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Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN L161— 0-1096 tn ‘gor ‘d ‘guofue y, ye epduia y, CURIOUS QUESTIONS | HISTORY, LITERATURE, ART, AND SOCIAL LIFE. DESIGNED AS A Manual of General Information, BY CARAT Hl ICKL DIK ELLY) FIS) Se. WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. Ill. PHILADELPHIA DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER 604-608 SOUTH WASHINGTON SQUARE TO MY NIECE, SarAH H. CaRPENTER, IN APPRECIATION OF HER NEVER FAILING» : WARS | LOVE AND EVER READY HELP. ——S ee ‘ aed «Take 1T, LOVE, THE BOOK AND ME TOGETHER ; Pan $4 ee WHERE THE HEART LIES, LET THE BRAIN LIE ALSO.” MRS ae Uy) oo Pea ee PREPACE. As a Preface to this Third Volume of ‘Curious Questions,’ I would gladly give due credit to the authors of all the books from which it has been com- piled. But the articles have been taken, mainly, from courses of lectures on foreign travel, given some years ago, and the authorities then quoted, not being noted at the time, cannot now be recalled. Let me then acknowledge my indebtedness by say- ing: I have made me a book of other men’s books; “only the thread that binds them is mine own.” Also, I would acknowledge, Peatetuity, the kind favor of Hamilton Wright Mabie, LL.D., in reading the manu- script, and in allowing me to append his note of favor- able comment. INTRODUCTION. Miss Killikelly has had a long experience in trying to answer some of the multifarious questions which are asked in this day of eager interest in the world of science, of society and history. In reading the manu- script of the present volume of her series of ‘Curious Questions” I have been impressed by the range of topics upon which she has touched, and by my own need of information concerning many of the things of which she has written. I have never found her manifesting any interest in frivolous questions, although I have often found her disposed to throw light on curi- ous and out-of-the-way incidents, associations and per- sons. The impression which her book leaves upon me is that of a well-informed student concerned only with the things which are worth knowing, and with that knowledge of the places to go for information which is likely to take the place of what used to be called scholarship; for the world is growing so large, and information in every department has taken on such vast proportions, that the scholar no longer pretends to know anything completely save the method of getting at facts and the places in which facts are to be learned. This book is a repository of facts, useful and curious, col- lected from many quarters by one whose experience entitles her to be called an expert. W antl, W. Motors TABLE OF QUESTIONS. TO THE READER. As the articles in this book are not essays, but merely answers to questions, it is very desirable that the following directions be observed :— Before reading any article, turn to this Table, and read carefully the question that corresponds in number with the article. 1. When was Rome a deserted city for forty days? Page I. 2. Who was the Ayrshire Ploughman? Page 2. 3. What city owns the house of Michael Angelo and its treasures? Page 5. 4. Why is a British soldier called “Tommy Atkins”’ ? Pave: 7: : 5. What is the national sport of Spain? Page 7. 6. What Hindu girl won recognition as a writer of Eng- lish verse? Page It. 7, What is the legend of the “ Phantom Battle of Sirecht))'? 0 Page 42. 8. Why should Friday be accounted a lucky day in America? Page 14. 9. What was the “Trent Affair” ? Page 15. 1o. What is the legend of the river Seine? Page 19. | 11. What five antique statues are in the Tribune of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence? Page 20. 12. What quaint episode transacted on the Vega of Granada is of world-wide interest? Page 23. ( ix ) 21. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. _ What is meant by the “‘ Dead Cities”’ of the Zuyder Zeer Page. 25. . What is the legend of the river Ganges? Page 29. . Who was the greatest satirist with his brush? Page 33. . What single European nation in 1600 alone disputed territory in America with the Red men? Page 35. . What royal matriage made the “Isle of Pheasants” famous? Page 306. . What was the prayer of Ajax? Page 37. . What picture is called the “ Jewel of the Hague” ? Page’ 36. . How did the expression “to see the lions of the town”’ originate ? Page 30. What was England's responsibility as to the Cruiser “ Alabama’’? Page 39. . What is the legend of Holyrood Abbey? Page 4T. . Who is the busiest man in Paris? Page 42. . Who inaugurated the modern Postal System? Page 45. . What woman caused the sudden irruption of the Norsemen into Europe? Page 46. . What was the occasion of Tennyson’s Ode: “ Who is he that cometh like an honored guest’’? Page 47. . Who was ‘the poet-painter’’? Page 48. . What is the “‘ Order of the Elephant’’? Page 50. . What is the oldest existing Republic? Page 50. . What is the legend of the Stauffen? Page 52. . What church in Paris is, in style, a Greek Temple ? Page 54. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. XI . What was the origin of the Indian Totem? Page 56. . What was England’s compensation for the loss of her thirteen American colonies? Page 57. . Who was the ‘“ Warden of the Cinque Ports’ in Longfellow’s poem of that name? Page 509. . Who was called the ‘‘Hogarth”’ of Spanish painters? Page 60. . Where can a real Viking Ship be seen? Page 62. What is the history of Mont St. Michel, and what are its traditions? Page 62. . What is the plot of India’s great epic, the ‘“‘ Rama- yana’”’? Page 66. . What legend does Raphael illustrate in his ‘‘ Sposa- lizio’’? Page 60. . What is the “‘ Danneborg”’? Page 7o. . Who are the “fire worshippers’’ of the East? Raven: . What Scottish clan do Scott and Wordsworth cele- brate in song and story? Page 75. . What modern statue is second in size only to the Colossus of Rhodes? Page 76. . What is in history the ‘‘ Victory of the Vocal Moun- tain”? Page 77. . What was the immediate cause of the Sepoy Mutiny? Page 78. . Of whom did a king say: ‘One of his pamphlets is worth an army of 100,000 men’’? Page 8o. . What is the most costly monument in England? Page 82. . What unique ceremony is still observed at the fune- ral of a Spanish king? Page 84. x11 CURIOUS QUESTIONS . When was the Atlantic Cable successfully laid? Page 83. _ What has become of ‘The Clans of Scotland”’ ? Page 90. . What “‘ Four Great Orders’’ inspired the reconquest of Spain from the Moors? Page 92. . What is the difference between an “ Heir Apparent” and an ‘‘ Heir Presumptive”? Page 93. . Why is Normandy called the ‘Cradle of English history’’? Page 93. . Why were the “Sonnets from the Portuguese”’ so named? Page 96. . What is ‘“‘ The Glory of Seville’’? Page 98. . What Five Landings mark five epochs in English history? Page 100. . What was the most important city in Europe from the ninth to the twelfth century? Page IoI. . Within what Mosque has a Christian church been erected'?/7) Pagel Los. . What are the Eleven Wonders of India? Page 106. . What is meant by “A Hyde of Land’? Page 108. . What is the most northern Cathedral in Europe ? Page 108. . What are the Rocking Stones of Guehenno? Page 110. . What is the history of ‘‘Old London Bridge” ? Face 112. . Why was Paris so named? Page 113. . Who was the first Archbishop of Canterbury ? Page I14. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 73 92. 73. 74. 75: 70. 77: To, 79: 80. SI. 82. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Xill Where is “The Tooth of Buddha” reverently en- Stitined'? {Page nras) What town, according to native tradition, is the oldest in Europe? Page 115. What is meant by ‘Round as Giotto’s O”’? Page 117. What castle in Europe was called “The Saucy Castle pe.) Pare 117. Who is the “first lady’ in the Sultan’s dominions ? Page ve1S. What tragedies have been enacted on the Place de la Concorde, Paris? Page IIo. What church is called “The Westminster of Flor- ence’)? | Page 120, Who were the Cagots? Page 122. Who said “I will build the pyramids of Egypt in the Sea’? Page 123. What is the Kalevala? Page 125. What is the origin of the word “ Hindustan” ? Page 128. Were the Britons and the Bretons anciently one people? Page 129. Where is the Black Venus Kali? Page 130. Where was foot-ball (calcio) played in Florence ? Page 132. What is the meaning of the word Portugal”’ ? Page 133. What is the origin of the Bayonet? Page 134. What historic site in Paris is now occupied by the Hotel de Cluny? Page 135. XiV 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. go. gl. 92. 93: 94. 95. 96. 97: 98. y?. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. What is a Cathedral? Page 136. Who was the first ‘Catholic King of Spain” ? Page 137. What is supposed to be the only work of Lysippus now extant? Page 138. From what battle does the British Empire of India date? Fave. 730. What is the smallest kingdom in the world? Page 142. What sea lies in an amber basin? Page 144. What church did Michael Angelo call “his bride”’ ? Page 145. What are the Dolmens and Menhirs, or Memory Stones, of Brittany? Page 146. What was the Vision of St. Anthony of Padua ? Page 148. What is the oldest town in France? Page 149. Under what circumstances was the Parthenon built? Page 150. What history has been called “The Epic of Des- potism’’?? Page 154. When and where was the first Kindergarten estab- lished? Page 156. When were the “Lion and the Unicorn’’ adopted in the Arms of Great Britain? Page 158. What was the most famous seaside resort of the ancient Romans? Page 159. What is Greek Anthology? Page 160. To what event does the Temple of Theseus, Athens, owe its origin? Page 162. 100. FOr: 102. 103. IOA. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. III. Liz. 113, 114. CURIOUS CUESTIONS. XV What distinguishes the Corsican bandits from other outlaws? Page 163. When did the “ giant rock,’ Gibraltar, come into possession of the English? Page 165. What poet was carried to his tomb by women ? Page 167. What Greek Temple was seven hundred years in building? Page 168. What canal, costing $680,000,000, was built en- tirely at the expense of one man? Page 170. What national interests are involved in “The Eastern Question’? ? Page 171. To what does Longfellow refer when he says :— “Many a wassail bout Wore the long winter out”? Page 173. What is the story of ‘‘The Diamond Necklace” ? Page 175. Who were the Basques Pi Page L73, Of what nation is it said, ‘‘ Cesar, passing by, was the first to name this people”? Page 177. Where is “ The Devil’s Bible,” and why so called ? Page 180. What incident led to the manufacture of Dresden China? Page 181. When was the motto, ‘In God we trust,” first stamped upon American coins? Page 184. What became of the Moors after the reconquest of Spain? Page 186. Where is the oldest dressmaker’s bill to be seen ? Page 188. Xvi Tis: 1106. Ly. 118. 119. 120. I21. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128: 129. 130. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. What is of peculiar interest in the Catacombs of Naples? Page 189. What is the traditionary history of Great Britain ? Page 190. What is meant by “ The Horns of the Rhine” ? Page 192. Where was the home of the Cumzan Sibyl? . Page 193. What is England’s noblest royal residence? Page 195. What was the origin of the Scottish Tartan? Page 197. Through the dowry of what princess did England obtain her first territory in the East? Page 198. What Greek poem did Thorwaldsen illustrate in bas-relief? Page 201. What is the most celebrated picture in Bologna? Page 202. Who are the Tuaregs? Page 205. Why was the Areopagus of Athens so named? Page 206. What Pariah, or outcast, became eminent as a poet? Page 208. What American-born artist was made President of the Royal Academy and knighted? Page 210. What effect has the Gulf Stream had upon the civilization of Norway? Page 211. Why is Amsterdam called the ‘Northern Venice ”’ ? Page 212. Who was the “ Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green” ? Page 215. 131. ie oe CURIOUS QUESTIONS. XVil What is now considered the “Supreme picture of the world’’? Page 219. What three blessings were asked of the gods for Spain? Page 221. . What city was submerged by the mad folly of a woman? Page 221. . Who named America ? Page 223. . What is the origin of ‘Up Salt River” ? Page 223. . What was the “ Eton Montem”’? Page 224. . What is the origin of the phrase ‘“‘ Pouring oil on troubled waters”? Page 220. . How old is the Piano-Forte? Page 227. . What is the game of “ Soule,”’ peculiar to Brittany ? Page 232. . When did the first Parliament meet in England? Page 233. . Who were the Monkey-men of the Ramayana? Page 234. . Who was called the “Modern Phidias’’? Page 234. . What is a Dak-Bungalow? Page 2309. . What is the origin of Caste in India? Page 239. _ In what cathedral may Christians of every sect worship together? Page 241. . Why is the great Museum of Art at St. Petersburg called ‘‘the Hermitage” ? Page 242. . Why is the English Government called “the Court of St. James”? Page 245. . How many attempts have been made to assassi- nate Queen Victoria? Page 246. XVili 140. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Why did the American Flag have fifteen stars and fifteen stripes during the war of 1812? Page 249. What and where is the Sir-pada? Page 251. What artist has been called ‘the Plutarch of Painters”? Page 252. What was the Goloid Dollar Scheme? Page 254. Why is a house in Rotterdam marked ‘The House of a Thousand Fears’? Page 255. Who were the Pythagoreans? Page 257. Of what city does Grimm say: “It is like a flower which, when fully blown, instead of withering on its stock, turned, as it were, to stone’’? Page 259. What was the Calydonian Boar Hunt? Page 261. What is the four-fold division of German Social Late?) Pagers: Who wrote the Arabian Nights? Page 268. What is the Order of the Black Eagle? Page 270. What American was four times Lord Chancellor of England? Page 271. What was the destruction of the Battleship Maine? Pace’ 272: What is the Popol Vuh? Page 276. What is the origin of ‘“‘ Uncle Sam” as a pseudonym for the United States Government? Page 279. What late theory has been advanced as to the origin of the Red race? Page 280. Who wrote the Epic Poem of Persia? Page 282. How may Japanese Art be distinguished from Chinese Art? Page 285. 167. 168. 160. 170. 171. 72. 1733 174. 175. 176. 177, 178. 170. 180. ISI. 182. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. X1X What was the Combat of Thirty? Page 288. What American Indians have held official posi- tions? Page 289. Who were the German Pre-Raphaelites? Page 201 Why was Japan called ‘‘the Robinson Crusoe of Nations’’? Page 293. What is considered the greatest work of Robert Browning? Page 208. Where is the original portrait of Dante to be seen? Page 30. What are called the ‘“‘ Great Fifteen American In- ventions’? Page 302. How has English rule benefited Egypt? Page BRE How old is the story of the ‘Lost Atlantis ”’ ? Page 306. ' Where and by whom was the famous Warwick Vase discovered? Page 309. What American Negroes have held Government positions? Page 310. Has the King of the Mound Builders been found ? Page, 3106. Who were the leaders of the Pre-Raphaelite Broth- erhood in England? Page 318. What Palace contains the Art-History of the House of Oldenborg? Page 319. What Spanish weapon is as useful in Peace as in War? Page 324. How was the Opening of the Ports of Japan accomplished? Page 325. xX 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 180. 190. IQI. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. We ge 198. CURIOUS QUESTIONS, During what century was France, North and South, divided in language by a difference in the pronunciation of the word “ Yes’’? Page 331. In defending what artist did Ruskin lay the foun- dation of his ‘‘ Modern Painters’? Page 334. What monument is inscribed, only, ‘“‘ The Ears of the Koreans’”’? Page 336. What was the “‘ Mississippi Scheme’”’? Page 337. What was the “South Sea Bubble”? Page 338. Who was the real Uncle Tom of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin *' ?.)!\Page: 220; When and how was the Aztec Calendar discovered ? Page 340. Why do sixty minutes make anhour? Page 342. What Castle is called the Bulwark of Scotland? Page 343. Who, according to legend, led the first Chinese colony into Japan? Page 345. What is the most finished picture of Christofano Allori? Page 348. How old is the use of Coffee as a beverage? Page 349. Who was the founder of the Russian empire? Page 351. What laws govern the rights of succession to the Thrones of Europe? Page 354. What great artist was Master of Ceremonies at the marriage of Marie Theresa to Louis XIV.? Tagerss7, What is the legend of St. Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins? Page 359. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 200. 207. 208. 200. 210. wkd. 212. B13. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. XXI1 What is the history of the Palace and Forest of Fontainebleau? Page 360. What King was called the Monarch of the Renais- sance? Page 363. What is the most remarkable river-voyage on record? Page 365. Who named Pittsburgh? Page 59. Who was called the Father of Zoology? Page 370. How has it been discovered that the ‘ Night Watch” is a daylight rather than a night scene? Page 370. What is the origin of the term Yankee? Page 374- What artists have made the Barbizon school of Painters famous? Page 375. What are the seven wonders of the Ancient World ? Page 3709. Under what circumstance did the Emperor Maxi- milian ennoble Albrecht Durer? Page 381. What is the Mission of Art in the World? Page 382. When was the custom of burying slaves with their dead Masters or Mistresses abolished in Japan ? Page 286. Who was the first great Painter of the Bull-Fight? Page.61, Why is Bombay called the City of Parsees? Page 71. To whom is due the final disbanding of the High- land Clans? Page QI. 227 226, 229. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. . When did Peter the Great work and receive wages as a day laborer? Page 26. . What Royal Marriage was the result of the Peace of the Pyrenees? Page 37. . What artist furnished the design for the first post- age stamp in England? Page 45. . When was Japan admitted to be one of the Great Nations? Page 329. . Who was called ‘“‘the Semiramis of the North 2” Page, 322. . What Indian invented an alphabet for his people? Page 290. . What was the largest Temple erected by the Greeks? Page 169. . What was the origin of Jingoism? Page 171. . What is the story of Count Bruhl’s Tailor? Page 183. . Who won the prize for the best definition of money ? Page 185. . To whom is the invention of the organ ascribed ? Page 303. . What bas-relief commemorates the entry of Napo- leon Bonaparte into Rome in 1812? Page 237. . What European Monarch was the first to recognize the independence of America? Page 119. Of what work did Max Miller say: “From the mouths of the age, an epic poem has been col- lected equaling the Iliad in length and complete- NESS Poe aoe se In what church was laid the opening scene of Boc- caccio’s “‘ Decameron’? Page 146. What was the Panathenaic Festival? Page 152. 230. 221% a eos 233. 234. O25. 230. 237. 235. 230. 240. 241. 242) 243. 244. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. XXIli Where only in Europe do wild monkeys abound? Page 167. Where is the Statue of Pompey “ before which Caesar fell’? Page 253. Who was called the George Washington of Mexico? Page 291. To what foreign court did Japan first send an Em- bassy? Page 295. What was the Brotherhood of St. Isidore? Page 292. | What valuable picture is painted in black and red? Page 342. What is the most magnificent function ever cele- brated in modern Rome? Page 295. Who was called the maker of Modern Mexico? Page 291. To the top of what tower did Peter the Great ride on horseback? Page 321. What is the Oldenborg Horn? Page 322. What nation is called “the Child of the World’s id Age’? Page 320. What artist was said to combine in his frescoes “the symmetry of Raphael, the terror of Michael Angelo, the truth of Titian and the dignity of Correggio? Page 364. Where did Napoleon take his memorable adieu of feethe Old Guard’? Page 362. What artist was said to have emancipated landscape painting as Moses liberated the Hebrews? Page 375- Who was called ‘the Martyr of Art”? Page 376. XXIV 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. ey, 22 2153. 254. ass. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. What is remarkable about the Island of Marken ? Page 28. Who was the last predatory Highland chieftain ? Page 75. What was the most important work of Vittoria Carpaccio? Page 360. Why are Queen Victoria’s great-grandchildren nearer to the throne than her own sons, except the Prince of Wales? Page 354. After the abolition of slavery, what negro was the first to fill the position of United States Senator P Page 310. What country is called “‘ the Holy Land of Modern Europe’? Faserya. What is the sole instance on record where the genius of one man made the language of his country classical? Page 4. Where is Michael Angelo buried? Page 121. During the Franco-Prussian War, what artist's home was protected by order of the Crown Prince? Page 376. What was the population of Pittsburgh in 1760? Page 368. Who named Fort Pitt? Page 367. PW US OUEST TNS. tr. ROME, A DESERTED CITY. No more impressive scene is presented to the imagina- tion, in history, than the city of Rome, the home of the Cesars, the “marble city”? of Augustus, the proud capital of the world, unpeopled and silent for forty days. This occurred when Justinian, the law-giver of civiliza- tion, reigned as Emperor of the Eastern Empire, and Totila, King of the Ostro-Goths, ruled in Italy, 547 A. D. Justinian was not slow to take advantage of the dis- sensions in the Ostro-Gothic kingdom of Italy. He dispatched his great general, Belisarius, in 535, to con- quer and reannex Italy to his dominions, that he might re-establish the ancient Roman Empire. Belisarius made an easy conquest of southern Italy, and the city of Rome practically surrendered before he attacked it. On the gth of December, 536, Belisarius entered Rome and the Gothic garrison marched out. Rome was not the capital of the Gothic kings of Italy; Theodoric had chosen Ravenna as a city more easily defended than Rome. During the next ten years there was a constant struggle between the Goths and the forces of Justinian for pos- session of the coveted city. In 546 Totila, King of the Goths, again threw his army around Rome and estab- lished a blockade; famine ensued, and Rome was be- trayed to the Goths, December 17th, 546. Totila for- bade his followers to slay, but gave them full license to pillage. After the city had been stripped and most of i (1) 2 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the inhabitants had fled, Totila resolved to destroy Rome absolutely, and was only dissuaded from this barbarity by the intercession of Belisarius. Totila’s force being insufficient to garrison the city, he demolished a large portion of the walls and then marched south to defend Apulia, taking with him every surviving inhabitant. It was during the ensuing forty days of January and February, 547, that Rome lay deserted and © desolate. Then Belisarius returned, rebuilt the walls and garrisoned the city. Seven years later, in 553, Totila fell, as became his heroic blood, sword in hand, upon the field of battle. In the same year and in the same way his successor, Teia, died. Totila and Teia were the last of the Ostro- Gothic kings of Italy. Then occurred another phenomenon, the disappear- ance of a great and powerful people from the world’s history. A people that emerged from semi-barbarism in the third century A. D.; conquered a civilized country and quickly absorbed its civilization ; established an en- lightened government, and maintained it by genius and the sword ; able to send two hundred thousand fighting men into the field of battle, suddenly found their race of heroic leaders exhausted. Totila left no worthy succes- sor, and in the annals of Europe the Ostro-Goths are heard of no more. 2, AYRSHIRE PLOUGHMAN. Some one has said, “ There is but one Scotland, and Burns is its prophet.’”’ The country had long waited for -him. Scotland stood apart from the nations of the earth, its inner features, its national and individual pe- culiarities almost unknown to the people themselves. 5 iL. 2 Pp . Robert Burns. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 3 Then Burns came; his sword blazed not in the van of victorious war; his hand dropped no gold into the treasury of his country ; his brain gave no impetus to trade ; he came in the guise of an humble ploughman and went away almost unheeded; but long ago it was decided that there was only one Burns and there could never be another. But why this unique praise, why one universal outburst of applause from every nation where Britain’s tongue was spoken, when the one hundredth -anniversary of his birth came, January 25th, 1859; why was the simple Ayrshire Ploughman the theme of poets ; the household theme among intelligent people of every clime? The question is easily answered in his own words :— “The elements o’ sang, In formless jumble right and wrang, Wild floated in my brain.”’ His years were few (January 25th, 1759; July 21st, 1796), and some of these thirty-seven years were worse than wasted, yet, with Burns the sins of his humanity died with him, while the glory of his genius lives for- ever. Who has not read with reverence his ‘‘ Cotter’s Saturday Night ;”’ with keen enjoyment ‘ Tam O’Shan- ter’? and ‘Souter Johnnie ;’ who does not love his “ Highland Mary,” and whose heart has not responded to the pathos of ‘Auld Lang Syne,” ‘“‘O wert thou in the cauld blast,” ‘‘ Flow gently, sweet Afton,” and ‘“ John Anderson my Jo John;”’ or the coyness of ‘Comin through the Rye ;” or who has not been deeply stirred by the “ Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled?” Professor Wilson (Christopher North) says this is the grandest Ode outside the Bible. There is one verse, of four lines, by Burns, of which Scott says: ‘It contains the es- sence of a thousand love tales”? :— ”) 4 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. « Had we never loved sae kindly, Had we never loved sae blindly, Never met, or never parted, We had ne’er been broken-hearted.” It is a remarkable fact that Burns is the sole case on record where the genius of one man has made the lan- guage of his country classical. Ayr, an ancient seaport (20,000 inhabitants), is said to attract more “pious pilgrims’? than even Stratford-on- Avon, for it is the center from which to visit the land of Burns. It is divided by the river Ayr into Wallacetown and Newton. Of the “Twa Brigs” immortalized by Burns’s poem, the “Auld Brig,” dating from 1250, is still standing, while the “‘ New Brig” has been replaced by a later one. The whole country from Ayr to Dum- fries teems with associations of the songs and poems of Burns. Two miles south of Ayr is the cottage, divided into two rooms, where he was born, and the scene also of his ‘“‘ Cotter’s Saturday Night.’”’ Two miles farther on is “Alloway’s auld haunted Kirk” of Tam O’Shanter fame, and where Burns’s father and mother lie buried. Just beyond it is the “Auld Brig” over which Tam O’Shanter so narrowly ney and where ‘“ Cuttie Sark”? despoiled “Maggie” of her tail. The Park, about the ‘“‘ Banks and Braes o’ Bonnie Doon,” contains a fine monument to Burns, erected in 1820 at a cost of 43,300. An acre of ground surrounds the monument and it is kept in beautiful order ; in a grotto is the cele- brated statue of “Tam O’Shanter and Souter Johnnie” by Thom, of Ayr. The scenery along the Doon is equal in richness and variety to any in Scotland, and is full of poetic associations which have made Ayrshire famous throughout the world. Between the Doon and Dum- fries is the scene of the ‘“ Holy Fair”’ and the “ Jolly CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 5 Beggars.” The first part of Burns’s married life was spent at his dairy farm of Ellisland, a few miles from Dumfries ; but his last three years were lived at Dum- fries, and the house where he died, and where his wife lived for thirty years longer, is preserved. He did not sell the product of his pen, and so died in great poverty ; but no sooner was he dead than from 10,000 to 12,000 people flocked to Dumfries to pay re- spect to his immortal genius. The poor weak mortal body was buried with military and civic honors in the churchyard, but nineteen years later was disinterred and placed in a splendid mausoleum, the nation’s gift to her greatest poet. Over the sarcophagus within the mausoleum is, in éasso refievo, the Ayrshire Plough- man, with his plough in hand, the Angel of his “ Vision ”’ hovering over him. What could be more suggestive ? the simple peasant and the divine Muse. 3. HOUSE OF MICHAEL ANGELO. Near the Piazza Santa Croce is a house much prized by Florentines. “No. 64 Via Ghibellina,’ was the ad- dress of Michael Angelo in Florence. And here Floren- tines may walk through the same rooms his feet have trodden, stand in his studio, handle the models his hands have fashioned, follow the great incidents of his life that have been frescoed upon the walls, remembering that Michael Angelo, although born near Arezzo, Italy, was from his early youth a Florentine. His descendants have endeavored to keep the house of their illustrious kinsman, as nearly as possible, in the state in which he left it. His grandnephew, Michael Angelo the younger, in 1620 collected many of the souvenirs of his great ancestor and had the walls of the 6 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. house frescoed with incidents of his life by the best Masters in Florence. In 1858 Cosimo Buonarroti, the last member of the family, bequeathed the house, with all its treasures, to his native city. The seven rooms of the house open into each other without lateral communication. In the third room, the ceiling, divided into fifteen compartments, is covered with paintings relative to the great master. It also contains a life-size seated statue of him, by Antonio Novello, in 1620. The sixth room, called the library, is surrounded by old chestnut-wood presses, which contain the archives of the Buonarroti family. The collection of his corres- pondence is very interesting, especially his letters from Vittoria Colonna, the celebrated Marchioness of Pes- cara. Michael Angelo was never married, but late in life he conceived the most ardent passion for this remark- able woman, one of the most eminent characters of the sixteenth century. In this same room is the model for the ‘‘ David,” and for Hercules, which were placed at the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio. In another room is shown the sword which always journeyed with him ; also his walking stick, with crutch handles and strong iron ferrules, deeply notched to keep the old man from falling on slippery pavements. There is shown also, in another room, his studies for the painting of the Sistine Chapel, Rome ; and his plans for the fortifications of Florence. Other and numerous relics of art which he had collected render this one of the most interesting private dwellings in Florence. (See ‘Curious Questions,” Vol. I., page 220.) Florence. ’ ichael Angelo’s House M te ‘ © - 5 eg f \ *: . * ‘ ‘ - ae : { ‘ S . ip = ‘ bd . 7 : we =] " ee ‘ ww 7 - bg S = be aa 7 1 " - ‘ cal . rd . . ’ v ’ i . A” ‘ , ‘ i i ‘ - ao ~ 5 + CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 7 4. **TOMMY ATKINS.” It was at one time the custom to supply every British soldier with a small pocket manual. In this manual was entered the name, the age, the date of enlistment, the length of service, the wounds, the medals of honor of the individual soldier. The War Office in sending out Forms for information used the hypothetical name “Tommy Atkins,” instead of “John Dow” or “ Richard Smith,” to be written in later. In this way “Tommy Atkins’? was used to designate any British soldier. In the same way “ Jack Tar’ became the sobriquet of every British sailor. The British soldier under the name of “Tommy Atkins” has _ recently been made famous by the “ Barrack-room Bal- lads”” and other poems of Rudyard Kipling. One of the most popular of these is called ‘“‘ Tommy.” 5. THE BULL-FIGHT. From the time of no date, when Hercules was lured to the Peninsula by the lowing of the cattle of Geryon, the bull has been the National emblem of Spain. In other words they own him, and have a right to do what they please with him. There is evidence that bull-fights were a favorite amusement in Spain long before Julius Cesar fought, near Cordova, the year before his death, one of the decisive battles of the world’s history, the battle of Munda, 45 B.C. Representations of them ap- pear upon Spanish coins which antedate the Roman occupation. However, the Spaniards need no_ higher authority for the sacredness of their national game, always given on Sunday, than that Rodrigo (Cid Cam- peador), the great Christian hero (1025-1099) of Spain, 8 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. was the first cavalier to descend with the lance into the arena and kill, from horseback, his formidable antagonist. From that time young noblemen dedicated themselves to this sport, and only to nobility was conceded the honor of fighting with bulls in the arena. During Medi- eval times kings were frequently the principal actors in the game. It is to the credit of Queen Isabella that she made a vigorous effort to suppress the bull-fights ; but after her day they seemed to increase in spectacular grandeur until the gladiatorial combats seemed small in proportion. Each game costs from 4300 to £400. Charles V. killed the largest bull in the arena at Valla- dolid; Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, was a celebrated torero; and later kings down to Philip V. protected it asa Royal game. While the honor of acting as /orero was confined to nobility, no blood was shed save that of the bull, and the actors were all mounted on the finest horses, whose lives were as carefully guarded as their owners. It was not until the middle of the last century that the sport extended to the common people, and that actors on foot entered the arena. The famous Francisco Romero de Ronda made the rules that regulate the present game. More than one hundred great landholders (on the identical pastures where Geryon’s herds were bred) raise with special care the magnificent animals that are tortured and killed for the amusement of the people of Spain. The best bull-fights (corridas de torros) take place at Seville (the alma mater of the Tauromachian art) and at Madrid. The “season” begins on the first Sunday after Lent, and a bull-fight takes place on every Sunday (weather permitting) until the heat of summer; they are resumed about the last of August and continue until the first of October. At Madrid winter exhibitions are given. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 9 A bull-fight is a tragedy in Three Acts, which lasts about twenty minutes. In the Plaza de Toro is an im- mense amphitheater, open to the sky, with an arena in the center. The seats rise tier above tier in circles, and will accommodate many thousand spectators; that at Seville 11,000 ;-at Madrid, 12,500; at Valencia, 17,000. The seats are filled to their utmost capacity before the hour forcommencement. A double barrier encloses the arena, so that if the bull leaps.over the first, there still remains a second between him and the spectators. At four o’clock promptly the band begins to play and a procession enters the arena, headed by mounted ‘ a/gua- gils’’ (police) dressed in quaint medieval costumes, fol- lowed by the “‘ gecadors’”’ (mounted spearmen), the ‘‘ dan- derillos”’ or ‘‘ matedoras”’ (bull-decorators), the ‘‘ chulos” (attendants on foot, with red mantles, all quaintly dressed), the “‘espadors,”’ or bull-slayers, dressed like Figaro in the ‘Barber of Seville; and lastly the “el tro,” the splendid mule-team destined to carry off the fated bull. Having marched around the arena to the music of the band, having saluted the King, whose box is opposite the “‘ tovil,’ or cell of the bull, the various actors take their places like the “fielders” in a ball game. A trumpet sounds, the King tosses the key of the zori to the policeman, who catches it in his plumed hat, un- locks the door and steps aside. There is a perfect silence of a few seconds, but when the noble animal rushes into the arena, and, with head erect, stands looking proudly around, the spectators greet him with prolonged shouts, waving hats and fans. Then the first act of the tragedy begins. The bull, catching sight of the red mantle of the chulo, makes a rush for him; he waves his mantle to blind the bull and springs aside ; the bull then rushes on another, and another, with the same result. This part ie) CURIOUS QUESTIONS. of the fiesta is very beautiful. The brilliant dresses and agile movements of the men, sometimes leaping over the bull to escape him, sometimes over the barrier, disport- ing around the arena ‘like moths around a candle ;” the noble bearing of the bull, with his sleek hide and large, excited eyes, form a dazzling spectacle. But to the Spaniards this is mere child’s play ; they soon begin to clamor for more exciting sport. The second act be- gins. The mounted pzcadors come forward and com- mand the attention of the bull. The horses they ride are blindfolded, to make them stand the charge without flinching. Each pecador is armed with a long, heavy spear, with from one to two inches of the blade exposed. He is protected from injury by thick padding over his body and greaves of iron and leather upon his legs. He receives the charge of the bull upon the end of his spear and is supposed to repel his assailant, but more often the bull, infuriated by the wound, presses on until his horns are deeply imbedded in the body of the horse. The chulos come forward and attract the attention of the bull until the prcador escapes; another picador comes forward, and if he is able to repel the attack the audience is simply wild in its applause. After the arena is strewn with from four to six bleeding, dying horses, the audience clamors for fresh sport, and the third and last act of the tragedy begins. If the bull, exhausted by his frequent charges and loss of blood, begins to flag, he must be stimulated to fresh exertion ; danderillos enter on foot, armed with long barbed darts in each hand, and if the bull is very lethargic, explosive material is added. Here brute courage comes in, and the audience is wrought to the highest pitch. The danderillo goes forward to meet the bull face to face, and as the poor exhausted animal stoops to toss him, he fixes his gaily decorated instru- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. II ments of torture into either shoulder and then springs over or to one side of the infuriated animal. The second banderillo comes forward; the danger is greater and the excitement more intense ; the suffering animal is bound- ing into the air, roaring and tearing up the sand ; but this banderillo, too, must fix his darts, which is done amidst the wildest excitement and the blare of trumpets which calls for the climax. Finally the matador, or espada, comes forward, and nowit is death either to man or bull. The ladies cover their faces with fans, the men are breath- _ less with excitement as the #az¢ador aims the fatal thrust ; the long sword is plunged between the vertebre of the spine or between the eyes, and the noble animal drops dead. If the dangerous feat has been dexterously per- formed, the audience thunders forth applause ; the men shower hats full of cigarettes, the ladies their fans, tied with bouquets of flowers, upon the hero. The band is deafenening as the e/ tiros (gaily decorated mule teams) enter and drag out the dead horses and the bull. The arena is quickly spread with sand, another bull enters, and the sickening scenes are repeated. Ata first-class fiesta from six to eight bulls and from twenty to forty horses are killed. 6. TORU DUTT, A HINDU POET. A strong, true, pure note in English verse has been struck by a Hindu girl. She was the daughter of Baboo Govin Chunder Dutt, a high caste Hindu, noted for the breadth of his views and his deep learning. She was born in Calcutta, March ath, 1856. Her father educated her himself, and, having taught her English, took her when she was thirteen to France, that she might perfect herself in that language. She delved into French litera- ture, and the outcome is unique and beautiful. Her I2 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. French was more perfect than her English, but it is her English verse that has won her laurel. She lived only twenty-one years, dying in 1877. None of her work appeared in print until after her death, when her father published some of her essays in various Indian journals ; then a volume of miscellaneous poems, and the rare lit- tle book entitled ‘‘ A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields,” written in English. One of the most exquisite of this collection is: “Still barred thy doors. The far east glows, The morning wind blows fresh and free. Should not the hour that wakes the rose Awaken also thee ? ‘“‘ All look for thee, Love, Light and Song, Light in the sky, deep red above ; Song, in the lark of pinions strong, And in my heart, true love. “ Apart we miss our nature’s goal, Why strive to cheat our destines ? Was not my love made for thy soul ? Thy beauty for mine eyes? ‘‘No longer sleep, Oh, listen now ; I wait and weep, But where art thou ?”’ Surely the song of this frail young daughter of sunny India may have a place in the great book of English Verse. 7. ‘* THE PHANTOM BATTLE.”’ There is a famous picture in Utrecht, Holland, called “The Phantom Battle,” illustrative of the following tra- dition. Five soldiers of the burgher guard at Utrecht, being on midnight watch early in February, 1515, beheld in CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 13 the midnight sky above them a furious battle. The sky was extremely dark except immediately overhead, where in a subdued light, extending the length of the city, two armies in full battle array were seen to be advancing upon each other. One approached from the northwest, moving rapidly, with banners waving, spears flashing, trumpets sounding, accompanied by heavy artillery and squadrons of cavalry. From the south came slowly up another army, as though from an entrenched camp, to encounter their assailants. There was fierce action fora few minutes; the shouts of the combatants, the heavy discharge of artillery and musketry, the tramp of foot- soldiets heavily armed and the rush of cavalry being dis- tinctly heard. After a short, fierce engagement the northern army was beaten back, but it soon rallied, and all the sounds of a desperate encounter were repeated. The struggle was brief; the southern army went down beneath the resistless onset of their northern enemies. The victors and the vanquished faded away, the clear blue sky, surrounded on the horizon by black clouds, was empty, save where streaks as of blood told that men had fought and men had fallen; then these, too, faded away, while the five Utrecht burgher-soldiers gazed in silent awe. The depositions of these five men were taken sepa- rately before the magistrates of the town of Utrecht. Whether it was native superstition, or whether it was a prophecy, ‘the heavenly vision of the five soldiers” was pronounced a portent that, in the great unequal struggle of the Netherlands with Spain, the ‘northern army”’ would in the end prevail,—and the decision strengthened many an arm to battle for the right. The northern army was victorious. 14 CURIOUS QUESTIONS 8, AMERICA’S LUCKY DAY. Friday is generally accounted a day of ill-omen; it should be a perpetual holiday in America. On Friday, August 3d, 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from the port of Palos, Spain, on his great voyage of discovery. On Friday, October 12th, 1492, he discovered land; on Friday, January 4th, 1493, he sailed on his return voy- age to Spain. On Friday, March 14th, 1493, he arrived at Palos on his return voyage. On Friday, November 22d, 1493, he landed at Espanola on his second voyage to America. On Friday, June 12th, 1494, he discovered the mainland of South America. On Friday, March sth, 1496, Henry VIII. gave John Cabot his commission to pursue the discovery of America which resulted in the finding of North America. On Friday, September 7th, 1565, Mendez founded St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest town in the United States. On Friday, November roth, 1620, the “Mayflower,” with the Pilgrim Fathers, reached the harbor of Provincetown. On Friday, December 22d, 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock. On Friday, February 22d, 1732, George Wash- ington was born. On Friday, June 16th, 1755, Bunker Hill was seized and fortified. On Friday, October 17th, 1777, Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. On Friday, September 22d, 1780, Benedict Arnold’s treason was dis- covered, On Friday, September 19th, 1791, Lord Corn- wallis surrendered at Yorktown. On Friday, July 7th, 1776, a motion was made by John Adams, in the Con- tinental Congress, that “the United States are and ought to be independent.”’ CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 15 9g. ‘* THE TRENT AFFAIR.” During the latter part of 1861, when the great Civil War was sweeping over America, when party feeling was running high as to the attitude of England toward the North, and every effort was being made by the South to enlist the sympathy of England in her behalf, the Con- federate Government resolved to send ambassadors to foreign Courts to arrange, if possible, for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy. Mr. Slidell, a prominent Southern lawyer and a shrewd politician, was to go to the Court of France, and Mr. James Murray Mason to the Court of St. James. The Southern ports were already in a state of blockade, but the two ambassadors managed to escape on a dark night in a small steamer to Havana, and there took passage for Southampton in the English steamer “Trent.” The U. S. sloop of war ‘San Jacinto,” under command of Captain Wilkes, cruising about in quest of Confed- erate privateers, learned while touching at Havana that two Confederate agents, with their secretaries, were already on their way to Europe. Captain Wilkes determined to overtake them, and succeeded. Two hundred miles from Havana he signaled the ‘Trent’ to “heave to ;” his signal not being obeyed, he fired a shot across her bows and brought her to. Armed men then boarded the ‘ Trent,’’ seized Slidell and Mason and their secre- taries, and carried them as prisoners on board the “San Jacinto” despite the protest of the English captain of the “‘Trent.’”’ Captain Wilkes landed his prisoners first at New York, then at Boston, where they were confined in one of the forts of Boston Harbor. The news of the arrest of Slidell and Mason at once caused a tremen- 16 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. dous outburst of indignation in England, and prepara- tions for war began. Troops were dispatched to Canada, and an order sent to the British Ambassador at Washington to demand satisfaction or to leave the country at once. There was intense excitement both in the North and South of the United States. But fortunately two men were then living who seemed to have adopted the watchword of William the Silent— ‘Calm amidst the breakers.’’ President Lincoln declared at once, ‘This act of Captain Wilkes can never be sustained.” Yet Congress passed a vote of thanks to the officer commanding the “San Jacinto” that had stopped the “Trent”’ and seized the Confederate agents. The other man was the Prince Consort. He was lying upon what, later, proved to be his death-bed. When the matter was laid before the Queen, and by her before her always wise counsellor, the Prince then gave his last advice upon public matters, recommending calmness and forbearance on the part of the English Government, inasmuch as the States were already involved in a tremendous issue. This is well known history, yet it involves an incident but little known. Thurlow Weed was sent to England to counteract the strong feeling against the North. He arrived there when the war feeling was almost at a culminating point. On the day of his departure from New York a gentleman put into his hands a letter of introduction to a Mr. Wil- liam Arthur, of London, remarking: ‘ You had better present that as soon as you arrive.” He did so, little aware of its importance. Mr. Arthur received him cor- dially, and said: ‘There is no time to be lost. The feeling against the North is very bitter. You must see Lord John Russell immediately.” ‘ But how?” asked CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 17 Mr. Weed. ‘It will take some time to obtain an audi- ence.” ‘You must see him right away—no formalities,” said Mr. Arthur. ‘Cut the tapes; cut the tapes.’”’ The tapes were cut, for when Mr. Arthur returned, after a brief absence from the room, he said: ‘‘ You will go to Lord John’s country seat to-morrow, where you will be expected.”’ Mr. Weed went, and found himself expected. The interview touching political complications was a stormy one. Mr. Weed succeeded, however, in mollify- ing the Earl’s wrath on account of the recent insult to the British Flag. Lunch was announced, and Lady Russell appeared on the scene. After lunch she pro- posed a walk through the grounds, where she managed to obtain a few words with Mr. Weed. ‘I am aware,” said her ladyship, ‘‘ of your solicitude in this matter, and if it is any satisfaction to you, I can assure you that her Majesty’s sympathy is with the North, to maintain the Union of the States.” Later the following facts became known to Mr. Weed, evidencing the sympathy of the Queen. The law required that official dispatches to foreign ambassadors must first be formally presented to the Queen. Before any official dispatches on the “Trent”’ affair had reached this country, Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, had had an unofficial conversation with Lord Lyons, intimating that everything depended upon the wording of the dispatches expected from Eng- land. Should the release of Slidell and Mason be de- manded in aggravated language it would be impossible for him, acting as Secretary of State for a proud, sensi- tive, and highly excited nation, to comply. Lord Lyons replied, ‘‘Not to comply means war.’ Thereupon Thurlow Weed was sent to England. Lord Palmerston was the Queen’s Prime Minister in this crisis. When he returned to London after an interview with the Queen at 2 18 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Windsor he left his portfolio on the table in his library. Some one opened the portfolio, and found enclosed with the dispatches prepared for Lord Lyons the following memorandum in the handwriting of the Prince Consort, with interlineations in the handwriting of the Queen : MEMORANDUM OF PRINCE ALBERT. (Interlined by the Queen. ) WINDSOR CASTLE, Dec. I, 1861. “The Queen returns these important drafts, which upon the whole she approves ; but she cannot help feel- ing that the main draft, that for communication to the American Government, is somewhat harsh. “She would like to have expressed a hope that the American captain did not act under instructions, or, if he did, that he misapprehended them; that the United States Government must be fully aware that the British Government could not allow its flag to be insulted, or the security of her mail communications to be placed in jeopardy ; and her Majesty’s Government is unwilling. to believe that the United States Government intended wantonly to put an insult upon this country, and we are therefore glad to believe that, upon a full consideration of the circumstances of the undoubted breach of inter- national law committed, they will offer such redress as can alone satisfy this country, namely, the release of the four gentlemen and a suitable apology.”’ The formal communication to the United States Gov- ernment was drawn up along the line suggested by the Prince Consort and Queen. When Thurlow Weed heard that in place of a harsh, peremptory demand for the sur- render of the prisoners, considerate language had been substituted, he was overwhelmed with a sense of obliga- Prince Albert. Delo cil, r ©. * Rae = b =i, \ » CURIOUS QUESTIONS. . Ke) tion to the Prince and Queen, whose intervention at a most critical moment was so exercised as to avert a third war between the United States and England. The Prince was released from all worldly care before his peaceful message liberated the ‘‘ Trent”’ prisoners. 10. LEGEND OF THE SEINE. The beautiful legend of the Seine is told by Bernar- dine de St. Pierre, in his celebrated work “ Etudes de la Nature” (Studies of Nature). He was an ardent lover of Nature, and to such, and to such alone, does Nature reveal her wonderful mysteries. To St. Pierre she told the Origin of the Seine. Abridged, he says: Seine, a daughter of Bacchus and Ceres, accompanied her mother in her journeys through all countries in quest of her lost daughter Proserpine. When she came to this fair land, Seine begged her mother to bestow it upon her. Ceres, the goddess of grain and fertility, granted the request, and at the same time bestowed upon this daughter of Bacchus the power to make corn and fruit grow wherever she trod. When she left her daughter Seine in this coun- try she left, also, for companions and playmates, several nymphs ; but to Heve she left Seine in special charge, lest the god of the sea should carry her off, as the god of the nether world had carried off the beloved Proser- pine. One day, as Seine was playing on the sandy beach, Heve saw in the distant waters the white hair and the azure mantle of Neptune. The god of the sea had come from the Arcades, after an earthquake, to examine with his trident whether, in these waters, any injury had been done to their foundations. Heve immediately warned Seine of her danger and she fled into the meadows. But 20 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Neptune had espied the daughter of Bacchus and he pur- sued her with his sea horses, up and down, through meadow and vale, until, when almost within his grasp, Seine called upon Bacchus, who transformed her into a river, over which the god of the sea has no control, and the river has ever since followed the perigrinations of Seine in her attempt to flee from Neptune. Her attend- ants were likewise metamorphosed into the rivers which are the affluents of the river Seine. But this myth of the ages has not ended, for Neptune is still in love with Seine and Seine still shows her aversion to Neptune. Twice a day he pursues her, snorting and roaring ; and each time she seeks refuge in her dominions, hastening back, contrary to the direction of rivers, towards her source; then eluding his embrace she glides underneath the azure waters, ever keeping her own green waters separate. This beautiful idyl of St. Pierre furnishes the key to the wonderful phenomenon of the Seine, which the people of the country call La Barre. 11. THE FIVE STATUES OF THE TRIBUNE, The Tribune of the Uffizi is in shape an octagon, about twenty-five feet in diameter. The floor is paved with rich marbles, covered with rugs, and the vaulted ceiling is inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It is lighted from above. Here are gathered some of the most remarkable works of art in the world. The five statues are the “Venus de Medici,” ‘‘The Knife Grinder,” “The Dancing Faun,” ‘The Apollino,” and “A Group of Wrestlers.” On the walls hang five pictures by Raphael, three by Titian, one by Michael Angelo, four by Correggio, and several others of note. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 2I The ‘“ Venus de Medici,” by Cleomenes, was found in Rome in the sixteenth century, some say in Hadrian’s villa, others in the portico of the House of the Cesars. When found it was in thirteen pieces, and without arms. Its wonderful restoration is due to Bernini. The height is four feet anda half. It was brought to Florence by Cosimo de Medici III., 1680, hence its name. It is of Pantellic marble, and is considered a most perfect ex- ample of the sculptor’s art. Hawthorne says: “As young and fair as she was three thousand years ago, and still to be young and fair as long as a beautiful thought shall require a physical embodiment.” If the Venus de Medici is the embodiment of feminine grace and beauty, the Apollino is that of manly grandeur combined with grace. These two statues bear so close an analogy in style that they are believed to be the work of the same sculptor. The Apollino statue is one of the few antiques that was found unbroken; but, unfortu- nately, a few years since it was broken by the picture of Charles V. falling upon it. It has been carefully restored by Bartolini, but to conceal his repairs he painted the whole statue, thus destroying the trans- parency of the marble. The easy attitude, the dignity and grace of the figure, with the beauty of face and of limbs, is unaltered, how- ever, and it still merits its reputation of being one of the most charming of antique statues. It was brought to Florence, with the Venus de Medici, by Cosimo III. in 1680. “The Dancing Faun” is an antique of unknown date, but it displays unmistakably the great skill of a Greek artist in adapting form to the required purpose. This creature, half-animal and half-human, engrossed with the pleasures of the moment, in the delirium of a 22 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Bacchanalian feast, is in strong contrast to the elegance and grace of the Apollino. The work is full of spirit, and admirably restored by Michael Angelo. The work of the restorer does not imply simply the putting to- gether of broken fragments, but of restoring such parts of a statue which may be missing. In this case the head was gone. Michael Angelo had to study the character of the mutilated figure, decide as to what it originally represented, and then make such a head as would, by pose and feature, carry out the original idea. “The Knife Grinder’? was found in Rome in the six- teenth century. It is a revelation of the power of art. Some critics say that it is a slave overhearing, while at his occupation, some conspiracy. Others say it is one figure from the group of Marsyas, who was flayed alive, and that it is a slave whetting his knife. The attitude is one of action. The knife-blade, in the right hand, touches the grinder. The body, slightly bent forward, is balanced by the left hand resting upon the block; the head is slightly raised, and the face looks up with so keen and penetrating a glance that one wonders to what he is listening. The character of a slave is plainly written on the coarse hands and wrinkled brow; while the expression of the whole figure entitles it to rank among the most valued works of art. “The Wrestlers”? is a noted group of statuary, and belongs to the best age of Greek art. It is much dis- cussed. The weight of authority ascribes it to Kephis- sodotus, a son of Praxiteles. It is full of action. They are athletes contending for a prize; and one of the laws governing the game was that neither party was victor until he had made the shoulder of his opponent touch the ground. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 23 This has not yet been accomplished, as is expressed by the face of the lower figure, although the conqueror is vigorously pressing his adversary. There is pleasur- able excitement while gazing at them, which ends in dis- appointment, as the result of the struggle can never be known. This statue exhibits the highest technical skill, and is the only specimen of the Lottatori (Wrestlers) in ex- istence. 12, THE EPISODE OF THE VEGA OF GRENADA. The argument of Columbus before Queen Isabella of Spain, which took place at Santa Fé, in the Vega, or plain, of Granada, is recorded by Vinet: Isabella. And so, Don Gomez, it is your conclusion that we ought to dismiss the proposition of this worthy Genoese. Don Gomez. His scheme, your Majesty, seems to me fanciful in the extreme; but I am a plain matter-of-fact man and do not dream dreams or see visions. Isabella, And yet Columbus has given us cogent reasons for believing that it is practicable to reach the eastern coast of India by sailing in a westerly direction. Don Gomez. Admitting that his theory is correct, namely, that the earth is a sphere, how would it be pos- sible for him to return up hill ? Columbus. Will your Majesty allow me to suggest that if the earth is a sphere, the same laws of adhesion and motion must operate at every point on its surface, and the objection of Don Gomez would be quite as valid against our being able to return after crossing the strait of Gibraltar. Don Gomez. This gentleman, then, would have us be- lieve the monstrous absurdity that there are people on 24 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the earth who are our antipodes, who walk with their heads down like flies on a ceiling. Columbus. But, your Majesty, if there is a law of at- traction which makes matter gravitate to the earth and prevents its flying off into space, may not this law oper- ate at every point on the round earth’s surface ? Tsabella. Truly, it seems so to me, and I perceive nothing absurd in the notion that this earth is a globe floating or revolving in space. Don Gomez. Were I not fearful of offending your Majesty I would quote what the great Lactantius says. lsabella, Let us have the quotation. Don Gomez. “Is there any one so foolish,” he asks, “as to believe that there are antipodes with their feet opposite to ours, that there is a part of the world where all things are topsy-turvy, where trees grow with their branches downward, and where it rains and hails and snows upward ?” . Columbus. Your Majesty, I have already answered this objection. If there are people on the earth who are our antipodes, it should be remembered that we are theirs also. Don Gomez. Really, that is the very point, your Majesty, wherein we matter-of-fact men abide by our senses. We know that we are not walking with our heads downward. Isabella. To cut short this discussion, you think that the enterprise which the Genoese proposes is unworthy of our serious consideration, and that his theory of an unknown shore to the westward is a fallacy. Don Gomez. Speculation, mere speculation, your Majesty. When this gentleman can bring forward some solid facts that will induce plain matter-of-fact men to risk their money in such an enterprise it will then be time enough for royalty to give it heed. ie Des 5 ills Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 25 Isabella. You bring forward no argument, Don Gomez, why Isabella should not give heed to this great and glori- ous scheme. Ay, sir, though it should fail, I am resolved to test it, if there is money in the treasury, and that forthwith. Don Gomez. Your Majesty will excuse me if I remark that I have it from your royal consort himself that the finances are so exhausted by the late wars that he can- not consent to advance the necessary funds for fitting out an expedition of the kind proposed. Tsabella. Be mine, then, the privilege; I will assume this undertaking for my own crown of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels for the success of the enterprise. Columbus. Your Majesty shall not repent your heroic resolve. I will return and lay at your feet such a jewel as never queen wore, an imperishable fame—a fame that shall couple with your memory the benedictions of mil- lions yet unborn, in climes yet unknown to civilized men. —_+242e > _——_ 13. THE DEAD CITIES OF THE ZUYDER ZEE. The great cataclysm which produced the Zuyder Zee in the thirteenth century destroyed Lake Flevo, upon whose shores commercial cities had sprung up. These cities, when the lake was destroyed, were left inland. Commerce failed, and business men sought homes else- where. As regards houses and streets, the cities remain intact, but the life has departed. Hence the sobriquet —‘ The Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee.” Amsterdam is a boundary mark between North and South Holland. South of it civilization increases, while to the north, in the neighborhood of “the dead cities,” one feels as far from civilization as though landed upon a South Sea island. 26 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. The quaint and primitive town of Zaandam, “ beyond the dam,” in its prosperous days was a town of 12,000 inhabitants, intersected by numerous canals, and the centre of large shipbuilding operations. Holland was then ‘the King of the Seas,” and hither came Peter the Great, Czar of all the Russias, to learn the trade of shipbuilding, in 1697. He worked zzcognito, under the registered name Peter Michaelhoff. He lived by himself, preparing his own meals and doing his own washing, in a hut of two rooms. The cottage, or hut, now leans in all directions, and the floor resembles the waves of the sea. It is bare of furniture, except such as the Great Peter used, viz., a. bedstead, a table and two chairs. But the walls of this historic hut, only ten by twelve, are covered with the names of visitors from all civilized nations. Over the old-fashioned chimney a marble tablet was placed by Alexander of Russia in 1814, with the in- scription: “ Alexander, to Peter the Great.’”’ The whole hut is now encased in a building, erected for its preser- vation by a former Queen of Holland, Anna Paulovna, who was a Princess of Russia. But “ Peter Michael- hoff,” finding himself an object of too great curiosity at Zaandam, went to the shipyards at Amsterdam, which were enclosed by a high wall. He there completed his apprenticeship, and in off hours constructed with his own hands the model of a man-of-war, which he took with him to Russia as a model for the great Russian navy. Eighteen years after, he came back to Holland with his wife, the Czarina, to visit with her the ship- yards where he had worked as a day laborer, and had lived upon his pay as “ Peter Michaelhoff.””’ The anni- versary of this visit is still observed at Zaandam as a holiday ; and in commemoration, the name of the town is written Saardam and Czardam. tS CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 27 And yet with all this historic association Zaandam is ~one of the Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee. It is but a small town, if even such it may be called, with its de- tached cabins, painted bright green, with red roofs, seen amidst scattered trees. Its canals are dry, and serve as roads ; yet its cabins are said to contain china and old carved furniture fitted to delight the heart, and excite ~ yy the envy of a nineteenth century antiquarian. Its four hundred windmills now grind flaxseed into oil, and thet owners are millionaires. But desolation reigns in Zaandam ; the only life is in its oil-mills, be- wildering and confusing in their turnings and twistings to the point of vertigo. Alkmaar, another of the “dead cities,’ is celebrated for its famous victory over the Spaniards in 1573—a vic- tory that put fresh life into the Dutch cause, and was a turning-point in their favor. It was once a prosperous city, but is now only a well-kept village, celebrated for its cheese and wooded walks. Broek, once the capital of North Holland, is now only “the cleanest village in the world.” It is curious, in- teresting and clean, but the life has been washed out of it; its inhabitants seem turned to stone.. The front doors of the one-story houses are never opened except for a marriage or a funeral, and the stillness of death is in its streets. Yet once across the threshold of these primi- tive homes, rare antique carved furniture, old china and Dutch curiosities crowd the “ best~roem,’’ while the cu- rious old costumes of the few inhabitants have an en- chantment all their own. Monnikendam is another of the Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee, and is more dead than any of the others. No living creature is to be seen along its brick-paved streets, not even a dog or accat. Nota door nor a win- 28 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. dow of its red-painted houses, with green Venetian shut- ters,is open. It was once a flourishing city of com- merce, one of the twenty great towns of Holland. Strangers seldom visit it now, for street after street, lined with closed houses, all seem to say, ‘‘ We belong to a past age.” And it is true. The few descendants that remain of the thrifty Dutch of Monnikendam care as little for the modern world as the world cares for them. The Islands of the Zuyder Zee are as interesting as the Dead Cities, especially the Island of Marken. This island was detached from the mainland in the thirteenth century. The habits, manners, dress and customs of the people remain exactly as they were six hundred years ago; for, with the exception of the doctor, the pastor, and the schoolmaster, all the inhabitants are natives of: the island. No islander marries on the continent, and no one from the continent cares to marry “an islander.” Thus on the Island of Marken exists a small tribe or colony of people, separated only by a short extent of sea from Amsterdam, as entirely distinct as the six hundred years that have divided the island from the mainland. Nine hundred people live a quiet, regular, contented life on this Island of Marken, in the stormy Zuyder Zee. The weeks are marked only by one great event. On every Sunday night the lights burn in the windows until midnight. Then the whole population goes down in a body to the port. The men and boys embark in their fishing boats and put out to sea; the women and chil- dren return to their cabin homes and to their home oc- cupations, until another Sunday morning brings home “the toilers of the sea.” Week after week, year after year, repeats itself, but only the preordained changes of life and death take place upon the Island of Marken. There is something deeply impressive in these Dead CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 29 Cities and Islands of the Zuyder Zee—a stationary civilization on the northern boundary of a nation that first gave to Western Europe its most advanced ideas of progress, freedom in civil government, and freedom to worship God according to the individual conscience. ————_+o0o > ———_ 14. THE LEGEND OF THE GANGES. (Story of the descent of Ganga (the Ganges) condensed from the epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata.) In ancient times lived Sangara, a virtuous King of Ayodhya. He had two wives, but no children. As he and his consorts longed for children, the three of them went to the Himalayas and practiced austerities there. When they had been thus engaged for one hundred years, a Brahman ascetic of great power granted this boon to Sangara, King of Ayodhya (modern Oudh), that one of the wives should have a son who should perpetuate his race, and the other should be the mother of sixty thousand manly and high-spirited sons. In due time the promised son was born, and was named /\sa- manja; the younger wife then bore a gourd. From this gourd, when it burst open, came forth sixty thousand tiny sons, who were fostered during their helpless infancy by keeping them in jars filled with clarified butter. When his numerous sons had grown to man’s estate, the King, their father, determined to offer a horse sacrifice, a token of supreme sovereignty, which no king could offer without heirs to perpetuate his kingdom. In ac- cordance with this resolution, a horse was, in the usual way, set free to wander where it listed, attended for its protection by mighty warriors of King Sangara’s army. But the horse, in spite of all due vigilance, was stolen away. 30 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. The sixty thousand sons of the King of Ayodhya there- upon commenced, at their father’s request, a diligent search for the missing animal. They scoured the world in vain, and then set about a vigorous search in the inner world, digging downwards some sixty thousand feet. In these subterranean explorations they committed great havoc amongst the dwellers inthe underworld; but they persevered in their quest, and finally, in the southern quarter, came upon a huge elephant resembling a hill. This colossal elephant, named Verupaskha, supported the entire earth upon his head, and caused earthquakes whenever, from fatigue, he happened to move it. Going around this mighty beast, the sons of Sangara continued their search, and at last found the stolen horse : but quite close to it, on guard, was the eternal Vasu- deva, upon which they rushed with blind and ignorant fury. Uttering a tremendous roar, Vasudeva instantly reduced them all to ashes. As the princess did not return home, Sangara became alarmed and sent his grandson, Asamanjasson, to search for tidings of them. This heroic prince, after an eventful journey, at last reached the spot where the missing horse was detained, and there found the ashes of his sixty thousand uncles. Being desirous of making the usual oblation of water to the ashes of his deceased relatives, Asamanjasson looked about for water, but could find none. However, he met in these nether regions Suparna, a maternal uncle, ‘‘ resembling the wind,” and from him learned that the sixty thousand dead princes would be translated to heaven if only the waters of Ganga could be brought down from the celestial regions to lave their dust. Seeing there was nothing he could do for the remains of his dead relatives, the young prince took the horse, CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 31 and returning with it to Ayodhya, helped to complete Sangara’s sacrifice. Sangara died after a reign of thirty thousand years. His successor reigned and practiced austerities for thirty- two thousand years, and left his kingdom to Dilipa, whose constant thought was how he could bring Ganga down from heaven to resuscitate his dead ancestors ; but though he performed numerous sacrifices during his reign of thirty thousand years, he made no progress. But his son, Bhagiratha, earnestly devoted himself to obtain the wished-for boon. ‘Restraining his senses and eating once a month, and surrounding himself with five fires and with arms uplifted, he for a long lapse of years performed austerities at Gokara.’’ Brahma, pleased at last with Bhagiratha’s asceticism, appeared before him and granted his wish, advising him to invoke the aid of Siva to accomplish it, as the earth would not be able to sustain the direct shock of the descent of Ganga from the celestial regions. To obtain the assistance of Siva, Bhagiratha spent one whole year in adoring that god, who at the end of that period was graciously pleased to say: “O foremost of men, I am well pleased with thee. J will do what will be for thy welfare. will hold the mountain’s daughter on my head.” Upon this the beautiful Ganga, daughter of the god Himalaya, precipitated herself upon the head of Siva, thinking to reach the earth without delay ; but Siva, vexed by her thought of haste, caused her to wander for many a year amongst the tangles of his long hair. It was only when Bhagiratha had recourse to fresh austeri- ties that Siva ‘cast Ganga off in the direction of the sea.” The beautiful, divine princess then flowed over the joyful earth, to the delight of mankind and the admiration of 32 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the celestials, who witnessed her wonderful descent from the sky. After flooding the earth with her life-giving waters, Ganga then followed the chariot of Bhagiratha, and having reached the sea, entered the underworld, where the ashes of the sixty thousand sons of Sangara lay. Her sanctifying waters flowed over their earthly remains, and their spirits at last ascended to heaven. About two miles above Gangoutri a pilgrim shrine, as near the source of the river as can be reached, is the ““Cow’s Mouth,” about which the natives have numerous fables. It is a rock, projecting out of the middle of the stream, which to Hindu fancy resembles the head of a cow with open mouth. If one needed any proof that the Ganges was the gift of God, this stationary emblem of the god Siva would remove all doubts, for the cow is almost as sacred as the Ganges itself. So ends the legend of the birth and earthly source of the great river, the sacred river, into whose heaven- descending water millions upon millions of men and women crowd annually to have their sins washed away. For seventy thousand years, according to the Hindu legend, the rulers of the Indian plains have prayed and fasted and implored the god Himalaya to bestow upon them this life-giving, life-preserving, soul-purifying river Ganges. No wonder this gift of the gods is sacred to them. Making every allowance for Oriental exaggeration, the Ganges is indeed ‘the daughter of the Himalayas.” Traced to its source, the waters flow out of a cave of ice at the end of a great glacier. Before it escapes from the mountain region it has meandered for eight hundred miles through Himalayan valleys in as many minute streams. But to the Hindus the sacred river of India is born, as it were, from the head of Siva. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 33 15. THE SATIRICAL PAINTER. (HoGARTH, 1698-1764. ) The satirist is often, to his contemporaries, only a humorist. Few care to inquire what kind of face lies behind the comic mask, or what sort of heart prompts the indignant tongue. Hogarth’s truly humorous faculty, which set our forefathers laughing more than a hundred years ago, is still enjoyed; but this enjoyment is tem- pered by a graver respect than they felt for him. Time shows another and a truer portrait of the man behind the mask, his depth of feeling, depth of thought, the tragic power of his genius, his insight into the follies of his age, his earnest efforts so to present the picture that men may avoid a likeness of it in their own lives. And to the man himself, Time, in his usual kindly way, has given a tinge of that nameless something which makes almost picturesque his homely figure. In fact, Hogarth has taken his proper place among the great humorists, satirists, and moralists of the world, or among those who have combined the three in one. Hogarth said of himself: ‘‘I have endeavored to treat my subject as a dramatic writer; my picture as my stage; and men and women as my players.” He is classed with Swift, Pope, and Fielding, who were his contemporaries. Hogarth wore the costumes of these men, and had, therefore, that general resemblance which marks the character of each age. Fifty years earlier or later he might have given to posterity a something very unlike the Hogarth that his age made him. Satire be- longs to every age. When the eighteenth century per- fected it, in a literary point of view, it was because men had then come to believe in satire as the strongest weapon against existing evils in Church, Society, and 3 34 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. State. The names Horace, Juvenal, Aristophanes, Rabelais, Cervantes, Erasmus, Swift, and Hogarth, in these days, recall those serious men who saw the exist- ing evils of their day and took this most efficient of ways to correct them, by making them the subject of public laughter and ridicule. As a social satirist Hogarth stands unrivalled. No artist is more popular with English people ; all classes enjoy his humor and admire his genius. He was edu- cated as amechanic, but found employment with a silver- smith, who recognized his talent and made him engraver of arms and cyphers. He soon developed a decided talent for caricature, and rose rapidly to the rank of “Book Illustrator.’ Samuel Butler’s “ Hudibras,” a satire upon Puritans and Republicans, was the first and the finest of his work in this line. In the meantime he acquired the use of the brush, and added «“ portrait painter” to that of “ pen engraver.” Hogarth’s talent for original comic designs gradually unfolded itself, and various public occasions drew forth a display of his power as a caricaturist. In 1 729 he clandestinely married the daughter of Sir James Thorn- hill, the painter. His series, six in all, ““The Harlot’s Progress,”’ first brought him fame. A pantomime from it was presented at the theatre. This performance, together with subsequent similar ones, placed Hogarth in the rare list of original geniuses and inventors. He may be said to have invented a new species of painting, the moral-comic. He was in truth a writer of comedy with the brush instead of the pen; as great a satirist on vice as Moliére. Two years after ‘The Harlot’s Progress,” appeared “The Rake’s Progress.” The curtain was now drawn aside, and Hogarth stood before the world as a great satirical reformer. He was ue CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 35 a disciple of Swift, he was a friend of Fielding, he was, for the time, England’s national painter. Hogarth’s lessons bore fruit. His series, “ Marriage a la Mode,” a satire upon high life, is considered his masterpiece. As a teacher, through satire and comedy, traces of his influence, as of other great men of his class, are still seen and felt. To give pleasure and to set people to thinking is the aim of art; to do this with a kindly feeling towards mankind and in the interest of Christian morality is some- thing more. Both may be claimed for Hogarth. On the 25th of October, 1764, Hogarth died sud- denly, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. A plain slab over his grave at Cheswick contains the following elegant inscription by his friend Garrick, the actor : “Farewell, great painter of mankind, Who reached the noblest point of art, Whose pictured morals charm the mind, And through the eye correct the heart. If genius fire thee, drop a tear; If neither move thee, turn away, For Hogarth’s honored dust lies here.”’ 16. SPAIN IN AMERICA. Before the year 1600 A. D. England had tried and failed to make a settlement in America; France had tried and failed; Spain alone in that year disputed the right of territory with the red men over more than 3,000,000 square miles of America. Spain had so far all the glory of the discovery and the exploration of the New World. But with her colonizers came Spanish errors and Spanish bigotry, and, to her discredit forever, Spain introduced the slave trade, both of red men and white men. Modern slavery was a sequel to the discovery of America. 36 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Spain, through Columbus, discovered America. Spain, through Americus Vespucius, named the con- tinent. Spain, through Balboa, discovered the Pacific Ocean. Spain, through Magellan, proved America to be a con- tinent. Spain, through Fernando de Soto, discovered the Mississippi river. Spain built the first towns in the New World. Spain introduced the slave trade. Spain, in the year 1600, was the only European power that disputed with the native red men dominion in North America. a 17, THE ISLE OF PHEASANTS. The river Bidassoa, for nine miles, marks the boun- dary between France and Spain ; high stone pillars down the center of the stream mark the exact line. Near its mouth the river separates around the Isle of Pheasants (lle des Faisans), or the ‘Isle of Conference.” This famous Island of the Bidassoa has always been neutral ground. Many stormy conferences have been held be- tween rival nations, and many political matrimonial alli- ances have been arranged here. The Isle of Pheasants is chiefly famous for the marriage negotiations between Louis XIV. of France and the Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain. From either bank of the little island the rival kingdoms, in 1659, vied in erect- ing gorgeously-covered causeways leading from exactly Opposite points to the accurately computed center of the island. Here a temporary palace was erected, with apartments on opposite sides, for the royal contracting parties. In the exact center was the Hall of Audience, and across the exact center was drawn a dividing line. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 37 So the King of France did not leave France and the King of Spain did not leave Spain, but the conference was held vs a vis ; for war was ended, and the ‘‘ Peace of the Pyrenees’ meant the marriage of the French King to the Spanish Princess. But formalities were not yet at an end; the Infanta of Spain could not go to France even to wed a king, and the King of France could not leave his kingdom. So Maria Theresa was married by proxy on the borders of Spain, at Fonterrabia; then, crossing the Bidassoa, met her royal spouse, and married the King ex personne within the borders of France, Oc- tober 3d, 1660, at St. Jean de Luz (St. John of Light). This marriage, so important then, is of importance even now, for the grandson of Louis XIV. and Maria Theresa came to the throne of Spain in 1700. He was Philip V. of Anjou, the first Bourbon King of Spain, a dynasty which no longer rules in France, but, through revolu- tions and interregnums, still rules in Spain. 18. THE PRAYER OF AJAX. Ajax, surnamed the Greater, was King of Salamis, and one of the Greek heroes who acted a prominent part in the siege of Troy. He exceeded all other Greek war- riors in strength and stature. It is frequently quoted, “The prayer of Ajax was for light.” This famous prayer is found in Homer’s Iliad, Book XVIL,, lines 727-731 (Pope’s translation), and is as follows: ‘Lord of earth and air ; O King, O Father, hear my humble prayer : Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore ; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more. If Greece must perish, we thy will obey, But let us perish in the face of day.”’ 38 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 19. ‘« THE JEWEL OF THE HAGUE.” ‘The Bull” of Paul Potter, “the jewel of the Hague,” is priceless. Paul Potter was only twenty-three years old when he painted it in 1647. He had no teachers that are known, except his father, who gave him nothing but simple advice and no rules. But, until 1647, he lived between Amsterdam and Haarlem, that is between the masters Franz Hals and Rembrandt, in the heart of the most stirring, the most active art, the richest in cele- brated masters that the modern world has known outside of Italy. Teachers were not wanting ; even Rembrandt had painted his ‘“ Night Watch,” and was within reach. But Potter isolated himself in the heart of a rich, crowded school and worked out his own ideals. He had no co-workers, and apparently no friends. He was born in Holland, but no one knows exactly where or when ; at fourteen he signed a charming etching ; at twenty-two he was a noted painter. He labored steadily at his art: produced work upon work ; he accumulated with haste, as though sure of his early death. He married in 1650, and four years later he died, before technically, so to speak, he had learned his trade. Native genius, brave study, close observation ; add to this an intuitive con- ception of color, and to this the gentleness of a medita- tive mind, the melancholy inseparable from ill health and solitary labor, and you have all that is known of this wonderful young Dutchman. His masterpiece at the Hague consists of a great bull in a vast plain, under a wide sky. Lying at the base of a scraggy tree a cow and some sheep, in the background a shepherd. But only the bull is seen; all else is subordinate. The great living animal shows its age, its type, its character, The Bull—Paul Potter. Oqowills CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 39 temperament, length, height, joints, bones, muscles, its hide both rough and smooth, tangled and curled, all in perfection. Instead of calling it “ Paul Potter’s Bull,” it should be called ‘“‘ The Bull.” 20. ‘*THE LIONS OF THE TOWN.” “To see the lions of the town” originated with the Lion Menagerie of the Tower, which for six centuries was one of the sights of London, The lions were placed in the Tower in the time of Henry III. (1216-1272), to take the place of the three Leopards on the Royal Shield. When the Leopards on the Shield were exchanged for Lions, their living representatives in the Tower were also changed. These Royal Lions were named after three living kings, and the fate of the King was thought to be closely allied with the fate of his namesake in the Tower. They were maintained with regal magnificence, and their keeper was ‘‘a Gentleman.” “The Lions” were a great attraction to all the country people and foreigners visit- ing London. Later they were removed to the Zoologi- cal Gardens, Regent Park; but to the “Tower Lions” we are indebted for the proverbial expression ‘To see the lions of the town,” meaning its greatest sights. Se 21. ‘* THE ALABAMA.”’ Whatever may have been the wish of the English peo- ple as to the outcome of the American Civil War, there is no question but that the Government of England, rep- resented by the Queen, was in favor of maintaining the Union of the United States. Yet the Government of England was seriously at fault in the ‘‘ Alabama” matter. The “ Alabama” was apparently a British cruiser. She 40 | CURIOUS QUESTIONS. was built by an English firm, the house of Laird, in an English dockyard ; she was manned for the most part by English seamen; her gunners were English, and many of them belonged to the English Naval Reserves ; she sailed under the British flag, was welcomed in British harbors, and never was in an American port. What then had the Americans to do with the “‘Alabama’”’? While in process of construction as No. “290,” Mr. Adams, United States Minister at the Court of St. James, warned Lord Russell, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for England, that ‘‘290”’ was being built for the Confederate Government in neutral waters and by a neutral power. Lord Russell required proof; Mr. Adams asked for the detention of the vessel until he could produce the proof; but in the meantime the vessel, fully equipped as a pri- vateer to prey upon American commerce, put to Sea. One point has since been fully proven, and that is that there never was any doubt at the English dockyards as to the destination of “290.” Openly and in the face of day other vessels were then being built for the same service, until at last Mr. Adams wrote to Lord Russell, ‘This means war.’’ Lord Russell, in reply, “ presents his compliments to Mr. Adams, and has the honor to inform him that instructions have been issued to prevent the departure of the two iron-clad vessels from Liver- pool.” During the two years’ career of the “ Alabama ” on the high seas she captured seventy Northern merchant vessels. Her plan was to hoist the British flag, decoy her victim, then display the Confederate colors and capture her ptize. So skillfully was she managed by Captain Semmes that she had only two engagements with armed vessels. She sank the “ Hatteras ;’’ then, near Cherbourg, France, the ‘‘Kearsarge,” an American ship of war sent out in search of the “ Alabama,” finished the career of this ? 4 etd Fes aris * 7 ‘it ‘ib -d ‘goejeq pue Aasqqy poordjozy CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 4I famous Confederate rover in one hour. The English Government disclaimed any responsibility, but finally paid $15,500,000 in gold as an indemnity to the United States for the two years’ cruise of the ‘‘ Alabama.’ The last installment was but lately received at Washington. The case is interesting as having established a new ruling in international marine law; the settlement is known as “The Treaty of Geneva.”’ 22. LEGEND OF HOLYROOD ABBEY. The ancient abbey was founded by David I., son of Malcolm Canmoreand St. Margaret of Scotland, in 1128. Its foundation was due to legend and pious supersti- tion. King David was hunting in the forest, which then surrounded Edinburgh, unattended, when an enormous stag attacked him and would have killed him but that the “Black Rood of Scotland’’ slipped into his hands, and at the sight of it the enraged animal fled away. That night, in a vision, the King was commanded to build an abbey, for the Canons of St. Augustine monks, to be dedicated to the Holy Cross (Rood) and the Virgin. (For “Black Rood” see “ Curious Questions,” Vol. L, page 341.) A shrine for so precious a relic soon made the abbey noted and wealthy. Large grants of land and privileges secured to it by successive monarchs made it, in time, the most important religious institution in the kingdom ; its precinct was a refuge for criminals, and, in the case of debtors, remained so down to the aboli- tion of imprisonment for debt in 1880. During stormy centuries the old abbey was burned and renewed many times, until during the Reformation the monks were dis- persed and the interior despoiled. All that remains of it now is the roofless ruin of Holyrood Chapel. 42 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. In this Royal Chapel many of the Stuart Kings were crowned, married, and buried. Here was celebrated the royal marriage of the “Thistle and the Rose,” James IV. of Scotland to Margaret of England, daughter of Henry VII. and sister of Henry VIII., from whom were to de- scend the sovereigns of the great British Empire. Here were installed the Knights of the Thistle; here Mary Queen of Scots was married to Lord Darnley, and here he lies buried. The last coronation here was that of Charles I. The chapel was destroyed in 1688 and restored in 1758 ; . fourteen years later the roof fell in, leaving it, as it is now, only an interesting ruin. The old abbey was like all other monastic institutions of the Middle Ages, very frequently the temporary home of kings and princes. Its strong walls and sacred character afforded a protection not met with elsewhere. James III. resided almost entirely within the abbey, but to his chivalrous son, James IV., is ascribed the beginning of the Palace of Holyrood, which occupied the site of the ancient abbey. It was completed by his son, James V., father of Mary Queen of Scots. When Mary, the youthful dowager of France, returned to take possession of her kingdom, she natu- rally took possession also of her father’s palace, and to her occupation of it is due the world’s interest in even the ruins of Holyrood Palace. 23. ‘‘THE BUSIEST MAN IN PARIS,”’ The history of the French School of Painting can be traced almost as far back as the history of France itself, for even in the time of Charlemagne it was customary to cover the interior of the churches with paintings, “in order to instruct the people.” But the real history of French Art begins with the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 43 Renaissance. In Italy this revival began in the middle of the fifteenth century ; in France, called ‘‘the pupil of Italy,” it was not felt until the middle of the sixteenth century, one hundred years later. Paris is the great art capital of Europe, though Munich and Berlin are pressing her hard, and are threatening to become formidable rivals. But the vastness and magnifi- cence of Paris, its long-established organizations for the patronage of art, will enable Paris to give her rivals a long race yet. The art of painting is natural to the French people. The eye for effect and color is apparent everywhere. The art galleries are crowded, especially on Sundays, by people of all classes and conditions. The number of artists in the City of Paris is over 8000. This does not include a large army of students, both French and foreign. Many thousands more are en- gaged in the sale of art, in the manufacture of artists’ materials, engravings, bronzes, statuary, etc., so art en- grosses more people and employs more capital than does any other legitimate business in Paris, unless it be the hotels and cafés. The sale of paintings in Paris alone amounts annually to two millions of dollars. The French people seem to have realized for a long time that the art talent is the peculiar gift of their race, and the Government maintains a controlling hand over it. There is a French Minister of Fine Arts as regularly appointed as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. ‘It is his business to superintend the whole question of art in the country, to regulate the Government patronage of art, to adorn the public squares with statuary, to purchase works for the national galleries, to preside over the national schools of art, and to pay the professors and to direct the annual exhibitions at the Salon.” He is the 44. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. busiest man in Paris. The annual Salon exhibition, held in May and June, is the great artistic event of the year. All artists, native and foreign, are invited to con- tribute, but the examining committee reject, as a rule, about three-fourths of the works contributed. This en- hances the value of those received, and the honor of the medals awarded. As many as four thousand works have been displayed in one exhibition. The highest prize is the Medaille d’Honeur, which entitles the win- ner to send thereafter any work to the Salon without examination. The second is the Prix du Salon, and be- low this there are medals of three classes in the different departments of art. The Medalists of the Salon also receive in future years the decoration of the Legion of Honor. The Government purchases many of the works ex- hibited in the Salon, and places themin the Luxembourg Gallery, which is essentially a permanent exhibition of the works of living artists, or of those deceased ten years. They are then removed to the Louvre. There are many schools of art in Paris besides those under Government control, and leading artists have their own separate schools and followers. The French people mediate between the North and South, partaking of the physical hardihood of the Ger- mans and the passionate impulses of the Italians. The great eras of their national history mark very nearly the eras of Frenchart. Under Charlemagne French painters partook of the German school. In the Renaissance they were the pupils of Italy. But the French school proper opened under Francis I. (1515-1574), whose conquests in Italy brought valuable art collections to the French capital. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 45 24. MODERN POSTAL SYSTEM. The world is indebted to Sir Rowland Hill, of Eng- land, for introducing a cheap uniform postal system. He published a pamphlet in 1837, called “ Post-Office Re- form,” in which he proved that for a small radius about Charing Cross, London, letters of small weight were transmitted for twopence; beyond that the postal law was so extravagant as to be prohibitory. The right ac- corded to the Peers of franking, or sending letters free, he also strongly condemned. He then formulated a penny postal system for the whole Kingdom. This pamphlet met with furious opposition, as most extrava- gant to the Government. But Mr. Hill had a bill intro- duced into Parliament which the Postmaster-General of the realm, Lord Lichfield, declared in the House of Lords was the wildest, most extravagant bill ever intro- duced, and that if carried would be utterly impractical, as no building would be large enough to contain the mail and the clerks to handle it. His argument showed so clearly the demand for postal reform that, though op- posed by such statesmen as Sidney Smith, Sir Robert Peel, and the Duke of Wellington, the Postal Bill of Sir Rowland Hill was adopted. It required the postage to be paid in advance by stamps furnished by the Govern- ment. Charles Knight, author and publisher, was the first to suggest the use of stamps to Mr. Hill, and the eminent painter, Mulready, furnished the design. The first postage stamp of England dates from May 6th, 1840. 46 CURIOUS QUESTIONS, 25, THE NORSEMEN., Norway (the North Way) is the real home of the Norsemen, but their very existence was but vaguely known until the middle of the eighth century. Towards the close of the ninth century they broke like a destruc- tive tempest over civilized Europe. Wherever their fast sailing ships appeared the people fled in terror, and the priests prayed in vain, ‘“‘ Deliver us, O Lord, from the rage of the Norsemen.’ What was the cause of this sudden irruption of a brave and warlike people scarcely known to history? The only answer is—a woman. Norway’s authentic history is of late date; but from the time when Odin led his Asia-men to the Northland they were conquerors and rulers. The trouble was that they all wanted to be rulers, hence the countless Jarls, or Earls, who ruled over a few acres of territory in Nor- way until the time of Harold, the Fairhaired (850-930). He was only ten years old when his father died, but he was proclaimed King over his father’s land. He early loved Gyda, the daughter of a neighboring king, and sent an embassy to demand her for his bride; but she haughtily returned this answer: “Give this message from me to King Harold: I will promise to become his wedded wife on this condition, that he shall for my sake conquer all of Norway and rule over it, as King Erik over Sweden and King Gorm over Denmark, for only then can he be called the King of a people.” Where- upon Harold took an oath not to comb or cut his hair until the day when, as King of Norway, he could claim Gyda for his bride upon her own conditions. He con- quered Norway, and won and married Gyda. At the marriage feast his hair was cut; he had been called Har- old Lufa (frowsy-haired) ; he was now called Harold Haar- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 47 falger (fair-haired). With his sword he won a kingdom and a bride; but he did more—he made an epoch in the history of the world, for with his reign the Viking Age begins. Vikings had sailed the seas before, and, as sea-robbers, had brought home large bounty to their impoverished kingdoms ; but having been ‘“‘kings”’ they would not become vassals of King Harold, so they sailed away to find new lands to conquer and to rule. Several thou- sand men left Norway, and at least eight hundred heads of families settled in Iceland. The Landnama, or Dooms- day Book of Iceland, has preserved their names, and the Icelandic Sagas are the highest authority for the early history of Scandinavia. King Harold ruled Norway for seventy years. 26. THE BURIAL OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. The pageant attending the burial of the Duke of Wellington, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, was the most im- pressive that London had ever witnessed. The funeral car upon which his casket was borne to the tomb was made of gun metal from cannon captured on the battle- field of Waterloo. Old Temple Bar was entirely draped in black, as were all the public buildings ; for, with great ceremony, the Duke had been honored with free citizen- ship of the City of London, and “the City” was bury- ing an honored citizen, as well as the nation’s hero. As the great procession reached the Cathedral, headed by the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen of the City, followed by Royalty and the Chiefs of the Army and Navy, with rank and file, and by thousands of citizens, the ‘“ Great Tom” pealed out in deepest tones the number of years “The Iron Duke” had lived upon the earth, eighty- 48 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. three. Born near Dublin, Ireland, May Ist, 1769; died September 14th, 1852. While the organ played his funeral dirge, the casket of the Duke was lowered through the floor of the chancel until it rested, tempora- rily, upon the tomb of Admiral Nelson in the crypt beneath. Tennyson, the poet laureate, in his ode upon the death of the Duke of Wellington opens Stanza IV. with, as it were, an inquiry from Lord Nelson: ‘‘Who is he that cometh, like an honor’d guest, With banner and with music, with soldiers and with priest, With a nation weeping and breaking on my rest ? Mighty Seaman this is he Was great by land as thou by sea. Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, The greatest sailor since our world began. Now, to the roll of muffled drums, To thee the greatest soldier comes; For this is he Was great by land as thou by sea.” 27. “THE POET PAINTER.” Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) was one of the world’s great poets, only he painted his sweet visions instead of penning them. He is not celebrated as a colorist—browns, pale-greens, and silvery grays with a touch of purple, are his colors. Faithful in out- line, but not in detail, he has been called an Impressionist. But what matter if it cannot be told by the shape of the leaves whether they are ash or oak or sycamore, they are trees that clothe themselves by that mysterious power of inner life; so he paints his trees and envelopes them in mist. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 49 For many years Corot was unappreciated ; his pictures hung in the salons but attracted no attention. Oue day, in despair, he said to himself: “‘ Men are like flies ; where one alights others will follow.” He took his stand be- fore his picture. Some one, seeing him absorbed, came up and stood beside him, and asked what he saw in that picture to interest him so much. This was his opportu- nity. He laid bare the soul of the artist, he opened the inner eyes of the beholders, and from that day he became famous. His picture sold for 700 francs, and later for 1200. No one attempts to imitate Corot, for every one real- izes that his success lies not in method or trick of brush ; it is the inner man that has painted Corot’s pictures and made them what they are. He was awarded great honors, twice decorated Chevalier, and then made Com- mander of the Legion of Honor. His last works were signed on his death-bed, and his last words were: “‘O how beautiful; I have never seen such lovely land- scapes.” Jarves, in his “ Art Thoughts,” says: ‘ Corot’s paint- ings challenge no carping criticism. They fall upon the eye asa distant melody upon the ear. They are not mere transcripts of scenery, but pictures of the mind. Twilight charms him greatly, always silvery-toned and bordering on the shadowy boundary that separates the visible from the invisible, and suggesting the inscrutable. His consummate success lies in his management of light ; with him it is genius. Water, which he loves next to light, glimmers and sparkles under its rays ; shadows and reflections are alive with it. Everywhere light penetrates, without a reminder of brush or pigment.” 4 50 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 28. THE ORDER OF THE ELEPHANT. The puzzling ‘‘Order of the Elephant” ranks with the English “ Order of the Garter.’ The selection of an elephant to represent the confraternity of the nobles of Denmark is still a mystery, as no record of the sym- bol has yet been found. A reasonable guess might be the Asiatic origin of the Scandinavian nation, the ele- phant belonging as well to Asia as to Africa. The first trace of this Order dates from Christian I. (1448-1481), the first King of the House of Oldenborg. He formed a clerical brotherhood, who wore as a badge a medal, with the Virgin on one side and an elephant on the other, which seems quite like a representation of the two great religions of the kingdom, Odin and Christ. After the Reformation the Order was in a measure re- pressed, owing to its Romanist origin, but it was revived by Frederic II. (1559-1588), with the elephant only as its badge. Under Christian IV. (1588-1648) the knights of the Order wore in rich attire a magnificent chain of white enameled elephants, with blue housings, between gold castles. The present badge of the Order dates from Christian V.—a single white enameled elephant in gold, with a Maltese cross of diamonds on the side. 29. ANDORRA. Andorra, the Republic of the Pyrenees, has been pre- served intact since the days when Charlemagne crossed the almost impassable mountains to aid in driving back the Saracens, or Moors. He gave, in 805 A. D., to a brave handful of mountaineers, supposed to be Visi- gothic refugees, a Charter for the Valley of Andorra in return for the protection and assistance rendered to him ‘soouatA 94} Ul BIIOPUYy ‘tir SoS “d YE Bis ai x iq: anit i Ss Z CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 51 and to his armies. Content with their mountain terrj- tory, they enacted laws and formulated a republican form of government, and built settlements, calling their small capital Andorra. When the Passes of the Pyre- nees resounded on all sides with the noise of war, the Andorrans tended their flocks and cultivated their fields, and observed a strict neutrality, which has never been violated. Even Napoleon turned aside, and, when asked why he spared Andorra, replied, “I reserve that little Republic as a political curiosity.” The mountains - enclosing the valley, about six miles long and a mile wide, are rich in valuable ores; but the mines have never been worked. They say: “We must remain poor, as our fathers have been. If we become rich the French will want our lead and the Spaniards our silver, and then we will lose our independence.” For the same reason they remain ignorant; not one out of a hundred can read. They are Christians, however, and have a few “learned men” as priests among them. They are very hospitable in their simple pastoral way; any stranger can enter any one of their houses and obtain food and lodging without question. The great object of interest in Andorra is a massive chest built into the wall of the Council Hall. The chest has six iron locks connected by a chain; one key is given to a consul from each of the six parishes, or districts, and the chest can never be opened unless the six consuls are present. No stranger has ever been allowed to see the contents of this box, but Andorrans believe that it contains the Charter of Charlemagne written upon sheets of lead. A singular fact is that, through all the centuries, the popu- lation has not materially changed, being about 5000. The Government is chiefly patriarchal; the inheritance descends from the father to the oldest child; and if a BE eee aetna ten amas 52 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. daughter inherits and marries, her husband takes her maiden name. Thus in this beautiful valley, high up in the Pyrenees, with a rugged pathway of miles leading down into France, and another, almost impassable, into Spain, there lives a people speaking, with rather a Ger man accent, the language of both nations ; an active, in- telligent, industrious, healthful and moral people, who for a thousand years, apart from the great onward march of the world’s progress, have maintained their independ- ence, civil and religious, because of their ignorance and poverty. 30. LEGEND OF THE STAUFFEN. Between Baden and the Rhine the ruins of the Castle Stauffen, or the Stauffenberg, furnish one of the tra- ditions of the. Black Forest. The Lord of Stauffen Castle, like other lords of his day, found diversion in hunting. One day, returning from the chase, he alighted at a spring of limpid water by the wayside, and found a beautiful maiden sitting on its brink. He entered into conversation with her, and soon fell violently in love. He engaged to meet her again at the fountain, and it is needless to say how many times the lord of the castle visited the spring, or the conversation that-ensued. When he finally summoned courage to seize her hand and confess his devotion, the maiden fixed her tender eyes upon him, and said with seriousness, ‘‘ I am not of the race of humankind. I ama child of the waves. I belong to beings who never give their hands without their hearts. If you wed me, your fidelity must be as pure as the water of this fountain and as strong as the steel of your sword. A single breach of constancy will inevitably cause your speedy death and my eternal sor- row, for our loves and our sorrows are everlasting.” CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 53 The lord of the castle hesitated not a moment to promise all that was required of him, and the wedding was fixed for the morrow. On the morning of his wedding day Lord Stauffen was amazed to find in the salon of his castle three superb vases—one filled with gold, another with silver, a third with diamonds. Soon after appeared his lovely bride in magnificent attire ; the vases were her dower. Taking her lover aside, she again cautioned him to re- flect upon what he was about to do: ‘‘ Remember that if you are not constant in your affection my person will be- come invisible to you, except one foot, as a reminder of your crime, and no power upon earth can save you from a speedy death.’’ He only embraced her with renewed vows of constancy and devotion. They were married; days and months rolled on into years without any dimi- nution of their happiness; but war broke out with France, and the lord hastened to defend, with others, the boundaries of the Rhine. Lord Stauffen soon dis- tinguished himself by his bravery, and at one time saved the life of the Duke of Baden, who in gratitude offered him his daughter in marriage. He was flattered with the honor of an alliance with so illustrious a house, but felt obliged to relate the history of his marriage. The Duke forbade him, as a Christian, to hold any further converse with fairies, who were too often but demons in disguise. Lord Stauffen was persuaded, and the marriage was to be celebrated in a fortnight. On the evening of the last day, while at dinner in the Duke’s country house, his eyes were suddenly riveted to the wall, where a beautiful shoeless foot protruded itself. Then a messenger ar- rived in haste to tell Lord Stauffen of the disappearance of his beautiful wife. Seized with horror, remembering her words, he left the table, ordered his horse, and 54 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. plunged into the Rhine ex route for his castle ; but be- fore he was half across a sudden storm arose, and the horse plunged and threw his rider, who was never seen or heard of again. But it is said that on the ruins of the Stauffen the beautiful foot never fails to appear on every anniversary of their marriage day. 31. THE MADELEINE. On one of the principal avenues of Paris, detached from all surroundings, there rises a building which, in some respects, is one of the most remarkable in Chris- tendom—remarkable for the style of its architecture as adapted to a purpose—a Christian Church in the form of a heathen temple. Since the beginning of the thirteenth century this is the fourth church erected upon this site. The present magnificent structure, La Madeleine, one of the largest and most aristocratic religious edifices in Paris, was planned in 1764, under the direction of Louis XV., but the Revolution of 1789 suspended the work. Napoleon Bonaparte ordered it to be completed as a “Temple of Glory,” with this inscription: “The Emperor Napoleon to the Soldiers of the Grand Army.” His downfall in 1814 again interrupted the work: The restoration of the Bourbon Dynasty in Louis XVIII. marks another period in its construction. The King ordered the work to go on; he did not change the plan, but the “Temple of Glory” was to be an expiatory church to the memory of the murdered King Louis XVI. and his family. The Revolution of 1830 again stopped the work, which was only completed in 1842 under the last King of France, Louis Phillipe (King of the French), at a total cost of about 2,500,000, francs, and dedicated The Madeleine—Paris. Pe 54, All. ‘ - ath ’ - > t f ; ‘ . Od : ‘ ¥ , ; t 4 ‘ ot , t \ fi 1 : bg : : 4 SP 0) . ‘ : ne De : e : 6 7. ‘ * | “ment we CURIOUS GUESTIONS. 55 as a Christian Church. It is wholly of marble without and within ; its roof is of iron and copper ; its doors are of bronze, the largest in the world next to St. Peter’s in Rome. These doors are works of the highest art, thirty- four feet high and sixteen wide, and covered with bas- reliefs in compartments, illustrating the Ten Command- ments. It stands upon a solid stone platform twenty- three feet high, and is surrounded by a colonnade of fifty- two massive Corinthian columns about fifty feet high. Under the colonnade, in the walls between the columns, are niches containing colossal statues of thirty-four saints, all works of high art by noted sculptors. It is surrounded by a magnificent frieze and cornice; the south pediment is filled with figures in alto-relievo, representing in the center the Saviour with the penitent Mary Magdalene at His feet; on His right, grand figures representing the virtues that redeem, and on.His left, the vices that con- demn. In accordance with Greek architecture there are no side windows: ~The interior consists of a long nave (eighty-five by two hundred and eighty feet) divided into three compartments by Corinthian columns bearing arches. Each compartment is covered with a flat gilded dome, in which isaskylight. The side walls are divided into six chapels, three on each side, and each with a statue of its patron saint. The whole interior is hand- somely decorated with sculpture and painting and gild- ing. The Apse at the north end contains the High Altar rich in sculpture; the vestibule at the south end contains striking and noted groups. The Madeleine is far-famed for its sacred music, especially on festival days and during Passion Week. There is daily service with high ritual. The Madeleine in all its details com- mands the highest admiration, and yet it has never been copied as a Christian Church. Ferguson says, 56 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. “It is because of the non-devotional character of Grecian architecture.” Like almost every other public building in Paris, the Madeleine received its baptism of blood. In May, 1871, the insurgent Communists constructed one of their strongest barricades across the Rue Royale, near the Madeleine. During the fearful fires that raged, and the storms of bullets and shells, the Church, owing to its massive construction, stood like a rock. On the 23d of May, when the insurgents were driven from their barri- cades, about three hundred sought refuge within its secure and sacred walls; but the troops soon forced an entrance, and not one of the unhappy rebels escaped alive. 32. THE INDIAN TOTEM. The story of the Indian Totem, briefly told, is that: In the Long Ago, when the beasts of prey had multiplied and become more powerful than the children of men, the Sun-Father listened to the supplications of his chil- dren and changed the animals into stone. Then said the Sun-Father to the animals thus changed: “That ye may not be evil unto men, but that ye may be a great good unto them, ye have been changed into rock ever- lasting. By the magic breath of prayer, by the heart that shall endure forever within you, shall ye be made to serve instead of to devour mankind.’”’ Thus originated the totem of the red men, which is a representation, either in carved stone (a fetich) or in pictorial drawing, of the form of some animal—the deer, the wolf, the turtle, the bear, etc., which became the symbolic name of the family. “For the heart that shall endure within you shall ye be made to serve’’ is the secret and the power of -fetichism. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 57 «And they painted on the grave-posts Of the graves, yet unforgotten, Each his own ancestral totem, Each the symbol of his household ; Figures of the bear and reindeer, Of the turtle, crane and beaver.” —LONGFELLOW. Like the hand clasp, or the password of modern secret societies, the sacred symbols of the totem gave the right of friendship, hospitality, and help, alike among stranger tribes as among confederated ones. A warrior might change his name, he might be “Tender Foot” to-day and “Two Feathers’? to-morrow, but his totem was never changed. 33. ENGLAND’S COMPENSATION. When England lost her thirteen American Colonies, and her millions of Yankee subjects, she leaped like a great lioness to the other side of the globe, and put the vast territory of India, with its countless races, under her dominion. India was England’s compensation for her American Colonies. An interesting parallelism can be drawn between the British in India and the British in America. Vasco da Gama, sailing east in 1497, made known to the civilized world the East Indies. John and Sebastian Cabot, sent out on an exploring expedition by the English in 1497, may be called the true discoverers of North America. Therefore, in the same year—1I497—a permanent sea route to India and to North America was discovered. These important discoveries, by stimulating commer- cial enterprise, by bringing the East and the West into commercial contact, changed the whole course of human 58 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. affairs. The Middle Ages ended and modern history began. Another parallel between the British in India and the British in America may be drawn. In 1600 Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to a com- pany of English merchants, known thereafter as ‘The East India Company.”’ Out of this East India Company has grown the British Empire of India. Queen Elizabeth about the same time granted to Sir Walter Raleigh the right to colonize America. He named the oldest State of the United States for the Virgin Queen, Virginia. For James I., the successor of Queen Elizabeth, Jamestown, Virginia, was named. Thus we may connect the early English Colonies of America with the early colonies of the British Empire in India. Parallel lines may be drawn still closer. In 1757-1758, French traders were trying to drive the English traders out of India; during the same eventful years the Eng- lish colonists were trying to drive the’ French out of America. While General Clive was marching north from Madras to avenge the Black Hole of Calcutta, Generals Arm- strong, Forbes and Braddock, and the youthful Lieu- tenant-Colonel Washington, were marching north along the Monongahela river to drive the French from Fort Duquesne, at the headwaters of the Ohio river. History has agreed to adopt the battle of Plassey, fought near Calcutta, June 23d, 1757, as the beginning of the British Empire of India. General—afterwards Lord—LClive, the hero of this battle, became the first Eng- lish Governor of Bengal in 1758. In the same year, on Saturday, the 25th of November, 1758, George Wash- ington, Lieutenant-Colonel of the English Army, march- ing upon the French Fort Duquesne, at eventide, pointed CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 59 out to General Forbes and General Armstrong the meet- ing of the waters—the Allegheny and the Monongahela. It was General Armstrong’s own hand that raised the British flag over the ruined bastions of Fort Duquesne. And (according to Bancroft) ‘as the banners of England floated over the waters, at the suggestion of General Forbes the place was with one voice called ‘ Pitts- burgh.’”’ The name of that great city of Western Penn- sylvania is the most enduring monument ever raised to “the Great Commoner,” William Pitt. And, quoting George Bancroft again, ‘“‘ As long as the Monongahela and Allegheny shall flow to form the Ohio, as long as the English tongue shall be the language of freedom in the boundless valley which their waters traverse, his name shall stand inscribed upon ‘the gateway of the West.’ ”’ 34. THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. The Cinque Ports are the five ancient ports along the southeastern coast of England.- They were Dover, Hast- ings, Hythe, Sandwich and Romney; to which were added, later, Winchelsea and Rye, as “‘ ancient towns.” The Cinque Ports (five ports) swarmed with hardy, practiced mariners, and sea fights between the English and French mariners were much more frequent than be- tween the English and French Governments. These five ports were under the control of an officer of the Crown, whose duty it was to guard England against foreign invasion. In 1293 there was a great battle be- tween the marines of the Cinque Ports and the French coast marines, in which the French were defeated. King Edward I. of England was ready to court-martial and punish the English marines. But King Philip summoned Edward, as a vassal of the French Crown, England still 60 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. holding territory in France, to appear before his Lord’s Court in Paris. An agreement, however, was reached between the two kings. Edward was, for mere form’s sake, to surrender to Philip such French fortresses as England held, as an act of submission ; then Philip was to return them. But once in possession of the fortresses, the French King refused to keep his part of the agree- ment. Thus England was deprived of her strongholds on the French coast. In modern days there are a great many more than five ports along England’s southeastern coast, and no one man is charged with guarding England against foreign invasion. But the title remains, and was borne by Eng- land’s greatest general during the last threatened inva- sion of the Island. The Duke of Wellington was Eng- land’s great Field Marshal, and also the Warden of the Cinque Ports during the Napoleonic wars at the begin- ning of this century. The British nation presented the Duke with the estate of Strathfieldsaye, Hampshire, costing £263,000, but he died suddenly, in the night, at his official residence as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Walmer Castle, Kent, September 22d, 1852. His death furnished Longfellow the subject for his famous poem, ‘‘ The Warden of the Cinque Ports.” 35. THE HOGARTH OF SPANISH PAINTERS. Francisco Goya (1746-1826) was the Court painter of Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand VII. With Murillo and the seventeenth century the old Spanish School of Art closes ; with Goya the Modern School begins. He was a man of great original genius but eccentric. He CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 61 has been called “the Hogarth of Spanish painters,” and. there is certainly a striking similarity of genius between the Englishman and the Spaniard. Hogarth in many a famous painting touched up the vices of court life ; Goya was his equal, asa satirist, in ecclesiastical life. He has also been called the Rabelais of painters, equaling the great French satirist in ridiculing ascetic monks, and priests, and friars, under the form of asses and apes. But as a portrait and genre painter he was almost too realistic. In politics he was a ‘“ Liberal,’ although a court painter. He hated Marie Louise, wife of Charles IV., and every portrait of her shows more plainly than words his estimate of her character. His equestrian por- trait, and also the large portrait group of the family of Charles IV., his most important work, also some sam- ples of his cartoons for tapestries to adorn the present royal palace, give a vivid idea of the manners and cus- toms of his day, especially when water was an expensive luxury in Madrid. But above all else he is celebrated as the great painter of the National Game. He was an ardent admirer of the bull-fight, and has been the most realistic portrayer of that brutal sport. The Spaniards are therefore very proud of him, and his paintings com- mand almost fabulous prices. Goya was a school unto himself; it is said that he painted with his palet-knife, a sponge and his thumb. He was fiery, original, masterly, and overflowing with tremendous power. He was the first to take up the fallen brush of Velasquez and Mu- rillo; he was a lone star in the long night of Spanish art. 62 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 36. A VIKING SHIP. In Christiania, capital of Norway, is to be seen a real Viking Ship more than nine hundred years old. This rare treasure has a wooden building to itself in the grounds of the University. The ship is eighty feet long and sixteen wide. Larger ships are built to-day, but in many particulars none better. This ancient war vessel was exhumed in 1880, not far from Christiania. Not only a veritable Viking Ship, but many other relics were found in the barrow. The burial of the ship was in accordance with an ancient custom. When any great sea king died, a tomb was erected in the center of his ship and his body placed in it with solemn ceremony. The ship was then disposed of in one of three ways: taken out to sea and sunk, or set on fire, or else buried under a huge mound of earth in his native land. To this period belongs the earliest Runic inscriptions, which still puzzle antiquarians. In the sides of the vessel are sixteen port-holes, showing that it was manned by thirty-two oarsmen. The barrow had evj- dently been opened and robbed of the most valuable articles ; but such as remained, with the large number of animal bones found—twelve horses that had been offered in sacrifice—go to prove that this Viking was a man of importance and power. 37- MONT ST. MICHEL. This granite mountain peak was originally connected with the mainland by a wooded isthmus, and was a sacred place of the Druids until the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul and built a pagan temple here, and pagan priests here worshipped “the god of high places.” Then came A Viking Ship. D5 O2,( 11 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 63 the Franks, «nd with them the monks, and for two hun- dred years a Christian church and Benedictine convent occupied the Mont. But the ravages of the sea isolated the rock, and the monks departed. In the early days of the eighth century, when the Northmen began to de- scend upon Southern Europe, tradition says that the Archangel, St. Michel, appeared three times in a vision to Bishop Aubert of Avranches and bade him reclaim the Mont as a sanctuary of the Christian faith. The Bishop obeyed, and built a round church here in 708, appointing twelve canons for its service, providing for their sustenance himself. He died in 725, and was buried beneath ‘‘the altar of the Church of St. Michel of the Mont.”’ Alleged miracles were soon wrought at his tomb, and relics began to multiply upon the shrine of St. Aubert. Four pilgrims brought from Ireland the sword and shield which the Archangel had left in their country after overcoming a'terrible dragon there, and as a consequence the Mont immediately became a place of sacred pilgrimage. Inthe year 800 Charlemagne pre- sented himself among its devotees, and from this date exact history becomes interwoven with the old fables and traditions. In g12 the pagan warrior Rollo, as a thank offering for his baptism, gave to the church a great estate out of his conquests ; his sons and successors in the duchy of Normandy, which he founded, were liberal in their donations. The youngest son of William the Conqueror, Henry Beauclerc, was besieged on the Mont by his older brothers, and in King John’s reign it was forever severed from the English Crown. Without fol- lowing its later history, or its medieval fame, when it was called the ‘‘ City of Books,” owing to the number of its valuable MSS. and its learned abbots; during the great Revolution the Abbot and the Monks were ruth- 64 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. lessly ejected, and scarce had their unwilling footsteps ceased to echo in its vast halls and its stately church than the rabble of “ Liberty” rushed in with hammer and ax and fire, burned the charters and records, broke the mosaics and stained-glass windows, threw down the statuary and desecrated the tombs within the ancient sanctuary. Napoleon came, and, recognizing the Mont as a monument of national greatness, ordered repairs, and then converted itinto a great State prison. In 1834 a fire destroyed all the interior decorations that had es- caped the vandalism of the Revolution, the Empire, and the Restoration. But under the Second Empire it ceased to be a prison, and the church has been most beautifully restored under the Bishop of Avranches, the successor of its ancient Diocesan. The Church of St. Michel of the Mont is again a pilgrim shrine. These monastic buildings have been compared to a book of Gothic archi- tecture of every epoch: and style from 1060 to 1523. The Church of the Archangel, which towers above them all, is Flamboyant. No architraves or capitals interrupt the soaring lines and curves of this great work of the Benedictines commenced in 1450 and completed in 1523. The central tower, which is now only a truncated pyra- mid, had originally an exquisite spire and a peal of nine bells, the most musical and silver-toned in all Normandy or Brittany. The spire was surmounted by a gilded statue of St. Michel transfixing with his sword a dragon at his feet; all this was destroyed by lightning in 1594. There is a legend, still faithfully believed, that the angels were heard to sing in the lofty spire after the monks had ceased in the church beneath. It certainly seems near enough to heaven for the angels to rest and sing upon its many spires now. But the Basilica, which rises so grandly towards heaven, is the superstructure of two CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 65 churches beneath it. The earliest is founded in the rock at various levels, and is in many parts interrupted by enormous masses that the builders have not hewn away. How old the rock-hewn sanctuary is, no one can tell. Above this is the subterranean church, called the sanc- tuary, begun by the good Duke Richard II. of. Nor- mandy in 1020, restored in the fifteenth century. It is a marvel of grand simplicity and strength. The enor- mous columns which support the upper Basilica are 14 and 15 feet in circumference. Thirteen of them form a semicircular Apse, from which radiate five chapels. The nave of the substructure forms the catacombs and also the dungeons of the convent buildings. Many a tale of horror they might tell of the early Christianity of this century, when, as a place of penal servitude, criminals of both sexes were gathered here, from 7000 to 8000 ata time. The Monastic buildings were utterly desecrated for the housing of prisoners. But a better government now rules in France and every trace of desecration has been removed, and the Church’s authority restored. All comparison with other castle-crowned places fail. It is a conical granite rock, of which the entire circuit is less than a quarter of a mile, and its utmost height above the sands is 400 feet. On the west, the cliff is left in its wild state, plunging down to the sands; bare and inaccessi- ble on the north the slope is more gradual and is cov- ered with brushwood, hidden in which is the fountain of pure water called St. Aubert, after the original founder of the church. The little town, which in its best days did not contain more than 500 or 600 people, including the soldiers, has now not more than 150 in- habitants. It climbs up and around the eastern and southern declivities of the rock, and has a most pictur- esque appearance with its one street of quaint weather- 5 66 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. stained houses, built upon various levels. The old thick machicolated walls, with twelve embattled towers, rise from the sea on the south, ascend the mount on the east, and connect the citadel with the convent. Six hundred and sixty-five steps lead to its highest lookout, and from here can be realized that, for its isolated position in the beautiful bay between Brittany and Normandy, for its ancient glory, for the strength of its fortifications and the grandeur of its crowning Basilica, it is worthy of its fame as one of the chief treasures of medizval France. 38. THE ‘“‘RAMAYANA,”’ Prince Rama, eldest son of Dasaratha, King of Ayodhya (Oudh), in northern India, bent “the great bow of Siva,” as could no other prince, and thus proved him- self the successful suitor for the hand of the Princess Sita, the earth-daughter of Janaka, King of the Mithila (Tirhut). The marriage was celebrated with Oriental pomp, and on the return of the bride and groom to Ayodhya, Rama was appointed heir to the throne of his father. But court intrigue is as old as the story of Rama- yana. Rama and his lovely bride, Sita, were banished from the kingdom for fourteen years, that another might reign in his stead. Amidst the tears and lamentations of the people they departed from the city, accompanied by Rama’s brother, Lakshmana. The exiles wandered southwest, towards the Coromandel coast; the people of India have marked their footsteps by temples and memorials from Ayodhya to Cape Comorin. For ten years the exiled prince and princess and their devoted brother wandered through the forests of the Dekan. The poem is filled with their thrilling experiences, The Mont St. Michel, p. 66, iii. “ ot CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 67 whole of southern India was then thickly inhabited by non-Aryan races, or tribes, driven from. their homes in the great plains of northern India by the invading and all-powerful Aryans. The poet has introduced the abo- rigines as bears and monkeys, and the natives of Ceylon as huge monsters and demons. Rama at last incurs the vengeance of a female demon of Ceylon, and she, in revenge, induces her brother, the monster King of the ‘‘ Golden Isle,” to enter the forests and carry off the wife of Rama during his absence. On his return Rama makes an alliance with ‘the monkeys and bears”’ to go with him in search of his lost Sita. They finally obtain a clue. The monkeys and bears tear down trees and roll down boulders from the moun- tains until they have “built a bridge across the strait to Ceylon, the “ Golden Istle.”” :The natural causeway is still called by the Hindus: “‘Rama’s’ Bridge ;’ the Moham- medans call it ‘‘Adam’s Rridge.’’ With the assistance of his brother and the monkey-general, Hanuman, and a brother of the demon-king of Ceylon, Rama is able to march an army across and lay siege to Lanka, the capi- tal of Ceylon. Chief after chief is sent out against them and killed. Finally King Ravana makes a sally, and is killed by Rama. The battle is won, and Sita is released. Rama then places the brother of the late King upon the throne of Ceylon, and returns with his weird victorious army to the mainland. Sita there proves her untainted virtue by throwing herself into a lighted pyre and coming out uninjured. At the end of their fourteen years of exile Rama and Sita are sought for, anda triumphal entry is awarded them at Ayodhya, where Rama ascends the throne. But the suspicions of the people are soon aroused when they hear of the episode of the demon-king of the 68 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ‘Golden Isle.’? So Rama, bowed with grief, yields to the will of his people, and sends Sita again into exile. In her wanderings she meets the ascetic saint, Valmiki, who takes her to his hermitage, where her twin boys, Lava and Kusa, are born. The boys grow “manly and warlike.’ Valmiki teaches them the Vedas, and finally writes for them his famous epic, the ‘‘ Ramayana,” and teaches them to chant it. Years passed before Rama decided to celebrate the famous “horse-sacrifice” in token of his sover- eignty. According to custom, a horse was let loose whom none might hinder or restrain. The horse found its way to the hermitage of Valmiki, where the spirited boys immediately mounted it and determined to retain it. The guardsmen of the King reported the where- abouts of the horse, and Rama came himself to the hermitage. Here for the first time he met his princely boys, but did not know them until they chanted for him a record of his noble deeds. Ina passion of remorse and repentance he hears of Sita’s loneliness and sorrow, and then recognizes his sons and embraces Sita and them. Rama and his wife and sons return to Ayodhya. But joy is not long for Sita. The earth from whence she came receives again her long-suffering child. In the Rig Veda, the oldest Indian poem, Sita is called “the field furrow,” having sprung from the earth before the eyes of Janaka while he was ploughing in the field ; she is worshipped in the Vedas as an agricultural deity. But the allegory of the Veda is lost upon the Hindu women of to-day. There is not a woman in the length and breadth of the land to whom the story of Sita is unknown. She is to them the model of gentleness, patience, virtue, abiding faith, and enduring love. Yet CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 69 for her sad fate, no woman in India would name a child Sita? 7 ! Rama, too, is a model to men for his faithfulness to Sita, his obedience to the will of his people, and his unfailing devotion to his religion. Thus Rama is the darling hero, Hanuman the favorite general, Sita the model wife and princess throughout India. And so to millions of people this epic poem has been a moral education, an inspiration to right living. 39. RAPHAEL’S SPOSALIZIO. The Brera Gallery, Milan, was formerly a Jesuit Col- lege, erected in 1618. The gallery contains 400 oil paintings, many of great excellence, besides some ad- mirable frescoes detached from the walls of monasteries. There is also a library, founded by Maria Theresa. The gem of the collection is Raphael’s celebrated Sposalizio, in Sala VII. The picture is signed and dated 1504, and illustrates a legend. When Mary was come of age to marry, the High Priest, Zacharias, inquired of the Lord concerning her, and an angel came to him and said, “‘ Go forth and sum- mon all the widowers among the people, and let each bring a rod in his hand, and he to whom the Lord shall show His sign, he shall be the husband of Mary.” And Zacharias did as the angel commanded, and Joseph, the carpenter, a righteous man, came with the rest, and when he presented his rod to the priest, lo, it budded, and the priest said to him, “Thou art chosen by the Lord to take the Virgin and to keep her for Him.” It is this incident Raphael has chosen—the espousal in front of the Temple. The High Priest joins their 70 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. hands, and Joseph places a ring on the finger of his bride. He is aman in middle life, while she is but fourteen. Behind Mary is a group of the virgins of the Temple; behind Joseph, who holds in his hand the rod which has blossomed into a lily, are the disappointed suitors, one in the act of breaking his wand against his knee. With something of the formality of the older school, for Ra- phael was only twenty-one, there is yet such refinement and beauty that the whole scene is likened to a lyric poem. 40. THE DANNEBORG. Pope Honorius III. granted to Waldemar the Great, of Denmark, all the lands he could conquer from the heathen of Esthonia. Waldemar immediately raised a large army and set sail. In the first engagement with the heathen they lost their standard and began to give way, when a banner dropped from the sky bearing a white cross upon a red ground, and under this standard they won a victory. This Danneborg has ever since been the national flag of Denmark, and Waldemar on his return instituted an order of knighthood in its honor. The thirty-five heroes upon whom the King conferred knighthood immediately after the battle, under the newly- fallen banner, were called the “ First Knights of the Dan- neborg.” Christian V. renewed the order upon the birth of his son (October 12th, 1671), and conferred the honor of knighthood upon nineteen princes. They were called “The White Knights,’ a white silver cross being the badge. This honor could only be conferred upon the nobility, and the number was not to exceed fifty. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 71 41. THE FIRE WORSHIPPERS OF THE EAST. The Parsees of Bombay came originally from Persia, but not in large numbers until the time of the Moham- medan invasion in the seventh century A. D. They are called the “Fire Worshippers” of the East because of their reverence for fire, which they brought with them from Persia, and have never allowed to die out in their temples ; also for their worship of the sun as the author of life. The Parsees are one of the most interesting peo- ples in India. They are the direct descendants of the Magi, who, more intelligent about “the Young Child” who was born in Judea than the people ainong whom He was born, travelled to Jerusalem to pay him homage, and took with them “ gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” The Parsees have always kept aloof from surrounding peoples, and have preserved intact their race and their religion. They are remarkable for general intelligence and commercial ability. They are the wealthiest and most influential class of society in Bombay, and the most loyal subjects of the Queen in India. The streets are full of them; so numerous are they that Bombay has been called ‘the City of Parsees.’’ About seventy thou- sand, one-tenth of the population, live in the city and its suburbs, while in all India there are only about ninety thousand of them. The religion of the Parsees is one of the most ancient in the world, and was once the state religion of a power- ful empire, for Persia was the second of the four great universal Empires of the ancient world—Babylonia, Per- sia, Greece, Rome. In many respects the religion of the Parsees comes nearer to Christianity than any other of the Oriental re- ligions. For seventy years the Israelites were captives 72 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. in Persia. Two generations were born in captivity; it was Cyrus, the Persian King, who at last granted them release, and bade the Jews return to Jerusalem and re- build their Temple. After the return from captivity the influence of the Persian faith was manifest, but it was not until Zoroaster, the accounted founder of the Persian religion, had joined hands with Moses, the founder of the Hebrew religion, that the Israelites really ceased to be idolaters. It was for their idolatry that they were taken captive by a people who had no idols and no worship but that addressed to the Unseen. Sun and Fire were his sym- bols, but the great Ormuzd himself was hidden behind a glorious veil of light. After the return of the Jews to Jerusalem every trace and tendency to idol worship dis- appeared. The religion of the Parsees revolves around the person of Zoroaster. He is called the Pure, the Zarathustra, pure in thought, in word, in deed. “ Pure thoughts going out in true words and resulting in right actions is the whole duty of man.’’ The Zend-Avesta, the Bible of the Parsees, is a book of worship rather than a Bible; it is more like the Bock of Common Prayer. From the earliest times the Parsees have been called “fire worshippers,” though they deny the charge. They say, “We do not worship the sun nor fire, but regard them as symbols of the power of the Creator, since with- out light life would cease to exist.” Yet they have a superstitious feeling with regard to fire. No good Par- see will venture to smoke, and he regards it as an act of rudeness to offer him a cigar or to light one in his presence, and no Parsee will blow out a candle if he can possibly avoid it. The sacred fire is never allowed to go out in their temples, for so long as light is there Ormuzd is present, and the faithful can in his presence recite their CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 73 prayers even in an unknown language, for very few of the Parsees, if any, understand the Zend language in which the Avesta, or Book of Prayer, is written. They are taught the words in which their forefathers prayed to Ormuzd, and this is the secret of their unchanging faith. To cease to pray to the God of Light would be to cast their ancestors to his enemy, Ahriman, the God of Darkness. Light and Darkness are the two great powers contending for supremacy in ‘this world. If light ceases, darkness prevails or conquers, and all evil deeds, his minions, will be let loose in the world. Light, then, means life and purity and safety. In the Parsee temple there is no ritual, no pulpit; every devotee goes to the fire-temple whenever it is con- venient, recites his prayers for as long or short a time as he pleases, and gives, as he is inclined, something to the priest, to pray for him and to keep the fire burning. The whole religious education of a Parsee child consists in teaching him to say by rote the prayers in the Zend- Avesta. Each Parsee must learn the tenets of his re- ligion as best he can. These are very few. A Parsee believes in one God, to whom he addresses his prayers. His morality consists in pure thoughts, pure words, pure deeds. There is a charm in so short a creed, and its very simplicity accounts for the tenacity with which these exiles in western India cling to their religion. But there is another side, and the simplicity of the re- ligion of Zoroaster during the Dark Ages became over- laid with superstitions, dogmas and forms of man’s in- vention, so that the pure, rational and national religion of Persia became corrupt, and superstitious rites are still practiced, even by intelligent Parsees in Bombay. The Parsees are divided into two parties, the Con- servative and the Liberal, assuming the names of the two 74 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. great political parties in England. Both are attached to the faith of their forefathers, but differ as to manners and customs in social life. In one house there is the dining- room and the dining-table furnished with all the English apparatus for this agreeable purpose; next door, per- haps, is a wealthy Parsee satisfied with the primitive method of squatting on a piece of mat, with a large brass or copper plate before him, containing all the dishes of his dinner spread in little heaps upon it, a small copper cup at his side, and his fingers for knives and forks. He does this not because he cannot afford to have a table, but because any change in his mode of life would be a disrespect to his ancestors. The liberal Parsees contend for the prohibition of early betrothal and marriage ; the suppression of extravagance at weddings and funerals; the education of women and their admission into general society. In a word, Liberal- ism to the Parsee means religious and social reform. One peculiar custom of the Parsee is their mode of disposing of their dead. They do not bury their dead, but expose the bodies to be eaten by birds. They explain it thus: ‘““Hindus burn the dead, but we consider fire sacred and cannot use it for such ignoble office.” ‘The earth is the mother of mankind, the producer of the fruits and vegetables on which we live; the burial of the dead in it would be a defilement.’’ ‘When a body is exposed to the birds it is quickly devoured, the earth is not defiled, and fire is not made to serve an ignoble purpose.” “The Towers of Silence” are therefore erected, about 12 feet high and 30 feet in diameter, in the Parsee Ceme- tery on Malabar Point, close to the shore. The interior space, sloping towards the central well, has grooves in which the bodies are deposited. Within an hour after the exposure nothing remains but the bones ; these are CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 75 swept into the well, and from there, by a subterranean passage, pass into the sea. Funerals take place only at sunrise and sunset. The Parsees of Bombay are among the most intelli- gent and wealthiest of the Asiatic peoples. They are not fanatical in religion; they preserve their dress and customs, and evidently respect themselves and their an- cestors. 42. CLAN MACGREGOR. “Rob Roy” MacGregor was born at Glengyle, on Loch Katarine. The mention of his name suggests clan- ship and heroic barbaric Scotland. Few of Scott’s works have more readers than ‘Rob Roy,” or can be more closely localized in character and scene than this fourth novel of the Waverley series, published in 1817. Itis associated with the first attempt of the exiled Stuarts to regain their throne in 1715, as is “ Waverley” with the second attempt in 1745. In “Rob Roy’s country,” the haunt of his “robber clan” is on Loch Lomond; the cave where his raids were planned, the prison where prisoners where suspended by ropes until their ransom was agreed upon; and twelve miles from Callendar, at Balquhidder village, is the grave of this last predatory Highland chieftain, celebrated by the poem of Words- worth, ‘‘ Rob Roy’s Grave.” Before reading the story, or the poem, it would be well to read a history of this remarkable clan, whose vicissitudes the “Great Magician’? perpetuates in his poem ‘“ MacGregor’s Gathering.” History tells that in 831, when Picts and Scots were contending for the mastery, there was a king of the Scots named Alpin. His son Kenneth conquered the Picts, and the crowns 76 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. were then united. King Kenneth had a son named Gregor, who, according to Gaelic fashion, would be cailed Gregor MacKenneth MacAlpin, and from this Celtic king the MacGregors claimed descent. There is an old Gaelic saying that, ‘“‘ Hills, waters, and MacAlpins are the three oldest things in Albion.” From the time of the invasion of Edward L., 1296 until 1774, the MacGregors were a doomed people. When the laws proscribing the MacGregors were re- pealed, eight hundred and twenty-six persons cast off assumed names, and were glad and proud to sign a pe- tition calling upon a descendant of the ancient family to resume the honors of Chief of the Clan MacGregor. 43. STATUE OF BAVARIA. In front of the “ Hall of Fame,” in the suburbs of Munich, stands the statue of Bavaria, said to be in size second only to the great Colossus of Rhodes (one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World). It was unveiled with great enthusiasm on August 7th, 1850. The statue was cast from the bronze of captured Turkish and Nor- wegian cannon. The figure is distinctly German in feat- ure, draped from the waist to the feet, with only a skin thrown over the upper body. A wreath of oak is held aloft inthe right hand, a sword, pointing down, in the left hand. These symbols represent the twofold honor of Bavaria, military prowess and intellectual glory. At her side the Bavarian lion keeps guard. The figure is 614% feet high, the pedestal 28 14 feet, the total height go feet. The interior is very remarkable. Through the back CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 77 part of the pedestal a door leads to a stone staircase of 60 steps. The figure is hollow, and side passages lead into the lion. An iron spiral staircase leads by 58 steps up through the neck into the head, where there are two iron sofas and several openings for the enjoyment of a fine view of Munich and the Bavarian plain. The head contains standing room for thirty-one persons, the crown for eight persons. It is said that on the day the figure was unveiled, twenty-nine men and two boys emerged from one of the locks of Bavaria’s hair and descended a ladder amid the shouting of an astonished multitude. The arms are 24 feet g inches long ; the nose one foot eleven inches, the mouth fifteen inches broad. A most interesting bird’s- eye view of Munich can be had from the head. 44. THE VOCAL MOUNTAIN OF ENGLAND. About the year 500 A. D., a large army of the Picts was descending upon a small force of Britons. Certain death to every Briton seemed inevitable, when Ger- manus declared, ata council held, that if they would put themselves under his guidance he would insure victory without the loss of a single man. This seemed an idle boast, but all agreed to obey Germanus. He led them directly along the road by which the enemy was approaching until he came toa spot sur- rounded by hills. Here he bade them halt and not to speak until he gave the word, and then to repeat his words three times. He then threw out scouts to give warning of the near approach of the foe. When the Picts had reached a certain point Germanus cried out, “Hallelujah! His small band of men repeated the cry three times, when, to their amazement, the hills 78 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. reverberated the sound with such rapidity and force that it sounded like a great multitude of men shouting “Hallelujah!” The Picts fled in every direction, think- ing themselves surrounded. This victory of Germanus stands in history as the ‘Victory of the Vocal Mountain.” 45. A CAUSE OF THE SEPOY MUTINY. The present Anglo-Indian Empire grew out of the Sepoy Rebellion. The Sepoys were natives of India, formed into military companies and drilled by English officers for the maintenance of peace in India, at least among the various races hitherto almost always at war one with the other ; and the Sepoys were necessary, also, for the protection of British interests. There were, at the time of the Sepoy mutiny, two hundred and thirty thousand Sepoys under pay from the East India Com- pany, to forty-five thousand Europeans, and “the Se- poys”’ had at this time become a proverb for fidelity to those who employed and fed them. But native superstition finally maddened the Sepoys with fear, and carried them hopelessly beyond restraint or control. The advance of civilization became to them a menace to their race. They could not understand the Iron Horse that swept along the iron tracks which they had been silently laying ; the telegraph was still more incomprehensible ; and the endeavors of the white men to destroy the system of caste confirmed their worst fears. He, the Hindu, and his children, were in danger of losing their religion and their social position, their place both in this world and in the next. But this was silently borne until the Enfield rifle was introduced, to take the place of the time-worn musket. The cartridges CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 79 thrilled the dusky legions with horror. In biting off the ends of them the Mohammedan found that he must defile his lips with the fat of abhorred swine ; the Hindu found in the lubricating oil an indignity to his venerated cow. The wildest rumors were afloat; confidence in British rule was gone, and every feeling of loyalty and fidelity perished. The Sepoys, or native soldiers, were soon in open re- bellion ; and, urged on by aggrieved chiefs, it soon be- came apparent that every white man, woman and child in India was doomed. British dominion in India was -shaken to its foundation. The Governor-General, Lord Canning, recognized the greatness of the peril, and sum- moning troops from every province, determined to main- tain, as long as possible, their position until help could reach them from England. The horrors of that year, 1857, in India can never be told. The British were weak in numbers but mighty in their just cause. Every- where the mutineers, in the Presidency of Bengal, not content with murder, were destroying telegraphs and railways, and digging up mile-stones and obliterating every trace of ‘‘the white man.” But General Havelock, a veteran of forty years’ service, was marching north; only a few months of life were left to him, but these were sufficient to gain for him a foremost place among those who “die to save their fellow men.”’ Cawnpore, Lucknow, Delhi! What a chapter of horror to read in the middle of the nineteenth Christian century. When the restoration of English authority was achieved, by such slaughter on both sides as no historian can fully record, the “East India Company” was dis- banded, and the government of British India was vested in the Crown of Queen Victoria. England then bravely resumed her efforts for the ele- 80 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. vation of the Indian people and the development of the boundless resources amidst which they live, and she has succeeded ; the annual revenue of India in a few years grew to 472,000,000 sterling ; and the greater portion, in fact all of it, was expended annually in developing the country, in educating the natives, and training them for future self-government. No wonder that the proclamation giving India a place in the title of Queen Victoria, January Ist, 1877, was re- ceived throughout India with great rejoicing. A writer on India says: “ Posterity will look upon the picture of a vast and utterly barbaric population, numbering nearly one-fourth of the human family, sub- dued, governed, educated, Christianized and led up to the dignity of self-government by a handful of strangers who came from an inconsiderable island 15,000 miles away.” 46. FRANCOIS CHATEAUBRIAND. Frangois Chateaubriand (1768-1848) was a Breton, a native of St. Malo. The literary influence of Chateau- briand can hardly be exaggerated, for he is said to have reinstated Christianity in France. The story of his life, written by himself, published after his death, reads like a romance. Born at St. Malo, September 14th, 1768, of noble parentage, in the chateau which is now the Hotel de France, he became, at nineteen, a captain in the French army. Being a Royalist, he escaped to America during the French Revolution, and lived a rov- ing life among the Indians. In 1801 he wrote his Indian romance “Atala,” a prose “ Hiawatha,” which charmed all Europe, and which has been powerfully illustrated by Gustave Doré; ‘‘ René” and other romances followed. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. SI Chateaubriand looked to Rousseau as his literary father. He went from America to London, and lived in a garret, so poor as to be often in want of food while he was writ- ing the work that made him famous, his ‘Genius of Christianity,’ which aided in arresting the infidel tenden- cies of his age. The eighteenth century had used against Christianity the powerful weapons of sarcasm and ridi- cule; Chateaubriand set up against this method, “by genius rather than by reasoning,” poetry and romance. “Christianity,” he said, “is the most poetical of all re- ligions, the most attractive, the most fertile in literary, artistic, and social results.’”’ This theme he developed in such a masterly way in his “ Genius of Christianity ”’ and his “ Martyrs” that infidel writers lost caste. For these works Napoleon made him Secretary of Legation at Rome in 1803, and offered him higher positions, which as a staunch Royalist he declined. He returned with the Bourbons to France and became a noted states- man; but his strength lay in his pen. Louis XVIII. declared that “one of his pamphlets was worth an army of 100,000 men.’ In 1830 he retired from public life and devoted him- self entirely to literature. He died in Paris in 1848, having previously made every arrangement for his burial. He had wandered far from home, but he was a true Breton at heart, and he wrote a letter to the authorities at St. Malo requesting them to prepare a mausoleum for him upon the rocky promontory of the Isle ‘ Grand Bay,” which he had so often looked upon from the win- dow of the room in which he was born at St. Malo, An intense love of the grand in nature was one of the chief characteristics of Chateaubriand. The fathers of St. Malo, much complimented, at once complied with the request ; and in the simple mausoleum, hewn out of the 6 82 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. solid granite, surrounded by a Gothic iron railing, sur- mounted with a beautiful granite cross that can be seen afar where the music of the waves never ceases, the great Breton of romance and history lies buried. 47. A NATIONAL MEMORIAL. The Albert Memorial, erected by the English nation to the memory of the Prince Consort, is one of the grandest and most sumptuous monuments in the world. It was designed to perpetuate the memory of a good and great Prince, to express the nation’s appreciation of his blameless life, and the universal grief at his early death. A colossal statue of the Prince is seated upon a shrine elevated upon a lofty and wide-spreading pyramid of granite steps ; the total number of steps being 1803, their total length two and a quarter miles. The area of the platform is 23,803 square feet. The total height 180 feet. On pedestals, at the outer angles of the first tier of steps, are colossal allegorical groups of the four quar- ters of the globe, as represented in the International Ex- hibition of which the Prince was the originator in 18 SI, and upon the site of which the Monument and Albert Hall are erected. Europe is represented by a bull, in accordance with the old myth of Europa. Asia is represented by an elephant, the prostrate ani- mal typifying the subjection of brute force to human in- telligence. Africa is represented by an Egyptian princess seated upon a recumbent camel. Other figures typify the European civilization of African races. America is represented as mounted upon a bison, which, with head down, is charging through the long Albert Memorial. Daocel CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 83 prairie grass. This group symbolizes progress, and in this respect forms a marked contrast to the representa- tion of the other three continents, which are at rest. From the upper platform rises a Podium, or Pedestal, surrounded by a series of 169 portrait figures in alto re- “evo representing the men of all ages who have excelled in the Arts. The Poets and Musicians are on the south front ; the Painters on the east front; the Architects on the north front, and the Sculptors on the west front. The natives of different countries are grouped together. The figures are 6 feet high. The base moulds (3 feet) and the cornice (2 feet) are of the richest red granite, polished with the greatest care. On pedestals, projecting from each corner of the Po- dium, are marble groups illustrating Agriculture, Manu- facturing, Commerce, and Engineering. From this magnificent foundation rises the Gothic canopy. Onthe great clustered pillars which support it are bronze statues representing Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, and Geometry. Above the capitals a second range of bronze statues representing Rhetoric, Medicine, Philosophy, and Physiology. Thus the statues which occupy the four angles illustrate the whole range of Science and the practical arts and industries which te International Exhibition promoted. From this level all is changed. The canopy becomes a shrine, and religion and virtue are subjects of illustra- tion. The mosaic pictures in the tympana, spandrels and vaulting are of glass, manufactured in Murano, near Venice. The statues in the spire are of gilt-bronze, and represent the four Christian virtues and the four greater morals, while groups of angels surround the base of the cross, which surmounts the whole. Beneath this magnificent canopy is the seated portrait statue of His 84 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Royal Highness, Albert Edward, Prince Consort, made of gun metal, covered with triple gold plate, dressed in the robe and insignia of the Royal Order of the Garter. The dedicatory inscription is executed in mosaic (the letters are of blue glass with black edges, placed upon a ground of gold enamelled glass), and reads: “Queen Victoria and her people, To the memory of Albert, Prince Consort, As a tribute of their gratitude For a life devoted to the public good.” 48. THE FUNERAL OF A SPANISH KING. The burial place of the royal family of Spain is in the Palace of the Escorial. Everything in Spain is done with a great deal of ceremony, and when a King dies the funeral is placed under the charge of the Espinosa family, who live, and have lived for generations, on a government estate, which was given to them in recogni- tion of having performed their duties well. When the royal funeral cortége starts, the members of this family, dressed in the Spanish costume of several hundred years ago, head the procession, which stops at a place about half-way to the Escorial, and rests for the night. In the morning the oldest man of the Espinosa knocks on the coffin lid and asks the King if it is his wish to continue the journey to his last resting-place; though the dead King makes no reply, the cortége starts and arrives at the Escorial after dark, where they find the large doors of the Church in the Escorial fastened tightly. Some of the leaders then knock at the door; there is a great noise made by the monks who have charge of the church, who call out, “Who is there?” CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 85 ”) The Espinosa answers, ‘“‘A man of peace,’ the usual answer given by any one in all Spain who knocks ata door and is askeda similiar question. The pounding of the door is continued, when the priests cry, ‘‘ What do you want?’ ‘They answer, ‘‘To bury the King.” “How do you know the King is dead?” ‘We all know it, we have seen him die.’’ The priests at first refuse them admittance, but after the Espinosa threaten to break down the doors the monks scream to them that they will at once surrender, for a few priests cannot be expected to hold out against such a throng of people. The doors are then opened, the body is taken into the church, and after high mass the King is interred in the very beautiful circular pantheon below the church. Although it is below the ground, the windows give quite enough light to read all the inscriptions on the sar- cophagi, which are arranged in niches around the marble walls. There is another large crypt in which are interred the princes and princesses of the royal family ; and on the corners of the hall leading thereto are four grand statues of different members of the Espinosa family who have served in this same capacity at different times. 49. ATLANTIC CABLE. In July, 1856, the Government of the United States, at the request of Cyrus W. Field, sent Lieutenant Berry- man in the “ Arctic” to run a line of deep-sea sounding along the path marked out on the map for the cable. This was done with Lieutenant Brooke’s deep-sea sound- ing apparatus, and confirmed the existence of the “ tele- graph plateau.” Atthe same time Mr. Field went to England and induced the British Government to send the ‘Cyclops,’ under Lieutenant-Commander Daymen, 86 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. to run a similar line of soundings from Valentia, Ireland, which confirmed, in general, Lieutenant Berryman’s results. The only exception to uniform depth was found two hundred miles off Ireland, where, within twelve miles, the depth sank from five hundred and fifty fathoms to seventeen hundred and fifty fathoms. The greatest depth on this plateau was two thousand fathoms, or twelve thousand feet. Meanwhile Mr. Field was in England carrying out the original design of the company by obtaining subscriptions, so as to enlarge its capital and include in one corporation the whole line from New York to London. Various companies set to work experiment- ing on cables. Professor Morse, by actual experiment, settled the practicability of telegraphing through the pro- posed Atlantic cable, and he enthusiastically calculated on sending, by a cable containing a single conducting wire, a twenty-word message in three minutes. The recommendations of other scientists soon obtained public confidence. The English Government engaged to furnish ships for soundings, and to consider favorably requests for aid in laying the cable, and to pay £14,000 yearly, while the cable was in working order, for the conveyance of Govern- ment messages, to be reduced to £10,000 when the net profits of the company should give a dividend of 6 per cent. Mr. Field returned to Washington to seek Gov- ernment aid in the form of a subsidy. There was much opposition on political grounds, but the measure was championed by Seward, Douglas, and Rusk. The same privileges were asked as granted by England, $70,000 yearly for messages, and the use of naval vessels. After a hard fight the bill passed the Senate by a majority of one, and was signed by President Pierce on March 23 1857, the day before he left office, when James Buchanan CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 87 became President, 1857 to 1861. Mr. Field was made General Manager of the Atlantic Cable Telegraph Com- pany. The first three attempts to lay the cable were unsuccessful, the cable breaking under strain. But the energetic perseverance of Professor Morse and Cyrus Field induced them to make a fourth attempt at once. On July 7th, 1858, the ships ‘‘ Agamemnon’ and “Niagara’’ sailed quietly out of the Cove of Cork, Queenstown. The cables were spliced in mid-ocean on July 29th. On August 5th the ‘ Niagara” anchored in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, and Mr. Field telegraphed the safe arrival of the cable to New York. On the same day the ‘‘Agamemnon”’ reached Valentia, Ireland, the former vessel having paid out 1030 miles and the latter 1020 miles of wire. The receipt of Mr. Field’s dis- patch caused intense excitement throughout the country. Congratulations came to him from the President, the Governor-General of Canada, from mayors, governors, and senators. On August 16th, 1858, the first message passed over the cable, between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan. On the next day there were salutes fired, and decorations and illuminations displayed in New York. Mr. Field arrived on the 18th in the “ Niagara,” and on September Ist a grand ovation was tendered him, together with the officers of the expedition, by the city authorities. But even while these celebrations were in progress, and while directors on the other side were con- sulting in regard to opening the line for business, the cable stopped working, and public enthusiasm was suc- ceeded by an equally profound reaction. Distrust and suspicion prevailed. Little was done to further the Atlantic telegraph enter- prise until 1861. An impetus was then given to the 88 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. undertaking by the opening of overland telegraph com- munication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this country, and about this time cables were laid in the Mediterranean, Red Seaand Persian Gulf. In December of that year Mr. Field issued a circular letter calling the attention of capitalists to the Atlantic telegraph, and on May Ist, 1862, read a paper before the American Geo- graphical Society on the same subject, pointing out the value a cable would have been in the “Trent” affair. In the autumn of the same year he went to England bearing a letter from Secretary Seward to Charles Francis Adams, the United States Minister. A definite offer to lay a cable was received from the firm of Glass, Elliott & Co., and the stockholders of the Atlantic Cable Company resolved to increase the capital by £600,000. Subscriptions were obtained in this country amounting to about $350,000. The contract was awarded to Glass, Elliott & Co., and with the expectation that the cable would be laid in 1864 Mr. Field sailed for home, where he was publicly thanked by the American shareholders “for his indefatigable exertions.’ With all the improvements suggested by recent ad- vances in science, work was begun at once upon a new cable weighing 300 pounds to the mile, as against 107 pounds, the weight per mile of the old cable. The ‘Great Eastern,” the largest vessel afloat, was secured for the purpose of laying the cable, and Captain James Anderson, of the Cunard Line, engaged to command her. On July 15th the “ Great Eastern”’ started for the Irish coast. The shore-end was taken to land on July 21st and 22d, not at Valentia, as before, but at Foilbum- merum Bay. On July 23d the “ Great Eastern” steamed westward. Two other vessels, the “Terrible” and “Sphinx,” were in company. When 73 miles out a CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 89 flaw was discovered, the ‘“‘ Great Eastern”’ turned about, picked up the cable, and a wire was found driven through it, afterwards discovered to have been done purposely. On the 29th another flaw was detected, the cable was picked up again, and spliced. On the 31st the cable on deck was examined, and another wire was found driven through it. This was afterwards ascertained to have been done by a man hired by a rival company, who, when arrested, confessed. On August 2d, when within 600 miles of Newfoundland, another flaw was discovered, and while attempting to pick up the cable a breeze caused the “Great Eastern” to drift over it, and the chafing caused it to break. Three times the cable was grappled and lifted hundreds of fathoms, but owing to the breaking of the grappling apparatus each attempt was unsuccessful, and the ‘“‘ Great Eastern’? put back to Europe. To avoid legal difficulties a new company, the Anglo-American Telegraph, was organized with a Capi- tal of £600,000, which contracted with the Atlantic Company to manufacture and-lay down a cable in the summer of 1866. The manufacture of another cable was begun at once, and 2400 miles of cable were taken on board the “Great Eastern” in May, 1866. This last attempt was successful, and Mr. Field’s dispatch announc- ing the successful laying of the cable was received in New York July 29th, 1866. Thus, after ten years of toil, England and America were bound together by the electric cord. Mr. Field received numberless tokens of appreciation. Lord Derby addressed him a letter stating that the Queen desired to bestow British honors upon him, but his American citizenship made him unable to accept them. go CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 50. SCOTTISH CLANS, The great tribal wars between Picts (Gaels) and Scots, ' Highlanders and Saxon Lowlanders, are matters of his- tory, as well as of song and story. Sir Walter Scott, while young in public life, wrote : “Yet live there still who can remember well, How, when a mountain chief his bugle blew, Both field and forest, dingle, cliff and dell, And solitary heath, the signal knew; And fast the faithful clan around him drew.” But mountain chief and faithful clan are now only an interesting feature of the historic past. The word “clan” signifies family, and a clan was a certain number of fami- lies governed by a lineal descendant of the parent family. But jealousies and deadly feuds arose between the High- land and the Lowland Clans, between Picts and Scots. Only the threatened invasion of a common foe united them at last. In 842 A. D., Kenneth MacAlpine, King of the Scots, was made King of the Picts (Gaels), and they henceforth became one people. But in the low- lands the patriarchal form of government gave place, in time, to the feudal system, the only difference being that the feudal baron was not allied by blood to his followers, and that he did not inherit his land, but obtained it as a grant from the King in lieu of military service. The Highland Clans resisted the feudal system, and no power was ever able to obtain entire or permanent possession of their country. Forty native kings succeeded Kenneth MacAlpine (842), until James VI. of Scotland became James I. of England (1603). One hundred and four years later (1707), when the last chieftain of the High- land Clans signed the ‘“‘ Act of Union” with England, CURIOUS QUESTIONS. gI he exclaimed, ‘“‘ Here endeth Auld Lang Syne.” But the end of Clanship had not come even then. In 1715 and 1745 the rising of the Highland Clans made Eng- land tremble. But in 1745 they rose for the last time. The battle of Culloden (1746) was as fatal to the Clans as to the Royal House of Stuart. In 1748 three legis- lative acts were passed which effected a lasting change in the Highlands. First, the use of the Tartan, which had for centuries been the dress of the Celtic Clans, was for- bidden under the penalty of long imprisonment or exile. Second, the carrying of firearms was forbidden under a like penalty. Thirdly, the exercise of inherited jurisdic- tion was forbidden all over Scotland. This completely checked the power of the Clans. But Clanship was still strong in the hearts of the people, and an outbreak was feared at every change of State policy. To William Pitt, Lord Chatham (1708-1778), is due the final disbanding of the Highland Clans. His sagacious mind suggested the forming of them into Highland Regiments, which plan, when carried out, was successful in converting these high-spirited but mistaken rebels into the bravest and most loyal soldiers of the British Crown. The privilege of wearing the ‘‘tartan colors”’ of their forefathers and their natural instinct for war brought thousands of hardy Highlanders into the British Army. For instance, the “42d,” the famous “ Black Watch”’ (so-called from the color of their tartan, black and green) represents chiefly the Clan Campbell, the largest and one of the most im- portant of the ancient Clans; the 93d, the Clan Gor- don, etc. Wherever invincible soldiers are required the Highlanders but ask a chief whom they can trust to say, “Follow me,” and, suiting the action to the word, from every man comes back the cry, “I follow.” Q2 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 51. THE FOUR CHRISTIAN MILITARY ORDERS OF SPAIN. The reconquest of Spain from the Moors is due to the four Great Christian Military Orders, for, without their inspiring aid, king or queen would have been powerless. The most ancient was the Alcantaras, 1156; its decora- tion, or badge, was a green lily-shaped cross ; the second, Calatray, 1158, distinguished by a red lily-shaped cross; the third, the Order of St. James of Compostella, or Santi- ago, founded in 1170, distinguished by a red cross in the form of a sword ; the fourth, that of Montessa, replaced the Templarsin 1317. To the first three, after the fall of Toledo, is ascribed the steady progress of the Christian arms in subsequent centuries. The most honorable and opulent of these Orders, sanctioned by separate bulls from the Pope, to oppose the enemies of the Christian faith and to punish those who disturbed public peace was the Order of St. Jago, or Santiago. The wealth and power of this Order became so great that the Grand Master was second only in authority to the King ; the King, who was a member of the Order, being obliged by his vows to obey the Grand Master. When the Conquest of Grenada deprived the Knights of St. Jago (St. James) of the enemies against whom their energies had been so long directed, their religion furnished them with another object, in defence of which they next employed all their zeal. The other Orders followed their example, so that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we find the Knights of the Holy Orders of Spain professedly the champion Knights of the dogma of the Immaculate Con- ception, devoting their lives to maintaining the honors due to the Virgin Mary. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 93 52. ‘* HEIR APPARENT’? AND ‘HEIR PRESUMPTIVE.”’ There is some confusion as to the difference between an “heir apparent”? and an “heir presumptive” to a throne. In point of law the heir is the party who suc- ceeds to an estate or a dignity upon the death of the previous holder of such position. A king or a queen may have an “heir apparent’ and an “heir presump- tive’”’ at the same time; the difference between the two being that the heir apparent must succeed if he or she survive the present holder of the dignity, while an heir presumptive, although he is heir for the time being, is liable to have his right to the succession defeated by the birth of a nearer heir. The Prince of Wales is now heir apparent to the throne. His son, Prince George of Wales, is not an heir presumptive to the throne, but is heir apparent to the Princedom of Wales. The death of his father would make him heir apparent. But had Prince George become “heir apparent” before the birth of his children, then his sister, the Duchess of Fife, would have been the “heir presumptive,” her succession to the throne being liable to be defeated by the birth of a direct heir to her brother. Since the birth of the young Prince Edward, Duke of York, there has been no “heir presumptive” to the throne of England. cg! THE, CRADLE: OF ENGLISH HISTORY.”’ The descent of bands of Scandinavian pirates in West- ern Europe began toward the end of the eighth century. They were called by the inhabitants of the British Isles “East Men” and “ Danes ;” on the Continent they were called ‘‘ North Men.” 04 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. These ‘ North Men” were of Germanic stock, a vigor- ous seafaring race not yet christianized, peopling the coast of the Baltic Sea and the two peninsulas which form Norway, Sweden and Denmark to-day. The pres- sure of over-population and a national thirst for adven- ture sent forth hoards of these Northmen as pirates upon the seas. They scoured the coasts of England, Germany and France, pressed up the smallest rivers with their sharp open vessels ; they burned and slew all that stood in the way of plunder, then sailed away with their booty. Charlemagne was no sooner crowned at Rome than he was compelled to hasten to the northern coast of France to defend it against these northern pirates. He built de- fences along the land, guarded the harbors with vessels, and then is said to have wept while addressing his nobles, for he foresaw in this vigorous, energetic race the calami- ties that would befall his successors. After one hundred years of almost continuous warfare, Charles the Simple (898-929) purchased peace with the Northmen by giv- ing their famous Norwegian leader Rolf, or Rollo, his daughter Gisele in marriage, in 911, and as her wedding dower a territory north of Paris, on both sides of the Seine. Rollo (Robert) and his followers were baptized at Rouen in 912. He immediately gave up his predatory habits, and protected the coasts of France from further invasions of the Northmen. Acknowledging the King of France as his King, or “over-lord,” he also adopted the religion and costume of the French. The Normans, as they are now called, were soon distinguished as the bravest of soldiers and sailors, and the most skillful arti- sans in the kingdom, and their province, called Nor- mandy, became the most prosperous in France. High- minded and patriotic, they were ever ready to take the lead in all daring enterprises, and Rouen, their capital, CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 95 became a splendid city. Under Rollo’s successors west- ern territory was added to the Dukedom of Normandy until checked by the brave Bretons, and the boundary- line of Brittany was fixed at the river Cousseson. Other cities arose, and cathedrals and churches of such noble architecture as to be still the admiration of the world. Finally, in 996, the Duke of Normandy assisted in plac- ing Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, upon the throne of France, and the House of Charlemagne disappeared for- ever. Charlemagne’s prophecy was fulfilled, and the history of modern France begins with the Capetian dy- nasty in 996. Seventy years later William, Duke of Normandy, the seventh Duke and the successor of “Robert le Diable’’ (Robert the Devil), in 1066 con- quered England and became its King. But though King of England he was still a vassal of the King of France as Duke of Normandy; hence the long wars between France and England; and hence, also, the interest in old Scandinavian Normandy as ‘the cradle of English his- tory.” J. R. Greene’s “A Short History of the Eng- lish People” gives an account of William, the Norman, and his “Conquest.” ‘‘ William,’”’ says Greene, ‘was a type of transition.” In the young Duke’s character the old world mingled strangely with the new, the pirate jostled roughly with the statesman. William was the most terrible, as he was the last outcome of the northern race. The very spirit of the sea-wolves, who had so long lived on the pillage of the world, seemed embodied in his gigantic form, his enormous strength, his savage counte- nance, his desperate bravery, the fury of his wrath, the ruthlessness of his revenge. ‘“ No knight under heaven,” his enemies confessed, ‘“‘ was William’s peer.”’ Normandy belonged to England after the Conquest of 1066 until 1204, when Philip Augustus, King of 96 ‘ CURIOUS QUESTIONS. France, wrested it from King John (Lackland) of Eng- land, the thirteenth and last English Duke of Normandy. It remained a province of the French Crown for more than two hundred years, but was retaken by the English under Henry V. after the battle of Agincourt in 1415, and it was held by the English until 1449. Rouen, the capital of Normandy, where William the Conqueror died, was in possession of the English when, to their eternal disgrace, they there burned Joan of Arc at the stake in 1431. Her death was a death-blow to English posses- sions in France. The final reconquest of Normandy by the French in 1449, under Charles VII., was an easy matter, and the English were entirely driven out of France in 1451-1452. The character of Normandy is so singularly like England, and so many English people are living there, that it seems almost like one country with the English Channel flowing through it. A noted writer of some years ago says: “In that province of France, which is rightly called the cradle of English history, one sees the chalk downs, the farms and orchards, the field and hedgerows, the windmills, the cottages and gardens, the winding streams, the village gables, the church spires, and all the salient points of an unspoiled English land- scape.’ It is to-day even’ more English than French, but like the rustic England of a past generation, such as Washington Irving so sweetly and affectionately de- scribes in his “Tales of a Traveller.” 54. SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE. The cycle of forty-four sonnets by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, entitled “Sonnets from the Portuguese,” is one of the rich verdure-clad peaks of literature. They were written during Miss Barrett’s rather brief engage- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Q7 ment to Robert Browning, and in the early part of their perfect married life. Mrs. Browning never intended them for publication, but when she finally gave them to her husband he immediately recognized the unequalled treasure that lay in his hand, and felt the right of the world to this pure, high, fervid love-song of a woman. Maybe women have loved even as Elizabeth Barrett loved, but hers is the only frank, utter expression of the love of a woman for a man that takes a place, and stands by its intrinsic merit among the highest attainments in literature. The seemingly irrelevant title “Sonnets from the Portuguese ’’ was given to them, primarily, owing to Mrs. Browning’s unwillingness to have them appear under her name. Mr. Browning called Mrs. Browning, playfully, his ‘“ Little Portuguese,” so when she sug- gested that the sonnets be called “ Sonnets Translated from the Bosnian,” he immediately took the idea, but said, ‘‘ No, ‘ Sonnets from the Portuguese.’ ” In construction they follow the Petrarchian form, and even Mrs. Browning’s keenest critics admit their mas- terly perfection. The sonnets, however, are by no means of equal merit; but the various emotions of her love are told from the day when Browning brought love instead of death into her twilight life, to the magnificent climax in the forty-third sonnet, where her love has reached its full fruition. SONNET XLIII. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth, breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. 7 98 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” 55. THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE. The glory of Seville is its magnificent Gothic Cathe- dral, in grandeur and sublimity unsurpassed in Chris- tendom. Its length is more than 400 feet, its breadth more than 300 feet ; its central nave rises to a height of 150 feet, while the dome is 30 feet higher. It covers 120,000 square feet of ground, or 12,000 feet more than the Milan Cathedral, which is the next largest, 108,000 feet. The Cathedral stands alone, in the center of an immense square, upon a platform (582 by 420 feet), with a broad terrace running all around it ascended by steps. No good exterior view can be obtained Owing to a high enclosing wall; but a walk around the terrace gives a better understanding of its vast proportions, and the various styles of architecture which render this one of the noblest piles ever erected for the worship of God, and is preferred by many even to St. Peter’s, Rome. This site has from the earliest times been devoted to religious pur- poses; a pagan temple to Venus, a Christian Gothic church, a Mohammedan mosque, then the present Cathe- dral. At a meeting of the Chapter, July 8th, I401, a resolu- tion was offered and carried, ‘‘ Let us erect such a Cathe- dral that posterity will say we were madmen.” And right well has their determination been adhered to. Each of the nine entrances deserves a separate study. The Cathedral of Seville. p- 98, ili. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 99 They are ornamented with terra-cotta re/evos and statues, ‘by noted artists, representing Bible scenes, angels, patri- archs and prophets. The Porta del Pardon, with its exquisite Moorish arch and bronze doors, attracts attention. The relevo represents the driving of the Money Changers out of the Temple, and the statues (life-size) of St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Annunciation. The exterior walls here, and the truncated pillar, belong to the old Moorish mosque. The immense interior is lighted by ninety- three stained-glass windows designed by the best artists ; 'the space is divided into seven aisles, the extreme aisle on either side being divided into chapels, thirty- seven in all, and some of them as large as ordinary churches. | In the central aisle another cathedral, with its cupola and bell-tower, could easily’ stand... Like all Spanish churches, the choir, or part partitioned off for the cathe- dral service, is in the centre of the building, and here are placed two immense organs, which are sometimes played to represent the roll of thunder through the vaulted aisle, and, again, like songandecho. The choir is open towards the high altar, which is magnificent in gold and carvings and paintings and statuary. Beyond the high altar is the Royal Chapel, or Royal Mausoleum, for every Spanish cathedral is a kind of Westminister Abbey. Kings and Queens are buried here; but special honors belong to the tomb of Ferdinand III. (died 1252 A. D.), who re- covered Seville from the Moors. His body has been so well preserved that it is yet exhibited on certain days (May 30th, August 22d, and November 23d), when the soldiers of Spain march into the Cathedral, ground their arms and lower their colors, and stand with uncovered heads before the shrine ‘of the hero of Seville.’ The First. (55 B.C.) 100 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. hero, king, and saint, lies in a casket of gold, silver, and crystal, dressed in his royal robes, with his crown on his head, his hands crossed, his sceptre on the right and his sword on the left. In a direct line, at the opposite end of the Cathedral (west end), there is a tomb interesting to Americans. A plain slab in the pavement, surrounded by figures of three ships (caravellos), bears an inscription to the memory of Fernando, second son of Christopher Columbus, who died in Seville, July 12th, 1546, aged fifty years. The inscription is typical of the son of a great father, and was written by himself: ‘To Castile and to Leon Columbus gave a new world.” Fernando bequeathed the library of his father, with important manuscripts, to this Cathe- dral. In the Columbian Library may be seen the origi- nal speeches and arguments used by Columbus to con- vince Ferdinand and Isabella that he was no “idle dreamer.”” This Cathedral, five centuries old, and which it took one century to build, with its broad, high-vaulted aisles, its forest of pillars, all aglow with light from stained-glass windows ; its numerous chapels, with altars illumined with the finest paintings of the Spanish school, with statues and pictures in relief; its clere-story and parapet; its marble pavement and marvelous roof, entitle it to rank as one of the noblest churches of Christendom. 56. FIVE HISTORIC LANDINGS. Five historic landings upon the shores of Great Britain mark five great epochs in the evolution of mod- ern England : The landing of Julius Czsar, which revealed the Britons to the civilized world, and a civilized people to the Britons. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. IOI The landing of Hengst and Horsa, traditional leaders of the first successful Teutonic or German invasion of England, marks the advent of the Anglo-Saxon and 1s the true beginning of English history. The landing of Augustine, the Monk, later St. Augus- tine, “Father of Roman Theology,’ brought Latin Christianity into England. The landing of William the Norman, or William the Conqueror, introduced the Feudal System into England, established England’s aristocracy, and gave to her such a settled form of government that she has never since - been conquered by a foreign foe. The landing of William of Orange, the elected King of England, which set the final seal upon the British Constitution and inaugurated modern England. These landings are remarkable because they mark eras when changes were effected in the habits, feelings and constitution of the British nation. > 57. CORDOVA. More than 2000 years ago Cordova was a Roman city. It furnished troops to Hannibal in the second Punic war (218-202 B.C.). It took sides with Pompey against Cesar, and after the battle of Munda, near Cordova (45 B. C.), Cesar left dead upon the plain of Cordova 28,000 of its inhabitants. Under the Goths, Cordova was a royal residence, but it reached the acme of its greatness under the Moors. Once it was the “ Pearhof the West,” the “City of Cities.’ It still nestles on the banks of the gentle Guadalquivir, in the midst of an extensive plain surrounded by mountains filled with water-springs, which have for centuries irrigated fields of flowers in which may be found fifteen hundred varie- Second. (449 A. D.) Third, (597 A. D.) Fourth, (1066 A. D.) Fifth, (1688 A. D.) 102 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ties ; almost endless groves of orange and lemon trees, with their glistening leaves and golden fruit, and of olive trees, which always suggest the Mount of Olives; and above them all tower the graceful palm trees, re- minders that Abd-er-Rahman, the Great, planted the first palm tree in Spain, and dedicated it with a touching poem as being, like himself, ‘a stranger in a strange land.” The city walls as described by Julius Cesar have been strengthened by towers, square and octagonal; the nu- merous gates are historic, but have lost their former beauty. The drive of ten miles around the city walls and a visit to the Mosque are all that remain to show that, from the ninth to the twelfth century, Cordova was the largest and most splendid city in the world. Its clean, narrow, well-paved streets were paved two hun- dred years before such a thing was thought of in Paris; and seven hundred years before a street-lamp was lighted in London, miles of streets in Cordova were illumined at night by public lamps placed close together. In the tenth century, when the rest of Europe was sunk in the darkness of ignorance and superstition, Cordova had eight hundred schools, and a library of 600,000 volumes, whereas four hundred years later the Library of France had only 900 volumes. Students from all parts of the world came to Cordova to study science and law. Its Alca- zar, ot Royal Palace, was a bewilderment of Moorish archi- tecture and ornament; all that remains of it now is used asaprison. The plain, square, two-storied, unshadowed, whitewashed houses of to-day are not relics of the mar- ble palaces that lined its streets, nor even of the plainer but elegant 263,000 houses that gave homes to its 1,000,000 inhabitants. Philip II. ordered the destruc- tion of its 900 Public Baths, calling them “relics of infidelity.” eee ol! : é 5 OY i | ae Pay nt Cor -d "Baoplog ‘anbsoy worn sy} Jo x01IIJUT CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 103 Cordova, which was once to Spain what the head is to the body, has dwindled away until we find it what Gautier said of it fifty years ago, ‘(a mere skeleton of its former self.” Its wealth, its art, its literature, its trade, its prestige are gone. Still, there is in Cordova an air—perhaps a reflex one—of refinement that recalls the ancient Caliphate ; for Cordova is still aristocratic, © and there is still some wealth in the city. It has a lovely climate, and perhaps the lingering air of its past greatness comes from the fact that it was never the home of bigotry nor its twin sister, ignorance. It has its bull- - ring, its parks, and its quaint, historic, picturesque bridge over the river, a copy of which forms the arms of the city ; and it has, above all, a happy and contented popu- lation of about forty thousand, and its ancient, magnificent Mosque. 58. A CHRISTIAN CHURCH WITHIN A MOSQUE. [he Mosque of Cordova was the first large Moham- medan Mosque erected in’Europe (786 to 796), and it 1s still the most perfect specimen extant of the religious architecture of the Moors, and the finest type in Europe of atrue temple of Islam. In the days of the Roman dominion a temple to Janus, the Roman god of begin- nings, was erected here. The site was well chosen ; just below it flows the river Guadalquivir, crossed by a Roman bridge that served as a causeway to a Roman temple. The Vandals destroyed and the Goths built upon its foundations a Christian Church, dedicated to the great martyr saint of Spain, St. Vincent (died 304 A. D.). When the Arab-Moors took Cordova they acted with some toleration towards the Christians. They destroyed all other churches, but divided this one, allow- ing the Christians to retain one-half for their form of 104 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. worship, while the other half they converted into a Mosque, adding to it their sanctuary and courts. Thus, side by side, Christians and Mohammedans worshipped the same God until 786, when Abd-er-Rahman I. pur- chased the Christian half for what would now be $200,000, and allowed the Christians to rebuild their churches. He then rapidly demolished the Christian Church, resolved that his Capital should have the finest Mosque in the world. He labored with his own hands in its erection for an hour each day, that he might teach his people industry and humility ; but death came, and his son, Hisham I., completed the work in ten years. For feur hundred years (786 to 1235) the Mosque of Cordova was the pilgrim shrine of the West, as Mecca was of the East. ‘A stone forest’’ Gautier called it. It covered four acres of ground and contained 1200 columns, each a monolith, each one fashioned with care, and by far the largest number were strangers. From almost every Mediterranean port were shipped to the great Moslem King of Cordova, Abd-er-Rahman, columns of varied character and color—jasper, alabaster, porphyry, granite, serpentine, lapis-lazuli, verde antique—many of them the spoils of pagan temples, one hundred and forty of them the gift of ‘Christian Constantinople,” and many were quarried from native marbles, with these for models. These columns have stood for one thousand years, forming nineteen aisles, twenty feet broad, from East to West, and thirty-three aisles from North to South. They tell many stories of the pagan and Chris- tian world—of how ‘‘man proposes and God disposes,” of the ‘‘rise’”’ of nations founded by man, of their “ fall” foretold by God. They tell of “Pagan Rome” and “Christian Constantinople ’’—both great lessons in the past ; and, looking from the pillars to the arches and CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 105 the present wall surfaces, Cordova past and present is seen—the glory of the one and the triumph of the other. The Arabs ingeniously adapted the short and varied height of their precious antiques to the required height of their building, which was only thirty-five feet. First they reduced the columns to the uniform height of ten feet, and from their capitals, of multifarious forms, they sprang their first row of arches, thus binding the columns to- gether. Above these capitals they erected piers of stone, from which they sprang a second row of arches, with an -architrave which supported the roof. The roof was of the imperishable wood, arbor vite, as perfect when taken down to erect the present brick-vaulted roof, with its domes to admit the light of heaven, as when the Moors placed it there, and gilded it and studded it with stars. The arches were adorned with Byzantine mosaic, en- crusted with gems whose facets twinkled in the light of 4700 lamps burning perfumed oil. Many of them were inverted bells, confiscated from Christian churches, swung by silver chains. But this magnificence reached its climax in the Moorish “ Holy of Holies,” the Mihrab, where they preserved a copy of the Koran copied by the Caliph Othman, and also in the private chapel of the Moorish King, now called the Villa Viciosa. These are still the best preserved parts of the Mosque. The Chapel is gorgeous, but it pales before the magnificence of the Mihrab—a recess in the rear of the Mosque, lined with mosaics. The roof is formed of a single block of pure white marble carved in the form of a shell. The cor- nices are inlaid with Arabic inscriptions in letters of gold. When lighted by the sacristan, it seems like a fairy cavern radiant with gold and jewels. Gautier says that the Spanish peasants believe that the Sultan of Turkey still pays tribute to Madrid, that Mass may never be said 106 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. in this place, so sacred to the prophet of Islam. The screen, or entrance to the Caliph’s Chapel, is formed of pillars formed of scalloped-like arches of white stone and red brick alternating. This design, in connection with the brilliant interior walls of variegated mosaics and rich gilding, forms a picture which once seen can never be forgotten. ‘The formal conversion of the Mosque into a Christian Cathedral took place in 1238; the extreme side aisles were closed in as chapels. In 1547 the monks of Cordova persuaded Charles V. to let them remove nearly 100 beautiful columns in the center of the Mosque for the erection of a true Christian Church within its walls. When Charles V. visited the Mosque after this vandalism was accomplished, he reproved them in the memorable words: ‘“ You have built here what could have been built anywhere else; you have destroyed here what was unique in all the world.” Yet it must be ad- mitted that this CHurch within the Mosque is beautiful in form and proportion. Originally the nineteen aisles of the Mosque opened through bronze gates—the central one, being of pure gold, into the Grand Patio, or Grove of Oranges, where fountains played and exotic plants wafted their fragrant incense into even the farthest shrine. These gates have all been walled up except one, which opens into the still beautiful court whose trees were planted by the Moors. 59. ELEVEN WONDERS OF INDIA. first.—The Rock-cut Temple of Elephanta, Karli, and Ellora, great buildings hewn out of solid rock in the hillsides, and covered inside and out with Hindu sculp- ture, the richest and best of Hindu art. Second.—The deserted City of Ambir, a city of the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 107 old Moguls, without an inhabitant, yet its palaces and temples standing intact, abandoned to the bears and jackals. Third.—The Kuttub Minar at Delhi, the most beauti- ful column in the world, covered with inscriptions; a splendid monument of the Mohammedan power. Fourth—The Golden Temple at Amritsir, the holy palace of the Sikhs, in the center of a vast artificial lake, reached by a lovely bridge of white marble. The lower half of the Temple is of the most delicate marble mosaics, and the upper half covered with sheets of beaten gold, hence its name. Fifth—The Taj Mahal at Agra, a dream of beauty ; the tomb of Nur Mahal, “‘ Light of the Palace,’ Empress of Shah Jehan. Sixth.—The shore of the Ganges at Benares. Mile after mile of palaces and temples, and in front of them the bathing-places of the living and the burning-places of the dead. Seventh.—Buddh-Gaya, where Buddha sat for six years under the Bo-tree until “enlightenment came to him.” The valley is full of Buddhist Temples. Eighth.—The snow-clad peaks of the Himalayas, the highest mountain peaks in the world. The finest view is from Darjeeling. Ninth.—The seven Pagodas near Madras, where the stories of Hindu mythology are sculptured on the face of perpendicular rocks. Tenth-—The Sivite Temple at Tanjore, one mass of brilliant color and sculpture, with its pyramid two hun- dred feet high. Eleventh.—The Temple at Kandy, in Ceylon, where Buddha’s Tooth is enshrined, and where Buddhist priests still continue their strange ceremonies. 108 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 60. A HYDE OF LAND. The land included in St. James’ Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and the Kensington Gardens, London, was | originally a large manor called the “ Hyde.” According to ancient law “a hyde” included as much ground as could be cultivated by one plough. At the dissolution of religious Orders in England, under Henry VIIL, the Hyde, or cultivable land of the Abbots of Westminster, came into the possession of the Crown. It was then enclosed and well stocked with game as a Royal hunting-ground. The present divisions of this ancient Hyde are due to William III. ; but the lakes and fine drives are largely due to Caroline, Queen of George II. This chain of parks, called the “ lungs of London,” covers an area of eight hundred acres ; and here, during the Season, may be seen to the best advantage the wealth and fashion, and the splendid equipages, of the nobility of England. The sheet of water called the Serpentine covers fifty acres. In the early morning, under certain restrictions, as many as twelve thousand people bathe in it. In the afternoon it is covered with sail and row boats ; in the winter it is a grand skating field. Thus in all seasons, and at all hours, this Hyde of the Westminster monks, the great recreation park, is a blessing to overcrowded London. | 61. THE MOST NORTHERN CATHEDRAL. The pride and glory of all Norway is the Trondhjem Cathedral. It is a beautiful specimen of Norman archi- tecture and the finest church in the three Scandinavian Kingdoms. It is built of a soft grey soapstone, quarried near the town, with ornamental details of white marble. Trondhjem Cathedral. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 109 Its history, architecturally, is soon told ; its ecclesiastical history is the history of Christianity in Norway. Be- tween 1013 and 1030, King Olaf (saint) built a small wooden church on the site where the beautiful chapel of St. Clement now stands, on the north side of the Cathe- dral; St. Olaf was buried a little to the south of his church. A spring of healing water, later, disclosed the exact site of his grave. Between 1036 and 1047 his son, King Magnus, erected a wooden chapel over the grave of St. Olaf, where the octagon of the Cathedral with its high altar now stands. His successor, Harold, half- brother of St. Olaf, in 1047 built a stone church to “Our Lady,” south of the tomb chapel. This group of three churches stood in these positions for more than one hundred years. Then came the great Cathedral age of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: The grave of St. Olaf became a Mecca of the Catholic world, and his church was enriched with magnificent gifts. St. Clem- ent’s was rebuilt as it is now; the tomb shrine, the greatest glory of the Cathedral, was rebuilt in pointed Gothic, surmounted by a dome 30 feet in diameter with an open belfry above it. This beautiful octagon, with tower and spire, has been joined to the church “ Our Lady,” which was entirely rebuilt and enlarged. Had the western facade been completed it would have been unequalled by any other cathedral in northern Europe, not only in extent, but in richness of detail. To the right of the choir there is a small chamber covering the well of St. Olaf. The holes in the pavement were made to carry off the water which dripped from the buckets of the faithful who came long distances to this holy, health- giving spring. But the great merit of this most northern cathedral lies in its ornamentation. Nothing can exceed in richness or variety the bossy ornamentation of cornice, IIo CURIOUS QUESTIONS. frieze and capitals. Everywhere project these quaint and curious bosses, in face and form grotesque or angelic. For many centuries carving in stone and wood was a specialty in Scandinavia ; hence came the Runic inscrip- tions and these quaint figures, seven and eight hundred years old, specimens of a rude art, but of great interest to antiquarians. A series of conflagrations and the Black Death almost depopulated Trondhjem in 1343; these, added to the ultra zeal of the Reformers, have left the old and medi- zval Cathedral almost in ruins. But it is being beau- tifully restored, and large portions of it are in use. The kings of Norway and Sweden are crowned here. King Olaf Tryggveson (995) founded Trondhjem upon the site of the ancient town Nidaros. It continued to be the capital of Norway until the Union with Denmark. 62. ROCKING STONES. These wonderful stones are found in several parts of Brittany, and are more difficult to account for than the menhirs and dolmens. A large mass of red granite 20 feet long, and weighing according to cubic meas- urements over a million pounds, is so finely balanced upon the rock beneath that it can be made to oscillate by a touch of the hand, and yet it is so firm in its position that it would require great force and mechanical skill to dislodge it. The purpose of such erections has given rise to much conjecture, and the legends connected with them are endless. Scientific men from all parts of the world have come to Brittany to see its wonderful rocking stones, but they can only advance theories concerning them, and no two of them agree. All admit that they CURIOUS QUESTIONS. III show a wonderful amount of engineering skill among the unlettered race that poised them, but whether they were erected by the same men that placed the menhirs upright and built the dolmens cannot be clearly proven. Some think they are Druidic monuments, and that the os- cillations manifested the will of their gods. Others connect them with some test as to the guilt or innocence of any one accused, for it is said that even now the mass will not respond to all who try to rock it. Other au- thorities class them with stone monuments scattered throughout the world, and say that they were erected by a race of giants who lived when mastodons roamed over the earth. At one point on the coast near Tregastel, the country for a mile inland has the appearance of a sea of rocks of all sizes and shapes, from four and five feet to as many hundred. This immense quantity of rock resem- bles the Egyptian granite in color, but is coarser in grain. It seems hardly possible that the hands of man could have placed these rocks in position stretching in un- broken line for several hundred yards, piled one upon the other to a height of from 40 to 50 feet, leaving the top stone to oscillate. But there is an evident and ancient construction of man in the regularly built “Grotto of St. Anne.” A stone image of St. Anne, the mother of Mary, has been set up here which can only be reached when the tide is out. But who built the grotto or who carved the image is almost as great a mystery as who balanced the Rocking Stones. Some conjecture that these rocks have been piled up to serve as watch towers, and the Chapel of St. Anne as a place of refuge for sailors and fishermen stranded among the rocks. But Brittany is full of marvels which can never be explained, and not the least of these are its Rocking Stones. Sir Walter Scott alludes to them : II2 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ‘«Some, chance-poised and balanced, lay So that a stripling arm might sway A mass no host could raise.” —Lord of the Isles. 63. LONDON BRIDGE. The history of old London Bridge for eight centuries includes some of the most stirring events in English history. There were several successive wooden bridges here before 1176 A. D., when the stone structure arose which was the veritable “Old London Bridge,” that has been famous for more than 650 years. Eighteen solid stone piers, within goo feet, gave a substantial basis for Ray’s proverb ‘“‘ London Bridge was made for wise men to go over and fools to go under.’’ A solid base also for the village which was built upon it. Fuller says: ‘Such as see it from beneath, where it is a bridge, cannot sus- pect that it is a street; and such who behold it above, where it is a street, cannot believe that it is a bridge.” In the time of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) stately and beautiful houses adorned either side, some with flat roofs, gardens and arbors. It hada gate house at each end, and towards the center on the east side there was a beau- tiful Gothic chapel called “St. Peter’s of the Bridge.” The shops or stores were devoted to bookselling and publishing, but later in its history they were devoted to the pin trade. The heads of executed traitors were long exhibited above the Gate of London Bridge, notably William Wallace (1305), Sir Thomas Moore (1553), and the regicides. Inthe “ Battle of London Bridge” (1008), King Olaf, of Norway, assisted Ethelred II. to repel the Danes. Simon de Montfort here repulsed Henry III. in 1264. ‘asplug uopuo’yT “Ti “Zie “O ui H i | : : CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 113 In the various rebellions, London Bridge was a center. Wat Tyler, 1381; Jack Cade, 1450; Wyatt, 1554. In the Great Fire, 1666, the houses were burned, but rebuilt twenty years later ; in 1757 the houses were removed to make room for traffic; in 1732 the old Bridge was de- molished to give freer room for navigation. The present granite structure, opened by William the Fourth (1831), . is a marvel for its enormous traffic. In twenty-four hours the average number of vehicles that cross is 20,000; pedestrians, 107,000. The lamp-posts are made from captured cannons. The Bridge is 54 feet wide and 920 in length. 64. THE NAMING OF PARIS. Among the so-called “Cities of Gaul’? which Cesar conquered was a village built of reeds and rushes ona swampy island in the river Seine, The .Gallic name was Lutetia, or “mud-town.” It was inhabited by a Celtic tribe called Par-is-i-i, who burned their mud-town of reeds and rushes rather than surrender it to the invading foe. The great Cesar was quick to appreciate the fine situa- tion ; he ordered a wall to be built around the island, and atemple to Jupiter to be erected. A town quickly sprang up around the temple, and, later, was named after the ancient tribe Pa-ris-i-1. Thus the present Capital of France dates from the time of the great Cesar, 52 B.C. This island-town soon be- came a favorite residence for wealthy Romans; Julian was here proclaimed Emperor of Rome in 360. He built a palace on the left side of the river, surrounded by dense forests and marshes, and just as the temple had been the center of a growing population, so was this Palace of Julian. Later, these two centers were united, and around 8 IIi4 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. them, during the centuries, has grown the magnificent Paris of to-day. But the great city still honors its cradle, and ‘‘ The Island”’ is par excellence “ La Cité” (the City). 65. FIRST ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. “Strangers from Rome” was the announcement made to Ethelbert, King of Kent, as a Benedictine monk and forty friars approached his castle, chanting a benediction upon the ancient town of Canterbury (Kent-bury). The Romans left a halo of glory around their five hundred years’ occupation of Britain, which even the Saxon con- querors recognized ; so Augustine and his followers, sent by Gregory the Great to convert the Britons, had a welcome and a ready hearing. When Augustine told the story of the Cross to the heathen king, he replied: “I have no wish to desert the gods of my forefathers, but you are gentle of speech, you may preach your new religion to my people, and I will order that no man do you any harm.” This was not the first time the pagan King had heard of Christ, for he had married a Christian, Bertha, daughter of Clobert, King of Paris. In the marriage contract she had reserved the right of free exercise of her religion. She was made very happy by the sudden appearance of the Roman Missionaries. Ethelbert was easily converted, and with 10,000 of his people was baptized in the year 597. Rejoicing over the success of his enterprise, Pope Gregory sent the pallium to Augustine, proclaiming him Archbishop of Canterbury. King Ethelbert removed to another part of his kingdom, granting to these Benedic- tine monks the town of Canterbury, whose Arcnbisop is now the Primate of all England. The Canterbury Ca- thedral and buildings still occupy the land given to Au- gustine by King Ethelbert. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ITl5 66. BUDDHA’S TOOTH. Among the many shrines of Buddha in Ceylon the most famous is that of his far-travelled “Tooth.” The origin of the worship of this relic is accounted for by tradition. It is said that at the death of Buddha, eighty cities disputed the possession of his mortal re- mains. The difficulty of a decision was amicably settled by a distribution of his body in sections. Of these, the Island of Ceylon possesses two, a sacred “Tooth” and the left ‘“ Collar-bone.”’ The “Tooth relic’? was, until very lately, carefully guarded by the British Government of Ceylon, as the Palladium of her sovereignty over the island. At the funeral of Buddha ‘‘the Tooth” fell to the lot of Kalinga, in India, and was magnificently enshrined on the spot where now stands the celebrated temple of Juggernath, at Puri. It remained there for eight centuries, performing many miracles ; but upon the invasion of the country by the Mohammedans it was conveyed to Ceylon, concealed in the hair of a king’s daughter. It reached Ceylon g11 A. D., and has ever since been preserved in the great temple of Kandy. 67. THE OLDEST TOWN IN EUROPE. Toledo, according to Spanish tradition, is not only the oldest town in Europe, but the oldest in the world. For, they say, Adam was the first King of Spain and Toledo was his Capital. Then, too, the sun started upon his endless round at a point in the heavens vertical with Toledo. After the flood the city was rebuilt by Tubal, son of Japhet and grandson of Noah. According to Jewish traditions, at the’taking of Jerusalem by Nebu- chadnezzar, such Jews as escaped fled to ‘‘ the utmost cor- 116 - CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ner of the earth,” to Tarshish (Spain), and settled at To- ledo, which received its name from the Hebrew word Toledoth, ‘the city of generations.” Counting “the generations’? from Adam, it is no wonder that the Jews loved Spain, or that the expulsion of the Jews, in 1492, was the ruin of Toledo ; one hundred and seventy thou- sand Jews left the city in a body rather than submit to Christian baptism. According to Greek traditions, To- ledo was the throne of Hercules, he being King of Spain. Authentic history goes back more than 2000 years, when the Romans took Toledo, in 194 B. C., from the Cartha- ginians. They strengthened its fortifications and built an aqueduct to supply the city with water. The Goths took Toledo from the Romans, and it was their capital from 476 to 714. They continued to im- prove the city until it became, to them, “ the crown of Spain, the light of the world.” Toledo, under the Moors, attained a still higher de- gree of prosperity, having a population of 200,000, with schools and art that rivaled Cordova. It was retaken by the Christians in 1085, and has ever since been the metropolitan, or ecclesiastical center of Spain. The Archbishop of Toledo is the Primate of all Spain, and is sometimes styled “the second King.” It is a fortress city, situated upon an almost inaccessible height ; a rocky peninsula formed by the deep gorge of the rapid river Tagus, which encircles it on three sides, while the fourth is so well defended by double walls and towers that it has withstood many a memorable siege, one lasting four years. The city is entered across the venerable bridge Alcantara, which, although repaired from age to age, is the same bridge, resting upon the same cliffs and upon the same Roman arches, as the bridge over which a long line of rulers among men, Roman Emperors, Gothic CURIOUS QUESTIONS. II7 Kings, Arab Moors, and Christian Kings, Knights, Arch- bishops, and Pope’s Legates have passed, to reach the northern capital of Spain. ‘The Gateway of the Sun,” the portal of Toledo, is a massive Moorish structure of great beauty, a splendid symbol of its ancient glory. It is built of granite of a rich orange-red. ‘“* How like a ruin overgrown with flowers, That hide the rents of time, Stands now the Past.”’ 68. ROUND AS GIOTTO’S O. Giotto (1276-1336) was a shepherd-boy near Flor- ence, Italy, and from this lowly position he rose to emi- nence as a painter, sculptor and architect. While yet in the neighborhood of Florence, his local reputation at- tracted the attention of Cimabue, then on the lookout for artists to adorn churches and cathedrals for Pope Boni- face VIII. Requiring Giotto to give some evidence of his skill as painter and draughtsman, the story goes that Cimabue was astonished by Giotto at once and offhand drawing an O so nearly circular as to be marvellous. Hence the Italian by-word, “ round as Giotto’s O,” by whichis now meant any act that approaches perfection. 69. THE SAUCY CASTLE. Between Rouen and Paris are the ruins of the Chateau Gaillard, one of the most picturesque and remarkable castles in Normandy. It was built by Richard Coeur de Lion, who is said to have been his own architect, and it was erected in one year, with walls 14 feet thick, as a defence of the Seine in this part of his Dukedom. Rich- 118 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ard called it his ‘‘Saucy Castle,” as it was built in defi- ance of Philip Augustus, King of France. When the King saw the castle he swore, by all the saints, “I will take it, were it made of iron,” to which Richard replied, “And I will hold it, were it made of butter.” After Richard’s death, Philip took the castle by siege, but the garrison surrendered only at the point of starvation. Henry V. of England retook the castle after a siege of sixteen months, when the ropes were worn out with which the besieged drew water from the well. The Chateau Gaillard, the pet creation of Richard Coeur de Lion, was considered the most magnificent specimen of military architecture in Europe; it remained intact until 1604, when Henry IV. of France (Henry of Navarre) dismantled it, after twelve years of labor, with many other feudal cas- tles in Normandy, lest a stronger than he might again turn these castles into strongholds. The castle has its historic memories. Margaret of Burgundy, the frail Queen of Louis X., was imprisoned here and strangled with her own hair by the order of her husband, the King ; David Bruce resided here during his exile from Scotland. 70.. THE FIRSTsUADY OF THE SULTAN A striking feature of Mohammedan domestic life is the respect and obedience of children to their parents, going beyond what is customary among other civilized peoples. The son, if he marries, brings his wife home, and she is subject to his mother. If the father dies, the eldest son provides liberally for his mother; she is the head of his household and manages all his domestic affairs, unless he is rich enough to provide her with her own establishment. The first lady in the Sultan’s dominions is his mother. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. IIQ She has her own palace and retinue, and, if she have mental capacity, she not unfrequently exercises much in- fluence in the affairs of State. This position of a mother accounts for the intense longing of the Mohammedan woman fora son. So long as her son lives and does well, his mother is sure of a position of independence, of honor, and of authority. 71. PLACE DE LA CONCORDE. The Place de la Concorde, so named by Napoleon, is the largest Square in Paris and one of the finest in the world. It is historic ground. The past will tell its story, no matter how much the glamour of the present may seek to hide it. Louis XV. ordered this “ waste land” to be converted into a public pleasure-ground. It lies between the Garden of the Tuileries, the palace of the later kings, and the Champs Elysee, the great pleas- ure avenue of Paris; also, east and west between the Seine and the Madeleine. If one spot in Paris can cen- tralize the past and the present, it is the Place de la Con- corde. When Louis XV. ordered this Pleasure Park, he little dreamed of the great tragedy which would here overtake his grandson and successor on the throne, Louis XVI. The Place de la Concorde has an interest for Americans because here perished by the guillotine, January 2Ist, 1793, Louis XVI., King of France, the first European monarch to recognize the independence of the United States of America. Between January 21st, 1793, and May, 1795, more than 2800 people perished here by the guillotine, among them Marie Antoniette, Queen of Louis XVI, daughter of Maria Theresa, of Austria; Charlotte Corday, the assassin of Marat; Madame Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI. ; Gen- 120 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. eral Beauharnais, first husband to the Empress Josephine; Robespierre and other leaders of the Revolution. Years after peace was restored, it was proposed to erect a fountain over the spot where Louis XVI. had been be- headed. This was stoutly opposed by Chateaubriand, who said: ‘‘ Not all the water in the world could wash away the blood-stains of the murdered King and Queen of France.’ This Place was particularly unfortunate for Louis XVI. and Marie Antoniette; for during the festivities attending their nuptials a panic occurred here, caused by the accidental discharge of some fireworks. The horses of the carriages became unmanageable, and 1200 people were trampled to death. But there are no signs of murder or death in the Place now. No square in all the world is brighter or more beautiful. The great fountains—one dedicated to the Seas and the other to the Rivers—flow on unceasingly, more typical and sug- gestive here than the Fountains elsewhere. The great Obelisk of Luxor stands where the guillotine stood, bearing its human inscriptions 3000 years old, suggestive of the text ‘“‘A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday ;’’ suggestive, also, of the combative element of man in all ages, for its central line of hieroglyphics tells of the victories of Rameses II., the Greek Sesos- tris, about thirteen centuries before Christ. 72. ‘*THE WESTMINSTER OF FLORENCE,” The Church of Santa Croce is called the ‘‘ Westmin- ster of Florence,” also the “‘ Pantheon,” from the number of noted men interred within its walls. It was built by the Franciscan order of monks ; and, from the popularity of that order, it became the favorite spot for the assem- blage of all civic festivities, and also the church of many “QO017) BJUBS jo yoiny~) ‘mr ‘ozr -d » CURIOUS QUESTIONS. I2I noted families in Florence, who gave their alms to these friars. Arnolf was the architect (1295). It is Basilica in form, and was originally very plain; but it grew in im- portance from the fact that many of the noble Florentine families added chapels as: their mausoleums. The inte- rior is venerable and imposing, dimly lighted by long, narrow Gothic windows, and shrouded in gloom, as seems appropriate to a church whose chief interest is in tombs and monuments. Here repose the remains of Michael Angelo (died 1564), Ghiberti (died 1455), Machiavelli (died 1527), Galileo (died 1642), and many others of note in science and in literature. ‘‘Ungrateful Florence, Dante sleeps afar.’’ The people of Ravenna refused,,to,.surrender the re- mains of this illustrious Florentine poet, whom they had sheltered during his long years of exile; so Florence could give him here only the honor of a cenotaph. None of the monuments of this church are of the highest style of art. Over them all the genius of alle- gory presides. Painting, sculpture and architecture ap- pear as mourners around the urn of Michael Angelo. Italy weeps over Alfieri. History crowns the monu- ment of Machiavelli, while poetry deplores the death of Dante. Many noted foreigners are buried here. The Bonaparte family own a chapel, and some of the ex- iled House of Stuart lie here. The walls of the church are covered with interesting frescoes. Some by Giotto have lately been discovered, concealed for centuries be- neath coats of whitewash, and among them his picture of Dante. The floor is brick except where numerous monumental slabs are placed. L222 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. One of the most beautiful objects in Santa Croce is the pulpit of white Seravezza marble. A wealthy Flor- entine gave the order for it to Benedetto in 1493. His work is much praised by Vasari. The reliefs, sur- rounded by a framework of marble, are especially beau- tiful. The scenes represented in the five compartments are taken from the life of St. Francis. The small figures seated in niches of red marble represent Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude and Justice. The facade of Santa Croce was only completed in 1803, the principal contributor towards the expense being an Englishman, who gave $100,000. It is a beautiful specimen of ornamental architecture, composed of white and red marble and green serpentine. Over the doors are three bas-reliefs relating to the history of the Cross (Santa Croce, Holy Cross). In the center is a remark- able work by Lupi, of Florence, representing the exalta- tion of the Cross—on the left the discovery of the true Cross, on the right the apparition of the Cross to Con- stantine. The arms of Florence, and of the Guelphs and Ghibel- lines, are in colored marbles above these. Over the front door, in the interior, is one of the original tablets of St. Bernardino, placed on the front of this church by him in 1437, bearing the sacred initials “I. H. S.” 73. THE CAGOTS OF THE PYRENEES, The natives of the Pyrenees shake their heads when asked, Who are the Cagots? And well they may, for who will ever solve the mystery of that now almost vanished race of the Pyrenees? Like the Pariahs of the East, they were despised and rejected, an accursed race. They were of fair complexion, light hair, and CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 123 blue eyes; for this reason they are now supposed to have been a remnant of the Visi, or west, Goths, and therefore of Teutonic origin. But, as another instance of man’s inhumanity to man, the Cagots were for centu- ries an outcast people upon four suppositions: as de- scendants of lepers, of Jews, of Egyptians, or of Moors. They were not allowed citizenship; they had to wear a distinct dress ; to live apart from the races in the Pyre- ness, and to creep through a side door into a church, where they might hear the blessed Gospel preached, but were hidden from the very sight of Christian men and women. The French Revolution, with its doctrine of “Freedom and Equality,’ removed the political and civil restrictions imposed upon this unfortunate people, but as a separate tribe they have now almost disappeared. Yet the greatest insult that can even now be offered a Pyrenean is to call him a Cagot, or to infer that his blood had once a taint of that despised race. 74. THE PYRAMIDS IN THE SEA, The building of the bar across the Bay of Cherbourg, France, enclosing a safe naval harbor, is one of the «Seven Wonders of the Modern World.” The project of making such a harbor on the north coast of France, opposite England, was first advanced and at- tempted by Louis XIV., but was soon abandoned. It was Napoleon I. who said: ‘I will erect the Pyramids of Egypt in the Sea.’’ England was ever his most per- sistent foe ; what mattered to him the cost of erecting a whole chain of pyramids in the sea, if they protected France from England! And so the prodigious work of building a stone wall in the sea, two and a half miles from the shore, was begun by Napoleon I., and completed by 124 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Napoleon III., after fifty years of labor, at a cost, with the docks, of five hundred million dollars. This great sea-wall is nearly three miles long, and over one hundred feet broad at the top. Queen Victoria witnessed the cere- mony of dedication in 1858, just one hundred years after the English had taken Cherbourg, in 1758, and had de- stroyed its forts and shipping. Owing to the great force of the water rushing through the English Channel,a mole, or stone wall, jutting out from the land was impossible. The plan adopted successfully by Napoleon wasa chain of thirty-three cones constructed of oak, each cone one hundred and forty feet in diameter at the base ; sixty feet in diameter at the top; sixty feet in vertical height; sunk in the sea thirty to thirty-four feet at low water. These enormous cones of oak, made water-proof by coatings of bitumen, were filled with stone to the weight of one thousand tons. To float them to the desired spot, sixty casks, made buoyant by being filled with compressed air, were attached to each cone. The cones were towed, in the presence of innumerable spec- tators, to the spot where they were to rest for all time. At a given signal the casks were cut loose, and the weighted cones instantly sank ; each cone was then filled with stone from vessels in attendance, and each cone, when capped with solid masonry, became literally a ‘Pyramid in the Sea.’’ The rest of the wall was simple and easy of construction. Between the cones, which touched at the base, stone was pounded down, and then, as on the Pyramids, large granite casings were fastened up the sides, secured with hydraulic cement. A broad esplanade crowns all, upon which strong forts are built, and machinery for the manufacture of all modern wea- pons of defensive warfare, for the heating of cannon balls, the manufacture of destructive bombs, etc. ; so that France CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 125 no longer fears an invasion from her English neighbors, just eighty miles distant across the Channel at Cherbourg. 75. THE KALEVALA. The Kalevala is the great Finnish epic, and as a na- tional poem it is unique among epics. The epics of other nations were written after the era of the myths and legends which they record had passed away. The epic of Finland, the Kalevala, was gathered from the lips of living Finns, who still believed and reverenced the myths and legends of their forefathers. Dr. Elias Lonnrot, the author of this modern epic, was born in Sammatti, Finland, April 9th, 1802. In 1822 he com- menced the study of philology and natural science at the University of Abo; then the science of medicine in the University of Helsingfors, in 1827. He took his degree in 1832, and began the practice of medicine. In 1853 he was appointed Professor of the Finnish language and literature at Helsingfors. By his rare talents and still rarer energy he soon made of the Finnish a literary language, and through it he made known to the world the early civilization of Finland. In the olden time Finland was an independent empire ; but in the twelfth century it was conquered by Sweden and converted to Lutheran Christianity. During the union of Finland with Sweden, from the 12th to the roth cen- tury, the cultured classes adopted the Swede language, and the Finnish remained only with the illiterate. The ancient language of Finland was thus fast disappearing. In 1809 Russia, in a war with Sweden, conquered and kept the Swedish province of Finland despite the oppo- sition and aversion of the Finns. But Russia ruled her new territory wisely, and granted to the Finns many privi- 126 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. leges. In her efforts to destroy Swedish influence Russia endeavored to restore the native Finnish language, and the natives, dropping the Swede, were soon able to read and write Finnish. But in 1872 the work of Rus- sianizing the Finns began by making education in the Russe language compulsory in the public schools. The Czar of Russia was only Grand Duke of Finland; and the established or state church continued to be the Lu- theran. But Russia has since totally absorbed Finland. It was during the early Russian occupation of Finland that the Kalevala was gathered together and written by Doctor Lonnrot. This seer and prophet of the Finns travelled on foot from the Gulf of Finland to the White Sea, through villages and towns, from peasant homes to peasant huts throughout Finland, gathering material for this great epic. Songs and legends had been handed down from generation to generation descriptive of the time when Finland and the Finns were a nation to themselves, This period of his nation’s history Lonnrot desired to perpetuate. The Finns immediately recognized in the Kalevala their national epic, and its marvellous success has been the admiration and wonder of Europe ever since. Translations soon appeared in Swedish, German, French, and later in English, the work of John Martin Crawford (two volumes, 1888). William Sharp, in his review of the Kalevala, says: ‘‘The Kalevala describes Finnish life and nature with extraordinary minuteness and beauty ; and that no national poem is to be compared with it in this respect, unless it be some of the epics of India.”’ The Kalevala, the ancient name of Finland, which means “the land of heroes,’’ has for its main theme the contests between the Finns and the Lapps, just as the Iliad relates the contests between the Greeks and the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 127 Trojans. Another interpretation is given as to its being allegorical, a contest between Light and Darkness, Good and Evil; the Finns representing Light and Good, the Lapps Darkness and Evil. The framework of the Kalevala consists of four cycles of folk-songs ; interwoven with these are seven distinct romances or folk-tales—The Tale of Aino, the Fishing of the Mermaid, the Wooing of the Daughter of Air, the Golden Bride, the Wooing of the Son of Kojo, the Captivity and Deliverance of the Sun and Moon, the Story of the Virgin Maria; and besides these many _ prayers and incantations, magic songs, marriage songs, and so forth. Max Miller says: ‘From the mouths of the aged, an epic poem has been collected equalling the Iliad in length and completeness ; nay, if we can forget for a moment all that we in our youth called beautiful, is not less beautiful. A Finn is not a Greek, and a Wainanoinen was not a Homer. But if a poet may take his colors from that nature by which he is surrounded, if he may depict the men with whom he lives, the Kalevala pos- sesses merits not dissimilar from those of the Iliad, and will claim its place as the fifth national epic of the world.” The five epics are the ‘Ionian Songs” (Iliad and Odyssey), the Mahabarata, the Shahnamah and the Niebelungen. But the great importance of the Kalevala rests upon its having rejuvenated the national spirit of the Finns. The surprising development of the Finns during the last half of this century is to a large extent due to Elias Lonnrot of Helsingfors, who by his great work rescued from utter oblivion the early civilization of Fin- land. The meter is so much like Hiawatha that it is said that Longfellow chose his metrical form from his knowledge of the great Finnish epic. A few lines from 128 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the prologue and from the Rune of Mariatta will exem- plify the style of the Kalevala : ‘‘ Mastered by desire impulsive, By a mighty inward urging, I am ready now for singing, Ready to beyin the chanting, Of our nation’s ancient folk-song.”’ * * * * * ‘“‘ Thus the ancient Wainanoinen, In his copper-banded vessel, Left his tribe in Kalevala, Sailing o’er the rolling billows, Sailing through the azure vapor, Sailing through the dusk of evening, Sailing to the fiery sunset, To the higher landed regions, To the lower verge of heaven: Quickly gained the far horizon, Gained the purple-colored harbor. There his bark he firmly anchored, Rested in his boat of copper ; But he left his harp of magic, Left his songs and wisdom-sayings To the lasting joy of Soumi.”’ 76. HINDUSTAN. Hindustan was long interpreted to mean ‘the land of the blacks.’’ But a chapter in Philology shows that it means “the country of the River Indus.” The original name of the great river was Sindhu, to flow, to fertilize. How the letter ‘‘s’’ dropped out, and the letter “h”’ took its place, opens up a leaf in the earliest history of India. The ancient Persians, driven out by the Greeks, crossed over from Persia to India many centuries be- fore Christ, and reached the banks of one of the most magnificent rivers in the world. They asked the na- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. » 129 tives the name of their river, and were told it was Sindhu, “the fertilizer.” The Persians, speaking the Zend language, had no “s”’ in their alphabet, and there- fore called it ‘‘ Hindu,” and added “ stan,” meaning in the Persian, “land.” Thus ‘‘ Hindustan” means “the land of the Hindu River.’’ Later on, the Greeks, under Alexander, crossed over and stood upon the banks of the great river and asked the name. They were told “Hindu.” But the Greek alphabet had’'no “7k s0 they wrote it ‘Indus.’ Therefore, since the time of Alexander the Great (327 B. C.) the great river has been called “Indus,” and the land through which it flows, India. ————_+20-o- 77. BRITONS AND BRETONS. Everywhere through the wild, lonely land of Brittany are found scattered memorials of a vanished race—mys- terious tokens of an epoch before history began—mon- strous, misshapen blocks of stone placed in position by human hands, it may be before the Pharaohs built the Pyramids. The peasants call them ‘‘ Memory Stones.” They certainly remind them that Bretons were not the earliest inhabitants of the land. Legends, too, cling to the world-old granite rocks, telling of mighty physical convulsions by which whole cities of living men were swallowed up or swept into the sea. When Julius Czsar conquered Gaul, 56 B. C., the name of this northwestern peninsula of France was Armorica, and the Armoricans claim very ancient descent. Some authorities claim that Gomer, the son of Japhet, settled in Armorica, and here begot the Celtic race which overspread Gaul and Brit- tany. But, tradition aside, it is known that in the year 55 B. C. Cesar found here a nation that he could not subdue, divided into tribes and able to send two hundred 9 130 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. and fifty large galleys to contend with the Roman fleet. And in the fifth century, when the Saxons overspread Great Britain, the Britons fled to Armorica in such large numbers as to change its name to Brittany (Bretagne). It is well proven by philology that Britons and Bretons were anciently one people, for the Welsh can converse with the Bretons while they cannot understand a word of French, and the pathetic lament of the Bretons is still : ‘We are not French, we are the people of our own country.”’ This conquered yet unconquered people, that maintained a nominal independence under rulers of their own until 1532, and who had a separate parliament until the French Revolution in 1789—a people who still re- gard the French as strangers in the land—makes Brittany a most interesting Department of France. Brittany is an unspoiled country, filled with memorials of a pre-historic race, the lineal descendants of a people who resisted Julius Cesar, whose Druid priests continued their heathen rites as late as the seventh century, and whose Christian rites are still overlaid with heathen superstition. 78. THE BLACK VENUS, KALI. Calcutta, the capital of India, in Sanskrit is Kalikata, “The abode of Kali.”’ Kali is one of the forms under which the wife of the god Siva is worshipped. Siva, the third person in the Hindu Trinity, is worshipped under the twofold aspect of ‘destroyer and preserver.”” The Aryan mind grasped the fact from nature that the death of the plant only matured the seed which reproduced life. Siva, to the Hindu mind, symbolized death as merely a change of life. But to the Non-Aryans, Siva was the great de- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 131 stroyer, the smiter, the breeder of pestilence. Thus Siva is both Preserver and Destroyer in India. He is Maha-deva (Maha-deo) the Great God of Mod- ern Hinduism. The Brahmans represent him as a fair- skinned man seated in profound thought, with a symbol of the fertilizing Ganges above his head, and a Bull, the emblem of procreation and of Aryan tillage, near at hand. But the Non-Aryans represent Siva with a neck- lace of skulls, a collar of twining serpents, a tiger skin, and a club with a human skull at the end; or, in other _ words, only as the great Destroyer. And Siva’s counterpart, his wife or goddess, has come to be worshipped under a twofold aspect. The high caste Hindus hang wreaths of flowers about the altars of Urna, the beneficent goddess; the low castes pour out the lives of goats to propitiate the favor of the dread Kali, the Black Venus, the terrible destroyer. In times of pestilence and famine the blood of human sacrifice has flowed freely before the altars of Siva and Kali. As late as 1866, in spite of laws to the contrary, a boy and a girl were found dead before the shrine of Kali in Calcutta. This is not a relic of Vedaism, but of the “religion of terror’? which prevailed among the aborigines of India, and which still crops out among their numerous descendants. In Calcutta, ‘the abode of Kali,’ in the broad day- light of the nineteenth century, the statue of the black goddess Kali is still carried through the streets on a cer- tain day, her hair dishevelled, reaching to her feet, with a necklace of human skulls, her tongue protruding from her mouth, her girdle stained with blood. ‘This takes place in the capital of British India. But ask any Hindu, who has learned to read and write, if he believes in such a goddess, and he smiles at your credulity. 132 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. How long this living death of a national religion will last, no one can tell. But the capital of Queen Vic- toria’s Indian Empire, as its name implies, is still the Abode of Kali, the Black Venus; and the annual feast of the Black Venus of Kali is a great connecting link between India’s past and present. 79. CALCIO (FOOT-BALL) IN FLORENCE. The Piazza Santa Croce is intimately associated with the history of Florence. For many years it was the place of popular assemblage for the consideration of im- portant public measures; also the place for all public games, In the fifteenth century an important tournament was held here, which has been immortalized by a poem in honor of the feats performed by Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici. But the Piazza was especially used for the national game of Calcio (foot-ball). Calcio (a kick) is supposed to have been an ancient Roman game, since Roman authors describe it exactly as it was played in Florence. The season was from Januaryto March. All the ladies and gentlemen of Florence, as well as the populace, assembled to witness these games. The last game of Calcio was held here in 1739. But the Piazza was not always the scene of amusement. The first Par- liament, or meeting of the people, was held here in 1250. From here Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, assembled the populace, and from here rode forth with one hundred and twenty armed followers to the Palazzo Vecchio, there to commence his reign of terror. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 133 80. PORTUGAL. Portugal is derived from two words, “porto” and “calle ;’ the mouth of the river Tagus was the most southern port of Christian Spain ; ‘calle’? means way, or road. It was through this province that the port was reached, and so was called Porto-Calle, “the way to the port,” later contracted into Portugal. One of the many fortune-seeking nobles of Europe who flocked to Spain in the Middle Ages to help fight the infidels, but chiefly to better their own fortunes, was Count Henry of Burgundy. He was eminently success- ful against the Moors, and, as a reward, obtained the hand of the daughter of Alfonso VI. of Leon, with the province of Portugal as her dowry. He extended his province and bequeathed it, with the title “ Count of Portugal,” to his son, Alfonso Henriques. Alfonso Hen- riques proved a formidable power against the Moors, and disdaining any longer to be called the viceroy of a Span- ish king, he threw off his allegiance, and proclaimed him- self ‘King of Portugal” in 1139, his claim and title being confirmed by the Pope. The house of Burgundy then extended Portugal to its present limits, and raised the kingdom to a high state of commercial and political importance. It maintained its independence until 1580, when the succession to the throne became a matter of dispute, and was claimed and gained by Philip IL., of Spain, whose mother was of the blood-royal of Portugal. The Spanish domination of Portugal lasted until 1640, and this period is still called by Portuguese the “Sixty Years’ Captivity.”” In 1640 Portugal arose in its might against Spanish rule and proclaimed the Duke of Bra- ganza their king, under the title of Joan (John) IV. The new king was acknowledged by foreign powers, and the 134 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. House of Braganza has ruled Portugal ever since, except for ten months, from November, 1807, to August, 1808, when (because Portugal had refused to close her ports to English commerce) Napoleon marched in and took possession, declaring that “the House of Braganza had ceased to reign in Europe.”’ The Court fled to Brazil, until, with the aid of England, under Sir Arthur Wel- lesley (later the Duke of Wellington), the French were driven out. This brief historical review shows that the Kingdom of Portugal is about 750 years old. Its terri- tory is about 300 miles long and 100 miles wide. 81. THE BAYONET. The bayonet is said to be a native of Bayonne. The story is told that a Basque regiment at Bayonne, running short of ammunition, inserted their long-handled knives into the muzzles of their muskets and did deadly work ; hence “the deadly bayonet.” It is the boast of Bayonne that it has never been con- quered ; and with. pride they call their city ‘‘ Bayonne, the Invincible.» Its narrow streets, with low stone-walled arcaded houses on either side, built for siege as well as for shelter in an age when every man’s hand might rise against his neighbor and “every man’s hovel became his castle of defence,” are an interesting feature of the town. Bayonne has successfully withstood seventeen sieges, and now rests in peace, content with her personal biography, especially with the fact that it was the one city in South- ern France that promptly refused to take part in the Massacre of the Huguenots (August 24th and 25th, 1572). The Governor of Bayonne sent to Charles IX. this spirited reply : “I have examined those of your sub- jects under my command ; all are good citizens and good CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 130 soldiers, but I fail to find a single executioner.” But Bayonne is more than a reminiscence; it is now only second to Bordeaux as a western seaport, and is a great railroad center for roads south and east. ———____~<+~s--9-@-»-_____—_ $82. HOTEL DE CLUNY. Constantius Chlorus, who resided in Gaul from 292 to 306 A.D., built his palace on the left bank of the Seine, where the Hotel de Cluny now stands. The royal domain extended from the river up the hillside to where the Pantheon now stands, and the remains of the Roman Amphitheatre excavated in tiers have also been found here. This Roman Palace, with all its accessories for Roman luxury, was occupied by Julian Cesar, ‘“ Mili- tary Governor’ of Gaul, for three years; and here, in 360, he was proclaimed Emperor of Rome. He was the nephew of Constantine the Great, and is known in history as “Julian, the Apostate,” from his effort to re-establish the worship of the heathen gods, while at the same time he protected the Christians from persecution. There is something pathetic in Julian’s championship of an expir- ing polytheism ; and this, perhaps, more than the history of his checkered life and his great talents, has given an interest to his brief rule as Emperor of Rome (361-363), and to every place with which his name is associated. This Palace of the Czesars was also the residence of the early Frankish kings. Clovis, the Frank, founder of the kingdom of France (481), resided here. He defeated the Roman Governor of Gaul and took possession of his palace. Between Clovis and Hugh Capet (987), who for greater security resided on the island, the “Old Palace,” as it was called, suffering from the various raids of the Teutouic tribes and from fire, at last fell into ruins. Out 136 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. of the ruins the present Hotel de Cluny was erected by the Abbot of Cluny, between 1480 and 1501. This is now one of the most interesting old mansions in Paris. After long years of historic associations it has been con- verted into an interesting Museum of Antiquities. All that remains of the Roman Palace is Le Therme, or the Baths, a large hall of massive masonry (65x45x54). The Aqueduct bringing the water to the Palace can be traced; also the pipes leading the waste water into the river. All the Roman antiquities which have been dug up in Paris are to be found in the Musee de Cluny, and many of the most valuable relics of Medizval times. The Boulevard St. Michel follows the line of the Roman road that led to this Palace of the Cesars. 83. A CATHEDRAL. It is not the size, the style of architecture nor the magnificence of detail that gives a church the character of acathedral. Itis simply that here is the ‘‘ cathedra,”’ or bishop’s seat, where he gathers his presbyters about him and sends them forth upon their various missions. Originally it was the headquarters of a bishop and his clergy, from which they went forth to evangelize the world, and to which they returned for rest, refreshment and conference. As early missionaries were strangers in a foreign land, they naturally gathered around a Cathedral as a center, and, consequently, connected with a Cathedral there were abbeys, with their Chapters, or governing bodies, Clois- ters, etc. The Chapter of a fully-organized Cathedral consists of a Bishop or Archbishop, as its nominal head ; the Dean, its responsible head ; the Precentor, in charge of the musical service; a Chancellor, a Theologian, a CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 137 Librariay, and the Treasurer ; also numerous Canons, or ministers connected with the Cathedral, subject to cer- tain rules and regulations. The Abbey had its Abbot and consistory. No system connected with Christianity has ever been more powerful than the Monastic. In the Dark Ages the monastery was often the sole refuge of the oppressed, the sole depository of learning, and the sole guardian of religion. 84. THE FIRST CATHOLIC KING OF SPAIN. It was the boast of the Roman Cesars that for four centuries Spain was in a state of perfect tranquillity ; she was one of the brightest jewels in the Imperial crown. Augustus, Emperor of Rome, took up his residence in Spain for two years (25-26 B.C.). He gave the people wise laws, and established military colonies for their protection. The Christian religion took an early hold upon the people of the Peninsula, which was due, they still believe, to the preaching of St. James. In 414 A. D. the great Gothic wave burst upon Spain. The Goths were not pagans; they had been converted to Arianism. Between the Romans, whom they conquered, and the Goths there was, therefore, a religious difference that kept them distinct peoples. When the Visigothic King, Recaredo (died 601), appeared before a Council of the Church at Toledo, presented his abjuration of Arianism, announced his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and had been anointed with holy oil by the Metro- politan of Toledo, then came his proclamation, received with great joy, “that the Roman Catholic religion was to be henceforth the religion of the Kingdom of Spain.” All tribal elements were now united in one political and religious whole; Suevi, Gauls, Hispano-Romans and 138 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. conquering Goths became “‘Christians.”’ Thus, the con- solidation of the Gothic Kingdom of Spain was accom- plished. ‘The Christians,’ as opposed to the Arab- Moors, included the various nationalities united at least by creed. Great was the rejoicing in Rome and through- out the Latin Church when word came that Arianism had been banished from Spain, and that the ‘ Catholic faith ’’ had been proclaimed the national religion. Pope Gregory the Great was ready to sing his Nunc Dimittis, and, as a mark of his high favor, he sent to Recaredo numerous sacred relics, addressing him as ‘‘ His Majesty, the First Catholic King of Spain.”” And so the origin of the title attached to the kings of Spain, his ‘‘ Catholic Majesty,” does not imply that he is holier than other monarchs, but that he is a successor of Recaredo, who, without bloodshed, converted a whole kingdom to the “ Catholic faith.” —_————_++-2-0-o- 85. THE ATHLETE WITH A STRIGIL. The Athlete with a strigil, now in the Vatican, Rome, was found in Trastevere in 1849. It is of heroic size, of Greek marble, and represents an athlete cleansing his arm with a strigil, a short instrument of wood, sharp on both sides, with which the athletes cleansed the body of perspiration after excessive exercise. He is also called ‘‘a runner.’ The shoulders show the strength of an athlete, and the lightness of limb quickness in running. Canina, who directed the excavation of this statue, regards it as a work of the highest order, and declares it to be the work of Lysippus (B. C. 325). Pliny describes it, and says that the Emperor Tiberius was so pleased with it that he had it transported to his own palace from the Baths of Agrippa, but that the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 139 clamor of the people was so great that he was obliged to restore it. This is supposed to be the only work of Lysippus that has come down to us. It is the only statue of an athlete with a strigil, though there are pict- ures so representing them. -——__——_<+2-6 2 >—_—__— 86. THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY. Calcutta is the birthplace of the British Empire of India. History marks the date from the Battle of Plas- sey, fought about seventy miles north of Calcutta, June 23d, 1757. The story of events that led up to this bat- tle covers the whole history of the East India Company, chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1600, transferred to the Crown under Queen Victoria in 1857. The city of Cal- cutta itself does not date farther back than the famous Battle of Plassey. The old fortified English factory of the East India Company, which was the nucleus of the present capital, was built upon a low marshy plain on the bank of the Hoogley river, the western branch of the delta of the Ganges, and considered to be the true outlet of that sacred river. The factory was located in the midst of a few straggling native villages, bordered on three sides by dense jungles, infested with tigers. The factory was fortified, and had a garrison of three hundred men; yet this insignificant English stronghold became very soon the depository of the rich merchandise of the valley of the Ganges, and the envy of all the native Rajahs of Bengal, in which territory it was located. Here, then, at Calcutta, culminated the success of that small band of intelligent Englishmen who first set out for India, under the name and the protection of trade. Here they laid aside their intention of simple traders ; here they mounted their guns and enrolled native sol- 140 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. diers, made Jaws, punished evil-doers, and rewarded the industrious. Here, from one step to another, they finally became the legislators and rulers of the whole country. In 1707 the Nawab, or native governor of lower Ben- gal, was Jafar Khan. By birth a Brahman, but reared in Persia as a slave, he united the ability of a Brahman with the character of a fanatic. He removed his capital to Murshidabad, in the immediate neighborhood of the “abode of Kali,” where the English had their factory. His successors continued to occupy his capital, but all looked on with envy at the growing trade of the East India Company. Finally, in 1756, Surajah Dowlah, grandson of Jafar Khan, succeeded as Rajah when but an impetuous youth of eighteen years. Within two months he marched with a large army upon Calcutta, ostensibly in pursuit of a member of his family who had escaped from his vengeance. Many of the English fled down the river in their ships; the remainder, men and women, were driven at the point of the bayonet into the military jail of the English Fort William, a room about twenty feet square, with only two small iron-barred windows. This has been known ever since as the famous ‘“‘ Black Hole of Calcutta.” Lord Macaulay has given the best description of it: ““One hundred and forty-six persons, men and women, were thrust into a dungeon twenty feet square, and the door shut ruthlessly upon them. When they realized the horrors of their position, they. strove in vain to burst the door. They offered large bribes to their jailers in vain. The Nawab was asleep, and none dare wake him. Many of the unhappy sufferers went mad with despair, and fought for places at the windows, trampling each other down in their frantic efforts. The jailers in the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. I4I meantime held lights to the bars and shouted with laughter at the struggles of their victims. “ At length the tumult of voices died down into low moans. The day broke. The Nawab (from which we get our word Nabob) awoke from his debauch and al- lowed the door to be opened. But it was some time be- fore the soldiers could pile up the bodies of the dead to. make a way for the living to crawl out; only twenty- three (out of one hundred and forty-six) were apparently alive. A ditch was dug, and the one hundred and twenty-three dead bodies were flung in and covered up.” One woman survived, only to be placed in the harem of Surajah Dowlah. The young Rajah now placed his own garrison in Fort William and forbade Englishmen to live in the neighborhood of Calcutta, even changing the name to Alinagore—‘‘ The Port of God.” When the news of the fall of Calcutta reached Madras, which belonged to the East India Company, a great cry for revenge went up, and within forty-eight hours Colonel Clive and a detachment of three thousand men, two thou- sand being trusted natives, were marching northward, bound for the Hoogley. A naval armament under Ad- miral Watson was also despatched; but under adverse winds it did not reach the Hoogley river until De- cember. In the meantime, Clive had reached the scene of the Black Hole, had routed the garrison of Fort William, recovered Calcutta, and stormed and sacked Hoogley, a town on the river where the naval reinforcement might reach him. To get some idea of how this march from Madras to Calcutta was accomplished in the days before railroads, we read that each gun, or cannon, was drawn by forty I42 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. yoke of oxen, and a trained elephant was behind it to push it over rough ground and up steep ascents. Cal- cutta retaken, the retreating army of the Rajah had to be pursued. On marched the little army of Clive to attack sixty thousand Orientals. The twelve English officers held a council with Clive, and tried to dissuade him from the attack, when the village of Plassey was reached. The Colonel weighed the arguments on both sides, then ordered the attack, and won the famous Battle of Plas- sey, which made the English masters of Bengal. —_ - = 87. THE SMALLEST KINGDOM IN THE WORLD. Monaco is the smallest kingdom in the world. It is only fifty-three and a quarter miles in circuit, including Monte Carlo. The capital, Monaco, containing 2000 inhabitants, is perched upon a rocky promontory rising perpendicularly about 200 feet above the sea-level. The only land approach is by a steep winding road, well for- tified. The castle, built in 1542, which crowns the center of the rock, upon the site of a much more ancient fort- ress, is a remarkable specimen of the military architec- | ture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; its towers, portcullises, drawbridges, etc., are all intact. The in- terior of the castle is remarkably rich. One long gal- lery is said to have been painted by Michael Angelo. Another is covered with fine paintings by Genoese art- ists. There is a magnificent marble staircase, and fine apartments, each with a history attached. In one the Duke of York, brother of George IV. of England, died ; another is the room in which Lucian Grimaldi was mur- dered, and which was immediately walled up and not re- opened until 1869, after a lapse of 300 years. Another is the famous Grimaldi Hall, with its celebrated chimney- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 143 piece, one of the finest specimens of domestic Renaissance architecture in existence. It is lofty and deep, of pure white marble, covered with exquisite bas-reliefs. Under Napoleon I. it was taken down and removed to Paris, but was restored in 1815. The streets of Monaco are narrow and clean; there are but few handsome houses, but a grand boulevard extends around the promontory, commanding fine views of coast and sea. Strange to say, gambling is prohibited by law, and yet within twenty minutes’ walk is Monte Carlo, famous for its magnificent Casino, the most gorgeous gambling estab- lishment in the world. The town of Monte Carlo is a health resort in winter and a resort for sea-bathing in summer. In 500 B. C., Hecate of Miletus wrote an account of the city now called Monaco, and declared it to be then so old.a town that the people had lost all tradition of its’origin. In the days of Charlemagne (742-814) the Moors gained possession of Monaco, and remained there until 968. Then a Genoese captain, named Grimaldi, volunteered to help the Christians drive these infidels from the shore of France. He was victorious, and in reward for bravery and skill he was proclaimed “ Prince of Monaco,” and his descendants still rule the small ter- ritory awarded their ancestor. Monaco has undergone fifty-eight sieges, but has never lost her independence except for a few years ata time. In 1792 the French Republic destroyed the Principality of Monaco, but upon the overthrow of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 it was re- stored. It was not until 1863 that the late Prince Flor- estan II. of Monaco met M. Blanc, the famous gambling- saloon organizer. The consideration of 12,000,000 francs ($2,400,000) and an annual rent of 150,000 francs ($30,- 000) was not to be withstood by a prince of so small a 144 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. territory and income. The bargain was sealed, and the world-famous Casino at Monte Carlo was established. No one under twenty-one years of age was to be ad- mitted, and no resident of Monte Carlo or Monaco ; only the “‘stranger and sojourner’’ was to have access to the Casino. It is open the entire year, and, apart from the games, is a palace in size and splendor. The building is of white marble, the exterior in the style of the Italian Renaissance. It contains, besides its two large gambling-saloons, a reading-room, a concert- hall, and three reception- or ball-rooms. The internal decorations are Arabian in style, gorgeous in coloring and elaborate in gilding, yet blended so skillfully as to be pleasing without dazzling. 88. THE AMBER SEA. Between St. Petersburg, the Capital of Russia, and Stockholm, the Capital of Sweden, there lies one of the most remarkable inland water highways of the world. The Baltic Sea is but a remote branch of the Atlantic Ocean ; it gets its name from the Latin word dalteus, a belt, the two channels connecting it with the North Sea and the ocean being called the “‘ Great Belt” and the “Little Belt.” (Sager Rack and Cattegat.) It covers an area of 150,000 square miles, with an average depth of 100 fathoms; the shallowest of seas, and the least salty. It is called the “ Mediterranean of the North,” and, like its namesake, has scarcely a perceptible tide. The most remarkable fact connected with the Baltic is, that it lies in an amber basin. The agitated waters cast large quantities of it upon the shores; amber has been annually. collected here for three or four centuries. To geologists this is a very positive proof that where the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 145 waters of the Baltic now ebb and flow there was once a flourishing forest of amber pines, for amber is a fossil. The indurated resin of an extinct species of pine, pieces of the bark, the cone of the pine tree, and insects un- known to our day, are found embedded in its yellow depths. | Another phenomenon connected with the Baltic is the gradual sinking of its coast lines in the south and the elevation of them in the north of Sweden. This change | of level averages three feet in a century. When the Baltic reaches the latitude of Stockholm it separates into two long gulfs, north and east—the Gulf of Bothnia, 400 miles long, with an average width of 100 miles ; the Gulf of Finland, 200 miles long and 60 in width. The water is much colder and fresher than the ocean, from the fact that 250 rivers flow into it; and for this reason, also, it becomes a frozen sea for five months of the year. 89. THE ‘*BRIDE”’ OF MICHAEL ANGELO. The Church of Santa Marie Novella, which Michael Angelo called “his bride,” is frescoed throughout by the early painters. Cimabue’s ‘‘ Madonna”’ is one of three authentic works of this Master. The figures are above life-size, painted on a gold ground. The greatest enthu- siasm is recorded of this picture when it was exhibited over six hundred years ago; admiring throngs rent the air with shouts of delight, and a stately procession bore it from the studio of the Master to its present place in this Church. The figures now seem stiff and grim; but this work of Cimabue, painted in 1270, was so superior to those of its predecessors, that his painting seemed to the enthusiastic Florentines the revival of a lost art. Io 146 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Their national pride was stirred, and brilliant hopes for the future were awakened. The Virgin is seated on a throne holding the Infant Christ in her lap. Three angels, one above the other, on either side, support the throne and look up in adoration. The numerous fres- coes in this Church and its chapels are interesting from the fact that nearly all the figures are life portraits of Florentines of that day. _—__—_ 133. THE SUBMERGED CITY OF IS. The tradition of a submerged town is common among the Celts. In Wales the supposed site is in Cardigan Bay; in Ireland in Lough Neagh. But in the vast basin which now forms the bay of Douarnenez, on the coast of Brittany, France, is a strip of water called the Etang de Laoual, beneath which have been found huge stones and other records of the foundations of a mighty city, the city of Is, which was so unrivalled in its day, 222 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the fifth century, for luxury and magnificence, that Paris, or Par-Is, is said to take its name from its supposed equality with this ancient city, drowned by the mad folly of a wanton woman. The city of Is, or Ker-Is, ap- pears to have been given up to vice and most inordinate luxury. It was built on level ground beside the sea, and protected from its fury by a dyke with a pair of water-gates, of which King Gradlon kept the key. More than once St. Guenole had solemnly warned the King against the luxury and riot of Is, and especially against the profligate life of Gradlon’s only daughter, the Princess Dahut. But King Gradlon loved his child so dotingly that, although he deplored her vices, he had no power to restrain her. She dwelt in a high tower, and as soon as she was tired of her lovers they were flung into a well at its foot. At length one night a favored lover asked her for the key of the sluice-gates, and to please him Dahut stole softly into her father’s chamber and took the silver key from the neck of the sleeping King. It is supposed that the lover opened the sluice- gates by mistake, or that Dahut opened them in mere idleness of folly. Suddenly, in the dead of night, Grad- lon heard a voice bidding him arise and flee, for the waters were overspreading the city. He listened, and, hearing the rush of the flood, mounted his horse and prepared to escape; but he heard also the voice of his beloved daughter calling on him to save her, and he paused to take her up behind him. Away they fled, the | angry roar of the waters in rapid pursuit. Already the flood was gaining on them; the horse was knee-deep in the waves when the cry sounded in Gradlon’s ears, “Cast away the demon from behind thee, Gradlon.”’ Dahut’s hold relaxed, and she sank in the roaring water. As she sank the waves retreated, and since that time the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 223 tide has never come further inland than the estuary in the village of Poul David, or Poul Dahut, where she dis- appeared. It is said that Dahut still haunts the scene of her crimes, and that at night the trip-trip of King Gradlon’s horse’s hoofs is still heard beneath the hill- side. 134. THE NAMING OF AMERICA. Strictly speaking, the name was given by a German Professor of Geography, Waldsemuller, connected with the college at St. Die, in France. The first book printed on America (1504 or I 507) was a well-written account of the four voyages of Americus Vespucius. Waldse- muller, referring to the fact that he had discovered “a fourth part of the world,” and that the other three parts, Europe, Asia and Africa (Lybia), were named for women, suggested in the introduction of his new geography that the “ Mundus Novus”? (New World) be called, for its discoverer, America. This in no way sug- gested an injustice to Columbus, for during long years Columbus was still supposed to have only discovered a short route to the east coast of Asia. In the new geog- raphies of the times « America’? was written across our Southern Continent, and to-day, in Spain, America always means South America and the islands north of it, never the United States. 135. ORIGIN OF «UP SALT RIVER.”’ Prof. Schele De Vere gives the origin of the phrase “Up Salt River’ in his book called ‘‘ Americanisms— The English of the New World.” Before the day of steam all navigation of the Ohio River was carried on by 224 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. flat-boats and keel-boats. It was necessary to row the keel-boats up stream. The labor was painful and ex- hausting. There were slaves all along the Kentucky side of the river in those days. When a negro had been refractory or “sassy,” it was the custom to punish him by hiring him out to row keel-boats up the river. This punishment was called ‘‘ rowing up.” In time it became the popular slave term for a scolding or punishment. Prof. De Vere quotes this sentence from the Mew York Flerald of May 7th, 1856: ‘‘We hope the President gave his Secretary a good rowing up for his imbecility.” Salt River was, and is, a little tributary of the Ohio, in Kentucky. It was so crooked and dangerous that row- ing a keel-boat up its waters was about the hardest labor a man could undertake. Hence, to row a man up Salt River was as severe a punishment as could be im- posed on him, The expression became proverbial. One day, on the floor of Congress, a member from Kentucky _ made use of the phrase in a happy allusion, “ He is row- ing up Salt River.” The expression was thence crystal- lized in the popular speech of the country. From that day to this the person or party badly defeated in an elec- tion is said to have ‘‘ Gone up Salt River.” 136. ETON MONTEM. From the terrace of his castle at Windsor Henry VI., “the scholar King,” looked down upon the island vil- lage of Eton, and determined that there and at Cam- bridge he would carry out a scheme that had filled his boyish years. He would found, and perpetually endow, two institutions for the education of “boys.” He was only a boy himself when he laid the foundation stone of Eton Hall, December 6th, 1441, his nineteenth birth- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 225 day ; and the founding of King’s College, Cambridge, soon followed. For four hundred and fifty years Eton has been what it is to-day, the nursery of English states- men. Seventy boys, between twelve and fourteen years of age, are admitted, after competitive examination, as “King’s Scholars,” distinguished by the wearing of black gowns from the nine hundred other boys of the same age, called Oppidans. The “ King’s Scholars’”’ are eligible to scholarships in King’s College, Cambridge. Thus every year since the time of Henry VI. England has sent forth her Etonians armed with well-disciplined minds to battle for her welfare. Chatham, Howe, Wel- lington, Gray and Shelley are familiar names in a long list of which Eton may well be proud. The celebrated festivity, called Eton Montem (Ad Montem, to the Mount), was attended by royalty until it was discon- tinued by her Majesty in 1844. This festival is considered to be a survival of the Monkish ceremonial of the Boy-Bishop, whose proces- sion originally took place‘on December 6th, the festival of St. Nicholas, the Patron of children. In Salisbury and other Cathedral towns it was the custom to elect a Boy-Bishop from the children belonging to the Cathe- dral; his mock dignity being retained until Innocent’s Day. During the brief period of his Episcopate he per- formed many of the functions of a Bishop in the Cathe- dral School; and if he died before the time when this extraordinary mummery ceased, he was buried with all the ceremonies used at the funeral of a Bishop. The connection which this strange custom had with the Eton Montem is not clearly explained, but authori- ties agree that the Montem was a survival of the Boy- Bishop festival under another form. The Eton Montem consisted of a procession of the 15 226 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. boys of Eton College in military order, with flags and music, headed by their ‘‘ Captain,” to a small mound, called Salt Hill, the chief object being to collect money or “Salt.” According to the phrase of Montem Day, the scholars appointed to collect this money were called ‘Salt: Bearers,’ They were arrayed in fancy dresses, sometimes of great splendor, and attended by aids, called ‘‘ Scouts,” also dressed in fancy costume. The value of the salt and money collected often exceeded one thousand pounds, for the festival was attended by the most distin- guished families of the kingdom. ‘Tickets were given to such persons as contributed money to secure them from the demands of the ‘‘salt bearers.” After the expenses of the festival were deducted the balance was given to the senior scholar of the school, who was called the “Captain,” to aid in his college expenses. The “ Cap- tainship’”’ of Eton College was as great a dignity as the “ Boy-Bishop ” of Salisbury Cathedral School. 137. POURING OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS. There has been much discussion as to the origin of the old expression ‘Like pouring oil on troubled waters,’ and it has been traced back as far as Pliny (A. D. 23-79), who speaks in his ‘“‘ Natural History”’ of the good results of pouring oil on a stormy sea. An- other interesting account of the phenomenon is noted in Bede’s “ Ecclesiastical History” (Book 3, Chapter 15), written in Latin more than eleven centuries ago. He says : “A priest called Vita (Utta) was sent into Kent to fetch Eauflede, King Edwin’s daughter, who was to be married to King Oswirra. He was to go by land, but CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 227 to return by water. Before he departed Utta visited the Bishop and besought his prayers for a prosperous jour- ney. The Bishop blessed him, but predicted for his re- turn a great tempest that should rise suddenly, and gave him a pot of oil, saying : ‘ Remember that you cast into the sea the oyle that I give you, and anon, the winds being laied, comfortable fayer weather shall ensue on the sea, which shall send you again with as pleasant a pas- sage as you have wished. The tempest came as pre- dicted, the sailors essayed to cast ‘ancer’ in vain, the water began to fill the ship, and nothing but present death was looked for. Then came the thought of the Bishop’s pot of oil. Taking it into his hand, the priest cast the oil into the sea, when, as if by magic, it became quiet and calm.” In later times it is recorded that Professor Horsford, by emptying a vial of oil upon the sea in a stiff breeze, stilled its surface ; and Commodore Wilkes, of the United States Navy, saw the same effect produced in a violent storm off the Cape of Good Hope, by oil leaking from a whale-ship. Figuratively, ‘oil upon troubled waters” is equivalent to a ‘‘ soft answer turneth away wrath.” —_——__+ © 0 = »>—____— 138. THE PIANOFORTE. Musical instruments with stretched strings, the fore- runners of the piano, can be traced back to the oldest recorded life of man. But that which distinguishes the piano from all other stringed instruments is that the ac- tion of the strings is manipulated by a keyboard. The piano is a keyed-string instrument. It is generally as- serted that no trace of such an instrument is found an- terior to the sixteenth century, but a much greater an- tiquity is also claimed. The clavier, or keyboard, was 228 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. invented at the close of the eleventh century, but was only applied to the organ, a wznd instrument. The first stvinged instrument to which a keyboard was attached was the clavicytherium, or keyed-cithera. The strings, stretched in the form of a triangle, were sounded by quills, attached in a rude manner to the end of the keys. It was fitted into an oblong box, with a lid, and, when closed, resembled an old-fashioned music- box. Very little is known of this primitive instrument, which was superseded during the Middle Ages by the clavichord (clavis, a key ; chorda, a string). According to tradition the clavichord was invented by the Italians about the year 1300, and was imitated by the Belgians and Germans. The clavichord played an important part in the history of music for several centuries. It contained all the principles of the old-fashioned square piano : | A stretched string as a medium of tone production. A keyboard for manipulating the strings. A blow or stroke of the finger upon the key caused the string to vibrate. The growth of these three principles marks the evolu- tion of the modern piano. The clavichord was in general use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it was manufactured in Germany as late as the seven- teenth century. John Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote music for every known instrument in his day, but his immortal works, the ‘‘ Fugues,” were written for the clavichord ; and the clavichord formed a part of the bag- gage of Mozart wherever he journeyed. In shape it re- sembled an old-fashioned square piano, only very much smaller. The next steps in piano building were the virginal and spinet. These did not supersede the clavichord, but CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 229 were improvements upon it. The spinet was always tri- angular in form, resting upon three legs, and had the wires carried over a bent bridge to modify the tone. The virginal was an improvement upon the clavichord in having a string for each note, and the treble notes sometimes graded by gold, silver and silk strings. The virginal was called a royal instrument, Henry VIII. being one of its first patrons, and during the succeeding reigns of his children three virginal players were retained at court. Queen Elizabeth was a noted performer, and some trace the name of the instrument to the Virgin Queen, while others claim that the name originated when, in the twilight of convent halls, it served to lead the voices of consecrated maidens in vesper hymns to the virgin. But the immediate ancestor of the Piano was the Harpsichord. The harpsichord in its maturity belongs to the eighteenth century. Its name is derived from the harp arrangement of the strings, and this serves to illus- trate the statement that the principle of the piano dates back to prehistoric times. Upon the oldest Egyptian monuments the Egyptian harp is engraved. The vir- ginal had but one string to each key. Another string was added in the harpsichord, giving it a more powerful and sustained tone. The two strings were in unison; but later on athird string was added, of finer and shorter range. A second keyboard, or clavier, was also added, that soft and loud effects could be obtained by going from one keyboard to the other. The great Handel (1685-1759) possessed a fine Rucker harpsichord, made in Antwerp. In shape it re- sembled a grand piano; the case and lid were of ebony, with ornaments of gold and colored lacquer work. The sounding-board was also ornamented; upon a ground 230 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. of pale green, with arabesques, a dozen monkeys were giving a concert. Upon the under side of the lid, in- scribed in letters of gold, were the words “ Sze transit gloria mundi” (the glory of the world vanishes as sound into space). On that part of the lid which turns back from the keyboard was inscribed ‘“‘ Musica donum Det.” (Music is the gift of God.) Handel’s execution upon this harpsichord is said to have been marvellous. Public singers were mortified to find that the auditors were listening to Handel’s accompaniments rather than to them, and a noted baritone is said to have stopped in the middle of his song on account of it. Handel's harpsichord was left by his will to his friend and amanuensis, Smith. Smith in turn presented it to George III. as a gift fit for a king, inasmuch as its ivory keys were indented by the constant fingering of the great Handel, and as it was the instrument upon which the greater part of his immortal musical works had been com- posed. The English harpsichords of the eighteenth century were infinitely superior to those constructed on the Con- tinent. It is needless to follow the successive improve- ments of harpsichord makers to obtain superiority of tone, to do away with the jarring sound of “the quill” against the strings; suffice it to say that the grand de- sideratum was attained when the hammer-harpsichord appeared before the world in that charming and expres- sive instrument known as the Grand Pianoforte. Its name is its story: “piano”? soft, ‘forte’? loud. The ob- ject of centuries was-accomplished when the quill, the bristle, the thorn, the ivory tongue, the leathern tongue, were banished, and a small ammer was invented to strike the strings and evoke a clear, precise tone, a tone regulated by the force of the touch upon the keys. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 231 Various devices had been resorted to in order to ob- tain greater expression upon the keyed-string instruments. And it is a remarkable coincidence that three men in three different parts of the world, Italy, France and Ger- many, invented about the same time an improved key- action, the hammer-action, by which soft and loud effects could be obtained upon the instrument at the will of the performer. These three men were an Italian named Bar- tolome Christofali, who exhibited his improved hammer- harpsichord in 1711; a French harpsichord maker named Marius, who exhibited the same improvement in 1716, and a German organist named Christopher Schroter, who exhibited in 1717. The Italians claimed the invention, but upon evidence which was brought for- ward the three men were given equal credit, as all three were working out the same idea at the same time. In the year 1767 the pianoforte was introduced on the stage of the Covent Garden Theatre, London, as “a new instrument.’ The pianoforte, from its invention up to this time, had been considered merely a household instrument. An old playbill records its first public an- nouncement : By Particular Desire— For the Benefit of Miss Brickler, Theatre Royal in Covent Garden, The Beggar’s Opera. End of Act 1 Miss Brickler will sing a favorite song, accom- panied by Mr. Dibdin on a ew instrument, called Pianoforte. Charles Dibdin, born 1745, died 1814, has the honor of being the first public pianist. But Clementi was the first great artist who established the confidence of the musical world in the new instrument. He was born in Rome, 1752, and died March toth, 1832. He was buried in Westminister Abbey. 232 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. The pianoforte was now firmly established in public favor, and the death-blow was given to the old harpsi- chord in the year 1800, when Clementi began the manu- facture of pianofortes. Thus the artist and the artisan joined in the production and _ perfection of the instru- ment which is now a household friend and a public ser- vant. The zeal of a great pianist, coupled with the in- ventive genius of a skilled mechanic in Clementi, gave to the world in 1800 the real pianoforte. It only re- mained for the nineteenth century to perfect it. 139. THE GAME OF ‘SOULE.”’ It was in the department of Morbihan that Paganism found its last stronghold in France, and this department is still charged with having many devotees who only overlay their paganism with Christian rites. The fero- cious game of “Soule’’ has survived the onward march of civilization, though it is now becoming rare. The dangerous game, peculiar to Brittany, is played with a large leather ball filled with bran. The ball is thrown into the midst of the combatants, and he who, at the close of the day, remains in the possession of it is the honored victor. It is a life and death struggle; yet the persistency with which the right to the possession of the ball is maintained is not the most dangerous character- istic. A blow is frequently given in the general mélée which at any other time would lay the offender open to the charge of assassination. It affords the cruel and vindictive Morbihannais an opportunity to wreak a long- cherished revenge upon his enemy. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 233 140. THE FIRST ENGLISH PARLIAMENT. The word Parliament (French, Parlement) signifies a state assembly that meets for conference. The date of the First Parliament, January 20th, 1265, is a great epoch in English History. The Saxons had held their Wittenagemots, or “ Councils of Wise-men,” similar to the “ Al-things”’ of the Norsemen, but during the reign of Henry III. (1216-1272), Simon de Monfort, Earl of Leicester, summoned a Council of State, two knights for each county and two citizens from each borough, that they might hold in check the arbitrary King. Simon and his followers were overthrown and put to death, but the “Commons,” once admitted into the Councils, never again allowed themselves to be left out. With the next reign, Edward I. (1272-1307), the history of modern England begins, and during the reigns of the “three Edwards” (1272-1377) the Island of Great Britain was consolidated under one Monarch, and the history of the English Parliament is from this time the history of the English nation. It is a remarkable fact that, until the middle of this century, England had no suitable building for its Legis- lature. The House of Commons for three hundred years, after Simon de Monfort first called it into existence, met in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, and for three hundred years more in the King’s chapel, St. Stephen. The House of Lords had an unsuitable room in the old Palace of Westminster, and it was not until the destruction of this old historic palace by fire in 1834 that the present ample and luxurious Legislative Halls, or Parliament Buildings, were erected (1840), costing £ 3,000,000. 234 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 141. THE MONKEY-RACE OF THE RAMAYANA, The monkey-race of ‘‘ the Ramayana” has been identi- fied by Portman with the Andaman islanders, a possible corruption of Hanuman, the monkey-general in the Epic. They are natives of the volcanic Andaman islands, in the Bay of Bengal, and are described by Arab and early European voyagers as Dog-faced man-eaters. Hence it is easy to see why in the Epicage they were called “ Mon- keys.” As late as 1855 some English officers who had landed on their island to make a settlement, found them- selves surrounded by naked cannibals, whose sole con- ception of a god was a demon, an evil spirit who spread disease and death among them. For five years they repulsed with showers of telling arrows every effort of foreigners to make a settlement, but they were finally brought to a better state of feeling when “the white devils’”’ built sheds for the poor creatures along the coast, where they could find shelter, food, and medicine. ——_+ 2 0 »>—___. 142, BERTEL THORWALDSEN, THE ‘‘MODERN PHIDIAS.,’’ Thorwaldsen (1770-1844) is, almost, a synonym for Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. The great sculptor is there crowned with such glory and honor as is not ac- corded to any one man in any other city of the world. His name is written everywhere, in highways and byways, in churches and _ palaces, in parks and public buildings ; Thorwaldsen is the tutelary genius of the city. Those who claim that America was first discovered by the Norsemen, say that during their stay upon the coast a child was born, and that this first white child born upon American shores was the ancestor of Bertel Thor- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 235 waldsen. Be that as it may, his immediate parentage is well known, as also the dates of his birth and death (November 19th, 1770, March 24th, 1844). Any history of art gives almost a yearly record of his life. Thor- waldsen himself gave a different birth-date. He said: “‘T was born on the eighth of March, 1797; before then I did not exist.’’ This was the date of his arrival in Rome. It was a subject of dispute for some years between Rome and Copenhagen as to which had the better right to claim Thorwaldsen asa son. To settle the dispute a grand reception was given to the sculptor in Munich. Celebrities from all nations were invited to be present; but the object of the gathering was kept as a profound secret from Thorwaldsen. During the evening it was announced that a drama would be enacted. When pre- sented, Jupiter seated upon a throne with Juno at his side, was to determine whether the city of an artist’s mortal birth or the city of his art-birth had the greater right to claim him as her son. Magnificently attired, the various claimants appeared. Rome had her claimants, as an art center; Denmark had her king, Christian TVeeiithe United States presented a claim; the city of Mainz was represented by Guttenberg ; Stuttgart by Schiller ; Mu- nich by Maximilian. But when Jupiter arose and put in a claim for Olympus, Thorwaldsen saw through the plot. Rising to his feet and facing the assembled multitude, he exclaimed in a loud voice: ‘‘ Denmark has the sole right toclaim me as her son. In Copenhagen my cradle was rocked, and there my mother of blessed memory sleeps.” Whereupon Jupiter flew into a towering rage and cried: “Not so! Inthe name of all the gods and goddesses, Thorwaldsen belongs to the whole civilized world!’ The artist decided the question in favor of birthright ; yet the verdict of Jupiter stands, and Thor- 230 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. waldsen, the great ‘‘ Modern Phidias,’’ not Danish but classic in his art, belongs to the whole world. It is said of Thorwaldsen that he was more appreciated while living than any other artist. All the capitals of ’ Europe resounded with his name; popes, kings and queens paid him homage. Horace Vernet crowned him at the banquet with laurel. When Thorwaldsen returned to his native city after the Munich banquet, the wild enthusiasm of the people could not be checked. A special ship was sent to con- vey him and his effects from Leghorn. A fleet of boats crowded with people went down the harbor of Copen- hagen to meet him, each steamer bearing a flag on which was painted some one of his noted works. The artists chose ‘The Three Graces ;’ the poets were under “‘ Pegasus ;” the students under “ Minerva ;” the physi- cians under ‘‘ Asculapius ;’’ the mechanics under “ Vul- can; naval officers displayed ‘“ Neptune.” Bands of music were playing, and choruses sang the national hymn as the ship, bearing their art-hero, sailed into the harbor of Copenhagen. Even the northern sky hung out her gorgeous banners to welcome again to the North- land her son of genius. Once landed, Thorwaldsen was received like a conquering hero, and so great was the crowd that he did not know the horses of his carriage had been detached, and that it was being drawn by the people. Yet this was only the beginning of the ovation which Denmark had prepared for the reception of “her son.’ No wonder that before his death Thorwaldsen bequeathed all of his unsold works and the models of his works sold; all such works of other artists as he had collected ; and all souvenirs, national or personal, which had been presented to him, to Copenhagen his native city. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 237 The building erected to contain his art treasures was the gift of the people, the design being furnished by Thorwaldsen, based upon Egyptian architecture. It is two stories in height, quadrangular in form, surrounding an open court, in the center of which the great master of the “silent art’? asked to be buried. The lower story contains sculpture only ; the second, sculpture, pictures, and souvenirs; the ceilings elaborately decorated by Danish artists. With galleries and vestibules, the Mu- seum contains forty-two apartments, ample room being afforded for the display of each figure or group. Inno other single building can be found the entire collected works of one artist. In Room XXXIII. is shown his last work, unfinished. He was engaged upon a bust of Luther on the morning of March 24th, 1844, when a friend, the Baroness Von Stampe, came to his studio to beg him to dine with her. He declined, but she per- sisted. Overpersuaded, he threw down his handful of clay before the unfinished model, and thrusting his trowel into it, never took it up again. He died suddenly of heart disease on the evening of March 24th, 1844. Thorwaldsen was the great exponent of bas-relief. His celebrated frieze called ‘The Triumphal Entry of Alexander into Babylon’? commemorates the entry of Napoleon Bonaparte into Rome, 1812. In it the genuine Grecian relief style is revived in all its perfect purity and severity. It has been twice copied in marble, and is engraved in a series of plates. The original is in the Quirinal Palace, Rome; a fine copy is in the Villa Car- lotte on Lake Como. ? Another beautiful and celebrated bas-relief is “The Sale of Cupids,” executed in marble for a gentleman in England, 1825. It represents Psyche with a cage full of little Cupids. She is holding one up by its tiny wings 238 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. for sale ; a young woman, on bended knee, is reaching out her “longing” arms to embrace it. The next figure represents “ Fruition;’’ a beautiful young woman has won her Cupid and embraces it with burning kisses. The next represents ‘‘ Repentance ;”’ with downcast eyes she drags her little Cupid along the ground by his wings. The next is called “ Resignation ;”’ a man borne down by the weight of his treasure has a little Cupid astride of his shoulders. The most pathetic figure of all is an old man, bowed with years, from whom a Cupid is fleeing away ; he stretches out his feeble arms for Love, but the little god in flight looks back only to scoff at his infirmi- ties. Behind Psyche a little girl peeps under the cover- ing of the cage, longing to play with the little winged children. An older girl is holding back a lovely Cupid which is struggling to escape; this represents “ Re- pression.” Thus the artist, in a most beautiful manner, represents Love under various forms: innocence, re- straint, longing, fruition, repentance, resignation, and old age. Denmark ordered “her son” to make a_ portrait statue of himself, and in Room XX. the great artist stands with a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other. His breast is bare, his robust body thinly clad, suggestive of his thirty-two years of labor in a warm cli- mate. He leans upon an unfinished statue of Hope, “the strongest power of the human heart, as Love is its strongest passion.” The green courtyard of this Mu- seum contains the grave of the great artist, who still reflects a glory over the 19th century. The sight of the simple ivy-covered grave recalls a day of great mourning in Denmark, from the Monarch on his throne to the peasant on his farm. His quiet resting-place is marked by a low granite framework, simply engraved CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 239 with the words: ‘Bertel Thorwaldsen, born 19th of November, 1770; died 24th of March, 1844.” 143. DAK-BUNGALOWS. Dak-Bungalows are small one-storied, thatch-roofed houses erected by the English Government in India at regular intervals, from twelve to fifteen miles apart, along the military roads traversing the whole peninsula. These Dak-Bungalows are not exclusively for the mili- tary ; any traveller has a right to demand shelter and food at the expense of the government on the payment of one rupee, or about forty cents per day. But, having occupied rooms for twenty-four hours, any traveller is bound to give them up to the first traveller who follows him. These governmental bungalows are indispensable in a country where ‘“ Way-Side Inns”? are unknown. All of the military roads in India are well supplied with Dak-Bungalows. There are many private bungalows, which in Anglo-Indian means a thatched cottage sur- rounded by a veranda, usually covered with vines, the windows opening to the ground, and steps leading to gardens on every side. The bungalow is a necessary style of architecture in India, owing to the hot climate. 144. CASTE IN INDIA. There are religious, civil, and social distinctions among all peoples congregated into a community, whether it be a rural community, a village, town, city or nation. These distinctions are more clearly defined in India than elsewhere, and have become stereotyped by one word, “Caste.” Yet “Caste” is. not:an Indian 240 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. word, having been adopted from the Portuguese ‘‘casta,” signifying race, kind, or quality. The first trace of caste in India is purely ethnological. Ethnological caste arises wherever different races are brought into contact, and nowhere were races of men brought more strongly into contact than in India. India was inhabited by numerous Turanian tribes before the Aryans took possession. The Aryan invaders drove the dark-skinned peoples to the South, and to-day all the languages spoken in the South of India are dis- tinct from the Sanskrit. The word Dasyas, applied to the aborigines of India, means color, and in the caste- system of India we find that color is a distinguishing feature. The color of the Brahmans is white; of the Kshattriyas, red; of the Vaisyas, yellow; of the Sudras, black. These four colors, broadly speaking, represent the four original castes. According to ancient and tradi- tional faith, all creatures in India are born of God. Brahma was the god of gods. From the head, or mouth, of Brahma, a Brahman was born. The Brahmans, the first or highest caste, represent the spoken will of the gods, and are the priestly and most intellectual class of the people. The Kshattriyas were formed from the arms of Brahma; hence they are the defenders or warriors, represented now by large numbers of Rajputs in the British Army. From these nobles of the Second Caste the king was always chosen. The Vaisyas were formed from the trunk or body of Brahma; they minister to the physical needs of the Brahmans. Hence the farmers and the merchants form the Third Caste. All who belong to these three castes of the Aryan races are called the “twice born.”’ The Sudras, or ‘‘once born,” form the Fourth, or lowest Caste. These are the Taurians, or CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 241 such of the aboriginal races as submitted to the Aryan yoke. The Sudras were born from the feet of Brahma, to be the servants of the ‘‘twice born.”” Numerous sub- divisions have arisen, but the original Four Castes are the basis of all. In all countries birth, position, education and wealth create caste. Marriages between high and low, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, black and white, have always been to a certain extent limited. But in India the lines have been more clearly defined than elsewhere, and intermarriages between the castes are forbidden under severest penalty. Thus caste in India has a seri- ous aspect not met with elsewhere, and it is admitted by all intelligent people that if England is to maintain her Indian Empire it will be by respecting Indian Caste. But what law cannot accomplish the railroads are effect- ing. At every station there are crowds waiting. The stop is short, the natives run wildly along the platform looking for their caste-coach, the trainmaster calls ‘“ All aboard !”” and they are hustled pell-mell into coaches and the train starts. When they have ridden a day or half-day with people of all castes and find themselves uninjured they begin to regard the railroad trains as neutral ground. Thus gradually it is thought the rail- roads may break down the iron caste-system of India. 145. A NON-SECTARIAN CHAPEL IN A ROMAN | CATHEDRAL. In the Cathedral of Toledo, Spain, near the door of exit, is a chapel where a daily service is read, or sung, in which Christians of every sect from any land may take part. This service dates back of the Moors to the time of the early Christianized Goths, or, according to 16 242 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Spanish tradition, this service was established by St. James the Apostie. It consists of the Lord’s Prayer, the words of our Lord at the Last Supper, readings from the Epistle of St. James, and a few simple prayers. The service is generally intoned, and is very impressive. It is entirely free from distinctive ritual, Greek, Roman, or Protestant. It is perhaps the one chapel in all the world where all who believe in Christ can worship as with one voice. Its history is interesting. When the Moors took Toledo, one of the terms of capitulation was, that the Christians should be allowed to worship here. Pope Gregory tried to suspend this service, but the people of Toledo defied the Pope, as they had defied the Moors. In 1512 Cardinal Ximenes, Regent for Joanna, rebuilt and beautified this chapel, which is in an unfinished tower, and instituted a special order of priests to maintain the service which has never since been dis- continued. —-2 146. THE HERMITAGE, ST. PETERSBURG. This famous Museum of Art was founded by Catherine II. in 1765. It was first but a small pavilion attached to the Winter Palace where Catherine II. was glad to escape from the duties of court life, and spend some hours in conversation with artists and men of letters, hence called her Ermitaj (Hermitage). Ten years later she added a gallery for the reception of pictures, and in 1780 a Theatre was added ; these were all connected by covered ways with the Palace. A green curtain now conceals an interesting tablet, on which may still be read the rules of Catherine II. which she enforced at her Con- versasione in the Hermitage : I. Leave your rank outside, as well as your hat and sword. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. 12AD tll. ” ¥ CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 243 II. Leave your right of precedence, your pride, and any similar feeling, outside the door. III. Be gay, but do not spoil or gnaw anything. IV. Sit, stand, walk, as you will, without reference to anybody. V. Talk moderately, not loud, so as not to make the ears or heads of others ache. VI. Argue without anger, and without excitement. VII. Neither sigh nor yawn, nor make anyone feel dull or heavy. VIII. In all innocent games, whatever one proposes, let all join. IX. Eat whatever is sweet and savory, but drink with moderation, so each may find his legs on leaving the room. ahs ee, X. Tell no tales out of school; whatever goes in at one ear must go out at the other before leaving the room. Whoever offends against the Rule X. shall never again be admitted. The present palatial Hermitage dates from 1840 to 1850, and was erected by order of Emperor Nicholas; Klenze of Munich was the architect. For elegance and purity of style, architecturally, it is the finest building in St. Petersburg, and for beauty and costliness of material this Museum has scarcely an equal in Europe. It isa parallelogram (512x375 feet) with two large courts. Stat- ues of celebrated painters and sculptors adorn the niches of the exterior walls. The most ornamental facade, with loggia, is the river front; but the main entrance is on Millionneja Ulitsa (Million Street). The portico is sup- ported by ten colossal Atlantes or Telemones, twenty- two feet high, carved out of Finland granite. Entering the Palace, we find ourselves in a noble hall, the roof of 244 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. which is supported by sixteen monolithic columns of Finland granite with Carrara capitals. The ground floor is devoted to a Museum of Antique Sculpture. A marble stairway in three flights leads to the picture galleries. It is no longer a Museum, but an Imperial Palace. The Pitti Gallery, Florence, is small in comparison. The various rooms are sumptuously decorated with gigantic candelabra, vases, and tables of malachite, por- phyry, or jasper, also many splendid specimens of Frenclr furniture. Handsome sofas and chairs add to the com- fort of visitors. The attendants are handsomely attired in Court livery. Two large collections form the nucleus of the picture galleries, the Crozat collection and the Walpole. The Crozat collection (the name of a cele- brated amateur in Paris) had a European: reputation before it reached St. Petersburg. Its four hundred pictures were gathered during the last century from fifteen collections in France and Italy. Among the most famous of these is a Holy Family and a St. George by Raphael. The Walpole Collection was formed by the Ministers of George I. and George II. of England, purchased for St. Petersburg in 1779 for 438,000. In 1829 thirty pictures from the collection of Queen Hortense, mother of Napoleon III., were bought for £4000. Seventeen hundred pictures were chosen out of four thousand, and arranged in their present order by Waagen of Berlin. The others were distributed among the Palaces. All schools of art are represented in the Hermitage, and this isthe only gallery on the Continent where there is a collection of English pictures. There is a loggia, after the style of a loggia in the Vatican Palace, contain- ing copies of Raphael’s celebrated frescoes. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 245 Room V. contains the nine frescoes of Raphael pur- chased in 1861, also a Madonna and Child, purchased by Alexander II. and presented to his wife on their Silver Wedding Day. Room VII. contains the Holy Family by Raphael, purchased for $31,000. Room IV. contains eighteen Murillos. The gem are “ Jacob’s Ladder Dream,” “Joseph Holding the Child Jesus,” “The Angel Delivering St. Peter.” Paul Potter is well represented by his “ Deer-Hound.”’ But the most inter- esting room in the Hermitage is the Gallery of Peter the Great. It also forms a part of the Winter Palace. His active, energetic life may be traced here. Every con- ceivable memorial of him is here preserved. The horse he rode to battle is stuffed and standing ; likewise his favorite dogs ; specimens of his handiwork ; his effigy in the dress of the period; his sword, cane, etc. ; a cast taken of his face after death ; but, more remarkable, a cast taken in wax during his life, with black hair anda small mustache. It was placed upon a wooden _ bust and presented to his friend Cardinal Valenti at Rome. An engraving had been taken of it, but the original was supposed to have been lost. Mr. Guedenoff discovered itin Rome and purchased it at a high figure for this Memorial Gallery. The Kerch Collection of Antiquities from the Crimea, the Bosphorus, and the Black Sea, is due to excavations having been made by the Govern- ment where Greek colonies existed several hundred years before Christ ; the result is a new chapter in history, and a collection of Greek Art, invaluable to Art-students. 147. THE COURT OF ST. JAMES. The picturesque gateway of the present palace of St. James, London, is all that remains of the old Palace of 246 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. St. James which enshrined the memory of many historic events. Its name was derived froma religious house dedicated to St. James, situated upon this site before the Conquest. After Westminster was burned, Henry VIII. obtained an Act of Parliament which secured all the land between Charing Cross and Westminster as a Royal Manor. This gave him “ York Palace,” the residence of Cardinal Wolsey, and St. James. He changed the name of ‘ York Palace”’ to ‘‘ Whitehall,’’ and connected it with St. James by St. James’ Park. This was the town residence of Royalty from Henry VIII. to William ITI. (1509-1702). After the burning of Whitehall, William III. bought Kensington, the fourth royal residence, but “St. James’ was retained as the ‘“‘ Court Palace.” All State Ceremonials have taken place here since the reign of “William and Mary” (1688-1702). Hence the English Government is called ‘‘ The Court of St. James.” Any Englishman who has been presented to the Queen at St. James is entitled to a presentation at any other Court of Europe. Charles I. resided at St. James, here his three children were born, and from here he walked across St. James’ Park to the scaffold in front of Whitehall. Queen Victoria was proclaimed Queen and married at St. James, and here her Levees and Drawing-Rooms are held. 148. ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATIONS OF QUEEN VICTORIA. Several attempts have been made to take the life of Queen Victoria. The first, on June roth, 1840, by a lad of seventeen, named Edward Oxford, who fired two shots at the Queen as she was driving up Consti- tution Hill with Prince Albert. The Prince in a letter to his grandmother says: ‘We had hardly proceeded a hundred yards from the Palace, when I noticed on the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 247 footpath, on my side, a little mean-looking man nolding something towards me, and before I could distinguish what it was, a shot was fired, which almost stunned us both, it was so loud, barely six paces from us, the horses started, and the carriage stopped. I seized Victoria’s hand, and asked her if the fright had not shaken her, but she only laughed.” Almost immediately the fellow fired a second shot, from which the Queen was probably saved by the presence of mind of the Prince, who drew her down beside him. He states that the ball must have passed just over her head. The Queen was seen to be very pale, but calm. She rose in the carriage to show the excited people that she was not hurt, and: then ordered the postilions to drive at once to the residence of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, that she might hear of the attempt upon her life from her own lips, and not be frightened by wild rumors. Great excitement was only allayed by the perfect calmness of the Queen. The trial of Oxford completely dissipated some wild alarms which were felt, founded chiefly on some crazy papers in his possession, with regard to a secret society called “‘ Young England,” whose object was the assassi- nation of royal personages, and whose rules prescribed that every member should, when ordered to meet, ‘be armed with a brace of pistols, and a sword and a black crape cap to cover his face.”” Oxford was acquitted on the ground of insanity, and after being in Bedlam for some years, was sent to Australia as cured. He is said to have gone into business there and to have earned an honest livelihood. Twice during the year 1842 attempts were made upon the Queen’s life. On May 30th, 1842, John Francis, son of a machinist in Drury Lane, fired a pistol at the Queen on the very 248 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. spot where Oxford’s attempt had been made. The Queen behaved with her usual calmness, and that even- ing attended the opera, where she received an enthusiastic welcome. The same man had made a similar attempt on the previous Sunday, but fortunately the pistol did not. go off. Francis was sentenced to death, but was reprieved by the Queen and transportation for life substituted. The day after the mitigation of his sentence became publicly known, July 3d, 1842, a hunchbacked lad named Bean presented a pistol at the Queen when she was passing from Buckingham Palace to the Chapel Royal; but a bystander seized his hand before he could fire it. The pistol was found to be loaded with powder, paper closely rammed down, and some scraps of a clay pipe. The capital charge was abandoned and he was punished for misdemeanor, under Peel’s Act “for the Better Protection of the Queen’s Person against Minor Offenders,” which tended to dis- courage the making of such attempts for the sake of notoriety. They were to be punishable by transporta- tion for seven years, or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years; “the culprit to be publicly or privately whipped as often and in such manner as the court shall direct, not exceeding thrice ;’ thus changing a punishment which ‘“ cranks”? would look upon asa martyr’s penalty to a sharp and degrading one which was certain to be inflicted. Bean was sentenced to eighteen months in Millbank Penitentiary. On May roth, 1849, another attempt was made upon the life of the Queen. She had gone out for a drive with three of her children, after holding a Drawing- Room. On her return, down Constitution Hill, a man —standing inside the railings of the park—fired at her. It took place within a few yards of the spot where she CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 249 had already been twice attacked. The man was seized by the bystanders, and would probably have been killed by them had nota constable and park-keeper come to his rescue. He was tried and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. In 1850 another assault was made. This was the only one of the many attempts attended with the slightest success. The Queen had been to Cambridge House to inquire after the health of her beloved uncle the Duke of Cambridge; as she was getting into her carriage, Lieutenant Pate, a man of good family, sprang forward and struck her a blow on the head with his cane. The force of the blow, though somewhat broken by her bonnet, inflicted a severe wound on her forehead. At the trial his counsel set up a plea of in- sanity ; but although no motive for the assault could be proven, the jury refused to accept the insanity plea, and he was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. Since the death of the Prince Consort no attempt has been made to assassinate the good Queen of England. 149. FIFTEEN STARS AND FIFTEEN STRIPES. The national flag of Great Britain was the flag of her American Colonies until the Revolution. It was a red flag bearing in its left hand upper corner, on a blue field, the red cross of St. George united with the white cross of St. Andrew, which represented the union of Scotland and England in 1707. When the American Colonies separated from the mother country, a new ensign or flag was demanded by the revolted Colonies. The only change made at first was the dividing of the red field into thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, denoting the union of the Colo- 250 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ~ nies. Under this flag the early battles of the Revolution were fought. But the first legally established national emblem was that adopted by the Colonial Congress, June 14th, 1777. George Washington made a pencil sketch, combining thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, with thirteen white stars in the form of a circle on a blue field in the upper left hand corner. This was the design ac- cepted by the Colonial Congress in 1777, and which remained the national emblem for seventeen years. A committee of Congressmen, accompanied by the Presi- dent, soon after its adoption called at a small two-story house, No. 239 Arch St., Philadelphia, and engaged Mrs. Betsy Ross to make the flag. Col. Trumbull represents this new national flag as used at the surrender of Burgoyne, October 17th, 1777. On January 13th, 1794, on the motion of Senator Bradley, of Vermont, it was resolved that two additional stripes and two additional stars should be added on May Ist, 1795. The change was made because two new States, Vermont and Kentucky, had been added to the Union. ‘This was the United States flag for twenty-three years, and under it were fought the last battles with the mother country, 1812-14. December, 1817, Mr. Wen- dover, of New York, proposed another alteration, say- ing, had the flag never been altered, he would oppose any change in it, but now one seemed to be required, as the present flag did not represent the number of States affiliated inthe Union. His action resulted in the passage of a law, approved April 4th, 1818, as follows: “ Bewt enacted. That from and after the fourth of July next, the flag of the United States shall be thirteen hori- zontal stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be twenty stars, white, in a blue field. Betsey Koss’ House. Prez 50nd CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 25 1 «And that, on the admission of a new State into the Union, one star be added to the Union of the flag; and that such addition shall take effect on the fourth day of July succeeding such admission.” The width of the flag should be two-thirds of its length. This flag of thirteen stripes, with twenty stars, went into effect July 4th, 1818, and is still the prescribed national emblem of the United States of America, though its field is now studded with fifty stars. 150, ‘*SIR-PADA.” The “Sir-pada”’ or sacred footprint of Adam, accord- ing to the Mohammedans, or of Buddha, according to the Buddhists, is on the top of Adam’s Peak, in the southwest corner of Ceylon. The Peak is seven thousand four hundred feet high, and, though not the highest, is the most conspicuous mountain peak on the island. It stands like a great outpost, or sentinel, and can be seen far out at sea. Mohammedans tell us that Adam reached heaven by jumping from this mountain peak, while the Buddhists claim the same for Buddha. For at least two thousand years, and without doubt for centuries before, pilgrims have climbed this mountain peak in Ceylon to burn incense or to strew flowers before this natural altar. The ascent of the mountain is made on horseback. The road winds up hills and across valleys, and througha jungle so dense that for more than half the way the sun- light is obscured, and at every turn the traveler is greeted with a new surprise. Even the jungle is not desolate ; wild elephants, wild pigs, leopards, and other animals of the tropics may be encountered. Fine views are presented of the plains below, and the distant hills are covered with tropical verdure. In some places the 252 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. road winds around cliffs so steep that stones from be- neath the horses’ hoofs can be heard for several minutes rolling down into the depths below. The approach to the final cone is by steps cut into the solid rock ; chains, with links six inches long, are suspended at the most difficult places ; these chains are centuries old. Resting- sheds and cabins are provided, though these have now nearly fallen into decay. The decay of these mountain cabins testifies that the great pilgrim shrine of Adam’s Peak has fallen into neglect, and that only the curious explorer or the unenlightened now climbs the weary way. On reaching the summit the traveler finds a little ter- race surrounded by a low wall. On one side of the ter- race is a little temple on the top of a great rock, fastened down by iron chains that pass over the roof. This con- tains the “Sir-pada”’ or “‘ sacred footprint ’’ of Adam, or Buddha. Whoever stepped from earth into the heaven beyond from this point must have been a man of un- usual stature, since the sacred footprint is five feet long and two and a half feet broad. It was formerly covered with gold, which was stolen several centuries ago ; it is now covered with brass. But, tradition aside, the scene alone, viewed from Adam’s Peak, cannot but inspire a feeling of awe and reverence. The descent from the mountain peak is more difficult than the ascent; but few now attempt to climb the weary way. 151, ‘*THE PLUTARCH OF PAINTERS.’? Jean Léon Gérome, born at Vesoul, France, in 1824, won the title ‘Plutarch of Painters’”’ by his masterly handling of classical subjects, especially his ‘“‘ Death of Cesar.”’ Like Plutarch he places the scene of the assassi- nation in the Curia of Pompey, rather than in the Senate CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 253 Chamber. The architectural features resemble a Greek Theater. Pompey is said to have copied the theater of Mitylene in the building of his Curia in Rome. The statue of Pompey, ‘‘ before which Cesar fell,” is a copy of the supposed original in the Spada Palace, Rome. The white-robed conspirators are hastening to the exit, looking back only to shout aloud or to brandish their swords at the dead body of their victim. The tiers of seats are empty, the Senators having fled, with the excep- tion of Publius, the old man “who could not move, being so overcome by the tragedy.”’ But the great merit of the picture, according to art- critics, is in the fore-shortening of the body of Cesar, as he lies with his head to the spectators, crowned with his golden wreath, wrapped in his toga as he fell, exclaim- ing: “Ettu, Brute!’ The ‘ Gladiators” also shows close classical study, by the drawing up of an awning in the rear, the much disputed method of covering the arena of the Coliseum to protect spectators from rain and sun. The weapons also correspond to those found by late archeological research. The ‘‘ Circus Maximus,” ‘ The Last Prayer of the Christian Martyrs,’ Father Joseph and many others add testimony to his Plutarchian pencil. But the picture which gave him a place among the lead- ing painters of France was ‘“‘ The Age of Augustus and the Birth of Christ,’ exhibited at the French Salon of 1855, when Gérome was thirty-one years of age. This picture, of great size, grand in design and careful in execu- tion, portrays the decline of Paganism and the rise of Christianity. It was purchased by the French Govern- ment, and procured for Gérome the Cross of the Legion of Honor. - Gérome was a pupil of Paul Delaroche. His first picture, painted in 1847, when he was twenty-four years 254 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. of age, still hangs in the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris. A Greek boy and girl, life-size, kneeling on the ground, are trying with two tame roosters to incite a “Cock Fight,” which is the name of the picture. This earliest success gives the cue to his career as “a teller of tales’? with the brush. His Egyptian and Oriental pictures tell many an anecdote and record many an ancient epigram in color. His “King of the Desert ”’ gave him high rank as an animal painter. 152. THE GOLOID DOLLAR. There were two kinds of goloid dollars, one issued in 1878 and the other in 1880. They were intended to constitute part of an international gold currency, and to act as a compromise between the extreme gold advocates and the extreme silver advocates. They were cast in the United States Mint according to an admixture of gold and silver devised by a Mr. Hubbell, living in Wash- ington, D. C. Such experiments upon new designs at the National Mint are at the discretion of the Treasury Department, and are called “ Patterns.” Hubbell pushed his ‘goloid dollar” scheme with much skill, until at length he brought Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, then in Congress, anda member of the Committee of Ways and Means, to take an active interest in his project. With the approval of Mr. Stephens the designs were struck off. The sets con- sisted of one-dollar, two-dollar, four-dollar, and twenty- dollar pieces. In 1879 there were five hundred and eighty-six sets. The proportional amalgam of the goloid dollar was 16;'y grains of silver, 1,9 grains of copper, to one grain of gold, or “sixteen to one.” CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 255 The second issue of goloid dollars in 1880 had pro- portionately twenty-four grains of silver to one of gold. The ‘“ goloid dollar”? scheme never had the sanction of Congress, in fact it was never reported to that body. It is not mentioned in encyclopedias, nor do the dic- tionaries so much as give the word “ goloid.”’ These experimental coins are now very rare. Ata sale a few years ago, where one was offered, it was guaranteed that only twenty-five were now in existence. 153. “* THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND FEARS.” A house is still standing at one corner of the market- place at Rotterdam, Holland, which bears the inscrip- tion, ‘‘ The House of a Thousand Fears.’ The story is told that in 1572, when the Spaniards sacked the city, having gained admission by treachery, an order was issued not to allow a single man, woman, or child to escape the general massacre. In this house, it is said, one thousand people took refuge, and, to mislead the Spanish soldiers, the master took a kid, killed it, and smeared the floor and stairs with its blood; then, throwing the furniture into confusion, the people hid themselves in the upper rooms, in the cellar, and in the garret. The soldiers entered, but concluding that their comrades had done the work before them, passed on, and the people, ‘shivering with a thousand fears,’ at last made their escape. Not far from here, two houses standing quite near together recall the story of ‘The Stone Faces.” Dur- ing the prevalence of the plague in Rotterdam all the people living on this street were stricken except two old men, who were afraid to venture out. But, from near windows, they agreed that at a certain hour every morn- ing each would look out of his window towards his 256 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. neighbor’s window. Day after day each looked anx- iously for the other. When all danger had passed, they met, and shaking hands, agreed to commemorate their solemn “good mornings”’ by erecting, each in his window, a portrait stone head. The two old men have long since passed away, but the Stone Heads remain to tell the story of the plague in Rotterdam. In the great Market Place stands the Bronze Statue of Erasmus, by Keiser. The great scholar, head of the literary world in his day, was born in Rotterdam. The house is marked witha portrait bust and a memorial tablet, which reads: “This is the little house where the great Erasmus was born.” The history of Erasmus is too well known to need more than a passing mention. His Latin version of the New Testa- ment prepared Europe for the Reformation; his Phil- lipics against the monks and priests of the Church of Rome, and his debates with Luther, contributed to the great monument of Religious Liberty. Too broad- minded to take either side in the great religious struggle, he abandoned the field and went to Switzerland. Later, he visited England, and was Professor of Greek at Cam- bridge. He died July 12,1536, and was buried at Basel, Switzerland, aged sixty-nine years. One other house in Rotterdam is of interest to Amer- icans—the house where the mother of William Penn was born. His father was Admiral Sir William Penn, from whom he inherited a grant of land in America, in lieu of acrown debt. But his religious ideas were early instilled by his Dutch mother. William Penn, the Quaker, the founder and first legislator of the State of Pennsylvania, was born in London October 14, 1644. Died at Ue eds combe, in Berkshire, July 30, 1718. Rotterdam claims antiquity from 808. It was wt and became a city in 1270. It is situated on the left CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 257 branch of the river Maas, through which the Rhine is entered. The river is from thirty to forty feet deep at Rotterdam, so that along its river-front for a mile and a half the largest vessels can be moved. The magnificent quays are planted with stately linden trees. Arms of the Meuse and canals intersect the town in all directions, and on the banks women are busily washing great quan- tities of fresh linen, the making of which is one of the great industries of the town. Rotterdam is eminently a place in which to study Dutch life. One finds himself at once in a world of novelty, surrounded by water, dykes and windmills, old-fashioned houses, quaint people in curious costumes, and Dutch window-mirrors by which the inmates of a house, with- out being seen, can see all that passes on the street. These mirrors are common to all Dutch and Flemish towns. Rotterdam, even to those familiar with Holland, is marvelously picturesque, and steamers and merchant ships leave its quays daily for all parts of the world. There is a popular saying that “the Dutch make their money in Rotterdam, invest it in Amsterdam, and spend itin The Hague.” Which means that Rotterdam, the second largest city in Holland, is the great business center; Amsterdam the great financial center; The Hague is its royal capital and the center of Dutch aristocracy. 154. THE PYTHAGOREANS. Pythagoras, born in Crotona about 580 B.C., is one of the great ‘“ Beacon Lights” of Ancient History ; a man raised up to illumine the onward march of that great Mythus, ‘“world-progress.” His name is _sur- rounded with the nimbus of a prophet, or wonder- worker; and, according to Zeller, “it grows brighter 17 258 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. and brighter the farther it is removed by time from the beholder.” Tradition and history agree that “of all men, Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, was the most assiduous inquirer.’ At Crotona, Pythagoras became the center of a widespread and influential organization, or brotherhood, for the moral reform of society. Many of the tenets, or symbols, of this Pythagorean brother- hood were only applicable to the age. But some of them, “like truth eternal,’”’ may still be applied as rules for right living, though nearly two thousand five hundred years have passed into history since they were formulated by the great Greek philosopher. From fifty-two, a few will suffice for example: 1. When going to the Temple to adore Divinity, neither say nor do anything in the interim pertaining to the common affairs of life. | 2. Govern your tongue before all other things. (“He that ruleth his tongue is greater than he who taketh a city.”’) 3. Step not beyond the beam of the balance. (Avoid extremes. ) 7 4. Having departed from your house for a purpose, turn not back or the Furies will be your attendants. (A superstition 2500 years old.) 5. Offer not your right hand easily to everyone. (Be guarded in your friendships.) 6. Remember that the paths of virtue and vice re- semble the letter Y. (They separate beyond a given point.) 7, Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. (Quoted by St. Paul.) In Alexandria and elsewhere, schools of men arose calling themselves Pythagoreans, but modern critics dis- tinguish them rather as Neo-Pythagoreans, since their ir “OSzaird ‘20UdIO[ J—ovleq NU CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 259 philosophical doctrines more closely followed Plato, Aris- totle, and the Stoics. The entanglement of the Pytha- goreans with politics was in the end fatal to the organi- zation. The league continued powerful in Magna Grecia until the middle of the fifth century, when it was violently stamped out by successful democrats. The meeting- houses of the Pythagoreans were everywhere sacked and burned ; particular mention is made of “the house of Milo”’ in Crotona, where fifty or sixty of the leading Pythagoreans were surprised and slain. Asa school of philosophy, Pythagoreanism became extinct in Greece about the middle of the fourth century, B. C. 155. ‘OF ALL THE FAIREST CITIES OF THE EARTH, NONE IS SO FAIR AS FLORENCE.’’—Rocers. Florence was a flourishing city during the life of Christ. Tradition assigns the founding of the city to the Roman Dictator Sulla about 80 B.C. Under the Ro- mans the city was known as Florentia. During the Gothic invasion, in the fifth century, Florentia was cap- tured and destroyed by Totila, the Goth. Near the close of the eighth century, the city was rebuilt by Char- -lemagne. The new city grew rapidly in wealth and im- portance. In the tenth century it became a free city, and in the thirteenth century it was the richest city in Europe. The great charm about Florence is that it has never been taken by assault, nor destroyed, nor changed by a devastating fire. The palaces, the churches, and many of the homes, of which historians tell us, still stand erect. One can walk across the same thresholds, look out from the same windows as did Dante, Giotto, Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico, Michael Angelo, Leonardo 260 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. da Vinci, the princely Medici and the Martyr Savona- rola. Florence is to-day the symbol of Roman Italy. Grimm says: “Florence is like a flower, which when fully blown, instead of withering on its stalk, turned, as it were, into stone.”’ The most brilliant period in Florentine history was that from 1215 to 1530. Inthe year 1215 the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Florence began to make war upon one another; in the year 1321 Dante died in exile. The century between these dates furnishes much of the contents of his “‘Inferno.”” The contests of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, continued later under the terms ‘‘ Whites and Blacks,’’ involved all the citizens of Florence; it began with a strife between two families, brought about by a woman. The principal noble families of Florence were the Buondelmonte and the Donati, the Amadei and the Uberti. A widow of the house of Donati, desiring as her son-in-law the head of the noble family of Buondel- monte, persuaded him to marry her daughter, although he was at the time engaged to one of the Amadei. When the marriage became known, the Amadei and their relatives, the Uberti, fell upon young Buondelmonte, as he was crossing the Ponte Vecchio, and slew him at the foot of the statue of Mars.. This murder threw the whole city into confusion, one-half siding with the Buon- delmonte, the other half with the Uberti. These nobles were divided also in politics. The Buondelmonte were of German origin, and the Ghibel- lines supported the Emperor; the Uberti were Guelphs and warmly favored the Pope. The city of Florence belonged, by heritage, to the Countess Matilda, who, though of German origin, be- queathed all her possessions to the Church. The Pope, CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 261 therefore, claimed Florence by right of bequest. The Emperor opposed his claim on the plea that the Coun- tess held her land by fief and could not will it away. Registers of the families, as they stood on this side or that, are still preserved. Their palaces were little castles constructed for defence; and the almost incessant strife between hostile nobles, which lasted for centuries, was only ended by the annihilation of the contestants. This period now reads like an epic poem in stone, as one walks through beautiful Florence. For, in the midst of these turbulences, Florence grew and advanced in the arts and the sciences to such a degree, and produced such eminent men in all departments, that no other city in Italy rivaled it. From 1434, the history of Florence is closely bound up with the princely Medici family (q.v.). Their un- bounded wealth was the secret of their power, and his- tory has taken care that the Medici shall be honored as the protectors of art and science; this one fact makes the world their debtor. In 1860, Florence, with Tuscany, was incorporated with the Kingdom of Italy and was the capital until 1871, when the honor was conferred upon Rome. 156. THE CALYDONIAN HUNT. The statue of Meleager, the hero of the Calydonian Boar Hunt, is one of the gems of the Vatican. It was found outside of the Porta Portese, near the Tiber, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Works of ancient sculpture have suffered from restoration, but this statue would have gained had the missing hand been replaced. It evidently held the spear upon which the hero is repre- sented as leaning, and which would have restored the 262 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. proper balance of the figure. The name of the sculptor is unknown, but the boar’s head and the dog leave no question as to the subject. Meleager was prince of Calydon, a city of A‘tolia, over which his father, A¢neus, ruled as king. To punish A‘neus for having neglected to sacrifice at her altar, Artemis (Diana) sent a wild boar into Caly- donia to devastate the land and to destroy the inhabitants. The prince Meleager, who had taken part in the Argo- nautic expedition, sent messengers to invite the bravest heroes of Calydonia to join him in a hunt for the wild boar. They quickly assembled, and after enjoying for nine days the hospitality of Meleager, prepared on the tenth for the chase, which, with few accidents, resulted in the killing of the boar by Meleager. The trophy, the monster’s head and skin, was awarded to the hero. In art, Meleager is represented as standing by an altar with the boar’s head upon it, with two spears in his hand, and his dog looking up at him. In the Vatican statue, the right hand and the spears are missing. The beautiful Atalanta of Arcadia, who had also joined in the hunt, had been the first to wound the Boar, so Meleager presented the skin to her. This en- raged the other heroes so much that, on her way home to Arcadia, she was met and forcibly robbed of it by the two brothers of the mother of Meleager. A quarrel arose in which the hero killed his uncles. Althea, his mother, in a moment of resentment, then threw into the fire ‘“‘the fatal’’ brand which, the Fates had foretold at his birth, when consumed, would cause his death. Her brave son, Meleager, was seized with pain and died. His mother, overcome with remorse, then killed herself. Homer does not mention the firebrand, hence some place this fable posterior to the death of the poet; but CURIOUS QUESTIONS: 263 he does say that the death of her brothers, Toxeus and Plexippus, so irritated Althea that she uttered such curses and imprecations upon her son that he died. 157, SOCIAL CLASS IN GERMANY. To understand the physical geography of Germany, one must bear in mind its four-fold division. The North- ern Plains ; the Mid-Mountain Region ; the Glacis of the Alps; the Alps. And just as clearly must one compre- hend the four great divisions of the social stratification of Germany. The Bauer ; the Burger ; the Adel; the Pro- letariat. The Bauerstand is like the great level plain; the Burgerthum like the Mid-German hill region; the Adelstand tower aloft like the Alps, with the Proletariat lying at their feet. An old print in a German inn illustrates the position of the Bauerstand. The Emperor stands on a throne, and out of his mouth comes the motto: “I live on the taxes.” On the next lower step stands the noble, his motto: “T pay no taxes.” Next comes the soldier, saying, ‘I pay for nothing.” The pastor says, with pride: “I live upon the tithes.” Then comes the beggar, who whines: “I live upon what I can get.”’ Beneath the whole crew stands the patient Bauer, with bent back, exclaiming: ‘‘ Dear God, help me, for I have to maintain them all!’ The Bauer, or peasant class, of Germany corresponds to the Yeomanry of England during the Middle Ages. In early times all of the German land belonged to the German Emperor ; he granted it out in sections, to the German nobles, who in turn let it out in sections to the 204 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. peasantry. The nobles gave military service ; the peasants gave corn, or its equivalent per acre. The Bauer built his house and lived upon his land and tilled it from generation to generation. It was as much his as his master’s, since they each gave an equivalent to the Emperor ; thus the Bauer could not be dispossessed so long as he fulfilled his contract. After the great Euro- pean wars the landed gentry were without money; the Bauers bought out the claims of the Nobles, whose claims were released by the State, and so it came about centu- ries ago, as it is to-day, that a large proportion of Ger- man land belongs to the Bauerstand or German peas- antry. In England, the Yeomanry, by land purchase, became in time the gentry, and in a few generations were granted a Coat of Arms, which marked them ‘ Gentlemen.” But it was never so with the German Bauer; he never dreamed of becoming a gentleman. The Bauer is proud of his position. The Noble has ceased to be an import- ant factor; the Burger has had to change his trade, or methods, and is to the Bauer little else than a money- worshipper. The Bauer has remained a Bauer, digging and sowing and reaping in che land as his forefathers did a thousand years ago. The Germany of the past lives on in the present Bauerstand ; the very features of the Bauer bear a generic type to faces sculptured in past ages in churches and town halls. Schools and enforced military service break up the routine of Bauer life for a time, among the young people ; but the restraint once removed, the Bauer goes back with pride to the simplicity of his thatched cottage-life. The Bauer is without ambition beyond his farm ; with- out envy of any class above him; women and men are CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 265 upon a.perfect equality as regards work; cows and donkeys and dogs and sheep and chickens are treated as children, and often housed under the same roof with them, for they all contribute to the produce of the farm. Baring Gould says: ‘The Bauerstand is the arm- muscle of Germany, the good heart of the country, but it is not in any sense its brains.” It is not easy to outline the German Burgerstand, the class next above the Bauer in the German Social Struc- ture. It represents the great Middle Class, the bone and sinew of every country, the active, progressive element in the history of civilization. In the Middle Ages, for protection, the tradespeople built close under the castle walls. These towns which arose were called Bourghs, or Boroughs. The people who lived in the Boroughs had certain privileges, and were hence called Burgers. Thus almost from the beginning the three classes ex- isted ; the country Bauer, the town Burger, and the Nobles living in Castle Halls. The Burgerstand, or tradespeople, form a distinct class between the Bauer and the Nobility, partaking of the stationary element ofthe one and the retarding ele- ment of the other; thus in the truest sense of the word it is the “ Middle Class.” The thirty years’ war in Ger- many (1618-1648) was more than a mere rupture with the Past ; it widened the spaces already existing between the classes. It did away with the landed gentry, a source of communication between the Burger and the Nobles. The Burger became isolated; he had nothing in common with the Bauer, and was no longer brought into contact with the Court. This had a hardening in- fluence and the breach widened ; each class in time was divided into higher and lower. Frederick List says: ‘‘ The power of gaining wealth is 266 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. greater than the power of wealth.” This is the recogni- tion of the fact that makes the Middle Class of all nations the chief power in the modern world ; the chief source of all activity and of all progress, both intellectual and material. Between the Burger and the Noble there is an Inter- mediate Class peculiar to Germany. It is not confined to Burgher wealth, nor can an Emperor, Prince or Noble at will belong to it, yet the humblest Bauer and the greatest Noble may become an honored member. It forms, in fact, a German Republic within the German Empire. This Republic of Science and Letters is being more and more recognized. A French writer on Germany says: “It must be frankly admitted, that among no people in the world is the universality of knowledge cultivated as in Germany. The course of instruction in German Universities extends to the limit of human knowledge.” There are twenty-two Universities in Germany, training, in all, twenty-eight thousand students. Germany is thus rearing a race of thinking men, and her victory over France in 1870-71 was due, it is said, to the intelligence of her well-drilled soldiers. There are no separate colleges, as in the English Universities; the students board in the town, and only meet in the Univer- sity Halls. They are free to do as they choose ; may or may not attend the lectures ; no compulsion is used, and they may go from one University to another as often as they will. At the end of three years, however, a candi- date for any profession or branch of science must pass an official examination, not on the text-books he has studied, but upon the general principles involved. Graduates of a German University then receive authority from the Emperor, as Literaturists or Scientists, to take their CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 267 place in the Republic of Letters, largely a class unto themselves. The German word for Aristocracy is ‘‘ Adel,” and it means both “nobility ’’ and “gentry.” There are two kinds of Adelige, the Upper Nobility and the Lower. The Upper Class consists of the reigning princes and their families and those princes who were once ‘‘immedi- ate,” or sovereign. They have the right of marrying only with reigning families or with one another. The Lower nobility consists of those who are descended from the old free imperial knights. They have the right to be called Freiherren ; also those who have been raised to the peerage as Baron or Count. The Proletariat Class are the daily wage-workers ; those who have no property and no steady employment. S. Baring Gould says: “Socialism in all countries originates with the Proletariat Classes. In Germany, Pro- letarianism is a protest against the principle of Roman law,-introduced into Germany at the Reformation. Be- fore that there was no such thing as personal property, except that actually acquired by labor. The land be- longed to the Emperor as the representative of the nation. Trade and manufactures were restricted ; com- petition was forbidden ; the laws of trades-unions were the laws of the German towns. “ The introduction of Roman law upset all this ; it gave to man absolute freedom, allowed him to acquire personal property, and to compete with his neighbor. The Ger- man Proletariat desires to return to the methods of Medizvalism. They wish to do away with personal property, and to make all property, all commerce, all trades to be held in trust by the Government for the commonwealth. They would substitute Socialism again for Individualism. Yet the German Proletariat is no 268 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Nihilist. He does not desire to destroy the Government and society, but to make the Government more absolute than it is at present. “The theory of the German Proletariat was tried in the Middle Ages, and it broke down utterly before the prin- ciple of Individualism, which is the principle of the Ref- ormation and Modern Life.” 158. ARABIAN NIGHTS. “ The Arabian Nights Entertainment,” also called “The Thousand and One Nights,” or, more exactly, “The Thou- sand Nights and a Night,” has come to be considered one of the chief products of Arabian Literature. It belongs to the period of the Sultans of Bagdad, but yet it has undergone many alterations, and in its present form shows traces of transfer to Egyptian soil. The date of the accepted version is not earlier than 1450 A. D. The story recites that a Persian King married a new bride every day, putting yesterday’s bride to death. Meanwhile the kingdom was full of anguish, for no mother knew when her daughter would be chosen and no maiden was safe from the fatal summons to wed and to die. Sche-her-e-zade, the daughter of the vizier, implored her parents to allow her to put a stop to this dreadful barbarity by a stratagem. She was to offer to marry the King, and, as she was very beautiful, there was no doubt of his complying; then she proposed to carry out a plan which would save herself and her com- panions. After many futile expostulations the parents consented and bade their daughter, as they supposed, an everlasting farewell. Her plan was soon revealed; she began telling marvelous and interminable stories that could not be completed in one night, and the Kingly CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 269 curiosity was at fever-point ; the loving wife in a thousand and one nights so gaining her husband’s admiration and affection that he could not part with her. To some un- known romancer who invented this legend of a kind and wise maiden we owe the enchantments of our childhood ; the Tale of the Forty Thieves, Aladdin’s Lamp, Sinbad the Sailor, The Tent of Peri Banon, and others. ‘The Arabian Nights Entertainment” is valuable to older minds as showing the thoughts, habits, customs, some- thing of the history and all the minutie of daily life among the Persians and Arabs of several centuries. But religious and refined Mohammedans, having exact views of the duty and mission of authors, refuse to accept this entertaining work as true literature. It was left to the uneducated and the professional story-teller, and, thus passing from mouth to mouth, the text has varied. It was first introduced into Europe through a translation from the Arabic into French by Antoine Galland in 1704-08. The MS. used by him was dated 1548, and there has been found no older source. Sir Richard Burton’s translation is valuable for his learned notes on the text. ; Lady Burton issued an expurgated edition of her hus- band’s work prepared by J. H. McCarthy for household reading. Among the best translations of the Arabian Nights from the original is that of the celebrated Oriental scholar, Edward Lane. The origin and authors of the Tales are still unknown. Some authorities divide the stories into three portions, traceable respectively to a Persian, an Indian and an Arabian origin. The fact that Haroun-al-Raschid figures in several of the stories goes to prove that they, at least, must have been written after his death ; while the omis- sion of any mention of coffee and tobacco (except a few interpolations) shows that the work must have been com- 270 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. posed before the introduction of those products into Western Asia, or in the latter half of the fifteenth cen- tury. “Many of the Tales,’”’ says Mr. Lane, in his Preface to this remarkable work, “are doubtless of different and early origins, and its general plan is probably borrowed from a much older production bearing the same title.” Mr. Lane gives it as his opinion that some of the authors must have been Egyptian, because the description of Arab life as it is seen in Cairo is minutely accurate in all respects. It is equally certain that all of the Tales did not originate in the land ofthe Nile. The figure of Haroun-al-Raschid and the doings of the City of Peace (Bagdad) lead us to the Eastern Capital of the Moham- medan Empire. But apart from critical and historical data, “The Arabian Nights Entertainment,” so called from the number of nights occupied in their recital, opened to Europe a wealth of anecdote, a fertility of daring fancy, which has not ceased to amuse and to interest. 159. THE ORDER OF THE BLACK EAGLE. The Royal Order of the Black Eagle was instituted by the first King of Prussia, Frederick I. (1688-1713). He succeeded his father as Elector of Brandenburg in 1688 ; received the title of King of Prussia in 1701 at the close of the war of the Spanish Succession. The Black Eagle of the Royal Order holds in one paw a laurel crown, in the other a thunderbolt, and above the head is the motto “Suum cuigue”’ (his own to each one). The crown denotes justice in reward ; the thunderbolt justice in punishment; the motto the im- partiality with which each will be awarded his deserts. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 271 The Eagle is always symbolic ; it soars from earth towards heaven, and signifies, ““I know no limitations.” The “Black Eagle’’ is the highest German decoration. 160. AN AMERICAN LORD CHANCELLOR. The House of Lords is presided over by the Lord Chancellor of England, the highest legal authority in the realm and the Keeper of the Great Seal of the Nation. He sits in his gown, a white wig upon his head, upon a woolsack. (For ancient parliamentary customs see “Curious Questions,” vol.I., page 7.) The House of Lords is made up of the peers of the realm. The Archbishop of Canterbury takes precedence next after the Sovereign. The Lord Chancellor is always raised to the peerage when appointed to the woolsack. He is a member of the Privy Council and of the Cabinet and takes prece- dence next after the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the Primate of all England. It is interesting to know that an American was four times Lord Chancellor of England. John Singleton Copley was born in Boston, May 21st,1772. His father was John Singleton Copley, the celebrated artist. He went to England with his father, studied law, and was admitted to the Bar in 1804. He rose rapidly, and was appointed “Counsel for the Crown” by George IV., was knighted in 1819, and ap- pointed Attorney General. In 1827 he was nominated Chancellor and raised to the peerage as Lord Lyndhurst, serving under four Prime Ministers as ‘“‘ Keeper of the Great Seal.” His first term of office was under George IV.; the second under William IV., from his accession until November, 1830; the third under William IV., again, during the one hundred days from November, 1834, to April, 1835; fourth and lastly under Queen may? - CURIOUS QUESTIONS. — Victoria from 1839-1844. He resigned from public life July 6th, 1846, and died October 13, 1863, aged ninety- one years. 161. DESTRUCTION OF U. S. BATTLESHIP MAINE. The United States Battleship Maine arrived at the port of Havana, Cuba, January 25th, 1898. She was re- ceived with the usual international courtesies, and during three weeks remained quietly at anchor in the harbor. No appreciable excitement attended her stay, and officers and crew were treated with courtesy by the Cuban goy- ernment and people. At forty minutes past nine in the evening of the 15th of February the Maine was destroyed by an explosion by which the entire forward part of the ship was utterly wrecked. In this catastrophe two officers and two hundred and sixty-four of her crew perished. Prompt assistance was rendered by the neighboring vessels an- chored in the harbor, aid being especially given by the boats of the Spanish cruiser Alfonso XII. and the Ward Line Steamer City of Washington, which lay not far distant. The wounded were generously cared for by the authorities of Havana, the hospitals being freely opened to them, while the earliest recovered bodies of the dead were interred by the municipality in a public cemetery in the city. Tributes of grief and sympathy were offered from all official quarters of the island. The appalling calamity fell upon the people of this country with crushing force, and for a brief time intense excitement prevailed, which might have led to hasty acts of blind resentment. This spirit, however, soon gave way to the resolve to investigate the facts before forming a judgment as to the cause, the responsibility, and the CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 273 remedy due. According to the usual procedure in all cases of casualty or disaster, a naval court of inquiry was organized of which Captain (now Rear Admiral) W. T. Sampson was President. With the aid of a strong force of wreckers and divers the court proceeded to make a thorough investigation on the spot. Its operations were conducted with the utmost deliberation, and, while in- dependently pursued, no attainable source of information was neglected, and the fullest opportunity was allowed for a simultaneous investigation by the Spanish authori- ties. The finding of the court of inquiry was reached, afrer twenty-three days of continuous labor, on the 21st of March. Its purport is, in brief, as follows: When the Maine arrived at Havana she was conducted by the regular Government pilot to buoy No. 4, to which she was moored in from five and a half to six fathoms of water. The state of discipline on board, and the condition of her magazines, boilers, coal-bunkers and storage-com- partments were reviewed, with the conclusion that excel- lent order prevailed, and that no indication existed in any quarter of any cause for an internal explosion. At 8 o'clock in the evening of February 15th everything had been reported secure and all was quiet. At forty minutes past 9 o’clock the vessel was suddenly destroyed. There were two distinct explosions, with a brief interval between them. | The first lifted the forward part of the ship very per- ceptibly ; the second, which was more open, prolonged, and of greater volume, is attributed by the court to the partial explosion of two or more of the forward maga- zines. At frame 17, the outer shell of the ship from a point eleven and a half feet from the middle line of the ship, and six feet above the keel when in its normal posi- tion had been forced up so as to be about four feet above - 18 274 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the surface of the water, therefore about thirty-four feet above where it would be had the ship sunk uninjured. The outside bottom plating was bent into a V shape reversed (,), the after-wing of which, about fifteen feet broad and thirty-two feet in length (from frame 17 to frame 25), was doubled back upon itself against the con- tinuation of the same plating, extending forward. At frame 18 the vertical keel was broken in two, and the flat keel bent into an angle similar to the angle formed by the outside bottom plating. This break is now about six feet below the surface of the water and about thirty feet above its normal position. In the opinion of the court this effect could have been produced only by the explosion of a mine situated under the bottom of the ship at about frame 18, and somewhat on the port side of the ship. The conclusions of the court are: That the loss of the Maine was not in any respect due to fault or negligence on the part of any of the officers or members of her crew. That the ship was destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which caused the partial explosion of two or more of her forward magazines ; and that no evi- dence has been attainable fixing the responsibility for the destruction of the Maine upon any person or persons. SPANISH COURT OF INQUIRY. While the United States court of inquiry was carried on, the Spaniards also organized a court of inquiry as to the cause of the destruction of the Maine, presided over by Captain Don Pedro del Peral y Caballero. This court held sessions from the time of the catas- trophe till March 22d, 1898, and examined many wit- nesses carefully andat length. These witnesses were all CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 275 persons who had seen the explosion at a greater or less distance, or had made some examination of the wreck. No one on the vessel at the time of the disaster was called before the court, nor does it appear that the in- spection of the wreck by divers or others was very thorough. The important parts of the finding of the Spanish Court are as follows: forst—Vhat on the night of February 15th an explo- sion of the first order, in the forward magazine of the American iron-clad Maine, caused the destruction of that part of the ship and its total submersion in the same place in this bay at which it was anchored. Second.—That it is learned, from the diagrams of the vessel, that there were no other explosive substances or articles in that magazine, the only one which exploded, than powder and shells of various calibers. Third.—That the same diagrams prove that said magazine was surrounded on the port side, the starboard side, and partly aft, by coal bunkers, containing bitu- minous coal, and which were in compartments adjoining said magazine, and apparently separated from it only by metal bulkheads. Fourth.—TVhat the important facts connected with the explosion, in its external appearances, at every moment of its duration, having been described by witnesses, _and the absence of all circumstances which necessarily ac- company the explosion of a torpedo having been proved by these witnesses and experts, it can only be honestly asserted that the catastrophe was due to internal causes. Fifth.—That the character of the proceedings under- taken, and respect for the law which establishes the principle of absolute extra-territoriality of a foreign war- vessel, have prevented the determination, even by con- jecture, of the said internal origin of the disaster; to 276 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. which, also, the impossibility of establishing the neces- sary communication, either with the crew of the wrecked vessel or with the officials of their Government commis- sioned to investigate the causes of the said event, or with those subsequently entrusted with the issue, has con- tributed. It was testified before the Spanish court by experts that, on the explosion of a submarine torpedo or mine, there would be great disturbance of the water, the shock would be felt by vessels near, and that the fish in the neighborhood would be killed. Officers on the Alfonso XII., which lay near the Maine,. said there was no distur- bance of the water and no shock to their vessel. Several witnesses who visited the spot soon after the explosion testified that, although the harbor abounded in small fish, they saw no dead ones. The statements above made are taken from official re- ports to the United States Senate. 162, ‘*POPOL VUH.’”’ (THE PEOPLE’S BOOK.) The “ Popol Vuh,” or the sacred book of the people of Gautemala, of which the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, an eminent decipherer of Mexican antiquities, has recently published the original text, together with a French trans- lation, holds a prominent rank among works composed by American Indians in their own dialects, and written down by them with the letters of the Roman alphabet. ‘‘There are but two works,” says Max Muller, “that can be compared to it in their importance to the student of American antiquities and American languages. These are ‘Chimalpopoca,’ in Nahuatl, the written language of the ancient Mexicans, and the ‘ Codex Cakchiquel,’ in the dialect of Guatemala. These, with the ‘ Popol Vuh,’ form CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 277 the starting-point of all critical inquiry into the antiquities of the ancient American peoples. The Manuscript was first discovered by Gonzalvo Ximenes towards the end of the seventeenth century in an old temple, and was translated by him into Spanish.” The Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg copied that transla- tion in 1855. But not satisfied with a mere reprint of the text or with Ximenes’ Spanish translation of a book three centuries old, which was founded on oral traditions and the pictorial documents of the ancient inhabitants of America, and written in dialects spoken at the time of Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro, Abbé Brasseur traveled in Central and South America and acquired a practical knowledge of several of the native dialects, particularly the Quiché, which is still spoken in various dialects by about six hundred thousand people. He was able to consult them as so many living dictionaries—thus, with the help of the manuscript of Ximenes and his own acquired experience, Bourbourg made his French translation from the ancient chronicles of the Quiché. The author of the “‘ Popol Vuh”’ says, in the beginning, that he wrote his book “after the word of God had been preached, and in the midst of Christianity ; and that he did so be- cause the people could no longer see the written word.” Almost all of the books of the Mexicans were burned by Cortez. The author ofthe “ Popol Vuh” wished to pre- serve the stories he had heard, from his childhood, of his gods and of his ancestors. To extract anything like con- secutive history from it is impossible, but there is, in these stories of the ancient races of Central America and Mexico, material for studying the character, religion and mythology of the people, and for comparing their prin- ciples of morality, their views of virtue, beauty and hero- ism with the more Northern races. The lasting charm 278 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. of such a work, presented for the first time in a trust- worthy translation by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, cannot but be of invaluable service to all who are in- terested in the history and philology of ancient America. The story of the Creation of man from the “ Popol Vuh” isinteresting. ‘ Before the beginning of dawn, and before the sun and moon had risen, man had been made, and nourishment provided for him which was to supply his blood, namely, yellow and white maize.” Four men are mentioned as the real ancestors of the human race, or rather the race of Quichés. ‘They were neither be- gotten by the gods nor born of women, but their crea- tion was a wonder wrought by the Creator. They could reason and speak; their sight was unlimited, and they knew all things at once. When they rendered thanks to their Creator for their existence, the gods were frightened at their perfection and breathed a cloud over the eyes of men ‘that they might see only a certain distance, and not be like unto the gods themselves. Then, while the four men slept, the gods gave them beautiful wives, and these became the mothers of all the tribes, great and small.” Then follows the story of the heroes. The rest of the work gives an account of the migra- tions of the tribes and their various settlements. The four ancestors of the race seem to have had a long life, and when at last they came to die they disappeared in a mysterious manner, and left to their sons what is called the Hidden Majesty, which was never to be opened by human hands. ‘What it is no man knoweth unto this day.” But there are those who say it may have contained some knowledge of the coming Christ. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 279 163. ORIGIN OF ‘“‘UNCLE SAM.” The favorite pseudonym for the American Govern- ment is ‘Uncle Sam.”’ Itarose during the war of 1812 when Samuel Wilson was inspector of provisions for the American Army at Troy. The abbreviation of “U.S.” (United States) marked on the casks was unfamiliar to the people, and one of the workmen, in sport, said it must mean “Uncle Sam” Wilson, The good inspector was often rallied on the rapid increase of his possessions ; and when his men entered the army the joke about ‘“ Uncle Sam’”’ was spread from camp-fire to camp-fire until it permeated all the armies in the field. All Government supplies marked U. S. came to stand for ‘Uncle Sam,” until finally Uncle Sam came to stand for the United States Government. ——_____~+ <0 2 >—_____—_ 164. AMERICAN ABORIGINIES. “ Ah who can see the green earth any more As she lay by the sources of Time; Who imagines her fields as she lay In the sunshine unworn by the plough. Who thinks as they thought, The tribes who then roamed on her breast, Her vigorous, primitive sons.” —‘ The Future.” —MATTHEW ARNOLD. Back of the Columbian Era of fourteen years (1492- 1506) lies primitive America. America ‘“‘as she lay by the sources of Time ;’’ mysterious, unknown, primeval America, with “her vigorous, primitive sons.” There is something fascinating in the study of pre-Columbian America. The American Continents, North and South, are so vast, their ancient people so incomprehensible as to their origin and history, that they will furnish a rich 280 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. field for Archzological and Ethnological research for many a century yet to come. Ever since 1492 there has been an unsolved question of international interest. Who are the American Indians? Whence came the inhabitants of the new-found world? The inquiry has furnished the subject of many a ponder- ous folio, with answers as varied as the questioners. But have we ever heard the question asked, ‘‘ Whence came the African negroes?’ The reply is anticipated, “from Africa!’ They constitute the African, or negro, sub- species of man. Yet, when the question is asked, “Who are the Red-men of America?” our wise men shake their heads and reply, ‘‘ We are divided!” Why do they not answer, “From America!’ For the mis- named Red-men of our Western Continent constitute just as distinct a sub-species of the human race as do the Africans or the Caucasians. There are those who say that the great five Continental areas have each moulded the prehistoric man into a type of body and mind peculiar to itself, hence the five races of men. A theory has been advanced, also, that these Five Races represent five simultaneous creations. We read in Genesis, Chapter Ist, 27th verse, ‘‘So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him ; ale and female created he them.’ ‘The plural form is used in the first chapter, and the singular form in the second chapter of Genesis. From the second chapter of Genesis on, the Old Testament is the continued history of one pair ; the Adam and Eve, the man and the woman, from whom, by direct descent, the Christ came. Sacred history introduces other peoples and races of men; but the Adamic creation of man, from Genesis to Revela- tion, is sufficient, as a type, for the purpose of God in the creation of man. The theory of the simultaneous CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 281 creation of the five races in no way conflicts with the Sacred Scriptures. These five races, so the advocates of this theory affirm, have peopled the whole earth, each pair having been adapted to the ‘‘ Garden” in which they were placed. And still further, they argue, no new race has been found to exist. Men ofall climes and countries are either of the Caucasian, or white race; Malay, or brown; Ethiopian, or black; Mongolian, or yellow; American, or red. The scientists, who accept the theory, therefore dismiss as trivial all attempts to con- nect the Aborigines of America, whom we mis-call Indians, with any other race genealogically; nor do they attempt to trace the culture found on the American Continents to the forms of the Old World. The great search of these scientists is now only to obtain a clue as to the axtzguity of the Red-race. Phi- lology is the strongest test now used in the classification of the races. It is upon Philology that American Eth- nology is based. Eighty distinct languages are trace- able in North America, and one hundred in South America. These have separated into so many dialects, as spoken by different tribes, that the Indian, or native American languages, number several hundred. Dr. Daniel G. Brinton in his essay on ‘“ Native Dialects” says: “The exceeding diversity of languages in America, and the many dialects into which they have split, are cogent proofs of the vast antiquity of the red race, stretching back tens of thousands of years. Nothing else can explain these multitudinous forms of speech. But, underlying all these varied forms of expression, there are found some roots common to all, and never quite absent from any of them, that are totally unlike any other than American languages.’’ This, then, is strong proof that red-men are indigenous to America, and all 282 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. effort to find a foreign origin for them has thus far failed. But opposed to this theory of specific diversity is the still more firmly established theory of the unity of the human race, and some of the deepest thinkers of to- day are going back to the opinion of St. Paul and the first chapter of Genesis. The North American Indians have been classified under three great divisions : 1, The Arctic Division. 2. The Atlantic Division. 3. The Pacific Division. Dr. Brinton in his “‘ Races and Peoples” says: “ All the higher civilizations are contained in the Pacific group. The Mexicans belong to it by derivation and original location.”’ The history of America, as we know it, begins with the close of the fifteenth century. But while this is true ina general sense, yet, strictly speaking, the history of the differerent sections of the Continents, North and South, begin with the first knowledge obtained of them by European nations. Thus the discovery of the “New World”’ was progressive. 165. THE SHAHNAMAH, OR PERSIAN EPIC. The Homer of Persia was Abul Casim Mansur, better known by his zom de plume, Firdousi. He was a Per- sian poet of marked ability, but his universal fame rests upon his magnificent epic poem the Shahnamah, “‘ Book of Kings.’ He was born at Shadab, a suburb of Tis, about 941 A.D. His father, Maulana Ahmed, belonged to the class of Dzhkans, or native landed pro- prietors of Persia, who preserved their influence and standing even under Arab rule. He possessed an estate in CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 283 the neighborhood of Tis, and was able to give such a liberal education to his son, both in the modern and ancient languages of Persia, as fitted him for the gigantic task which he subsequently undertook. The antiquity of the empire of Persia, the vicissitudes through which it passed, the magnificent monuments erected by its ancient sovereigns, could not fail to impress so imaginative a people as the modern Persians. Little is known of the early life of Firdousi, but between the age of thirty and forty years he went to Ghaznin, where the Shah Mahmud, a great patron of Letters and Art, resided. He soon had an opportunity to prove his knowledge of ancient Persian history and legendary lore before the Sultan Mahmud, who, hearing that he was from Tis, asked him to explain the origin of his native town. This he did in such a manner that the Sultan, noting his knowledge of ancient history, at once selected him as court-poet. After further exhibitions of the talent of Firdousi, the Shah ordered him to write, in verse, a history of Persia from the Creation to the end of the Sassanian dynasty, and to include all the popular tales and legends relating to the ancient Kings. Such a work had long been con- templated, and had even been begun by the poet Dakiki, but the assassin’s hand brought his labors to a sudden close. Shah Mahmud, with the assistance of neighbor- ing princes and some influential Dihkans, had already collected a vast amount of material for the work, and he was searching for a man of sufficient learning and ability to edit it when Abul Casim Mansur appeared at his court. The Shah bestowed the name “ Firdousi” (Paradise) upon him because, as he explained, his exquisite verse transported his hearers to Paradise. For thirty years Firdousi studied and labored over his Ee aeemnatatnt 284 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. great epic poem. He was forty years old when he undertook the task, and was seventy when an exquisite, complete copy was presented to Shah Mahmud. The Sultan in the beginning had ordered his Treasurer to pay to Firdousi a thousand pieces of gold for every thousand verses ; but the poet preferred to let the amount accumu- late until his work was completed, hoping thereby to be able to carry out a dream of his childhood, to construct a dyke for his native town of Tis. The poem, consisting of sixty thousand rhymed couplets, was entrusted to Ayaz, a favorite of the Sultan, for presentation to him. But Shah Mahmud had mean- while listened to the jealous counsel of his Treasurer, Hasan Meimendi, and ordered sixty thousand pieces of silver to be placed in a sack and loaded on an elephant, to be presented to Firdousi, instead of the sixty thousand gold pieces, as promised. Firdousi was in a public bath when the elephant bearing the treasure arrived at Tis. lager to receive the long-promised reward, he opened the sacks, and finding only silver, was so indignant that he divided it among the servants of the bath. He then wrote his famous satire upon Shah Mahmud, ordering it to be put into the hands of the Sultan, and fled the city. Firdousi lived the life of an exile for ten years ; at the end of that time he returned, a broken-down old man, to his native city to die. The Sultan, having repented of the wrong done Firdousi, sent to him the sixty thousand pieces in gold and a rich robe of honor. But the camels, bearing the bags of gold, entered at one gate of the city as the train of mourning citizens bearing the dead body of the great poet passed out of the other. The Sultan’s present was offered to his daughter, but it was rejected. His aged sister, however, remembering the poet's wish, accepted the gold, and had the dyke con- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 285 structed (a stone embankment along the river of Tus) and a large caravanserai built. These works were ded- icated to the memory of Persia’s great poet, Abul Casim Mansur, the author of her epic, which ranks with the Iliad, the Mahabharata, and the Niebelungen Lied. Truth and fiction, history and fairy-lore, all the gor- geous imagery of the East and its quaintest conceits, to- gether with homely and touching descriptions of human joy and human sorrow, of valor and love, have combined to make the Shahnamah one of the most interesting of epic poems ; while, studied in the light of modern criti- cism, the poem forms a storehouse of native traditions which will prove of great service to future historians and ethnologists. The entire poem has been published, with a French translation, at the expense of the French Government, by the late Jules de Mohl. Madame de Mohl has published a cheaper edition of the French translation of her hus- band with his critical notes (1876-77). This is the pres- ent standard work on the subject, containing a résume, also, of everything that has been written on the Shahna- mah. 166. JAPANESE KERAMIC ART. Legend carries Japanese Keramic Art back to a period before history begins ; but a less hoary antiquity gives us the date of the sixth century B. C. It is said that the Emperor Jimmu, the first Mikado, or god-man, in the sixth century B. C. ordered a certain kind of pottery for religious purposes. We have no information during the next five hundred years of the existence or character of the potters’ art in Japan ; but inthe year 29 B. C. we get the name of a potter who lived in the province of Id- 286 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. sourni, ‘‘a worker in stone and pottery,” Nomino-Sou- koune. It was the custom at that time to bury slaves with their dead masters and mistresses, presumably to wait upon them in the next world. When Nomino- Soukoune heard of the death of the Empress, he quickly made some images of earthen-ware, and taking them to the Emperor, induced him to bury them with the Em- press as substitutes for her favorite attendants. The cruel rite was thereafter abolished, and the potter, as a reward of distinction, was allowed to take for his name “ Haji,” the artist in clay. Two years later, 27 B. C., a Corean prince landed in Japan and settled in the province of Omi; and it is claimed that he and his followers, with Haji, founded a potters’ guild and made porcelain. But this is disputed, as the Chinese claim the invention of making porcelain, and declare that these early Japanese potters made only stone-ware. Without entering into the argument fully, it is easy to decide that Japan was the pupil of China and Corea in Keramic Art. But a study of the subject also shows that even while Japan was in the stage of pupilage her national character asserted itself. The points of difference between the porcelain of China and Japan may be briefly stated. The Japanese, having learned from China and Corea the mechanical art of making porcelain, followed their own innate feeling for nature in their decorations. Per- spective was permissible ; there was greater simplicity in design ; ornamentation was more chaste and less profuse; nature was more closely followed. To ac- count for the greater refinement of Japanese Art, three points are to be noticed: While the Japanese degraded art by degrading the artists, the best and noblest of Japan’s sons were themselves artists. The Chinese CURIOUS QUESTIONS. . 287 lowered Keramic Art still further by making it purely mechanical, dividing the different parts of the ornamenta- tion among several workmen, while the Japanese gave to the individual the power to work to its completion each individual piece. Thus no two pieces were ever alike ; each artist worked from nature, making his own designs. The third advantage was that the profession was hereditary. It is known that in Japan descendants to the eleventh generation have engaged in the same pursuit. Technical knowledge was thus transmitted, and Japan soon surpassed her teachers. The best test as to whether a piece of Keramic ware is Chinese or Japanese is furnished by the symbols which distinguished the two countries. The Imperial dragon of Japan has only three claws ; that of China has five. Thecrane, the turtle, the pine, and the bamboo, emblems of longevity in Japan, do not ap- pear in Chinese decoration. The sacred symbols of Japan—the Mirror, the Sword, and the Jewel—appear only in Japanese ware. The chrysanthemum, the iris and the lotus are their sacred flowers. The gods are different. A brief study of the religions of Japan and China make it almost impossible to mistake any piece on which a sacred subject is painted. Moreover, the single word “ Mikado” in Japanese characters must be attached to every piece of Keramic ware manufactured in Japan. The symbol of the god of happiness is a white stag; the symbol of strength is the pine ; the stork stands for long life ; the tortoise for riches ; the hawk symbolizes courage ; a bear, in the snow, endurance ; a carp swim- ming upwards is the emblem of perseverance. But the most noticeable feature is the greater simplicity. The Japanese are content with a simple but exquisite spray on one side of a cup. The dishes which are spat- 288 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. tered over with gold and covered with designs are manu- factured expressly for the foreign market. Students of art study from the works of the best masters and from nature ; they never think of following the bent of their own untrained imagination. Those who own collections of such works of the past as are of accepted and ac- knowledged worth are always ready to permit artists and students to study and copy from them. 167. THE COMBAT OF THIRTY. The Combat of Thirty decided the one great civil war in Brittany, the War of Succession (1341 to 1364). John III., Duke of Brittany, died leaving no immediate heir. The right to the Dukedom was disputed by his niece, the daughter of his next brother in age, and his younger half-brother. This war, lasting more than twenty years, became at last a contest between Brittany and England. It was agreed finally to submit the result to a combat between thirty Bretons under Charles de Blois, and thirty English under John de Montfort. The Bretons won the victory after most desperate fighting on both sides, and Duke John IV., the brother of the late King, was duly inaugurated in 1364. An obelisk marks the spot, inscribed with the names of the thirty Bretons and the date. The inscription reads, “ Bretons, Imitate your Ancestors.” Between John IV., 1364, and the death of the Duchess Anne, 1514 (its last native ruler), Brittany reached her climax in power and civilization, and has ever since, in the main, remained stationary. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 289 168. INDIANS WHO HAVE HELD OFFICIAL POSITIONS. Perhaps the most conspicuous figure among American Indians who have held official positions was Tecumseh, or Tecumtha. He was born in 1768 and killed at the bat- tle of the Thames (Canada) in 1813. His official position was British ;he wasa Brigadier-General in command of a British-Indian force reaching two thousand in number, and was a full-blooded Shawnee. Another Indian of prominence was the Mohegan, known as Reverend Sampson Occam, who was born in 1723 and died in 1792. While he never held an official position in the strict sense of the term, he was ordaineda minister in 1759, and had extensive charge of Indian missions in colonial times, thus occupying a position measurably corresponding to that of Indian Commis- sioner. He was well educated, author of various writings, and a noted visitor to England. Another Indian of official.status was the Cherokee Chief Stand Watie, who was born in 1815, died in 1877, and who had a slight strain of white blood. He was a colonel, and afterward Brigadier-General in the Confed- erate Army, commanding an Indian brigade of two regi- ments and three batteries. The Cherokees rank the highest of the Indian tribes in the United States. They were originally one of the Five Nations of the Atlantic Coast, and had made con- siderable advancement in civilization. They spoke a language similar to the Iroquois, but were greatly retarded by their transfer, with other Indians of the Five Nations, to a desolate country, new and strange to them, beyond the Mississippi. Yet these people, the Cherokees, have advanced more rapidly than any other tribe in North America. A full-blooded Cherokee by the name of 19 290 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Sequoi, also called George Guess, invented for his people an alphabet, simple but complete, in 1824. With a printed language their literature has had a steady growth peculiarly its own. The education of their people in Englishis also general. Many of them have amassed wealth, and have had their children edu- cated in our best Eastern schools, and their graceful native orators have been heard on the floors of Congress. Newspapers edited by full-blooded Indians are printed in English and Cherokee. Equally prominent was General Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian (though not of pure blood), born in 1828, and educated as a civil engineer. During the Civil War he was General Grant’s secretary and an officer of his staff; he was also Assistant Adjutant- General, and was promoted through various grades to Brigadier-General of the United States Army. He was Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1869-1871. Keokuk was a noted and influential Indian, though he never held official positions in a strict sense. A present attaché of the U. S. Indian office is Francis La Flesche, a three-quarter-blood Omaha; Representa- tive Curtis, of Kansas, is said to be a one-quarter-blood Kaw ; Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, of the Bureau of Ethnology, is about one-eighth Tuscarora; while Dr. Eastman, Agency Physician at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, is a three-quarter-blood Sioux or Dakota. It is the policy of the Indian office at Washington to employ Indians on the Agencies and Reservations as far as possible. In consequence, on every Agency or Reservation there are a number of Indians employed by the Government as teamsters, assistant farmers, black- smiths, and in various similar capacities, and ina few cases there are Indians employed as clerks, or in subor- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 29I dinate positions in the schools. A summary of these would be too extensive for the purpose of “Curious Questions.”’ Mexico furnishes the most conspicuous examples of Indians who have risen to high official position. Presi- dent Hidalgo, for whom one of the leading States of Mexico is named, and who is until now spoken of in that country as the “George Washington” of Mexico, was said to be an Indian of full blood, or nearly so. President Juarez, of Mexico, who is, in popular par- lance, termed the “ Abraham Lincoln ’”’ of Mexico, be- cause of his having accomplished the difficult reform of divorcing Church and State, was generally supposed to be a full-blooded Indian. He is spoken of as such in Mexico. It is probable, however, that there is in him a slight strain of white blood. President Diaz, the present President of Mexico, and one of the most influential figures in the history of the Republic, is commonly supposed to be nearly a full- blood Indian. An examination, however, of the records in his case shows that he is fifteen-thirty-seconds, or only half Indian. He completes his fifth term as President of the Republic of Mexico since 1877, and has been re- nominated as a candidate with a practical certainty of election for a sixth term. He is called “The Maker of Modern Mexico.” 169. THE GERMAN PRE-RAPHAELITES, Italy is the goal to which, sooner or later, poets and artists of all nations wend their way. In 1810 the con- quests of Napoleon I. discouraged a band of German art _ students, and drove them from the Fatherland to seek refuge in Rome. Their names were Cornelius, Over- 292 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. beck, Veit, the brothers Schadow (sculptors), and Schnor. They, and others associated later with them, initiated the Revival of German Art, which, as it is known to-day, belongs to the nineteenth century. This little colony of Germans in Rome, between 1810 and 1830, were all very poor; they lived a semi- monastic life in the ruined convent of St. Isidore, and adopted some of the ascetic rules of Fra Angelico— invoking Divine guidance in their art every morning before beginning to paint ; adopting a primitive costume ; letting their hair grow long and parting it in the middle, and for this reason were called “ Nazarites’”’ in Rome. They were simple-hearted Germans, united by common sifts and a common enthusiasm for art, and were the earliest practitioners of Pre-Raphaelitism. These German youths held that Christian Art died out when Michael Angelo and Raphael intermixed it with classic and pagan art. They proposed to recover the lost art by following the art methods of the earliest Christian fathers. In other words, they proposed to force back modern ideas into Medizval limitations. Like all such attempts, the effort failed ; but there was a noble truth at the foundation of it. All artists worthy of the name must feel a certain consecration for their work, and live a life in accordance with it. The colony of St. Isidore did not succeed in reviving Pre-Raphaelite Art; but in the study of that Art age, and in the consecration of their lives to Art, this band of young Germans effected one of the greatest and most sudden revolutions known in the history of Art. After Napoleon had gone to St. Helena and peace had come to the German Fatherland, Prince Ludwig of Bavaria visited Rome. He visited also the Brotherhood of St. Isidore, and became greatly interested in this col- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 293 ony of German artists. With the instinct of an artist he noted the skillful drawings and the heroic designs of this band of painters, and when he came to the throne of Bavaria (Oct. 13th, 1825), he immediately offered them patronage and employment. They all accepted the call, except Overbeck, who never left Rome; and however far his brethren swerved, he, to the last, adhered to the new art-faith, and not only professed dut Lived an un- worldly life. He died in 1859, aged eighty years. The ‘‘ Nazarites’’ came to Munich at the request of Ludwig I., and the Bavarian capital was soon enriched with stately buildings adorned with their works of sculpture and painting. Their coming marked the re- vival of German national art,.and also the revival of German patriotism, and the faith that there yet remained for the Germans and Germany a national destiny. There was a great outburst of enthusiasm in Munich when the people found the walls of the New Palace of the King covered with colossal paintings by Schnor, in the revived art of fresco, illustrating the Niebelungen Lied, and picture and sculpture-galleries adorned with illustrations from German mythology and folk-lore, by native German artists. The impulse then given to German art has resulted in progress, until the German school is to-day the strong rival of the French school. Time only can tell which of these schools will win the leadership of the world in Art. 170. ‘*THE ROBINSON CRUSOE OF NATIONS,” A little more than three hundred years ago the city of Rome was the scene of perhaps the strangest sight which even her streets, trodden by pilgrims from all the corners of the earth, had ever witnessed. Escorted by 294 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the cavalry and Swiss Guard, accompanied by the foreign embassies, all the Roman princes and nobility, with the officials of the cardinals and of the Vatican, a company of Japanese ambassadors, themselves of princely birth, were conducted into the presence of the chief pontiff. The vast crowds thronging the streets and filling the windows looked on in almost breathless silence as the strange visitors in their splendidly embroidered robes, wearing in their girdles two swords, the symbols of Japanese nobility, passed onward to the Hall of Audience. Reaching the bridge of St. Angelo, the guns of the Castle joined with those of the Vatican in welcoming the foreigners. Ushered into the presence of the Pope, the Japanese approached the papal throne with their creden- tials. Prostrating themselves at the Pope’s feet (Gregory XIII.), according to Japanese fashion, they declared (through an interpreter) that they “ had come from the extremities of the East to acknowledge in the person of the Pope the Vicar of Jesus Christ; to render obedience to him in the name of the princes of Japan, of whom they were the envoys.” ‘The appearance of the young men,” described by the chronicler of the event as ‘“‘modest and amiable, yet with a conscious sentiment of nobility,” together with the great importance of their message, ‘‘ drew tears and sobs from the greater part of the audience. The Pope himself, agitated, hastened to raise them up and kissed their foreheads.” The reading of their letters was followed by a discourse by Father Gonzales, in which occurs a passage which so accurately describes the Japan of to-day that it is worth while quoting some passages, in view of the wonder with which the achievements of the Island Nation are now regarded. Gonzales says: ‘‘ Nature has separated Japan from CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 295 our country by such an extent of land and sea that be- fore the present age there were few people that had any knowledge of it, and even now there are those who find it difficult to believe the account of it. “Ttis certain nevertheless, Most Holy Father, that there are several Japanese Islands of vast extent, and on these islands numerous fine cities, the inhabitants of which have a keen intelligence, noble, courageous hearts, obliging dispositions toward that which is good. Those who have known them have decidedly preferred them to all the other peoples of Asia, and it is only their lack of the true religion which prevents them from competing with the nations of Europe,” etc. The message of these first Japanese ambassadors to a foreign court was answered in the affirmative, and the Christian faith among the refined islanders soon numbered its converts by hundreds of thousands. The extraordinary impression made upon the Church of Rome by this event is indicated by the fact that of the thirty-eight persons admitted to sainthood by Rome between that date and 1863, no less than twenty-six were Japanese ; and the occasion of the canonization of some Japanese on the 8th of June, 1862, was the most magnifi- cent function ever celebrated in modern Rome. There were present at this solemnity forty-three cardinals, five patriarchs, five archbishops, one hundred and eighty-six bishops—in all, two hundred and sixty-seven of the highest dignitaries of the Roman Church, who joined in doing honor, not to those who might have been selected from the saintly servants of the Church in the western world, but to the obscure, half-mythical martyrs of far-off Japan. But the strangest of surprises that meet us everywhere in the story of Japan is, that in a little more than three decades a persecution of the Christians, scarcely matched 296 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. by the Spanish Inquisition, burst forth in Japan, so that in a short time every vestige of the ‘“‘ Western religion,” as it was called, was swept from the land, and its symbols held up for popular abhorrence. To prevent the re- entrance of the Christian religion into Japan, the ports of the Empire were closely sealed for two hundred and fifty years. Precisely what caused this revulsion of feeling toward the Christians on the part of the Japanese will perhaps never be clearly explained. Historians differ; some say that the Jesuits had obtained such power as to be practically in possession, so to speak, of a land and people whose pride it was never to permit the foot of aninvader to press its soil. Others attribute a political cause; the Jesuits taking sides in an election between rival candidates for the Shogunate, like a third party in a family quarrel, both turned against them. Whatever the cause, the crowning virtue of the Japanese, their hospitality, went down before the overmastering passion of patriotism, and the Japanese, the kindliest people in the world, became for nearly three centuries noted for their arrogance and exclusiveness. The first Christian missionary to Japan was Francis Xavier, 1549. He traveled on foot from town to town, making from five hundred to a thousand converts a day. The revulsion of feeling, resulting in the massacre of the Christians, white and native, changed the entire policy of government. Thestory of the long isolation, which made Japan the fascinating mystery of our childhood, has been only equaled in later years by the story of her new birth, which has made her the marvel of modern history. Between the years 1584-1854, Japan was called the “Robinson Crusoe of Nations.” During that time, ‘a population of twenty millions at the start, that number CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 297 nearly doubled before the country was again thrown open, was to subsist solely upon the resources which the Empire itself could supply, with only one-twelfth of its area susceptible of cultivation. Yet the people were to preserve their self-respect, and to live in peace and happiness and contentment with each other. The isola- tion of Japan brought up the laboring classes, especially the farmers. The wonderful development of agriculture made the arable twelfth of the Empire more than suffi- cient to support its teeming millions ; and the enforced economy of the masses became not only the law but the fashion in the higher ranks of society, which resulted in that simplicity of living, and consequent freedom from superfluous cares, which practically make the Japanese, in the best sense of the word, the happiest and most independent people in the world.” The period of exclu- sion was also one of inclusion. It was deliberately deter- mined, when the world was shut out, that all Japanese were to be shut in. All seaworthy ships were then destroyed; and on pain of life imprisonment or per- petual banishment all natives were forbidden to go toa foreign country. The few who tried to break through this wall of exclusion and inclusion form the basis of many a romancein Japanese literature. (For the history of the Opening of the Ports, see page 325.) Not many nionths after the Treaty for opening the ports was signed a Japanese poet wrote : «‘ What are those strangely clad beings Moving so quickly from one point to another Like butterflies flitting from flower to flower ? They are as restless as the Ocean. In one day they will learn more of a city Than an inhabitant will in a year. Are they not extraordinary persons ? These are Americans.”’ 298 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 171. ‘THE RING AND THE BOOK.” A Browning authority “who does not merge the appreciator into the adulator ” calls ‘The Ring and the Book” a huge novel in twenty thousand lines, told not after the manner of Scott, but of Balzac; it tears the hearts out of a dozen characters, it tells the same story from ten different points of view. It is loaded with detail of every kind and description.” Later, he says: “If your interest in human nature is keen, curious, almost pro- fessional ; if nothing man, woman or child has been, done, or suffered, is without interest for you; if you are fond of analysis, and do not shrink from dissection, you will prize ‘The Ring and the Book’ as the surgeon prizes the last great contribution to comparative anatomy or pathology.” The greatest work of Robert Browning is unquestion- ably “‘The Ring and the Book.” It is perhaps the fault of the commentators who approach Browning as a prob- lem, that the public generally fear to approach him at all. But if the devotees of Browning could induce the ever- willing public to read this poem of “intensely human, essentially simple and direct, dramatic and lyrical work,” they would help to bring about the time when the once popular attitude towards Browning’s “Ring and the Book”’ would seem as unjustifiable as to judge Goethe only by the second part of Faust.” “The Ring and the Book” belongs to Browning’s later years, as does also his “ Red Cotton Nightcap Country,” its fellow in character if not in length. The title needs explanation. The book grew out of an incident in Browning’s life in Florence. According to his custom, he was rummaging one day among “old CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 299 books ’’ at a second-hand dealer’s stall, when he chanced upon a curious ‘old book,” for which he paida six- pence, containing the full account of a murder trial in Rome one hundred and seventy years previous. It gave, in full, the pleadings and counter-pleadings of the lawyers on both sides and the statements of all the wit- nesses. This was ‘ The Book.” ‘The Ring” was an invention of Robert Browning. Gold in its purity must be mixed with alloy before it is hard enough for man to fashion it for his purposes ; so the Roman jeweler, in making a ring, mixed an alloy with the gold until its form was complete, then with an acid dis- solved the alloy and left the ring pure gold. So Brown- ing takes the facts of the Book and fashions a Ring, or an environment to contain them. He was the jeweler ; the setting of the old tragedy in poetic form is Brown- ing’s ‘‘ Ring and the Book.” Briefly told, the story follows the fate of the unfortu- nate heroine, Pompilia, and that of Count Guido Fran- ceschini,—a girl of sixteen years and a man of fifty. Count Guido, after having spent the better part of his life in the service of the Church without attaining the advance- ment he desired, decides to forsake his priestly office and retire for greater leisure to his ancestral castle. Realiz- ing that his means were insufficient to maintain the style befitting his rank, he gained the consent of Comparini and his wife, wealthy farmers of the middle class, to his marriage with their daughter Pompilia, and retires with her to his estate. The cruelty and violence of the Count soon caused his young wife to flee from him. This was accomplished under the protection and with the assistance of a young priest named Giuseppe Caponsacchi, who agreed to con- vey her safely to her old home. Count Guido pursues 300 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. and overtakes the fleeing couple, and has them arrested on the charge of elopement. The priest is banished and Pompilia is relegated to a convent. The parents then confess that Pompilia is not their own daughter, and therefore not their legal heir. ) Pompilia after five months is released, apparently at the suggestion of the nuns, on account of her failing health, and returns to the home of Comparini. Guido, with hired assassins, follow her there,-and murder not only the unfortunate Pompilia, but the aged couple, Comparini. Then follows the arrest of the Count and his accomplices ; the trial, condemnation and execution ofall. The events of the great tragedy as related by the Count, Pompilia, Caponsacchi, the Pope, and others, each from his or her: standpoint; and the case, as dis- cussed by the two opposing factions, gives the views of “half Rome” and “the other Half.” Browning, in conclusion, explains why he has chosen to put the Book into poetic form, and the lesson he has endeavored to teach. The lesson is well expressed in the Pope’s sad words : ‘‘Our human speech is naught, Our human testimony false, Our fame and human estimation words and wind.” The Pope’s Soliloquy is a masterly piece of work, and other chapters are full of emotion and tragic beauty. The thought, the imagery and the wisdom embodied in this poem make it a triumph of poetic art, the master- piece of one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century. = a ok t of Dante. ortral Pp. Giotto’ CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 301 172. PORTRAIT OF DANTE (1265-1321). About the time that Dante, as Prior of Florence, was sent to Rome on the embassy from which he never returned, Giotto was painting, in fresco, the Chapel of the palace of the Podesta of Florence, later called the Bargello, now the National Museum. On the entrance wall he painted:the Inferno ; on the east, or chancel wall, the Paradise ; on the side wall, south, the story of Mary of Egypt; on the north side, the story of St. Nicholas of Bari. Among the Saints in his Paradise Giotto introduced portraits of three living friends, placing Dante in front of his group of three—the other two (in dim outline be- hind him) being his master in art, Brunetto Latini, and Corso Donati, an artist. friend. Vasari says: ‘‘This was the first successful attempt at portraiture, after the revival of art.’’ To the right of the chancel window, the three friends form part of a pro- cession of the citizens of Florence, following a crowned youth, supposed to be Charles of Valois. In the same order, to the left of the chancel window, three figures are similarly grouped, one of which is supposed to be the great peasant-painter, Giotto himself. This Chapel of the Podesta’s palace, now Salon IV. of the National Museum, has undergone many vicissitudes since Dante was Prior of Florence and Giotto painted his portrait there. During the internecine wars the beautiful palace was divided into two stories—the upper one for a prison, the lower fora magazine. The frescoes were obliterated by a dirty whitewash. But peace brought the Renaissance, and the restoration of valuable works of art then commenced. The enthusiasm of the Florentines, when these portraits were recovered, knew 302 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. no bounds. For weeks the Bargello was thronged with a continuous succession of visitors and pilgrims. The prominent position of Dante in the procession, as well as his youthful appearance, lead critics to fix the date of this portrait in the thirty-fifth year of his age, the very epoch at which he dates his Vision. In the year 1300 Dante was Prior of the Republic of Florence ; in February, 1302, he was exiled for political reasons, under penalty of death should he ever return to Florence, the city of his birth. An exile for nineteen years, Dante died in Ravenna September 14, 1321, in his fifty-seventh year. After his death the Florentines found they had exiled the greatest of Italians, and desired to do him great honor and to bury him in their cathedral, but the people of Ravenna refused to give him up. The Italians now worship his memory, and call him the “Divine Dante.” In 1865 all Italy joined in celebrating the six-hundredth anniversary of his birth. For Dante’s Inferno, see C. Q., Vol. I., page 287. 173. ‘‘ THE GREAT FIFTEEN,”? . The Cotton Gin, Eli Whitney, 1793. . The Steamboat, Robert Fulton, 1807. . The Sewing Machine, Elias Howe, 1841. The Telegraph, Samuel F. B. Morse, 1832. . Vulcanized Rubber, Charles Goodyear, 1843. . The Reaper, Cyrus M’Cormick, 1834. . The Telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, 1875. . The Phonograph and similar processes of reproduc- ing light, sound and form, First phonograph invented by Leon Scott in 1857. The modern Phonograph by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. Similar inventions since that time, mainly by Edison. ON AMHR W DN & CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 303 9. The Electric Light, first by Sir Humphry Davy, in 1809. The Incandescent Light and modern Electric Light used for practical purposes, by Edison, 1880. 10. The Electric Motor, the symbol of Electric power in its many forms, the first by Jacobi in 1838. (Jacobi was born in Westphalia, but came to. the United States in 1853 and spent the balance of his life here.) First Electric Railway built by Thomas Davenport, at Bran- don, Vt., 1835. The wonderful growth of the electrical motor in the United States entitles it to be placed among American inventions. 11. The Perfecting Press, William Bullock, 1865. (Developed by R. Hoe & Co.) 12. Linotype (typesetting) Machine, Otto Mergen- thaler, 1866. 13. The Typewriter, William Austin Burt, 1820. (Developed since 1870.) 14. The Power Threshing Machine (Traction Engine and Thresher combined), Ephraim, Alfred and Charles Howland, 1801. 15. Process of making Liquid Air, Charles E. Tripler, I8glI. There are a number of other inventions which seemed to belong to this classification, but upon examination were found to be of foreign invention. This list has been submitted to competent judges, authorities on the subject, and has been approved. 174. ENGLAND IN EGYPT. No more striking evidence of the ability of the Eng- lish race to govern Oriental people could be given than the condition of Egypt to-day. When the French refused to join England in putting 304 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. down by force the rebellion under Arabi Pasha against the late Khedive Tewfik, they practically gave up their share in the control of the country. England put down the rebellion by her naval and military forces, and ever since has been the controlling power in Egypt. The domination of England has made a great differ- ence in the condition of the people. Under the former Khedives—even so progressive a ruler as Ismail Pasha— the people were greatly oppressed. The army was re- cruited by force, the men badly paid and treated like dogs. So much was the service dreaded that the peas- ants frequently mutilated themselves to escape military duty, and the army became a byword for cowardice. Forced labor on public works and on the Khedive’s plantations was the rule. Hundreds and thousands of peasants were forced to work without pay, and some- times required to provide their own tools and food. In the construction of the Suez Canal large numbers of the wretched peasants perished from the hardships of the system. The amount of taxes paid by the peasants de- pended largely on the cupidity of the local magistrate, and the payment was extorted frequently by the vigorous use of the koorbash (or rawhide-whip). These and many other abuses have been corrected under British control. The army has been recruited by voluntary enlistment, and the men paid and well treated. They take pride in the service, and fought well in the Soudan. The forced labor system has been abolished. The taxes have been fixed at a definite sum, not too much for the people to pay, and are collected more easily than of old. In addition to this, great attention has been paid to public works, especially for irrigation, and the area of CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 305 cultivable land has been increased. While inaugurating and carrying out these and other measures for the gen- eral good, the British have wisely refrained from inter- ference with the religion or manners or customs of the people. Of course, this foreign domination is hated by many on racial and religious grounds, and by some of the upper classes, who were deprived of the power to plunder the people and grow rich; but the mass of the people are contented and the others dare not resist. Several times the present Khedive, Abbas Pasha, has shown signs of revolt, but has been quickly subdued by the firm attitude of the British Minister, who, it is said, has sometimes threatened to use force if his wishes were not carried out. The Khedive knows that England has the power, and that, on the whole, her rule is wise, SO he submits. Egypt cannot stand alone ; it has not been independent for more than 2000 years, and if England were to retire some other power would take her place. Owing to the wise control of England, the country has increased in population and prosperity. It numbers now about eight millions, as large a population as it con- tained even in the palmy days of the old Pharaohs. The Suez Canal, connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, was opened in 1869. It being the high road between Europe and India, England, in 1875, felt obliged to purchase a controlling interest in it. This has added to her power in Egypt. On the whole, it is perhaps not too much to say that Egypt has never been so well governed as under the reign of Queen Victoria. 306 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 175. THE) “LOST ATLANTIS A brief review of the subject of the Lost Atlantis may be of interest. Plutarch, about roo A. D., in his life of Solon, 600 B. C., relates that when Solon, the great lawgiver of the Greeks, was in Egypt, he learned from the priest of Sais the ‘Story of Atlantis,” which Plato (about 400 B. C.) gives us in his “ Timezeus.” Abridged, the priest of Sais says to Solon: “Among the great deeds of Athens is one that should be placed above all others. Our record tells us that the Athenians destroyed an army that came across the sea and invaded Europe and Asia (Minor), for this sea (the Atlantic) was then navigable, and beyond the strait, where you place the Pillars of Hercules, there was an island larger than Lybia and Asia (Minor) combined. From this island one could pass to other islands, and from these to the continent lying around the interior sea—Mediterranean. The sea, on this side of the strait, resembles a harbor with a narrow entrance, but there is beyond a genuine sea, and the land which it surrounds is a veritable conti- nent. On the island of Atlantis reigned three kings of sreat and marvelous power. They dominated Atlantis and the islands and some parts of the continent. Unit- ing their whole force, they sought to destroy our coun- tries (European) at one blow. Their defeat stopped the invasion, and gave entire independence to all the coun- tries on this side of the Pillars of Hercules. Afterwards, in one fatal day and night, there came a mighty earth- quake, and inundations which engulfed this warlike people. Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea, and then that sea, Atlantic, became inaccessible, so that naviga- tion ceased.’”’ Other classical writers describe the island, or continent of Atlantis, as containing mountains and CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 307 pleasant valleys and navigable streams, and cities adorned with stately buildings, etc. But this awful catastrophe, which submerged an area of land larger than France, that at one time almost con- nected the two continents, which destroyed one of the most ancient people who have left a record upon the earth, was so long ago that even the writers whom we call “the Ancients’? were divided, and warmly debated various theories. With the decline of the Platonic School of Alexandria, even the name of Atlantis dropped out of literature and was not heard during the Middle Ages. But with the Renaissance came the republication of Plato’s ‘ Timzus.”’ During the fifteenth century it was printed five times in Latin, and was translated also into French and Italian. That Atlantis, a continental island between Europe and America, might have existed and disappeared, leav- ing only remnants as islands, was too evident to escapc notice, and so the controversy was renewed, and en- gaged some of the most learned minds of the world. Columbus held that the continent referred to by the An- cients was on the other side of India, and that India could be reached by a few weeks’ sail across the At- lantic. Thus, theoretically, Atlantis, whether mythical or real, led to the discovery of America by Columbus. The literature upon this subject is voluminous. Abbé Brasseur de Bourboug, the most eminent decipherer of Mexican records, asserts that he has found in Atlantis the ethnography of Americans. He finds the Toltecs to be descendants of the panic-stricken fugitives of the great catastrophe, which is recorded by them as well as by the Egyptians. M. Cataline, an eminent French scholar, finds in the ruined cities of Central America evidence that they have once been in the bed of the 308 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ocean, and says that all the territory surrounding them bears evidence to the same fact; that the continent rose again by the subsidence of the waters, and thus left these ancient sites exposed. The Atlantis-theory skep- tics offset this by saying that the ruins of the great city of Palenque and Uxmal are too well preserved to have been subject to the action of water for any length of time (Curious Questions, Vol. IL, p. 227). But Bras- seur appeals to philology to strengthen his cause. He says that the words Atlas and Atlantic have no satisfac- tory etymology in any European language; but that a root is readily found in the Toltecan, “Atl” means water, and from this come a series of words—“ Atlantic,”’ a large body of water; “ Atlantis,” a body of land sur- rounded by water. But the most learned treatise in favor of Atlantis has been advanced by M. Paul Gaffarel, published in 1869 and 1880. He utilized the invention of deep-sea soundings, and found a ridge running down the middle of the Atlantic, broadening toward the Azores. The depth of the water over the ridge is less than 1000 fathoms, while the valleys on either side average 3000 fathoms. It is called the “Dolphin Ridge,” the United States vessel that took the soundings being named the ‘“ Dol- phin.” Another ridge, called the ‘Challenger,’ ex- tends from a point north of the Ascension Island, run- ning directly south between South America and Africa. There has lately been found evidence of a connecting ridge across the tropical Atlantic which joins the other two. M. Gaffarel and others, upon the publication of the charts, renewed their arguments for the “ Lost At- lantis,” and some enthusiasts go so far as to say that science will yet enable man to recover some Atlantean evidence from submerged cities of Atlantis that will for- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 309 ever close the discussion. The book of Ignatius Don- nelly, called “ Atlantis,” is a late addition to the litera- ture in favor of the Lost Atlantis; while those who oppose the theory appeal to much earlier documents, such as Martin’s ‘Comments on Plato’s Timzus,”’ 176. THE WARWICK VASE. The beautiful park of Warwick Castle contains the Conservatory built to receive the famous Warwick Vase, the largest marble vase known. It was found at the bottom of a lake at Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli, by Sir William Hamilton, then Ambassador at the court of Na- ples ; by him it was presented to the father of the Earl of Warwick, conveyed to England, and placed in its present position. This celebrated antique vase is of white marble, de- signed and executed in the purest Grecian taste, one of the finest specimens of ancient sculpture extant. In form it is circular, and capable of holding one hundred and thirty-six gallons. Two large handles, formed of inter- woven vine-branches, tendrils, leaves and clustering grapes, spread around the upper margin. The middle portion of the vase is enfolded by the skin of a panther, with the head and claws beautifully finished ; above are the heads of satyrs, bound with wreathes of ivy, with the vine-clad spear of Bacchus and the crooked staff of the Augurs. The huge bowl rests upon a pedestal of vine-leaves that climb high up its sides; and it stands upon a large square marble base on which, in Latin, an inscription describes the finding of the vase and its presentation. 310 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 177. NOTED AMERICAN NEGROES. Since the abolition of slavery within the United States by the Proclamation President Lincoln, January Ist, 1863, a large number of the freed Black Race have held official positions under the Government. Two negroes have held the position of United States Senator. Twenty-two have served in Congress in the House of Representatives. Two have been Registers of the Treasury. Several have been Lieutenant Governors of States. Nearly a score have been Foreign Ministers or Consuls. Six have been Recorders of Deeds of the District of Columbia. | Several have been officers in the army. And a large number have filled other prominent positions. The first negro to fill the position of United States Senator was Hiram R. Revells, of Mississippi. By a peculiar irony of fate, he was elected to fill the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis, who resigned the position of Senator from Mississippi to become President of the Southern Confederacy. Revells was elected February 2sth, 1870, after Mississippi had come back into the Union, and served until March 3rd, 1871. From these dates it would appear that he was the successor of Mr. Davis, but in the official records his service appears as filling out the unexpired term of Mr. Davis, the inter- regnum having been considered a blank so far as Missis- sippi’s representation in the United States was concerned. Hiram R. Revells, born in North Carolina, September ist, 1822. He graduated from Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. After his retirement from public life he became CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 311 President of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege, at Rodney, Mississippi. He was a Methodist preacher, and received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Blanche K. Bruce, also a United States Senator from Mississippi, was the other of the two negroes who held the position of United States Senator. He was also one of two members of his race to hold the position of Reg- ister of the Treasury. He was born in Virginia, March ist, 1841. He served in the Senate during a full term from 1875 to 1881. He filled the position of Recorder of Deeds of the District of Columbia from February 7th, 1890, to May 26th, 1894. He was afterwards made Register of the Treasury, and died in March, 1898, while filling this position. The second member of his race to fill the high posi- tion of Register of the Treasury is Judson W. Lyons, appointed by President M’Kinley, and who now admira- bly fills that position. His autograph, as was that of Mr. Bruce, is seen on all the paper money printed during his term of service. Mr. Lyons was born in Burke County, Georgia, August 15th, 1858. He is regarded as perhaps the most influential Republican with the present Administration from the State of Georgia. Among the negroes who have served in Congress as members of the House of Representatives, Joseph H. Rainey, of South Carolina, comes first in time of election and first in length of service. He was a member of Congress for ten years, including the 41st, 42nd, 43rd, 44th and 45th Congresses. He was born in South Car- olina, June 21st, 1832. His long service in Congress is a remarkable tribute to his influence. Jefferson F. Long, a native of Georgia, was a member of the 41st Congress from that State, and has the distinction of being the only negro that Georgia has sent to Congress, 312 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Robert Brown Elliot, of South Carolina, was noted as one of the most brilliant of his race. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, August 11th, 1842. In his boyhood he went to Jamaica. From there he went to England, and graduated with distinction, about 1859, at the famous Eton College, London. He was a member of the 42nd and 43rd Congresses from South Carolina. In 1879, at the Chicago Republican Convention, he sec- oned the nomination of Hon. John Sherman for Presi- dent. When Mr. Sherman was afterwards Secretary of the Treasury, he made Elliot the Special Agent of that Department at Charleston, South Carolina. John R. Lynch, of Mississippi, was a member of the 43rd and 44th Congresses from that State. Heis still a noted figure in Mississippi politics. He was Fourth Auditor of the Treasury under President Harrison, and is now Paymaster of the United States Army in Cuba. John Mercer Langston, of Virginia, was born De- cember 14th, 1829. He won and honored the titles of A.B., A.M., and LL.D. He graduated at Oberlin College, Ohio, and was admitted to the Bar in Ross County. When General Howard founded Howard Uni- versity of Washington he made Langston Dean of the Law Department. While in this position he intro- duced the system of lectures on the Ethics of Law, in which such noted men as Ralph Waldo Emerson took part. He won the gold medal given by the Scientific Society of Paris for the best essay on ‘‘ How to Teach Law.” The competition was open to the world. He was a candidate for Congress from the 4th Virginia dis- trict in 1888. The certificate of election was given to the Democratic contestant, Mr. Venable, but Langston contested and won. Hon. Thomas B. Reed was then Speaker of the House. It was during this contest that CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 313 the Democrats fillibustered to prevent the vote in favor of Langston. Reed had the doors locked to keep the Democrats from going out and breaking a quorum, and Hon. Buck Kilgore, of Texas, kicked the door down to make his escape. This period registered one of the most famous rows that ever took place in Congress. Langston served as Minister to Haiti, under President Hayes. He was at one time counsel for Hon. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia. His speech in Congress on the Civil Rights Bill was one of the noted deliver- ances of the 50th Congress. He died in 1897. George Washington Murray, who represented the first South Carolina District in the 53rd and 54th Congresses, was born September 22nd, 1853. In the 54th Congress the certificate of election was given to his opponent, Hon. William Elliott, but, as the result of a contest, the seat was awarded to Mr. Murray. Heis still one of the most prominent members of his race in South Carolina, and is often seen in Washington. Pinckney Benton Stuart Pinchback, of Louisiana, was elected to the United States Senate from that State in 1873, but was not seated. His contest was delayed or prolonged during his entire term ; and, although he was not seated, he was paid for the full length of his term. The money thus received was made the basis of a con- siderable fortune, which he now enjoys. He lives in an elegant home in Washington, and is President of the District of Columbia Afro-American Council. He bears the title of Governor, having been Lieutenant-Governor of the State of Louisiana. He was born May roth, 1837. The only negro of the present Congress is George H. White, who represents the second district of North Carolina. He was born in that State, April 18th, 1852. He was also a member of the last Congress, the 55th. 314 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. He graduated from Howard University, Washington, and received the degree of LL.D. from Livingston College, Salisbury, North Carolina, and Biddle University, Char- lotte, North Carolina. The position of Recorder of Deeds of the District of Columbia has been held by negroes since May 2oth, 1881, when Frederick Douglass was appointed to that position. He served till August 11th, 1886. Of the number of negroes who have held foreign appointments, the most prominent, and probably the foremost member of his race, was Frederick Douglass. He was born in Maryland, in 1817. He was Minister to Haiti under President Harrison, Marshal of the District of Columbia under President Hayes, and Recorder of Deeds under Presidents Garfieldand Arthur. His career as an orator and a public official and as a defender of his people stamped him as one of the leading men of the time. William F. Powell, of New Jersey, was appointed by President M’Kinley Minister to Haiti, and is now serving in that high capacity. John R. Ruffin, of Tennessee, is serving as Consul to Asuncion, Paraguay. Dr. Henry Furniss, of Indiana, is Consul to Bahia, Brazil. Richard T. Greener, of Pennsylvania, is Commercial Agent at Vladivostok, Russia, under appointment of President Cleveland. Greener was born in Philadelphia about fifty yearsago. He wasthe first negro to graduate from Harvard University, where he took honors in Met- aphysics. He was the secretary to the Grant Monument Fund in New York, and he was appointed Civil Service Commissioner by Mayor Grace of New York. C. H, J. Taylor, of Georgia, who has been mentioned CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 315 as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, was Minister to Liberia under President Cleveland’s first ad- ministration, and was appointed by President Cleveland in his second administration as Minister to Bolivia, but was not confirmed by the Senate. President Cleveland then made him Recorder of Deeds. He died in 1899 while holding the position of Lecturer on Law in Clark Univer- sity, a prominent negro university in Atlanta, Georgia. James Lewis, of Louisiana, is now Surveyor-General of that State under appointment by President M’ Kinley. He has been Naval Officer at New Orleans, and also Sur- veyor of that Port. He was a Captain in the Civil War, commissioned by President Lincoln, and rose to the posi- tion of Lieutenant-Colonel. R. R. Wright, of Augusta, Georgia, was appointed by President M’Kinley Paymaster in the army during the war with Spain and served in Cuba. He resigned this position, and is now President of a negro college near Savannah, Georgia. John P. Green, of Cleveland, Ohio, is now United States Stamp Agent of the Washington City Post Office. He served in both Houses of the Ohio Legislature and is the author of the Ohio Labor Law. George W. Williams, of Cincinnati,Ohio, was appointed Minister to Haiti by President Arthur. He is the author of a well-known history of the negro race, published in two volumes. He died in Switzerland while writing a United States history for Harper Brothers. Dr. Chas. B. Purvis, of Washington, was the first negro Surgeon-in-Chief of the Freedmen’s Hospital of Washington. He was succeeded by Dr. Austin N. Curtis, of Chicago, who still holds the position. Charles Young, who graduated at West Point, was Major of the 9th Ohio Battalion in the Spanish War. 316 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Henry O. Flipper, who was the first negro to graduate at West Point, served in the war with Spain, and was afterwards translator of Spanish in the Department of Justice. He is now Special Agent of that Department in New Mexico. But the number of negroes who hold positions under the Government, in the Revenue and Customs Service, as Postmasters and Railway Mail Clerks, as Clerks in various capacities in the Departments at Washington, and who fill many minor positions under the Govern- ment, is so great as to be entirely out of proportion to the space at hand. The prominent negro preachers and teachers and professional men would make a large-sized book. The record of the achievements of this race, since their emancipation, graphically put together, would read like a vertiable romance. 178. KING OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS. The greatest “find” concerning prehistoric man in America was just previous to the World’s Columbian Exposition, held at Chicago in 1893. From September, 1891, to the middle of January, 1892, Professor Warren K. Moorehead, assisted by Dr. Cresson, was detailed by the Smithsonian Institute to investigate the tumuli of Mr. Cloud Hopewell’s farm, a mile west of Anderson, Ohio. There were found twenty-four mounds of various di- mensions enclosed by an embankment. Upon opening one of these mounds (five hundred feet in length, two hundred feet wide, and twenty-eight feet in height), at a depth of fourteen feet, near the center of the mound, they exhumed the massive skeleton of a man which was encased in a veritable copper armor. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 317 The ‘Cincinnati Commercial Gazette,” the morning after the discovery (November 17th, 1891), published the following graphic account of the largest skeleton of man yet found: “At his head imitation elk horns, neatly made of wood, and covered with sheet-copper rolled into cylin- drical form over the prongs.. The antlers were twenty- two inches high and nineteen inches across from prong to prong. They fitted into a crown of copper, bent to fit the head from occipital to upper jaw. Copper plates were upon the breast and stomach; also on the back. _ The copper preserved the bones and a few of the sinews. It also preserved traces of cloth similar to coffee-sacking in texture, interwoven among the threads of which were nine hundred beautiful pearl beads, bear- teeth split and cut, and hundreds of other beads, both pearl and shell. Copper spool-shaped objects and other implements covered the remains. A pipe of granite and a spear-head of agate were near the right shoulder. The pipe was of very fine workmanship and highly polished. At the side of the male skeleton was found a female skeleton, the two being supposed to be man and wife. It is impossible to estimate the age of these bodies ; it might be six hundred years or six thousand years ; scientists can only approximate time. Professor Moore- head and Dr. Cresson consider this ‘find’ one of the most important that has been made on the continent, and believe that the King of the Mound-Builders has been found.” (‘‘ Mound-Builders,’ C. Q., Vol. L, page 233.) Out of these tumuli were taken 8138 disks, most of them circular and leaf-shaped, a number of large- shouldered spear-heads, forty skeletons, and tons of other evidences of prehistoric man. [Fifteen of the 318 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. skeletons were accompanied by objects or ornaments. Two large altars of good form were found. The magnitude of the “ find” surpassed any discovery yet made. The excavated specimens covered a space fifteen feet long, eight feet wide and three feet high, and weighed sixty-eight hundred pounds. In the “ Effigy Mound” were several hundred pieces of copper. These were sheets worked into fantastic de- signs, squares and semicircles, effigies of birds and fishes, anklets and bracelets, combs and pendants, large and small celts (weapons widely used among primitive races), one weighing thirty-eight pounds, and, in short, every known form of copper implement or ornament. Carvings upon the copper and upon bones showed very considerable aptitude for artistic execution and a high degree of manual skill. There were bolder outlines, representing panthers, skeletons, and other animals. The “find” discloses a strong mixture of two races— a short-headed (brachycephalic) and long-headed (doli- chocephalic) race. From an inspection of the crania and the implements found, the conclusion was reached that the short-heads were superior in numbers and intelli- gence, and that the long-heads were subservient to them. For further particulars, see “ Primitive Man in Ohio,” by Moorehead. RSNA aS Ae tah dd 179. THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD OF ENGLAND. The Pre-Raphaelite movement, which at one time threatened the very foundations of Art in England, ended in being the most futile attempt at a revolution ever recorded in the intellectual world. The talent and earnestness of its originators gave it notoriety, but as each member became absorbed in his own individual art- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 319 expression, the ‘“‘Brotherhood”’ died a natural death. Yet some very famous pictures are still marked “P. R. B.”’ The leaders of the movement were John Everett Mil- lais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti ; and with these three youths were afterward associated Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, and others. The meaning of the true title and the true principle that lay at the root of the movement sprung from a weariness of old and conventional types and methods of Art. When told to look to Michael Angelo and Raphael as guides, they began to ask: “To whom did these look ?” _ They then instituted a search for the predecessors of the artists of the sixteenth century, calling themselves “the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.” They were poets as well as painters; they cultivated oddity, and ended by being quite as exaggerated and affected in style and treatment as the old conventional Masters whom they ignored. It is a good thing to go back to Nature, and to copy even her stones correctly, but the Pre-Raphaelites soon aban- doned their peculiar realism, and, later, clothed their subjects with the beauty of a high ideal, endeavoring to lead their followers into ‘‘a presence greater and better than themselves.”” The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood did not long exist, but the vigorous attempts of these young artists to take Art back to her true mother, Nature, effected great and lasting good. 180. THE MUSEUM OF THE HOUSE OF OLDENBORG. Sir John Lubbock says: ‘‘ The Danes occupy a larger and more important place in history than they do on the map of Europe; and he might have added that, although Denmark is one of the smallest kingdoms of Europe, yet in its matrimonial alliances it bounds the 320 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Continent. The present dynasty, the House of Olden- borg, has ruled over Denmark for nearly 450 years. Christian IX., the present King, came to the throne in 1863; his wife, Queen Louise, was a German princess ; their oldest daughter, Alexandra, married the Prince of Wales; their second daughter, Dagmar, is. the dowager Empress of Russia; their third daughter, Thyra, married the Duke of Cumberland (in spe, the King of Hanover). Their oldest son, Crown Prince Frederick, married the sister of Oscar II., King of Sweden; their second son, George, is now King of Greece, and has for his Queen, Olga, a Russian princess; the third son, Waldemar, called “the Sailor Prince,’ married Marie, Princess of Orleans, daughter of Duc de Chartres; these, with numerous grandchil- dren, make up the Royal Family. The colonial possessions of Denmark increase her territory and her wealth. She owns Greenland, as large as Germany and France combined ; Iceland, as large as our New England States; the Faroe group of Islands; and three West India Islands—St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John. The Danish Monarchy celebrated its roooth anniver- sary in 1880, from its foundation under the mythical “King Gorm, the Old,” whose reign is a bridge between legendary and authentic history. As men, the Danes are rather short in stature, but they spring from a brave and warlike race, and have never been subjugated by any other people. On the contrary, they conquered and ruled over England from 917 to 1041, dismembered France, and united Norway, Sweden and Denmark under one crown. These foreign powers have thrown off the Danish yoke, but they have never subjugated “little Denmark,” and to-day the sons and daughters of CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 321 its King form strong links in a chain that encircles the continent of Europe. To see Copenhagen and its en- virons is to see Denmark. The Round Tower of Copenhagen is one of the won- derful buildings of the world. It was formerly and is still.an observatory, as it affords a comprehensive view ~ of the low-lying capital and its surroundings. The tower consists of two hollow cylinders, and between them a gradual inclined footway which leads from base to summit. Peter the Great made the ascent on horse- back in 1716. The tower is a sort of annex to Trinity Church, on whose roof is the library building of the University, so rich in its store of Icelandic Sagas. Like all the northern capitals, its many waters form its chief beauty, its royal palaces and its museums its chief attraction. An arm of the Baltic separates the main portion of the city, on the Island of Zealand, from the less important section on the Island of Amager ; fresh- water lakes and canals make islands of other portions of the city ; bridges break the monotony of the streets, and masts and sails of ships everywhere enliven the perspec- tive. The ramparts which encircle the city are planted with trees, and from many a headland the eye stretches far away to where the ocean and sky meet. Many de- lightful villas and tea-gardens form the environs of the city, while the Island of Zealand is interspersed with thrifty farms, clear lakes, and groves of forest trees. The palace of Rosenborg, surrounded by beautiful gardens, grand avenues of trees, graceful foliage, stat- uary and fountains, is the most delightful spot in Copen- hagen. The palace was built for a royal residence by Christian IV. (1588 to 1648). | In point of architecture the Rosenborg Palace is the finest building in the city, with its gables and towers, 21 322 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the centra: one being three hundred feet high. When erected, 1604, it was entirely without the city walls, sur- rounded by a moat, and accessible only by a draw- bridge. Christian IV., the great Art-King of Denmark, during his long reign made a'valuable collection of relics, national, social and artistic, belonging to the preced- ing reigns from Christian I., 1448, to his own time. Margaret, called the Semiramis of the North, Queen of Denmark and Norway, conquered Sweden in 1388 and procured the adoption of the ‘Union of Calmir” (1397), by which the three Scandinavian Kingdoms were united and her nephew, Eric, appointed her heir. But at her death (1411) each kingdom chose its separate ruler. In 1448 the Danes elected Christian, Count of Olden- borg, to become Christian I. of Denmark, the founder of the present royal family. After the death of Christian IV., 1648, his son and successor conceived the idea of converting the castle of Rosenborg into a museum which should, in chronolog- ical order, illustrate the reigns of the Kings of Den- mark. The collection to begin with the dynasty of Oldenborg, 1448. The ‘‘Oldenborg Horn ”’ is the pride of the museum, and, according to tradition, was presented to one of the ancestors of this house by the fairies. It is of solid silver and very curiously wrought, partly with embossed or cast ornaments fixed upon it and in many parts en- ameled ; the inscription is: ‘‘ Empty the Horn.” It also bears the names of ‘Three Kings of Orient.” The horn is supported upon the back of two griffins, with outspread wings, and two towers. This remarkable work of art remained in the Oldenborg Castle, Germany, until the time of Christian IV. The various apartments of this Royal Museum are CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 323 each appropriate to the reign of one king, so that the history of the country may be successively followed for four hundred years. The “ Knights’ Hall” (Riddarsalen) at the summit of the castle, extending the whole length and breadth of the building (150x28x1g feet) is the richest in historical asso- ciations. The arched ceiling is richly ornamented with relief in stucco; in the center is the Danish escutcheon ; in the concavity on either side is a lion being crowned by genii; down the middle line of the ceiling are four paintings by Heinrich Krock representing the four em- blems of royalty,—the sword, the globe, the crown, and the sceptre,—all upheld by allegorical figures, and richly framed with entwined roses, lilies, laurel and oak leaves. On the arched sides of the ceiling are represented in relievo four acts of the Government under Frederic III. (1648—1670)—the abolition of villenage ; the institution of militia; the institution of dragoons; the enrollment of seamen. The twelve tapestries which cover the walls are a series of battle-scenes, by sea and land, from the war with Sweden. They are twelve feet high by ten feet wide, and contain many portraits, valuable as a study of dress in the time of Christian V. (1670-1699). At the end of the hall stand the silver and gold coronation- chairs, unlike any other chairs of their kind in the world. The royal font is a centerpiece of great value. It is of solid silver, three feet high, richly adorned with em- bossed pictures, heads of angels, foliage, etc., in the center of the dish the Baptism of Christ, and around the edge other Scriptural representations. This has been the royal baptismal font for over two hundred years, but at the ceremony a gold dish is placed within it. There are high mirrors with frames of embossed silver ; 324 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. there are busts of marble, and silver screens, twelve sil- ver stands, and four silver candelabra. But the pride of this collection is the three great silver lions that guard the throne-chairs of the King and Queen. They are chased and embossed with gilded names—“ Great Belt,” “Little Belt,” and ‘Sound,’ for the waters that protect the island kingdom. By an ancient custom the lions are always present at the coronation of the King and always appear as mourners at his funeral, accompanying the funeral cortege to Roeskilde, and are then returned to their dais in the palace. Royal festivals were long held here, and here the solemn investiture of the royal orders, the ‘“‘ Order of the Elephant ”’ and the ‘“‘ Danneborg Order,” were held. The Seal of the Danish Kingdom, engraved on two silver plates set in bronze, has for the obverse the arms of the kingdom; three lions symbolizing Norway, Swe- den, and Denmark. There is no city which can excel Copenhagen in the systematic arrangement of its art collections. 181. THE MACHETE. The machete (pronounced “ mah-tchay-tay’’) with which the Cubans are armed, and which is the implement for all needs throughout Spanish America, has long been manufactured by the thousands at Hartford, Conn. This blade is first cousin to the saber of the United States Cavalry ; but while the saber serves only one pur- pose, the machete serves many, and is as useful in peace as in war. Almost every Spanish-American male, above the age of childhood, carries a machete. The laborer has it, because with the machete he cuts sugar-cane, prepares firewood, and trenches the ground for his crop. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. EPA: The horseman wears the machete, because with it he cuts his way through the woodlands during journeys over rough country. It is sword, spade and hedging-bill, axe, hatchet and pruning-knife. The hidalgo wears it with silvered hilt and tasseled scabbard; his humbler neighbor is content to carry it bare, and hilted with horn, wood, or leather. The machete may be had in nearly thirty different forms. The blade, which varies in length from ten to twenty-eight inches, may be blunt or pointed, curved or straight, broad or narrow. The favorite with the laborer is the machete of medium length, with un- ornamented handle and broad, straight blade. The Spanish-American hidalgo bears a scabbard machete, long, straight or curved, according to his taste or cir- cumstances. 182, THE OPENING OF THE PORTS OF JAPAN. Some American sailors, whale fishermen, were cast ashore upon the island kingdom of Japan and burned to death as foreigners. The protecting arms of our Republic sent Commodore Perry to inquire into the matter. On July 8th, 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry, of the United States Navy, commanding two large steam- ships, the Susquehanna and the Mississippi, and two sloops of war, the Plymouth and Saratoga, steamed into the Bay of Yeddo, which had been closed to the outside world for two hundred and fifty years, by laws exclusive and inclusive, rigidly enforced. Foreigners were to be burned to death upon the shore; natives were forbidden to leave Japan, and any one evading this law was never to be allowed to return. The small fleet of Commodore Perry came to anchor 326 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. off what is now called ‘Treaty Point,” not far from Yokohama. The force which such an array of armed vessels represented to the Shogun government of Japan so paralyzed the chief ruler that when the Commodore, by an interpreter, sent a letter to the Shogun from President Filmore, of the United States of America, he replied, ‘‘Sail away and come back in a year for your answer.’ The letter which the President of the United States sent to the Japanese Government not only asked for the assurance of care for future shipwrecked sailors cast upon her shores, but also for a coaling station and any other supplies which American ships in the Pacific Ocean might require. The Shogun government was greatly perplexed by the responsibility placed so suddenly upon it, realizing that serious results would ensue if a courteous answer was refused the President of the United States. The self-imposed seclusion so long maintained incapacitated the Japanese Government for dealing with international questions. Notwithstanding Commodore Perry’s protestations of friendliness, they were afraid of his great ships. They knew he could easily force his way up the Bay ; what resistance could the Government make to prevent him from battering down the castle of the Shogun and the castles of the Daimyos? But should the Government suddenly make a treaty with the Americans, the Anti-Shogunite party in Japan would rise. Mito, a celebrated daimyo, gave ten reasons against making a treaty with the United States: 1. Never has the clash of foreign arms been heard within the precincts of our holy ground. Let not our generation be the first to see the disgrace of a barbarian army treading on the land where our forefathers rest. 2, Notwithstanding the strict interdiction of Christi- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 327 anity, there are those guilty of the heinous crime of this evil sect. If America be admitted, it means the rise of this accursed religion. 3. What! trade our gold, silver, copper, iron and useful materials for useless trashy articles ? 4. Many atime, recently, Russia. and other countries have solicited trade with us and been refused. If America is permitted the privilege, what excuse is there for not extending the same to other nations ? 5. Lhe policy of barbarous nations is first to enter our country and then to introduce their religion, which means to stir up strife. 6. The Dutch scholars say that we should cross the ocean and engage in trade with other nations, but our long-continued peace incapacitates us for any such activity. 7, But the necessity of caution against the ships lying in the harbor (Perry’s squadron) has brought inany valiant samurai (soldiers) to the capital. Shall we dis- appoint them? } 8. The Naval defenses of our Kingdom are unable to cope with this invasion. 9g. The haughty demeanor of the barbarians now at anchor will provoke the illiterate populace. Should nothing be done, the people will lose all fear and respect for the Government. 10. Peace and prosperity of long duration have ener- vated the spirit, and rusted the armor, and blunted the swords of our men. The Shogun sent to all the dazmyos a copy of the letter from the President of the United States, asking their opinion as to an answer. The majority declared against opening the ports ; some advised the experiment for three years. 328 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. After long consultation the Council consented to re- ceive, through an officer of equal rank with their Shogun, the letter from the President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan. When this was accorded, Commo- dore Perry sailed away, and during the interval was busy in the Orient. On February 13th, 1854, he made his appearance again, according to agreement, in the Bay of Yeddo, to receive the answer to the President of the United States. Additional vessels having been added to his squadron, ten vessels under his command now entered the Bay. After much discussion as to the place of conference, it was decided that Commodore Perry should meet the Shogun at Kanagawa, now the city of Yokohama. Atter much deliberation and discussion, the Treaty was signed March 31st, 1854, and immediately dispatched to Washington. As this was the first formal Treaty made by Japan with any western power, a synopsis of its provisions is inter- esting. - Article I, Peace and amity to exist between the two countries. II. The port of Shimoda to be opened immediately, and the port of Hakodate to be opened in one year. American ships to be supplied with necessary provisions in these ports. III. Shipwrecked persons of either nation to be cared for, and expenses to be refunded. IV. Shipwrecked and other persons not to be impris- oned, but to be amenable to just laws. V. Americans at Shimoda and Hakodate not to be subject to confinement, but free to go about within de- fined limits. | VI. Further deliberations to be held between parties CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 329 to settle concerning trade and matters requiring to be arranged. VII. Trade in “open ports” to be subject to such regulations as the Japanese Government shall establish. VIII. Wood, water, provisions, coal, etc., to be pro- cured only through appointed Japanese officers. IX. If at any future day privileges in addition to those here enumerated are granted to any other nation, the same to be allowed to Americans. X. Ships of the United States not to resort to other ports than Shimoda and Hakodate, except in stress of weather. XI. Consuls or agents of the United States to reside at Shimoda. XII. The ratification of this Treaty to be exchanged within eighteen months. Treaties with European powers followed in 1857-59. Yokohama was opened as a port in 1858; the first Japanese embassy visited the United States in 1860. The Shogunate was abolished in 1868. Civil war waged in Japan between the Imperalists and the Non-Impe- rialists, 1868-69. The Emperor was restored to full power and removed his capital to Yeddo, the former Shogun capital, now called Tokio. The Constitution was adopted in 1889; the first Diet, or Parliament, met 1890. With the meeting of the first Parliament, Japan came of age and assumed her full rights as one of the great nations of the earth. The late war with China, 1894-95, showed that she was able to maintain the place so recently assigned her—and it was during this war that Japan was spoken of as “the Child of the World’s Old Age.” And yet so old is Japan, in her own estimation, that the rest of the world seems young in comparison. Such inversions and contradic- 330 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. tions form, perhaps, the basis of that fascination which everything Japanese has for her mundane opposite neigh- bors, the Americans. Inversion is an admirable word to impress upon the mind when visiting the Orient. It characterizes not only the general mode of Oriental life, but also every detail. It is not simply that their ways and thoughts differ from ours, but that they are the reversal of ours. For in- stance, when a Japanese builds a house, he begins at the roof, and every tool he uses is the reversal of ours. The saws are drawn toward the body; the gimlets are threaded the opposite way from ours; keyholes are made upside down, and the keys turn backwards. The best rooms in the house are always in the rear. When the house is finished, a Japanese, on entering, instead of taking off his hat takes off his shoes. If he picks upa book to read, he begins at the back and reads downward from left to right, the words being placed vertically in- stead of horizontally. If there is a clock in the room, the hands remain stationary and the face revolves back- wards, 12, II, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,; reckoning backwards from noon. In writing a letter, he takes a reel instead of a sheet of paper, and begins with the for- mal words with which we close, then putting it in an en- velope, open at the end, he addresses it “ America, United States, Pennsylvania, Pittsburg, Brown James, Mr.,’’ then seals it and puts the stamp on the back! “After-dinner speeches’ are always made before dinner. Young ladies instead of taking from, add to, their ages ; they desire to grow old, that they may receive the reverence accorded to age. White is the emblem of mourning, and if one meets what would seem to be a festal procession in the street, it is sure to be a funeral in progress. The casket is CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 331 borne in an upright position, and is so interred. These and endless other inversions, running through all the details of life, make the islanders of Japan appear to be a curi- ous up-side-down sort of people, who could hardly differ from us more had they been born on another planet than ours. Of course our first thought is that they are all wrong, and that we are all right; but is itso? May their ways not be better than ours? In fact many of them are, for all travelers agree that Japan is the brightest and most fascinating country on the globe, with the cheeriest, merriest, kindest and most graceful people, who seem as glad to see each individual stranger as if they had waited for his visit all these years; they smile upon you in the streets, and make you feel that their homes are your own as soon as youcross the threshold. They drag you around in the little Jinrikisha (man-drawn carriage) as if it were a joke; and they sit by the score along the streets or roadsides in all degrees of dress and undress, in all the colors of the rainbow, chattering away and making pretty gestures as if civility and good manners were the first duties in life, and, to be happy, the chief end of man’s existence. May Americans not learn a lesson from the social side of Japan, as they look at the careworn, anx- ious faces that daily pass along the streets of American cities ? 183. THE INFLUENCE OF “YES” IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. The blotting out of old names during the Revolution was a very serious loss to France. There is nothing left to suggest the old historic prov- inces of Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphiny, in South- ern France. The old divisions were ruthlessly swept 332 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. away and France was divided into ‘ Departments.” Yet history is tenacious of old names; Provence is still the “ province par excellence’? of Roman days. Lan- guedoc is still closely interwoven with the history of the French language, and there are hearts within the boundary of Dauphiny to-day that look back with pride to the time when the heir to the throne of France bore the honorary title of ‘the Dauphin.” (C. Q., vol. II., page 21g.) In the days of ‘“provinces”’ in France, every Province had its own language or provincial dialect, and these linger more or less to-day, for no language has been so slow in developing as modern French. In the roth century France was almost evenly divided into two languages. An imaginary line drawn across the country from the mouth of the river Gironde, on the Bay of Biscay, to Lake Geneva, on the borders of Italy, divided the ‘“‘ Langue d’Oc”’ from the “ Langue d’Oui,”’ and the difference lay in the pronunciation of the word ‘ Yes.” South of the line it was pronounced “ Oc,” north, it was pronounced “ Oui.” Nor was France alone distinguished by her pronunciation of the word expressing affirmation. Dante calls Italy ‘‘ The fair land of ‘Si,’” and Germany was called the “land of ‘Ya.’” In the 12th century the names of these ‘‘ language divisions ’’were changed to ‘‘ Provengal,”’ or the language of the southern provinces, and ‘‘ French,” the language of the northern. The high civilization of the south of France lasted three hundred years. Langue d’oc was then the queen of the Romance languages; it was the language of the Troubadours, Romance, and Chivalry ; but the songs of the Troubadours were silenced by the merciless war against the Albi- genses in the early part of the 13th century. The Langue d’oc then sank into a patois, and Pro- vengal literature ceased to be written. The Langue CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 333 d’oui, on the contrary, was strengthened by the infusion of the northern elements, and became the French, and the French language became the national language when Paris became the capital. Yet so strong is the sacred bond of language that there are still in the north of France seven dialects, and six in the south. These dia- lects have distinct divisions, amounting in all to between seventy and eighty. Itis said that the Parable of the Prodigal Son is written in one hundred French dialects. The “Parisian”? is now the court language, not only of France, but of Russia, and is the ‘‘international”’ language of Europe. It is easy in conversation, spirited in song and pathetic in ballads. Yet it is unequal to the northern languages in force, and therefore less suit- able for epic or for tragic poetry. But there is a great revival of the Provengal literature going on in France, due largely to the poet, Frederick Mistral. 184. INVENTOR OF ENGLISH WATER-COLOR PAINTING. Of all the artists of the roth century, Turner is the greatest mystery. An Englishman by birth and resi- dence, he yet was cosmopolitan, and in Art he was a school unto himself. Joseph Mallord William Turner, the great landscape painter, was bornin London, April 23rd,1775. He was the son of a barber, and his mother became insane ; the environments of his early life may account for his ec- centricities. His genius was early developed; his draw- ing of Margate Church in his ninth year is still exhibited among his works. At thirteen his career as an acknowl- edged artist began, and at fifteen his name was registered as an exhibitor in the Royal Academy ; at twenty he was honored as an associate of the Academy, and two years 334 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. later became an Academician, the highest honor conferred upon an English artist. But Turner had greater honor after his death than was ever conferred upon him during his life. After sixty years devoted to Art, having achieved the title ‘the greatest water-color landscapist the world has ever produced,” his powers began to fail, and the never-failing critic began to buzz through the press. His sensitive nature was stung to the quick, yet he only said: “A man may be weak in his old age, but you should not tell him so.” He retired from the world, as it were, in 1850, but his faithful old house- keeper found him in a lodging-house near Cremorne, Chelsea, under the assumed name of Brooks, the day before he died, December 19th, 1851, aged seventy-six. He was awarded the honor of burial in the Crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, near Reynolds. Ten years before his death, John Ruskin, the great word-painter, sought an acquaintance with Turner, the then most renowned artist of the English school. Genius and indomitable devotion to art would have rendered Joseph Mallord William Turner famous ; but his art works would have fallen to decay, and his name might have fallen into dishonor, had not John Ruskin devoted the ten years of his life, from twenty to thirty, to the restor- ing and mounting of sketches, drawings, engravings and paintings of Turner, and the writing of a biography of his life. The names of Turner and Ruskin are so closely allied that the one almost suggests the other. By self-denial and inexpensive living, Turner had amassed a fortune of one hundred and forty thousand pounds. His will bequeathed all of his unsold works to the National Gallery, London, provided they were exhibited in a separate department, to be called the Turner Gallery. His money, with the exception of a CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 335 few annuities, he bequeathed in trust for the support of indigent artists. His will was disputed, but by a compro- mise his pictures were allowed to become national prop- erty ; twenty thousand pounds were given to the Royal Academy, in trust, for the aid of artists; one thousand were reserved for the erection of amonument to Turner in St. Paul’s, and the rest of his property was divided among his nearest kin. The two pictures which Turner considered his best were ‘Dido Building Carthage” and ‘“ The Sun in a Mist.” Dr. Waagner, considered an impar- tial art critic, says, after referring to Turner’s power over earth and air and sea, and his deep sympathy with the most varied moods of nature, in its grandeur, melan- choly, and cheerfulness: “I should not hesitate to recognize Turner as the greatest landscape painter of all times, but for his deficiency in an undisputable element in every work of art, viz., a sound technical basis.”’ Turner is said to have invented modern water-color painting. He delighted in soft gradations of color, which led him to adopt the practice of painting on a white or very light ground; this he afterwards trans- ferred to painting in oil, thus causing a great change in the British school of Art. Ruskin was named one of his executors, and assumed the task of arranging the now famous Turner Gallery in London. The bequests of Turner included three hundred and sixty oil paintings; one hundred and thirty-five finished water-color paintings; sketches and drawings cleaned and mounted by John Ruskin, 1757; 45 engravings of the Rivers of France; 23 engravings of the Rivers of England; 57 illustrations of Rogers’ Italy ; and, besides all these, Turner did not succeed in buying back some 200 paintings which had been purchased by individuals. 336 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Ruskin in 1843 issued a short pamphlet in defense of Turner against the unjust attacks of the press; his pamphlet grew into a work of five volumes, known as “Modern Painters.” After the death of Turner, Ruskin says of him, ‘“‘ During the ten years I knew him, years in which he was suffering most from the evil-speaking world, I never heard him say one depreciating word of any living man or man’s work. “T never saw him look an unkind or blameful look ; I never knew him let pass, without sorrowful remon- strance, or endeavor at mitigation, a blameful word spoken by another. “Of no man but Turner, whom I have ever known, could I say this.” Again he says: ‘‘Were I reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon one work I would choose the Slave Ship ; its color is absolutely perfect.” 18s. ‘««THE EARS OF THE KOREANS.” There is a singular monument in Japan which com- memorates the victory of the Japanese over the Koreans. In ancient times it was customary, when people went out to war, to bring home the heads of the slain as trophies of their victory. It would have been very diffi- cult to transport from Korea the heads of the thousands slain in the battle of conquest ; so the Empress ordered the army to return with the ears of the conquered foe. After these had been exhibited in the temples of various cities they were buried in a great mound, and a monu- ment erected upon it with the inscription : “‘ The Ears of the Koreans.” CURIOUS QUESTIONS. PSOe 186. MISSISSIPPI SCHEME, The long wars occasioned by the ambition of Louis XIV. reduced France to the verge of bankruptcy, and every effort undertaken to remedy the evil seemed only to hasten the calamity. The famous Mississippi Scheme was projected by a Scotchman named John Law. The Regent Orleans, acting for King Louis XV., was per- suaded by Law that his project, if adopted, would add enormously to the wealth and prosperity of France. The Mississippi Joint Stock Company was chartered in 1717. It included plans for developing the resources of Louisiana by a French colony on the Mississippi River ; also for trading with China and the East Indies. The profits of the trade with North America through Louis- iana, it was claimed, would liquidate the whole national debt of France and win fortunes for the stockholders. Paper money was issued and measures taken in connec- tion with stock in the Mississippi Company which de- preciated gold and silver coin. The people throughout France, with one impulse of avarice and greed, ex- changed their gold and silver for the paper money of the Company, whose notes soon rose to eighty per cent. The success of Louis’ project at first exceeded all expec- tations. But in two years the Company failed to meet its obligations. Gold and silver coin had disappeared and only worthless paper money remained. Thousands of families all over France were suddenly reduced to ex- treme poverty. When the whole scheme collapsed in 1720, John Law, its promoter, fearing public indignation, escaped from France, and died in poverty in Venice, 1729. 22 333 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 187. SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. The South Sea Bubble was a fair match for Law’s Mississippi Scheme, the great difference being that the Government of England became involved. The South Sea Company was organized by Harley, Earl of Oxford, Lord Treasurer of England, to carry on trade with Spanish, or South America. The national debt of Eng- land had grown, during the Continental wars, to the enormous sum of ten million pounds. A bill was passed in Parliament allowing those to whom the nation owed money to take shares in the South Sea Company in lieu of their claim upon the nation. All classes in England were under the delusion that the wealth stored up in Spanish America was so enormous that the trade of this Company would enrich all who took shares in it. So great was the rush for stock that in 1719 the South Sea Company submitted proposals to the Government for the buying up of the entire national debt. The Bank of England now entered into competition with the South Sea Company, and the counterbidding reached an enor- mous sum, resulting at last in favor of the Company. The madness of speculation spread rapidly. Landlords sold their estates, clergymen and widows brought their savings to invest in the South Sea Company, and all who could even borrow money rushed madly to buy shares, which were supposed to be of priceless value. The Company’s stock rose rapidly from £100 to £1000 sterling. Madness ruled the hour. For lack of office room the streets leading to it were lined with desks, and clerks full of business negotiating the worthless stock. The news of the failure of Law’s Mississippi Scheme and its consequences in Paris opened all eyes to the delusion, and as the year 1720 closed, the South Sea Bubble burst, CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 339 bringing ruin to the Company and to thousands of fami- lies who had so recklessly embarked their all upon the treacherous sea of speculation. 188. ‘*‘ UNCLE TOM.”’ A letter from Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe to the Indianapolis Zimes should set at rest forever the long- disputed subject as to who was the real Uncle Tom of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It was generally believed that Mrs. Stowe drew her character from an old negro in Indianapolis, whom she met there while on a visit to her brother, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. The editor of the Indianapolis Zimes wrote to Mrs. Stowe and received the following answer : SACO, July 27th, 1882. Dear Sir :—In reply to your inquiries, I will say that the character of Uncle Tom was not the biography of any one man. The first suggestion of it came to me while in Walnut Hills, Ohio. I wrote letters for my col- ored cook to her husband, a slave in Kentucky. She told me that he was so faithful, his master trusted him to come alone and unwatched to Cincinnati to market his farm product. Now this, according to the laws of Ohio, gave the man his freedom, since if any master brought or sent his slave into Ohio he became free, de facto. But she said her husband had given his word as a Christian, his master promising him his freedom. Whether he ever got it or not I know not. It was some four or five years later, when the Fugitive Slave Law made me desirous of showing what slavery was, that I conceived the plan of writing the history of a faithful Christian slave. After I had begun the story I got, at the Anti-Slavery Rooms, in Boston, the autobiography 340 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. of Josiah Henson, and introduced some of its most striking incidents into my story. The good people of England gave my simple good friend, Josiah, enthusi- astic welcome as the Uncle Tom of the story, though he was alive and well and likely long to live, and the Uncle Tom of the story was buried in a martyr’s grave. So much in reply to your inquiries. I trust this plain state- ment may prevent my answering any more letters on this subject. Truly yours, | : H. B. STOWE. [The autobiography of Josiah Henson is in the National Library at Washington, D. C.] —_- 189. THE AZTEC CALENDAR. The Aztec Calendar, cut in stone, preserved for cen- turies from destruction, is now built into the Cathedral of the City of Mexico. | It was carved in the year 1512 A. D., and brought to the ancient city of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico. When it had nearly reached its destination, it broke down the floating bridge on which it was loaded and was precipi- tated into the lake. The priest superintending the mov- ing and many of his assistants were drowned, but the great stone Calendar was raised with difficulty from the water and brought to the great temple, located by Tizoc and Aluitzoth, where it was inaugurated with human sacrifices. Not many years later this temple, with many others, was destroyed, and the huge Calendar and other objects of heathen worship were buried in the surrounding marshes, as the best way to get rid of them, by order of the Christian priests. It lay hidden for two centuries, until the 17th of December, 1790, when the grade of the The Aztec Calendar Stone. Pp. 340, ill. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 341 pavement in front of the cathedral was lowered, and it came to light. The Spanish Viceroy, then controlling Mexican affairs, allowed the commissioners of the cathedral to build it into their sacred edifice, on condition that it should be preserved and exposed always ina public place. It is now, however, held as the property of the National Museum. This Zodiac, or Calendar, is twelve feet in diameter, made of a piece of basalt of immense weight. It gives a clear exposition of the divisions of time, as understood by the Aztecs, into cycles, years and days. Fifty-two. years constituted a cycle; the year had three hundred and sixty-five days, with five very unlucky intercalary days wholly devoted to human sacrifice. Each year had eighteen months of twenty days each, and these months four weeks of: five days each. The days had peculiar names, such as “Sea Animal, Small Birdy “Monkey,” ‘“‘Rain.”’ These names did not recur every week, but were as numerous as the twenty days of the month. The points of the compass were named “ Reed,” ““ House,” ‘ Flint,” ‘‘ Rabbit,” instead of our East, West, North and South. Thus an Aztec might say, “I am going House on Sea-Animal,” which would merely mean that he was starting west on Monday. The months likewise had descriptive names ; thus the third month, which might correspond with our March, was called ‘ Victims flayed alive,” while the more agree- able title for the sixth month, which we call July, was “Garlands of corn on the necks of idols.’ As their writing was pictorial, instead of by letters selected from an alphabet, they could give a long phrase in a brief space with a few adroit turns of their writing-instruments. There is a painting in the Museum of Mexico called 342 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the “Wanderings of the Aztecs ;” it is forty-eight feet long and fifty inches wide, on maguey paper, all in black, except that the line of travel is marked in red. This painting gives the routes of the Aztecs from the time of their departure from Aztlan (Atlantis) until their arrival in the valley of Mexico. On the island, in the land of Aztlan, stands a trocalli, like the temples of worship in Mexico. The chronology year by year is given, and the various walks made by the wanderers, with the principal events that befell them. A short piece at the end is torn off and missing, which probably depicted the founding of Tenochtitlan, Mexico. Another painting depicts a range of mountains, among which is one pouring forth smoke from its summit. On the left is a city entirely surrounded by water, with the cactus growing on the rock, which always signifies Tenochtitlan. The mountain doubtless is Popocatepetl, which, by its name, signifies “the hill that gives smoke.” Another painting gives the chronology of the Kings of Mexico and Texcuco; it is long, stretching half across the large room of the Museum in which it is exhibited. Had more of these paintings been preserved, the daily life of the Aztecs would be before us, and every detail of such remote living could be as easily read as that of Egyptian life from the Monuments. 190. ‘‘SIXTY MINUTES MAKE AN HOUR.” Max Miller, in the Fortnightly Review, gives the reason for the division of an hour into sixty minutes. He says that in Babylon there existed by the side of the decimal system of notation another system, the sexa- gesimal, which was counted by sixties. Why that num- ber should have been chosen is clear enough, and it CURIOIS QUESTIONS. 343 speaks well for the practical sense of those ancient Baby- lonian merchants. There is no number which has so many divisors as 60; it can be divided without a remain- der. by 2,) 3, 4,°5,-0; 30, 12, 15,:20 and’ 30.) The Baby. lonians divided the sun’s path into 24 parasangs. A parasang is about four and a half miles ; the Babylonian astronomers compared the progress of the sun during one hour to the progress made by a good walker during the same time, both accomplishing one parasang. The whole course of the sun was 24 parasangs, or 360 de- grees. Each parasang or hour was subdivided into 60 minutes. This system of the revolution of the earth on its axis, or the apparent path of the sun around the earth, every twenty-four hours, was handed on to the Greeks, and Hipparchus, the Greek philosopher, who lived 150 B. C., introduced the Babylonian hour into Europe. Ptolemy, in what is known as the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, gave still wider currency to the Babylonian method of reckoning time.. It was carried along by traditional knowledge down through the Middle Ages, and, strange to say, survived the French Revolution. The French endeavored to reduce every measure to the decimal system of reckoning, but for some unexplained reason they left the clock and watch system alone, so that the measure of time remains sexagesimal, or Baby- lonian, each hour consisting of sixty minutes. 191. STIRLING CASTLE, ‘‘ THE BULWARK OF SCOTLAND,” In prehistoric times the waters of the German Ocean were united with the Atlantic by a narrow inland sea, still denoted by the river Forth and the Frith of Forth. Three islands of this old ocean are now three craigs, or hills, about a mile apart, rising out of the plains of 344. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Stirling ; Craig-Forth to the west, Abbey Craig to the east, and in the center, a little to the south, Stirling Rock. They are historic, for they have stood as senti- nels in the land since the battles for Scottish freedom raged over the plains beneath. Abbey Craig (550 feet) is now the High Altar of the nation, for there she erected in 1861-1869, at a cost of more than £16,000, a monument in honor of her chivalrous past and to the memory of her greatest patriot, Sir William Wallace. Upon the slope of Abbey Craig was fought and won the battle of Stirling Bridge (1297). Scotland was retaken from the English; William Wallace was the hero. Seventeen years later the Craig looked down upon the battle of Bannock- burn (1314), Scotland was free, and Robert Bruce was King. ‘The bulwark of the North, Grey Stirling,” with her towers and towns, her history of kings and nobles, is an imperishable monument to those two great Scottish Chiefs, who won the victory in the most heroic struggle for national independence recorded of any nation. The War of Independence was begun by Wil- liam Wallace at Stirling Bridge, 1297; it was completed by Robert Bruce at Bannockburn, 1314. But long before these days, Stirling Rock was the ‘bulwark of the nation.’”’ It commands the passage of the Forth, which was the main communication between the natural division of Scotland into Highlands and Lowlands. Its history closely follows that of the old Castle Rock of Edinburgh, thirty-six miles distant. It was a fortress in Caledonian times, and more or less the capital of Scot- land from the time of the Malcolm Canmore to that of James VI. It shared in all the shocks of national strife, even to the last rebellion in 1745-1746. Stirling Rock reaches an altitude of three hundred and forty feet, and is crowned by the famous Stirling Castle, which com- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 345 mands a magnificent view, and looks down as‘guardian upon the town of both ancient and modern growth; upon the serpentine windings of the river Forth; while its sky-line is peaked and pinnacled with the summits of the Grampian Hills. But besides the associations of Stirling with the great heroes, Wallace and Bruce, there are others less heroic but hardly less cherished. The Age of Mary Stuart was the climax of the national inde- pendence, won by William Wallace and Robert Bruce. For greater safety her infant son, when seven days old, was conveyed from Edinburgh to Stirling, and here grew to manhood under the educational care of the “Scholar of the Reformation,’ George Buchanan. This prince united finally the great North and the greater South of this Island of Great Britain under one crown, as James VI. of Scotland and James I. of England. Here the unhappy Queen-mother, Mary Stuart, made only occa- sional visits to her royal child. Of the earlier Stewarts, James II. and James V. were born in Stirling Castle, and here the Earl of Douglas was fatally stabbed by James II. Many other associations, historic, romantic and pathetic, linger around stern old Stirling Castle. 192. FIRST CHINESE COLONY IN JAPAN. The founding of the first Chinese colony in Japan is connected with many beautiful legends which hang about its great white mountain, Fuji-Yam. One is: ‘At last Izanami and Izanagi (Japanese Adam and Eve) said farewell to their children and went back to their homes among the gods. Their earthly children brought more and more splendor to the Island Kingdom until, at last, their thoughts were more of the kingdoms of 346 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. the earth than of the gods. But there came a great earthquake, and the world in which they lived and felt themselves supreme was shaken to its foundations. The night was long, but when the sun rose it shone upon a beautiful mountain in their midst, white as marble, and perfect in majesty and symmetry (283 B. C.). At first they thought it a vision, a cloud-picture that would fade away. But the new glory remained ; by day it towered into the blue sky, by night it seemed lost in the Milky Way. The fame of this beautiful mountain went abroad, even across the sea. In the oldest Chinese books there is frequent mention made of Horaisan, a sacred mountain of perfect beauty and shining whiteness which was said to rise out of the Eastern Ocean. In China, wonderful stories arose about this half-mythical Horaisan. It was said to be inhabited by a number of holy hermits, and that whoever climbed to its summit would live forever, immortal, untouched by death or decay.”’ According to another legend, one of the wise men of Japan, Jofuku, led the first Chinese colony into Japan in the following maner : The Emperor Shin-no-shiko, who reigned in China some two thousand years ago, had everything that this world could give,—Empire, riches, beautiful children, perfect health. But all this gave him no happiness as long as the fact remained that he must die and leave it all. So Shin-no-shiko vowed that he would overcome death. He assembled all the wise men of his Empire, and offered untold treasures to any one who would dis- cover an elixir of life. Many came at the call of the Emperor and made prescriptions. The elixir was first tried upon slaves ; if they died, Shin-no-shiko nodded his head to his green-bannerman, and each man who had CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 347 fooled the Emperor was slain. But at last came a very wise man, called Jofuku. He told Shin-no-shiko that he knew those other wise men were all fools, because he, and he only, knew where the elixir of life could be obtained. Then Jofuku told the Emperor that the her- mits of the Holy White Mountain in the Eastern Sea (Fuji-Yam) possessed the water of life, for, ‘‘ had he not heard that none ever died there?’ Then Shin-no-shiko rejoiced, thinking that immortality could now be ob- ‘tained. Jofuku offered to head the mission to the Her- mits of Horaisan to procure the elixir of life, so that their noble Emperor might live forever. The Emperor pro- vided him with ships and money, and all things neces- sary for the journey to “the holy mountain.” But Jofuku said he must also take with him one thousand of the most beautiful youths and maidens of the Empire, to give importance to the Embassy and to overawe the hermits. He also ladened his ship with treasures wherewith to purchase the elixir, and, without the Emperor’s con- sent, took with him a great number of learned and sacred books. With all this splendid plunder, Jofuku sailed away to ‘“‘the land of the rising sun” and the holy mountain. No thought of returning to China had been in his mind. He needed his five hundred couples, his treasures and books, for the founding of a colony in the land which he knew must lie around the mountain. The Emperor waited many weary months for his wise men to sail into port with the elixir of life. When he found that he had been deceived, he ordered all the wise men in China to be put to death, and, in his rage, made bonfires of all the learned books, saying, in his proclamation : ‘“The uneducated are more easily governed.” Jofuku thus founded the first Chinese colony in Japan, in the 348 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. province of Kishiu, and the valuable books which he stole are to this day the envy and despair of Chinese scholars. Mrs. Hugh Fraser, in her ‘‘ Letters from Japan,” gives many other beautiful legends about the great volcanic mountain which has many names. The more learned of the Buddhists believe that their sreat teacher gave the mountain its perfect shape, as the symbol of Nirvana’s perfect peace. ‘‘So the queen of the mountain hangs between the stars of heaven and the mists of the earth, dear to every heart that can be still and understand.’ The same writer says: “ Fuji domi- nates life in Japan by its silent beauty; sorrow is hushed, longing quieted, strife forgotten in its presence, and broad rivers of peace flow down from that changeless home of peace,” the Peak of the White Lotus. 193. JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES (ALLORI, 1577-1621). The most finished picture of Cristofano Allori, one of the best artists of his time, is in the Pitti Palace, Florence. It represents Judith with the head of Holo- fernes in her hand, and the maid, who accompanied her upon her tragic mission, in the background. The head of Holofernes is said to be a portrait of the artist, Judith that of his wife, and the maid, her mother. Judith is the heroine of the Apocryphal Book called by her name, which is one of the earliest specimens of historical fiction. The heroine is represented as an ideal type of beauty, piety, chastity and courage. She was of the tribe of Simeon, and belonged toa period of storm and religious conflict, when faith meant action rather than supplication. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 349 She lived in Bethulia, when it was besieged by an Assyrian army under Holofernes. By stratagem, she, with her maid, entered his tent while he was in a drunken sleep, and taking his own sword from the wall cut off his head. She was awarded a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and honored to the day of her death as the deliverer of her nation. The face of Judith is pale with the passion and excite- ment of her cruel night’s work, but the coloring of the whole picture is rich and harmonious. This was a favorite subject with Allori; he painted.at least twenty pictures on this one subject. The Pitti Palace has his best. 194. AN ANCIENT RECIPE. From a rare book published in London in 1662 the following recipe is taken: “To make the drink that is now much used called coffee. ‘“The coffee-berries are to be bought at any Druggist, about three shillings the pound; take what quantity you please, and over a charcoal fire, in an old pudding- pan, or frying-pan, keep them always stirring until they be quite black, and when you crack one with your teeth that it is black within as it is without; yet if you exceed, then do you waste the Oyl, which only makes the drink ; and if less, then will it not deliver its Oy, which must make the drink ; and if you should continue fire till it be white, it will then make no coffee, but only give you its salt. The Berry prepared as above, beaten and forced through a Lawn Sive, is then fit for use. “Take clean water, and boil one-third of it away what quantity soever it be, and it is fit for use. Take one 350 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. quart of this prepared Water, put in it one ounce of your prepared coffee, and boil it gently one-quarter of an hour, and it is fit for your use; drink one-quarter of a pint as hot as you can sip it. “Note, that instead of coffee, take English wheat, and thou wilt find it in all points as good and as profitable for thee, as I have wought and proved it, and speak it from knowledge ; and I do from my heart bear witness to this drink as the best and safest for the health of man’s body. And further I do know that it doth abate the fury and sharpness of the Acrimony, which is the cender of these Diseases called Cronical. And although it doth want fermentation, yet hath it the true strength of the grain if it be well prepared, and doth in no wise fume to intoxication, for that it is unfermented ; and un- doubtedly those which love health, will love this drink ; and is an absolute enemy unto Nature’s enemies.” The earliest written records of the use of coffee, as a beverage, are by Arabian writers. It is said to have prevailed in Persia as early as 875 A. D., and in Arabia about the fifteenth century. The first English writer on the subject says: ‘The Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), so named of a berry as black as soot and as bitter, which they sip up as warm as they can suffer, because they find by experience that that kind of drink used helpeth digestion and preserveth alacrity.’’ (Burton’s ‘Anatomy of Melancholy.”) The first of the famous ‘“‘ Coffee Houses’’ of London dates from 1652. The use of the beverage in England was at first con- fined to the wealthy, but ten years later coffee is spoken of as ‘‘now much used.” It was not introduced as a beverage in France until 1662. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 351 195. THE RUSSIAN, OR MUSCOVITE, EMPIRE. The origin of the principal nations of Europe may be traced to three great distinct families: the Latins, the Teutons, and the Slavonians. The Italians, the French, the Spaniards and the Portuguese have derived civiliza- tion and language from the Latins, or Romans; the Germans, Swiss, Swedes, Danes, Hollanders and Eng- lish from the Teutons; the Poles, Bulgarians and Rus- sians from the Slavonians. The nations derived from the Latins were the earliest to receive civilization ; those from the Germans were second; the Slavonians (also called Scythians) were the last. Asearly as 400 B. C. some Slavonian tribes emigrated into Europe and made settlements upon the river Don. They were tribes of the patriarchal type, their chief em- ployment being the rearing of cattle and the manage- ment of bees. It was not until the fifth century A. D. that the wild Slavonians, who overran what we now call European Russia, made any permanent settlement ; these were at Novgorod and Kiev. The beginning of civiliza- tion soon brought them wealth, and wealth brought dis- sension. They began to feel the want of unity and good government, so in the ninth century some Slavonic tribes sent a message to the “Northmen”’ (Scandinavians) : “Our land is great and bountiful, but there is no order in it; come and rule over us.” Thus invited, though some say as a Conqueror, Ruric, a Scandinavian chieftain, became ‘‘ Prince of the tribes East of the Baltic Sea.’”” These people were thenceforth called ‘ Russians,’ from their leader, Ruric, of the Nur- man (Norwegian) family of Russ. He established him- self at Novgorod, and became the founder of the Rus- sian monarchy in 862. The one‘thousandth anniversary 352 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. of the founding of the Russian Empire was celebrated with great rejoicing at Novgorod in 1862. The great-grandson of Ruric, Vladimir the Great, married the daughter of the Greek Emperor, in 988; Vladimir and his subjects then embraced Christianity. Thus Russia obtained her religion from the Eastern Church instead of from Rome, and has ever since be- longed to the Greek, or Eastern Church. The successors of Vladimir the Great divided the Russian dominions among the different heirs; this re- sulted in a decline of the Russian Empire. Ivan, the - Great, consolidated the Empire again in the fifteenth cen- tury. Ivan IV., “The Terrible’ (1533-1584), extended its territory to the Caspian Sea, and was the first to assume the title of “Czar.’’ Czar is a Slav word, mean- ing King, though the sovereigns claim it to be the Russian form of Cesar. In 1606 the line of Ruric came to an end, having ruled for more than seven hundred years. After an interregnum, the Russians, in 1613, chose Michael Romanoff to be their Czar, and thus began the second dynasty, ‘‘the Romanoff,” which has ruled ever since. Peter the Great, 1689, took the title “‘ Em- peror, or Czar, of all the Russias,’ and was the real founder of the present Russian Empire. The eighteenth century might be called ‘Women’s Century,” from the noted women who ruled: Cath- erine I.; Anne; Elizabeth ; Catherine II. The Czars of the nineteenth century are easily remembered: Alex- ander I. (1801-1825); Nicholas I. (1825-1855); Alex- ander II. (1855-1881); Alexander III. (1881-1894); Nicholas II., the present Emperor. Moscow, called by the Russians Moskva, gets its name from the River Moskva, which means ‘‘ Mossy Waters.” The city dates from 1150, but has been nearly destroyed CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 353 by fire many times. From the fourteenth to the eigh- teenth centuries it was the capital of Russia, and is still the richest city. Like Vienna, it is built around a cen- tral city, the Kremlin, or inner city. It has been in- creased in grandeur for five hundred years, and is still surrounded by a wall with strong towers and five gates. The five gates of the old city are wonderful in them- selves; the wall is seven thousand two hundred and eighty feet in circumference. Around the Kremlin the city spreads over a surface of about twenty-five miles. The churches of the city are said to number forty, and the bells in their glittering domes are almost innumer- able; in no other city is there such music in the air as in “the Holy City of Moscow.” There is a trinity of Cathedrals in the Kremlin: the Cathedral of the As- sumption, in which the Emperors have been crowned for over three hundred years; the Cathedral of the Annun- ciation, in which they have been baptized and married ; the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, in which they were buried until the time of Peter the Great. Here may be read the brief history of the ancient Czars. The re- markable Tower of the Kremlin, the Ivan Veliki, dates from 1590-1600. It consists of five stories and contains thirty-four bells, being really the Campanile of the three Cathedrals. The largest bell, called the Assumption, hangs in the first tier above the chapel St. John (Ivan), and is the largest suspended bell, weighing sixty-four tons. Next to this is a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, the patron Saint of Russia. The topmost tier contains two silver bells of exquisite tone. The tower is three hundred and twenty-five feet high, and can be ascended by four hundred and fifty steps. Napoleon and his Mar- shals viewed the city of Moscow from this tower. At the foot of the tower the largest bell ever cast, the Tzar 23 354 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Holokol, stands on a granite pedestal. It is sixty-five feet in circumference and twenty-five feet high. It is quite large enough for achapel, and weighs four hundred and forty-four thousand pounds. It was cast by the order of Empress Anne, in 1733; it fell during a fire and lay buried in the earth until 1836, when it was raised to its present position by Nicholas I. The figures in relief are those of the Empress Anne and the Emperor Alexis, and on the scroll below are representations of the Saviour, the Virgin, and the Evangelists surrounded by Cherubim. The broken piece, which is seven feet high and two feet in thickness, weighs eleven tons. This bell was never rung; the breaking of it is said to have been caused by the ladies of Moscow throwing into it, while being cast, their precious jewels. 196. LAWS OF SUCCESSION IN EUROPE. There are three systems of ‘Succession to the throne’’ in force among the civilized powers of Europe, namely, the Salic, the Russian, and the Cognate, or Cas- tilian system. The Salic system governs the right of succession in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Saxony, Italy and the Balkan States. It completely excludes all women from the throne; and yet in nearly all of these countries women have been noted rulers as Regents—notably Queen Margaretha of Norway and Denmark, called the ‘‘Semiramis of the North.” After the death of her husband she conquered Sweden and added it to her crown. The Union of Calmar confirmed the union of the Scandinavian Kingdoms, Norway, Swe- den, and Denmark, under one sovereign; and, by the request of the Queen, her nephew Eric was appointed her successor. She died in 1412. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 355 France, also, has had famous women rulers as Regents. But the system of exclusion still continues, and were the King of Belgium to lose his only surviving nephew, Prince Albert, he would be obliged to adopt some foreign prince as his successor, with the consent of the National Legislature, although he has two daughters and several nieces. Queen Victoria came to the throne of England under the Cognate System, but was debarred from the throne of Hanover by the Salic law. The Russian System prevails not only in the Musco- vite Empire, but in Holland, Greece, Bavaria, and Wur- temberg. This system provides that all male heirs to the throne shall take precedence of the Princesses of the reigning House, and that no Grand Duchess shall come to the throne except on the complete extinction of the male line. The Czar of Russia is not only the temporal ruler but the spiritual autocrat of the Russian people, holding the same position in the Greek Church as the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church; therefore no heir can succeed to the throne of Russia unless he is a mem- ber of the Orthodox Greek, or Eastern, Church. But Russia has not always been governed by this system. Peter the Great discarded it in order that he might disinherit his disobedient son Alexis, and he de- creed that the succession should be at the discretion of the Sovereign. The plan of Peter the Great prevailed, and the eighteenth century has been called, in Russia, the “Women’s Century,” from the many noted women who ruled. But in the early part of this century it was found that the Emperors in appointing an heir to the throne inevitably bequeathed a civil war at the same time. The System of Peter the Great was then discarded, and the Russian system was restored by Nicholas I. 356 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. The Cognate, or Castilian, system prevails in Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain. According to this system, male heirs in the same relation to the sovereign exclude all female heirs, without regard to priority of birth. The boy King of Spain takes precedence of his two elder sisters, even though one of them actually reigned for the six months that intervened between the death of her father and the birth of her brother, the present King. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of England in lieu of his elder sister, the Dowager Empress of Germany. According to this same Cognate system, the little daughter of the Duke of York, in the event of the death of her two elder brothers, would of right come to the throne prior to the sisters of her father. Queen Victoria’s great-grandchildren are nearer to the throne than her own sons, except the Prince of Wales. There is one thing that can debar an English prince or princess in direct line from the throne of England, namely, a marriage with a Roman Catholic. There is but one of Queen Victoria’s descendants who has thus debarred herself, namely, her granddaughter, the Princess of Roumania, eldest child of Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Edinburgh. The English law of succession does not exclude any other creed. This Cognate law of Succession disposes forever of the story, widely circulated, that upon the death of Queen Victoria the Emperor William would put in a claim for the throne of England as being nearer in line of succes- sion than his uncle, the Prince of Wales. There is but one more system of succession in Europe, that of Turkey, where the crown devolves at the death of the Sultan not, necessarily, on his son, but goes to the oldest living prince of the reigning House— a succession according to priority of birth. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 357 197. VELASQUEZ (1599-1660). Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velasquez was born of noble parents in Seville, in 1599, and died in Madrid in 1660. His father was Juan Rodriguez, his mother Geronima Velasquez, by whose name, according to An- dalusian custom, he was called and is alone known in Art. The life of Velasquez is a happy contrast to that of most artists. It presents an even flow of prosperity from the dawning of his genius in early life in Seville to the crowning glory of knighthood bestowed upon him in Madrid. Philip IV., his patron and friend during the last thirty-eight years of his life, sent him twice to Italy : first to study in the various Italian schools for two years, during which time he painted two of his cele- brated works, ‘“‘The Forge of Vulcan” and ‘“ Joseph’s Coat.’’ He went the second time in his official capacity, as Court Painter to the King of Spain, to collect, at any cost, choice works of Art for the Royal Palace. The duties of his office also required him to superintend all Court ceremonies and festivals, the last over which he presided being the marriage ceremonies of the Infanta Maria Theresa (daughter of Philip IV.) to Louis XIV. of France (q. v.). From these ceremonies Velasquez re- turned to Madrid, on the 26th of June, so much ex- hausted that he died on the 6th of August, 1660. He was buried with magnificent ceremonies in the Church of San Juan; but the church being destroyed by the French in 1811, he, like Murillo in Seville, has neither grave nor tomb to mark the site. His last great paint- ing was Las Meninas, or the Maids of Honor. It rep- resents the royal family, the maids of honor, the artist, the dwarfs, anda sleeping hound. When the picture was completed he asked the King if anything was want- 358 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. ing ; he answered, ‘Only one thing to make it perfect ;” and taking the palette and brush from the artist’s hand, painted the Cross of Santiago upon the breast of Velas- quez in the picture. Thus his last great work brought him his highest honor, ‘‘a Knight of the Holy Order”’ of Spain. His “ Water-Carrier of Seville” is a speci- men of his wonderful power of expression. Only the old man, with his water-jars, and two thirsty boys, but one can look at their faces for hours. Then that still more powerful single figure of Barba Roja. How like an angry giant he stands, with his sword in one hand and the scabbard in the other. The sword point is turned down, but his firm-set lips and angry determined eyes express a defiance that fascinates. One looks in the direction he is looking and expects to see the foe he is defying, and our sympathy is with the brave old man. If Velasquez had painted these two pictures and no more, he would have been famous. The technical excel- lence of Velasquez shows that he worked leisurely for wealthy patrons, that he finished his works with delib- eration and care, to meet the criticism of the connois- seurs of a royal court. There is also an intense national spirit in all his works ; they are all close copies of Spain and her people ; but in his conventional religious works, of which there are very few, he is not ideal. Even in his celebrated “ Forge of Vulcan” the brawny smiths are all Spaniards. The beauty of human form makes up for the lack of divinity in his gods, and ranks this picture as one of the gems in the Sala de Isabel along- side of famous Italian masters. He married the daugh- ter of Racheo, his first teacher. She survived him only eight days, and was buried in the same tomb. It is a source of great lamentation in Spain that her two greatest painters, who lived at the same time, were born Se Boe ss Velasquez. arrier— Cc The Water THE LIBRARY a AOR SY Ae A oe EM: ¢ 4 of CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 359 in the same town, were the most thoroughly loyal sub- jects of the crown, the founders of her most character- istic schools of Art, Velasquez and Murillo, should have been so rudely snatched from their graves by a foreign foe that no one can say to-day, “This is the tomb of a ‘man whom Spain delighteth to honor.” 198. “ST. URSULA AND HER 11,000 VIRGINS.,”’ There are many versions of this extravagant but interesting legend; interesting because of its antiquity and the deep hold it had upon the minds of the people during the Middle Ages, and because as late as 1837 there was a celebration of the sixteenth century of their martyrdom. According to the Cologne version, Ursula was a Princess of Brittany, celebrated for her great beauty, her wisdom, her learning, and her piety. Her hand was sought in marriage by the Prince of Eng- land, Conon, who was equally celebrated for manly beauty and physical strength. The King of Brittany was greatly perplexed when the Ambassadors arrived, knowing that his daughter had already dedicated herself to Christ, and yet feared to offend the great King of England by a refusal. But Ursula asked permission to reply to the Ambassadors, and courteously accepted the Prince on three conditions: That he would allow her ten virgins of noble blood as her companions, and to each of them 1000 attendants, and to herself 1000; that he would allow her three years in which to visit the shrines of the saints; and, thirdly, that the Prince and all his court would receive baptism. The Prince, to her surprise, granted the conditions. So the 11,000 virgins started on their pilgrimage, but all were martyred at Cologne. 360 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Visitors to Cologne are still shown cases of skulls and human bones, beneath glass, said to be the 11,000 virgins martyred for their faith in Christ, October 21, 237 A.D. The numbers have now been reduced from 11,000 to 2000 by reading the inscription upon which the legend is founded, ‘Ursula et Undecimilea.” By translating the name of her companion they made it read 11,000 virgins. But why destroy a time-honored legend and a beautiful field of art ! The most important work of Vittoria Carpaccio is a circle of nine pictures from the legend of St. Ursula, painted, 1490 to 1495, for the Scuola of Ursula; they were removed with great care to the Academy. They are greatly admired for the architectural backgrounds, the admirable spacing of such a large number of people, and the fine Oriental costumes; atmospheric effects are carefully observed, andthe perspective is accurate. The most crowded groups are made distinct by his masterly management of light and shade. Carpaccio (born 1450) is called ‘‘the narrative painter.’ He ranks next to Bellini in the early Venetian School. 199. PALACE AND FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU. Fontainebleau is thirty-seven miles southeast of Paris. Kings lived and issued royal edicts from the old Chateau of Fontainebleau five hundred and fifty years before Louis XIV. held his brilliant Court at Versailles, 1680. But what Versailles was to Louis XIV., Fontainebleau had been to Frances I. (1515-1547.) Each transformed a medizval chateau of his forefathers into the most gorgeous palace of the age. Each palace was the hobby of a great king, where he loved to lavish his treasures, and where he strove to reproduce the glories of Classical CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 361 Art; and each palace has still its historic associations of deep interest to the world, reaching down through the nineteenth century. Even the word Fontainebleau has a history, for what is now known as the great Forest of Fon- tainebleau was in the ninth century called the Forest de Bierre, from a Danish warrior who encamped there with his army in $45, after having committed terrible ravages in France. His thirsty soldiers discovered a fine spring where the town now stands. When the Danes were driven off, the spring became celebrated for its delicious water, urider the appellation Fontaine belle Eau. The title of the spring, contracted, gives the origin of the . name of the great Forest, Town and Palace of Fontaine- bleau. The march of civilization has leveled most of the grand old forests of France, but Fontainebleau, the favorite hunting-ground of kings, has been spared. It is an immense tract of Government land, about fifty miles in circuit, and covering an area of sixty-four square miles. It has still its hundreds of acres of magnificent trees of every variety ; it has its rocky promontories, from which have been obtained most of the paving and building-stone of Paris; it has its valleys, ravines, and plains covered with brown heather ; it hastwelve hundred miles of road and pathway ; and it has its historic sites and picturesque views. It add have its hermit saints, its ghostly spectres, and the Weeping Rock, to which pilgrimages were made for its curative properties, especially for sore eyes ; it had its band of robbers and tales of mysterious murders; an obelisk still marks the spot where Henry IV. saw “the spectral huntsman’’ just before his assassination. But its superstitious associations soon vanished when it be- came the favorite camping-ground of kings in the six- teenth century. It is now an Elysian field for painters. Nearly ten centuries of history are bound up in Fon- 362 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. tainebleau, since the time when Robert the Pious built a Hermitage there in 996. But passing over five hun- dred years, during which time kings were born and lived and died in the Chateau Fontainebleau, the present Palace of Fontainebleau was the palace of the Monarch of the Renaissance, Francis I. It was added to evenas late as Henry IV., but nothing was demolished until the Revo- lution, when, with other royal palaces, it was despoiled of its furniture and left desolate. Napoleon I. spent $1,200,000 upon its restoration, and Louis Phillipe, in 1831, completed the restoration at an enormous expense. But, like Versailles, it is now little else than an Art Museum, though the President of the Republic has his apartments there during the summer. The Palace contains nine hundred apartments, all of which were designed and decorated by the best living artists of the sixteenth century, and, under Napoleon I. and Louis Phillipe, were refurnished and restored by the best French artists of the first half of the nineteenth cen- tury. The Entrance Court, separated from the street by a high iron railing, is known as “the Court of Adieus.” It was here that Napoleon Bonaparte, April 20th, 1814, after his abdication, summoned the officers and soldiers of his army, the ‘Old Guard,” and bade them his ever memorable Adieu. 200. THE MONARCH OF THE RENAISSANCE. The first celebrated School of Artists in France was known as the “Fontainebleau School,” and Francis Lats founder, has been called ‘The Monarch of the Renais- sance.”’ And such he truly was, both in Letters and Art. He founded the College of Paris in 1530, and for the building and decoration of his Palace at Fontainebleau CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 363 he brought over a colony of Italian Artists whose homes, and those of the workmen, formed the nucleus of the present handsome town of Fontainebleau. French artists and students of Art were invited by the King to join the Italian colony, to practice the Arts, and to receive in- struction free. He said: ‘The Arts,’ for Architecture and Sculpture and Painting had not then separated. To be an architect during the Middle Ages and in the early years of the Renaissance was to be also a sculptor and a painter. It was not until after the death of Raphael that the arts beganto separate. Architecture, up to this time, had been supreme; sculpture and painting were but her handmaids. The Palace of Fontainebleau was built under the Union of the Arts, and it is the truest type of the French Renaissance. The first Headmaster of the School of Fontainebleau was an Italian, Rosso de Rossi (1496-1541), called by the students ‘Maitre Roux.” He wasa pupil and disciple of Michael An- gelo, a man of letters as well as of art, handsome in form and attractive in manner, a great favorite of the King and of the School. In the height of his popu- larity he was robbed of a large sum of money. He accused a brother artist, who was arrested and put to extreme torture, but no evidence of his guilt appearing he was declared innocent. “Maitre Roux”’’ suffered such extreme remorse for having wronged an_ unoffend- ing man that he finally took his own life. Few of his paintings remain at Fontainebleau, but his best easel- picture still hangs in the Louvre, “The Rival Songs of the Muses.” The King then appealed to Guillo Romano for a successor. He sent his pupil and assistant, Fran- cesco Primaticcio (1504-1570). This master, with his school, not only completed the enormous task of de- signing and decorating the palace, but was retained as 304. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Court Painter during three succeeding reigns (Henry IL, Francis II., and Charles IX.). Primaticcio was the chief architect and designer, but Niccolo Abbate was the chief painter. The work of this artist was highly eulogized. It was said that he combined in his frescoes “the symmetry of Raphael, the terror of Michael An- gelo, the truth of Titian, and the dignity of Correggio.” This ‘School of Fontainebleau’’. produced the most noted French artists of the sixteenth century, those whose works still adorn the Louvre. The chief of this group was Jean Goujon (1515-1572), sculptor, architect, and medallist, who, besides his decorations in high and low relief in the Palace of Fontainebleau, showing perfect grace and elegant treatment of form, was also the Court Sculptor of the Louvre, and in that great Palace of Art there is still a Gallery called the “Salle de Jean Goujon,” where his most noted works are to be found, especially his portrait of ‘‘ Diana of Poitiers.” This great French artist of the sixteenth century was among the doomed in the Massacre of the Huguenots, August 24th, 1572. He was shot while on a scaffolding carving a relievo on the exterior of the Louvre. The School of Fontainebleau, however, was not destined to leave a lasting influence upon French Art; it only awakened native genius, and the Palace of Fontainebleau marks an epoch in the history of French Art. The student thenceforth, instead of studying Art studied “The Arts,’ Architecture, Sculp- ture,and Painting. The arts separated, and each thence- forth pursued her individual pathway. Northern and Southern Art diverged, and two distinct Schools of Art arose, ‘Italian Art’’ and ‘“‘ Art Outside of Italy.” CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 365 201. THE MOST REMARKABLE RIVER VOYAGE ON RECORD. Pascal, a noted French writer (1623-1662), once said: “Une fleuve, c’est une route qui marche” (a river is a road that moves), and compared it with human life, that carries the traveler along with it. In ancient times rivers were the only highways, and they are still the great natural boundaries of nations. It is along the banks of these “‘moving roads’’ that the progress of the world’s civilization may be traced. And what singular love and veneration men have shown for certain rivers: the Hindoos for the Ganges, the He- brews for the Jordan, the Egyptians for the Nile, the Romans for the Tiber, the Germans for the Rhine, and the French for the Rhone. To follow the subject of historic rivers would be to write the history of many nations. Thus the civilization of ancient Gaul traveled up the banks of the Rhone from the Mediterranean, and that river is strongly characteristic of the French people. The Rhone is the most vehement of all navigable rivers ; itis the bluest, brightest, swiftest, most Joyous river in Europe. It rises in the Swiss mountains, flows through Lake Leman, or Lake Geneva, in the Alpine range, and it becomes at times an irresistible torrent, as other rivers of that great mountain range flow into it. No man can stay the “blue rushing Rhone; but science has grappled with it, and has made it subservient to the needs of men. Thetugs that now take the barges of freight up the river are furnished with a great wheel, with steel teeth shaped like the claws of a lion; this wheel turns on the bed of the river, rising and falling with the depth and clutching the stones below. It was before the days of steam tugs that Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) made one of the most remarkable river voyages on record. 366 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. In the evening of his days, after he had made France the first nation of Europe, when he felt his political power, like his life, ebbing away, Richelieu loved to devise new schemes, in order to prove to the world that his will was still the master of his body and of France. He ordered a stately barge prepared, to carry him and his suite against the current of the Rhone from Tarascon to Lyons. He left Tarascon on the 17th of August, 1642, and reached Lyons on the 3d of September. The body of the dying Cardinal-king lay in a floating-palace cabin hung with crimson velvet, feeling the bitterness of physi- cal decline, but rejoicing that his feeble fingers still grasped the throne; he took delight in listening to the swift waters of the Rhone that made his slow progress by the toil of other men a proof of his autocratic power. To the stern of his barge was attached a boat containing his doomed political prisoners, De Thou and Cing Mars; three other barges followed, containing all things neces- sary for the pomp and magnificence of a royal voyage— gold and silver plate, and luxurious furniture, and tapes- try to embellish his temporary resting-places by the way. On each side of the river rode companies of light cav- alry, his military escort and guards, with trumpeters, whose bugle blasts enlivened this silent journey. The journey ended at Lyons, where Cinq Mars and his friend De Thou perished on the scaffold, having in 1642 been detected in a conspiracy against Richelieu, which but gave expression to the old and undying hatred of the Court for the Cardinal. The death of these two statesmen left the power of Richelieu supreme. But he did not long enjoy the suc- cess which his cold heart and strong hand had won; his river voyage ended his career; he died three months later, in December, 1642. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 367 202. FORT PITT. On November 26th, 1758, General Forbes reported the capture of the ruins and town of Fort Duquesne at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers unite and form the Ohio ; he dated his letters from “ Duquesne, now Pitts-bourgh” (see page 59). General Forbes im- mediately began the erection of a new fort near the site of the old one and named it Fort Pitt, for the Prime Min- ister of England, who said, later : “I will never burn my fingers with an American stamp act.” Fort Pitt was occupied in 1760, but was not finished until the summer of 1761, under Colonel Boquet. In the year 1764 Colonel John Campbell laid out that part of the city of Pittsburgh which lies between Water and Second Streets, and between Ferry and Market Streets, being four squares. ‘We have never been able to learn” (says Mr. Craig) “what authority Campbell had to act in this case. But the Penns afterwards legalized Camp- bell’s act, at least, so far as not to change his plan of lots.” In 1770 George Washington arrived at Pitts- burgh on his way to the Kenawha. In his Journal of October 17th, he says: “Dr. Craig and myself, with Captain Crawford and others, arrived at Fort Pitt, dis- tant from the crossing (Connellsville) forty-three anda half measured miles. We lodged in what is called the town, distant about three hundred yards from the fort, at one Semples, who keeps a very good house of public en- tertainment. The houses, which are built of logs, and ranged in streets, are on the Monongahela. The fort is built on the point between the rivers, but not so near the ‘pitch of it’ as Fort Duquesne stood. A moat encom- passes it. The garrison consists of two companies of Royal Irish, commanded by Captain Edmonstone.”’ 368 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. The census of Pittsburgh, taken Monday, July 21st, 1760, was as follows: Number of houses, : : | AAS Number of unfinished heueee : + eS Number of huts, . f Re Total exclusive of the Fort, . By bed Number of men, . : : . 2 Le Number of women, . . : Me ere Number of male children, . ; sie Number of female children, . : A 18 Total, : : ; me Present onutneenl 239; 667. The sole existing monument of the British possession of “the Point” is the old Blockhouse, more correctly Redoubt—built by Colonel Boquet in 1764, although it is probable that the construction was begun in the fall of 1763, after Boquet had relieved Fort Pitt. It is situated about three hundred yards from the Point, on what is now Fourth Street, and midway be- tween the junction of the Monongahela and the Alle- gheny Rivers, where they meet and form the Ohio River. The structure is built of brick, covered with old-fash- ioned clapboards, with a layer of double logs, through which are cut portholes, thirty-six in number, in two rows, one over the other, for effective work in case of necessity. The building is 15 x 16 feet, 22 feet in height ; twenty feet high from the floor to the eaves of the roof. When the Proprietaries, John Penn and John Penn, Jr., CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 369 determined to sell the land embraced in the Manor of Pittsburgh, Stephen Bayard and Isaac Craig purchased, in January, 1784, all the ground between Fort Pitt and the Allegheny River, supposed to contain about three acres. his is now known as the ‘Schenley property at the Point.” The late Colonel William A. Herron, agent of Mrs. Mary E. Schenley, of London, England, owner of the Blockhouse, presented to the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, at a regular meeting, April 3d, 1894, a deed for the Blockhouse, with a plot of ground gox 100 feet. Miss Denny, Regent of the Chapter, in behalf of the Daughters, re- ceived the gift. Since then the work of restoring the Blockhouse and beautifying the grounds has been completed. A stockade fence has been placed around it for protection, and it is now open to visitors. It will serve as a museum for Colonial and Revolutionary Relics. The inscription cut into the old stone tablet reads 70a Winn Coll. Boquet.”) In the city of Pittsburgh to-day there is little else than the names of hill-tops and streets to remind its resi- dents of the great struggle which took place in its near vicinity, the results of which decided the Anglo-Saxon character of the country, changed the map of the world and shook the whole of Europe. The military career of George Washington began with the campaigns of the English to drive the French from the head-waters of the Ohio river. Mount Washington, Duquesne Heights, Grant Street, Forbes Street, Armstrong, Boquet, Din- widdie, Penn Avenue, Braddock Road, and others, are perpetual reminders of the brave men who first made Pittsburgh. 24 370 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 203. ‘‘ THE FATHER OF ZOOLOGY.” Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, who lived between the years 384 and 322 iis C., has been: called The ar His father was physician ms When seventeen years old, Ayislone Rent to AtHens and became a favorite pupil of Plato, although he did not always agree with his teachings. When he was forty-one years old, in 343 B. C., Philip, King of Macedon, sent for him to teach his son, Alexander, who afterwards became Alexander the Great. Prince Alexander, then a boy of thirteen years, always loved his teacher. After he had conquered Persia and the then known world, he sent to Aristotle 800 talents—about $1,000,000—to enable him to write a “History of Animals’’ ; and he also employed a great many men to catch animals, that Aristotle might have the living animals before him to study and compare. Of the many books which Aristotle wrote on Science and Art, which were placed in the great Alexandrian Library, the most important were his works on natural history, in which animals were first scientifically described and divided into classes. Aristotle, ‘the Father of Zoology,” died when sixty- two years old, 322 B. C. 204. REMBRANDT AND ‘*THE NIGHT WATCH.”’ In the year 1616 there was a small hamlet of some six or eight houses on the bank of the river Rhine, not far from Leyden. One house, a little superior to the others, had inscribed above its door “‘ Jacques Gerritz, Flour Merchant.” Jacques Gerritz had risen from being The Night Watch—Rembrandt. p- 370, 1. be Mite Ss alg! . ita. ae ee :; (es | us a aoe ' HY CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 371 a plain malt miller to that of a “Flour Merchant” through the dower of the woman he married. His older children were all born in the mill by the Khine; hence his famous son, Paul Rembrandt, was called Rembrandt van Ryn (of the Rhine). An incident occurred in the year 1616 that forever changed the cur- rent of a life, and marked the first milestone in the career of the greatest of Dutch painters. The mother at home weighed out to customers the flour and meal ground in the mill. The children came home from school one evening in 1616 and were wel- comed with love and affection. ‘ Have you all been good children to-day ?’ Three had proof of good be- havior ; the fourth boy was silent. ‘And my boy Paul, can he also make his mother happy?’ ‘No,’ was the quick answer. ‘I was whipped yesterday, was whipped to-day, and will be whipped to-morrow, for I will not study Latin! I do not want to be a lawyer; I want to be a painter, like Paul Rubens.” Then came the oft- repeated conflict between father and mother—the father with his emphatic ‘‘ You must,” the mother, with quick intuition, “ You may,” and the boy became a painter. This incident occurred nearly three hundred years ago, but it was not until 1877 that the history of Rembrandt van Ryn, from his boyhood, became known. Since then there has been a great Rembrandt revival, and many new facts have come to light. Certain facts, how- ever, have never been disputed. He was known as an independent artist living in Amsterdam in 1630; that he carefully dated his paintings which he considered wor- thy of a date. Legends regarding his visits to foreign courts and countries have now been disproved; he never left his native land. His father’s mill was his first studio, and to the light that Wee CURIOUS QUESTIONS, came into the barren loft through an opening or venti- lator in the roof, to his narrow environments, is largely due the fact of his being the master of chiaroscuro, light and shade. Of all the great painters, none is more popu- lar at the present day, or more talked about and written about, than Rembrandt. A colorist, save once or twice, he never was—he lowered the scale of color; neither was he a correct draughtsman—he was never sure of proportion, and had scarcely the sense of line. But of light and shade he was the supreme master. It was almost his only mode of expression, and with it he gained such strange effects as to rank him one of the greatest and most profoundly original minds in the art-history of any country. Chiaroscuro does not mean black and white, but light and shade, both con- taining color. Rembrandt threw a strong light into the center of his pictures, so that they seem almost concave. To understand many of his pictures, especially his “Night Watch,” they need to be referred back to their time. Rembrandt was born in the year when the independ- ence of the United Netherlands was acknowledged by Spain. He grew up in an atmosphere of triumph over a great victory. Various guilds and corporations and military organizations were holding anniversary meetings. This was especially the case in the cities where civic guards had been formed from the most prominent citi- zens, on whom depended the safety and welfare of the city. Each guild and guard had their own hall for meeting, from whence they issued in obedience to any call to duty. The offices of captain and lieutenants were greatly prized, and the ensign of the company was gener- ally the handsomest and wealthiest man in the company. These dignitaries gradually made a custom of per- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 373 petuating their transient honors by presenting a portrait- picture of their guild or guard, to hang in the hall. This accounts for the numerous group-pictures in the halls of the National Museum at Amsterdam. Pictures of the Civic guards were more popular in Amsterdam than in other cities, for here its men were more deeply drawn upon for war. Corporation pictures had been generally arranged in two rows of portraiture, and it had never occurred to any one before Rembrandt to add movement to the sub- ject. When Rembrandt received the commission to paint a large canvas for the Musketeers’ Hall of Amster- dam, he claimed absolute liberty in his treatment of the subject, and he brought into his picture some memories ' of his childhood at Leyden. “The Night Watch” was so called, for many years, because from the dark shadows, it was supposed that the guard had been called out in the night. The captain of this civic guard was Frans Banning Cocg, one of the foremost citizens of Amsterdam at that period. He had purchased the seignory of Pummerland, and had received from James II. a title of nobility in 1620. The errone- ous title has very lately been corrected by finding a water-color sketch made for the album of Banning Coca, between 1650-1660. This sketch was inscribed « The Young Lord of Pummerland gives the order to march, to his Lieutenant.” Banning Cocq commanded the Civic Guard of the First Ward, to which it is suggested that Rembrandt belonged. The work is so familiar to students of art that it hardly seems necessary to de- scribe it. The captain has given his orders to the lieutenant ; the drum beats the alarm; the ensign unfurls the flag ; every man snatches a weapon of some kind ; dogs bark ; children slip in and get entangled among the legs of their 374 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. fathers or brothers, which helps to prove it, what the greatest critics now pronounce it, a “ Daylight Call.” It was the largest canvas covered by the great Rembrandt, and is now placed in the National, or Ryks, Museum in Amsterdam. Certain defects are admitted by all. The lights are too much broken, the canvas is too crowded with figures ; but this may not have been the case when it left the hands of the master, 258 years ago. This great memorial painting, ‘The Night Watch” (1642), is now catalogued in Rembrandt’s works as ‘‘ The Sortie of Frans Banning Cocq’s Company, commonly called ‘The Night Watch.’ ”’ But by its old title, ‘‘ The Night Watch,” it will always hold a place apart in the history of corporation pictures. Ten years before, he painted his ‘‘ Lesson in Anatomy ;” and twenty years later ‘The Syndics of the Cloth.” In these three paintings he summed up in immortal types, the Dutch people of his age. 205. ORIGIN OF THE TERM ‘«¢VYANKEE.’?’ The first name given by the Indians to Europeans was ““Wapsid Lenape” (white people), but later they en- deavored to imitate the sound of the national name of the English, which they pronounced “Yengees.” About the middle of the Revolution, the Indians applied the name “ Yengees’’ exclusively to the people of the New England States, who themselves seem to have adopted it, with slight alteration, as “Yankees.” But another origin is given for the appellation of Yankee to all New Englanders, sometimes by way of reproach, as follows: A farmer, by name Jonathan Hastings, of Cambridge, about the year 1713, used it as a favorite cant word to express excellence, as a Yankee good horse, Yankee CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 375 cider, etc. The students at college, having frequent in- tercourse with Mr. Hastings, adopted the word, and called him, from his frequent use of it, ‘‘ Yankee Jona- than.” From college it was circulated through the country, and was at length applied, unjustly, to all New Englanders. But the best authorities on the subject now agree upon the derivation of this term from the imperfect effort made by the Northern Indians to pronounce the word “‘ English.” 206. BARBIZON SCHOOL OF PAINTERS, Barbizon is a typical French village, near the Forest of Fontainebleau, consisting of a long street, with cot- tages or farmhouses on either side. In 1848, a revolu- tionary crisis and the cholera, combined, drove many artists out of Paris, who found refuge at Barbizon. At the end of the street, near the forest, they soon built themselves stone hamlets, which became their perma- nent residences, hence the name “ Barbizon School of Painters.’ The works of Millet which brought him fame were all painted at Barbizon, where he lived for twenty- seven years, painting the peasants and peasant-life about Barbizon, his own home appearing in many of the pic- tures, and here he died in 1875. Corot also lived at Barbizon, and died in the same year as Millet. Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), another artist of the Barbizon school, is said to have emancipated land- scape painting as Moses liberated the Hebrews. He led them out of ancient thraldom into the land of Promise, where the trees had leaves and where men and animals were real flesh and blood. At Barbizon, Rousseau was the near neighbor and next friend of Millet for many years. 376 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Narcisse Virgile Diaz is called “the Martyr of Art.” In his early youth he lost a limb, from the bite of a poisonous insect, while sketching ; and he died from the bite of a snake at Barbizon. He was the pupil of Rous- seau, and eminent as a colorist. Charles Francois Daubigny was also of this famous set of artists. He loved the river Seine, and his name is associated with it forever. He spent much of his time in a house-boat, which he built so that he might live and paint in the presence of his subjects; his pictures bear the impress of his affection for the scenes they represent. He died in 1878. There is still another artist associated with Barbizon, whose name and works are familiar, Rosa Bonheur, born at Bordeaux, 1822. Great honors are not reserved for men alone. Mlle. Marie Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) was awarded five medals, and the badge of the Legion of Honor, which was personally delivered to her by the Empress Eugenie, in 1865; the Leopold Cross, 1880; and the Command- er’s Cross of the Royal Order of Isabella, the Catholic, in 1880. During the Franco-Prussian War her home at Barbi- zon, adjoining the Forest of Fontainebleau, was respected by a special order of the Crown Prince of Prussia. She was the Director of a School of Design for Girls, which she founded, and which is ‘‘exempt’’ from the jury of admission to the yearly Salon by a special de- cree of 1853. In 1853 she exhibited the “‘ Horse Fair,” which first won her fame. It changed owners for im- mense sums of money, and is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, presented by Vanderbilt, who paid $53,500 for it at the Stewart sale in 1887. Hammerton says: ‘‘Rosa Bonheur is the most ac- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Okd complished woman painter that ever lived.” And adds: “She is a pure and generous woman as well.” She belonged to a family of artists; her father, two brothers and her brother-in-law were all artists. She was famous and eminent as a cattle-painter, and habitually wore male attire. Rosa Bonheur died at By, her home near Fontaine- bleau, in the spring of 1899, aged seventy-seven. But Jean Frangois Millet is the most famous and was always the favorite of this school. A story is current that, while still a student at the Academy of France, he overheard two men talking in front of an art store. One of them said, “That is by a clever young artist named Millet; he paints nude women.” Stung by the justness of the remark, he threw up his engagement in Paris and returned to his peasant home, refusing to paint any more. But to the surprise of the Academy, he soon became famous as a painter of homely peasants. One can imagine his thoughts. He seems to say, There must be something higher in art than mere beauty of form. My dear old grandmother—awkward and homely—is far more beau- tiful in her simple devotion to duty, her uncomplaining, self-sacrificing life, than any beauty of form, without the beauty of spirit to transform it, could make her. It is to this stage of his art-development that most of his famous pictures belong. As an example, his “ Feeding the Ducklings ’’—a picture of his home at Barbizon, his two children seated in the doorway, his wife sitting in front feeding them bread and milk; and the picture of a father and mother in front of a cottage teaching their first child to walk—homely, heavy figures surrounded by evidences of poverty, yet over all the scene rests a halo of love and contentment. 378 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. The great painter made lowly themes almost divine. In his “Angelus” the homely potato-diggers have at- tained unto spiritual life. We can almost hear the deep tones of the bell in the distant spire as we look at the bowed heads and arrested labor. What matter if the form be homely !—all are one in the Father’s love. Millet marked his art “Sacred to the Dignity of Labor,” Breton devoted his art ‘‘ To the Goddess of Poverty,” as she presides over French peasants. Breton never was a peasant, so there is in his art a reflection of sentiment. He paints as Longfellow or Tennyson wrote. His pictures are idyllic poems. They come as a relief from the realism of Millet, who was born and reared a peasant, and knew all about the hard, rugged life. He had been himself “a man with a hoe.” Breton sees his French peasants from the studio of a cultivated man of the world. He paints his Poverty Peasants while seated before a cozy fire, waiting for a comfortable dinner. His people of toil are well dressed, the toil represented only by the upturned garment or the upturned sleeves. Some critics favor the merits of Jules Breton beyond any other living French painter. The Germans extol him, and his pictures command fabulous prices. There are no lines of comparison between Millet and Breton. We see in art just what we bring to it, and no more. If we wish to see the real peasants of Southern France—a race to themselves—we seek Millet; if we would read an ideal poem about French peasants and do not care to see them, we will seek out Breton. CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 379 207. SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. I. The Egyptian Pyramids, the largest of which is 756 feet square, 480 feet high, and covers with its base more than 13 acres of ground. Pliny says it was twenty years in building, and that 366,000 men were employed. Josephus says the Israelites helped to build the Pyramids of Egypt. They are situated on the Nile, opposite the city of Cairo. II. The Walls and Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Herodotus visited Babylon after the conquest by Cyrus and is the chief source for the description of its many wonders, especially the Walls and Hanging Gardens. He describes the walls as 60 miles in circuit, 87 feet in breadth, and 350 feet in height. On each edge of the top of the wall, like a parapet, was a line of one story dwellings, fronting each other, the road between being of sufficient width to allow the turning of a chariot with four horses. In the walls were 100 gates, 25 on each side, all of brass. Besides this outer wall, which was the city’s chief defence, a second ran round within, not much inferior in strength, but narrower. Strabo describes the Hanging Gardens as among the Seven Wonders of the World, the shape of which was a square of 400 feet on each side, rising terrace above terrace to the height of 350 feet, and ascended by stairs 10 feet wide. The ter- races were supported by large vaultings filled with earth and resting upon cube-shaped pillars, which were hollow. Trees of the largest size were planted, the entire structure being strengthened and bound together by a wall 22 feet in thickness. The level of each terrace was covered with large stones, over which beds of rushes were planted. Earth being heaped on the platform and terraces, and large trees planted, the whole had the appearance, from 380 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. a distance, of ‘woods overhanging mountains.”’ These eardens were watered by means of engines for raising water from the Euphrates, which flowed at their base. It is affirmed that Nebuchadnezzar raised the Gardens to cratify his wife, Amytis, daughter of Astyages, who longed for the hills and groves of her Median home. Many writers have doubted “the Hanging Gardens,” but Assyrian sculptures, now in the British Museum, throw important light upon the subject. The uncovered ruins of Nineveh reveal gardens and groves resembling those of Babylon. III. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus. It was 423 feet in length and 220 feet in breadth, built of marble in the reign of Servius, sixth King of Rome. The roof, of cedar and cypress, was supported by 127 marble Ionic columns, 60 feet high. It was 120 years in building. The altar was the work of the great Praxiteles, and the famous sculptor Scopas chiseled some of the columns. IV. The Chryselephantine Statue of Jupiter Olympus, by Phidias, at Olympia. The statue, covered with gold and ivory, was celebrated for its beauty rather than its size, nearly 70 feet. The Greeks considered it a misfor- tune not to have seen this statue. V. The Mausoleum erected to Mausolus, King of Caria, by his widow Artemisia. It was 113 feet square and 140 feet high. His widow died within two years from excessive grief. VI. The Pharos of Ptolemy Philadelphus, a _light- house’ at Alexandria, Egypt, on the island of Pharos, 500 feet high. A fire of wood was kept burning on its summit during the night to guide ships into the harbor. VII. The Colossus of Rhodes, a brazen statue of Apollo, god of the sun, 125 feet high, standing across the mouth of the harbor of Rhodes. The architect CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 381 Chares, assisted by Laches, was engaged on this work for twelve years. It was hollow, having winding stair- ways leading to the top. It was erected in 300 B. C., and after standing for sixty years was thrown down by an earthquake. It remained in ruins for 894 years; was then sold as old brass. Total weight, 729,000 pounds. _ 208. ALBRECHT DURER AND THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN, The Emperor Maximilian, having seen some of Diirer’s pictures, invited him to his court to decorate his palace. The artist was received with great distinction, and his work went on in the presence of the Emperor and the noblemen of his suite. One day, when Diirer was drawing a portrait group upon the wall, the Emperor noticed that the ladder was not standing firm. He made a sign to one of the noblemen to hold it. The noble- man, surprised to receive such an order, stepped back and called a servant. Maximilian dismissed the servant with a gesture, and, placing his foot upon the lowest step of the ladder, remained standing until the drawing was finished. When Direr descended the Emperor im- mediately ennobled him, giving him three escutcheons of silver upon an azure ground. Then turning to his surprised courtiers, he said: ‘Know ye that the title I have conferred upon Albrecht Diirer cannot raise him in the esteem of any sensible man, for he is already, by his talent, a member of that grand and illustrious nobility to which none of you can ever belong. An act of our imperial pleasure can make him a count or a duke, but it is God who makes the artist.” 382 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 209. THE MINISTRY OF ART. “A bridge weaves its arch of pearl High over the tranquil sea. It carries no burdens, ’tis too frail, And when you approach it, it flees. With the flood it comes, with the rain it goes, But what it is made of, nobody knows.”’ Schiller, without intending it, perhaps, has described the first picture that the denizens of the new world ever gazed upon. It is an out-door picture, and it is luminous. The new schools of art, the Impressionists and the Luminists, are coming nearer to it, but up to the close of the nineteenth century no artist has yet suc- ceeded in making a copy of it, for it was painted by God himself. | Time does not dim its beauty, nor does admiration pale before its constant reproduction, for the wonderful, mysterious, transitory Rainbow,—the world’s first pic- ture—can never become commonplace or common. Do you ask, Why ? Then why does Nature ever repeat her- self? Why does she not assume new forms? Why is the sun always round? Why are we never weary of the stories that the stars have to tell us every night? Why do the trees renew their verdure every spring, bringing fresh delight to our hearts, and why do they fade away every autumn, with still more brilliant hues? Why do we trample grass and prize the flowers of May? Or, to sum it all up, why did God make the world beautiful ? The answer comes: ‘‘ He made it for the abode of man, and He endowed man with a faculty to appreciate and enjoy it.”” Just what this zsthetic element in man is has been discussed from Socrates to the present time. Pagan and Christian writers have disagreed widely in the dis- CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 383 cussion; but on one point they are all agreed, that the love of the beautiful is an inherent element in man apart from that which bids him provide for his physical needs. And it is this esthetic element that finds expression through art. Art, therefore, has a mission in the world, and its ministry cannot be overlooked. Art, then, is the effort of the inner man to express something higher than him- self. It appears under different forms—Phidias carves it, Raphael paints it, Handel sings it, Shakespeare writes it ; but it is all the same—the effort of the inner man to get beyond physical limitations, to find a language for the soul. Since art, then, in every form is the result of intelligent thought, the ministry of art must be an appeal to man’s higher, emotional, spiritual nature. A history of the ministry of art would take us back through the ages of recorded history, then on through the labyrinth of legendary lore, and yet there would be proof of the existence of art anterior to all. As soon as man trod the earth, moist with rain, and saw the im- press of his foot, he learned that moist clay could be moulded ; when the heat of the sun made the clay dry and the impress of his foot remained, he learned that heat would solidify his moulds of clay, and man became “a potter.’ The potter’s art, called Keramic, from Keramos, the chosen god of potters, is the oldest, the most widely diffused, the most useful, and one of the most beautiful of the arts that have ministered unto man. Caves in the rocks are reported to have been the earliest abodes of man, wherein he found shelter from storm and heat, and refuge from wild beasts; but as the potter’s art grew, he learned that he could build huts upon the plain, out of adobe, or sun-burnt brick? The hut grew into a house, the house into a palace, the pal- ace into a temple, and man became an Architect. 384 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. Man became a sculptor when he began to copy form. He could drink from the hollow of his hand; he copied its form and made a cup and other vessels for holding water. Then came clay tablets with forms impressed upon them by which he recorded his thoughts and kept alive the memory of his dead. Learned men of the nineteenth century are still trans- lating the inscribed tablets of the ancients, and con- sider them more authentic than written history. But it was reserved for the Greeks to perfect the art of copying the human form. Their gods were as man, and the Sculptor’s Art was brought to perfection when it was devoted exclusively to the representation of the gods whom they worshipped. Greek Architecture and Sculpture reached a perfection that has never been surpassed. But it was not until the immortal Phidias began to tint his statues, with which he adorned the Parthenon, on the Acropolis of Athens, that the people in the valley, passing to and from their daily avocations, began to throw kisses to their gods upon the sacred Mount. Scientists tell us that color is the soul of matter, that nothing exists without it, When the potter broke branches from the trees and shrubs to make his fire, that he might solidify his moulds of clay, he found his hands stained with color. He had seen the rainbow in the sky; he now found that the same colors existed on the earth, and man became a Painter, or a copier in color. But why should streaks of color over his clay-cups and household utensils give him pleasure? Why did his uneducated mind suggest garments of leaves and the fur of animals and a head- gear of gay feathers? Was it not because of his higher nature ? The Arch of Promise might have been black, but CURIOUS QUESTIONS. 385 would it then have been beautiful? Could it have aroused the emotion of the inner, spiritual man? This brings us, then, a step higher in the Ministry of Art. Man could have been a potter, an architect and a sculptor without the use of color, but the mission of art would have been incomplete. When the potter began to put color on his moulds of clay, he elevated them above the merely useful. _ Place a pure white cup of the thinnest china beside one that bears ever so light or delicate atint; the one suggests the practical use, the other produces an emo- tion, and we exclaim, ‘‘ How beautiful !’”’ “The beautiful”’ in earth and sky and sea, in mountain, rock and valley, is spread before us, until, at last, looking abroad upon God’s beautiful world, we are forced to ex- claim: “The Hand that made thee is Divine!” But it was not until Christianity overspread the earth that Painting, called the ‘Silent Art,” reached its highest development. The Color Bow had long been in the sky when men, seized at last as by an inspiration, began to transfer its colors to plastered walls and wooden panels and canvas cloth, that they might tell anew “the Story of the Cross.” Then, men of every civilized nation heard of the soul- painting in the South of Europe, where men prayed be- fore they began to paint their ideal visions of the blessed Mary and her Holy Child. And yet the soul of man found a fuller expression when Music, ‘The Winged Art,” burst forth in perfection, with “mingled voices and strings ’’—an art not bounded by space, requiring no eye to see, only the soul to listen. It seemed at last that the climax of art was reached ; the soul was in touch with the Divine. But the message 25 386 CURIOUS QUESTIONS. of Art can never be read to the end so long as the earth remains beautiful and man lives to leave the impress of his foot upon its clay. Goethe says: “God appears to us in the first place through the life of the Universe ; in the second place, through the mind of man. The second place is not less sacred than the first. The first is called Nature, the second is called Art.” L’ ENVOI. «‘ When earth’s last picture is painted, And the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest color has faded, And the youngest critic has died, We shall rest; and faith we shall need it, Lie down for an zon or two, Till the Master of all good workmen Shall set us to work anew.’’—RUDYARD KIPLING, INDEX. ABBATE, Niccolo Abd-er-Rahman . Aborigines, American . Abul Casim Mansur. Abyla . Acropolis . : Adams, Charles Francis Adam’s Peak oak PME RN gi.) aa 85, /Eneas . Africa . Agra Ahriman . é Ajax, Prayer of . Alabama . ‘ Albert Memorial Albert, Prince Consort veh 18, Albion . Alcantaras, ae of Alexander the Great 237, Alexander II., Czar SARs Alexandria Alfieri . Alfonso aries : Alfred, King . Algeria Alhambra . Alkmaar . ; Allori, Chrctotne : Amber City Amber Sea American Aborigines America, Naming of American Lord Chanceling America’s Lucky Day . Americus Vespucius Amritsir Temple Amstel Amsterdam Anacreon . Andaman Islands Andorra Angelo, Michael Angelus Anglo-American Telesreph Anthology, Greek © : of Pavia 25,212, Anthony, St., Apollino : Arabian Nights , ‘ Archbishop of Canterbury . Architecture . : Areopagus Argument of Chiate Bree Quéen ‘Isabella 3)... . Aristotle Armorica . Art, Ministry Bh Artemisia , Arthur, King . Assassination of Guced Vicia) ria Attempted . Atala Atalanta Athens Athens, Duke of Athlete with a Strigil Atkins, Tommy . Atlantic Cable bar Atlantis 306, Augustine, St. 100, Augustus, Emperor . aes ( 387 ) 150, 162, 168, 388 Augustus of Saxony Ayodha BR ee Gadiaensihiie Ayrshire Ploughman Aztec Calendar . Aztec Painting BABYLON. Babylonia . Bach, John Sebastian . Baiz ue Baltic Sea. Bandits, Corsican Bannockburn, Battle of Barbizon School . Basque Batavit. 00) a hile Battle of Plawey Bauer . Bavaria, Statue of FIAVONEE he al are rene Bayonne Beaconsfield, Lond SAI ik ie Mey ae i Belge . Belisarius . Pera Se iene alle Benares Bengal. Berlin Conference Bernardine de St. Pierre Bethnal Green Bible, Devil’s Bidassoa Bismarck . 4 Black Eagle, Order ae Black Hole of Calcutta Black Watch . Black Venus . INDEX. PAGE 219 29, 66 342, 188, 134, 139, Blind Beggar of Bethnal Gress Boabdil Bologna Bombay Bonheur, Rosa Bonnet ‘ Boquet, Colonel . Bothnia, Gulf of Béttcher, John F. Boy-Bishop Braddock, Gen. . Braganza . Brahman . yy 133, Brasseur de Boasbourel Abbe Brennus Brera Gallery Breton, Jules. Bretons 277> Bride of Michael ‘Aogate b Bridge, London . Brienne, Walter de . Brinton, Daniel G. . Britain, Great Britons. PAGE 202 198 376 198 368 145 182 225 58 198 240 307 191 69 378 129 145 I1I2 132 281 190 129 Brittany 110, ton, ao 221, 232, Broek . Browning, Elizabeth Barrett . Browning, Robert Bruce, Blanche K. . Bruce, Robert Bruhl, Count . Buddha Buddh-Gaya . Bull-fight, . Bull, Paul Potter’s . Bulwark of Scotland Bungalow, Dak . Buonarroti Burger . Burgundy . Burns, Robert Busiest Man in Paris ‘ ° 107, 115, 288 27 .: 298 311 344 183 251 107 7 38 343 239 6 265 133 2 42 INDEX. PAGE CABLE, Atlantic. . . . 85 | Cherokees. Cabot, John . . . . . . 57/| Chiaroscuro Cesar, Julius 100, 113, 129, 177, | Chimalpopoca 180, 192, 197, 252| China . Cagots of the Pyrenees . . 122 iearey, Crderof .) 2) 4.) 92 0 LENE Se UES Uae URI ean Be Calcutta... . . . 130, 139, 200 Calenenr, Aztec) 2°.) oo 6 340 CMAs ye 1 - fi Pits aed UL) Calydonian Hint MAb ests tiaty es SOE eee i eli aa) 228 Canaldu Midi . . . 170 Canterbury, gh es of he: 27% Capua... |. ; ear phe pS Carnac, Pirate, st) aye ae hae Carpaccio, Vittoria. . . . 360 RAMrEAQE yea) pe he BO Casino, Monte Carlo . . . 143 Wastewan India’. 35.) 1239 Castilian Succession . . . 354 Catacombs, Naples. . . . 189 SORRITAU IN aii wis 8g ee ERE Cathedral of Mainz . . . 167 Cathedral of Mexico . . . 340 Cathedral of Seville . . 98, 148 Cathedral of Toledo . . . 241 Cathedral of Trondhjem . . 108 Catherine of Braganza. . . 198 Catherine II, of Russia . . 242 Pa NOTE I eli bee. OQ RPE ta fea! 6) 2OR SRG teed) wie) fe TQS Ceramic Art. . . 184, 285, 383 Cerio. ee 107.) TIS, 251 Chalgteay:. . i588 Chancellor, Aleta Unrd MMe aa Charles I. of England. . . 246 Charles II. of England . . 198 Chase;'Salmon P. i). 2. 185 Minaipeauiegde 8 BO REO eay ek e i tei!) $233 ne ee ee China, Dresden . Chinese Colony in Japan . Christian Church in a Mosque Christiania Chryselephantine Statue a Te piter . Cimabue Cing- Mars Cinque Ports . Clan MacGregor . Clans, Scottish Classes in Germany. Clavichord Clementi . Clive, General Clovis, King . Cluny, Hotel de. Codex Aureus Coffee . : Cognate Succession . Coins,’ U.S, )), Cologne Colossus of Rides Columbus, Christopher 23, 100, Combat of Thirty Commons, House of Commune, Paris. II7, - 90; - 58, Compostella, Order of St. James : Concorde, Place de la ; Copenhagen .. . 234, 236, Copley, John Singleton Cordova t Cordova, Gonsalvo ye : Corea . Cornelius . ‘ Corot, Poet Painter . Corsica IOI, 291, 389 PAGE 289 372 276 286 181 345 103 62 380 145 306 59 75 197 263 228 231 I4I 135 135 180 349 354 184 359 380 223 288 233 56 92 119 321 271 103 186 286 293 48 163 390 Cotton Gin A Court of St. James . Cradle of English History Creation of Man Crimean War Cromlech . Crotona Crozat Coheaion Culloden, Battle of . Cumge 7 : Cumeean, Sibyl . Cupid . Czar Czardam DANHUT, Princess Dak-Bungalow . Dancing Faun Danes . Danneborg Dante . Darjeeling Dasyas . Daubigny, Charles Fr. David, King of BeoHtad ; 201, Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee Delhi Demosthenes . Denmark . Deserted City, Beate De Thou . Devil’s Bible. Diamond Necklace . Diana, Temple of Diaz, Narcisse V. Diaz, President . Dibdin, Charlies . Dionysius . Dollar, Goloid Dolmens . Doon, hiver . Dorlach - 795 INDEX. PAGE 302 245 93 278 171 146 257 2d gl 193 193 237 352 26 PAGE Douglass, Frederick 314 Dover . 59 Dresden eds 219 Dresden ‘China 02°5 42)% 181 Dressmaker’s Bill, Ancient 188 Druid . ; 148 Duke of Athens. 122 Dumfries . Pee 4 Duquesne, Fort . - 59, 307 Durer, Albrecht . 381 Dutt, Toru II EARL of Oxford, ar 338 Ears of Koreans. 336 Eastern Question 171 East India Co. 58, 78, I ay 199 Eastman, Dr. 290 Edward III. of Pugin 195 Egypt, England in . 303 Electric Light 303 Electric Motor oe BOs Elephant, Order of . . 50, 324 Elgin Marbles 7 ers Elizabeth, Queen 58, 139, 199 Elliott, Robert B. . 312 England, . 57, 79, 139, 198, 303 English History, Cradle of 93 English Parliament . Bee 4 English Water-Color Painting 333 Ephesus . heen Epic of Desihiem : 154 Epic of Finland . 125 Epic of Persia 282 Erasmus ; 256 Escorial, Palace . 84 Espinosa . ; 84, 85 Ethelbert, King . 114 Eton Montem 224 Eumenides 207 FATHER of Zodlogy 370 Ferdinand and Isabella 186 INDEX. PAGE Fezzan . : 205 Field, Cyrus W. . 85 to 88 Finland 125, 145 Finns of Spain 777 Firdousi 282 Fire SParshipners ‘ 71 Flag of American Colonies 249 Flag of U. S. of America 250 Flevo, Lake . 25 Flipper, H. O. eee 2 EO Florence 5, 120, 132, 261, 259, 301 Fontainebleau $00) (30351375 Foot-Ball . 132 Four Great Orders, Spanish . 92 Francis I. of France 362 Francis, John 247 Frauenlob . 167 French Language 331 Friday . 14 Frisii i! 192 Froebel, Pedrich ; 156 Fugi-Yam . 345 Funeral of Spanish King 84. Furies, The 207 Furniss, Dr. Henry. 314 GAILLARD, Chateau 117 Galileo. 121 Game of ‘ Soule’’ Sele ae Ganga. 30, 31, 32 Ganges. a 20 OT Garonne, River . 170 Garter, Order of . 195 Genius of Christianity . 81 George, St. 163, 195 German Pre- Raphaelites 291 German Social Life . 263 Germanus . , 77 Gerome, Jean Leon. 252 Ghibellines 260 Gibraltar . 165 391 PAGE Giotto . ‘ 117, 121, 301 Glory of Seville . 98 Goloid Dollar 254 Goths . 137 Goujon, Jean . 364 Goya, Francisco . 60 Gradlon, King . 5. eat cee Granada 23, 186, 188 Great Eastern 88, 89 Greek Anthology 160 Greener, R. T. 314 Green, John P. . 315 Greenpoint, L. I. 184 Grimaldi ’ 142, 143 Group of Wrestlers . 20," 22 Guatemala’s Sacred Book . 276 Guelphs 260 Guess, George 290 Guillotine . 119 Gulf Stream . 211 HADRIAN 159, 170 Hague, Jewel of the 38 Handel 229 Hanging Gardens of Babylon! 379 Hanseatic League 214 Hanuman . a 68 Harley, Earl of Oxford 338 Harold : 46 Harpsichord . 229 Hastings . 59 Havana 272 Havelock, Saneral lt 79 Hecate of Miletus . Pane 6 | Heir Apparent or Presumptive 93 Helsingfors 125 Hengst and Horsa . IOI Henry IV. of France . 361 Henriques, Alfonso . 133 Henson, Josiah . 340 Heracles : 162 Hermitage of St. Poser 242 392 INDEX. PAGE EL Waites] oN a) Eka eaiait ely Cite kee On Hidalgo, President...) s/h. tai e2o8 Hill; Sir’ Rowland)= (eee nia s Himalaya ay cM eh ees Cano Hind Poet: Gece | ae at ee Hindustan.) ayo Vike Gy see Hipparchus: 0.) js eure): ghar g49 History of Russia) 021.00 Quang 4 ogath eee eidewarss fOnes Hogarth, Spanish . <1 ee beee Holland, 25 to 28, 38, 178, 192, ie 255 Holofernes . . 349 Holy Land of Syke sees tas Holyrood Abbey ii) ei 4 Hpogléy aaa eet ea Ip 8 Horns of the Reine Wie eA ca dat aleve Horsa and Fengst) i at atom Hotel de Cluny . . . 135 Hour, Sixty Minutes Make an 342 House of a Thousand Fears . 255 Hubbell Miro vias bial a ea, Pigdtlorag ist Sei dry es austen tw hc gee Hydeof Land ho ii ie aug Oe Fe ythe ee i e ea eee ORS bee ep [BERIANS ao) ie, 177 India 57, 78, 129, 198, a, 239 India, Eleven Wonders of. . 106 Indians, American . . i ZOO Indians in Official Positions ROO Indian) Totem ii el ants il Yaa BO IndustRiver sa) vecuh oi et ae eo Inferno, Dante's i Go a wrt og In God) We Trust: :i2))) ay vies Be Inquisition 186, 187 Inventions, Great Fifer vb dae tO Irruption of Norsemen. . . 46 Isabella, Queen . 23. \24,) 25 Le Cityiob Unie Gh een eS Island of Marken .. .. » 28 Isle of Pheasante)) pees en a6 lvah the: d errible,, for Uy ie eee 2 PAGE JAPAN, Chinese Colony in. 345 Japan, Opening Portsof . .. 325 Japanese Ambassadors at Rome) .0 2. 3 \u. Japanese Isolation » .° . (296 Japanese Keramic Art. . . 285 Japanese Persecution of Chris- tlaris ee, ott) ars Jewel of the Hague ~. 1)) gs Jingo...) . 4 Joan of Are) (owl) jee ee Juarez, President). 2) aan Judith and Holofernes. . . 348 Julian the Apostate. . . . 135 Justinian® 50) 2) eee I Jupiter, ae Statue of . . 380 Jupiter Olympius, Marios re 169 KALEVALA, The . (./ yeas Kali, Goddess). (.' « )/.a eae Kalicrates. 1°." 4 is. Kandy, Temple...) coygeuas Kaolin. Sioos 2) > 5 Sa Karamzin, NOM. '. 5 300) Kearsarge. 50). 13\1).. Rett: 0) 0 pals. Keokuk: (0560705) 1'e rrr Keramic Art... |.) rae Keramic Art of Japan. . . 285 Keramos 000°. <4) Ge Kerch Collection ©.) .).0ceee Ker-lg i...) Sr Rate) Kindergarten . . . Jae ee King of Mound- Builders s), uel eae King’s College: .\) 22; eye Knife-Grinder ./: . ee Knights of the Round Table . 195 Koreas... ini sad yo, er Koreans, Ears of)... > Vee Kremin 2.0 5, 4 Cy eee ee Kshattriyas Kuttub Minar Kural . LA FLESCHE, FRANCIS Landings, Five Historic Langston, John M. . Languedoc Lamotte, Madame . Law, John Lear, King fame Legend of the Ganges . Legend of Holyrood Abbey . Legend of the Seine Legend of Spain . Legend of Stauffen . Leicester, Earl L’ Envoi Lewis, James Linotype . Lion and Unicorn Lions of the Town. . Liquid Air EAM tee 8 London Bridge . Long, J. F. Lénnrot, Elias Lords, House of Lost Atlantis . Louis XIV. of piece. Louis XV. of France Louis XVI. of France . Lucknow . Lud, King SAILS Ludwig I. of Bavaria . Lynch, John R. . Lyndhurst, Lord Lyons, J. W. Lysippus . MACALPIN MacGregor, Clan Machete 215, 175; INDEX. 393 PAGE PAGE 240 | Machiavelli 121 107 | Madeleine, La 54 210 | Madonna, Sistine 219 Bhd Madras 107 a Madrid 8,9 AB Madura 208 a Maha-Deva, the God 131 ue Maine, U. S. Battleship 272 Mainz Cathedral 167 a Maitre Roux . 363 ae Mansur, Abul Casim e953 fy Margaret of Denmark . = 322, 354 ie Maria Novella, Church of St. 145 Maria Theresa 36 221 e A 52 Marie Antoinette 175 nee Marken, Island of . 28 Marseilles . 149 386 315 Mary Queen of Scots 42 303 Mason and Slidell 15 158 Massillia -. 149 Mausoleum 380 =o Maximilian 381 191 Medici Family 261 7s Meissen 182 311 Meissen, Heinrich Von 167 125 Meleager . eA oa aE 233 Memory Stones . 129, 146 306 Menhirs ¢ 146 abe Mexico, Gaitedrat ar : 340 Mexico Museum : 341 He Michael Angelo. . . 5, 121, 145 Mikado 285, 287 s Millet, Jean F, 375, 377 2b5 Ministry of Art . 382 as Mint, Director of 184 a7 1 Mississippi Scheme . 337 311 Mistral, Frederick . 333 138 Mohammedan Mothers 118 Mohl, Jules de 285 76 | Molmutius IQ 75 | Monaco 142 324 | Monarch of ee Reine 362 394 Money . Monkey-Man. Monnikendam Monte Carlo . Montem Day. Montessa, Orderof. . . . Montfort, Henry de INDEX. PAGE 185 234 27 142 226 92 215 Montfort, Simon de. 233 Mont St. Michel 62 Moors of Spain . 186 Morbihan . 232 Moriscoesi.) 72 sass 187 Morse, Professor. 86 Moscow «UN ee Wa eee Mosque of Eatdave Pa Mae Pee al X Mound Builders . « G10 Munda, Battle of ot 69, HO Munich s+76;'203 Murillo : 148 Murray, George W. 313 Muscovite Empire 351 Museum of Mexico . 341 Museum of Oldenborg . 319 Music . 385 NAMING of America 223 Naples 189, 193 Napoleon Bonaparte 54, 123, 362 Napoleon IIT. 124 Nebuchadnezzar . 379 Negroes, Noted Ameridanr 310 Neo-Pythagoreans 258 Nero ; o eiigar ae SO Netherlands . 177; 192, 212 Night Watch . 4 BB, 370 Nippur . 189 Non-Sectarian Giepeli 241 Normandy 94-96 Norsemen . 46 Northern Venice 212 Northmen . Paine, Norway 46, 108 PAGE OccAM, SAMPSON 289 Ohio River 223, 367 Oil on Troubled Waters ee Olaf, Church of St. . 109 Oldenborg, House of . 319 Oldest Republic . 50 Oldest Town in Europe 115 Oldest Town in France 149 Olympiad . 150 Olympus 380 Opening Ports of aes 325 Order of Alcantaras . 92 Order of the Black Eagle . 270 Order of Calatray PM > Order of the Elephant . 50, 324 Order of Montessa . : 92 Order of St. James of Conma tella: sv. Sa Organ . » aes Origin of the Red vee . 280 Ormdad 9) or.) ona Ostro-Goth I Ottoman Empire 171 Oudh 29, 66 Overbeck . 291, 293 Oxford, Edward .. ... 5.) tae PADUA. 6.00. Pagodas .)-\..>'- 9:34 5 a9 eee Painting... >... 2.99 Pallas Athene 150 Panathenaic Festival 152 Pariah Poet og UMget oe Paris . 113, hig eee Paris Salon 44 Parker, Ely S. 290 Parliament, First 233 Parsees 71 Parthenon. 150 Pascal . 365 Pate, Lieutenant 1 ea Paul Potter 38, 245 INDEX. PAGE Paul, St. 207 Penn, William oy 256 Pericles : 150, 207 Perry, Commodore . 325 Persian Epic . Mca foe Peter the Great . 126, 245 Petrarch and Laura . 146 Phantom Battle of Utrecht 12 Pharos at Alexandria 380 Pheasants, Isle of 36 Phidias 150 Phidias, the Meders 234 Philabeg . 197 Phoenicians 149 Phonograph . 302 Pianoforte . 227 Piazza Santa Croce . 132 Picts and Scots go Pillars of Hercules . 165 Pinchback, P. B. S. eer? Pitt, William . «504367 Pittsburgh ak RRO Place de la Concorde ale Ls Plassey, Battle of 139 Plutarch of Painters 252 Pnyx ee 206 Poet Painter . 48 Popol Vuh ero Porcelain . 181, 184 Portrait of Dante Pak Portugal . 133, 198 Portuguese Sonnets . 96 Postal System eran 5 Potter, Paul . 38, 245 Pottery . 383 Powell, Wm. F. ; 314 Power Threshing Machine 303 Prayer of Ajax 37 Pre-Raphaelites . 291 Pre-Raphaelite Broan: 318 Press, Perfecting 303 Primaticcio 363 395 PAGE Prince Consort Albert Edward 82, 84 Proletariat a 267 Ptolemy Philadelphus . 380 Punic War 149 Purvis, Dr. C. B. 315 Puteoli. , 193 Pyramids, Bey ptiad” 379 Pyramids in the Sea 123 Pyrenees . 250,822 Pythagoreans . 257 RAINBOW 382 Rainey, Jos. H.. Bama iss 4 9 | Ramayana, The. . 66, 234 Raphael . 69, 202, 219, 245 Reaper, The . 302 Recaredo, King . 137 Red-Man, Origin of RN ee, Rembrandt j 38, 370 Republic of Andorra 50 Revells, H. R. PorsIO | Rhine, River 178, 192 Rhodes, Colossus of 380 Rhone, River 365 Richard, Coeur de Tiion: 117 Pchctien, Cardinal 365 Rig-Veda, The . 68 Ring, and the Book 298 Riquet, Paul . : 171 River Voyage, Remarkable 365 Robinson Crusoe of Nations . 293 Rob-Roy . 75 Rocking-Stones . IIO Rohan, Cardinal de 176 Rollo : 94 Roman Seaside Reve. 159 Rome . I, 149 Romney ; 59 Rosenborg Palace 321 Rotterdam 255 Rouen. 94, 96 396 INDEX. : PAGE PAGE Round Table, Knights of . 195 | Shogun : 326 Rousseau, Theodore 375 | Sibyl, Cumzean . 193 Rowland Hill, Sir . 45 | Sir-Pada 251 Ruffin, John R. . 314 | Sistine Madonna 219 Rules of Pythagoras 258 | Sita . 66 Ruric 352 | Siva, The God 130 Ruskin, John 334 | Sixty Minutes an Hour 342 Russia . « 154, 173, 351 | Slidell and Mason 15 Russian Succession . 354 | Slogan . a 197 Russo-Turkish War. 171| Smallest Kingdom , 142 Smith, Thomas C. 183 SAARDAM 26 | Sonnets from the Portuguese . 96 Sacred Footprint 251} Soule, Game of . 232 Sale of Cupids 237 | South Sea Bubble 338 Salic Law . 354 | Spain, First Catholic King of 137 Salt River . 223 | Spain, First Settlers 221 Sandwich . 59 | Spain in America 35, 30 Sangara i 29-31 | Spanish Military Orders 92 Santa Croce, Church of . 120, 132{ Spanish Royal Funeral 84 Santiago, Order of . 92 | Spanish Royal Mausoleum 99 Sappho, Tamil 209 | Spinet . sitet 228 Sardinia 163 | Sporran 198 Satirical Painter . 33 | Sposalizio . : ; 69 Saucy Castle . 117 | St. Anthony of Pada , 148 Scandinavia . , 211 | St. Augustine 101 Schadow Brothers . 292 | St. Cecilia 202 Scheherezade 268 | St. Clement, Giterch af 109 Schnor. oA aoe St. Areorgé : 163 Scottish Clans - 75, 90,197 | St. James, Court of . 245 Sculpture . 384| St. Malo . 80, 81 Seine, Legend of 19|St. Maria Novella, Church of 145 Semiramis of the North . 322, 354 St. Michel, Mont 62 Sepoy Mutiny 78 | St. Olaf, Church of . 109 Sequoi . 290 | St. Paul ; 207 Serpentine 108 | St. Pierre Bernardine . “19 Seven Wonders of ne Ancient St. Petersburg Hermitage . 242 World . 379 | St. Ursula and 11,000 Virgins 359 Seville . é 8, 9 | Stars and Stripes 250 Seville, Cathedral or 98, 148 | Stauffen, Legend of 52 Seville, Hero of . 99 | Steamboat 302 Sewing Machine 302 | Stirling Castle 343 Shanamah, The . 282 | Stockholm 180 Stone Face Stowe, Mrs. Harriet exces Strigil, Athlete with Stuart, Queen Mary Submerged City of Is . Succession to the Throne . Sudras . Suez Canal ; Sultan, First Lady of the 3 Supreme Picture of the World Sweden TAGUS, River Taj Mahal Tamil Sappho Tanjore Temple . Tarquin Tartan . Taurians . “ea anes avers Ge Hye ends Tecumseh Telegraph Telephone : Temple at Amritsir . Temple of Diana Temple at Kandy Temples, Rock-Cut . Yemple at Tanjore . Temple of Theseus . Temple of Zeus . Tennyson . Teuton 107, Theseus Thirty, Combat of Thorwalsden . Thousand and One Nights Threshing Machine . Thuringia . 201, 156, Tiberius, Emperor . Timezeus, Plato’s. Tiru Valuvir . Tokio . INDEX. 397 PAGE PAGE 255 | Toledo 115, 241 339 | Toltecs : 307 138 | Tommy Atkins 7 345 | Tooth, Buddha’s 107, 115 221 | Torquemada . 187 354.| Toru Dutt II 240 | Totem, Indian 56 304 | Totila . I 118 | Toulouse . 170 219 | Towers of Silence 74 180 | Treaty of Geneva 41 Treaty Point . 326 133 Trent Affair . 15 107 | Trews . ‘ 198 209 | Tribune of Uffizi Gallery : 25 107 | Trinovant . , IgI 194 | Trondhjem Cathedral : 108 197 | Tuaregs : 205 240; Turanian . 240 314 | Turkey : 171 289 | Turkish Succession . 356 302 Turner, J. M. W. 333 392|'Tus, City of . 282 107 | Typewriter 303 380 115 | UFFIZI Tribune . 20 106 | Uncle Sam 279 107 | Uncle Tom 339 162 | Unicorn and Lion . 158 168 | Union Porcelain Works 183 47 | Ursula, St. and 11 ‘boo Veins 359 192 | Utrecht 12 162 | Utta, Priest 226 288 234| VAISYAS . 240 268 | Valerian : 203 303 | Vasco da Gama . 57 158 | Vase, Warwick . 309 138 | Vega of Granada 23 306 | Veit . 292 208 | Velasquez . 357 Venice. 212 379 398 Venus . i: Venus de Medici Venus, the Black Victoria, Queen 16, 79, 139, 199, 246 INDEX. Victory,of Vocal Mountain . 78 Vikings Senet Viking Ship . 62 Virgil . 194 Virginal 228 Virginia 58 Visigoths . 137 Vita, the Priest . 226 Vladimir the Great . 352 Vocal Mountain . 77 Vulcanized Rubber . 302 WALDSEMULLER 223 Wallace, William 344 Walls of Babylon 379 Walpole Collection . Warden of the Cinque Ports. 59 Warwick Vase Washington, George Wassail Bowl Water-Color Painting . Watie, Chief Stand . Waverley . i Weed, Thurlow . Wellington, Duke of West, Sir Benjamin Westminster . 16-18 - 47, 60, 134 210 108, 233 PAGE Westminster of Florence . . 120 White, George H..), 7. an ee Whitehall...) 3 ae White Knights « ..».4.) 383). Wilkes, Captain’ < .\) ae Wilham, Fort 3, 3 eee William of Orange . . . . 101 Williams, George W."' 7s William the Conqueror 95, 101, 195 Windsor.Casile «..\, sian ened Woman Praiser . . .) .) 1G? Wrestlers, Group of. |. 20,022 Wright, R. Roo °. ae XAVIER, FRANCIS . . 206 YANKEE (000 5500" J oie Yeddo it nies hye. err Yes, in French (10.0. eae Yokohama:.*) 04... “Wg@oyee Young, Charles 204, sian Y¥. Reaver 0a) ces. Ga.) «4 ae ZAANDAM®?:. 5. amen Zend-Avesta 4.7.0) i) Gara Zeus, Lemple of.) 00...) so) geass Zodiac, Aztec ay, .> oe eee Zodlogy, Fatheriof. «eee ZLOYOASter | 5s ue vs 5 ee Zuyder Zee .°).). «25, 19aje2ns TY Envol e296, 6 ae rae ee UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA i ! 0112 119997432