
 forgotten back ways. Yet there is an extremely 
 interesting exception, an old church, of the four- 
 teen-hundreds, a church faded and gray with age 
 and with an ancient inscription over its altar that 
 carries a note of pathos in its patriotism, for in few 
 and simple words it expresses thanks to God for the 
 deliverance of the city from the long dominion of 
 the stranger; meaning the end of a long occupancy 
 of the city by the conquering English. 
 
 A spirit of welcome is permeative throughout 
 Cherbourg; everywhere the present-day men of the 
 city show no desire to be rid of the stranger, but to 
 welcome him at least, if he be an American! 
 and to make his stay comfortable. 
 
 [42] 
 
Getting to Guernsey 
 
 At the hotel and at different times I have found 
 two in Cherbourg that are excellent after learning 
 that the boat was not to go that evening, I went to 
 the writing-room. A cold wind was blowing in from 
 tfye sea, and the room was chilly, and the fire, in an 
 open fireplace, would not draw. It was a coal fire. 
 It had been lit for me, almost the sole guest at an 
 off-season time of the year, and was filling the room 
 with smoke. 
 
 I rang, and a green-aproned porter made his ap- 
 pearance and looked with concern at the little fire 
 and much smoke. 
 
 The fireplace was between the two front windows, 
 and I did not see any signs of a chimney rising 
 above. Nor was there any there! 
 
 The porter vanished, but with a sign that he 
 would return. In a few moments he reappeared 
 with a can of kerosene. "Ah!" I thought, "he is 
 about to encourage the fire in the good old American 
 way!" 
 
 But it was the American way with French varia- 
 tion. For he uncovered a plate in the floor, right at 
 my feet, in the middle of the room, and raising it, 
 showed the flue, for it ran down from the fireplace 
 and right across the room under the floor to the rear 
 wall, and there into a chimney. 
 
 I watched the porter with fascinated interest. 
 For he soaked a rag with kerosene, stuffed it into 
 the flue, touched it with a match and clamped back 
 
 [43] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the plate, leaving the oil-soaked rag to burn; and 
 then, with a look of ineffable but calm-faced pride, 
 watched the coal in the fireplace until, in a few 
 moments, it responded to the stimulus of the re- 
 stored draft in the kerosened flue and blazed up. ^ 
 The ride out from Cherbourg around Cap de la 
 Hague and through the Race of Alderney is a 
 never-to-be-forgotten experience, if taken in a tiny 
 steamer at the tail-end of a storm. Even in the 
 calmest weather there are currents and cross-currents 
 that boil and swoop and rock and clutch and tear. 
 Gilbert Parker somewhere terms this passage "one 
 of the death shoots of the tides," and I should 
 suggest the crossing in the bigger ships, from South- 
 ampton to Guernsey, rather than by the little boat 
 from Cherbourg, for those who would not enjoy 
 a fairly wild experience. 
 
V. WHERE KING GEORGE IS STILL DUKE 
 OF NORMANDY 
 
 UERNSEY is only a few 
 miles from the English 
 coast; it is in daily com- 
 munication with English 
 ports; practically all of 
 its intercourse, alike 
 business and social, is with Eng- 
 land; and yet King George is 
 given allegiance as heir of the 
 Norman line rather than as King 
 of Great Britain. When, here in 
 Guernsey, his accession was officially proclaimed, it 
 was as Norman Duke as well as Indian Emperor 
 and English King and the people take it seriously, 
 and not as an empty form. They bitterly resent 
 any naming of their isle as one of the British, and 
 equally do they resent being accounted French, for 
 they are Norman. 
 
 Nowhere in the world do conditions so inex- 
 plicable exist, for there has not for centuries been a 
 concomitant Norman environment to preserve the 
 Norman tradition. 
 
 Magna Charta has never touched Guernsey; 
 there is no trial by jury; there is a general absence 
 
 [45] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 of supposedly indispensable adjuncts of liberty and 
 good government. Many of the people still speak 
 the Norman-French, which long ago vanished from 
 Normandy itself. And, with Guernsey's fascinating 
 survivals of the ancient, there goes a delightful charm 
 of roads and coast-line, of flowers and houses and sea. 
 
 Now that Africa and the frozen Poles have yielded 
 their mysteries, one wonders, at times, what is left 
 to explore. For civilized man eternally demands 
 the titillatory touch of novelty! And more mar- 
 velous than to find novelty in Africa or the Arctic 
 is to find it at the very edge of England, just off 
 that beaten path which is so submissively trod. 
 
 If I begin with William the Conqueror it is not 
 that I am about to write history; I shall write only 
 of the present day. Yet to do that in Guernsey is 
 always to go dipping back into the misty past. 
 
 When they prepared to bury William in the great 
 abbey church which he had built at Caen, a poor 
 man fell upon his knees and cried aloud: "Ha! Ro! 
 Ha! Ro! Ha! Ro! A Faide, mon prince! On me 
 fait tort!" ("To my aid! They are wronging me!") 
 And the burial of the puissant duke and king did 
 not proceed until the appeal had been listened to 
 and the wrong set right. William had taken the 
 man's land, so it appeared, in building the church, 
 and, as is sometimes the way with great men, had 
 conveniently forgotten to pay. 
 
 This Clameur de Haro, as it is legally termed, 
 
 [46] 
 
Where King George is Duke of Normandy 
 
 this very perfection of injunction peremptory, had 
 long been recognized even in William's time, and it 
 is formally set down in the code which, compiled 
 from the most ancient laws and printed at Rouen 
 centuries ago, is still in daily use in Guernsey. 
 
 For the Clameur is no mere antiquarian dead 
 letter. It is with dread that the conjuration is em- 
 ployed, for it is like the calling of spirits from the 
 vasty deep, yet seldom does a year pass without 
 its being heard. And when invoked there is no man, 
 however high, who dares disregard it, for it would 
 bring down extraordinary penalties from an extra- 
 ordinary and arbitrary court. 
 
 It was but a few months ago that an unhappy 
 citizen applied the injunction to one of the rulers 
 of the island who was tearing down a building whose 
 ownership was in dispute between them. He knelt 
 upon the steps of the court-house, and his voice 
 went quaveringly as he began the ancient cry, and 
 then shrilled high and loud; and people stood about 
 in silent awe until, the rite complete, the man arose, 
 all trembling, and looked about him, uncertain 
 and in fear. And the rich man desisted instantly, 
 and when the court heard the case it decided for the 
 demand of the poor. 
 
 I talked with both appealer and appealed against. 
 "He had to stop," said the poor man, quietly; 
 "he had no choice." "I had to stop when he cried 
 'Ha! Ro/'" said the rich man, quietly. "I had no 
 
 [47] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 choice." And this in the twentieth century, at the 
 edge of England, because of the memory of a certain 
 Duke Rollo, contemporary with the English Alfred, 
 who was so stern for instant justice, with none of 
 those civilized delays which make lawyers rich and 
 justice difficult, that merely to call thrice upon 
 his name (Ro being an abbreviation of its Norman 
 form) had become incorporated as a legal proceeding 
 of highest moment long before the time of William 
 the Conqueror! And that there were a King Alfred 
 and a Duke Rollo contemporaries, and that law 
 could be superior to castle and sword, shows, too, 
 that feudal days were not of unmitigated savagery. 
 To hold men to be savages merely because they 
 fought one another would lead to embarrassing 
 conclusions even in these modern times. 
 
 St. Peter-Port, the capital of Guernsey, rises 
 steeply from the sea, in red-tiled houses, narrow 
 and gabled and tall, and upon a rock in the midst 
 of the harbor an old castle sullenly thrusts up its 
 walls from amid a rising huddle. 
 
 Not an ancient town, this; and yet, as you mount 
 its streets, you see aspects of age in their wavering, 
 doddering lines, and now and then you find old- 
 time buildings with projecting stories nodding over 
 the ways. Many a street is but a lengthening 
 stairway of stone; and in its Sunday calm the town 
 is lighted up by the red-coated soldiers marching in 
 a body to church. 
 
AN ENGLISH CAPITAL UNDER OLD FRENCH LAWS 
 
Old Europe 
 
 
 red 
 oo, 
 
 ow 
 
 , as you mount 
 old- 
 
 x:A 
 
Where King George is Duke of Normandy 
 
 Outside of the city there are Norman houses and 
 Norman roads, and the green and glimmering hedges 
 are Norman, and there are tandem teams so dear to 
 Norman hearts, and Norman roses clambering over 
 Norman walls, and Norman blouse and gown in 
 red or purple or blue, and ancient white-capped 
 women endlessly knitting just outside of Norman 
 cottage doors. Guernsey, and not England, is the 
 "mother country," asserts the islander, for Guern- 
 sey was Norman long before the Conquest. 
 
 Forty thousand people there are upon the island. 
 They are not all of Norman type, business having 
 led many others hither, and this but adds to the 
 marvel of it, that forty thousand inhabitants, of 
 mixed race, should continue under the control of 
 laws ten hundred years old. For Guernsey is ruled 
 by a court and parliament which date back their 
 forms and powers a thousand years, and in which 
 judicial and legislative functions are inextricably 
 blended. 
 
 The island is divided into douzaines, each with 
 its twelve douzainiers. A few of the douzainiers 
 are also jurats. The jurats and bailiff (he being 
 appointed by the Crown and having only advisory 
 powers) form the lower and higher courts; and 
 those of the higher court, with the rectors of the 
 island, who are a politically powerful body, form 
 the parliament or States. A few deputies, added 
 recently, have not altered the conditions. Dou- 
 
 [49] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 zainiers, jurats, and rectors not clad in a little 
 brief authority, these! are all in office for life, and 
 when a douzanier or jurat dies his fellows fill the 
 vacancy. Never was there so striking a division 
 into political "ins" and "outs," for those who are in 
 can never fall out. And yet it is believed that the 
 political machine originated in America! 
 
 There are few crimes committed in Guernsey. 
 The knowledge that the accused is seldom acquitted 
 acts admirably as a practical deterrent. And there 
 is a very amusing side to it, were it not so serious 
 for the prisoners. 
 
 The accused is first subjected to a private inter- 
 rogatoire before he is allowed to see a friend or lawyer. 
 The bailiff and two jurats searchingly question him, 
 alone and uncautioned and unadvised of any rights. 
 Indeed, a man accused has no rights that a jurat is 
 bound to respect. "The private inter rogatoire is 
 often necessary for a conviction" is the way it was 
 naively put to me. 
 
 The prisoner next appears before the Cour de 
 Police. (Not the "police court"; for in this part 
 of the English Channel French is the official lan- 
 guage, in which every law is recorded, every con- 
 tract made, every parliamentary resolution written. 
 Even the parliament only recently resolved that Eng- 
 lish may be spoken when preferred, and now a meet- 
 ing is a babel of tongues. In Guernsey a man be- 
 comes a linguist perforce, there being the English and 
 
 [50] 
 
Where King George is Duke of Normandy 
 
 the Norman and the French. I even noticed the 
 crowning absurdity of an Ecole Wesleyenne; one 
 would think that that, at least, would remain Eng- 
 lish under the English flag.) 
 
 In the Cour de Police the unhappy prisoner finds 
 himself facing the same two jurats and bailiff, who, 
 having heard him in secret, are quite prepared to 
 reward him openly; and they have brought two more 
 jurats with them. 
 
 He had best be content, now, with whatever for- 
 tune gives him, for should he appeal to the upper 
 court he is led from his cell through an underground 
 passage up a straight and narrow stair, and finds 
 himself, emergent, confronted by the four jurats 
 and bailiff, who, with their minds quite made up, 
 have brought along several more jurats for good 
 measure. It is as cumulative as the nursery-house 
 that Jack built, for the prisoner, all forlorn, finds 
 that nothing which is added to the jingle is ever 
 allowed to drop out. 
 
 Any person may be arrested on the bare word 
 of a complainant, and no action for false imprison- 
 ment lies. A man's house is not his castle, for the 
 police may search without warrant. Ex post facto 
 laws may be made. A stranger, arrested, is not ad- 
 mitted to bail. The whipping-post is in constant 
 operation (not, however, for wife-beating), and the 
 punishments are precisely graded, as, from twenty- 
 five to fifty strokes with a twelve-thonged whip, or 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 from eighteen to twenty-four with a vicious bunch 
 of jagged twigs. In Guernsey mercy does not al- 
 ways fall like the gentle dew from heaven. 
 
 Indefinite imprisonment for debt is in force, even 
 when there has been no fraud. There was but one 
 debt-prisoner when I was there, however. And 
 there is even banishment! It was but a few months 
 ago that a long-time resident, convicted of forgery, 
 was sentenced to an imprisonment of two months 
 and a banishment of six years. Strangers may be 
 banished if deemed undesirable sojourners. And 
 all this in the Channel, in an island doing a heavy 
 business with England in quarried rock and prosaic 
 tomatoes ! 
 
 Peculiarly a people, these, who must not throw 
 stones, for that very tomato business has put more 
 glass houses in Guernsey than are in any other place 
 of similar area. And the island would have given a 
 chivalrous revel to Don Quixote, for in every direc- 
 tion wind-mills are seen flinging their giant arms. 
 
 History here is suggestive rather than insistent. 
 For people who so adhere to the old in customs 
 there is a curious disregard for the old as expressed 
 in buildings. So much has been destroyed that 
 the past never obtrudes. There is never the sense 
 that here is a history lesson that must dutifully be 
 learned. To find details of the iron past one must 
 scrape away the accumulated rust of centuries. 
 Yet, for those who care for it, there is much to 
 
 [52] 
 
Where King George is Duke of Normandy 
 
 summon up remembrance of things past. There 
 are ruins on rocky headlands, and on isolated heights 
 rising out of lone and level flats, and every solitary 
 inlet has its tower of stone. 
 
 There are splendid views of cliff and sea, the 
 water is tropical in its coloring, and by the lonely 
 shore you forget that you are on an island of busi- 
 ness and population. 
 
 Those who seek for memorials of "The Toilers 
 of the Sea" will meet with disappointment. The 
 haunted house still stands, and it still stands lonely 
 on a cliff-edge, but it is prosaically altered and 
 fenced, and is used for a signal station for ships. 
 At Sampson, where Gilliat lived, not only have all 
 reminders of the story disappeared, but it is a part 
 of the island which business has made quite un- 
 picturesque; a pity, too, for it is the only point 
 to which electric cars run, and so every visitor 
 naturally makes his initial trip in that direction. 
 But even at Sampson there is a ruined monas- 
 tery, built in the long ago by monks sent here on 
 account of ungodly lives; and one wonders to what 
 torturing use they put, those men of evil, certain 
 deep-sunk dungeons within the rocky walls. 
 
 A high and violent tide is that of Guernsey. The 
 sea goes sweeping out, laying bare bleak secrets 
 for daws to peck at, and leaving ships high-stranded 
 in the harbor; and then it comes hurriedly racing 
 back, as if to catch some victim unawares. 
 
 [53] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 To know any people one must know their monu- 
 ments; and the fact that Guernsey set up a costly 
 memorial to that Albert who did nothing to dis- 
 tinguish himself but be married to the Queen, 
 shows the innate absurdity that one is all along 
 expecting to find. For you cannot always take 
 Guernsey quite seriously; it takes itself too seriously 
 for that. 
 
 But they honor others far more than Albert. 
 Where, as here, the footprints on the sands of time 
 have been blurred and mingled by the centuries, 
 such individual prints as are preserved gain there- 
 by an access of importance; and so, when a right 
 brave son of Guernsey fights a right brave sea-fight, 
 they put up for him a shaft of ninety feet. And 
 when a governor devotes himself to the making of 
 roads they raise to his memory a shaft six feet 
 higher than the other! It is as if the mathematical 
 islanders figured it out that as ninety is to ninety- 
 six, so is the fighter of fights to the builder of roads. 
 
 And many a road is a road of allurement. There 
 are miles and miles of twisting, labyrinthine charm. 
 Many of the lanes are so narrow that two wagons 
 cannot pass. There are myriads of flowers. There 
 are endless stone walls. Horses and oxen plough 
 together, attached in anomalous fraternity. Men 
 and women out of Millet's paintings go stoopingly 
 together over the soil. Roofs are of time-stained 
 tile and age-bent thatch. Cottages are tucked into 
 
 [54] 
 
Where King George is Duke of Normandy 
 
 corners with that haphazard instinct which, when 
 it is a true instinct, is so much superior to art. 
 
 In everything Guernsey is the place that is differ- 
 ent. Men are of age at twenty; the weekly half- 
 holiday is on Thursday; the gallon is five per cent, 
 smaller than the English; cabbages grow so tall 
 that the inhabitants dry and varnish the long stalks 
 and sell them as walking sticks to English visitors; 
 to reduce English pounds of weight to Guernsey 
 pounds one must multiply by twenty-nine and divide 
 by thirty-two; and one is given thirteen Guernsey 
 pennies, expressed in terms of the "doubles" of its 
 own coinage, for every English shilling. He who 
 handles money in Guernsey is as certain of trouble 
 as that the sparks fly upward, for there is a hopeless 
 mixture of French and Guernsey and English coin, 
 all of which is legal tender. 
 
 Is it tax-paying day or quarter day? Behold a 
 long line of islanders with wagons, and other islanders 
 with paniers, for great part of rents and taxes is 
 payable in wheat and corn, in butter and eggs and 
 chickens and eels; and contracts calling for chickens 
 are likely to specify the minimum length of "queue." 
 
 Does a man wish to sell or devise his real estate? 
 He is not a free agent. The eldest son has the right 
 indefeasible to the house and to part of the land, 
 and the other children have the right to the remain- 
 der. If there are no children, and the man makes a 
 deed of sale, it must be publicly announced, and 
 
 [55] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 any one of kin as near as the seventh degree may 
 stop the transaction and purchase the land himself. 
 One easily understands why land remains in the 
 same families for generations. 
 
 A man dies, leaving personal property. It is 
 divided into as many shares, plus one, as there are 
 children; the eldest son selects two shares, and the 
 other children choose one each in order of age 
 the original division, by a clever device to insure 
 fairness, having been made by the youngest, who, 
 perforce, takes the share that is finally left! 
 
 But the inhabitants themselves see nothing curious 
 in all these things. They are merely matter of 
 course, and the visitor learns of them only by patient 
 inquiry and observation. 
 
 The other Channel Islands, alike remnants of 
 old Normandy, have their own survivals of the old, 
 but they are not nearly as strange as those of Guern- 
 sey. And Jersey and Alderney and Guernsey are 
 jealous rivals in every particular, and especially so 
 in regard to cattle and foot-ball. When Eve, in 
 naming the animals, came to the cows, she remem- 
 bered all three of these bits of land, and a most 
 rigid quarantine against other cattle preserves the 
 strains. And as to football: I saw the Guernsey 
 eleven hailed with mighty acclaim returning from 
 Jersey flushed with victory, and I saw the Alderney 
 men come and play them; and all Guernsey was in 
 excitement, and the Governor himself appeared at 
 
 [56] 
 

 THE FASCINATING SHORE OF GUERNSEY 
 

 
 
 
 
 presc 
 
 
Where King George is Duke of Normandy 
 
 the game amid clamor of band and acclamation of 
 people. 
 
 The Governor, appointed by the Crown, has 
 charge of military affairs. He may sit in the States, 
 but has no vote. He may veto, but that power has 
 practically lapsed through long disuse. Guernsey 
 seriously holds that the British Parliament has ab- 
 solutely no power over it; that the only power is 
 with the King (the Duke of Normandy) and his privy 
 council. 
 
 The high court meets with formal informality, 
 turning readily from criminal cases to laws. Every 
 law must be originated here to be passed on by the 
 States later. And if any private citizen wishes to 
 express his opinion regarding a proposed law he 
 steps out, as I have seen one do, to a railed space, 
 says his say, his neighbors meanwhile watching and 
 listening open-mouthed, and then shuffles back with 
 bashful haste, rubbing a reddening nose as he fur- 
 tively tries to gain some indication of how well he 
 played his part. 
 
 Purple gowns, and square-topped caps, and white 
 "rabbet" ties are matter of moment to jurats and 
 douzainiers and bailiff, with cognate question of 
 ermine or silk or cloth inferior; but they are chary 
 of wasting their regalia on the outside air. 
 
 A tranquil, placid, contented island, in spite of the 
 Draconian severity of its laws and the Vehmgericht 
 powers of its rulers. A law-abiding people, in spite of 
 
 [57] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the petty thefts requiring flagellatory discipline. 
 A beneficent people, in spite of a firm dislike to give 
 aid to those who ask for it. A fund, established 
 over three centuries ago, yields five hundred pounds 
 annually for the help of people who help them- 
 selves, and it expresses the Guernsey standpoint. 
 There must be no begging. If an islander should 
 beg he would be imprisoned instantly. A stranger, 
 begging, is shipped to a point "as near as possible" 
 to his home. And what that place may do with 
 him is of no manner of importance to Guernsey. 
 
 This illustrates a certain canny quality that at 
 times peeps out; as it does in the long lists of cor- 
 porations whose headquarters are printedly sup- 
 posed to be in lawyers' offices near the court-house, 
 because articles of incorporation mean revenue for 
 the island and advantage to the corporations as 
 in some of our own smaller Eastern States. And 
 speaking of our own country, one is reminded of 
 the fact that in Ohio there is a county of Guernsey, 
 so named from a large emigration on account of 
 financial troubles due to the Napoleon wars. 
 
 Though Guernsey has preserved her usages for a 
 thousand years immutable, the end of their long do- 
 minion is approaching. Less than another century, 
 perhaps only another decade, will see their oblitera- 
 tion. And with the passing of the old there will like- 
 wise be a passing of the picturesque. Glass houses 
 are encroaching upon the bleakness of the coast, 
 
 [58] 
 
Where King George is Duke of Normandy 
 
 upon the hills yellow with gorse, upon the paths 
 zigzagging steeply downward to the sea. Quarry- 
 men are blasting underneath the walls of ancient 
 castles. The British Parliament has begun to in- 
 quire, with curious belatedness, what manner of 
 folk these are who claim exemption from Parlia- 
 mentary control and get along so comfortably 
 without modern individual rights. And among the 
 inhabitants themselves there are numbers, of stone 
 and tomato interests, working quietly for a change; 
 and, indeed, the nature of the rule of the potent 
 signiors is disconducive to wide popularity among 
 men who have lived under systems different. 
 
 And so, the long shadows are falling and the 
 evening of Guernsey's romance draws nigh. 
 
VI. A PENINSULA OF PATRONYMICS 
 
 A*** * . ETURNING to Cherbourg 
 
 from Guernsey, it might have 
 seemed that there was noth- 
 ing to do but go on to Paris, 
 with possibly a stop at Caen 
 or Beauvais; although it is 
 seldom that the tourist stops 
 even there, as his steamer- 
 train takes him on a stop- 
 
 less run and Cherbourg itself is 
 
 but a landing or sailing point. 
 And, so far as Cherbourg itself is concerned, there 
 is little to interest the sightseer, unless he cares 
 to become acquainted with life in an important 
 provincial city. For myself, I came to like the 
 people there, and the shops; I found a pleasure 
 in such signs as "Perruquier" and "Chapeaux et 
 Casquettes"; and in a peninsula whose greatest 
 charm is in its reminders of England, it really 
 pleased me to find a reminder of America only 
 with a difference! for a smiling citizen, asking 
 me for the time, explained, not that he had "left 
 his watch with his uncle," but " J'ai porte ma 
 montre chez ma tante" 
 
 [60] 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 That their ways and customs and frugalities 
 are different from ours is a never-ending charm. 
 One day, as I was looking out over the harbor at 
 a great liner that had just steamed stately in, I 
 noticed that into the water, from a point quite 
 near me, there drove a little cart, crowded with 
 big tin cans, and that these the driver proceeded 
 to fill with sea-water, and, having done so, drove 
 leisurely back to shore. 
 
 I wondered. It was the waterfront of a city: 
 a land-locked, breakwater-locked bay; the water 
 was assuredly not clean; but it was evident that 
 I was not looking at a case of mere lacteal dilution; 
 the fact that salt was in the water and publicity 
 in the view shut out the supposition of its being a 
 Frenchman's milky way; and so I made query as 
 to what it really was. 
 
 "Oh, that is only a baker's cart," was the in- 
 different reply, familiarity having taken off the 
 edge of possible surprise or disapprobation. 
 
 "And do other bakers do the same?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed." 
 
 Salt is very dear in France, being an important 
 source of governmental revenue, and so bakers 
 carry sea-water to their bakeries for the sake of the 
 profit in thus getting salt for nothing. 
 
 And there are customs more romantic, just as 
 interesting, and less utilitarian. When, one even- 
 ing, I met a veritable Rembrandt picture on a lonely 
 
 [61] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 street, a Night Watch, with ten or a dozen soldiers, 
 some armed with guns, and the others like police- 
 men, hand-free for the easy seizure of offenders, 
 I felt that even in Cherbourg one may step back 
 into the ways of the distant past, and especially 
 did I feel this when told that this military Watch 
 patrols the streets till daylight, in supplement to 
 the activities of the few real policemen of the town. 
 
 But in the country round Cherbourg I found a 
 greater and keener pleasure. I knew that from 
 the peninsula of the Cotentin, on which Cherbourg 
 is situated, came many of the best of the soldiers 
 of William the Conqueror, and when I also learned 
 that there were in that neighborhood numerous 
 little ancient places still bearing names made famous 
 in English history or inseparably associated with 
 English life I set about discovering some of them. 
 And it was a fascinating quest. Humble places, 
 too, all of them, and this added to the interest. 
 Cherbourg itself, the only important place of the 
 Cotentin, figured in the Conquest with a Count of 
 Cherbourg, but, unlike many of the humbler men, 
 he left no mark on English history, although the 
 name itself, of Cherbourg, is understood to be, 
 perpetuated in the English Scarborough. 
 
 In merely going along the roads of this region 
 there is fascination, for over these very roads many 
 of the conquerors of England used to walk or ride, 
 so many centuries ago; and upon this water they 
 
 [62] 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 used to sail, those men not the "English" Channel, 
 but merely La Manche, "the" Channel; for in 
 repudiating the arrogance of "English" there had 
 not been shown the opposing arrogance of " French." 
 I have seen, from the Norman shore, the Channel 
 all a level stretch of glorious greens and blues, 
 with the blue sky overhead and the white forts 
 looking out over the water; I have seen it roar- 
 ing tumultuously against the rocks and dashing 
 up great clouds of spray; I have seen a fleet of 
 French warships there and heard the bugle calls 
 come over the water; and always I have thought 
 that this is the sea upon which William the Con- 
 queror looked, this the sea across which he sailed 
 with his many thousands of men, and his vast 
 number of little boats, and his own particular 
 ship, Spanish-named the Mora; though why a 
 man so intensely Norman in spirit and so watch- 
 ful of signs and omens should have chosen a Spanish 
 name for the flagship of his expedition is most 
 curious. I have thought that upon these rocks 
 the wives and children of the men of the Cotentin 
 stood to see the men sail away to the gathering 
 place for the English expedition, and have won- 
 dered what they thought. And what they cer- 
 tainly did not think was that humble names of 
 the Cotentin should come to mighty prominence 
 in the unknown land; that their local names should 
 become common family cognomens of England. 
 
 [63] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 From the Cotentin went Percys and Grevilles, 
 here were Devereux, Tankervil, Talbot, Mortimer, 
 here were Kirk and Fleming and Mowbray, Neville 
 and Pierrepont and Hay, here was Vernon, here 
 were Bedfords, here was Vere, here were St. John 
 and St. Clair (no wonder they are still pronounced, 
 in England, Sinjen and Sinkler!), here were Beau- 
 monts and Montagues, and from here went the Bruce. 
 
 It is fascinating to find, too, that in the Cotentin 
 there are both a Tessy and an Urberville, and that a 
 Hardy (Hardi) figured prominently in one of the 
 early French battles of the great Conqueror. And 
 I have met a Tess, looking as she is described in 
 the novel, and driving, as Tess drove, in a high- 
 wheeled cart in the dim light of just before the 
 sunrise. 
 
 To learn and see what I wished to learn and 
 see, to seek out the places of origin of some of the 
 Norman-English names, I did not rely upon the 
 railroad. First of all, I aimed to go to the very 
 point of the peninsula; still called, by the French 
 themselves, the loneliest and least frequented part 
 of all France! And I found that the best way to 
 get there was by diligence. Now, by far the greater 
 number of Americans never imagine that the dili- 
 gence, for practical travel in Europe, still exists; 
 but in quite a number of places I have found, in 
 seeking out the particularly picturesque, that the 
 local diligence may be a most convenient aid. 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 And so I took a dingy diminutive diligence, 
 early one morning, out from Cherbourg. It was 
 a raw and chilly morning, and there was a drizzly 
 rain, and it was very, very early. In fact, travel in 
 Normandy is apt to be travail! Local trains come 
 in before dawn, and the passengers, after having 
 sat and jerkily dozed for hours in uncomfortably 
 small compartments, may have to continue their 
 journey in an uncomfortably small diligence. 
 
 The one that I took in beginning my expedition 
 of discovery was certainly of small enough dimen- 
 sions to be uncomfortable, for it was so low that 
 one had to stoop, and so narrow that knees were an 
 incubus, and there was such an absence of ventila- 
 tion as almost to put me out beside the driver in 
 spite of the chilling rain. Always, on a diligence, 
 except when there is a rainy reason, I secure the 
 seat beside the driver, to have fresh air, and to see 
 the country, and to get information from the man 
 who can tell you so many things you want to know. 
 But this was a day for an exception, and inside I 
 went; and found that my only companions were to 
 be a man of seventy and a shyly pretty girl of 
 seventeen; and with these, the diligence ride, far 
 from being uncomfortable, was a constant pleasure. 
 
 The man was simple-hearted and delightful. He 
 spoke to me courteously as a stranger. Then his 
 face became aglow with communicable news. :< The 
 great Lafayette went across the ocean to help 
 
 [653 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 America!" he said; and he became almost inarticu- 
 late with joy when he realized that I had under- 
 stood him and when I replied that Lafayette was 
 the friend of Washington; for, peasant though he 
 was, he had heard of Washington. His genial old 
 face beamed as he turned to the girl. "He under- 
 stands me!" he said, exultantly. 
 
 Then he essayed again: "It was, monsieur, a 
 Frenchman who made a great statue for the harbor 
 of America," he said, and fixed his eyes upon me, 
 eagerly intent, to see if again I comprehended. 
 And when I told him that I had but recently seen 
 the Statue of Liberty, and tried to give him some 
 idea of its appearance, and when, following this, I 
 mentioned that Bartholdi had also made another 
 statue for New York, and that it was the statue of 
 Lafayette, the friend of Washington, he could only 
 look from the girl to myself and myself to the girl 
 with an awed pleasure that it was a delight to behold. 
 
 Then he took from his pocket his precious pocket- 
 piece; this, he said, I, his friend from America, must 
 accept from him; and with real dignity he offered 
 it to me: a copper coin of Louis XVI, of 1792, the 
 year of the king's captivity and the abolition of 
 royalty. 
 
 "And this," said the pretty girl, blushing, "mon- 
 sieur I'Americain will surely accept from me as a 
 memento"; and she shyly gave me a silver coin of 
 Napoleon, of the time of the Empire. 
 
 [66] 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 It was literally an embarrassment of riches; I 
 certainly did not wish to take their prized pocket- 
 pieces, yet they both they were not father and 
 daughter, but were strangers to each other insisted 
 that they would be grieved if I did not; "desolated" 
 was the old man's word. 
 
 It was a delightful drive, and none of us minded 
 the stuffy chill of the air, the windows that could 
 not be opened, the slanting rain that drove drearily 
 down; for we talked together, .they of Normandy 
 and I of America, with friendly laughter when there 
 was halting or misunderstanding and with patience 
 in picking out meanings; and somehow we learned 
 much of one another's lives, surroundings and 
 thoughts. 
 
 For one of the things that a traveler should early 
 learn is as much of the language of the country he 
 is visiting as possible. But it is still more import- 
 ant that he should realize that with but little 
 knowledge of a language he can, if he have confi- 
 dence and readiness, make himself understood. 
 No European is ever rude or surprised at a visitor's 
 limited knowledge of his language. In America 
 foreigners are looked upon as subjects of barely 
 tolerant amusement if they do not pronounce 
 every word correctly, but when Americans go 
 abroad their shortcomings as to language are not 
 in turn viewed critically, and foreigners are quick 
 at understanding. Manage to say half that you 
 
 [67] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 mean and they will guess correctly at the other 
 half. Always have with you a dictionary of the 
 language French, Italian, German, according to 
 the country you are in a double dictionary, with 
 words in English for one half, and words in the 
 foreign tongue for the other. Then when you 
 come to a halt for a word, turn to the dictionary; 
 or, when your interlocutor cannot give a word that 
 you understand, show the dictionary and have him 
 or her point out the word, and then you will read 
 its English meaning. It is amazing what progress 
 you can make, what a range of subjects you can 
 discuss. 
 
 That dripping day, as we rode out toward the 
 end of the peninsula, passing rain-swept villages 
 and gray-misted fields, we learned how much a 
 little friendliness may brighten dull hours, and at 
 Beaumont, with the sun coming out and the clouds 
 breaking away and the rain ceasing, we parted like 
 old friends. 
 
 It was at Beaumont that our trip ended; a name 
 sufficiently Anglicized in the course of the cen- 
 turies, while at the same time it has remained a 
 family name in France. A one-streeted old town 
 of white-shuttered gray houses is Beaumont, with 
 an interesting ancient church, with oddly round- 
 topped tower, and an inn where the service was 
 delightfully simple and old-fashioned; where a line 
 of candlesticks, remindful that the day of primi- 
 
 [68] 
 

 
 A BYWAY IN A NORMAN TOWN 
 

 progress 
 
 ware 
 
 nuch a 
 d at 
 
 parted 
 
 ame 
 of the 
 
 1 old 
 
 der 
 
 Y f P- 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 tive lighting has not yet ended, stood on a shelf 
 in the sitting room for the use of guests setting 
 bedward, and where, in short, as the inn-sign had 
 it, there was " Loge a Pied et a Cheval^ lodging for 
 foot and horse; this sign pleasantly alternating, in 
 the Cotentin, with "Herbage les Betes de Passage" 
 although, except for the diligence horses, there 
 are few "beasts of passage" ever seen in this par- 
 ticular corner of the peninsula. 
 
 I noticed when my luncheon was served that 
 there were still in use in the inn, along with more 
 modern dishes, some pieces of old-time copper 
 lustre. The landlady did not prize them. They 
 were of English make, did I say? She had not 
 known; she knew only that they were from her 
 mother; and so, at a very moderate cost, I carried 
 away with me the few pieces still unbroken (a 
 sugar-bowl, a jug, a cup and saucer), to add to my 
 china collection at home; for the collector must 
 always be ready to discover what he wishes even 
 in an unexpected place and must also be watch- 
 ful against imitation pieces. But one need not 
 fear imitations in regions unvisited even by French- 
 men themselves, and especially when the price is 
 less than that for which imitation pieces are made. 
 And perhaps I should add here, for it is in the line 
 of what the visitor to the unvisited may find, that 
 at other points in the Cotentin I acquired some 
 specimens of another kind of pottery, some bowls 
 
 [69] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 of a rare Norman ware in dullish-white and reddish- 
 brown. 
 
 Beaumont is in the midst of great bleakness and 
 loneliness, and not far away, and reached by a 
 rough and winding road, leading through a suc- 
 cession of "landes" as they are termed, is Greville; 
 these landes being stretches of bleak moorland 
 thick-grown with a prickly and yellow-flowered 
 shrub that grows freely in the poor soil and is util- 
 ized as fuel by the people and especially by the 
 bakers! a class, as will be noticed, who have even 
 more than the usual Norman share of thrift. 
 
 Most of the Cotentin is of lush richness of soil 
 and growth, with little fields where fat, sleek cattle 
 graze, but this particular section is mostly desolate, 
 and the principal industry is fishing, though even 
 here there are fields where cattle may be seen and 
 where the vachlre, the cow-girl, goes with her easy 
 stride with the great brass jug, delectable of shape, 
 perched, full of milk, upon her shoulder; or one may 
 see her, out in the field, milking a cow right into 
 this narrow-necked jug, such being the custom of 
 the country. 
 
 Greville not only bears a name that has become 
 well known in England, but has a still greater dis- 
 tinction, in that it was the birthplace of the mighty 
 Millet, the peasant-born painter of peasants. And 
 there is a monument to him here; an unheroic, 
 inartistic figure of a man, sitting gingerly upon 
 
 [70] 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 a leafy seat as if there were thorns among the 
 leaves. 
 
 Out in the middle of a bare field, and then in 
 another and another, I noticed stone posts, and 
 they looked so interesting and old, discolored as 
 they were by the weather of centuries for every- 
 thing is remindful of centuries here! that my mind 
 went at once to possibilities Druidical or Roman. 
 "But no, monsieur; they are for the cattle, they; 
 for the cattle to scratch against; and when they 
 scratch themselves with freedom, monsieur, with 
 an energy, we say that it will rain. And when rain 
 is coming, often the beasts will go to a corner of 
 the field and they will turn their heads away from 
 the direction in which the rain is to come, and we 
 say that the rain will come in from the Manche or 
 that it will be a landward rain." 
 
 Out toward either of the principal points of the 
 peninsula, the Nez de Jobourg or the Cap de la 
 Hague, the bleakness of the landscape increases, and 
 the diminutive fishing hamlets are set in a great bare 
 shore; but the fishing folk, men and women alike, 
 with their curved fish-baskets fastened at their 
 waists, or their fish-hampers standing ready for a 
 trip, are friendly and gossipy and companionable, 
 ready for a smile or a pleasant word, as if in instinct- 
 ive defense against the dreariness that surrounds 
 them. 
 
 One must not always expect to find names spelled 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 in Normandy precisely as they are spelled in Eng- 
 land; one must seek for Kirk in Querqueville, for 
 example; but often the names are the same or 
 almost the same. And I shall not describe many 
 places in detail, for over and over it would be but 
 to describe a tiny huddled town or a shapeless ruin. 
 But there comes with particular insistence the 
 pleasant memory of Becquet, a fishing village on 
 the shore not far from Cherbourg. 
 
 Thomas a Becket was half Saracen, for his father, 
 a Crusader, had fallen in love with the daughter of 
 the Emir of Palestine, and she had loved him in 
 return. But they were separated, as he thought 
 hopelessly, for she was placed under close restraint, 
 while, as for him, sickness and wounds sent him 
 back to England an unhappy man. But the girl 
 escaped, and set out for England, seeking him, 
 knowing nothing but his first name, Gilbert, and the 
 name of "London"; and she found him! 
 
 The fiery-tempered Archbishop of Canterbury 
 was their son; of partial Saxon descent, some have 
 said, but his name was Norman, as was his fierce 
 earnestness. Norman, with Saracen and Saxon 
 mixed no wonder he ruled England and that his 
 violent death stirred the world for centuries! 
 
 So it was with peculiar interest that I went to 
 Becquet; and I was none the less interested that I 
 found it but a few houses, a clustered conglomerate 
 of weather-grayed stone, huddling on the water- 
 
 [72] 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 side where the surf comes rolling magnificently in 
 over rocks and jagged reefs. A protecting wall of 
 huge-blocked stone shelters the harbor, which is 
 just big enough for a few fishing boats, and that 
 some of the huge stones have been tumbled and 
 displaced tells vividly of the storms that come 
 whirling against this coast. 
 
 I sat down at a table in front of the fishers' inn, 
 and found that there, as everywhere in Normandy, 
 the cooking was palatable a trait the Normans 
 omitted to take to England with the Conqueror! 
 and beside me, at another table, were seated a couple 
 of lovers, as devoted to each other as were the 
 father of Thomas and the Saracen girl, though my 
 couple were but the humblest of fisher folk. Lovers 
 they, although married for probably fifty years! 
 both of them myriad wrinkled, she white-capped 
 and he blue-bloused, he as devoted as a youth, she 
 as affectionate as a girl, and both with the shining 
 eyes of love. 
 
 They carried their own luncheon dry bread 
 and snails and each grasped firmly in the right 
 hand the working knife that is the Norman peasant's 
 knife and fork and spoon. And they ordered cognac 
 and coffee, and the woman laughed and put half 
 her cognac into her own coffee and the other half 
 into the coffee of her husband, and their cheerful 
 words, their cheerful happiness, their unfeigned 
 and simple pleasure in each other's company 
 
 [73] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 were good to see: Intently they watched a little 
 girl, a stranger to them, but full of interest none 
 the less it was long since they had had little chil- 
 dren of their own as she played a solitary little 
 game of hop-scotch with a flat pebble which she 
 skipped through mazes marked upon the ground. 
 Few things are older than the games of child- 
 hood, and I did not doubt that little Norman girls 
 played solitary hop-scotch just like this centuries 
 ago. 
 
 It was Easter Monday, and the old couple were 
 bent on enjoying the holiday to the utmost. I 
 noticed that they whispered together, he proposing 
 something with the boldness that goes with a mighty 
 suggestion, she shyly protesting, urging doubt, yet 
 with eyes aglow with happiness that her husband 
 should wish to do so great a thing! And I saw that 
 he put aside, with smiling triumph, the remon- 
 strance that could not veil her longing for the treat, 
 and I heard him boldly order it a flask of white 
 wine; not an expensive treat, as rated by the world; 
 it cost less than a franc; and yet it was clearly such 
 a momentous and unusual thing for them to do 
 with their slender pocketbook. 
 
 It was the man who took the responsibility and 
 gave the order, but it was the woman who paid. 
 Indeed, it is the woman who pays but not in the 
 ancient proverbial sense throughout Normandy, 
 although at the same time she is apparently and 
 
 [74] 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 ostensibly the weaker half of creation. For it is the 
 woman who carries the purse. 
 
 Women in Normandy are frankly the inferiors, 
 and as frankly accept the position yet somehow 
 they manage to manage things! They are often 
 railway ticket agents, they are often flagmen 
 flagwomen! at crossings, and may be seen, with 
 apron clean and hair carefully brushed, proudly 
 holding the flag while the train passes by. Often 
 you will see women driving the market carts; and, 
 following the world-wide tendency, if a woman is 
 alone upon the seat she sits squarely in the middle, 
 instead of, like a man, at one side. Women work 
 in the fields; they help to handle and clean the fish 
 when the boats come in. I have seen women not 
 a pretty sight working as street cleaners in Cher- 
 bourg in a wet and chilly dawn. 
 
 And always the peasant woman carries the purse; 
 when in a shop with her husband, as with the old 
 couple at the inn, it is she who pays and she who 
 has the last word! The peasant women, the farmer 
 women, look happy, doubtless are happy, in spite 
 of the inferiority of which they have so evidently 
 made essential mastery. 
 
 There were ancient words in Normandy, other 
 than names, that are familiar in England, and it 
 was like meeting old friends to come upon some 
 that figure freely in the old-time novels. "Gam- 
 mon" is here; although, of course, it is but "jam- 
 
 [75] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 bon"; and the rolling "gramercy" comes readily 
 in recognition of special kindness. I have known a 
 tip of six cents for a trifling service, to fetch it, and 
 once, when a young man specially obliged me and 
 a tip of a franc was his meed, there came such a 
 splendid "Gramercy!" with long-prolonged ac- 
 cent on the first syllable, as could scarcely have been 
 expected had the tip been a Napoleon. 
 
 Although the characteristic Norman tempera- 
 ment is one that displays hospitality, and especially, 
 I take it, to Americans, the people do not, as a 
 rule, open their hearts to strangers; I was fortunate 
 in meeting with unusual cordiality, and always, 
 beneath the cordiality, there could be discerned the 
 basic sternness, the aloofness, of an all-conquering 
 race; and also a not infrequent hardness as well as 
 hardiness. On the whole, they suggest fortiter in re 
 rather than the anciently companioned phrase of 
 suaviter in modol 
 
 There is little of dancing, little of music; sheep 
 and cattle are often cruelly hobbled, and the dogs 
 of Normandy are a cowed race, with too many of 
 them chained. Yet it is no contradiction to say, 
 in spite of this, that, on the whole, they are a kindly 
 race; I merely set down that they can be hard as 
 well as kind. And as to hardiness, no further proof 
 is needed than that it is the custom to take new- 
 born babies to church for baptism when they are 
 less than a day old; when, indeed, they may have 
 
 [76] 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 had but three or four hours of Ijfe! the father 
 walking exultant by the side of the bonne, whose 
 face is one broad smile above her white-clad burden 
 and the day perhaps a day of drizzling cold. No 
 marvel that Europe was at the mercy of the Nor- 
 mans no wonder the ancient Norman prayer ran: 
 "O Lord, I do not ask you to favor me with good 
 things, but only to tell me where they are, so that 
 I may go and get them myself." 
 
 And the thought comes of that day in the English 
 Parliament less than a dozen years ago when the 
 First Lord of the Treasury rose to demand that 
 the custom of using the Norman tongue by the 
 King of England, in approving or rejecting a law, 
 be forever ended, whereupon the Prime Minister 
 replied that it was impossible to do away with a 
 custom so based upon historical tradition. How 
 the Norman still rules! 
 
 An independent folk are those of the Cotentin, 
 and of a stern directness. "Is a man poor?" said a 
 farmer to me one day. "Then it is because he will 
 not work! A man who will work can live." And, 
 after all, it is a farming, grazing, fishing country, 
 full, therefore, of opportunity. It is a region where 
 most of the people, though far from what may be 
 called independently rich, are at least in the highly 
 desirable condition of being independently poor. 
 Here and there is a chateau, towered conically, 
 avenued magnificently, with spacious grounds, en- 
 
 [77] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 vironingly walled, but the typical homes of the 
 countryside are the farmhouse and the cottage. It 
 cannot be said that the richest is poor, but the 
 other half of the familiar couplet is possibly enough 
 true, that the poorest may live in abundance. 
 
 It was in a different direction from the coastwise 
 points, in a rich country inland from Cherbourg, 
 that I came upon the original home of the Mon- 
 tagues, or Montaigu, as it is here spelled; a name 
 famous in English history and associations, yet 
 here represented by a tiny church, an ancient grave- 
 yard, a petty village, and a few huge stones scat- 
 tered and almost buried in the soil, marking where 
 stood the ancient castle of the Montaigus; all set 
 upon a low-lying hill. 
 
 Small though the church is, it has at least the 
 dignity of age, and it stands among beech trees 
 that are gnarled and twisted and moss-grown by 
 time. The interior of the church, never impressive 
 or beautiful, has been whitewashed into utter com- 
 monplaceness, save for the interest which a few old 
 inscriptions give and that which goes with any 
 ancient building in this ancient land. The neg- 
 lected graveyard, with its stone wall grayed and 
 greened with mosses the mosses so thick that 
 one can scarcely see that there r the wall beneath 
 gives an unmistakable impression of great an- 
 tiquity, even though there is no very ancient in- 
 scription legible. In the center of the graveyard 
 
 [78] 
 
A VILLAGE OF THE COTENTIN 
 
Old } 
 
 
 pelled; a name 
 an ancient g 
 
 here 
 
 own by 
 
 ' ; 'f*r pom 
 
 land. 
 
 -! 
 

 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 stands a squared-in vault, some fifteen feet by 
 twelve and a trifle over six feet high; a stone-walled 
 vault, that has always been without door or window, 
 always open to the sky, without a roof. A couple of 
 stepping stones, set into one side and a few inches 
 projective, are the means of reaching the top of 
 the wall. Erect upon one corner stands a canonical 
 Chrysostom in stone, three feet in height; at an- 
 other corner stands a plainer saint with a book; at 
 another is Peter with his keys; and the fourth cor- 
 nered saint has vanished into that limbo into which 
 all, whether saints or sinners and of flesh or stone, 
 in time must go. 
 
 Down at the bottom of the walled-in space I saw 
 vines and moss growing in lush lavishness; and the 
 cause was evident, for fully twenty skulls lay whit- 
 ened there; and each of those that was turned 
 upward had upon it that awful skull's grin, which 
 seems to find such humor in the joke of Death. 
 It was a grisly thing to come upon; and that I was 
 alone, and that a drenching rain was sending drench- 
 ing streams down through the black and ancient 
 trees upon the ancient stones and into this dismal 
 vault, added to the grisliness of it all. 
 
 The grim receptacle, evidently replacing an ear- 
 lier one, bears an inscription two centuries old, 
 asking for prayers for the soul of the man who 
 built it. It has not been used in recent years; 
 the ancient custom has fallen into abeyance; the 
 
 [79] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 priest was absent, and a few peasants from whom I 
 asked for information could only shake their heads. 
 "It was, monsieur, that bodies were put there": 
 that was all, and how and why the custom origin- 
 ated, and why the skulls and bones were not buried 
 when the custom ended, they could not even guess. 
 I did not follow up the quest; it was really more 
 effective, more impressive, as an uncanny thing 
 come upon with entire unexpectedness and left 
 entirely unexplained. 
 
 Among the picturesque customs of Normandy 
 there is one that should specially be considered 
 by any who look into the influence of one side of 
 the Channel upon the other, for this custom, though 
 it has nothing to do directly with English names, 
 has at least a great deal to do with the most prom- 
 inent of all Englishmen the King himself. It 
 is a custom which is typical of not only Normandy, 
 but of all of France and of Italy, yet, strangely 
 enough, it never obtained a hold in England, the 
 country that it has most of all influenced. And it 
 is the custom of washing clothes. 
 
 For the washtubs for the clothes of Normandy 
 are, just as they were before the Conquest, the 
 running streams, or little slab-lined pools at their 
 edges; and that the drainage of a village or of 
 many villages is mingled with the water has never 
 been held to be a disadvantage. The women and 
 girls kneel confabulatively, on rows of stones laid 
 
 [80] 
 
A Peninsula of Patronymics 
 
 just in the current of the stream, or around the 
 more popular and unsanitary pools. Washing 
 clothes is a sociable, gregarious, conversational 
 rite. Seldom have I seen a woman washing alone. 
 The cleaning of the clothes of Normandy seems 
 to demand companionship, and it is a pretty sound 
 to hear the humming buzz of the talk and laughter, 
 and it is a pretty sight tp see the dark hair and 
 flashing eyes, above the red or purple waists, bend- 
 ing up and down as the clothes are dipped and 
 pounded and wrung. Of course, it is hard upon 
 the clothes to beat them so vigorously upon rocks, 
 but one must have his clothes washed in this way 
 or not at all. And the only unpicturesque feature 
 is the wheeling of the clothes home, for it is hard 
 for a woman to look picturesque when pushing 
 before her a loaded wheelbarrow. 
 
 The father of William of Normandy looked down 
 from his castle window one day on a line of wash- 
 ers by the streamside, and his fancy was fascinated 
 by the peculiar grace and beauty of one of them, a 
 young girl of humble parentage. He ordered her 
 up into the castle, such being among the pleasant 
 prerogatives of a duke, and she became the mother 
 of William the Conqueror. There is wonder and 
 irony in it, there is curious commentary upon sup- 
 posed standards, for the long line of British sover- 
 eigns, and the present British sovereign himself, 
 have depended for their place in life, and their 
 
 [81] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 right of succession, upon unlegalized love for a 
 peasant girl who pounded clothes upon a stone 
 beside a Norman stream! 
 
VII. THE NORMAN HOME OF THE BRUCE 
 
 ^ HE name of Bruce is so in- 
 timately, so particularly, so 
 inseparably associated with Scot- 
 land that it is scarcely possible 
 to think of it as ever having been 
 anything but Scotch. No other 
 stands so markedly for antago- 
 nism to Norman-English things. 
 The name of Bruce is represen- 
 tative of Scotland. Yet the Bruces 
 were really Norman, and here in 
 the Cotentin is the place from 
 which they came. A Robert Bruce 
 crossed with William to the Conquest, and was 
 granted lands in Yorkshire. A later Bruce became a 
 friend of King David of Scotland and was by him 
 given Scottish possessions. The father of the great- 
 est of all Bruces was a friend of Edward the First. 
 That greatest of the Bruces was also, like his father, 
 a friend of King Edward, and a trusted adviser, 
 and long wavered between the Scotch and English 
 sides. Indeed, it was only a sort of belated com- 
 prehension of his practical interests that made 
 him finally throw in his lot with Scotland. 
 
 [83] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 And here in Normandy is the village of Bruce; 
 and that it was the birthplace of such a mighty 
 line makes it of fascinating charm. But the finding 
 of the village was not easy, for it was unbaedekered, 
 and is spelled, quite unexpectedly, "Brix"; and even 
 after discovering the village the finding of the 
 remains of the Bruce castle was also matter of diffi- 
 culty. In fact, it occurred to me that if the enemies 
 of the early Bruces had half the difficulty in finding 
 their stronghold that I experienced, they were pretty 
 safe from intrusion, excejpt from the persevering! 
 
 I found Brix in the course of some drives that I 
 took from the town of Valognes a town that is 
 reached by a short railway ride from Cherbourg. 
 
 I chose Valognes because the map showed it to 
 be a good starting-point for drives, but perhaps its 
 close association with William the Conqueror had 
 something to do with it, too, for William, some years 
 before the battle of Hastings, was near Valognes 
 when he received news of an uprising that had his 
 own capture as its aim, whereupon his court fool 
 advised him to forget his dignity and flee, and he 
 "took a fool's advice" a phrase that has remained 
 colloquially in the English language and barely 
 escaped with his life. And it is among the many 
 ironic facts of history that William would never 
 have lived to be a Conqueror had it not been for the 
 prompt urgency of a fool! 
 
 Valognes is itself a typical, pleasant spot, with an 
 
 [84] 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 old church, an old marketplace, surrounded by 
 houses not so old, and some really ancient houses 
 tucked away along the course of a brook that goes 
 deviously, out of sight and in sight alternately, 
 under streets, or between the back doors of these 
 ancient structures, lapping gravely against moss- 
 grown steps. So very much is moss-grown in the 
 Cotentin ! 
 
 At Valognes I inquired where I could find a horse 
 and driver, and was referred to a prosperous farmer 
 in the outskirts of the town, who met my suggestion 
 with cordiality, and led me with pride, which was 
 barely repressed exultation, to his stableful of 
 horses. "Choose, monsieur, sil vous plait!" And 
 I chose; and his eyes twinkled pleasantly when I 
 picked a well-set-up bay. He hitched it to a two- 
 wheeled high-seated cart, and thus charioted we 
 set forth to bowl over miles and miles of the coun- 
 tryside. 
 
 Rich farmer though he was, as a matter of course 
 I spoke of payment, and as a matter of course he 
 met me naturally and named his price some two 
 dollars a day for himself and outfit. It is always 
 best for a traveler to speak of payment for any 
 service, and to do so in advance. The supposed 
 delicacy, which is merely finicalness, which makes 
 one fear to speak of money, has led to many an 
 unpleasant misunderstanding. People are seldom 
 displeased with the idea of receiving money for 
 
 [85] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 services rendered. I have heard warnings, in 
 various parts of both England and America, against 
 asking a price or even offering to pay, but I have yet 
 to find the man who having expressed a willingness 
 to do a service; not, of course, a service by a friend 
 for a friend has been offended by a frank offer of 
 money. Rather, a man would be offended by the 
 failure to offer it! But, naturally, offense could 
 easily be given and taken by an offensive way of 
 speaking of this subject. 
 
 The Valognes farmer was intelligent, fine of face, 
 large and well formed of body; in these respects a 
 typical Cotentin peasant, who are a good-looking, 
 large framed, intelligent folk. He was anxious to 
 oblige me and frankly curious as to what I wanted 
 to see and learn; and both the obligingness and the 
 curiosity came largely from naive interest in me as 
 a stranger and an American. 
 
 He drove without protest, although sometimes 
 with mild wonder, in whatever direction I indicated. 
 I had supplied myself with a local map, but when I 
 did not indicate he chose the roads himself. And 
 such charming roads! Such delightful old houses! 
 Such hospitality! for he knew everybody, was ac- 
 quainted or related everywhere, and everywhere 
 we were treated as honored guests. 
 
 He was not garrulous, but was ready to talk when 
 he saw that he was pleasing me, and his concern 
 when I did not precisely catch his meaning was al- 
 
 [86] 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 most touching! And whenever, on one side or the 
 other, we came to an impasse, it was a matter of 
 carefully aiming words at each other till one of us 
 hit the mark and mutual understanding resulted 
 with also resultant glee. 
 
 Now and then there was use for the invaluable 
 dictionary; as when he referred to a tree, looking 
 like an American beech, as what sounded like an 
 "ate"; whereupon seeing that I did not catch it, 
 he took the book and turned its pages, first in con- 
 fidence, then with growing doubt, finally with long- 
 faced certainty of failure. "I cannot find it, moi!" 
 And at length, "But no, it is not here!" His face 
 perceptibly drooped as he handed the book back to 
 me. His disappointment was great. Not for an 
 instant did he, as the average American would do 
 were the circumstances reversed, seem to think 
 that the fault or the shortcoming lay with the stranger 
 who had not learned the language. His regret was 
 only that he could not make me understand. It 
 was unthinkable! It was a calamity! 
 
 Taking back the dictionary, I looked under 
 "beech," and found that it was "hetre" but I 
 assuredly did not let him know that he missed the 
 spelling when he had looked only under the "e's," 
 as I had noticed that he was doing! After all, he 
 was only making an error similar in character to that 
 of the distinguished American lawyer who, prepar- 
 ing to crush his opponent with the dictionary 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 meaning of "wholesome," looked in vain under 
 the"h's." 
 
 It was a day of uncertain glory, for now the sky 
 was clear and the landscape was the perfection of 
 delightfulness, and now there were flying clouds 
 and showers of gusty rain. For it rains very easily 
 in lower Normandy. 
 
 The men whistling to their horses to guide them 
 as they hauled or ploughed, the tiny canals for 
 irrigation, criss-crossing the fields, the stone-walled 
 pools of green-scummed water, with their great 
 aspect of age, the brimming little streams sud- 
 denly expanding into shallow ponds, and then, as 
 if in panic at their own daring, as suddenly closing 
 in again, the fruit trees, the splendid hedges, the 
 cattle browsing drowsily, the tiny school house, 
 with a noise issuing from it as of the droning of an 
 immense hive of bees, but caused by the children 
 studying aloud, the little slopes, the winding val- 
 leys, the men belted with scarfs of red and wearing 
 wooden shoes stuffed with straw, the roadside walls, 
 so covered with the gradual accumulation of the 
 dust of centuries as often quite to hide the stone 
 and make the walls, with moss and flowers and vines 
 and shrubs and trees growing richly out of them, 
 seem like walls of earth alone this was fascinating 
 in itself, and even more fascinating when met in 
 the course of an expedition to Brix. 
 
 I did not try to go straight to the place; I wanted 
 
 [88] 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 to see other places too, and to see the entire country- 
 side in the most charming way, and so we twisted 
 and circled about, mainly along retired roads, away 
 not only from railway points, but also from any 
 diligence route, for in that way I found a country 
 with its characteristics unaltered by contact with 
 strangers. 
 
 Now and then we came to some little village, 
 and then it was a pleasure to go into the little inn, 
 and sit down at a little table while the cheerful 
 landlord or more often landlady! set forth some 
 simple refreshment; and always my companion, 
 like the other farmers and peasants of the Cotentin 
 that I had noticed, used his own knife, and did not 
 care for fork or spoon. Doubtless, the men who 
 went to the Conquest ate likewise with knives alone! 
 
 At every inn it is expected, as a matter of course, 
 that coffee and cognac will be ordered; wine, indeed, 
 may be, or cider, but even so the coffee and cognac 
 will almost be a matter of course as well. Coffee- 
 and-cognac is the typical drink of the region. The 
 cognac is very coarse; it is practically unrectified 
 spirits; it seems strong enough to kill a live man or 
 bring to life a dead one, and yet, somehow, I did 
 not notice any one affected by it. And, after all, 
 I remembered that I had seen the mountaineers of 
 Georgia and the Carolinas drink unstintedly of 
 stark moonshine without apparent effect. 
 
 Always the cognac and the coffee are taken to- 
 
 [89] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 gether. The man who takes cognac without coffee 
 or coffee without cognac is rather disapprovingly 
 known for miles around as a curiosity. The coffee 
 itself is largely chicory but even the coffee of 
 Paris is that! and both cognac and coffee together 
 cost but a few coppers for the twofold tipple, the 
 double drink. 
 
 Our real luncheon that day, as distinguished 
 from the numerous tastes and snacks, was at an 
 inn at the very edge of an alluring forest, and we 
 sat on a bench beside the table, at the door, and 
 the repast was a savory compound of I know not 
 what ingredients that had boiled and bubbled in 
 a great caldron that was twice as large as the little 
 stove that upheld it. 
 
 Even more interesting than the inns are the 
 country homes, the houses of the farmers, mossy- 
 walled, mossy-thatched or tiled, nestled beside 
 little streams or ponds, shaded by tall trees that 
 are ivy-clad to their summits or thick-balled with 
 mistletoe or made marvelously grotesque by the 
 pollarding of many generations. 
 
 The white-capped farmer's wife gives a cheerful 
 welcome; the farmer himself will probably within a 
 little while appear. The room we enter is large 
 and low; the floor is of cement or, more likely, 
 merely hard-packed earth; the ceiling is beamed 
 with oak that is black with age; there are shining 
 rows of copper pots and pans. 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 In such a house, of the prosperous sort, there may 
 be a four-post bed standing right on the floor of 
 earth; there may be an ancient eight-foot clock; 
 there may be a great carved ancient time-darkened 
 cupboard. 
 
 An open fireplace in the kitchen serves for the 
 household cooking, and in front of the fire the 
 dog, the yellow cat (a feature of rural Normandy), 
 perhaps even a few chickens, are gathered in fra- 
 ternal friendship. 
 
 It is this getting at the heart of things that gives 
 the keenest zest to travel; one realizes how much 
 is gained by getting away from the usual, and 
 by seeing a country in an unusual way. It is 
 among my pleasantest memories, this driving about 
 in out-of-the-way corners of Lower Normandy, 
 partly with definite aims as to destination and in 
 part just for the general pleasure of it. Had it 
 been only to reach Brix, so I found afterward, I 
 could have taken a local train out of Cherbourg, 
 stopped at the station a mile from Brix and walked 
 up, as indeed I did in the course of another visit 
 in another year for I came so to love the country 
 as to like to get back again. But this first visit, 
 this driving about for the pure joy of it, with only 
 now and then a fixed objective, remains in my 
 memory as an experience of singular charm. And 
 this part of the Cotentin, round about Valognes, 
 has more of intrinsic attractiveness than the sterner 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 portion around Greville and toward the Nez de 
 Jobourg. 
 
 Great black and white magpies flitted across 
 the roads; often I saw the robin, the rouge-gorge; 
 there was a glory of flowers and greenery; there 
 were roses paramount in beauty somehow, one 
 comes to expect roses in bloom at any time of the 
 year in France! Many a road rises above the 
 general level of the land and many a road runs 
 felicitously below, between banks topped by wall 
 and hedge. The stone cottages of the humbler 
 folk, the wagons topped with cloth of green, the 
 washed clothes drying on the hedges that were 
 flaming with flowers of pink or yellow everything 
 was a delight. 
 
 It struck me as curious that, in spite of the war- 
 like reputation of these people, there is no great 
 abundance of castles evident; there are some parts 
 of Europe where one is continually impressed by 
 the frequency and the greatness of the strongholds, 
 but the general Cotentin castles were rather small 
 and were long ago pretty much quarried away for 
 building stone to meet peaceful needs, and it is 
 comparatively seldom that one still finds where the 
 splendor falls on castle walls. 
 
 The thatched roofs of the countryside are, too, a 
 never-ceasing delight, weathered and mossed into 
 subtly harmonizing shades of green and yellow and 
 red and brown and black; and that thatched roofs 
 
 [923 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 are now forbidden to be made, on account of fire 
 danger, adds additional interest, for thus they be- 
 come of the things that must pass away. And one 
 finds that the peasantry are shrewd as well as 
 picturesque; for although thatch roofs are now for- 
 bidden, the repairing of thatch roofs with thatch is 
 still allowed, and here and there you find a cottage 
 which has secured a needed new thatch roof in the 
 course of judiciously separated periods of repair! 
 
 At length, after hours of devious driving, we 
 turned toward Brix, and we drove along a lonely 
 road and through a great wood, and there came 
 anew, as there had come at other times that day, 
 a sense of wonder that there should be so much of 
 solitude in a region of good soil, richly farmed, 
 which has been for so many centuries settled. 
 
 The solitude was broken as we turned a bend, 
 for two old women were walking toward us with 
 huge bundles of faggots, twice their size, upon their 
 backs; they walked slow and stoopingly, now and 
 then rising painfully erect for a moment's rest as 
 they tipped the huge bundles back on a roadside 
 log or bank. And yet the crones looked happy! 
 
 At length, up a winding road, with an ascent so 
 gentle that one is later astonished by the far-spread 
 view, and we are at Brix. 
 
 The village itself gives at first a certain sense of 
 disappointment, for its houses, rather plain and 
 modern, do not measure up to expectations con- 
 
 [93] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 nected with a glorious name;^and then one realizes 
 that this adds to the dramatic sense of it; the fact 
 that this ordinary little village, not nearly so at- 
 tractive as many another Norman village, should 
 be the cradle of the mighty Bruces. And one sees, 
 too, that the village, with its plain stone houses 
 set closely about the edges of a bare and open 
 square, closely resembles villages in Scotland and 
 northern England; it is closely remindful of Norham, 
 built in the shadow of a mighty Norman castle on 
 the Scottish border. 
 
 After the first dash of disappointment one also 
 sees that there is something of peculiar interest here : 
 a very old church, not large, but of very unusual 
 shape; for it is built with four wings of equal size 
 standing out from a central square, above this 
 centre rising a small and ancient square-sided tower. 
 There is the tiniest of tiny galleries, reached, oddly 
 enough, by an outside stairway, and as if one out- 
 side stairway were not enough for one little church, 
 there is another one also, this second stair leading 
 above the body of the building and into the tower. 
 And the stone steps of both these stairs are smooth- 
 hollowed by the footsteps of generations and grayed 
 and mossed with age. 
 
 Looking at the church, it suddenly flashes upon 
 one that its shape (that of a crux decussatd) is that 
 of the St. Andrew's Cross, the cross of Scotland! 
 more than a coincidence, this, one thinks, in the 
 

 Ax THE NORMAN HOME OF THE BRUCE 
 
f Old Eurc 
 
 .\nd or 
 plain st< 
 A a bare 
 
 in Scotia 
 ^emindful of N 
 :y Normai 
 
 intment one 
 
 lai y unu 
 
 of equal 
 
 ;uare-sided to 
 
 . 
 
 as if 01 
 for one little 
 ond stair lea^ 
 i to the to^ 
 re smo< 
 enerations and gr 
 
 rux decussate) is 
 
 ss of Scotlanr 
 mon -hinks, in the 
 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 home of the Bruce; surely some early Bruce had this 
 church thus built to symbolize his Scotch glories and 
 affiliations. Not, of course, but that other churches 
 have been built in this unusual shape, but that in 
 this case there was most likely the Scottish reason 
 for it. 
 
 There comes to me, in particular for I have more 
 than once visited Brix the memory of an Easter 
 Sunday, when this church was plethoric with white- 
 capped women and black-bloused men, sex sitting 
 strictly apart from sex; with one priest to officiate 
 and another at the organ; and with two white- 
 gowned laymen, metamorphosed from the farm, 
 blowing on long brass horns, their , heads angled 
 awkwardly forward and their eyes starting, as they 
 not only jointly blew, but jointly read their music 
 from an ancient-looking book, arm-long. 
 
 Where the graveyard has long gathered its dead 
 under the walls of the church there rises an "if" 
 tree, a mighty yew, extravagant of shape, prepos- 
 terous of convolution. "It is a very, very old tree," 
 said one of the priests, walking with me there after 
 the service. "It is much older than the graveyard, 
 and this old graveyard is older than the old church. 
 Perhaps who knows! perhaps it is as old as the 
 castle!" 
 
 One of the strong impressions that remains with 
 me has nothing to do with a Bruce; it is but an 
 inscription on an humble stone above a woman's 
 
 [95] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 grave. "Infinite regrets" that is all, except the 
 name of the woman. "Infinite regrets" indicative, 
 that, of a sorrow deeper than could be expressed 
 by loquacity of gravestone grief. 
 
 Although the village houses are but ordinary, 
 there is, at the edge of the village, an old-time 
 manor-house, large, almost stately, almost impres- 
 sive, and in its rambling garret I found, and secured 
 for five francs, a splendid Norman milk jug one of 
 the big brass jugs such as milk-girls carry on their 
 shoulders, and of which models, of all sizes, little 
 and big, are offered, brand new, to the visitors to 
 Cherbourg. Few things are more interesting and 
 more satisfactory than to secure beautiful and 
 typical articles in the very regions where they^have 
 been made and used for centuries. 
 
 Unless one should specially inquire and urgently 
 search, he would not see what remains of the ancient 
 castle. It is off at one side from the village, and 
 reached by narrow and seemingly purposeless roads. 
 
 The ruins are on a hilltop from which there is 
 a fair and radiant view, stretching off to shadowy 
 forest and duskily remote mystery. 
 
 Considered merely as ruins, never were ruins 
 more triflingly fragmentary than those of Bruce. 
 The original castle seems to have been nearly de- 
 stroyed, and another, centuries ago, raised upon 
 its foundations, only to be itself captured, dis- 
 mantled, deserted, destroyed. Likely enough the 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 ancient church is built of castle stone; likely enough 
 the village houses were similarly castle-built; it 
 having often been found convenient for practical 
 needs to have a supply of shaped and squared 
 stones ready to hand, and it thus coming to pass, 
 in many a place in Europe, that the peasants sit 
 in the seats of the mighty. 
 
 Here and there, at the Bruce ruins, is a bit of 
 foundation wall, projective through rich green turf, 
 and by dint of patient study the outlines of the 
 ancient structure may still be traced, though the 
 remains are quite too fragmentary to identify the 
 early architecture or even find' a rounded Norman 
 arch. Along one side may still be found the line 
 of the moat, and on the other side is the edge of 
 the hill and a precipitous dropping away toward 
 a hurrying brook, far below, that is half hidden 
 among greenery. 
 
 In the cliff-like bank I found an opening into a 
 subterranean apartment and passage, and there I 
 found an inscription, evidently a copy of an in- 
 scription far more ancient, telling, in ecclesiastical 
 Latin, that all this was the land of the Bruce (spell- 
 ing it here "Bruis"), from the forest to the church, 
 according to the charter of Henry II. Apparently, 
 the Bruces retained their Norman possessions at 
 least a century after the Conquest, and England 
 retained the sovereignty of Normandy not only 
 to the reign of Henry II, but to that of King John 
 
 [97] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 John Lackland; whom one recognizes under the 
 delightful name of Jean sans Terre, as they call him 
 who lost it to France. 
 
 I went along the passage, down a flight of mouldy 
 steps of stone, then a little distance farther and 
 down a slope, and there found the passage, still de- 
 scendent, so narrow, so black, so choked with debris 
 that to pass farther would be impossible unless with 
 destruction of clothes and with moiling of the hard- 
 est. "It goes for many metres," says, quietly, the 
 old peasant who has hoveringly accompanied me 
 and who now comes closely up. 
 
 Does he know anything of it? But no! " Moi, 
 I cannot say. It was here before my father's day, 
 before my grandfather's!" Clearly, to him history 
 can mean nothing more distant than that. 
 
 But one does not want such a passage at the 
 Norman castle of Bruce explained, accounted for, 
 made plain. There is much in Europe that must be 
 learned, many a date and fact that must needs be 
 acquired, but happily there is also much that can 
 be left as it is, with its interest dependent upon pre- 
 cisely what is visible. 
 
 At Brix there are other mementoes of the past 
 than a church, a graveyard, the remnant of a ruin, 
 for there are old-time Norman customs, beliefs, 
 superstitions. The superstitions are of less grave 
 character than some I came across in the bleak 
 region of the Cotentin, along the coast, where the 
 
 [981 
 

 IN A TOWN OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR: VALOGNES 
 
of O1 
 
 . 
 
 c impossible 
 ith moiling of the ; 
 juieth 
 companied me 
 
 -ut no! "Mot*, 
 
 ban that. 
 
 passage at the 
 
 plained, accounted 
 
 in Europe that must be 
 
 lat must needs be 
 
 <nuch that can 
 
 ?st dependent upon pre~ 
 
 :mnant of a r 
 oms, beii 
 
 JTV* r^t 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 fisher folk tell whisperingly of the ghosts of the 
 drowned and of powers direful. Here at Brix, in 
 the midst of a rich and a smiling Cotentin region, 
 not only are the beliefs of a lighter character, but 
 most of them, such as that concerning the ill-luck 
 of breaking a mirror, are the common property of 
 the superstitious of the world. I noticed with in- 
 terest, too, the superstition in regard to the over- 
 turning of the salt, for that is a belief which has 
 persisted throughout the world for so many cen- 
 turies, and can at least be traced to the legendary 
 overturning of the salt by Judas at the Last 
 Supper. 
 
 The tale of the priest who, having hidden away 
 wrongfully acquired money, denied it with vehe- 
 mence, is typical of the mild lengths to which local 
 superstition goes. The priest, still denying, cried 
 at length: "The devil take me if I have the money!" 
 Whereat the devil promptly appeared in person 
 and personally conducted him away. "And," 
 said an old woman gravely, "once a year, still, after 
 all these many years, the devil appears and again 
 takes the wicked priest away. You have but to be 
 at the right place at the right moment and you will 
 see!" 
 
 A buzzing in the right ear means good fortune, 
 whereas so slight a difference in this world so 
 often marking the difference between good and 
 evil! a similar buzzing in the left ear bodes some- 
 
 [99] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 thing ill. If a chimney draws poorly and the smoke 
 comes pouring out into the room, "There is money 
 coming," you will be told. And yet, as a peasant 
 said to me with humorous deprecation, when a puff 
 of smoke came out of his fireplace: "Often has 
 the smoke done thus, and still the money has not 
 come!" 
 
 Weddings are times of prideful display, with plenty 
 of simple fun and homely jesting. A bright day is 
 hoped for, as it is the world over; here they say: 
 "Rain is bad, for it means for the bride a lifetime of 
 
 tears.' 3 
 
 The wedding party walk to the church. The 
 bride is dressed in black, but sometimes wears a 
 veil of white lace. Guns are fired as the party start 
 back to the home, and the guns are hymeneally 
 celebrant later, too, as a means of enforcing a wel- 
 come for the uninvited, and some prefer to be of 
 the uninvited because they find a great deal of enjoy- 
 ment in making a tremendous firing din outside and 
 then going in with a sort of triumphant and con- 
 quering glory. 
 
 It is still the custom for some young man to 
 crawl beneath the table at the wedding feast and 
 possess himself of the bride's garter, and as this 
 has been regularly done for centuries, any bride 
 with Cotentin self-respect would feel really slighted 
 were there no young man daring enough to do this; 
 and it may be added that in anticipation of such a 
 
 [100] 
 
The Norman Home of the Bruce 
 
 feat the bride always wears her garters below the 
 knee! Honi soit qui mal y pense! 
 
VIII. UNEXPECTED SURVIVALS IN AND 
 NEAR PARIS 
 
 UROPEAN distances are a 
 great surprise to Americans. 
 We have all been told, over 
 and over again, that the dis- 
 tances over there are really 
 nothing at all; that it is only 
 in America that there are dis- 
 tances; that in Europe the 
 _ going from place to place 
 
 eF takes so little time that one 
 
 may count upon spending all 
 
 his time sight-seeing, the travel itself being neg- 
 ligible. Whereupon the American expects to flit 
 from London to Rome, Paris, Berlin more easily 
 and quickly than from New York to Philadelphia, 
 Boston, Washington. All of which makes for 
 disillusionment! 
 
 In the first place, the distances in Europe are long, 
 and in the next place the trains are very slow. That 
 there is no trip so long as from New York to San 
 Francisco is the basis of the mistaken but generally 
 inculcated belief in the short and easy travel of 
 
 Europe. 
 
 [102] 
 
Unexpected Survivals In and Near Paris 
 
 As to trains, it is true that Europeans boast of 
 their fast ones, and that many Americans accept 
 their boast without examination; it is true that there 
 are really a few fast ones; but it is also true that the 
 great majority are slow and that European travel 
 is both lengthy and leisurely. 
 
 The mere getting from Cherbourg, on the coast, 
 to Paris involves quite a journey, as the distance is 
 231 miles and the trains take from seven and a half 
 to twelve hours for the trip. Take a train which 
 lets you stop at one or two of the fascinating places 
 on the way and you are in for a pleasure long drawn 
 out. It is only an express train that stops nowhere 
 at all that gets through with even an approach to 
 speed. 
 
 Paris itself I shall not attempt to describe; myriad 
 of guide books and books of description have been 
 written about that wonderful city; and yet even in 
 Paris he who looks for the unexpected, the unusual, 
 the unknown is sure to find it. 
 
 I remember that one day, when walking at ran- 
 dom through the region between the Jardin des 
 Plantes and the Pantheon, a region desolate in it- 
 self and more desolate from a number of dreary 
 prisons and asylums, I came upon a street which 
 meant the French Revolution to me more than 
 anything else in Paris; far more than anything in 
 the Rue St. Antoine region, connected though that 
 is, in history and the Tale of Two Cities, with revo- 
 
 [103] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 lutionary activity; for the Rue St. Antoine is now a 
 street mainly of mechanics and artisans and modest 
 prosperity, whereas this street upon which I hap- 
 pened I think it was the Rue Mouffetard is a 
 street of ragpickers, chiffoniers, as they are called, 
 who prowl the gutters with hook and broom; a street 
 of poverty, gaunt and grim and terrible; not a street 
 of "show" poverty, to impress strangers, just as 
 there is "show" iniquity, but of the real poverty, 
 of snag-toothed, crouchy, hungry, gnarl-bodied peo- 
 ple who step aside on the crowded walks or come 
 creeping emergent from the entrance-ways of the 
 tall and tremulous tenements. I think I never saw 
 so many one-eyed wretches. The vaunted economies 
 of the French show here in a most unpleasant way, 
 as indicated by the treasures gathered to be sorted 
 over and sold; not only rags, but bones cellars of 
 bones! and little bags of canine refuse gathered in 
 the parks and destined for the leather factories. 
 
 It is a district where the essential backwardness 
 of so much of Paris as to water-service and sewage 
 is most marked, and where ancient doddering 
 women carry water from public hydrants up end- 
 less flights of stairs in cone-shaped vessels of tin 
 that are black with age and dirt. 
 
 It is well to know that there are such districts, 
 for thus alone can the France of the past and of the 
 present be properly understood; and it is also well 
 to know, on the other hand, somewhat of the length 
 
 [104] 
 
Unexpected Survivals In and Near Paris 
 
 to which arrogant royalty and wealth once went; 
 and this can be understood by little journeys to 
 royal places about Paris; not only the famous Ver- 
 sailles, but such places as Meudon, St. Cloud, St. 
 Germain, Marly-le-Roi. 
 
 And the ideal way to see these places, and, inci- 
 dentally, much of the unusual and unvisited in the 
 country close around Paris, is to take a day's ex- 
 cursion to some selected point and then take random 
 walks along the terraces, along the country roads, 
 and through the forest paths; one sees in that way, 
 in pleasant weather, so much that is charming, and 
 sees it in such a charming way. Take a train to 
 the chosen point of beginning, walk as long as you 
 choose, and then aim for some little station and a 
 return train to Paris. 
 
 One hot day, walking on an offshoot from the old 
 royal road that leads from Marly-le-Roi to Ver- 
 sailles, I saw some big ripe plums fallen from the 
 trees and lying in the road. I picked up two or 
 three of them they were delicious! but, chancing 
 to speak of it, in the evening, to a French friend, 
 he was horrified. "A Frenchman would not dare!" 
 he said. 
 
 "Then it is not proper?" I asked, wondering. 
 
 "Not in France! Had you not been an American 
 there might have been trouble." 
 
 "Yet I picked up not more than three plums, and 
 they were not in a field, but lying in the grass in the 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 very road. In America a pedestrian would do that 
 on a country road without hesitation." 
 
 I felt rather proud of America by contrast with 
 this closeness of France, and perhaps I showed that 
 I did, for he retorted, with a smile: "But the matter 
 of boundary is it also in America that a chicken is 
 safe only if it is not in the road?" And I had to 
 laugh with him. 
 
 I thought again of the French Revolution, that 
 greatest of all facts in French history, when, run- 
 ning down into Touraine, and seeing there the 
 most beautiful, the most exquisite of all chateaux, 
 representative of the glories of the days of the 
 ancient nobility, the contrast of all this with the 
 poverty of the old-time peasants, as described by 
 historians and travelers, came to me. And one 
 day, after viewing the glories of Amboise, with its 
 splendid architecture, its circular towers, the mar- 
 velous spiral inclined road built to minister to an 
 extravagant fancy for the impossible, I walked back 
 into the country a little and, in the face of a cliff, 
 caught sight of ascending smoke. Something made 
 me look more closely, and I saw that it came from 
 a chimney that there were other chimneys that 
 people lived there! Whereupon I climbed up to 
 see. 
 
 Yes, they were there; cliff-dwellers, families who 
 lived in caves hollowed out of the soft rock of the 
 countryside. The tiny rooms had natural stone 
 
 [106] 
 
Unexpected Survivals In and Near Paris 
 
 floors, natural stone ceilings and walls; only the 
 front walls in each case had needed building to take 
 the place of what was necessarily destroyed in the 
 hollowing out. 
 
 I learned that this kind of rock-living is quite 
 ancient and is not uncommon in that region, and 
 I afterward came upon a whole village of it at 
 Montlouis, below Amboise, on the Loire, and upon 
 other similar places; and always with the sense of 
 the tremendous contrast between lives lived in 
 caves, with children born and reared there and 
 people cooking and eating and sleeping and dy- 
 ing! and lives lived in those most beautiful homes 
 nearby the world-famous chateaux of Touraine. 
 
 One of the pleasant discoveries that the visitor 
 to Paris can make is that the well-to-do Parisians, 
 supposedly the most sophisticated of all people, the 
 most worldly, the most blase, the most sated and 
 surfeited with pleasure, know how to go out and 
 enjoy a simple childlike day at an outing! It is 
 therefore well worth while being at St. Germain at 
 the time of its annual fair, early in September, to 
 watch the Parisians go in care-free gayety along the 
 avenues of the forest when they are lined by tem- 
 porary booths. It used to be that my most inter- 
 esting memories of St. Germain were of its con- 
 nection with that picturesque monarch Francis 
 the First, and that unpicturesque exile James the 
 Second, who was given a home here by Louis the 
 
 [to/] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Fourteenth, and used to pace up and down the long 
 terrace on a length of carpet two lengths, to be 
 precise for flunkies would lay each in front of him 
 in turn, so that his delicately royal feet should not 
 touch the earth; running back and picking up the 
 one just left and then running forward with it to 
 get it down in time. But after seeing a day of the 
 annual fair I realized that it was equal to the other 
 St. Germain associations in interest; although it 
 should never be thought that one class of interest 
 needs to discourage or belittle other kinds, for one 
 may find enjoyment in the things of present-day 
 human life, and yet find no lessening of enjoyment 
 in architectural beauties and historical associations, 
 
 The annual fair, the "gingerbread fair," of St. 
 Cloud follows the St. Germain fair with largely the 
 same booths and amusement makers, and is even 
 more interesting on account of the nearness of St. 
 Cloud to the city, making the crowds far larger; 
 and for several days and nights grown-up Parisians 
 are children, reveling in penny purchases of ginger- 
 bread, in the deafening noise of organs, in the 
 horses of the merry-go-rounds, in the clutter and 
 hubbub, the talk and the laughter of the throng. 
 
 It was at St. Cloud, one summer day, that I 
 came upon an ancient observance, an ancient 
 celebration that I had never before heard of. It 
 was a feast of the gardeners; and it gives quite as 
 vivid a pleasure to discover an ancient observance, 
 
 [108] 
 
Unexpected Survivals In and Near Paris 
 
 of which no one has told you and of which you have 
 not read, as it does to discover an unvisited locality. 
 
 St. Cloud is a little old town that, from the place 
 to which it seems to have scrambled, on the steep 
 hillside above the Seine, looks out brightly toward 
 Paris. The tourist usually sees St. Cloud only in 
 passing through it if driving to Versailles; but the 
 place is itself of pleasing interest, with its many 
 associations, its zigzag streets that attempt the 
 perpendicular, and the great royal park and gardens 
 around the site of the chateau, now vanished, that 
 was so loved by the great Napoleon. 
 
 In the park are endless forest aisles; there is water 
 spouting through great carved heads and trickling 
 softly away through long hollows of wrought-out 
 stone; there are pleached walks and ancient retain- 
 ing walls; there is the glory of countless flowers; 
 and in all the countryside round about there is 
 likewise the splendor of flowers, with magnificent 
 riot of roses reigning supreme. St. Cloud is pre- 
 eminently a place where a feast of the gardeners 
 should still be observed. 
 
 I went to the church, and before the people came 
 I spoke with the serene-faced priest. Often, in 
 Catholic countries, I have found the priest- the com- 
 municative and courteous source of information, 
 just as in Protestant countries it is often the local 
 rector or minister. 
 
 "For hundreds of years," says the priest, "this 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 festival has been observed; for six hundred per- 
 haps for eight hundred " he waves his hand im- 
 pressively. And distant music sounds in momently 
 increasing clamor a cheerful clamor, full of life 
 and energy and toward the open space in front of 
 the church, from the streets which twist and climb 
 so tortuously, people of the town begin to come. 
 
 The priest hastily gathers together some boys 
 who are playing gleefully about, and sweeps them 
 into a porch-entrance, and in a little while those 
 boys will be scarlet-gowned, white-surpliced aco- 
 lytes, sobered into transitory gravity. 
 
 Nearer and nearer comes the music, and around 
 a sharp corner appears the head of the procession 
 of the ancient Association of Gardeners. For this 
 is the day of Saint Fiacre, their patron saint, and 
 from farms for miles around the gardeners have 
 gathered and are marching to the St. Cloud church. 
 
 A drummer heads the line, and close behind him 
 are the band ten or a dozen young gardeners, 
 briskly blowing on horns and trumpets and making 
 an inspiring din. Following the band are boys in 
 couples, bearing between them great panniers filled 
 with brioche, a feathery and unsweetened kind of 
 cake, piled in squares and circles and surmounted 
 by bunched flowers. 
 
 Behind the boys and the panniered brioche comes 
 a triumph of the gardener's skill, and the watching 
 groups are quite breathless with admiration as the 
 
 [no] 
 
Unexpected Survivals In and Near Paris 
 
 chef-d'oeuvre passes. It is a huge vase, made of 
 close-cut flowers, woven and wrought into sym- 
 metrical designs and mainly in yellow and red. It 
 is slung upon poles, and carried, a heavy load, by 
 four strong men, and out of its top rises toweringly 
 a waving mass of asparagus plumes, splendid holly- 
 hocks, and the familiar goldenrod. 
 
 Behind the vase are little girls, with tiny bunches 
 of flowers, and then, in a long line, and each moving 
 with the brisk and nimble step called for by coercive 
 drum and trumpet, come the gardeners, men and 
 women, old and young. And the face of each is a 
 shining beacon of happiness. 
 
 The greater number are well advanced in years, 
 and there is a certain pathos in the fact. One feels 
 that the decline of the ancient custom has begun 
 and that the end is almost in sight. 
 
 But there are youthful marchers also, and all go 
 two by two, and most go arm in arm husband 
 and wife, brother and sister, lover and sweetheart, 
 friend with friend. 
 
 In the broad space before the church the paraders 
 take on a yet braver aspect, a mien still more full of 
 gay appreciation of the part they are playing in the 
 public eye. And, withal, on the part of everyone, old 
 and young, there is that complete absence of self- 
 consciousness which is so pleasant a characteristic 
 of the French when they are having a cheerful time. 
 
 There is time to look about for a few minutes 
 
 [in] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 while the gardeners are making their way slowly 
 through the broad portal. Facing the church is a 
 curious stone fragment, a section of wall and arch, 
 ancient, half-crumbled, half-destroyed. Lines of 
 beauty are still suggested; dignity indisputably 
 remains; and you are told such being the received 
 belief in the town that this was part of the monas- 
 tery founded here some fourteen centuries ago by 
 Saint Clodoald, grandson of Clovis, the Merovingian 
 king; and the folk-lore of St. Cloud will also tell you 
 that when certain grandsons of Clovis, after the 
 monarch's death, were made prisoners by a claim- 
 ant of the throne, and the widow of Clovis was 
 asked whether she wished them to be slain or to 
 become monks, for that one fate or the other they 
 must surely meet, she chose death for them, where- 
 upon all were slain but Clodoald, who was saved 
 by a faithful retainer, and, becoming a churchman 
 and abbot, founded the monastery about which 
 the town, named, from him, St. Cloud, gradually 
 arose. 
 
 But the gardeners are now in church, and the 
 shuffle of many feet has ceased, and the choir breaks 
 into a rhythmic chant. The monster vase has been 
 deposited at the very altar rail, and on either side 
 are the panniers of brioche, and a graceful young girl 
 stands there for a time, holding a candle, lambent 
 burning and tall. The church is decked with ferns, 
 with ivy, with potted plants, and instead of musty 
 
 [1,8] 
 
Unexpected Survivals In and Near Paris 
 
 odor, or that of incense, the building is cheerful with 
 the mingled smell of flowers and brioche. The men 
 are mostly in drawer-creased black; the women are 
 in the infrequent glory of their very best and prob- 
 ably inherited gowns, bright purple being the pre- 
 vailing hue. And it is a little fact, but not un- 
 worthy of notice, that men and women alike have the 
 broadened thumb that comes from years of pressing 
 of the earth about flower-pots and bulbs and vege- 
 tables. 
 
 The sermon is especially for gardeners. The serene- 
 faced priest tells them that God is the great gardener 
 of the world, and that it is He who gives the sun- 
 shine and the rains, and He who designed the roses 
 and the lilies and the homely vegetables and gave 
 them to mankind. 
 
 The sermon over, there comes a burst of unex- 
 pected music a sonorously solemn tune, played by 
 the gardeners' band, stationed in an alcoved space 
 beside the altar. Inside the church the drum is 
 silent, but now, above the sound of horns and trum- 
 pets, rises, distinct and clear, the strain of a piccolo, 
 thin-voiced and sweet. The gardeners let a few notes 
 go awry, but the general harmony is effective, and 
 the people listen in pleased intentness. And, indeed, 
 music ought to be loved well and played well here, 
 for in this church Gounod, who lived for many years 
 at the edge of St. Cloud, used often to play the or- 
 gan at mass, and his memory is held in loving awe. 
 
 ["3] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 The panniers of brioche are now carried through 
 the church, and every one takes a piece, and, after 
 devoutly crossing himself, slowly eats; and the act 
 of gustatory worship brings anew a smiling glow to 
 every face. And the tall Suisse, appareled in blue 
 and gold, and with gold-fringed hat, who, with 
 great steel halberd in one hand and gold-topped 
 mace in the other, has been standing and walking 
 and thumping in front of the altar, now takes him- 
 self and his dazzle of glory to a restful eclipse in a 
 chair in an almost hidden nook, and with mace and 
 halberd laid aside and cocked hat doffed, he leans 
 comfortably back against the wall and seems to be 
 a mere mortal like unto ourselves. 
 
 With seriousness the service ends, and then the 
 gardeners' band, from its altar alcove, again breaks 
 forth, as if irrepressibly, and this time the tune is so 
 gay, so secular, so frolicsome that every toe in the 
 church tingles with an impulse toward terpsichorean 
 friskiness. 
 
 With the great vase towering in the van the gar- 
 deners go out again into the bright sunlight, and in 
 front of the church the line re-forms. "Deux a deux" 
 says the leader, quietly; and your thoughts are for a 
 moment irresistibly carried homeward, and to the 
 "Doozydoo" which has vigorously danced itself 
 through every town and village in America, with a 
 vim increasing with the increase of distance from 
 France. "Deux a deux"- but the words are not 
 
Unexpected Survivals In and Near Paris 
 
 needed, for it is always two by two that the gar- 
 deners march. 
 
 The groups of townspeople watch with an inward 
 interest, but without outward and visible sign. 
 When you come to know the St. Cloud folk you 
 know that this is characteristic. They never suffer 
 interest or approval to become apparent. The 
 sense of having pleased them must live by faith 
 alone. 
 
 The marchers reach the Rue Royale, a street 
 bent and twisted as if with age, as it climbs the steep 
 hill; and, indeed, it might well be so, for there are un- 
 mistakable signs of ancientness in its wavering and 
 indented line. It is so ancient that memory of man 
 runneth not to the contrary, and we may feel assured 
 that when, before the Battle of Crcy, the English, 
 as told in the gallant pages of Froissart, burned St. 
 Cloud, on its height looking over at near-by Paris, 
 the knights and men-at-arms of Edward the Third 
 went up and down along the bending line now called 
 the Rue Royale, although no house now standing 
 can tell of such antiquity. 
 
 There is no intention on the part of the gardeners 
 to march near places of especial note, and so it is 
 quite by chance that their drummer and trumpeters 
 lead them past the paved passage opening into the 
 sombre court where Henry the Third was slain. 
 The spot is unmarked, and even the court itself is 
 never found by tourists, but the traditions of 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the townsfolk preserve the memory of the exact 
 place. 
 
 The marchers turn into the broad avenue which 
 leads by the barracks, and hundreds of soldiers 
 stand at the windows or gather at the entrance of 
 the drillyard and watch the gladsome procession. 
 And next the gardeners drum and trumpet their 
 way to the house of the mayor, who, stately and dig- 
 nified, has been awaiting them; and they formally 
 offer him brioche, and he eats it, and he speaks cor- 
 dially to them and shakes the hands of as many of 
 the women and the men as are not too shy and 
 diffident to be greeted by him. 
 
 Then, more gay, more blithesome than ever, this 
 semi-serious visit over, they march to the Park, the 
 ancient Royal Park and the great gates are swung 
 wide, and in they buoyantly go, as a right, where 
 of old their ancestors humbly entered on sufferance; 
 and white-capped peasant women, endlessly knit- 
 ting, glance at them, from benches of carved stone 
 used of old by nobles and courtiers. 
 
 Following the march comes a great dinner at a 
 restaurant near the park, and then, with the early 
 evening, after several hours of intermission, there 
 begins the gardeners' ball. And numerous young 
 gardeners, youths and maidens, too shame-faced 
 to march in the parade, in these days of change, 
 are now among the happiest and most conspicuous. 
 
 Never at any ball did one dance more swiftly 
 
 [116] 
 
Unexpected Survivals In and Near Paris 
 
 succeed another; never did musicians work harder; 
 never were partners more gallantly sought out, 
 more tirelessly spun about, than by these broad- 
 thumbed men. Indeed, when one knows how un- 
 courteous a saint was Saint Fiacre himself, it is di- 
 verting to see his fete day concluded with such 
 gallant devotion; for Saint Fiacre would not even 
 allow a woman to come near his home! 
 
 But no thoughts of the crusty grumness of their 
 patron saint disturb these celeb rators of his day. 
 The music grows more brisk, the dancers more frolic- 
 some, and Saint Fiacre is thus honored till the 
 coming of daylight. 
 
IX. IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN 
 
 NE day I set out from Paris to 
 go to the Forest of Arden. 
 Yet even as I started it seemed 
 a fantastic impossibility. To 
 find and explore the forest be- 
 loved of Shakespeare and Rosa- 
 lind would be like the coming 
 true of a fairy tale. It was 
 really too incredible to be true. 
 The Forest of Arden is the 
 Ardennes of Belgium; and I entered by driving over 
 from Sedan, stopping off for two or three hours on 
 the way from Paris to Sedan, at Rheims, to see the 
 famous cathedral there. One may leave Paris in 
 the early forenoon, make the stop at Rheims (which, 
 by the way, is pronounced by the inhabitants 
 "Ross," with the "o" very short), and be at Sedan 
 in the evening, ready to start next morning for 
 Bouillon, the center of Ardennes. From the north- 
 ward Bouillon may be reached from Brussels and 
 Namur, and thence, by several changes of cars, to 
 Paliseul, and finally by a narrow-gauge that goes 
 twisting down among the hills. From either south- 
 ward or northward the Forest of Arden may be 
 reached only by taking some trouble; and this is 
 
 [118] 
 
In the Forest of Arden 
 
 fortunate, for its unfrequented character is a prin- 
 cipal charm. I could not find that an American had 
 ever been there before me; even of the English it 
 was clear that but few have ever visited Arden; 
 some French and Belgians go there, mostly by 
 motor car. Arden, I was glad to find, still fitted the 
 Shakespearean description of being exempt from 
 public haunt. Neither at the inn (which gives good 
 service) nor elsewhere did I find a soul with a 
 knowledge of a single word of English; at isolated 
 villages I found not even French, but only Walloon. 
 
 Sedan is a city for an impression. Barely more 
 than forty years ago it drank the dregs of humiliation, 
 when it was forced to surrender a hundred thousand 
 men and the very Emperor himself. Yet now there 
 is evident in a myriad ways an atmosphere of for- 
 getfulness and peace, and the little red-legged sol- 
 diers trot harmlessly about. But when I had settled 
 it that the humiliation was all forgotten, I noticed 
 that not a man, woman, or child dogged my steps 
 to sell mementoes of that bitter battlefield, and that 
 if I spoke in German to one of the townsfolk who 
 was not in a business demanding the pleasing of 
 strangers, I was told, with dry disrelish, that German 
 was not understood. 
 
 Especially in Bazeilles, a suburb of Sedan, was 
 there magnificent fighting in that fateful battle; and 
 to many people it will mean more that De Neuville's 
 "Les dernieres Cartouches" is located here than that 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the battle marked the downfall of Napoleon the Third. 
 Thus one may, it seems, win fame by the making of 
 pictures, as well as by the making of surrenders. 
 
 I was fortunate in entering the forest from the 
 side of France, because from here there is only the 
 diligence; and, as to the charm of Europe, it is still 
 true that they who seek it diligencely shall find it. 
 
 I went out before breakfast to arrange for the 
 box seat with the driver of the diligence; an extra- 
 ordinarily small vehicle considering that it was in- 
 tended for carrying the public, and yet quite large 
 enough, as it turned out, to carry the very few of the 
 public, farmers or woodsmen, who wanted to go. 
 
 It was some time after leaving Sedan before the 
 actual forest was reached. A long white road leads 
 up, and a long white road twists down, and a valley 
 village is reached Givonne, the center of the 
 French position on the battle day, and on that 
 account possessing a dignity which its aspect would 
 not otherwise command. Continuing, trees more and 
 and more take the place of fields; yet always in 
 Ardennes one is likely to come where peasants 
 arduously enforce a living from the meagre land. 
 The Belgian frontier is passed, and scores of trees, 
 toppled over by a recent hurricane, show that the 
 forest is not always a place to lose and neglect the 
 creeping hours of time, but has likewise a savage- 
 ness in its nature which both Shakespeare and 
 Ariosto recognized. 
 
 [120] 
 
In the Forest of Arden 
 
 Oak and beech and aspen and willow, heath and 
 pasture, a lone village or some solitary inn, the 
 ever-recurring forest greenery hemming the long 
 white roads, and the town of Godfrey of Bouillon 
 is reached, and the diligence rattles noisily under the 
 silent walls of the great castle. 
 
 It was tremendously impressive to realize that 
 the castle from which the great King of Jerusalem 
 went forth to the Crusades that made him immortal 
 was still existent, and that I was actually looking at 
 it. The name of Godfrey of Bouillon had been 
 familiar from boyhood, and yet I had never thought 
 of there being any castle of his name. Bouillon is 
 never mentioned in books except as a name of 
 centuries past; yet here it is, dark, frowning, digni- 
 fied, and very, very old. 
 
 The castle and town of Bouillon are nooked in a 
 bending hollow with the Semois sweeping circum- 
 fluent, like the Lehigh at Mauch Chunk. Lofty 
 hills rise on either side; and from its rocky perch 
 upon a river-bound peninsula the castle looks down 
 at the town. 
 
 At the hotel I early met with an example of the 
 eternal differences that come from view-points 
 variant, for "This town is unfortunately," said my 
 host, with wistfulness, "off the beaten track." 
 As if that could be a misfortune! 
 
 As he mounted the stair to show me to the room 
 to which the third Napoleon was brought after the 
 
 [121] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 surrender, "The Emperor," said he, explanatorily, 
 but in innocence of any knowledge of our expressive 
 Americanisms, "was in Bouillon after Sedan." 
 
 A Godfrey goes out from Bouillon to endless fame; 
 a Napoleon goes out from Bouillon to die in humilia- 
 tion. And it is really astonishing that this still 
 solitary, this still isolated region should for cen- 
 turies have had intermittent connection with names 
 great in history or in literature Louis XIV, Henry 
 of Navarre, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, 
 Richelieu, the third Napoleon, Ariosto, Shakespeare, 
 Scott. In this section of the forest, with Bouillon 
 as its center, there are probably no more people 
 than there were at the time of the first Crusade; 
 yet it is near great routes of travel, near great cities. 
 
 Ordinarily, a castle in a forest would seem an 
 incongruity; but here it is of the forest's very essence. 
 One might almost say that the castle of Bouillon 
 has been here longer than the forest, so many de- 
 cades before Godfrey's time was its construction 
 begun certainly, it has been here for longer than 
 any tree now standing and in the time of Quentin 
 Durward a De la Marck, a wild boar of Ardennes, 
 actually held it. For Godfrey mortgaged it (modern 
 touch!) to secure money for his expedition to Pales- 
 tine, and on that account it drifted, after his death, 
 into devious channels of possession. 
 
 I have never received so tremendous an impres- 
 sion of feudalism as in this ancient pile, rising black 
 
 [122] 
 

 THE CASTLE or GODFREY DE BOUILLON 
 

 
 y Shalu 
 with Bouillon 
 more people 
 
 ould s< 
 
 e of Boui; 
 o many de- 
 
 ' 
 
 3 boar of Arder 
 
 - 
 
 I, after 
 
 us an imp 
 sing black 
 
 ;;T 
 
In the Forest of Arden 
 
 above the white houses of the town. It is not that 
 it displays the magnitude, the parade, of a Heidel- 
 berg or a Loches, but that so much of the outward 
 has been shorn away in the course of successive 
 ownerships and sieges as to concentrate attention 
 upon the immense extent of the subterranean. 
 Partly, the impression was due to the situation of 
 the castle, in the midst of the lonely forest and hills, 
 and partly to my going through it when no one else 
 was within its vast extent but the ancient guide. 
 The seneschal of a ruin should always be an old 
 man, for congruence, or a young girl, for contrast. 
 
 There is a vivid terror in the heart of the rock, 
 tunnelled and dungeoned far below the castle walls. 
 There are doleful cells of darkness, and torture 
 chambers, and a dreadful oubliette which yields 
 the secrets of its construction to a great blaze of 
 paper, and ever the passages go in grim convolu- 
 tions. "The very devil couldn't find his way out 
 of here," said the old man chucklingly; and then his 
 voice shrilled on about the kings and dukes and their 
 doings in the dark backward of time. "It is like an 
 ant-hill," he quavered, leading the way into a tunnel 
 which went twisting far downward. And ever and 
 anon we were for a brief space above, and there were 
 fair and lovely views from casement or battlement 
 above those haunting secrets. And on the ramparts 
 the old man swung the clapper of a bell which has 
 knelled to war or to church throughout nine centuries. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Yet feudalism was not all terror and severity. 
 It was terror for enemies and protection for friends. 
 A street which still follows its ancient line and clings 
 at the base of the castle rock shows by its very atti- 
 tude of trustfulness that it considered the castle to 
 be its defender. And, in those old times, should 
 one's natural protector fail to protect, any inhabit- 
 ant of Ardennes seeking justice needed but to go to 
 the palace of the Bishop of Liege, and knock thrice 
 with the great swinging iron that was bolted upon 
 the door, and the bishop himself would answer the 
 summons, and hear the complaint, and demand an 
 explanation from the oppressor, and render a decree; 
 and that decree did not lightly pass unheeded, for 
 behind it stood the power of the Church. 
 
 The town of Bouillon is comparatively modern; 
 but there are still old houses hidden unobtrusively 
 away, and still there stand six-sided towers marking 
 corners of the old town walls. And there are queer 
 places to unearth: ancient caves in the rock, and 
 remains of primitive structures, beneath or behind 
 houses of more recent times. By mere chance, in a 
 little shop in one of these newer buildings, I saw a 
 hollow in the rock, and there was a running spring, 
 and beside it was an old-time officially inscribed stone 
 of the long-past Duchy of Bouillon, and in the 
 stone was a hole for the measurement of money 
 as a safeguard against clipping. 
 
 Life is placid in Bouillon. Business is not im- 
 
In the Forest of Arden 
 
 portunate, a wagon seldom rattles over the stone- 
 paved streets, boys lean interminably over the 
 ancient bridge of stone, gossiping women are ever 
 kneeling by the riverside, giving what is next to 
 godliness to the linen of the town. The very funerals 
 are tranquilly picturesque, for the mourners still 
 follow on foot up the avenue of trees, whose clipped 
 tops lace and intertwine, which once led to a monas- 
 tery, long since destroyed. 
 
 But if one does not care for the town of Bouillon, 
 in five minutes he may be hundreds of years away, 
 in the castle, or hundreds of miles away, in the 
 forest. And in spite of the interest of the home 
 of Godfrey it is principally for the forest that one 
 comes here. 
 
 And it needs to be said that Shakespeare un- 
 doubtedly meant this Ardennes this Arden, as he 
 anglicized the name for it has been generally 
 claimed that he had in mind an imaginary forest 
 or a little Arden in England. 
 
 But he had in mind no imaginary forest. He 
 loved history, and he loved geography, and he 
 therefore loved to give his plays a local habitation 
 and a name. He loved to specify Venice and Padua 
 and London, the Temple Gardens, Black Angers, 
 and the Forest of Arden. Had he wished to write 
 of the forest of an imaginary Zenda he was suffi- 
 ciently master of the language to have made his 
 meaning clear. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 He may never have seen Ardennes, but at least 
 he was acquainted with the forest from cotem- 
 poraries and predecessors. And it is possible that 
 he was here. He travelled; and no one knows, no 
 one will ever know, whither he travelled or what he 
 saw. And assuredly it will not be declared that he, 
 of all men, would never step aside from what were 
 even in his day the familiar routes. 
 
 And it is certain that he did not mean the little 
 Arden in England. That there is an English Arden 
 is not to be wondered at, for many a geographical 
 name was carried across the Channel from the 
 Continent; but everything in the play points to a 
 region at the edge of France and not separated 
 from it by water. 
 
 Shakespeare constantly writes as if the forest is 
 on the French border. He portrays Rosalind and 
 Celia as wearily walking to it from their French 
 home. His description of Duke Frederick leading 
 his army to the skirts of the wood clearly points 
 out that he means the Ardennes that is beside 
 France. 
 
 In all this Shakespeare follows Thomas Lodge. 
 Lodge wrote a novel about Ardennes, a story with 
 whose lilting prolixity one might even now be 
 happy if the other charmer were away. With Lodge, 
 "Rosylind and Alinda travailed along the Vine- 
 yards, and by many bywaies; and at last got to the 
 Forrest side, where they travailed by the space of 
 
In the Forest of Arden 
 
 two or three dales without seeing anie creature, 
 being often in danger of wilde beasts, and payned 
 with many sorrowes." 
 
 Lodge's story quickly ran through several editions, 
 and Shakespeare dramatized it, and thus gave it 
 popularity anew. And, of course, it was no more 
 plagiarism than is the dramatization of the popular 
 novel of to-day. 
 
 Ardennes, on the borders of France, and Rosalind 
 and Celia, and the brother dukes, and the wrestling, 
 and the banishment, all are Lodge's, with some of the 
 names a trifle changed for effectiveness. But the 
 inimitable Jacques and Touchstone and the splendid 
 poetry of it all are Shakespeare's own. 
 
 Seldom have I spent more enjoyable days than 
 those in Shakespeare's Arden. For charm and 
 romance are still there, and the boar and the wild 
 deer are there, and Corin and Phebe and Silvius, 
 and shepherds with their cotes, their flocks, their 
 bounds of feed. The banished duke and his com- 
 panions, in modern guise, still hunt the forest glades, 
 and "fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the 
 golden world." Nay, I even met Touchstone him- 
 self, as if he had stepped from an old Shakspearean 
 print. "A fool, a motley fool." Thus he was 
 garbed, with cap of points and clothing striped. 
 But, alas! he would naught of wit or philosophy. 
 He had married and settled here, as Shakespeare 
 foresaw, and marriage had changed him, as it has 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 changed many another man. Where be his jibes 
 now, his flashes of merriment? Yet he would have 
 me know that he worked hard, here in his garden, 
 and was content; and thereby he seems to have at- 
 tained the highest of philosophy, after all. 
 
 I was in Ardennes in the idyllic glory of early 
 spring. A tender warmth was in the air, and the 
 forest, after the long unresponsiveness of winter, 
 was with shy generosity giving promise of loving 
 opulence to come. The fields were pied with the 
 earliest daisies, buttercups and violets painted the 
 meadows with delight, the first birds were singing, 
 and the trees were gently unfolding their first buds. 
 It was the sweet and happy Arden of the sweet and 
 happy comedy. 
 
 Guide-books and atlases use the term "Ardennes" 
 with somewhat of unavoidable vagueness. Origin- 
 ally this forest extended not only over a great part 
 of Belgium, but stretched also into France and 
 toward the eastward. It is curious that at the very 
 time that Shakespeare was writing plays Henry of 
 Navarre marched a force to the capture of Sedan, 
 which was then within the forest boundary. Clumps 
 of Ardennes woodland still break the levels of 
 Champagne; there are remains of it in Luxembourg; 
 and there are still great forest masses in central 
 Belgium, dotted with cities and intersected by 
 railways. But the present center of Ardennes is 
 here, round about Bouillon, along the line of the 
 
 [128] 
 
In the Forest of Arden 
 
 Semois, and it comprises a wide area of hill, of river 
 valley, of undulating plateau, of upland heath. 
 And it is this very part, isolated as it still is, with 
 which most of the great names that are connected 
 with the forest have had their association. 
 
 Once in the forest, one is continually charmed 
 by the hills and the river. Never, surely, was there 
 another stream of such uncontrolled meanderings. 
 The course of the Semois is a succession of great 
 serpentining bends; and when you have for a long 
 time missed it, and think that it has finally wan- 
 dered away, it comes purring softly back, around 
 some delectable bend. 
 
 It is a charming country for motoring, but the 
 automobilist who penetrates here must cultivate 
 resignation, for he will frequently find a well macad- 
 amized road end suddenly in a mere trail. Fully to 
 enjoy this forest, one must be somewhat of a pedes- 
 trian, for many of the most charming routes are 
 footpaths only; and so intricately do these paths 
 convolute in making (contradictory as it seems) 
 short cuts from village to village, that no one ever 
 tries to direct a stranger beyond the first turn, but 
 leaves him to proceed after that as fate and fancy 
 lead. And it is delightful to wander at random 
 through great groves of glimmering birch, past the 
 brook that brawls along the road, the oak whose 
 antique roots peep out, the rank of osiers by the 
 murmuring stream; charming to be obscured in the 
 
 [129] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 circle of the forest and to know that it is the forest 
 of Shakespeare. 
 
 The people who dwell in the little villages which 
 are so sparingly interspersed are a simple, hardy 
 folk, Walloons, descendants from an ancestry of 
 bravery, and active, dark-featured, inclined to 
 shortness, ready at times for gayety, but, as is natu- 
 ral to those who live in loneliness, mostly silent or 
 of few words. And, in spite of the disappearance, 
 as in most of Europe, of much of the distinctive 
 costuming of the past, there are still the kirtle of 
 green, the sash of blue or red, stockings of purple 
 and shoes of wood, the agricultural blouse, the 
 paniered back, and horses tasselled and belled. 
 
 The people are herdsmen, shepherds, farmers of 
 the thinnish soil and woodcutters. Trees are grown 
 in Ardennes for the market, as in other regions there 
 are corn and oats. The forest is carefully culti- 
 vated and kept free from underbrush, and, although 
 there are still many trees of great girth, the larger 
 part of the forest is not of huge growth. 
 
 The houses of the forest villages are broad- 
 gabled and low, and of stone that is black with 
 age. Broad they must needs be, for under each roof 
 is a heterogeneous huddle of men and women and 
 children, cows and goats, rabbits and chickens, 
 and geese and dogs. And it is in itself a proof of 
 the length of time that this has been forest that 
 the dogs bear a curious likeness to wolves. 
 
In the Forest of Arden 
 
 Even in Bouillon itself a place which, with its 
 fewer than three thousand population, would else- 
 where be deemed small, but which looms large as the 
 principal town of what is left isolated of Ardennes 
 many a house is a Noah's Ark in its population, al- 
 though the newer look of the houses at first con- 
 ceals the fact. After all, these people and their 
 livestock have been living for centuries in friendly 
 juxtaposition, and an inheritedly ingrained habit 
 is not lightly lost. 
 
 "These are the hills, these are the woods, these 
 are the starry solitudes; and there the river by whose 
 brink the roaring lion comes to drink." For Shake- 
 speare even puts a lion here, and it has caused end- 
 less trouble. Scott, when he committed an an- 
 achronism or an anachorism, always appended a 
 peccavi note; but Shakespeare, never; he divined 
 what his commentators were to do in the way of 
 notes and would not willingly add his own straws 
 to the load of posterity. 
 
 As to that lion, it might be enough to claim 
 poetic license; to point out that when Ariosto sent 
 his Rinaldo through Ardennes, on his journey from 
 Paris to Basle, he had him meet in this forest an 
 uncanny monster with a thousand eyes. But Shake- 
 speare frankly took his lion from Thomas Lodge. 
 
 In this forest of Shakespeare's the regular roads 
 and paths may often be followed for miles without 
 meeting a human being. There is a deep loneliness 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 away from the villages ; and, as Touchstone remarked, 
 "In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well." 
 From lofty summits the view seems one of wilder- 
 ness illimitable. When the uncertain glory of an 
 April day changes to sudden storm, the rolling 
 thunder goes echoing distantly among the hills. 
 In the heart of the forest I have come unexpectedly 
 upon a charming and solitary mill. One day I 
 chanced upon a Trappist monastery. " It is desolate 
 here in winter when the north wind blows," said one 
 of the monks drearily. 
 
 It seemed to me that it would be of peculiar 
 interest to attend an Easter service in the very 
 shadow of the castle from which the greatest of all 
 Crusaders marched out for the recovery of that 
 sepulchre without whose story there would be no 
 Easter to celebrate. It was merely chance that 
 had put me there at Easter time; and it was unex- 
 pected and unhoped for good fortune that, entirely 
 to my surprise, gave not only an Easter service but 
 also a Passion Play. 
 
 It was, as the plain little program had it, a 
 
 REPRESENTATION 
 
 DES 
 
 MYSTERES DE LA PASSION 
 
 DE 
 
 NOTRE SEIGNEUR JESUS-CHRIST 
 
 [132] 
 
In the Forest of Arden 
 
 There were sixteen elaborately prepared scenes 
 given by one hundred Biblically costumed charac- 
 ters; or, to quote again from the program, it was a 
 
 GRAND DRAME BIBLIQUE EN 16 ACTES 
 
 ALLANT DE L'ENTREE DE JESUS A JERUSA- 
 LEM JUSQU'AU CRUCIFIEMENT 
 
 100 ACTEURS Y PRENNENT PART 
 
 The audience was not large, and the people found 
 agreeable enjoyment. It did not seem to occur to 
 them that the play bore religious significance; 
 there was no irreverence; it was merely that they 
 did not understand that reverence was expected; 
 it was six long hours of singing and costumes, of 
 picking out their neighbors beneath great wigs 
 or behind false beards; it was a show in a show- 
 less town, and those who know only cities do not 
 understand the pathetic excitement of such a con- 
 dition. 
 
 And so, human nature being everywhere the same, 
 the people enjoyed the representation with the 
 unrepressed pleasure of children; they will soon 
 enough learn to look unnaturally grave if the repre- 
 sentation begins to attract annual visitors. The 
 young girls were the sweet and natural part of it; 
 the men and boys were inclined to frolic a little be- 
 hind the scenes as an offset to stage stiltedness. 
 
 [133] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 And in all it was a striking experience to see the 
 Jerusalem scenes thus acted and thus received under 
 the walls of the castle of Jerusalem's king. 
 
 Even at the regular Easter service, which pre- 
 ceded the play, the satisfaction had to come mainly 
 from the feeling that it was an Easter service, and 
 in that place. The church was abloom with the 
 flowers from new Easter hats! Thus far has fashion 
 penetrated. And the hats were of a kind that may 
 be bought on Grand Street. 
 
 The service was of simple solemnity; the red- 
 clothed Suisse deeming himself a weighty part of it, 
 as he decrepitly marched about, proud of being the 
 only man in church permitted to wear a hat, and 
 proud, poor old fellow, of a childish medal, pinned 
 prominent, lauding him for "good conduct and 
 morality." 
 
 The church itself is Victorian, expressed in terms 
 Walloon. "An unattractive building in an attrac- 
 tive location," said the priest quietly, pacing the 
 terrace with me. It was in my heart to reassure him, 
 but I refrained; I could only speak of the general 
 charm of the country. 
 
 But he seemed touched with a gentle melan- 
 choly. "Yes, monsieur, it is beautiful"; he shook 
 his head, reflective, dubious; "it is, as you say, 
 beautiful; but the people, to them it is only hab- 
 itude." 
 
 And so, having begun by finding Touchstone, 
 
In the Forest of Arden. 
 
 I was thus to end by finding Jacques. For this is 
 the Forest of Arden! 
 
X. FREE AND INDEPENDENT 
 LUXEMBOURG 
 
 IRECTLY between Paris and 
 Berlin; only a hair's breadth, 
 indeed, away from a straight 
 line drawn between these 
 two cities, there lies a little 
 and independent country. By Amer- 
 icans it has been inexplicably over- 
 looked. It contains a multitude of 
 ruined castles, perched craggily. It 
 is of the diverting area of nine hun- 
 dred and ninety-nine square miles. 
 It presents phases of thriving modern life, yet there 
 are extensive sections of wooded wilderness. In its 
 wildest part I have seen the wild deer as I drove 
 along the public road. It is saturated with historic 
 association. There are regions of delectable charm. 
 Its people take their autonomy with great serious- 
 ness, yet with the subtle sense of a jest in it all. 
 
 Although this almost unnoticed Grossherzogthum 
 of Luxembourg, this Grand-Duchy, is in the very 
 heart of most-travelled Europe, one may for a 
 few francs and with the formality of an- invitation 
 join in the annual official chase of wild boar! A 
 few dollars buys a license to hunt deer. At an inn 
 one may find the right to miles of fishing included 
 with room and food. 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 Luxembourg is not really difficult to reach. 
 One notices again, however, that there are dis- 
 tances in Europe and that trains are easy-going. 
 Luxembourg, the capital of Luxembourg, is a trifle 
 over 250 miles from Paris by rail, and the trains 
 have fairly good connections. It is about as far 
 from Brussels. It is farther from Berlin. From 
 the Forest of Arden, where I was when I wished to 
 go to Luxembourg, I had the choice of diligencing 
 back to Sedan and there getting a train to take me 
 fifty miles, or of changing cars at Longuyon, which 
 is forty miles from Luxembourg. 
 
 Luxembourg would not even now be independent 
 had not Queen Wilhelmina been a girl. It would 
 have remained a province of the Netherlands, 
 although hedged in (such, again, the bewilderment 
 of it) by Germany and Belgium and France. But 
 its constitution makes the succession hereditary 
 in the male line of Nassau, and so at Wilhelmina's 
 accession it eluded her grasp and placidly entered 
 the family circle of independent European coun- 
 tries; not large for its age, this new member, for its 
 size is less than a twelfth part that of tiny Holland. 
 
 The Grand-Duke William, who died only last 
 year, had six children, all girls, and there were no 
 other heirs. This failure of the male line threat- 
 ened the loss of Luxembourg's independence, where- 
 upon there was invoked a constitutional interpreta- 
 tion not vouchsafed to pretty Wilhelmina an in- 
 
 [i37] ' 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 terpretation that permitted of female succession, 
 after all; and the oldest of the six daughters became 
 Grand-Duchess. She is just nineteen years old, 
 and her name is Marie Adelaide Therese Hilda 
 Antoinette Wilhelmine, and she is not only Grand- 
 Duchess of Luxembourg, but the Duchess of Nas- 
 sau, Countess Palatine of the Rhine, Konigstein, 
 Katzeneinbogen and Dietz, Burggravine of Ham- 
 merstein, and so on, such being among the nomen- 
 clatural privileges of the nobility. 
 
 The people are resolved to give no pretext for 
 the seizing of their land by France or Prussia, and 
 especially by Prussia. The bells of the capital city 
 ring out, preliminary to the striking of the hours, 
 not the grave chorals heard from the church towers of 
 other parts of Europe, but this or that gay selection 
 from opera or song, and nothing is so popular as the 
 much-beloved tune, chimed with dangerous gusto, 
 "Wir wollen bleiben was wir sindl Wir w oil en 
 keine Preussen sein!" (We will remain as we are! 
 We will not be Prussians!) Thus with character- 
 istic lightheartedness they daringly jest with what 
 they dread. 
 
 Luxembourg, the capital of Luxembourg, is set 
 proudly upon a plateau girdled by precipices two 
 hundred feet in height. Rivers wind circumfluent 
 at the foot of the rocks, and from the boulevarded 
 brink there are alluring views. 
 
 Until less than fifty years ago the city was of a 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 strength only second to that of Gibraltar, but by 
 the Treaty of London, of 1867, the powers decreed 
 that the Duchy should thenceforth be neutral, al- 
 though it was a province of Holland, and that the 
 fortifications of the capital should be destroyed. 
 For centuries the city held a proud distinction, 
 under the oft-alternating rule of France, Germany, 
 Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain; and the change 
 has not come in order that nation shall not lift up 
 sword against nation, but only that in case of war 
 great armies may maneuver without the check in- 
 herent in the very presence at this central spot of a 
 powerful stronghold. 
 
 And so, the splendid haughtiness has gone, and 
 only fragments of the fortifications remain. But 
 what fragments! Rocks honeycombed with pas- 
 sages and pierced with embrasures; grim piles of 
 stone; and here and there, projecting over the edges 
 of the cliff, the noble Spanish Towers. 
 
 The powers decreed, too, that the army be re- 
 duced to a paltry three hundred, and the inhibition 
 still holds. But the happy people, making a jest of 
 necessity, smile when the handful march along with 
 pomp of colors and blare of music; some sixth of the 
 total army being band. But, with saving sense of 
 humor, there is no extravagance of military title, 
 and the commander-in-chief is but a major. 
 
 The decrees of the great powers may not be defied 
 with impunity, for, after all, the little countries like 
 
 [139] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Holland and Belgium and Andorra and Liechtenstein 
 and Luxembourg preserve their independence only 
 on sufferance and at the price of a readiness to bow 
 to the will of their powerful and mutually jealous 
 neighbors. It is well when, as with the cheerful 
 folk of Luxembourg, the humors of their situation 
 are appreciated. Smite Luxembourg anywhere and 
 humor bubbles forth. 
 
 The fire department of the capital, and its hand 
 apparatus and the few demands upon it, are one of 
 the local jokes; but one of the fire officials, fearful 
 lest I should belittle the basic importance of it all, 
 told me, with paradoxical pride, that a few years ago 
 the city had "one of the biggest fires in Europe"! 
 
 Once a year, through the streets of the capital, 
 goes the unique March of the Muttons; a puzzled 
 clump of snow-white lambs making their way 
 through the amused and thronging people, close 
 followed by volunteer musicians playing the ancient 
 Mutton March. 
 
 Luxembourg must assuredly be the place to which 
 the Pied Piper led the bewitched children, such a 
 gay and a dancing folk these are. 
 
 On the evening of my arrival the people were 
 celebrating the birthday of their ruler; they had 
 really begun the day before, but had found one day 
 insufficient for the expression of their jubilance. 
 It was raining, but the population thronged the 
 streets oblivious. A band was playing, and there, in 
 
 [140] 
 
A TOWERED GATEWAY LEFT FROM OLD FORTIFICATIONS 
 

 > 
 
 
 
 1, and its hand 
 
 inds upon it, are one of 
 
 re officials, fearful 
 
 portance of it.aH> 
 
 iat a few years ago 
 
 Europ 
 
 ts of the ca 
 
 uttons; a puzzled 
 
 a king their way 
 
 people, close 
 
 ians playing the ancient 
 
 ce to v 
 
 were 
 
 i ir ruler; they 
 lad found one day 
 
 beir ji 
 I 
 
 T A 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 the open square, a great number were dancing in the 
 rain, some holding umbrellas and some not. 
 
 The Grand-Duchess and her sisters dwell in what 
 was a beautiful oriel-windowed palace, which has 
 in recent years been unimprovingly enlarged. Her 
 people love her, and not only because she is a woman, 
 but because Luxembourg always did love the titled. 
 Long ago the little country took the side of Spain 
 against the Netherlands. It sided with Louis the 
 Sixteenth against the Revolution, and thereby 
 suffered wild devastation. 
 
 A city of some twenty thousand this capital, 
 and there are other and smaller towns, as, narrow- 
 valleyed Vianden, on either side of which the moun- 
 tains rise in mellow walls; Diekirch, set beside a 
 smiling river, with glimmering meadows sentinelled 
 by lofty heights; Echternach, where, once a year, 
 on Whit-Tuesday, the Dancing Procession gathers 
 from ten to twenty thousand, mostly pilgrims from 
 distant places, under its rhythmic spell, to sway in 
 spiritual ecstasy through the streets, three steps for- 
 ward and two back, to the monotonous tune of 
 "Adam, he had seven sons," just as pilgrims have done 
 here for a thousand years. There are interesting 
 little villages away from the railroad. There is much 
 of shadowy forest. There are serpentizing streams in 
 such number that one ceases to attempt differentia- 
 tion. There are quarries and iron mines, but the prin- 
 cipal material interests are agricultural. 
 
 [Hi] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 It is the pride of Luxembourg that the principal 
 reward of those who handle the public money con- 
 sists in honorable decoration, and that there is con- 
 sequently no embezzlement of public funds. "Why, 
 if one were to steal he could have no decoration ! " 
 such is their naive viewpoint in this century of 
 "high-finance." 
 
 Under the Grand-Duchess is a Chamber of 
 Deputies, of forty-eight members, chosen by the 
 suffrages of such men of over twenty-five as pay an 
 annual tax of ten francs. The Duchess has the 
 power of veto, but that is but another Luxembourg 
 joke, for she, like her father and her father's father, 
 never uses it. 
 
 But between the Chamber and the Duchess, lest 
 there should be too much of democracy, there is a 
 Court; and it is a court of title and ceremony. 
 
 There is a grand-chamberlain; there are other 
 chamberlains, with equerries and aides-de-camp, and 
 a mare'chal de la cour; there is a grande-maitresse de 
 la grande-duchesse; there are dames du palais, d'hon- 
 neur, du service, de la cour. 
 
 The national colors are the red and white and 
 blue; there are governmental departments of state, 
 of justice, of agriculture, of the interior, of finance. 
 The Minister of State sees personally the poor and 
 the rich alike. The Department of Agriculture, 
 alert to be of aid, gladly advises any farmer who 
 presents a problem of seed or season or soil. 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 Ordinarily, there is dulness in statistics; but I 
 was really pleased with the attention to detail of the 
 official who compiled the census. Out of a total 
 population of 236,543 all are Roman Catholics, with 
 the exception of 1201 Israelites, 2269 Protestants, 49 
 "other Christians," and 186 who are rated as "not 
 known." At once one wonders who and what are the 
 49, and what is the religion of the "not known." 
 
 An anxious, faithful, worrying man, he of the 
 Census Bureau, one would gather, and one who 
 leaves loose ends through very excess of fussiness. 
 He finds that almost all the inhabitants are natives 
 of the duchy, but that some small number are 
 Swiss, German, Russian, or of other nationalities, 
 with 96 of "nationality not known." 
 
 The total annual revenue is small only from two 
 to three million dollars yet the treasury always 
 manages to hold a little surplus. The purposes for 
 which a state spends money are always illuminative, 
 and here, quoting from the report most, recently 
 published, I find that the Chamber of Deputies 
 costs but 315,000; that prisons demand only $50,000; 
 the civil list and government, $80,000; that religion 
 and the army go hand in hand, each taking nearly 
 $100,000; that justice is given $110,000; pensions, 
 $170,000; and agriculture, commerce, and indus- 
 tries, $200,000; that "interior" expenses, one of the 
 items under which is that of police, require $230,000 
 (New York City spends annually on its police de- 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 partment alone more than thirteen millions of 
 dollars); that to public works goes over 3600,000; 
 and that, under the noble classification of public 
 instruction and the arts and sciences, Luxembourg 
 gladly expends 3300,000. The post-office, with the 
 cognate branches of telephone and telegraph, is 
 not quite self-supporting, it being the policy of the 
 government to encourage increase of the service by 
 reasonable fees. 
 
 On the whole, a wise and liberal government, 
 with a watchfulness which shows that the influence 
 has not been forgotten of that old-time ruler who 
 was accustomed to go to Luxembourg in disguise 
 and buy fish and bread so that he might detect any 
 evils, punish the evil seller, and give the food to the 
 poor. 
 
 I did not look into statistics of marriage; it did not 
 seem needful to do so, for whenever, which was often, 
 I passed the city hall of the capital I saw the car- 
 riages of one or more wedding parties drawn up there. 
 The double marriage, civil and religious, expands 
 the glory of the day by giving wider opportunity 
 to drive in proud publicity through the streets. 
 Sometimes the glory is spread over two days. One 
 chill morning I stepped into a church just as a couple 
 the bridegroom gray-haired! arrived. But the 
 priest was not ready, and so the impatient two, 
 with white-clad bridesmaids and black-clad men, 
 stood patiently, while ever and anon one of the 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 carriage-drivers inquiringly poked in his head, until 
 at last the priest, kindly, benign, and still sleepy, 
 appeared. 
 
 It is a land of amenities. Ask a direction, and a 
 man will quit his occupation or turn back in his 
 walk to pilot you. Ask a question of the guardian 
 of the gate at a railway station, and he is likely to 
 lock his gate in the face of the other people and 
 hurry off to find an answer for the stranger. 
 
 Luxembourg for centuries had an uneasy exist- 
 ence. In the pathway of the nations, army after 
 army overran and harried it, changes of govern- 
 ment were frequent, shadowy claims and actual 
 conquests succeeded one another. It escaped mis- 
 usage in the Franco-Prussian War, in spite of its 
 situation between the two rival capitals, because its 
 neutrality had been decreed but a few years before. 
 
 The most picturesque of the men of Luxembourg 
 was that John, the Blind King of Bohemia hered- 
 itary ruler of Luxembourg, setting forth claims 
 upon the Bohemian throne who was slain at Cre'cy 
 after heroically going into the battle linked to a 
 knight on either side. "John the Errant," the old 
 chroniclers term him, for he loved to roam about 
 Europe, taking part chivalrously in as many quar- 
 rels as he could assume. Even when blindness came 
 it did not cause him entirely to cease from activities, 
 but permitted him to end his career in unique glory. 
 In the hurly-burly of fight it may not have been 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 possible to avoid killing him, but there is not in all 
 history anything more unchivalrous recorded than 
 the triumphant taking of the crest, the Three 
 Feathers, of this slain old blind man, by the Black 
 Prince, and its incorporation with the arms of the 
 Prince of Wales as something to be transmitted as a 
 proud heritage. 
 
 The general dislike and even dread of Germany 
 are the more curious because the Luxembourg folk 
 are mostly of Teutonic race, and only secondarily 
 Walloon. More German than French is heard, but 
 the common speech is a patois compounded from 
 several languages. Alone among Continental peoples, 
 so they believe, they say "mouse" and "mice," 
 just as the English do (although they do not spell 
 them in this way), and of this apparent connection 
 with England they are inordinately proud. 
 
 By diligence or postwagen one enters little-visited 
 portions of the Duchy. I was so fortunate as to 
 choose a time when, at some of the stopping-places, 
 there was not a single visitor of any nationality. 
 There are, however, portions that are freely visited by 
 French and Belgians at certain seasons of the year. 
 
 The diligences proceed with restful leisure, stop- 
 ping at every wayside tavern and many a house. For 
 one family the driver carries a loaf of bread; for an- 
 other a bottle of medicine, and here he makes solici- 
 tous inquiry before going on; at another house he 
 leaves a box, in regard to which there is uproarious 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 but incomprehensive patois of joke: for, although 
 one may, by dint of great effort, master the patois, 
 he shall never come to comprehension of the patois 
 humor. 
 
 One is given a general impression of long drives 
 by the side of sparkling rivers, of villages strung 
 attenuatedly through slim valleys, of idyllic glades 
 where women tend the grazing flocks, of two-wheeled 
 ox-drawn carts, of old, old houses, where ancient 
 women offer snuff from ancient boxes, and where 
 there are black-mouthed fire-places, and enormous 
 beams, and winding stairs of stone, and carven 
 doors, and stately standing clocks. 
 
 In considering foreign countries there is usually 
 some specific taste to satisfy. Dickens was eager to 
 see an American prairie and was not satisfied until 
 taken to one. Scott longed to view an American 
 forest. Nowadays the thoughts of the European in 
 regard to America lightly turn to thoughts of sky- 
 scrapers. Most Americans in Europe wish primarily 
 to go where splendor falls on ruined castle walls; 
 and in Luxembourg they may plethorically satisfy 
 this desire, for the number of ruins is astonishing for 
 so small a region. And so loftily placed are these 
 castles of olden time that one sees a new and literal 
 meaning in the terms "upper classes" and "high 
 life." 
 
 Among the many are the two towers of Esch, 
 glooming at each other across a rock-bound cleft; 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the splendid fastness of Brandenburg, brooding over 
 white houses beneath it; the stern remains of Bour- 
 scheid, deployed in crenelated complexity against 
 the sky; mighty Vianden, looming somber and gray, 
 and with spacious expanse of the subterranean. 
 
 One will not so much care to learn their definite 
 history. Their greatest charm lies in a glorified 
 indistinctnes of association. Splendidly setting forth 
 the character and life of an entire age, they must 
 needs summon up remembrance of things past, and 
 kindle imaginative fire even in those least prone 
 to imaginative enthusiasm. One loves to wander 
 through the halls where the stately folk of old dined 
 and slept and gossiped and died, and to stand at 
 recessed windows where fine ladies looked forth over 
 delectable stretches of hill and hollow, watching for 
 the return of husbands and brothers from business 
 that business, human nature being essentially 
 the same as it is now, often being the settling of 
 some account! 
 
 Old tales haunt these ancient piles. Penetrate 
 to the nethermost vaults of one, so the peasants 
 believe, and there will be found two mail-clad war- 
 riors deep at play. "May the devil take him who 
 first quits the table!" cried the two in unison, some 
 sundry centuries ago, and at once the devil stood 
 there, suave, smiling, expectant. Whereat the 
 players, one may imagine with what chagrin, with 
 what decision born of dire necessity, determined to 
 
IN INDEPENDENT LUXEMBOURG 
 
white hou. 
 sch 
 
 and 
 
 a glo; 
 
 brth 
 'hey L 
 
 f things past, and 
 
 e least prone 
 
 to wander 
 
 .A old dined 
 
 J to stand at 
 
 <ked l< 
 
 for 
 
 essentially 
 the settling of 
 
 Pe 
 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 play patiently on till the devil should be aweary of 
 waiting. 
 
 Between the rocky point of a castle and a rocky 
 point beyond, there was stretched a slender plank 
 for the convenience of men at work upon repairs. 
 One day a mason hastened across the plank to meet 
 his wife approaching with his dinner; thus doubly 
 weighted the bridge broke, and the man was killed, 
 and the woman, herself unhurt, set up a wail remem- 
 bered in this land of jests throughout -the centuries: 
 ;c The good dinner; it is lost!" 
 
 One ruin is haunted by a fairy who sings softly 
 in the brooding twilight; but woe to him so incautious 
 as to utter criticism, for instantly he is metamor- 
 phosed into rock; and the rock-filled glen bears mute 
 testimony to the legend's truth. 
 
 A prince, without examining closely into the fam- 
 ily connections of a maiden he loved, married her 
 with the prenuptial stipulation that one day in 
 every week she should have to herself unseen. In- 
 evitably came regret and jealousy, and he spied 
 upon her and found her to be a mermaid who on 
 that day resumed her natural form. Seeing him 
 she fled and disappeared forever; but the peasants 
 still hear her, singing from the waters of the Alzette, 
 the melody coming crooningly like the vague voice 
 of the wind. 
 
 Far older than the castles are ancient Druid 
 remains; and upon the summit of one Druid-haunted 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 hill, topped by a great dolmen, the children build a 
 fire upon one night of the year, and then, waving 
 burning brands, come rushing down through the 
 torch-lit darkness into the village at the mountain 
 foot rushing down, thus, out of none can tell 
 what mistiness of vanished centuries. 
 
 The iron feet of Rome left deep foot-prints here, 
 and great Roman camps are preserved, and there are 
 fine Roman monuments. And among them none is 
 so fine as the monument erected to the memory 
 of a rich old Roman who amassed his wealth in 
 trade. It is worth while being reminded, thus, that 
 the "commercial spirit" is not of modern growth. 
 
 Of many things are the people of Luxembourg 
 proud besides their independence. They are proud 
 of their free press and free speech and of their 
 schools, of which the government conducts not alone 
 those for general education, but others for commerce, 
 philosophy, gardening, farming, and manual train- 
 ing, and still others for instructing girls in cooking 
 and house-wifery. 
 
 There are agricultural societies for the purchase 
 of machinery, and for combination and counsel in 
 other lines, and for the handling and selling of milk 
 and cheese and butter; and two great societies, one 
 for the southern portion of the Duchy (the "good 
 lands"), and one for the northern (the "bad lands"), 
 are entrusted by the state with the importation of 
 horses and cattle. 
 
 [ISO] 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 Among the taxes of Luxembourg is an income 
 tax, graded not only according to the amount of 
 income, but according to whether one is a pro- 
 fessional man, office-holder, business man, or laborer. 
 
 The important day for Luxembourg is that of the 
 patron saint; one who has been honored as such ever 
 since a long-ago time when her image, having been 
 carried away from the capital, miraculously trans- 
 ported itself back again. Every one wishes to be 
 at the capital on the annual day, and the vital point 
 is that the saint must believe that all have pilgrim- 
 aged thither on foot. And so although it is not 
 very flattering to the intelligence of the propitiated 
 one! trains and wagons stop just outside of the city, 
 and the people go walking gravely in. 
 
 A strongly religious folk these of Luxembourg. 
 At a lonely hill village, one Sunday night, I entered 
 the church, drearily perched under the shadow of 
 a ruined castle. Shafts of pallid moonlight came 
 through the narrow windows, but the church was 
 in practical darkness, for the only other light was 
 from three tiny candles that glimmered by the 
 altar. The church was filled with people, almost 
 indistinguishable in the gloom, the men upon one 
 side and the women on the other. There was no 
 priest or other leader, but the men and women were 
 antiphonally chanting, in almost ghostly resonance, 
 a solemn service long since learned by heart. I 
 left the church and climbed to the ruin above, and 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 there long listened to the antiphon coming up to 
 me so effective and weird. 
 
 It is astonishing that in so small a land there 
 are places which give the impression of being at a 
 great distance from the beaten tracks of travel. 
 One finds isolated villages, of houses gleaming white 
 against the glaring green of hillsides, where the 
 landlord of the little inn will evince a desire to 
 shake your hand on arriving, but to use an expres- 
 sive Americanism, for which there is really no capa- 
 ble substitute not to pull your leg on leaving. 
 He will himself serve you with wine, or with strong 
 waters distilled from plum-stone or cherry and 
 bearing names all consonants, and his pretty daughter 
 will wait upon you. You will sleep in a bed piled 
 mountain high, with a mountainous bed to lie upon 
 you. You will wake with the piping of birds and 
 look from your window upon the glory of lofty slopes 
 white with cherry blossoms. 
 
 At one little village I was told that there was no 
 means of conveyance farther. I had gone to Vian- 
 den by steam-tramway; thence to the northward 
 by postwagen as far as Eisenbach, following the wild 
 valley of the River Our, the boundary between 
 Luxembourg and Prussia; and it was at Eisenbach 
 that I was told there was no way of getting on to 
 Dasburg, that being a tiny town just over the Prus- 
 sian line, in Eifel Land, and having no connection 
 with the outside world in this direction. "The post- 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 wagen goes no farther than Eisenbach, and you can 
 only return by it," I was told. 
 
 "But I shall hire a horse," I replied. 
 
 "Ah! But there is no horse here not a farmer 
 has a horse the only horses are those of the post- 
 wagen." 
 
 I knew that in many out-of-the-way parts of 
 Europe a great proportion of the farmers get along 
 without horses, where the patches of land are small, 
 but this was the first time I had been told of en- 
 tirely horseless farming. 
 
 Well, if there were actually no horse conveyance, 
 I could at least walk it was good weather and the 
 roads were good and so I asked whom I could 
 engage to walk with me and help carry my small 
 amount of baggage; for I had learned the value of 
 traveling light. 
 
 Then, unexpectedly to the villagers, a man from 
 a few miles away, who happened to come in, told 
 me that there was actually a horse near his home! 
 he was sure I could hire it, and for a considera- 
 tion was eager to hurry off and fetch horse and owner. 
 
 It was a queer looking animal, that solitary horse 
 of the countryside. It was the color of soap, and 
 was knobby with bones, yet the owner firmly de- 
 manded what, it was clear, he thought a good round 
 sum for the trip to Dasburg. " It will break up my 
 day," he said, and declared that he must have 
 (stated in American money) about a dollar and a 
 
 [153] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 half. He looked positively astonished when I ac- 
 cepted his offer without demur. 
 
 The horse was tight strapped within a tarpaulin, 
 the wagon was without springs, the tugs were chains, 
 and the man drove with a single rope thus evidenc- 
 ing the prodigal waste of other lands, where two 
 lines are required and the ride was a delightful one. 
 
 Dasburg, where I spent one night, before going 
 on in another direction by another postwagen, is a 
 strangely solitary little place, yet I found that at a 
 house on the edge of the village, looking out over a 
 wide and desolate view, lived a man and his wife 
 who had been to America, had lived for a time in 
 Buffalo, but had wearied of Lake Erie and could 
 not rest till they had got back to this, the home of 
 their childhood. 
 
 Beside the top of the front door of many a Luxem- 
 bourg house is a little opening, and to this there runs 
 a narrow ladder, usually placed as a staircase along 
 the wall, but sometimes standing out ladderwise. 
 Bizarre in effect: but perhaps for children? one 
 wonders till one sees the ladders mounted, as 
 evening comes on apace, by the family chickens, 
 tripping up from rung to rung. 
 
 The ploughing-oxen, the houses where wealth 
 of pewter is preserved in deep old chests, the fairs 
 where metal keepsakes are purchased for gifts in- 
 terpretative by an ancient code of love, the grotto 
 whose iron crowns cure headaches, the discarding 
 
Free and Independent Luxembourg 
 
 of a lover by the present of a black egg on Easter 
 Day these are among the things of charm. At 
 fascinating Vianden, which Hugo loved, there is a 
 church around which girls try to dance three times 
 upon one foot and then to throw a stone into the 
 stream that goes twinkling through the valley, for 
 she who succeeds will be married within a twelve- 
 month. At Diekirch each December a fair is held at 
 which men and women servants are engaged for the 
 following year, each being chalked upon the back as 
 negotiations are completed. 
 
 Here "man goeth forth unto his work until the 
 evening," but when evening comes the people 
 gather in their villages for friendliness and gossip. 
 The system which arose in the times when peasants 
 gathered about these castles for protection, not 
 daring to make their homes in isolated spots, still 
 endures, as it does throughout most of Continental 
 Europe, and so there is not that loneliness which so 
 often is the lot of the American farmer. 
 
 Land is divided at the owner's death among all 
 his children. It is part of the national policy to 
 have the people become land-owners, and one who 
 inherits none will find the government desirous of 
 aiding him in acquisition. 
 
 There is always a subtle responsive smile when 
 one asks, no matter how gravely, where the Prus- 
 sian boundary is and it is never far distant in this 
 narrow land. Ask why there are so many emigrants 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 leaving this delectable country, especially for the 
 United States, and a smile is again the answer. 
 
 A country piquant and fascinating. And when, 
 on the postwagen, one approaches a mountain vil- 
 lage through the mist of early morning, and the 
 driver blows his horn, and the people gather where 
 he stops, and he feeds his horses with big pieces of 
 black bread, and the black-gowned priest, seeing 
 that there is a stranger as passenger, hovers in the 
 background and, divided between curiosity and 
 dignity, bows till his tonsured spot shows shining, 
 it is hard to realize that this is in the heart of Europe, 
 that this is directly between the two great cities of 
 Paris and Berlin but in such fascinating incongru- 
 ence lies much of the charm of this Gross herzogthum 
 of Luxembourg. 
 
XL NEUTRAL MORESNET 
 
 ITHIN the triple encom- 
 f passment of Belgium and 
 Holland and Prussia, and in 
 actual juxtaposition with all 
 three, there lies a bit of land 
 which for almost a century has 
 been under the dual rule of rival 
 kings. Originating in mistake, 
 the anomaly has been perpetu- 
 ated by jealousy, by the inability 
 of two governments to concur in 
 partition. 
 
 There was awe in the conception of the man 
 without a country; but in Neutral Moresnet there 
 are 3781 without a country. " Under which king, 
 Bezonian? speak or die," demanded Ancient Pistol; 
 but change the threat to Moresnian and there 
 would be 3781 unable to give the saving word. 
 
 It came about through a geographical blunder of 
 that Congress of Vienna which, after the sending 
 of Napoleon to Elba, parceled out Europe anew. 
 Through a district known as Moresnet, which under 
 the French Empire had been assigned to the Depart- 
 ment of the Ourthe, the negotiators drew a line, in- 
 tending to make division between Prussia and the 
 Netherlands. The northern end of this line de- 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 marcatory, the point where the departments of the 
 Ourthe, the Meuse, and the Roeure converged, 
 was well known, but about the southern end, so it 
 was discovered, there were views variant. Prussia 
 wished to stand by the description in one article of 
 the treaty; the Netherlands claimed under another; 
 and contingent upon which article was to have force 
 was the status of a triangle of land, in the middle 
 of Moresnet, some three miles by two miles by one, 
 with an area of 850 acres. 
 
 A decision was postponed. There were more in- 
 sistent problems. Part of Moresnet was unques- 
 tionably Prussian, part Netherlandian; and between 
 the two portions should be this Neutral Moresnet, 
 this No Man's Land. It was to be under the civil 
 administration of both countries, but under the 
 military jurisdiction of neither. 
 
 When the Kingdom of the Netherlands was 
 separated into Holland and Belgium, it was Belgium 
 that retained an interest in the Triangle; when 
 Prussia became part of Germany, it was still to 
 Prussia and its king that the Triangle gave recog- 
 nition. 
 
 Prussia and Belgium unite in the administration 
 and divide the taxes; the money and the stamps of 
 either country may be used; the courts of either 
 may be appealed to; the burgomaster is alternately 
 from one country and from the other. And there can 
 be no garrison and no fortifications. 
 
Neutral Moresnet 
 
 From its ancient and still worked deposits of 
 calamine, the hydrous silicate of zinc, the territory 
 is sometimes known as Vieille Montagne, or Alten- 
 berg, although the "old mountain" is but a lowish 
 hill. From "calamine" come "Kelmis," the name 
 of the town where, as if by some law of precipita- 
 tion, the population has settled at the bottom of the 
 Triangle. 
 
 Although Neutral Moresnet is but a few miles 
 from Aix-la-Chapelle, and although an electric-car 
 line will be continued from the city to its edge 
 probably, before this, has been continued it is a 
 lost territory. It is easily reachable from the vil- 
 lage of Hergenrath, but this I did not easily learn. 
 On the evening of my arrival in Aix I inquired at 
 the hotel, at some neighboring shops, and at both 
 of the railway stations, but no one could tell me 
 how to reach Neutral Moresnet; they had no idea 
 at all, or guessed at random at various impossible 
 stations. But I set out next morning on the quest, 
 and after some hours of travel and search was so 
 fortunate as to find it. They love to tell, in the 
 Triangle, of a recent4y appointed Prussian post- 
 office inspector who went from Aix to visit Neutral 
 Moresnet officially, but who, misdirected from 
 station to station, returned baffled at night to his 
 starting-point. 
 
 And I recently had a personal experience that is 
 perhaps still stranger. The division of Neutral 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Moresnet has long been intended, plans have from 
 time to time been proposed for it, and it is apt to be 
 accomplished at any moment. This would alter 
 the national frontier of Germany; a matter of such 
 importance that it would be expected that any 
 German official, and especially any one connected 
 with what we call the Department of State, would 
 infallibly and necessarily know all about the entire 
 situation. And so before putting this into a book, 
 I went to the office of the German Consul in one of 
 our largest cities to make certain that there had 
 been no change of status. But the Consul had 
 actually never heard of Neutral Moresnet. "It is 
 on the German boundary, you say?" he repeated 
 wonderingly; and he turned to his books to find it, 
 and could then only shake his head in amazement. 
 
 Then I wrote to the German Embassy, in Wash- 
 ington, only to find that even there the boundaries 
 of Germany are not watched! They knew of Neu- 
 tral Moresnet, but could only "regret to say" that 
 "at this Embassy it is not known" about the long- 
 intended division. 
 
 No railway has its line through the neutral bit. 
 Tracks are in Prussian Moresnet on one side, in 
 Belgium Moresnet on the other, but within Neutral 
 Moresnet there is only a short switch for freight- 
 cars from the mines. 
 
 The burgomaster, above whose office door are the 
 juxtaposed coats-of-arms of Prussia and of Belgium, 
 
 [160] 
 
Neutral Moresnet 
 
 not only dispenses punishment for petty delinquency, 
 but is the active governing power of the Triangle. 
 He is assisted by a Council of Ten, a Committee of 
 Beneficence, and a Committee for Schools; but even 
 the awesomely named "Ten" wield no real power, 
 for counsellors and committeemen are alike chosen 
 by the burgomaster himself and exercise functions 
 that are only advisory. Nor have the people of the 
 Triangle any power of voting in regard to any public 
 matter whatever. 
 
 Yet the burgomaster is far from being an un- 
 trammeled despot. There are two commissioners, 
 one appointed by Prussia and one by Belgium, who 
 visit the Triangle whenever they see fit and to whom 
 every act of the burgomaster must be pleasing. 
 Should they check or chide him, he must submit; 
 should they give advice, he must comply. Should 
 the two commissioners themselves differ, the matter 
 must at once go to Berlin and to Brussels for decree. 
 
 Of the 3781, 1858 are males and 1923 females; 
 1642 are rated as Prussian, 1302 Belgian, 372 Dutch, 
 2 Italian, 2 Russian, and 1 Swiss. The remaining 
 460 are descendants of those who were inhabitants 
 when the Triangle became neutral, and they are 
 highly privileged, for their taxes remain the same 
 as their ancestors paid in 1814, and they are free 
 from any military service whatever. Alarmed at 
 losing men from their armies, Prussia and Belgium 
 some years ago began to claim a few years' service 
 
 [161] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 from such as entered the Triangle from their respec- 
 tive territories, but neither country has ever at- 
 tempted to alter the status of the indigenes. 
 
 Approaching the Triangle from Hergenrath, there 
 are seen a low-rounding hill, a pointed spire, and 
 clustered roofs half-hidden among trees, and that is 
 Kelmis. 
 
 The houses are built to the line of cobbled side- 
 walk, most of them are of two stories, of brick or 
 of brick-trimmed stone, and often a front is plas- 
 tered in yellow or brown or pink; nor is the town 
 without houses of little windows, wooden-shuttered 
 in white or green. The floors are tiled or bricked, 
 the kettles are copper, the crockery is of ponderous- 
 ness. I noticed a plate holding up one corner of a 
 heavy and uneven table. " It won't hurt the plate," 
 said the owner, laconically, following my glance. 
 Rain-barrels are of monster magnitude. Mottoes 
 are darned in flaming reds and blues, as, "May the 
 good God give us good luck!" Many a house has 
 flowers in its windows, many a door is iron-knockered, 
 many a fruit tree is trained against the wall. Flowers 
 grow freely, but not in great variety; and most prized 
 is a yellow violet which the people deem infallible as 
 an indicator of zinc, the degree of yellow in the flower 
 denoting the degree of metal in the soil. 
 
 When evening approaches, and the men come 
 back from digging in the wet earth and pushing 
 little cars on narrow tracks, the people group genially 
 
 [162! 
 
Neutral Moresnet 
 
 for gregarious gossip. The young folk walk together 
 up and down, or gayly and informally dance. The 
 children play. Music sounds from the refreshment- 
 gardens or the casino. 
 
 The first of May is moving-day, and then the streets 
 are filled with little two-wheeled carts, heaped high 
 with things of the household, and one gains the im- 
 pression that nearly every one is changing his domi- 
 cile and, indeed, the citizens will tell you, with 
 great complaisance, that each family manages in 
 time to live in nearly every house in town! With all 
 the world before them where to choose they will not 
 leave the Triangle, but variedly find the spice of life 
 within its slender borders. 
 
 The water-supply is from a mighty spring just 
 away from the town, and the water is transported 
 by the women and the girls in buckets dangling from 
 yokes borne across their shoulders. 
 
 There are many signs for the sale of oleomargarine, 
 drugs, and drink, thus hinting at a possible proces- 
 sional cause and effect. Within this tiny acreage 
 there are eighty places where beverages are dis- 
 pensed! "Sang und Liebe, Witz und Wein, Sind des 
 Lebens Sonnenschein!" Thus, prominently lettered 
 in one of the houses, are the desiderata of this 
 humble Moresnian life expressed; only, in realiza- 
 tion, the wine is generally beer and the wit is a 
 humor rather broad. 
 
 Taxing is done with cheerful freedom. Restau- 
 
 [163] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 rants and cafes naturally bear an important share, 
 and every dance, every little concert, is a taxable 
 occasion. Dogs, too, are taxed; but only dogs of 
 harness "les chiens de trait"- the poor "dog Tray." 
 Yet taxes, in all, seem to be a little lower than in 
 adjacent Prussia and only a little higher than in 
 Belgium. 
 
 The solitary policeman of the Triangle, jocularly 
 known as the "Secretary of War," goes about with 
 hurried assiduity, stooping under his responsibility. 
 Diligent in his business, he stands for two kings. 
 But in case of need the soldiers of Belgium or of 
 Prussia may be called in; and, indeed, Prussian 
 soldiers, patrolling with slung rifles, are a familiar 
 sight along the border-line. Watching the customs, 
 they for although Moresnet is the only place in 
 Europe where there is not the slightest customs ex- 
 amination for articles entering, everything which 
 goes out is carefully scanned! 
 
 On the whole, an honest sort of place, this. "A 
 man can go safely anywhere, night or day," declares 
 the burgomaster; and it is doubtless mere exuber- 
 ance of heed that leads the barber to take in every 
 evening the gleaming basin of brass that twinkles in 
 front of his shop as the outward and visible sign of 
 his calling. 
 
 The Prussian Eagle and the Belgian Lion have 
 lain down together, but one intangibly gains the 
 impression that the lion has not held the lion's share. 
 
Neutral Moresnet 
 
 Prussian governmental influence seems to be stronger. 
 There is a preponderance of the flaxen hair and blue 
 eyes of Germany. Although Walloon, Dutch, Flem- 
 ish, French, and German are all spoken, the number 
 of languages being inversely as the population, 
 German has practically conquered the rest; but it 
 bears the marks of the tongues it overcame. It is 
 difficult to understand, as it has become a patois: 
 in fact, the worse one's German is, here, the better 
 it is. 
 
 The vaccination of the children is a function civil 
 and military. The burgomaster keeps the record. 
 A Prussian soldier marshals the throng. The lining- 
 up, the registering, the baring of arms, the in- 
 cision, the relegation to the drying rows all is 
 swift, methodical, capable, amusing. 
 
 In 1903 the absence of definite rule attracted the 
 attention of men who wished to establish a great 
 gambling resort; it was decided to locate here, large 
 sums were spent in preparation, and gambling on 
 an extensive scale was actually begun. The Code 
 Napoleon, still operative in the Neutral Territory, 
 prohibits the gathering of more than twenty persons 
 for such a purpose, at one time, without specific 
 authority. But the gambling promoters proceeded 
 with much circumspection. They first decreed that 
 no inhabitant of the Triangle should be permitted 
 to gamble, and thus there was to be no local injury. 
 And they arranged to play in relays of twenty! 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 They believed that the burgomaster and Belgium 
 favored them, and so long as the law was observed 
 they believed they could ignore the displeasure of 
 Prussia. 
 
 But the man behind the sword cut the cleverly 
 tied Gordian knot of strict legality. The Prussian 
 King declared that unless gambling should instantly 
 cease the territory would at once be partitioned and 
 the neutrality should end. In distinctively Belgian 
 or Prussian territory a Monte Carlo would not be 
 permitted; so the gamblers swiftly vanished, and the 
 neutrality remained. 
 
 Within Neutral Moresnet there is no court except 
 the petty tribunal of the burgomaster. A plaintiff 
 may bring his suit in either Prussia or Belgium, as 
 he may prefer. The Code Napoleon, altered from 
 time to time by mutual edicts of the two kings, 
 forms the basis of law, but this law must be ad- 
 ministered in accordance with the procedure of 
 Belgian or Prussian courts. Pregnant of perplexity, 
 all this. To Belgian Aubel or Prussian Eugen, to 
 the court of Verviers or that of Aix-la-Chapelle, on 
 appeal to Liege or Cologne such is the whimsical 
 alternativeness. A criminal may find himself be- 
 fore a Prussian or a Belgian court. A deed may be 
 executed before either a Prussian or a Belgian notary, 
 and may be filed at either Verviers or Aix. The 
 differences of legal expense and procedure, the 
 differences in delay nay, even potential differences 
 
 [166] 
 
Neutral Moresnet 
 
 in decision and in penalty make the legal com- 
 plexity a thing of real moment. 
 
 My advent caused a genuine flutter. That I 
 could be merely an American, traveling unofficially, 
 seemed incredible; and officials, Belgian and Prus- 
 sian, and even an English consul from a Belgian 
 town, kept dropping in, one after another, ac- 
 knowledging to me, over tall beakers, that they had 
 been anxiously wired anent my presence there. 
 
 The nearness of Aix-la-Chapelle, the favorite 
 city of Charlemagne, tinges the entire region with 
 fascinating historical color; and here, at the very 
 edge of Neutral Moresnet, is Emmaburg, which was 
 his favorite resting-place. A little stream goes 
 bending about the rock on which the chateau 
 stands; and one vividly realizes that the brook has 
 gone on, unchanged, throughout the thousand years 
 that have passed since Charlemagne loved to come 
 here, and since the undying story of Emma and 
 Eginhard went to its happy catastrophe. 
 
 Emma was the Emperor's daughter; Eginhard, 
 his secretary. A poet, a scholar, a musician, hand- 
 some, ingratiating, one whom Charlemagne him- 
 self trusted small wonder that Emma and he fell 
 in love. But, Eginhard being only a secretary, 
 they dared not publicly avouch their affection and 
 they dared not meet except in secret. On one occa- 
 sion the princess allowed the young man to remain 
 until well toward morning "And then they parted; 
 
 [167] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 but at parting, lo! they saw the palace courtyard 
 white with snow!" 
 
 Confronted by such an emergency, Emma acted 
 with a readiness and decision worthy of her illus- 
 trious parentage. She had certainly been impru- 
 dent in her entertaining of Eginhard, with her 
 father unaware; but her speeding of the parting 
 guest was beyond all praise. For she promptly 
 took Eginhard upon her shoulders and carried 
 him to where his footsteps would not be deemed 
 evidence condemnatory! 
 
 But Charlemagne, unknown to them, was a 
 spectator from one of the tower windows! Yet it 
 all came out right, just as a sweet old tale ought 
 to do, and they married and lived happily ever 
 after. The sour Carlyle speaks derisively of it. 
 " Charlemagne with wanton daughters carrying secre- 
 taries through the snow," he jibes; but his intem- 
 perate pluralization shows how bent he was upon 
 avoiding all sweetness and charm. 
 
 The chateau has been much bewindowed and 
 largely rebuilt, but tradition holds that the most 
 prominent tower was standing in Charlemagne's 
 time, and there is no reason to doubt that the lines 
 of the courtyard are unchanged. 
 
 Trees are attractively massed about Emmaburg, 
 yet do not hide it from the view of Kelmis. Even 
 within Kelmis itself there is a general aspect of trees 
 and greenery. To the northward the Neutral Terri- 
 
 [168] 
 
Neutral Moresnet 
 
 toiy is covered thick with woodland, as are portions 
 of Holland and Belgium and Prussia there adjoin- 
 ing. 
 
 At the extreme northern point of the Triangle 
 are clustered four boundary-stones, one for each 
 of the four jurisdictions. 
 
 In the midst of the woods, southward from this 
 boundary point, I chanced one day upon an ancient 
 stone, hidden among trees and bushes. It bore the 
 date of 1615, and was blazoned with a defiant in- 
 scription and a long-forgotten coat of arms. Men 
 fought, three hundred years ago, to place that stone 
 there and maintain it. And now, so completely 
 forgotten! stumbled upon by a stranger, and lost to 
 all other knowledge. 
 
 Simple and plainly dressed, these folk of the 
 Neutral Land; and they ought to be happy, for they 
 have but little poverty and little riches. Still, there 
 are eighteen telephones in use, Belgium in each case 
 giving the permission, and Prussia putting each 
 telephone in and collecting the eighty marks annually 
 which, again, is not altogether untypical of the 
 division of power here! 
 
 I found even this tiny territory to be not without 
 its own exemplification of the truth, which the 
 traveller should always remember, that the foreign 
 mind works differently from his own. After vainly 
 trying^ to be pleased with the assimilation of luke- 
 warm coffee, I explained to the excellent waitress 
 
 [169] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 that I desired it hot. Really, my German was right 
 enough, but her comprehension of it was not all that 
 could have been desired. She was unfeignedly joy- 
 ful at being able to please the man from across the 
 sea and fetched me, not hot coffee, but a cup 
 heated to untouchableness ! 
 
 On the first morning of my stay there I laid out a 
 roll of laundry. After breakfast I looked for it, to 
 give to a messenger; but it had disappeared! The 
 maid, so I found, had thought the articles, laid 
 together, to be the American sleeping-complement, 
 and, with imaginable wonder at what she must have 
 deemed an embarrassing multiplicity, but without 
 a particle of hesitation, she had tucked everything, 
 with the pajamas, at the foot of the bed not even 
 under the pillow, for that would not have been the 
 Moresnet way. 
 
 The charivari is prominent among the diversions 
 of the Triangle. Not always invoked for the delec- 
 tation of the newly wedded, this, but, by a humor- 
 ous perversion, even more for the distinguishment 
 of such as have not married! The most popular 
 music at these open-air concerts is that made by 
 holding a great scythe against the tire of a revolving 
 wheel; and so shrilly excruciating is it as to make a 
 lapse from virtue a matter for serious regret. 
 
 The church of Kelmis is modern, and its glaring 
 interior could add many a hue to the rainbow. But, 
 though without the splendid dignity of an old cathe- 
 
 [170] 
 
Neutral Moresnet 
 
 dral, it is also without the beggars who are the sadly 
 familiar sight at magnificent cathedral portals. 
 
 Religious feast-days transcend in importance the 
 celebration of any festivals secular. Even in secular 
 recreations the religious element is likely to be con- 
 joined; in parades, priestliness and playfulness may 
 affiliate; and there is no better place for a secular 
 outing than one of the stations of the Cross. Fre- 
 quently, by the roadside, alike within the village 
 and in the wild-woods, there are seen the crucifix 
 and shrine. "Yet the people are not too good," 
 says the priest, with subtle and tolerant philosophy. 
 
 For the First Communion the entire population 
 joins in the celebration. Great banners are hung 
 on the outward walls, and in the cool light of early 
 morning the streets are thronged. Led by a band, 
 playing a stately march, the children come in pro- 
 cession around a corner and, the priest leading, 
 circle through a grove of trees toward the entrance 
 of the church. There has been lavishness of out- 
 lay, and there is a really astonishing display of 
 scarlet and blue in the costumes, in addition to the 
 more prevalent white. In the church, every inch 
 of which is crowded, even for standing-room, the 
 service is of simple effectiveness, and the organ is 
 assisted by the band. 
 
 For the little girls it is the most important time 
 of all their lives. All day long they wear their veils 
 and dresses; all of the second day they wear another 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 special suit from morning until night; all of the third 
 day still another for such is the custom of the 
 Neutral Land. 
 
 I saw not only the First Communion, but the 
 Last. One day I met the priest going on his way to 
 the deathbed of a woman. The kiister the sacris- 
 tan preceded him, dolefully ringing a little bell 
 and bearing a light which glimmered strangely be- 
 neath the hot sun in its cloudless sky. Following 
 was a constantly augmenting group, and each man's 
 head was bared, and all were awed and still. They 
 came to a village house, and the priest went in, and 
 the women silently followed, and the men stood 
 reverently at the door. And with candle and water 
 and sprigs the last communion was administered, 
 and a few great tears rolled from the eyes of jthe 
 woman dying there. 
 
 The amusements of Neutral Moresnet are im- 
 portant and numerous. There are associations musi- 
 cal, associations gymnastic, associations theatrical, 
 associations for bowling, for dancing, for shooting 
 at the mark that dangles from a lofty pole. There 
 is an excellent band; there are two fire companies. 
 
 These people, small though their territory, will 
 not be cabined, cribbed, confined. There are two 
 clubs for the training and flying of carrier-pigeons! 
 And I met a man whose delight is the gathering of 
 newspapers in the languages of all the world; he 
 has a wonderful collection, and lamented to me that 
 
 [172] 
 
A PROCESSION IN NEUTRAL MORESNET 
 
Old 
 
 
 ally 
 
 
 
 
 
 od 
 
 idle and w 
 
 rmastic. 
 
 met are im- 
 :iatio 
 
 for sho 
 
 
 xl A 
 
Neutral Moresnet 
 
 thus far he had no newspaper of the Esquimaux or 
 of the North-American Indian. 
 
 For the men of the Triangle there are twenty 
 associations, but for the women there is none! 
 There are no club-women, no "advanced" women. 
 "They cook, they work, they make their children's 
 clothes," said the priest, gravely outlining their 
 diversions. "On Sunday they go to church. On 
 Sunday afternoon they walk out with their husbands 
 and children. They know nothing else. They wish 
 nothing else. They are content. Is it not well?" 4 
 
 Yet one need not deem them to be always under 
 repression. I remember hearing a morning quarrel 
 with the milkman; and such are the geographical 
 advantages of the place not only the Neutral Land, 
 but Prussia and Holland and Belgium as well, listened 
 perforce to the woman's side of the argument. 
 
 The very intensity of local life tends to hold the 
 people. They are satisfied with their Lilliput. 
 They little care to stir abroad, even for their amuse- 
 ments, or even to near-by Aix. With their many 
 gathering-places, their varied means of pleasurable 
 occupation, they need no outside aids to joyousness. 
 
 There is general pervasiveness of content. There 
 is a sort of at fresco freedom of life, an untrammel- 
 edness which comes naturally from long-continued 
 absence of centralized restraint. The people only 
 fear the possible impermanency of their pleasing 
 status. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 No man can serve two masters ? Why, here is the 
 twofold subjection, the twofold loyalty, of three 
 thousand seven hundred and eighty-one! 
 
 \ 
 
 v\ 
 
XII. WATERTOCHTJES IN HOLLAND 
 
 OLLAND is a water 
 country. There- 
 fore, the way to 
 see Holland is to 
 go about by water. 
 This, which seems 
 a self-evident 
 truth, is a truth 
 
 so neglected that almost all visitors 
 to Holland travel by train, except 
 for the single trip from Amsterdam 
 to well-staged Maarken; and even that is not a 
 watertrip in the sense that I mean, for it is a trip 
 on the Zuyder Zee, and what I have in mind is the 
 leisurely travel along the rivers and canals. 
 
 Holland is so small that it is apt to be too hastily 
 seen; the visitor will not leave enough time for it; it 
 is usually sandwiched thin between England and 
 France. A few cities, a few museums and galleries, 
 a glance at a few canals from the train and the 
 traveler hurries on to Paris or London, thinking 
 that Holland has been "done." 
 
 Holland is so genial, so pleasant, so smilingly 
 sedate, so happy, so prosperous, so scrubbed almost 
 to godliness, as to make it beyond most countries 
 in intrinsic charm. And it is peculiarly a quiet 
 
 [175] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 country, and this because so very much of its busi- 
 ness and pleasure traffic is this water traffic. 
 
 To know Holland is to love Holland. The people 
 are agreeable to look at and pleasant to meet. The 
 buildings are attractive. The cooking is delicious. 
 Expenses are not high. And in every direction 
 there are things to discover: this feature putting it 
 in the desired class for those who would find what 
 everybody does not see. 
 
 I learned, for example, with joy, that the prin- 
 cipal literary character of America is Nikkater! 
 with the accent on the Nik. I came across this fact 
 in conversation with a colonel in the Dutch army, a 
 man of affairs and position. "I admire your Nik- 
 kater so much!" he said, raising both hands in a 
 gesture of admiration, while a look of ineffable de- 
 light came over his face. "Your Nikkater is so 
 wonderful!" And I did not instantly gather that 
 he meant Nick Carter! 
 
 The stories of Nick Carter, in translation, are 
 really looked upon with admiration in Holland, as 
 highly interesting in themselves and as the most 
 prominent examples of American literary art. 
 
 The second time that I heard Nikkater spoken 
 of was on a fete night in Amsterdam, when, standing 
 for a few minutes at the corner of a crowded street, 
 I asked some question of a lieutenant of police. 
 He answered my question, and then: "You are an 
 American?" he said, and went on with the same 
 
 [176] 
 
Watertochtjes in Holland 
 
 enthusiasm that I had noticed in the case of the 
 colonel: "You are from the home of Nikkater!" 
 he exclaimed, with awe in his voice. 
 
 That the Dutch have a surprisingly small litera- 
 ture of their own for such an intelligent race explains 
 why they depend upon other countries for their 
 supply, although I could find no reason why it is that, 
 in reaching across the Atlantic for books, they es- 
 pecially single out Nick Carter. 
 
 The fete day upon which I met the second enthusi- 
 ast for Nick represents another of the unexpected 
 and worthwhile things I came across in Holland, for 
 the fete is in honor for the birthday of the Queen, 
 August 31, and all Holland joins in it, and the quiet, 
 staid, sedate, prim citizens of Amsterdam indulge in 
 decently dissipated but decorous Dutch saturnalia. 
 
 Throughout the day there are marching and 
 music, and carillons during which half Amsterdam 
 stands in a hot square with its collective neck 
 almost broken and its eyes upturned to the bell- 
 tower of the town hall. But when evening falls the 
 revels begin, and they center along the beloved 
 Kalver-Straat. 
 
 Anticipatorily, the hotels and restaurants take in 
 their sidewalk-tables and bay-trees, and most of the 
 shops build solid boarding in front of their windows, 
 for the coming of sunset means the filling of the Kalver- 
 Straat and Rembrandt-Plein with a surging mass of 
 laughing, pushing, singing, happy, dancing Dutch. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Numberless street musicians are suddenly in 
 evidence, mostly in bands of four or five, and around 
 each music center the people dance. Introductions 
 are a disregarded formality everyone seems to 
 know everyone else. 
 
 From my balcony I counted ten dancing groups, 
 at one time, within one short block, the groups 
 momently shifting and changing, increasing or 
 lessening in number, as 'dancers quit and went 
 hilariously down the street or new ones joined. At 
 times it seemed as if there were nothing but sway- 
 ing, bobbing, bowing heads as far as one could see, 
 under the brilliant street lights. 
 
 And with it all there was very little of intoxica- 
 tion; there was practically none at all; it was a gay 
 but after all a sober saturnalia, and an amazing 
 metamorphosis of staid Amsterdam, a city which 
 thus shows that it has mastered the delightful art 
 of being happy in public. 
 
 And while the streets were packed and thronged 
 with merrymakers, to honor their Queen, who is 
 immensely popular in Holland, the restaurants 
 were jammed with diners and gay with orchestral 
 music. 
 
 In the morning following the fete I went on a 
 watertochtje; watertochtjes being water-trips. 
 
 The trip was to an ancient little town called 
 Alkmaar, and I went there to see a world-market 
 the great market for Edam cheese. 
 
A SHADED WATERWAY OF HOLLAND 
 

 
 
 ightfl: 
 
 
 
Watertochtjes in Holland 
 
 The journey, of some twenty-five miles, was by a 
 little steamer, barely longer than an American tug, 
 and was mostly on canals; these being not the usual 
 canals, but great, broad waterways, of very con- 
 siderable depth; the two greatest canals of Holland. 
 Now and then there was even an expansion to the 
 width of a lake. 
 
 It was ideal traveling, the perfection of restful 
 leisureliness. The water was never rough, but at 
 the same time it was never entirely placid; it was 
 really that delightful desideratum, the golden mean. 
 
 For a while we kept passing ocean-going ships. 
 We passed huge warehouses, with names upon them 
 that were full of the fascinating call of distant 
 lands: India, Sumatra, Japan, Russia, Brazil; re- 
 mindful that for centuries the Dutch have gone down 
 to the sea in ships; only, here the Biblical phrase 
 must needs, for correctness sake, be reversed, as 
 the people of this diked-in land go, literally, up to 
 the sea! 
 
 There are long stretches of farmland, and there 
 are lush and watery fields of green; there are little 
 villages and some of the villages are almost alto- 
 gether inhabited by those whose sole business is 
 the building and repair of dikes, and as you pass 
 you see their piled-up mats and fascines. 
 
 There are square farmhouses, low-built, except 
 that the roof rises high in a point in the center; 
 houses intended not only for farmers but also for 
 
 [179] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 four-footed accessories of the farms, with hay stored 
 up in the peak. "They are convenient, and they 
 are warm in winter," I remember a phlegmatic 
 Dutchman saying, in evident assurance that there 
 was no further desideratum. 
 
 We passed boats loaded with vegetables, boats 
 piled high with hay, for it is boats rather than 
 wagons upon which the people depend. Yet there 
 are farm-wagons too, and mostly of one type, as if 
 run out of a common mould; high-set wagons, of 
 varnished oak, round-topped, with cloth on slatted 
 frames. The horses, also, are mainly of one type 
 in Holland, order being Heaven's first law and 
 that type is a sort of tan-colored, easy stepping, 
 medium-sized draught horse, and from the boat you 
 now and then see one seldom a pair hitched to- 
 gether driven along the road, that frequently 
 runs on the dike at the very edge of the canal. 
 
 The little steamers are for local freight and pas- 
 senger traffic, and the rates are very cheap. But 
 although this was in the first days of September, 
 and Europe was full of visitors, we passengers, 
 besides the few local Dutch, were only seven in all ! 
 a family of five Spanish-Mexicans, banished from 
 home through the troubles there; traveled folk 
 restlessly spending their enforced absence from 
 Mexico in revisiting cities they most loved and 
 giving a month to each (Amsterdam standing high 
 in their affections) and already wondering what they 
 
 [180] 
 
Watertochtjes in Holland 
 
 should do when a few more cities and a few more 
 months should be exhausted; and only one other 
 besides myself: a Greek, a man of middle-age, with 
 a really classical face, who could readily be led into 
 ardent talk of Athens and the Parthenon and the 
 blue of the Grecian sky. He spoke a fluent French, 
 but no English, but he listened intently when the 
 Mexicans spoke English to me, and at such words 
 as " enthusiasm" he would go into mild rapture: 
 " A Greek word!" he would cry. 
 
 Finding so few on the steamer, I supposed that 
 visitors to Alkmaar must prosaically go by train; 
 by train is the only way in which Baedeker tells 
 how to get there, instead of by this delightful water- 
 tochtje; but at least on the day I was there, market- 
 day though it was, none went by train. I saw, 
 however, a couple of English folk who had gone by 
 an earlier boat. In places such as this, not large 
 and with the interest centering in certain well- 
 defined points, one may always know how many 
 visitors there are in town. 
 
 At length Alkmaar was reached, and the cheese 
 market was readily found, for it is the point toward 
 which everything and everyone naturally gravitates. 
 
 The market is held in a large open space around 
 the ancient weighing-house; a building of the 16th 
 century, built at that period for this purpose; a 
 building of beauty and distinction, constructed of 
 brick and stone, and surmounted by a tall tower 
 
 [18'] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 that goes up in diminishing square and hexagon to 
 a crown that overtops all. 
 
 Edam cheeses, of the familiar round cannon-ball 
 shape, are gathered and handled for the world in 
 the shadow of this old weigh-house, just as they 
 have been gathered and handled here for hundreds 
 of years. 
 
 The yellow balls are for Holland consumption 
 (Holland is loyal to its own cheese!) and the familiar 
 red balls are for the export trade; and all are ar- 
 ranged in numberless long piles, usually upon can- 
 vas, with hundreds and hundreds also covered with 
 canvas and protected thus against sun or rain. 
 Men are loading and unloading along the cheese 
 wharf; and it is interesting to watch them handling 
 the cheeses, for they so cleverly toss or roll them; 
 and other men are carrying the balls into or out of 
 the weighing-house. The hundreds of buyers and 
 sellers are in busy confabulation. Everywhere 
 there is an atmosphere of geniality and frank pleas- 
 antness. 
 
 Bargains are literally "struck"; if an offered price 
 is accepted the buyer claps his hands together and 
 the deal is thus closed. And decisions are quickly 
 made, for the Dutch have so long been a trading 
 race that they know the value of time. Often one 
 hears a continued volley of claps! 
 
 Over seven thousand tons of Edam cheese are 
 handled at this market annually, the round balls 
 
 [182] 
 
Watertochtjes in Holland 
 
 selling here for an average of about sixty cents, 
 American, apiece. The cheeses are carried to and 
 fro in boat-shaped cradles, between two men who 
 wear a sort of harness on their shoulders and barely 
 lift the cradle off the ground. They have a curious 
 shuffling trot that enables them to carry pyramided 
 cheese at a quick pace, and never a cheese rolls off. 
 They are a picturesque set of men, these bearers, 
 perhaps some thirty or so in all, dressed in suits and 
 stockings of white (and white means white in Hol- 
 land!), with hats, according to the color of the scales 
 to which they are to go, of bright' yellow, bright 
 red, or bright blue. 
 
 The dealers are largely cooperative; most have 
 organized, to build better cheese factories, and get 
 better prices and terms for less expenditure; although 
 still some individual farmers prefer to do their own 
 individual business in their own individual way. 
 The cooperation, among other advantages that are 
 pointed out, has made it possible to hold the market 
 weekly, on Fridays, all the year; because by band- 
 ing together, and putting their milk together, 
 there is enough for the making of cheese even in 
 winter time, when the supply of the individual 
 might by itself be too little. 
 
 The scene at the market and it is mostly in the 
 forenoon, most of the trafficking being over by 
 noon is pleasant and animated; interesting in 
 itself and the more so when one realizes that it is 
 
 [183] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the continuation of an ancient market, in the town 
 that is the center of the region that produces Edam 
 cheese. And every fifteen minutes the chimes in 
 the weigh-house tower ring out strange old tunes. 
 
 One need not fear being stranded in an out-of-the- 
 way place with little to eat, for close beside the 
 market is a restaurant frequented by the farmers 
 and their customers; and I remember it, not only 
 because of the throng that literally pack it, up- 
 stairs and down, as noon approaches, not only 
 because of the excellence of its service for almost 
 every restaurant and inn in Holland is excellent 
 and clean not only because, in spite of its rush of 
 custom, it sees to such nice points as giving its 
 customers real cream for their coffee and the sugar 
 in individual little packages, but from the careful 
 particularity with which the prices are figured; for 
 although I was a stranger, supposedly not over- 
 conversant with a Dutch bill-of-fare and Dutch 
 money, and although there was such a rush that 
 hasty adding might have been excused, the waiter 
 figured my slip, for a generous meal, to the correct 
 hairsbreadth, and penciled for me just 99 (Dutch) 
 cents. 
 
 Everything is impossibly shining and clean in 
 Alkmaar: the people, their houses, their little shops, 
 the cheese market itself, the very streets. 
 
 This trip to Alkmaar was a watertochtje to get to 
 a definite place, but I think that on the whole there 
 
 [184] 
 
Watertochtjes in Holland 
 
 is even more interest in taking watertochtjes for 
 their own sake, without definite objective. For it 
 is an ideal way to get at the very heart of the real 
 country, and it gives one such absolutely perfect 
 hours of enjoyment. One comes to love the water- 
 tochtje for itself alone! 
 
 Dordrecht, itself one of the most fascinating cities 
 of Holland, with its amazing number of ancient 
 houses, is the best place from which to take water- 
 tochtjes. It is itself a city of water with long lines 
 of canal within its limits; more than any other city 
 of Holland, it may fairly be called a Dutch Venice 
 and I remember that one morning at Dordrecht 
 I was reminded of the callow traveler who, having 
 visited the real Venice, was asked how he liked it. 
 "Why," he replied, "I really can't say, for I didn't 
 see it properly; I was there only one day, and then 
 all the streets were flooded." Well, I saw the Dutch 
 Venice flooded, after a night of tremendous down- 
 pour, and it was certainly a strange sight, for water 
 was up over the wharves, and had flooded lower floors 
 and cellars. 
 
 The watertochtjes from Dordrecht can be taken 
 in little sidewheel steamers that, under the manage- 
 ment of a man rejoicing in the delightful name of 
 Fop Smit suggestive of the name of an American 
 artist and author who loves Dordrecht! ply fre- 
 quently, at regular intervals, over the Maas and the 
 Waal, to Rotterdam, some miles from Dordrecht in 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 one direction, and Loevestein, the gloomy old for- 
 tress prison, noted in Netherland history, some 
 miles distant in the other, stopping at every little 
 town on the way. 
 
 Incidentally, the matter of rivers is itself an in- 
 teresting one. "Where is the Rhine?" the traveler 
 in Holland will ask. And he will not find it. It 
 separates, and spreads through Holland in a number 
 of great outlets to the sea, and the Dutch give these 
 outlets names, carefully avoiding that of "Rhine," 
 or Rhein, as, of course, the Germans have it. The 
 Waal is a part of the Rhine; it unites with the Maas 
 (known in its southern course as the Meuse), and 
 then, going on to the North Sea, bears neither the 
 name of the Rhine nor Waal, but that of the Maas. 
 In other words, the Rhine flows into the Maas! 
 
 The circling windmills, the superb stretches of 
 low-lying landscape, the passing boats, broad-beamed 
 like models for Dutch skirts, the mellow glory of the 
 sky and water, the smiling fields, the red-roofed 
 villages, the river itself, giant-like and slow, sweep- 
 ing splendidly around mighty bends, the branch- 
 ing waterways shimmering across endless fields of 
 green all is beautiful. 
 
 And you will get off at some little village at ran- 
 dom, and you will walk about, nodded to cheerfully 
 by the cheerful busy folk, and it may well be that 
 you are the first American in the place! You will 
 see the homely, comfortable little homes and the 
 
 [186! 
 

 WINDMILLS SEEN ON A WATERTOCHTJE 
 

 
 ome 
 
 
 
 e it. 
 
 either 
 at that of the Maas. 
 
 of 
 
 g fields, the red-re 
 
 : ity bends, the bra^ 
 across endless fields of 
 ' 
 
 
 - 
 
 may well be that 
 You will 
 
Watertochtjes in Holland 
 
 little shops. I remember, in particular, at such a 
 village a tiny shop where nothing was sold but 
 wooden shoes. " These are fourteen cents a pair 
 [I am translating into American cents], these are 
 seventeen, these are nineteen"; there was certainly 
 no effort to take advantage of a stranger, and, of 
 course, I bought a pair for the pure pleasure of it. 
 
 You walk about for a while in these out-of-the- 
 way and fascinating places out-of-the-way though 
 so near the visited cities! and you look in at the 
 little shipyard where the resin smells are whole- 
 somely sweet, and then you take the next steamer 
 and sail again on the glorious restful water, and 
 when you feel like it you stop off at some other place 
 that chances especially to attract. 
 
 After all, too, this is the country from which our 
 English Pilgrims sailed to Plymouth; and it comes 
 remindfully that they had sojourned in Holland for 
 some years when one sees, here, ancient-looking 
 cradles looking precisely like the cradle in which was 
 rocked small Peregrine White, the first child born in 
 New England. 
 
 I think that a part of the charm of these inland 
 voyages comes from the fact that one looks for 
 long distances across level water and level land. 
 For there is a great restfulness in it. One views the 
 scenery with such absolute ease, with no craning 
 of the neck or tilting up of the eyes, that he is ready 
 to appreciate every beauty to the full. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 A friend, a London physician, a man of travel 
 and intelligence, accustomed to visit Scotland and 
 the Continent, could not understand why I cared for 
 Holland. 
 
 "What is there in Holland that is especially 
 worth while?" he asked. "Frankly, I am puzzled. 
 What is it?" 
 
 I thought of the splendid cities, rich in beauty 
 and in brave, historical associations, I thought of the 
 noble museums and picture galleries, I thought of 
 that delightful watering-place, Scheveningen, the 
 home of the hooded beach-chair! But I said nothing 
 of all these. He might have replied that other coun- 
 tries have cities, museums, seaside towns. 
 
 "What is there?" he repeated. 
 
 And I said, knowing that there was nothing that 
 he could retort: "There are the watertochtjes!" 
 
XIII. THE OLD RED CITY OF ROTHENBURG 
 
 T 
 
 r - ^hte 
 
 "\HERE are three Ger- 
 man cities that are of 
 especial interest from 
 the standpoint of the 
 picturesque; cities with 
 a wealth of the ancient German 
 .architecture; cities filled with 
 the spirit of centuries ago. They 
 are Niirnberg, Hildesheim, Roth- 
 enburg, these three, but the 
 most picturesque of these is 
 Rothenburg. 
 
 It is a marvelous city, this of 
 
 Rothenburg ob der Tauber; a fascinating city, out 
 of the fascinating past. Everywhere is the unbroken 
 aspect of the centuries that have gone. Ancient 
 walls, deep-moated, loophole-pierced, still engird 
 the city. Every house is of ancient form; almost 
 every house is in actuality ancient, and the few that 
 fill gaps caused by fire or decay have been strictly 
 built on ancient lines, for thus the city has consist- 
 ently commanded this city so sonorously named, 
 this Rothenburg ob der Tauber. 
 
 [189] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 It is a city of crockets and pinnacles, of myriad 
 towers in myriad designs, of great stone fountains, 
 of houses illimitably dormered, of lofty gables, secret 
 passages, delectable doorways, windows of leaded 
 glass; of street lines indented by house-fronts pro- 
 gressively projecting, story above story. "Es sieht 
 aus als wenn man ein Bild ansieht!" thus said to 
 me an enthusiastic admirer from Berlin: "It is as 
 if a man were looking at a picture!" 
 
 For a thousand years Rothenburg has been a 
 city. For more than five hundred years it was a 
 Free City of the Empire. It is not like those ancient 
 towns which, through centuries of strife, preserved 
 their entity through being huddled near the base of 
 some great castle; it is not like those towns that 
 were protected by powerful princes; for it has main- 
 tained itself by its own unaided sturdiness. If 
 great barons came to Rothenburg, they came to 
 receive protection, not to give it, or else they came 
 to be entertained with the lavish open-handedness 
 that made the city a place to which emperors them- 
 selves found pleasure in resorting. 
 
 By crusaders and pilgrims, Rothenburg was held 
 in affectionate regard, not only for its generous 
 hospitality, but because, seen from the river, it bore 
 a striking resemblance to Jerusalem. But there was 
 order in those times of turbulence; and in an old, old 
 house, used by Palestine's pilgrims, and still known as 
 Pilgrims' House, there is an ancient stone, bearing 
 
 [190] 
 
The Old Red City of Rothenburg 
 
 upon it an ancient carving of a hand and a hatchet, 
 with the ominous inscription, "He who quarrels 
 in this house shall have his hand cut off." 
 
 Yet since those early days the town has been com- 
 paratively forgotten. Even yet it has not become 
 a haunt of the tourist and the traveler, although 
 each year a few Americans resort thitherward, bring- 
 ing back tales of this city that out-Niirnbergs Niirn- 
 berg. It is easily reached, being on a little branch 
 line from the railway between Frankfort and Munich. 
 The station is well outside of the walls, and the 
 most effective way is to reach the city after night- 
 fall and next morning step out into its streets from 
 dreamland. 
 
 It is a place where the sightseer cannot go wrong, 
 for everywhere is fascination. There are both 
 stateliness and beauty. There are towering houses 
 with crisscrossed fronts. There are charming gar- 
 dens, tucked in between ancient walls. There are 
 ancient stairways of stone or of age-bleached oak, 
 circling upward around a central pillar from base- 
 ment to roof. There are casement windows, look- 
 ing into courtyards of alluring charm. The city is 
 steeped in color, for the long-rising roofs are all of 
 old red tile. It was long since that wooden roofs 
 were forbidden. To be precise, it was just seven 
 hundred and nine years ago. 
 
 The town centers around its town-hall, its Rath- 
 haus. This is a superb building, huge in size and of 
 
 [190 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 immense dignity. In construction it is a composite 
 of the centuries, a commingling of the Gothic and the 
 Renaissance; yet "Made in Germany" is distinc- 
 tively in every line. Here are the municipal meet- 
 ing-rooms and offices, and here is many a record of 
 the past. Here are paintings of long-since-forgotten 
 battles, and great iron coffers, made to hold the 
 city's secrets and its gold; here are archives, run- 
 ning back for over seven hundred years; here are 
 parchments jingling with great ancient seals, some 
 of them imperial; here is the " Richtsstuhl," the stone 
 seat of justice; here are grim records of the dungeons, 
 done in old-time black-letter, telling with dry brev- 
 ity of trials and punishments, of confessions made 
 under torture by traitors and criminals, and even 
 by old-time robber knights brought by the burghers 
 to a sharp account. 
 
 There are deep dungeons under the Rathhaus, 
 reached by stairways dripping with moisture, into 
 which not a ray of light can enter; and in one of these 
 dungeons, some five centuries ago, the men of Roth- 
 enburg placed the burgomaster who, more than any 
 other in the long burgomasterial line, gave to the 
 city power and wealth and prosperity. But they 
 charged him with conspiring with the Emperor, 
 and not only gave him no light, but edged their 
 animosity by deliberately giving him no food. It 
 is in all a fiercely dramatic story, for friends who 
 were still faithful tunneled to the cell and madly 
 
THE WALL OF ROTHENBURG 
 
i of 
 
 ide to 
 
 ent seals, some 
 tuhl," I 
 f the dung 
 
 h dry i 
 
 md crimina ; 
 
 it by the b>ur 
 
 r; and 
 
 mei 
 
 
 ell and 
 
 7 3HT 
 
The Old Red City of Rothenburg 
 
 cut through its prodigious wall and reached the 
 prisoner but only to find him dead. 
 
 Nowadays they treat unpopular burgomasters 
 with more consideration. Each burgomaster is 
 chosen for three years, and at the end of that time 
 he is either elected for life or gives place to a succes- 
 sor. But an election for life does not give unchecked 
 power, for it is a simple matter with these towns- 
 folk, if they tire of a life-chosen mayor, to make him 
 "so crazy with vexation," as it was expressed to me, 
 that he is glad to resign and accept the pension that 
 they palliatively offer. Only recently they thus got 
 rid of one. 
 
 I climbed the tall tower of the Rathhaus, entering 
 that part of the building through a Renaissance 
 door of remarkable distinction and beauty. I 
 climbed on, tempted always farther by foot-furrowed 
 stairs, quavering floors, crooked galleries, labyrin- 
 thine fascination. And in a little room at the very 
 top I found a white-haired, white-bearded man. 
 He lived up there, he and a fellow-watchman, 
 keeping ceaseless lookout for fires in twelve-hour 
 alternate vigils. Eight times an hour by night, 
 and four times an hour by day, the town is scanned; 
 and the old man showed me with pride an elabo- 
 rate mechanism which keeps check on his faithful- 
 ness. 
 
 From the summit, above this room, is a never- 
 forgetable view of the congregated roofs, the peaks 
 
 [193] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 and gables, the pinnacle-perched figures of stone, 
 the river, and the far-reaching plains. 
 
 Three times a week, at noon, young men clamber 
 to this tower-top, and, in rain or sunshine, in heat 
 or in cold, trumpet ancient German chorals to the 
 north, to the south, to the east, to the west, in 
 turn. 
 
 They love music in Rothenburg, and it is an in- 
 cident of most functions, public or private. In 
 front of the Rathhaus, when wedding formalities 
 are going on inside, hired musicians loudly drum and 
 trumpet, whereat the people come running from all 
 directions. For a wedding is not carried on with the 
 quietness which would please the shy and retiring. 
 Marriage is a sacrament neither lightly nor secretly 
 to be entered into. 
 
 On the night before the wedding it is considered 
 de rigueur to hurl old pots and pans against the 
 house of the bride, with boisterous good wishes; 
 and without these delicate attentions a bride would 
 be ill-pleased. Her two best friends wait upon her 
 during the din, and give her a wreath and a veil 
 and some verses composed in her honor; and that 
 the verses are curiously like those offered to brides 
 in the past, except for necessary change of name, 
 is not at all a drawback. Weddings are usually 
 on Tuesdays; and they take from seven in the 
 morning till four or five in the afternoon, including 
 the time at the town hall. At the home there will 
 
The Old Red City of Rothenburg 
 
 likely be a little play given, in which are set forth 
 the supposed foibles of the bride and groom; and 
 some friend, masquerading as a gipsy, will come in 
 and give whatever kind of prophecy best accords 
 with his wit. Race suicide is seldom prophesied; 
 it is, in fact, unpopular in Rothenburg, as is seen 
 from the number of boys and girls going with shin- 
 ing morning face to school. If there has been a 
 jilted girl, delicate and kind-hearted friends spread 
 a path of chopped straw from her door to the 
 house where the wedding festivities are in prog- 
 ress. 
 
 One day I saw a Rothenburg funeral. There had 
 been services at the church, and I saw a long proces- 
 sion winding toward that one of the city gates that 
 looks out toward the Gottesacker beyond the city 
 walls. All were on foot, save a few of the imme- 
 diate family. Six women, bearing huge wreaths of 
 flowers and greenery, led the long line, and three 
 women, with wreaths of greenery alone, brought 
 up its rear. Following the leading six came round- 
 eyed choir-boys, and behind them the members of 
 a corps, with varnished boots that came far above 
 the knees, and white trousers, and fancy jackets 
 with enormous white cuffs fastened on the outside 
 of the sleeves, and gilt swords, and the most tiny of 
 diminutive caps. Some score or so of elderly men, 
 velvet-capped, white-rabbeted, followed for it was 
 the son of a dignitary of the town who had died 
 
 [195] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 and then a long line of men in the unwonted 
 glory of silk hats. Besides the wreath-bearers, 
 there were no women marching, but in the grave- 
 yard groups of them hovered vaguely among the 
 trees. 
 
 It was a winter day, and every twig of every 
 tree was white with frozen mist. The shrill young 
 voices of the choir-boys rose frostily on the frosty 
 air, and the pastor spoke feelingly of the aged 
 father's grief: "My son, my son, would God I had 
 died for thee!" and the people slowly dispersed, 
 and the relatives and friends went back to the house 
 of bereavement to partake of the funeral baked 
 meats. 
 
 The cozy, cheerful, homelike aspect of the city 
 would point out to even the most casual observer 
 that in the past there were not only steel-clad 
 knights and a humble peasantry, but a prosperous 
 citizen class with delightful home life and sheltered 
 firesides. There is a multitude of homely names for 
 streets and buildings; such names as the Sexton's 
 Tower, the Cheese Chamber, the Vinegar Jug, the 
 Dog Tower, the Pig's Tower, Little Dumpling 
 Street, the House of the Cook of the Servants' 
 Food, and innocent of all knowledge of Barrie 
 the Street of the Little Minister. 
 
 In the little shops one finds artisans in wood, in 
 copper, in leather, in iron; and it is a joy to come 
 across a maker of knives actually named Hierony- 
 
The Old Red City of Rothenburg 
 
 mus! There are numerous shops bearing the words 
 "Kolonial Waaren," which are apt to give to an 
 American enticing suggestions of blue china and 
 old-time wares, but which, of course, refer only to 
 the spices and coffee of the colonies. 
 
 A citizen of the town is a man who pays taxes 
 up to a certain moderate amount in addition to hav- 
 ing won by a residence of some years the "right of 
 home." It is well to exercise care in bestowing the 
 right of citizenship, for if poverty comes to a citi- 
 zen, the town is bound to care for him, and his right 
 to vote remains. 
 
 It is amusing to find that ward caucus and vote 
 management are so well understood here that the 
 names of nominees for the office of burgomaster, or 
 for membership in the Gemeindekollegium, can 
 usually be known in advance, as can also the result 
 of an election. After all, these people have voted 
 for centuries, and why should they be unsophis- 
 ticated ! 
 
 Inscriptions over gates and doorways are com- 
 mon. "Deutsches Haus Deutsches Land Schirm 
 dich Gott mit starker Hand," are the bravely 
 reverent words put up long since by a bravely 
 reverent citizen. Above one of the city gates is the 
 cordial "Pax intrantibus, Salus exeuntibus." Upon 
 one of the buildings is a very old inscription, in the 
 shortest and briefest words, that "He who has no 
 grief may wipe out this rhyme." And the people 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 tell with awe that a recently married couple said 
 to each other, "Let us so live as to wipe that 
 out!" and that in two weeks the husband was 
 dead. 
 
 Pleasant little customs are still perpetuated. 
 The Thursday before Easter is known as Green 
 Thursday, and garlic is the time-honored dish for 
 that day; but if any green vegetable is on the table 
 there will be money for the household for all the 
 year. The fourth Thursday before Christmas 
 children go from door to door with baskets, and are 
 given apples and nuts and raisins. The city has less 
 than 9000 inhabitants, and each man knows his 
 neighbor. 
 
 There are still retained certain pleasant little 
 superstitions. If a girl, drinking coffee, is so un- 
 fortunate as to put in the cream before the sugar 
 she is sure not to be married within seven years, 
 and it is amusing to see with what eagerness the 
 sugar is always dropped in. 
 
 There were at one time patricians in the city. 
 All cities get them, although they do not always go 
 by that name. But Rothenburg not only got them, 
 but got rid of them. 
 
 The patrician class arose naturally, for the early 
 patricians were leaders who deserved to be leaders; 
 men of sagacity and character and wealth and 
 public spirit, and they put up great houses, which 
 are still standing houses with coats-of-arms and 
 
 [198] 
 
The Old Red City of Rothenburg 
 
 elaborate carvings, and groined ceilings and oriel 
 windows; houses opulent in size, with infinity of 
 felicitous detail. 
 
 But their descendants, taking over the houses 
 and the wealth, were without the sagacity and the 
 public spirit, and Rothenburg decided to be rid of 
 them. The city was of the Reformation, and there- 
 fore looked askance at a huge convent within its pre- 
 cincts, with moat and walls and gates of its own. 
 And it came to pass that charges were made that 
 patricians were in the flagitious habit of visiting 
 after visiting hours; whereupon the patricians and 
 their order were done away with and the nunnery 
 suppressed and confiscated. They got rid, too, of 
 the Jews for it is curious how intolerant a tolerant 
 people can be. The Jews, they said, realizing how 
 much Rothenburg resembles the sacred city of 
 Palestine, intended to poison the inhabitants and 
 take possession of their city as the New Jerusalem! 
 And on the strength of this supposed intent the 
 Jews were killed or banished and their property 
 seized. 
 
 Following the seizing of the convent, they also 
 took over a monastery and the Catholic churches. 
 But they were not so intolerant as to destroy this 
 property. There is a distinctly canny strain in the 
 Rothenburg character. They not only found the 
 confiscated churches admirable for the new wor- 
 ship, but also retained many an old religious figure 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 and painting, and kept in place the altars with their 
 saints and angels. 
 
 I saw not a beggar in Rothenburg; yet the city is 
 a tramps' paradise. For tramps and wayfarers are 
 lodged for a night in a building just outside the 
 walls, and are given warm rooms and good food. 
 Each Christmas-tide they are given a tree and 
 special Christmas cheer. 
 
 The poor belonging to the town itself are cared 
 for in such an ideal way as to make poverty no 
 punishment, as, indeed, it ought not to be when a 
 man has lived the sturdy life of Rothenburg. For 
 the favorite way of disposing of the poor is to dis- 
 tribute them in wonderfully picturesque little homes 
 in towers and lookouts along the city walls; homes 
 perched and hanging like swallows' nests along the 
 ramparts. 
 
 The ancient costumes have almost vanished; 
 and yet there are still women who wear the green or 
 purple sleeves, the bands crossed over the breast, 
 the bright-hued kerchief close-tied on the head; and 
 there are old men doddering about in blue blouses 
 and tasseled caps. 
 
 Down whichever street one turns there is a revel 
 of picturesque architecture. The houses are in gen- 
 eral from four to six stories in height, built against 
 one another, and usually with half-timbered fronts 
 in intricate and beautiful designs. There is every- 
 where a charming complexity of gables and corbels 
 
 [200] 
 

 A CORNER IN THE OLD RED CITY 
 
OL 
 
 
 
 
tt 
 
The Old Red City of Rothenburg 
 
 and towers. There are glorious projecting windows. 
 There are dusky niches and echoing corners. There 
 are rude blue-slatted or green-slatted wagons, drawn 
 by a single horse, hitched far over at one side. 
 There is the mail-cart driver who, approaching the 
 post-office, plays loudly on a horn for the full length 
 of the street. "His own composition!" say the 
 townsfolk, with pride. 
 
 The city is delightfully seen from the covered 
 way along the inside of the city walls, just under the 
 top, the place where sentinels and soldiers of the past 
 watched and peered and aimed their weapons at 
 the enemy. For not only is the city charmingly 
 seen from this height of vantage, but through the 
 loop-holed apertures one may have piquant glimpses 
 of the country beyond the walls and of the river 
 with its ancient double bridge. 
 
 It was back in the Thirty Years' War, it was in 
 1631, that the principal event in the history of the 
 city took place: the principal event, in the judg- 
 ment of every inhabitant. It is annually com- 
 memorated by a play, a pageant, in which all that 
 happened in the course of the great day the day 
 of the Meister-trunk, the Master Drink is repre- 
 sented by generals and counsellors, soldiers and 
 people, costumed in character, in the streets, in the 
 market-place, in the Rathhaus. 
 
 For the ferocious Tilly captured the city, and, 
 enraged by his losses, declared that the town should 
 
 [201] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 be destroyed, the leading inhabitants slain, and the 
 rest turned over to the soldiery. But women and 
 children wailed lamentably as he rode to the Rath- 
 haus, and clung to his stirrup imploring mercy. 
 And he flung them mercy with contempt. "Let 
 the dogs live," he said; "I will be merciful. None 
 but the burgomaster and all the counsellors of the 
 town shall die." 
 
 He went into the great room of the Rathhaus, 
 and called for wine, and a frightened girl carried 
 in a huge and brimming goblet a goblet so huge 
 that he burst into a great laugh. "Am I to drink 
 this?" he said, holding it up. And then grim humor 
 seized him. "If any man of Rothenburg will drink 
 this at a single draught I will spare the city and 
 spare every life!" 
 
 There was a great silence, and then a former 
 burgomaster, a certain Nusch his name is worthy 
 of remembrance stepped intrepidly forward and 
 took the goblet from Tilly's hand. He drank, and 
 the silence deepened as the foot of the goblet slowly 
 rose in the air; he drank and drank till every drop 
 was drained. Then he fell senseless to the floor. 
 
 "Revive him!" said Tilly; and Nusch came slowly 
 back to life. 
 
 Tilly was a good loser. "You have won," he said, 
 admiringly, as the man raised himself and looked 
 around. 
 
 Whereat Rothenburg's hero could only gasp out* 
 
 [202] 
 
The Old Red City of Rothenburg 
 
 with a touch of good old-fashioned humor even in 
 such a presence: 
 
 "I never could save another town!" 
 
XIV. LIECHTENSTEIN: A SOVEREIGN 
 STATE 
 
 T was really preposterous that 
 in spite of the many years 
 ; during which the many, many 
 thousands have been crossing 
 the ocean to Europe, I should 
 be the first of Americans to 
 set foot within the boundaries 
 of an independent principal- 
 ity in Europe's very heart! 
 But the governor told me I was the first, and the 
 innkeeper told me I was the first, and I assuredly 
 had no desire to find them mistaken. 
 
 There are still existent several tiny and autono- 
 mous little countries in Europe. There is Monaco 
 visited by a great many Americans. There is San 
 Marino visited by a few Americans. There is An- 
 dorra visited rarely by an American. And there is 
 Liechtenstein. 
 
 And Liechtenstein, in spite of its being so long 
 a place by itself, is not tucked inaccessibly away. 
 That is the marvel of it! Travelers going east- 
 ward to Innsbruck go under the shadow of the 
 Drei Schwestern, not for a moment thinking that 
 on the other side of those mountains is this little 
 
 [204] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 unvisited state, that the towering peaks look down 
 upon Liechtenstein. Other travelers, on their way 
 to Davos-Platz, have glanced at a distant little 
 town at the foot of a castled rock, without sus- 
 pecting that they were looking at an unvisited 
 capital of Europe. 
 
 Liechtenstein is in the Eastern Alps, bordering 
 the upper Rhine. Switzerland is its boundary on 
 the other side of that river. On the side of the Drei 
 Schwestern it is hemmed in by Austria. The fron- 
 tier of Germany is only a few miles away. It has 
 been independent for over two centuries, and was 
 forgotten by Bismarck, so runs the local pleasantry, 
 at the broad reorganization following the Prussian 
 wars with Austria and France. 
 
 It is easily reached from any direction, for it is 
 near the Lake of Constance. I went there from 
 Southern Germany, from Nuremberg, by the way 
 of Ulm; and at Ulm I saw a little river, the Donau, 
 so blue as to call to mind those music-famed rivers, 
 the "blue Juniata" and the "beautiful, blue Dan- 
 ube" and this is really the Danube, masquerad- 
 ing thus under the name of Donau! although, of 
 course, its real name is the Donau, and we haven't 
 any right to call it the Danube. 
 
 One often comes upon a new city or a new river 
 in Europe, only to find that it is really a very old 
 acquaintance. Vienna, for example, is really Wien; 
 Florence, if given its own name, would always be 
 
 [205] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 called Firenze; the grotesque Leghorn ought really 
 to be the soft Livorno; Hanover should have two 
 "n's" the English, in taking their kings thence, 
 having dropped an "n" in the process instead of, 
 as might have been expected, dropping an "h"; 
 and the Danube, as has just been remarked, is 
 really the Donau. 
 
 Passing Ulm and the Donau, it is not long before 
 the Lake of Constance is reached; the lake of the 
 Zeppelin air-ships; a lake that is somehow more 
 American of aspect than Swiss perhaps because 
 there is a good deal of rather level land about it 
 and that where mountains are seen they give no 
 impression of great height; at any rate, it looks like 
 the rounding end of one of our own Great Lakes. 
 The train left me at Friedrichshafen, and there I 
 took a little steamer for Bregenz; there are many 
 little steamers plying busily on the forty-mile-long 
 lake; and at Bregenz, which I remember as a pleas- 
 ant town with some charming tilleuls (fetching 
 name!), I spent the night. I forget the name of the 
 inn I chose, but it had a very obliging landlord, and 
 I found it to be a cross between Swiss and Austrian 
 in character. Had I known that I was to be really an 
 explorer in Liechtenstein, I should not have been 
 as patient as I was with the over-night stay in 
 Bregenz, so near the goal; but, although I knew 
 that Liechtenstein had not been written about, had 
 not been exploited, in America, it had never oc- 
 
 [206] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 curred to me that at least some of our people had 
 not been there. 
 
 Next morning, a fine, crisp, winter's morning, in 
 February, I left Bregenz and by a typical leisurely 
 train, with frequent stops, arrived after a journey 
 of 25 miles, at Feldkirch. There I found a post- 
 wagon ready to start, as soon as the mail was handed 
 over, for Vaduz, and a short drive of two miles, 
 through a charming hill country, took me into the 
 pleasant, cheerful town, the capital. 
 
 For an atmosphere of cheerfulness, of content, of 
 simple happiness was everywhere. This was ap- 
 parent when I first entered the principality and its 
 capital, and it became more marked, more visible, 
 as day by day I stayed there and went about among 
 the people. And this I found to be owing to their 
 simple and secluded life, for not many visitors of 
 any nationality go there that being the reason for 
 its being so long overlooked by Americans and 
 still more owing to the mild and beneficent rule of 
 their prince. 
 
 They are allowed great liberty, in a humble and 
 whimsical way, and with seeming temerity can 
 manage to tax their prince much to his amuse- 
 ment, doubtless, for he is an enormously wealthy 
 man and sees to the upkeep of practically every- 
 thing in the principality; although this does not 
 mean that the people are not hard-working and 
 frugal, for they are both. 
 
 [207] 
 
. Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 The prince has various homes, for he is one of the 
 wealthiest men in Europe, and owns great estates in 
 Austria, Prussia, and Saxony, besides being heredi- 
 tary ruler of this region beside the Rhine. His 
 estates total more than two thousand square miles, 
 whereas his principality of Liechtenstein is but 
 68 square miles! 
 
 A very earnest people are these subjects of his in 
 Liechtenstein; a very earnest folk, who seem to feel 
 that they are of quite as much value to their prince 
 as he is to them; and probably they are quite right, 
 for no possession could be better for a prince than 
 loyal and hard-working and cheerful-hearted subjects. 
 
 Liechtenstein is a highly elongated principality, 
 with its width squeezed to a minimum between the 
 mountains and the Rhine. One thinks of Mark 
 Twain's jibe in regard to the kingdoms of Palestine 
 in the time of Joshua, when "people had to sleep 
 with their knees pulled up because they couldn't 
 stretch out without a passport." Well, he could 
 have said that in Liechtenstein people have to sleep 
 lengthwise of the country! 
 
 "Ah! It is a happy land!" an old man said to 
 me. 
 
 And it is. There is no military service. There 
 is no national debt. There is a tax, but it is merely 
 nominal, being only a tenth the size of that of 
 neighboring Austria. The ruling prince gives freely 
 for the good of his people out of his private fortune. 
 
 [208] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 So far from deriving any revenue from his princi- 
 pality, he pays heavily for the pleasure of holding it. 
 But what a pleasure it must be! 
 
 There is a customs and fiscal agreement with 
 Austria, but it is merely an arrangement, for mutual 
 convenience, between two independent powers. And 
 the money thus raised from customs, some thousands 
 of dollars annually, is spent within the principality. 
 The insignificant tax paid by the people themselves 
 isjmainly for the purpose of keeping up the dike 
 which holds back the Rhine from the narrow stretch 
 of tillable land which the country possesses; for 
 when high winter is over, and the water comes down 
 from the mountains in innumerable streams, the 
 Rhine is no longer a quiet river,- flowing in wide 
 meanderings over its gravelled bed, but is a great 
 and dangerous torrent. 
 
 Liechtenstein "bright stone" and the white- 
 built capital, Vaduz, nestles confidingly at the foot 
 of a great white cliff, and on the cliff stands the old 
 white castle, and above the castle there are tower- 
 ing white-capped heights. Yet the whiteness of 
 fact and of name is but a curious coincidence, for 
 the name of Liechtenstein originated elsewhere, 
 and came to the principality when it first secured 
 independence, something over two hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 "Vallis dulcis" from this comes the name of 
 Vaduz; and it is in truth a sweet and smiling valley 
 
 [209] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 in which it lies; a narrow stretch, yet, after all, of 
 breadth sufficient for flax and maize, for apples and 
 pears and plums, for homely vegetables. A valley 
 as level as a floor, yet in Switzerland on the one 
 side, and along the Austrian boundary on the other, 
 tremendous mountains overshadowingly arise. 
 
 Like a page from a fairy-book is the story of 
 Liechtenstein, past and present this independent 
 principality, whose ruler, from his castle above his 
 capital, can see practically all of his domain in one 
 great sweep: the solemn mountain walls, and the 
 level stretch along the riverside, with here and there 
 a spire, a ruined tower, or clustered homes. 
 
 The founder of the house of Liechtenstein is said 
 to have been a Lombard who made his way north- 
 ward from Italy in the twelfth century, and becom- 
 ing rich through lending to princes and sovereigns, 
 took pay in land by preference, and finally, securing 
 a title, married a princess, and was thenceforth a 
 prominent lord. 
 
 Some one has remarked on "how prudently most 
 men creep into nameless graves," but the men of the 
 Liechtenstein family have been of a kind to make 
 themselves uniquely known. Ulric von Liechten- 
 stein, the "Don Quixote of Germany," was of a 
 branch of this house: the poet-knight, who, with 
 suits of apparel of purest white, with twelve white- 
 clad attendants, with spears and helmets all of white, 
 went through Italy and Germany, breaking lances 
 
 [210] 
 

 A THOUSAND YEARS OLD AND NEVER CAPTURED 
 
>f Ok 
 
 on the one 
 a the other, 
 
 > the story of 
 
 icati} - domain in 
 
 walls, and the 
 rive; here and there 
 
 homes. 
 
 said 
 north- 
 
 y, and becom- 
 
 ;nd sovereigns, 
 
 >d finally, securing 
 
 thenceforth a 
 
 w prudently r 
 the men of the 
 d to r; 
 Li ech ten- 
 was c 
 
 vcive 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 with hundreds of knights for the glory of Venus, in 
 whose name he fought. 
 
 With the branch that secured this principality 
 the love of land rather than that of Venus seems to 
 have held sway, for the present reigning Prince is 
 well over sixty, and has never married, and his 
 brother Franz, the heir apparent, is also a bachelor. 
 Under such circumstances, other relatives become 
 of importance, and it is interesting to note that a 
 cousin married Mary Fox, adopted daughter of the 
 famous Lord and Lady Holland, and that another 
 cousin married, in 1903, the Archduchess Marga- 
 retha, sister of the future Emperor of Austria. 
 
 The population of Liechtenstein, with few ex- 
 ceptions, are peasants, self-respecting, hard-working, 
 and shrewd, and in the past they have been a rest- 
 less folk, vigilantly looking for every opportunity 
 to exact a new privil 3ge. 
 
 To their Prince of three-quarters of a century ago 
 they staidly represented that the expense connected 
 with such illuminations and celebrations as were 
 consequent on their having a ruler was very con- 
 siderable; and he, hugely amused, agreed to pay them 
 a certain annual concession on this account. Since 
 then the reigning Prince's birthday is a principal 
 fete-day of the year. 
 
 A predecessor, similarly impressed by their power 
 of thrifty logicalness, had already relieved the people 
 of the entire expense of the civil administration. 
 
 [211] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Following the close of the war between Austria 
 and Prussia, in which Liechtenstein allied itself 
 with Austria, there came another gravely presented 
 protest. The citizens were weary of the expense of 
 a standing army; an army which, consisting of 
 eighty men, with a captain and a trumpeter, had 
 bravely marched toward the scene of hostilities, 
 but too late to arrive before the war had come to 
 its swift end. 
 
 There could be but one outcome of this new repre- 
 sentation. When the men of Liechtenstein pro- 
 posed, it was not for their prince to dispose other- 
 wise; and since then there has been no army. As a 
 matter of fact, the prince had about decided to disband 
 it in any case, and was glad of so plausible an excuse. 
 
 Not only is there no army, but there has been no 
 formal treaty of peace, Liechtenstein having been 
 quite overlooked in the negotiations; and a few old 
 men, oncewhile soldiers, like to say, gleefully, that 
 Liechtenstein and Prussia are therefore still in a 
 state of war! 
 
 When Johann the Second, the present prince, 
 came to the rulership he began to build a great new 
 palace near Vienna, and the Liechtenstein folk, 
 fearing that he would follow the example of his 
 immediate predecessor and divide his time among 
 his various estates instead of spending it in his 
 principality, anxiously laid before him the considera- 
 tion that if he would but spend more of his time at 
 
 [212] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 Vaduz there would be marked benefit to the local 
 business of the country. 
 
 He was not prepared to promise definitely in 
 regard to this; and, in fact, he has visited Liechten- 
 stein only at irregular intervals, sometimes two or 
 three years apart; but he gave them an intimation 
 of a scheme which he was perfecting which would 
 be of far greater advantage to them than his fre- 
 quent personal presence. His desire was to make the 
 government a constitutional monarchy, and he soon 
 carried his plans into effect. 
 
 There is now a written constitution. There is a 
 little Parliament of fifteen members. Three mem- 
 bers are named by the Prince. Twelve are elected 
 by the people, every man in Liechtenstein over 
 twenty-four years of age having a vote. The little 
 body meets once in every year and remains in session 
 for several weeks, engaged in the very attenuation 
 of discussion of petty things. And the Prince has 
 succeeded in giving the people contentment and 
 personal pride. 
 
 Above the Parliament is the Prince's personal 
 representative, the Landesverweser or Governor, 
 a man of standing and ability, chosen from outside 
 the principality; and under his direction, as adjuncts 
 in the practical administration, is an informal 
 cabinet, consisting of the Secretary of State, the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Justice, 
 the State Engineer, and the Director of Forests. 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 And yet, with all this pomp of title, one would 
 look in vain for extravagance or display. On the 
 contrary, there is an air of Spartan simplicity. 
 
 Practically speaking, although constitutional for- 
 malities are rigidly observed, the government is 
 that of an admirable paternal despotism. The 
 Prince is really the father of his people. The Parlia- 
 ment would never dream of going against his will 
 further than could be expressed by respectful pro- 
 test. And, as a means of control in case of need, 
 there is far more than the power of the veto; for the 
 Prince having given the constitution, the Prince 
 can take it away. 
 
 There are only a few in Liechtenstein who are 
 more than moderately well-to-do. Most of the 
 members of Parliament saw their own wood. There 
 are few men servants or maid servants. There are 
 no poor, except such as are ill or decrepit, and they 
 are kindly cared for. Crime is reduced to a mini- 
 mum. There are few offenders against the law. 
 "But there are cells for twenty!" says the Gover- 
 nor. The punitive imagination of the government 
 can go no further. 
 
 There are kindergartens and admirable advanced 
 schools. In one French is taught to peasant girls. 
 The Prince, a devout Catholic, as is every one of his 
 subjects, has built Gothic churches in the larger 
 towns, that in Vaduz costing him a hundred thousand 
 dollars. The roads are kept in perfect condition. 
 
 [2,4] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 Scattered through every village are stone foun- 
 tains, perpetually gushing, to which water is brought 
 down from inexhaustible mountain springs. 
 
 As the knowledge of the manifold advantages 
 sifted through near-by parts of other countries, men 
 began to flock to this as to a sort of Promised Land, 
 and largely to avoid military service. But this 
 movement was soon checked. The total population 
 is now about ten thousand. 
 
 A cordial-hearted people these. As in parts of 
 the Blue Ridge, men and women alike greet you, 
 whether in village street or mountain path. Peas- 
 ants though they are, they have a love for flowers, 
 and their windows are filled with them. Meet a 
 peasant woman on the road and pause to admire the 
 rare and beautiful blossoms with which her hands 
 are filled, and she will urge them all upon you 
 for you are a stranger in the land! and will dislike 
 to accept any silver in exchange. "No! No!" 
 she will say, with a smile and a shake of the head. 
 
 But though all wish to please you, there is never 
 any humbleness, never subservience. And the little 
 kindergarten girls, scarcely more than able to walk, 
 and quite unable to discriminate between the Prince, 
 the cure, and the American, will shyly touch your 
 hand or even softly kiss it. 
 
 Spring comes early in Liechtenstein. The valley 
 is sheltered, and even in the brief winter but little 
 snow falls below the mountain slopes. I have 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 plucked the "starflower" (our hepatica) in Feb- 
 ruary, and the delicate "bellflower" comes peep- 
 ing through the snow like arbutus, tempted by the 
 genial warmth. But with the coming of the Feb- 
 ruary night a dry and bitter chill creeps down 
 from the peaks, and you are glad of the heat from 
 the enormous stove a monument of stone blocks, 
 five feet by five in every dimension. And you wake 
 in the night and hear the wind go plunging through 
 the fir woods, and you curl up under the great 
 feather bed which Liechtenstein custom places 
 upon you, and "drink deep of the pleasures of 
 shelter." 
 
 There is a glory in climbing these delectable 
 mountains through the snow, following devious 
 trails through the cold clear air, and your blood 
 tingles with the very joy of living. Cliffs plunge 
 downward into darkling gorges, and the mist wavers 
 there fantastically. Or, from a lofty height, you 
 look off at the cool-shadowed valley, at the color- 
 suffused mountains, and a cloud folds itself silently 
 about you, and all at once you see the world as 
 through a^glass darkly. 
 
 You feel the solemn silence of the soundless 
 winter woods; then the stillness is for an instant 
 broken by an almost imperceptible sound, and you 
 catch a glimpse of some soft-scurrying beast. The 
 fox, the stag, the roebuck are still to be found in 
 the Alps of Liechtenstein, and in the more inac- 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 cessible parts even the chamois and the seldom- 
 seen white hare. 
 
 When warmer weather comes, the country as- 
 sumes a tender and regal splendor. The vine- 
 yards, rich and luscious in their greenery, the or- 
 chards, sweeping up to the very houses, the box- 
 bordered gardens, the meadows, deep with grass, 
 the rich-massed verdure of the mountain-side, unite 
 in a soft sumptuousness of glory. 
 
 This stretch of valley, now sparsely settled and 
 simply built, has an ancient history, for Roman 
 towns and camps were here. The square tower of 
 the white-perched Vaduz castle is believed to have 
 been built by the Romans, and near where the 
 village of Triesen now stands a Roman settlement 
 was overwhelmed by a fall of rock from the tre- 
 mendous overhanging cliffs. Somehow such things 
 make one realize anew that this world is very old 
 and gray. 
 
 But though there is a history of the Roman times 
 and of the Middle Ages, the average Liechtensteiner 
 interests himself but little in it, nor does he care in 
 the least for the old in architecture. The general 
 ambition is not only to have a new house, but to 
 have a house of new and most modern design. 
 There are a number of old houses here, but, with 
 the exception of one which was anciently a little 
 Benedictine monastery, the trail of the plaster is 
 over them all, and it is hard to distinguish, by any 
 
 [217] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 outward and visible sign, the old from the new, no 
 matter what inward and spiritual old-time grace 
 there may be. And all this is sufficiently reason- 
 able. These folk have never been taught to cater 
 to the demand of the tourist for the crumbling, 
 the ruinous, and the leakily picturesque. 
 
 One feels a curious sensation in this principality 
 undiscovered by Americans, untouched by the 
 American invasion, whether of tourist or of trade; 
 one feels as he would if, reaching the moon, he 
 were to find himself in the full tide of twentieth- 
 century improvement. 
 
 For in these anomalous country villages there are 
 the telegraph and the telephone. A few of the 
 better houses are heated by hot water. There are 
 "gummi-schuhe." In the Governor's office there 
 is a typewriter. There is electricity. The Vaduz 
 streets are electric-lighted at night, and every house 
 in the town, even the poorest, is supplied. And 
 why not! For a single electric light costs for a year, 
 in this country of unlimited water-power, only 
 five crowns less than a dollar and a quarter. 
 There are two large "spinnereien" (spinneries), 
 with several hundred operatives. 
 
 Modernity has almost destroyed the peasant 
 dress, though still there are suggestions of it in the 
 short, full-waisted skirts, the knitted stockings, 
 the fringed silk aprons, brightly barred, and in the 
 soft green hats and jackets of the men. At a funeral 
 
 [218] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 the body is still carried through the street by the 
 bearers, with the village population straggling de- 
 viously behind, with candles flaming faintly in the 
 sunlight. Ox-teams are a familiar sight. As sunset 
 approaches, the cattle, all of black-touched dun, 
 come saunteringly along the main street, stopping 
 at the public fountains for leisurely and thoughtful 
 drink, and placidly shouldering aside the children 
 who may be puffing propulsive breath at diminu- 
 tive boats. Each Saturday night the house and 
 door-yards are swept and garnished. At Sunday 
 breakfast every Liechtensteiner eats a sweetened 
 coffee-cake. At the close of service the men gather 
 in front of the church, and a wall-perched official 
 reads notices of official action and of private sale. 
 
 Curiously sufficient unto itself is little Liechten- 
 stein. Small though it is, its people could com- 
 fortably exist if cut off completely from the outside 
 world. The dweller in this tiny principality has 
 bread and cheese and milk, "honey of the moun- 
 tain," "wine of Vaduz," wood for his fire, material 
 for his clothes. "Whose herds with milk, whose 
 fields with bread, whose flocks supply him with 
 attire"; and even, continuing, "whose trees in 
 summer yield him shade, in winter, fire." 
 
 German is the tongue that is spoken here, but 
 the people do not give the impression of having 
 come of either Swiss or German stock. Their Ger- 
 man is peculiarly soft, and they still retain some 
 
 [219] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 words of Romance origin. One is tempted to ascribe 
 to Southern influence the masculine wearing of ear- 
 rings a curious eccentricity for such simple and 
 manly men. A great row of Lombardy poplars, 
 stretching in highly pictorial fashion along the 
 Rhine, is at least an indication of Italian influence 
 of another kind. 
 
 Bravely situated is the old castle beetling above 
 the town. Masses of fir and pine and beech rise 
 beyond it, and many of the trees are of great girth 
 and height. 
 
 An old sun-dial dominates the court, with a 
 faded Time scything away the centuries. Thick- 
 rooted ivy clings to the ancient walls, and dungeons 
 and subterranean passages tell of the grimness of 
 the deeds of the past. There are walls of enormous 
 thickness; but once, four hundred years ago, the 
 Swiss hereditary foes swarmed irresistibly over 
 them, and after burning and destroying, carried 
 away the baron into captivity at Lucerne. Much 
 of the interior is still ruinous, but one sees the line 
 of the great hall of the castle, with window-seats 
 from which high-born ladies looked off over plain 
 and rock and river. And in one of the arched 
 window-embrasures, from which the floor has long 
 since fallen away, are centuries-old frescos, in 
 charming Renaissance designs, bringing back the 
 bright and happy side of that ancient life. 
 
 A sweet and noble view from this old pile, for the 
 
 [220] 
 
THE DELECTABLE VALLEY OF LIECHTENSTEIN 
 
: s of Old 
 
 Ing of 
 
 and 
 'Oplars, 
 
 .ad beech 
 
 ial don .vith a 
 
 ^nturies. Th 
 
 to the and dungeons 
 
 of 
 vails of enorn; 
 
 es sv, 
 
 . :en ^ i - 
 
 ith window-seats 
 
 n ladle -:I off over plain 
 
 >f the arched 
 
 'oor has long 
 
 1 frescos, in 
 
 ing back the 
 
 life. 
 
 t pile, for the 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 crenelated heights across the valley are superb, and 
 the silver-flashing Rhine lies fair and peaceful a 
 noble view, of peaks sun-smitten or dimmed by 
 cloud or mist, of rich-hued distances, of ancient 
 castles niched in allurement or standing upon 
 austere cliffs, of houses and orchards, of cattle and 
 of smiling fields. 
 
 There is a charming enclosed old garden on the 
 very edge of the cliff, where rosemary and box once 
 grew, and glorious roses, yellow and red and white, 
 and where stately ladies, silk-clad, stately walked. 
 Not open to sight or to attack that garden, for at 
 either end stood a little tower, round and domed, 
 where guards stood watch. Walled about and cur- 
 tailed was the life of the fine ladies of those bygone 
 days, even as this garden was walled, and they must 
 often have envied the freedom of the village maids 
 whom they could watch, at work or at play, in the 
 plain below. 
 
 An old bell still hangs in a tower, overlooking 
 the perpendicular cliff, and one cannot but think of 
 how it clangored its alarm when men-at-arms were 
 seen approaching along the river or when the war- 
 like Swiss descended from their defiles. 
 
 A diligence runs the length of Liechtenstein, and 
 I especially remember a ride in it one day with an 
 aged priest whose very look seemed a benediction. 
 I remember how eager he was to explain his country 
 to me, a stranger, and how proud he was of it. 
 
 [221] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 People who live in large and powerful countries 
 are too apt to think that those who live in small 
 and weak ones cannot have national pride. Why, 
 this priest was full of pride! a charming, quiet, 
 altogether likable pride. 
 
 And he took from his pocket a silver coin of 
 Liechtenstein, bearing the Prince's head and his 
 coat-of-arms, and almost shyly, but with a certain 
 formality, presented it to me. "To remember 
 Liechtenstein," he said. It was like my two friends 
 of the diligence in the Cotentin. And he was pleased 
 when I gave him, "to remember an American," a 
 silver coin in exchange. 
 
 There are some half-dozen "castled ruins within the 
 confines of Liechtenstein, and some half-dozen other 
 ruined piles frown back from the Swiss side of the 
 river ghosts of the passions of the past. One, on 
 the Liechtenstein side, looms above the village of 
 Balzers, and bears in the neighborhood the fame of 
 never having been captured, although it has stood 
 for a thousand years. It stands on the summit of 
 a rocky mass, rising steeply on every side out of the 
 level land. Never was a grimmer or dourer pile; for 
 so narrowly did it escape capture in 1499, when the 
 Swiss scarred it with a lumbering piece of artillery, 
 that the baron built up all the windows and open- 
 ings, reducing them to the narrowest of slits. 
 
 The "Watch on the Rhine" in the centuries past 
 meant something very different from the present 
 
 [222] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 usage of the phrase. For every merchant with 
 laden pack-horses, every owner of a cargo going 
 toward the Lake of Constance and thence toward 
 the cities of Germany, was likely to have to pay 
 toll to one or another, or to many, of the castle 
 barons, predecessors of the customs-gatherers of to- 
 day, and one is moved to admiration for the business 
 sense of those hard-headed men, who went about 
 their affairs in pot-hats of steel and jackets and 
 trousers of iron, and with swords in their hands 
 instead of umbrellas. For they refrained from 
 taking, as a rule, more than should serve as a stimu- 
 lating reminder, and so managed the affair as to 
 seem to be giving protection, for a small propor- 
 tional fee, instead of taking top much and thus put- 
 ting an end to traffic and to the appearance of the 
 golden eggs. It need not be minced that living upon 
 their neighbors was the general law of life in those 
 olden times. 
 
 Shrines are placed at frequent intervals through- 
 out the villages and along the roads; and on a cliff 
 not far from Vaduz castle is a black and weather- 
 beaten cross, bearing a simple little inscription, 
 begging the passer-by to pause for a moment to offer 
 a prayer for a "jungling" a young man who long 
 since fell there and was killed. Well, thus his name 
 is kept in lengthening remembrance, and with him 
 has been satisfied that desire, felt by everybody, to 
 be kept in mind, long and honorably, after death, 
 
 [223] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 for he fell suddenly into a degree of remembrance 
 toward which most men climb in vain. 
 
 Although Vaduz is one of the capitals of Europe, 
 there is little of life on the streets after the coming of 
 nightfall. Here and there a dog barks. Here and 
 there a man goes hurryingly homeward. Here and 
 there shine lights from cottage windows. The street 
 lights of electricity seem only a whimsical jest. 
 
 It is Lilliput ruled by its Gulliver. And although, 
 on account of the fiscal arrangement, Austrian coins 
 and stamps are generally used, the Prince's personal 
 pride in his possession, has led him to have his own 
 stamps and coins as well, bearing his name and face 
 and title. 
 
 And there is another touch to add to the unreality 
 of it all. Coming to Vaduz only at infrequent in- 
 tervals, and busied as he is at his private estates or 
 at Vienna for, besides being Sovereign Prince of 
 Liechtenstein, he bears an Austrian title, by virtue 
 of which he is a member of the Austrian House of 
 Lords he can at any time call up his principality 
 by long-distance telephone! Never was such a 
 principality, even in the most capricious imagination. 
 
 And that one-time army! Following the war 
 with Prussia, the unscarred veterans were not per- 
 mitted to bear their arms and uniforms home, to 
 be handed down in glory to their descendants. The 
 trappings and equipment were taken up by the 
 government, and are in a lofty room of the Vaduz 
 
 [224] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 castle, adjoining the Roman tower mementos of 
 the slightest military power in juxtaposition to a 
 ruin of the greatest. There hangs the banner of 
 Liechtenstein, in its colors of red and blue. There, 
 stiffly arranged in rows, are the eighty helmets of 
 leather, brass-embossed. There are the eighty 
 muskets. There are the sword of the captain and 
 the trumpeter's brass horn. 
 
 One day I crossed over into Switzerland, and went 
 along the Rhine, and up steep heights to ruined 
 castles perched high as if to insure getting enemies 
 out of breath before arriving at the castle walls! 
 and past little mountain-villages and isolated homes. 
 Almost every home, so I found, was a "stickerei"; a 
 house with one or several embroidery frames, for the 
 embroidering of fine linen; for this canton, Appenzell, 
 and the neighboring canton of St. Gall are the center 
 of the embroidery industry of Switzerland. 
 
 I went into several "stickereis," for they made 
 the rare and unexpected visitor very welcome. 
 And it is a most interesting feature, that it is not 
 necessary for these embroiderers to be crowded 
 into tight-built towns, but that they live, so many 
 of them, in their own homes, and attend to their 
 farms and herds; and I was particularly impressed 
 with one mountain home, high up in a lonely valley 
 far from a railroad or village, and even far from 
 any other house except a centuries' old castle that 
 frowned down from a neighboring height. 
 
 [225] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 In this house a mountain farmer-grazier-embroid- 
 erer I really do not know what he would consider 
 the order of importance sat in front of his frame, 
 which had ten handkerchiefs, stretched by basting, 
 upon it. Into the handkerchief directly in front 
 of him he put a stitch with a needle attached to the 
 machine; then he pushed a treadle, and at once a 
 similar stitch was made in all the handkerchiefs. 
 I don't pretend to understand just how it was done, 
 but that is what the very interesting process, half 
 hand-work and half machine-work, looked like. 
 
 The handkerchiefs, so the man told me, came 
 from Belfast to be embroidered in Appenzell, and 
 after being embroidered were to go back to Ireland 
 to be bleached and hemstitched, and the particular 
 order upon which he was working was destined in 
 the end for Chicago! It seemed incredible, that 
 shipments could thus be made back and forth 
 on the Continent for work in preparation for Amer- 
 ica, especially considering that these particular 
 handkerchiefs were of a kind which would sell in 
 the United States for perhaps fifty or seventy-five 
 cents apiece. 
 
 This Appenzell "stickerei" man had never before 
 seen an American, and he knew of but four Ameri- 
 can names; he knew of New York and Chicago; he 
 knew Marshalfield (pronounced as one word) and 
 Zhonvannamakker ! 
 
 It was dark when I crossed a long bridge over 
 
 F226] 
 
Liechtenstein: A Sovereign State 
 
 the Rhine and thus reentered Liechtenstein. In the 
 middle of the bridge, the boundary line, was a great 
 gate of heavy wooden beams, amply sufficient for 
 the closing of the way, and on either side of this 
 gate, with its great lock and enormous bolts, was 
 stationed a customs' guard. The men were idly 
 chatting with each other across the boundary in 
 friendly fraternization, and it seemed as if the great 
 gate was but a simulacrum of safeguard, that it was 
 an obsolete survival from a hostile past. Yet as I 
 paused on the Liechtenstein side of the barrier, one 
 of the customs' guards said to me, naively echoing 
 a long-inherited, ancient dread of mountaineers: 
 "We lock the gate at midnight. There are bad 
 men in Switzerland, and we keep the key on the 
 Liechtenstein side!" 
 
XV. THE PASSES OF THE ALPS IN SNOW 
 
 AND ICE 
 
 REGION that is frequently 
 visited may through changes 
 of season become a region un- 
 visited; a region so changed, 
 \so metamorphosed, so differ- 
 ent, as to be a region unrecog- 
 nizable by those who have 
 known it only under its usu- 
 ally seen aspect. And in par- 
 ticular I have in mind the 
 passes of the Alps, that in 
 summer time are, like that of 
 the St. Gotthard, so crowded 
 that a tourist with a camera 
 
 is on every rock, or like that of the Dolomites, 
 thronged with eager visitors, but which in winter 
 are stretches of cold and solitary loneliness. People 
 pass through the Alps in Switzerland by train; 
 some gather at the few winter resorts open mainly 
 for enthusiasts of toboggan or ski; and, of course, the 
 natives are there; but the great stretches of pic- 
 turesque Switzerland are in winter a region un- 
 visited by strangers and unknown. 
 
 I remember deciding, on leaving Lucerne one 
 winter day, to go up above the St. Gotthard; up the 
 
 [228] 
 
The Passes of the Alps in Snow and Ice 
 
 ancient road above the railroad tunnel; and, like 
 most of the delightful unusual things, I found it a 
 project easy to carry out. 
 
 It was a bright, cold morning, and after a fascina- 
 ting railroad ride of almost four hours, through a 
 Switzerland all snow and ice, I reached Goschenen, 
 fifty-five miles away, at the entrance of the St. 
 Gotthard tunnel. There is a wonderfully fast train, 
 what we should call an "extra fare" train, that 
 connects Lucerne with Italy at the rate of thirty 
 miles an hour! they are so proud of it that they call 
 it the Blitzzug: lightning-train! but all the other 
 trains are of the usual leisurely European type. And, 
 really, one ought not to rush along at thirty miles 
 an hour through a region where every moment 
 there is something charming or wonderful to see. 
 
 At Goschenen, after an excellent luncheon in 
 Europe one can always get excellent eating even 
 where travelers are not looked for I engaged a 
 man with a sledge; a sledge low-set, almost upon the 
 ground, with steel-shod runners and boat-shaped 
 basket of splints, something like hickory, made as 
 old-fashioned splint-bottom chair-seats were made. 
 
 The driver gave me several rugs of goat-skin, for 
 warmth; it occurs to me, now, that likely enough 
 they were chamois-skin, but I have not had close 
 acquaintance with the chamois, except with the 
 bits of yellow leather familiar to all of us at home, 
 and the skins certainly did not resemble those, 
 
 [229] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 and so I thought of them merely as goat or sheep. 
 And I was glad to have them, for we were not mak- 
 ing an early start and I knew that with sunset 
 would come greater cold. 
 
 The driver himself chose to sit right out upon the 
 shafts; close against the basket but unprotected 
 from the wind. 
 
 "But you will be cold!" 
 
 "No!" He shook his head and smiled. "I al- 
 ways ride this way. I shall be warm." 
 
 He wore a short jacket and no gloves, but had 
 home-knitted wristlets I don't know what else 
 to call them that went far above the elbow, and 
 home-knitted leggings that reached far above the 
 knees and were worn on the outside. 
 
 There was no bell on his horse. "It might bring 
 down an avalanche," he said, simply; so fearful of 
 jarring the air are the natives in these mountains. 
 
 It was a wonderful drive, up a road that is the 
 ultimate achievement of twistiness, between preci- 
 pices that tower perpendicularly, and up the course 
 of a wild and rushing stream. The Devil's Bridge 
 was reached, and at this part the road reached the 
 extreme of rock-walled savagery. There was con- 
 siderable fighting right here, in the time of the 
 French Revolution, between the French on the one 
 side and the Austrians and Russians on the other, 
 and the road is always guarded and has been strongly 
 fortified, and solitary sentinels are now and then 
 
 [230] 
 
The Passes of the Alps in Snow and Ice 
 
 caught sight of, standing or pacing isolatedly, in 
 spots that seem startlingly inaccessible. At one 
 place the rock is pierced by a long tunnel, and this 
 has in its heart a mighty steel gate, ready to be 
 closed and locked and held against any possible force! 
 
 The fear of avalanches is not an idle one, for the 
 danger is very real and ever-present. At one place 
 a long stone shed is built projective across the road 
 for avalanche protection, and at other points the 
 driver stops and watches and listens warily. My 
 driver had a second horse which followed us, trotting 
 alone and unguided, drawing a sledge loaded with 
 provisions for a garrison. It usually lagged some 
 score of yards, or even more, behind, as if to accent 
 its independence, but at one spot it came hurry- 
 ing up and overtook us, and actually laid its head 
 across my shoulder as it trotted in pace with our 
 horse. 
 
 "He is frightened," said the driver; "he comes 
 up for the protection of man! A year ago, I was 
 driving him here, and an avalanche caught us it 
 came rushing from far, far above, there, and struck 
 us and swept us from the road and carried us down." 
 And he pointed to a spot far down at the foot of the 
 terrible rocks, and then up to a grim height where a 
 steep stretch of savage smoothness showed where 
 the avalanche had scraped a passage clear. "We 
 went down, down, down! And there was a great 
 roaring and a turmoil I knew nothing except that 
 
 [231] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 I was held and crushed and that there was a great 
 falling. And then came quiet. And I was almost 
 smothered, but I tried to get out. I struggled and 
 panted and tore at the snow. And I got out. And 
 the horse was struggling, and I helped him out. 
 And it was strange, but he was not hurt. But he 
 was so frightened, he, that ever at this point in the 
 road he fears. You have seen! And for me, one 
 cheek was crushed in and forever I shall have this 
 great scar." 
 
 We had been steadily mounting, up the terrific 
 road, and the early winter darkness was threatening 
 to fall when we came out upon the summit of the 
 pass, into a high valley where, in the four-months' 
 summer, grass grows and scanty grain, but where 
 now was a wilderness of snow and ice, stretching 
 across the levels and up the mountain-sides. I 
 went through little Andermatt and on to tiny Hos- 
 penthal, and, there being no inn open there, the 
 half dozen or so being all closed and deserted for 
 the winter, drove back to Andermatt and put up 
 at the modest Trois Rois, all the others being closed 
 like those of Hospenthal. 
 
 I had become so snug among the goat (or chamois) 
 skins that I had not realized that it was particu- 
 larly cold, but when I got out of the sledge at the 
 Three Kings these monarchs, meaning the Three 
 Wise Men of the East, popularly naming numerous 
 inns in various mountain places! I found that I 
 
 [232] 
 
The Passes of the Alps in Snow and Ice 
 
 had become almost too stiff to walk and that there 
 was a hungry, bitter, biting fierceness of cold, and 
 I realized now, too, that the dazzle of the sun upon 
 the snow had given me a painful burning of the 
 face and eyes. But there was such a splendid 
 Alpine glow, such a superb glory of rosy color, as 
 made the cold and its effects forgotten. 
 
 The main room of the inn was warm, and there was 
 pleasant company there. There had been no traveler 
 or tourist, of any nationality, for several months, but 
 several officers of the near-by garrison had come in, 
 and it was a friendly and cheerful evening that was 
 spent with them. 
 
 In all it was intensely fascinating. I had really 
 achieved the impossible and found an unvisited 
 Switzerland ! 
 
 It has been a pleasure, in other seasons, to repeat 
 the experience elsewhere, and in two different 
 winters I have gone through the Dolomites this not 
 being a religious sect, as the name might indicate, 
 but a clump of particularly picturesque mountains of 
 the Eastern Alps! and have there had even more 
 interesting adventures than in the St. Gotthard. 
 One of the times I went into Italy from Vienna, by 
 way of Toblach and the Dolomites a long, slow 
 journey, and rather tiresome, as far as Toblach 
 and the other time from Innsbruck, and also by 
 way of Toblach. 
 
 Innsbruck is itself a delightful city, and the inn 
 
 [233] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 where I stayed, which stands beside an old triumphal 
 arch, is an edifice so fascinatingly ancient that it 
 was a case of love at first sight, for I went in as 
 soon as I caught sight of it, although I had chosen, 
 from the long list of hotels, another name. 
 
 I was a little disappointed, and a little afraid of 
 poor service, when I found the dining-room, through 
 which the proprietor led me, to have scrubbed 
 and bare-top tables, with only some soldiers and blue- 
 bloused carters there, sitting on rough benches. 
 "The glory of this picturesque old place," I said 
 to myself, "has evidently departed!" 
 
 But in a moment I was conducted through a 
 large room filled with substantial-looking diners 
 seated at long tables covered with coarse table- 
 cloths and showing an abundance of food finer than 
 in the other room. "This is not really bad, after 
 all," I said to myself, "and everything in this 
 picturesque old place is at least clean." 
 
 And then, to my complete surprise, I was shown 
 into a third dining room, where were ladies, and 
 brilliantly uniformed officers, and where a good 
 orchestra made music, and where, as I was to learn, 
 the food was superlatively delicious. 
 
 The charges, too, were so low, as I stayed for a 
 week and was thus out of the transient class, that 
 I had really better not say what they were! And 
 my room had a fascinating old bay window, from 
 which I could look up and down the main street and 
 
 [234] 
 
The Passes of the Alps in Snow and Ice 
 
 almost fancy that I could touch the abruptly rising 
 mountains that so closely hem the city in. 
 
 From Innsbruck to Toblach is ninety miles, and 
 this means a journey of from four to five hours, 
 through superb mountains. 
 
 At Toblach the train is left, for the Dolomites are 
 reached only by carriage road; at least, that is the 
 usual expression for it, though it would scarcely be 
 called a carriage road in winter time, with deep 
 snow packed underneath the sledge for by sledge 
 is the winter way and snow banks rising continu- 
 ously, several feet above the level of the packed 
 snow of the road. It is not only a wonderfully roman- 
 tic experience to sledge through the deserted Dolo- 
 mites in winter time, but there is no more fascina- 
 ting way of entering Italy for the early spring. For 
 this reason late winter is the preferable time; and 
 the contrast between the cold and the snow of the 
 mountains and the yellow primroses and the lilies 
 of the plains of Lombardy and Venice can never 
 be forgotten. 
 
XVI. THROUGH THE DOLOMITES IN 
 WINTER 
 
 T was not for the sake of reach- 
 ing Italy through snow and ice 
 that I sledged through the Dolo- 
 mites in winter, though that 
 would be a powerful stimulus; 
 it was even more for the sake 
 of seeing the region when there 
 were only stretches of cold and 
 solitary loneliness. In the 
 warmer months the pass is so 
 thronged with motors and car- 
 riages that one can scarcely 
 see the mountains for the dust, 
 but in winter there are only the 
 local inhabitants, in their isolated villages, and 
 here and there some visiting enthusiast of toboggan 
 or ski. 
 
 The Dolomites are part of the Eastern Alps, and 
 so far to the eastward that they are not under the 
 government of Switzerland, but are part Austrian, 
 part Italian. They are mountains of remarkable 
 beauty, mountains of peculiarly jagged and pointed 
 peaks, mountains whose rocks are of strikingly 
 
 [236] 
 
Through the Dolomites in Winter 
 
 varied colors. They are not of the very highest Alps; 
 their loftiest peak rises eleven thousand feet; on a 
 clear day they can be seen from distant Venice, 
 rising fine and clear on the horizon. 
 
 I entered the Dolomites from the Austrian town 
 of Toblach, which is easily reached from either 
 Innsbruck or Vienna. It was the second year in 
 which I had gone there in winter, and on both occa- 
 sions the cold at Toblach was intense, and the snow 
 there, and for miles southward, was from five to 
 seven feet in depth on the level and vastly deeper 
 in drift-filled hollows. 
 
 I started from Toblach at half-past seven in the 
 morning, and, translated into terms of Fahrenheit, 
 it was two degrees below zero, but fortunately 
 there was no wind. "Drink hot milk; never brandy; 
 brandy makes a man hot first, but then cold," was 
 the friendly advice of the few bystanders who had 
 gathered to see the sledge start off through the dim 
 half-light into the snowy distance. 
 
 In a few minutes I was in the heart of a great 
 loneliness. Toblach itself is four thousand feet 
 above the sea, and on either side of the valley, through 
 which the road goes twistingly, mountains rise for 
 thousands of feet higher, incredibly sheer and fan- 
 tastic. The dry, crisp, powdery snow was of spot- 
 less white. The forests of fir were deep and somber. 
 Shadows in the snow were of a blue I have seen 
 nowhere else save in the water of the Grotto of Capri. 
 
 [237] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Here and there were footprints of wild four-footed 
 haunters of these silences, and spots fluffed by the 
 wings of some bird. 
 
 There was a dim and shadowy dawn, but al- 
 though the light would steadily become brighter and 
 stronger it would be three hours before the sun 
 itself could be seen from this deep-set valley, though 
 long before that the high-hemming heights would 
 be shimmering gloriously. 
 
 And even though there was deep snow, many a 
 scarred and wrinkled precipice was bare, and showed 
 its rich coloring of jet black, of silver, of white, of 
 ochre and copper, of bright yellow, of purple, of red. 
 
 The sledge was so low as almost to give the im- 
 pression of sitting on a board. The tails of the 
 horses seemed high above! In an American sleigh 
 the seat is like a chair, but on a Dolomitian sledge 
 your feet must go out almost straight. 
 
 A little stream was crossed, and I noticed that in 
 spite of the cold it was not frozen. "No," said the 
 driver, "that never freezes. It is warmer in winter 
 than in summer. Soon you will come to where it 
 is smoking!" And soon, indeed, it was actually 
 sending up a cloud of steam beside the road. 
 
 It is a region of avalanches; there is terror here 
 as well as beauty. I passed a spot where, only two 
 days before, a tremendous avalanche had come 
 overwhelmingly down from the jagged heights, 
 sweeping bare a wide swath in its descent. The 
 
 [238] 
 
Through the Dolomites in Winter 
 
 mass of debris lay in the bed of the valley, but on 
 the lower slopes of the opposite side from that of 
 the avalanche great trees had been thrown down 
 by the score, though it was clear that the avalanche 
 had not touched them. There seemed no reason 
 for it, and I looked to the driver for an explanation. 
 
 " It was not the avalanche but the wind from it," 
 said he; "the wind sent upward on this side as the 
 avalanche struck the bottom. It was as the air in a 
 gun," he added, explanatorily. 
 
 " Some avalanches, they come slow, slow," he con- 
 tinued, out of the depths of his avalanche experi- 
 ences, " and some, like this, come fast, like the wind. 
 And it is toward the end of February and in the early 
 days of March that avalanches most commonly 
 
 come." 
 
 Many of the trees had been thrown right across 
 the road, which was a little above the bottom of the 
 valley on the side away from the avalanche, and a 
 party of soldiers had chopped the way clear; for 
 this is a military road, and must not at any time be 
 impassable. 
 
 From the cliffs hang masses of huge icicles, which 
 from time to time come crashingly down; it is usually 
 when exposed to the afternoon sun that the icicles 
 fall, and the special danger time is from two to four 
 o'clock. 
 
 It is an ancient road, this; it was for ages a great 
 highway of commerce, and remained so until the 
 
 [239] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 coming of railways took traffic away from this 
 unrailroaded region. In the past what bales of silk, 
 what spices and gems, what merchandise of every 
 sort passed over this Strada d'Allemagna; what 
 travelers and merchants, what armies! And per- 
 haps, as showing the indefinable interest that at- 
 taches to merchandise from distant and unknown 
 regions, I may mention that at a solitary gast-haus 
 I saw a box labeled with the name of a Michigan 
 fly-paper! 
 
 It was fascinating, this road that was a long 
 channel sunk in the deep snow. There was ex- 
 hilaration in the air. The mountains took on a sump- 
 tuous splendor in the mild glitter of sunlight. " Drink 
 deep of the pleasures of shelter"? Yes! But it is 
 fortunate that we may also drink deep of the out- 
 door pleasures of such a mountain road and such a 
 day. 
 
 Ceasing to follow the valley, I found the road 
 mounting and twisting and leading beside great 
 chasms, and offering superbly far-sweeping views. 
 If a high wind had risen or if snow had begun to 
 fall and it sometimes covers, they will tell you, 
 three feet in an hour it would have been wise to 
 stay for a while at one of the isolated inns that are 
 open all the year for the accommodation of soldiers, 
 mail carriers, men of the countryside villages. 
 But the weather continued clear and windless, and 
 I merely stopped once in a while, for a few minutes, 
 
 [240] 
 

 
 SEEN FROM A SLEDGE IN THE DOLOMITES 
 
from 
 
 jna ; what 
 
 And per- 
 
 hat at- 
 
 aiid unknown 
 
 i ary gast-haus 
 
 of a Michigan 
 
 as a long 
 
 e was ex- 
 
 ook on a sump- 
 
 Hght. "Drink 
 
 But it is 
 
 *ep of the out- 
 
 d and -such a 
 
 found the road 
 
 - beside great 
 
 eeping views. 
 
 had begun to 
 
 :11 you, 
 
 wise to 
 
 inns that are 
 
 ! on of soldiers, 
 
 side villages. 
 
 windless, and 
 
 a few minutes, 
 
** ., 
 
 Ji-t 
 
Through the Dolomites in Winter 
 
 to warm myself and drink of the bitter coffee of the 
 countryside. It was served as a compromise be- 
 tween stronger drink and hot milk, and its price, 
 expressed in our money, was about two cents a cup. 
 
 In all such inns, in winter time, one has the in- 
 teresting experience of being shown, not into the 
 rooms for tourists, for that part of the house is now 
 closed, but into the natural living-rooms of the 
 people themselves. At one side will be a great 
 stone stove, set lengthwise, and generally with its 
 stoking door opening into the hallway. A wooden 
 bench is set close against it; sometimes a bed is 
 placed on top! 
 
 It was seldom that I met any other traveler; but 
 once, at a stretch of road that was fittingly lonely 
 and grim and stern, I passed a prisoner, marched 
 through the beaten-down snow of the road between 
 two berifled and behelmeted soldiers. He was 
 charged with theft, they told me; and he stood mis- 
 erably shuffling and stamping, as they stopped to 
 talk with me a winter visitor being a longed-for 
 break in monotony and he was gaunt and cold and 
 wretched enough to insure conviction by any plump 
 and well-warmed magistrate. 
 
 There were miles and miles of superb loneliness, 
 and I think the effects were finer in the suffused light 
 than they would have been had the sun been shin- 
 ing directly into the valley. There were miles and 
 miles of silence and solitude, broken at rare inter- 
 
 [241] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 vals by coming upon a tiny snow-bound village, 
 with roofs covered deep with snow, with tunnel-like 
 paths cut through the snow, with fir trees emerging 
 out of the snow, with snow, snow everywhere and a 
 general effect as of being quite cut off from the 
 world. 
 
 Though it was cold, the ride was not disagreeable. 
 The absence of wind had much to do with this. 
 And as the hours passed the cold gradually lessened. 
 
 By noon I came to a delightfully situated town, 
 with its snow-covered houses nestled at the foot 
 of snow-clad slopes and peaks. 
 
 Cortina, this but how different from the familiar 
 Cortina of summer! Cortina d'Ampezzo the Mag- 
 nificent Commune of Ampezzo, as the appreciative 
 Venetians named it when they took possession of 
 this region five centuries ago. But the place is 
 Austrian now. 
 
 One never becomes fully accustomed to the con- 
 tradictions of these mountains. Here, at an alti- 
 tude somewhat higher than that of Toblach, the 
 sun at mid-day shone with such warmth as to melt 
 snow in the streets, and I ate. a delightful luncheon 
 in an oriel-windowed alcove, heated by the genial 
 sunlight alone. 
 
 I walked up some of \he mountain roads and 
 reveled in effects of snowy glory and white loveli- 
 ness, and returned to the inn at evening with the 
 fierce cold creeping wolfishly down again from the 
 
 [242] 
 
Through the Dolomites in Winter 
 
 heights. Now there was a fire in the dining room 
 and a great fire was heating my bedroom, and I 
 found that, not content with giving me the usual 
 brass hot-water jar of winter Europe, the warm- 
 hearted hostess had put in two, making the bed a 
 thing of coziness. Of the many hotels of Cortina, 
 this was the only one that was open, all the rest 
 being closed and empty. There is always one, even 
 in small and isolated towns, for local and military 
 custom. 
 
 There is a pretty general belief among Ameri- 
 cans not only that we are the people and political 
 wisdom will die with us, but also that it was born 
 with us. It tends toward modesty, therefore, to see 
 how these ancient communes have been getting 
 along for sundry centuries, with such a degree of 
 popular government and popular rights, as to show 
 that these were not novelties made in America. 
 Cortina was long part of that Italian republic of 
 Cadore which, enduring for centuries, gave great 
 popular freedom and frowned explicitly upon nobles 
 and titles of nobility. 
 
 And it is pleasant to find that old records tell 
 of this region sending a gift of larch timbers to 
 Venice when ships were needed for a fleet against 
 the Turks, and sending trees to help in the rebuild- 
 ing of the Palace of the Doges after a destructive 
 fire, these being probably the very roof-timbers 
 that we see in the Palace to-day. 
 
 [243] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 A pleasant feature of winter travel is that it finds 
 people glad to talk of the things that mean much 
 to them that is, if they find that a visitor cares 
 to hear. And so I was told that Cortina is ruled by 
 a burgomaster who is chosen by the vote of the male 
 citizens; a citizen being a man, of voting age, who 
 pays taxes; but that there is a droll qualification 
 of this, which is, that a man who still lives at home, 
 in a house which belongs to his mother, is not a 
 master, and therefore has no vote! 
 
 The burgomaster holds office for three years, and 
 I found the present incumbent to be a practical, 
 sensible, everyday farmer. 
 
 "He sees to everything," the citizens say. And, 
 indeed, he acts as magistrate as well as mayor, 
 and settles, formally or informally, all the dis- 
 putes of the place. Everything relating to town 
 business, everything relating to marriage or death 
 or to expected marriage or death, every matter 
 of business or building, is in his province. If a 
 man wishes so slight a thing as to change the posts 
 of his porch, the burgomaster must preliminarily 
 inspect and give or withhold consent. "He is our 
 father," said a townsman, simply, to me. And 
 what might be tyranny is checked by his being an 
 elective officer; one of the people, set in place by the 
 people, with a definite term in which to wield the 
 burgomasterial sceptre. 
 
 With all this, it would seem as if there were little 
 
 [244] 
 
Through the Dolomites in Winter 
 
 room for anyone else, yet there is a Capitano the 
 people all use this Italian title who is in charge of 
 the military of the commune. He has an eye on 
 things in general, and his gold-laced uniform seems 
 to keep the people from forgetting that there is a 
 government at Vienna. 
 
 There are community forests and community pas- 
 tures, each citizen having the right to a certain 
 amount of firewood annually and to pasturage for 
 his cows; these privileges coming from the old 
 Italian days. The forests are of great extent, 
 stretching over miles and miles of mountain land, 
 and a few watchmen keep record as the citizens 
 report their woodtaking. In the wild upland pas- 
 tures, in the midst of an immense loneliness, a few 
 herdsmen, paid a pittance by each owner, care 
 for the high-wandering stock. 
 
 Every man is ambitious to own a bit of land of 
 his own; and for this land hunger, old as all time, 
 provision has been wisely made. For, just outside 
 of the close-built town, on the nearly level portions 
 of the long-sloping mountain sides, are numberless 
 little square stones and wooden pegs boundary 
 marks, separating unfenced patch from patch. 
 
 An industrious, hard-working folk, these. When 
 the last tourist disappears they do not begin leth- 
 argically to await another tourist season. The 
 men who in summer are guides or waiters or carriage 
 drivers turn in winter to one or another of the many 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 town industries. There are iron-workers, makers of 
 locks and keys, workers in wood-carving, in furni- 
 ture, in inlay and filigree, and mosaic. Nor do the 
 shops, tucked into every corner, show any outward 
 or visible sign of their character, except perhaps for 
 some slow-turning water-wheel. There are schools 
 for artisans; sewing-schools for girls; excellent com- 
 mon schools for all. And any tramp, any wanderer 
 without visible means of support, is led to the 
 commune boundary and admonishingly sent on his 
 way. 
 
 As in most of Europe, things of the old time have 
 been succeeded largely by the modern; yet the 
 women still wear the little round black-bestreamered 
 hats, which they touch, in saluting, like men, and in 
 their short skirts they walk stridingly. And in spite 
 of a destructive fire of nearly a century ago there 
 are still houses of the charming ancient fashion, with 
 wooden roofs and outside wooden galleries, a kind 
 of building still common in the remoter villages. 
 
 Often one is tempted to follow one of the slender, 
 zig-zag roads far up some slope and over a ridge into 
 an adjoining valley. There is the constant beauty 
 of the mountains, merging far away into a soft 
 agglomeration of mistiness; from peaks that tower 
 thousands of feet upward snow blows gently, trail- 
 ing clouds of glory, bannering the peaks with a per- 
 fect white that shimmers against the perfect blue 
 of the sky. And at your feet, where the sun has 
 
 [246] 
 
Through the Dolomites in Winter 
 
 cleared an open space, you may see tiny Alpen 
 roses showing in the face of this winter landscape 
 and these stupendous heights. Evening approaches; 
 and long after the valleys and the lower slopes are 
 twilighted in steel cold, a rosy glow lingers on the 
 summits. Then I have seen the light of the young 
 moon give a tender glory to it all; I have watched 
 the snow-wreaths gather thickly around some sum- 
 mit and the snow come falling in soft-sheeted mys- 
 teriousness; and I have listened to a great wind 
 stirring among the forests and come roaring fiercely 
 down. 
 
 Few of the natives of this region have any desire 
 to emigrate or even the desire to visit other lands. 
 They are prosperous; they are happy; with energy 
 they work and they play. They have sport with 
 sleds, with snowshoes, with skis. Genially gregarious, 
 they love to gather in pleasant parties, love to make 
 music for each other with zithers, with horns, with 
 full orchestra. The world forgotten, they are, in 
 winter, by the world forgot, and all the charm of 
 their nature comes to the surface. 
 
 Before feast days they build great fires in the fields. 
 It is still a custom for a young man to set a ladder 
 to a girl's window, mount it, tap, and talk with her 
 this being a survival of the ancient Italian custom 
 which Shakespeare utilizes in having Romeo go to 
 Juliet's balcony and Valentine plan to meet Sylvia. 
 
 Other ancient customs are followed. At a mar- 
 
 [247] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 riage, from eight to twelve young men, dressed as 
 knights of old, with swords and helmets, attend the 
 bride to church. There is seldom a wedding journey. 
 Friends and relatives go to the new-married couple's 
 home for a feast, and always the door is locked so 
 that a man may come and, after crying out that he 
 demands the bride, shall try to break in and carry 
 her off. Wedding gifts are usually of money, a gen- 
 erous gift being from two to five kronen; a krone 
 being of the value of twenty- two cents. But one 
 need not go to the Dolomites to learn that riches is 
 a relative word. 
 
 On my first winter visit to Cortina there were 
 just three visitors there: a mother and two sons, 
 North Germans, who were in the Dolomites to ski; 
 and it is a tremendous sight to see a skier come 
 flying at times literally flying! down a mountain 
 side. On my second visit there was but one stranger, 
 an Austrian, a well-to-do man, apparently in the 
 Dolomites on business. And with him I had an 
 amusing experience. 
 
 My sledge from Toblach returned to that place 
 from Cortina, and when I was ready to go on south- 
 ward I looked about for another. After I had bar- 
 gained for it, this Austrian came up and said, with 
 a smile: 
 
 "I should like to share your sledge to Pieve di 
 Cadore. You are American. I shall pay one quar- 
 
 ter." 
 
 [248] 
 
WINTER IN THE ITALIAN ALPS - 
 
riage, 
 
 % 
 
 ' 
 
 cany 
 
 am: 
 
 mountain 
 
 ;rently in the 
 im I had an 
 
 to that place 
 3 go on south- 
 er I had 
 
 d, with 
 
 re to Piev 
 
 one quar- 
 
 

 A 
 
Through the Dolomites in Winter 
 
 "Why not one-half?" I asked. 
 
 "Because you are an American!" he replied; in 
 the calm assurance, that some Europeans still have, 
 that an American should naturally be expected to 
 pay more than his share. 
 
 As a matter of course, I declined his company and 
 sledged alone. 
 
 When I left Cortina it was to sledge onward over 
 the border and into Italy; and in less than four 
 miles the border-line was reached, where near to- 
 gether stand poles striped with the green and white 
 and red of Italy and poles striped with the yellow 
 and black of Austria. And here the soldiers, acting 
 not only as national sentinels, but as customs' guards, 
 came out, brilliant bits of color, in their uniforms, 
 amid the snow and the evergreens, and they were 
 amazed to see an American, and eagerly talked for 
 a little. They had had enough of snow and soli- 
 tude! 
 
 Proceeding, there are villages precariously hud- 
 dled between gorge and precipice; there is wider 
 opulence of color in costume; there are women with 
 huge burdens on their heads; clustered about village 
 fountains there are green-kerchiefed women with 
 shiny kettles of copper that they carry dangling 
 from curved yokes of wood; there are lofty forts 
 commanding the road, with sentinels silhouetted 
 against the sky. Steadily the air grows warmer, 
 
 [249] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 and the snow that falls will soon disappear from the 
 heights. 
 
 Vastly interesting are the old-time inns in the 
 region that is now entered, for here, as farther north 
 among these mountains, the tourist part of the 
 house is closed and the traveler is shown into the 
 common-room, which is here sitting-room, kitchen, 
 and dining-room combined. And always it is a 
 room low-ceilinged and heavy-beamed, with the fire 
 in its very center on a massive hearth built of stone, 
 some two and a half feet high and eight feet square. 
 The smoke ascends through a great suspended cover, 
 like a square umbrella of wood, and looking up into 
 this one sees hams and sausages, cranes, and iron 
 chains. A high seat is around three sides of this 
 primitive and fascinating fireplace; a seat so high 
 that the men, sitting there, rest their feet on the 
 high stone hearth. There are double-ended and- 
 irons of monumental size. A pot is boiling over the 
 fire. Meat is broiled. The men eat and drink and 
 smoke, and there are little shelves that they draw 
 out for their dishes or tobacco. A low door leads 
 into the wine vault, and there is suggestion of casks 
 and beams, of drink and mystery and romance, 
 strongly remindful of the Three Musketeers. The 
 hostess serving, the light gleaming from rows of 
 polished copper and pewter, the coarse stone floor, 
 the chopped bread for soup, the grated cheese, the 
 walls blackened by generations of smoke, the lights 
 
 [250] 
 
Through the Dolomites in Winter 
 
 and shadows all at once you have been set back for 
 centuries into a centuries-old past. 
 
XVII. A WILLIAM TELL OF UNVISITED 
 MOUNTAINS 
 
 "OST interesting of all the 
 Italian towns of the Dolo- 
 mites is Pieve di Cadore. 
 It is a small and compact 
 place, a village set upon a 
 hill, with houses large, of 
 stone, with wide-project- 
 ing eaves. It is a charm- 
 ingly situated and very 
 ancient town, whose name, 
 Italian fashion, has the 
 softly musical pronunciation, with the accent on the 
 second syllable of each three-syllabled word, of Pee- 
 avay dee Cadoray. 
 
 While at Pieve, which is over the border in the 
 Italian Alps, Cortina being Austrian, it came to me 
 that hereabouts there was much fighting back in 
 the troublous times of '48; that in this region the 
 Alpine mountaineers fought to recover their free- 
 dom and overthrow the Austrian dominion, as they 
 did in the days of William Tell; and that this race 
 were Italian instead of Swiss, and were fighting 
 not for Swiss government, but to re-establish that 
 
 [252] 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 of their beloved Italy, did not in the least lessen the 
 fascination of it all, nor its strange resemblance to 
 the picturesque warfare of centuries ago. 
 
 A large part of these Eastern Alps is Italian. 
 For generations the people of this region have 
 been Italian in race, in tradition, and in feeling, but 
 by the division of Europe which followed the Napo- 
 leon wars this part of the Alps was given to Austria, 
 regardless of the feelings of the inhabitants. But 
 in 1848, that year of revolutions in Continental 
 Europe, came the opportunity to rebel, and these 
 Alpine mountaineers rose against the Austrians, 
 defeated them, and regained from them much of 
 the mountain territory. 
 
 The picture of it all grew more vivid to my fancy. 
 Alpine mountaineers fighting here against the Aus- 
 trians, as in the days of William Tell, yet within the 
 memory of men now living! and with this thought 
 there came another. Here, where I was visiting 
 an unvisited Switzerland, how fascinating it would 
 be if I could actually find some ancient veteran 
 who had fought, more than sixty long years ago, 
 just as the early Swiss patriots fought six hundred 
 long years ago! 
 
 Instantly I sought out the landlord. "I should 
 like," I said slowly, "to talk with some old man who 
 fought here in 1848 against the Austrians." 
 
 His round face lengthened into doubting gravity. 
 "But is there such a man?" he asked. 
 
 [253] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 "Surely," I replied, with matter-of-fact confi- 
 dence. 
 
 He was silent a few moments. Then: "If the 
 signor can wait, I shall inquire," he said. And I 
 thought, as I have often thought, how delightfully 
 helpful a European landlord can be! 
 
 He sought me out in the town in an hour or so, 
 and said that he had learned of a '48 veteran living 
 in a village in another valley. "With delight I shall 
 lead you there," he said, beaming as he saw how 
 much he had pleased me. "But"- with a touch of 
 doubt "It is to walk! it is a mountain path 
 and the snow " 
 
 I reassured him as to the walk and the snow, and 
 we set off together over the mountain, and reached a 
 tiny hamlet, a huddle of ancient stone houses, pre- 
 cariously clinging midway against a mountain- 
 side with a precipice dropping far down in sheer 
 abruptness in front, and the mountain towering 
 rugged and steep far above. 
 
 He led me to the ancient veteran's ancient house, 
 where the old man greeted me, his eyes glowing 
 with happiness. " Buon 9 giorno" he said. He 
 tried to draw up his stiff form with soldierly dig- 
 nity. "I am Natale Tabachi," he said; and then, 
 with pride: "You would have me tell of the fight- 
 ing?" 
 
 We sat down in a low-ceilinged, heavy-beamed 
 room, around a fireplace of the ancient type, built 
 
 [254] 
 

 es or Mid fcurope 
 ed, with 
 
 
 is to walk 
 
 n as to 
 ether over 
 
 
 
 ith a touch of 
 in tain pa 
 
 and the snow, and 
 and reached a 
 stone houses, pre- 
 a mountain- 
 Far down in sheer 
 lountain towering 
 
 m's ancient house, 
 plowing 
 
 f. He 
 ly dig- 
 
 f the fight- 
 
 tvr>e built 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 out in the very center of the room, with open space 
 all around it. 
 
 We sat down in or rather climbed up on chairs 
 with stilt-like legs, made thus high to permit of put- 
 ting one's feet on top of the fireplace hearth, and the 
 veteran beamed expectantly. But I knew that this 
 was not a case where some slight understanding of 
 ordinary Italian words would be satisfactory, so 
 I said to the landlord: 
 
 "This is delightful; and now I should like some- 
 one who can translate for me." 
 
 His round face lengthened. "But is there such 
 a one?" he asked. 
 
 "Surely," I replied. 
 
 He was silent for a few moments. Then: "If 
 the signer can wait, I shall inquire," he said. And 
 within fifteen minutes he was back, proudly leading 
 a young Italian who had only the week before re- 
 turned to his native home after three years spent in 
 Boston and New York! 
 
 And then, in that ancient house at the very edge 
 of a precipice, a house looking over a superb view of 
 valley and mountains, we talked together. 
 
 "I have never before talked with any but my own 
 people," he began; and I was glad, for it assuredly 
 made him an r unvisited mountaineer among these 
 unvisited mountains practically unvisited even in 
 summer, this village, set off as it is from the 
 tourist track that reaches to Pieve. 
 
 [255] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Gradually the old man warmed eagerly and 
 more eagerly to his subject, as old-time memories 
 came charging to his mind, and his old voice trem- 
 bled with emotion. 
 
 "I live among these mountains. They are my 
 home. It was among these mountains that I was 
 born I, Natale Tabachi. And it is here that I 
 shall die. But although I was born as a sub- 
 ject of Austria I shall go to my grave as a free 
 man. 
 
 "It was long ago that I was born. I am old, and 
 it is easy to forget. But see here are my papers. 
 I was still a young man when we fought the Austrians 
 in 1848. 
 
 "I do not forget that date. No! For here, on my 
 medal, it is set down. Do you see? Will you read 
 it to me? ' Ai Difensori del Cadore, 1848.' Yes; 
 that is it; for I was born a man of Pieve de Cadore 
 and I fought for it against the Austrians. Do you 
 wonder that I love this old medal and its little rib- 
 bon of green and yellow? 
 
 "We are Italians, we; and why should we be 
 under Austria? Italians, all; and our fathers and 
 their fathers were Italian. And we did not like it 
 that the Austrian flag flew over the forts among our 
 mountains. Why should the Austrians hold our 
 great Alps and our valleys and our villages because 
 kings or rulers far away said that the line of bound- 
 ary should be so and so and so? 
 
 [256] 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 "In the year that was to have the great fighting 
 there was much unrest. Men gathered and talked 
 and said, 'There will be changes.' And rumors came 
 of unrest in the land, and again men said: 'There 
 will be changes here. We will not be under the 
 Austrians.' 
 
 "And other men came among us from the South, 
 and quietly they went about, and it was not long be- 
 fore we said that we would be free and that we 
 would no longer obey the Austrians. I do not re- 
 member all. I am old and there is much that I for- 
 get. But I well remember that we were to fight the 
 Austrians and that some of us were hunters and had 
 guns, and that for others there were guns that came 
 from Venice. And we were gathered together in 
 bands. 
 
 "Our leader was the Capitano Calvi. A man of 
 fire, he ! A soldier ! He was not of these mountains, 
 but was an Italian of the South. I do not remember 
 just how he came to us, but only that he came and 
 was our leader and that we obeyed him with glad- 
 ness, for he was a brave man and he knew the rules 
 of war. A young man, too: perhaps thirty, perhaps 
 a little more; slender and tall and with a long 
 mustache upon his upper lip; and with eyes that 
 flashed. 
 
 "So we gathered in the mountains and we knew 
 that the soldiers would come against us. A few 
 said, 'They will not dare to come.' But the most 
 
 [257] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 of us, we knew that was foolish, for of course 
 the Austrians would not go away without trying to 
 kill us. 
 
 "We had no uniforms. We were dressed just as 
 we worked in the villages and on our land. But we 
 could shoot and we would not let the Austrians stay 
 with us. 
 
 "I had often seen the soldiers. Well did I know 
 the tall hats and the straps across the breast and the 
 knapsacks and the guns. Often had I said ' Buon' 
 giorno' when I passed them in the road. But never 
 had I thought to fight them. 
 
 "So we gathered; and one day it was in May 
 we were near Chiapuzza. You know the place? And 
 the valley is very narrow there, with great heights 
 of mountain, for always the Capitano Calvi he 
 chose such places for us. And, indeed, as you have 
 seen, there is little in this land but great mountains 
 and great depths. 
 
 "And we saw the Austrians coming up the valley. 
 We looked, and we said, ' There are two thousand 
 of them.' We watched them, for we had often seen 
 them march through the valleys when there was 
 peace between us. We saw the high hats and the 
 straps across the breasts and the guns. And the sun 
 glistened upon the steel, for it was a bright and 
 sunny day, and it was about the time of noon. I 
 am old, and I forget much, but still there is much 
 that I can remember. 
 
 [258] 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 "Our guns were ready, but the Capitano had told 
 us that we must not fire till we were told, and he 
 was a man to obey. 
 
 "We saw the Austrians stop; and perhaps two, 
 three, I do not remember, walked forward with a 
 white flag, and men said, 'It is peace, not war, and 
 there will be no fight.' And we were troubled, and 
 we did not understand, and we were very silent as 
 we watched, and we saw that the Austrians were 
 met by our men and that there was talk. 
 
 "Afterward, men said that the Austrian leader 
 had sent to tell us to throw down our guns and go 
 home and be sorry and that there would be pardon, 
 but that our Capitano he only laughed and he said, 
 'We will fight.' 
 
 "And did I tell you that the women, many of our 
 women, were with us? For they had said, 'We, 
 too, will fight.' And each of the women had her 
 great field-fork. You have seen them? And each 
 of the women was strong. For our women, they 
 work in the mountain fields and carry heavy loads 
 and toss hay or straw with forks, and they are 
 strong. 
 
 "We had put the women behind us to fight if the 
 Austrians came close. For they had said, 'We will 
 fight to save ourselves from the Austrians if they 
 get past you.' 
 
 "And now they screamed, high and loud, those 
 women yes, high and loud. Have you heard 
 
 [259] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 women scream when they would stab and kill? 
 It is not a pretty sound. It is a very terrible sound. 
 For us men, to fight and to kill is a part of our lives. 
 If it comes, it comes. It is right for man. But for 
 women it is different. And they screamed, a laugh- 
 ing sort of scream, as the Austrian men were sent 
 away, and the sound went back and forth among 
 the cliffs. 
 
 "And all the time the bells of the village were 
 ringing. They were ringing fast and mad ringing, 
 ringing, ringing. And in other villages the bells were 
 ringing fast and mad, and the sounds came to us 
 through the valleys. 
 
 "The bells they rang so fast and so mad to make 
 the alarm and tell all men to come and help us, and 
 we knew that as they rang our friends and brothers 
 were coming running over the mountains and through 
 the valleys. 
 
 "It was over sixty years ago, and I am old, and 
 there is much that I forget, but never can I forget 
 the mad ringing of those bells. It was a sound to 
 make you weep, but also to make you grip your 
 gun and know that you were ready to fight and 
 to die. 
 
 "Well, the messengers went back, and the women 
 screamed, and even the boys who were with us to 
 fight cried out, and when we men, watching so anx- 
 iously, saw that there was to be a fight, we too made 
 a great, loud cheer. 
 
 [260] 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 "The soldiers came on, but they were cautious 
 and they came slowly. They fired at us from dis- 
 tances; and we aimed and we fired at them, for so 
 the command had come to us. We aimed at the 
 men just as we would aim at the chamois, but I do 
 not believe we thought of that at all, even though 
 we had often said ' Buon' giorno' on the road. We 
 wanted to kill, for we were hunting them, and 
 whenever an Austrian fell we shouted for joy. 
 
 "For three hours, four hours I cannot tell we 
 aimed and we fired, and the Austrians fired, and 
 sometimes their bullets would hit a rock near us and 
 send splinters. 
 
 "But at last they had had enough, and they went 
 off, sullen and slow, toward the north, toward the 
 place from which they had come. They carried their 
 wounded with them, but they left their dead, and we 
 buried them. And, though they were young men, 
 we felt no pity, for we thought only that we were 
 fighting for our land. 
 
 "Well, the war went on. And for days together, 
 at a place a little farther south, we fought the Aus- 
 trians again, and at night we would sleep just where 
 we were, lying down on a rock or in the middle of the 
 great pine woods, and always there were a few who 
 watched to see that no soldiers came upon us in the 
 dark, for so our Capitano told us, and he knew the 
 rules of war. 
 
 "Thus we would sleep at night, and in the day- 
 
 [261] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 time we would creep up the cliffs and climb over 
 great rocks to watch the soldiers and to shoot at 
 them. 
 
 "And whenever an Austrian was hit and went 
 falling, falling down, tumbling over and over like a 
 great stone that had been rolled over the edge, we 
 shouted for joy. 
 
 "For the Austrians they burned our houses; they 
 burned our villages; they killed our children. And 
 they misused our women. And so it was that we 
 shouted for joy whenever we saw one go tumbling 
 and tumbling far down like a great clumsy stone. 
 
 "So there, too, the Austrians could not pass us, 
 could not drive us from our mountains, and for 
 some days we marched and climbed and waited for 
 them again. 
 
 "Often we were hungry. We shot a little game, but 
 we did not like to waste powder and ball just for food 
 to eat when we needed it for the Austrians. But 
 our women they followed us up the mountain paths, 
 carrying food for us, and we would build fires and 
 cook our polenta and drink from the mountain 
 springs and sometimes tell stories and sing and 
 even dance. But there was not much of that, for 
 we did not know when the soldiers might come, 
 and it was not well to make a merry noise to tell 
 them where we were, 
 
 " There was a priest with us, from one of our 
 villages. He was an eager man and he said prayers 
 
 [262] 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 over us, far up among the heights, and men would 
 kneel before him for his blessing. And the priest 
 often he would go before us and find a camping- 
 place, and he would say, just like a capitano, 'You 
 will camp here.' He was like a 'soldier, that priest. 
 An eager man, an earnest, eager man, and he said 
 prayers over us and blessed us when we knelt. 
 
 "There were many thousands of the Austrians, 
 and they came against us from the north and from 
 the south and from the east, so that we did not know 
 which way to go. But our Capitano knew, and the 
 priest knew, even though we did not know. 
 
 "Sometimes the Austrians attacked us in the 
 night, but always our men who were on guard 
 gave warning, and always we jumped up quick from 
 where we were sleeping on the rocks or beside some 
 fallen trees, and there would be a little firing and 
 the soldiers would go back. 
 
 "At last it was still in that same month of May, 
 but many days had passed we thought they were 
 coming at us from the south again, for at a place in 
 the valley of the Piave, near a little town called 
 Rivalgo, where the mountains are very high and the 
 river runs swift through a narrow space, our Capi- 
 tano made us barricade the road. With wood, with 
 rocks, we built a barricade. And while some were 
 building the barricade others were piling loose stones 
 far up on the cliffs above, and others were under- 
 mining great rocks for powder to be put under them. 
 
 [263] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 "All this did our Capitano Calvi order, and he 
 was everywhere, and his eyes were flashing, and he 
 was glad like a man who makes ready for a dance. 
 There is much that I forget, but never can I forget 
 our Capitano, and how he made us work to build the 
 barricade and pile stones and undermine the rocks 
 for powder. 
 
 "At last there was better than building and 
 piling and mining, for there was a cry, 'The Aus- 
 trians! They are coming!' And every man went 
 to his place, as our Capitano had directed, for he 
 knew the rules of war. 
 
 "The soldiers came on very brave, marching 
 steady, steady, keeping step. Then they halted, 
 and spread out across the narrow valley, and some 
 were set to climb the rocks. And in all there were 
 thousands of them. 
 
 " We cheered and we fired, and we shouted 
 when men fell; but the Austrians had a leader who 
 would not easily give up, and his men all fired 
 back at us, and more of them were set to climb the 
 rocks. 
 
 "And then we sent the stones rolling down, down 
 upon them. The powder was exploded and the great 
 rocks fell. And they struck the Austrians who were 
 on the mountain-side, and many a man went rolling 
 down with the rocks. And our men fired from be- 
 hind the barricade. 
 
 "And many rocks went down like live things, 
 
 [264] 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 leaping from point to point and then springing down 
 and scattering the soldiers in the road. 
 
 "But even yet the Austrians would not retreat. 
 We saw their officers urge them on, and the most 
 active tried fast to climb above us on the moun- 
 tain-side. But always we climbed higher and faster 
 and always we fired our guns and rolled down 
 stones. 
 
 "I am old now, and my hands tremble and my 
 voice trembles and it is hard to walk; but I was 
 young then and could climb and shout and roll 
 stones and fire my gun. 
 
 "And at last they went back, they. Yes; the 
 Austrians went back. And we shouted for joy, and 
 we gathered around our Capitano and we shouted 
 for love of him. 
 
 "Their dead this time we did not bury. No. You 
 have seen how swift is the Piave? You have seen 
 how we men of the mountains float our logs in it, 
 sending them down to the plains? Well, it was so 
 that we did with their dead. We tossed them into 
 the river, those men who had burned our villages 
 and misused our women. We tossed them into the 
 river, and we said, 'You dead men, follow after the 
 living.' And they followed fast, floating, bobbing, 
 tumbling, in the swift waters of the river. 
 
 "So it was that the Austrians could not beat us; 
 for though we were not soldiers we could climb and 
 shoot, and we were fighting for our own land, and 
 
 [265] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 our leader was a soldier who knew the rules of 
 
 war." 
 
 He paused for a long time, forgetting everything 
 else in memories of those brave old days. Then he 
 said very gently: 
 
 "Men have said to me: 'What was the use of 
 fighting the Austrians? You are an old man and 
 poor. How did it profit you?' 
 
 "Am I poor? I do not know. But I do not think 
 so. 
 
 "Here I sit in my house, on a comfortable bench, 
 with my feet on the stone hearth built in the middle 
 of the room. And is it not a pleasant heat that 
 comes up from those logs? I have heat and I have 
 shelter and I have food. Here, in this house, live 
 my children. Here are also grandchildren. Soon 
 there will be grandchildren's children, and there will 
 still be room, for we Italians are an easy and a 
 friendly folk and there is always room. 
 
 "And whether I sit in the warm sunshine at the 
 door, or whether I look out of my window, I look up 
 at great mountain slopes and I look down into this 
 great valley at my feet, and I know that I, an 
 Italian, am looking at Italian land. And on that 
 fort, far up, is the flag of my country and not an 
 Austrian flag!" 
 
 I returned to Pieve di Cadore even more ready 
 than before to appreciate the dearly bought liber- 
 ties and the broad-minded government of the town 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 and the region round about, for I now understood 
 that liberty and government had been fought for 
 and maintained for generations by such men as this. 
 
 The Sindaco of Pieve, the mayor, serves for 
 five years. He is elected by the Council, which also 
 has supervision of roads and taxes. And the Coun- 
 cil members are chosen by those men, over twenty- 
 one years of age, who can read and write. The 
 Sindaco is paid only in honor. "Of course he 
 has no salary," is the way the people quietly ex- 
 press it. The explanation of all this being that 
 Cadore was a real and vital republic long before 
 America was discovered, and that the ancient in- 
 fluence still lives. 
 
 There are great forests, the property of the 
 various communes, and lumbering is an active busi- 
 ness. Tens of thousands of trees are annually cut 
 and floated down the tumbling current of the Piave 
 to the Italian plain. For centuries these forests 
 supplied masts for the Venetian ships, and long 
 before that gave masts to Roman galleys, and the 
 Romans had a school of forestry here! And several 
 hundred years ago there was a threatened team- 
 sters' strike, which the Council of Ten settled by 
 declaring that, of every hundred loads of wood, 
 seventy might be floated by water, but thirty must 
 be hauled. We need not think that labor troubles 
 are new! 
 
 The people are happy. Wine is their water; 
 
 [267] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 every one dances, every one sings, every one plays 
 some musical instrument; there are amateur theat- 
 ricals; there are frequent holidays and feast days; 
 there is the friendly clink of glasses and the still 
 more friendly three-syllabled "Salute!" 
 
 There comes the memory of an evening at this 
 town of Pieve di Cadore, when there was an un- 
 planned after-dinner gathering in the large room 
 that was ordinarily used only in the busy season. 
 A piano stood there, and the landlord and his two 
 pretty daughters drifted in, and two girl friends 
 from next door, and two officers from the fort, and 
 a councillor, and the bald-headed waiter, still with 
 his napkin draped over his arm. All at once the 
 piano was playing, a mandolin was twanging, a 
 violin added its notes. Another moment, and the 
 pianist, one of the officers, jumped up and claimed 
 the prettiest girl. The waiter, absent-mindedly 
 stringing his napkin about his neck, slipped into the 
 place at the piano and madly thrummed an infec- 
 tious tune, while violin and mandolin hummed and 
 tinkled in unison. For an hour everybody danced 
 or played. Everybody was spontaneously happy 
 and natural. 
 
 Pieve di Cadore was the birthplace of the mighty 
 Titian, and upon the house is the admirable 
 inscription : 
 
 "Cadore points out to its guests the house where 
 Titian was born." 
 
 [268] 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 Close by is a statue of Titian, belatedly put up 
 a few years ago; and a heavy snow so covered the 
 head and mantled the shoulders as to make it ab- 
 surdly simulate the appearance of the late Queen 
 Victoria. 
 
 The people love to talk of Titian. It is as if he 
 flourished yesterday. He is the familiar glory of 
 the place. And I remember an old man who, clad 
 in trousers of marvelously patched yellow and coat 
 of marvelously faded blue, swept a comprehensive 
 arm toward the forested mountains, the village- 
 dotted valley, the river down whose current in- 
 numerable logs were tumbling, whirling, plunging, 
 rushing tumultuously, as he said: "It was here that 
 Signor Titian sawed wood." But there was no touch 
 of frivolity in this; no Italian echo of a figurative 
 Americanism; to him it was all very literal, very 
 serious. 
 
 "You are perhaps interested?" he went on, 
 slowly. "Then it is with pleasure that I shall tell. 
 The Signor Titian, he went from this, his home, 
 to Venice, and there he painted pictures multo!" 
 again he waved a comprehensive arm. "But 
 always he kept his share in one of the sawmills of 
 this valley; it was a rich mill with much of business, 
 and it made him many thousand of lire. And every 
 year Signor Titian came back here to his home. 
 It was to see to the money and the business; for, 
 look you, a man must live. Life, it is not all the 
 
 [269] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 making of pictures! And so he came here every 
 summer time. It was also for the good air of these 
 mountains, for it gave him the health and the 
 strength. 
 
 "And it was because, one summer, he could not 
 get back here that he died. You have heard? 
 For the plague, it broke out in Venice, and the 
 soldiers had made a line and said that no man 
 should go out of the city. And so the signor died 
 there in Venice, instead of coming back to the 
 mountains and getting more money and health 
 and life." 
 
 Fortunately I remembered that Titian was cut off 
 at the age of ninety-nine, but I did not speak of 
 this. 
 
 One sees no beggars in this region in the off-season 
 time; and as to crime, or even the suspicion of crime, 
 there is much of strictness. A man merely sus- 
 pected may remain in prison for months without 
 trial. 
 
 "But is that not unfair?" I asked. 
 
 "Unfair!" There was only amazement at the 
 thought. "Unfair! Why, a man might be ad- 
 judged innocent, and if he were tried and set free 
 promptly where would be his punishment!" 
 
 From Pieve di Cadore southward, sledging is 
 impossible. The climate grows steadily warmer. 
 The mail coach is now the means of transit, and a 
 box-seat should be secured. At post inns, where the 
 
 [270] 
 
A William Tell of Unvisited Mountains 
 
 horses are changed, the landlady bustles out into 
 the courtyard, and hostlers appear from shadowy 
 stables, and in one such inn there was a great oval 
 wine-cistern, of coppery brass, gloriously shaped, 
 such as Paul Veronese pictured. 
 
 It is a region no longer of avalanches, but of 
 floods and land-slides; and they point out a roof- 
 less ruin which left its place, high up on the hill- 
 side, and came slipping down, land and all, to settle 
 upon another man's land; thus causing a lawsuit 
 the result of which was long since forgotten as to 
 who should be considered the owner, and mak- 
 ing truth of one of Mark Twain's most whimsical 
 fancies. 
 
 Lower and lower are the mountains, wider and 
 wider the valley; and at length Belluno is reached, 
 whence train may be taken for Venice. 
 
 And at Venice, looking back across the interven- 
 ing miles, I saw the Dolomites, alluring, inviting, 
 full of enticement, rising beautifully on the distant 
 northern horizon, and I was glad that I had found 
 the romance of a winter's journey there. 
 
 Titian used to look at these mountains from the 
 window of his house, here in Venice. And one 
 fancies with what longing he gazed in the final 
 hours when, his servants all dead of the plague, he 
 himself mortally stricken, thieves carrying off his 
 most precious belongings under his very eyes and 
 then leaving him to lonely death, he took a last and 
 
 [271] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 lingering look at the mountains which he had loved 
 for a lifetime. 
 
XVIII. AN UNFAMILIAR NAPLES 
 
 TALY is full of the unvisited. 
 The average tourist seldom gets 
 beyond Rome, Florence, Venice, 
 Milan, Naples, if even he sees as 
 much as that. Add those who go 
 to Siena, Perugia, Palermo, or who 
 see Tivoli, Pisa, Assissi, Capri, 
 Amalfi, Verona, and the list of the 
 / visited is nearly complete. There 
 are cities and provinces almost un- 
 known; there are ancient carous 
 hill towns, the color of old bones, 
 that never see a stranger. 
 
 And there is so much that is unvisited even in 
 the cities that are largely visited! Take Naples, 
 that marvel of a city most visitors are satisfied 
 with the hotel district along the bay, and see but 
 little of the real city except perhaps for a hasty 
 drive along the Toledo. 
 
 An American friend, a widow, who loves to travel 
 and must perforce travel frequently alone, said to 
 me: 
 
 "Every time I go to Naples I so much want to 
 see the true city. And every time I drive out I 
 tell the cabman to take me through the old streets. 
 
 [273] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 But every time, although he says, 'Sz, si, signora! 9 
 he drives me to Posilipo!" 
 
 I could only tell her that it was because there is 
 only one way to see the real Naples, the real Naples 
 both of the past and of the present, and that is on 
 foot, for the city is built against a mountain-side, 
 and the old streets that are not narrow flights of 
 stone stairs climbing endlessly in score after score 
 of steps, are almost equally narrow and unbeliev- 
 ably cluttered. 
 
 The old part of the city, with canon streets and 
 towering tenements, is full of marvelous life and 
 bustle and endless gayety. Naples lives out of 
 doors! Out of doors women cook on little char- 
 coal stoves or comb their hair in elaborate coiffures, 
 neighbor assisting neighbor, or make upholstery 
 fringe, or chocolate, rolling it primitively in a stone 
 trough, or they pick chickens, wash the children, 
 sew and always and endlessly gossip. Men and boys 
 work at making shoes and slippers and carving 
 wooden heels, or twist hemp rope and string, and 
 make a hundred other things, and, like the women, 
 always and endlessly gossip. And there are in- 
 numerable tiny shops and outdoor stalls, and in and 
 out among the people seated at tables or benches, 
 there move continuously a gay and noisy throng, 
 vivid in costumed colorings; and there are pan- 
 niered donkeys, and now and then comes a flock of 
 reddish-brown nanny-goats, milked from door to 
 

 
 A Fi NKRAL WITH MASKED ATTENDANTS 
 
Old Eur 
 
 he di 
 
 
 i and I 
 
 noisy th 
 m doc 
 
An Unfamiliar Naples 
 
 door! and there are life and gayety and the hum of 
 buzzing talk, and street singers and mandolin play- 
 ers, and innumerable street cries of the strangest, of 
 those who sell charcoal or pumpkin-seed or fresh 
 water or snow! And people carry everything 
 imaginable or unimaginable, as a man that I re- 
 member who carried a coffin on his head! He walked 
 so jauntily, letting the coffin gyrate with equal jaun- 
 tiness, that it was evident that it was empty, and 
 indeed a bystander told me that it was. "It is 
 loaned for the funeral," he said; "it is often so, and 
 will be returned unused! It is a pauper's funeral, 
 but the dead man's friends are following him, for it 
 is honorable to be followed to the grave" himself 
 forgetting thus, as he spoke, that the coffin was 
 empty and that the body was to be quietly taken 
 away without spoiling anything so expensive! And 
 the friends were a tail of men trying their shuffling 
 best to keep up with their jaunty leader, and each 
 had somehow acquired for the occasion a gleaming 
 patent-leather hat probably rented from the un- 
 dertaker. And even all this was not gloomy; even 
 a funeral seemed only to add to the gayety of Naples. 
 
 I have often, in the old streets and courtyards, 
 in the narrow stairs of stone, in the theaters, where 
 I was the only one who was not an Italian, had all 
 the feelings of an explorer. 
 
 Yet these people are not always gay; they are 
 impressionable, temperamental, excitable, devout, 
 
 [275] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 and can change to a deep or passionate earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 They love pageantry; they love the theatrical; 
 at times they achieve a splendidly beautiful effect, 
 as when they carpet a long street thick with roses 
 for the passing of their King. And some of their 
 funerals, with stately catafalque and masked and 
 hooded and white-robed men, are weirdly impressive. 
 
 The particular patron saint of Naples is San 
 Gennaro St. Januarius and the city has pre- 
 served some of his dried blood for sixteen hundred 
 years, and three times a year this blood liquefies; 
 if rapidly, it is good for the city, but if slowly (or 
 if, rare and terrible occasion, it fails to liquefy at 
 all!) it is an omen of great evil. 
 
 I went one night it was a Saturday, April 30 
 to see this greatest of Neapolitan events, and it was 
 a memorable experience. 
 
 In the course of the day, the silver statue of the 
 saint, with the priceless precious stones that adorn 
 it, gifts from the dying and the devout of centuries, 
 had been taken to the ancient church of King 
 Robert of Sicily what romantic thoughts the very 
 words conjure up ! and at night was to be returned, 
 through the heart of the oldest part of the city, to the 
 cathedral. 
 
 I came upon the parade about nine o'clock, just 
 as it was starting on the return. All Naples seemed 
 to be out, and the cross-streets and little squares 
 
 [276] 
 
An Unfamiliar Naples 
 
 were packed with people, and the doorways and 
 windows and balconies were jammed, and the very 
 roofs were thronged. The narrow streets were kept 
 clear, practically from house to house, as a precau- 
 tion against any concerted rush by robbers, for an 
 immense fortune in jewels was under convoy. 
 
 Following a detail of soldiers, a long line of priests 
 in full canonicals marked the way; then came San 
 Gennaro, surrounded closely by soldiers with drawn 
 swords; then two sedan chairs, each with a great 
 church dignitary; then lines of soldiers and police. 
 
 Under a baldachin of rose-silk was the silver 
 statue or, to be precise, silver bust, for it ended 
 at the waist line. An ancient piece of silver-work 
 this, for it was made six centuries ago. Upon the 
 head was a bishop's mitre, set with jewels, and upon 
 the body was a garment heavily embroidered with 
 gold, and at the shoulder line a collar, glowing with 
 precious stones, held a pendant and a cross, and 
 all over the figure there was the sparkle of myriad 
 diamonds and the gleam of emeralds and the soft 
 glory of pearls. 
 
 Four sturdy priests bore the bust, on a base up- 
 held by poles, at shoulder height, and it so swayed as 
 they walked as to look like a living man. And also 
 there was to be seen, carried under the baldachin, 
 the phial of dry blood. 
 
 I was at a crossing, and had planned merely to 
 get a general idea of the street scene and then make 
 
 [277] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 my way to the cathedral by some open route, but the 
 procession halted, and I asked some questions of an 
 officer who for the moment was standing beside me, 
 and he courteously answered, and then said, en- 
 tirely to my surprise, for I had not asked or sug- 
 gested it, "Come inside the lines; you are a stranger." 
 
 I did so thinking how differently an Italian 
 would be treated at an American parade! and 
 went on with the priests and soldiers, close behind 
 the swaying silver bust. 
 
 The little shops had small glares of red light 
 along their fronts, there were lights in the windows, 
 there were little lights strung along the houses, 
 there were lights on the balconies and roofs. And 
 yet there was no brilliant illumination, and there 
 was almost more of shadow than of light. 
 
 Looking up the fronts of the tall houses there was 
 a curious impression as of faces in the air, for in 
 story above story the people were leaning outward 
 and looking downward from windows and balcon- 
 ies, and the streets were so narrow that these faces 
 seemed to be directly above. And ever there came 
 rose petals fluttering down in a soft and continuous 
 shower. 
 
 With two bands playing stately music, the pro- 
 cession went in slow and stately fashion along, and 
 the glow of light touched the blackness of the narrow 
 side-streets and lit dark passages into houses and 
 courtyards. We passed the old, old church where 
 

 A STAIRWAY STREET OF NAPLES 
 
Unviv 
 
 my way to \ 
 
 officer Vv 
 and he 
 
 
 
 
 \nd 
 and there 
 
 : con~ 
 
 t and .nous 
 
 oro- 
 
 here 
 
 
An Unfamiliar Naples 
 
 Boccaccio first met Fiammetta, and it gave an odd 
 feeling to realize that I, an American, was in a 
 religious pageant that had gone through these very 
 streets not only before America was discovered, 
 but long before Boccaccio lived and loved. Always 
 there was the shuffling sound of footsteps on the 
 big, flat stones of the street, and always a mur- 
 murous stir of cries that were emotional, but never 
 loud; always there was an impressive air of solem- 
 nity; always there were hands stretched out toward 
 the swinging silver figure with ejaculations or prayer. 
 
 At length we turned into the Via del Duomo, and 
 reached the cathedral, and the procession moved to 
 the great center doors, and here I would have drawn 
 off to one side had not the officer said to me : " Stay 
 with us." 
 
 So through the mighty doorway the saint and the 
 priests and a few of the soldiers entered the im- 
 mense cathedral, and the great doors were closed, 
 leaving the bands and the greater part of the police 
 and soldiers on the outside, with all of the throng 
 who had massed along behind. 
 
 Down the center of the cathedral was a broad 
 space kept entirely clear, but every inch along the 
 sides was packed with massed humanity. There 
 were thousands there. 
 
 The priests who had led the line fell behind, and 
 the baldachin and the statue headed the line, and 
 down that central space, an immense length, we 
 
 [279] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 slowly went, the officer still beside me, and as we 
 neared the chancel I saw that it would be far better 
 to go on as if I were an intended part of it all rather 
 than to disturb the quiet orderliness of the cere- 
 mony by leaving the baldachin and trying to find a 
 place beyond the guards at the side. And I was 
 glad of the opportunity to see everything in such a 
 way, so long as I knew that I was not intruding, and 
 I looked forward with keen anticipation to a close- 
 range view of the miracle. 
 
 We went up the steps to the chancel, where stood 
 a shifting crowd of rich-appareled ecclesiastics. 
 A guard of splendidly uniformed soldiers formed at 
 the chancel rail, and I noticed how the altar lights 
 flashed from their helmets. I would certainly have 
 remained, as inconspicuous as possible, among the 
 many in the broad space inside the chancel rail, 
 especially as here the friendly officer had to leave me, 
 but one of the dignitaries motioned me forward, 
 and there was nothing to do but step to the rail of 
 the high altar and kneel with ten or a dozen whose 
 privilege it was to be there. I think, looking back on 
 it, that there was intent in having a close-at-hand 
 spectator who was not of their faith; I had been in 
 Naples for several months and had often gone 
 about in the ancient quarters, and not improbably 
 I was known as a stranger who was interested in 
 the city, and who would, therefore, look impartially 
 at the evidence of a miracle. In the first place, I 
 
 [280] 
 
An Unfamiliar Naples 
 
 was fortunate in chancing upon an officer of real 
 authority, and he quite likely made some sign, in 
 regard to me, to the churchman who invited me to 
 the very front. 
 
 Now, with a quiet shuffling, the people moved 
 forward from the side aisles there were no chairs 
 in the cathedral and filled the central nave, and 
 the doors were opened and many came crowding in 
 from the street. 
 
 The blood of the saint was in a finely wrought 
 receptacle that in size and shape was not unlike a 
 rolling pin, except that it was three-sided. It was 
 a case of what appeared to be silver, ending in two 
 rod-like silver handles, and it had three faces of 
 heavy glass or, what I supposed the material really 
 to be, rock crystal. Through this crystal could be 
 seen two vials, one about four times as large as the 
 other, and each about one-third full of a dry and 
 sticky-looking mass. 
 
 An old, old canon, robed in red and white, took the 
 silver receptacle in a loving reverence of clasp. 
 He held it up, and the priests and prelates knelt 
 and watched, with upturned faces, and the immense 
 audience sank upon their knees. The front rows 
 showed faces eager, anxious, strained; behind them 
 were faces dimly seen, and still farther behind there 
 was nothing but a blackness of outline, vaguely 
 marking massed humanity, far back to the great 
 doors and under the lofty aisles. And from this 
 
 [281] 
 
Unvisited Places ot Old Europe 
 
 massed humanity there came a curious, mingled, 
 whispering sound. 
 
 The ancient canon, always holding the silver 
 holder in plain view, turned it constantly around and 
 about, so that the blood was seen through one of the 
 crystals faces after another. 
 
 The suspense swiftly became extreme. The very 
 atmosphere became a-tingle with it. Anxiety was 
 on the edge of becoming excitement. 
 
 But in precisely three minutes there came the 
 change. The viscous contents of the vials were 
 flowing! There was no doubt of it the stiff and 
 gummy substance had become liquid! 
 
 At once there came a subdued ecstatic outbreak; 
 it was really a thrilling moment; the huge building 
 was filled with a curious murmurous sound of 
 mingled gasps and cries. 
 
 I do not pretend to explain what had happened. 
 There had apparently been complete openness. 
 The canon was an old man of particularly fine 
 countenance. The recurrent event had taken place, 
 for there was the reddish liquid. No wonder it is 
 sincerely looked upon as a miracle, and I do not 
 know what to suggest in other explanation except 
 that possibly it was the result of bodily heat, from 
 the hands, or that the constant motion, the tipping 
 and turning, may have had something to do with it. 
 I watched it closely and did not see why it occurred. 
 But it did. 
 
 [282] 
 
An Unfamiliar Naples 
 
 The canon, his face aglow with happiness, walked 
 back and forth, holding the receptacle in plain sight 
 with its liquid, and a peripatetic attendant kept a 
 lighted candle held constantly behind it so that 
 none should be unable to see it or feel a doubt. 
 
 Then the canon went from one to another along 
 the altar rail, and gently touched each man's fore- 
 head with the holder and presented it to the lips to 
 be kissed. And one cannot, in such a case, think of 
 the germs of the centuries! 
 
 Each, as he kissed, arose and quietly stepped to one 
 side, and the vacated places were taken by priests 
 and church dignitaries within the chancel rail. 
 
 And the ceremony was not yet over. A passage- 
 way was somehow cleared back though the center 
 of the cathedral this probably being made pos- 
 sible by some of the throng beginning to leave and 
 along each side of the passage there formed a line 
 of clerics, dressed in black and white and standing 
 shoulder to shoulder, holding great, thick, tall 
 candles that stood on the floor and burned, in 
 lambent yellow, at the height of their heads. It 
 made an immensely impressive scene, and down 
 this torch-lined passage the silver statue was slowly 
 borne, with people eagerly holding out their hands 
 as toward one they loved and from whom they 
 expected benefits, and some spoke to the saint as if 
 he were alive. And everywhere were happy faces 
 because the liquefaction had taken place so soon. 
 
 [283] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 The procession turned into the large chapel of 
 San Gennaro, and through its great brazen gates 
 toward where a garden of silver flowers blossomed 
 on the solid silver altar. Here another priest took 
 the relic and allowed relays of people to kiss it, 
 while some old women called out, weirdly and ex- 
 citedly, at the statue itself; these women being 
 reputed to be of the family of Saint Januarius 
 (celibacy not being called for in his day), who for 
 centuries have held and exercised the prescriptive 
 family right of calling out at him in angry tones! 
 
 I left the benignant saint, all aglow with the 
 sheen and sparkle of his jewels, and the eager de- 
 votees, and the marvel and wonder of it all, and 
 walked slowly back through the ancient streets, to 
 the district of hotels, where every one was asleep. 
 
XIX. ALONG THE BRENTA: ONCE A 
 HIGHWAY FOR THE WORLD 
 
 T came to me one day, in 
 Venice, that there was a re- 
 gion near by, entirely neg- 
 lected by travelers, which had 
 once been known of all 
 the world and had pos- 
 sessed so much of beauty 
 and interest that there 
 must still be much that 
 was eminently worth 
 _ ^ while to see; and so I 
 
 sought out this region 
 
 and was vastly rewarded for the small degree of 
 trouble that was involved. 
 
 At the very edge of Venice is a long and once 
 glorious line of villas where the old Venetians revelled 
 in splendor; villas built upon the mainland, along the 
 course of the river Brenta; villas before whose doors 
 ran the landway and waterway, the double high- 
 way, between Padua and Venice, which for many 
 centuries was the main approach to the splendid 
 city of the sea. Venice the Beautiful, as a writer 
 quaintly expressed it, stood beside the domes of 
 
 [285] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 St. Mark, but the jewelled train of her mantle 
 stretched along the shores of the Brenta. 
 
 The villas, near to Venice though they are, and 
 readily accessible, are now seen by few, for the 
 coming of the railroad, over sixty years ago, made 
 a new approach to the city, and visitors long ago 
 forgot their existence. And Venice herself had 
 first forgotten them. For, when the power of the 
 city dwindled and her riches passed away, there 
 came to an end the golden-robed and silken-shod 
 luxury that had loved to display itself in this sub- 
 urban life. Many of the villas fell long ago forlornly 
 irito ruin, with gardens wrecked and balconies de- 
 molished, and halls and ceilings tottering to a fall. 
 Others vanished utterly. Still others, their fair 
 radiance departed, and now shabby and defaced, 
 give corners of their spaciousness to peasants, who 
 thus sit in the seats of the mighty. Only a few of the 
 villas are well maintained: one, literally a palace, 
 because the government preserves it as a national 
 monument, and two or three because they are in 
 the hands of rich and liberal owners. 
 
 It is not only that the poor live in some of the 
 ancient abodes of grandeur. The poor the Italian 
 has always with him, and in abundance; and so here, 
 along the Brenta, there are not only ruined homes 
 of the proud, but also little villages of the humble. 
 The neglected mansions would not be nearly so full 
 of interest, nearly so picturesque, were it not for 
 
 [286] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 the accompanying interest and picturesqueness of 
 peasant and village life. For a gossipy, gladsome, 
 gesticulative folk are these, and though poor enough 
 if measured by the standard of money, rich in con- 
 tent and happiness. 
 
 For hundreds of years the Brenta was glorious, 
 but perhaps the sixteenth century may be set down 
 as, upon the whole, the period of greatest splendor. 
 
 Often and often has the Brenta been the text for 
 enthusiasms. The cultured Evelyn wrote, in his 
 famous diary, of the river so deliciously adorned 
 with villas and gardens. Two hundred years later 
 Disraeli wrote of the number, variety, and splendor 
 of the houses, which even in his day had fallen into 
 the sere, the yellow leaf. D'Annunzio has seized 
 upon the poetry and inspiration in these melan- 
 choly remains of former magnificence. And Mrs. 
 Wharton gives the heroine of a powerful short story, 
 set in the Italy of the past, a triumphant season on 
 the Brenta, in a palace of myriad glories. 
 
 Building sumptuous houses on the mainland 
 followed as a consequence of landward conquests 
 and acquisitions. And, indeed, it was the realiza- 
 tion of landward ambitions that marked the begin- 
 ning of the end of Venetian power. The discovery 
 of a route around the Cape of Good Hope is gener- 
 ally set down as the reason for decline, but it would 
 not have been of potency had not the city been al- 
 ready weakened by her landward successes. She 
 
 [287] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 conquered Belluno and she conquered Padua, and 
 her warriors loved to ride on horses as well as on 
 vessels of war and gondolas. 
 
 And it would really seem to take the ultimate 
 step in this inquiry of cause and effect as if the 
 Venetian love for horses lay at the root of their 
 desire to be masters of land. For Venice is an ab- 
 solutely horseless city. On foot or by water must 
 its people go. And hence there came into operation 
 the yearning, deep-based in human nature, for what 
 is tantalizingly attractive and at the same time at- 
 tainable only with difficulty. The Venetians put 
 themselves on horseback and, although infinitely 
 distant from beggarhood, went the proverbial way. 
 The best of all the statues of Venice is an equestrian : 
 that of Colleoni, by Verrocchio, an admirable replica 
 of which has been placed in the Metropolitan Mu- 
 seum of Art in New York. And the huge-columned 
 church, that of Saints Giovanni and Paolo, whose 
 portal is guarded by this horsebacked effigy, bears 
 within it stately monuments of old-time doges, be- 
 striding caparisoned steeds. In the sombrely housed 
 libraries of Venice are ancient prints showing Brenta 
 villas in their glory, and in front of the villas the 
 artists loved to place cavaliers upon curvetting 
 horses. For these cavaliers, crossing the lagoon 
 from the city, loved to gallop along the road to 
 Padua, past barges filled with travellers intent on 
 reaching the wonderful city. 
 
 [288] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 For centuries the Brenta was fiercely fought for 
 by Padua and Venice. For centuries its stream has 
 been confined as a canal, for its uncontrolled meander- 
 ings led it changefully across the plain between the 
 rival cities. For centuries it was a great artery of 
 commerce, and the interests of Padua and Venice 
 were so diverse as to its course that battles were 
 fought for the mere object of demolishing an old 
 dike or constructing a new one. Not until Padua 
 itself was taken and held by Venice were bounds 
 finally set to the river, and then, at its mouth, was 
 set a contrivance of pulleys and inclined planes, 
 long since vanished, for the lifting of river craft over 
 the bar which was always forming. The Brenta 
 firmly secured, the advantages of its banks as a 
 dwelling-place for wealthy Venetians were seen; and 
 patrician after patrician chose his locality and his 
 stately pleasure dome decreed. 
 
 "Venice," naively wrote dear old Froissart, five 
 and a half centuries ago, " is one of the dearest towns 
 in the world for strangers." He knew Italy and its 
 cities, his principal visit to that country having been 
 to attend, as a guest, a princely wedding, at which 
 so runs the delightful old tale two of his fellow 
 guests were Chaucer and Petrarch. Froissart did not 
 set down that Venice was a town of extravagant 
 citizens as well as a town expensive for strangers, 
 for he doubtless took it for granted that the citizens' 
 extravagance was a matter of common knowledge. 
 
 [289] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 And it was but a very few years after he wrote 
 that the city sought a new outlet for luxurious 
 expenditure by beginning this expansion along the 
 Brenta. 
 
 Leaving Venice, leaving the Piazza of St. Mark and 
 the Doge's Palace, and setting forth for the forgotten 
 villas and the forgotten highway that was so long a 
 highway for the world, you do not turn down the 
 familiar Grand Canal, but into the broad and for- 
 gotten Giudecca, where you pass big gondolas, two- 
 rowered, heavy laden with great logs that stretch 
 out on either side with centipedal effect. You pass 
 boats with sails of yellow and hulls of red and 
 brown. And you pass merchant ships at anchor 
 that have come from distant ports of the world. 
 
 And now the marvellous city is behind you, and 
 you are sailing across a broad and shimmering 
 lagoon, and you pass an island with the delightful 
 name of St. George in the Seaweed, and you see the 
 darkened surface and the reed-like wavings that 
 tell that the island is well named. Of note, this 
 island, in the ancient days, though no one ever 
 visits it now; for, midway between mainland and 
 city, it was where ambassadors and other guests of 
 state were often received. The island was long the 
 site of a great churchly establishment, and monks 
 looked out upon a busy world from what is now a 
 crumbled red pile of masonry; and, glancing at it 
 as the boat carries you by, you notice that a few 
 
 [290! 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 soldiers militant have replaced the soldiers of the 
 cross. 
 
 Farther you go, across the shallow waters of the 
 lagoon; and soon you are nearing a reedy and melan- 
 choly shore, where a little patch of tile and plaster, 
 red and yellow, marks ancient Fusina, at the Bren- 
 ta's mouth. 
 
 Following the river inland, there is a great stretch 
 of level country, endlessly ditched and irrigated. 
 Here and there the thatched house of a peasant, 
 here and there a stooping line of toilers in the 
 fields; women and men in clothing of sun-mellowed 
 charm; and soon, above the vine-grown levels and 
 the glimmering canals, a spacious building comes in 
 view. 
 
 A palace, this; but its glory has departed, its 
 princely tenants have gone. It is fronted by a row 
 of mighty columns, but below them the carefully 
 wrought work of the artisan has fallen away in ruin, 
 and of the noble stairways, which formed the outer 
 approach, one has altogether vanished and the 
 other has lost its classic balustrade and stands in 
 bare denudedness. This palace, one of the master- 
 pieces of Palladio, was built for two brothers of the 
 house of Foscari; and the name by which it is known 
 Malcontenta is the survival of the dark story of 
 a woman who loved not wisely but too well, and 
 here ate out her heart in proud retirement. 
 
 The palace is now naked and bleak, and on either 
 
 [291] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 side are apartments exactly alike: one set of rooms 
 for one Foscari brother and one for the other, with 
 a cross-shaped audience-hall between for the com- 
 mon use of both. 
 
 There are fireplaces of pink marble, and vaulted 
 ceilings, and in the central hall there are frescoed 
 Muses and Arts, that, regardless of their faded 
 beauty, look down with a smile or with grave regard 
 at the visitor whose echoing footsteps disturb their 
 solitude, even as they looked on the gay throngs of 
 vanished time. 
 
 And in another room, long since vandalized by 
 whitewash, the yellow covering has flaked away 
 just enough to show a lovely woman, in the splendid 
 apparel of the time of Venetian glory. She is painted 
 on the wall, with her foot on the level of the floor, 
 and gives a curious impression of standing within 
 the room. A haughty and enigmatical smile is on 
 her lips, and you like to believe the legend of the 
 countryside that this woman, decked with pearls and 
 apparelled in silk and lace, is the one whose history 
 gave the name of Malcontenta. 
 
 Push aside the shutters from a window whose 
 leaded glass has long since vanished, and there is a 
 sweet and lovely view. There are the interminable 
 stretches, crowded thick with luscious growth; there, 
 to the northward, rises the Alpine line; there is the 
 lagoon, on whose farther side lies Venice, with the 
 sun glistening on towers and domes. 
 
 [292] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 A red-sailed, black-hulled barge comes slowly up 
 the Brenta; a painted ship on water painted mar- 
 vellously green; and one's mind goes back to the 
 glory of the past, and to that time in the sixteenth 
 century when, with mighty pomp and circumstance, 
 Henry the Third of France came to this house, ac- 
 companied from Venice by senators and patricians 
 in barges rowed by slaves. 
 
 With stairs and vaultings of solid stone, and roof 
 and floors of tile, the house defies the desolation of 
 the centuries. But there are lichens and mosses on 
 the walls; latticed windows are wrecked; scrolls 
 and ornaments and carving are defaced. And in a 
 perspective avenue of trees I saw an incongruous 
 descendant of the past: a strutting peacock with tail 
 gloriously outspread, owned by the peasants who 
 live in a corner of the palace and who cook their 
 dinner of herbs in an enormous Palladian fireplace 
 with carved lion's feet and fluted pillars of stone. 
 
 Beyond Malcontenta are willow trees and orch- 
 ards, and meadows rich in grass, and endless vine- 
 yards, and long vines garlanded between pollarded 
 mulberries; and here and there a great gate of 
 wrought iron tells where a villa stood, or at a cottage 
 door stands a shattered pillar, carried there long ago 
 from the wreck of a noble house. 
 
 Great numbers of statues are still to be seen. 
 At many of the villas the ancient statues were long 
 since destroyed or carried away, and empty pedes- 
 
 [293] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 tals alone remain; but a host of figures still, stand 
 grouped in gardens or extend along old avenues. 
 Smiling or dancing, posing in stateliness, or eternally 
 pouring libations gods and goddesses, nymphs and 
 heroes, loves and graces, marred, broken, yellowed, 
 lichened they are doing patiently on their pedes- 
 tals for the peasants what in old days they did for 
 patricians; and in all this is a grim and theatrical 
 impressiveness, as of broken-down actors and actresses 
 representing the glories of the olden time. 
 
 Numbers of the villas have not only the charm of 
 general association with the pride of former days, but 
 have definite legends or history clinging about the 
 great rooms and the window-seats and the charming 
 alcoves. There are tiny canals running up to private 
 landing-places, and loggias from which the proces- 
 sion of boats and horses was watched by languid 
 ladies and from which the snowy Alps are seen, 
 gleaming austere and cold above the steaming 
 plain. 
 
 One house, not far from Malcontenta, is honored 
 because it stands upon the site of an earlier one 
 which Dante for a time occupied. Dante wrote of 
 the Brenta, too, but the time of his residence there 
 was before the era of Venetian occupancy. 
 
 One must look heedfully if he would see every 
 one of the still existent villas, for there are defaced 
 and cheaply stuccoed houses which might hastily 
 be passed by without interest, but which are shown 
 
 [294] 
 
IN A PALACE or THE BRENTA: AT STRA 
 
Unvisited 
 
 tals alone rem 
 grouped in gardens 
 
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 Old Europe 
 
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 the Brenta 
 
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Along the Brenta 
 
 in the ancient prints as the villas of this or that 
 great family whose name is in the Golden Book. 
 The Italians love to stucco any building, old or new; 
 and, so far as apparent age is concerned, a touch of 
 stucco makes all buildings kin. 
 
 Less interesting, except as illustrative of human 
 nature, are the few garish houses, comparatively 
 modern, put up by pretentious folk who would fain 
 have the appearance of living here as did the rich 
 and the powerful; but of real interest are the simple 
 houses of the frankly humble. And the villages and 
 those who live in them have a peculiar right to at- 
 tention, because some of these towns are very, very 
 ancient, having authentic histories running back for 
 many hundreds of years, and because numbers of 
 the village folk are doubtless of ancestry antedating 
 the period of the glory of Venice. 
 
 Tradition has it that near one of these towns one 
 of the battles between Venice and Padua took place, 
 and that the Venetians won through setting free 
 large numbers of bees, who flew at the Paduans, 
 and, slipping under their visors, stung them into 
 retreat. 
 
 The humble Brenta dwellers are a cheerful and 
 credulous folk. They love music, they love games, 
 they love color, they love the dance. I remember 
 that the little Dutch children of Maarken all seemed 
 men and women; but the men and women of the 
 Brenta all seem children, and all happy ones. 
 
 [295] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 Even the grimness of certain of their beliefs does 
 not give them gloominess. They know that three 
 knockings in the night can come only from the 
 Angel of Death but (crossing themselves) we ought 
 not to worry, for all of us must die. They know that 
 to spill olive oil or milk brings bad luck, but they 
 also know (praise this or that Italian saint!) that 
 to spill wine means a marriage. To dream of a tooth 
 drawn out means death; but to find a horseshoe or a 
 muleshoe means good luck, and to find a coin with a 
 hole in it insures very good luck, and, on the whole, 
 there is more good than evil in the world, and so let 
 us eat and drink and be merry, for, in spite of dreams 
 prognostic, to-morrow we live! 
 
 I have heard Italians of more favored regions 
 deplore the malaria of the Brenta, and say, "The 
 people are yellow of face." But the Brenta folk do 
 not permit even malaria to disturb them. The men 
 contend endlessly at bowls, or perhaps, in the even- 
 ing, they eagerly play with queer Italian cards, or 
 get out their checkers and their chess; their chess 
 permitting odd moves with the pawns, and their 
 checkers having the rule that a king is immune 
 from capture except by another king, and that (to 
 border on a Hibernianism) these are not kings at 
 all, but queens. 
 
 Even in the literature read by the Brentaside 
 there is found a certain amusement; for I have seen 
 one man reading UAsino and another // Mulo and 
 
 [296] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 another Sigaretta. Incidentally, it reminded me of 
 having heard, in America, that Italian humor is far 
 beyond our own in purity, delicacy, cleverness, and 
 charm. 
 
 The great villas, through the limitless extrava- 
 gance of their building, their out-fitting and main- 
 tenance, were the cause of the breaking of many a 
 fortune, and thus of the subsequent desertion and 
 decay of the buildings. That several were built by 
 Palladio recalls the story that, in revenge for being 
 refused admittance into the order of nobility, he 
 deliberately set himself to ruin Italian nobles through 
 the expense that his building plans entailed. The 
 nobles of this part of Italy, however, were themselves 
 not backward in working for their own ruin; like the 
 one who loved to skip gold pieces, sequins, like 
 pebbles, along the surface of the Brenta, or the one 
 who was in the pleasant habit of throwing the fragile 
 table service out of window to thrill his guests. 
 
 At one ruined villa, where I found pigeons roost- 
 ing in the bare and desolate entrance hall, the peas- 
 ant who opened doors and gates told me, with deep 
 meaning in his tone, as he showed me into the garden, 
 that oleanders once grew there, but had vanished; it 
 being an ancient Italian superstition that with the 
 decay of oleanders begins the decay of the fortunes 
 of a house. 
 
 What is known as the villa of Valmarano, near the 
 town of Mira Porte, is a splendid example of the 
 
 [297] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 glorious extravagance of the past. I reached there, 
 from my last stopping-place, by driving beside a 
 Brenta man in a tiny cart drawn by a pony no 
 bigger than a dog, and I crossed the stream with 
 another Brenta man in a water-logged and leaky 
 dugout, which he looked at in lengthy dubitation 
 before deciding that it would do, and which absurdly 
 sank just as we reached the farther side. 
 
 This so-called villa consists of two palaces placed 
 where the river, curving, gives a charming view. 
 They are precisely similar, and each stretches back 
 in a succession of lofty rooms. But to say this is 
 to say only part; for in the space between these two 
 palaces there once stood a still grander structure, 
 every vestige of which has gone; a palace of such 
 noble size that these two served fittingly as ap- 
 panages. And all these united to make the home 
 of a single patrician! 
 
 And these two appanages stand in desolation. 
 They have long and stately colonnades, and they 
 show pillared vistas of great impressiveness, but 
 some of the rooms are heaped with grain, others 
 are littered with wine-presses and carts, in others 
 the plaster has fallen in great pieces; and yet, amid 
 this wreck of past glory, lovely goddesses, whose 
 frescoed faces are still full of beauty and charm, 
 bravely smile as if to assert that the smile of woman 
 is superior to ruin and may even recall the tender 
 grace of a day that is dead. 
 
 [298] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 And the reflection comes, that while nations were 
 quarreling, and armies clashing, artists and sculp- 
 tors kept calmly at their work. Dante wrote of the 
 Brenta, and Veronese painted ceilings, Palladio 
 erected homes there, and Tintoretto made pictures 
 for their walls, heedless of affairs of peace or war. 
 
 To drive beside the river, along the hard firm 
 roads and past the endless stone road-posts, puts 
 one vividly in touch with the past, and it is even 
 more fascinating to go slowly up the stream by 
 boat for there are boats, for freight, with red and 
 ochre sails; there are boats drawn by horses or drawn 
 by men; there are boats with long ropes running 
 quaintly, as of old, from the stern to the top of the 
 mast and thence to the towing-power on shore; and 
 there are boats propelled by gondoliers. 
 
 There are tall poplars which send their shadows 
 far down into the water. There are pretty peasant 
 girls standing under the escutcheons of nobility. 
 Ox teams swing down ancient avenues. There is a 
 shipyard, where barges have for centuries been 
 launched and where a handful of men still work 
 at hull and keel. There are long white roads. There 
 are ditches, thick padded with water-lilies and with 
 yellow primroses on their banks. There are ancient 
 plane trees long since trimmed to fan-shaped flatness 
 and now grown distorted and grotesque. There are 
 old stone wells. 
 
 It is of especial interest to notice how different is 
 
 [299] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 the architecture from any in Venice. It might have 
 been expected that the architects would follow 
 familiar Venetian forms, but instead they put up a 
 series of houses of an entirely different character. 
 
 The possession of this river and of Padua meant 
 much to the Venetians. Not only did it solve ques- 
 tions of health and commerce, and give them indis- 
 putably a line of traffic; not only did it give the 
 longed-for chance for rural homes and gardens for 
 their children's play; but it also gave them the 
 source of supply of a strong dark lime which would 
 resist the action of salt water and sea air. It was in 
 the fifteenth century that Padua was seized; had it 
 been earlier, so you are told, the Campanile of St. 
 Mark's would not have fallen, for it would have 
 been built with Paduan lime. 
 
 At no great distance above Valmarano is a fine 
 villa, yellow-fronted and of happy aspect; with 
 white stone lions pawing armorial bearings at the 
 entrance and little lions crouched captivatingly 
 above. It looks like one of the charming modern 
 Florentine villas of to-day, so fresh and clean it is. 
 Yet it is a house of the sixteenth century, and was 
 then inhabited by a Contarini, Procurator of St. 
 Mark's, and was given a visit by a foreign king, who, 
 passing by, was so taken with the charm of its ap- 
 pearance that he stopped his barge and landed 
 there. 
 
 Noble old apartments are those in this favored 
 
 [300] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 Contarini villa; but the ancient furnishings and 
 frescoes passed with the passing of ancient owner- 
 ship, the finest of the wall decorations having been 
 taken long since to Paris. In front of the villa there 
 is a mighty line of gnarled trees, the trunks of which 
 are green with moss. The immediate surroundings 
 were in the past particularly pleasing, although now 
 all is changed. 
 
 Here and there, along the line of the Brenta, 
 there are still the remains of ancient gardens; and 
 an ancient and overgrown and high-walled garden 
 must needs be felicitous, especially when still shaded 
 by the cypress and the ilex, and when untrimmed 
 shrubbery has grown into mysterious thickets, with 
 here and there neglected wall-flowers growing from 
 wall crevices where they have found refuge, and 
 here and there a tangle of rosemary hanging like 
 an old man's beard. And as one walks through 
 such a deserted garden a pungent and fascinating 
 odor arises from the gray-green artemisia crushed 
 underfoot, and mingles with the haunting odor of 
 the bay. And now and then one still finds the 
 great terra-cotta pots, three feet or so across, that 
 held oleanders or orange trees. 
 
 One sees along the Brenta that color is a poor 
 man's luxury. A red-capped man ploughs a brown 
 field with white oxen. From the blue-shuttered 
 window of a gray house a green-gowned woman 
 lowers a tiny basket for the casual letter or the morn- 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 ing's milk. A black-hatted priest flourishes a big 
 blue handkerchief. Red-skirted, purple-skirted, 
 maroon-waisted girls sing as they paddle, washing 
 by the waterside. A green-shirted man hammers 
 a tawny dried fish on a gray stone post with a yellow 
 mallet. White ducks go swimming on green water 
 in front of a red-tiled house. It was not an Italian 
 who said that to add another hue unto the rainbow 
 is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 
 
 A certain spirit of independence among the 
 peasantry comes largely, I think, from their lifelong 
 familiarity with palaces and coats-of-arms in a state 
 of ruin. It comes, too, from the simple character of 
 their local government. Each man who pays taxes 
 of not less than ten lire two dollars a year is priv- 
 ileged to vote for member of the council, and each 
 town council elects the sindaco or mayor. If in a 
 multitude of councillors there is wisdom, wisdom 
 should be rife here, for a single small town is likely 
 to have as many as thirty, who serve without pay, 
 and come together twice a year unless called for 
 some special meeting in addition. "The Brenta is a 
 country of gold!" said a councillor to me, proudly, 
 one day; but he did not mean this in a material sense. 
 
 The old woman who sells you for one cent a 
 very holy picture, in very gaudy colors, has her 
 feelings really hurt if you give her the desired wealth 
 and then don't care to take the picture, for she fears 
 you will think her a beggar. Yes; and this in Italy! 
 
 [302] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 Most of the poorer folk never get so far as even to 
 visit near-by Venice. "Why should we go? We do 
 not care for the city. We are tillers of the soil," 
 they will say. 
 
 But always from contemplation of the people, 
 no matter how simple-hearted and interesting, and 
 of the villages, no matter how ancient in history and 
 in legend, one comes back with renewed and deeper 
 interest to the palaces and the villas. 
 
 One of the most interesting of the villas is that of 
 the ancient family of the Foscarini, but as you ap- 
 proach it, boating up the placid stream, you see but 
 a building of plain and almost commonplace aspect, 
 with some shabby greenery peeping over the wall 
 behind it. It has changed since the days of the 
 past, when it was one of the most beautiful and 
 charming villas of the Brenta. 
 
 This is the Brenta villa in which Byron for so many 
 years lived, and in connection with his life here there 
 are tales of his love for an imperious peasant beauty, 
 a Brenta girl, who was long an important factor in 
 his life. 
 
 A school for peasant children occupies some of the 
 rooms of this villa, and a maker of soap uses the 
 remainder but there is much in the history of the 
 building which soap cannot wash away, and there is 
 more to learn from it than will be taught to the 
 black-eyed children whose knives serrate the edges 
 of the simple desks and forms. For there are more 
 
 [303] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 than Byronic associations; the villa having been 
 associated with one of the grimmest of Venetian 
 tragedies, that of the love of Antonio Foscarini for 
 an Englishwoman, the Countess of Arundel, wife of 
 the Arundel of the Marbles, Earl Marshal of England. 
 
 The Countess had first met Foscarini when he was 
 ambassador at London; and that he held such a post 
 marks him as a man not only of importance, but of 
 manners and presence. 
 
 Some time after Foscarini's recall from London to 
 Venice, about 1620, it was noticed that the Countess 
 of Arundel secured a villa on the Brenta, close be- 
 side his; but all prudence and conventionality were 
 observed, and it merely appeared as if she were a 
 foreigner who appreciated the fineness and beauty 
 of that riverside life. 
 
 The tragedy, when it came, was made to appear 
 the work of an Italian enemy, but it can scarcely 
 be doubted that the absent Earl of Arundel had 
 been aroused to vengeance, and that he found means 
 to deal a distant blow. 
 
 One day in 1622 the great Foscarini found himself 
 before the most dreaded tribunal on earth, on a 
 charge of treason, the ground for the accusation 
 being his frequent visits to the English Countess, 
 with whom he was charged to be plotting against 
 the interests of the Republic. It was pointed out 
 that he was a man who walked a good deal by night, 
 and that his steps had often led him to the home 
 
 [304] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 of the Countess, who was deemed an apparent enemy 
 of Venice. 
 
 Foscarini found his position eminently embarrass- 
 ing, for his birth and his manliness prevented him 
 from offering such a defense as would put a different 
 face on the matter. The end, for him, came swiftly. 
 The Ten had heard him in secret, but at least they 
 rewarded him openly, for one morning his dead 
 body was found dangling by the foot from the 
 public gallows. 
 
 The English ambassador at Venice, deeply im- 
 pressed by all this, sent warning to the Countess to 
 escape; but escape was the last thing in her thoughts! 
 Hers was not the first case nor the last in which guilt 
 has been far more bold-faced than innocence could 
 possibly be. She went into the city, and so violently 
 protested her innocence of wrong-doing of any sort, 
 of even wrong intentions, that the Doge was con- 
 strained to issue a declaration that her protests 
 were just and that there had been a terrible mis- 
 take, the judges having acted on evidence given by a 
 man who, under torture, had now confessed his 
 wickedness. 
 
 The Doge also sent to the irate Countess his 
 most contrite personal apologies, and with them, in 
 recognition of the eternal feminine, a magnificent 
 gift of waxworks and sweetmeats. Nor was she 
 content with this. She demanded an exonerative 
 resolution from the Venetian Senate, and it was 
 
 [305] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 promptly voted. She then demanded that the 
 Venetian ambassador in London inform her hus- 
 band and King James the First that there had 
 been a grave mistake, and that she was an innocent 
 woman who had been deeply maligned which in- 
 formation one may fancy the Earl looking up from 
 the study of his art treasures to receive, with out- 
 ward thanks for the care for the reputation of his 
 wife and the inward reflection that at least Fosca- 
 rini was well killed. 
 
 The garden is still as it was, save that the trees 
 and greenery, long untrimmed, have grown wild 
 and thicket-like, and that some of the pedestals 
 are now statueless. There is a bosky avenue, 
 crossed with black shadows, where the ill-fated am- 
 bassador, little thinking that the shadows were 
 falling across his life, was wont to pace. There are 
 broken stone seats circled about in a retired nook; 
 and there are violets and flowers of yellow and red, 
 such as have been picked by generations of lovers 
 there. 
 
 From Fusina to Padua is a little more than twenty 
 miles, and at the distance of fifteen miles one comes 
 to the town of Stra, and near this town stands a 
 palace, of great size and cost, which was put up 
 in final flaunting arrogance when the Venetian Re- 
 public was hastening toward its fall. It was erected 
 by the family of Pisani, distinguished for its doges 
 and generals, and may be deemed almost modern, 
 
 [306] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 for it was begun and finished less than two centuries 
 ago. It is a huge palace of over two hundred rooms 
 and Italian rooms are always large! and there was 
 no sparing of expense for pomp and decoration; and 
 whereas most of the other palaces stand so near the 
 river as to be vividly reflected in the water, this at 
 Stra is set in the midst of a great park. 
 
 The palace has a host of princely and even royal 
 associations, through the titled folk who have been 
 visitors there. The great Napoleon made his home 
 at this palace for a time, and the people still tell 
 of how he reviewed his troops from a belvedere 
 above a great entranceway which opens into the 
 palace gardens. It is said, too, by the country folk, 
 that the huge gates of the central portal have re- 
 mained closed since the time of Napoleon's stay, so 
 that it might forever be said that his carriage* was 
 the last to be driven through. It is by beliefs such 
 as these that the real greatness of a man may be 
 tested, even more than by the winning of battles. 
 Only a giant can print indentations in memory and 
 legend with his lightest touch. 
 
 Napoleon so admired the place that he purchased 
 it, and afterward gave it to Eugene, the son of his 
 beloved Josephine. It is now cared for by the 
 Italian government as a national monument. 
 
 Continuing up the Brenta, the city of Padua is 
 reached, where the Venetian lion still stands in front 
 of the palace wherein dwelt the Venetian governor, 
 
 [307] 
 
Unvisited Places of Old Europe 
 
 and where the famed university still occupies the 
 building whose erection Venice decreed. 
 
 To gain a deep and final impression of this strange 
 Brenta land one should drive along the waterside, 
 on a gloomy day, as the evening mist rises toward a 
 blurred sky. 
 
 The pallid, sallow houses, the slim campaniles 
 standing above the level plain, the red-stockinged 
 boys clattering in wooden shoes, the women draw- 
 ing heavy harrows across the fields, the thatched 
 roofs covered with thick moss, the wayside shrines, 
 the eight white oxen yoked together to draw one 
 plough, the kneeling women washing clothes on the 
 river's brink and stooping to paddle them with rock 
 or wood all seem part of an unreal world. 
 
 Villas wrecked and ruined or transformed into 
 tenements, palace windows closed with wattled 
 twigs, gaunt facades, once graced with wings and 
 balustrades and pediments, statues standing like 
 spirits of the past, sculptured heads grinning down 
 in sinister enjoyment, the water softly whispering 
 along the shore, the sun-dials which marked the 
 passage of a time which those patricians thought 
 would last forever, unite in telling of a life that has 
 vanished as a tale that is told. 
 
 And as darkness creeps on, and peasants and 
 fisherfolk, gregariously grouped, trudge through this 
 land of shadows, shadowily homeward, one thinks 
 of the old belief that, on the vigil of All Souls, the 
 
 [308] 
 
Along the Brenta 
 
 past and gone Venetians, shrouded with invisibility, 
 leave their graves and wander to their former 
 homes and seat themselves uncannily by the firesides; 
 and you know that none but ghosts could fittingly 
 go back to the ruined palaces of the Brenta. 
 
Index 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, connection with the Neutral Land, 159, 166, 167 
 
 Alderney, 40, 56 
 
 Alkmaar, 178, 181-184 
 
 Alps in winter, 228-272 
 
 Altenberg, 159 
 
 Amboise, cave dwellers at, 107 
 
 Ampezzo, the Magnificent Commune of, 242 
 
 Amsterdam, en fete, 176-178 
 
 Amusements in Moresnet, 172 
 
 Andermatt, sledging to, 232 
 
 Appenzell, 226 
 
 Approach, old, to Venice, 285 
 
 Arden, Forest of, 118-135 
 
 Ardennes, 118, 126, 128 
 
 Ariosto, 120, 122, 131 
 
 Armada, the, on the Scillys, 37 
 
 Armorel of Lyonesse, 36 
 
 Arundel, Countess of, on the Brenta, 304 
 
 Austrians of '48, 252 
 
 Avalanches: in the Dolomites, 238; in the St. Gotthard, 231 
 
 Baker and sea water, 61 
 Ball of the gardeners, 116 
 Balzers, 222 
 
 Banishment from Guernsey, 52 
 Bargains "struck," 182 
 Bazeilles, 119 
 Beaumont, 68, 70 
 Becket, Thomas a, 72 
 Becquet, village of, 72 
 
 Can] 
 
Index 
 
 Beggars: how treated in Guernsey, 58; none in Rothenburg, 200 
 
 Birthday of ruler: in Holland, 177; in Luxembourg, 140 
 
 Bishop: the lighthouse, 28; wreck at, 28 
 
 Blind King of Bohemia, 145 
 
 Blood of St. Januarius, 281 
 
 Boar hunting, 136 
 
 Boar of Ardennes, 122 
 
 Boccaccio and Fiammetta, 279 
 
 Bouillon, castle and town of, 118, 121-125 
 
 Boundary stones of the Neutral Land, 169 
 
 Bregenz, 206 
 
 Brenta, the, 285-309; humor of, 296 
 
 Brioche, no, 112, 114 
 
 British warships in the Scillys, 19 
 
 Brix, 84, 88, 91, 93, 95, 98 
 
 Bruces in Normandy, 83-101; castle, 96; village of the, 84 
 
 Bunker Hill, wounded landed from, 37 
 
 Burgomaster: of Cortina, 244; of Moresnet, 160; of Rothenburg, 193 
 
 Buzz from French school, 88 
 
 Byron's home on the Brenta, 303 
 
 Cadore, Pieve di, finding a William Tell near, 252 
 
 Cadore, Republic of, 243 
 
 Canals: of the Brenta, 289; of Holland, 179 
 
 Cap de la Hague, 44, 71 
 
 Carillons in Amsterdam, 177 
 
 Cathedral of Naples, scene in, 279 
 
 Cave dwellers in Touraine, 106 
 
 Channel Islands, 40, 56 
 
 Charivari in Moresnet, 170 
 
 Charlemagne, 167 
 
 Charles the First on the Scilly Islands, 33 
 
 Cheese market, 178, 181-184 
 
 Cherbourg, 40-44, 60-62 
 
 Chorals form church towers, 138, 194 
 
 Church bells of Luxembourg, 138 
 
Index 
 
 Clameur de Haro, 46 
 
 Coaching to Belluno, 270, 271 
 
 Coffin on head, 275 
 
 Cognac and coffee, 89 
 
 Coins of Liechtenstein, 224 
 
 Commune of Ampezzo, 242 
 
 Communion, first and last; street processions in Moresnet, 171, 172 
 
 Community forests and pastures, 245, 267 
 
 Constance, Lake of, 206 
 
 Contarini villa, 300 
 
 Copper lustre, 69 
 
 Cortina in winter, 242 
 
 Cotentin, peninsula of the, 62-64, 70, 83, 86; English family names 
 in, 60-82 
 
 Countess of Arundel on the Brenta, 304 
 
 Costumes: in Arden, 130; in the Dolomites, 246; in Guernsey, 49; 
 in Liechtenstein, 218; in Rothenburg, 200 
 
 Customs: of the Brenta, 295, 296, 301 ; of Cortina, 247; of Liechten- 
 stein, 219; of Naples, 274; of Normandy, 80; of Rothenburg, 198 
 
 Dancing: at Cadore, 268; in streets of Amsterdam, 178; in the rain 
 
 in Luxembourg, 140 
 Dancing Procession, 141 
 D'Annunzio on the Brenta, 287 
 Dasburg, 152, 154 
 Dictionary, use of, 68, 87 
 Diekirch fair, 155 
 Diligence: in Arden, 120; the Cotentin, 64-68; in Liechtenstein, 221; 
 
 in Luxembourg, 146 
 Distances in Europe, 102 
 "Dog Tray," les chiens de trait, 164 
 Dolomites in winter, 235-272 
 Donau, the Danube, 205 
 "Doozydoo," 114 
 Dordrecht, 185 
 Douzaines, 49 
 
 [313] 
 
Index 
 
 Edam cheese market, 178, 181-184 
 
 Embroiderers in Appenzell, 226 
 
 Emma and Eginhard, 167 
 
 Emmaburg, chateau of, 167 
 
 English family names in the Cotentin, 60-82 
 
 Esch, towers of, 147 
 
 Evelyn on the Brenta, 287 
 
 Fairs at St. Cloud and St. Germain, 107, 108 
 
 Farmhouses: in Arden, 130; in Holland, 179; in Normandy, 90 
 
 Feast of the Gardeners, 108-117 
 
 Figure-heads from ships, 39 
 
 Fire protection: in Luxembourg, 140; in Rothenburg, 193 
 
 Fireplaces: of Malcontenta, 292, 293; in middle of rooms, 250, 254 
 
 Flowers, midwinter, in North Atlantic, 24, 25 
 
 "Fool's advice, a," 84 
 
 Forest of Arden, 118-135 
 
 Forests, community, in Dolomites, 245, 267 
 
 Foscari palace on the Brenta, 291 
 
 Foscarini, Antonio, and Countess of Arundel, 304 
 
 Foscarini villa, 303, 304 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, almost wrecked on the Scillys, 32 
 
 Froissart's opinion of Venice, 289 
 
 Funerals: in Naples, 275, 276; in Rothenburg, 195 
 
 Fusina, at mouth of Brenta, 291 
 
 Gambling in the Neutral Land, 165 
 
 Gardens: on the Brenta, 301; of Foscarini villa, 306 
 
 Gate on Rhine bridge, 227 
 
 German Embassy, 160 
 
 Gingerbread fairs, 107, 108 
 
 Giudecca, of Venice, 290 
 
 Givonne, 120 
 
 Glass houses in Guernsey, 52, 58 
 
 Godfrey, of Bouillon, his castle and tower, 121-125 
 
 Goschenen, 229 
 
 "Gramercy," 76 
 
 [314] 
 
Index 
 
 Grand-duchess of Luxembourg, 138, 141 
 
 Grand-duchy of Luxembourg, 136-156 
 
 Greville: family of, 64; town of, 70 
 
 Guernsey, 45-59; capital of, 48; Clameur de Haro, 46; courts and 
 
 parliament, 49-52, 57; governor of, 57; how to get there, 40; 
 
 more Norman than English, 45; taxes, 55 
 
 Half-timbered houses, 200 
 
 "Ha! Ro!" 46 
 
 Henry the Third: Brenta palace he visited, 293; where he was 
 
 killed, 115 
 
 Highway for the world, Once a, 285 
 Holland, watertochtjes in, 175-188 
 Horseless farming, 153 
 Horses of the Venetians, 288 
 Hospenthal, 232 
 Hugh Town, 20, 38 
 Humor in Italy, 296 
 
 Icicles, dangerous, in the Dolomites, 239 
 
 Inns: in Andermatt in winter, 232; in Arden, 121; in Becquet, 73; 
 in Cadore, 268; in Cortina, 242; in the Cotentin, 68, 89; in the 
 Dolomites, 241; in Innsbruck, 204, 233; in Liechtenstein, 7, n, 
 213; in Luxembourg, 136; in Moresnet, 169; old-time Italian, 
 250; post-inns in Italy, 270 
 
 Innsbruck, 204, 233 
 
 Jacques found in Arden, 135 
 
 Jersey, 40, 56 
 
 Johann the Second, of Liechtenstein, 212 
 
 John the Errant, 145 
 
 Kelmis, 159, 168 
 "Kolonial Waaren," 197 
 
 Ladders for lovers, 247 
 Lafayette, 66 
 Lagoons at Venice, 291 
 La Manche, 63 
 
 [315] 
 
Index 
 
 "Landes," 70 
 
 Landesverweser, 13, 213 
 
 Landlord of inn at Cadore, 253 
 
 Land's End, 18 
 
 "Les dernieres Cartouches," 119 
 
 Liechtenstein, independent principality of, 7-14, 204-227; capital, 
 209; castle of, 14, 220; coinage, 224; costumes of, 218; customs, 
 219; governor of, 12, 213, 214; prince of, 207-214 
 
 Lime for campanile of Venice, 300 
 
 Lioness, the, 34 
 
 Liquefaction of blood, 276, 282 
 
 Loevestein, fortress of, 186 
 
 Lovers, old peasant, 73 
 
 Luxembourg, free and independent, 136-156; ancient fortifications, 
 139; capital of, 138; its court, 142; its grand-duchess, 138; its 
 many castles, 147; its tiny army, 139; legends of, 148 
 
 Lyonesse, 34, 36 
 
 Maas, 1 86 
 
 Malcontenta, the forgotten palace of, 291-293 
 
 March of the Muttons, 140 
 
 Marly-le-Roi, 105 
 
 "Meister-trunk," the, 201 
 
 Millet, birthplace of, 70 
 
 Monastery, Trappist, 132 
 
 Montagues, Montaigu, Norman home of, 78 
 
 Montlouis, a settlement of cave dwellers, 107 
 
 Mora, the ship of William the Conquerer, 63 
 
 Moresnet, Neutral, 157-174 
 
 Mottoes in Rothenburg, 197 
 
 Mountain fight in '48, 252-266 
 
 Naples, an unfamiliar, 273-284 
 Napoleon at Plymouth, 17 
 Napoleon III. in Bouillon, 121 
 Neutral Moresnet, 157-174 
 Neuville, de, scene of picture, 119 
 
 [316] 
 
Index 
 
 Nez de Jobourg, 71 
 
 Nick Carter in Holland, 176 
 
 Night watch in Cherbourg, 62 
 
 No Man's Land, 158 
 
 Norman characteristics in Guernsey, 49 
 
 Normandy, 60-101 
 
 Norman-French: in Guernsey, 46; used by King of England, 77 
 
 Norman peasant's house, 90 
 
 Old approach to Venice, 285 
 Old-time inns in the Dolomites, 250 
 Our, the River, 152 
 
 Padua, Venetian possession of, 300 
 
 Palace: of the Doges, roof-timbers from Cadore, 243; of Malcon- 
 
 tenta, 291-293; of the Pisani, 306; at Stra, 306 
 Palladio's palace of Malcontenta, 291-293 
 Parade in Naples, 278 
 
 Paris: byways in, 104; finding the unexpected in, 103 
 Passion Play at Bouillon, 132 
 
 Patricians: in Rothenburg, 198; on the Brenta, 297, 298 
 Peasants: in palaces, 293, 298; in villages instead of isolated homes, 
 
 ISS 
 
 Penzance, 16-18 
 
 Percys, the, 64 
 
 Pieve di Cadore, 248, 252, 266-270 
 
 Pilgrims at Plymouth, 17 
 
 Pisani, palace of the, 306 
 
 Plymouth, 16, 17 
 
 Post-inns in Italy, 270 
 
 Postwagen routes: in Liechtenstein, 207; in Luxembourg, 154 
 
 Prince of Liechtenstein, 207, 214 
 
 Prince of Wales' Feathers, origin of, 146 
 
 Principality of Liechtenstein, 7-14, 204-227 
 
 Quentin Durward, 122 
 Querqueville, home of Kirks, 72 
 
 [317] 
 
Index 
 
 Race of Alderney, 44 
 
 Rag-pickers' quarter, 104 
 
 Rathhaus of Rothenburg, 191, 193 
 
 Restaurant in Alkmaar, 184 
 
 Rheims, 118 
 
 Rhine: in Holland, 186; in Liechtenstein, 222, 225-227 
 
 "Right of home," 197 
 
 Rollo, Duke, 48 
 
 Roof-timbers of Doge's Palace, 243 
 
 Rothenburg, 189-203 
 
 Royal Park of St. Cloud, 116 
 
 Rue Mouffetard, 104 
 
 Rue Royale of St. Cloud, 115 
 
 Rue St. Antoine, 103 
 
 Ruined palaces of the Brenta, 285 
 
 "Salute," 268 
 
 Saracen mother of Thomas a Becket, 72 
 
 Sark, 40 
 
 School, buzz from a, 88 
 
 Scillonians, 23, 33 
 
 Scilly Islands, 16-39 
 
 Sedan, 119 
 
 Semois, the, 121; meanderings of, 129 
 
 Sentinels in Alps, 230 
 
 Shakespeare's Arden, 118-135 
 
 Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 31 
 
 Silver bust of St. Januarius, 276, 277 
 
 Sledging: over St. Gotthard, 229; through Dolomites, 237; to Italy, 
 
 249 
 
 Smith, Mr., of the Scillys, 22-26 
 Spanish towers of Luxembourg, 139 
 St. Andrew's Cross in Normandy, 94 
 St. Clair, family of, 64 
 St. Cloud: church of, 109; feast and town, 109-112; gingerbread 
 
 fair, 108 
 
Index 
 
 St. George in the Seaweed, 290 
 
 St. Germain, fair of, 107 
 
 St. Gotthard Pass in winter, 228-233 
 
 St. Januarius, liquefaction of blood, 284 
 
 St. John, family of, 64 
 
 St. Mary's, island of, 20 
 
 St. Peter-Port, 48 
 
 Statues: forlorn, on the Brenta, 293; silver, of saint, 276, 277 
 
 Steamer stopovers, 41 
 
 "Stickerei," 226 
 
 Stone posts for cattle, 71 
 
 Stoves of stone: in the Dolomites, 241; in Liechtenstein, n 
 
 Stra, palace at, 306, 307 
 
 Strada d'Allemagna, 240 
 
 Stucco on houses, 295 
 
 Superstitions: of the Brenta, 296; of Normandy, 98 
 
 Taxes: a country exempt from, 208; curiously graded, in Luxem- 
 bourg, 151; unique, in Guernsey, 55 
 Tennyson's visit to the Scilly Islands, 36 
 Thatching of roofs, 92 
 Titian: in Cadore, 268-270; in Venice, 271 
 Toblach, 235, 237 
 "Toilers of the Sea," 53 
 Toledo, the, of Naples, 273 
 Touchstone found in Arden, 127 
 Touraine, 106 
 Town-crier, 27 
 
 Trains in Europe, 17, 103, 229 
 Trappist Monastery, 132 
 Tresco, island of, 25 
 Triangle, the Neutral, 158, 169, 173 
 Tristram and Ysolte, 35 
 Tropical England, 21 
 
 Ulm, 205 
 
 Under two kings, a country, 157 
 
 [319] 
 
Index 
 
 Vaduz, a capital of Europe, 207-210, 224 
 
 Valmarano, villa of, 297 
 
 Valognes, 84 
 
 Venetians on horseback, 288 
 
 Venice: approach by the Brenta, 285; the Dolomites from, 271; 
 
 timbers for, 243 
 Veronese, 271 
 Veteran of '48, 254 
 Vianden, 141, 148, 152 
 Vieille Montagne, 159 
 Villas : of the Brenta, 288, 294, 297 ; of Valmarano, 297 ; of Venetians, 
 
 286 
 
 Waal, the, 185, 186 
 
 Walloon spoken, 119 
 
 Walloons, 130 
 
 Washing in Normandy, 80 
 
 Water approach to Venice, the old, 285 
 
 Watertochtjes in Holland, 175-188 
 
 Weddings: in the Cotentin, 100; in the Dolomites, 248; in Luxem- 
 bourg, 144; in Rothenburg, 194; where Chaucer, Petrarch, and 
 Froissart were guests, 289 
 
 Whipping in Guernsey, 51 
 
 WiHiam the Conquerer: "taking a fool's advice," 84; the father 
 of, 8 1 
 
 William Tell, a modern, visited at his home, 252 
 
 Winter in the Alps, 228 
 
 Women: in Moresnet, 173; in Normandy, 75 
 
 Wrecks on the Scilly Islands, 28-32, 37-39 
 
 Yew tree, very old, in Normandy, 95 
 Zuyder Zee, 175 
 
 [320] 
 
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