UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 r^.. i"' ■ •' 

 
 UNIFORM WITH "ARCTIC SUNBEAMS' 
 
 ORIENT SUNBEAMS 
 
 From the Porte to the Pyramids 
 
 BY WAY OF 
 
 PALESTINE 
 
 SAMUEL S. COX 
 
 ILLUSTRATED
 
 rM,..-,„tf'V. 
 
 
 f i 
 
 m.i 

 
 Arctic Sunbeams: 
 
 BROADWAY TO THE BOSPHORUS 
 
 BY WAY OF 
 
 THE NORTH CAPE 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL S. gOX, 
 
 Author of "Buckeye Abroad," ''Eight Years in Congress," "Winter Sunbeams,' 
 " Why wb Laugh," "Free Land and Free Trade," Etc. 
 
 ■ Lonely a Pine tree grand. 
 
 Decked round with ice and snow, 
 On far and Northern heights did stand. 
 He slept and dreamed and lo ! 
 
 A Palm's tall image bright. 
 
 Into his dreams was borne, 
 That far, far South on sun-scorched height. 
 
 Lonely and sad did mourn." 
 
 — Heine. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 27 AND 2g West 23D Street 
 
 18S2
 
 Copyright, 
 By G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
 
 1
 
 ^ow/iU'metiu o/ 
 
 ''4. # cJi-u. @f <^. 
 
 i'ty.'Z 
 
 NEir YORK, APRIL. iSSz
 
 Dd16 
 
 V.I 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME 1 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Holland — The People, -Customs, Dykes, Fields, Streets, and Evidences 
 
 of Industry and Thrift — A Fishing Village — The Hague i 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 Holland — Leyden and Haarlem — Aspect of the Archipelago g 
 
 CHAPTER IH. 
 
 Amsterdam — Its People, Industries, and Quaint Customs — A Visit to the 
 
 Palace 24 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Dutch Pictures, Farms, Cheese, Factories, and Bible House — Opulence 
 
 of Holland. 34 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 On the Way to the Far North — From Holland to Denmark, and from 
 
 Copenhagen to Christiania, Norway 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Norway — The Ancient Capital and Majestic Scenery — The Sun in its 
 Unsinking Course around the Horizon — In the Old Capital of Lap- 
 land 63
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Within the Arctic Circle — In Quest of the Midnight Sim — A Theatre 
 in Norwegian Lapland — A Wedding in Tromsoe — The Eider Duck 
 — Northernmost City of Europe — Off for the Open Arctic Sea. ... 85 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 The Sun as a Night Orb — Arctic Scenes at the Cape lOO 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Returning from Lapland — Sunday Services within the Arctic Circle — 
 
 A Fourth of July Celebration — Pictures of the Norwegian Coast . . 116 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Skeletons of Vessels a Thousand Years Old 134 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Mountains of Norway — Pilgrimage to the Fosses — The Glories and 
 
 Damsels of Ringerike 147 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 More Mountain Experiences — Conservative Norway — Scholars and Dia- 
 lects 165 
 
 CHAPTER XHI. 
 
 Norway — Its Old Churches and j^sthetics — Laws and Manners 178 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Sweden — Its Capital, Museums, and Mounds r88 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Land of the Finns — Their Origin, Customs, Manners, and Life.. . 204
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PACE 
 
 The Land of the Czar — A Cily of Palaces and Cluirchcs — Costumes 
 and Customs — The Mincralogical Academy — Museum of Art — 
 Tombs of the Dead Czars — The Cossack of History 222 
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 
 The City of Palaces — A Visit to the Churches — The Spot where the 
 Czar was Killed — The Great Monolith, and other Monuments — 
 Songs of the Soldiers — Excursions — Laboring Men and Wages. . . . 244 
 
 CHAPTER XVHI. 
 Lower Life in Russia — Death and Life — Birth and Burial 255 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Peterhoff — Its Pleasures and Palaces — Its Regalities and Riches 266 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 From St. Petersburg to Moscow — The Country between — The Capi- 
 tal of the Russian Greek Church — John the Terrible 287 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 In the Heart of Cathedrals and Relics of Moscow — Fairs and Fighting 
 
 Grounds 296 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Eastern Church — Its Architectural Grandeurs in Russia 307 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Leaving Moscow — On to Odessa — Immense Grain Fields and Long 
 
 Levels — Freedom of Trade 317 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Odessa — Out of Russia — Steamers in Port — Afloat on the Euxine — 
 
 Glimpses of the Bosphorus 333
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The North Cape Frontispiece" 
 
 SCHEVENINGEN COSTUMES NEAR THE HAGUE 8 
 
 Christian II. of Denmark 56 
 
 Oscar Hall 62 
 
 Thorghatten, Coast of Norway 74 
 
 Hestmandsoe, Norway Fjord 82 
 
 Norwegian Bride and Groom 91 
 
 Carved Wooden Hut 160 
 
 honefoss 166 
 
 Hitterdal Church, Norway 180 
 
 Belt Wrestlers 194 
 
 Church of St. Basil, Moscow 294 
 
 ix
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 THE countries through which I have traveled 
 the past eight months, have already been thor- 
 oughly explored. This volume, and the one which 
 is to follow (" From the Porte to the Pyramids, 
 by way of Palestine"), pretend to no novelty in 
 research, description, or illustration. My humble 
 task is to invest the scenes therein pictured with 
 the interest which the author himself felt. The 
 book has, therefore, the simple and harmless ego- 
 tism of the author, and not the pretension of an 
 archaeologist or discoverer. The external views are 
 referable to the sensations of the writer. What- 
 ever seemed, and howsoever it seemed, that is 
 recorded. Driver and dragoman, camel and car, 
 fjord and mountain, mosque and minster, ruins and 
 institutions, are only accessories — the mise en scene 
 — in which the author is the actor. 
 
 In a year when such elaborate and graceful writ- 
 ers as Du Chaillu and Vincent have opened the 
 Scandinavian races for the instruction of the world, 
 a volume that presumes only to skim upon the 
 surface may not take much rank in literature ; but 
 it will, nevertheless, be an incentive for others to 
 follow with nicer heed and more careful prepara- 
 tion, from the Polar circle to the pyramids, that 
 round of travel, as to which the enthusiasm of the 
 writer may be pardoned, even when he aggrandizes
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 
 
 the objects of his observation by his own suscepti- 
 biHties. 
 
 Some of the scenes described have been revisited 
 after thirty years, and the pleasure of renewing under 
 new conditions and fresh auspices old memories, im- 
 parted additional charm to the personal prospective. 
 
 The elder world, from the midnight sun to the 
 isles gilded by eternal summer, can never cease to 
 be attractive. How this attraction may possibly 
 be enhanced, even by the insignificance of per- 
 sonal intrusion, the volume itself may show. 
 
 This volume and its successor comprehend a 
 travel in which some twelve different nationalities 
 are involved ; and each and all of them in process 
 of mutation, politically, socially, morally, and relig- 
 iously. The salient features of each of these races, 
 as they now appear, may be transferred to the page, 
 without detracting from the high standard which 
 literature exacts of its devotees. 
 
 This book opens in Holland ; for is not Holland 
 the vestibule of that active, fair-haired race whose 
 enterprises furnish material for so much of history, 
 and of whose achievements, from Northern Africa 
 to Northern Europe, civilization has made its cap- 
 ital boast ? Through Holland and into Scandinavia, 
 and thence into Finland and Russia, the door nat- 
 urally, and I may say, politically, opened to the 
 Orient. Within its enchanted chambers — from 
 Constantinople to Damascus, and from Damascus 
 to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Cairo — how 
 pleasant it was to revel In all the luxury of sentiment ! 
 
 This circle makes up the round, in which I have 
 set what random gems I found in the dust of dead 
 empire — gems already polished by the attrition of 
 time and the taste of accomplished writers.
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOLLAND-THE PEOPLE, CUSTOMS, DYKES, FIELDS, STREETS, 
 AND EVIDENCES OF INDUSTRY AND THRIFT— A FISHING 
 VILLAGE— THE HAGUE. 
 
 " In every bratich of human industry, these republicatis took the 
 
 lead. But the fotcndatiojt of the national wealth, 
 
 the source of the apparently fabulous poiver by which the re- 
 public had at last overthrown her gigantic antagonist, was the 
 ocean." — MOTLEY. 
 
 OUR first objective point of travel, was the arctic 
 circle and the unsetting sun. The usual mode 
 of reaching this point is over the North Sea from 
 Hull, England to Bergen, Norway. For many rea- 
 sons, among which comfort is not to be despised, a land 
 route is better. Starting on this route from Paris, 
 we halted on the tenth of June, at the Hague, in Hol- 
 land. We had a fortnight to spare, before taking 
 the steamer for the extreme north. Holland was 
 not the least eligible land for its occupation ; and the 
 Hague not the least attractive capital for its be- 
 Q^innino-. 
 
 We are apt to forget how much North America 
 and freedom, owe to Holland. In the early part of 
 the seventeenth century, Spain had a colony in 
 Florida, the English in Virginia, and the French in 
 Acadia; Spain, however, had Mexico and Peru, and
 
 2 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 her emperor had a motto stamped on the coin: Plus 
 Ulti<-a: At that time ..Spain held Holland, and con- 
 demhe'd'its 'industry " to ' ^iy nearly one half, or two 
 out of the five millions of gold-tribute which formed 
 her revenues. The seventeen provinces of Holland 
 had rescued the marsh from the sea, and led in lib- 
 eral trade and enlightened thought, even when in 
 durance to the Spanish power. Extortion and big- 
 otry drove them to revolt, and kept the fires of war 
 aflame for a century. Independence came after the 
 unequal struggle, and the " seven provinces " be- 
 came an acknowledged and potential Republic. Com- 
 merce was the main instrument in the struggle. One 
 hundred thousand sailors and three thousand ships 
 were no mean resource in the emergency of war or 
 the leadership in peace. How the enterprises of Hol- 
 land prospered, in the discovery of new passages and 
 fresh fields of trade and rule, the pages of her history 
 and the galleries of her pictures show. What part 
 she had in the discovery and settlement of North 
 America is a household story. Still it is true that 
 Holland is not so interesting to our people now as 
 when Washington Irving was better read. Before 
 Nieuw Amsterdam had fully emerged from its Dutch 
 chrysalis, and when cabbages had political as well as 
 social significance, Holland was a fruitful theme of lit- 
 erary exercise. Motley rescued its ancestral and na- 
 tional fame by his splendid history. His effort vvas 
 appreciated in Holland ; for we have just been look- 
 ing upon his pale portrait in the palace of the Hague, 
 where this scholarly republican appears alone amidst 
 royal pictures. 
 
 In England the same metamorphosis has taken 
 place. The " Dutchman King" is rarely referred to 
 as such, except when an Orange riot or procession
 
 HOLLAND. 3 
 
 is arousing- dead hates. Although many ot the old 
 \ iollandish names in New York have sunk beneatn 
 the influx of immigration and the advancement of 
 the time, "Helle-gat," "the Bouwery," " Xieuw 
 Jorck," and " Waal Street " remain, but with the 
 masses of our people their early history as well as 
 their philology and spelling are forgotten. Still, it 
 may be asserted that, unconsciously, the influence ot 
 Dutch manners, habits, laws, mottoes, symbols, and 
 civilization has still its salutary influence upon New 
 York City and State. From old Fort Orange (Al- 
 bany), along the meanderings of the Mohawk, and 
 down the majestic Hudson River, with its Dutch 
 name, the liberalities of trade and the liberty of con- 
 science went hand in hand, with that honesty and 
 prudence which furnish the best basis of human gov- 
 ernment and happiness. The burgomaster is a per- 
 sonage of the past, but the Stuyvesants, Opdykes, 
 Beeckmans, Van Vleecks, De Vrieses, De Peysters, 
 Segersons, and hundreds of Vans and Jans of high 
 and old renown still help to swell our City Directory, 
 while the sceptre of early enterprise, which made 
 Manhattan the emporium of trade, has not yet de- 
 parted. In our active life names of unmistakable 
 Dutch oricrin are found on the roster of civil and 
 military affairs, none the less honored because of 
 the lapse of time and the ferocity of competition. 
 Our streets, however dirty, still bear the names of 
 those whose pictures I have seen in the galleries 
 of Leyden, the Hague, and Haarlem. Old syndics 
 with familiar names and faces, too — admirals like 
 Van Ness and De Witt, and stalwart burgomasters, 
 with figures as full as were their lives with good 
 deeds — fairly speak from the canvas of Rembrandt, 
 Vandyck, Teniers, Rubens, Jan Steen, and Cuyp
 
 4 ' FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Van Sutphen's " Nederlandes Practycke " has 
 given way to other codes, not so simple and direct; 
 even as the good vroircu who gossipped with the 
 good dominie, has gone to the rearward. The 
 *' Stadt Herberg," or city tavern of the early Dutch 
 settlers of New York, gave way to a city hall on 
 Pearl Street, and that hall to another more beautiful, 
 if not more honest. The revels that were wont to 
 set its old tables and shake its old gables by their 
 roar may be now celebrated at Delmonico's. But 
 one thing remains, beyond all change — the spirit of 
 enlarged commerce, which had no bounds in the sev- 
 enteenth century; the determined patriotism which 
 allowed no taxation without representation, imported 
 from Holland, the inspiring Federal principle which 
 came from these lowlands, that " Unity makes might" 
 — Endraght inaakt maght — and the religious freedom 
 which, as early as the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, gave immunity from persecution to Jews, Bap- 
 tists, Quakers, and others who were victims of relig- 
 ious persecution in neighboring colonies. But why 
 recount these virtues from this standpoint ? Why, 
 except that at every turn here, in street and palace, 
 in home and gallery, in garden and on canal, in prov- 
 ince and city, these elemental thoughts are illustrated 
 in Old as they were carried out in New Nederlands ? 
 
 I have visited many lands and have studied the 
 constitutions and habits of diverse people from the 
 Orient to the Occident; but never have I enjoyed 
 more a week of travel and observation than this week 
 in Holland. Of course there must be some personal 
 reason for it. It is not because of my blood exactly. 
 Is not my Christian name Hebraic, my middle name 
 Celtic? — but I am not sure that my last name is not 
 Dutch. I remember to have read that some time be-
 
 HOLLAND. 5 
 
 tween the years 1 600 and 1 700 there was a terrible 
 contest in a New York court between Mrs. Geertruycl 
 de Witt, the miller's wife, and Mrs. Anneken Kocks 
 — the latter bein<r accused of striking the former and 
 calling;' her husband a cuckoo ! What there was ac- 
 tionable in the " call," and whether this last lady 
 was of akin to my folks, I cannot say, but doubtless 
 their descendants have long since made it up over 
 " schnapps," and I bear no malice for the persecution 
 of my supposititious ancestress. But I do affirm, on 
 authority, that my paternal grandmother, of a Jersey 
 Dutch locality, was nigh unto the Bogarduses, and, 
 consequently, I am one of the thousand heirs of An- 
 neke Jans, and one of the owners of Trinity Church 
 and its beloneines. 
 
 Seriously, what an empire has been created over 
 sea and land by this little tract of rescued country, 
 over most of which I looked from the steeple of an 
 old town hall to-day ! One hundred by one hundred 
 and fifty miles — that is all in area, and a little over 
 thirteen thousand square miles, not as large as some 
 of our counties; and a population of four millions, not 
 as much as New York. I have been in some churches 
 here where the fioor is many feet below the sea 
 level, and I can see from my window as I write, the 
 artificial mounds which keep the sea from inundating 
 the smiling lands. Everywhere, too, are seen the evi- 
 dences of industry, as well upon the soil as in the 
 making of the network of canals. This city is itself a 
 Venice of canals, only it has what Venice has not — 
 splendid streets and avenues. The climate here, so 
 far as we have experienced, is cool and moist, and, 
 like the Dutch temperament, it is pretty steady. 
 Each one of the cities is a model of cleanliness, 
 which we could not help but notice. One town
 
 6 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 which we saw yesterday is so clean, or was, that 
 the people require even the king to take off his shoes 
 before he enters, and each householder has to abide 
 by the same rule. The Dutch costumes remain as 
 picturesque as when Wouverman, Steen, Gerard 
 Douw, Vandervelve, and others pictured them two 
 hundred years ago, painting them in all their details. 
 W' e could hardly keep our eyes from a too forward 
 stare at the remarkable head-dresses which we ob- 
 served, especially at Scheveningen and other fishing 
 villages. This head-dress is not confined to the 
 country, for we have seen it in the cafes and con- 
 certs, and upon the heads of fine ladies everywhere. 
 One should not omit a proper mention of these 
 " cuirasses of the head," as our guide calls them. 
 
 We passed the frontier of Belgium and Holland 
 last Tuesday at Rosenthal, running through from 
 Paris to the Hague in one day. There are a hun- 
 dred thousand and more of people in the Hague. 
 It is near the German Ocean, to which there is a 
 drive through avenues of beautiful trees. It is a su- 
 perb city, and is the true capital, though the Amster- 
 dam people only regard it as the royal residence. 
 Still, the foreign ministers are there, as well as the 
 national legislature, and the memories of the great 
 days of Holland in the seventeenth century are here 
 perpetuated. Near by the hotel where we lodge, 
 is a splendid forest of the finest trees. Tall oaks, 
 lindens, and beeches make the wood almost dark, 
 with only occasional checkered lights from the sky 
 above. As we drive in the morning under its miles 
 of overarching foliage, over elegant roads, to the 
 House in the Wood, the nightingales are singing, as 
 if evening were at hand. This is a famous drive and 
 promenade. It reminds m(i of the splendid woods
 
 HOLLAND. 7 
 
 near the Alhambra, on the hills which rise above 
 Grenada, except that the Dutch forest is on a flat 
 level, and surrounded and bisected with canals, where 
 golden fish swim and the lazy swans and boats are 
 seen to glide. The late queen lived in this House in 
 the Wood. It is full of gems of art of all kinds, witli 
 characteristic paintings. It has one superb chamber, 
 specially painted to celebrate the life, from his birth to 
 his marriage, and even to his death, of Frederick Hen- 
 ry, the king of the best days of Holland. The rooms, 
 with their Chinese and Japanese decorations, remind 
 one of the time when, before American or English ven- 
 tures into far-off Cathay, the Dutch had the monopoly 
 of the spice, coffee, tea, and silk trade of the far East. 
 
 As we drive about these roads in the wood we meet 
 by day but few people; now and then a black-dressed 
 hussar, or a Boer (a peasant), now a famous word in the 
 vocabulary of heroism, who with his wooden shoe — or 
 klump — goes awkwardly about his daily routine of la- 
 bor. Here and there, we hear the dissonant voice of 
 the rook, high up in the trees above. I suppose they 
 are rooks, though our guide called them " wood-crows." 
 In the evenincr we are invited to a concert pfiven for a 
 charitable purpose, at the cafe in the woods. Here 
 we see some 10,000 people in and out of the enclos- 
 ure, and witness the rapture with which these austere 
 Hollanders welcome the choicest music. 
 
 Before leaving the Hague we visited the fishing 
 village of Scheveningen. It has about 9,000 inhabi- 
 tants. It is the Manhattan Beach, Biarritz or Brighton 
 of the gay Hollanders, as well as a fishing village, where 
 the ancient ways of the Dutch are preserved. The 
 road to it is wide. It is paved with brick. The bricks 
 are hard-burned and set on edge. They make a clean 
 street. In fact the road from the Haeue to Amster-
 
 8 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 dam is of brick, fifty miles long, and as perfect a piece 
 of work as one could wish. A tramway, as well as 
 canal, runs from the Haofue to this village of Sche- 
 veningen. It has one peculiar historic event. It was 
 here that Charles the Second embarked for England, 
 when Cromwell was through with his business. 
 
 This village made me think of the sumptuous ho- 
 tels and villas of our Atlantic coasts. It combines 
 Long Island with Long Branch, both in its sumptuous 
 appointments for the summer season and its cheap 
 tariff of prices for the poor. Here the costumes and 
 the klump-shoe are in all their perfection of oddity, and 
 here the nobility resort for comfort in the dog days. 
 
 SCHEVENINGEN COSTt.Ml s, ;a;AK THE HAGUE.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOLLAND, LEYDEN, AND HAARLEM— ASPECT OF THE ARCHI- 
 PELAGO. 
 
 "Napoleon said it was an alluvion of French rivers; atid with 
 this pretext he added it to the empire. One writer has defined ii 
 as a sort of transition between land and sea. Another, as an im- 
 mense crust of earth, floating on the water. Others, a measure- 
 less raft of mud atid sand; and Philip II. called it the country 
 nearest to hell." — Edmondo DE Amicis. 
 
 THE spelling of Holland, sometimes seems elabo- 
 rate. It abounds in duplicate vowels, for eu- 
 phony. Our ride to Leyden and Haarlem, suggests 
 three consonants, if not four c's — canals, commerce, 
 cattle, and cheese; and I might add another letter, 
 for flowers — or to be particular, tulips. We took 
 these cities, which the Spaniards could not do 
 three hundred years ago — without an effort. These 
 two sample cities are not unlike, and the country 
 is monotonous between them. The waters of the 
 Atlantic, coming through the English Channel, meet 
 those of the North Sea, but in all their conflicts 
 they cannot overcome the western coast of Hol- 
 land — if coast that may be called which is made 
 by the hand of man in piling up the moles against 
 the inroads of the river and sea. But even this 
 is not a good suggestive description of the labors 
 of the Hollander. If you will look at the map, 
 you will perceive that the rivers which, like the
 
 10 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Rhine, have their fountains in the high Alpine ranges 
 of Europe, debouch here. The Rhine, or "land 
 water," being higher than this sea water, fills all these 
 lowlands, or would, but for the forces which man 
 has harnessed to pump it out ! Everywhere we see 
 windmills by the hundred. They are picturesque. 
 They, like the storks, relieve the level landscape. 
 They are not as useful as they are beautiful; nor as 
 useful now as they used to be. It has been found 
 that steam power, being steadier than wind, is indis- 
 pensable to the labor of lifting the water from the 
 meadows, where it lies in the thousands of artificial 
 drains and ditches, into the numerous canals, by 
 which it is borne to the sea, and poured in at low 
 tide. Hence, you can see how it is that canals are 
 so easily made here; and why, for navigation as well 
 as for agricultural purposes, they are a part of Dutch 
 prosperity. 
 
 All the waters of the Rhine do not reach 
 the sea from one mouth. If it were so, Holland 
 would be under water. But, as the Bible says 
 about the waters in Oriental lands, " The Lord di- 
 videth the waters, to prevent the overflow thereof," 
 so as to save the land for other purposes than sea 
 bottoms. A general survey from an eminence of this 
 remarkable archipelago, gives the effect more rather 
 of a water view, with occasional flat, green spots 
 above the surface, and here and there dotted with 
 beautiful cities with red-tiled houses and pointed 
 spires. Indeed, as far up as the coasts of Den- 
 mark, the North Sea has had a struggle with the 
 land, the evidence of which is seen in the canals as 
 far inland as Bremen and Hamburg, including the 
 coasts of Schleswig-Holstein and Jutland. 
 
 We go to Leyden first from the Hague — a short
 
 //OLf.AXD. II 
 
 ride by rail. Lc)dcn has about forty thousand peo- 
 ple. It is cut up by the Rhine into islands, connected 
 by stone bridi^es. It is hard to tell which is river and 
 which canal, for there is quiet, utilized water every- 
 where. It was easy here to surround the city by a 
 moat against the Spanish attack. Indeed, it is one 
 of the heroics of these brave Dutchmen many years 
 ago, related by the muse of tradition, that a prince of 
 Orange relieved the siege of the city by inundating 
 the country and sending off the Spanish army to dry 
 and distant spots. Leyden is called the Dutch Athens. 
 It is the seat of Dutch culture. It is not so aesthetic 
 as Boston. One cannot be transcendental amidst the 
 lowlands; and yet what exquisite pictures these early 
 Dutch artists portrayed, and how the rich men of later 
 times have hoarded them as precious beyond rubies. 
 Leyden gave itself a good deal to physics. Its uni- 
 versity, even now, shows many souvenirs of past suc- 
 cesses in the inductive sciences, and thither, on reach- 
 ing the city, we wended our way. Did not much of 
 the splendid scholarship and undaunted faith which 
 emigrated to our new world come from this honored 
 school? What was it in our old city oi Nieuw Ain- 
 sterdani that tamed the roysterers and swash-bucklers, 
 and eave erace and goodness to those early colonial 
 years ? Is proof wanted as to how much we owe to 
 Leyden University ? Is it not recorded and verified, 
 that the best of the Dutch clergy were of Leyden, and 
 setded in New Netherlands? Were they not trained 
 in these very walls ? How odd it is that so many of 
 these scholars dropped their Dutch names to take 
 upon themselves Latinized names ? There was Car- 
 olius Curtius, who had such a fine classical school in 
 Niciiw Amsterdam that pupils came to it, from Al- 
 bany (Port Orange), Delaware, and Virginia. Not to
 
 12 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 speak of the Doctors of Divinity — what a corps of 
 medical men came out of Leyden to cure the diseases 
 of early N'iciiw Amsterdam ! There was Jan Croon, 
 Vander Bogaert, Aldart Swarthout, Jacob Hendrick- 
 son, and other names familiar to my own first "Jersey 
 Dutch" constituency, when I represented the West 
 side. Under such recollections, Leyden is not to be 
 despised as a nursery of New York, Medicine was 
 not the only science of Leyden. Many a Leyden jar 
 has been broken by experiments in the laboratory of 
 science, and many a joke cracked at the expense of 
 Leyden professors. Indeed, the first object we see 
 on enterincr the ancient colleofe is a arim charcoal 
 sketch upon the walls as we go up the stairs to the 
 hall of examination. It is not in the highest style of 
 Dutch art, but it seems to show that the old sense 
 of fun which made these walls ring when the Rip Van 
 Winkles were at their schnapps hundreds of years ago, 
 still remains. This picture is entitled " The Grade to 
 Parnassus." The first personage is a fat professor, 
 with arms raised, blessing a callow youth just matric- 
 ulated. Then there is a quotation on the door of ex- 
 amination from Dante, indicating that he who enters 
 here leaves hope without. Then, there are pictures 
 of two students, one in the vocative, for has he not 
 failed ? — the other hilarious, for he has succeeded. 
 Then the successful one is seen rushino- homeward to 
 meet his happy " fader und mudder," who also rush 
 with outstretched arms to greet him ; but just there a 
 bear (the name for the " fees " of study) intervenes to 
 dampen the joy; and so on, with much of that lively 
 and homely wit for which the Dutch school in paint- 
 ing is famous, and for which Jan Steen is celebrated. 
 Connected with the university is a garden where all 
 the flowers and plants which Holland gathers from
 
 HOLLAND. 13 
 
 her possessions are to be found. Java, Sumatra, 
 and Japan are represented. The grounds are beau- 
 tiful. The trees and shrubs are in flower. The dark 
 red beech, in fact, beeches of every kind — a classic 
 tree, under which these scholars repose — are here. 
 Some are drooping in willowy grace. Here and there 
 are busts of professors of note, and among them the 
 learned Linnaeus, decorated with a flower named after 
 himself and of which he was the discoverer. 
 
 There is a better way of seeing these Dutch cities 
 than within college walls or botanical gardens. You 
 may go, as we did, to the old round-tower or prison 
 — as old as the beginning of the Christian era. It 
 overlooks the city. It is hardly a ruin yet. It is 
 called the Bourg, and there is a tavern at its foot. 
 Within a quaint court- yard are coops for chickens. 
 They are being fattened for the table. Plenty of 
 edible attractions are inside. But the museum of 
 Leyden is most interesting; not alone for its pictures 
 by the best Dutch masters, but for its old customs 
 here preserved. The old standards of measurement 
 are here, beneath pictures of the syndics and burgo- 
 masters who administered the city three hundred 
 years ago. The custodian thought these standards 
 still obtained, and when I explained that astronomy 
 had found the exact distance from the equator to the 
 pole, and constructed a yardstick that was infallible, 
 he cudorelled his brain and enlarged on the ancient 
 woollen advantages of Leyden; and yet a mathemati- 
 cal professor of Leyden, Willebrod Snellurs, it was, 
 who first introduced the true method of measuring 
 latitude and longitude. Pictures representing every 
 stage of woollen manufacture, from the shearing of the 
 sheep to the carding and weaving and testing of the 
 fabric, hung on the walls, while the officials who gave
 
 14 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 to the regulations their cogency, looked clown upon 
 us in chiaro-osciiro, worthy of Rembrandt's compeers. 
 Here was a model of fish in copper, showing how big 
 it must be to be cauo^ht — a law which Professor Baird 
 and Seth Green would approve. Here was a meas- 
 ure for the size of the netting — a most valuable ad- 
 vance on our Lonof Island customs in fishine. of recent 
 date. Here were stamped leaden permits to fish, as 
 well as other symbols of license to carry on other em- 
 ployments. Here were all sorts of measures, from 
 bushels to pints, as standards, and wooden potatoes, 
 too, of a certain size, below which it was illesfal to 
 sell. In a glass case were letters carried by pigeons 
 in the time of the siege; and a goblet with the faintest 
 of delicate angels cut upon it by diamond, the only 
 cup of the kind in the world. A map of Hol- 
 land hunof before us in needlework. It cost twelve 
 guilders (as we were told) a meter to make it, while the 
 same work, per meter, would now cost four thousand 
 guilders, an illustration of progress since the middle 
 of the sixteenth century. Our attention is called to a 
 plat of Leyden, on copper, six feet square. Upon this 
 every bit of water and land was marked off, and no 
 one could buy or sell land without a caveat from this 
 standing and permanent witness. In yonder case we 
 find what we have lonofed to see, the famous touch- 
 stone. It bears upon it gold and silver marks, and 
 black ones, too, as evidence that as a detector of 
 counterfeits it has served in its day. We find in this 
 museum much depicted about the siege and the suf- 
 terings of the plucky people; and later, the gold keys 
 Napoleon presented to the city as emblematic of that 
 freedom which he accorded to the cities where his 
 brother Louis was, by his imperial grace, made king. 
 Leaving behind us the " largest topaz in the world,"
 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 »5 
 
 in the Museum of Natural History, and a piece of 
 native i^olcl, seventeen pounds, and other such sports 
 of nature, we bid g-ood-by to Leyden, and for half 
 an hour survey the black and white cattle upon the 
 oreen meadows, the succession of windmills, the sheep 
 huddling in groups in the cold air, albeit just shorn, 
 the canals at every angle, with their boats under slow 
 sail, until we reach the river Spaarn, or rather the 
 depot, and are in old Haarlem ! 
 
 Our first duty is dinner, and we are quickly driven 
 to the hotel. Thoughts of our modern New York 
 Harlem follow us through the quaint streets. The 
 strange people in their wooden klomps {sabots in 
 French); the odd little children, such as we see, prim 
 and premature, upon Dutch clocks; the peculiar ga- 
 bles and signs, and above all the canals everywhere, 
 make the picture as full of contrasts as any word- 
 painter could desire. That little Dutch boy in his 
 wooden shoes, is he not a little Vanderbilt making 
 tracks in Harlem ? Are there not infantile republi- 
 can orators making speeches to their confederates 
 around a fruit-stand; rosy Roosevelts shouldering 
 their poles and swishing their lines, to show how 
 fish are caught; juvenile Rip Van Winkles asleep 
 upon the grass, while little Gretchens hover around 
 like fair-haired angels in elaborate womanly attire; 
 possible capitalists building banks in sand — not as 
 substantial as those their big brothers have built in 
 New Amsterdam, — and big, burly Dutchmen and 
 Dutchwomen at every turn, showing that, exhaus- 
 tive as emigration may be to these old countries, 
 there are resources not yet beginning to be ex- 
 hausted ! 
 
 What a language they speak ! If it be founded 
 on the same elements as the German, Eno;^lish,
 
 1 6 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 and Scandinavian, it has a softer sound. It doubt- 
 less was mellowed by the Spanish rule in spite of 
 all enmities, just as the population, with its fair 
 proportion of dark hair and Andalusian black eyes, 
 has been, as the pictures of the museums show, 
 more or less mingled with Southern blood. The old 
 root of our common tongue, which " never had a 
 syllable of slavery " — is everywhere apparent. The 
 words with which we are familiar from childhood are 
 here, but so curiously spelled. All my prejudices 
 against Mr. Artemus Ward, Mr. Joshua Billings, and 
 our sarcastic friend Nasby are fast vanishing. My 
 love of philology reads every sign, and even the 
 proper names seem to be familiar. We enter the 
 hotel. We are tempted to register our names as 
 from Harlem, New York. There is much room in 
 the register for such aberrations. Are there not 
 seven columns, as big as a census schedule, for some 
 purpose ? There is the Naaui en Focnaani; Beroep; 
 Gezvone Woonplaats; Plaats van Waar zig Komen; 
 Waneer aangckomen; Plaats iverwaarts zig gaan; Bij 
 weinbinner dcze stad bckojid, etc. I seek a transla- 
 tor. French and English fail in this hotel. At last, 
 assured that under one of these heads I must write 
 down my business, standing, or something, I write 
 " member of Consfress " from Nieuiu Amsterdam, 
 with an ita/ic on the last syllable. We are enter- 
 tained in princely style in old Haarlem; is it because 
 we are solons ? We are not long at dinner, as this 
 is the day the big organ with its five thousand pipes 
 and sixty stops is to play. 
 
 We hasten to the church. It is called St. Bavon 
 (John). The church is Gothic; with a vastness 
 wliich is increased by the lofty square tower, from 
 which one can easily see over most of this low
 
 IIOLLAXD. 17 
 
 country, from the Hague to Utrecht. Like nearly 
 all of these splendid structures, this church is of 
 Catholic origin, though it is now Protestant — the 
 dominant religion. The pillars are not fluted, but, 
 having been " cleaned off" to some extent, rare fres- 
 cos, in rich colors, illustrating old events in Catholic 
 history, come to the light. But there is little decora- 
 tion besides, except the organ itself, which fills up 
 one end of the vast building, reaching to its vault. 
 It is supported by marble pillars. It is painted 
 white, and is in unison with the white marble figures 
 and the simplicity of the interior. The coat of arms 
 of Haarlem is a crown, sword, and four stars, and the 
 motto three V's — Vincit vim virtus. This appears 
 above the or^an. On either side are efficfies of Da- 
 vid, with his harp, and other symbols of melody. 
 Some of the imagfes are lions — more harmonious 
 than those of the zoological garden. The pulpit 
 is richly carved, and the windows let in some relig- 
 ious light. This cathedral does not, however, equal 
 the English minsters and Catholic basilicas. All is 
 severe compared with what is seen in Spain and 
 Italy, or at Westminster and Winchester. Hanging 
 up is an advertisement of " Psalm and verse " for 
 next Sunday. Beneath us, as we walk, are tombs ot 
 granite, half worn, showing sometimes date and name 
 and heraldic devices. The ceiling above is oaken 
 and unpainted. There are galleries, supported by 
 porphyry columns. They seem like cloisters. The 
 chairs are plain, with here and there some high pews 
 for the rich. Hanofinof between the bio- columns are 
 three or four ships, models of some of those historic 
 " seventy-fours," famous in Dutch sea-fights. They 
 hang over the tomb of Admiral De Ruyter. We see 
 signs, even in the frescos upon the stone of pillars,
 
 1 8 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 of a kind of drapery, which has its counterpart on 
 every festal day in Spain, hanging in gold and scarlet 
 from thousands of balconies. Near the middle of the 
 church are some iron-bound chests, with immense 
 locks, and a hole in the top for contributions, for the 
 poor. They are opened on New Year's Day, and 
 are evidently locomotive, as they rest on sleds and 
 can be pulled around. 
 
 But hark! The Qrreat orcfan begins its slow, sweet 
 melody. Slowly and deftly the strands of sound are 
 intertwisted, like the colors of the spectrum, and at 
 last the music bursts forth in a full flood of diapason. 
 One cannot say it peals; it is too musical for thun- 
 der, but it swells in choral grandeur, bearing its sym- 
 phonies with the soul upward through and above the 
 vaulted roofs to the bright blue heaven beyond. 
 
 We linger so long, spellbound by the magic of 
 this music, that we forget that the museums are clos- 
 ing, and so content ourselves with a visit to the ex- 
 tensive gardens of the largest company at this mart 
 of flowers. When tulips sold for two thousand dol- 
 lars a bulb, and the mania was at its height, Haarlem 
 was the capital of the craze. She made the most by 
 it. Even yet the horticulturist, whose grounds we 
 visited, exports crocuses, hyacinths, ranunculuses, and 
 tulips by the hundred thousand. The gambling in 
 these natural beauties is only a reminiscence of a 
 huge and costly joke. The proper medium for esti- 
 mating the horticultural and agricultural wealth of 
 Holland, is through her pre-eminence in hydraulics 
 and hydrostatics. Did she not transform water into 
 land ? Did she not make her " submarine horti- 
 culture the despair of all gardeners in the world ? " 
 
 The rest of our day in Haarlem is spent in driving 
 about for observation of its odd customs. There is
 
 HOLLAND. 19 
 
 nothing laughable intrinsically in costumes and cus- 
 toms. What may seem odd to us, in the national pe- 
 culiarities, is certainly not so to other folk; and vice 
 versa. Yet there are many curious things in old 
 Haarlem, which we look for in vain in new Harlem. 
 Some of these might be copied by us with advan- 
 tage ; the charities, for instance. We observe an 
 orphan asylum. It bears date about the time Vir- 
 ginia was setded by John Smith. It has an odd sign 
 over the door. It is a cage full of little children. 
 Out of the cage come the beneficiaries. How strange- 
 ly dressed are the orphan boys and girls we see upon 
 the streets, dressed half black and half red; the boys 
 like the circus clown, one leg and arm of one color, 
 and the other of another ; the girls have bodices of 
 black and petticoats of red. These Dutch are the 
 very Pirates of Penzance in their respect to orphans ! 
 We have seen some odd symbols in the museums 
 here. To instance: as the sign that it is the last of 
 a family, a reaper and a death's head is painted 
 black. I am thirsty and want a drink — of water. 
 Outside of a wall is a heavy iron handle with an 
 enormous iron bulb at its end. I see a spout only, 
 and ply the handle, no pump appearing. Some little 
 Dutch yonkers had a laugh at my awkwardness at 
 handling the machine; but as the water is not — safe 
 here I desisted. The signs over the shops are unique. 
 A barber is indicated by a shining brass bowl hung 
 up in front of his shop; an apothecary by the wry 
 face of a man carved in wood with his tongue out ! 
 Venedan blinds are on the inside and outside of the 
 windows, and before many windows on the outside 
 are mirrors so arranged that the unseen inmates may 
 see all that passes in the street. Cigar-shops are as 
 common as beer and schnapps-shops. Every one
 
 20 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 smokes, from five years old upward — I mean of the 
 sterner sex — and every one of both sexes drinks, 
 and yet we see no one intoxicated. There are no 
 tramps in Holland. We often see warehouses in 
 our own country with a projection from the roof, 
 from which depends a hook to haul up by pulley- 
 power, such merchandise and things as need stor- 
 age. Here, many private houses are thus accoutred. 
 This is not more outre than the niourning habili- 
 ments, where the hired undertaker and his sad people 
 wear long black veils from their caps and white rib- 
 bons, besides being- adorned on the lee to the shanks 
 with tights and shoe-buckles. They seem to mourn 
 over the deceased without a '' dejected 'havior of the 
 visage, or fruitful river of the eye." We observe a 
 peculiar vehicle upon the street, a large yellow wagon. 
 It would make a sensation in new Harlem. What 
 is it ? No less than the omnibus for collecting dirty 
 clothes to wash; for be it known that Haarlem washes 
 for most of Holland. The Dutch have an abundance 
 of linen and clothes for wear and sleeping, and they 
 wash at lono^ intervals. Haarlem washes for the kino^- 
 dom. Haarlem is entitled to its prominence as the 
 capital washer. No Chinese need apply there. Every- 
 thing is painfully neat, especially the streets. There 
 are no towns, unless it be those gems of villages on the 
 Isle of Wight, to compare in exquisite, dainty cleanli- 
 ness with these places of Holland. They do not burn 
 wood or coal, but peat. This is dug out of the soil in 
 great quantities, and brought by canal to the towns and 
 cities. Everywhere we see alternating with the white 
 fleecy sheep, black and white spotted cows, and the 
 green fields, — the dark and watery peat- beds and piles. 
 They are as much of a Dutch feature as the wooden 
 shoes, the melancholy stork, or the windmill.
 
 HOLLAND. 21 
 
 These are but the faint etchings of the Maar- 
 lem and its environs whicli we glanced at, and whose 
 interior hfe we had no time to see. It is not a large 
 city, having but 36,000 people; but it has its grand 
 annals, sung in lyric, recited in history, pictured on 
 canvas, and even reproduced by panorama. The pan- 
 orama represents the famous seven- months' siege in 
 1572 and 1573. When Spain had her empire under 
 Charles V. and Philip II., she worshipped no god 
 Terminus, and knew no boundary to her ambition. 
 Silver Peru and auriferous Mexico were honored by 
 her condescension, only to be despoiled. Holland 
 might vie with Spain for the wealth of the Indies, but 
 Spanish ambition sought to extend the sceptre of 
 Latin rule over these lowlands of the North. It was 
 commercial Cadiz versus active Amsterdam; splendid 
 Seville against industrious Haarlem; magnificent Mal- 
 aga against its rival of Rotterdam, and truce to none 
 who were in the fight. Sectarianism and a pride 
 of purple embittered this eighty-year conflict, but 
 self-government and the freedom of trade had their 
 banner in Holland, which neither Qfreed of eold nor 
 chivalry in armor could altogether suppress. 
 
 Ascend with me to the old Stadhuis or Town Hall 
 of Haarlem. Make the time, nunc pro tunc, in the 
 dead of winter 1572-3, with the piercing northern 
 blasts in full rigor. Look around; first, inside the 
 walls. You need not draw upon your fancy for the 
 picture. Dutch art has consecrated the patriotic hor- 
 rors of that time, and Dutch type (whose inventor 
 has here his monument) has handed down its stirring 
 tragedies. Men, women, and children wasted by 
 famine — not a thing left to eat; rats, cats, dogs, all 
 consumed; unyielding still, and even when the plague 
 comes as the consequence of famine, still unyielding.
 
 22 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 The last horse's head (the ilkistration here of desper- 
 ate hunger) is eaten; the infant is draining its last 
 drop of milk from the dead mother; six thousand 
 dead poison the air; and still the beleaguered city is 
 unconquered. Assault upon assault is made upon 
 the walls. The women of Haarlem pour hot oil upon 
 the Spanish host, and still the relentless captains 
 of the Duke of Alva press the siege. At last the be- 
 sieged grow desperate. They resolve to make a 
 sortie, and, if need be, die. The Spaniards hear of 
 this and offer pardon to all, if only fifty-seven of the 
 chief citizens are given up. The fifty-seven are 
 ready. The city is surrendered. But the terms are 
 violated, and 2,300 of the citizens are murdered — 
 three hundred of whom are tied back to back and 
 drowned in Haarlem Lake. Alas ! poor Haarlem. 
 Its 30,000 besiegers had conquered its garrison; but 
 not without feeling the force of heroic resistance by 
 women as well as men; for one woman, Kenau Has- 
 selaer, and her three hundred female soldiers, are al- 
 ready handed down by the muse of history and pic- 
 tured in the colors and portraiture of the best art of 
 this wonderful and picturesque land. 
 
 May I not, therefore, say of old Haarlem that the 
 women are fiehtinof characters ! Let him who thousfht- 
 lessly wives in Haarlem take heed ! Do I need to 
 read of the " desperate Sally " of the Haarlem siege ? 
 Is she a character easily to be wooed, or won, or 
 conquered ? If you are not chivalric enough to glow 
 over Motley's page which recounts this siege — if you 
 are of a mechanic turn and believe that the days of 
 chivalry and walled towns are gone — go with me 
 through the plantations and villas around Haarlem, 
 to see the famous engines which pumped out a thou- 
 sand million tons of water, and made out of the lake
 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 23 
 
 of Haarlem those beautiful and useful meadows of 
 green, where the black and white cows and the inno- 
 cent sheep now ruminate, and where Dutch cheeses, 
 by the million, are made out of stock which knows 
 no g-uilty waterino-, and where every wind that blows 
 turns a simple mill which Don Quixote, from Spain, 
 could not conquer, and which beats back at once the 
 river god of old Rhine and the classic god Neptune, 
 in their conspiracy to drown out this heroic land and 
 people.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AMSTERDAM— ITS PEOPLE, INDUSTRIES, AND QUAINT CUSTOMS 
 —A VISIT TO THE PALACE. 
 
 "From pictures past to present time, 
 Fro/)i city sight to rural scene 
 We turn, and docks laith bale and wine. 
 And fat, fresh fields of quiet kine, 
 Tliere shaded hamlets, quaint and clean; 
 And Holland' s race, bliijf and sublime, 
 Whose industry and force, I ween, 
 Have conquered ocean to maintain 
 A home beneath, as on the main." — T. C. Irwin. 
 
 MUCH the same scenery as I have described ap- 
 pears between the old city of Haarlem and 
 Amsterdam. The latter lies due east. It is crescent- 
 shaped. It is nominally situated upon the river Am- 
 stel, which empties into the Rhine; but really it is 
 placed upon the waters generally, being built, at im- 
 mense cost, upon 13,667 piles. In fact, it is on the 
 rescued bottom of the Zuyder Zee, or something 
 aqueous connected with that sea and its outlets. It 
 is said to be situated upon ninety islands; but no one 
 would guess where they lie, there are so many 
 bridges. In going toward it, upon a pleasant even- 
 ing in mid-June, we are ourselves happily situated for 
 observation. There is some reproach in travelling 
 " first class," but to have eight seats to yourself, and 
 two large windows and plenty of maps and books— 
 without any discomfort — one may enjoy domestic 
 tranquillity while on a travel of twenty miles an hour.
 
 HOLLAND. 25 
 
 Besides, in these low countries there is no obstacle 
 to sight. The pied cows are abroad by the thousand. 
 Many of them at least, and especially those which 
 give milk, are covered, as a precaution against the 
 night chills. They look comical in their gray coats. 
 The sheep have fleeces of gold, under the sunset ra- 
 diance, and little Jasons are watching them. The 
 meadows are equally golden with flowers, with here 
 and there light patches of sunlit cowslips; at least, we 
 take them to be such, as the cows are among them, 
 and are endeavoring, by chewing the cud of medita- 
 tion, to give a golden tinge to their product of milk, 
 cream, butter, and cheese. On every side are green 
 fields of flax and wheat, red-tiled hamlets and trim 
 spires. Waterways branch in every direction. The 
 windmills swing their long arms under the evening 
 breeze, as if weary with their daily work and longing 
 to rest. The canal-scows (how unromantic !), as if 
 touched with the contagion of ease, hardly seem to 
 move — at least, from our standpoint in the swift train. 
 At every pause you may see the thatched and red- 
 roofed cottages, as snug as your ideal of a home, and 
 around them, the lilacs in full bloom. 
 
 At last the red roofs and tall steeples of Amster- 
 dam appear. Soon we are at the Hotel Amstel, by 
 the broad river of that name. We have our supper 
 by the window outlooking upon the river. There is 
 a grand picture upon the stream, which does not go 
 to bed with the sun, and the sun does not retire here 
 now till about nine. This river is not so wide as the 
 Harlem River, New York, but from early morning 
 till long after nightfall, the industrious boats are pull- 
 ing up and down, or being poled, laden with peat, 
 hay, green grass, vegetables, furniture, and all the 
 products of town and country. It is said that twenty
 
 26 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 thousand of the three hundred thousand population 
 of Amsterdam, with tlieir famiHes, make houses of 
 their boats, as at Constantinople. It is not to be 
 wondered at, where so much of the highway is liquid. 
 Little haven steamers ply continually past our vision, 
 laden with passengers, for these are the omnibuses 
 of this northern Venice. A little battauL mouche (fly- 
 boat) lies at our wharf. It is the hotel boat, which is 
 hired as a carriage by the hour and bears the guests 
 about the city for a small sum. Across the river and 
 lining the quay are splendid houses, many-storied, 
 with the ofarniture of fresh summer in front and the 
 Dutch flae floatine from their roofs. This is our first 
 glimpse of this opulent northern city of the sea. This 
 glimpse is no revelation of its wonderful and complex 
 beauty, urban and suburban. No one but a Dutch 
 painter, with the native skill for fine portraiture of 
 every detail, could represent to the eye this city of 
 ramparts turned into promenades and boulevards, 
 narrow and broad streets, or little and big canals, and 
 of limited and unlimited views. If the American 
 think that he monopolizes the comforts of neat street- 
 cars, or if he think that the elevated trains are more 
 comfortable than the fleet conveyances of cities abroad, 
 let him observe the working of the tramways of Am- 
 sterdam and other Dutch cities. Not only are they 
 limited as to the number of passengers — sixteen in- 
 side, six in front, and six in the rear, and all ac- 
 commodated — but no one infringes the rule. At 
 every corner they give time to the incoming and 
 outgoing passenger; and their time of movement is 
 as reofular as that of a Dutch clock. It is useless 
 to remark upon the imiform cleanliness of the streets. 
 They are each and all alike as tidy as the best house- 
 wife could wish.
 
 HOLLAND. 27 
 
 Our first venture at sight-seeing was at tlic palace. 
 This is the most elegant and interesting structure in 
 the city. It has 13,000 piles under it, and is over 
 two hundred years old. The cupola is one hundred 
 and fifty feet high. The square upon which it fronts 
 is ornamented with an elegant monument. It marks 
 the original Dam! The square is called "The Dam." 
 No dam appears now, for the square is solid pave- 
 ment; but the various imagery of the monument con- 
 tributes to impress upon the beholder the fact that 
 the place has once been dammed. Excuse this "dam- 
 nable iteration," but one cannot picture Holland with- 
 out these expletives, which represent innocence as 
 well as utility. The proper place to start from, in 
 gathering your impression of Amsterdam, is the Dam. 
 Its palace is rich in art treasures. The father of the 
 French Emperor Louis Napoleon III. here lived, 
 when kino- of Holland. He converted this buildinof 
 into a palace. It was only the "dam town hall" be- 
 fore, and its custodians seem to take a pride in their 
 municipal memories, as they impress this local fact 
 on the visitor. The interior is of fine white marble, 
 and bas-reliefs over all the doors. Red, blue, and 
 yellow brocade hangings are upon the walls and 
 chairs. The chapel is all marble, and is superb. 
 With its high, domed roof, and throne at one end, 
 with old Atlas bearing up the world at the other, the 
 ball-hall has no equal. We passed into the ancient 
 Bankruptcy Court-room. Its pictures are character- 
 istic. One bas-relief shows how the rats have gnawed 
 the money-bags; and what with broken clasps and 
 locks, the bankrupt idea is portrayed to the eye. 
 Other paintings are patriotic. There is an attractive 
 one illustrating how Van Speyke blew up his ship, in 
 1830, rather than surrender it to the Belgians, on the
 
 28 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 division of the Netherlands. But why undertake to 
 catalogue the rare paintings in this or in other collec- 
 tions ? We have visited the famed private galleries, 
 those of De Horp, Van Loon, and Six, wherein are 
 gathered all the rarest works of the Dutch school. That 
 is a fine tribute to art which this city has given in the 
 splendid monument in one of its squares, to Rem- 
 brandt, who was born here. 
 
 One tires at the endless list of these indus- 
 trious artists. We see their works in Paris and 
 London, and I am told that at St. Petersburg 
 there are chambers dedicated to these particu- 
 lar Dutch genii. Teniers, Rubens, Vandyck, Wou- 
 verman, Dow, and others put in perpetual ap- 
 pearance here and elsewhere, wherever gold can buy 
 or taste appreciate the finest of fine art. Everywhere 
 you are haunted by Rembrandt, whose pictures are 
 said to be painted by a star on the night! Every- 
 where are Paul Potter's landscapes "sweet with 
 kine," and instinct with a love for the dumb life of 
 the field! Everywhere you meet the shining steel 
 and copper of the kitchen, and the rosy cheeks, yel- 
 low petticoats, stiff satin robes and rich laces, brown 
 cabinets and delicate china of Jan Steen. Every- 
 where, Vandervelde illustrates his marine views, — 
 bearing the flaming men-of-war and high argosies 
 of commerce! 
 
 But we are forgetting nature. Let us ascend to 
 the cupola of the palace, if only for a coup d'ceil of 
 the splendid city and its environs. An ancient warder, 
 over six feet high, in uniform, and with a deep bass 
 voice and speaking good English, is our guide. From 
 this " coign of vantage " in the cupola, may be seen, 
 to the east, the Zuyder Zee, fringed with a white surf, 
 and its connections. The green pastures alternate
 
 HOLLAND. 29 
 
 with the sparkling- waters as far as we can discern. 
 The towns of Zandam and Broeck (the cleanly) are 
 easily discernible a dozen miles away, while under 
 our eye is the monument I have remarked upon, to 
 the first "dam"; and on the other side is the rear 
 view of the bronze image of Atlas, on the palace 
 front, and the grand "New Church" (three hundred 
 years old) upon still another side of the square of 
 " the dam." The air blows keenly into the cupola 
 across these level lands from the Zuyder Zee, but it is 
 tinijed with the fracfrance of the interveninir mead- 
 ows. I ask our custodian how he warms the pal- 
 ace in winter, as I saw no evidences of caloric in the 
 halls or rooms. 
 
 "Oh! we carry bags of hot w^ater in our arms, 
 over our breasts — so!" 
 
 " Why don't you carry some schnapps inside your 
 breasts — so! and keep warm?" 
 
 "We do that, too," said our Hercules, with an in- 
 flammatory moisture of his eye and a ruddier tinge 
 to his nose at the fond recollection. 
 
 These free exchanges of convivial thoughts melt 
 the ice of reserve, and we become communicative, 
 only to be interrupted by the chime of forty-eight 
 bells playing some air from the opera of the " Prophet." 
 The big bell then strikes twelve, and we renew the 
 hiofh communications. Our conductor has been at a 
 loss as to our nationality. When he learns that 
 we are Americans, he becomes still more and more 
 communicative. He regrets that he did not thirty 
 years ago leave Holland for America. 
 
 " I had it all fixed with a companion," he said. " He 
 went alone. He is rich now in money and honors, 
 and is a senator! Here am I, only doing the honors 
 of a royal palace."
 
 30 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "you might have been rich too, 
 and honored, but you could not have been President. 
 You never drove a canal-boat!" 
 
 "What!" he said, somewhat dazed at my abrupt- 
 ness. " I was raised on a canal." 
 
 "Well, your children would have been eligible, but 
 our Constitution limits the office of President to na- 
 tive-born persons, and we have just elected a native 
 canal-boat driver to be President!" 
 
 He was not suspicious nor surprised at my re- 
 mark. Perhaps he was incredulous. I had some 
 doubts whether I was not guilty of some sort of 
 deception. 
 
 He led us around the cupola, and there we had a 
 clear view of Holland. " That," said he, pointing 
 westward to two towers on the horizon, " that is 
 Haarlem — Haarlem of the famous siecre ! ' 
 
 " We, too," I remarked, " have our Harlem, but 
 it is not so old or quiet, or, perhaps, so courageous 
 as yours. We," said I, thinking with pride of the 
 Dutch names of our early history, " we were once 
 NieiLiu Amsterdam. You beat us on the dams, but 
 we are ahead in population, if not in canals. It was 
 Avith chanfrin that we were transferred to the British 
 yoke from the Hollandish. We remained with our 
 step-mother till our da?jis got too frequent, and then 
 we set up for ourselves." 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a melancholy gleam of fun, 
 " everypody vat homes here talks of everyting being 
 dams, and they laughs." 
 
 To which I responded, inquiringly, " How many 
 dams have you got, anyhow ? " 
 
 " Dere's Amsten/^?;;/, and Rotterdam — " 
 
 " Yes, we know them ; these dams are household 
 words with us ! "
 
 HOLLAND. 31 
 
 " And Sclumlam, and Monnekdam, and Midam, 
 and Oosdam, and Zandam, and Schiedam." 
 
 "Oh! yes," I interrupted, "Schnapps — Schiedam?" 
 
 " Yah ! yah ! Everyti.n_o-s is dam." 
 
 " Any more ? " I asked anxiously. 
 
 " Opip^en^^;;/, and Wmne.nda)n, and Vo\\Qnda7n, 
 and \N\idani, and Y)Q.rgQ.rdajn / " 
 
 My wife here became horrified, remarking that she 
 believed I came to this country to do profanity with 
 impunity; for I had the old A-davt in me. I recon- 
 ciled her by the gende remark that she herself was a 
 dame; whereat the royal custodian, pointing down to 
 the monument, to the ovl^ fans et origo of all the dams, 
 again remarked: 
 
 " Every tings is dam, dam, dam ! " 
 
 Then we descended and started for the Zoological 
 Gardens. Remembering a menagerie bill, posted near 
 my rooms in Washington, where some swearing urchin 
 had changed " Adam Forepaugh the showman," into 
 " Dam Forepaugh," I concluded that profanity might 
 be associated even with such gentle associations as the 
 roarine Beneal tieer and the racrinor rhinoceros. Am- 
 sterdam is not less noted for her charities, than for her 
 zoological institution. The garden is superior to th-e 
 Zoo of London or the Jardin at Paris, at least in the 
 quality of its animals, if not the beauty of its grounds. 
 The animals with which we disported were very in- 
 teresting. They certainly, with one exception, seemed 
 to be favorably inclined to Americans. Loaded with 
 a variety of food for their gratification, we enjoyed the 
 monkeys, and then the hippopotami. There are two 
 of these pachydermatous mightinesses here; and we 
 are informed by their keeper that they are old mem- 
 bers of the association, being twenty-one years resi- 
 dent. They are quite tame, and the largest of their
 
 32 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 kind. The female has given birth to seventeen young 
 ones. Their keeper called them up to the bars, and, 
 on a signal, he opened their ponderous javv^s, while he 
 handled their adipose insides — gills, tongues, etc.-— as 
 far down as his arm could reach. I wanted to try 
 it, but my guardian angel, near, prevented. 
 
 " What would be said of you if you should lose 
 your arm in the jaw of a Dutch hippopotamus ? " 
 
 'T should be," I rejoined, "a one-armed Congress- 
 man; and if I ever ran again, how popular I should 
 be!" 
 
 On giving the keeper a guilder (forty cents), he 
 made them howl like the forty bulls of Bashan, 
 by a signal in an adjacent room. Twice he 
 did this, by thumping his wooden shoes on the 
 floor; the brutes being under water ! He must have 
 had some occult mechanism, by which he pricked 
 them from the other room. I suggested that a 
 pin in their tender dermis would answer the saga- 
 cious suspicion. But the elephant captivated us. He 
 took bread and coin in his trunk from us with equal 
 facility, depositing the bread in his mouth and the coin 
 in a box. He could tell the difference between a cop- 
 per and a silver coin. The former he treated with 
 contempt, the silver with as much tenderness as if he 
 were on the Monetary Conference. I tried some fa- 
 miliarities with a llama from South America. He 
 was willing to eat of my bread; but how did 
 he repay the kindness ? He spit at me, to the 
 utter disgust of the camel, who got up his back. But 
 pachydermata are not peculiar to Amsterdam, although 
 the facility of the Dutch for obtaining fine beasts from 
 their East Indian colonies is unequalled; and, being 
 Government importations, there is no protective tariff 
 upon them, as there is upon the elevated giraffe and
 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 Zl 
 
 four-handed anthropoids, widi which die American 
 }'outh arc pleased withal. 
 
 In a sketch of Amsterdam, it would not be out of 
 place to record our visit to the diamond-cutting- estab- 
 lishment. There diamond cuts diamond, after much 
 delicate employment of handiwork and machine work. 
 Literally, the dust of the diamond, the essential atomy 
 of the carbon, is used to cut out the flaws, and thus 
 illustrate the iris. How the diamond is polished by 
 its own dust is not altogether a moral or a rhetorical 
 performance; but with the acid of amalgamized zinc 
 and quicksilver and a quick revolving plate the con- 
 densed charcoal, which gleams so splendidly upon my 
 lady's parure, is here made to order by that alone 
 which is its parallel — its own infinitesimal crystals ! 
 
 Nor can I describe the ship-building, which, ever 
 since Peter the Great learned his trade in Holland, 
 has been carried on with more certainty and skill, not 
 to say permanency, than by our inventive and adven- 
 turous people. 
 
 If I had time, what pictures could be produced 
 of the flora which is here abundantly and tastefully 
 culti\'ated. For all this — as well as for the em- 
 bellishments of home and garden — I can only refer 
 to the museums, where are stored the richest speci- 
 mens of Dutch industry. Delft- ware. Here, too, is 
 pictured with wonderful particularity of outline and 
 color every feature of this rare city of the northern 
 seas. Within a few miles of these evidences of wealth 
 and taste over the Zuyder Zee to the Isle of Maarke, 
 in undisturbed repose, the yellow-haired and blue- 
 eyed Hollander fishes and lives, worships and wor- 
 ries, dresses and deports himself, much as he did 
 when the Danes made their piratical incursions into 
 Great Britain, or the Romans planted their eagles 
 upon the chalky cliffs of Albion.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DUTCH PICTURES, FARMS, CHEESE, FACTORIES AND BIBLE 
 HOUSE— OPULENCE OF HOLLAND. 
 
 "Oh, Holland is a barren place, 
 
 In it there grows nae grain, 
 Nor ony habitation 
 
 Wherein for to remain j 
 But the sugar canes are plenty. 
 
 And the wine draps frae the tree, 
 But the lowlands of Holland 
 
 Hae twined iny love and me.'' — Burns. 
 
 THE bonny verse of the Scotch bard which begins 
 this chapter is an ironic tribute to that artistic, 
 social and physical wealth, out of which so much of 
 the happiness of Holland flows. 
 
 A student like Motley could not fail to compre- 
 hend the vastness of these resources; and it would 
 seem like adding another hue to the rainbow — to add 
 more pen pictures to the grand gallery which his his- 
 toric genius has portrayed. He wrote out of a full 
 heart and abundant repertoire; but he wrote of the 
 past. He tells us truly and with the particularity of a 
 Dutch picture, some of the evidences, two centuries 
 ago, of the thrift of Holland: 
 
 "In every brach of human industry these republicans took the 
 lead. On that scrap of solid ground, rescued by human energy from 
 the ocean, were the most fertile pastures in the world. On those 
 pastures grazed the most famous cattle in the world. An ox often 
 w'eighed more than two thousand pounds. The cows produced two 
 and three calves at a time, the sheep four and five lambs. In a sin-
 
 HOLLAND. 35 
 
 gle villa<je four tliousand kiiic were counted. Puillcr and cheese 
 were exported to the annual value of a million, salted provisions to 
 an incredible extent. The farmers were industrious, thriving-, and 
 independent. It is an amusing illustration of the agricultural thrift 
 and republican simplicity of this people that on one occasion a far- 
 mer pro]-)osed to Prince Maurice that he should marry his daugliter, 
 jiromising with her a dowry of a hundred thousand florins." 
 
 It was in many senses, a godsend to the new 
 hemisphere, when these thrifty habits were trans- 
 ported to America; and especially when tliere came 
 in their company, those quahties of manhood, which 
 are yet found in the distinctive characteristics of their 
 descendants. 
 
 Is it surprising, therefore, that we desired a close 
 inspection of some of these rare results of this indus- 
 trious race? 
 
 It is a sisfnificant and ereat fact that the unseen 
 world has had most to do with moulding: the seen 
 world. Whether in art or arms, that which lasts 
 longest as historic souvenirs refers to the religions 
 of mankind. What would the annals of the Euro- 
 pean people be without the cathedral and church ? 
 They not only preserve, but are in themselves relics. 
 Pompeii may be uncovered, or a Viking ship dug 
 from the sands; but such instances are rare. Go into 
 any one of the galleries at the capitals of Europe. 
 What strikes you first .'^ Is it not the innumerable 
 throng, with their repetitions, of biblical themes de- 
 picted by art ? Whether it be Samson or Judith, the 
 massacre of the Innocents or the crucifixion of the 
 Saviour, the figures and martyrdom of apostles or 
 the bloody battles for and against the faith and 
 among its contending zealots, — everywhere there is 
 glorified by the plastic hand of genius, representations 
 of the spiritual life in its various phases. This state- 
 ment is something more than a platitude to those
 
 36 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 who walk the galleries and churches abroad. It 
 sometimes becomes a burden to a traveller who de- 
 sires in each country to see peculiar and national 
 characteristics portrayed. It is sometimes a relief 
 even to find an old classic theme, such as the hateful 
 figure of Silenus, upon the canvas. 
 
 Holland is not altogether an exception to this 
 rule. Her galleries of pictures contain much of bib- 
 lical meaning and more of the heroism in defence of 
 religion; but, of all the countries I have seen, Hol- 
 land has less of this iterative quality upon spiritual 
 subjects. In one gallery at Leyden we saw this ex- 
 emplified. There was a picture of Job and his friends, 
 and boils all over the patient man; Daniel in the den, 
 with a most meek and lovely trio of lions; and sev- 
 eral pictorial and theological apologues, where devils 
 in every shape of hideousness and hell in every kind 
 of devouring flame were represented; but Holland, 
 notwithstanding these instances, is most distinguished 
 for her own local color in art. Her art never failed 
 to catch the features of her Burgomasters and Boers, 
 with all the lights and shades of her town and country 
 life. In manifold detail, from pasture to kitchen, from 
 birth to death, even down to such simple particulars 
 as seem too mean for art, the Dutch School has 
 excelled. Whether it be Paul Potter painting his 
 famous bull, or Rembrandt his dissection of a 
 cadaver, or Jans Steen some of his comical, homely 
 studies, the domestic in Holland predominates. Her 
 history is in her pictures. 
 
 Amidst the advancing elements of our electric and 
 steam civilization, Holland changes less than any other 
 nation. She preserves in many places, most dis- 
 tinctly, her old costumes and habits and the individu- 
 ality and simplicity of her people. The steam-engine
 
 HOLLAND. 37 
 
 may be clisturbinjr many old and picturesque us- 
 ages — such as the windmill, as a motor to pump out 
 the meadows and keep back the sea; but upon her 
 roads and canals, at her fishing isles, and in her cities 
 and cafes, the spirit of the elder time prevails, so that 
 he who runs through Holland may read its history. 
 
 After making the round of her red-roofed cities 
 and towns, with their attractions — like Leyden, Haar- 
 lem, the Hague, Scheveningen, and Amsterdam; 
 after seeing in pleasant repetition, her grand forests 
 and wide meadows, her litde gems of gardens and 
 their variety of flowers, her marvellous dykes and 
 windmills, her black and white colored cows ad iu- 
 Jinitum, and her newly- shorn sheep by the thousands 
 we resolve to see the inside of a Dutch dairy farm 
 and its house. We resolve to go where the industries 
 were to be found, consummate in those prolific results 
 which make the moral quality of family and state; and 
 which were transported to New York two hundred 
 and more years ago, and which remain to-day as fruit- 
 ful as ever in these orreen lowlands. We resolve on a 
 day among the meadows, aloof from the city, after 
 the miracles of sunshine and rain had oriven fresh bios- 
 som and a resurrected life. 
 
 Accordingly, in this middle of June, with the aid 
 of our Dutch guide, " Yosef," we procure a landau, 
 as a precaution against the rain, and start for a famous 
 cheese-farm alonsf the canal and in the direction of 
 the Zuyder Zee. We Intend to make a useful day 
 of it, although It be Sunday. To conform to the cus- 
 toms, one must here seek " the open " on the Sab- 
 bath and commune with Nature, for It is one of the 
 curious and romantic customs of the Hollander to 
 have his gayly-painted buytcplaats, or garden-house 
 out of the city, where, with family, pipe, and sweet 
 
 434910
 
 38 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID, 
 
 meditation, he may sit, drink, and smoke until the 
 stroke of nine on his cuckoo clock on Monday 
 morning recalls him to his city home and his se- 
 rious labor. 
 
 Our excursion comprehended three things: a visit 
 as well to the farmhouse as to the neat villacres of 
 Broeck and Monnekedam and to the fishinor isle of 
 Maarka. These meadows, so full of cattle and sheep, 
 are as green as the tiles of the houses are red. Some 
 of the main roads for fifty miles and more in this 
 country are made of hard-burnt brick; but the road 
 we take is a good pike and runs along the canal, on 
 which are Sunday boats of all kinds, out for a gala 
 day. Now and then we pass a Boer (peasant) wagon, 
 made of oak or painted like oak, as huge as a Russian 
 carriage or a Jersey wagon. Lines of sand-hills, or 
 the dykes, and now and then a " little risin' greound," 
 as the Yankee traveller described the Alps, shut in the 
 view. Here and there a few horses are seen in the 
 field; one especially disporting himself, to the amuse- 
 ment of the sedate kine, by chasing a big, disgruntled 
 hog all around the field. 
 
 At length, five miles east of Amsterdam, we stop 
 in front of a square pyramidal house, mostly roof and 
 cellar. Its roof is very steep. We enter a long hall, 
 as clean as a well-scoured copper kettle in a Dutch 
 painting. We find in the room many divisions, like 
 stalls. They are well sanded and shells are scattered 
 in the sand. Here and there are many-hued stones, 
 set in tasteful fresco, and borders of brick, painted in 
 red and black. Then a pathway is laid with carpet 
 over the bricks, and then some matting, on which 
 we walk. The long hall had all the appearance of a 
 varnished, elegant, decorated gallery. The walls were 
 covered with plates, pans, and pails, in rows above,
 
 HOLLAND. 39 
 
 vessels of all kinds of contrivance for kitchen and 
 field, polished to a bri<^htness whose dazzlin^^ sheen 
 is only to be found in the pictures to which I have re- 
 ferred as illustrative of Dutch home-life, or in the fa- 
 bled diamond shield which Spenser i^ives to Prince 
 Arthur in b'aerie-land. This hall of the colors — with 
 its domestic garniture of scales, weights, ware, shells, 
 pipes, cradles, and tubs, all as neat as a fresh-laid 
 ^g<g — is a cow-stable! Aye, verily. This is sum- 
 mer, and the cows are out on the yellow-decked 
 meadows. Their winter-home is dressed thus clean- 
 ly and gaudily for the family in summer. These 
 divisions are for thirty-eight milk-cows, and certain 
 conveniences appear, on close inspection, for their 
 housing- beneath the orlistening^ and colored exterior 
 of this summer dress. We pass into another apart- 
 ment. It is cool, sweet and neat. We are conducted 
 by a young son, the family being out on a Sabbath 
 excursion. He points out — in a few Dutch phrases, 
 that sound a good deal English, being homely words 
 — this and that piece of utility for making cheese. 
 Here are fifty nice, round, yellow, fat cheeses, salted 
 down in lonQf basins and undero-oincj hardenino^. 
 They are the same seen in the shops in their bright 
 red color, and when cut — as we cut one of them for 
 our lunch — gave their golden beauty to the eye and 
 their lusciousness to the tooth and tongue. 
 
 The various stages of the milk until it reaches this 
 delectable form is explained to us, as lid after lid is 
 lifted from the casks. In this cheese-hall are mirrors 
 and other articles of domestic use. There, attached 
 to the wall, is a knife to "sknide" the bread, and 
 here, hanging over a fireplace, where smoulders some 
 peat, are two octagonal brass medallions, -nearly a foot 
 in diameter. I ask their meaning. " Only lessons,"
 
 40 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the gentle youth responds. I read them: ''Die op 
 God ver troudt heef opgeeii Zerk of Steen Geboicdt." 
 
 " What is that, Joseph ? " 
 
 He translates: " He who thinks of God, God will 
 think of him." A splendid lesson for any kind of fac- 
 tory, cheese or otherwise. Here is the other: '' Hoo- 
 (Toni Hoo^ het hardtnaar boven hier benedeis het Niet!' 
 The free translation of Joseph is: " Mount! Mount 
 upward! There is nothing below here ! " How near 
 this translation comes to the spirit of the strange dec- 
 oration in this establishment let the learned Dutchmen 
 determine. I offered the boy a guilder for the two 
 lessons, and may hang them up in my committee- 
 room at Washington, for instruction, that the members 
 " may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 
 
 Out of this resplendent cow-stable, up a few steps 
 and under the same roof, and we are in the house 
 proper. We soon ascertain that the family are Cath- 
 olic and every symbol of their faith is about the 
 rooms. " St. Pawet " is the favorite saint. Joseph 
 and Mary appear in China images; as also copies of 
 the Madonna by Murillo, with a beautiful little altar 
 and holy candles, ready for lighting. A book of 
 prayer lies upon a splendid old sideboard of exquisite 
 workmanship. Before the bed; which is within the 
 wall, stowed as on shelves, is a cup of holy water and 
 every evidence of a most pious regard for their faith 
 appears amidst a profusion of tasteful imagery of 
 every kind. One thing we notice within the bed- 
 curtains — a rope and handle for the rheumatic or lazy 
 to raise themselves. Also within the bed — a good 
 sample of Dutch neatness — were the dresses, hung 
 up to be cleaned and when brushed, to be put away in 
 bureaus, with a tidiness that was painful to the ordi- 
 nary American mind. Canary cages, pipes, and pic-
 
 HOLLAND. 41 
 
 turcs of the sad fate of Genevieve, together witli the 
 inevitable I3Litch clock and a good portrait of the 
 present pope, make up a toiit-ciiscnible of this Dutch 
 household. When we entered this sanctuary of neat- 
 ness and piety, I noticed the boy drop his wooden 
 shoes at the door, as if he trod on consecrated ground. 
 He moved about as Moslems do within their mosques, 
 unsandaled and reverent. 
 
 We oo out to see the surroundino^s. There is the 
 canal at several angles, and the geese and ducks. In 
 a stable are the little black and white calves; and near 
 by, but not unpleasant, as we feared, is the pig-sty. 
 The walls of the house were covered with grape- 
 vines, and altogether the outside was a fair counter- 
 part of the inside. 
 
 Entering our carriage, we prepare on the way a 
 locomotive al fresco lunch, with the cheese made 
 within this pious home as the pPcce de resistance, and 
 some champagne, which gave its sparkle to the sun- 
 shine. Over bridges, past the green fields and hedges, 
 surveying numberless cattle, we reach the quaint vil- 
 laoe of Monnekedam. Here we leave our team to 
 feed and take a fishing-boat for the Isle of Maarka. 
 The boat, or its captain and mate, had been advised 
 by telegraph to be ready. They, boat and all, are 
 in Sabbath rig. Upon the bridge, when we sail. 
 are crowds of villagers, in their native costumes, as 
 curious about us as we are about them. 
 
 An hour's sail over the Zuyder Zee, and we are 
 within the piles which make a tiny harbor to this 
 quaint isle. How flat everything looks ! The houses 
 are, indeed, like pyramids, as we cannot see their 
 lower story over the dykes. Even the windmills 
 (there are ten thousand of them in Holland) are 
 seen in their wings, as they swing defiandy at any
 
 42 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Don who presumes to challenge them. The cap- 
 tain cannot speak a word of English; but we have 
 a medium in Joseph. He translates to us a story of 
 the captain's, about ten thousand Spanish coins being 
 fished out of the Zuyder Zee a week before by a net. 
 We ask him if it was " not a miraculous draught." 
 He appreciates the allusion. We ask: " Were the 
 coins in the fishes' mouth ? " Again he shows his 
 apostolic and piscatorial education by a significant 
 smile. We talk, albeit it is Sunday, of the dams of 
 Holland, and how the vast meadows but thirty years 
 before were a part of the Zuyder Zee, with its saline 
 sterility; of the future projects to rescue more acres; 
 and at last we are moored within the little Bay of 
 Maarka, where terrene objects appear. 
 
 The isle has but a few hundred folk on it. Within 
 the harbor, in perfect rows, like the plates in the cow- 
 stable, are a hundred fishing vessels, with nets dang- 
 ling and drying from the masts. All the houses are 
 upon tiles. Every door is open and all the popula- 
 tion are out to receive us. Somehow, the villagers 
 have gained the impression that " we " are a digni- 
 tary from a " far contree." I think Joseph has dii- 
 fused this costly idea. 
 
 The men look odd, in their caps and baggy 
 breeches. There is enough of stuff in one pair 
 for a half dozen of mine. The women wear kir- 
 tles, gathered into belts at the waist, with three- 
 cornered ties at the neck, and caps. Such caps ! 
 They did not have the silver or gold cuirass upon the 
 head, and the dangling metalic balls, spirals, and jewel- 
 lery over hair, ears, and cheek, like the fisherwomen 
 we saw about Scheveningen; but still these islanders 
 have the costumes of the Pays Bas, and they seemed 
 as if just out of the ark, in their primitive simplicity.
 
 HOLLAND. 43 
 
 We had seen female Kabyles in Africa and the 
 gay dames in interior Corsica, and had visited their 
 hovels and housc^s; but for neatness and oddity we 
 never saw in all our travels such (|uaint devices to 
 make the gentler sex attractive. 
 
 But who can describe the children here, of both 
 sexes ? You cannot tell one sex from the other by 
 the dress or looks, except this, that on the neat little 
 cap on their heads is a patch for the boys and none 
 for the girls ! All wear the wooden shoe. The young 
 maidens are out in their Sunday clothes — colored and 
 figured silk bodices of red, white sleeves, and the 
 plain linen band, a la Turkish, over the forehead. 
 They are quite coquettish. As we land, they 
 rush up to us and introduce, with much hilarity, 
 a newly -married couple. The bridegroom wears, 
 for a mark of recent subjectivity, a stovepipe hat. 
 This, with his big, bulgy pants, gives the impression 
 of a sober, melancholy Piute just off the reservation. 
 He carries about in his mouth a long, white clay 
 pipe, decorated with white and red flowers. He is 
 not allowed to smoke. He looks sheepish as he is 
 presented, while the bride looks radiant and mis- 
 chievous in her yellow hair, banged to her eyebrows 
 and curled above them, to give a strangeness never 
 even conceived by a Dutch painter of the grotesque. 
 Her cheeks are lilies and roses. Roses ? Peonies, 
 and full-blown! Such cheeks! such ultra-marine blue 
 to the eye ! Such awkwardness of gait as these 
 images of the twelfth century have, as they move 
 about their isle in groups, with knuckles on their 
 hips and their arms akimbo ! You cannot find their 
 counterpart at Castle Garden ; for this is Sunday at 
 home and they are in their best traditional clothes, 
 and these never appear at our port of entry. My
 
 44 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 wife caught one of the little elfs, to examine the make 
 of her cap. After a few preliminary tears, and much 
 fluttering, and a piece of coin from my pocket, the 
 litde girl held still long enough to show that the in- 
 side of the head-dress was a white cap and over it 
 one of red, but smaller. Their little bodices are be- 
 yond my power to photograph. Every one bows, 
 with a " Guteu Di7g," the men lifting the index fin- 
 ger to their yellow hair. 
 
 We are requested to visit the biggest woman on 
 the island. She weighed two hundred pounds when 
 eleven }ears ! She is now fifty years of age. I 
 shudder before the adipose conclusion. Arithmetic 
 is confounded! She is a monster; but she got about 
 her little, neat house to show us her cabinet, two 
 hundred years old, from her great-grandmother. 
 Joseph was jolly about her fat hand. She inti- 
 mated to him that, if he felt it, it would surprise 
 him still more. 
 
 The population followed us to the boat. We 
 threw coins to the children, who, like other mortals, 
 had a scrabble for them; then a quarrel; then a con- 
 vocation and an equitable arrangement; and, thus 
 leaving these primitive folks, we sailed over the 
 Zyyder Zee, by the pleasant light of a sweet Sab- 
 bath evening. 
 
 On our way, we visited the village of Broeck. 
 At all the doors the shoes were out when the people 
 were in. It is not true that carriages are forbidden 
 in this town ; but it is true that the streets are as neat 
 as the inside of the houses, and they are the perfec- 
 tion of cleanliness. The town has nine hundred peo- 
 ple. They are well off, too. Their costumes shov/ 
 quaintness, but refinement. The houses are wooden 
 and [)aintcd of various colors. The tiles are polished.
 
 HOLLAND. 
 
 45 
 
 The streets arc of brick, or little stones painted and 
 set in patterns. It is said that even the kino- had to 
 take off his boots when o-oinir into l}r()eck. No such 
 requisition was made of us, sovereign though we 
 were. 
 
 We pass near Zaandani, where Peter the Great 
 learned ship-building. It is also clean, almost to a 
 sense of the ridiculous. 
 
 As we leave for the mainland, some two hundred 
 of the good people give us a hurrah. Whether they 
 had forgotten that it was Sunday, or whether they 
 exaggerated our importance, — we dashed out of this 
 part of Dutchland in a style that would chagrin an 
 African potentate. 
 
 On our way back, we made a Sabbath call at the 
 famous " Bible House " of Amsterdam. Over the 
 canal we had seen the sign, and that it was kept 
 by " Hardenbergh." We knew this already from 
 our brother-in-law, son of the late Dr. Hardenbergh, 
 of New York. He was of the descendants of the 
 old Dutch stock. Though I will not avouch that 
 any of the family kept a hotel, but that they did 
 and do keep a Bible, I am prepared to assert. The 
 object of our visit is seen as a sign — an open Bible, 
 gilt-edged — over the hospitable door of this ancient 
 hostelry. But the elderly aspect of the hotel is not 
 so apparent. Nor is the continence which belongs 
 to early Christianity and a Bible House observable 
 within, for everything toothsome and bibulous in a 
 French memt or a Dutch larder may here be had. 
 Strawberries and chops, champagne and asparagus; 
 and plenty of cheerful talk in a pentecostal polyglot, 
 by travellers from every clime. Ushered into the 
 lunch-room overlooking the River Amstel, we call 
 for all we want, includinof the earliest Bible known to
 
 46 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Dutch art. We examine the sacred, doubly sacred 
 vokime, its quaint wood-cuts, and its strange trade- 
 mark of the printer; and, turning from the singular 
 wine-cooler at our feet to the inspired Word at our 
 elbow, we wonder not a little that a hotel should be 
 a Bible House; and yet, all reverently may I not say 
 it, in this connection. — we see shining through these 
 old types and shadows of the past the light of a calm 
 and beautiful inspiration for a life " beyond the stars," 
 to be pursued with the calm and constant courage 
 of those who gave to Holland its charters of in- 
 dependence and this Book of books. 
 
 I ask the custodian of the sacred volume for its 
 history and that of the house where we find it. This 
 it is, as I gather it from his manuscript: 
 
 "The earliest record that can be traced of the Bible Hotel is that 
 Jacob Van Liesveld, on the site of the present hotel, had a printing 
 establishment. It was in this building that he printed and published 
 the first Bible issued in Holland, a copy of which, dated 1542, is still 
 in possession of the Hotel and is the one before us." 
 
 It is in excellent preservation, being protected by 
 a modern binding. It is a valuable and beautiful 
 specimen of early printing. In fact, to my idea, it 
 surpasses many vaunted recent editions which I have 
 seen. 
 
 DurincT the workincr of the Reformation in Hoi- 
 land, it is said that Jacob Van Liesveld, in conse- 
 quence of his religious views, was forced to leave 
 Holland, and effected his escape through one of the 
 back windows of this house. He was successful in 
 reaching Antwerp, where, however, his ill fortune fol- 
 lowed him, as it is recorded that, shortly after his ar- 
 rival there, he was summoned before the authorities, 
 was found guilty, and executed. The account further 
 says that, from the hands of Van Liesveld, the prem-
 
 HOLLAND. 47 
 
 ises passed into the possession of a Scotch family, 
 bearing- the name of Cattcrmerole, the first of whom 
 converted the building into an inn, and, with the na- 
 tional shrewdness, and with a view, it is supposed, of 
 making some capital out of his godliness, the build- 
 ing was consecrated by his sign of " The Bible " and 
 by painting upon the sign the twenty-third verse of 
 the fifth chapter of St. Paul's First Episde to Timothy: 
 
 "Drink no longer water, 
 But take a little wine." 
 
 This is the style in which the account was given me 
 in writing. It was also remarked in this account that 
 the same sign which now does duty, was carved on 
 wood by Cattermerole the First, after the build- 
 inof had been in the hands of Van Liesveld. It 
 w^as held by the Cattermeroles until fifteen years 
 ago. Then it w^as taken by Mr. Hardenberg, Sen- 
 ior, w^ho was succeeded by his son. To what worldly 
 uses it has been put since the death of the son, by 
 the present proprietor, Mr. Werker, is advertised 
 by the paper, in the following peculiar conclusion; 
 
 "Said Mr. Werker continues still to introduce improvement and 
 embellishment, so as to render the house, if possible, more comfort- 
 able and attractive." 
 
 " Copied for Sir S. S. Cox, 
 / by Rudolf Jonas, 
 
 Oberkellner, 
 
 Bible Hotel, 
 
 from Cologne on the Rhine." 
 
 With this kindly efifort by this gargon and scriv- 
 ener who supplied us at the Bible House and whose 
 office may be deciphered from his manuscript, I must 
 close these chapters by remarking that no people 
 which in my various wanderings I have witnessed 
 can compare in interest wath those of this strange
 
 48 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 land. Besides, has not the land itself been rescued 
 from Neptune by the genius and preserved by the 
 vigilance of a hardy and honest people ? In the 
 daily beauty of their industrious lives is exemplified 
 the verse of Longfellow: 
 
 "Each morning sees some task begun, 
 Each evening sees it close; 
 Something attempted, something done 
 Has earned a night's repose." 
 
 They may have no conspicuous annals just now 
 in this year of grace 1881. Happy is that nation 
 that has no annals. True, they have no part to play 
 now in the conflicts of Europe. Their possessions in 
 the East and West Indies are held quietly and pros- 
 perously; their peasant offspring (the Boers) have 
 illustrated in South Africa, against British encroach- 
 ment, the same qualities which resisted Spanish tyr- 
 anny and insolence three hundred years ago, and 
 which dared to found its colonies under new skies, 
 like our own Nieuw Amsterdam, by fixing their foun- 
 dations on piety and probity.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE WAY TO THE FAR NORTH— FROM HOLLAND TO DEN- 
 MARK—AND FROM COPENHAGEN TO CHRISTIANLA., NORWAY. 
 
 "Rath of the Dane to fame a7id might, 
 Dark-rolling iva^'e ! " — Longfellow. 
 
 IT was not without reluctance that we left the Hotel 
 Amstel, at Amsterdam. Holland had begun to 
 grow upon us. The limnhig we had made of its fea- 
 tures, had assumed color and brightness. The Yery 
 hotel where the invalid Swedish queen was staying, 
 was adorned, in its stairways and corridors with flow- 
 ers, whose fragrance filled the air. However, the 
 day is fixed for the grand phenomenon in the Boreal 
 country, beyond the Arctic Circle; and luxury and 
 comfort must give way to early rising and extended 
 travel. It was a long ride to Hamburg, — the third 
 commercial emporium of Europe. The landscape 
 is level, cut up with canals and cultivated with 
 tasteful if not remunerative toil. Before ten at 
 night our eyes behold the double and reflected 
 lights and gay aspect around the lake, in the heart 
 of Hamburg. The morning view from our balcon}' 
 is lovely, with the dawn at three; and at breakfast we 
 pass the custom-house at Altona. The long day 
 through the former Danish provinces of Schleswig 
 and Holstein is shortened by the novelty of the 
 scenes; though miles of peat beds and hundreds of
 
 50 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 windmills, appear monotonous after a few hours of 
 gazing. Numerous small water-wheels are pumping 
 water into ditches out of the peat beds; and unculti- 
 vated moors add to the monotony. One incident 
 happened. We left our umbrella in the cars; and as 
 an illustration of the regard to the nicuin et tuuin, 
 which obtains among these people, we afterwards 
 found it at our hotel in Norway, forwarded as if it 
 were actual property, and at a cost too small to 
 record ! 
 
 Denmark is made up of isles. Consequently boat- 
 riding alternates and relieves the rail cars. We cross 
 by steamer, the two " Belts; " and without much in- 
 cident, we reach Copenhagen, by bedtime. English 
 is everywhere spoken on the route, and the officers 
 on boat and rail, are examples of attentive courtesy 
 Indeed, politeness is the chief characteristic of the 
 Dane, which he supplements with a love of pleasure, 
 which has earned for Copenhagen, the soubriquet 
 of the Vienna of the north. 
 
 It was not our purpose to linger long in Den- 
 mark. The time for sailing toward the North Cape 
 being inexorably fixed, we prepared to ignore this 
 gay and interesting city. Our plan was in part 
 frustrated, and we determined to see something of 
 this chief city of the three realms which make up the 
 ten millions of Scandinavians. But that something 
 can only be herein hinted. A week we gave to 
 Copenhagen; and we deducted it from the unpleasant 
 sea voyages, from Copenhagen to Christiana, and 
 from Christiania to Bergen and Trondhjem. We 
 reasoned that there was less resistance to locomotion 
 in the air and on the earth, than in the air and by 
 water. Besides, had we not had some ocean ex- 
 periences, which we were not desirous to repeat.'*
 
 OiV THE IFAV TO THE FAR NOR TIT. 
 
 5' 
 
 This, — added to the bad reputation of the Cateq^at, 
 Skayer-Rack and North Sea, for stability, led us to 
 linger in the Danish capital, and to make our way 
 by land, through south-western Sweden. 
 
 Our courier here has proved an invaluable guide 
 and companion. His name is Rene. He is a Dane, 
 and quite unlike in his spirit to the melancholy Ham- 
 let. Yet he is philosophical withal, and has a su- 
 preme contempt for the tragedy which Shakespeare 
 has located at Elsinore, among the windmills on that 
 stern and stormy steep ! He does not believe in 
 ghosts, nor the cock that crowed for their depart- 
 ure to the tomb at dawn, but he affirms that Ham- 
 let was a Prince of Jutland. He admits that the 
 father was poisoned, and that his death was revenged 
 Dy the son. Rene has been an opera singer in the 
 chorus, and can talk in several tongues. He is mas- 
 ter of the languages of Scandinavia, and, being adept 
 in German, French, and English, he is master of 
 our situation. He regulates with equal skill our 
 customs duties and our exchequer. 
 
 The most attractive feature of Copenhagen, is 
 the Thorwaldsen Gallery. In a city of two hundred 
 thousand people — full of museums of art and science, 
 and edifices for education and library — surrounded 
 by pleasure grounds of rare trees and taste, with 
 groups of water-ways and lakes; with a restless and 
 joyous people, ever busy on the marts of commerce 
 and in the factory and shop, — it is noteworthy and 
 praiseworthy, that the pervading genuLS loci, is the 
 name, fame and work of its great and gifted artist. 
 The churches are not more conspicuous, — the towered 
 Vor Frelsero overlookino- the harbor on the Armao^er 
 Isle, not more commanding, the spired exchange not 
 more supreme, as external attractions, than the univer-
 
 52 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 sal domination over Danish thought and pride, of the 
 Icelandic ship-carpenter's son, — the pupil of Canova, 
 Thorwaldsen. The museum was arranged by him- 
 self, on his return to Copenhagen from Rome. It 
 contains three hundred of his pieces. It is his mau- 
 soleum. His studio and unfinished work are in the 
 gallery. His industry, as exhibited here, is only 
 rivalled by his " fine art." We are carried honie in 
 fancy, by seeing amidst this rare assemblage of his 
 creations, — the original of his Venus,^a copy of 
 which in pure Carrara, adorns our library. 
 
 While' wandering within this Pompeian and Etrus- 
 can architecture, our guide happens to mention that 
 the Folksthing and Lanthing — which combined make 
 the Parliament, — is in session. How quickly the en- 
 chantment of Art dissolved before this temptation ! 
 Being interested in law-making at home, and espe- 
 cially in having a commodious and convenient cham- 
 ber, under our forthcoming reapportionment, I desert 
 Thorwaldsen's marble glories, for the forum. The 
 chambers are of the ordinary kind, semi-circular, 
 with the throne and chair of royalty at the end; and 
 the seat of " Mr. Speaker " beneath. A finance ques- 
 tion was under debate in both branches; but the dis- 
 cussion was not as inflammatory as the red velvet 
 trimmings, nor as boisterous as those in the French 
 Deputies and English Parliament, which I had visited 
 a few weeks before. 
 
 We visit the Prindseus palace gallery. It is very 
 large, having more than twenty rooms. The mas- 
 ters are of the new schools. Their names are novel 
 and most of them Danish. We are reminded of our 
 exjjected delight, by a rare painting of the midnight 
 sun. — in the very acme of its " afterglow." The 
 Round Tower, one of the six now in existence, we
 
 ON THE WAY TO THE FAR NORTH. 53 
 
 perceive on our drive about the city. It is nine sto- 
 ries, with small mullioned windows, and was doubt- 
 less a fortress of the early years. 
 
 In reviewino^ this week of pleasure, nothing seems 
 to excel, in exultant delight, the drive to the wa- 
 tering place five miles away. It is a small village; but 
 the excursion takes us through the deer park, \\here 
 a thousand antlered timidities await the royal chase. 
 It is a wonderful forest. The trees are tall and state- 
 ly, and hoar with the rime of time. Many trees 
 spring from one root or trunk; and for twisted and 
 antique grotesqueness they vie with the olives of 
 the Riviera and the Orient. One big tree is shown 
 in a pretty garden, not tall like our Mariposa giants; 
 but eiofht lonor- armed Danes cannot touch hands 
 about it! 
 
 Palaces there are here, with statued historic forms 
 about them, — where king, prince and queen-dow- 
 ager now live; and where much ostentatious gay- 
 ety reigned, before dynamitic Nihilism disturbed 
 the nerve-centres of royal content, in Russia and 
 Germany. Among these palaces is that of Rosen- 
 berg, to which we dedicated an afternoon. It is in 
 a lovely garden. The park near by, is remembered 
 by us, because in it there is a bust of Andersen — the 
 beloved. The palace is full of royal souvenirs, set in 
 precious gems. Only twelve persons are allowed 
 to enter the palace at a time. This is out of abun- 
 dant caution. There is a discreet and elegant ar- 
 rangement, according to each reign, of these quaint 
 associations of Danish regality. The rooms are fres- 
 coed. They look coarse and tawdry in their ornamen- 
 tation; but the old cabinets and clocks, ceramics and 
 coins, Sevres sets and Danish dresses, Delft, Dan- 
 ish and Chinese porcelain, make a fine display on
 
 54 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the walls; while horns, swords, orders, tables, chan- 
 deliers, QToblets, vases, chairs, christening fonts, her- 
 aldic lions and silver hand-irons, and globes of gold 
 and jewels beyond price, glitter amidst portraits of 
 the Christians and Fredericks, who furnish most of 
 the buried majesty of Denmark! There is here 
 much sportive and eccentric imagery, illustrative 
 of mythological and mediaeval subjects. 
 
 The most celebrated memorial in this curious 
 Gothic-antique palace — not to mention its perforated 
 turrets, crenulated gables, winding staircases, and 
 pointed roofs — is the Oldenborg horn. It is of sil- 
 ver, and enoraved with wondrous skill. Dras^ons and 
 serpents, towers and tombs, balconies with fair ladies, 
 and castles with devices and banners make it a mir- 
 acle of art. There is upon the knob, a little tempting 
 imp. He holds a scroll. On it is written: Drinc al 
 rot: " Empty the horn " ! This is the origin of our 
 American expression: Take a horn ! 
 
 This horn was made by a Westphalian; although 
 there is a merry myth, that it was given by a moun- 
 tain nymph to a count of Oldenborg, when he was 
 lost in the woods hunting, and when he was thirsty. 
 
 This palace was built by Christian IV. His room 
 and workshop are still shown. By all accounts, and 
 from the portraits, we observe that this Christian was 
 a man of taste in architecture and art, with a genius 
 for good government. 
 
 " But, Rene, hold!" we exclaim, as we stand be- 
 fore the contrast of this good Christian, " who is this 
 swash-buckler ? A king ? " 
 
 Rene smiles a proud smile as he responds, " That 
 was one of our great kings — Christian II," 
 
 Then recalling the memory of these kings, I try 
 the patriotism of Rene in the crucible of history.
 
 ON THE WAY TO THE FAR NORTH. 55 
 
 Havino;' been in the opera, and being a professor 
 and a Dane, he is alarmed at the scaiidalimi magna- 
 tutn whicli this crucible develops. 
 
 " You have had a sad lot of sovereio^ns in Den- 
 mark, not meaning the present one ? " 
 
 " No, sir. It is a mistake. Did we not do well 
 in choosing our rulers? When the Bavarian Christo- 
 pher was about to die, he proposed for us Adol- 
 phus of Schleswig; and when he declined and gave 
 the choice among three nephews of the Oldenborg- 
 horn family, did we not elect wisely; first, in rejecting 
 the one who was fond of women and the other who 
 was devoted to war; and finally, chose the peaceful 
 and generous Diderick the Happy ? This was four 
 hundred years and more ago. This choice was 
 Christian I., who united Scandinavia. He had a 
 little son, John. When he was married the oc- 
 casion called for a new order. It was the Order 
 of the Elephant." He pointed to the ivory elephant 
 near by. 
 
 " Yes," I replied, " I can see by the heavy weight 
 of John's son (Christian II.), why this Order of the 
 Elephant was instituted." 
 
 "Then," resumed Rene, "there were troubles. 
 The Hanse towns were jealous, and Germany bel- 
 ligerent. Christian I. died exactly four tiundred 
 years ago last May, and little Hans came in, to 
 find war on every hand. And when Hans (John) 
 died, — " 
 
 "Then came," said I, "the swash-buckler before 
 us. Christian II.? Hey? What good did he do? 
 Listen, noble Dane ! Is he not known as the Ty- 
 rant ? Was he not the opposite of his father ? Was 
 not Cromwell a gentle prince compared with him ? 
 He was born two years before Luther; and was
 
 56 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 there ever a Reformer so needed for such a — Chris- 
 tian ? Was he not put out to a pious bookbinder ? 
 Was he not taken by him to church, and made to 
 sing in the choir for discipHne ? Did not a Norse 
 <^irl, daughter of an inn-keeper, capture and hokl 
 him; and did he not cut off the head of the rich noble- 
 nian who stole the concubine from him ? Her name 
 was Forben Oxen. Oxen ! think of dying for such a 
 name ! Was there ever such a diabolic king ? Even 
 his wedded wife, Elizabeth, — sister of Charles V., — 
 failed to make him good. He was like the eighth Eng- 
 lish Harry: bluff, bad and bestial. True, he cham- 
 pioned Protestantism; but he kept on terms with Pope 
 Leo X. The Swedes did not confide in him; and 
 Gustavus Vasa, being imprisoned by him, and having 
 escaped, raised the banner of revolt. After cruelties 
 and gibbetings, scourges and massacres, outrages on 
 the livinor and dead, the revolt came. Dalecarlia 
 ofave her mountain fastnesses to o^uard Gustavus. It 
 is the romance of the North. About the sixteenth 
 century, Gustavus was crowned ' Saviour and De- 
 liverer'; and Christian II. was — " 
 
 " Stop ! " says Rene. " You remind me. Chris- 
 tian the II. — I have confounded with Christian I. 
 We Danes treated him rightly. When he returned 
 to us, he was imprisoned by us, — by us, sir," said 
 Rene, lifting his form to a kingly height, " in the 
 gloomy tower of Sonderburg, where he died. No, 
 he is not our model king." 
 
 " Cannot I get a copy of this portrait, Rene ? " 
 
 " I will try," he responded. 
 
 Here it is ! It bears its own biography in its own 
 coarse lineaments.
 
 CHRISTIAN II., OK DENMARK.
 
 ON THE WAY TO TfFE FAR NORTH. 57 
 
 But the culture of Denmark has not Ijccn satis- 
 fied with these royal displays. Owinf( to the pecu- 
 liar lay of the land and its quality, Denmark has 
 been singularly preservative of the stone, bronze and 
 iron eras, and their implements of war and peace. 
 Its museum of antiquities has no equal in Europe. 
 The early history of north-western Europe, down to 
 the seventeenth century, is here bound in durable 
 material, which illuminates the customs and institu- 
 tions of that staunch race, whose kings of old, as 
 now, gave their blood to other lands, for the perpet- 
 uation of royal lines. 
 
 After these substantial repasts, it was a relief to 
 look at nature in the animated specimens of the 
 zoological gardens and its rare floral development in 
 the botanical department. Nor did we omit the 
 Tivoli where the out-door life of this gay capital 
 finds amusement, with target and song, boating and 
 " Russian mountain rides," flea exhibitions and fat 
 women, — not omitting music and wine to cheer the 
 heart ! 
 
 A final view of the red-tiled city — from the top of 
 the hotel, under the care of the Danish o-uide selected 
 for our northern journey, whose wife comes from the 
 country to bid him a long adieu — and we take the boat 
 for Malmo across the Sound, where the cars await 
 us. Even before the boat lands at the depot, we 
 have made acquaintances, who prove agreeable, use- 
 ful and instructive in our journey. One of our com- 
 panions is a Holland financial officer, seeking relaxa- 
 tion; and the other the Portuguese minister, on his 
 way to pay his visit at Stockholm. The latter has 
 diamonds and rubies in profusion on his fingers and 
 breast, and w^ith his white hair and blue pantaloons 
 makes himself interestino-, confidincr and
 
 58 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 ble. We find out that he has killed his man in a 
 duel and is an old member of the Portuguese Cor- 
 tez. He opens our eyes in advance, — by his proc- 
 lamation of the amenities of Swedish society, and 
 the advantages of the climate. He goes to bed, he 
 informs us, very late, but without a light; and we 
 begin, as we wait in vain for the departure of the 
 orb of day, to believe that we are making some 
 progress toward its unsetting phenomenon. 
 
 The meals on the way seem droll. Every one 
 helps himself, from a large loaded table; and you can 
 take any or all, as you wish, of the dishes, paying so 
 much anyway. The fields are green and fallow; 
 windmills appear as in Holland, and peat as in Den- 
 mark, and stone fences as in New England. The 
 women wear the silken or cotton fichu tied upon 
 their heads. Palisades appear, not unlike those of 
 the Hudson, and lakes in scores, indicating a juicy 
 land. Forests fringe the horizon, women work the 
 hillsides, and lumber in piles and booms indicates the 
 main commerce. The houses are painted red, as in 
 Pennsylvania. This is Gothland, — a name, with a 
 superb as well as a sinister history. Approaching 
 Lake Wenner, and going beyond it, white-washed, 
 stucco houses appear, — an index of superior com- 
 fort; while at the railroad station sweet girl-tourists 
 with knapsacks and umbrellas are eager for the 
 tramp to the mountains. The valley of the Grom- 
 men is reached, and the rapids of the river make 
 their sweet thunder. Immense rafts of logs fill the 
 quiescent water, or bound over its dams. Yellow 
 painted houses succeed the red, as we approach 
 the Norwegian border. The night has passed 
 with scarcely a diminution of light ; for the bright 
 moon comes up, almost before the sunlight has
 
 O^r THE WAY TO THE FAR NORTH. 59 
 
 died away. At the hour of ordinary daybreak, 
 we reach Christian ia and prepare for breakfast. It 
 is served in a marquee tent, supported by bamboo 
 pillars, within the court of the hotel, equipped as 
 fantastically with flowers and plants, as an Orien- 
 tal picture upon cloth of gold. 
 
 Thus have we broken the long rides from the 
 French to the Norwegian capital ; and found ade- 
 quate compensation in the novel sights by the 
 way. 
 
 Under Rene's guidance, we visit the palace and the 
 Storthing (Congress) of Norway, where again our 
 penchant for legislative procedure is gratified. The 
 Lower House was in session. Indeed the Uppei 
 House is selected from and out of the Lower ; this 
 being the excellent conservative ballast in the Nor- 
 wegian Ship of State. The members do not speak 
 from a tribune, but from their seats. The usual plan 
 is adopted for the accommodation of officers and mem- 
 bers ; diplomatic and stenographic conveniences are 
 apparent. As we enter, most of the members are on 
 their feet, — listening quietly and with respect to the 
 member who " holds the word." Nearly all are fair- 
 haired and plain-looking men. We are pleased to 
 hear Metzhold, who is as near a Republican as may 
 be ; and as he debates the subvention of Norway for 
 the marriage of the Crown prince, he takes an 
 ironical tone, which absorbs attention and evokes 
 smiles. But there are no boisterous or clamorous 
 nterruptions, no repartees or howls, no rapping or 
 ringing to order. There is no ostentatious display 
 either in the rhetoric or in the architecture of the 
 chamber. Gilded tracery follows beam and pillar; 
 red velvet chairs indicate the places for the minis- 
 ters, and two ranges of seats for spectators ex-
 
 fio FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 tend around the narrow gallery. The steps and 
 corridors of the " Storthing " House are not miracles 
 of neatness. One should say that Spitzbergen was 
 here represented, if one dare pun in Norway. In 
 this salivary respect, it was a reminder of the capitol 
 of our land. 
 
 " No brooms here, Rene ? " asks my wife, ol 
 the guide. 
 
 " Mafoi ! — que non ! " — is his shrugging response. 
 
 A second visit to the Storthing is made. We 
 stumble upon two Deputies, who politely conduct 
 us to the Custodian of the building, who shows us 
 the Landthing, or Upper House, which we did not 
 see at the first visit. It is not unlike the Udlers- 
 thing, or Lower House, except that it is smaller. 
 We are introduced to the member from Tromsoe, 
 Bishop Smitt, who tendered us all the courtesies. He 
 is one of the elect from the Lower to the Upper 
 House ; and is president of the latter. These 
 northern gentlemen are very polite ; but at the 
 end of a conference or conversation, their adieux 
 are marked with a prim and smileless bow. We 
 saw the end of the session, and whereas with us, 
 there is much kindly good-bye and good wishes ; — 
 here, there is official etiquette in all its uniform 
 formality. The closing is celebrated with a band 
 and a military muster, by which the president of 
 the ministers is escorted to his residence after dis- 
 missing the members to their homes. 
 
 The appearance of the Capitol however is by no 
 means ignoble. Its rounded front is on a rise, — 
 and stands between two wings of solid gray granite 
 masonry. It is characteristic of the simplicity of the 
 people. Standing at one end of a wide avenue, it 
 looks toward another elevation, almost a mile off —
 
 ON THE IVAY TO THE FAR NORTH. 6i 
 
 whereon the palace is situated. Midway is a beauti- 
 ful plaza or alameda, with one conspicuous newly gilt 
 statue to the lyric poet of the people, — WerL;eland. 
 Bernadotte (Charles XIV,) sits superbly upon a charger 
 in front of the palace. This building is very neat, 
 quite in contrast with the filthy condition of the 
 Storthing. The grand reception hall is elegant with 
 crystal chandeliers. Its columns are gilded. Its 
 library in dark drab, with cases and tables, is fur- 
 nished in blue velvet and gold, — a beautiful con- 
 trast. We have access to the apartments, as the 
 family are absent. One salon is decorated with pic- 
 tures of the royal family, and from the roof, the view 
 of Christiania, and the fjord is superb. The king is 
 obliged to come to this part of his realm every Sep- 
 tember, and the Crown Prince Oscar usually comes 
 with the king. The latter, when here, resides at Os- 
 car Hall, a little white palace, with a battlemented 
 tower. It is a dainty nest in the wooded hills over- 
 looking the numerous green isles, set in the shining 
 waters of the bay. The environs of this capital show 
 Italian villas and luxuriant gardens, with drives on 
 good roads in the sylvan suburbs. Yonder forest 
 promontory jutting into the fjord is the park of the 
 fairy palace of Oscar Hall. This cynosure of all eyes 
 is worthy of an entrance and a description, which we 
 reserve until our return from the Arctics. 
 
 We are beginning to experience the effect of 
 these northern skies; for the lingering twilight, en- 
 ables us to read and write, at the hour of eleven at 
 night. We are beginning to be puzzled about the 
 end of the day. Shall we be nearer the solution, 
 when we pass the circle ? 
 
 There is much more to be written generally 
 about the capital of Norway. That it has 80.000
 
 62 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 population and a noble harbor, that it is the head 
 of a fjord sixty miles long, full of emerald isles set 
 in bright waters, and surrounded by lofty pine-clad 
 hills, every volume of Norway travel informs us. 
 Other individual experiences there we may recount 
 hereafter. Our way now is northward to the setless 
 sun! 
 
 OSCAR HALL.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NORWAY—THE ANCIENT CAPITAL AND MAJESTIC SCENERY - 
 
 THE SUN IN ITS UNSINKING COURSE AROUND THE HORI- 
 ZON—IN THE OLD CAPITAL OF LAPLAND. 
 
 " St Oluf he rideth over the plain. 
 
 Full seven miles broad and seveji miles wide, 
 But never, ah 7tever can meet with the matt 
 A tilt with him dare ride." — Longfellow. 
 
 W 
 
 HY should one visit Norway? Aside from 
 the matter of recreation and health, what is 
 there above this Arctic Circle to lead us hither ? 
 What is it that points the prow of our ship, with 
 the desire of our hearts, still northward ? These 
 queries might be answered in a library in New 
 York — a priori; but I hope to make a solution on 
 the accomplished facts. Yet to appreciate our ex- 
 perience, may I not refer to some of the thoughts 
 which have persuaded us to the trip ? What they 
 are, depends greatly on the tastes and tendencies 
 of the traveller himself To one interested in lan- 
 guages, trade, modes of conveyance and living, to- 
 pography, geography, climate, geology, ethnolog)-, 
 and the fauna and flora of different countries, there 
 is much to attract. Other lands than Norway may 
 be more alluring in these regards. 
 
 As to its history, there are also other countries 
 which have more annals and richer romance. The 
 South of Europe may be more opulent as a " land
 
 64 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 of old and rare renown," for its battlefields and its 
 epochs of advancement. Other countries, even our 
 own, may have more mysteries running back into 
 the prehistoric and nebulous rearward of time, with 
 its flint, iron, and eolden ao^es. The monuments of 
 Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, not to speak of 
 China and Japan, may have their sacred glyphs and 
 runic stones, as proofs of crude or wonderful devel- 
 opment. But for the i\merican — descended mostly 
 from the islands which make Great Britain — there is 
 a splendid charm in this Northland. Is it not the 
 land of our remote ancestry ? Its history has been 
 secluded, as well by its veil of mystery as by the 
 inaccessibility of its literature. 
 
 Whether these Northmen were a shoot from a 
 Finnish stock, or whether they are a part of that 
 restless German race which formerly dwelt around 
 the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof, and which now 
 dominates Europe. — one observation maybe compre- 
 hensible. It is that these blue-eyed, light-haired 
 people are in the largest sense, one. They are of 
 one race. Their characteristics are as well marked 
 as those of the Latin or Hebrew race. Ang^lo- Saxon, 
 Goth, Vandal, Dutch, English, call them what you 
 please, they are but divisions of one family, whose 
 impression as the arbiters of mankind, in the old and 
 new hemispheres, has had and yet has tremendous 
 emphasis. 
 
 The present dynasty of Great Britain, by its re- 
 lation to the conqueror — William the Northman — 
 may find its aboriginal home in these Northlands. 
 It is stated that the descendants of Rolf Ganger, the 
 conqueror of Normandy, remain unto this day on 
 farms in Norway and Iceland. The title deeds of 
 their lands in the old Norsk lanof-uaQ^e, still exist.
 
 NORWAY. 65 
 
 When an Englishman would trace his linc:aL;(; back 
 to Norman blood, he must not stop short of the ter- 
 rible sea-kings who ran out of the fjords and seas of 
 the north, and in fear of whom, the old Litanies used 
 to say: "From the fury of the Northmen; 'good 
 Lord, deliver us ' ! " 
 
 Besides, is not every Scotchman interested in 
 Norway ? When Norway was under Denmark and 
 Gustavus Adolphus was making wars generally, did 
 not the Scotch Colonel Sinclair raise a force to help 
 Gustavus; and since he could not reach Sweden, ex- 
 cept through Norway, did he not, with his nine hun- 
 dred men, endeavor to cross Norway ? The Roms- 
 dal pass and fjord mark the spot where his men 
 were slaughtered by the brave and patriotic moun- 
 taineers, who hurled rocks down upon the invaders. 
 The Scotch have ever since been so attached to 
 Norway that these nine hundred remain unto this 
 day upon or under the soil; and other hundreds come 
 to see something besides Sinclair's monument. 
 
 Is not Irelancl interested also ? Norway's King, 
 Olaf I., married a Milesian maid. The blood of Erin 
 quickened the sluggish royalty of the Norse. Under 
 her fair guidance was not Norway led to the Chris- 
 tian altar and made to forget her Odins and Thors ? 
 Out of Ireland came much early grace, and from St. 
 Patrick great culture as well as goodness. 
 
 Call these adventurers, sea robbers, or Vikings, 
 they live in the deeds of their Harolds and Olafs; 
 and their laneuaQfe — but little chano^ed in sound or 
 sense — is the most expressive of all our own house- 
 hold words, even in the remotest homes of the Uni- 
 ted States. 
 
 They were the filibusters of the Middle Ages. 
 They are represented in India and Australia, in Can-
 
 66 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 ada and California, in Texas and New Zealand. Is 
 it not worth while to go back to their ancient home, 
 and, if possible, study the secret of their power? It 
 lies in the dash and skill, the experience and genius, 
 evoked by this hardy spirit of the north, out of the 
 fjords and mountains. 
 
 Like most of the founders of empire, there is a 
 dimness about their history, to which the supernat- 
 ural adds its weird attraction. St. Olaf is both the 
 Romulus and Remus of Norway. I had occasion 
 once, on the Foreign Affairs Committee, to inves- 
 tigate his saintship, to pass upon a decoration of that 
 name, tendered by Norway to some of our beneficent 
 officers; and thus I became interested in this land, 
 where his name is familiar in family, history, and 
 architecture. His history is as interesting as a chap- 
 ter in the Sagas, and, perhaps, as apocryphal. His 
 cathedral is the chief ornament of this land, where 
 there is so little of ornament by art and so much by 
 nature. 
 
 The remarkable career of such Northmen as Olaf, 
 as it disturbed coastal Europe, was not unlike that 
 of the Barbary Corsairs of a later period. It struck 
 terror and excited wonder. It reached the heart of 
 the inland cities and towns of Europe, and even the 
 cloisters of churchmen. The wild fancies of the poets 
 of the North — dreamed during their long night of 
 winter — added their imagery to enhance the terror 
 and wonder. The story of the first Olaf, whose 
 mother and foster-father were, by a bad Viking, 
 taken prisoners with him in his callow days, and 
 who, after many adventures, came to the throne of 
 Harold, his grandfather, reads like an Oriental ex- 
 travaganza. How the boy was sold for the price of 
 a goat, and how his second sale was for a cloak; and
 
 A'o/:ii:n'. 67 
 
 how, at last, he was found to be the true Prince; and 
 finally, while still a little boy, and having" recognized 
 the bad Viking in a market place, he " buried his lit- 
 tle axe in the bad Viking's brain " — these, and espe- 
 cially the " little axe," have a value as illustrating 
 historical veracities by minute comparison. How he 
 grew up and began to be a grand Viking himself, 
 until he fell in love with the Irish maiden, the beau- 
 teous Gyda, and how at last the scales fell from his 
 pagan eyes, and he saw the Christian cross as the 
 sign in the sky for more conquests — all these are as- 
 sociated not only with these fjords and rocks, but 
 connect them with other lands by the heroic narrative. 
 Then there was a second Olaf in ioi5. He was 
 a politic person. He managed the local Democra- 
 cies and conciliated their leaders, the jarls, or earls. 
 He, too, ran the round of conquest, to end at last in 
 discomfiture ; but he was sainted, and the splendid 
 cathedral now repairing in Trondhjem contains his 
 sacred well, his precious bones, and his elegant 
 tomb. The well is fabled to have miraculous virtue, 
 and the tomb — -it is now reappearing — was a marvel 
 of art. The natives go in crowds to see this cathe- 
 dral and its treasures. We went the rounds with 
 thirty others. Most of them were Norwegian peas- 
 ants. They looked at the relics with wonder, love, 
 awe, and with a simplicity utterly incongruous 
 with that of sea robbers and VikinQ^s. 
 
 I do not wonder that as early as a. d. 1080, the 
 " Tractatus Adami " was written. It is like the 
 fables told of the mysteries of Africa. It makes 
 everything wonderful, because unknown. In this 
 Tractate, de sihi DaiiicE d rcliqiiarium Scp'cnti'iolai 
 Rcgioncm, — it is said that " Norway and Sweden 
 are two widely extended' kingdoms of the North
 
 68 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 hitherto ahiiost unknown. There are vast deserts 
 and mountains of snow, where are herds of mon- 
 strous men, whicli shut out all approach : also Ama- 
 zons, baboons, and Cyclops, having but one eye in 
 the middle of their foreheads ; hemantopeds, skip- 
 ping or leaping with one foot only; man eaters with- 
 out speech." 
 
 After reading this description I did not wonder 
 that the booksellers in Norway sell illustrated and 
 translated editions of " Gulliver's Travels." Nor 
 did I wonder that in the palace at Christiania, the 
 capital of Norway, one of the native painters by 
 a bold stroke of imagination imaged in graceful 
 portraiture, the forms of Scandinavian Amazons 
 fighting the sons of men on horseback, cavorting 
 out of the air of the North, scantily clad, and driv- 
 ing their male enemies headlong to the frosty earth. 
 Nor is it wonderful that where iron became so nec- 
 essary to the pursuit of fishing and the building 
 of boats, that the Cyclops should have a northern 
 home in the palace of the great god of the hammer 
 and anvil, Thor. Nor is it less wonderful that the 
 Smith family should here be a patronymic of uni- 
 versal honor. 
 
 How beautiful are objects seen in the twilight 
 of history, and in the mists of fiction how are they 
 magnified! 
 
 Another inducement to see Norway and its kin- 
 dred people at their home is the fact, that here is 
 the hive whence come the bees to suck the sweets 
 out of our own soil. Norway has re-discovered 
 America. What habits of patience, adventure, 
 thrift, and industry do they not bring to our rich, 
 alluvial soils? From Minnesota to Texas they are 
 laying away in their snug cells the honey that gives
 
 NOA'IFAV. 69 
 
 Happiness. Every year the crowd of immigration 
 at Castle Garden has increased, until last year a 
 half million have come, one-fifth of them out of this 
 hive of industry. Still, from my observation, we 
 have just begun to draw upon this fruitful source of 
 population, for the business of raising children here 
 seems to be as active as that of the steamship lines 
 which convey them. 
 
 Even if there were no strange, eventful history 
 to draw us to this Northland, there are physical 
 peculiarities upon this coast without a parallel. We 
 in America are associated with this land by physical 
 facts. One is the great Gulf Stream which sweeps 
 hither from the American shore, tempering its cli- 
 mate and making such journeys as ours possible and 
 comfortable. As a consequence, we have this near- 
 ness of these northern lands and waters to the 
 distant traveller, who cannot wage a war with the 
 excesses of the Arctic upon our own and other 
 shores. 
 
 But the interest in Norway culminates in the 
 supreme fact, that the sun, with its equable alter- 
 nation of light and shadow — day and night — in other 
 lands, here shines for months, quite inequitably. It 
 never seeks at times to go below the horizon for 
 rest! Here it appears in a double and doubtful 
 character. It is the orb of nitrht as well as of 
 day. It is this grand luminous fact which allures 
 most travellers hither. It is this fact which we de- 
 sire to record, with such interest as the incidents 
 of unaccustomed travel may enhance. 
 
 What mountains, cataracts, snow fields, and tor- 
 rents we saw from our Trondhjem car of observation 
 would make a gallery of pictures. They would re- 
 main as c/ie/s d'euvre, but for the superior splendors
 
 70 FROM POLK TO PYRAMID. 
 
 of the fjords and their lofty walls and winding maze 
 of sublime scenery, which we have already observed, 
 and are still preparing to observe. 
 
 Our night-ride is brief, for the night is short. 
 Our companions are so accommodating, that they 
 change sides in the car, so that we may revel in the 
 beauty of Lake Myosen, along whose margin of 
 Genevan beauty our train runs. The stops are 
 frequent, the meals constant and the scenery magnifi- 
 cent. Snow patches begin to glisten on the fjelds 
 and mountains. Waterfalls dash under the track 
 and are seen deep down in the gulches, fretting and 
 seething amidst rocks. We have risen, as we go 
 north, 2,200 feet; and the descent begins as we ap- 
 proach Trondhjem. We pass down chzzy gorges 
 and around towering peaks, covered with pine 
 and birch. As we run into the valley which leads 
 into Trondhjem, the rain falls and the weather is 
 thick. This city has streets as wide as Pennsyl- 
 vania Avenue. They have double sidewalks, and 
 four gutters, and look unique! The morning brings 
 us the sun; and from our windovv^s we perceive the 
 distant heights upon which the snow rests. We rest 
 also till noon; and then begin our observation of the 
 most remarkable object in the city. 
 
 There is no name so thoroughly domesticated in 
 the Northland, as that of Olaf. The reason for it 
 lies in the depth of Norse tradition and history. 
 Longfellow has translated a mystic ballad, — a verse 
 of which is prefixed to this chapter. It refers to the 
 first preaching of Christianity in the North. It is 
 associated with chivalry, — born of the Orient like 
 the Christian religion. Faith, Hope, and Charity, 
 three maidens, decorate an unknown knight. Out 
 of his encounter with Sir Olaf, the two fall, and out
 
 XOA'IVAY. 71 
 
 of their blood, rises the myth. I'^roni Sh' Olaf, 
 there is but a step to St. Olaf; and from his chiv- 
 alric virtues came the splendid cathedral, which the 
 rude winds and air of the North have not spared. 
 It is this primal architectural glory of the North, 
 that we first visit in this ancient capital. 
 
 Its Norman decorations, with the double rows of 
 " saw teeth," cut in slate colored marble, the olden 
 well of the Saint, in one corner of the nave, with 
 its supposed virtues of healing and sanctity; the cor- 
 ridor full of corbcilles of quaint imagery, satires of 
 the mediaeval masons upon the society of that time; 
 the round columns with square bases and the "early 
 English " style, so favored by the aesthetic in art 
 and nature, are here, but in fragmentary ruin and 
 confusion; for the church is undergoing complete re- 
 pair. Many years will be required to restore its 
 pristine grandeur. Meanwhile an improvised rail- 
 road brings the unhewn marble to the very chisel 
 of the artists who are at work within the boarded 
 apartments. Already the altar is partially reared, 
 and enough is seen to show the octao-on tower over 
 it, as exquisite in proportion and in variety with unity, 
 as the stained windows are rich in hue and design. 
 
 Without waiting to describe more fully this Ca- 
 thedral, without writing down the many courtesies 
 from this most polite people, not forgetting Mr. 
 Fischer, the agent of the Schoning steamers, to 
 whom we owe so much as a preparation for the 
 long and unknown journey, and leaving behind the 
 pleasant graveyard at Trondhjem, where the dead 
 are remembered by flowers and visits, never omitted 
 during the season when flowers bloom, and minis- 
 tration is possible,— we order a fire in our room at 
 the hotel, and prepare for the needs of our journey.
 
 72 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 For three of us, for five hundred kro?ic7i, or about two 
 hundred dollars at most, the journey can be made 
 to North Cape and return. Our tickets are taken 
 and wardrobe selected. 
 
 We look at our watches. It is 1 1 p. m., and 
 the daylight is lingering on the hills. It is mid- 
 summer's night fete over these wild, rocky lands, 
 but its fires are hardly visible in the sunlight at 
 1 1 p. M. We go to our window constantly to see 
 if this fire fete is discernible; but it is raining, and 
 the prospect is gloomy. We go to bed under eider- 
 down covelets that raise us to Fallstaffian propor- 
 tions in our recumbency. Friday, July 24, dawns 
 about I or 2 A. m., and after breakfast we look upon 
 our future home in the steamer John Schoning. 
 It is anchored in the fjord at Trondhjem which is 
 set amid verdurous mountains tipped with snow. 
 
 What is a fjord, and why is it spelled so ? A 
 fjord is the same as our English word ford. They is 
 not sounded, or it may have a little tone of ^, and signi- 
 fies a body of water, or an inland arm of the sea, and 
 has all the qualities of our bay or the Scottish frith. 
 
 In Norway, on the coast, for two thousand miles, 
 the fjord furnishes safe water-ways of communica- 
 tion. It makes the gloomy sterility of the soil and 
 the long winter nights tolerable, relieves the long 
 days of leaden gloom, and renders the tempestuous 
 sea harmless. 
 
 Our boat is filling with bags of flour for the oc- 
 cupants of the fishing villages upon our projected 
 route. At last, Friday midnight, the time of sailing 
 comes. The sun sets in gold between two mountains, 
 but his radiancy remains to light us on board half 
 an hour before midnight. The puzzle between night 
 and day is deepening.
 
 NORWAY. 73 
 
 By some misadventure we are rowed to the I lam- 
 burg' steamer. This is righted, and we are aboard 
 and abed — to awake Saturday morning, amid the 
 strangest scene it has ever been my lot to behold. 
 Here and there we see a yellow lighthouse and cu- 
 rious landmarks which I thought at first were piled 
 stones for navigation in the long winter nights. They 
 were piles of dried fish. One peculiarity we observe. 
 It is a white target circle painted on the gray gran- 
 ite rocks, to attract the attention of navigators to 
 the iron ring, where, in the wintry storm and night, 
 the vessel may hold fast. On our left, going up, are 
 lono" lines of rounded rock, shuttiuLT out the restless 
 North Sea, and on the right, under a blue, lustrous 
 haze, are long ridges of rocky cliff, with small, sweet 
 intervals of green, where a few red and yellow 
 houses are located, and all in strange contrast with 
 the snows above on the mountains, which never 
 leave us. 
 
 I look around the deck of our vessel. It has 
 two masts, with tarred ropes and glistening chains. 
 The deck is full of holes, and machinery for lifting 
 and lowering the traffic. It is piled up with lumber 
 of all kinds, giving small room to promenade. The 
 fact is, these vessels are only about four hundred 
 tons, and are mainly for the trafiic along the route. 
 
 Who and what have we aboard ? A piano is 
 being thrummed below in the large cabin by the 
 captain; and a young Ole Bull is playing a rattling 
 tune, with a squeaky fiddle, to the second-class pas- 
 sengers, below the forward deck. A dance is going 
 on merrily. The fjord, and the sea itself, which is 
 noticeable at times between the isles, are like glass. 
 A gentle breeze from the north brings no eager and 
 nipping harshness on its way from the pole. Many
 
 74 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 women, with handkerchiefs on their heads, are stand- 
 ing about the deck hstlessly. They are of the fami- 
 hes of the merrymakers, who turn out to be herring 
 fishers going north for a " catch." They leave the 
 south in droves when a telegram assures them of a 
 " run." They furnish their own meals, and are as 
 civil a body as you will find in any land. Six 
 staunch boats are lashed to our sides, as a preparation 
 for emereencies where licfhthouses are scarce and 
 the life-savinof service unknown. Our well-dressed 
 passengers are sauntering around and becoming ac- 
 quainted. This is aided by the clever tact and jolly 
 manner of Captain Bentson, who unites to a hand- 
 some, manly person, good manners and excellent 
 English. There are two English women of rare 
 culture, one of whom is expert in drawing, together 
 with two clergymen of the English Church, one of 
 whom is also a proficient in the same art. We have 
 meals thrice a day, the pitce de resistance being 
 salmon. 
 
 Among these passengers are many Norwegians. 
 There is one in whom I am specially interested. He 
 is a youth of ten, and sits next to me at the table. 
 His name is Sigert, and he is bound to see his father, 
 far up in the Arctic Ocean. He travels alone — with 
 a dog. All treat him well. He speaks very melli- 
 fluous Norse, and we like to hear him talk. Our 
 clergyman teaches him the features of his face in 
 English, eyes, cars, mouth, and skin, as he insists on 
 pronouncing cJiin. I ask him what he is going to be 
 when he gets through school. He says that after learn- 
 ing Latin and Greek, he will be. a priest. I tell him 
 to come to America. He shudders ! I ask, through 
 Rene, what he thinks of America, and why he will 
 not come. He says: "Brigands! Oh, the brig-
 
 THORGHATTEN, NORWAY.
 
 NO/^IVAY. 75 
 
 aiuls ! " The young Viking ! As tliis was a poser, 
 and apt, if inculcated among Norse youth, to dis- 
 courage emigration, I cross-question him, and find 
 that the brigand of his fancy is the noble redman, 
 the Sioux and Ute. I explain that we white people 
 are rescuinof the " noble red " from his bri^jandish 
 propensities, and he promises, if I am a good sample 
 of those who have exterminated the red brigands, to 
 come and see us when he is through with his studies. 
 
 After dinner on Saturday, we prepare for the first 
 sensation before reaching the Arctic Circle. We are 
 informed, however, that we v/ill not see Thorghatten 
 till after night. After night ? There is no night 
 here. Thoro-hatten is the hat of Old Thor himself 
 set high upon a proud, godlike head, worthy of Olym- 
 pus. It is a mountain isle, and from a distance re- 
 sembles the Capitol at Washington in shape. It is 
 full of caves and chasms, and has an immense hole 
 through it. Our party is set. on shore to examine 
 it. It is no easy path, this ascent, and I am com- 
 pelled, " as a bird with fond endearment," to coax 
 my wife upward to the skies and lead the way. 
 
 While we are ascending the heights, the vessel 
 steams off to a station for a couple of hours. It is 
 difficult to land, but we succeed, and over spongy 
 turf and the rubble of the thunder storms and wind- 
 ing up through a damp valley, we reach a point 
 where we can snowball each other in this beginning 
 of July. Then we happen to separate, and some of 
 us get lost. Our party has been misdirected. Fi- 
 nally some get up to the tunnel, and some hover 
 around it, not knowing how to reach it, nor how near 
 they are to it. It is seventy-five feet high and one 
 hundred and fifty yards long. It is nearly at the top 
 of the mountain, say one thousand feet high. It is
 
 76 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 long waiting for some of the party to return, and 
 Rene, our guide, having sung Cipriano in the opera 
 Rigoletto, and being professor of French and Ger- 
 man, and a cosniopoHtan besides being a Dane, gives 
 us in various languages, national songs and some of 
 his operatic tunes. 
 
 Rene is called a Talk. He is a talker, or inter- 
 preter; but he is more. He is a rare artist. A 
 kind of Danish ranz cie vac/ics, is one of his favor- 
 ites. Then we call for another and another of his 
 favorite airs, until he essays his national song. It 
 tells proudly on the folds of its battle flag, to what 
 nation it belongs. He prefaces the song with the 
 legend of its origin. It seems that one of the popes 
 granted to Waldemar. king of Denmark, all the lands 
 which he could wrest from the heathen. He begins 
 the business of wrestinof. There is a battle. The 
 Danes are beinor worsted. Their flacr is lost; when 
 lo ! from the heavens drops a standard. There is 
 upon it, a white cross on a red field. The battle is 
 then won; and the Danncbrog becomes a poetic en- 
 sign, which Rene thunders out to the heavens, whence 
 it came. The heavens and the mountains give back 
 a choral volume of welcome. 
 
 We pass the time in making acquaintance with 
 our fellows — who consist of five English, seven 
 Scotch, and three Americans — -while some old 
 travellers, in l^roken languages, recount the stories 
 associated with the locality. It is a legendary spot. 
 Every country with a waterfall one hundred and 
 fifty feet high must have a legend with the fall. It 
 is likely to be a story about a veiled virgin, and the 
 amative acrobat wlio leaps over cascades after her. 
 It is related in various ways and tongues, how, before 
 the Sagas were written, and long before Harold the
 
 NOKIVAY. 77 
 
 fair-liairccl suppressed tlic Jarls, who ran lionic g'ov- 
 ernment on a Democratic basis, far deep in the past, 
 when priants and trolls peopled the inhospitable North, 
 the giant Hestmand (Horseman) fell in love with a 
 yellow-haired giantess named Moya of Lako, nine 
 miles away. She rejected his suit. He uttered 
 great oaths, and plucked an arrow from his quiver 
 and shot at his love. The sequel is sad. The arrow 
 went through Thorghatten to strike off her head, and 
 the tunnel remains to prove it. All the parties to 
 this affair are somehow turned into stone, including 
 the arrow, and they remain as indubitable evidence 
 of the absolute verity of the narrative. It may be 
 remarked that while the sun here is allowed to go 
 to bed late, if he goes at all, and to keep dissipated 
 hours, yet it is not permitted to giants and gnomes, 
 for they must go out at night only, otherwise the 
 sun's rays will strike them into stone. 
 
 Beyond this enchanted spot, the Seven Sisters 
 sit in their bridal robes of snow, awaiting the 
 fateful genius which will give them away. They 
 are alike, and are alike in their magnificent height 
 (three thousand feet each) and their cragged gran- 
 deur. 
 
 Before we start for their vicinacje an alarm runs 
 around our company. Two boat-loads from the 
 shore have arrived on board, and one person is 
 missing. It is a lady, and the wife of one of our 
 Scotch passengers. She had gone around and be- 
 yond the point, and w^as likely awaiting a boat to be 
 sent her. A boat with the anxious husband was 
 sent. It returned with a pallid husband and no 
 wife. It was getting serious. The captain comes 
 to the rescue; he plays " Home, Sweet Home!" on 
 his bugle to allure the wanderer back; but in vain.
 
 78 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 At last he orders a boat and six sailors to go ashore. 
 The sailors spread over the mountain and among the 
 rocks. With my glass I espy far up on the jagged 
 cliff a female form. The boat whistle sounds a call. 
 The rescue is made, and the flushed wife and happy 
 husband are helped on board. A glass of wine to the 
 lost one and a great relief to all — and we are again off 
 to the northward. As we leave this spot of legend 
 and anxiety, the sun comes out of the cloud and sits 
 serenely, not as yet upon the imaginary Arctic Cir- 
 cle, but very near it, on the front of the cliff. It is 
 half-past 1 1 r. m. We are watching for some of his 
 northern eccentricities, and are gratified to find that 
 the axioms and facts of astronomy are gradually 
 reaching demonstration to our senses and sentiment. 
 
 Another day with some rain, but glimpses of 
 Swiss-like mountains, until at Swartzeisden, a fa- 
 mous black mountain, appears a glacier that Agassiz 
 would have loved to encounter. Through our glass 
 it looks green and blue, where it is broken off. It 
 is forty-nine miles long, a vast field extending along 
 the mountain's crest. 
 
 Such a crystalline monster provokes observation 
 and discussion. Our learned friends on board re- 
 count glacial facts. Boulders are magnified by fancy, 
 and science is lifted into the dim inane of antique 
 epochs. Child-like I listen, only asking our scientist: 
 
 " How the arctic frost-piles upbear these pon- 
 derous rocks; and what the theories now most preva- 
 lent are ? " 
 
 My questionings arc answered in sight of the slow 
 moving masses. Then I presume to inquire, whether 
 in the eye of the Infinite, these evidences of elemental 
 forces and transitions, are not the merest minute 
 movements of the almost infinitesimal atomies.
 
 NORWAY. 79 
 
 Whereat I am put down as a sceptic. Then I 
 read my little lesson of the butterfly and the glacier, 
 to show in Hans Andersen's land, how the Great De- 
 signer in little things, vindicates the universal law. 
 A prismatic butterfly becomes enamored of an iris. 
 He flutters about the earth to seek his love. At last 
 he finds her in the hyperborean north. She is encased 
 in crystal, and as he strives to embrace her, he falls 
 chilled on the ice. Who digs his tiny grave ? By 
 the universal law of heat, he scoops, after death, his 
 own tiny grave. It is in the shape of an oval water 
 cup. Its larger axis lies due north and south. It is 
 deepest at the north; but it is so accurate that the 
 wayfaring man, though compassless, may safely find 
 his bearings. The dead butterfly in his wandering 
 for his love, indicates the meridian. Science and af- 
 fection are reconciled. This little cup deepens to a 
 basin, and the basin shallows until it is obliterated, 
 and a symmetrical cone with an oval base, rises ex- 
 actly in its place, — a temporary monument of ice, 
 marking the grave of the dead butterfly. 
 
 The death and burial of a gold-dusted butterfly 
 may point unerringly to the pole, and leave a monu- 
 ment observable by the eye of man and God. 
 
 My little story was all too poetic, though true. 
 However, science gave me its hand in the person of 
 its devotee. Dr. Sanderson; and pointed to a greater 
 wonder far below the glacier mountain. 
 
 The telegraph poles pass in slow procession 
 toward the Arctic coast and the Russian domin- 
 ion. A station is reached where there is a fair 
 being held, and we go ashore to observe the lit- 
 tle groups; but where are the people along these 
 shores — where? Where are the Northmen who 
 make Norway the third maritime power ? We 
 fail to see them, and inquire for them. We are
 
 So FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 told that the men, or most of them, are off to sea, 
 fishiiiQf — ever fishinof. 
 
 This town of the fair is called Stensoen, and is at 
 the head of a fjord. It is impossible to depict the 
 scenery of the various places at which we land, but 
 it is one of the delights of this peculiar travel that 
 we can break its irksomeness every few hours, by a 
 brief stay upon the shore. A half hour we consumed 
 at Stensoen, in discharo-incf cargro. We cross a lake- 
 like fjord which is as calm as one of our midland 
 New York lakes. But how wintry is the aspect, 
 with the bare mountains, whose gray is somewhat 
 relieved by lichens and snow ! What a solitude is 
 here ! It is rendered more lonesome by the few 
 square-rigged yellow sails coming from or going to 
 the sea. With their upturned prows, they are not 
 jnpicturesque. They fill the ideal of the bent plank 
 which Ruskin commends in them as the nearest per- 
 fect of any work of man for symmetry, beauty, and 
 utility. Far to the west, the sun seems to burn 
 hotly upon the dazzling water, while the ever-vary- 
 ing panorama of white heights gives back the dazzling 
 sheen. I am startled from my contemplation of this 
 wonderful land, and still more wonderful water, by a 
 Scotchman's song in the cabin. It seems oddly un- 
 fitted to the enchanted spot: 
 
 "Then we will walk at early dawn, 
 Ere yet the sun begins to shine. 
 At eve aft to the lawn, 
 
 And mark that splendid orb's decline." 
 
 We are almost to the point where there is no 
 dawn and no decline to speak of or sing about. 
 
 It is Sabbath, and our services are over. We 
 reach a village called Mosjoen, a place for timber 
 and snow. It is completely shut in by mountains.
 
 JVOA'jrAV. Si 
 
 It reminds us of the Crow's Nest up the Hudson, 
 but narrower, and with wilder mountain scenery. 
 Upon the rocky shore the Norwegian Hag- flies in 
 the brisk breeze, — a cross of red and white ; while 
 far off is a white, dazzling snow field, upon which 
 the summer as yet has made no impression. We 
 land and ascend the hill. We find a tent and plat- 
 form, where the fishermen dance away the winter 
 nights under the light of the Aurora. The waves 
 of the fjord are dressed in bonnets of white, as 
 though for church. The snows reach to the water's 
 edge. An immense lumber boom is here, full of 
 long, slim logs, very unlike the Norwegian pine of 
 Miltonic verse. A mountain, in the similitude of 
 Vesuvius, with a cloudy streamer at its top, bears 
 us in fancy to the Neapolitan mountain. We are in 
 north latitude 66°. 
 
 At length we are at the Arctic Circle. It has 
 a bold landmark, no other than our legendary friend 
 the Horseman. It is an island. From the sea it 
 is said to seem like a man on horseback in cap and 
 flowing cloak. I could not make out the horse 
 exactly, but the man was tolerably well outlined. 
 He reminded me of the statue of the Duke of 
 Wellington in Hyde Park, which all agree is not a 
 good piece of art. But the circle is better defined 
 in our minds. It cuts the horseman's cap in two, 
 and can be seen — the horseman, I mean — from a 
 great distance. Hence we were ready on deck, 
 chronometers in hand, for the sun, which at this 
 point does not " bait his steed the ocean waves 
 among." as Spenser sings, but rises before he con- 
 descends to be seated. Are we to be disappointed? 
 Yes. The hateful clouds prevent. The night before 
 we had watched his majesty go down, and rise again
 
 82 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 about a quarter after twelve. He surrendered his 
 throne with orreat glory, but it was not yet the unset- 
 ting sun. We retire to our berths disgruntled, not 
 without hope, however, for to-morrow at midnight. 
 Another day. We are up betimes, for by cover- 
 ing the port-hole with a curtain we improvise some 
 little night and have a good rest after our disap- 
 pointment. The scenery is so grand that, in spite 
 of the " Ingen Adgaiig-," " No admittance," painted 
 over the bridge, we ascend it for the splendid
 
 NOR IV AY. 83 
 
 view of these sea-coast Alps. By our side is a 
 Norse pilot, yellow-haired and polite, but watch- 
 ing closely the windings of the fjord. Picture on 
 picture surprise by their forms, — Churches, Bier- 
 stadts and Turners ; mountains jagged, ragged, and 
 cragged. They remind me of a view I once had 
 from Pic du Languard in the Orisons, at the Ber- 
 nini pass, where I counted over one hundred anci 
 fifty snow-clad mountains in Tyrol and Savoy, as 
 well as in Switzerland. Many of these Norwegian 
 mountain ranges are doubled in grandeur by the 
 reflection of their rocks and snow in the waters 
 of the ever-changing fjord. What huge masses 
 these North mountains seem ; skeleton ribs of the 
 earth, in its desolation and sublimity. 
 
 The marvel is, and is ever repeated here, that 
 a whole land, running so far toward and into the 
 frozen zone, bending like a monstrous bow, should 
 be so crowded with these giants of earth and yet 
 so easily reached and seen by the sons of earth. 
 Compared with them the Catskills and Alleghanies 
 seem as a wart. I have seen the sierras of Spain 
 and California, and the Atlas and Alpine ranges 
 with their gorges and glories, and yet it would seem 
 as if all these visions were as nothing compared with 
 these thousand miles of majesty, with their waters 
 and isles, glaciers and peaks, all canopied with blue 
 skies and fleecy clouds, and all reproduced in lakes 
 more maorical than Mao-oriore or Como. 
 
 o 00 
 
 All description fails. Besides, all emotions, sub- 
 lime and otherwise, begin to succumb before the 
 rolling of the steamer and its peculiar motion. We 
 are in the open sea, and have glimpses of the lofty 
 ranges and inaccessible fastnesses of the Lofoden 
 Isles, which reach out their rocky arms toward Ice-
 
 84 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 land. I ask the mate to point out the Maelstrom, 
 that bete iioir of our school days. He says that 
 we will not go near it, and laughs slyly at my 
 idea of its horrors. These are more easily dis- 
 sipated than those which follow us into the Arctic 
 Sea, which we are now entering with questions not 
 to be recounted. 
 
 After many calls among the Lofoden Islands 
 we recross a narrower fjord, and still steering north 
 and still moving east also, we reach at the seven- 
 tieth parallel the old capital of Lapland, Tromsoe. 
 
 The fjords are calm and the air pleasant and toni- 
 cal. Serenely we move up toward the unsetting sun 
 — per paccm ad luceni! Practically we are in the per- 
 petual light of the sun, — no moon, no star, no eve, no 
 night, — all day!
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE— IN QUEST OF THE MIDNIGHT 
 SUN— A THEATRE IN NORWEGIAN LAPLAND— A WEDDING 
 IN TROMSOE — THE EIDER DUCK— NORTHERNMOST CITY 
 OF EUROPE— OFF FOR THE OPEN ARCTIC SEA. 
 
 " Here rocks on rocks, up-piled upon the strand, 
 Seem the vast structure of some 'giant's hand.' " 
 
 IF night unto night has not proclaimed knowledge, 
 yet day unto day has given us speech about 
 these enlightened lands and waters. The perpetual 
 daylight keeps one wakeful. Besides, there is not 
 SO much sleep required where there is no darkness 
 to coax us to bed. The feelincj of beincr and havino- 
 no night to be in, makes one a sort of incongruous 
 person. Mrs. Partington describes it exactly: " Call 
 me an octagon ! a centurion ! a relic of antipathy and 
 send me to the next imposition." Have we not 
 turned night into day; and all day long? 
 
 This may seem jocose; but it is no joke to travel 
 to and from the North Cape in the mazes of these 
 fjords and amidst this Colorado and Switzerland, 
 dropped by the Creator into these turbulent seas ! 
 Nowhere for days and days, or rather for the long, 
 long day, are snow mountains out of sight, for there 
 is no darkness to enshroud them. 
 
 A story is told of the early conflicts between the 
 heathen Bonders, or peasants, and St. Olaf. who
 
 86 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 sought to convert them. The peasants were rep- 
 resented by an image of Thor, which could be seen* 
 but the saint mocked at its impotency, much as the 
 prophet mocked at Baal; and the Pagans derided in 
 return. " Let your God," said the Bonders, " make 
 clear weather; and we will accept him, or fight." 
 Meanwhile the Bonders brought their image, ar- 
 rayed in silver and gold. Olaf mocl^ed at his sight- 
 less eyes; and as he did so, the sun came out of his 
 orient chambers. "Behold! our God is Light!" 
 exclaimed the saint. Smce then the Northmen have 
 this religious light, the year round, and the God of 
 Day half the year, without much nocturnal shrouding. 
 They accepted the omen the more cheerfully, as the 
 ancient faith of Thot* v/as celebrated in connection 
 with rites to the sun. Both came out of the orient 
 and it is thought, out of Scythia. 
 
 Every mountain seems a lofty judge, all ermined 
 and spotless, in the endless light. Barring some 
 diversions into the open sea, we pass over a tor- 
 tuous chain of inland waters, every link a lake, 
 under illuminations and reflections, which do not 
 cease in their variety of form and beauty. The pare 
 rich and chaotic enough in limning and rme, to be 
 Turneresque. 
 
 There is much to kei;p one awake in these lofty 
 latitudes. If there were no other living thing, the 
 ever-moving gulls, the plashing whales, and the div- 
 ing ducks would do it. As we approach Tromsoe — 
 the eider duck becomes both a commodity of com- 
 merce and a delight for its domestic virtues. Its down 
 is worth here five dollars a pound, and it takes four 
 pounds as taken from the nest to furnish one marketa- 
 ble pound. The duck is to be seen all about the islands 
 of these fjords. It does not fly at the approach of
 
 IF/TIinV THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 87 
 
 our vessel. The male is white and black, the female 
 brown. You may find them amon<^ the rocks on 
 their nests, and handle them without their beini,^ 
 timid. Some of their haunts on the isles have 
 crosses erected upon them, indicating- that the owner 
 of the island insists on exclusive proprietorship. By 
 law all are prohibited from shooting them. At 
 Sanne-Sjoen, where we halted, I looked at them 
 throuqh the glass. They seemed gay in their 
 playful plunges, but not wild. Their feathers are 
 plucked by themselves to make nests with. Man 
 removes the soft down. They then replace again 
 the feathers from their own breasts, and again man 
 removes them. This cannot be done more than 
 twice, but with a good many ducks the product is 
 considerable. 
 
 What interest can an American take in these 
 eider ducks ? Much ornithologically, and a little his- 
 torically. Is it not chronicled that, in a. d. 1007, some 
 Norsemen embarked for America, or that part of it, 
 then known as Vinland, and now familiarly known 
 as Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket; 
 and that two Scotch slaves of the Vikings, were 
 sent as runners to spy out the land, and returned 
 with marvellous stories of its corn and wine ? The 
 historian remarks that the apparel of these Scots, — 
 a man and a women, — must have been convenient 
 for running; as it consisted of only one garment, 
 and was a happy combination of a hat and a breech- 
 cloth, covering the head, buttoning between the 
 legs, but open everywhere else and without sleeves. 
 It was on this expedition, that the eider ducks of 
 Buzzards Bay were discovered! They were so plen- 
 tiful, that it was difficult to walk, without treading 
 on their eesfs. The Scotch costume has been im-
 
 88 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 proved since that early day, and the birds have 
 down to more austere haunts. Or perhaps the 
 story is as apocryphal as that of the grape and 
 wine of Massachusetts, as to which the Viking Thor- 
 well, one of the explorers, thus mocked in numbers: 
 
 " Not from out this land divine 
 Have I quaffed one drop of wine." 
 
 Ducks are not the only birds in these high 
 Norwegian latitudes. Birds of prey, like the eagle, 
 falcon, goshawk, kite, buzzard, owl, and kingfisher, 
 sometimes condescend to appear upon our vision. 
 Warblers may be found on field and hill; but seldom 
 have we heard their sonofs or cauo^ht a sisfn of their 
 presence. The birds of the North, like the people, 
 generally fish for a living. On some of the islands 
 there are congregations of great numbers and va- 
 riety. Some of them seem to be standing as if in 
 prayer ; some kneeling. A few screams and squawks 
 now and then from a gull, and the solitude comes 
 again. 
 
 I have said that we have seen whales. This 
 remark is too fishy. Only two appeared to exhila- 
 rate our society ; but one of them made up in spor- 
 tiveness what he lacked in size. He would leap up 
 out of the fjord, and fall awkwardly, with a big 
 splash. But he was an object of tender solicitude, 
 as we passed a fisherman in a boat, cetaciously In- 
 tent, with a Sfun, makinof for his — blubber. 
 
 Along these rocks are also seen strange piles 
 in circular form, which resolve themselves into the 
 dried stock fish. They have been cured by the sun, 
 and are as hard as the stone they repose upon. As 
 opportunity occurs they are sent to the outer world, 
 and their compensation is in the salt of Spain and
 
 WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 8y 
 
 the comforts of the fruitful tropics, l)orne back hither 
 by the vessels which bear the fish south. 
 
 I am called from observing animated nature by 
 the announcement that Tromsoe is in sight. All 
 the way, since early morning, there has been a suc- 
 cession of very wintry landscapes. The mountains 
 are not so high, though still rugged; but everywhere 
 there is snow to their summits and to the water's 
 edge. Here and there are a few green spots, which 
 some one has preempted. But Tromsoe, albeit 
 within the Circle, is quite a town. Its red tiles 
 appear imposing from its bay. We leave the vessel 
 and land amid a crowd of indigenous lookers-on. We 
 walk the streets, intending to have dinner on shore 
 at the Grand Hotel. It is a two-story, commodious 
 barn, without carpeting. The fresh pine boards are 
 innocent of paint. Within its enclosure is a theatre, 
 and small handbills indicate a play to-night. It is 
 the play of "The Husband and Servant" — '' Herskab 
 og Tjenerskaby In fact, there are two plays. I 
 mention this to show the luxury of Lapland. The 
 farce of " Lavi oz Lovinde!' — " The Lamb and the 
 Lioness" — precedes the other. But how shall I 
 pronounce the polysyllabic phrase which follows ? 
 Mark Twain said that there was danger in pro- 
 nouncing the nine -jointed name of his Russian 
 inamorata. It was awful on his teeth; in fact, it 
 brought some old snags out. Two of the syllables 
 were nipped off in his attempt; but the name "tasted 
 good," as the lock-jaw closed down on it. W^e 
 were informed by the hand-bill of the theatre that 
 the '' Abonementsforestclling'' opened at half-past 
 eight of the " klock." This was satisfactory, though 
 sesquipedalian. W^e had evidences at the hotel of 
 this theatrical party by the boxes of trunks, and
 
 90 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the thin and trao-ic Bernhardt-look of one of the 
 actresses. Our guide Rene says they are Danish, 
 and he knows. I enter the theatre, and, unob- 
 structed and unchallenged, gallant our company 
 behind the scenes and into the green room. A 
 piano in front furnishes the orchestra, and is a 
 prologue to the swelling scenes to come. A head 
 gear and a sword, some paint stuffs, and a few ga}- 
 dresses indicate the sumptuous wardrobe. As our 
 vessel resumes its northern journey at 6 p. m., and 
 as the theatre opens at 8.30 p. m., we shall miss 
 it. Is it lighted? Yes. Chandeliers hang from 
 the ceiling, and, although there is nightly sunlight 
 now, yet this is a provision for dark winter. 
 
 When we emero^e from the hotel for a stroll, 
 school is out, and the little Tromsoe folks are on. 
 the lookout for us. They stand in groups. I ex- 
 amine the school book of one, and make a picture 
 on the slate of another, whereat all are interested, 
 and a child of ten years volunteers to say that he 
 is in a higher class than the younker I am patron- 
 izing. He speaks English, too. It is studied in 
 the schools. Wandering about the streets, we are 
 followed by crowds of little people, curious to note 
 our motions and our dress. They ask us to write 
 on their slates. Our English clergyman writes a 
 moral maxim about discipline ; and I write : " When 
 you get old enough, come to America, which your 
 ancestors found five hundred years before Colum- 
 bus." This I thought would stimulate inquiry and 
 enterprise. 
 
 A wedding is announced at the church, whose 
 bells are pealing. We invite ourselves. A score 
 of us enter the building. It is, like most Lutheran 
 churches, plain ; but there is an altar, with " seven
 
 WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 
 
 91 
 
 NORWEGIAN BRIDE AND GROOM. 
 
 candlesticks" and candles; a large cross, perfectly 
 white, a pulpit midway, and commodious pews and 
 seats. The hour is two in the afternoon, not in the 
 mornincr, though as to liofhtinof the church it is "all 
 one." Some dozen or so of natives, all females, 
 with handkerchiefs upon their heads, are present. 
 Our party is seated at the front. I remain at the 
 door. My wedding garment is not up to the high- 
 est style, but as the procession enters the front door 
 I fall in behind with the small boy of the family. 
 The bride is a tall girl, with inflammatory hair and 
 cool demeanor. The groom is a thick-set, stout 
 man, in ordinary clothes. His hair is erect, and his 
 imperturbability is quite equal to that of the woman, 
 whom he holds, we hope gently, by the hand. She
 
 92 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 is dressed plainly in black. A long white veil de- 
 pends from her back hair, held by a circlet of ivy, 
 a plant in great request and reputation here in 
 Norway. A golden crown surmounts the adorned 
 head, according to the custom. The friends of the 
 bride and bridegroom, including parents, pass up to 
 the platform with them and take seats on either 
 side. A priest comes out from the adytum and 
 stands before the altar silently, with his back to us, 
 while the precentor from a side platform raises a 
 sweet song, with whose music there is not so much 
 accord by the audience. Then the bride and bride- 
 groom kneel, a prayer is said, and the two are one, 
 and all are happy. The bride is re-arrayed at the 
 door, and the scene is concluded. 
 
 After dinner we stroll about the town, while 
 the Captain invites my wife to ride about, after a 
 wild Norwegian pony, in a big cariole. She re- 
 ports having several adventures on foot as well as 
 in the vehicle. Seeing a lady of sorrowful aspect 
 sitting upon a bench, she joins her. The woman 
 exhibits much emotion upon knowing my wife is 
 from America. Her pretty home is tenantless, as 
 the family, all but herself, sailed eight days ago 
 for America. She says: "The snow — oh, the snow 
 is so deep ! No one ought to pass another such 
 winter." She adds that no Lapps will be down 
 from the mountains till later, and we must await 
 their coming to see the reindeer in his best estate, 
 which is wild. Judge Caton, in his admirable book 
 on Norway, states that they have an irresistible im- 
 pulse to seek the coast in the summer season. This 
 the owner cannot oppose, if he would. All he can 
 do is to direct whither they shall go. The Judge 
 does not give us the reason why the animal seeks
 
 WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 93 
 
 the warm climate in warm weather, leavini^ the cool 
 hig-hlands behind. It is an anomaly in nature which 
 he does not clarify. He sa)s it is the habit also of 
 the caribou of America. I asked our captain the 
 reason. He says it is because of the mosquitoes, 
 which are simply horrible to man and beast in sum- 
 mer, in the regions of Lapland, Finmark, and upper 
 Sweden. My friend the clergyman of St. Paul's 
 confirms the statements as to this summer terror 
 of the Arctics. He says that in the north of 
 Sweden, when the snow begins to melt and the 
 mosquito eggs begin to hatch, his friends who 
 have journeyed there have found it impossible to 
 cook their meals, as the pot would be full of the 
 mosquitoes before it could boil. They find it im- 
 possible to sleep unless one lies awake and takes 
 care of his companions. He states that upon the 
 shores of these northern Sw^edish lakes the mos- 
 quitoes have been washed ashore, and formed strata 
 two feet deep ! No w^onder the reindeer leaves for 
 the coast. Now I know why tourists do not prefer 
 to go to Mount Gallaware in upper Sweden, to see 
 the Midnight Sun, even though it is seen from the 
 heights, and further south than Hammerfest. There 
 is little interest about the Lapps and their reindeer. 
 Perhaps my disgust of the American Indian in his 
 drunken condition, has disenchanted me of the noble 
 savage. I leave to others the description of these 
 people, and their herds and habits. Reindeer or 
 not, we shall meet plenty of Lapps before \ve see 
 the midnight sun. 
 
 After visitinof the Tromsoe Museum, with its 
 antiquities of Lapp and Finn life, we board the ship 
 by six, still hoping for a good glimpse of the sun 
 at midnight. It has cleared off and grows warm.
 
 ^4 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 We all nap, expecting to be awake at midnight. 
 Alas ! again a heavy fog and clouds, and an appar- 
 ent sunset at midnight, nevertheless; but his maj- 
 esty is within his pavilion of stately splendor, al- 
 though never under the horizon. Our English 
 clergyman makes an excellent sketch of the scen- 
 ery above Tromsoe, with its wild, rocky mountains, 
 and an island in the distance, between whose jutting 
 peaks we feel, if we do not see, the round orb's de- 
 cline and rise behind long level lines of crimson hue, 
 which change into a pinky radiance as he rises with- 
 out setting. Two ships appear, like phantoms, to 
 break the solitude of the scenery. Again we go to 
 our berths disappointed, but not altogether unen- 
 thusiastic; for are we not assured by science and our 
 eyes that there is no sunset here ? 
 
 Besides, there is a peculiarity in the light here, 
 whether because of the snow and glacier, or the boreal 
 latitudes, I know not. It is indescribable. Dr. Kane, 
 in his polar experience, describes the effect of the 
 reflected light, in the month of March, as more dream- 
 like and supernatural than any combination of earthly 
 features. He says: "The moon is nearly full, and 
 the dawning sunlight, mingling with hers, invests 
 everything with an atmosphere of ashy gray. It 
 clothes the enarled hills that make the horizon of 
 our bay, shadows out the terraces in dull definition, 
 grows darker and colder as it sinks into the fjords, 
 and broods sad and dreary upon the ridges and 
 measureless plains of ice that make up the rest of 
 our field of view. Rising above all this, and shad- 
 ing down into it in strange combination, is the in- 
 tense moonlight, glittering on every crag and spire, 
 tracing the outline of the background with contrasted 
 brightness, and printing its fantastic profiles on the
 
 WITHIN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 95 
 
 snow-ticld. It is a landscape such as Milton or Dante 
 might imagine — inorganic, desolate, mysterious, I 
 have come down from deck with the feelings of a man 
 who has looked upon a world unfinished by the hand 
 of its Creator." This is a true picture of these un- 
 finished fraofments of our inorQ;'anic world. 
 
 A question arises which all observers of the mid- 
 night sun discuss: Is the light before, different from 
 that after — midnight; and if so, wherein? There is 
 a richer flush and a warmer temperature before mid- 
 nio-ht. That satisfies the sentiment which associates 
 poetry with sunset ! Besides, there is a scientific and 
 sanitary relation of light to our race. The shroud of 
 the body or its skin should not be concealed from the 
 light and air, as if we were insects to be incased in 
 cocoons. There is another function for light beside 
 that of falling upon the eye for vision. It is its 
 healthy stimulus ; and both through eye and skin 
 affects the sensibility and the health of mankind, dis- 
 pelling languor and pallor and stringing the nerves 
 to a finer tension. 
 
 Upon this misty morning of the last of June, aris- 
 ing at eight, I seek some relief from the monotony 
 of daylight and volcanic mountain; for the prospects 
 above Tromsoe are not equal in attraction to those 
 below. The snows and clouds comminofle, so that 
 it seems one unbroken whiteness upon the lonely 
 shores. The air is damp and muggy, except in the 
 south, where we least want it clear, and there it is 
 illumined with a blue streak of light. Not a sign of 
 human or other life now appears; not even a duck, 
 or a sail. It is the skeleton of the world, in its 
 shroud. We have, while asleep, passed over some 
 open sea, and are within the protection of the islands 
 on the west.
 
 96 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 At ten o'clock next morning we are at Ham- 
 merfest, which, akhough it is tlie uppermost town in 
 Europe, is not the upper end of our journey. It is 
 not so large by half as Tromsoe, for it has only about 
 three thousand population. It looks more like a sea- 
 port. The harbor is full of little boats plying their 
 fishing trade. A Siberian steamer is loading. We 
 walk to the rocky stream which gushes out of 
 the frozen lake, covered with snow, and endeavor to 
 reach the Lapp encampment, which the melting snow 
 forbids. We enter the low huts of the people on the 
 outside of the town. They are very dirty and squalid; 
 but the roofs are already green with grass, where 
 there is better provender for the stunted yellow cows 
 with short legs and full udders, than amidst the rub- 
 ble and snows of the common at the margin of the 
 lake, beneath the rocky mountain. We were not a 
 little puzzled at the useless cultivation of grass upon 
 the roofs of these houses, inasmuch as no one seemed 
 to practise the economy of the Scotch peasant, who 
 carried his cow on top of his roof, morning and even- 
 ing, to eat off the grass, forgetting how easy it would 
 have been to cut it, and carry it to the cow. 
 
 The improvidence of these poor people, is only 
 equalled by their filthy huts and habits. The hab- 
 its of Norse filth, are in wide contrast with those 
 of Dutch neatness, in the same conditions of life. I 
 cannot say that the ordinary peasant of Norway is 
 tidy. Even the skyd. who drives the cariole, with 
 his mischievous blue eye, has a sort of ragged, 
 hirsute hair, innocent of the comb, and a face racy 
 of the soil and ignorant of soap. But these Norwe- 
 ufians are in the fishinof business, and in the loner 
 winter live in hot smoky houses. Perhaps it is 
 patriotic to be slovenly ? Do they not inherit it
 
 WITI/LV THE ARCTIC C IK CLE. 97 
 
 from one of their heroes ? Is it not written of Har- 
 old Harfager, when he soiiq'ht the yellow-liaired 
 Sna^frid to wife, and when she sent word to him, 
 that she would not marry him until he conquered all 
 Norway, that he thereupon took an oath, never to 
 cut his hair until he conquered both land and wife ? 
 Besides, why do the Norse people call their heavy 
 servant girl, '' simikke pige'' ? 
 
 Almost as much care is taken to dry the hay in 
 Norway as the fish, for the weather has its vicissi- 
 tudes, and the winter is long and wearisome to man 
 and beast. For some time we were at a loss to un- 
 derstand the meaning of the great bundles of poles, 
 like exaggerated fasces, — hoef giers — piled so as to 
 look like the lodges of the red man of our land. They 
 are found everywhere in the fields of southern Nor- 
 way. They stand in the meadows or lean against 
 barn and fence, and attract attention at every view. 
 What can they be ? At last the solution came. 
 They are used for curing hay. Hay is hung up to 
 dry. Stakes are set about six feet high and pins in- 
 serted, on which these slender poles are laid. The 
 poles are so arranged that when the grass is placed 
 upon them they shed rain. The sun and wind soon 
 do the hay-making, aided by stalwart females. 
 These improvised hedges are features of Norwegian 
 landscape. They are thoroughly rural, and quite in 
 contrast with the bleak aspect of the fjords. 
 
 Passing down the principal avenue of Hammer- 
 fest, called Neddre-Gonnevvolsgaade, we see a neat 
 little church. Its bell rings. We enter, and are 
 met by a Catholic priest, a Hollander, who is here 
 at work educating and preaching. His name is the 
 Rev. Father Crull. He calls to his aid the Rev. 
 Father Hagerman, a German, who is here as di-
 
 98 FROM POLE rC PYRAMID. 
 
 rector of the Catholic missions in Lapland and Fin- 
 mark. Wine and music, and a pleasant chat, end- 
 ing with a benediction, and we are placed under the 
 direction of a young Norse teacher, who tenders her 
 service to help us about Hammerfest. The church 
 only numbers thirty-four, and its age is but a few years. 
 Under the convoyance of our beautiful guide, 
 Mademoiselle Gabovier, we visited the docks about 
 the harbor, which is full of activity. We note how 
 many watchmakers' and clock shops there are in 
 Hammerfest — a sign of natural confusion as to night 
 and day. Some twenty open boats of the antique 
 mould, such as were recently dug up near Chris- 
 tian ia, are preparing to unload their fish at the red 
 warehouses which overhang the water. They are 
 Lapp vessels. The fish are of divers kinds; some 
 red, and very large. The Lapps are not a nice set 
 to look upon. They do not compare with the rough- 
 est of the Norweoian fishermen for cleanliness or 
 
 O 
 
 behavior. Their wamitscs (as we used to call 
 them out west), or loose coat of white, thick, and 
 dirty woollen, are held by a belt — sometimes marked 
 with the name of the owner — from which depends 
 the Norwegian knife, which seems to be worn 
 openly by everybody. This is a most innocent 
 weapon, and only used for honest purposes. Drunk 
 as are many of these Lapps, and rolling about the 
 docks in stupid glee, yet no violence results, no in- 
 sults are given. 
 
 On the outside of the town, the Qfreat meridian 
 line of 2 5° 20' drawn from the Danube to the arctic, 
 terminates. It is marked by a monument, which 
 celebrates that the (scientific) sovereigns of Norway, 
 Sweden and Russia ordained this long meridian, in 
 latitude 70° 40 11'. This is quite exact for sovereigns.
 
 WITIim THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. 
 
 99 
 
 Here, far off at this end of the earth — as an evi- 
 dence of civiHzation, I suppose— is the inevitable 
 Custom House, with the red flag of Norway over 
 it. It is called the Toldkaincr, where they take toll 
 for the liberty to trade in fish, oil, and timber. The 
 shoes of the people are peculiar, made of leather, 
 but heavy, and, like their carioles and vessels, turn 
 up at the end ! 
 
 The very tones of these Norwegians indicate a 
 gentle habit. At every turn in their talk you hear 
 the negative nei — pronounced like nayce ! It is used 
 for admiration, wonder, and interrogation, and al- 
 ways with a graceful curve at the end, like their 
 vessels. If the cja (aye) and the nei (no) vote were 
 taken in Norway, the neis would have it almost-?^;;^. 
 con. It is said that the adjective habitual to a per- 
 son is as much of a detective of character as the 
 inscriptions on a thermometer are indications of heat. 
 Certainly, this is true of the Norwegian negative 
 monosyllable. It is the sign and proof of com- 
 plaisance. It must be perfectly charming to a Norse 
 lover to hear such a sweet denial of his suit. Its 
 characteristic is that It turns up so gracefully at the 
 end of the conversation. I should not be surprised 
 to see even the mosquitoes turn up, as we have seen 
 the whales, in obedience to this universal rule of 
 politeness. 
 
 Before 4 p. inl we are all aboard ready to receive 
 a return visit from the priests, who call to escort 
 mademoiselle back to the shore. She has been din- 
 ing with us. After all is done by us to be recipro- 
 cal, we set sail for the cape and the open Arctic. Only 
 a few stations, and we will be there, and then and 
 there we have another chance at his Midnight 
 Majesty.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SUN AS A NIGHT ORB— ARCTIC SCENES AT THE CATE. 
 
 " Where was wide wandering for the greediest eye. 
 To peer abottt upon variety; 
 Far round the horizoiis crystal air to skim 
 And trace the dwindling edges of its brim." 
 
 IT is July I, 1 88 1, and ten at night, and we are in 
 sight of the cape ! It grows cold and colder. 
 All wraps are ordered up and out, so that from the 
 deck we may survey the splendid headland. Before 
 taking a local view of the situation, let us see where 
 we are — on our planet. Evidently we are in no or- 
 dinary out-of-the-way place. The air, sea, sky, light, 
 and, most of all, this mystic volcanic mountain island 
 — wild, bleak, black, bare, and jagged, a thousand 
 feet sheer and clear of the sea, and its surface deeply 
 invested in white — prove our strange situation. The 
 very air blows with a strange chill, and the light, 
 which comes to us over the pole obliquely, has in it 
 a sepulchral semi-shadow in the heart of its mild lus- 
 trousness. It is a sort of inner light, burning upon 
 the vestibule of outer darkness. The spot is one to 
 philosophize upon. It hushes the outer senses. It 
 makes one feel the limitations upon our will and 
 works; yet God has enchanted this rocky promon- 
 tory by His sunlight, though He grants it but a brief 
 summer. 
 
 The North Cape is the extremity of an island
 
 THE SUM AS A NIGHT ORB. loi 
 
 called Mageroe. It means what it "iGoks,' barren. ' A 
 few Lapps and reindeer, a fishing- 'sca'tiOn and some 
 ermine, and birds by the millign, are -s-kid to 'give 
 some life to this desolate promontory. We see them 
 not. A column on the top tells that royalty ascended 
 here in 1873. That does not appear as we round the 
 headland; but the huge rock looms up grandly be- 
 fore us. You do not care to gaze from its eminence 
 to the south even if a prospect opened. It would 
 only reveal the same scenery which we have seen in 
 less sublime aspects, since we left the circle. To the 
 east other rocky heights, in clear outline, jut into 
 the sea. 
 
 Before we pass around the headlands, the gen- 
 tleness with which we had dallied in the fjords, gave 
 way. We had signs that the Mighty Power which 
 controls the rapine of the ocean, was in most oracu- 
 lar mood, and its eternal motion gave its thunders 
 upon the rocks ! As we round one of the points of 
 the star-shaped isle, the sound of the unslumbering 
 ocean becomf^::. fainter. We drop our anchor, and the 
 gentleness and shadow of evening seem to brood 
 upon the bosom of the little bay where we lie. We 
 experience a feeling of exultation and exaltation; for 
 this was the end we proposed in making this long 
 voyage. 
 
 Yet before I left Trondhjem I saw a hand-bill 
 posted on a fish warehouse with the heading: 
 
 "SPORTING AND PLEASURE TRIP 
 
 TO 
 
 SPITZBERGEN 
 BY WAY OF NORTH CAPE 1 "
 
 I02 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 I:t .assured ' the festive public that good hunting 
 boats, with harpooners and all necessary implements, 
 would a<^company the expedition, and that Mr. Ellert- 
 sen, R. S. O. O. R. J. O., an eminent Arctic explorer, 
 would be along, and all for one hundred dollars, to and 
 fro ! What all these alphabetical prefixes mean — 
 thouorh I surmise that the O's refer to the Order of Olaf 
 — I am not assured; but it was rather a damper on our 
 enterprise to know, that it was so easy to go so much 
 further into the wild Arctic Sea, with its mystery of 
 waves and their never-sleeping music. The wish 
 leaps to the mind, that we could ascend some su- 
 preme eminence at this point for a grand view; for, 
 as we approach the inscrutable sea around the pole, 
 we are stricken somewhat with the ambition to dis- 
 cover the unknown. Wishes have no limit. Would 
 that we could take a conp deceit of the Norway which 
 we have skirted above the circle. How would Macier 
 and snow, mountain and maelstrom, isle and ocean, 
 look from a height lofty enough to grasp the situa- 
 tion ! Fancy pictures it as a great ridge of bent and 
 honey-combed rock, with a few spots of habitable 
 green; but full of fantastic indentations into the 
 very " bowels of the land." These fissures divide 
 and subdivide, and reach out their branches till they 
 are spread to naught in the tiny drops of the melting 
 snow and ice. A little steamer, a little sail, a gull, a 
 fishing-boat; and all the rest rock ! Near and above 
 the circle, Norway narrows to less than a hundred 
 miles. Coast and country are one. It is in fact at 
 Tromsoe, the old capital of Lapland, a rocky ridge 
 of broken coast, with snow mountains and glaciers up 
 to the Swedish border. 
 
 At the North Cape we look out upon the Arctic 
 Ocean; and but for distance and Spitzbergen, not to
 
 THE SUN AS A NIGHT ORB. 103 
 
 speak of another small isle between, which lies due 
 north, we could see the Polar Sea, if not the pole 1 
 Let us be content with the prospect. Besides, have 
 we not gone eastward as well as northward ? We 
 are over thirty degrees north of New York and Chi- 
 cago. Our longitude has moved us eastward, and 
 the time, as men reckon time, has changed. Every 
 five degrees eastward has made a difference of twenty 
 minutes. Our meals and clocks must undergo their 
 changes. We have come to meet the sun east as 
 well as north, and are adding something to our lives, 
 as some men count living. Being extremely north, 
 and the circles of longitude being less, we mark time 
 more rapidly than in New York; and certainly "make 
 more time" than I have known to be made in W^ash- 
 inp-ton! But whether the deo^rees be lono- or short, 
 the real time is the same. A degree here is twenty- 
 two miles, while at the equator it is four times as 
 much. 
 
 So accessible are these ultra-northern places by 
 steam voyaging on the coast, that we forget how far 
 north we are. Iceland is far south of us, Greenland 
 is partly below our line drawn circularly westward. 
 Behring Straits is not within our magic Arctic Circle, 
 and the ycannctte was crushed not three hundred 
 miles further north. The pole of the magnet would 
 be found attracting us by its marvellous energy, 
 somewhere on the same lines of latitude where we 
 have moved. 
 
 How does this wild north rock appear ? Its size 
 is not great compared with other mountains, but it is 
 a fitting end, although an isle, of a great continent. 
 It is of mica-slate. It is seamed with long lines of 
 white and black, as though marked by fire and thun- 
 der. It has its caves washed by epochs of oceanic
 
 I04 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 tempest. At its base is a green fringe of sea- weeds, 
 which, on nearer inspection, we find very sHmy and 
 dangerous to stand upon. Below this is a white Hne 
 of breakers, in snowy contrast with the bleak moun- 
 tain and green margin. Our vessel is under the shad- 
 ow of the mountain. The harbor, if it be one, is 
 as black as ink. As we stop, the screw stirs the 
 dark flood into flashes of green and white, making 
 it boil with unaccustomed noise, so deep is the si- 
 lence and solitude. The throb of enofine and the 
 song of the sea cease, and we are comparatively 
 quiet in this lonely bight. 
 
 We are sent on shore in the captain's gig, the 
 captain himself taking the helm. But the landing 
 is difficult. The slippery boulders give unsafe foot- 
 ing, and the women are carried ashore by the sturdy 
 sailors. The rest of us have to be heedful of our 
 steps before we are safe under the frowning rock. 
 
 Some of our party — the more vigorous Scotch 
 young men — endeavor to ascend the gulch in the 
 mountain. It has been done. Our captain has done 
 it twice; but not with such a mass of melted and 
 melting snow as now fills up the gorge. We see our 
 friends afar up, on hands and knees, patiently climb- 
 ing. They fail and have still more trouble and dan- 
 ger in the descent. The captain calls his company 
 — a score of us — together, and the difficulty of 
 reaching the small boat, especially by the ladies, 
 is overcome. 
 
 On our return to the ship, each one lays -down 
 his trophy. One has a piece of wood evidently 
 borne by the Gulf Stream from America. It is 
 palmetto. He holds it aloft, and declaims Bayard 
 Taylor's description, flourishing his proof of the ex- 
 istence of the grand river in the ocean. He dwells
 
 THE SUM AS A NIGHT ORB. 105 
 
 on Taylor's descrii)tion of the island, as it glowed in 
 the blended loveliness of sunrise and sunset, and 
 wondered if his picture would be realized when mid- 
 night came ! Another Scotchman brings as his tro- 
 phy a beautiful verdant cup, full of dewy wine, and 
 with the grace of Ganymede, presents it to a lady, 
 repeating the verse, with a thrill of music in his 
 voice: 
 
 " Ilka blade of grass keeps its drap of dew." 
 
 Another has his thermometer, and has been test- 
 ing the heat of the water, and is reducing Raumer 
 to Fahrenheit. It is our surgeon from Edinburgh, 
 Dr. Sanderson. He has taken the temperature from 
 Trondhjem up; and being our scientist, dilates on 
 his inductive experiments. He proves that the 
 coast is warmer than the interior, and propounds 
 the paradox that the coastal region has a cooler 
 summer and a milder winter than the interior. He 
 surprises some of us by showing, that this entire 
 coast is warmer on the average by 20° than other 
 localities on the same degrees of latitude. Drift ice 
 is not seen here at 70°, while on the American coasts, 
 it is seen at 41°. Comparing the temperature of the 
 sea and the air, and that of the depths and the sur- 
 face, he shows that the sea is warmer, on the av- 
 erage, than the air; and that in winter, the year 
 round, there is heat in the depths but little 
 variant in degree, from month to month. His con- 
 clusion is plain; and we have no inclination here 
 and now, to dispute it, that the sea is filled with 
 surplus quantities of tropical caloric, which keep 
 the fjords open and the sea unfrozen. For this 
 grand benison, the source of life to flower, fish and 
 bird, and the support of man and beast, all honor
 
 I06 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 to America and her Gulf Stream ! Its heat makes 
 vapor; and its vapor, mirages; and its mirages, mon- 
 sters; its monsters, myths; its myths, the muses; and 
 from them come the songs of the Scalds, which cel- 
 ebrate midnight auroras and suns, Vandal lawless- 
 ness and Viking adventures. What does not the 
 Norseland owe to America and her stream ? This 
 conclusion aroused our patriotic emotion. 
 
 Some of our company display simple rounded peb- 
 bles, as paper-weight souvenirs of the spot. The cap- 
 tain, who has been far up the mountain — looking like a 
 little silhouette against the immaculate snow — brings 
 a variety of arctic flowerets for general distribution. 
 My wife has a handkerchief full of little love drops 
 of flowers on the tiniest of white moss tendrils. One 
 sturdy engineer bears in his buttonhole, a big bou- 
 quet of the smallest and prettiest of flowers known 
 to the nomenclature of botany. The beauty of the 
 tropics in its daintiest sense is thus reproduced at 
 this frozen and bleak end of the continent ! 
 
 What a kind dispensation is that which places 
 amid the meagre mosses of this far-off Arctic rock 
 these little flowers! How brief is their summer! 
 May, June, and all the seasons of florescence which 
 are ours, are here but for a brief week or month. 
 These flowers are the smiles upon these ultimate 
 rocks. These are beauteous proofs that summer 
 has reached these grim abodes, soon to be en- 
 veloped in wintry gloom. They teach us that 
 the best and holiest thoughts may take root 
 and bloom in the iciest home. Here were the 
 wildest estrays of the forest and field, which cared 
 not for the art of horticulture, but mingled their 
 sweet blossoms with the snows of the Arctics. 
 
 But it is no time to reflect or moralize. We pre-
 
 THE SUN AS A NIGHT ORB. loy 
 
 pare to move from our enchanted, almost sinister, 
 moorinj^s. The ^loom which Carlyle, in his "Teu- 
 fclsdrockh," inspires, comes over the soul, as we 
 take our last look at this " Infinite Brine," on which 
 he located the low and lazy sun, slumbering on his 
 cloud couch, wrought of crimson and gold, yet with 
 a light streaming over the mirror of waters, like a 
 tremulous fire pillar — the porch lamp to the palace 
 of the Eternal. Shall we realize this weird picture 
 of the cynical yet sublime critic ? 
 
 In the fanua of these northern lands and seas, 
 birds form a majority only less than the fish. These 
 coasts are not so frigid, but that they breed petrels, 
 swans, geese, pelicans, grebes, auks, ducks, gulls, 
 and divers. The ducks are of every variety and 
 color. Scientific hunters have counted over thirty 
 kinds. They are to be seen at every turn of our 
 journey northward. Whether they outnumber the 
 oulls is doubtful. In the rushinsf waters of some of 
 these tide-disturbed fjords, these squawking gulls 
 are simply appalling in number and noise. In the 
 order of swimming-birds, they bear the palm for 
 variety. Here are found black-headed gulls, bent- 
 beak gulls, naked-knee gulls, spotted gulls, brown 
 gulls, white gulls, black- winged gulls, ashy -blue 
 gulls, black-back gulls, yellow gulls, gulls with one 
 kind of mandible and gulls with another, gulls with 
 and without a hind toe, and gulls — gulls — gulls ! 
 Here they lay their eggs, hatch their young and 
 fish. But upon this occasion — and amidst this pleni- 
 tude of bird production, and at this midnight hour, 
 only one solitary bird — like that which fascinated 
 the Ancient Mariner — disturbs our nocturnal sun- 
 light, upon the borders of the Mystic Sea. The 
 unusual clangor of lifting the anchor, as we pre-
 
 Io8 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 pare to leave the gloomy cove under the shadow of 
 this great North rock disturbs his lonely sleep. He 
 is a cormorant. He adds to the ghostly solitude. 
 He has been sitting on those drear and desolate 
 rocks — a lone fisherman — from which he dives for 
 his prey. He flies in a confused way about our boat ; 
 as if inspecting the causes of this exceptional intru- 
 sion into his waste. It is said that this bird is one 
 of evil omen. The verse has it: 
 
 "Slowly the cormorant aims his heavy flight, 
 Portending ruin to each baleful rite." 
 
 The Druids believed that its appearance during the 
 celebration of their mysteries, was portentous; and 
 Milton could find nothing so fit for the incarnation 
 of the arch-fiend as the cormorant. It is a bird of 
 prey and though it will live harmoniously with 
 other birds, it will not allow other birds to feed, 
 when it is hungry. 
 
 We found no evil in its lonely appearance here. 
 But those who followed after us, suffered shipwreck, 
 near this very spot. A company of Americans — - 
 ladies, — started to take our route to the midnight 
 sun. Mrs. Joseph Wright, whose husband, Gov- 
 ernor Wright, was once our Minister in Berlin, 
 her dauofhter and ofrand-daucrhter were of the un- 
 fortunate company. We met them at Christiana 
 on our return from the Arctics, and rather per- 
 suaded them to adventure where we found it so 
 easy. They went. They saw the sun at midnight ; 
 they landed at North Cape, as we did; they started 
 home. Within three hours after their vessel's prow 
 was turned south, and in the Arctic Ocean, they 
 were befogged, struck a rocky isle, and were nearly 
 wrecked while sleeping. They were helped to the
 
 THE SUN AS A NIGHT ORB. 109 
 
 rock, and remained twelve liours in a pelting storm, 
 listening to the tolling of the ship's bell rocked by 
 the waves, until our vessel, the yoJin ScJwnin<^, with 
 our Captain Benson, arrived to rescue them. 
 
 Little did we reck of danger, nor heed the por- 
 tentous cormorant, as with enthusiastic hearts, we 
 prepare for the midnight phenomenon. Steam is up. 
 The hour of twelve approaches. All are on the qui 
 vive for the midnight sun ! Twenty of us are at the 
 prow with our watches out. The old orb is radiant. 
 The captain calls out: "Five minutes of twelve!" 
 Will the orb disappoint us ? There is a heavy cloud 
 above in the zenith, but it is lined with silver, and a 
 line of cirrus clouds lies just above his majesty. Like 
 a king of day he is enthroned without obscuration be- 
 tween the long line of clouds, on pearl and amber, 
 orange and gold, all the hues of the prism vanishing 
 into a soft radiance with the close struggle between 
 sunset and sunrise. 
 
 A minute to twelve ! He still remains round and 
 radiant. Twelve ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! It is done, and 
 the cheers go up from this solitude, arousing its echoes. 
 The rim of the horizon, far off to the north, where the 
 pole is supposed to be, is silvered with a pale, weird 
 beauty. It grows pink and then scarlet; and this 
 Arctic desolation is made a living splendor, 
 
 "Self withdrawn into a wondrous depth, 
 Far sinking into splendor without end ! " 
 
 This is the phenomenon which we have come so 
 far to witness. The captain is on the bridge. ''II fait 
 accompli',' I sing out to him from below. 
 
 " Give it to me in good English, Meister Cox." 
 I say, " We are all happy. The great transaction 
 is done."
 
 no FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 " Prepare to fish ! " is the practical response and 
 emphatic order of the captain. All is bustle. The 
 sailors prepare the tackle. The lines are out, the 
 captain leading with two codfish. I soon follow, and 
 the sailors are busy. Mirth goes round at each suc- 
 cess. My wife, a good fisherman generally, tugs 
 away at her long line until, like the gentle admiral, 
 she suddenly " goes below." My courier, Rene, the 
 Dane, catches a monster, all golden as the sun itself. 
 [Cheers.] Then a Scotchman gets in a hideous hog 
 fish of twenty-five pounds. [Laughter.] Our stew- 
 ardess, Julia, hauls in a monster. [Renewed cheers 
 and laughter.] And so we keep it up till two in the 
 golden morning, when to sleep we go, covering the 
 port-holes so as to pretend it is night. 
 
 We had made many sacrifices to see this remark- 
 able performance of our luminary. Not that either 
 of us was over-anxious to find a land where sunset 
 did not occur. We had hoped that there was no 
 realm in this or the future existence where " Sunset" 
 might not happen. But I may be allowed to remark 
 since I have borne the sobriquet of " Sunset " for so 
 many years, and it has sounded so often, with such 
 sweet sibilation, that I had come to believe that I had 
 a sort of fee simple in its fairyland, with its gorgeous 
 palaces and cloud-capped towers. Here in the up- 
 permost point in Europe, and at this midsummer sea- 
 son there is no sunset ! Bring burial weeds and sable 
 plume; for there is no sunset ! Lift the funeral song 
 of woe; and tell through the land that sunset is no 
 more; and yet I live! 
 
 And must I now be disenchanted ? Do I live, 
 and is sunset no more ? Do I see a country where 
 the sun is Sfoinof, fjoinor down amid a mise en scejte 
 equal, if not superior, to that Ohio evening years
 
 THE SUN AS A NIGHT ORB. 1 1 i 
 
 aci'O, which I tried to portray with my poor pen — 
 and yet it does not go down ? Was it not enouc,di 
 that for ten long- days, or day, there was no night for 
 lis, and that the sun, by gHding and glowing in the 
 north without any respite, had disturbed our custom- 
 ary experiences ? The reaction might be too sudden. 
 The failure of our old orb to set might — well, there is 
 no telling the cataleptic and other dire consequences. 
 But here was the patent fact ! Here were clouds and 
 lights, all the hues of the prism in splendid display, 
 and yet no sunset after all ! The unsetting and the 
 unsettable sun! Midnight, and yet light all aglow! 
 No gas, no candles, no stars, no moon — only the fiery 
 orb and his " trailing clouds of glory." 
 
 Must we send to the limbo of departed poetry, all 
 the imagery with which sunsets are decorated ? No. 
 The flow and glow of the setting orb, has not been 
 overshadowed by that of the unsetting. Even a 
 Norse poet, — as Tennyson has translated it, — has 
 pictured his preference for that glory, from when first 
 the great sun-star of morning-tide — Lamp of the 
 Lord God— glode over earth, till the glorious crea- 
 ture sunk to his setting. 
 
 But is not the sun all-sufficient without other fires ? 
 If he stays up and sets not, what more can the hu- 
 man heart desire ? What wonder that the Oriental 
 mind clothed the sun with the majesty of divinity, 
 and that the Magi saluted his coming with worship, 
 as the source of life ? What wonder that his beams 
 evoked music from Memnon ? Is he not the creator 
 of health and the great benefactor ? And we have 
 found a land where he will not rest ! 
 
 The sensation was as new as it was humiliating to 
 my amour propre. I recalled the words of a Yankee 
 character: " It's relly affectin' to think how little these
 
 112 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 'ere folks is missed that's so much sot by. There 
 ain't nobody, ef they's ever so important, but what 
 the world gets to goin' on without 'em, pretty much 
 as it did with 'em, though there's some little flurry at 
 first." 
 
 How much can be done, after all, in nature and in 
 science, art and government, without us. Govern- 
 ments will run, men and women dance and love, 
 trade and trouble proceed without sunset ! Here in 
 this land of the frigid zone, for ten days and more 
 we had seen boats in full rig and sail, mountains of 
 lofty altitude musical with fosses, glaciers miles in 
 length moving on their quiet and steady way, men 
 hauling in fish by the million, whales disporting, and 
 a steamer pushing its mazy way through the deep 
 waters shut in by volcanic walls from angry seas — 
 and yet no sunset! New York and America callous 
 to the fact and moving on restlessly, with alternation 
 of lights and shades, love and hate, bad and good, 
 night and day, thinking of everything and forgetting 
 that sunsets are not everywhere and forever. Still, 
 though I have seen and recorded the fact that sun- 
 set is no longer here, let there be no premature 
 obituaries. 
 
 To appreciate seriously these phenomena, we 
 must go back to the rudiments of astronomy and 
 geography. Go back to the invisible circle, and 
 while endeavoring to decipher the horseman and 
 the horse, through which the circle is clearly ascer- 
 tainable, by faith and science, let us look around — • 
 around our star! The first impression is that the 
 star is round. That is not a complex idea; but there 
 are suggestions about it that to the ordinary mind 
 are complicated, if not confusing to the general ex- 
 perience. To such this circle and its phenomena
 
 THE SUN AS A NIGHT ORB. II3 
 
 are a mystery. It is a mystery, because above it, 
 in ever-contracting' circles, till it runs to naught at 
 the pole, the sun shines only a portion of the year, 
 without going under. Within it is a horizon for a 
 part of the year which never hides the blessed light, 
 where our moon and stars forget to light their 
 lamps, and where the earth alone seems repairing to 
 the home of light with " its golden urn." When 
 the spring begins, this favored region has but a spot 
 of continuous shine, but it grows with the ever- 
 widening circle from the Pole to the Arctic, until on 
 midsummer's day, the day we left Trondhjem, it has 
 run down lines of longitude twenty-three and a 
 half degrees, or 66° 30 north latitude. There it 
 tremulously lingers and moves to the polar regions, 
 to make the brip-ht little o-em of lisfht from which 
 it started. 
 
 The other half of this process for half a year is 
 dedicated to the Antarctic, while Night for six months 
 folds its wing, radiant with strange auroras, over these 
 regions. These vicissitudes are as orderly as the 
 seasons of the moderate zones. It is our experience 
 which makes them seem eccentric; and this experi- 
 ence gives to the scenery, to time, to the clouds 
 and mountains, the fjords and snows, the glamour of 
 unreality. We are, so to speak, inverted. Some 
 sense of the comic if not of the cosmic, relations we 
 bear to space and stars and suns comes over us; and 
 the light we bask in at midnight is as strange as that 
 " which never was on sea or land — the consecration, 
 and the poet's dream." 
 
 Here are day of days and night of nights! This 
 is plain to the eye, and it takes ever so slight a re- 
 flection to understand it fully. It is complex, until 
 we remember that the earth goes round the sun in an
 
 114 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 eclipse — a problem which men have been ready to de- 
 fend even unto death. In oroin^f round the sun the 
 earth inclines its axis to the plane in which it moves. 
 If the earth did not thus "tenderly incline" — if it stood 
 stiff and perpendicular, without courting the graces 
 — every inch of its surface would have its night and 
 day equally divided. But it plays the erect only 
 twice a year, at the intersection of the ecliptic and 
 the equator. These are days of absolute equity of 
 distribution in the spring and fall. Twice a year, 
 March 21st and September 21st, the half of the 
 earth along its axis is illuminated. These are the 
 equinoxes. God determined thai for a year our 
 earth should make its bow, half the time to one 
 and half to the other pole. The angle of this obei- 
 sance of our earth to its plane measures the dis- 
 tance from the pole to the circle. 
 
 It is a plain conclusion from these facts that the 
 Arctic Circle within which we are moving just now 
 girdles the earth with only eight thousand miles. 
 If we would make a straight march around the circle, 
 we would save one-fourth of the journey in miles , 
 and if around where we are now at this North Cape 
 on our line of latitude, which is about 72°, it would 
 be one-half less, or one-fourth of the distance around 
 our globe at the equator. 
 
 At the North Cape the sun is first seen at full at 
 midnight, on the 13th of May; at Hammerfest on the 
 1 6th; at Tromsoe on the 20th; and at Bodo — about 
 a degree above the circle — on the 4th of June. At 
 Bodo, it is seen until the 8th of July, or thirty- 
 two days; at Tromsoe until the 2 2d; at Hammerfest 
 until the 27th; and at North Cape until the 30th of 
 July. It is visible as a full orb, at the cape, over 
 two and a half months. The traveller must seize
 
 THE SUN AS A NIGHT ORB. 115 
 
 the days accordingly. At Bodo, the sun goes out 
 of the sky on the i5th of December, and peeps up 
 again on the 28th; at the North Cape it goes out on 
 the 1 8th of November, and returns on the 24th. 
 But these dates do not convey the idea of the long 
 night, nor of the long day, as the sun does not 
 wholly lose its light, or fully shine during these in- 
 tervals. One result is a short summer, and a long 
 winter. If one could be at the pole, in the centre 
 of the great spiral movement of the sun, — but that 
 is not an adventure — for us. 
 
 However, we may approximate toward the pole, 
 by standing on an elevation. My observations thus 
 far, have been on a level with the horizon; but get 
 above it, climb a mountain, and the sun will seem 
 higher. If you climb two hundred and twenty feet, 
 you travel north fifteen miles. If you stand on a 
 hill that high, you would see the sun a day sooner. 
 Tourists do this at Avasaxa, in Sweden, from Hap- 
 aranda ! It is just on the circle, north of the Gulf of 
 Bothnia, fourteen hundred and eight miles from the 
 pole. The sun shines — all day and all night there 
 on the 2 2d of June. It is seen due north. On the 
 2 2d of September, it descends and rests on the rim 
 of the sky, and on the 2 2d goes out altogether, till 
 the 2 2d of March!
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND — SUNDAY SERVICES WITH- 
 IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE — A FOURTH OF JULY CELE- 
 BRATION — PICTURES OF THE NORWEGIAN COAST. 
 
 " The needle turns aiuay from the rising sun, front the me- 
 ridian, from the oceidental, from regions- of fragrancy, and gold 
 and gems, and moves "with unerring impulse to the frosts and 
 deserts of the north." — Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 F there be monotony in this returning voyage, it 
 is agreeably broken and diverted by many inci- 
 dents, not the least pleasing among which is our 
 Sabbath on board. We have two English clergy- 
 men with us. Upon both the Sabbaths we have 
 spent aboard we have had divine service. On our 
 last Sabbath the service was interesting and beau- 
 tiful. All joined in it, even our skeptical Scotchmen 
 and their Presbyterian compatriots. The captain 
 stopped the vessel at lo a. m. for this purpose. 
 While our friends in New York were absorbed in 
 worldly affairs, our little company above the arctics 
 were upon their knees invoking the Divine Power 
 to give us everlasting day in a world where no night 
 is! The rector from Devonshire read the service, 
 and the clergyman of St. Paul's led the responses. 
 The tenth chapter of Acts was read as a " lesson " 
 in the humanities. It was the story of Cornelius 
 and Peter, and taught that " God is no respecter of 
 persons." The other part of the service was ren-
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND. II7 
 
 dered impressive by the often - recurring words 
 which indicated our situation. " The Lord judgeth 
 the ends of the earth," said the pastor, and there 
 was a pause as if we were not altogether excluded 
 from the " Great Day." 
 
 The other lesson was the simple story of little 
 Samuel — " The third Sunday after Trinity." I am 
 not an adept in the Episcopal service, but I am 
 familiar with Samuel, and have been his constant 
 companion since I could remember. The story had 
 a new meaning- in these high latitudes. Its imagery 
 was beautifully appropriate: " Neither is there any 
 rock like our God! " " The bows of the mighty men . 
 are broken ! " and my response was a thought of 
 Olaf and Harold and those Norsemen who from the 
 far Hellespont to the Hebrides once held many lands 
 captive. " He lifteth up the beggar out of the 
 dunghill to set him among princes;" and I thought 
 of the son of the French notary of the Pyrenees, 
 Bernadotte, who has given a new dynasty to Scan- 
 dinavia. The lesson closed with the words: "And 
 the child Samuel ercw on and orrew in favor, both 
 with the Lord and also with men." Then I thought 
 of my own unworthiness to be so favored, and then 
 of my constituency far, far away. 
 
 After the service, my wife and some of her Pres- 
 byterian friends raised the old hymns with which 
 Glasgow, Edinburgh, New York, and Ohio are ac- 
 customed to make melody in their hearts. Coming 
 out of this extreme north, far beyond what the com- 
 forts of conveyance would lead us to expect; far be- 
 yond our Alaskan possessions, or even Behring's 
 Straits, and again sailing south amid similar scenery, 
 but by differents routes — I am tempted to make a 
 resume of the characteristics and allurements of this
 
 Il8 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 land. Our captain tells us that we have voyaged 
 more than fifteen hundred miles. Sometimes we have 
 been in the open sea, and have managed — there 
 being no night — to sleep away its melancholy ex- 
 perience; for, in spite of all the trials upon its tur- 
 bulent breast, and with the wind rudely blowing 
 from the North Sea, one cannot overcome the chief 
 obstacle in travelling — the prejudice in favor of tak- 
 ing our bodies, with all their infirmities, along. 
 Most of the time we have been shut in by the walls 
 of rock from its tempestuous consequences. On our 
 return, the grey, grotesque, and fire-twisted moun- 
 tains are half screened with veils of clouds. They 
 are shrubless and overhanging, dark and lowering 
 with clouds at times. Often for miles on the coast 
 they are worn round and worn down by the wash 
 of ages; yet upon every horizon they show their Ti- 
 tanic peaks and ranges, and among them always 
 some one mountain is preeminent, with his head 
 clothed in the majesty of sunlit clouds, and by his 
 " great looks and power imperial " reminding us of 
 Jove amid the Olympians ! 
 
 Althoucjh our return route has been chanQ^ed, so 
 as to take in other stations, omitted upon our jour- 
 ney up, the same features appear — now an open lake, 
 as beautiful as Geneva or Seneca, closed by and re- 
 flecting its surrounding mountains; then a narrow 
 channel, like a canal, so straight it is, and seemingly 
 enclosed by the masonry of man, so regular are its 
 stones laid upon the shore. Then it winds in and 
 out of tiny fjords, where, dressed in a little greenery 
 and flecked with patches of snow, pastures and gar- 
 dens, appear the red wooden houses on stone foun- 
 dations, with green turf roofs, often covered with 
 arctic flowers. Rough and wintry as all this aspect
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND. 119 
 
 is, Still it is not " roughinc^ it " to travel in summer 
 as we do. It is like having- Switzerland, with its 
 cascades, glaciers, pinnacles, and domes, many scarred 
 and seamed, dropped down into, or flooded by the 
 ever-restless ocean. Call it inland or sea-coast, or 
 double it with the sun's reflections upon the wa- 
 tery surfaces, there is still a variety and unity of ele- 
 mental wonders, which imply " a conflict of ages," 
 and other conflicts for future ages. 
 
 I will not disguise the fact that there is much dis- 
 comfort in this trip. There is the long fortnight 
 upon the vessel, with its occasional qualms in the 
 open sea, which we cross some half dozen times. 
 There is the unpleasant odor which comes to us 
 from the hold, where fish and cod-liver oil are 
 stored, and which is not omitted when we land 
 at the little towns upon our routes. There is the 
 thumping and rattling of chains as we load and un- 
 load by day or night, in or out of bed. There is 
 the absence from the world, and its advancing and 
 absorbing interests, from which it is hard to be al- 
 together divorced. But there is compensation for 
 all this in the novelties and grandeur of the scenery 
 and voyage. Besides, cannot we run upon the 
 rocky shores every few hours, when the vessel 
 stops, and see strange faces, habits, and costumes ? 
 Have we not seen every shape and picture which 
 fire and water, frost and storm, can engrave out of 
 rocks ? Upon shipboard, have we not resources in 
 the desire of all to please, and the hundred employ- 
 ments and enjoyments that shorten the long and 
 nightless hours ? Have we not viewed, if not visited, 
 the ten thousand islands which made Norway the 
 nurse of nations ? Have we not seen the midnight- 
 turned into a solecism, — a sunset that had no "going
 
 I20 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 down thereof," but only the forerunner and foreglow 
 of sunrise ? Have we not stood on that lone cape, 
 described by that wizard of the pen, Carlyle, and 
 had the infinite satisfaction of verifying the Gulf 
 Stream ? Have we not resolved the barrenness of 
 the arctic landscape into something more than rock 
 and ice ? Have we not gathered from the very 
 mantle of snow, where little gardens of moss love 
 to spring under the brief but brisk flight of summer, 
 the most delicate flowers, rock pinks, daisies, but- 
 tercups, Bethlehem stars, bluest " forget-me-nots," 
 and little violets, all modest and sweet — reminders 
 of home and other days ? Have we not found in 
 these waifs in their bleak gardens within the circle, 
 the tokens which bid a thousand tender associations 
 arise ? Have we not hunted the beautiful birch with 
 its clear green leaves, and stems of silver, in its na- 
 tive forest home, and followed its hardy growth, until 
 its limitation was drawn with the brown fell vegeta- 
 tion of moss and lichen ? Have we not seen, in its 
 short summer, sallow willow, ash, beech, oak and 
 pine, lending their garniture to the land of the 
 Lapps ? Have we not seen in the vast studio of 
 nature the thousand varied forms which the sculp- 
 tors, fire, frost, and tempest, have shaped, more 
 wonderful and magical in their work than the fa- 
 bled creatures of fairyland ? Besides, have we not 
 traversed the waters made memorable by the names 
 of navigators who sailed and ruled a thousand years 
 ago ? Here were spots where Nadclhold, the sea 
 rover, lived, before he discovered Iceland, that home 
 of exiled Norse genius, learning, and devotion; here 
 once roved Erick the Red, before he found and 
 founded Greenland; here Bjorn was trained before 
 he discovcrel, long before the Genoese, the new
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND. 121 
 
 world, which he named Yinland; and here, in tlie 
 year 1000 after Christ, Lief Erickson lived, before 
 either he or Kalsefre placed foot on Massachusetts 
 soil ! Are not these the children of the wild fjords ? 
 Did not they adventure from the Bosphorus to Cape 
 Cod, nearly five hundred years before Isabella gave 
 her jewels to found her faith in a new hemisphere ? 
 Along- with Hudson, Americus, Vasco de Gama, and 
 even Columbus, the names of those sea kings who 
 pushed their prows so far that they made west, east, 
 and " sailed the Dragon's mouth, and came upon 
 the mountain of the world, and saw the rivers roll 
 from Paradise " — receive the o-randest Qruerdons for 
 chivalry upon the perilous and mobile element: 
 
 " Those who toil bravely are strongest, 
 The humble and poor become great; 
 And so from these brown-handed children 
 Have grown mighty rulers of state." 
 
 Were there no object in travelling for recreation 
 and health; were there no external beauty of nature 
 in her rugged and stormy aspect, on sea and land; 
 these historic associations, which bind the year of our 
 Lord one thousand to American shores, with the ad- 
 ventures of the Vikings from Norseland, Iceland and 
 Greenland, should suffice to make a Norwegian tour 
 of interest to Americans. The Pre-Columbian dis- 
 coveries, the annals of which are as authentic as those 
 of the Great Discoverer himself, lend a strano-e charm 
 to these cradles of the deep, wherein between rocks 
 the children of the sea were nursed for their daring 
 enterprises. 
 
 For all the drawbacks of this unaccustomed travel, 
 therefore, we have been repaid with compound in- 
 terest. To appreciate a smooth and pleasant voyage
 
 122 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 one must have head winds and rough seas awhile; 
 and here is found the balm after pain, the reward after 
 trouble, in most grateful recompense. It is beyond 
 my comprehension how tourists can take the weari- 
 ness and ennui of an Atlantic trip, and rest content 
 in Paris, London, or Berlin. New York City is in 
 most respects their counterfeit presentment. To 
 those who, like ourselves, are fresh from the galler- 
 ies and temples of art in the great capitals, who have 
 within a few weeks heard Booth, Irving, and McCul- 
 lough, and hung enraptured upon the music and pan- 
 tomime of the Grand Opera of Paris, with all its gor- 
 geousness and taste, who have heard the orators of 
 the French and English forum " grace the noble fer- 
 vor of the hour," by winged words that go to the 
 uttermost oarts of the earth, bearino- their dominatinof 
 spirit and decree, and who have so recently in the 
 Salon of Paris and the Academy of London, and in 
 the museums and palaces of Holland and Denmark, 
 gazed upon pictures of entrancement — these rude 
 scenes in the northern water-ways are nevertheless 
 within a charmed, though it be an Arctic Circle. 
 
 As I write, I look through the humble but sub- 
 stantial frame of my port-hole upon an unfamiliar 
 scene, half concealed by the vapor, but growing with 
 every pulsation of the vessel into new forms of beauty. 
 It is a distant snow mountain, nebulous as cloudland 
 in semblance, but substantial, under a glow of light, 
 with shining splendor. It grows and grows as I 
 gaze, into a line of illuminated peaks, until, with one 
 great flood of light, it bursts upon rock and fjord, 
 making, by its magic touches of light, the great shad- 
 ows fly before its power ! 
 
 We stop our boat to take in bales of birch-bark 
 and barrels of oil. There is no romance in this; but
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND. 123 
 
 looking to the east, we sec, founded upon a promon- 
 tory of volcanic rock, a whole village of curious 
 people, clad in curious clothes, and anxious to wave 
 their hands in salutation. We wave our handker- 
 chiefs in return, and the response makes us under- 
 stand even more than the strange scenery, that one 
 touch of nature hath made the whole world kin ! 
 
 I am advised that we are approaching the Sund- 
 strom. I ask the mate if we pass the maelstrom, and 
 is this Strom as fearful to navigate ? 
 
 " The maelstrdm ! Pah ! It's nothing. We make 
 nothing of that now, with steam." He points out the 
 direction we are taking, and says: "This strom is 
 something when the spring tides come with their im- 
 mense volumes on volumes of water four times a day. 
 It requires all our skill." 
 
 Returning to my infantile horror, the maelstrom, 
 I remembered how it had been intensified, by read- 
 ing Jules Verne's view of the vortex, into which his 
 hero descended. From the top of Helseggen, within 
 the interior of Lofoden, he saw the sea in its head- 
 long and monstrous impetuosity, and he heard its 
 moaning, like that of a vast herd of buffaloes upon 
 an American prairie ! Between Moskoe and the 
 coast the main uproar held its sway. Here the 
 vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into 
 a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into 
 phrensied convulsion — heaving, boiHng, hissing- 
 gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and 
 all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a 
 rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes ex- 
 cept in precipitous descents. From the dizzy height, 
 the desolate panorama of an inky ocean, lashing the 
 ramparts of the world, went on, with ghastly crest, 
 howling and shrieking forever! I was not altogether
 
 124 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 pacified by the mate's assurances, so I asked again 
 " Do the fishermen fear the current ? " 
 
 " Fear ? Once in a while, as in any rough sea 
 and weather they may be upset, and go under; but 
 they generally turn up. Shoals of fish are attracted 
 either by the running water, or drawn by the cur- 
 rent; the fish attract fishermen, and the rocks are 
 crowded with gulls and other birds. I haven't heard 
 of a fisherman or a bird being lost there." 
 
 " Is it true that whales are sucked into the eddies 
 and caught, or killed ? " 
 
 " Yes, that is true, sometimes, in some places; but 
 the whirlpool is a myth. There's no more conical 
 vortex there, than there is anywhere in these tidal 
 and island waters. That the maelstrom is a bottom- 
 less conical abyss, is nonsense. Vessels do not go 
 often into the current between the Moskenaes and 
 Vaerve where it is supposed to be. They take our 
 route between the Lofoden group and the main 
 coast. Here is current enough; and mdcl-stroin, 
 means bad current. When it meets the tides in the 
 strait between those isles, there is a wild time. 
 The sea boileth as a pot. Whales are not sucked 
 down, no more than ships; but there is," he said, 
 " a little inlet between the rocks, opposite a farm- 
 house, which is at times deep and at other times 
 shallow; and whales run in for some purpose, when 
 it is deep; they get trapped and flounder about, when 
 it is shallow. The farmer makes quite a sum by 
 cultivating^ their blubber." 
 
 The Strom is near the village of Griano, where we 
 are to rest, and it takes us out of our direct southern 
 path. Still we venture. This is the Sundstrom; and 
 it has swamped ships and killed whales; but we ven- 
 ture. The rain and mist give way so that our view is
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND. 125 
 
 clear. Upon the left shore is a monument, erected to 
 celebrate the comintj: of Kino;' Oscar here some few 
 years ao;'o. Soon we see some green grass between 
 the rocky vista; then some rocky headlands, decked 
 with the even-laid piles of codfish; then the red houses, 
 thatched with living green; then some fish ware- 
 houses; but where and how do we get there ? It is 
 a narrow path but two hundred feet wide, but we do 
 go into it ! Bottom and shore all rock, and no danger 
 of snag or sand. The captain seems confident, for 
 we hear his bugle blowing a tune to arouse the 
 echoes and attract the village. 
 
 Behold ! a thousand o;ulls ! The shore is white 
 and the water alive with them. This is one of 
 the fugle-vaer, or bird islands; for every sort of a 
 bird that goes a-fishing, is here in garrulous and 
 winged, beak and mandible activity. There are a 
 score of boats rowing about and even upon the 
 " rapids." They, like the gulls, are looking for fish 
 in the swift currents. They are not on a whirl, like 
 the mysterious maelstrom of our early geographies, 
 but, like Hell Gate, are furious with a wild, rocky, 
 tidal current. This we stem, and are soon at rest on 
 the bosom of a beautiful bay. 
 
 In the afternoon, after winding in and around 
 the isles, in mazy labyrinths which no one but 
 the local pilots can thread, we find ourselves, al- 
 thouQfh still in our floatino- hotel, within the walls of 
 a bay so sequestered that one might iniagine it some 
 vast edifice, with the blue sky for its arched roofing. 
 It is the town of Scroven. My wife and I go ashore. 
 We visit one of the rocky eminences, after passing 
 among the population in their Sunday attire, who 
 are out to welcome us. The unfailing courtesy is 
 here; and a tall, blue-eyed Scandinavian salutes us
 
 126 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 in good English. He is from Chicago — one of sixty 
 thousand Scandinavians in that city. We find that 
 he has been at work for my wife's relatives in a grain 
 elevator. 
 
 " Why are you here ? " we ask. " Are you tired 
 of America ? " 
 
 " Oh! nay, nay! I am one of nine sons; all mar- 
 ried off but myself. I promised my mother, if she 
 was ill I would come to her. I love her, and so a 
 year ago I came here and await her entire recovery. 
 In the next fall I go to Chicago and take forty others, 
 some girls, too," he added with a rosy laugh. 
 
 By this time there were one hundred and fifty 
 people gathered. I asked the Chicagoan, if he were 
 naturalized. 
 
 " Nay, only half." 
 
 " Declared your intention ? " 
 
 " Yes. I intend to fulfil it." 
 
 I then told him, jocularly, that I intended to swear 
 them all in, as it was about the Fourth of July; and 
 so I raised my hand and rattled off the declaration 
 of intention, quite familiar to me in " childhood's 
 happy hours;" and he translated it, telling them, 
 with an archness quite amusing, that they were 
 now Americans ! It was Sunday, and, of course, 
 the oath was on a dies non and void. But the 
 shout of fun that went up, indicated that the sud- 
 denness of their transformation and new national 
 birth had touched their risibilities. 
 
 We were then invited to the house of three hos- 
 pitable and leading citizens — millionaires and brothers 
 — whose sister kept house for them. They looked 
 very unlike descendants of the fierce sea robbers 
 of the Viking days. Our captain was there, and 
 having tasted their sherry and cake and their new
 
 RETURNIN'G FROM LAPLAND. 127 
 
 conserve, and admired tlieir old silver, two hun- 
 dred years, as an heirloom (one of the Norse weak- 
 nesses), we spent an hour in easy conversation, the 
 captain and Rene being interpreters. 
 
 " How," asked my wife of the good sister, " do 
 you stand the long winter nights here ? " 
 
 She was amazed at the question, and put one of 
 her own to us: " How could we stand alternate short 
 days and nights ? " She had tried them once down 
 South in Christiania, and got very homesick, " Oh, 
 it is our habits," she said, "and we cannot rid our- 
 selves of them. We cannot live except here. Your 
 nights come too quick and are so very short." 
 
 The next morning we were on deck early. The 
 sailors were raising all their flags. I was informed 
 that it way the birthday of their king, Oscar II. I 
 informed them it was our national birthday. At 
 breakfast all congratulated us three Americans. 
 About ten in the morning, nearly one hundred 
 and fifty miles above the Circle, we passed another 
 boat of this line. Some one upon it cried out: 
 " Hurrah for the Fourth of July ! " I gave the best 
 response I could, indicating a preference for the Star 
 Spangled Banner ! At dinner I opened the toast to 
 the king's birthday on behalf of fifty millions of other 
 sovereigns whose ancestors had the same natal day. 
 Before we know it, our dinner resolves itself into a 
 celebration. Havino- commenced rhetoricatincj on 
 the Fourth for Sunday-schools in Ohio, when ten 
 years of age, it would have been an irremediable 
 omission, not to have embraced the opportunity now 
 presented by the junction of Oscar and America; and 
 especially within the Arctic Circle and in a land so 
 full of the memories of our discoverers and the mon- 
 uments of independence and freedom. But as we
 
 7 28 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 had a dozen Britons aboard and but three Ameri- 
 cans, it required some nerve to address the assem- 
 blage. However, remembering the picture in In- 
 dependence Hall, which Dr. Franklin declared he 
 could not tell whether it were sunrise or sunset, 
 until the Constitution was adopted, when he knew 
 it was sunrise, and making the reflection incident 
 to this memory and to this land of the unsetting 
 sun, I dwelt upon the composite character of our 
 country, — made up of all nations, with various lan- 
 guages and institutions, but discovered first by Nor- 
 wegians. We in return had discovered Norway, and 
 so on, until the gallant captain arose to compliment 
 America, which he had visited. Then we drew out 
 the good rector, who spoke lovingly of concord be- 
 tween nations. Then the " Army and Navy," to 
 which Dr. Sanderson, formerly surgeon of the Brit- 
 ish navy, responded, making a splendid tribute to 
 the hospital service, which he witnessed in America 
 during the war. Then the clergyman of St. Paul's, 
 whom I called out by the remark that although St. 
 Paul was wrecked we had a better and safer captain. 
 Having a " Fellow" from Trinity College, Cambridge, 
 who had won his honors by his classic and linguistic 
 attainments, we called on him for a speech. But, like 
 all good scholars, he was too modest for a speech, 
 and excused himself by using a word which was 
 " polyglotical and hearty" — he said "Thanks!" and 
 sat down ! Then an eloquent Glasgow gentleman 
 spoke of America till my cheeks were tinged with pride 
 and exultation. " It is not your Niagaras and Mis- 
 sissippis, your coal fields or bonanzas, that make 
 America! These God made. You made upon 
 them and by them a great people; and I rejoice 
 that you are separate and independent States; and
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND. 1 29 
 
 that you are the blossoms of the strength we our- 
 selves rejoice in ! " 
 
 A Scotchman who rolled his r's when he said 
 " Robert Burns," as if the thistles grew on his tongue, 
 gave a happy rejoinder to a toast to Scotia. The 
 English then sano- " God save the Oueen," to which 
 we Americans added our voices. An American lady 
 from Boston responded gracefully to the usual toast, 
 and with many hurrahs, we made the Fourth ever 
 memorable upon these wonderful waters of this early 
 home of human freedom. 
 
 The Norwegians, who, except the captain, were 
 only observers of our celebration, seemed to be 
 greatly interested. Why should they not ? Are 
 not their children rushinQf to our shores ? Besides, 
 is not their political experience parallel with ours ? 
 Did not their ancestors carry the fucros to Spain 
 and the Magna Charta to England ? Are they not 
 now in very deed (except a little clause of the Con- 
 stitution of 1 8 14, which unites them with Sweden 
 under one King) declared to be free and indepen- 
 dent? Have I not myself heard within a month 
 open declarations of republicanism in the Storthing, 
 a truly representative body, without a titular or in- 
 herited legislator in the realm ? Has not the body 
 already signified its repugnance to the form of mon- 
 archy and the craft of kings ? Did it not refuse 
 to grant the largess demanded for the King, and 
 his son for his bridal ? Why should Norway be 
 ruled by a distant King? She accepted Bernadotte, 
 and has continued his family under the compulsion 
 of holy and unholy alliances. Her wants are few. 
 Her people are simple. Her land can give but 
 twelve hundred of its square miles to grain, four- 
 fifths of it is forest, and the rest is given to fish piles
 
 130 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 and warehouses, to timber and duck, and she cannot 
 afford to assist in dressing up princes to gratify other 
 dynasties. The examples of France, Switzerland, 
 and America are constantly cited here ; and I should 
 not wonder if Norway were soon an independent 
 republic. 
 
 We see no beggary, poorhouses or jails; we hear 
 of no crime or violence. No locks are needed upon 
 doors. Drunkenness is rare. The people are honest. 
 They love music and flowers, and are devoted to 
 their faith and their families. They are never idle. 
 Even the girls are knitting, while attending sheep 
 and cows. If they have no other riches than such as 
 the sea and fjords give, they are at home upon the 
 watery element, and master a boat as a centaur does 
 a horse, being a part thereof. Living in Norway is 
 cheap, and there is no one who suffers. The Nor- 
 wegian stock is in splendid condition, and any grafts 
 from it upon our national tree will show fruit worthy 
 of the best energy and honesty of the hardy Norse- 
 man of history. Above all, there is not a public 
 scandal here extant, to the honor and credit of this 
 people. 
 
 I have said that they were uniformly polite. 
 They are more than polite. They are sincerely hu- 
 mane and kind. They are a serious people, with 
 but few gleams of humor. I looked for the expres- 
 sion of it in the funny journals, but found little. 
 There is at Lordagen a paper called the Kaspar, a 
 sort of small Punch. It is not very refined, but quite 
 fu41 of hints, rather seriously jocund. At Trondhjem 
 there is an amusing journal called the Pici'riot. It 
 assumes a higher role, and takes off the superfluities 
 of social and political life with a big clownish grin. 
 Still there is not much fun in Nor\va}s though music
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND. 131 
 
 everywhere is a delight. It is said, tliat under the 
 influence of the dance and brandy, the peasants arc 
 not lao-gard in wit; and their talk is full of sharp and 
 comical expressions. Of this, we had no chance to 
 judye. We saw some wild festivities goin;^'' on, upon 
 the shore among- the fishermen; but did not go to the 
 soctcrs or mountain farms, where freedom holds her 
 revelry in summer. The people, however, have 
 health, and health creates fine and equable dis- 
 positions. If they have not much sunshine the year 
 round, they have the cheerfulness of wisdom and 
 rectitude. 
 
 After many social hours upon deck and cabin, 
 closing with " Auld Lang Syne," sung with unction 
 bv our Scotch friends, but under gloomier skies than 
 when we went north, our pleasant and genial com- 
 pany were forced to separate, when we returned to 
 Trondhjem. 
 
 We had been out of the range of English, Amer- 
 ican, German, or even Norwegian news, for sixteen 
 days. Wliat has happened in the active world mean- 
 while ? What at home ? Are the political compli- 
 cations ended, or reconciled, or what ? What of dear 
 friends ? Musing thus, we saunter around the city. 
 It is after 1 1 p. m. We meet gentle ladies carrying 
 parasols. The sun has just gone down, but its crim- 
 son and gold decorate the northern sky with its re- 
 lict radiance, which burns in flame against the win- 
 dows of the houses. Still sauntering, we revisit the 
 glimpses of St. Olafs Cathedral. Its eight hundred 
 years of existence has no moon to silver its Melrosian 
 elegance into magic lights and shades, and no eter- 
 nal stars looking down from their vaulted pinnacles. 
 But the blazinof clouds color its angles and irradiate 
 Its antique windows. The forms in its niches —
 
 132 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 broken and disfio^ured — of saint and Saviour — are 
 made hideous in dieir fragmentary ugliness by the 
 unusual light. We pass into the graveyard, where 
 the odor of a thousand bouquets, recently laid upon 
 the graves, gratifies another sense, and bespeaks of 
 a loving tenderness for the departed worthy of all 
 praise and emulation. Are these gentle ministra- 
 tions evidence of a descent from sea robbers ? Most 
 surely not, if the features, vocabulary, and manners 
 of a people are indices of character; for never lived 
 upon our footstool a more simple-hearted and honest 
 folk than these fair-haired descendants of the Vikinors. 
 A Trondhjem paper is purchased. I find in the 
 corner of the paper a telegram from Washing- 
 ton. It startles me. It indicates to my poor trans- 
 lation that President Garfield has been shot, and that 
 it is not expected that he will survive. That is all 
 we can learn, and the anxiety becomes a torture, so 
 much depends upon its truth. The next day, we 
 have this unpronounceable account, which is still 
 more perplexing: '* IVasJiington: MiddagslniUctin: In- 
 gcii Brcekning, itaturlig Sovn. Tilstanden vedva- 
 rcndc forhaabjiijigsfidd." Some travelers from the 
 south have heard the rumors; but we are compelled 
 to leave Trondhjem without satisfaction as to the 
 terrible news. In this uncertain frame of mind we 
 reach the little town of Tonsaet, a country village in 
 central Norway. It has a Sabbath stillness, and 
 gives us rest. The streams between Trondhjem 
 and this place are torrents, swift, strong, and beau- 
 tiful. They leap out of the mountain sides, and with 
 a roaring sound seek the valley. The aspect -of the 
 country, with here and there a dreary moorland and 
 peat as its product, is quite Alpine; and in the culti- 
 vation of the valleys, fields, and hillsides great in-
 
 RETURNING FROM LAPLAND. 
 
 ^IZ 
 
 tlustry and patience arc displayed. Tonsaet is a 
 good place for fishing-. It has a splendid mountain, 
 now in clouds, which bears the name of " Throne," 
 and the town, being itself some two thousand feet 
 above sea level, is cool and comfortable. We pre- 
 pare for fishing and fish, have our rest from the 
 northern journey and write our letters. To-morrow 
 we move toward Christiania, where the papers may 
 resolve our fears into hope, as to the condition of the 
 President, and of our Government under the new 
 strain placed upon it.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SKELETONS OF VESSELS A THOUSAND YEARS OLD. 
 
 " Where the carcases of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, 
 if niy gossip report, be an honest -woman of her word." — Mer- 
 chant OF Venice. 
 
 PREHISTORIC human skeletons have been dug 
 up, along with the bones of the mastodon, meg- 
 alonyx and other extinct animals, in our American 
 valleys. They have slept together a hundred thou- 
 sand years. Bits of pottery and fragments of the hu- 
 man pelvis, have been found entombed along with 
 the ancient elephant. The interest of such exhuma- 
 tions has not been more intense than the disinter- 
 ment of the bones of old ships only a thousand years 
 old. Indeed, the interest which belongs to the art 
 of navigation, is that of the poetry and mystery of 
 the sea. These combine its majestic expanse, and 
 resistless force, its depth, its unity, its tracklessness, its 
 stilly murmur, its cliffs and rocks, its bays and fjords, 
 its chemical qualities, its monstrous forms, its riches 
 ancT rocks, its tributes and disasters, its requiem and 
 graves, its waves of mighty minstrelsy and its mur- 
 mur and mirror of placid beauty. Poetry and prose 
 have struggled with each other to wreak their 
 thoughts upon the expression of the blessings, 
 wrath, peril and sublimity of the sea. If he were 
 a hero, who first essayed its wastes toward our
 
 SKELETONS OF VESSELS. 
 
 135 
 
 hemisphere, then tlie Northmen were a race of he- 
 roes. Before Flavio Gioia gave the magnetic nee- 
 dle to the maritime world; when the Antilia of the 
 Sea of Darkness was no fable, and the flaming 
 bounds a fiery forbidding ordeal, the Northmen 
 had dared all, to discover out continent. Whether 
 stopping half way at Iceland, or going still further 
 to Greenland, or still further to Mount Hope Bay, 
 Rhode Island, and even to Long Island; and whether 
 they be called sea-rovers, vikings, or " pyrates," 
 whether named Noddo, Flokko, Ingolf, or Eric the 
 Red, Lief, Bjarni, Thorvald Thorstein, or Karlsefne, 
 it is asserted by tradition and record, in the songs 
 of Scalds, and the stories of Sagamen, that the 
 Northmen were first to brave the western main. 
 They were the forerunners of supposed Arab and 
 Welsh adventurers, as well as of Columbus himself. 
 Not only is this fact a grand incentive to a study of 
 the lives of the bold navigators of the north, but to a 
 study of their ships and the modes of sailing. 
 
 Steering by sun and star, and with a reckless 
 reckoning, to which no science gave its light or com- 
 pass, copying the nautilus and creeping over vague 
 leagues, with courage and caution, they still dared to 
 go on and on — till the new world limited their pur- 
 suit and revealed their goal! 
 
 Discarding the runic stones, the round towers, 
 the poetry of the mediaeval time, and other stories 
 of sea adventure to our continent, and without con- 
 structing new maps of supposititious isles, it is enough 
 just now to recall the fact, that an ancient ship of 
 Norse build, was discovered on Nawset Beach, Cape 
 Cod, in 1863. This fact was prompting enough, for 
 a second visit to the old ships and the events of 
 this chapter on our return to Christiania. Besides,
 
 136 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 being a representative of a ship-building constitu- 
 ency, it became a sort of duty to look into these an- 
 cient modes of ship building; and make report to the 
 caulkers and wrights who command my time by giv- 
 inof their confidence. 
 
 There are three of these old ships which have 
 survived the rot, dust and wreck of time. One was 
 dug up in Denmark; this I have not seen. There 
 are two here, preserved in wooden sheds within the 
 University grounds, back of the Museum. I have 
 seen and examined both of them. They require a 
 separate description, as they had different objects, 
 and their burial must have been under different cir- 
 cumstances. The -smaller ship was both a tomb and 
 a vessel; the larger one may have been wrecked or 
 buried with its living freight upon it. Both belong 
 to the last years or age of paganism in this North- 
 land. It is called the Younger Iron Age, or the 
 Viking Period, and runs from a. d. 700 to about 
 A. D. 1000. From five to eight hundred years before 
 Columbus is said to have discovered America these 
 vessels wooed the breezes of the fjords of Norway, 
 and gathering experience, ventured into unknown 
 seas. Nine centuries before San Domingo loomed 
 up before the eye of the Genoese, Iceland appeared, 
 and became a refuge from the oppressions of the 
 Norwegian rulers. Civilization, whether from Egypt, 
 Rome, or Greece, from Goth, Frank, Celt, or Saxon, 
 has had — if it be not a solecism to say it, — the unseen 
 ever in its eye. An Irishman contests with a Dane the 
 discovery of Iceland. The latter, Gardar, claims to 
 have discovered it in a. d. 860. We know that In- 
 golf, a Norseman, colonized it in 874. The year 
 1000 saw the cross lifted in radiant beauty above 
 its snows and volcanoes. And upon this island, pro-
 
 SKELETONS OF VESSELS. 
 
 137 
 
 diofioiis of fire and ice, of frozen Heclas and Ijoilino- 
 Geysers, where poetry and learning had their electric 
 genius, like its own long night of auroras — ujjon this 
 island hung the destiny of our New World. It hung 
 upon these hardy rovers of the sea in their little 
 vessels of oak and iron. The printed volumes of 
 Historical Societies amply demonstrate these facts. 
 
 Nor is this so wonderful. Did not Columbus 
 himself, before he sailed west, in 1477, consult the 
 log-books and charts of the Northmen at Iceland ? 
 Is it not proven that he sailed in an English ship 
 (I think from Bristol, for I have no library handy) 
 to that island, where he received many a hint, if 
 not demonstration, that there was a Cathay beyond 
 the setting sun, which he determined to find ? 
 
 These are matters of authentic history. They are 
 not marvellous when we know that these same 
 Norsemen, light-haired and energetic, familiar and 
 patient with' long days and long nights, and as much 
 at home on water as on land, sailed from the Straits 
 of Gibraltar to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, 
 and conquered, as Vikings, Goths, Vandals, Norse- 
 men, or under various names, other lands than their 
 own, from Northern Africa to Northern Scotland and 
 Ireland. We know that they made William of Nor- 
 mandy a figure in history, and he made England a 
 large factor in human progress. Wherever they 
 went they carried that freedom which comes of the 
 seafaring life, and while they ruled, they civilized in 
 their rude way, or were civilized by contact with 
 other, if not superior, peoples. 
 
 In gazing at these boats in which they voyaged, 
 one miorht well indulofe in fancies. We know that 
 they tasted the honey-dew on the grass of Nan- 
 tucket, and ate their fish-balls in Boston bay and on
 
 138 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Plymoutli shore. What would Massachusetts have 
 been had the Norsemen remained ? Where would 
 have been the delights of Coney Island, past which 
 they sailed ? Suppose they had preceded Hudson, 
 and had sailed up the river which bears his name, 
 would they not have staid till now, owing to the at- 
 tractions of the island of Manhattan and the scenery 
 of the river? A thousand anachronisms flicker in the 
 imagination. But, in truth, one cannot gaze at these 
 vehicles of adventure, even in their ruin, without 
 picturing the " might-have-beens " of early ages. 
 Neither can one sail amidst these isles of Denmark 
 and Norway without feeling that it is an excellent 
 school for the nurture of seamanship. I have been 
 from Copenhagen to the Arctic Ocean, have seen, 
 under a sun that never went below the horizon, the 
 mountainous rocks which shut and open as the 
 granite gates of this Northland, and the. idea has con- 
 stantly recurred, " What a nursery for the sea-farer 
 are these rough fjords, with their ceaseless fishing 
 and hardy adventure ! " 
 
 Wherever in the three thousand miles we have 
 voyaged along these waters, we have seen a variety 
 of craft. Some have the awkwardness of Chinese 
 junks, shallow and not good for beating to windward. 
 They are called " snekken," from the snail. Neither 
 are they picturesque. The word yacht, is of Norse 
 origin. The jcegts, so called, bear a similitude to the 
 long-oared and graceful galley, and its likeness, — the 
 old Norse war-ship. The broad-beamed and square- 
 rigged herring smacks are not of the yacht class, 
 whose skeletons we are to visit, and whose models 
 we have seen in these seas. For hundreds of years 
 the Norse ship has had its graceful prow and stern, 
 and a keel that cuts the water with facile play.
 
 SKELETONS OE VESSELS. 139 
 
 Ship-building has doubtless had its vicissitudes. 
 The models of one age are unlike those of another 
 age. Our clipper of thirty years ago — our wooden 
 ship which was the admiration of the world — may 
 have given way somewhat to other shapes of beauty, 
 if not of utility; but whether in iron or wood, there is 
 one model unchangeably, exquisitely beautiful and 
 useful. It is that of the Norse ship whose skeleton 
 is before me. Winds may blow and seas may rage, 
 and vessels may be whelmed upon every coast, but 
 the model which sits " like a swan's neck among the 
 bushes," has a curve of grace beyond the reach of or- 
 dinary art. This is the vessel whose prow we have 
 seen from Cape Nord to Trondhjem, upon every 
 fjord and at every angle — the same dainty, divine 
 shell upon the flood. 
 
 If it be said, that I am not competent to judge, 
 not being experienced about vessels, except as a 
 life-saving legislator, — well, that may be. Still that 
 is somethincr— for did we not rescue that service 
 from the clutch of the navy, in the name of expe- 
 rience, to give it to the fishermen and surfmen of our 
 own coast, who know how and where to make the keel 
 of the life-boat safely sever the fierce boiling surf? 
 But if it be a matter of aesthetics; is not the Norwe- 
 gian model, with its thousand years of approval, by 
 the builders of ships, the veritable line of beauty ? If 
 it be a quaint boat, still here it is as common in the 
 waters of this long archipelago, as the skiff is upon 
 our own western waters or the yawl on the " Soifnd." 
 Norwegians have not changed their models of boats. 
 The prow still stands high in the air, and the stern 
 lower; and the broad beam spreads till the sides are 
 almost level with the water. Perhaps the original 
 pattern of this boat may be the graceful sledge of
 
 140 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the Laplander. Indeed all conveyances here have 
 this grace and beauty of contour. The cariole is a 
 little one-horse wagon, made after the similitude of 
 the classic shell. Perhaps these designs originated 
 with that old mother of invention, — necessity; for boat 
 and sledge, snow-shoe and cariole seem fitted for a 
 land and water of ice and snow. The logs of these 
 ancient vessels may seem rough hewn; but there is 
 a divinity which has shaped them; first, to make them 
 seaworthy, — worthy to mate these rough northern 
 seas, because strong, — and next, beautiful, because 
 they have the lines that curve, while they strengthen. 
 It is Venus from the foam, reposing on the arm of 
 Hercules. In his " Harbors of Eno^land," Ruskin has 
 had his artistic eye upon these craft. He glorifies them, 
 or those like unto them, as having in their bent 
 plank, a rude simplicity, which is the soul of ship- 
 ping; for does it not breast its way through the death 
 that is in the deep sea? In his extravagant way he 
 tells us, " that he knows of nothing else that man does 
 which is perfect but that. All his other doings have 
 some siorn of weakness, affectation, or io^norance in 
 them. They are overfinished or underfinished; they 
 do not quite answer their end, or they show a mean 
 vanity in answering it too well. But the boat's bow 
 is naively perfect, complete without an effort. The 
 man who made it knew not that he was making any- 
 thing beautiful as he bent its planks into those mys- 
 terious, ever-changing curves. It grows under his 
 hand into the image of a sea-shell; the seal, as it 
 were, of the flowing of the great tides and streams 
 of ocean stamped on its delicate rounding. He 
 leaves it, when all is done, without a boast. It is 
 simple work, but it will keep out water, and every 
 plank henceforth is a Fate, and has men's lives
 
 SKELETONS OF VESSELS. 141 
 
 wreathed in the knots of it, as the cloth-yard sliaft 
 had their deaths in its pkimes." 
 
 A glance at the photograph of one of these boats, 
 with a thousand years of oxidation and decay upon 
 it, would tend to make these words of Ruskin seem 
 excessive. His description fits better Southey's ship 
 of heaven, rigged with rainbows; or Spenser's fairy 
 boat, which without sail or rudder moves at your own 
 sweet will, whithersoever you list. It is fabled that 
 this Norse vessel, and indeed the navy of Norseland, 
 came from Odin. It was made by dwarfs under the 
 inspiration of the god. It had the magic of the 
 famous tent of the orient. It held all the gods, and 
 could be folded up for the pocket. It lacked the 
 steam-engine, and therefore Norway is third only in 
 the maritime tonnage of the world. But let your 
 mechanism reorganize the debris, fill up the gaps of 
 centuries, rig anew the sail, repaint the keel, recarve 
 the prow, refix the rudder and call the spirits of the 
 vasty deep, to refill the canvas, and the enchantment 
 of the elder picture will return, in all its grace and 
 elegance. I have seen represented in one of Wag- 
 ner's operas, an ancient myth of the north, wherein the 
 hero is drawn over the lake by a swan. The will of 
 the hero is the rudder. Without drawino- too much 
 upon fancy or tradition, and sunuiioning the bare facts, 
 one might reproduce upon the canvas, a Norse ship, 
 with its benches for rowers; a gilded dragon at the 
 prow, its large square sails striped with red, green 
 and blue; the overlapping shields, red and white over 
 the taffrail, and the soldiers in chain armor, or scarlet 
 tunics, adding their dramatic and scenic personality 
 to the picture, as it skims trim and bird-like over 
 waters lit by an unsetting sun ! Upon the decks 
 of such a vessel, the Norse heroes adventured into
 
 142 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the unknown. This is the vessel which after ten cen- 
 turies has a resurrection, as the sarcophagus of its 
 heroes. 
 
 Poetry aside, let us come down to the picture as 
 it is, within the grounds of the university. The first 
 visit we make is to the smaller vessel. It is but 
 forty-three and a third feet long, and was not as well 
 equipped for war as the larger one. It was buried 
 with its skipper, according to a custom referred to in 
 the accounts of the first Christian king here — Haakon 
 the Good. Even the women were sometimes in- 
 terred in this way under tumuli raised over their 
 boats. Rarely have these evidences of the old 
 custom been found. But it was reserved for the 
 parish of Tune, in the province or amt of Smaale- 
 nene, near Frederiksstad, near the Swedish border, 
 and not far from the mouth of the Christiania Fjord, 
 to furnish this specimen. The Antiquarian Society 
 took charge of its excavation, and it has been out in 
 the light for some years. The clay portion of its 
 mound best preserved the timber and iron. The 
 pressure of earth has broken some of the ribs, but 
 the larger part of the wood remains. It is enough 
 to infer the rest, even as scientists construct the 
 whole animal out of a few bones. The vessel is 
 clinker-built, with iron nails, and almost all oak. 
 Some of the nails and ribs are of fir. It is thir- 
 teen feet wide amidships. From keel to gunwale 
 it is only four feet. It must have been flat and 
 low, and in this it closely resembles the boats we 
 have met on our trip to the North Cape. The 
 boards are over an inch thick, and number some ten 
 or eleven on each side. The nails have round heads 
 outside and square within, and hold on well. The 
 tarred oakum, or caulking, is of goats' hair or sheep's
 
 SKELETONS OF VESSELS. 143 
 
 wool, and hanqs closely to the loose joints of the 
 ship. Where the hoards are joined, they are cut off 
 obli(|uely and nailed. The gunwale was all gone. 
 The ribs were thirteen in number, and are built of 
 three different layers of wood, one above the other, 
 and nailed. The ribs are about three feet apart, and 
 their width about seven inches. They were lashed 
 to the boards by ropes made of willow — a common 
 kind of rope which we have seen in the interior of this 
 country, upon buckets and tubs. On the inside of the 
 boards, at every rib, clamps are carved out of the wood, 
 two holes made in the clamp, and in the lower side of 
 the rib a similar one for the rope. Nails also are used 
 everywhere, especially to secure the boards to the 
 keel. This is not a strong mode of joining, you will 
 say; but it is the best they had, and it gave elasticity, 
 if not strength. There were ten ribs on each side. 
 It had sails as well as oars. The mast was held b)- a 
 very heavy beam of oak across five of the beams in 
 the bottom. The stump of the mast was found 
 standing in the hole — a square hole about four feet b}' 
 one, which was made large to help lower the mast; 
 and plugs were used, as well as other supports, for 
 the mast, not so apparent. 
 
 This skeleton was not without ornament, and per- 
 haps paint, though as it now appears to be black- 
 ened and tarred, I could not tell. There are mould- 
 ings upon the boards. A rudder was found lying" 
 across the vessel. It was of fir, four feet seven inches 
 long, and about a foot wide. It was fixed by a rope 
 to the side of the vessel, in front of the stern-post. 
 
 The body of the captain or owner, was found 
 just behind the mast beam. The bones and teeth 
 of two horses were found, and some colored glass, 
 and cloth which might have been part of a saddle;
 
 144 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 also a snow- skate, and some rust from iron imple- 
 ments. Among the ruins were found the handle 
 of a sword of the Viking style, a spear-point, and 
 the boss of a shield, and what is surmised to be 
 the rusty remains of a coat of mail. It is fur- 
 ther conjectured that these Vikings kept a barrel on 
 board, for a substantial bung was found; but the hole 
 was missing. As an evidence of how some trifling 
 things may be preserved when more important things 
 perish, there were found the needles of juniper bushes 
 in the clay; though what became of the berries, unless 
 they " went down " with the contents of the barrel, it 
 is not stated. Oaken handspikes and spades were 
 found. The whole seems to testify that these rude 
 accompaniments of a soldier-seaman were interred 
 with him, away from the river, out of which the ves- 
 sel was drawn. A mound was raised, so that the 
 ghost of the deceased might come out of his vessel 
 and overlook the element upon which he had sailed 
 and the land on which he had toiled. The body 
 was buried with the clothes on, as some pieces of 
 cloth and beads indicate. These surmises are more 
 or less sanctioned by the narratives of Norse burials 
 of that time which have come down to us. It is said 
 of an ancient Norse warrior, Harald Hiltetand, who 
 fell in a famous battle, that his conqueror — follow- 
 ing our North American Indian custom — ordered the 
 body to be equipped for the other world with its usual 
 companions of this world. His horse was killed, and 
 his saddle buried with the horse and body, so that he 
 could be ready to mount his charger and speed away 
 to the blessed halls of Valhalla. 
 
 This vessel, however, was not like one of those 
 which breasted the Baltic, Arctic, and Atlantic or 
 made its perilous and invading voyages to America,
 
 SKELETONS OF VESSELS. 145 
 
 P^rancc, Constantinople and the Cove of Cork. It 
 was likely a coasting- cruiser. We saw its copy at 
 Hammerfest, manned by Lapp fishermen. We see 
 it reproduced in the caiques of the Bosphorus. 
 
 However, its discovery and exhumation led to 
 much discussion, some years ago, about ship building. 
 This was quickened into excitement, when the larger 
 \essel was exhumed a few years later. I have not 
 the plan of the larger vessel, but the general features 
 of both are the same. 
 
 If I could reproduce in English the speeches of 
 the good Frau Brandt, who has charge of the sheds 
 where these vessels repose on their frames, and in a 
 good translation from her musical Norse, it would be 
 more satisfactory; but I must be content w^ith some 
 general observations. Along with her little lame 
 daughter of ten, limping on crutches, and making her 
 gestures to correspond with the mother's interesting 
 recital, Madame Brandt expanded on the various 
 qualities of the larger vessel. It is conspicuous for 
 having a huge log-cabin, with a sloping roof, in its 
 centre. Its ankerstok is a heavy oak log, which sur- 
 vives the iron anchor it held. It had three little joll}'- 
 boats, which were a part of its equipment, showing 
 that it meant business \vhen it went to war. 
 
 In fact, it had evidendy been worsted in a fight, 
 for the centre of the cabin was torn out, and there was 
 no evidence of fire. It is seventy-three feet long and 
 seventeen and a half feet wide, and in the same pro- 
 portion as the other vessel. The rudder was on one 
 side, and both sides were covered with lapped, and it 
 is thought, painted shields to the number of one hun- 
 dred and t\venty, one for each soldier on board. Each 
 shield had a central boss of iron. The shields were 
 like scales upon a colored fish, and doubtless, like the
 
 146 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 costumes of the country, rejoiced in the gayest hues, 
 yellow and red predominant. They were made of fir, 
 and their circumference was held by an iron tire. 
 They were covered with the skins of animals. A 
 sledge was found on board, also two respectable bed- 
 steads, many instruments and utensils, and among 
 them a big copper kettle, willow ropes, strong iron 
 nails, and oaken drikkckoppers (drinking cups), along 
 with a stout long plank for landing safely, with ridges 
 for the feet. These were found in various stages of 
 decay. The informing genius of this tenth-century 
 boat, a skeleton man, with gold and ornaments about 
 him, was discovered in the boat, with the bones of 
 twenty dogs and some horses. Some of the instru- 
 ments and parts of the ship were not devoid of dec- 
 oration. The rudders of the small boats had carved 
 dragon heads, while the cross-pieces, for the lifting 
 of the boat out of the water — a sort of dock — had 
 horses' heads quaintly carved. 
 
 What were these horses doing on the ship? We 
 can account for the doofs and sleigh, but the horses! 
 Perhaps the question may be dimly wrapped up in 
 the conundrum: " Why is the crupper of Bucephalus 
 like a ship's anchor? " " Because it's at the end of the 
 hawser." Before expiring over this philosophical so- 
 lution, both nautical and poetical, let me propound 
 another question. There were found on board the 
 bones of a peacock, which, out of pure vanity at the 
 naked disclosure, at once dissolved on being exhumed. 
 Now what was that fowl doing on board this Viking 
 craft ? Why was that particular bird buried with the 
 Vikingf soldier and seaman ? Let our connoisseurs 
 in antiquities, or our aesthetic philosophers who 
 spread their rhetoric about this bird of Juno, revel 
 in the conundrum.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY— PILGRIMAGE TO THE FOSSES— THE 
 GLORIES AND DAMSELS OF RINGERIKE. 
 
 " The traveller otans the grateful sense 
 
 Of sweetness near; he knows not whence. 
 And pausing takes with forehead bare 
 The benediction of the air." — Whittier. 
 
 WHEN leaving Paris we consulted an expert in 
 travel as to the proper route to take, so as to 
 see and do Norway. The plan given was this: From 
 Copenhagen to Christiania by steamer; then an ex- 
 cursion to Ringerike and Honefoss: by steamer to 
 Bergen, by the southern fjords to Trondhjem, via 
 Molde and Stoeren, and from Trondhjem to Ham- 
 merfest, via Tromsoe. Crossing the Arctic Circle the 
 midnight sun will then become visible. Tromsoe is 
 the old capital of Lapland, where will be seen Lapp 
 encampments, with reindeer herds. From Hammer- 
 fest back to Christiania, and from thence through 
 Sweden to Stockholm, and, after doing the excur- 
 sions, take the steamer to Helsingfors, and from 
 there to St. Petersburg by rail. 
 
 The best part of this programme we carried out. 
 Omitting the steamer ride from Christiania to Ber- 
 gen, we went to Trondhjem by rail from Christiania; 
 and while we filled our promise to go to the nighdess 
 Arctic Circle and beyond it, to see in full, round ra- 
 diance the sun above the horizon, we supplied the
 
 148 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 omission of the grand mountain views of the southern 
 fjords and the Molde scenery, by an abundance of such 
 views between Trondhjem and Tromsoe. This we 
 supplemented on our return to Christiania by the 
 tour suo-CTcsted, to Rina-erike, Honefoss, Tinoset and 
 Kongsburg. 
 
 The traveller familiar with Norway will wonder 
 why we did not see the Dovrefjeld and the Romsdal, 
 and various unpronounceable localities; but so far as 
 the distant reader may be interested, we have seen 
 characteristic scenery, if not always of the highest 
 type. I am not sure but that the excursion we made 
 to Honefoss is equal to anything of which I have 
 heard in Norway. This was the cabinet picture of 
 our inland trip. We were led to it by the persuasion 
 of our consul, Mr. Gerard Gaade, who extolled it to 
 the skies, to which indeed its mountains aspire. 
 
 One could wish that we had an American consul 
 like Mr. Gaade at every considerable place. He is a 
 Norwegian, and, although his office does not pay the 
 rent, he is always ready to show courteous attention 
 to Americans. His wife is an accomplished lady from 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, and there is some romance, 
 from Italy to Norway, connected with their " happy 
 lot." We were invited by him to his beautiful home 
 near Christiania, where, upon one of the little hills 
 overlooking the fjord, whose waters almost reach his 
 grounds, he cultivates his paternal acres, indulges his 
 scholarly tastes, and flies the star-spangled banner. 
 It w^as pleasant, as we drew nigh to his gate, to see 
 through the drooping birches which adorn his hun- 
 dred acres, our old flag. It is seen so seldom abroad. 
 His house is a long range, built on the Virginia plan. 
 It has twenty windows in front, and as many rooms 
 in connection one with the other. It is only two
 
 MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY. 140 
 
 Stories high. There are out-houses, stables, carriage- 
 houses, and kitchen, extending down at right angles 
 on either side, forming with the front a hollow square. 
 
 We survey the landscape, which includes Oscar 
 Hall. It is the prince's beautiful residence. This 
 fairy-like abode of royalty, when it pleases to honor 
 Norway with its presence, is situated upon a rocky 
 height of eighty feet. It is in two parts. These adjoin 
 a castellated hexagonal tower, from which we have 
 a splendid view of the fjord with its islands and its 
 surroundinors. The front of the buildinof faces the 
 water, and has a balcony. The veranda walls and 
 turrets give a unique view to this pretty royal nest; 
 but if you would know what a treasure it is, go in and 
 see the medallions, busts and paintings which it con- 
 tains. To do this, put on the felt slipper and slide 
 over the polished floors. Striking scenes from the 
 Saga are in bas-relief; but the charm of the palace 
 is the series of pictures of Bond Lif, or Peasant Life 
 in Norway, by Tidemand. 
 
 Adolp Tidemand, was a native of Mandal, in Nor- 
 way. He began to study his art at Copenhagen in 
 1832. He then went to Dusseldorf, and received les- 
 sons under Hildebrand and Schadow. Here he painted 
 his great picture: Gustavus Adolphus addressing the 
 Dalecarlian peasantry in Mora church. His fidelity 
 to nature and his ready genius, led him higher up 
 the steep of fame. After studying at Munich and 
 Rome, he returned to Norway in 1843, and began 
 the production of those pictures of the peasantry, which 
 are the chief attraction of Oscar Hall and of northern 
 art. The interior of the church in Thelemarken — 
 which we shall visit on this trip, — furnished the scene 
 for his painting of the " Catechism." It is full of hu- 
 mor. Every figure is a stroke of art; the peasant
 
 150 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 lads, dull and sharp, — the quaint schoolmaster and 
 the anxious mother, are worthy of the pencil of Ho- 
 garth, thrice refined. The series in Oscar Hall rep- 
 resent the peasant from the cradle to the grave— the 
 " seven ages of man." Of course it begins with the 
 babe; then a young couple, their hair unkempt and 
 flowing, dance the national springebo; then the life 
 on the mountain sactar or farm; then marriage, and, 
 finally, emigration ! Our guide when we were there, 
 was an elderly lady, who has a boy in America. I 
 pointed out one of the paintings and said, "Amer- 
 ica ? " She drew me to the wall and pointed out, on 
 the trunk of the young Norseman, bidding farewell 
 to his home and parents, the words: " New York, 
 1 852." What a tide has swept toward our land 
 since Tidemand made this prophetic picture ! From 
 Northern Europe, since then, a quarter of a mil- 
 lion have landed upon our shores, to remain. In 
 this year, fifteen thousand of these Norsemen have 
 mingled their future with ours. In the shipping 
 quarters of Christiania, everywhere appear the signs 
 of lines of emigrant ships. Amerika ! Amerika ! with 
 a " /('." That is the cry, and westward the Norseman 
 turns his antique prow. 
 
 But we forget that we are in the consular library, 
 or, rather, a balcony out of the library. From all 
 around comes up the fragrance of the new-mown hay, 
 the odor of which is nationalized and enhanced by the 
 sight of an American machine doing the work ! As 
 we step upon the balcony, a bevy of children shout: 
 " Papa ! " and " Uncle ! " and greet the consul; while 
 the big dog, held in leash by a young American boy 
 of ten, who had gallanted me to the Storthing (Leg- 
 islature) a week before, adds his bark to the greeting. 
 It was a rural and domestic scene not to be foro^otten.
 
 MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY. 1 51 
 
 after our rocky, fishy, nightless, undomestic journey 
 to the Arctic Ocean. 
 
 We descend to the garden and lawn. There on a 
 cot reposed the Httle daughter of the consul, an inva- 
 lid of many months. She is drinking in the pure air 
 under the shade of a great oak-tree, while her pen- 
 sive eye is upon an open book. She is a picture 
 which Millais would love to paint. I promised her 
 my " Sunbeams" for the indoors of next " winter" ; 
 and our prayers go out toward her and upward to 
 heaven that these sweet, salubrious summer days 
 may prove salutary. 
 
 After strolling through the grounds and a conver- 
 sation with Americans abroad, who called — some 
 from India and some from home — and after a bou- 
 quet or so of syringas and violets, and one more de- 
 lighted glance at the drooping birches, we re-enter 
 the house, where Mr. Gaade talks Norse to a li\'ery 
 man in the city through a telephone, and, before I 
 am aware, concludes a bargain for a carriage to take 
 us over our projected rhountain journey. 
 
 The old traveller in Norway will wonder that we 
 do not go by cariole. We were quite willing to 
 forego the custom on account of the inconvenience. 
 " When we see a cariole now," said a Norwegian 
 friend, " we know it is a foreigner who drives; for 
 ive do not go in them any more. We prefer ease 
 and comfort in a carriage." 
 
 This cariole needs an explanation. It is a light gig 
 for one person only. As Norway is deficient in nav- 
 igable rivers and railways, and as there are vast 
 tracts of attractive country where nothing else can 
 be used, the cariole is then the vehicle. The luggage 
 is strapped behind this little canoe on wheels, and 
 when the traveller is not himself the driver, there is a
 
 152 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 small boy or girl, behind, who pulls the ropes, which 
 generally pass for lines. 
 
 Ross Browne in his " Land of Thor," makes a 
 graphic picture of his cariole ride, over one of the 
 fjelds. His pony would go on the faster, the more 
 he was restrained. Had he not a girl as a skyd, or 
 driver, seated or standing behind on the vehicle ? 
 How she flourished the whip, and crying out " Flue! 
 Gaae! Reise! Fly! Go! Travel! He was not in a con- 
 dition to be as gallant as he desired. He had all he 
 could do to hold on. But even then and there, 
 amidst the sublime fields and mountains, in her sim- 
 plicity, she gave him to know, that she had a lover, 
 and was about to be married. He gave her joy, as 
 she made the horse and cariole fly over hill and dale. 
 I heard of a festive young Englishman who tried to 
 kiss one of these rosy skyds, in a shady spot. She 
 pulled up a pine and pummelled him. There is a 
 postal service connected with this locomotion, which 
 is as irksome to the farming people as it is conven- 
 ient to the traveller. The postal remuneration is 
 small, but the peasants at the skydspligtigc, or post 
 houses, are bound to furnish fresh ponies when re- 
 quested. These peasants are required by govern- 
 ment to keep the roads in repair. At intervals of 
 seven or fifteen miles, these farming post houses are 
 to be found. They are taverns as well, and bound 
 b\' law to accommodate travellers. Our route did not 
 require this sort of travel; although, upon some parts 
 of our road, we stopped at the post stations, and the 
 road at times was trying to our carriage. When the 
 travel is lively, there is a great rush to get in ahead 
 at the stations for the first and freshest horses. There 
 is a regular tariff of prices for these carioles; but we 
 had none of them, and congratulate ourselves. The
 
 MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY. 153 
 
 roads were not all bad, and some of them were 
 splendid. 
 
 By noon of the 12th of July, we examine our 
 vehicle and approve of it. It looks a little seedy, 
 and the big^ sacks of hay and other provender strapped 
 behind make it look bulky and unwieldy. Our traps 
 are aboard, our guide up with the driver, and we pre- 
 pare for a lovel)' day. We pass the villas on the 
 heights about Christiania, skirting its beautiful fjord, 
 with its valleys fruitful in vegetable gardens, with 
 sweet peas and potatoes in bloom, fields of rye and 
 barley, and forests of the ever-graceful birch. Our 
 course is southwest, between the Christiania fjord 
 and Holsfjord; for be it known that all these inland 
 waters, not excepting rivers and lakes, seem to be 
 called fjords. This is the road to the famous Ring- 
 erike country. The scenery is becoming wild; the 
 valley narrows; rugged rocks mount up on either 
 side as we follow up, up, up, with the winding of a 
 torrent all musical with cataracts, which from point to 
 point answer each other. Tiny tributaries everywhere 
 trip through the pines, to make these torrents. 
 
 About three in the afternoon we reach Hommedal. 
 It is a station for carioles. Many visitors are there. 
 We lunch on milk, fish and hashed corn beef, called 
 cabonade. It is quite common here, where fresh meat 
 is not to be had. After lunch we adjourn to the 
 rocks in the pine woods that overlook the Holsfjord, 
 fifteen hundred feet below, with a view of the distant 
 Tyri-fjord, ten English miles wide and some thirty 
 long. Upon the bosom of these waters a single boat, 
 with oars, seems like an insect with aiitennce, while the 
 green and rocky isles make it as attractive to the eye 
 as a Swiss scene. " Guten-dag ! " sounds a voice 
 from behind, and I turn to greet a New York Nor-
 
 154 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 wegian, who is here at the birthplace of his wife, 
 to renew the scenes of their earlier days. They 
 were astonished to find their Congressman so far 
 out of his bailiwick in the deep ambush of Nor- 
 wegian firs ; but after exchanging views and ci- 
 gars, we shake hands to meet at the polls ! The 
 world seems so small when neighbors appear trav- 
 elling in such remote by-ways as the Ringerike of 
 Norway ! 
 
 What a ride followed this little rest ! All the 
 senses were employed to gather in its delights. The 
 road skirts the two fjords until we reach Sund- 
 volen, the head of Tyri-Qord, which is connected 
 by a bridge and a ridge of rocks, with still an- 
 other fjord. This road can be likened to no other 
 in our experience than the Corniche, with whose 
 every phase from Cannes to Bordighera, we were 
 made familiar during a winter's sojourn at Mentone. 
 Many miles of it are cut out of the sides of the moun- 
 tain. The road looks up, as far as it looks down — 
 two thousand feet each way. The mountains are full 
 of great fissures, showing that this part of Norway 
 had a great shaking and splitting up at some epoch. 
 The road is made safe to vehicles by rocks posted 
 on the perilous side, some five feet apart. Conifera 
 of all kinds and birches grow on and out of the rocks, 
 and the deep clefts and roadside are adorned with 
 wild roses, white and pink, in profusion. The birch, 
 however, is paramount. My wife, in contemplating 
 the spectacle, is struck with an idea — not with the 
 birch — and she intimates that if my mother had lived 
 on the sides of Rins^erike, I would have been a 
 better boy. But I thought, and suggested, that 
 birch was only intended to build canoes for our 
 noble aborigines.
 
 MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY 
 
 o: 
 
 The woods arc full of berries. If we did not see 
 the little wild strawberry, we should know it was 
 numerous here; as the naked-footed children rush 
 out of leafy coverts with them, freshly picked and in 
 birch-bark baskets. Twenty-five ore, or five cents, 
 will buy enough for a surfeit. The bill-berry also is 
 common. It is suggestive of bears, of which stories 
 are beiifinninjj to be rife between our ofuide and the 
 driver, for the bears go a bill-berrying a good deal 
 in this part of Norway. It is rugged and savage 
 enouo^h for the animal. There is a sort of fearful 
 pleasure in these zoological sensations. But do we 
 not know that bears are outlawed by statute ? As it 
 is generally believed that bears understand Norse, 
 they must be aware of their relation to the State, and 
 that moneyed rewards are offered for their scalps. 
 They kept out of our path. The resinous smell of 
 the pines alternates with the fragrance of the violets, 
 and from the fields far below, the keen scent detects 
 the attar of clover, which makes a delicious confusion 
 of sweet fragrance. 
 
 Are there none but ourselves to enjoy this splen- 
 did mountain side? Oh! yes. We pass some of the 
 peasantry — the pride of the Ringerike, in their quaint 
 costumes — the women with black head-dresses and 
 red aprons, inwoven with their kirtles. The head- 
 dress is not unlike a bishop's mitre. The men wear 
 the classic cap of Phrygia, bonnet rouge, and their 
 pantaloons, before and behind, show a mutual ad- 
 venture to meet over the shoulder without the aid 
 of gallowses. 
 
 Invariably the peasants greet us politely. The 
 men doff their caps and the women and girls drop a 
 quick courtesy. 
 
 " But stop ! Rene," we exclaim to our guide,
 
 156 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 "what's that under the bushes ahead! Bears? 
 Hold on!" 
 
 What think you, sprang up ? Seven girls, with 
 knapsacks on their backs, and all rosy with their 
 walk or their embarrassment at being" caught re- 
 dining under a birch-tree. They were just twice 
 the number of the graces, plus one. Now this 
 was romantic. They laugh and giggle, and after 
 greetings, I ask, "Do you speak French?" "AW/" 
 '' English ? " "A leetle," says the pedestrienne in 
 command, and by the aid of our interpreter we un- 
 ravel their designs. They started in the morning 
 trom home on the Christiania fjord and intend to 
 make Krogleven to-night, so as to see from its lofty 
 and rocky heights the sun rise upon all the land and 
 waters round about the Ringerike ! Such pedestrian 
 tours by young women are not uncommon in Nor- 
 way. They walk a Norwegian mile (eight miles) in 
 two hours, and enjoy the scenery and the promenade 
 with a taste which is illustrated in their drawing books 
 and journals, as well as in their bright, frank, blue 
 eyes and healthy, roseate cheeks. But this was our 
 particular group of Dryads. We had a good title to 
 them all; for had we not discovered them ? We an- 
 nounce ourselves as American, at which there was a 
 mutual look and exclamation of wonder, — " So! " We 
 applaud their adventure, and ask gallantly if they do 
 not want a cavalier ? They indicate that such ap- 
 pendages are superfluous and a constraint upon their 
 maiden meditation. We have a bottle of the Widow 
 Cliquot, and propose to share it — to relieve their fa- 
 tigue and inspire their ambition. There never was 
 a cork which sounded more hilarious as it flew from 
 the botdc, than did that particular cork, now in pos- 
 session of the seven sylvan Norse nymphs. I gave
 
 MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY. 
 
 O/ 
 
 them to understand thai they must each ^-jve their 
 names, as they sipped the widow's sparkHni^- vintage, 
 as I was writing a Norse novel and wanted to com- 
 plete my nomenclature of mountain damsels. Up 
 stepped "Canuta," and the beaded beaker was drained 
 with a courtesy and a " Tak ! " Then Hilda, Guld- 
 borg, Astrid, Ingeborg, Dagna, and last, youngest 
 and bonniest of all, Olava, daughter of Saint Olaf 
 himself— maidens each and all, worthy of the canvas 
 of Winge or the pages of the Edda. The goblet 
 drained to its last drop, and the bottle tumbling down 
 the gorge, our white Norwegians ponies start down 
 hill with a wild trot, as if they too enjoyed the cham- 
 pagne, the occasion and the mountain air ! One re- 
 flection: Why is it that such travels by the unpro- 
 tected female under the deer-hide knapsack are so 
 common and so safe in Norway, and in other lands, 
 not so? 
 
 All of these errant damsels were fair haired. They 
 are the models of the angels painted in the domes of 
 basilicas and on the canvas of art. Was it not one 
 of the Popes who punned the "Angles" into angels 
 when he saw the fair prisoners of the Roman slave 
 market ? It is related of the wife of Kingf Harold 
 Harfager, that her body remained red and fresh, for 
 three years after death; so potent was the spell of 
 her beauty. 
 
 Blue eyed, with flaxen, red or auburn hair, ruddy 
 lips and cheek — these are the maidens who entrance 
 the dark-eyed artists of Italy and Spain, while for 
 compensation the ruddy Sawney or straw-hued Briton 
 is enamored of the Italian and Spanish beauties. The 
 bella barba bianca of which southern nymphs of the 
 dark eye and hair are enamored, add much romance 
 to Roman aesthetics and give new graces, by loving
 
 T58 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 contrast, to the angelic ideals of Seville. It is the 
 pine in love with the palm ; the pole with the 
 pyramid ! 
 
 As the road approaches Sundvolen we go directly- 
 north. Above us, three thousand feet, is the hotel, 
 where our pedestriennes are to sleep over night, for 
 their view of sunrise. The fields far below are in 
 fine culture; here and there are large red farm and 
 outhouses in clusters. A little steamer is seen far 
 off upon the fjord. It looks like a toy. All about is 
 the Ringerike. "Ring" was a Saga, and " Rik " 
 is a little kingdom. This is the philology; but I 
 prefer to fancy that it is called this — the King's 
 Ring — because it is a rich and royal circlet of 
 mountains, fit for the wedding of the heavens with 
 the earth. 
 
 Far off, truncated Gausta, one of the highest moun- 
 tains in Norway, shines in cloud and snow. The isles 
 in the fjord, and even the bridge we cross is of rocks, 
 so hard that the moss scarcely clings to them, but 
 tradition does. Did not the giantess Girahaug cast 
 these huge stones at a church in Norderhov ? Did 
 not the missiles fall short ? Did she not lose a leg 
 which flew off when she was drowned in the water ? 
 This legend is said to be a part of the " Wisdom of 
 the Ancients " of this land, and illustrates the fruitless 
 attempts of bad giantesses and other evil genii against 
 the spirits of the just made perfect. 
 
 But soon we come to a place renowned for real 
 womanly heroism. It is quite a contrast with the 
 fable which connects the flickering auroras of the 
 Eddas with the nebulous moralities. Near this same 
 church, now undergoing complete change, lived a 
 pastor, whose wife — Anna Kolbjoernsdatter, in 17 16, 
 while the Swedes were invading Norway — destroyed
 
 MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY. 1 59 
 
 her country's foes by a stratagem. Her husband was 
 ill at the time, but she was equal to the emerge#icy. 
 She made the Swedish soldiers drunk, and set fire to 
 a pile of wood as a beacon, pretending to be warm- 
 ing up the Swedes. The Norwegian heroes in a 
 neighboring town saw the lurid sign, and the Swedes 
 were annihilated. We verified this pretty story by a 
 call at the parsonage, where a picture hangs in the 
 commodious chamber, showing the heroine in the ruse 
 of appealing to the Swedish officers for liberty to send 
 her nurse, who lit the beacon, on a domestic errand. 
 This part was not exactly heroic, but it was much bet- 
 ter than the attempt of the gigantic female of the 
 mountain. In this parsonage we noted one thing, 
 that every picture on the wall was surrounded by liv- 
 ing, creeping vines, ivy prominent. Ivy is the na- 
 tional plant of Norway, so much is it in favor with all 
 classes, and on all festive occasions. 
 
 We are down on a level with the waters now, and 
 still bound northward, as my compass points, toward 
 the end of our first day's journey at Honefoss. Most 
 of the houses away from the fruitful dales (or dais), 
 are log built; and " chinked with moss, without 
 daubin'." They are rarely painted, but the farm- 
 houses of the dale are finely built, and are generally 
 painted red or yellow — the national hues. They are 
 called stabbiLT, and are raised on posts, as a protec- 
 tion against the rat. Some of the stables show some 
 carving, of two hundred years ago. The pillars and 
 eaves are of oak or pine, and well preserved. In 
 the earlier centuries, among other graces in which 
 the young peasants were trained, beside that of wrest- 
 ling, rowing, skating, writing, fiddling, and song- 
 singing, was that of wood-carving. In spite of wind 
 and weather, frost and time, the proofs of this ac-
 
 i6o 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 complishment remain in house and barn, throughout 
 the realm. This page reveals a fair specimen of this 
 work. 
 
 NORWEGIAN STABBUR, 
 
 Everywhere in the vales the hay- harvest is going 
 on. The men are mowine with a straiorht-handled 
 scythe, which looks very awkward. The women do 
 the raking. Both men and women put up the poles 
 on the uprights, and spread the green grass to cure 
 upon them; so that the long lines of grass upon these 
 poles in the meadows give the pleasing sight of hedge- 
 rows. At every barn there are sheafs of grain, one 
 or two, sometimes on the side of the barn, and some- 
 times on a sort of liberty-pole. Indeed it is a liberty- 
 pole; for the birds are free to feed. This is a common
 
 MOrA'TAINS OF NOKIVAY. l6l 
 
 custom in Scandinavia. It is called " hospitality to 
 the birds." But with all this persuasive and refined 
 hospitality, birds are rare. Excepting a few pilfering 
 crows, with a brownish white back, and now and then 
 a singino- bullfinch or other warbler, we see few birds. 
 I may except the magpie, which has a kleptomania 
 for rino;s and other Qrlitterincr valuables. Some birds 
 have a bad name; but no bird ever did any harm. 
 Even the worst birds of prey act as scavengers, and 
 do as much good as harm. I say this boldly, as a 
 featherless biped, anxious to do justice to this part 
 of creation; and therefore I do not join in the great 
 dislike even of the larcenous crow, vain magpie, or 
 aggressive sparrow. But for the owl, buzzard and 
 hawk, the lemmingfs — which are a sort of rat — 
 would devour quadrennially every green thing in 
 Norway. These pests of the peasantry produce 
 scarcity, and but for the birds and another enemy, 
 the reindeer, would produce starvation. 
 
 There are not many singing birds in Norway. 
 I miss the songs which should give zest to travel 
 and charm to these grand forests. What are pri- 
 meval trees, gnarled and mossed, however "woodsy 
 and wild and lonesome," without the cheerful carol. 
 This primal necessity of a Paradise, is not filled 
 by the cries of hungry cross-bills,, and hooded 
 crows, the chatter of the dandified jay, and the dole- 
 ful trumpet note of the crane. There are signs of 
 life, in field, marsh, and wood; but they are not 
 jocund like that of the harbingers of spring. The 
 remark as to the paucity of musical birds, should be 
 limited to my own observation, and as compared with 
 other lands. In summer there are many migrant 
 warblers, who leave before the autumn, and make 
 the gardens and woods about the towns musical
 
 1 62 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 while they stay. The nightingale rarely ventures 
 into Norway, though it makes Sweden happy. The 
 robin -red-breast is seen now and then, in the deep 
 forests. But there is a songstress I had nearly 
 omitted. It is called the willow-warbler, or bastard 
 nightingale, which I have seen and recognized on 
 the wing by his greenish-gray plumage and his tail | 
 feathers silver tipped. Its song swells and falls sweet- 
 ly from the silvery birch forests and bushy under- 
 growth. It is said to be the finest musician of its 
 class. Thrushes, blackbirds, ouzels, wagtails, in fact 
 from the screamino: eaMe to the twittering tit, there 
 is, according to the nomenclature, much hospitality 
 for birds in these short summers; but we did not see 
 much opportunity for its display. 
 
 If anything could fill their places is it not the 
 thousand wayside flowerets, which have a music of 
 their own, the " spirit ditty of no tone ? " Every- 
 where they peep above the rough, rocky ground, and 
 embroider the green tissue of the meadows. Whole 
 fields of violets tricolored, anemones, pansies, wild 
 geranium, harebells, larkspur, columbine, and mar- 
 guerites, not to speak of the yellow and white flow- 
 ering mosses, abound in bewildering variety of color 
 and form in this region, 
 
 The asphodel, the golden rod, 
 The daisy blooming- on the sod. 
 And nodding in the wind — 
 
 decorate these vast cliffs and glaciers. Some of 
 them are found beyond the Arctic Circle, and 
 even at the base of the furthermost rock upon 
 the furthest isle of the bleak north ! But in this 
 part of Norway, especially in the fields at the foot 
 of the King's Ring, there is such an energy in 
 the production of the flower, that the white and red
 
 MOUNTAINS OF NORWAY. 1 63 
 
 clover fields arc amazing, as well for the size of the 
 cloverheads as for their sweetness and abundance. 
 What a place for milk and honey — for cows and bees! 
 Yet, above these meadows we see, by the aid of the 
 lorgnette, little strips of pasture where chalets, like 
 those of Switzerland, seem to hang to the very 
 edge of the steep mountains. Who can live there ? 
 How reach their homes? How return to the valleys? 
 If it be such perilous labor to live in Norway, is it to 
 be wondered that the fertile soil of Dakota and 
 Wisconsin has drawn them to the settinof sun ? We 
 hear stories of these pastoral mountaineers endeavor- 
 ing to cut the little grass upon the precipitous heights, 
 and who have perished in their attempts to provide 
 for the long winter, and their poor kine, sheep and 
 goats. How can these remote dwellers be cared for 
 in case of sickness, or death ? These questions we 
 asked, and received for answer, that sometimes the 
 bodies of the dead had to be broken at the back- 
 bone, and then shouldered and placed on horseback, 
 and thus brought clown to be coffined and buried. 
 Sunday used to be the day for the gathering of the 
 dead for a general burial. 
 
 Yes; somebody cares for these lonely ones. On 
 our way to Kongsburg we met over a dozen women 
 in their gay costumes, dressed up, as if for Sunday. 
 Each led one or two children. They gave us their 
 bows, and we wondered at the peculiar procession. 
 At last I stopped an old lady, with a two-year old, 
 trudging in the sandy road. 
 
 " What are so many children doing out to-day in 
 this lonely pass ? " She seemed surprised at the 
 question. 
 
 " They are going to the next town to be vacci- 
 nated," she said.
 
 1 64 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 The doctor, by order of the government, had sum- 
 moned the Httle ones to come unto him, and they 
 were walking six and ten miles, for the purpose. 
 The little ones looked serious and apprehensive 
 of something. If there was any sickness, small- 
 pox or otherwise, in these remote places, we did not 
 verify it. It would seem that the balsamic influences 
 of the piny region should furnish a whole materia 
 medica ; for one can inhale resinous Norway as 
 Napoleon did Corsica when exiled, not by imagina- 
 tion only, but in very deed, even when far at sea. 
 
 Our destination is almost reached, but we cannot 
 forget a back review of the strange and wonderful 
 route by which we reach Honefoss. I compared it 
 with the Corniche road in Southern Europe. It has 
 not the terraced beauties of that famous road, with 
 its lemon, oran^-e and olive trees, althoucrh it has the 
 same water view and magnificent mountains. Its 
 waters, however clear and serenely reflective of the 
 shadows of the mountains, have not the prismatic 
 colors of the sea on the rocky shores and surf along 
 the Riviera. One pass may be compared to Cape 
 Horn, on our California route, but I thought con- 
 tinually, as we travelled, of the Corsican coast road, 
 north of Ajaccio, with its untrodden and machie- 
 covered forests. If comparison were needed, it is 
 more like the road from Lake Iseo to Tirano, in the 
 Orisons, and it evoked the same enthusiasm, except 
 this : that while the Bernini pass had its waterfalls, it 
 liad not that wild, incessant grandeur for which the 
 fosses or falls of Norway are celebrated. To one of 
 these fosses we are pilgrims, and our first day finds 
 us at Honefoss, where we rest.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MORE MOUNTAIN EXPERIENCES — CONSERVATIVE NORWAY — 
 SCHOLARS AND DIALECTS. 
 
 " The sJiuddcriiig fcnaiit of the frigid zone, 
 Boldly proclai)ns the happiest spot his own." 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 IF Ireland has her three F's, as it is said, Norway 
 has hers — fjords, fjelds and fosses ! The letter 
 "y" has but little sound; as the words are pronounced 
 " fee-ord " and " fee-eld." The Norse has no plural 
 with an " i"," but adds '' cr" for that purpose. Of 
 course, our old \Noxd& ford, field 2i\\di force come from 
 these Norse orieinals; althougrh their meanings have 
 been much modified by time and usage. The inland 
 waters of the country we are visiting are connected 
 with the salt sea on the south. They flow into the 
 Christiania fjord, which is the upper end of the Ska- 
 ger-Rack. but they are/zr^-/^ water, and are called fjords 
 on the map, though much unlike the grand fjords of 
 the Atlantic and Arctic, or the western coast of Nor- 
 way, which we have threaded. These inland fjords 
 are sometimes swift-running streams, or placid lakes, 
 out of which the fosses leap in fussy silvery spray. 
 The old English ford is any sort of a river. Our 
 American ford is the point of a river which is pass- 
 able. The Norse fjeld is a high plateau, like our 
 Texas tableland. It has extent as well as capacity 
 for cultivation. The foss is one of the peculiar fea- 
 tures of Norway. Norwegians boast of it as their
 
 1 66 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 grandest thing; but it bears no comparison with the 
 Jjords or fjclds, surrounded, and in fact, made by the 
 mountians. 
 
 " Ah," said our guide, " you should see Rjukanfos 
 It is eight hundred feet high." So it is, but the vol- 
 ume of water is a thimbiefull aloncrside of Niasfara 
 and its inimitable thunder. It has no great shake 
 or quake. These fosses are not sublime nor grand; 
 but the best of them are — like those in the Alps — ■ 
 beautiful. They are useful withal, as they furnish 
 water power to cut timber, and grind grain for food 
 and pulp for paper. We do not visit Honefoss, 
 merely to see its falls, nor the water power there 
 utilized. The mountain scenery and its associa- 
 tions furnish the main allurement. Its foss is seen 
 from and under a brido-e, as we enter the village. 
 It is unmistakably wild. Our hotel gives us another 
 sight of it. From the pretty garden of the hotel 
 we can see up and down the wild Stor river with- 
 out obstruction. As the big round moon silvered 
 the foss, it had a whiteness that was strano-e and 
 ghostly. This foss is a watering place in many 
 senses. After some fishing, we find here quite a 
 company of foreigners. There is a matron and two 
 daughters, to whom we are drawn. We thought 
 them English, and yet they had a queer un-English 
 accent. For some time we could not make out their 
 dialect. At length an odd-looking omnibus drives up. 
 It looks like an inverted Irish jaunting car. One of 
 the mysterious young ladies— like Mrs. Edgeworth's 
 hero of the " Brogue " — revealed herself and nation 
 at once by exclaiming: " D'ye see that machine now.^*" 
 Whereat she pulled up as quick as the vehicle, say- 
 ing: " Mother! will I iver get over being an Irish- 
 man ? " Yet she had been teaching and studying
 
 MORE MOUNTAIN EXPERIENCES. 167 
 
 seven years in Norway, but with her, as with other 
 Celts, the old mother tongue was still musical with 
 the brooue. 
 
 Our second day takes us south, on the west shore 
 of the big- Tyri -fjord. This is done by rail as far as 
 Kongsburg. In this excursion, we have many in- 
 teresting companions; and among them the Czar's 
 master of ceremonies. Like a true Russian, he talks 
 in all the tono:ues. He is travellino;- for recreation, 
 and, poor man, has he not earned it ? It must be a 
 relief to be absent from the perilous precincts of the 
 Winter and Peterhoff Palaces. A narrow-gauge rail- 
 road follows the Drammen river, till it leaves us for 
 the East; then we make an acute angle at Hougsund, 
 where there, too, is a foss and salmon boxes. We 
 then follow the Laagan to Kongsburg. One mis- 
 take we make. We o-et into the wrono^ car. This 
 is corrected by the vigilance of a Norwegian from 
 Wisconsin, who saw our dilemma and nationality and 
 came to our rescue. These rivers are full of lo^s 
 stripped for the mill and navigation — logs every 
 where: logs at rest, logs in motion, logs in eddies, 
 loofs boundinof over fosses, loofs in a whirl, loo's shoot- 
 ing straight down, logs piled on one another and 
 loes in rafts — loQfs, loofs, losfs. I have seen our Con- 
 necticut River, from its source in New Hampshire, in 
 the floating timber season; but, compared with its 
 timber, this endless pine and birch navigation is not 
 to be mentioned. I undertook to count, somewhat 
 facetiously, the miles, or millions, of logs in a big 
 boom on the Drammen. It reminded me of the 
 way distinguished Speakers used to count the "ayes" 
 and " noes " in Congress. One would think such a 
 wooden exodus w^ould exhaust the Norwegian groves; 
 but the growth alone supplies the loss tenfold, and
 
 1 68 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 leaves the immense forests intact. Most of this tim- 
 ber eoes to Holland and England. It furnishes the 
 business for a large part of Norway. Over 110,000 
 tons of wood go to these two countries alone, from 
 the town of Drammen. Its fleet numbers three hun- 
 dred vessels, with a burden of 72,000 tons. The 
 timber is sent abroad in all shapes, mostly raw and 
 sawed, but much of it is made into doors and win- 
 dows, and is ready for the utilities of domestic shel- 
 ter. The birch is used for tanning, roofing and fuel 
 as well at the lofty glebes as at the cottages of the 
 vale. 
 
 There are many uses to which the Norwegian 
 wood is put beside that of lumber. The juniper is 
 used to cover the floors, and, like true goodness, it 
 gives forth its aroma when trodden upon. It is used 
 in spittoons — another ignoble purpose. It is some- 
 times boiled at the saeters or mountain farms, and is 
 ladled out as cow-tea! The elm bark is often ground 
 with meal. I have tried to eat the ganiincl ost, or 
 old cheese, here, and to swallow the \\2l\'(\ find brod ; 
 but the experiment of eating wood is yet to be made 
 Perhaps the turpentine beer, drank a la Norse out 
 of the unfriendly skull, would give a zest to the ex- 
 periment. Certainly it would be a mixed, if not a 
 heady drink. 
 
 The vegetable energy of Norway is notable. In 
 a large part of the country only ten weeks are al- 
 lowed for vegetation — to get the crops in and out of 
 the soil. Barley and peas grow two or three inches 
 a day in the season; grass is growing under the snow 
 up to sixty-five degrees latitude, and the birch and 
 pine all the time. Still, I am yet to see trees of ex- 
 traordinary altitude or girth, such as would furnish 
 the Miltonic- Satanic spear, ecpal to the tall pine
 
 MORE MOUNTAIN FXTF.R/F.XCF.S. 169 
 
 hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast of some 
 hio'h admiral. These loirs of the torrents and fosses 
 are hut as wands compared with the epic spear. 
 
 Konofsburof is celebrated for its silver mines. 
 They are situated in the high mountains, six miles 
 from the town. They have collected quite a village 
 in a wild, romantic spot. Compared with our Ne- 
 vada mines, they are, of course, meagre; still, they 
 are worked by four hundred men, and yield a mil- 
 lion of kronen per year, or two hundred thousand 
 dollars. We visited the smelting works and bouglit 
 some chaste argentiferous crystals as souvenirs. 
 
 These Norwegian towns have suffered much from 
 fire, and, in some places, as at Trondhjem, wooden 
 buildino-s have been forbidden. But timber is so 
 cheap that it is difficult to forbid such shelter as it 
 affords. All the houses of Kongsburg are of timber, 
 except the church and smelting works. 
 
 We are nicely lodged in an ancient hotel. Here 
 we may study Norwegian heroism and customs. 
 The walls of the rooms are a study, for they are 
 covered with paintings, chromos and engravings of 
 national subjects, running back to the time of the 
 Danish connection. Our dining-room has a picture 
 of Elsinore. This, our Danish guide— now a month 
 from home — leaps to explain, as the loais in quo of 
 the great ghostly drama of Shakespeare. He points 
 out the kingly castle and the Hamlet battlement ; 
 but what a fall does fancy get ! These spots, which 
 on the mimic stage have frozen our blood with their 
 eager and nipping air and spectral apparition, are 
 here colored under summer skies. Green woods 
 canopy the placid wave and furnish a comfortable 
 home where cottage chimneys smoke, while a fisher- 
 man's boat lazily floats under languid sail, as if no
 
 lyo FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 weird or wicked thing or king ever haunted this 
 histrionic vicinity. 
 
 Another picture our Danish guide dilates upon 
 with jealous pride. It is that of Admiral Turbens- 
 kiold, who jumped, with sabre between his teeth, 
 into the waters of Copenhagen and swam to his ship 
 to foil his country's foes. This admiral, we are told, 
 was a tailor, and when he attained celebrity by his 
 maritime skill and valor he was known as the 
 " American of the North of Europe." We ask why? 
 Our guide says that when he attended court, he 
 never wore gloves or white neckerchief, but rolled 
 up his plebeian breeches over his big top-boots, 
 which were never blackened. It was for this eccen- 
 tricity that the compliment was paid to the naval 
 hero and to the American Republic. Near by him 
 hung pictures of Andersen, the fairy story-teller and 
 fabulist, whom all men, women, and children love. 
 Upon the table rests a volume of " Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress," with a photograph of Bunyan's tomb in Bur- 
 hill fields ; and etchings of that excellent man Chris- 
 tian, whose namesakes have so often filled the 
 throne, and from whom so many children here have 
 been named. These chance observations and pic- 
 tures are indices of the thouo^hts, feelinofs, and en- 
 thusiasms of this simple people in their rustic homes. 
 
 At Kongsburg we project a wild tour toward 
 the west. We are told that the path to it is exceed- 
 ingly romantic, and so we procure provender and 
 carriage and start for Tinoset, at the foot of Tinsoe- 
 fjord, via Bolkesoe. The route is lined with wild 
 flowers, and the air is laden with fragrance. Lakes 
 and torrents are peeping through every covert. 
 Rocks v/hich Titans might have used against the 
 gods are in vast confusion, tumbled all about, even
 
 MORE MOUNTAIN EXPERIENCES. 
 
 171 
 
 to the edge of our wild road. The Norway ponies, 
 however, never Hag. In fact, they are too impetu- 
 ous and require the " B-ii-r-r-r-r-r — r-r" — ! of the 
 driver to call a halt at the base of the hill. We meet no 
 persons on this route. We stop occasionall)' to feed 
 the horses at some cabin, which we enter and survey. 
 All these peasants know about America. They take 
 pains to let us know that they have evidences of our 
 continent. Some look up letters from their relatives 
 and friends, and display them with pride. The floors 
 of these cabins are sprinkled with bits of spruce, and 
 as they are trampled upon give forth a pleasant fra- 
 grance. Even in the rudest of them, small photo- 
 graphs of Tidemand's Norwegian pictures are on the 
 wall. The children are, without exception, shy "tow- 
 heads," and their costume is as meagre as that of 
 their mother's is ornate. The women are always 
 busy, and when not spinning at the old wheel are 
 weedinof in their gardens. 
 
 In the afternoon we arrive at Bolkesoe. Here 
 we find other characteristics, but quite exemplary as 
 to the morality and traits of this good people. Com- 
 ing over a savage ridge of mountains, we obtain a 
 glimpse of two lakes, Bolkesoe and Fol-vSoe. They 
 are not connected, yet they are within a few^ hundred 
 yards of each other; but the latter is three hundred 
 feet lower than the former. They are surrounded by 
 a superb cordon of mountains; but it is the human 
 nature which attracts us here. As we drive up to a 
 low curious building of antique pattern, we are met 
 by none other than Ole Bolkesoe himself. He is a 
 lethargic man, with black moustache and a red skull 
 cap. He is in his shirt sleeves, and of slow^ and 
 sanctimonious speech and manner. He bids us enter. 
 We are not much in altitude, but we stoop to enter
 
 172 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the low door. The interior would be appreciated as 
 picturesque by Jans Steen or Wouverman. It is 
 thoroughly Dutch. Bureau, cupboard and old cab- 
 inets, are oddly painted in colors, once gay, but now 
 subdued. An old-fashioned mangle hangs against 
 the wall. The silver trinkets and heirlooms are un- 
 hesitatingly shown. Pottery and plate hang in rows 
 about the room, which is a cross between the office 
 of an Indiana justice of the peace and a Methodist 
 preacher's study, with the relics of a couple of cen- 
 turies of rural Norse domesticity scattered about in 
 festive disorder. 
 
 My first attack in this curious room is upon the 
 mantel. There, some Bibles and prayer books, in 
 Norse, repose. Opening the former, I begin to read 
 in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans; and remember- 
 ing the English unrevised text, the similarity of 
 the lanouaees interested me. Father Ole Bolkesoe 
 watches me out of one corner of his eye. 
 
 He asks our guide in Norse: "Is he a priest?" 
 
 When informed that I was only a Congressman, he 
 rushed to his docket or register, and with great de- 
 light shows the names of U. S. Grant and wife, 
 our Consul Gaade, and the Prince of Monte Negro. 
 They had honored his inn. This was a compliment, 
 which was appreciated. I asked him if he himself 
 were not a member of the Storthing (Congress). 
 He said that his father had been, many, many 
 years ago. This was our bond of confidence. Then, 
 he began, in lugubrious monotone, to deplore the 
 state of politics and religion in all the nations of 
 the world. He was evidently a pessimist. 
 
 "Ah, sir, it is a miserable epoch! the world is 
 corrupted ! Even your own President is shot, and 
 the Lord's anointed on this continent is not safe.
 
 MORE MOUNTAIN EXPERIENCES. 
 
 ^73 
 
 There is too mucli dynamite and lil)crty, too 
 miicli ! " 
 
 Thus speaking" he turned the seven vials of his 
 wrath upon Professor Bjin-nsterne Bjornson, the 
 gifted poet, writer and orator of Cornell Univer- 
 sity, and who is now in Norway, attracting its peo- 
 ple to his peculiar tenets of faith and republican 
 theories. 
 
 " Why does he not let us in Norway remain in 
 peace ? " exclaimed our host. " Why does he not go 
 back to your country, since he likes its institutions so 
 much ? Why make our simple folk discontented ? 
 He even attacks our religion; he is an atheist; but he 
 has no business to preach; only theologians should 
 preach." 
 
 Here the conservative relio-ionist of the fanatical 
 type burst out of his deliberative rhetoric, until our 
 guide himself is carried away, and exclaims: "Ja! ja! 
 Everybody can preach in America, but we have in 
 our countries //w/Zr*^ constitutions! In America you 
 do everything you wish." The hearty assent of these 
 good people to this proposition suppressed me utterly, 
 especially as I had to dig through two languages to 
 make reply. 
 
 Yet I could not but admire this staunch Lutheran, 
 who would not, though an angel spoke, depart from 
 his ancient highways. My wife asked him how near 
 was his church; he replied, twenty-two miles. He 
 had given evidence of his sincerity by regular attend- 
 ance at this church every Sunday, year after year. 
 He is an illustration of that pious conservatism which 
 believes that a lonsf Norwegian nio^ht is better than 
 mid-day in Elysium. He accepts many of the super- 
 stitions of old Norway. He accepts all the tales of 
 trolls, and the stories of vikings and basekers. He is
 
 174 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 orthodox, and believes in devils. He believes in 
 the Necs, or sprites of the waters, who arise at night 
 and piteously wail over their liquid graves, as their 
 favorite star keeps watch over them. He ignores 
 not the Hiilder who dances unseen with the peasants 
 at the chalets of the summer mountain farms, with 
 cow and kid, goat and lamb, to the tune of the Har- 
 danger fiddle. He takes forces for fairies. He will 
 not disturb the stones on his farms, left by his ances- 
 tors; and he uses the same old crooked stick with an 
 iron spike instead of a plough, for stony ground. He 
 believes in the monsters of the air, shore and lake. 
 How could he accept geology, when there were Jo- 
 tuns " in those days," with Atlantian shoulders to 
 pry apart rocks and hoist mountains ? If he were 
 not a bachelor, doubtless the air around his romantic 
 home would be peopled with the pystings — -ghosts 
 of babes who flit and wail for their lost mothers in 
 the stormy winters and under auroral skies. But 
 bachelor or not, he believes, doubtless, in the old 
 serpent of Miosen Lake, in its entire length and in 
 its unfathomable watery home. He accepts as verity 
 the great Kraken, whose appearance and movement 
 about Salten Fjord he will not accept as a mirage of 
 meteorology. Who would disturb such placid and 
 pious conservatism ? Let the planets go around in 
 their orbits; let comets display their fearful hair and 
 magnificent tails, " perplexing nations " ; but to this 
 Norse gudeman, God is God and Luther is his proph- 
 et. When he dies, let there be an old oak-tree over 
 his Bauta stone monument, with a runic epitaph. 
 
 I glanced about his room and bed, with its sheep- 
 skin coverlets, hidden in the alcove, and there, over 
 its portals, were the mottoes which illustrate his 
 life. Such mottoes I had seen in the homely dwell-
 
 MORE MOUNTAIN EXrERIENCES. lyr 
 
 ing-s of the Nortliliincl. At tlic Gaards, or farm 
 centres, you will find, as we found in Holland in the 
 dairies, suspended on the wall, maxims expressing 
 the simple faith of this Norman blood. There is one 
 motto common in Norway and carved around this 
 room of Ole Bolkesoe, and which he pointed at, as 
 his rule of daily conduct: 
 
 "Naar vi i^iiaar rind; naar vi gaar ud; 
 Da tacnk paa os, O miUic Gut ! " * 
 
 Another motto we see. It is worthy of a Trap- 
 pist cloister: " Go to bed and slumber! Reflect now 
 \Bctcnk diL nu /) that it may be thy last sleep." 
 
 I called this conservative friend Father Bolkesoe. 
 He is, in fact, a bachelor, though a father in the Es- 
 tablished Church. Five of his sisters are married and 
 live in the little village which bears their name. He 
 gallants us to one of their homes. There we find 
 English-speaking Norwegians, just arrived for rest 
 and recreation. One of the number has been to 
 Washineton and recognizes the writer, and so I am 
 welcomed as an American. One of our companions in 
 travel, we hear, is quartered in the loft of the house. He 
 turns out to be the Dean of the faculty of Christiania 
 University. Dr. Monrad is an old and honored schol- 
 ar, whose book on philosophy has just been printed in 
 Norwegian and German. We are allowed to visit 
 him. We find him readinof the third Book of Homer 
 in Greek, and his wife readino; Walter Scott's Ivan- 
 hoc in Norwegian. After some courtesies and much 
 chaffing about my favorite Greek, Thersites, and a 
 discussion about the Hoincridac, we interchange a 
 talk on philology. He informs me that he learned 
 
 * " When we go in; when we go out; 
 Then think of us, O merciful God ! "
 
 176 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 his English from books, but that he had no trouble, 
 even before he learned it, to understand a — Scotch- 
 man ! In fact, to us, his English had a Scotch patois, 
 that sounded as musical as it was canny. The blood 
 relation of the old languages comes out on both sides 
 of the Scotch border, as he expounds his experience. 
 He dilates upon the resemblance between the oldest 
 and purest English, like that spoken in the " Lake 
 Country " and the Norse tongue. Norse is the 
 tongue of Denmark as well as of Norway. Our 
 courier speaks both alike — being a Dane — ^so that 
 the Norse people think that he is one of them. The 
 vowels are sounded differently: Par example, the 
 word Brunt in English, is Brat in Norse; Fell in 
 English, is field, a block of mountains; Heam or 
 Yahni, is our Home, and in Norse it is Hjem; 
 Holm is a small island in both languages; Kilt is 
 in Norse, Kytl, a sJiirt, from which our Kirtle; and 
 our word slip or slippery, has its counterpart in the 
 Norse sleep, etc. The word Bonde is indicative of 
 a tie — a bond, philologically and otherwise. When 
 the peasant, or " Bonde " — gets wells enough off to 
 build or buy a house — he is a husbonde ! Vet 
 Kommen! is a gentle word needing no translation. 
 The Swedish language, not only has the same con- 
 struction as the English, but the sounds are nearly 
 similar: Our "Good day" is Swedish ''God dag;" 
 our " Come, father!" is Swedish " A^;;2 y^zr; " Eng- 
 lish "much the best," is in Swedish ''Ala bast;" 
 " I have given to the father," is in Swedish " J'ag' 
 liar g if vet at fadre?i." In these examples the Swe- 
 dish, which is more German than English, is, how- 
 ever, kith and kin to the Norse. Upon the vessel, 
 as we sailed, how familiar seemed the words: "La 
 go!" Let go! or " Koni og se!" Come and see!
 
 MORE MOUNTAIN EXPERIENCES. 177 
 
 This language is still spoken in the Orkneys. It is 
 also used in the Isle of Man, which was ruled by 
 Norway until a. d. 1266. The assemblies in these 
 islands are called Things, the same as in Iceland and 
 in the Shetlands. 
 
 No wonder our learned professor says that he 
 can understand the EnoHsh of a Scotchman or of 
 the " Lake " country better than that of an Ameri-' 
 can or a Londoner. 
 
 Besides, if we seek for the sources of our mosaic 
 language, we need not go further back than the era 
 of the Roman Conquest of Britain. We then and 
 there find the characteristics of the Celtic race and 
 dialects. They came to Britain originally from far- 
 off Phoenicia and Judea, the Orient, in fact, and later 
 from Southwestern Europe. They were modified by 
 climates, airs and aliments. Drought and moisture, 
 heat and cold affected tones and even muscles. This 
 language remained, however, for four centuries. 
 Then came Goth, Hun and other northern tribes. 
 They sought milder climates over the sea, and bore 
 with their conquering arms a tough tongue and a 
 rude courao-e. Frank and Norman fixed their habits 
 and laneua^e on the Celtic stock. Anorlo-Saxons 
 and Frisians, leaving the coast, from the Zuyder Zee 
 to the mouth of the Elbe, joined with the Norse or 
 Danish element, and gave to the Celtic its Gothic 
 graft, and left it with the leading lineaments of ou.^ 
 present language.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NORWAY — ITS OLD CHURCHES AND .ESTHETICS — LAWS AND 
 
 MANNERS. 
 
 " Theirs was a greatness 
 Got from their Grandsires; 
 Theirs that so often in 
 Strife with their enemies. 
 Struck for their hoards, and their hearths atid their homes." 
 
 Battle of Brunanburgh. 
 
 BUT we have no time for the science and humors 
 of philology. '' Hest Strax/" "Horse imme- 
 diate!" we cry, and the good host, Ole, is at the 
 door to shake our hands, and, must I say it, with his 
 eyes moist, in kindly farewells, he bids us, God 
 speed ! Down our ponies rattle, until the " Tind 
 Sea " greets the eye under the evening sun. In ad- 
 dition to other berries and multiform and multitudi- 
 nous flowers, we find the loncr-sou^ht Alulteboer. It 
 is in great demand, and tastes like our mulberry, 
 only it is in shape like the raspberry. When beaten 
 into a mass, creamed and sugared, it is a dainty dish. 
 There is a law which forbids any one to gather more 
 than he or she can reasonably consume. It is used 
 to make jam, and we find it at the railway stations, 
 in eaofer demand. 
 
 A few stoppages, a glance into cabins where 
 black wool is being carded and spun by barefooted 
 females, and along a road heavy with sand and wild 
 with moss-covered rocks, the debris of earthquakes 
 that have shattered these huge mountains of gneiss 
 and the haunts of bears, lynxes and foxes, — and we 
 are at Tinoset by the lake. Here we begin to fish
 
 NOA'irAV cm: h- CUES and .kstiiktics. 
 
 179 
 
 from a boat at i i i". m., with a patent float, whicli 
 carries a lon"f line, and six otlier lines — a sort of 
 movintj^ trout line with flies. It makes a wide sweep 
 until we near tl foss and a boom. We call a halt, 
 and haul in — one trout! This feebly assists our 
 breakfast, and after it, we are off toward the east 
 side of the Orvallo, a timber-laden torrent, to one 
 of our main points — the Hitterdal. 
 
 This dale has its church and this church has its 
 traditions. It is an odd edifice, unlike any other 
 church. We make our pilgrimage to this shrine 
 through heat and dust, not to speak of flies, and 
 suffer the first warm day during the entire summer, 
 and that at about seventy-five degrees. This church 
 is so grotesque that nothing but a picture of it will 
 satisfy the description. There are only three like it, 
 in this Northland. It is timber built, of Norwegian 
 pine, and almost black as if charred by fire. It has 
 had seven hundred years of sacred life. Its porti- 
 cos, steep roofs, gables, angles and pinnacle would 
 worry a devout Mohammedan, Greek or Christian 
 to make out its unities. A belfry stands on the op- 
 posite side of the road, and a cemetery surrounds it. 
 The latter is full of monuments and bouquets, but it 
 is not in such repair as we should expect from our 
 observations of the graveyard at Trondhjem. We 
 notice an inscription on the tombs: "-Fred med 
 dit stov. The last word suggests " ashes." There 
 is a church at Borgund, pictures of which I have 
 seen, of the same style and age as this curious relic 
 of Thelemark. It, too, has its bell-tower detached, 
 and its odd gables and pinnacles. It is covered with 
 shingles lapping over each other like the scales on a 
 fish. It has runic inscriptions and quaint carv- 
 ings upon the round arch and half circular apse 
 Its curious interior reminds one of the Byzantine
 
 i8o 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 HlTTERbAL CHUkCH, NORWAY. 
 
 Style. Architects trace analogous structures to India 
 and Thibet, and it is not unlikely that Norwegians 
 returning from Russia in the early ages, may have 
 borne its model from Moscow. Of course, tradition 
 attributes its erection to St. Olaf, and if everything 
 that is said of him be true, he was just the genius 
 for such a medley. 
 
 We obtain the key from the pastor and enter. 
 It is quite interesting to find in a Protestant Church, 
 and in Norway, a Catholic Bishop's chair with quaint 
 carvings of the elder time. Here, too, are rude 
 pictures of saint and Saviour, coming down from the
 
 NOA'U'AY CHURCHES AND .ESTHETICS. l8l 
 
 twelfth century. But what cliicll)' attracts is an old 
 Bible. It is of 1633, a present froni the Olafsen 
 family, whose graves are plentiful outside. The 
 blank leaves are written over with injunctions to 
 preserve the Book as the surest test of the worth 
 of the precious truths it contains. Behind it arc; 
 two large candles upon an old altar. Inside of 
 the lids of this old book, are pictures of Adani 
 and Eve, Moses and Aaron, Noah, the ark and the 
 dove, Abraham, Isaac and the fagots, and David and 
 his harp. The book is printed at Copenhagen, is 
 dedicated to Christian IV., King of Denmark and 
 Norway, and of the Goths and Vandals, Duke of 
 Schleswiof-Holstein, and Count of various counties. 
 The motto everywhere seen in Norway, Rcguajinnal 
 Pidas, is visible on the preface, while the text, ex- 
 quisitely neat, large and plain, has a mode of punc- 
 tuation like that in chants. The book of Revelations 
 is especially grotesque in illustrations; for every bird, 
 fish, drasfon and bewilderino^ thincf on, above or 
 under earth, is represented in the picturesque visions 
 of the seer of Patmos. This singular church is lit by 
 square, yellowish panes of glass. The light falls upon 
 yellow pine pe\vs, and the pillars are of yellow oak. 
 Yellow seems to be the normal color of Norway. 
 Is it not found in the colors of its national flag ? 
 Does not every little one whom we meet, have a 
 head of healthy saffron, — Norse buttercups, blossom- 
 insf for America and the erave ? Their flaxen curls, 
 — are they not wooing the winds of our far-oft Da- 
 kota, and laughing in concord with our Minnehaha 
 Foss? Do not yellow bandanas decorate the heads 
 of the mature matrons, who nurse and watch them ? 
 Are not the brides of Thelemarken, married with 
 golden crowns upon their heads ? Have not the
 
 1 82 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 flowers yellow as their prevailing tint ? Do we not 
 see everywhere the little yellow moss flower, and the 
 yellow Marguerite, so unique, lining the roadside and 
 decorating the meadows ? Even the homely dande- 
 lion lifts its harmless gold, higher and with a prouder 
 air than with us ! The large double buttercup, like 
 unto a chromatella rose, is it not found in profusion 
 here, and does it not indicate, without the presence 
 of the garish sunflower, advancement in the aesthetic 
 tendencies of human and physical Norse nature ? 
 
 As a climax, was not the chariot of old Thor him- 
 self, as he came out of the North, with raised ham- 
 mer and lightning flashes, displayed in the orange 
 hues of the Aurora; and the prolific goddess of the 
 generations of men — Freia — (not our unlucky Fri- 
 day, though named after her), is she not painted by 
 the brush of Ollsen Blommer, as yellow-haired, with 
 her seven yellow-haired babies, all swinging to her 
 yellow vehicle, drawn by yellow cats, which are 
 driven over a saffron cloud in the richest hues of a 
 heaven of gold ? Who says that yellow is not na- 
 tive to the Norseland ? If our navigators ever find 
 the North Pole, they will find it radiant with the 
 auriferous hues of the unsetting orb. If a laureate 
 is wanted for this land of ancient Skalds, Oscar Wilde 
 should be nominated, as the lyrical trustee of its 
 beauty and the aesthetic bard of its heroism. 
 
 Now and then as in the old paintings in this Hit- 
 terdal church, we find the Saviour in red garments, 
 emd the altar of the same color, but the sacred cross 
 is yellow, and the sun which gilds with its mild, pen- 
 sive beauty this singular structure, has its evening 
 radiance, whose splendid topaz is reflected in a gold- 
 en setting that stains pew and altar within and the 
 stran2;-e edifice without, with its dim relieious liofht !
 
 NORWAY CHURCHES AKD ^ESTHETICS. 183 
 
 A few miles more and we are at the comfortable 
 hotel at the village of Hitterdal. The Foss here is 
 rare, but we are tired of fosses. Our afternoon route 
 lies over the Meheria ranije, from which a continu- 
 ous view is presented of all this mountain land. 
 From the mountain above the mines and descend- 
 ing into the rural valley where Kongsburg appears, 
 we cannot but notice the beauty of the fir-trees, in 
 branch and stem. They have a lilac shade, and 
 their apples have the same tinge; while fringing the 
 branches with their delicate young cones, is a green 
 which is too dainty for ink to portray. 
 
 Completing our circuit we reach Kongsburg be- 
 fore dark, happy again to be in our old rooms, and 
 repose after our exciting and delightful tour. Here 
 we are on the rail route to Drammen, a commercial 
 town, made beautiful by bridges and villas, and opu- 
 lent by valleys and mills, and through gardens and 
 grain lands we reach Christiania. 
 
 In these mountain excursions I could not but re- 
 mark that these people are simplicity itself. They 
 take all you say for absolute verity, and that puts 
 you on your caution in talking. They open their 
 secrets to you on short acquaintance. One of the 
 young ladies of the group I met in the mountains, 
 when I suggested a cavalier — was frank to say she 
 was " engaged " — -forlovet, a pretty word. It is not 
 uncommon to hear your appearance dilated upon 
 under your own eye; and you are expected to swal- 
 low, with your salmon and flat bread, all the compli- 
 ments. No one was taking the census in these 
 mountains, but I had the questions asked me: " How 
 old are you?" "Is your mother living ? " "How 
 old is she ? " 
 
 As we enter this capital, to which we have be-
 
 1 84 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 come attached by a long sojourn, the wide streets 
 and park seem to have been newly dressed in sum- 
 mer vesture. The statue of the national poet Werge- 
 land, midway between the palace and the parliament, 
 looks up in tender grace to the arched heaven, whence 
 ne drew so much inspiration. 
 
 We confess to a desire to see the legislative bod- 
 ies abroad. In the North, legislatures are called 
 Things. I do not enter into the philology of the 
 word, nor do I mean to say that it is an opprobrious 
 epithet. But it is curious to know, how often these 
 TJiings entered into the early annals of the North. 
 When Olaf's son, Hacon, beo^an to convert the hea- 
 then Northmen, he called a Parliament, and he called 
 it — a Thing! He ordered them to be Christians; 
 but, like other orders, from headquarters, the Bon- 
 der, or peasants, disobeyed. When Olaf Tryggvesen, 
 his son, began the same business, he summoned 
 Things, and sent in his messages to them: " Believe 
 or die ' " This kind of conversion did not stay. 
 Then in a. d., ioi5, Olaf Harerdson, the saint, be- 
 Sfan. His character is rather ambig-uous; but he 
 sowed the seed which bore fruit. He was buried 
 in three coffins — the inner one of silver and the 
 others of gold and precious stones. 
 
 How can I reproduce the source of Norwegian 
 law and liberty, or rather the edifices which are the 
 symbols and home of that spirit which has made Nor- 
 way great, even under its adverse circumstances of 
 climate and soil, without looking at "■Things'" ? On 
 our return to the capital — we visited the Storthing. 
 before it adjourned for the summer; in fact, we were 
 present at the ceremony of its final adjournment. 
 It was very ceremonious; and had not the gushing 
 " good- by " wherewithal we Solons of Congress, are
 
 NOA-IVAV CHURCHES AM) .KSIII h.TlCS. 1S5 
 
 wont to separate. Its members were men of plain 
 and simple ways; antl in the speeches to which we 
 listened, the fire of freedom, ahnost to the verge of 
 independence of Sweden and Kino- Oscar, was 
 plainly discernible. The parliament building is of 
 yellowish brick. It is quite as imposing as the 
 palace, which, a half mile distant, it faces. 
 
 Other nations need not envy the historic career 
 of Norway, or of Scandinavia. Its history has had 
 its vicissitudes, not as volcanic as Spain, nor as rev- 
 olutionary as France; but still at times it has been 
 torn by wars, as well between its parts, as with for- 
 eign powers. 
 
 Yet Norway is well governed, and most econom- 
 ically. It has an educational system, which is gen- 
 eral and compulsory. Its literature has been adorned 
 by poets and scientists, and its university is well 
 ordered and thriving. Whatever may be said as to 
 its natural disadvantages, — its very forests, with their 
 spruce, birch, oak and aspen and its fisheries of cod, 
 link and haddock — with their codliver-oil and stock- 
 fish, are sources of wealth, through the persistent in- 
 dustry of the people. These fisheries catch sprats 
 and whales, tusk and trout; in river and ocean, in 
 fjord and torrent; by line and steam, by net and 
 spear. They employ its hardy men, from Spitzber- 
 gen to Bergen, with the herring harvest headquar- 
 ters at the latter place, and there are realized some 
 fifteen millions of dollars annually ! Agriculture has 
 its potato fields in abundance, its patches of rye and 
 barley and its few and precarious pastures; but the 
 people are not discontented, even when they emi- 
 grate to the mountains to summer their little herds, 
 or to America, where the prospect enlarges before 
 their old Norse energy and adventure. Iron and
 
 1 86 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 copper in some quantities they have; and great use 
 has Norway made of them; but, after all, the people, 
 even in their most indigent condition and on the 
 barest mountains and fjords, are happy. 
 
 " Why, then, do they emigrate ? " It is not owing 
 to their laws — for their laws are equal and taxation 
 is light. There are no poor rates. The farmers sup- 
 port the aged and infirm. It is not owing to their 
 annexation to Sweden under a King, for the annex- 
 ation is a rope of sand, and the King has not half 
 the power of our President. Is it because of their 
 internal administration ? 
 
 While its police system, or internal government, 
 is not rigid, it is by no means lax. As nearly as I 
 can determine, Norway is divided into twenty prov- 
 inces, called aniter, each under an amtand, governor 
 or prefect, responsible to and appointed by the cen- 
 tral authority. Under him are two sets of officers, 
 ihe/o^ed and sorcuskriver. The last is a judge, civil 
 and criminal, and the number of judges is increased 
 according to the needs of the province. No local 
 magistracy is required, as this judge answers all pur- 
 poses. He has his sheriff, or foged, and the sehns- 
 mand belonging to each parish, which are like our 
 constables. These latter are police, auctioneers, and 
 are generally useful. The army is a militia, and, its 
 officers are permanent. They are only in service a 
 part of the time. 
 
 We see marks or boards put up along the high- 
 ways. We inquire their utility. They are not mile 
 marks, but boundary lines between parishes — a re- 
 ligious division. Each division has its head church 
 and others scattered about, to which the clergyman 
 gives his attention. The country store, as in Amer- 
 ica, is an institution, as much so as the church. It is
 
 NOKIVAV CHURCHES AXD MSTHRTICS. 1S7 
 
 called Landhandlers; not that they handle land, 1)ut 
 ooods for the landed people. The peasants are called 
 Bonder, but in no sense, feudal or otherwise, are they 
 in bonds. So that with home rule and honest cen- 
 tral administration, the question recurs: " Why do 
 Norwegians emigrate ? " The answer which has 
 been given me is : That their wages are so low 
 and their hopes are so high of better remuneration, 
 that they seek America, even in their contentment 
 at home, to better their condition, so as to have 
 something more than enough; and that, we know, 
 is assured them by their frugal, intelligent, honest 
 and industrious lives in America. 
 
 We bid farewell to this land of old romance, night- 
 less days, arctic climes, midnight sun and good peo- 
 ple, with reluctance. Those who read these words 
 may themselves be prompted to follow our example 
 and summer in these wild mountains and wilder 
 fjords, and receive the instruction and happiness 
 which Norway affords. 
 
 If nothing else repays, the admiring student of 
 nature may find abundant novelty and pleasure in 
 the succession of beauties and sublimities which we 
 are allowed to see, by land and water and by sea and 
 lake ! All ways, water ways especially, bear us into 
 the very midst of these wonders of our earth. Gla- 
 ciers that are endless, at least not surveyed by man; 
 snows that never melt; waters that are forever tid- 
 ing and rushing; clouds never empty of snow or rain, 
 and mountains by peaks, by ranges, by thousands, 
 and islands by thousands that are mountains — was 
 there ever such a weird and wondrous land ? And 
 the Gulf Stream makes it tolerable to travel hither in 
 summer, and also in winter, when the borealis has its 
 flickering meteoric splendors, and a new day dawns 
 with its wizzard phenomena !
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SWEDEN— ITS CAPITAL, MUSEUMS AND MOUNDS. 
 
 " What is the Scandinavian's land ? 
 Is it Svealand? Is it Throndeland? 
 Or ivJicrc the blue Sound's wafers play 
 Round Copenhagen, fair and gay? 
 Oh, yes, yes, yes. All, all is Scandinavia." 
 
 Old Song. 
 
 THIS old song- hints at a fact which may exist, 
 with many qualifications. Sweden, Norway 
 and Denmark, have one tongue, with three dialects. 
 Good old English is Norsk. It is the Saga lan- 
 guage. The German, Dutch, Swedish and modern 
 Norsk are said to be another, though a kindred dia- 
 lect. The English and German are both from the 
 Norsk. Sweden grave its idiom to the German; and 
 Denmark and Iceland their idiom to the English. 
 So that the Norse is the original stock, and the rest 
 are grafts. Denmark, Sweden and Norway may 
 form a triune land; and while one blood, one hope 
 and one destiny, is pretty as a phrase in a song, 
 over wine and beer, it does not signify the exact 
 unity that pervades Scandinavia. Although Sweden 
 and Norway are under one sovereign, they have had 
 many old wars from which many scars remain, with 
 some ancient jealousy. They fought each other very 
 steadily until 1603. 
 
 The Swedes are said to be like the English, in 
 their modes of thouijht and life; and the Norweg^ians
 
 SWEDEN. 189 
 
 like the Scotch. There is some truth in the remark. 
 The scenery of each land bears the same relation 
 as their manners and virtues. 
 
 Sweden is half forest, and full of rivers and lakes. 
 She contains about two thirds of the population of 
 Scandinavia, and one hundred and seventy thousand 
 of its two hundred and ninety-two thousand square 
 miles. Norway is sea-coast and mountain; and the 
 Swedes sarcastically say of its people, that they are 
 " only fit to trade horses and pack fish." 
 
 Doubtless there is more refinement and art in 
 Sweden, and more simplicity and artlessness in Nor- 
 wa}'. The latter is not so pretentious ; and the 
 former is more gay. However, with but few differ- 
 ences in dialect and manners, they are, after all, of 
 one blood. 
 
 The history of Sweden is of more interest to 
 Europe; that of Norway to America. Sweden had 
 in her line of statesmen, soldiers and monarchs, those 
 who left the impress of their Gothic footsteps upon 
 civilization, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean; 
 and in her present dynasty she has a family which 
 bids fair to perpetuate royalty in other lands. 
 
 One fourth of Scandinavia lies three thousand 
 feet above the level of the sea. It is not, therefore, 
 more than three thousand feet below the limit of 
 perpetual snow. There is a gradual rising of the 
 land; and the glacial period is in sure, though slow 
 process of return. This however, did not disturb 
 our plans. We had boldly studied the lay of Swedish 
 land, before leaving home, with a view to avoid any 
 probable rise, and especially, to avoid the long ride to 
 the Midnight Sun along the Norwegian coast. By the 
 steamer from Stockholm up the Gulf of Bothnia, one 
 may reach Lulea. It is at the top of the Gulf, and not
 
 IQO FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 far south of the Arctic Circle. The cost of the travel 
 is a dollar a day. The people are so honest, that 
 when they leave their houses, they hang up the key 
 on the outside. At Lulea, which means the river 
 Lule, and in midsummer, you may take a boat up the 
 river, which runs from the northwest. There are 
 falls upon the river; and portage is needed around 
 them, and horses are needed to make connections. 
 Thus you may reach almost to the Norwegian bor- 
 der, and see the lovely Lapp and feel the festive 
 mosquito. Here, amidst chains of crystal lakes, and 
 solitary, snowy mountainous wastes, you may enter 
 the mellifluously sounding village of Ouickjock. It 
 is within sight in clear weather, of Sulitelma — the 
 highest mountain of Sweden, and not far from the 
 grandest falls of Europe. This region is called the 
 Paradise of Lapland. There the sun at setting dis- 
 plays its richest gold and crimson; and by ascending 
 a mountain, you may overcome the sphericity of the 
 earth so far, as to see the unsetting sun at midnight. 
 Comparing the glories of the fjords of Norway, with 
 these magnificent inducements of Sweden, we chose 
 the former. Sequences have vindicated the choice. 
 Hence, we did not see and do not write so much of 
 Sweden, as of Norway. 
 
 It was not our intention to sojourn long in Swe- 
 den. We had seen something of its southern por- 
 tion; and received an idea of that peculiar country, 
 from which the Goths came, and from which they 
 drove out the Lapps, in early days. Besides, we did 
 not take the famous Gotha-canal route, across to 
 Stockholm, as most tourists do. Hence we have 
 not to record the wonders of the engineermg or the 
 beauty of its passes and waterfalls. 
 
 Our first half day's ride by rail took us to the
 
 SWEDEN. 
 
 191 
 
 frontier at Charlottonberg. There we rested, and 
 next morning", pursued our way, reachini^ Stockholm 
 late at night. The usual views from the cars, — the 
 foaming- Strammen, the lovely lakes, and the peculiar 
 habits of the people keep us on the look-out. We 
 were without the pale of ordinary travel; at least, we 
 thought so, until I saw leaping into the compart- 
 ment next to ours, a boy of twelve, who said to hi.s 
 elderly companion: 
 
 " Pile in, Pa!" 
 
 " Waltz in yourself, child ! " 
 
 Then I knew that Young and Old America were 
 en route in Sweden. 
 
 The Custom House made our stay over night on 
 the border less an unpleasant memory than our hard 
 beds. There was no hotel; but we had the rare 
 privilege — after some kronen disbursed — to lodge all 
 night in a modest bed, of such narrowness and short- 
 ness, that the two furnished made it worse. Any 
 one next morning could tell I was born in Zanesville. 
 Ohio; for my zigzag shape, after rest, was that of the 
 letter Z. The breakfast at the depot was preceded, 
 as all Swedish meals are, by the usual glass of po- 
 tato, corn, or some other white gin, whiskey or 
 brandy. I took a glass of it — for water — by mis- 
 take. The Swedish meal is peculiar. It is worthy 
 of a minute description. It has the preliminary 
 smorgasbord. Our word " smear," and the Swedish 
 word " butter," {s)?wr), are the same. There is a 
 side-board laid with biscuit and butter, smoked sal- 
 mon and dried reindeer. This, with the liquor, is 
 the appetizer for the broth, salmon, cutlets, soles, 
 beef and veal, which follow. They are sometimes 
 accompanied with a salad of herring, and end with 
 whortleberry, or some other jam. When you get
 
 192 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 tliroLigh, you may desire to wash out its memory, 
 with the customary aromatic spirit. You will do 
 this with reluctance; for you are not a Swede. The 
 Swedes drink easy and often. They drink when 
 they meet, before they part, and then have a fare- 
 well skal. This is the word for basin; and basins 
 were the fashion after the enemy's skull went out as 
 a drinking cup; and the "horn " came in. The aver- 
 age consumption of ardent liquor in Sweden is eight 
 gallons a head, per annum. The English drink a pint 
 only, where a Swede will drink you a gallon. Eat- 
 ing and drinking form a large portion of Swedish 
 employment and hospitality. They do both without 
 stint. Many a hearty custom obtains in our families 
 which has come from the rude north; and not the 
 least pleasing custom, is that of the gods, who used 
 the mythological apples, which made them immortal, 
 to make the sauce for the roast pork on which they 
 feasted in Valhalla. The pork was supplied by a 
 perpetual pig that came to life again, next morning, 
 after he was eaten ! 
 
 Wedding parties on the cars, loaded with wild 
 flowers in lace paper holders, and giddy with glee, 
 distract our attention from the level, cultivated land- 
 scape. Neat red and yellow stations, ripening grain, 
 full harvests, birch-baskets of berries, and the priv- 
 ilege at dinner to help yourself, without a servant, 
 and to pay your own score, made out by yourself, 
 with soldiers and officers, chateaux and lakes, shrub- 
 bery around elegant houses, canals and shipping, 
 canals and commerce, and canals and islets, — make 
 another Holland, with Stockholm for its Amster- 
 dam and the hundred-isle Malaren for the Amstel. 
 Swift toy-tugs ply up and down in the current from 
 early evening till midnight, before our hotel; and we
 
 SWEDEN. 193 
 
 go to sleep with music from tlic roystcrcrs who are 
 making fcHcity in the long" daylight. 
 
 The city has been often described. It is founded 
 on many islets. The river is swift as it glides by our 
 hotel plaza, whose stony quay is lined by fishermen. 
 The palace is opposite. Cafes and gardens betoken 
 a sumptuous city. The parks display classic foun- 
 tains, and bronzes of kingly heroes. 
 
 The picture of Stockholm from the balcony of our 
 room, on the third floor front of the hotel, is deline- 
 ated, by the acute and obtuse angles, which limit the 
 water and wall, palace and bridge; and is only curved 
 when you glance under the arches of the bridges and 
 at the keels of the steamers. The picture at ten p. m. 
 is not unlike that of Amsterdam at eight, or Venice 
 at six, — when evening is drawing her curtain. But 
 what a life is here! The jingle of the tramway bells, 
 turning the corner; the rattle of the droskies over 
 the pebbly pave; the whistle of the little steamers, 
 tugging every instant across our vision; and the 
 music of the band at the cafe, across the stream, in 
 a sort of rhythm with the puffing of the steamers as 
 they come and go, laden with human freight. All 
 this appeals to the ear. To the eye there is as pretty 
 a picture of the dying day as one could wish of a city 
 with so much land and water. On the left, down 
 the open plaza or bending street, which is both wharf, 
 promenade, and drive, and wide enough for each, — 
 decorated with unlit lamp-posts, — is the museum, a 
 splendid structure; then across a stream is a clump 
 of trees, with a tall red building, where the marine 
 department sits near the salt sea. Then there is an 
 elevated city beyond, already gaslit, full of cafes, — a 
 good half-mile away, but sweeping around, opposite 
 and across the main river, until it meets the palace.
 
 194 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 This palace is itself a picture, with a garden in front, 
 and high steps and esplanades on two sides border- 
 ing the water, across which, by a Rialto, are the 
 ofrand crrounds, where Stockholm drinks and eats 
 and revels in music nio^ht after nio-ht. Across an- 
 other bridge of several arches, and the eye reaches 
 the open plaza or street upon which we look down 
 from our eyrie. Along this quay are steamboats, 
 some decorated in green for a night excursion, some 
 up for " Cowes and a market," and all as neat as the 
 pavement of a Dutch village. Four black steeples, 
 of iron and perforated, point in sharp spires to the 
 rosy evening sky, while the people are moving on 
 both sides of the waters, occasionally stopping to see 
 the fishermen's luck in the swift water. Over in that 
 venerable pile, which we have visited, repose in 
 crypt and porphyry, the Swedish statesmen and sol- 
 diers, — the Gustavuses and Charleses of her history, 
 under a thousand moth-eaten or bullet-holed ensigns, 
 and beneath granite slabs, which in vain seek to pre- 
 serve against time, the emblems of their rank and 
 descriptions of their quality ! Altogether the scene 
 is as impressive as it is beautiful. The new mu- 
 seum is near; and between it and our hotel we take 
 a first glance of the famous belt-wrestlers. 
 
 This object of Northern art draws my eye, not 
 once or twice, but often, as I pass to the museum. 
 It represents a memorable tradition, of the Hailing 
 province in Norway, which we visited a fortnight 
 ago. The peasants of that locality were and are 
 celebrated for their quick, agile and robust qualities. 
 In dancing and jumping, they have no peers. Even 
 in their dances, they leap into the air, to a music 
 quite in character with the wildness of the mountain 
 scenery. Their levity is feathery, and their curves
 
 Hi:!. l-WkKSlLKKS.
 
 SWEDEN. 
 
 '95 
 
 in the dance, are both sing-ular and charming, — in an 
 acrobatic sense. These peasants are excitable and 
 fierce; at least they were so some years ago. Their 
 savagery appeared in the duel which the sculptor 
 has perpetuated. What the group represents, the 
 engraving will explain. It is the masterpiece of Mo- 
 lin, the talented Swedish sculptor. The combatants 
 are bound together around the waist by a leather 
 band heavily buckled, — the knives being covered up 
 to a certain distance. This distance is decided by 
 the opponents. The struggle between them is to 
 the fatal end. The sides of the pedestal of the mon- 
 ument is said to represent: ist. Two peasants drink- 
 ing at a table; a peasant-girl, the sweetheart of one 
 of them, is filling their glasses; an allegorical snake 
 is ejecting the venom hate into the glass of the other. 
 2d. The holder of the poisoned glass seizes the young 
 girl by the waist; her lover jumps up and draws his 
 knife. 3d. The girl, on her knees, implores her lover 
 not to fight, while his antagonist measures with his 
 fingers the depth to which the knife must be left ex- 
 posed. 4th. A tomb at which the young girl kneels, 
 both combatants having been killed in the fearful 
 struorofle. 
 
 This Baelts-praelting , is not to be compared with 
 classic wrestling; nor with the boxing rinof. Its fa- 
 tality was so common and horrible, that the wives 
 and sweethearts of the peasantry were accustomed 
 to carry to the Norse fairs, winding sheets for their 
 possible and probable dead ones. The Runic in- 
 scriptions from the Edda tell the old stories of Love 
 and Jealousy, which are the fountain of these fatal 
 feuds. Drink is at the bottom of them all. The evil 
 spirit being prompted by the devil of liquor, as in 
 other lands, there comes the occasion sudden, and
 
 196 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the quarrel deadly, and then the maiden and wid- 
 owed lamentation, " Oh ! why am I solitary like the 
 aspen of the grove ! Why poor in kindred, as the fir 
 in its wintry branches!" This is the sad refrain, like 
 the Irish keene, raised over the remains of the be- 
 loved and deceased, wherever the demon of drink 
 and the Nemesis of hate had combat in these remote 
 Norse localities. 
 
 But it is said that they have changed all this, by 
 changing the liquor laws. The bloody romance died 
 even before the law took away the right to sell, at 
 pleasure. In most of the towns and cities of this 
 peninsula, an association has the monopoly of the 
 drink, and returns to the state, all above a small 
 percentage of the profit. Hence ther^ is no mo- 
 tive to hand out too much liquor, or to give extra 
 drink to a drunken person. This law is said to 
 have worked wonders. At any rate, it has made 
 the duel with the belt and knife only a horrible 
 memory. 
 
 Day after day, Stockholm presents its ever-new 
 phase. The palace with its Bernadotte rooms, the 
 moth-eaten cloak of the French-Swedish king, and 
 all the paraphernalia of his room as he left it, even 
 to the glasses, paper-cutters and pens; old paintings 
 on the wall; the king's and queen's rooms, rich in tap- 
 estry and bric-a-brac; and all seen by us because 
 Royalty is ill and absent, summering at Elsinore ! 
 Another day of ethnographic interest with the Maid 
 of Dalecarlia herself, to show us the costumes of 
 her historic province and the antiquities of the 
 land of Gustavus. Here a Runic staff, which bore 
 its message; there, odd and old caps, bridal crowns 
 and peasants' kitchen wares, and yonder, Lapp and 
 reindeer, as realistic as in the tent life itself. An-
 
 SWEDEN. 197 
 
 Other day is spent in the Djurgarden ; driving 
 around and past Bellman's bust, where students 
 meet to sing his songs and sip their beer and up 
 to the Belvidere for the beautiful view of the city. 
 What a range the vision takes over hills, farms and 
 forests, streams, sea, and chateaux. Reasoning, a 
 priori, one might infer, that such .scenery, with its 
 clear streams, stern grey rocks, and endless woods, 
 would be the home of song and poetry. So it is. 
 Even the names of the people are drawn from na- 
 ture. A cobbler is called Frederick Birchleaf; a 
 blacksmith, Carl Oaktwig; a washerwoman, Wilhel- 
 mina Whortleberry; a seamstress, Ingeborg Run- 
 ningbrook, and even Jenny Lind's real name was 
 Jenny Limetree. 
 
 This love of nature finds its expression in the 
 lichen and moss-covered rocks which line the roads 
 and by-paths of the Djurgarden. Here Bellman 
 was wont to wander and improvise his joyous songs. 
 Here he quaffed the champagne of the air, as he lauded 
 another brand in his verse. This Swedish Pindar, 
 made his life musical with enthusiasm. His coun- 
 trymen will not willingly let it die. It is a part of 
 their happy nature. 
 
 Near the Belvidere, is the sweetest summer 
 palace imaginable. It is Rosendal. In furnish and 
 finish, in locality and loveliness, it is incompar- 
 able. Gay pennons and light armor decorate the 
 dining-hall; the salon is frescoed in light colors; 
 gilt chairs, brocade or gobelin wall hangings, with 
 portraits of the royal family, including the Empress 
 Josephine, in the beauty of 'her gay life, all remind 
 us of the new dynasty which came into the north 
 out of the great wars of Napoleon. How can I dis- 
 play on paper, the old library, the maple-lined hall,
 
 198 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the mahogany stairway, with its ebony and gih bal- 
 ustrades, while in pretty lighted spots on the wall 
 are pictures of local renown and color; and among 
 them the Nord Cap of our own exploring ambition ? 
 To add to the charm of this visit to Rosendal, a 
 Quaker-like old lady, in plain attire and with dulcet 
 tones, explains it all. The porphyry vase, fifty feet 
 in circumference, adorns a garden in front. It is a 
 Dalecarlian trophy, and has a patriotic iron ring in 
 its music. We wound up this day, all sparkling on 
 water and in wood, with a visit to the circus. Miss 
 Ida Washington, an American equestrienne, is upon 
 the programme as, '' i sini storartarde proditJdioner 
 pa stalti^adslinay Whatever that is, she made us 
 feel proud of her skill and beauty; for she played 
 her part on horseback in a pantomime, which had 
 the magic of the Norse days for its subtlety, and the 
 dash of the Arab for its chivalry. 
 
 Still another day; and where? To Upsala; the 
 Cambridge of Sweden. It was the old capital. It 
 is primitive and quiet. The word Upp-Sala means 
 the lofty halls of the gods. Here were the old 
 temples. The route is a few hours by rail. It lies 
 through a pleasant valley, and is on historic ground. 
 The meadows are merry with hay-makers, men and 
 women. The fields are pleasant with buttercups, 
 marigold, and larkspur. Some sheepskin coverlets 
 are drying in the sun. Oats and rye, with thatched 
 log cabins, and a few women with handkerchiefs 
 upon their heads, and an occasional rustic Thor, 
 with leathern apron, vary the monotony of the 
 prairie route. 
 
 There is said to be an university here, but it is 
 so scattered into lecture rooms, that it is not seen, 
 in any specific edifice. The library is a splendid
 
 SWEDEN. 199 
 
 building' on a hill, overlooking the city. The ar- 
 rangement of the library, is a model of quiet con- 
 venience. It contains a copy of the Edda of Stur- 
 leson and other Sagas. But the special attraction is 
 the " Silver Code." It consists of the translation by 
 Bishop Ulphilas, called the Maeso-Gothic, of the 
 four gospels, written in silver and gold; the pages 
 alternating with each other on purplish vellum. It 
 is rich in the old Gothic laniruaire, and like the 
 Rosetta Stone, unlocks many a history. It is a 
 trophy of the Thirty Years' War, and dates back to 
 the year a. u., 360. It came from the Goths of the 
 Danube. A Gothic count had it bound in velvet 
 and silver, for the library. Here too, repose Luther 
 alongside of Linnaeus, and in sweet concord many 
 warring religious dogmatists, along with the love let- 
 ters of Gustavus Adolphus to his wife. A pleasant 
 walk under arching trees outside; and a long look at 
 the " flying buttresses" of the cathedral, and we enter 
 it for a o-lance at the tombs and effitries of kino;s and 
 queens, and at many frescos of Gustavus Adolphus 
 in his various characters, assumed and real. The 
 vestry-room with its relics is shown, including a 
 fragmentary image of Thor in wood, which has been 
 well preserved. The three Tumuli of Thor, Odin 
 and Freya are visited. They are like our mounds 
 in Ohio, or those on the plain of Troy ; and are 
 only interesting as suggesting the sources of our 
 days of the week. There is a little church near, 
 where a little wooden Christus is exhibited by a 
 damsel, who opens the ponderous door with a key 
 as heavy as herself. The image looks like a small 
 edition of Thor. The place where the Kings of 
 Sweden, in less autocratic eras, addressed the people 
 on assuming the purple, is near; but only a half
 
 200 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 dozen houses mark the spot where the ancient cap- 
 ital of Sweden stood. 
 
 Upsala is a dull place. The students have vaca- 
 tion, and there is no evidence of its erudition, only 
 of its tradition. 
 
 The system of education of which Sweden has the 
 right to vaunt herself, is in her schools. This we 
 had a chance to investigate, through the courtesy 
 of Dr. Myerberg, the accomplished commissioner. 
 He gallanted us one Sunday, into his school and 
 gymnastic rooms, up and down, and all around the 
 city. He is known to America, as the commissioner 
 to the Centennial Exhibition, where he exhibited 
 the model school house of the world. 
 
 Another day is given to the Redderholm Church, 
 its flags, drums, tombs and trophies. There repose 
 the men who made Sweden famous in war and g^reat 
 in peace. The sarcophagus of Bernadotte is here: 
 it is of porphyry. It occupies a chapel, under tJie 
 stained and cobwebbed windows. Here, too, we 
 find the family of Oxenstiern; and what pleased us, 
 that of Loewenhaupt, — the ancestry of the minister 
 at Washington, to whom we were indebted for let- 
 ters to eminent men. What fighters these Swedes 
 were in their day, judging by the flags, armorial 
 bearings, horses, lions, drums, helmets, and lists of 
 battles. The brass coffins and heavy stone slabs 
 seem feeble to hold such bones! 
 
 Museums in natural history, mineralogy and ar- 
 chaeology make another day fly on golden wing, 
 over silver waters. 
 
 We had reserved at least two days for the great 
 museum. Dr. Myerberg was there to explain the 
 mysteries of the Norse myths, to which Northern 
 art has given body and color, with brush and chisel.
 
 SWEDEN. 201 
 
 Here were Thor, Odin and Freya, — in statuary and 
 painting; and a few classic Psyches and Cupids, 
 chaste and graceful in pose, design and execution, 
 to keep them company. New masters of choicest 
 art — Sergell among them — are worthy of the clime 
 of Thorwaldsen. This museum is replete with il- 
 lustrations of that Northern refinement, which seems 
 a solecism to the unthinking. Primeval rock, pine 
 and birch forests, plentiful waters and long winters 
 may make their rude and artless stamp upon Scan- 
 dinavian character. The endless summer of the 
 south, with its luxuriousness, is supposed to be the 
 chosen home of inspiration and elegance. Still par- 
 adoxical as it seems, the north has wedded the south, 
 and the result is that genius is born, irrespective of 
 soil and climate, long winter or short summer. This 
 genius has seized upon the rugged outlines of the 
 north and its mythology and tradition, and filled 
 the galleries of Scandinavia with pictures like those 
 of Tidemand, and statues like those of Fogelberg. 
 
 I have already expressed my delight over Tide- 
 mand's Seven Ages of Peasant Life, at Oscar Hall, in 
 Norway. But his characteristic, if not his best paint- 
 ings are here. He was an uncompromising Norse- 
 man. He disdained to be a copyist of the classics. 
 The " Bridal Procession across Hardangerfjord," and 
 the " Funeral Party over Sognefjord," give him 
 a high place as a genre painter; while his " Gustavus 
 Yasa, Addressing the Dalecarlian Peasantry," has no 
 equal as a historic picture. He associated with his 
 art, other genii of the palette, like Hans Gude; and 
 interpreted to the world, the hidden life of North- 
 land, with its ministers of religion preaching in the 
 cot, its catechism in the Hitterdal Church, its school- 
 masters and schools in their native simplicity, and
 
 202 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 its rugged bear hunters in their shady forests ! He 
 left to others the more ambitious work of picturing 
 the dreams of the Eddas, the exploits of its heroes 
 and the forms of its divinities; but he did not leave 
 this work to them, in vain. 
 
 How strange the picture of the golden-haired 
 Freya, with her chariot of saffron, holding her fam- 
 ily of blondes, drawn by a team of cats; while Thor 
 with the hammer, is heralded by the lightning and 
 clouds of the Boreal North. He comes forth, drawn 
 by goats ! Well, the North teems yet and has 
 teemed from Gothic days, with hordes of human 
 beings; and these prolific animals, though not of a 
 high type, are animated in the picture and symbolic 
 of population ! 
 
 A dinner with the learned doctor, at the club, 
 which ladies are permitted to enter, and an adjourn- 
 ment to the parlor above the dining-hall, — and this 
 on Sabbath evenino-; — and then a visit to a delic^htful 
 American home, whose windows, full of tropical flow- 
 ers, look out upon the shimmering water; a talk about 
 princes and crowns, books and bric-a-brac, and then 
 upon the streets amidst the throngs of people, with 
 numerous shows to attract them; and we close a 
 week of wonders. 
 
 The next day, we prepare to leave this superb 
 city. We visit our vessel, and make our adieux to 
 our faithful Danish guide and to our courteous Amer- 
 ican Minister. Everywhere, we have been haunted 
 by the good spirits which dwelt in Andersen's fables 
 and Jenny Lind's voice. These and another spirit 
 more sacred, are the memories which transatlantic 
 people cherish, about this once fierce and now be- 
 loved Gothland. As we wander and ponder under 
 the mellow light of our last evenincr in Sweden, — •
 
 SWEDEN. 203 
 
 we think of Margaret Howitt's simple and beautiful 
 tribute to Fredrika Bremer, with whom she was liv- 
 ing', when her aged heroine ceased to breathe: 
 
 "Fredrika Bremer loved the lig-lit. A thorough Scandinavian, 
 she persistently strove after it; but, wiser than the old heathens, who 
 flung themselves from the precipice, to reach, as they said, ' the other 
 light,' rather than endure old age, she devoted her declining years 
 to ascending ever upwards towards the divine, eternal light, and thus, 
 on the last day of the year 1865, entered mto the promise which she 
 had selected in her text-book, 'Golden Corn,' for that very day: — 
 
 " ' There shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither 
 light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall 
 reign forever.'"
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE LAND OF THE FINNS — THEIR ORIGIN, CUSTOMS, MAN- 
 NERS, AND LIFE. 
 
 "Egad! I thmk the interpreter is the harder to be understood 
 of the two." — Critic. 
 
 THE waters of the North Sea and the Atlantic 
 which push through the Skager-Rack, Cattegat, 
 the Baltic Sea, and the Bothnian Gulf, and which 
 temper the climate and surround the sides of Nor- 
 way, Sweden, and Denmark, make a northern bound- 
 ary to Germany and a western limit to European 
 Russia. The Aland Isles, which upon the map seem 
 like mosquitoes, and which are a part of an innum- 
 erable archipelago, divide the Bothnian Gulf from the 
 Baltic Sea. They do more. They furnish pleasant 
 navigation in summer weather between Stockholm 
 and Russian Finland, on the way to St. Petersburg. It 
 is among these islands, and in the Finland Gulf, be- 
 tween Abo and Helsino^fors, we now sail. Our ves- 
 sel makes a four days' voyage, in spite of delay by 
 fog and head winds. It is one of a line, owned by 
 Finlandcrs, and is called the Attra, with an obliging 
 captain (Feilcke), who has captured many a whale 
 in the Arctic regions, and whose prudence amidst 
 these three hundred Aland Isles and five thousand 
 other islands receives constant commendation. 
 
 It was a hard matter to leave Stockholm. Its at-
 
 THE LAND OF THE FINNS. ZO$ 
 
 tractions were not exhausted. We were just begin- 
 ning, under native guidance, to feel our way to the 
 interior hfe and exterior beauty of the city and its 
 environs. It is itself an illustration of the very sea 
 scenery around us. It is situated upon rocky isles, 
 but they are not uniform in height, as those in the 
 Finland Gulf. But they are all alike covered with 
 pines and birches, and have at every view some dec- 
 oration by man to help the inadequacy of nature. 
 Those who have sailed through Lake Huron's Mani- 
 touline Isles, as we have not, liken these little beau- 
 ties to its insular multitudes. Those who have, as 
 we have, sailed the Thousand Isles of the St. Law- 
 rence, have seen a faint picture of the rocks, trees, 
 channels and sky, which make this, our first sunny 
 day out from Stockholm, so romantic and resplen- 
 dent. I do not know that any one has ever taken a 
 census of these isles of the Bothnian, Finland, and 
 Baltic waters; I mean of their number. The number 
 of their people is known to be about fifteen thou- 
 sand. Although they cannot approach in attrac- 
 tion the line of Western Norway, from fifty-eight 
 to seventy-one degrees north latitude, which we 
 traversed, either in the number of isles, or in the wild- 
 ness of its labyrinthine maze, yet, like them, they fur- 
 nish comfortable barricades for the passenger who 
 does not rejoice in the bold, the bold, the open, 
 open sea ! We have dodged the sinister movements 
 of wind and wave in certain exposed places, partly 
 by sleeping at particular hours. We are now around 
 the southwest corner of Finnish Russia, and running 
 between the inland isles, and utterly impervious to 
 the thrust of the Trident. The Hudson could not 
 be more placid, enclosed by palisade and green banks, 
 than these channels of the Gulf of Finland. We are
 
 2o6 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 hugging, however, close to the northern shore; but 
 the hug is that of a child to its mother's breast, and 
 it is reassuring. 
 
 Let us go upon the deck for an observation. 
 Our vessel is not much longer than one of 
 our New York ferryboats. It is not a sea-boat, 
 like others of the line. It is a paddle-wheel, 
 and has a wide and roomy deck, over which floats 
 the Russian-Finnish ensign — the red, white, and 
 blue, in large stripes, with a small white square 
 field on which is gracefully curled a golden horn. 
 The passengers are most of them Finns, though 
 there are Germans, French, English, Russian, and at 
 least three or four Americans of both sexes. The 
 languages are freely exchanged. It is not infrequent 
 that we find those who speak all these tongues, al- 
 though we find but two Finns who talk English, and 
 one is our captain. The vessel is loaded with agri- 
 cultural implements, sheet-iron, and such fabrics as 
 Sweden produces; but the main traffic is that of pas- 
 sengers. The captain tells me that Finland produces 
 timber, cattle, and butter, and that these are ex- 
 changed with Sweden for her iron and other fabrics; 
 but he also says that the business does not pay. The 
 line cannot run through in winter, as the waters are 
 closed by ice, but the enterprise of the Finns has 
 made a railroad from Abo to Helsingfors, and thence 
 to St. PetersburcT. It cuts throuofh the tous^h old 
 granite, which bulges up like everlasting warts on the 
 body of all these lands of Scandinavia. For be it 
 remembered, that Finland was once a political part 
 of Sweden. The attachment, however, has been dis- 
 solved by time, as it was originally by force in 1809. 
 Abo, where we landed yesterday, was once the cap- 
 ital of Finland, when Finland was the principal prov-
 
 THE LAND OF THE FINNS. 2C7 
 
 ince of Sweden. But, whatever may ho. said of Rus- 
 sian rule elsewhere, she has let Finland have her 
 autonomy, with independence in Church and State. 
 The Finns have a legislature of their own. It con- 
 sists of one body, the Senate. It has a peculiar coin- 
 age, with a mark (a franc) and its one hundred pen- 
 nies. The governor is appointed by the Czar, but in 
 local matters the ancient order and manners of the 
 country are respected and protected. 
 
 One is tempted here to ask why it is that auto- 
 cratic Russia permits this home rule in Finland ? Is 
 not Russia the very antipodes of such a domestic 
 system ? Other parts of Russia may and do com- 
 plain of the leniency and liberality of Russia to Fin- 
 land, but the fact remains, and it is owing to the 
 orderly good sense of the Finns themselves. 
 
 Who and what are these Finns ? They are not 
 Scandinavians, in the sense of Norse, Dane, or 
 Swede. They are not exactly Lapps — not now. 
 Their language, at least, is their own. The captain 
 tells me that it has many words similar to the Hun- 
 garian, which is Eastern, and we agree to settle it, 
 as all ethnological conundrums are concluded, by re- 
 ferring them to the Orient, that cradle of the races 
 of men. So unlike is their lansfuaof-e from that of the 
 Swede, that the captain says that he has seen a driver 
 of a vehicle which he had hired in a town of Finland, 
 where Finns live, to another place where Swedes 
 live, wno could not be understood in the latter place, 
 even in the matter of " baiting his beast " or himself. 
 
 The Finns we have seen have light hair — yellow 
 or red — and when not too much mixed, are shorter 
 than the Norwegian or Swede. Though rather 
 chunky, they are stalwart and hardy like the Norse 
 people. Nor must these Finns of Swedish history and
 
 208 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 association be confounded with the Finns of Russia 
 proper. Wallace, in his book on Russia, has located 
 the latter on a line drawn from the Polar Ocean to 
 St. Petersburg and reachinef to the Ural Mountains. 
 He has a learned dissertation on these Finns, who 
 have now more or less of the Greek reliofion and 
 Russian characteristics, and who are, as he thinks, 
 the original occupants of this part of our planet. 
 They are now, however, in everything, very like 
 the Russian peasant, and are entirely dissociated 
 with these Finns of the peninsula immediately north 
 of the gulf of that name. It is hard to trace the 
 origin of the races in. Scandinavia, Russia, and Fin- 
 land. Doubtless there is more or less of a mixture 
 of the Teutonic and Goth with the Finns and Norse- 
 men. The poetry of Sweden, to which Finland be- 
 longed, is full of the praises of the Finns, who fought 
 against Russia in the great conflicts for supremacy 
 in the times of Peter the Great and since. The 
 Finns like the Swedes better than they do the Rus- 
 sians, though they are not discontented with Russian 
 rule. The Finns are a brave and frugal people. 
 They fear no danger; they court the perils of the 
 sea and the Northern climate. Those who dwell in 
 the remote forests of Osterdal, and who fish for cod 
 about Spitzbergen, and chase the whale around Nova 
 Zembla, are not easily scared by the rigor of Arctic 
 winters or the ice-floes of Northern oceans. The 
 Finns of Norway and Sweden have the same Lu- 
 theran religion and many habits of the Norsemen and 
 Swedes, but, in spite of the " schooling " in other 
 languages, their own language remains. The Lapps 
 are not precisely the same as the Finns, although 
 our captain insists that they are of the same primary 
 stock, and not at all originally allied with the Norse
 
 THE LAND OF THE ELVA'S. 209 
 
 and Swede. Like the Indians on our reservations, 
 however, they are becominL^ somewhat ameliorated, 
 if not civiHzed; but the F'inns of Russian Finland, along- 
 the crulf which we are sailinof, are so immersed in the 
 races about them, that they partake of, if they do 
 not surpass, the civilization of their neighbors. They 
 are farmers, cattle-raisers, and butter-makers. They 
 are not nomadic, have no reindeer, and are not vio- 
 lent or ungentle. Their country is more than half 
 water. Its lakes, as the map shows, are as plentiful 
 as those of Sweden. The latter country has credit 
 for a good deal which Finland has accomplished. In 
 science and navigation these Finns are not to be 
 passed by, as if they were some tribe of aborigines, 
 without enterprise or culture. It is enough to say 
 that Nordenskjold, the Polar explorer, was born at 
 Helsingfors. He is a sample of the best Finnish 
 blood, which, before the Goths conquered it, con- 
 trolled all Sweden. Emerson says, that man is, 
 physically, a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed 
 unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit 
 from the start; so that whether our authentic writer 
 on Russia — Wallace — should trace the Finns to the 
 original fish, from which, perhaps, they have been 
 evolved; or, whether the blood has mixed with Vandal, 
 Norse, Goth, Sclav, or Scythian, — are they not en- 
 titled, as patriots, to be tested by a better touchstone 
 than ancestry ? Is not a man's country more than 
 rocks and waters, woods and meadows ? Loyalty 
 and devotion to some supreme thought, to some 
 primal virtue — this it is which makes the humblest 
 Finn as rich and royal as the greatest kaiser. I con- 
 fess to a stronof feelinof for this race, because of its 
 unbought courtesy to strangers and its perennial 
 spring of good nature, and for its culture, indepen-
 
 2IO FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 dence, and pride, under the adversity which it has 
 surmounted ! 
 
 Last night we left Abo. We had several hours 
 of rest there while the vessel was loading and un- 
 loading. We improved the chance to examine the 
 old city. It is no longer the capital, as the Russians 
 removed that to Helsingfors, because, as it is alleged, 
 the Abo people were so ingrained with Swedish as- 
 sociations. However that may be, the place is pros- 
 perous. It has twenty-five thousand people, and a 
 long river, running up out of the gulf, or the estu- 
 aries which form its arms. On either side of this 
 river is a substantial stone quay. It is lined with 
 vessels and business houses for miles. This river is 
 called the Aurajoke; but to one interested in serious 
 work there is no joke about the industry or the 
 people, who here build ships, refine sugar, and make 
 cotton cloth. 
 
 Our vessel remains loner enough to o-ive us a 
 
 o o o ^ ^ 
 
 chance to hire a drosky and see the multifarious 
 people. Our main difficulty is with the languages 
 spoken — Swedish, Russian, and Finnish, neither of 
 which we know. However, we gather a few phrases 
 and make a few signs, and set off up the cobble 
 pavement to the old cathedral, which shines on the 
 hill. The drosky is a Russian vehicle, barely hold- 
 ing two, and low down, with the driver perched on 
 high in front. This driver stops his horse with a 
 roll of the tongue — Burrrr-r! as in Norway. He 
 wears a long ulster, without buttons — a sort of dark 
 blue pelisse girded with a belt — and his hat is like 
 the " bell crown " of our continental days, after the 
 antique French pattern of the Opera Comique, as if 
 some one had violently sat upon its inverted pyra- 
 mid and lowered its altitude.
 
 THE LAND OF THE FINNS. 2 1 I 
 
 This cathedral is the oldest Christian temple in 
 Finland. The verger spoke no English or French. 
 Our interview with him was mostly " inexplicable 
 dumb show." Still, we got along with the aid of a 
 Dane, who was likewise a traveller, and who lessened 
 our mortification by sharing our ignorance. I could 
 read the Latin inscriptions over the old tombs, and 
 make out the worn carved figures in full length as 
 images of our human kind. But there was a gem 
 there not to be lightly viewed, a marble sarcophagus 
 to Katrina Mansdotter, whom we made out to be 
 a queen of Sweden, and who, when widowed, came 
 to Finland to live and die. She had a chapel of her 
 own, with stained glass, and her face shone upon it 
 supremely sweet! A Scotchman, Colonel Cock- 
 burne, a soldier and hero, is also here entombed in 
 much state, and under much Latinity. But the 
 splendid cathedral was no longer Catholic. It was 
 whitewashed and ungainly marred by side galleries. 
 A glance at the monument to a hero of Finland, 
 Porthan; a ride over the stones, all clean, though 
 rough; a scream from the steam whistle, and we are 
 aboard, with a Russian Custom- House officer, who 
 thought — gentle recipient of our francs — to relieve us 
 here at Abo of the investigation in St. Petersburg, and 
 we are ready to go. In vain. A fog arises, and our 
 wary captain waits till two in the morning. In a few 
 hours we are at Honga, where we again land. We see 
 a village of four hundred people. It has grown in 
 three years, by reason of the railroad. We ascend a 
 hill of red granite, from which the bridges at St. 
 Petersburg are built, and from which we have a view 
 of the old forts dismantled by England and France 
 in the Crimean war. It furnishes a splendid pros- 
 pect of the rocky isles hooded with firs — to the
 
 212 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 verge of the horizon. Upon this granite height is 
 an old cannon fished from the sea, where it had lain 
 since the old wars with the Swedes and Russians. 
 There is also a large oblong slab of the granite, ex- 
 quisitely polished, with a round bowl in the centre, 
 to commemorate a visit of Nordenskjold on his return 
 from his famous successful expedition. The people 
 here gave him a grand reception. The captain tells 
 me that they had a good joke upon him; for he was' 
 here shut in with the ice, and could not reach Stock- 
 holm — -all winter! This was the hero, forsooth, who 
 had gone all around the circle in the Arctic Seas, 
 and placed it as a circlet of gems upon his Fin- 
 nish brow ! 
 
 At five next day we reach Helsingfors. Most of 
 the passengers here take rail for St. Petersburg. 
 We did not, and we were sorry; ah, how sorry, a 
 day and night of adverse winds and melancholy 
 rolling witnessed! But we saw Helsingfors, by the 
 aid of a drosky. By the courtesy of a clever Finn, 
 who spoke French, English, Russian, Swedish, and 
 his own tongue, we had learned much in advance of 
 his native town, which he was about to visit. He 
 was a farmer in western Finland, but he said that 
 four languages, at least, were indispensable even for 
 his own vocation in these confused and confusinQf 
 localities. From him we learn much of the internal 
 government of the province. They have their tax 
 troubles and military worries, like other people, but 
 they have a Senate of their own, and that makes it 
 all tolerable. 
 
 Before we leave for the shore the captain gives 
 us four Swedish expressions. He calls us up on the 
 deck, and, in the presence of a jolly crowd of lookers- 
 on of every nation and tongue, he says:
 
 THE LAND OF THE FINNS. 213 
 
 " To you, Mr. Cox, ' Kor omkririg stan ! ' To 
 you, Madame Cox, ' Ve vilL bese sia7i; kor till bruns- 
 
 parken!' To you. Dr. , 'Kor till anbateit 
 
 Aura!" and to you, Madame G., '' Kor en timmaf" 
 
 All which, however well spelled, was terribly un- 
 pronounceable; but we played our parts upon the 
 drivers, so as to make them understand " that we 
 would drive around, see the town, go to the main 
 park, and come back to the ' Aura ' within the hour!" 
 " All which, ladies and gentlemen," added our Cap- 
 tain Feilcke, "will cost you a mark and fifty pfen- 
 nings," which is about thirty-four cents for each 
 drosky ! We made our bargains, two persons for each 
 drosky, and away we rattled over the stony streets, 
 which were wide, clean, and somewhat grass-grown 
 in places. It was a witching time to see the Orient- 
 alism of the Russ minQ-linc:, under a beautiful even- 
 ing sky, with the Scandinavianism of the Occident. 
 We also saw its not unpicturesque architecture. The 
 gilded Greek church, set upon an ele^iation of rock, 
 glistened in gold. Dome, minarets, and-^reek cross 
 shine like a sunlit picture in Bagdad, quite in con- 
 trast with the black steeple of the Finnish Protes- 
 tant church and the gawky old windmill, which 
 stretches out its awkward arms and lazily plays with 
 the breeze, which blows from off the great Sweaborg 
 fortress, upon the verdant isles of the bay. The 
 quay is lined with ships and steamers, and little tug- 
 ferries dance about. Work is everywhere pro- 
 gressing. The houses are long, one-story buildings, 
 with no doors in front, but gates at the end for en- 
 trance to a side-yard or garden. The windows are 
 of large panes, through which are seen the gera- 
 nium, heliotrope, and roses of every variety. Here 
 and there were the Holland mirrors outside of the
 
 214 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 windows for indoor observation of the street. On 
 the sides of the houses are spouts of tin for ventila- 
 tion. On the streets are the long-robed gentry; for 
 everybody, even the children, are ulstered; and the 
 drivers look like old wives, and but for the bell-crown 
 hat and the lone beard mio^ht be taken for the pfentler 
 sex. The roofs are of zinc or tin, and painted of va- 
 rious colors— white, blue, green, and yellow — the 
 green giving a rural effect, not unlike that of the 
 grassy roofs of the Norwegian houses. The best 
 buildings are generally yellow and stuccoed. Huge 
 pumps appear at the street-corners, with six-foot 
 spouts, as large as a log, and a pump-handle strag- 
 gles around the angle big enough to try the power 
 of a donkey engine. We pass through a market, 
 where eating is going on, alfresco, by the noisy ten- 
 ants of the quay. Along the quay, we perceive, as 
 at Abo and Hango, convenient ropes and life-preserv- 
 ers to rescue those who fall into the river. Life- 
 saving being one of my hobbies, I make a note of 
 the completeness of this provision along these water- 
 ways. Soldiers are plentiful, the officers in white caps, 
 and long gray coats, and with heavy, unseasona- 
 ble collars, and the privates in a variety of uniforms, 
 mostly lono- snuff- colored robes. They all seem 
 quite civil. Custom-house officers wear the long 
 robe also. There is an elegant theatre and town 
 ,hall in the public square, a Czar palace on the qua), 
 and the legislature has a building worthy of its func- 
 tion. There is a university, with eight hundred stu- 
 dents, mostly Finns. Fulfilling the captain's orders, 
 we drive to the park, whither the people tend. 
 There is the music. Some Finnish Levy is lead- 
 ing the orchestra, amidst the applause of a well- 
 dressed and pleasure - loving crowd. How these
 
 THE LAND OF THE FINNS. 215 
 
 people in the North love music and outdoors — at 
 least that is our suDiuicry observation. 
 
 Our tour of observation is thus made in detail, 
 because here was the be^jinninQ^ of a new order. It 
 was the Russification of a Finland capital, an embryo 
 St. Petersburg-, with many features of Russian life, 
 an antepast of the great city, to which our vessel is 
 movinor. 
 
 When we reached the vessel I paid my drosky 
 his mark and a half, plus a half mark for pour boire. 
 He was thankful, and, as we had not communed with 
 him much, this gratuity was easily earned. But our 
 companions in the other drosky, the Nicaraguan phy- 
 sician and wife, who had studied several languages, 
 insisted on the contract, as we were ten minutes be- 
 fore time. His drosky-man fairly frothed at the 
 shortness of his fare. I felt bound to put a few 
 questions to the irate driver. It seemed a duty. 
 It is said, " We are born to interrogate." It is the 
 noble mission of man— of Congressmen especially, 
 who are always asking questions of the honorable 
 member. But how can you interrogate a crowd of 
 Russian-Finns, when you do not know their lan- 
 guage and cannot understand their grievance. And 
 when your interpreter is found less able still to com- 
 prehend you or your interlocutor ? It is worse than 
 the Scotch definition of metaphysics: " Twa men 
 are talking together. He that's listening dinna 
 ken what he that's speaking means; and he that's 
 speaking dinna ken what he means himself — that's 
 metaphysics." What are thoughts in such emer- 
 gencies, without language ? The rose without a 
 scent, corned beef without condiments, champagne 
 without a sparkle ! After my failure, the Nica- 
 raguan doctor began in Spanish — with a touch
 
 2l6 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 of German and a lot of French. A general 
 Babel and hullabaloo followed. Talk about the 
 unshuttable drawer of a bureau, or the difficulties 
 of a stovepipe in spring, as exasperating ! Try your 
 tongue in an unpronounceable language, which if you 
 could talk you would not understand, upon a crowd 
 of Russ-Finn-Swedish drosky-drivers, outraged by a 
 reduction of their established rate, who cannot un- 
 derstand you, nor you them, and that, too, in a 
 strange land, where they are backed by forty other 
 compatriots and the police. I found it of no use to 
 discuss or contend, as did the doctor; and so, after 
 repeating, with sad, rythmic cadence and sepulchral, 
 solemn vehemence, the familiar verse — 
 
 "A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, 
 A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, 
 A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, 
 Punch in the presence of the passenjare; — " 
 
 which for a time riveted the attention, if not the 
 good humor, of the crowd of droskies, I serenely en- 
 twined myself in an imaginary ulster made of the 
 glorious tariff-laden tissue of the star-spangled ban- 
 ner and retreated toward the Aura. But the doctor 
 did not get off so easily. A policeman appeared, 
 dressed in green, with a sword ! The doctor 
 handed over the fifty deficient pfennings, and we 
 breathed free as the Aura, upon the vessel of that 
 name. 
 
 It is two in the morning before we leave Hel- 
 singfors, and when we do — oh ! why should the spirit, 
 or stomach of mortal be too hopeful or boastful ! 
 All that day, until 5 p. m., when we came in sight of 
 Cronstadt, the gulf seems to grow wider, the waves 
 more cross, and the wind more adverse. Our side-
 
 THE LAND OF THE FINNS. 217 
 
 wheeler rocks as if crazy. In vain I try to walk with 
 dio^nified unconcern upon the deck; for had I not 
 been an arctic explorer, a contemporary of Ur. Hayes 
 and Nordenskjold ? In vain I seek the bridge, glass 
 in hand, to explore the low, distant line of coast. In 
 vain I study my map, and read the New York pa- 
 pers about political imbroglios — all in vain! I tried 
 to think of Allan Cunningham's song, about the 
 flowing sea, like the eagle free, a snorting breeze 
 and heaving waves; and the world of waters, — our 
 heritage the sea, and the merry — merry men on 
 its bosom; but I could not make it jingle. Sweet 
 thoughts come, of home, adorable, sunny, quiet home, 
 even a home within thy capital, O my country ! How 
 my soul leaps at the thought of home ! I am over- 
 come by the thought, and incontinently seek my 
 berth. It is well to dissemble in some emergencies. 
 Putting on a smiling mask, I find my Guardian An- 
 gel below seeking repose or relief. I address her in 
 Mathew Prior's verse: — 
 
 "Did I but purpose to embark with thee, 
 
 On the smooth surface of some summer sea; 
 But would forsake the waves and make the shore, 
 When the winds whistle and the billows roar ? " 
 
 " Well," responded the angel, " why didn't you 
 let me know before we bought a ticket through 
 by steamer, that there was rail to Abo ? But, alas ! 
 you look pale. I will not reproach you. Steward! 
 Quick ! " 
 
 One consolation I usually have in sea-sickness. 
 It is poetry, but that failed me here; for even then 
 and there —
 
 2l8 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 " 1 feels plue, 
 
 Und all dings lonesome seem; 
 I vish I vas dot poy again, 
 
 Und dis vas all a dhream; 
 I vant to kiss mine moder vonce, 
 
 Und, vhen mine brayer vas said, 
 To haf mine fader dake me oup 
 
 Und tuck me in mine ped." 
 
 In vain; for the inexorable gulf yawns, seeking to 
 devour. It would have its due. I hope it feels bet- 
 ter now; the obliofation was discharofed. I have an 
 acquittance in full. 
 
 Can it be that this rolling water is to be crys- 
 tallized, solidified, and hardened for roads and traffic, 
 fun and frolic, that it will be blessed at the next feast 
 of the Epiphany, and that all winter upon its icy sur- 
 face the festive throng will slide, skate, and ride ? 
 Aye. In a few months the sledge will run where 
 our steamer rolls. The Gulf Stream, which is the 
 tribute of our new continent to the comfort of the 
 old, and which, all along Norway, brings the tepid- 
 ity of the Caribbean and Mexican waters to those 
 myriad of isles which w^e saw clad in June and July 
 snow, has no effect upon this frosty air of Finland, 
 which makes a " deadlock " worse than those which 
 Congressmen are wont to bring about, in days and 
 nip"hts of leoislation. But as eveninof comes on, the 
 channel narrows; large red buoys and marshy grounds 
 on either side appear, and at length, the fortress and 
 city of Cronstadt ! But for these reefs of sunken sand 
 on the left, and the torpedoes and skill of the en- 
 gineer, and the narrowness of the channel, which 
 clings to the right shore, and the heavy, frowning 
 forts, with port-hole above port-hole in tiers of stone 
 — and but for other reasons — St. Petersburor miorht 
 have been the prey to the allies in the war of 1854. 
 The genius and courage of Napier failed before the
 
 THE LAND OF THE FINNS. 219 
 
 providence of the Russian, which saved the city of 
 Peter the Great ! Since then these precautions have 
 been redoubled, and if future naval fights are to be 
 under water, there will much time elapse before naval 
 or engineering energy can repeat at Cronstadt, by 
 water, what was done by the allies at Sevastopol on 
 land. 
 
 Leaving the arsenals, dockyards, wharves, batter- 
 ies, and ships of this Gibraltar of the Czar — and but 
 for which St. Petersbursf mi2:ht have been burned, 
 like another Moscow, by its own hands, rather than it 
 should have fallen into those of an invader — our 
 steamer orlides on what becomes a summer sea of 
 smoothness. The few passengers begin to appear on 
 deck and stretch their vision for the first glance at the 
 imperial city. Upon the right, snug amidst its royal 
 greenery, lies the town of Peterhoff and its domes, 
 minarets, and imperial palace, with its splendid woods 
 and waters. Our time is opportune for a glorious 
 sight, for it is sunset, and the sun goes down here 
 at a discreet hour. Brigfht dots of burnished o-old 
 begin faintly to spangle the sky in front. They are 
 domes, half hidden by the mist and the distance. 
 Then a tall spire, also gilded, brilliant and needle- 
 like, pierces the heavens ! It is the Admiralty spire, 
 or perhaps that of the Church of the Fortress, the 
 Westminster of Russia, the mausoleum of its dead 
 kings. A few moments, and St. Isaac's Church, the 
 St. Peter's of Russia, looms up in majestic and stu- 
 pendous proportions. Its copper dome is surrounded 
 by four others, all ablaze, like burnished gold, and 
 surmounted by the gilded Greek cross which towers 
 aloft, above the bronze saints and angels which peo- 
 ple its architraves and its corners, its roofs and its 
 pillared granite cupola ! Beneath it, is a city whose
 
 220 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 roofs of varied hue cover almost a million of people; 
 a city, the outgrowth from a swamp, in less than two 
 hundred years ! 
 
 We enter the Neva, whose divided waters flow 
 in canals and lagoons, between grand pavements and 
 superb palaces. At length we are moored — alas ! 
 how soon the beatific vision vanishes — amidst the 
 traffic and troubles of trade. We are to undergo a 
 search, the first yet made with rigor since our jour- 
 ney began. Nor can I complain of this rigor. Re- 
 cent events make police regulations here necessarily 
 strinc{ent. But was it not a little humorous to see 
 the lonof-robed customs officers scrutinize the heter- 
 02:eneous matters in our trunks ? Nothing was found 
 contraband, but — what think you ? New York jour- 
 nals! We had received a mail at Stockholm, and ex- 
 pected to read up fully in St. Petersburg, Some 
 dozen of these journals lay in a pile in my wife's 
 trunk. It would have done you good to see the 
 leonine voracity with which these papers were seized. 
 Who was it that talked of the thousand tongues of 
 the press, clearer far than the silver trumpet of the 
 jubilee — louder than the voice of the herald at the 
 games ? These tongues had not a word of protest; 
 the music of their trumpet was frozen like that of the 
 veracious traveller. Out of the bundle tumbled an 
 engraving of Charles XII., the old enemy of Russia! 
 Did I tremble for the ominous spectre of this dead 
 madcap of Sweden ? The courteous officer handed 
 it back with a gracious smile to my wife, who reached 
 for the rest of the bundle, while her face flushed at 
 the indignity to and the confusion of her domestic ar- 
 rangements. But, with a hasty push and an impetu- 
 ous " Niett ! " " Niett ! " — (no, no) — our papers were 
 confiscated to the state. The Sun would not go down
 
 THE LAXD or THE ELVI^S. 22 T 
 
 in this land; the Tribune was a voiceless oracle; the 
 World ceased to " move, after all; " the Times were 
 out of joint, and The Express came to a dead halt ! 
 But all this had its compensations; for soon we cross 
 the ofreat bridire, and are housed in the Hotel d'An- 
 gleterre, where, though no papers were found in our 
 expected mail, plenty of news as to the President, 
 and the land we love, were found in letters, and 
 these twelve days only from New York. 
 
 There shine into my windows, in dazzling glitter, 
 the copper domes of that marvel of cathedrals, St. 
 Isaac's, which we saw from afar, upon whose sides 
 and pedestals, encamping night and day about us, 
 are the angels of this edifice of beauty! The guns of 
 the citadel thunder out the memory of this, the birth- 
 day of the Empress of this vast empire; and, in spite 
 of all ominous auguries to the contrary, we sojourn 
 in peace and safety in this city of beauty and ba- 
 zaars, palaces and pigeons, monuments and minarets, 
 domes and deviltry, ceremonies and cemeteries, ar- 
 mies and assassinations !
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR — A CITY OF PALACES AND 
 CHURCHES — COSTUMES AND CUSTOMS — THE MINER- 
 ALOGICAL ACADEMY — MUSEUM OF ART — TOMBS OF 
 THE DEAD CZARS — THE COSSACK OF HISTORY. 
 
 " I am a man of war and might, 
 And know thus fmcch, that I can fight, 
 Whether I am V th' wrong or right. 
 Devoutly ! " 
 
 Sir John Suckling 
 
 WHY does everybody, except the Russians, call 
 this city St. Petersburg ? It was not named 
 after St. Peter, but Peter the Great. It is a mag- 
 nificent city of palaces and wide avenues. Its very 
 hospitals and barracks are palatial, and there is no 
 narrowness to any thoroughfare. Its domes, where 
 not painted blue with golden stars, or green, are 
 gilded, and make the city seem like a Constantino- 
 ple new-risen upon the North. In fact, with its 
 canals and rivers, its streets, columns and palaces, its 
 churches, and their outside and inside decorations, St. 
 Petersburg combines in itself and in its vistas, in its 
 plan and its magnificence, Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, 
 and Constantinople. If it were not stucco on the 
 yellow houses, if it were only solid stone, how much 
 more impressive would be its mighty and superb as- 
 pect ! Only one palace is of granite, and but one 
 church, St. Isaac's, of marble. The energy which
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. ill 
 
 has reared such a city out of a hoi;', in less than two 
 centuries, betokens the one-man energy, which its 
 founder inspired and ilkistrated. Still St. Petersburg, 
 as a look from an elevation will show, unless it be 
 approached as we approached it, by the gulf and 
 river, is a vast plain, if not a swamp. The Neva 
 saves it. It is a splendid river, and makes its delta 
 where the city stands. It is a city of islands, con- 
 nected by beautiful bridges. Red granite faces the 
 banks and makes the quays solid structures. Every- 
 thing is colossal, like the empire. The informing 
 genius of the male gender is Peter the Great, and of 
 the other gender, Catherine II. If these sovereigns 
 were insane, and they were very peculiar for Russia, 
 more insanity is desirable among the princes of the 
 earth. Peter opened this city, as he said, for a win- 
 dow for Russia to look out of into civilized Europe. 
 Peter was a useful emperor, for Russia and his time, 
 although he did many diabolical things. 
 
 I pretend to describe nothing but the superficial. 
 If I could, I would not be profound. The chance 
 glances of a tourist are liable to aberrations, and the 
 best sketches of foreign observation are nothing if 
 not tested and winnowed. I only seek to photo- 
 graph for the eye of others what may fall under 
 my glance. To do this, in a land where the lan- 
 guage is unknown, a valet de place is necessary. In 
 all our journeyings in Scandinavia we had a guide, 
 who was both " philosopher and friend." His duties 
 ceased at Stockholm. I heard from him to-day, and 
 in his plaintive French he wrote: "Ah! sir, how sad 
 it was, on my route homeward, night and day, to get 
 out of the train and find no Monsieur and Madame 
 to care for." The rogue ! I had to care for him 
 about as much as he for me, and threatened him with
 
 224 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 a " counter-claim " for services as courier, whereat 
 he smiled in his blandest way. When I reached this 
 capital of Russia, I was equally if not more fortunate 
 in a guide. He is an Englishman, and Pilley is his 
 name. He has been twenty-two years in St. Peters- 
 burg, and can rhetoricate on Peter the Great, and es- 
 pecially on the crown and other jewels, with a splen- 
 dor of diction which Murray cannot rival. At his 
 beck the doors of palaces and museums, churches 
 and pavilions fly open, as, at the blast of Prince Ar- 
 thur's magic horn. He has one fear. He has had the 
 impression that I am Mark Twain, travelling under a 
 nojn de plume. Yesterday, he was disillusioned, and 
 since then he eives me his entire confidence. After 
 much hesitation he asked me about Mr. Twain. He 
 had read of his solemn pranks upon simple guides, 
 and asked me to describe him. I made an etching 
 of my humorous friend. He asked if the humorist 
 would ever come this way, and if so, whether I would 
 not beg my friend to look gently upon him. I as- 
 sured him that Mr. Twain was one of the most " in- 
 nocent " of our American tourists, and if he ever 
 happened to serve him, that he never, never would 
 regret it, as the worst Mr. Twain ever did was to in- 
 vert human nature, and thus produce a pleasant feel- 
 ing in the beholder. He desired me to present his 
 compliments to Mr. Tw^ain, and say that he would 
 omit many of the usual descriptive formulae for the 
 palaces and churches, provided he was not placed 
 upon the spit and turned round and round before 
 the slow fire of Mr. Twain's American humor. 
 
 I was puzzled to know what I had said or done to 
 create the impression that I was a disguised Twain, 
 and this is the solution: On visiting Peter the Great's 
 hut, our guide called out, " Peter the Great's chest!"
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. 225 
 
 •' What a chest for a man six feet nine and a half 
 inches ! " 
 
 I said to him, meekly — not looking- at the little 
 piece of furniture: " Did you say his chest was six 
 feet nine and a half inches ? " 
 
 " Now, look here ! Is your name Twain ? " 
 
 Why this apprehension of so genial a person 
 as Mark Twain should have invaded this distant 
 realm I cannot tell, but it is a truth that he is looked 
 upon as more dangerous to society here than a Ni- 
 hilist. I wish he were here, however, if only to take 
 off and add to the oddities of this peculiar social 
 order. To a man like him there is nothing alien. 
 There is to him no Babel; only one tongue. To him 
 chickens and children, knives and forks, dogs and 
 donkeys are cosmopolitan and have the same sweet 
 language. Men may jabber in various idioms; idiots 
 may vary in many jabbers, but a man like Mark 
 Twain is understood in every tongue. Let him in- 
 vade Russia, " the great land animal," but respect 
 Pilley, my 'umble Hinglish guide ! 
 
 Does the reader ask: "Is there any humor in 
 the Russian people, for a genius like Twain to 
 interpret ? " 
 
 I answer- — not as yet from observation, but from 
 history — that the Russian humor is like that of Byron, 
 which Edgar Poe said was too savage to be laughed 
 at. Some one calls it grotesque savagery; and illus- 
 trates it by the freaks of Russian princes and czars. 
 John the Terrible thought there was no church like 
 that of St. Basil, and put out the architect's eyes, to 
 end any future work of that gifted artist. Peter the 
 Great proposed to hang the lawyers in his realm. 
 He thought one was too much. There is a story of 
 the Empress Annie, who married off her favorite
 
 2 26 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 dwarf or fool in an ice palace and gave them an icy 
 marriage bed, where they froze to death. This I 
 have seen pictured in fine color and delineation. It 
 was a Russian pleasantry. Catharine II. slaughtered 
 many of the men whom she did not love — out of a 
 vagary of fun. Most of the people here hold their 
 revels in graveyards. Peter stuffed the skin of one 
 of his favorite servants, — a tall fellow, — and put him 
 in a museum. Paul issued a ukase against shoe- 
 strings and round hats. He was fond of colors, and 
 had fantastic hues painted on bridges and gates. It 
 is hardly mirthful to make an eagle out of gunflints 
 and swords, or portray a group in heaven of Rus- 
 sians looking down on Jews, Germans, and negroes. 
 But this is Muscovite merriment. In the Moscow 
 markets the slaughtered animals are stuffed with 
 sawdust and look odd. It is said of the Emperor 
 Paul that he dug up the bones of those who mur- 
 dered his father, to pulverize them, and blow them to 
 the winds. He arrested an Englishman for not tak- 
 ing off his hat to Royalty, and ordered him to wear 
 magnifying glasses. This was jolly, but exceptional, 
 for the Russian is not adept in making genial fun. 
 The climate is not genial. 
 
 Let it be recorded, for the instruction of those 
 who study nations without going abroad, — who. like 
 the famous Frenchman, make a tour of the world in 
 their own chamber, that it is not wise to discard 
 the observations of transient and superficial travel. 
 Why ? Because after a time the scenes presented 
 for observation become too familiar, and become 
 merged in the general mass, so that particular de- 
 scription is next to impossible. 
 
 Therefore it is best to take off on the instant, and 
 before scenes become hackneyed, the features of a
 
 THE LAND OF 'nifi CZAR. 227 
 
 people and country. In this a i^uidc like Pillcy is in- 
 valuable. It is a proper thing- in travelling to notice 
 that which is unfamiliar, outre, and peculiar, and 
 for this a guide of the place is indispensable. This 
 city, with its Northern and Oriental costumes, its 
 soldiers of so many tribes, and its riches of va- 
 rious quality, is replete with that which would elicit 
 our attention by its novelty, A catalogue of such 
 peculiarities would fill a chapter. I will attempt a 
 brief list of the more salient features: Long coats 
 are worn by a large portion of the people, and of va- 
 rious colors and cuts. The soldiers, even in mid- 
 summer, don their heavy gray greatcoats. A large 
 portion wear baggy breeches tucked into top-boots. 
 The white cap is a badge of the naval, as well, I 
 believe, as of some other service. The old-fash- 
 ioned cloth cap we used to wear in America is very 
 common here, though drivers, soldiers, and others 
 have a hat or head-dress of their own. While, of 
 course, many wear the French, English, or American 
 suit, both women and men — or, rather, ladies and 
 gentlemen — there are a class of women who have 
 the handkerchief on the head, which is common 
 to Norway, Sweden, and northern climes. The 
 nurses — from some provinces — have a curiously- 
 worked head-dress, more precious in needle-work 
 and stuff than their avocation would seem to war- 
 rant. Colors predominate — and they are gener- 
 ally violent ones. I saw three hundred pictures, by 
 one artist, of the costumes of all the provinces of the 
 empire — mostly pictures of pretty girls. It was a 
 wonderful illustration of the length and breadth of this 
 vast realm. The bodice seems to be the special part 
 of the dress, next to the head-dress, which called for 
 the Qfenius of invention. We were ushered into a
 
 2 28 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 gallery, where the uniforms of the past and present 
 armies of all the Russians, — never less than a mil- 
 lion of men — were displayed. It was an interesting 
 sight. The old uniform of Peter the Great and 
 Alexander I. down to the latest Caucasian sol- 
 dier, with his cartridges in highly ornate style upon 
 his breast, and including the uniforms of other na- 
 tions, were here on exhibition. Here and there, 
 and especially at night, at the gateways of the 
 houses, public and private, you will see policemen or 
 watchmen, wrapped in furs or sheepskins. The 
 waiters in our dining-room are Tartars, and are 
 dressed in swallow-tails ! They are trustworthy, as 
 they are Mohamedans, and when you send out for 
 wine they are safer transportation than the imbib- 
 ing Russian. I have noticed the " bell-crown hat" 
 and long pelisse of the drosky- drivers, and the 
 red-shirted workmen, who invariably place the vest 
 of black over their red under-gear, but allow the 
 red blouse to extend several inches below the vest. 
 The veriest beggar-girl wears a slipper, if she wear 
 any, with a high slim heel, set in the middle of the 
 foot — modelled after that of the pretty wife of Czar 
 Paul. Modern fashion copies it in Paris and New 
 York. 
 
 Everywhere we find an old English clock — not 
 merely in palace and bank, in hotel and pavilion, 
 but in church and state. "Why is this?" we en- 
 quire. The guide cannot tell, except that it has a 
 sort of venerableness, growing out of an old custom. 
 Perhaps it was Peter who dicl it first, for all he does 
 is as sacred as the relics of a saint, or as the 
 pigeons which fly unharmed about the churches, 
 streets, and buildings. Perhaps this clock has a sa- 
 cred meaning; for it pronounces the movement of
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. 229 
 
 lime, — Forever! Never! Never! Forever! — with its 
 click, click, click! Is it the skeleton at the feast, to 
 warn of the lliij^ht of time — a horolo^-e rather of eter- 
 nity ? And the pigeons? Why are they so numer- 
 ous ? I counted a hundred feeding in front of St. 
 Isaac's yesterday, and while dining in my room one 
 came to the open window and turned its little cunning 
 eye at me, so that I began at once to share my bread 
 and rice with it. The solution is that the pigeon is 
 regarded as the symbol of the incarnation of the 
 Holy Ghost— the dove which descended upon the 
 head of our baptized Saviour, and, therefore, it is a 
 religious bird, and may inhabit the gorgeous domes 
 and pinnacles of these Greek minsters. 
 
 Everybody here, except strangers, observes the 
 ceremonies of the Greek Church, and bows and 
 prays at every shrine on the street and every church. 
 These shrines are in all the offices, including our 
 banking office, and at the hotels. Walking in the 
 street from our hotel yesterday, I was suddenly 
 arrested by a bow of graceful dignity, which I sup- 
 posed was intencied for me; for I forgot that I had 
 left polite Norway. What was my surprise, when I 
 found the salutation was directed to the angels on 
 the dome of St. Isaac's ! These genuflexions and 
 crosses are the devout duty, of all sizes, and sexes, 
 and conditions. This morning I saw a child of two 
 years making its little cross before a church, as if it 
 had been used to it from birth. 
 
 The drosky is an odd-looking, fleet sort of cab, 
 which barely seats two. It is near the ground, and 
 if it upsets, it is safer than when it is going. Its 
 speed over the boulders is immense. Its driver is 
 good, and good-humored. The carts, wagons, drays, 
 as well as droskies, have a peculiar harness for the
 
 230 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 horse. The eminent characteristic of the establish- 
 ment is a sort of harness or yoke, about four or five 
 feet above the animal's shoulders. This is not pe- 
 culiar to Russia, but it is here developed in a higher 
 degree. It rests on the shafts, and somehow, as I 
 believe {loqiior non incxpcThts), the horse has freer 
 motion and an easier draught under this yoke. It 
 does not strain him about the vitalities, like our har- 
 ness. He seems to run loosely, as under a canopy 
 of green ! I do not mean to say that this yoke is 
 green, though many of tiie yokes are thus painted and 
 with emblems and owners' names on them. While 
 watching a caravan of these yokes which do not op- 
 press, I had occasion to look through a long line of 
 them, fifty in number, carrying the rye flour in sacks 
 across the city, and discovered another peculiarity. 
 There is a stout rope from the horse's shoulders to 
 the front a.xle, which extends some two feet out of the 
 hub to hold these extra traces. The strain seemed 
 to be upon these traces as much as upon the shafts; 
 and just as I was driving in a hurried way — for our 
 driver was dashing at the usual pace — one of our 
 wheels came off and rolled a rod, and down we were! 
 Thanks, to the good gray team and some prompti- 
 tude, we escaped harm; while sympathies all about 
 from the gathered crowd showed that there was 
 much kindness upon the street. 
 
 On the Neva we see boats which are used as 
 magazines, till the lumber or hay is sold. They are 
 thatched with straw; while there are vessels of huge 
 rude make, like our old "Orleans" boats on the con- 
 fluents of the Ohio, which used to be improvised to 
 run out, "on a freshet " — flour, hoop-poles, and 
 crockery, along the Mississippi to its mouth, and 
 then to be sold for its timber. Ag^ain, there are
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. 23 1 
 
 seen vessels from the Volga, with circular target- 
 looking ensigns and Hags of various hues, quite 
 foppy and exquisite amidst these heavy-laden lug- 
 gers from the interior. The entrepot for these 
 barges of grain, such as wheat, oats, barley and 
 corn, seems to be on the outskirts of the city; for 
 there they lie densely packed, side by side, close to 
 and far beyond the long, long rows of warehouses — • 
 far beyond our vision — numberless; while the sacred 
 pigeons, by the hundreds, flock in their wake for 
 food, unmolested and unharmed. 
 
 We attended a fire here. Fires are very com- 
 mon; but as the house walls are some three or four 
 feet thick, fires are not extensive in their ravages. 
 The fire-houses are of the customary yellow, with 
 high lookouts, and black walls, to indicate the place. 
 No bells sound alarm. The engines are like ours; 
 but when they go to the fire, some half-dozen wag- 
 ons with hogsheads of water in them follow ! 
 
 The Russians drink enormously. Their " particu- 
 lar vanity" is made of grain. It is called ''vodka!' 
 But the peculiarity is not in the drinking; but when 
 drunk and reeling, they are invariably affectionate. 
 They are not quarrelsome or violent. They kiss, 
 and never kick or strike. We saw many rolling 
 over each other in loving embrace, even upon the 
 streets. Women are no exception to this general 
 saturnalia on Sundays and fete days. It was simply 
 pitiful — the sights we saw. Wliy is it? We hear 
 from others that drunkenness is not disorraceful, be- 
 cause the people have been so lately enfranchised. 
 But is that the only or best solution ? 
 
 Cucumbers are generally eaten whole, on the 
 table and in the market, as we would eat apples. 
 Sometimes the workmen slice them up and lay them
 
 232 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 on their black bread, of which they consume six 
 pounds on an average per day. So constant a veg- 
 etable diet has produced effects which any physician 
 will infer, as the only meat diet of the masses of 
 these workmen is some odorous refuse of pale, flabby 
 soaked beef, even including the worst of the viscera 
 and organs ! I went through a market where this 
 sort of stuff was sold and eaten. The stench was 
 horrible, and all around and on the grround, we 
 passed — under admonitions from the guard, " Mind 
 your watch, sir!" — between and over the worst lot of 
 human cattle it was possible to conceive. Their long 
 hair is unkempt, their clothes are tattered, their shoes 
 are bundles of dirty sheepskin or rags, and their faces 
 wild and besotted. They are in strange contrast with 
 the palatial pictures of the next two chapters. 
 
 St. Petersburg has no end of attractions, but we 
 have taken to new modes of observation. Palaces 
 and pictures are our recreation at odd times; they 
 are not to be seen or discussed very elaborately, for 
 there is no limitation to their number. Scientific and 
 humane objects absorb our first day. We begin with 
 the mineralogical academy, where everything, if not 
 taught by sight and example, is thus illustrated. 
 The specimens of crystals, jewels, and minerals of all 
 kinds — rare, precious, and useful— which are there 
 presented, confuse the sense. The richest ores and 
 stones of the Ural Mountains are placed in glasses 
 and upon frames with nicest heed and order. The 
 Ural Mountains, especially, are on exhibition, with 
 their opulence. Not the lapis-lazuli, malachite, topaz 
 or ruby, garnets, sapphires, turquoises, pearls, and 
 diamonds of all colors, shapes, and values — but the 
 rarest and largest of these aristocrats of the inner 
 chambers of the earth, such as the beryl — the finest
 
 rilE LAND OF THE CZAR. 233 
 
 specimen of the world — arc here exhibited. Besides 
 these, the opal, with its richest colors, is side by side 
 with the turmalin, a crystal of rarity and of utility 
 for spectral analysis; while a pure nut'^'get of gold, of 
 eighty pounds, is the cynosure of all eyes. These 
 productions are shown in the rough, from the matrix, 
 so that by one glance you may see the precious off- 
 spring, which are born only after millions of years 
 of gestation " in which men come and go like rain- 
 bows " — passing through fires of gradation and cy- 
 cles of development so as to perfect their crystals 
 and rear their young jewels ! 
 
 In other rooms are models of the very mines in 
 sections, showing where these rare children are born, 
 and how they lie asleep in their sunless homes; and 
 finally, how, by the ingenuity and invention of man, 
 they are brought forth to give their quiet capabili- 
 ties of light. From this school on the banks of the 
 Neva what advantages are derived ! What a school 
 for teachers and professors. As we are the great 
 mining nation, will it not be well to copy what is 
 good in this Russian establishment for our instruc- 
 tion and benefit ? Would it be believed that under 
 this building, or under its large court, there are sam- 
 ple mines whereby every subterranean object of 
 mineral beauty and value is revealed to us. 
 
 We light our wax tapers and enter the vaults. 
 Our guide points out the formations of coal, iron, 
 and copper— the latter running into its relation with 
 malachite — with here and there leads of silver and 
 gold, besides all the strata and crystals for the gems 
 with which the royal, rich, and vain of this earth 
 adorn themselves. After this survey of Muscovite 
 mineral resources, can we wonder at the millions and 
 millions of rubles' worth of orems which adorn the
 
 2 34 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 palaces and churches, the diadems, crowns, dresses 
 and images, and which ghtter in polished splendoi 
 through the thousands of glass cases as specimens of 
 the fabulous wealth of barbaric pearls and gold, which 
 far outshine the magic product of Aladdin, or the 
 wealth of Ormus and of Ind, and which this new 
 capital and the old capital, Moscow, display ? 
 
 A half-mile of this underground survey of the 
 mineralogical wealth of Siberia, or rather Russia, and 
 we enter the street agfain. The orreat statues in 
 front of the school symbolize the meaning of the 
 work within. It is Hercules struggling with An- 
 taeus. The latter touches the earth, and is made 
 strong by the contact — strong in that knowledge of 
 the beauties and virtues, not of the ground merely, 
 but under the ground, which makes the mind a cas- 
 ket of precious opulence, full of concentrated and 
 brilliant jewels. 
 
 But is this education, in the largest sense, or is 
 it superficial, after all ? Is this School of Mines a 
 fair exponent or sample of the extended scientific 
 culture provided by the Russian Government? Yes; 
 but it is carried much further. In all departments 
 there is the same completeness and exhaustiveness. 
 Alexander II. threw the colleges open to all, and 
 founded scholarship for poor students. Is this " over- 
 education ? " Can there be too much intellectual 
 development! Still, he says that the causes of Rus- 
 sian or imperial disquietude are found in this over- 
 education; and thus he reasons: One can be thor- 
 oughly educated in the higher branches in Russia 
 for fifty dollars, where in other countries it costs 
 tenfold. The Government provides a subvention for 
 high education. Even peasants' sons are thus en- 
 abled to obtain a refinement of education far beyond 
 that of their parents, and beyond the needs of so-
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. 235 
 
 cicty. Such educated people are iKjt needed, not 
 even for teaching, as the schools are not " common " 
 or general for the masses. Therefore, he argues 
 that "education" is overdone. When these students 
 attain their pitch of discipline (so reasons my friend), 
 they grow discontented, as there are no avenues for 
 the use of their faculties and equipment. Their 
 health failing, by application too sedulous, they grow 
 morose and misanthropic; and, consequently, feeling 
 their degraded position beside others not so well 
 cultured, they join Nihilism; and so we read of the 
 student class being the dangerous one ! As an illus- 
 tration, the assassin of the Czar is cited. He was in 
 a lowly condition; and, after acquiring all he could 
 by diligence in his province, he came to St. Peters- 
 burg to perfect his studies. His father was the agent 
 here of a timber establishment, and of no station of 
 consequence. The son gave his life, as others will, 
 or do, to destroy a system, or its head, which for- 
 bids them to live according to their own idea of their 
 merits. 
 
 " What is the remedy } " I ask of my friend. 
 
 " Let the Government generously educate the 
 masses — not over-educate the few; and thus elevate 
 all, and provide the avenues to employment for those 
 ready to teach and unfitted for field-drudgery." 
 
 Whether this be a correct statement of the situ- 
 ation, I cannot avouch. I gather the facts and in- 
 ferences from an observant Encrlishman, who has 
 been here some years. It is a new phase of the 
 assassination solution, and as such I recount it. My 
 own observation already is, that great necessity ex- 
 ists for the elevation or training of those relieved 
 from serfdom, as the church has not sufficient power 
 to accomplish it ; and the poorer classes here are la- 
 mentably dissolute and reckless, but they are not the
 
 236 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 "dangerous class." They are as the lazzaroni were in 
 Neapolitan Bomba's rule — firm props of the throne, 
 and ready to serve the Czar at a moment's warning 
 aofainst rebellious intellirence. 
 
 " Do you go down-stairs, and say some hard 
 words against the Emperor or his family," said my 
 guide, " to these drosky-drivers, and you would be 
 torn from limb to latchet. They adore the family, 
 and the more it is martyred, the more they adore it." 
 
 Everywhere we perceive evidences of the venera- 
 tion paid to this family, not only at the beautiful 
 little chapel along the canal and street — now " no 
 thoroughfare" for vehicles — where the bombs ex- 
 ploded and the Czar was killed, but wherever his pic- 
 ture is seen. The reio-nins;- house seems to have a hold 
 on the Russian people. The grievances which make 
 the land socially and politically volcanic are not ap- 
 parent; but I think most of them were written by 
 Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence; and 
 the heaviest grievance relates to the denial of jus- 
 tice. It is the old, old story of revolution; and it 
 has never been told so aptly as by George William 
 Curtis in his eloquent defence of the real citadel of a 
 nation — its conscience, and not its wealth. " Rome," 
 he exclaimed, " was never so rich as when she was 
 dying; the Netherlands never so powerful as when 
 they were poorest. Assyria, Greece, and Egypt had 
 art, opulence, and splendor. Corn enough grew in 
 the valley of the Nile. The Syrian sword was as 
 sharp as any. . They were merchant princes, and the 
 clouds in the sky were rivalled by their' sails upon 
 the sea. They were soldiers, and their frown fright- 
 ened the world. ' Soul, take thine ease,' those em- 
 pires said, languid with excess of luxury and life. 
 Remember the kinij who had built his c^randest
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. 237 
 
 palace, ami was to occupy it upon tlic morrow; 
 but when the morrow came the palace was a pile 
 of ruins. 'Woe is me!' cried the king-. 'Who is 
 guilty of this crime ? ' ' There is no crime,' replied 
 the sage at his side; ' but the mortar was made of 
 sand and water only, and the builders forgot to put 
 in the lime.' So fell the old empires, because the 
 governors forgot to put justice into their govern- 
 ments." Recent revelations fully justify my sweep- 
 ing remark as to the denial of justice by the Russian 
 government. 
 
 If it were necessary to particularize, read the 
 points made by Birwanski, an imperial state attor- 
 ney, who was sent on a special mission to report 
 the scandalous outrages at Orenburg. He was sus- 
 pended for telling the truth. Thousands of those 
 official miscreants, " who clutch foaming champagne 
 flasks in their blood-stained hands, wallow in every 
 sort of enjoyment and lead complacent lives." His 
 picture of the courts and the prisons, the tortures 
 and the starvation, was a disclosure, which might well 
 make a Sclav of the lowest type furious with revolu- 
 tion and revenge. The Nihilist, like the Phantom 
 of Cleonice, forever reminds despotic power, that 
 might is not right, and that it should cultivate jus- 
 tice, as the Avenger is sure: "Tu cole justitiam; 
 teque atque alios manet ultor." 
 
 To this denial is added a debauched system, com- 
 pared with -which, in some parts of the country, the 
 most corrupt ways of Oriental luxury and slavery — 
 ancient and modern — are tolerable. The political, 
 moral, and judicial air of Russia breeds secret asso- 
 ciation. Societies for the suppression of Nihilism will 
 arise — are arising. They are aristocratic; but they 
 lack the martyr-element. The aristocracy will not die
 
 238 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 for the Czar, as Nihilists will and do die. to annihilate 
 him. Besides, the grandees of the Golden Book of 
 Russia were shocked at the condescension of the 
 Czar. He used to shake hands with ordinary peo- 
 ple; and it is said that his grip is tremendous, as 
 he bends easily a horseshoe in one hand ! 
 
 We visited the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. 
 It is inside the fortification, and is a sort of dynastic 
 church and royal mausoleum. There are the tombs 
 of the dead Czars of this empire. All these tombs 
 are decorated with offerings, medals, and trophies. 
 But first, I was attracted to that of Alexander II., 
 the late Czar. His white marble tablet, which is 
 above the body in the crypt below, was hidden un- 
 der roses and other floral offerings from all parts of 
 all the Russias. These tenders of sympathy turned 
 my thoughts toward home and toward moralizing. 
 The horrid manner of his taking off, like the deep 
 damnation of the attempt upon our President, has 
 called for more devotion to the object of this frenzied 
 zeal against the laws of mankind. We ask of our- 
 selves and of the most zealous opponents of abso- 
 lutism, cui bono? Does it not add more devotees 
 to the ranks of the imperialist rulers of Russia? 
 Such devotion as these offerings show, and such as 
 we saw to-day at the chapel where the deed was 
 done, are the logical outcome of this diabolism. 
 Martyrs are next to demi-gods. Who dare crit- 
 icise their acts ? Who dare, even in America, to 
 call in question, with that determined spirit of dis- 
 cussion demanded at all times, the acts of the head 
 of an Administration, after it has been elevated by 
 the bullet of the fiend? 
 
 It is not without interest that we follow our guide 
 through this church, so glittering in precious stones
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. 239 
 
 and rare pictures — mementos of the dead Czars and 
 their families. They have played (j^reat parts in Asia 
 and Eur()[)e, and made their mark in tlie last few 
 centuries. Still I could not htilp but echo the verse, 
 that — 
 
 "I would rather be some poor player on scant hire, 
 Than King among the old — who play no more." 
 
 And so rejoicing" in my modest Democratic Re- 
 publicanism, and with malice toward none and char- 
 ity toward all, I left these precincts with many lessons 
 at heart. 
 
 We visit the Museum of Art, not to see the rare 
 works of France, Italy, Germany, or Holland — though 
 they are here — but those which have the raciness of 
 the soil, or rather are racy of the races thereof. This 
 is a good time for this visit, as a recent charitable 
 occasion has drawn from all parts of the empire the 
 best works of Russian artists. Here they are ! Bat- 
 tles and portraits, landscapes, real and ideal, sea 
 scenes and Circassians — peasant life and classic lore 
 — and some of "imagination all compact," and each 
 well delineated, but with characteristic and national 
 high color! An endless maze of genuine genius is 
 here, and yet but a fragment of the display which 
 we are yet to interweave into the tapestry of Rus- 
 sian observation. 
 
 "What next?" I cry to our indefatigable guide. 
 Without deigning to reply, so rapidly does he carry 
 us about, he dashes us out of one broad street, with 
 strange names and semi-Oriental letters, and into 
 another, until we reach the rear of a building whose 
 entrance fills the fancy of Shakespeare's apothecary- 
 shop, with its stuffed crocodiles, snakes, birds, and 
 beasts.
 
 240 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 "All!" he exclaims — for he is a scientific guide 
 — " this is prehistoric as well as posthumous. All 
 the Saurians are here in skeleton — amphibious mon- 
 sters of other ages, when Siberia was tropical. Here 
 are birds of every kind, from a perfectly white pea- 
 cock to the extinct dodo ! " 
 
 Here I stop our vivacious and learned guide — on 
 the dodo. Ichthyosaurians, and megalasaurians, and 
 all these curiosities of another era have something 
 akin to them now. The mastodon is but an exao^- 
 gerated elephant. It may have been possible in 
 the recent stone or flint ages, when our antetypes 
 adventured from Timbuctoo to Siberia to obtain 
 rocks, harder than iron, for the manipulations of in- 
 dustry. Let them wait — for have we not the veri- 
 table dodo here ? Alas ! it is only the picturesque 
 presentment. Our guide sa)'s that its eggs were of 
 such good eating that the epicurean hogs in Java — 
 where it was last at home — consumed the last ^%%\ 
 and so the dodo died, never to be resurrected, except 
 in the pictures of fancy. 
 
 One more institution gives another glimpse of this 
 eventful life at this metropolis of the great empire. 
 It is the royal stables. There are no horses here at 
 present, as this is the summer season. Royalty is 
 out of town with its usual equipages; but the royal 
 carriages are seen in all their state and richness of 
 decoration. We enter the gateway, and come near 
 stumbling over some boxes. 
 
 " What are these ? " asks our cruide of the warden. 
 They contain the funeral plumes and dresses for the 
 obsequies of the late Czar, not yet laid away. Some 
 crape and other memorials of the fatal act are seen 
 bundled up and about; but we have little time to 
 think of the perils of power, and are called to exam-
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. 24 1 
 
 ine, one by one, the i^ilJed equipages. This one is 
 the carriage of Catharine II.; that, of Paul, who was 
 strangled by the nobles; the other that of Alexander 
 I.; that one trimmed with gold and blue is that of 
 Nicholas, and so on. Each has its story of funeral, 
 coronation, or marriage, in which czars and regalities 
 come and go, even as the poor horses which played 
 their parts in these historic pageants have come and 
 gone. Many of these carriages are rich in jewels 
 and stones of every quality of richness. One is 
 trimmed inside with diamonds. The panellings are 
 of silver, and so are the heavy mountings of the har- 
 ness, for three hundred horses, hanging in their show- 
 cases. Outside and inside these vehicles, where lux- 
 ury and opulence glisten, are the crystal and topaz, 
 ruby and beryl, such as in their native, unpol- 
 ished dress we perceived in the College of Mines. 
 Was not this double row of stately vehicles a vista 
 of historic moment, running down through past years 
 and throuo;h the lono- aisle of metallic and mineral 
 splendor ? 
 
 Our guide was not a Russian, but he seemed to 
 be proud of these trophies of regal display, and we 
 republicans looked on, and wondered ! Upon some 
 of the panels of these coaches are paintings whose 
 value could not be measured if covered with dia- 
 monds. The best French painters had decorated 
 one, which Queen Elizabeth had owned, and which, 
 later, Dagmar, the beautiful, had rejoiced in upon her 
 wedding. It was huge in size for a carriage, equal 
 to timber-wheels in solidity, and, as for loveliness, 
 "fit for the daughters of Jerusalem" upon their bridal 
 day. Then we examine the sleighs of various shape 
 and make; some for carnivals and some for state oc- 
 casions, and one of rough aspect made by Peter the
 
 242 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Great himself, and left by him at Archangel. A 
 o-rand omnibus-sleigh, in which the royal ladies were 
 wont to have their jolly rides from the city to the 
 country palaces, is shown. It is so arranged that 
 from its sides and end, long red drapery is spread 
 upon the snow, and upon this the cavaliers sit as the 
 horses dash them over the snow-hidden roads. It 
 was a part of the royal fun in other days for the fes- 
 tive females to drop the drapery of their sleigh and 
 the cavalier into the soft, dry snow wherewith these 
 loner winters are blessed. Whether these mournful 
 days of royalty contribute to such diversions is a mat- 
 ter of doubt. 
 
 What sights to our unaccustomed eyes are on 
 every side as we drive ! Little Tartar children 
 dressed in green; the soldiers with heavy coats and 
 long spears, from the tribes of the Don, the Cossack 
 of history; huzzars of red, gay uniform; Caucasian 
 soldiers, with dresses as gay as the Spahis of Algiers 
 — with the various large-breeched natives, in top- 
 boots, or with red shirts only covered by a dark vest 
 — add to the spectacle. 
 
 The avenues are wide, and lined with high yellow 
 buildings, palaces, and government edifices, all pro- 
 portionate to the immense empire of the two conti- 
 nents. The signs look quaint with their peculiar let- 
 tering, and the houses, which rarely have doors in 
 front, are unusual in their aspect. The sheet-iron 
 roofs painted green and red; the police in their green 
 uniform and sword; the rivers and canals, full of 
 strange craft darting about in active business, some 
 from far inland, laden with grain, and some bearing 
 passengers over the Neva and under its bridges — all 
 these odd pictures contribute to keep us on the alert. 
 We drive along the Neva, whose splendid avenues
 
 THE LAND OF THE CZAR. 243 
 
 and quays are one. They are lined by the same yel- 
 low buildings, where die families of the royal house 
 reside. Then we cross the Neva on a pontoon bridge, 
 called the Trontsen, from which a splendid view is 
 had of the spreading waters of the river — bounded at 
 one end by the elegant edifice of the Commercial 
 Exchange. In winter the river is used for races upon 
 the ice. Then we turn into Alexandria Park, and 
 admire the villas of the merchant princes upon the 
 lagoons into which the Neva is divided. From the 
 rounding point, we perceive the Finland Gulf, Cron- 
 stadt, and Peterhoff, and all the points which we 
 passed on our route hither. Then we turn into the 
 Zoological Gardens, where white bears and young 
 cubs, wolves and walruses, along with thousands of 
 pleasure-seekers, together enjoy the brilliant mimic 
 scenes till midnight. There we found (for fifteen 
 cents only) a splendid theatre, out-doors, and famous 
 dogs and monkeys performing, followed by a ballet 
 in pantomime, in which Greeks and Turks play parts, 
 and in which the heroes and heroines of the former 
 are lifted through a gorgeous display of many-col- 
 ored lights into clouds of glory, amidst the cheers of 
 the populace, which never forgets that Turkey is its 
 natural foe, and that Constantinople is its natural if 
 not national capital.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE CITY OF PALACES — A VISIT TO THE CHURCHES — 
 THE SPOT WHERE THE CZAR WAS KILLED — THE 
 GREAT MONOLITH AND OTHER MONUMENTS — SONGS 
 OF THE SOLDIERS — EXCURSIONS — LABORING MEN 
 AND WAGES. 
 
 " Since pleasures end in pain, and youth in age, 
 And love in loss, and life i7i hateful death. 
 And death in unknown lives, which will but yoke 
 Men to their wheel again, to whirl the round 
 Of false delights and woes that are not false." 
 
 "The Light of Asia " — Edwin Arnold. 
 
 T is impossible to describe the phases of Russian 
 life in a few chapters, or to make a review of 
 le scenes and places which we have had time to 
 observe. I might have made a more picturesque 
 sketch of the military or dynastic church, wherein lies 
 buried Russia, or her Czars. It would be a pleasure 
 to recount more in detail the visit to the hut of Peter 
 the Great, where he lived while planning this city. 
 The boat and chair, which he made, attract our eyes, 
 while the sacred picture under glass in the corner, set 
 in precious stones and illuminated with candles, is 
 considered so rare and talismanic that it attracts 
 crowds, who kiss the glass covering. It is a famous 
 picture of the Saviour, and lovely in its touching sad- 
 ness. It has a witchery, for, being borne in front of 
 the army, it incites to victory. 
 
 We drive to the place where the late Emperor
 
 THE CITY OF PALACES. 245 
 
 was killed. There is a beautiful shrine under an Ori- 
 ental kiosk-like temple over the exact spot, in front 
 of which are candles burning, and devotees bowing 
 and crossing. There seemed to be an unusually deep 
 solemnity here; and even the guards and ministrants 
 had a more serious air and anxious expression. We 
 went to various other churches, all called " parish 
 churches," but splendid in dome of green, gold, or 
 blue, and rich in decorations, golden decorations pre- 
 dominating, for even the silver is gilded over. No 
 images are allowed in the Greek churches, only pic- 
 tures. So it is said, but it is hard for us to distinguish 
 between them. Faces of the Saviour and Madonna 
 appear in beautiful outline and color, surrounded by 
 golden aureolas and by enamelled and gemmed frames 
 of rare handiwork. Our last visit on Sunday to 
 church, was to that of" Our Lady of Kazan." Kazan 
 is a town on the Volga, and the reputation of its 
 saint is such as to enrich her shrine beyond all others. 
 The buildinof — like most of the other churches — has 
 pendent from its sides and in its chapels, flags of all 
 nations, taken by Russia in battle. Considering what 
 wars she has had, at home and abroad, you can well 
 imagine what an immense multitude of old, torn, 
 moth-eaten, yet ever-glorious ensigns, from Central 
 Asia to Poland, are hung upon her sacred walls. The 
 gates, balustrade, and altar of Kazan Church are of 
 solid silver. Four fluted jasper columns adorn the 
 altar. At its doors — as at all the churches — are poor 
 people, very ragged, and worn with pilgrimages from 
 afar, who bow to you obsequiously, and present their 
 black portfolios, with a Greek cross upon them, as 
 credentials for their mission to beg for the distant 
 parts of the empire, and their spiritual needs and 
 monasteries.
 
 246 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Upon our drive we notice some fine triumphal 
 arches, copied after the classic models and those of other 
 countries, and other monuments, but none equals the 
 superb Alexander Column, erected in 1832. It is a 
 solid shaft of red granite, the greatest monolith of the 
 world. It is based on an enormous block of red 
 granite. There is an angel on the summit. The 
 monument is one hundred and fifty-four feet high, 
 and has a noble and inspiring grace and grandeur. 
 Other statues to Peter and Catharine, besides statues 
 to soldiers and poets, make every square of this grand 
 city monumental. There is also an equestrian statue 
 of Nicholas. The horse is like that of General Jack- 
 son's, in Lafayette Square, Washington, and stands 
 upon his hind legs only. It is so much more ele- 
 gantly and gracefully posed that I could not but 
 compare it to the disadvantage of our own favorite 
 charger. 
 
 On no day have we failed to find something about 
 — Peter the Great! In " the summer gardens" there 
 is an old palace, where are sacred relics of his 
 handiwork, such as chairs, cabinets, and Chinese de- 
 signs; the kitchen and bath-room have tiles of the old 
 Dutch style, which he greatly affected. The chim- 
 ney is as huge as the room. Within, is a prison, 
 where he is said to have kept his personal enemies, 
 without benefit of habeas corpus or clergy. It looks 
 gloomy, and the grating seems to be peculiarly 
 adapted to a jail; but it is not very likely that Peter 
 would have enjoyed such society, in his own favorite 
 home. 
 
 It is a custom in the " summer gardens," where 
 the military seem to have preference, to have certain 
 days consecrated to song. At least, we gain that im- 
 pression; for, while sauntering through its shades
 
 THE CITY OF PALACES. 247 
 
 towards evening, we hear some strange, unearthly 
 music. We gather near. In front of a statue in 
 bronze, erected to the fabulist and poet of Russia, 
 Kryloff, who died in 1844, were a dozen Cossacks, in 
 full chorus and uniform, and chanting a wild lyric. A 
 triangle and tambourine were the only accompanying 
 instruments. The leader stands in the centre, and 
 directs the music, besides singing falsetto with a funny 
 " burr-ring," as if he were halting his horses. With 
 much gusto he finishes the piece and others, and, 
 lookinor down at a white handkerchief on the grround, 
 seems to feel its vacuity of cash. We place some 
 kopecks on it. These minstrels give, at our re- 
 quest, their jolliest songs. Some of their rare tunes 
 from old Sclav ditties sound quite like Offenbach. 
 I remarked as much to the Qruide, who scouted the 
 idea, and said that Offenbach had filched them. This 
 custom of singing in gardens is not peculiar to Rus- 
 sia, nor to this garden. We found the same cus- 
 tom in Stockholm, where the students orathered be- 
 fore the bust of Bellman, the lyric improvisator of 
 Sweden, on his natal day. 
 
 The reliefs below this statue of Kryloff represent 
 ^sop's fables and their Russian analogues; for there 
 were the animals making their moralities, from the 
 lion to the mouse and from the stag to the elephant. 
 It was an appropriate and peculiar tribute to the man, 
 librarian, and poet, as well as to that inalienable and 
 inborn love of fable and parable which belongs to all 
 ages and lands, and has its select home in the Orient. 
 
 If you would vary this round of visits by an ex- 
 cursion into the country, I should recommend two: 
 one to Sarskse-sello, and the other to Peterhoff. We 
 have made both. At the first are the palaces of the 
 Czar and the Grand Duke Constantine. We go there
 
 248 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 by rail. The drives in the parks are beautiful. Therein 
 is a lovely palace where lived the Princess Dagmar 
 before she became empress. The armory here forms 
 a museum of wonderful interest, for it has gifts of un- 
 told value from Spain to Persia, and beyond. Every 
 kind of gun, sword, and dagger is here; and those 
 from the conquered sheiks and khans of Asia shine 
 resplendent in jewels by the mass. The saddle- 
 cloths from the Orient, and especially the presents 
 from the Shah of Persia, are the richest known to any 
 collection of the world. Among the manifold things 
 here to be seen are the lock and key found near the 
 site of the Temple of Jerusalem; the jewelry of the 
 harem of the Khan of Khiva — a wonderful collection 
 for female adornment; Chevalier Bayard's cuirass; a 
 spear which opens after it enters the body; an alarm- 
 clock which shoots off a gun to awaken the sleeper; 
 the flags taken in the Hungarian insurrection of 1849; 
 the baton of Schmayl, the Circassian chief, who fought 
 Russia so many years; the emeralds, by the quantity, 
 which the Shah of Persia sent to the Czar; the "horse 
 furniture " of the Indian sheiks, and a circular knife 
 which they used to hurl, which cut your head off be- 
 fore you- could say your little prayer; and, as a proper 
 apex to this collection of curious gifts and gems — 
 worth alone sixty millions of rubles — the sword of 
 Mazeppa, the brave hetman of the Poles, who will 
 never cease to ride through histrionic and historic 
 dangers on that fierce, untamed charger of the desert! 
 From the top of this armory we have a splendid view 
 of the distant city and the surrounding country. One 
 of the singular caprices of royalty in these palace 
 grounds is the Chinese village. The houses are large 
 and commodious for servants of the palace, but they are 
 extremely unique, dropped down from Celestial models
 
 THE CITY OF PALACES. 249 
 
 into this enchanted wood of birch and lindc:n. There 
 are ornamental waters, too, where every boat known 
 to the invention of man is seen. There is the cata- 
 maran which we have seen on the Hudson river, and 
 the Norse boat, as old as the barge of Cleopatra in 
 its style, which appears with its graceful bow in every 
 fjord of Norway; the Indian canoe, or dug-out, is 
 here, besides gondolas of Venice, caiques from Con- 
 stantinople, skin boats from the Esquimaux, and every 
 other class of boat, including even a rude specimen 
 from Otaheite. Here, too, are the royal sleighs and 
 barges, in the boat-house once used by Catharine II. 
 The keepers of these boats look upon us with much 
 surprise, especially when they are told that we are 
 Americans. I think sometimes this fact helps us to 
 see much which we otherwise would not see and 
 enjoy, for when we apply to be admitted to the 
 palace of Constantine here, the gruff response at first 
 is, " Who are they ? " "Americans ! " and forthwith, 
 with much graciousness, we are admitted. The pal- 
 ace is evidently in use by the family, as many little 
 domestic matters betoken. There is an abundance 
 of urns, flowers, pictures, and bric-a-brac. The rooms 
 are frescoed in dainty sky-blue backgrounds, and the 
 ceilings and walls are draped in medallions and silks. 
 It is useless to try to picture these multitudinous em- 
 blems and articles of royalty. These proofs of wealth, 
 however, are shapes of beauty, and, by whomsoever 
 owned or however purchased, are revelations of taste, 
 talent, and genius. But as well try to make a meal 
 out of whipped syllabub as substance out of so much 
 mere iterative description of these objects of luxury. 
 Every palace in Europe has more or less of this dis- 
 play of art and its treasures; but no palaces are so 
 opulent as those of this city and its environs, in jewels,
 
 250 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 and so exquisite in the refinement of adornments, 
 made as well by the pencil and chisel as by machinery, 
 out of the minerals of the Ural Mountains, for which 
 there are special royal factories. 
 
 If you would find, in full perfection, the richest in 
 all respects of all the palaces in the world, I suppose 
 the Winter Palace would be that superlative edifice. 
 Since the attempt to blow it up as the royal people 
 were about to dine, it has been closed. I made an 
 effort through Colonel Hoffman, our Charge d'Affaires, 
 to obtain an entrance for the Americans now stopping 
 here, but vainly. Recent events forbade. The Czar 
 himself will not sfo into it aeain. It is shut for two 
 years. This was a disappointment, but it was partly 
 compensated for by admission to the " Hermitage," 
 which is a part or a neighbor to the Winter Palace. 
 But the Hermitage seems to be enough for all our 
 time. All the "masters," old and young, native and 
 foreign, are in profusion here, as well as specimens of 
 the exhausdess mineral glories of Russia and Siberia 
 in every form of carved beauty and tasteful grace. 
 Museums of ancient statuary, coin, jewels, and intag- 
 lios, illustrating every age and phase of history, and, 
 as a climax of interest, the relics of the city of Kertch 
 and other places, in the Greek colonies of two thousand 
 years ago — now in Southern Russia — are here. This 
 exhibition supplements General Cesnola's Cyprian an- 
 tiquities, and would add fresh interest to our home 
 museum. Upon these Greek relics are found such 
 dresses, worn by the ancient Scythians, as our drosky- 
 drivers now wear, and bas-reliefs on these old vases, 
 show horses, managed exactly as my former Ohio 
 constituent, Rarey, used, to quell the worst "Cruisers" 
 of the equestrian world. 
 
 But, as a small American boy remarked at the end
 
 THE CITY OF PALACES. 251 
 
 of our six-hours' promenade throug-h these corridors, 
 " We feel two thousand years old ourselves, we have 
 travelled so much and so far ! " 
 
 Do you ask, is Peter the Great to be found at the 
 Hermitag-e ? Surely, he is everywhere. Here are 
 his lathes, tools, and knives, and plaques, or disks of 
 copper and ivory, cut by his own hand. Here, too, 
 is his measuring-staff, which was a foot taller than any 
 one in our party, and that of his valet, a foot taller 
 than Peter! How could he be such a warrior, states- 
 man, mechanic, and architect — ruling such an immense 
 and incongruous people so well, and make so many 
 knick-knacks with his own hand and out of his own 
 mechanical contrivance ? This conundrum puzzles the 
 brain. We are curious to know the secret of Peter's 
 power and of the glamour of grandeur around this 
 giant of Muscovite history and modern civilization. 
 
 In all this wanderino- for hours throuQfh these 
 chambers of rare imagery, we have only one glimpse 
 of the twin palace, the Winter Garden, and that is 
 through the connecting corridor, which is a conserv- 
 atory of palms and other plants. 
 
 The staircase of this palace of the Hermitage has 
 no equal in its size and proportion. Outside there are 
 immense black colossal porphyry figures bearing up 
 the portico, each an Atlas in itself. They are em- 
 blems of the eighty millions of subjects, which from 
 every rank uphold this extended empire. With its 
 sixty millions of farmers, now free; its seven millions 
 of villagers, its one million of gentry, nobles, and offi- 
 cers, and its four millions of military men and their 
 families, it would seem that the vast edifice of the 
 Russian power would be stable, supported by such 
 Adantean shoulders. Is it really so ? Time will tell. 
 After all, does not this structure rest on labor, to be
 
 252 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 directed by educated brain ? Is there much to en- 
 courage the lover of his kind here in this aspect ? For 
 the welfare of all, it is to be wished that there was 
 more comfort and elevation amono^ these vast masses 
 of men, for, from my inquiries, I conclude that there 
 is not much encouragement to labor here. Laboring 
 men work from six in the morning to eight at night, 
 twelve hours, deducting the dinner hours. Their 
 wage is meagre. They only earn twenty rubles a 
 month, which, at the present price of the paper 
 money, is in our money say ten dollars a month, 
 and find themselves. The women who work in the 
 cotton and other factories of this and other cities and 
 towns gret one-half of this sum as their waoi^es. A con- 
 tractor of dredging in the Gulf tells me that he hires 
 his best men for twenty-three rubles a month, and 
 most of them come from five hundred miles interior. 
 They go home for the long winter and return for the 
 short summer. 
 
 From these chance facts you may glean the con- 
 dition of the ex-serfs, who are the foundation of this 
 social pyramid. But they do not seem to be of the dis- 
 contented or dangerous classes. They may be roughly 
 and plainly clad — their garments may be made of 
 sheepskin — and when off duty they may and do stand 
 as much of the wildest devil of bad drink as any set 
 of men on the star; but still they are the broad basis 
 of this Russian social order. While they are loyal to 
 their " father, the Czar," and his family, this land will 
 know no hasty, violent or extensive revolution. In 
 this struggle there are many hard problems to solve. 
 Some of them are ao^rarian, orrowino^ out of the eman- 
 cipation of the serfs and the division of the land. 
 These may be in time arranged satisfactorily by 
 the local communes or legislatures. Escaping this
 
 THE CITY OF PALACES. 253 
 
 trouble, there is the vast debt and tax and other 
 financial and currency questions. But this, too, by 
 the [genius of good statesmanship, may be a cloud 
 which will pass away. Besides, the Czar has an en- 
 emy in his own bureaucracy, more formidable than 
 in the peasantry or the Nihilists. He provoked their 
 hate, by some attempts to reform their abuses of 
 trust and authority. A hundred thousand unneces- 
 sary officials cannot be readily disposed of, even by 
 an autocrat. He cannot overcome them, except he 
 falls back upon the masses. He is paralyzed; and will 
 continue so, unless he grants to the people certain 
 privileges. They would like to combine for their 
 relief from social and local grievances; such as 
 epizootics, grasshoppers, epidemics, forest devasta- 
 tions, speculators, land-grabbers, and corrupt judges. 
 Other menaces the Czar has, owing to diversity of 
 races in the realm. Poland has not stifled her re- 
 venges; White Russia is not reconciled with the 
 Muscovite. The Cossack of the Dnieper has an alien 
 history. The Baltic provinces are Teutonic. The 
 Ural Cossacks love liberty more than Czarism. Five 
 million Caucasians are still sullen under taxation. 
 Asiatic conquests are held by force. Siberia is an 
 exile, with a load of memory. Can these jarring ele- 
 ments survive and live in a Sclavonic unity; and 
 with the impending threat of Germanic hostility 
 ready to unite with the Latin races against a bar- 
 baric foe ? Even the Republican Castellar of Spain 
 rallies for the union of Europe against Russia, fear- 
 ful of the Napoleonic problem: " If not republican, 
 then Cossack.''" Th.Q pourparlers of Czar and Em- 
 peror at Dantzic, may unite the eagles for a time; 
 but the nineteenth century is not the tame prey of 
 the eighteenth.
 
 254 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Ah! if only Russia could have a rest from war, 
 and if her vast army could be turned into labor upon 
 her vast and fruitful plains! Russia accomplished the 
 emancipation of her serfs. It was the work of a nation, 
 and not merely of a man, or a bureaucracy. Arguing 
 from this work so well done, Wallace, the best ob- 
 server of Russian affairs from a foreign standpoint, 
 " confidently assumes that Russia will, in due time, 
 successfully overcome the agrarian difficulties that still 
 lie before her." It is to be hoped.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LOWER LIFE IN RUSSIA — DEATH AND LIFE — BIRTH 
 AND BURIAL. 
 
 *The tender leaves of Hope." — Shakespeare. 
 
 IT is the middle of August. The city of the Czar is 
 not joyous. It is not the gay season, which is 
 winter. The recent assassination does not make the 
 summer merry. We are attracted to the sound of 
 the great bells of St. Isaac's, opposite our hotel. 
 They sound a lament. I look out, only to see a 
 golden tapestry over a hearse, and, as with us at 
 funerals, numerous carriages following. But this is 
 not a funeral of the common people. Of the cere- 
 monies which attend their sepulchre we had a most 
 interesting though painful observation on Sunday. 
 This is worth a description. 
 
 We knew that we were approaching the cemetery 
 by the thousands of wreaths of all colors, even red, 
 offered for sale alongf the streets leading to it. It re- 
 minded us of Pere la Chaise. We are ushered with- 
 in the gates, with a throng of people, many of them 
 bent on pleasure and not on grief. These places for 
 the dead are not cared for with that sweet and gentle 
 caress which the Scandinavians give to these acres 
 of God. At the " fetes of the dead " here, the orgies 
 of eatinor and drinkino- over the sfraves are not to be 
 counted among the solemnities of death, but rather
 
 256 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the festivities of life ! We pass within a chapel. It 
 is accoutred in gilt, as are all shrines and domes here. 
 The long vestments and belts of the priests are of 
 gold lace, and many of the covers of the cofhns are 
 thus ornamented. As we enter, the service of the 
 Greek Church is proceeding. A band of choristers 
 are responding to the priest, while all about are the 
 bereaved, making genuflexions and crosses. Nearly 
 every one has a lighted taper. Indeed, everywhere 
 at the Russian shrines and in the churches candles 
 are lighted. It is a symbol of the continued exist- 
 ence of life. It is beautiful at interments. Every 
 baptism, burial, and betrothal is pledged to the Holy 
 Spirit— " heavenly flame!" Whenever a Russian 
 enters a church he buys a taper, approaches a shrine, 
 and lights it at the sacred lamp, bending and cross- 
 ing meanwhile. It is the most common of all the 
 ceremonies here, and it first attracts us in this 
 Church of Smolenski a Wassali, within the precincts 
 of the city cemetery. 
 
 We are led, without impediment, within the altar, 
 but are requested not to turn our backs upon it. 
 The first service is crivincf the communion wine to a 
 dozen infants, who, with various expressions, partake 
 of the liquid from a spoon, and after much bless- 
 ing. They are thus made members of the Church. 
 Two priests assist in this; one is an old and most 
 amiable man, the other a giant in size, and with a 
 voice like Stentor, and both, like the priests of the 
 Greek Church, are hirsute on cheek and head. But 
 this infant communion is not what we " came out for 
 to see." The church grows warm and inodorous, 
 and we are tempted to the fresh air; but at length 
 the burial ceremony begins. One man, not in priestly 
 arra)-, chaunts from a book, and the choir responds.
 
 LOWER LIFE IN RUSSIA. 257 
 
 The priest also responds, and the pious moveni(mts 
 of the people continue, until at last a flutter of aj^ony 
 breaks forth, the candles are put out, and the cov- 
 ers removed from the lids, and the lids from the 
 coffins. The chaunts go on, the censers swini^-, and 
 the wail of sorrow over the dead begins. Poor, sad 
 — sad — sad people. Mothers mourning afresh at the 
 last look at their babes; children grouped around the 
 dead mother, almost hidden beneath the flowers 
 which festoon the inside and outside of the coffin; old 
 and young taking their adieux, lifting up the dead face, 
 all pale and senseless, to salute it tenderly for the 
 last — last time ! It was a scene to melt a heart of 
 granite. There were no unkissed faces there within 
 these shrouds. 
 
 After passing about some of the consecrated cakes, 
 to be eaten when spiritually minded, and after the dis- 
 tribution of the bowls of rice and raisins, to aid the 
 dead in their journey home, and after various cere- 
 monies behind the altars, with their pictures of Sa- 
 viour, saints, and Madonna, incrusted in jewels, sil- 
 ver, gold, and enamel of all colors — the lids are 
 replaced, the candles relighted, the chaunt begins 
 anew. Then the coffins are borne out into the 
 grounds and air, where, followed by priests and 
 people, with a loud chorus of lamentation, the bodies 
 are committed to the consecrated dust. The souls 
 of the bereaved are left all darkened, and the 
 "mourners go about the streets." 
 
 These are some of the experiences and scenes of 
 Russian life which the guide-books do not, cannot 
 portray; yet do they not show the inner life of the 
 people? Do they not take us within the portals 
 of the grave itself — the very adytum — and show 
 what the consolations are which this religion gives in
 
 258 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the worst emergencies of women and men, and which 
 to the stranger of another faith and cHme may seem 
 merely an idle ceremony ? 
 
 Let us io-nore the dead, and select somethine 
 more fitting our age of activity, life, and evolution. 
 
 Our guide asks: " How we would like to see 
 2.000 human beings under one roof, and being 
 housed, fed, and saved by a maternal government?" 
 
 Surely, we are content, and step forth from our 
 carriage. We enter a vast building under a stone 
 bas-relief oi a motherly swan which has its dozen of 
 little ones looking up to and feeding from its downy 
 breast; or, if not that, perhaps it is the escutcheon 
 of Louisiana, a pelican, feeding its young out of the 
 blood of its own body. 
 
 This is the Vospitatelny Dom. It is as old as 
 1778, and is a branch of the Foundling Asylum at 
 Moscow. It is near a canal, and is connected with a 
 lying-in hospital and a school of midwifery, in which 
 any one about to be a mother can find a refuge, with- 
 out cost, and with absolute seclusion, privacy and care. 
 It is one of the provisions of the Government for 
 birth, and is in strange contrast with that which the 
 church makes for death, as we have just seen it, in 
 the cemetery. Whatever it be, we are ushered into 
 the presence of the most motherly of matrons, who, 
 at a table, seems to be doing a thriving business in 
 infants of tender age. She is a most muscular and 
 maenificent madame. She receives us with a cour- 
 tesy. She is filling up red and blue blanks. What 
 for? For foundlings! There are eight hundred and 
 four in the building now, some twenty-eight being 
 received every day, and as many sent out to be 
 farmed in the country. The building holds two thou- 
 sand people, including wet nurses, babies, bread-
 
 LOWER LIFE IM RUSSIA. 259 
 
 makers, and attendants. Besides, it is an as)luni 
 where calves are kept, from between whose innocent 
 teats the vaccine matter is extracted; and whoever 
 will, can come and partake of the vaccination freely ! 
 We saw the calves in their stalls, and how they were 
 tied for the forced extraction of the sanitary matter. 
 
 But this was but an incident of the institution. 
 While there is an opportunity for poor wedded 
 parents to place in separate apartments their chil- 
 dren, and while a few avail themselves of the privi- 
 lege, the great body of the little bodies are born out of 
 wedlock. A gentleman covered with medals gallants 
 us around the building. He is met at different wards 
 by females who once were foundlings, but, being 
 acute and trained, are nurses and doctoresses, making 
 prescriptions and supervising the army of nurses. 
 These nurses wear red, green, and blue caps, accord- 
 ing to their peculiar work and ward. 
 
 But let us begin at the beginning. As twenty- 
 eight of these illegitimates come in every day, we are 
 likely to see one enter before we go upstairs. Sure 
 enough ! An old lady appears on the threshold with 
 something in a quilt. It is in shape, or mis-shape, 
 like a pappoose bundled on a board; but there is a 
 veritable infant in it. Our euide calls us — we beincr 
 four, my wife and myself, and a physician and his 
 wife — to the front to see the babe unswathed. 
 
 The first question asked of the old lady is: "Is 
 it baptized ? " 
 
 " Oh ! yes," says the old lady, " it is a Christian." 
 
 So it has a better show, for it has not to be im- 
 mersed into the Greek Church, and it has, being a 
 Christian, three years in which to be otherwise re- 
 deemed ! Our guide facetiously asks of the old lady: 
 
 " Are you its mother ? "
 
 26o FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Witli a jolly laugh she replies: " Oh ! no, only the 
 midwife. I am seventy years ! My name is not 
 Sarah ! " 
 
 " How old is it? " is the next query. 
 
 " Three days." 
 
 Well, well! It was born on the i6th of July, and 
 in the old style ! Let it not be misunderstood that 
 there is more than one style of being born, whether 
 under Czars or Presidents, and that is the " old style." 
 But it should be remembered that the calendar we 
 use for the days of the month is that of Pope Gregory 
 of the Latin Church, and not that of Russia. It is an 
 historic fact that when the " old style," or calendar of 
 the Greek Church, was abolished some centuries ago, 
 the intelligent British bacon-fed people revolted, be- 
 cause twelve days were subtracted from their precious 
 lives by the Catholic calendar. The Russian has 
 had, according to the logic of the Jack Cades of Old 
 England, twelve days longer to live than those of 
 other nations. This child, though born, according to 
 law, on the i6th of July, according to our date was 
 twelve days older, and therefore illegitimate ! This 
 logic is from the " Pirates of Penzance." It has — as 
 an international babe — lived fifteen days in three ! 
 But what is its sex ? That is ascertained, and the 
 blue ticket is tacked upon the waif It is a boy. We 
 proceed upstairs, where the child turns up also, but 
 with a different number from that which is sent to the 
 mother, for she must not be allowed to know the real 
 number, else she may have hopes of recognizing her 
 child, get into the asylum as nurse or help, and thus 
 foil the charitable intent. Two young lady attendants 
 proceed to undo the baby-boy once more. He is 
 nude before us, and gives a sneeze in recognition of 
 his inheritance of future ills. Then there is a bath of
 
 LOWER LIFE IN RUSSIA. 261 
 
 warm water, into which he is placed. After a Httle 
 whimper and scream he is thoroiig-hly washed, enjoy- 
 ing it to the innermost core of his Httle sensibilities. 
 Then he is delivered over to a wet nurse, who is 
 summoned from a room where nurses are in wait- 
 ing. She begins at once the lacteal diet, and keeps 
 it up till such time as the child is removed to the 
 country. 
 
 We then enter the room where there are twenty- 
 four babies already admitted for the day, and it was 
 but four o'clock ! There must be more nurses on 
 hand for the new-comers than there are babies; though 
 some of the nurses in the other rooms had two babies 
 in charge. These nurses are healthy women, but not 
 any of them handsome. They wear a red bodice over 
 a white habit shirt, conveniently arranged for the pur- 
 poses of nature's fountain. 
 
 We visit a half-dozen rooms in each division, 
 where, in various stages of care, these nurses are 
 at their posts of duty. There is not much crying 
 among the children, but there is considerable aston- 
 ishment here and there among the nurses at our un- 
 expected presence. The attendants who are super- 
 vising each room wear blue checks, with plain blue 
 bands on the sleeves, and seem very intelligent. 
 As my male companion is a physician, he is per- 
 mitted to see what otherwise might not have been 
 shown to us. So we are next gallanted to a room 
 where are several bright, shining copper boilers, filled 
 with warm water. Over them are neat cradles, in 
 each of which reposes in calorific content several little 
 ones ! These were babes prematurely born ! They 
 are being fully born — some seven, some eight, and 
 some not quite nine months old ! It is a matter to 
 awaken the quaint speculation of Montaigne, or the fun
 
 262 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 of a Rabelais or some other humorous lover of his kind, 
 to see these little inchoate birdlings, who have chipped 
 the shell too soon, being steamed and warmed into the 
 full glory of human existence over a kettle of vapor- 
 ous water, while their little hands and eyelids are 
 folded amidst genial cradle-clothes ! Here are those 
 who are to assist in bearing up this vast empire— 
 these little Russians, who are to take, with their big- 
 sounding names, their whiskey straight, or add a 'koff 
 to their other complaints — who are to wage future 
 wars or study the sciences of the coming time — who, 
 from the Crimea to the Neva, and from the Chinese 
 Wall to the Lapland of the Arctics, are to upbear the 
 Greek Church, with its ages of veneration, and the 
 enormous realm with three hundred differing tribes 
 and tongues ! Here they lie, sleeping unconsciously, 
 yet maturing for the duties of life 1 Near by them is 
 a scale, with a few weights — very light weights — to 
 test the streno-th and health of these incarnate imma- 
 turities. Their normal weis^ht is said to be nine 
 pounds, and if they attain that in a certain time, under 
 these incubating processes, they are well insured. 
 We are told that of these only twenty per cent, are 
 saved, which is a consideration not to be forgotten by 
 a veteran "life-saver," as I often boast myself to be. 
 One of these little Muscovy ducklings lifted its 
 trembling pink eyelid and looked at me, a little doubt- 
 ful of my object. Its tiny fingers faintly twined about 
 mine, and with a sigh and a timid chirp — hardly a 
 sound — it sank again to its nebulous contemplation 
 of life and its mysterious surroundings, I cannot re- 
 call any of my infantile emotions, or fragmentary 
 ideas. The child may be the father to the man; but 
 it must have some little maturity to dominate in a 
 paternal way over the full-grown sire. Poets have
 
 LOWER LIFE IN RUSSIA. 26$ 
 
 sung of the prcinonilions which wc have of an ini- 
 mortahty before birth, and I should suppose that 
 something- of its " traihng cloud of glory " would 
 hang at least in ragged fringes upon our novitiate in 
 this world. But whether these things be or not, I 
 felt like singing the refrain that — 
 
 "Gentleness is a little thing 
 
 Dropped in the heart's deep well, 
 The joy, the good which it may bring, 
 Eternity may tell." 
 
 Indeed it may be told in this world, sometimes 
 from certain rules of heredity; but that, in this in- 
 stitution, is only one-half known, as the parent of 
 one sex only is known. How could one help won- 
 dering what would be the fate of this Jilius nullius? 
 Who knows but there are here Potempkins and Or- 
 loffs in potentiality, Todlebens with trophies of future 
 Plevnas, and diplomatic Gortschakoffs dressed in all 
 the decorations? Why may not imagination conjure 
 up a Peter the Great not born to the purple or smoth- 
 ered in fine linen, a founder of empire, or a Cath- 
 arine II., bold, skilful, and wonderful in ability? If 
 Gray could fancy mute, inglorious Miltons and guilt- 
 less Crom wells in a country churchyard, is it too au- 
 dacious a flight here to draw upon the same faculty 
 for hands to sway the rod of empire or touch the 
 lyre? 
 
 Recalling the little ones I once saw next to my 
 own house in New York, when Sister Irene opened 
 her arms and her door to the foundlinos of that 
 city, and leaving the morality of this city of 667,000 
 people, with its foundlings rating 10,000 a year, to 
 be measured by others than myself, I was aroused 
 by a call to go below and see how the black bread
 
 264 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 was baked, and to drink some of the barley beer 
 with which the estabHshment is run, through the 
 kindly agency of the wet nurses. In fact, it may 
 be stated that the future of these infants depends on 
 the digestion of these stalwart women. 
 
 One room has nine infants laid out in litde coffins, 
 covered with white paper. We take a peep at them. 
 They have each had a post-nwrtoji examination, and 
 their life record is made up and entered near their 
 number on the rolls of the infantry. Nearly all die 
 of catarrh of the lungs or intestines, their mucous 
 membrane being the tenderest of their susceptibilities. 
 I noticed that the lower lip of these little dead people 
 had been slit. Why ? I am told to show the de- 
 velopment of the teeth, for some purpose not very 
 clear to my mind. 
 
 Then we visit a room where the diseased are 
 cared for. Some are malformed. One we noticed 
 with "talipes." Its tiny feet were being treated so 
 as to make them walk straight — a possible cure, says 
 the doctor. Another has a harelip, which an early 
 surgical operation may amend. 
 
 Then we ascend to the upper story, which is a 
 clean chapel of the Orthodox Greek Church. Its 
 altar is richly bedight in gold and pictures of saints 
 and children, with beautiful representations of Him 
 who did not disdain to care for the litde children 
 of this world. A dress of the Czar Paul's beautiful 
 wife — her coronation dress, which the ladies admire 
 greatly — is shown us in a glass case. It was a pres- 
 ent from her to the institution, of which she was a 
 patroness. Other pictures of royal personages, who 
 have given their aid and patronage to this good end, 
 appear about the walls; and then, after many thanks 
 and some copecks to these guardians of the lost chil-
 
 LOWER LIFE IN RUSSIA. 265 
 
 dren of sin and poverty — we feel refreshed by the 
 open air. 
 
 Thus in one day, in this strange palatial city, 
 we have seen the phases of death and of life; and 
 the human or humane provisions for these emer- 
 i^encies of our race. They form strange contrasts 
 with each other, and, together, a still stranger con- 
 trast with the wealth and splendor of this empire, 
 which has scarcely any bounds to its realm, and none 
 to its ambition.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PETERHOFF — ITS PLEASURES AND PALACES — ITS RE- 
 GALITIES AND RICHES. 
 
 " The smoke ascends to Heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth 
 As from the haughty palace. He, whose soul 
 Ponders this true equality, may walk 
 TJie fields of eartJi with gratitude and hope : 
 Yet, in that meditation will ]ie find 
 Motive to sadder grief, as we have found 
 Lamenting ancient virtues overthrowti. 
 And for the injustice grieving, that hath made 
 So wide a difference betwixt man and man." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 IN no country in the world has there been such dis- 
 tinctions of caste, between ruler and ruled, be- 
 tween Czar and people, between master and serf, as 
 in Russia. In no time has this been more apparent 
 than when the regenerator of Russia — Peter the 
 Great — ruled. The serfs were from the earliest days 
 called " black," as distinguished from the old dynastic 
 race of Russia — which was alleged to be of Rurick 
 the Fair, from which the name of Russia is derived. 
 He was not a Sclav, but of the fair-haired race of the 
 north, whose civilization we have traced in our jour- 
 neying. The Normans were the ancestors of this 
 ruling race, and from them, as from a fountain, came 
 the great lords, whose names were written in the 
 *' velvet volume," or the " book of gold " of the Rus- 
 sian noblesse. These proud nobles were the boyars, 
 who were held by Peter not fit to unloose the latchet
 
 PETERIIOFF. 267 
 
 of his shoes; and this Peter was called "The Great," 
 because he was so far above all that he could afford 
 to condescend. He could, without loss of caste, carve 
 furniture, make tools, and construct ships and houses 
 with his own hand. There is nothing which the 
 hand of this Ca^'sar did not endeavor to build. The 
 most elegant of all his works — and they are beyond 
 computation — is that of the palaces and parks of 
 Petcrhoff. It is not one, but many palaces; and 
 cannot be omitted by any one who makes a study of 
 the Russian realm. 
 
 To it we gave one of our most delightful days in 
 August. It is not difficult to reach it; and, as it' is 
 the present residence of the present hunted Czar, 
 who makes a covert of a part of its secluded grounds, 
 it had and has a peculiar interest. Our guide, had 
 advised us, days before, of the charm in store for 
 us. After seeing it, we record it as far beyond our 
 expectation. 
 
 Our way to it, is down the river Neva and into 
 the Gulf of Finland, a two hours' journey over the 
 broad surface, but in a narrow channel. The steamer, 
 though not laroe, is an cleQf^-nt one. It is not crowded 
 to-day, and we have plentiful opportunity to wander 
 about the boat and look at both sides of the river, 
 without curious eyes peering after us suspiciously. 
 We pass the many elegant yellow brick-stuccoed 
 houses and palaces on the Neva, and are especially 
 attracted by the grand Museum of Art, which we 
 had already visited. From the river, as we gaze 
 back, the splendid gilded spire over the tombs of the 
 Czar, as tall as Trinity, and as bright as crystal, dazzles 
 the eye, while the gilded dome of St. Isaac's minster 
 is never out of sight. The quay along the river is of 
 heavy granite. The river is as wide as the East
 
 268 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 River at Brooklyn. There are boats of huge di- 
 mensions in the stream, or moored by the banks. 
 These are made only for temporary navigation 
 in the far inland country, on the Volga, or some 
 other stream, which the canal system of Russia en- 
 ables to flow to the capital. They are laden with 
 grain, hay, and other farm products. Soon we enter 
 the gulf, and its low state appears by the very color 
 of the water, and by the buoys that mark the chan- 
 nel. Over to the right we perceive the dredging 
 machines of the American company — about which 
 our English friend, Mr. Burt, advised us, and of 
 which he is superintendent. They are making a 
 new channel; and under many disadvantages not of 
 a mechanical nature. It is the slowness of the pay, 
 and its uncertainty, and the red tape of the officers, 
 or something worse, which hinders this improvement. 
 So poor are the navigation facilities that it takes as 
 lono; to oret cToods from Cronstadt to St. Petersburcr, 
 only twenty miles, as from London to Cronstadt; 
 and the cost is greater. Lighters have to do the 
 last and smallest portion of the voyage. However, 
 this shallow channel once had its advantage, in the 
 Crimean war. It enabled Russia to foil Napier and 
 his fleet. It was the safeguard of the great capital. 
 Since then it is doubly guarded. Its old fort is 
 strengthened; and it seems now as if the city were 
 impregneible from any attack by sea. 
 
 On our voyage hither, from Sweden and Finland, 
 we had remarked the beautiful grounds, on the south 
 side of the gulf, and a mile or more from our channel, 
 embosomed in green trees and decorated with pala- 
 tial edifices. This was Peterhoff. We then prom- 
 ised ourselves a nearer view, but when we land, we 
 find many preliminary vestibules to the palace itself,
 
 PETERHOFF. 269 
 
 which are even more interesting-. If it were difficult 
 to build St. Petersburg- on a firm foundation out of 
 the low marshes of the gulf, it was not so with Peter- 
 hoff, for it has a rise above the level of some sixty 
 feet! This is not much, but in a level country, like 
 Russia, it is a good deal. What of embellishment 
 Peter refrained from putting upon his capital and its 
 palaces, he lavished here, for its factories and homes, 
 its waters and palaces, its woods and ruins, are the 
 crown jewels of his edifying genius ! It far surpasses, 
 in its surroundings, any place of the kind we have 
 yet seen, not excepting Versailles and Hampton 
 Court, Windsor, or the Copenhagen Hermitage. 
 The palace itself is a Koh-i-noor, set in the midst 
 of a dozen brilliants, each worthy of an oriental 
 crown ! 
 
 I have perused a volume written by an Austrian 
 Secretary of Legation at the court of Moscow in 
 1700. I found it — a lone copy — in an old desk at 
 the Constantinople hotel. If this diary at the court 
 of Peter be a true account of the conduct of this 
 czar, he was as blood-thirsty as he was energetic. 
 The knout and the torture were his instruments of 
 extracting testimony to condemn his own sister and 
 his best subjects. New racks were made for every 
 fresh rebel, and every fresh rebel was the object of 
 this czar's inventive diabolism. But for the romantic 
 glamour around Peter's life, as a ship-carpenter and 
 general genius of all work, history would regard him 
 as execrable. This book contains an account of the 
 tragic execution of the Strelitz; and it was this ac- 
 count which irritated the czar against the author and 
 his volume. It has a description of the figure of the 
 colossal square wagon fort, in which the Russians 
 used to march against the Tartars; and other mat-
 
 270 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 ters which would be of enofrossinor interest to Mr. 
 Schuyler, who is now writing Peter's life. Among 
 other objects of interest in it, it is said that the Czar 
 Peter, in the year a. d. 1700, had no mines of gold 
 or silver; but it was believed that they had been dis- 
 covered, in rich veins, at a place called Kameni, in 
 Siberia. Skilled men were brought into the country 
 to test this discovery. This was the tentative exper- 
 iment, the crucible in which the first precious ele- 
 ments of Russia were tried. To what a prodigious 
 success this has been carried has never been well 
 stated by any one whom I have read. What, you 
 ask, has this to do with Peterhoff ? The sequel will 
 show. 
 
 The value of these mineral resources of Russia has 
 not been fully shown or known, because article? of 
 virtu and art, made out of the raw material, are mo- 
 nopolized by the nobility and royal family; and, be- 
 cause the iron in the raw and in the manufacture has 
 never been greatly exported. The Sevres porcelain 
 and Gobelins tapestry were exclusively for " our royal 
 cousins; " and so were the articles of Russian art. 
 Still the recent developments tend to break down 
 these monopolies of the earth's precious treasures. 
 It is not grain, tallow, hides and honey and the pro- 
 duct of the field which make Russia great in her 
 work. It is not the cutlery of Tula, nor the iron of 
 the provinces altogether, which make up the stock 
 in trade of the t^'reat fairs of Russia, although these 
 are abundant. It is computed by a writer in the 
 London Times, who followed us closely in our travels, 
 " that at the Nijni Novgorod fair of last year 7,453,163 
 poods of iron (62 poods to the English ton) were 
 brought in for sale, of which 887,002 poods were not 
 sold." This year 6,000,000 of poods are here already;
 
 PETRRHOFF. 271 
 
 and not only will the quantity of last year soon ])c 
 exceeded, but all will l)e bouoht up, for the success of 
 a Nijni fair depends on the conditions of the harvest 
 throughout the empire; and while 1880 was a year 
 of famine, the crops of this season have been most 
 satisfactory, and the provincial traders, as well as the 
 peasantry, have money enough to afford the journey 
 hither and to make their purchases. 
 
 Even what one sees at Nijni Novgorod, however, 
 cannot give a sufficient idea of Russia's wealth in 
 mineral produce, and especially in iron. The statis- 
 tics of 1875 give, in round numbers, 26,000,000 of 
 poods of cast and 18,000,000 of wrought iron, with 
 789,280 poods of steel. Much of the cutlery one 
 sees on the tables of hotels and restaurants at the 
 capital, or in provincial towns, is of home manufac- 
 ture, chiefly from Warsaw; and almost all earthen- 
 ware, china and glass equally proceed from im- 
 perial or national manufactories. It is, as a rule, 
 inferior ware, and in bad taste; and the knives are 
 evidently made " to sell in the home market, as the 
 rule is: 'Keep your money in your own country; 
 stick to home articles, however infinitely better and 
 cheaper may be the goods that you might get from the 
 foreigner.'" The earthenware, china, glass, as well as 
 cutlery, are home made. Russia makes a good deal of 
 poor quality. She is "protective" and endeavors to 
 supply herself, to her own cost. Her Siberian and 
 Central Asian possessions are the repertoires of her 
 choicest jewels and values. The region of expiation 
 and exile is now looming up as Australia came forth 
 out of the convict land. Civilization is claiming 
 Siberia for herself. Her mineral resources, how- 
 ever, are what attract the most attention. 
 
 Among the many items of interest which the
 
 272 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 x^ustrian Pepys has not omitted from his gossip in 
 the chance vohmie referred to, is one which recog- 
 nizes the discovery of the mineral and jewelled wealth 
 of Russia, then just opening in the Ural Mountains 
 and in Siberia, under the energy of Peter the Great, 
 and now such an immense source of values and traffic 
 in Russia. It was shortly after this that the Czar be- 
 gan to build St. Petersburg (1703), and twenty years 
 afterward he began the construction of this country 
 palace of Peterhoff. He had found the lamp of Alad- 
 din in the caves of Siberia. 
 
 When we first arrived at St. Petersburg we visited 
 the School of Mining, where the minerals and precious 
 stones of Russia are collected in the matrix for in- 
 struction, and where underground there are artificial 
 galleries made to illustrate the teaching in this vast 
 domain of Russian affluence. In our visits to the 
 " Hermitage " and other city palaces and museums, 
 as well as to similar places in other capitals, we had 
 been wonder struck at the immense number and rich- 
 ness of the trophies made by Russian art, out of her 
 own Siberian and Ural resources. Vases and gems, 
 monuments and marbles, gold and silver ornaments 
 of every shape were the gifts of Russian royalty to 
 the royal houses of Europe. 
 
 It seemed that in Russia itself there was a 
 profusion, for which we could not account by any 
 modes of fabrication yet seen. This was all made 
 clear, however, when we were ushered — hats off and 
 in whispering awe — within the imperial marble fac- 
 tory at Peterhoff. It was our first visit there. To 
 its explanation our guide Pilley gave his best energy 
 in English and knowledge of science; and it must be 
 said for him that, whatever his chances for study may 
 have been, gems and marbles are his specialty.
 
 PETERflOFF. 273 
 
 This we found out afterward, when he opened liis 
 bud<^et of mineral beauties to us — for sale. How he 
 rolled as a sweet morsel under his tongue the very 
 names of these hard metallurgical substances ! Pic- 
 tures were tame, shrines tawdry, and waterfalls noisy 
 nothings compared with his eloquent exordia and 
 perorations upon this, his favorite topic. Rising with 
 each object of value and virtu, he at once measured 
 its value in taste and in rubles. Rubles seemed a 
 word so roundly rich and golden that the very phrase 
 for the estimation of jewels and jaspers, malachite 
 and amethysts seemed itself a gem of inestimable 
 worth. 
 
 "Look, lady, look!" he would cry. "This is 
 nefrite — see! It is in the rough; but it is worth 
 alone four thousand rubles as it stands ! This is 
 jade! It is to be made in all shapes. What is in 
 this glass case is a fortune in rubles ! That lapis- 
 lazuli is enormous. Look ! It is worth twenty-five 
 thousand rubles! It will take months to work up 
 one piece into a vase like that ! Come ! See these 
 revolving tables. The workmen are at dinner; but 
 that man will show us. Observe those plans on the 
 paper; those engravings on the wall; that portfolio 
 of designs — all to be reproduced out of these flakes 
 of jasper ! Panels for palaces ! Look, sir, look ! Fur- 
 niture out of that malachite; the shades of nature set 
 in vernal beauty, all put together as if of one piece ! 
 That lapis-lazuli, lady, is worth one hundred and fifty 
 rubles a pound ! See, lady ! There is a bushel of 
 emeralds, all in the rough, but not more valuable in 
 rubles than the rodenite in that mass yonder ! " 
 
 The men soon come in from their meals, and 
 begin the slow process, by wheel and lathe, to 
 grind down with their polishing diamond pow-
 
 2 74 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 der the hard substances. Here are the items which, 
 when put together, make the unaccountable sum 
 in rubles, vases, and mosaic ! Each of the pre- 
 cious stones were being polished down for ve- 
 neering, and marked and graded as to quality 
 and utility. Crystals were being made into vases, 
 objects of virtu and bric-a-brac, in countless forms, 
 for the boudoir, and of every hue and form of beauty. 
 Aqua-marine, with its tender blue tint, and lapis- 
 lazuli, black with richness, in pieces of fifteen-pound 
 weight, were seen about the halls — being copies from 
 the galleries of paintings and drawings upon the 
 walls. Round about upon their pedestals, them- 
 selves to be counted in rubles, were placed the 
 finished articles, on which years of toil and skill had 
 been employed. They were ready when sent for, 
 and waited the caprice of the royal owners. 
 
 We passed out of this valuable collection, through 
 a guard of Circassian soldiers, and past fences of straw 
 thatch upon the rustic road. Before we know the 
 total value in taste or gold of this museum, we are 
 whisked away from the factory and its products by 
 our rapid guide, to a fairy palace, called " Mine 
 Own." 
 
 It is a French chalet, upon the imperial domain 
 of Peterhoff. It is surrounded on its four sides by 
 gardens of flowers, and a lake, a bridge and a chapel 
 in the shrubbery. It was a petite Trianon; only it 
 seemed so fresh, and wore no air of sadness or an- 
 tiquity. Each flower seemed to be bedewed that 
 morning, and the light gave it a fragrance and a 
 sparkle quite harmonious with the gems which we had 
 just left unplucked by the royal hand. In the chapel 
 a lamp was burning at the shrine, where the pro- 
 ducts of the factory glistened in sacred loveliness.
 
 PETER [lOFF. 275 
 
 There is no mention in the sj^uide-books of this pa- 
 viHon, and there is no equal to it which we have 
 seen, except the Rosendal in the Deer Garden. 
 near Stockholm — a counterfeit presentment of this 
 royal nest. We mention it with enthusiasm, because 
 it was not of the auo'ust order, but rather of the do- 
 mestic, as if woman's fine ethereal taste had graced 
 the plans for its erection and adornment. I found 
 that my wife darted from one dainty room to an- 
 other, with a bird-like flutter of impatience at not 
 being able to take it all in at once. The walls were 
 hung with delicate brocades. Each room had its pet 
 color — blue, yellow, white and pink. The bed-room 
 contained a gilded couch, whose bath-room had a 
 sculptured marble basin and a ceiling of mirrors, the 
 effect of which was as unique as it was unexpected, 
 for it reversed us as we looked up, and must have 
 had a curious effect on the living Naiads who dis- 
 ported doubly and upside down in its waters. We 
 saw ourselves that the nymphs which held up the 
 marble baths were doubled by reflection. Polished 
 floors and rarest pictures, were as exquisite as art could 
 design, money buy or royalty wish; and everywhere 
 the result of the rouorh dust and whirlincr lathe of 
 the factory we had already seen. Ah! that "Mine 
 Own " was only fondly mine own ! What joy to 
 gaze at the exquisite delineations and colors of Van 
 Loo and Watteau, Greuse and Isabey — whose pal- 
 ettes were employed by endless rubles of reward and 
 crowninsf o-uerdons of orenius ! The odor of sandal 
 wood fills the pleasant chambers, and makes, with 
 the shapes, lights and colors almost another sense. 
 Here in one chamber are all the beauties of the courts 
 of France; for is it not a petite palais? Here, we 
 see the silks of Moscow and the china of Dresden.
 
 276 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 "All good, all — look, lady, look!" cries out Pilley; 
 "no Brummagem!" 
 
 One of the rooms thus decorated contains all 
 the female relations of the Czar. It is of richest 
 yellow, a color quite as much the vogue in Russia 
 as in Norway, or in aesthetic-land. Around upon 
 tables are porcelain vases of curious design and 
 pictured loveliness. The chapel is discerned out of 
 one of the windows. You may know it to be regal 
 by the golden crown above its gilded dome. We 
 enter the elegant little church. It is devoted to the 
 patron saint of Russia, Alexander Nevsky, whose 
 image — only painted, x\oX. graven — is enclosed, all save 
 its sad, dark face, by chased silver and rich enamel. 
 
 We pass into the sylvan road again, and look 
 about us. How common that woman looks outside, 
 in her rude attire, after seeing these portraits of the 
 princesses and queens of the Romanoff and Bourbon 
 dynasties. How patiently she weeds the cabbages! 
 These are the oxen, are they — who support the great 
 basin in which the luxuriant children of earth lave 
 their delicate limbs? 
 
 But moralizing is of no moment here; nor cal- 
 culations in rubles, as to how much of the Russian 
 public debt the crown jewels, silks and vases might 
 discharge if put under the hammer. For we are out 
 now under nature's sweet air, under avenues of oak 
 and birch; to be repeated for another wonder, in the 
 English palace. 
 
 This is in an English park, laid out by an English 
 gardener, after English style. It is a large, roomy 
 and tasteless edifice, into which, as not into the 
 French palace, " Mine Own " — no royal permit is 
 needed. Balls are given here for charities. It was 
 built in 1 78 1, by the Great Catharine. It holds her
 
 rErERlIOFF. Z'j'j 
 
 contemporary sovereigns in portraiture. A Russian 
 Empress, Elizabeth on horseback, is striking; and 
 not less so, the black boy running in Oriental style 
 by her side. In another chamber Catharine is mounted, 
 like John the Baptist's head, on a charger. She rides, 
 like our Indian squaws and Turkish women, astride. 
 She is barbaric and rides well. In fact she looks 
 every inch a man, and she is not too easily con- 
 founded with the gentler sex. This palace cannot 
 readily be forgotten, for its portraits are perfectly 
 appalling — in this, that the royal ladies are pictured 
 in the quaint fashion and the hideous immensity of 
 the time, when panniers were worn on hip and back. 
 It made monsters of them! Hogsheads do not fur- 
 nish the Brobdignagian metaphor adequate to ex- 
 press the grotesque behemothean largeness of these 
 mothers of princes. Maria Theresa was simply moun- 
 tainous and the Grand Duchesses about her were even 
 more grandiose than Maria! What they were about, 
 no mensuration can tell. 
 
 As we re-enter the park, we begin to observe in 
 every avenue and at every turn the Cossacks of the 
 Don on horseback, with full apparel, cartridge, gun, 
 overcoat and folded blanket. Each horseman is on 
 the alert. There is something unusual astir. Is it 
 the Czar? 
 
 We read of the precaution of the officers of the 
 Czar in dodging public curiosity, as to where and 
 when he will be seen. No wonder, since the late 
 assassination. We also hear of the dishes which he 
 eats and of his enormous appetite, which he whets 
 by the Russian caviar, or zuluska. Without this — 
 which is a mixture on a side table, of herring, dried 
 salmon, sardines, cheese, bread and butter, with raw 
 beets soaked in brandy and bitters and vodka (the
 
 278 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 worst of Russian liquors) — the sterlet of the Volga, a 
 rare fish, and the soup, beef, chicken and substantial 
 would be eaten without relish and with much indiges- 
 tible suspicion. There seems more danger to the 
 Czar in this appetite than in the dynamics of chemis- 
 try or the bullet of Nihilism. 
 
 But were we not told by the guide and by the 
 journals that he was not here to-day; that he 
 had not yet arrived from Moscow and the Nov- 
 gorod fair.-^ But we seem, nevertheless, to be an 
 object of vigilance, and so we return the vigils 
 and watch the Cossacks of the Don. However, 
 we are not challenged, and drive to the " Straw 
 Cottage." It is of brick, but thatched with straw. 
 It is to the left of the main palace, and that we are 
 near to that, the presence of the Cossacks attest. The 
 rooms of this odd cottage — a freak of Catharine — are 
 mirrored all over. They add, in appearance, to its 
 size. One room is checkered in diamond pattern, 
 with artificial vines and a mirrored ceiling, a leather 
 divan and a garden outlook. We still follow our 
 guide with one eye, and have the other on " the 
 Don," and not on the guide-book, which seems to 
 be quite meagre in its details of Peterhoff and the 
 many planetary splendors which surround the main 
 orb, toward which our centripetal guide is bearing us 
 
 We next visit Marly. This was a favorite place 
 for the Great Peter. He lived here. The furniture 
 is of his time and make. Here he used to observe 
 his fleet in the Gulf His bed is here: how many 
 beds he had — a restless man ! All made by his own 
 hands ! The clothes presented to him by the Shah 
 of Persia and the Chinese Emperor are shown; and 
 the woi'ks he did, including those of a watch. But 
 these are not the marvels of Marly.
 
 PETERHOFF. 279 
 
 We go out upon the balcony overlooking a little 
 lake, and M. Pilley throws food to the carp who rush 
 ravenously in schools for it, at the sound of a bell. 
 These were Peter's fish. There is also an oak which 
 he planted here. 
 
 We were soon again in the park, with an eye 
 single still on the horsemen of the Don. Then we 
 go to a curious palace, small and old, odd and outre. 
 It is called the Hermitage, and was one of Peter's 
 pets. It had a dry moat about it. If the moat was 
 not always dry, its old inmates were not either, for 
 this is the place where it is said Catharine had her 
 orgies. We are shown an upper chamber for din- 
 ing. The tables and chairs remain, and contrivances 
 by which, on ringing a bell, your plate goes below, 
 and your dish of meats comes up. No servants were 
 admitted. It is said — how gossip runs riot in his- 
 tory — that the debaucheries of the royal nudities of 
 the time were here celebrated. Certainly there was 
 some design in this culinary mechanism, and if the 
 half be true of Catharine, Potempkin, and the sorry 
 lot of that time they needed some patent to keep 
 them hid. The room now seems dead and bare; the 
 champagne has long since lost its sparkle. The gar- 
 lands of these roystering royalties are faded; their 
 fragrance is — unfragrant. There is a serious part to 
 these performances of the great empress, but it is not 
 found in the rear of this house of ill-repute, and it is 
 no less than a comic piece of clock-work in water, by 
 which, when the fountain is turned on, some artificial 
 ducks swim around. They do not squawk like the 
 famous one Vaucanson made, but there is a dog 
 which follows them, and he barks, while they all 
 spurt water in a funny way. I observed this closely, 
 but I kept an eye out for the Cossacks of the Don.
 
 28o FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Montplaiser, is another little palace, once belonging 
 to and Inhabited by Peter — for he was not Peter the 
 hermit, but lived wherever he could plan or build. 
 At Montplaiser, the Empress Elizabeth turned cook, 
 they say, and made her own porridge and ate it her- 
 self. Peter put in some of his Dutch purchases of 
 paintings here; for while he worked as a shipwright at 
 Zaandam he had an eye on Paul Potter and his cattle, 
 and Wouverman with his gray horses. This palace is 
 odd, and takes its honors as a quaint whim of royalty. 
 While thus roaming amidst pleasures and pal- 
 aces, we are passing between the beautiful fountains 
 which are the special charm, the prismatic glories of 
 Peterhoff. This is their hour and day for play. 
 There are fountains here of every conceit. There 
 are green hedges and gardens, with fountains and 
 rainbows. There is the " Alcove," where you may 
 be seated while the water runs in divided silver over 
 the roof that covers you. There is an artificial tree 
 — the old joke at Chats worth and elsewhere — where 
 a seat invites you, and innumerable jets in the rear 
 of your seat dampen your ardor. There is the open 
 Greek temple, surrounded by jets d'eau, and with 
 bronze divinities and nymphs — a most graceful and 
 classical adornment. The hillside gives us the step 
 waterfalls, one of which is of white marble and has 
 its balustrades and statues of similar material, and 
 another of gilded steps, down which the water trips 
 in light, fantastic beauty, and still another of black 
 and white checker- work — or rather an inclined pave- 
 ment flanked by statues over which the water glides 
 in fleecy lace-work until it falls in shining sheets 
 upon the successive steps before the final cascade, 
 and still one more of pyramidal form and of exquisite 
 effect. All these whimsical water sprites seem to
 
 FETE A' II OFF. 28 1 
 
 be but " ministers of o-i'^ce " to the maornificcnt 
 Sampson jet of eighty feet high. It is so named 
 from the bronze man of Gath forcing open the jaws 
 of the lion, from which rushes the lucent lymph, and 
 from which is thrown, horizontally and vertically, 
 other fountains full of sheafs of limpid sunlight, all 
 prismatic with the spectra. From this are a succes- 
 sion of jets, out of a canal which is fringed with trees, 
 and decorated with gardens, extending five hundred 
 yards in an avenue of shady loveliness, where it finds 
 rest in the sea! The colonnades give fairy retreats 
 at intervals, with fancy tea-rooms near fountains, 
 used exclusively by royalty ! 
 
 This complex beauty of the waters is more splen- 
 did than that of Versailles. They have, when lighted, 
 by lamps behind the sheets and fountains, a rarity 
 of optical beauty incomparably fine. Oh ! for an illu- 
 mination here of our electric lights ! 
 
 All these are but incidents of the palace, and 
 serve but to set it off. If we enter it, is not the 
 pleasure gone ? Does not the external so surpass 
 the interior delight as to make the latter pall ? No; 
 for here again are the exclusive productions of min- 
 eral wealth, tazzas of marble, porcelain and mala- 
 chite, as well as articles of taste, tapestries, and pict- 
 ures of national and local color. Each one is a rare 
 gem of its kind. Here are three hundred and sixty- 
 five pictures of Russian maidens, in provincial cos- 
 tumes, representing the beauty of fifty provinces, a 
 present by a noble artist to Catharine. They look 
 alike — all handsome girls — asleep or smiling, gayly 
 or plainly attired, in different positions, to give some 
 variety to their unity. The playthings of the Czars 
 when babies, are here in Japanese and Chinese rooms, 
 gilded rooms to make one wonder; Dresden china
 
 282 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 ornaments and glass ceilings to make one amazed; 
 eider-down cushions to make one ache to sit down, 
 and tapestry so rare that one cannot tell it from the 
 richest product of the easel. One painting is of es- 
 pecial import. It represents the scene in Peter's life, 
 when in crossinQ^ Lake Ladoo^an he took the helm 
 from the frightened mariners, and with a " Yoit carry 
 Ccssar/" saved all. 
 
 It was a relief when we reached the air again, for 
 the park is lovely. At least so thought our Cossacks 
 of the Don, for on hill and in vale, in shadow and in 
 light, at the ends of avenues and in the woods by 
 the pleasant paths and sweet waters, they sat or 
 rode, vigilant guardians of the wood where Alex- 
 ander, the new Czar, lives ! As we turn one point, 
 we see a cavalcade of carriages hurrying by, and not 
 dreaming that it is the Czar, are not eager to 
 look or pursue. It turned out, as we learned, that 
 it was the Czar, just arrived from Moscow unex- 
 pectedly, as Czars come and go. 
 
 We had noticed much preparation to guard the 
 grounds of Peterhoff. Everywhere were Cossacks 
 on horseback, their guns clone up in black sheepskin 
 and hung neatly on their backs. They watch our 
 lonely carriage with more than usual heed. What 
 can be the matter ? Is this usual ? There are other 
 watchmen, who unexpectedly appear in quiet spots 
 in the big forest. In fact, except a few boys 
 who are fishing in the waters, or at certain other 
 places, a few carts, there is not much ot human, but 
 a great deal of real, nature to be seen. 
 
 I ask often, of Pilley: " Do you not think the Em- 
 peror is here ? " 
 
 " No," he answers, " he is at Moscow; he has been 
 to Novgorod to open the fair."
 
 PETERIIOFF. 283 
 
 ** But why," wc urge, — " this preparation? Surely 
 it is not to protect his Majesty against us ? " 
 
 With much impatience, Pilley says: " If I could 
 get you near the cottage, the cottage within that 
 large gate we passed, you could not see the Emperor 
 or Empress. They don't live in palaces, you know: 
 bless you ! no ! They live in a little cottage in an 
 immense park, within that gateway; and are as 
 quiet and retired as English folk in their parks and 
 homes." 
 
 When I arrived at the hotel and found the "Journal 
 de St. Petersburg" of the 26th July (7th Aout, new 
 style), I was sure that the Emperor and Empress had 
 arrived; and that we had missed them. We learn that 
 they returned to Peterhoff yesterday, at "deux heures 
 de r apres midi." The same journal gives an account 
 of their enthusiastic reception at Yaroslavl and other 
 places on the route hither, where the customary bread 
 and salt were presented; schools and militia reviewed; 
 and pictures of saints and images of Christ, ten- 
 dered. At one of these points of royal pleasure it is 
 recorded that — 
 
 " A la cath^drale Msr Jonathan a complimente le Souverain, qui 
 prouve par son voyage I'affection qu'il nourrit pour ses fideles sujets." 
 
 This Mgf Jonathan,— can it be our own Jonathan ? 
 Has his affection turned toward Russia ? We are 
 ready to believe as Pilley tells us, that high-born 
 ladies smoke and " liquor-up " ; that Peter the Great 
 made all that has been shown us as his handicraft, and 
 that Russia is a land of liberty; but can we believe 
 that Brother Jonathan, Puritan, in a cathedral, has 
 apotheosized the Czar ? 
 
 We were not permitted to enter the palace where 
 he lives. We could only look through the barred
 
 284 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 gates. It adjoins the gardens of the old palace, but 
 it is not open to those who hesitate on the old query 
 " Aut Caesar, aut Nihil." 
 
 In disregard of all inner monitions, but without 
 any molestation from our Cossack couriers, we drive 
 to the lake. A little flat ferr}'-boat bears us over to 
 a fair}' isle. It is called Queens Isle. The pullers 
 on the pullies are sailors in white costume. They 
 hold us with their o-litterino- eve, as we hold them 
 bv a orlitterinsf ruble. Our ooiide bethinks him that 
 we are of the land of \Vashins[ton. He takes us 
 beneath the shade of an oak some thirtv feet hio-h. 
 whereon is hung a brass plate. The plate, regis- 
 ters under the sio-nature of an '' American " the fact 
 that it crrew from an acorn whose oak was near the 
 grave of the not-to-be-forgotten Washington, and 
 which was sent in respect to the Emperor Nicholas. 
 It was George Sumner's present. It is of thrifty 
 growth. I was curious to see how Washington's 
 name looked spelled in Russian. I have not the Rus- 
 sian type, but the nearest approach to be made is 
 
 00000000000000000000000000000000000 
 
 o o 
 
 o Ba7;ruHrmoHa 1 o 
 
 o o 
 
 o o 
 
 00000000000000000000000000000000000 
 
 I asked the guide to spell it. " Va-sha-ei-n-g- 
 toft-af" Pretty well sounded. About as near as the 
 Czar is to Washinsfton in political sentiment and 
 popular freedom. Still the oak was of our soil and as 
 such we picked some of the thrifty leaves to send to 
 friends as a reminder that the tree of Washington 
 may not be altogether of hopeless growth on this 
 Muscovite soil.
 
 PErERnoFF. 285 
 
 There is a pleasant pavilion upon ihis island. A 
 blue and white column of twisted glass gives bright- 
 ness to the picture. There are some rooms of 
 Pompeiian style, with marble vases and statues, 
 and a beauteous Psyche and a butterfly. There are 
 mosaics everywhere. Returning, we drop into a 
 cottage by the lake, and for twenty-five copecks (or 
 ten cents) get a jug of rich milk. It was refreshing, 
 as we had missed our dinner amid the unusual ex- 
 citement of this day in Peterhoff. But more is in 
 reserve. Not more milk, but more excitement. We 
 must hie to the Sampson pavilion, and see the source 
 of these waters— the birthplace of these playful naiads 
 of royalty ! Far off it shines upon a distant hill, 
 with an acropolis or crowned temple, and a huge 
 windmill to mark it ! Passing some houses in the 
 village, and two pieces of straw on a pole — a sign of 
 the number of regiments quartered in the town — and 
 seeing soldiers practising in the fields, and passing 
 some Finnish girls who are working in these fields and 
 gardens, and who do not disdain to chaffer with the 
 guide, we reach, through meadows of sweet hay, the 
 Babylon temple ! We ascend to its balcony. St. 
 Petersburg is in view on the northeast. One ob- 
 ject glitters like a diamond-star, burning to a focus 
 of white fire. It is the top of the Admiralty min- 
 aret, under which dead royalty sleeps. There are 
 hills further to the south, but not high; little patches 
 of towns are on the plain. On the north and east 
 the Gulf of Finland, like a sheet of silver broadens 
 out, with Peterhoff between, at our feet. This is 
 one of the finest views in all Russia, unless it be 
 that at Novgorod and the one from the Kremlin at 
 Moscow. To fill up the level landscape, black and 
 white cattle and some twenty villages are in the
 
 286 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 foreground; patches of green and yellow, grain and 
 oats in growth and just harvested, and the wooded 
 park all about the palaces ! 
 
 At our feet is the model mill, to which we must 
 go, out of respect to Peter the Great. It is moved 
 by the fosse, made by the water here at its source. 
 It is a cottage, with a big wheel, and is both a house 
 and a factory. It has its crockery and other appli- 
 ances as a pattern of the housekeeping for a miller's 
 wife. This reminds us of the real model house of 
 the Czar, which we now visit. There we find the 
 peasant's comfort, as the ruler would have it in the- 
 ory, perhaps. One room shows the plates and salt- 
 cellars, out of carved wood such as are used. in re- 
 ceiving the Emperor when he visits the towns of his 
 realm. Many of these are elaborately carved and 
 rich, and betoken the opulence of the city; others 
 are plain, and indicate a peasant's present on a 
 visit by the Czar to his hut. Many old costumes and 
 stoves are preserved. In fact, the model house is a 
 sort of rural museum, and it is worth a better study 
 than we gave it. 
 
 What other objects of interest Peterhoff presents, 
 such as the newly manufactured "ruin" in the heart 
 of the forest, and the lake, with its variety of boats 
 of all nations, it is hardly necessary to dilate upon. 
 Altogether, it was a royal day, and, being such, no 
 Cossack of the Don called a halt upon its enjoyment. 
 Driving to a restaurant, where the elite of the town — 
 a riLs ill 7Lrbc — were gathering to hear music; and, 
 with a view— all resplendent — of the gulf, we dine al 
 fresco, and finish in time for a pleasant sail, to St. 
 Petersburg under a rich evening glow, and conclude 
 the most delightful and least wearisome day of our 
 travel.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FROM ST. TETERSBURG TO MOSCOW— THE COUNTRY BETWEEN 
 —THE CAPITAL OF THE RUSSIAN GREEK CHURCH— JOHN 
 THE TERRIBLE. 
 
 "When ivith the e^icr circling years, 
 Came round the age of gold." 
 
 WHATEVER may be said of Russia, nothing but 
 praise can be awarded to her railroads. In so 
 far as they run — and they run further even into the 
 East than we are wont to beheve — and in so far as 
 we have tried them, they are nearly perfect. We 
 came over from St. Petersburg to this ancient and 
 ecclesiastical capital of Russia, via rail, four hundred 
 and fifty miles. We left at 7 p. m. and were here at 
 ten next morning, and slept on our way as snugly — 
 more snugly than in our American sleepers. The 
 guards were all in uniform, and we had no official in- 
 terruptions, but much aid from them. The beds are 
 wide seats, and are at right angles with the long car, 
 the ceiling of which is high and well ventilated. Each 
 sleeping room is apart, though there are accommoda- 
 tions for families. The trains are not fast, but sure; 
 and the depots are substantial and elegant; the track 
 well ballasted and the brido^es safe and beautiful. The 
 meals en roitte were all we could wish. Perhaps this 
 is an exceptional road. One feature of the car is, that 
 at the end is a glass-windowed apartment for smok- 
 ing, recreation and observation.
 
 288 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 When I arose at six, we were reaching a depot in 
 a village, and I took the Hberty of spending the time 
 until our breakfast at Klin, in looking out upon the 
 landscape. 
 
 The country, two-thirds of the way to Moscow, 
 is prairie. The remaining third of the way is roll- 
 ing, but it is pretty well cultivated. There are long 
 reaches where the fields or ranges are bare of all but 
 shrubbery or brush, reminding one of parts of Long 
 Island. I was surprised at the breadth of grain and 
 oats sown. The wheat is ready for the sickle, and the 
 sickle in the hands of men and women is already at its 
 work. A good deal of grain is already stacked in 
 little shocks, and tied in pyramidal form — to shed the 
 rain. Adding these reaped fields to the oblong green 
 and golden fields, spreading far off from horizon to 
 horizon, and interwoven like tapestry with the tra- 
 cery of pine and birch forests, here and there, and 
 with the meadows full of haycocks in neat rows, or 
 with herds of cattle and horses, and you have a land- 
 scape in harvest time in middle Russia. There are 
 villages, too, plenty of them — old, dingy-looking, un- 
 painted and tumbling down. They are made of logs 
 and thatched with straw. They do not indicate im- 
 provement; although there are cars on the track for 
 grain and cattle by the hundred, and not a few im- 
 mense fiocks of sheep and herds of cattle and droves 
 of horses in fields by the way, which do indicate much 
 advancement and great industry. 
 
 We notice quite a large number of animals, 
 guarded by an unpicturesque person — like a Kabyle 
 in Algiers — in a flowing sheepskin, and with a 
 hermit's staff. He was a gentle shepherd. 
 
 There are more or less of fine farm-houses, as the 
 nucleus of larc^e farmino^; and about this nucleus are
 
 FROM ST. PETERSnURG TO MOSCOIV. 2S9 
 
 trees and outhouses. The trees are of bircli, looking" 
 so natty, clean and whitish, with their thin and slim 
 trunks, that it was a delight to the eye. They seem 
 to illumine the woods. Occasionally we discover some 
 peasants going forth to the fields, the women in short 
 kirtles and the men in heavy coats — for the men seem 
 to affect heavy and long dresses, even in summer. 
 
 As we approach Moscow, all necks are craned to 
 get the first glance at the Oriental city. Soon the 
 vision dawns. I had read when a boy the picture 
 made by Walter Scott, in his " Life of Napoleon " — 
 of the exquisite and charming aspect of the city, as it 
 was first seen by the French soldiers in the campaign 
 of 1812. How it shone, and has shone ever since to 
 my memory, with its gilded and green domes and 
 minarets, its many-hued roofs and white houses, 
 its alamedas of foliage and its far-off Oriental mag- 
 nificence ! 
 
 Was this vision realized? Well, I must confess 
 that a rainy day and a sloppy street and some other 
 matters rather disenchanted me of the vision of the 
 morning of my life. Still let me not be hasty. I 
 will enter a motion to reconsider, and sleep over the 
 matter till morning. 
 
 The motion to reconsider is not laid on the 
 table. It is carried. With the aid of a bright, 
 sunny day, and the American Consul, the genial 
 Mr. Weber, and after the kindest attentions from 
 our Belgian landlord and a splendid room and 
 dinner, and a rousing, or rather an unroused sleep, 
 we begin examining the Kremlin, within its sacred 
 walls, and the tout ensemble of the city changes ! 
 Nearly a thousand years of traditions and veracities, 
 with the architecture to match and confirm, along 
 with the childlike credulity with which we are learn
 
 290 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 ingr to observe, and some slender chance views of 
 the city, we are ready to swear that our disenchant- 
 ment is disenchanted ! 
 
 Aiding us in our interest in this city of romance 
 has been the spirit of Ivan (John) the Terrible ! He 
 is to Moscow what Peter is to St. Petersburg. He 
 is omnipresent, though dead these several hundred 
 years. When he was not olDserving the decapita- 
 tion of his subjects in the Bloody Square, he was 
 busy praying and propagating his religion. When 
 we drove through the Bloody Square, we ex 
 pected to see sanguinary sights! In fact, there is 
 remaining here a stone circle, enclosed by stone 
 walls and " grilled " in by gates of iron. This John 
 used for cuttino- off heads, while he observed the cere- 
 mony from a green tower one hundred feet above and 
 two hundred yards off upon the walls of the Kremlin. 
 
 The place now has an innocent look, and is an 
 eligible place for a band of music. The harmony 
 of this thought was disturbed by a cracked bell, 
 not lying exactly upon the ground, but raised on 
 brick. It only weighed when it last fell in a fire, in 
 the year a. d. 1737, 444,000 pounds. It is decorated 
 with the figures of the Czar Alexis and his Empress, 
 and has on it some scrolls and sacred writing. 
 
 There is a fraofment, about one tenth of its weight, 
 lymg near by on the ground. There are some fis- 
 sures perceivable in the bell. There is a bit of 
 romance about this big bell, for it was all jewelled. 
 It is said that the ladies of Moscow threw their gems 
 of silver and gold into the incandescent metal 
 while the bell was being prepared, and these offer- 
 ings of beauty led to the fissures and weakness in the 
 bell. When did the tender sentiment of the fair sex 
 fail to make dancjerous the hii/h soundinir — but I
 
 FROM ST. rETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 29 1 
 
 cannot gracefully end the sentence. Is not my wife 
 looking over my shoulder? 
 
 We dismount from our carriacre to examine this 
 enormous bell. The clapper requires two dozen 
 men to handle it. Talk of political rings ! What a 
 ring was here, my countrymen ! Through a gate, 
 and near by — within these walls — we perceive a big 
 gun whose calibre would not be full, if a ring of 
 twenty-four men were shoved in — as wadding. 
 
 There are on these festive ramparts eight hundred 
 and seventy-six other guns, mostly French trophies, 
 small and great. But they showed no disposition to 
 go off — so we went into the Assumption and other 
 churches under a score or more of domes and towers 
 of gilded copper. Some of these were bell towers, 
 and one of them has the largest active bell in the 
 world, but it is a baby beside the enormous one I 
 have noticed as disabled. These churches are more 
 or less faded, and the pictures on their exterior do 
 not show very nicely, although even in their deca- 
 dence they remind one of the gay mosques of Mos- 
 lem lands. 
 
 I thought we had escaped John the Terrible; but 
 our guide points at the steps upon which he sat when 
 he ran his cane into the foot of a messenger of ill 
 tidings, and killed him with the same staff with 
 which he killed his own son; so that when the Em- 
 peror was here last week the sanguinary memory 
 was continued by having a red carpet put down on 
 those steps — for the Czar ! One would think that 
 these tragedies and the memory of them would not 
 be encouraged in Russia at the present time. 
 
 We rest a while upon the battlement, overlooking 
 the River Moskva, which makes a letter S, within 
 whose curves and to the south lies the smaller part
 
 292 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 of the city. It gave us a grand prospect. You 
 may think Brooklyn a city of churches. It has a 
 couple of score or so; but Moscow has three hundred 
 and eighty-five ! I counted from this Kremlin height 
 on the south one hundred and eighty alone ! Most 
 of them, like the roofs of the city, are painted green 
 on their domes and minarets. 
 
 " See yonder," says the guide; " there are the 
 Sparrow Hills, from which Napoleon viewed the 
 city, in all its sun-lit glory, before it roared and 
 cracked in the fiery furnace of patriotic devotion ! 
 And that is the gate — that red one, with the tower 
 above it — where he entered from the west to make 
 this, his ill-starred capture. Those woods on the 
 elevation are the highest about this city; and it is 
 from that point that the Napoleonic soul glowed over 
 the prospect of spoliation, to which these hundreds of 
 silver and orold shrines of the Eastern Church were 
 subjected." 
 
 Moscow is a city which has walls within it. There 
 is a sort of Chinese quarter, which is walled; but there 
 are no Chinese there. They have "gone," if they 
 ever were here. Within this quarter are plenty of 
 shops. The Oriental bazaar is a part of this Oriental 
 place; but the Kremlin, with its twisted Byzantine 
 architecture and its many-hued domes, is a place by 
 itself. It is surrounded by a turreted wall, with tow- 
 ers of screen at intervals, and the river boundino- it on 
 the south. It has been destroyed often, and as often 
 rebuilt. It has within it not only the religious but 
 the dynastic buildings, and on a fair day and with its 
 large plaza clean and its colossal monument, looks 
 quite imposing as well as quaint. Often and often 
 have its besiegers sought to gain entrance within 
 this walled citadel, and only once or twice has there
 
 FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MO SCO IV. 293 
 
 been success. The gates, too, have a sacred charac- 
 ter. Indeed, Moscow is a sainted city. If there 
 were nothing" else to sanctify it, the patriotic holo- 
 caust caused by the French invasion would do it. 
 What a victory the Gaul had! But of his 45o,ooo 
 troops, 400,000 were left upon the plains of Russia. 
 What a defeat! Dazzling, bewildering, wonderful 
 Moscow! Marvellous in its building and rebuilding, 
 and more marvellous in its vicissitudes ! 
 
 The tour through these various churches, with 
 their victorious flags and gifts of precious stones; 
 their tombs of the Romanoff Kings until the time 
 of Peter the Great, and their chapels and altars of 
 silver, all gilded, is the work of a week. We essay 
 it in two days. One impression follows. It would 
 seem that gold was the prevailing aesthetic taste 
 when they were built, as every available space not 
 dedicated to paintings is gilded. These were the 
 days by " Prophet bards foretold " — the golden age. 
 
 But they did not give the era of peace; for these 
 years of golden decoration were full of conflict, which 
 no anofel choir celebrated as the dawn of the millen- 
 nium. To these old altars come pilgrims from all 
 Russia — descendants of the ancient Scythians and 
 the recent Tartars. I noticed three poorly-clad, 
 naked-footed females drop their sacks and tin cups 
 in the church of St. Basil, and deliberately make the 
 religious round, kissing every image on their way. 
 It was the work of a whole day. We met them at 
 every turn, making their genuflexions, their heads 
 touching the stone pavement and their crossing being 
 devotedly incessant. The French are said to have 
 taken away five tons of this sacred silver from Mos- 
 cow and its churches, yet how much remains ! 
 
 Did we leave Moscow without a full view of the
 
 294 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 city from the tower of bells, where some thirty-one 
 of these favorites are hunor- to make their sacred fete 
 days more sacred ? We had a bright day yester- 
 day, and improved it from the Bell Tower. Such 
 a vision cannot be had from any other place ! It 
 is surrounded by the green hills all round the 
 splendid circle, within which live nearly a million 
 souls. What gives such attraction to this view is 
 the many colors of the roofs and the domes and 
 spires. Some few are of silver, notably that of 
 the church of the Catholics. It crhstens like a 
 temple apart from the rest; and so it is. Below 
 us, from the tall tower of the bells, are the courts 
 and palace where a dynasty of many hundred years 
 has been nurtured or murdered — or at least gone ! 
 
 A new and a better order prevails in Russia now. 
 Much as it might be improved — one thing is to be 
 said, that she has local legislatures, or communes of 
 her own for her local, land and other affairs, with 
 their tax and other questions ever rising for home- 
 rule settlement. Wallace, in his volume on Russia, 
 thus descrii3es this legislature : 
 
 " The zemstro is a kind of local administration 
 which supplements the action of the rural communes 
 and takes cognizance of those higher public wants 
 which individual communes cannot possibly satisfy. 
 Its principal duties are to keep the roads and bridges 
 in proper repair, to provide means of conveyance for 
 the rural police and other officials, to elect the jus- 
 tices of peace, to look after primary education and 
 sanitary affairs, to watch the state of the crops and 
 take measures against approaching famine, and in 
 short to undertake, within certain clearly-defined lim- 
 its, whatever seems likely to increase the material and 
 moral well-being of the population. In form the in-
 
 ST. basil's church, MOSCOW,
 
 FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW. 295 
 
 stitution is parliamentary — that is to say, it consists 
 of an assembly of deputies which meets at least once 
 a year, and of a permanent executive bureau elected 
 by the assembly from amon^- its members. If the 
 assembly be re^'arded as a local parliament, the bu- 
 reau corresponds to the ministry. . . . Once every 
 three years the deputies are elected in certain fixed 
 proportions by the landed proprietors, the rural com- 
 munes and the munici[)al cor|)orations. Every prov- 
 ince (guberniya) and each of the districts (uyezdi) 
 into which the province is subdivided, has such an 
 asseml^ly and such a bureau." 
 
 " The reader may perhaps imagine that the zem- 
 stro has, like the rural commune, growai up slowly in 
 the course of centuries, and is in its present form a 
 remnant of ancient liberties which has successfully 
 resisted the centralizing tendencies of the autocratic 
 power. In reality it is nothing of the sort. It is a 
 modern institution, created by the autocratic power 
 about ten years ago, and represents the most recent 
 attempt to lighten the duties and correct the abuses 
 of the imperial administration by means of local self- 
 government." 
 
 Mr. Wallace says that the Russians are indifferent 
 in these councils and do not care to do more than 
 sleep, while a few talk and manage. There is one 
 remedy for that — education. This Russia greatly 
 needs, for her masses. But the time is advancing 
 for all people, and Russia is not altogether exceptional. 
 
 By a glance at the map I find that we are further 
 East by many degrees than Constantinople, and in- 
 stead of going thither via Vienna and the Danube, 
 we propose to go via Odessa and the Black Sea. 
 We leave to-day, and so next Sunday we will be 
 within the Sublime Porte — going in by the back door 
 and not by the front door, as we expected.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 IN THE HEART OF CATHEDRALS AND RELICS OF MOS- 
 COW.— FAIRS AND FIGHTING GROUNDS. 
 
 "To see clearly, is poetry, prophecy, and religion, all in one." 
 
 — RUSKIN. 
 
 IT may not be the usual route "up to Jerusa- 
 lem " which we have taken, but it makes up in 
 interest what it wants in directness. It is said, in 
 morals and mathematics, that the best and short- 
 est way between two points is the right line ; but 
 is that said of touring ? " A tour " means a voyage 
 " round," and we have come via France, Belgium, 
 Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Russia, 
 thus far C7i I'oiite to Jerusalem ! The city of David 
 and the capital of Judea, via the Arctic Ocean ; 
 from the pine to the palm ; from the Pole to the 
 pyramids ; via Palestine ! 
 
 How much to remind us of the Arctics and the 
 home of Saviour, prophet, and saint, is to be found 
 here in Moscow, midway between the two locali- 
 ties ! Was there ever such an assembly of eccle- 
 siastical memories as Moscow offers ? Its five hun- 
 dred churches faintly illustrate, within and without, 
 this constant devotion of these Greek Christians. 
 It is not for me to measure the sincerity of any 
 sect, much less to weigh a great hierarchy by the 
 ingots of silver and tons of gold, or by the richness 
 of clerical apparel, or parures of gems, which adorn 
 
 2g6
 
 CATHEDRALS OF iMOSCOW. 
 
 '■91 
 
 religious shrines, pictures, and temples. If the 
 Graeco-Russian Church is to be tested by its out- 
 ward splendors and ceremonies, in so far as we 
 have seen it in this land, then its devotion is be- 
 yond all competition, if not praise. But this wealth 
 of outer show does not tell the inner life. It is 
 the shell — the synibol only. 
 
 The cathedrals within the court-yard of the 
 Kremlin are shown to gaping peasants, and, I may 
 add, tourists, who gaze with amazement upon the 
 thrones and crowns, cradles and sepulchres of 
 patriarchs and kings. 
 
 We visited the Assumption and St. Michael Ca- 
 thedrals, which have retained, in spite of war and 
 fire, their early form and glory. They fairly burst 
 with ancestral (jlories. Here Czars were crowned 
 and primates elected. Here princes swore fealty 
 to the throne, and here are shown jewels worth 
 whole satrapies, estimated by mercenary men at 
 $250,000. In the first-nam.ed church is shown the 
 tomb of a patriarch. Saint Philip, murdered by 
 " John the Terrible," and a portion of his forehead 
 over the silver tomb is exhibited. It is kissed fer- 
 vently by hundreds every day. The Emperor on 
 his visit here last week, among his few felicities, I 
 suppose, kissed this sacred forehead. There are 
 five domes over this Church of the Assumption. 
 Next year the present Czar, after much fasting and 
 seclusion, is to have his coronation in this holiest 
 of holy churches. He places his crown on his own 
 head, being an autocrat ; and then that of the Em- 
 press upon her head, coming from the inner ady- 
 tum of the temple, where he has partaken of the 
 communion. One may see from this why it is that 
 the religion of Russia is so closely interlaced with
 
 298 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 its autocracy. An old throne is shown to us in 
 this church over nine hundred years old. Here, 
 too, is a figure of Mount Sinai in solid gold and 
 silver, and an immense Bible, which takes two men 
 to carry. It was given, gems and all, by the mother 
 of Peter the Great. The number and value of 
 the manuscripts, not to speak of the relics here 
 preserved, stagger belief ; but assuredly no one can 
 doubt that this is the Kremlin, and that these are 
 its surviving glories. Nor can any one doubt — 
 unless one has the " historic doubts concerning 
 Napoleon," suggested by Archbishop Whately's 
 tractate — that these very buildings were used by 
 Napoleon and his army, as well as abused. This 
 chapel was his stable, that church a hospital, and 
 the other a warehouse. No one can doubt, either, 
 that under that splendid enamel and gold, studded 
 with gems, is an illuminated edition, all genuine, of 
 the gospels of a. d. 1125. These relics are too 
 precious to be — counterfeit. 
 
 In the course of a morning we pass through other 
 sacred edifices, equally historic and preserving an- 
 cient and authentic records of the days of the early 
 Christian church, and each having a special func- 
 tion in this hierarchy. Within and without this 
 sacred, inclosure, one sees that, at least, the great 
 mass of the people have absolute credence in these 
 rare and rich treasures. Who shall deny them 
 this solace ? If one believe that the emblem of 
 salvation is of ivory, when it is only of wood, who 
 shall deny the devotee the consolation ? 
 
 As we wander amidst these mazes of pictured 
 gold and under lofty arches, the slant beams of 
 the sun in great bars, flash against the gold and 
 jewels, and the motes, like human souls, move in
 
 CATHEDRALS OF MOSCOW. 299 
 
 tlic lustre, aimless, it would seem, and yet illu- 
 mined, poor atomies, by this precious yet dim 
 religious light. 
 
 I have said that the sacerdotal and political in 
 Russia were one, but it has not become so alto- 
 gether, without a protest ; nor is the unity perfect. 
 Still, in looking over the immense palace within 
 the Kremlin walls, the former residence of the 
 Czars— built about the time Columbus discovered 
 our continent — there is much to recall the duplex 
 association. Halls, drawing-room, bedrooms, even 
 bath-rooms, galleries, and courts, have their sacred 
 memories, and chapels, showing that this Russian 
 dynasty, and the one which preceded it, had been 
 built upon the petrifaction of the human heart, as 
 well as upon its sanctification through the elements 
 and promises of the unseen world. In spite of fire 
 and carnage, these relics of the rulers of Russia 
 make a splendid show, which the people rush in 
 crowds to see. At every turn we perceive a long 
 line of Russians, following a guide, who shows the 
 treasures of the past with a hurried rhetoric quite 
 equal to that of the warder of the London Tower. 
 Here are galleries where are seen standards cap- 
 tured in battle from Tartars and Swedes, corona- 
 tion and other robes In glass cases by the dozen ; 
 crowns with mounted gems of all sizes and values ; 
 presents from khan and king, shah and emperor ; 
 aye, even the chair of the mad Charles XH., of 
 Sweden, in which he was borne from the luckless 
 field of Pultowa, and the flags given by Alexander 
 I. to the Polish army, which, the inscription says, 
 they dishonored by rebellion ; and here also is the 
 constitution accorded by him to the Poles ! This 
 written benefaction — this Polish constitution — is
 
 200 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 shown, and in no satirical or ironical mood it is 
 here seen, in a black box, over a portrait of the 
 imperial benefactor ! 
 
 It is time, after such an exhibition, for pure air. 
 So we dash out and up — up again into the Tower 
 of Bells. Bells on bells arise in tower on tower, 
 thirty-one in all, not counting the big one on the 
 ground, cracked and useless. I cannot estimate the 
 weight of each or all of these bells, but one of the 
 clappers weighed 4,400 pounds ! Inside these me- 
 tallic monsters are chalked the names of visitors. 
 One would think that Russia had run out of bell- 
 metal, or that the article was scarce, for two of 
 these big bells are of silver, and the biggest one, 
 which lies cracked and fragmentary on the ground, 
 is the largest of all, or larger than all put together. 
 They are symbols of the religious devotion, of 
 which Moscow is the crreat nerve-centre of the 
 empire. 
 
 When all these bells, led by the dethroned mon- 
 arch, were tintinnabulating together, whether mer- 
 rily and euphoniously for a wedding ; in terrific 
 alarm, with clang and clash, for fire, or in a solemn 
 melody in the silence of the night, when ghouls are 
 pulling at the rope, — the rolling and moaning and 
 groaning, and sinking and swelling and clanging 
 must have made Moscow mad ! Edgar Poe heard 
 their Runic rhyme, and set them tolling in his 
 verse. 
 
 From this tower, whose walls are eight feet 
 thick, we have an observatory of all the wondrous 
 scenery in and around this marvellous Moscow. 
 Turning to the west are the Sparrow Hills, whence 
 the cry of the French went up, " Moscow ! Mos- 
 cow ! " as they gloated over the expected capture
 
 CATHEDRALS OF ^^OSCOW. 
 
 301 
 
 and the approacliino- loot. Winding around and 
 away into the distance is the pleasant river beneath 
 the Kremlin walls. T^ar away it winds, beyond our 
 ken, till it joins the Oka and the Volga, to mingle 
 its waters with the Caspian Sea. The gilt and 
 silver domes, the crosses above them, and the 
 eagles on the s])ires dazzle and blind the eye, 
 which seeks relief in the long yellow palaces for 
 soldiers and foundlings, and the bridges which 
 span the Moscow stream. A few flags flutter in 
 the breezy sky, double-eagled as they fly, while the 
 green roofs and green horizon of the hills beyond 
 make up and fill in a circlet of artificial and natural 
 beauty which no other city or prospect in the wide 
 world can parallel. 
 
 There may be a surfeit even of external religion, 
 such as these structural glories symbolize. It is a 
 relief to read the sacred script of Nature, in whose 
 sylvan temples, and without bent knee or anthem, 
 in the vast cathedral of the woods, the silences may 
 become choral and the soul seek its Source of Light 
 and Love, without the intervention of voices and 
 imagery. 
 
 Let us to the hills beyond. Can we not visit the 
 heights, and renew, at least, the emotions of the 
 army of invasion ? Yes. Can we not recall the 
 glittering array of that immense Gallic and Ger- 
 man host, and feel the throbbing pulse of that king- 
 compelling conqueror in his pride ? Here, in the 
 land of the Muscovite and Tartar — a land where 
 war seems to be the natural condition of men or 
 dynasties ; where intrigues have supplemented force 
 in endless succession, regardless of human weal or 
 woe — here, in those September days, sixty-nme 
 years ago, came into this land of battles the great
 
 302 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Corsican. In the heat of summer he had pushed 
 from the Niemen to Wihia — cunnlne Russian 
 Fabiuses discreetly drawing on the victor of Aus- 
 terhtz. The wary De Tolly at length feels the 
 presence, very near, of this victorious invader, for 
 he is at Smolensk. Once more the Fabian policy. 
 At length the impatient Emperor Alexander tires 
 of Fabius, but he rues the day of Borodino as a 
 consequence. The French, too, were weary of 
 the long struggle ; and as despair was about set- 
 tling upon their ranks the golden domes and daz- 
 zling minarets, now shining in this August sun, 
 catch their eye from this hill of vantage ! What 
 followed, history records. What the Nemesis was 
 is truly told in the terrible ravage of palace and 
 temple, monuments and miracles of art, cradles, 
 tombs, homes, and lives — all by one great besom 
 swept into the abyss of destruction and revenge. 
 
 Let us look above us — as we chanofe our excur- 
 sion to the road north. It is a monument of victory 
 under which we ride — Russian victory over the 
 conqueror ! Black as a funeral hearse it spans the 
 road to the summer palace. "What is it?" you 
 ask. An arch of triumph made out of the charred 
 remains of this Moscow of 1812 — the compacted 
 cinders of the great self-immolation ! Beyond it is 
 a vast plain, typical of Russia ; for it is covered 
 with tents, and in them bivouac fifty thousand 
 troops — the police of Moscow. Over a good turn- 
 pike we drive for some miles past the gas-lamps 
 and long-haired Russians, passing the heavy carts 
 and curious omnibuses, until we perceive a huge 
 brick edifice within circular walls. Let us drive 
 through its park, called Petrofski. It is not old ; 
 for the year wdiich gave our colonies the battle of
 
 CATHEDRALS OF MOSCOW. 
 
 303 
 
 Lexington — whose shot was "heard round the 
 world " — saw this palace arise amidst these grounds 
 of loveliness. The Emperor sometimes visits it, 
 and, in safer times, he used to hold reviews on the 
 plain in front. It was here that Napoleon retired 
 when the fire of the burning city made the Krem- 
 lin too hot for him to hold his court and council. 
 
 A rain comes on. We take refuge in the fa- 
 mous Sax's Garden, in the park, where one may 
 have the best of dinners while listening to the gypsy 
 sones in the Russian tonfjue, and seeing^ their 
 dance, a dance which has, like themselves, no na- 
 tionality ! 
 
 There are many excursions about Moscow which 
 a tourist is bound to make, besides the theatres, 
 museums, cafes, and other objects of mere local 
 and social interest. The excursion to which we 
 had solemnly dedicated ourselves was to the fair of 
 Nijni-Novgorod. It had just opened. The Czar 
 had been there to dedicate it. This city of fairs is 
 not far from the Asiatic line, and is only one night's 
 ride from Moscow, for there is now a railroad 
 thither. Did we go to the fair? No; we sent 
 ambassadors. Four young Americans — two from 
 Massachusetts and two from the West — started out 
 and were to report. Did they see the road lined 
 with marvels? No ; it was a dead, level plain, and 
 not as interesting, as a wheat and cattle producer, 
 as the land between St. Petersburg and Moscow. 
 And the city ? They tried no hotels, though they tar- 
 ried in the town all day, leaving their traps at the 
 station, and went out disgusted at nightfall on the 
 train. Did they see the hundreds of thousands of 
 Asiatics, and their temples of worship, and marts 
 of trade ? Did they make the report which only a
 
 304 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 few years ago every visitor made — of barracks and 
 Cossacks, mosques, pagodas, idols, and idol-break- 
 ers, dignified Turks and long- cued Celestials, 
 Hindoos of hio-h caste and of low de^rree, and the 
 rivers Volga and Oka in vvnld conjunction from the 
 heart of Russia, and the Kama from the Ural 
 Mountains, all alive with barges and boats and their 
 denizens, and the heights above the old town, with 
 the magnificent view over the boundless prospect ? 
 Yes, somewhat ; they viewed the heights, the for- 
 tress, and an immense assemblage, with their trades 
 in active chaffer. But the great fair itself, and its 
 ceremonies, together with its varied and manifold 
 commerce, its piles of tea and cases of diamonds, 
 its robes and shawls, its furs and gear for man and 
 horse, its fair, as we have heard of it in Western 
 climes, from tranced and poetic pens, is now obso- 
 lete. Steam and rail, telegraph and progress, have 
 made Novgorod and its fair almost as venerable as 
 its namesake of the earlier centuries. Greek and 
 Persian, Asiatic and European, are there, but in a 
 very unromantic way, selling and buying, amid rain 
 and mud, and not in colored booths, like the fabled 
 fair of other days and of the Orient. 
 
 When our committee returned we asked : " Did 
 you see the Russian in sheepskin, haggling with 
 the Persian in his gaudy robes ? Did you see the 
 baggy-breeched Ottoman, in manifold turban, talk- 
 ing Turkish to the European, in beard, waistcoat, 
 and trousers of formal cut ? Were Tartars and 
 Circassians dickering about furs and wools, arms 
 and jewels, with Koords, Turcomans, Arabians, 
 Chinese, Scythians, Greeks, bond and free ? Above 
 all, did you see the mujik, in jack-boots, blue panta- 
 loons, and red shirt ? "
 
 CATHEDRALS OF MOSCOW. 
 
 305 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed our committee, "the mujik 
 was everywhere, the rest nowhere ; he, the type of 
 Russia, whose hair is dirty-liued and racy of the 
 soil — long, too, and which he never combs, but 
 which he swishes out at monthly intervals, as a 
 horse swishes his tail — he was there, the pre-emi- 
 nent genius of new Nijni-Novgorod ! " 
 
 This was true, though unromantic. 
 
 Our committee of four, therefore, reported that 
 the ride of two nights and the observation of one 
 day were not compensatory. We, therefore, gave 
 up Novgorod, and, with the advice and aid of our 
 considerate Consul at Moscow, Mr. Weber, we 
 prepared to move from Moscow toward the sweet 
 South, where the salt wind of the Euxine might 
 give its salubrity. Then the question arose, Shall 
 we go to the Crimea or to the Caucasus } To either 
 of these points there is railroad accommodation. 
 Be it known, that it is easier to go to Sevastopol 
 and Kertch — the one to see the scenes of modern 
 valor, and the other to observe the tombs of old 
 Grecian civilization — than to Odessa itself. Nor 
 is it difficult to go to the interior of the Caucasus, 
 and to its capital, for the railroad is on its winding 
 way through the possessions of the Russian. From 
 Moscow, due south, it runs to Kharkof ; thence 
 south-west, and through the land of the Mennon- 
 ites — now being depopulated by emigration to 
 America — to Taganrog, at the north-west point on 
 the Sea of Azof, and from thence south-west, until 
 its last station on the north side of the ereat chain 
 of Caucasus is found at Vladikavkas, under the 
 shadow or snows of Mount Kasbak ! This we con- 
 sidered quite a feasible route ; but if we had gone 
 there — could we have hesitated at leaping the
 
 2o6 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 mountain chain, where with some precaution, and 
 after a httle more effort, the Persian clime of 
 beauty and the reahii of rarest romance and his- 
 tory, would make a fit ending of an oriental tour ? 
 But we hesitated, owing to some temporary 
 illness, and, amid many regretful farewells, we 
 found ourselves, minus a guide, and in a land 
 whose language was unknown, on the way toward 
 Odessa. 
 
 This is no small journey even by rail, it being 
 over one thousand miles ; but it is en route to Jeru- 
 salem, and it goes by way of Constantinople. 
 
 I need not say that there was, and is, a feeling 
 of relief quite ineffable, in even a tendency toward 
 Turkey and out of Russia. Why we have had a 
 perpetual disquietude since w^e stepped on Russian 
 soil, it is hard to define. There is an unrest and 
 anxiety here, much more serious than mere postal 
 irregularities. It may be better expressed, and with 
 reasons, when I find the land of the " cypress and 
 myrtle " within thy precincts, O Stamboul !
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE EASTERN CHURCH— ITS ARCHITECTURAL GRANDEURS 
 IN RUSSIA. 
 
 IVe hate not the relii!;ion of bare 7i/a//s, 
 
 JVe scorn not the Catliedrats pomp of prayer. 
 
 For sweet are all our Father's festivals, 
 
 If co7t trite hearts the heavenly banquet share. 
 
 In field or temple, God is everywhere. 
 
 — Ebenezer Elliott. 
 
 THE Greek Church has in its communion nearly- 
 all of the people of Russia, not to speak of 
 Greece and Turkey. It comprehends seventy mill- 
 ions. No other church, except that of Rome, 
 equals it in the number of its worshipers. I need 
 not narrate its history to illustrate the observances 
 which are here in Russia so prevalent. It had its 
 four patriarchs in the Orient and another at Mos- 
 cow ; but Peter the Great, who did everything 
 here, from the making of a chest or a ship to the 
 making of a war or the unmaking; of a religious or 
 royal dynasty, suppressed the Moscow patriarch, 
 and the church government is now in the hands 
 of a synod of bishops. About the year 1054 the 
 schism occurred between the Eastern and Western 
 Churches. The Crusades embittered the division 
 by some excesses in the East, which, after many 
 centuries, culminated in a fight over the Holy 
 Sepulchre, out of which grew the Crimean War. 
 The Lutheran, and, if I mistake not, the Church of 
 
 307
 
 3o8 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 England have sought more or less of unity with 
 the Greek Church ; but all efforts in that direction 
 failed. The Greek Church stands isolated ; yet 
 the affections of a vast population centre around 
 it. Its monasteries in the East and its churches in 
 the West, as these in Russia, are wonderful in their 
 kind. 
 
 The customs and rites of the Greek religionists 
 differ greatly from those of other sects. There is 
 still to be seen the women's separate gallery in the 
 churches, to keep up the ancient division of the 
 sexes ; and yet the priests in the Greek Church may 
 marry, must marry. No images are allowed in the 
 Greek churches, but at every turn we see pictures ; 
 sometimes hidden, all but the face, beneath silver 
 and gold robes. But, say what we will of this Church, 
 it is ancient, and its devotees are seemingly very de- 
 vout. I have been inside of twenty of the " parish 
 churches" of the city of St. Petersburg, and every- 
 where I have found, week-day and Sunday, a devotion 
 only equaled in Catholic countries like Spain, Ire' 
 land, or Italy. It is said that the priests arc illiter- 
 ate. Of that I do not know. I see that they wear 
 long robes and long hair, and have an oriental as- 
 pect quite venerable. I find, also, a service which — 
 without the aid of organ or other instrumental 
 music, but with the aid of pictures, colors, and gems, 
 and very sweet voices hymning of mercy and Christ 
 — is extremely beautiful, alluring, and sacred. 
 
 Whatever be their doctrine, and howsoever it 
 may separate the Greek Church from the Lutheran 
 or English hierarchy, or from that of Rome, it 
 seems to be indispensable here in Russia, as an 
 element of social order, if not a necessity for the 
 best aspirations of mankind.
 
 THE EASTERN- CHURCH. 309 
 
 Is it not almost anomalous that a nation like 
 that of Russia in the North — of the raw, cold, bo- 
 real regions — should have embraced with so much 
 fervor the theology and dogma of a Church of the 
 Orient and of the South ; yet at every view of this 
 city we find Athens and Constantinople in their 
 aesthetic architecture, art, and traditions. 
 
 Look at that admirable example of architecture 
 in St. Petersburg, St. Isaac's Cathedral. It has 
 only one comparable to it in Russia. That is the 
 Moscow Temple of the Saviour. It has only one 
 superior in the world — St. Peter's. It is said to 
 be in the renaissance style ; but, whether old or 
 new, its gigantic monoliths of red granite are not 
 spoiled by the gaudy and jeweled decorations of 
 its interior. The service in this church we have at- 
 tended, and attended, too, thoughtfully and rever- 
 ently. It is not in the dialect in common use, but 
 in the ecclesiastical Sclav tongue, quite musical as 
 it is toned by the priests and sung by the choir. 
 
 One could wish that there were fewer gilded 
 gauds about pillar and altar ; fewer gems of pre- 
 cious value and mercenary association ; and fewer 
 pictures of unknown saints ; and that, like other 
 similar edifices of proportionate and simple majesty 
 and elegant and graceful porticoes, it relied more on 
 these intrinsic elegancies of taste and superbness to 
 attract the worship of our God and Saviour. 
 
 The place on which it stands is hallowed, for 
 here the ubiquitous Peter the Great, as early as 
 1 710, built a place of worship. This was de- 
 stroyed. The present structure has absorbed a 
 forest, at a cost of a million of dollars, to make the 
 piles alone upon which its foundation is laid. It is 
 a Greek cross in form, with one hundred and twelve
 
 ,io FROM POLE rO PYRAMID. 
 
 pillars of granite. It is three hundred and thirty- 
 six feet high from the ground to the cross, and its 
 cupola is supported by thirty red granite pillars. 
 Its cupola of copper is overlaid with gold, and as 
 we saw it from Peterhof yesterday, although in a 
 mist, twenty miles off, its dome glistened like a dia- 
 mond pierced by a sunbeam of electric dazzle. 
 
 The four smaller cupolas are counterparts of 
 those of the church, and the bronze doors are mon- 
 sters in size, but as harmonious with the building 
 as genius could contrive. Inside, the malachite 
 columns for the screen are thirty feet in height. 
 They exceed all that the fancy could picture of 
 rich yet graceful ornamentation. Into the inmost 
 shrine we of the ruder sex only were permitted to 
 enter. It is a temiple of itself, and its precious and 
 polished beauty from the mines of Siberia, pre- 
 sented by Prince Demidoff, have cost the sum of 
 one million rubles, or half a million dollars. The 
 pictures are equally worthy of admiration. 
 
 But why endeavor with dull pen on blank paper 
 to produce to the distant eye these elegant ele- 
 ments of sacred art ? Let us out upon the cupola 
 and view the grandeur of the scene, lit up by no 
 tapers, enchanted by no sacred song, but flooded 
 with the splendors of the Sabbath morning upon 
 the waters, roofs, and domes of the capital ! 
 
 While below the incense and song are rising 
 amidst the mystical light of the vast structure, we 
 stand upon and within the rotunda over the great 
 dome, and look down upon the throng of wor- 
 shipers, far, far beneath. The hum of religious 
 recitation begins, but when the doors of the zkoji- 
 astas are closed, the chant ceases. Then the in- 
 cense-bearers withdraw, and we await In awe the
 
 THE F.ASTEhW CUURCir. 
 
 3" 
 
 august ceremony. The scene chani^^es. The royal 
 doors are opened, prayers are said for the royal 
 family, and all are attentive and prayerful. 
 
 Whatever may be the creed of this Eastern 
 Church — and for this I refer to the late Dean 
 Stanley's history — and howsoever it may differ as 
 to the primacy of the Pope, the relations of the 
 Holy Ghost to the Son of God, and in rejecting 
 works of supererogation, or however it may agree 
 with our Baptists as to the necessity of complete 
 immersion, or the oblitration of marriaofe on the 
 secular clergy, most certainly its ceremonies are 
 not like the austere Puritanism of the earlier days 
 of America. It may have its feasts or fasts, and 
 use or waste half the days of the year in its services 
 and sacred memories ; its outward forms may be, 
 as it is charged, mere mummeries, without meaning ; 
 but one thing must be recorded by the tolerant 
 observer, viz., that its worship seems to enthrall 
 its devotees. It exceeds all the expectations which 
 we had formed of this or of any other form of 
 faith on reading the history of its establishment 
 and the manual of its rites. 
 
 When we think of the inner idea of this and 
 other forms of Christian belief which consist of 
 bestowing the beatitudes on those who do good 
 and make sacrifice of self and passion for the glory 
 of God, and then gaze upon its grand cathedral in 
 this capital of autocracy, we cannot refuse to pay 
 the tribute which Hawthorne pays to our Christian 
 faith, when he likens it to a grand cathedral, with 
 divinely pictured windows. "Standing without, you 
 see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any ; stand- 
 ing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of 
 unspeakable splendor."
 
 312 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Since writinsf the forefroiner, "vve have come, in 
 these middle days of August, to the sacred capital 
 of the Greek Church, Moscow. We have been 
 within the jurisdiction of Prince Dolgorouki, uncle 
 to the late Czar's second wife. This Prince is 
 a lineal descendant of that Prince Dolgorouki 
 who was the son of Vladimir Monomachus — how 
 Greek ! — the founder of this city of Moscow, in 
 1 147. 
 
 V/hat ravages Moscow has had from Tartar, 
 Pole, and Frank! What fires, from 1536! What 
 thousands have perished here by flame and sword, 
 by pestilence and famine, not to speak of the grand 
 national holocaust in 181 2, when its governor, 
 Count Rostoptchin, sixty-nine years ago, gave it to 
 the fiery elements in preference to the French. All 
 this is a part of the illustrated editions of the life 
 of Napoleon and of the Greek hierarchy. 
 
 Immediately across the street where I write, in 
 Labiarika Street, the scene was enacted by the 
 governor, in 181 2, of giving up to the fury of the 
 Moscow mob the innocent son of a merchant, as 
 the supposed traitor who had delivered Moscow to 
 the French. What a wild rush they made, these 
 Russians, when they found that their sacred city 
 was devoted to the God of Fire ! Bull Run, as it 
 came into Washington, in 1861, I saw; but the 
 comparison between that flight of untrained pa- 
 triots and that of the multitude on their way to 
 * Vladimir from the invasion of the French utterly 
 fails. There never was a scene in history to com- 
 pare with it, unless it be the flight of that Tartar 
 tribe, as delineated by De Ouincey, under the in- 
 spiration of his opium and his genius. 
 
 But this is not the scene that Moscow presents
 
 THE EASTERN CIIURCIT. 
 
 1-^2, 
 
 to-day. It is a city of religion. It is the Rome of 
 Russia ; a city of churches, nearly five hundred in 
 number. Its domes of gold and green, Its minarets 
 and pictures, its jewels and sacred robes can be 
 found in no literature except, feebly, in the de- 
 scription of the Jewish temple and its grandeur 
 of ritual and robing. 
 
 We have wandered two or three days within the 
 battlements of the Kremlin. I am just from its 
 tower of thirty-one bells — the largest weighing 440,- 
 000 pounds — and through its arabesque and gilded 
 minsters, chapels, and altars ; and I say that lan- 
 guage utterly fails to describe the oriental and su- 
 perlative magnificence of the scenes here presented 
 to honor God Almighty ! One is dazed by the con- 
 fusion of the outside, with its Byzantine and other 
 orders of architecture ; and when it comes to going 
 within the penetralia of this seat of the many tem- 
 ples of the patriarchs and people of this Eastern 
 Church, we are in w^onclering mazes lost. 
 
 These churches in the Kremlin are the nucleus of 
 what seems on the map a spider's web of streets and 
 buildings. The river makes a half dozen curves 
 through the city and its walls and houses ; but, 
 above all, high and aloof, shines In splendor that 
 picture which Bonaparte saw from the Sparrow 
 Hills, before he entered the doomed city ! 
 
 But how can I describe this Kremlin, this home 
 of sacerdotal dignitaries, fighting boyars, and " ter- 
 rible " kings, with its churches, gates, towers, and 
 walls? Yonder is the Tower of Ivan, with Its bells 
 on bells, until one is crazed with the idea of the 
 silvery brazen noises they could make if In full dia- 
 pason. 
 
 There, in its ruin, lies the King of Bells, dis- 
 
 14
 
 314 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 tracted with the fatal fires and calamities which 
 have surrounded it since the Middle Ages, when 
 it was first cast. There, too, is the palace, with 
 its crowns and jewels ; its pictures and trophies ; 
 its halls of state and its crypts of religion ; its 
 courts of gold and its steps of blood ; its thrones, 
 wardrobes, insignia, flags, keys, images, relics, 
 charters, gifts, and treasures ! These are of the 
 past. They are the residuary radiance of a thou- 
 sand years of memory. 
 
 Is this religion all, all vain ? Are there no signs 
 of its advancement in the affections of its children ? 
 What is its last phase, either in ceremony or archi- 
 tecture, in faith or fig^ht ? 
 
 Pondering these things we perceive a dome of 
 resplendent lustre. It is outside the Kremlin. Be- 
 fore its gilded glory all the green and yellow of the 
 faded spires and crosses and domes fade afresh. It 
 is " The Temple of the Saviour." Its fame had 
 reached us at St. Petersburg. It is the peer, at 
 least, of St. Isaac's, but of a more beauteous type, 
 and of a make, genius, and loveliness more lumi- 
 nous. It is not yet dedicated. Can we see it? 
 Within the first hour of our entrance within this 
 city we send to our consul to answer this query. 
 He answered it in person. The answer was as 
 courteous as it was substantial. It was from Prince 
 Dolgorouki himself. It was a written permit for 
 the writer, spelled in Russian '' Koxcz!'" and ten 
 others. Were these ten ready ? Yes ; adding 
 Californians, twelve. We assembled at r r. m. at 
 the door of the Temple. Our two extra tour- 
 ists nearly cost us our pleasure. Our guide was 
 about to tender two extra rubles, when lo ! the 
 local police and some Russian soldiers, and much
 
 THE EASTER.y CHURCIT. 
 
 315 
 
 inflammatory talk. An hour's lialt and bil^ljlc on 
 the steps of this cluirch, so white and heautiful ! 
 Much trouble and much intervention. Soldiers, cus- 
 todians ; but no priests. Our guide is arrested. 
 Several tears come to his eyes. He is mortified, 
 surprised. " Can I not offer two rubles without a 
 charge of bribery in Russia ? " Alas ! too many 
 mercenaries are about. We are a dozen strong ; 
 but the great and Beautiful Temple, which we had 
 done so much to see, is about to be closed, and to 
 our apostolic number. My wife insists that we 
 stand by our guide. I stand by my wife. We all 
 do. Out comes a gallant man, the main angel of 
 the precious Church Beautiful. He asks my card. 
 All say : " Put down your name. Congressmen are 
 respected in Russia, if from America ! " I write 
 the magical " open sesame.'' We enter. The guide 
 is with us. 
 
 Was there ever on our orb such a beatific splen- 
 dor? Is it painting? It is there. Is it sculpture 
 or relief ? Outside and inside. Is it saint, angel. 
 Saviour, or martyr ? Is it a scene in dramatic rela- 
 tion, or lyric, historic, or tragic? It is here and all 
 luminous under gold-shine, and silver-glitter, and 
 the glory of azure sky, and the all-prismatic sun. 
 Forty-two years of Russian art, as clear and clean 
 as if out of the crystal palaces of the Empyrean. 
 And then such altars and precious art ! Not gaudy 
 with common ruby, sapphire, turquoise, and dia- 
 mond — pah ! these are stale and flat ; but all is 
 lucent and beatific and beyond all the dreams and 
 phases of fancy, or the ecstasies of saintly re- 
 ligion. 
 
 The grounds outside were in form a Greek cross. 
 The church is in similar form. It is as large nearly
 
 3i6 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 as St. Isaac's, or St. Paul's in London. The dome 
 is exquisite and sublime ; sweetness with light. 
 Light, light everywhere, in its richest radiations 
 and rainbows, and, under its most exquisite spec- 
 tral analysis, beyond the reaches of art, poetry, or 
 description. 
 
 And this is the religion of Russia, outwardly ! 
 These are the saints of a thousand years, whose 
 images are so worshiped by royal and rugged 
 alike ! These are the influences, for good or ill, 
 that are preparing a future for eighty millions of 
 subjects of a great empire \ 
 
 We go soon toward Constantinople, the seat of 
 the Eastern hierarchy, where St. Chrysostom gave 
 to the wo'ld, from golden lips and with a Hymet- 
 tian honey sweeter than the philosophy of the 
 Academy, the Gospel of good tidings, of which 
 these Greek churches are the outcome in the after- 
 noon of the nineteenth century.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 LEAVING MOSCOW— ON TO ODESSA-IMMENSE GRAIN 
 FIELDS AND LONG LEVELS— FREEDOM OF TRADE. 
 
 Life runs its rounds of living, climbing up 
 
 From mote, and gnat, and worm, reptile ana fisli. 
 
 Bird and shagged beast, man, demon, deva, God, 
 
 To clod and mote again j so are we kin 
 
 To all that is. — Edwin Arnold. 
 
 MOSCOW, as you see it from its towers or on a 
 plat, is like a spider's web. Its streets radiate 
 from and unite about the Kremlin battlements. 
 Like the web, it has many a mesh for the unwary, 
 and from its labyrinths it is hard to be disentangled. 
 With the aid of our consul and a guide, not to 
 speak of the Belgian host of the Hotel Billo, who 
 prepared our passports, we left this ancient home 
 of patriarchs and Czars ; and not without that in- 
 definable fear of that " John the Terrible," who is 
 even yet its tutelary genius, or of some of his de- 
 scendants and servitors, we retreated from Mos- 
 cow — like Napoleon in 1812 — somewhat discom- 
 fited even by our success. My wife was under the 
 Moscow weather, and it was with much trepidation 
 that we started on the long journey to Odessa. 
 However, there is but oneway, and that by prompt 
 decision and railroad, out of Moscow. Bidding 
 adieu to our incomplete plans, to sacristies, libra- 
 ries, universities, and monasteries unvisited, and 
 to gardens, palaces, parks, and museums but half 
 
 317
 
 3i8 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 investigated ; leaving its archaeology and theology 
 but dimly studied, but with the one ever-beauteous 
 white vision of the *' Temple of the Saviour" — the 
 finest edifice ever built by man or genii, in dream 
 or in fact, not excepting the Temple of Solomon — 
 we prepare to depart. With all our failures here 
 — or, as some poet has it, with the " barren mem- 
 ory of unkissed kisses " — yet clad in a rich robe, 
 all jeweled and embroidered with precious experi- 
 ence, we reluctantly take our last looks. Pardon 
 the enthusiasm, for Moscow is the concentrated 
 focus of fifty millions of Russo-Greek religionists. 
 Its Kremlin is the burning centre of that focus. 
 Our farewells seem to linger in its radiance as in a 
 trancing and unearthly light. But are we not going 
 out of Russia — political, autocratic, spying Russia ? 
 What a respite ! 
 
 The entire journey from St. Petersburg to 
 Odessa — from the north to the south of this em- 
 pire in Europe — is one thousand four hundred and 
 forty-one miles. There is a shorter route by way 
 of Belostok, but our chosen route is of much more 
 interest. To Moscow is about one-third of this 
 route ; and we find ourselves at its depot about 
 noon, for a journey of two days and two nights 
 further on. 
 
 Our guide, Mr. Bergemann, was born in New 
 York. He speaks tolerable English, being a 
 Swede, and a resident here, where years ago he 
 came with his father, who has helped decorate 
 the palace, being a skilled worker in brass. He 
 delivers us at the station. There we m_eet the 
 consul, who kindly introduces us to Mr. Janis- 
 kowsky, a Pole, the superintendent of the road, 
 and to an American, Mr. Lerce, of Baltimore, who
 
 MO SCO I r TO ODES'^A. 2>\0 
 
 is in charge of the roHIng and otiicr stock He 
 came out here with Messrs. Winans, wlio buiU th(i 
 road, many years ago. The guide bought, with 
 our own tickets, one for himself, as he was to go 
 with us part of the journey. What was his sur- 
 prise when he was ordered by the poHce not to go ! 
 He had no passport. The authorities keep up 
 their espionage from town to town. Then came 
 the tug to get our fifty rubles back, which was the 
 price of his ticket. This was done, however; and, 
 after much worry, we were housed in a first-class 
 car, without a word at our command to reach the 
 servants of the road. 
 
 "■ It's right good to see you," said the genial 
 Baltimorean. " I've been twenty-five years from 
 home, and to see an American, why it's glorious ! " 
 
 I never felt how useful " the party "was till thus 
 saluted. 
 
 " By the way," he added, " just look at that 
 bull's-eye of mine !" pointing to a locomotive that 
 was creeping up to hitch to our train ; " and don't 
 forget, half a mile from here, right side, to keep 
 a good look-out for a house, boarded up. It's the 
 place where the dynamite mine was laid for the 
 Czar a year ago last December, and which the 
 police are still working up." 
 
 " Were you along?" my wife inquires. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," he responded in the Baltimore 
 dialect, which came over me like the sweet South 
 over a bed of violets. " Came near going up, 
 madam — missed their man though, — struck a bag- 
 gage train. Can't reform here, or anywhere, by 
 forcing it with dynamite. No, madam. Good- 
 by ! " And the bull's-eye tackled the train, and 
 away we sped over the fateful ground and past the
 
 320 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 famous spot where Hartman and Sophie Petrosky, 
 and other Nihilist companions of the mine, en- 
 deavored, through great risk and endurance, to 
 reform by dynamite. There was not much to 
 mark the place, for it is obliterated " as a damned 
 spot." There was not even a sacred chapel, such 
 as we see over the fatal locality in St. Petersburg. 
 But the Nihilist object was in part attained. Fear 
 blanches the royal cheek at every turn. The 
 Czar was not particular, in his visit here last week, 
 to advertise his journey or his places of visit and 
 rest. Threats of mining the churches he visited, 
 threats against his wife and children, threats as to 
 the coronation next year, threats in epistles laid in 
 stealth by unknown hands upon the tables in the 
 rooms where he slept, threats in the air, and a feel- 
 ing of suppressed and choking apprehension every- 
 wdiere — is it any wonder that his wife grows pale 
 and his own familiars are hardly trusted, except a 
 few minutes in advance, as to the palace or room 
 where the Czar intends to sleep, what streets he 
 will traverse, or what train he will take, or what 
 changes in his triumphal tour he will make, as 
 the father of Russia, to bless his dear children ? 
 
 Our railway conductors could not understand us, 
 but we knew by an inward feeling when a buffet 
 was reached, and by fingers and gestures we could 
 indicate the minutes of refreshment. 
 
 These conductors dress in a dark green beaver- 
 cloth, loose and plaited, with top-boots, and the 
 oriental loose pants tucked within them. They 
 look quite elegant. Their manners are suitable to 
 their uniform, and both are exceedingly nice. 
 
 After a run of a couple of hours out of Mos- 
 cow, we come upon a manufacturing centre, where
 
 MOSCOW TO ODESSA. 
 
 321 
 
 we cross the Oka river, which leads to the; Russian 
 Missouri — the Volga. Even there, where smoke- 
 stacks appear, there are grisly memories of "John 
 the Terrible" and his one hundred thousand 
 Opritchniks ! '1 ula came next, notable in these 
 long reaches of level land as the city where im- 
 mense steel and iron factories are carried on. It 
 has reminiscences by the hundred of Tartar in- 
 roads and Polish sieges, not to speak of conflicts 
 and conflagrations ; but it is now the seat of skilled 
 labor, where lathes are run by water-power through 
 vast iron cylinders, for the making of swords, guns, 
 cutlery, tea-urns, and other metallic ware, even to 
 silver snuff-boxes and bric-a-brac of nobility and 
 royalty. The mines of iron and coal, worked by 
 the descendants of Dutch and English artisans, to- 
 gether with railroad communications and a splendid 
 city of sixty thousand people, contribute, along 
 with its Tartaric history, to make Tula a truly 
 royal place in many senses. I bring home one sou- 
 venir of this place, a wire puzzle, which made me 
 forget for a time the terrors of "John the Terri- 
 ble," and afforded some employment to unravel its 
 Asiatic mystery. Out of the city, on either side 
 of the railroad track, down the embankments, are 
 peculiar green slopes, strengthened against rain- 
 gullies by many-colored stones, set as mosaic in 
 the grass. The effect is unique and beautiful. 
 
 Soon we are in the open country again, where 
 great areas of ploughed ground appear ready for the 
 winter wheat, and hay-stacks break the level with 
 their frequency. The villages look like hay-stacks, 
 as each house and barn Is low and thatched heav- 
 ily. The country reminds one of the Pacific over- 
 land route, except that here and there are many 
 14*
 
 322 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 paddocks piled together in fields for sheepfolds as 
 occasion may demand ; but the general cultiva- 
 tion, as far as the eye can observe, is that of our 
 prairies. The little hillocks, made, I suppose, by 
 moles, are not so frequent as those of our prai- 
 rie-dogs ; but they remind us of our own domain. 
 The soil, where ploughed, and where it crops out, 
 is as black as the sheep, and in this it is a great 
 contrast to our alkaline plains. We perceive, as 
 far as the horizon's verge, immense fields of grain 
 and meadows of hay, and these remind us of Cali- 
 fornia and its golden grain grounds of recent date. 
 Black sheep and pied cattle are common. Some 
 of the fields are in flower. What can it be? Buck- 
 wheat, and in such a width of acreage ! These 
 scenes before our first nightfall exemplify our 
 whole way to Odessa, with some variations. 
 
 These variations, however, do not weaken the 
 impression, most emphatic and prolonged, pro- 
 duced by iterations and alternations of golden 
 grain with greenest meadows, both alive, so to 
 speak, with the sheafs and sheafs and sheafs of 
 wheat, and the endless cocks of hay. Oh ! the 
 opulence of this great golden harvest of Russia. 
 It astounds one, as well by its vast area as by the 
 neatness of the work. Many of the fields, like 
 those of France, are subdivided, and with varied 
 product and hue. Where are the people who have 
 cultivated these prairies ? Are they housed in the 
 villages ? We see few isolated farm-houses, and 
 few of either sex at work, and these seem lazily 
 wending their way across the unfenced and un- 
 hedged spaces. 
 
 Now and then we paused in the very midst of a 
 shorn field, a square of a tenth of an acre or less,
 
 MOSCOIV TO ODESSA. 3,3 
 
 where arc objects that look hke sections or stiinnjs 
 of trees, or seats about four feet higli. 'Ihey are 
 placed in symmetry, and over them some bushes 
 dead in leaf. What are they? We confer to- 
 gether, for our conductor gives no sign. At last 
 we begin to reason : first, they are near the buck- 
 wheat in bloom; and, second, they are not stumps 
 or portions of trees, for there are no woods. 
 
 " Perhaps," suggests my wife, " they are tempo- 
 rary camping-grounds for rehgious bodies." 
 
 That will not do. Nor are they for stumpers. 
 Russia is not yet popularized for the sylvan tribune. 
 It may be that here their local commune or Zem- 
 stvo meets — an assembly as old as the time of Cath- 
 arine II ; for, like the ancient Germans or Norse- 
 men, the people of this land used to gather in 
 outdoor conventions by chosen law-makers, the 
 Witcnaofemote of rural Russia. This is an infjeni- 
 ous guess, and smacks of the shop, but it will 
 not do. Eureka ! Is it not said that the ancient 
 Scythians, the ancestors of these Russian Sclavs, 
 were celebrated for two things ; first, the quantity 
 of liquor they could throw themselves outside of 
 without detriment ; and, second, the cultivation of 
 honey? a combination which suggests our peach 
 brandy and honey, so dear to the Southern heart. 
 Are not these hollow squares Bcmas for the convo- 
 cation of politic bees, politic because near the bloom 
 of the buckwheat ? Thus we solve the riddle, the 
 sweetness of which is enhanced by the discovery, 
 without guide or volume, and by pure reason ? 
 
 Before evening we reach the city of Orel. Here 
 Is a pet town, founded by that same John the Ter- 
 rible. We see here a pious man say his prayers 
 and licrht his ciiiarette at the same time. It showed
 
 3^4 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 the influence for good of the terrible founder of Orel. 
 The Greek domes shine in the departing light, and 
 the glamour of Polish chivalry and adventure bathes 
 the city in the dim poetry of tradition. Hemp, 
 wheat, tallow, and cattle, not omitting holy candles 
 and civilizing soap, make Orel, with water and rail 
 communications, a place of such practical and unro- 
 mantic consequence that the ten thousand carts 
 which trudge daily from its surrounding plains into 
 and out of its precincts are a fair test of its matter- 
 of-fact ways and business. During the night we 
 observe but little, except that there is no sign of a 
 forest or hill, only that same rolling plain of wheat 
 and hay, cut and uncut, and of ploughed ground and 
 flowering buckwheat. No light of cheerful home, 
 no holiday of happy peasant appears. There is no 
 shout of home-bound reapers ; no song of the vin- 
 tage ; no dance to the twinkle of guitar or the merry 
 violin. Russia has not ar happy peasantry. 
 
 When the morning broke the same perpetual 
 scene, hardly varied by villages under thatch, 
 whose low buildings are unpainted and unpictu- 
 resque, and its few people seem indifferent to the 
 great work already done or to be done. It is 
 difficult to translate for the distant reader this 
 huge volume, "bound in Russia" and ornamented 
 with green and gold — gold and green — of this 
 spacious land, without repetitious words ; its leaves 
 unfolding over and over in vast areas with the 
 same illuminated capitals of green and gold ! No 
 sign of manures, a few cabbages and potato fields, 
 and a church and dome occasionally ; now a wind- 
 mill, or a dozen, for grinding grain, now standing 
 paralyzed, movable with a lever, to set sail to 
 catch the wind when it comes ; now a woman driv-
 
 MOSCOl^ TO ODESSA. 
 
 325 
 
 Ing geese and ducks; some " commons " near the 
 towns, where cattle and horses and sheep are 
 watched by sleepy people in sheepskin coats ; and, 
 again, black ploughed ground ; the few peasants, 
 generally, when seen, in dirty blouses, baggy 
 breeches, and the same little cap and hirsute 
 beard, with an exceptional one in a "butternut" 
 overcoat, and sometimes a field being broken 
 with ploughs drawn by four or five yoke of white 
 oxen ; but nothing in all these outward scenes 
 adequately shows how or by whom this immense 
 field labor has been so well done and done so 
 quickly. Can it be that the American patents 
 have been here? No. Throughout the 1,500 
 miles of these levels we saw but two labor-saving 
 machines, and these were run by steam, and for 
 thrashing. The short sickle and the flail ; women 
 to bind, men to reap ; men to mow, women to 
 rake, and so on to the end, and but few, after 
 all, seen, compared with the immense work which 
 seems to have been done by hand. It was not 
 rainy, except for a few hours, when we perceived 
 the peasants smoking under their carts and be- 
 hind the hay-rows. All the long, sunny days this 
 wonderful iteration of the harvest and sign of toil ; 
 and yet how little to see of the calloused hand 
 and beaded brow with which rhetoric condescends 
 to decorate labor. 
 
 How do the peasants look ? Slovenly ; the hair 
 long like that of the classic Scythian of two thou- 
 sand years ago, sunburnt and almost dirty in its 
 hue. Now and then there is a Tartar face, very 
 like a Sioux or a Kickapoo. The roads are not 
 bad ; but it is summer, and the lumbering carts 
 tumble along easily enough. Is there aught as
 
 326 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 yet to break the monotony ? Yes, after the second 
 day the flowers begin to show signs of the south- 
 ern sun upon the meadows, and some sorghum 
 fields appear, with busy bees ; buckwheat still in 
 rich flower, but the never-ceasing wheat in green 
 and gold remains to the end to amaze the mind. 
 
 Our Belcrian landlord at Moscow had told us 
 that Russia was an El Dorado to those who would 
 work. What if American energy and its agricul- 
 tural machines should take hold of these vast 
 grain-fields ! Ah ! but the government — let us 
 pause ! Do you say that the Russian government 
 itself uses American ingenuity upon rail and river ? 
 Are not the Russian railroads of our make ? And 
 do not eight hundred steamers of the "American 
 kind " drive up and down the Volga ? This is all 
 so ; but why are these fertile plains weak competi- 
 tors with us, notwithstanding ? Are there not 
 canals and rivers connecting every part of this vast 
 land as the arteries of an immense body? What 
 hindrance is there to Russia rivaling America in its 
 grain product? Is it Russian dearness in transpor- 
 tation and our labor-saving machines ? May not 
 these impediments be obviated in time, and then 
 where is our vaunted supremacy ? It will be a 
 long time before Russia can compete with our 
 grain market, unless our crops are short ; not be- 
 cause of the soil, for the Russian soil is not unlike 
 that of our best. But the co-operation, skill, con- 
 centration, and economy of the American cannot 
 have a rival. Consider the Red River valley of the 
 North! It is 300 by 50 miles, or i5;000 square 
 miles, which, at 640 acres to the square mile, 
 makes 9,600,000 acres. Every dot of it is ara- 
 ble. The average yield is 24 bushels of wheat
 
 MOSCOir TO ODESSA. y_^ 
 
 to the acre. Dalrymplc's farm of 25,000 acres is 
 a sample of it all. It is divided into separate 
 farms of 2,000 acres each, and this division enables 
 the owner to make in gross $400,000 per year, 
 with a net of one fourth of that sum. He reaps, 
 thrashes, bags, and ships his grain in one day. 
 He draws immediately on his warehouse receipt, 
 or on Liverpool, where his account is kept. A 
 railroad runs through his farm ; and he can send 
 his wheat to the sea-board as cheaply as from Ohio. 
 Until the Sclav can do this, how can he compete 
 with the American in ordinary years ? I ask this 
 and other questions, but do not answer them. The 
 crops this year arc abundant in this vast area. But 
 are we prepared for a season of good crops abroad, 
 or a bad one with us ? Are our economies and 
 tariffs suitable for reciprocity ? What with her 
 rain, soil, and sun, her muscle, and her patient labor- 
 ing masses, and our stupid policies of selfish isola- 
 tion, may not a change come over our prosperity ? 
 I have already answered these queries in a volume 
 on " Free Trade and Free Land," where, from facts, 
 I have prophesied results now fast hastening to a 
 conclusion which may make our farmers open their 
 eyes when too late to redeem the time from evil 
 and makeshift policies, 
 
 I am not, however, feeling lugubrious about our 
 future or present crops, and their outgo or income. 
 Where good government assures the harvest, seed 
 will be sown. Two weeks ago there were on store 
 nine millions of bushels of erain in Chicacro, and on 
 one day ; while about the same time, in nine of our 
 wheat ports, at this season, there were receipts and 
 shipments of wheat alone amounting to one and a 
 quarter millions of bushels ! Not counting flour
 
 328 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 and oats, chickens and cheese, barley and butter, 
 corn and cattle, cotton and coal, hides, high wines, 
 honey, hams, and hogs, veal and vegetables, beans 
 and beeswax, old rags and old rye, canned meats 
 and mules " on the hoof," lumber, lard, and liquor, 
 ^g'S^' oats, apples, et cetera, have we not something 
 more than " alliteration's artful aid" to enhance the 
 value and glory of our American farm factories ? 
 Nor do I care whether hogs be " weak," or whiskey 
 "steady," sheep "quiet," or oats "easy;" nor into 
 what corners our keenest speculators may, for a 
 time, conduct the market — the outflow from Amer- 
 ica, with its vicissitudes, will go on ! Who can arrest 
 the needs of our kind ? When will the millennium 
 unhorse the armies of non-producers in these lands 
 of Czar and Kaiser ? Let economists preach retali- 
 ation instead of the old noble liberality of trade ; 
 let FVance threaten to shut her ports against our 
 diseased pork and cattle, and abundant corn ; there 
 is no power to turn back the shadow upon the dial. 
 We shall be compelled to abolish the exacting 
 bounties to our comparatively few exporting manu- 
 facturers, and learn to buy fairly at best rates, and 
 sell even more abundantly of the blessings of our 
 soil. So that, while dazed at the frowning and 
 gigantic proportions of Russian fields and harvests, 
 let us welcome every product, whether under the 
 dominion of the Czar or the star-spangled banner ! 
 With this cheerful optimism we are dashing toward 
 Odessa, whose harbor is as lively with grain-lading 
 vessels as an American city upon our own inland seas. 
 We breakfast at Bersula, and not far from Po- 
 land's belligerent border. Let us be fortified for 
 fresh scenes and pastures new. The scenes are 
 new, but not differing greatly from those already
 
 AfOSCOir TO ODESSA. 
 
 329 
 
 pictured. The pastures arc not new. Lari^e towns 
 at great intervals, and villages in plenl}-, appear, 
 with long inter-plains, as before. Some cities are 
 passed with hard Russian titles, and Roman his- 
 tory, and prehistoric tuuntli. Earthworks, like 
 those along the Ohio, appear, along with old bul- 
 warks between contending and barbaric races ; Tar- 
 tar relics and Cossack battle-grounds, and proofs of 
 old nomadic raids from the heart of populous Asia, 
 close upon the frontier, where the early Normans 
 fixed their limits of conquest, not to speak of recent 
 fortresses, where Pole and Russian fought for su- 
 premacy, and Crimean khans contended with their 
 conquerors. These serve to break the monotony 
 of wheat and the blackness of the furrowed ground. 
 At last the Jerusalem of Russia, Kief the sacred, 
 looms upon our sight to dispel the sameness. 
 Its history is that of the Norman knight, and is 
 coeval with the rise of Christianity, when grand 
 dukes with Russian names began to build churches 
 and make conquests. Here is the Ukraine of the 
 early centuries — the very land of the Cossack and 
 the Pole — the border-land, where Greek and Cath- 
 olic made treaties as to their faith, and after 
 breaches and collisions, and with many a wall and 
 castle, built by skill and ruined by conflict, left to 
 Kief a splendid name, only equaled in Russian 
 ecclesiastical annals by Moscow, and in secular 
 greatness by St. Petersburg. We had a fine view 
 of this town of one hundred thousand people as 
 we approached it upon the rail. It is situated 
 upon a noble bluff of the wide Dnieper, which 
 is spanned by a bridge equaled in no land and by 
 no engineering. Its fortress is a romantic picture, 
 which is photographed forever upon the mind.
 
 330 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Trees and gardens, monastery and dome, give to 
 Kief and its suburbs a beauty which reheves our 
 long journey of its tedium. 
 
 We feel, too, that we are nearing the south, 
 with its warm, classic memories ; and yet this is 
 the seat where Perun, Horsa, and other heathen 
 gods exacted their idol worship from the earliest 
 inhabitants. Here, too, many a picture, fresco, 
 obelisk, and pillar have been unearthed or un- 
 whitewashed to revive the artistic glories of the 
 ancient Catholic hierarchy, which once held spirit- 
 ual dominion at Kief, as its source, centre, and 
 capital. In its monasteries and churches are mon- 
 uments of Mazeppa, the far-famed Hetman of the 
 Poles ; while outside these sacred buildings, or 
 from their roofs of green and red, rise gilded 
 domes like those which make Moscow, like Mem- 
 non, musical with the celestial harmony. Inter- 
 esting, too, are the Catacombs of St. Anthony, in 
 the excavations of the limestone cliffs which we 
 perceive hanging above the broad Dnieper. Pass 
 within their torch-begrimed caves, and you will see, 
 horror of horrors ! not John the Terrible, for we 
 have left him to the rear ; but human bodies in 
 open coffins arranged in niches, and dressed, these 
 cadavers, in costly garments ! You may kiss, if 
 inclined, their bony fingers. Their names are 
 written, with their virtues, over their several sep- 
 ulchres. Some of these martyrs had immured 
 themselves when alive, leaving apertures to re- 
 ceive their food, until nature gave them final 
 respite. It is said that two hundred thousand pil- 
 grims annually visit these horrific wonders of this 
 wondrous religious land. This is a fit spectacle, — in 
 a city where the persecutions of the Jews have been 
 cruel, beyond even their martyrdom in history !
 
 MOSCOIV TO ODESSA. ,,j 
 
 Let us away again to the plains, for tlic frcsli air 
 is already laden with saline salubrity from the IMack 
 Sea. Thistles indicate a less fruitful soil ; and 
 the soro-huni grows in sparser rows and of smaller 
 size. A few strange birds — storks — stand about 
 observing the peasants garner the grain. They 
 are picking up a living, undisturbed by gun or 
 boy, in places where the thrashing is being done. 
 The air is clouded with multitudes of little birds, 
 who make their feasts off the harvest. Another 
 bird, quite peculiar by its platitudinous and digni- 
 fied style, contrasts with the twittering vivacity of 
 the little ones. It is a large white bird with a 
 black tail. It struts about with the consequence 
 of a czar or a senator, amidst the millions of lesser 
 birds which people the fields and air. 
 
 Everywhere the cultivation of Muscovite aes- 
 thetics is apparent as we progress toward Odessa. 
 It is the sunflower, in garden and on plain, in 
 groups and in isolation — everywhere it turns its 
 broad, coarse, good-natured face to the sun. We 
 ask our Russian companions, with whom we are be- 
 ginning to exchange French, what object has this 
 tiower here ? 
 
 " Oh ! it is for the children," they respond. 
 " They eat the seeds, and grow fat on the oil." 
 
 We are happy in the information, for it is a 
 relief to see any variety of cultivation, floral or 
 otherwise, on these ranges of land. The aesthete 
 of London may be long-haired like the Russ, and, 
 like him, worship flowering saffron, but he is at 
 least the object of fun, if not funny himself ; but 
 throughout this vast expanse of meadow and field 
 there is no merriment, objective or subjective, per- 
 ceivable, such as the haymakers and peasants of 
 England and other lands are wont to indulge in !
 
 332 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 Are the Russian peasants only to be stirred by their 
 grain brandy into maudlin flashes of vivacity ? 
 Where is the happy peasantry, their country's pride, 
 such as the poetic license of the English bard de- 
 scribes, "swarming o'er the jovial mead," youth 
 and maid, stooping age and prattling infant, add- 
 ing the aroma of good humor to the " rural smells 
 of the russet haycocks ? " Russia may be indeed, 
 as Thomson sings, wide from dale to dale, but 
 we have heard from the thousand, thousand fields 
 we have seen, from the Neva to the Euxine, no 
 
 " Of happy labor, love, and social glee ! " 
 
 I would rather have the clattering fun of a 
 thrashing-machine than the dead monotony which 
 makes the peasant and his land — a part of the 
 earth, earthy. This remark is limited to the 
 peasantry whom we saw on the route. What they 
 may'do on occasions when off duty and on pleas- 
 ure bent, we cannot determine. 
 
 One thing in closing ; and that is that we found 
 genial companions in travel before we reached 
 Odessa, who were most anxious to assist us. Es- 
 pecially do I remember with pleasure an engineer, 
 going to Bulgaria to enter upon the new railroads 
 there projecting. He handed me his card at part- 
 ing. On one side it was, Charles D. Schoultz ; on 
 the other, " Margaret and George," or " Carl — 
 Constantinovitch." I asked for the interpretation 
 of the mystery. It was simple — the names of his 
 father and mother, of pious memory, thus honored 
 constantly by the son, '' that his days may be long," 
 which we devoutly pray !
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ODESSA— OUT OF RUSSIA— STEAMERS IN PORT— AFLOAT 
 ON THE EUXINE— GLIlMPSES OF THE BOSl'HOKUS. 
 
 Othus. Tliis superb successor. 
 Of the earth mistress, as thou vainly spcakcst. 
 Stands midst these ages as, on the wide ocean. 
 The last spared fraoincnt of a spacious land, 
 That in some grand and awful ministration 
 Of mighty nature has engulphcd been ; 
 Doth lift aloft its dark and rocky cliffs 
 O'er the wild waste around, and sadly frowns 
 In lonely majesty." — Constantine Paleologus. 
 
 'T^HE Black Sea, or Euxine, has a bad name. Al- 
 though Greek scholars have quarreled over the 
 p lilology of the word, whether it mean hospitality 
 or otherwise, we find it serene and debonair so 
 much so that it utterly refuses to rhyme with the 
 sickening Saxon with which Childe Harold mated it. 
 It is a good day in two senses. It is the Sab- 
 bath, and the sky, sun, and sea unite to make writ- 
 ing as easy as it is pleasant. It is a good day — to 
 resume the threads of our Muscovite experience. 
 But it is due to a sea, so anathematized by Byron 
 and others, that it should be vindicated. The 
 Sound or the Hudson never had a smoother sur- 
 face or a more delightful breeze. Although out of 
 sight of land, we feel that classic and historic in- 
 fluences are wafted around us. There is a tempta- 
 tion to forget the past few weeks and write of the 
 present associations. This we resist. 
 
 333
 
 ^.. FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 After the ride over the ranges of Russian grain- 
 fields, we breathe the salt air of the sea along with 
 the dust of Odessa. Notwithstanding the dust, re- 
 freshment comes ; and with it the desire of leaving 
 this realm. We have no cause of complaint. We 
 have had courtesy and kindness. No spy has in- 
 vaded our chamber "No unwinking espionage" 
 has dogged our path, but the feeling of inse- 
 curity, even in the Peterhof grounds and upon the 
 railway, is not delectable to pleasure tourists. There- 
 fore our hearts leap up as Odessa appears in its 
 robe of white dust, simmering in a warm sun, for 
 it is the last step out of Russia and toward the 
 towers of Constantinople ! We have a good view 
 of the city of Odessa in passing around the base of 
 the rear hill. The city is on a high limestone cliff 
 by the sea. After manifold anxieties at the station, 
 a porter, with a proper badge, seizes our light bag- 
 gage and our trunk tickets. We follow him meekly, 
 without a word, bid adieu to our Russian compan- 
 ions, and mount the carriage. A strange gentleman 
 seems to be its occupant, and he disposes of our 
 traps with sang froid. We. demur ; in vain. Not a 
 word is interchanged or interchangeable. I protest 
 in several broken tongues, including a few rem- 
 nants of emphatic English. He finally master? 
 enough of the language to say : 
 
 "Me vagon." 
 
 This was astounding intelligence, at which I hes- 
 itated. If he had only said, " I am the wagoner," or 
 "the commissionnaire," it would have been intelligi- 
 ble. We were nonplussed, till it occurred that he had 
 2is in charge. Gallantly raising his yellow umbrella, 
 he conducts the driver, carriage, and ourselves 
 through the long avenues to the ticket office, and
 
 ODESSA— AFLOAT ON THE EUXINE 335 
 
 we meet an ai^cnt who is familiar witli I'lnj^lish. 
 Our steamer tickets arc arranged, and we proceed 
 to the dock, bound for Constantinople ! After 
 being supervised by a Russian policeman wiili a 
 sword, and our passport examined and mutilaied, 
 not without anxiety on our part, we are introduced 
 to the captain. He turns out to be a spirited 
 Irishman — Captain Duncan Thomas — all of the 
 olden time ! The best and bicr2f<-'-'^t state-room is 
 given us, and we are at liberty — awaiting the hour 
 of departure — to survey the city and harbor. They 
 are not Russian, and the very breeze seemed to 
 clarify the atmosphere of autocratic odor and dy- 
 namitic danger. 
 
 Odessa means business. It is cosmopolitan. It 
 is the wheat capital of the world, next to Chicago. 
 It has two hundred thousand population, and the 
 refinements of good society ; nevertheless, it is par- 
 tially cursed by Czarism. You see that I begin to 
 breathe and speak freely, being aloof from the all- 
 pervading autocracy of* despotic Russia. Odessa 
 lies between the mouths of the Dnieper and Dnies- 
 ter, and has a history of classic and belligerent 
 vicissitude. Cossack and Turk, Genoese and Vene- 
 tian, Russian and English, Greek and Turk — fights 
 by land and sea — make up this vicissitude, while 
 commerce, inland and maritime, has held various 
 sway over its destinies. Once a free port, and even 
 yet with evidences of freedom not accorded to 
 other places, with admirable pavements and superb 
 buildings, it is a city set upon a hill and lighted by 
 the pharos of commerce, so that it cannot be hid 
 while Russia grows grain and the world is hungry. 
 When the wheat transportation begins, its fine har- 
 bor is choked with vessels. Its suburbs are dry,
 
 33<5 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 herbless, and dreary, but its resources are manifold 
 as a place of comfortable residence and profitable 
 trade. 
 
 Many years ago I was requested to come here and 
 establish the elevator system, with the aid of gov- 
 ernment privilege. 1 his was twenty years ago, 
 when the grain from the vast plains of Russia was 
 carried across the city to the harbor by women, in 
 baskets or sacks, upon their heads. What a busi- 
 ness man Odessa lost, when I chose to be ''ele- 
 vated " otherwise ! and how little, alas ! has politics 
 gained. 
 
 My first observation was directed to the conve- 
 niences of the grain transit and lading. The mole 
 which makes the harbor is substantial and elegant. 
 It is built up out on either side, so as to make a 
 breakwater, and upon it the cars run with the 
 grain ; and out of them, by the good old force of 
 gravity, runs the grain into the ships and steamers 
 beneath. It is not our plan in America, but it an- 
 swers the purpose of despatch, as well as the gen- 
 eral object of safety, without storage, however. 
 
 It was a funny work, as we entered our steamer, 
 to see the Turks, — our first glimpse of the old fez- 
 headed genii of former mem.ories, — helping the Rus- 
 sians load our craft with sheep and cattle. We had 
 to walk through a flock of the former, and under 
 the latter, as the cattle were swung up by a belt 
 and dropped deftly into the hold by machinery. 
 The docks are jammed with crowds of carts, bring- 
 ing in English iron for the Black Sea ports, and 
 wheat for the English steamers, which carry it to 
 market, for the English do most of the trade here. 
 Stevedores are as busy as upon our own New York 
 wharves, loading and unloading, and coaling up
 
 ODESSA— AFLOAT O.V THE EUXINE. t^-,^ 
 
 with Cardiff coal. I count over a hundred steamers 
 in the harbor, and but a lialf-dozen saihu-^ ships. 
 Our ship tlies the eagle of Russia, double-headed 
 and triple-crowned, holding scrolls in its claws — 
 not Nihilistic pronunciamentos, but royal screeds ! 
 Flags of every nation are seen — French, Greek, 
 English, Italian, Turkisli, and German — not one 
 American ! The forts shine on the cliff, the dredg- 
 ing-machines ply their work, the cars thunder 
 around the harbor, the grain is paid out, bales of 
 goods are hoisted in and out of vessels, granite 
 blocks for Russ pavement are piled upon the dock, 
 a few gulls sweep about, and swoop down for their 
 lunch of fish ; lighters and tugs are alive ; and the 
 vessel we are to sail in for three days is being 
 crowded with animal life, including other than 
 sheep and cattle. \\' hat a motley lot of people are 
 fixing their beds, and arranging their sacks upon 
 the lower decks, between the bridge and rear deck. 
 Some of these strangers are devotees on their way 
 to Jerusalem and Mecca, pilgrims by steam ! The 
 captain says that often he carries old women of 
 seventy and upward to Jaffa, who have walked 
 from remote parts of Russia, hundreds of miles, 
 with packs on their backs, and devotion in their 
 hearts, to pray, if not to die, at the Holy Sepulchre ! 
 The white cattle are all in ; the sheep, all rams, 
 have ceased their bleatino- the windlasses cease to 
 rattle, the whistle sounds ; we take a look at the 
 palace of " the Princess " upon the green hill, a 
 glance at the city clock, observe the manifold opera- 
 tions of the port, and bid farewell, with a great 
 sigh of relief, to Russia ! 
 
 The sea is like glass. From under the awning 
 upon the upper deck we cast our last look at the 
 
 IS
 
 ^^S FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 receding land, and then — for are we not human ? — 
 down at the composite group of the steerage. After 
 saluting our new companions of the first class, who 
 are Russian gentlemen bound for Egypt, and after 
 an introduction to the captain's wife, who goes with 
 him to Alexandria, we retire below for a free meal — 
 free because under the merry auspices of a Celtic 
 host, who for twenty years has given to Russia 
 what he could not to Ireland, and would not to 
 England — a genius for careful and skilled naviga- 
 tion, associated with a bonhomie which only an 
 Irishman of the best type incarnates. 
 
 On Sabbath the sweet light melted the morning 
 into a delicious spring-time, and we awake to catch 
 its refreshing and tonical lustre in waves full and 
 cheerful. We awake in some confusion as to where 
 we are. We have been under so many skies in a 
 few months that we are not surprised at any sur- 
 roundincrs. A rousinsf crow from chanticleer de- 
 ludes us into a hazy sensation that we are children 
 aofain in our old rural Ohio home. The baa ! baa ! 
 of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle assist the 
 pleasing illusion. A few faint, delicious moments 
 of the rosy hours of childhood — confirmed by the 
 smell of fresh mown hay, whose odor turns gently 
 in the wards of memory, to unlock the enchanted 
 chambers. Nor does the throb of the engine dis- 
 turb the pleasing, dreamy, nebulous delight. But 
 the reality soon rushes us into full wakefulness. 
 We are indeed afloat on the Euxine, one hundred 
 miles east of the many-mouthed Danube, and not 
 a day's sail from the battle hills of the Crimea ! 
 
 We seek the bridge, which the captain has con- 
 ceded to us for observation. Below us lie in slum- 
 ber the gentle yet weary shepherds, who have
 
 ODESSA— AFLOAT ON THE l.UXINE. 33Q 
 
 driven these sheep from inland Russia ; and the 
 herdsmen, in turban and fez cap, are waterin<^ UK- 
 innocent stock, with a simplicity which a speculaLc^r 
 in railways might envy. The people of the vessel 
 are moving. The engineer's pretty daughter is 
 listening to the old story from the dandily-dressed 
 purser. A squawk from the coop tells of murder 
 by the cook, for more mouths than the Danube. 
 There is a stir anionic the cattle in the hold. It 
 looks like a mutiny, led by a long-horned steer, 
 worthy of sacrifice to Jove ! A herdsman drops 
 his raw tomato — which he eats as if it were a peach 
 — and drops himself down into the hold, and with 
 a few guttural monosyllables and herculean kicks 
 the mutiny is quelled. I feared that it was a cattle 
 disease beyond the reach of any art, but that of a 
 diplomatic doctor like Mr. Blaine. What a medley 
 of tongues, and variety of food and wear, do the 
 deck passengers present — Russians, Greeks, Turks, 
 and Armenians predominating. Many are lounging 
 on pallets of straw and eating bread by the " chunk," 
 and melons by the dozen, cucumbers without num- 
 ber, and a millionaire is indulging in the luxury of 
 cheese. Under the very hoofs of a truculent steer 
 on deck, and with a book before her, stands a 
 woman dressed in black, wdth a gold fillet about her 
 black hood. She is a devotee, reading and praying, 
 crossinof and bowinof her head to the deck. For an 
 hour she keeps up this devotion. She is literally 
 lifted above the flesh, although between the very 
 horns of the altar. She is a Russian religionist, and 
 en ro2ite for the Holy Tomb. She has come far ; 
 but has she not some inward light w'hich leads 
 to Jerusalem ? I turn to another quarter. An 
 Englishman, with a white veil flowing from his
 
 340 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 hat, is making his own tea, and drinking it out of 
 his own spout. He is an odd person, but he does 
 not strike me as nice or reHgious. He strikes me 
 as crazy. He washes out his "tea things" by 
 emptying his mouth full of tea into them, and then 
 scrubbing them with his pocket handkerchief ! 
 This may be Anglo-Oriental, but it is not aesthetic. 
 Everybody in Russia drinks tea. They swill it. 
 Our Irish captain says that his wife makes it for 
 him, when at home, by the bucketful. The shep- 
 herds among the sheep begin to awake to their tea 
 and duty. One old fellow that might pass for Pan, 
 so full of natural animality is he, arouses in stupor 
 at finding himself at sea ! He looks about him for 
 his " crook," I suppose. He tries to straighten up. 
 The crook is in his back. The captain's merry 
 children romp about the boat with nurse and dog ; 
 the ventilation sails belly out to catch the breeze 
 for the cattle in the hold. Not a sail is in sio-ht. 
 
 Directly the captain appears, all beaming like 
 the sun itself, from his couch. He is happy ; is 
 not his whole family aboard ? His Hibernian hi- 
 larity is catching even to Russians. 
 
 " I shall call you Captain Jason," I say. " Be- 
 hold your fleece ! " pointing to the sheep. 
 
 " Silver fleece, my boy, not golden ! " 
 
 " But they bring gold : at least they are bi-me- 
 tallic !" 
 
 With a laugh all ringing with silver he makes a 
 vessel that Jason never dreamed of resonant with 
 cheer. It is Tipperary dropped down into its an- 
 cient Milesia. The Celt is generally acknowledged 
 to be of the Orient, and this captain is only re- 
 claiming his own in these waters once traversed by 
 his ancient kinsmen. Soon appears a man with a
 
 ODESSA— AFLOAT O.V THE EVXINE. 3^1 
 
 tipped up, lon^, broad handle to liis cap. He is 
 Teutonic, and seems to be the proprietor of the 
 rams on board ! Where will not the German i^o ? 
 Carrying rams from the plains of ancient Scythia 
 to the land of the Pharaohs, and commanding the 
 gentle folk in baggy trousers, big red sashes, and 
 red caps with black tassels. 
 
 Walking clown among the passengers of the 
 steerage I find some women engaged with mortar 
 and pestle reducing the hard crusts of bread, gath- 
 ered in the gutters of Odessa, to pulverization, for 
 their soup ! Our meals on this boat were simply 
 luxurious. W^e begin upon the melon, peach, and 
 grape ! Such grapes never moistened the mouth 
 of saint or sinner. 
 
 One more night on board, out of which and 
 its comfort we are aroused by the engines stop- 
 ping. Looking out, I see in the dimness of the 
 dawn two white towers and liohts, one of which 
 goes out, as if my look had quenched it. We run 
 up the Russian ensign, above which vertically and 
 ominously is the pale crescent of the Moslem 
 moon. The vessel rolls, and moves with a current. 
 We are at the head of the Bosphorus, and these 
 towers are Turkish forts. We must creep into the 
 Bosphorus under Sultanic pratique and permission. 
 Still the current moves us, until we perceive our- 
 selves in the midst of other craft, awaiting the 
 sound of the sunrise gun, and the awakening of the 
 Turkish officials. Bluff rocks appear on either 
 side, not hio^h, and not with much orarniture of 
 green. Yonder, within a few hundred yards, is 
 Asia ; on this side is Europe, one end of Europe. 
 We had seen another end at the great rock at Nord 
 Cap, under the setless midnight sun, rising a thou-
 
 242 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 sand feet out of the desolate waters of the Arctic 
 Sea. How unHke that was this beginning of Asia 
 and end of Europe ! 
 
 " Captain," I ask, " is not this a small door to 
 get through upon a wild night on the Euxine ?" 
 
 " You may say so, and when fog comes along to 
 bedevil us, and no accommodation at all from the 
 Turk, it is not at all agreeable. We go mugging 
 around for hours." 
 
 We turn the talk, while our little boat goes off 
 to the Asiatic side for our " freedom papers," upon 
 the historic memories of the places on either side. 
 Yonder castle, so romantic and turreted, mantled 
 with ivy and preserved with heed, is the mediaeval 
 prison of Richard the Lion-Hearted. It is on the 
 Asiatic side, and is worthy of the finest-pointed 
 pencil of art. We all begin to transfer it to our 
 drawing-books. "If Richard were only here now," 
 said the impatient captain, " and had charge of 
 some of those Krupp guns on either side, he 
 would make somebody get up and clear this ship, 
 or he would clear cut somebody. Why, sir, if the 
 sun is under a cloud, and the Turks can't see it, 
 or perhaps because they are asleep after sunrise, no 
 one ever budges to help us,' and when 'Sunset' 
 comes, then there's an end of all business." 
 
 I did not tell the captain my own pet name, but 
 drank in the inconveniences of the navigation sys- 
 tem at this important point, by which no vessel can 
 go into the Bosphorus between sunset and sunrise, 
 and which no fighting or diplomacy seems to have 
 fully remedied. 
 
 "Why," said our irate captain, still waiting after 
 an hour's delay for his boat's return to report from 
 the Turkish fort — " why, the youngest assistant of
 
 ODESSA— AFLOAT O.V THE EUXINE, ^^ 
 
 the youngest clerk, in that Turkish stronghold, 
 stops the news of all Europe — Austrian, German, 
 English, and Greek, all waiting for this mail on my 
 boat, and tearing their hair for it in the city below ; 
 and yet some snipe of a boy, in a fez cap, niust first 
 be aroused, then smoke a cigarette, then swallow his 
 coffee, then put on his official robes, before he 
 will look into or after our papers. Once I did run 
 in anyhow, after sunset, but a conical shot near my 
 head on the bridge there, whose wind I got, made 
 me more careful." 
 
 At last we are counted worthy, and sail down 
 the splendid stream. Past the hills and villas, the 
 palaces of ambassadors, pachas, viceroys, and sul- 
 tans, hid in part within walls, behind which, ter- 
 raced to the rocky tops, are rarest gardens, or 
 shining to the water's edge in white and yellow — 
 only stopping once to deliver dispatches to the 
 Russian embassy, all alive in a steam-launch for 
 our appearance ; villages on either shore, where 
 the domes — not golden, like those of Moscow, but 
 surrounded by gilt minarets — tipped with crescent, 
 are passed, until, in hushed admiration, the huge 
 and splendid round " towers of Europe " stand con- 
 fessed, as I saw them thirty years ago ! The vision 
 of the three decades of memory — the most monu- 
 mental spot on either continent — the place where 
 Mohammed lodged his Moslem troops on European 
 soil — is here still, and still in all its grandeur and 
 simplicity, as we saw it in the morning of our life ! 
 This is one of the monuments of that Moslem in- 
 vasion which did not stop till Vienna itself was 
 threatened. To us it was more. Then rushed the 
 bright succession of scenes, linking as with golden 
 bonds to our first adventure of travel in 185 1.
 
 344 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 What pictures they are yet, and forever, in fact 
 and memory. The minarets of St. Sophia, the 
 tower of Galata, the SeragHo Point, the very water 
 and sky, the houses, temples, and splendors of 
 Stamboul, Pera, and Scutari, as we had seen them 
 in that eventful summer of 185 1. Even the dim 
 hills of Asia, toward the Prince's Islands, and the 
 misty halo around the immortal brow of Mount 
 Olympus, and Leander's tower of white, telling its 
 marvels of swimming and its story of love, made us 
 more than " a couple ; " we were fourfold in these 
 mnemonic concatenations linking our early days to 
 these, in this capital of the Orient, with its dreamy, 
 regal, luxurious splendors. Once again we think 
 of the historic glories that make the Bosphorus 
 such a stream of associations — olories of Persian 
 armies and crusading zealotry. Cnce again we' 
 fancy that we hear the "shouting of the captains," 
 and see the gilded chariots of the Persian and the 
 mailed horses and knights of the West, and all 
 the mighty hosts encamping or embarking upon 
 these memory-haunted shores. As we approach 
 the evening of our lives, and the " dewy fingers 
 draw the gradual dusky veil," are we not grateful 
 that, in the freshness and dawn of this feeling, we 
 had the privilege of drinking the spirit of this 
 golden land ? 
 
 We look about us for changes. There are many, 
 but there still is the grand city", which the Crimean 
 war has not greatly disturbed since we were here. 
 There is Scutari on the left, Pera on the right, 
 Stamboul in our front, with the Golden Horn be- 
 tween ! It is the ever new, ever old beauty, in 
 site and celebrity, and never seen to more advan- 
 tage than on this beautiful, breezy, summer morn-
 
 ODESSA— AFLOAT O.V THE EUXINE. 
 
 345 
 
 Ing. Cliangcs there are to our mere superficial 
 observation, The old Seraglio, where the hun- 
 dreds of wives of the Sultan, Abdul Mejid, were 
 wont to disport themselves in 1851, is burned ; but 
 the point remains, and will remain forever, as one 
 of the pivots of commerce and policy. Since we 
 were here other Sultans have ruled, been deposed, 
 assassinated; and palaces, of a beauty blending the 
 Frank with the Oriental style, have been built in 
 marble on the hills and margins of the Bosphorus. 
 There were over fifty thousand little boats or 
 caiques dashing over the enchanted waters — now 
 but few. Splendid steamers, with streamers of 
 coal-smoke, fill the harbor and run from the INIar- 
 mora to the Euxine Sea. The tall cypress trees 
 of the cemeteries have a dingy, dusty look — less 
 attractive than before ; the turbaned headstones 
 seem to "■ tumble to each other " in whimsical glee, 
 and to have lost that sober perpendicularity be- 
 coming temperate Turks, and which erstwhile they 
 had ; but the isles toward the south, where under 
 the distance are veiled other glories of sky, sea, 
 and soil, remain as steadfast as when ancient Greek 
 and Persian saw them in their days of conflict. At- 
 trition and time have not destroyed their beauty, 
 nor even dissolved the mist which wraps them in 
 its wimple of loveliness. The oars of the caiques 
 and barges flash less frequently, but with the old 
 mode of rowing, by the rising and falling of the 
 rowers, and with the old rhythm made to tune 
 with the Arabic drawling song heard through these 
 waters for more than a thousand years. 
 
 As our vessel turns into the Golden Horn to its 
 anchorage, the little boats in multitudes rush and 
 clamor for patronage, as of old. About us the 
 
 15*
 
 546 
 
 FROM POLE TO PYRAMID. 
 
 flags of all countries — but our own — are seen. At 
 length the bridge of the Golden Horn appears. It 
 spans our twoscore and more of memories, and is 
 a sign of changes in palace, seraglio, and polity, 
 at which all the world wonders, and which have 
 made Crimean and other wars, and fresh and pecu- 
 liar guarantees necessary, for or on account of 
 this unnatural "encampment" of the Turks in 
 Europe ! 
 
 "Ah!" says our captain, "will these people 
 never get out of my way ? " looking at the crowds 
 of small boats and lighters. " They know I won't 
 run over them, but who knows what a Russian 
 vessel may not do here some day ? " 
 
 He applies his mouth to the tube, and his hands 
 to gesturing, now and then thundering his Russian 
 brogue to his own men, but keeping his Irish good 
 temper and intelligent will to command — till we 
 stand, stock still, at rest at last, at last — after 
 thirty years of varied life, national, social, personal 
 — once again within these beautiful waters of the 
 old Eastern capital of the world ! 
 
 How we get ashore ; with what anxiety we 
 seek our mail, now a month long delayed ; with 
 what ease the custom-house officials pass us 
 through ; how the big burden of two trunks is 
 borne up the narrow streets to the hotel by one 
 man, not a beast of burden ; how the cries of the 
 street, "Fruit !" " Sherbet ! " and " Newspapers ! " 
 awaken the old times ; how the fingers of mem- 
 ory begin upon this oriental mystery to unravel 
 the old threads of our first experiences in this clime 
 of poetry and conflict, only to reweave them into 
 new tissues of more sober hue — these may be told 
 subsequently, when, in the hospitable home of our
 
 ODESSA— AFLOAT O.V THE EUXINE. 347 
 
 consul, Mr. Heap, at the head of the Bosphorus, 
 and under the wing of our gallant minister, my old 
 friend General Wallace, we have rested from our 
 long journeying. Thither, to our palace of Amer- 
 ican delight, at Therapia, we are urged most hospi- 
 tably to go on the morrow ; and from its " grounds 
 of pleasaunce " we hope to record in a future 
 volume something to illustrate the fortunes and 
 scenes of this capital and empire of the Moslems. 
 
 We are on the threshold of that Orient, out of 
 whose infinite depths wise men were led to the 
 presence of Him by whose teaching, life and Di- 
 vinity, the world has been transformed, and by 
 which alone it can be redeemed. Our beacon is 
 not that of the wise men of the East — " The star ! 
 the star ! " — so graphically told by our Minister 
 under whose roof we lodge — in his tale of " the 
 Christ." Steam is our directing genius, and supplies 
 our unwisdom. From the West, by way of the 
 Arctics, we journey to Jerusalem, soon, we trust, to 
 dwell within its palaces and study anew its won- 
 drous story.
 
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