eaeUniversity ¢ of Virginia Library ya V.9 1891 ini' fe seerprenrlrecerrnncrerlas Io reiPROSE WRITINGS OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Revised Woition. ae AT HOME AND ABROAD. SECOND SERIES.4 t | « fy ca eeAT HOME AND ABROAD: A SKETCH-BOOK OF LIFE. SCENERY, AND SEN. BY BALVABRD. LA LLOT. BECOND SERIES. HOUSEHOLD EDITION. NEW YORK: CG. Pi PUTNAM’S SONS, 27 AND 29 WEST 23D ST. 189I.Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 186° Br G. 2. PUTNAM, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. CorpyRiGcutT, 1891, By MARIE TAYLOR.I—A COUNTRY HOME 1.—HOW I CAME TO BUY A FARM, . 2.—“ FREE SOIL,” ‘ 3.—THE BUILDING OF A HOUSE, 4.—RESULTS AND SUGGESTIONS, 2 CONTENTS. IN AMERICA. IL—NIMV PICTURES FROM CALIFORNIA. 1,—SAN FRANCISCO, AFTER TEN YEARS, 2.—THE VALLEY OF SAN JOSS, 3.—A JOURNEY TO THE GEYSERS, . 4.—A STRUGGLE TO KEEP AN APPOINTMENT, . 5,—THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY, 6.—THE NORTHERN MINES, 7.—TRAVELLING IN THE SIERRA NEVADA, 8.—THE SOUTHERN MINES, 9.—THE BIG TREES OF CALAVERAS, L0.—CALIFORNIA, AS A HOME, lll—A HOME IN THE THURINGIAN 1.—TAKING POSSESSION, 2.—HOW WE SPENT THE FOURTH, 3.—REINHARDTSBRUNN, AND ITS LEGEND, 4.—THE FIRST GERMAN SHOOTING-MATCH, © FOREST. PAGE 10 19 28 37 50 65 86 103 125 144 159 176 191 203 210 2184 & iw CONTENTS, 5.—THE SAME, CONTINUED, . ° . 6.—ERNEST OF COBURG, : . ° 7.—STORKS AND AUTHORS, . : : 8.—“‘ THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH,” 9,—THE FOREST AND ITS LEGENDS, 10.—DAY-DREAMS—DEPARTURE, . : IV.—A WALK THROUGH THE SWITZERLAND. ‘ : : 1,—THE HUDSON AND THE CATSKILLS, . } 2.—BERKSHIRE AND BOSTON, ° . 3.—THE SACO VALLEY, . 4.—THE ASCENT OF MOUNT WASHINGTON, 5.—MONTREAL AND QUEBEO, . 6.—UP THE SAGUENAY, . . . 7.—NIAGARA, AND ITS VISITORS, . : 8.—-TRENTON FALLS AND SARATOGA, ; 1.—THE LESLIES, . : ; : ° 2.—THE BROWNINGS, . ° ° ° 3.—THE WRITERS FOR “ PUNCH,” . ° 4.—LEIGH HUNT, . . : . . 5.—HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, . ; VII.—THE CONFESSIONS OF A VIIL—THE HAUNTED SHANTY. FRANCONIAN V.—TRAVELS AT HOME, VI.—PERSONAL SKETCHES. e 2 ° e o e e e J a © e e e he e e MEDIUM. . . PAGE 243 253 261 270 279 286 319 330 341 355 366 374 388 396 404 410 416 421 426 433AT HOME AND ABROAD. SECOND SERIES i A COUNTRY HOME IN AMERICA, 1—How I Came To Buy a Farm. In the first place, it runs in the blood. If there is any law I believe in, it is that of the hereditary transmission of traits, qualities, capacities, and passions. My father is a farmer; my grandfather was, and his father before him, and his, and his again, to the seventh ancestor, who came over in one of William Penn’s vessels, and immediately set about reducing the superfluous sylvanism of that Apostle’s Sylva- nia. If I could brush away the clouds which hang about this portion of the genealogical tree, I have no doubt but that I should find its trunk striking through cottages or country halls for some centuries further ; and that “‘ Roger, (ob. 1614,) the son of Thomas, the son of Roger,” who wore the judicial ermine upon his escutcheon, had his favorite country-house in the neighborhood of London. 1AT HOME AND ABROAD The child that has tumbled into anewly-ploughed furrow never forgets the smell of the fresh earth. He thrives upon it as the butcher’s boy thrives upon the steam of blood, but a healthier apple-red comes into his cheeks, and his growing muscle is subdued in more innocent pastimes, Almost my first recollection is that of a swamp, into which I went bare-legged at morning, and out of which I came, when driven by hunger, with long stockings of black mud, and a mask of the same. If the child was missed from the house, the first thing that suggested itself, was to climb upon a mound which overlooked the swamp. Somewhere, among the tufts of the rushes and the bladed leaves of the calamus, a little brown ball was sure to be seen moving, now dipping out of sight, now rising again, like a bit of drift on the rippling green. It was my head. The trea sures I there collected were black terrapins, with orange spots, baby frogs the size of a chestnut, thrush’s eggs, and stems of purple phlox. I cannot say that my boyish experience of farmwork was altogether attractive. I had a constitutional horror of dirty hands, and my first employments—picking stones and weeding corn—were rather a torture to this superfine taste, But almost every field had its walnut tree, and many of the last year’s nuts retained their flavor in the spring; melons were planted among the corn, and the meadow which Jay between never exhausted its store of wonders. Besides, there were eggs to hide at Easter ; cherries and strawberries in May; fruits all summer, fishing-parties by torch-light ; lobelia and sumac to be gathered, dried, and sold for pocket-money ; and in the fell chestnuts, persimmons, wildA COUNTRY HOME IN AMERICA. grapes, cider, and the grand butchering after frost came— so that all the pleasures I knew were those incidental to a farmer’s life. The books I read came from the village library, and the task of helping to “fodder” on the dark winter evenings was lightened by the anticipation of sitting down to Gibbon’s Rome, or Thaddeus of Warsaw, after- wards. To be sure, I sometimes envied the store-keeper’s boy, whom I had once seen shovelling sugar out of a hogs- head, and who now and then stealthily dipped his hand into the raisin-box ; but it is not in the nature of any child to be perfectly satisfied with his lot. A life of three years in a small country town effectually cured me of all such folly. When I returned to the home- stead as a youth, I first felt the delight and the refreshment of labor in the open air. I was then able to take the plough- handle, and I still remember the pride I felt when my furrows were pronounced even and wellturned. Although it was already decided that I should not make farming the business of my life, I thrust into my plans a slender wedge of hope that I might one day own a bit of ground, for the luxury of having, if not the profit of cultivating it. The iroma of the sweet soil had tinctured my blood; the black mud of the swamp still stuck to my feet. It happened that, adjoining my father’s property, there was an old farm, which was fast relapsing into a state of nature. Thirty or forty years had passed since the plough had touched any part of it. The owner, who lived upon another estate at a little distance, had always declined to sell—perhaps for the reason that no purchaser could be found to offer an encouraging price. Left thus to herselfAT HOME AND ABROAD. Nature played all sorts of wild and picturesque pranks with the property. Two heaps of stones were all that marked the site of the house and barn; half a dozen ragged plum and peach trees hovered around the outskirts, of th vanished garden, the melancholy survivors of all its bloom nd fruitage; and a mixture of tall sedge-grass, sumacs, and blackberry bushes covered the fields. The hawthorn hedges which lined the lane had disappeared, but some clumps of privet still held their ground, and the wild grape and scarlet-berried celastrus clambered all over the tal] sassafras and tulip-trees. Along the road which bounded this farm on the east stood a grove of magnificent oaks, more than a hundred feet in height. Standing too closely to permit of lateral boughs near the earth, their trunks rose like a crowded colonnade clear against the sky, and the sunset, burning through, took more gorgeous hues of orange and angry crimson. Knowing that if the farm were sold, those glo- rious trees would probably be the first to fall, and that the sunset would thereby for me lose half its splendor, I gra- dually came to contemplate them with the interest which an uncertain, suspended fate inspires. At the foot of the oaks, on the border of the field, there was an old, gnarled mother-pine, surrounded by her brood of young ones, who, always springing up in the same direction, from the fact that the seeds were scattered by the nor’west winds, seemed to be running off down the slope, as if full-fledged and eager to make their way into the world. The old pine had an awful interest to me as a boy. More than once huge black snakes had been seen hanging from itsA COUNTRY boughs, and the farm-hands would tell mysterious stories of an old mother-serpent, as long as a fence-rail and as swift as a horse. In fact, my brother and I, on our way to the peach-trees, which still produced some bitter-flavored fruit, had more than once seen snakes in our path. certain occasion, as my memory runs, I chased the snake, while he ran away. His story is, that he chased and I ran —and the question remains unsettled to this day. In another wood of chestnuts, beyond the field, the finest yellow violets were to be found; the azaleas blossomed in their season, and the ivory Indian-pipe sprang up under the beech-trees. Sometimes we extended our rambles to the end of the farm, and looked down into the secluded dells beyond the ridge which it covered: such glimpses were How far off the like the discovery of unknown lands. other people lived ! How strange it must be to dwell con- tinually dewn in that hollow, with no other house in sight! But when I build a house, I thought, I shall build it up on the ridge, with a high steeple, from the top of which I can see far and wide. That deserted farm was to me like the Ejuxria of Hartley Coleridge, but my day-dreams were far less ambitious than If I had known then what I learned long afterwards, that a tradition of buried treasure still lingers about the old arden, I should no doubt have dug up millions in my imagination, roofed my house with gold, and made the steeple thereof five hundred feet high. At last came the launch into the world—a slide, a plunge, Absence, occu: a shudder, and the ship rides the, waves. pation, travel, substituted realities for dreams, and the farm, if not forgotten, became a very subordinate object inar HOME AND ABROAD. the catalogue of things to be attained. Whenever I visited the homestead, however, I saw the sunset through its grating of forest, and remembered the fate that still hung suspended over the trees. Fifty years of neglect had given the place a bad name among the farmers, while Nature, as if delighted to recover possession, had gone on adorning it in her own wild and matchless way. I looked on the spot with an instructed eye, and sighed, as I counted up my scanty earnings, at the reflection that years must elapse before I could venture to think of possessing it. My wish, nevertheless, was heard and remembered. In July, 1853, I was on the island of Loo-Choo. Return- ing to the flag-ship of the squadron one evening, after a long tramp over the hills to the south of Napa-Kiang, in a successful search for the ruins of the ancient fortress of Tima-gusku, I was summoned by the officer of the deck to receive a package which had been sent on board from one of the other vessels. Letters from home, after an interval of six months without news! I immediately asked per- mission to burn a lamp on the orlop-deck, and read until midnight, forgetting the tramp of the sentry and the sounds of the sleepers in their hammocks around me, Opening letter after letter, and devouring, piece by piece, the ban- quet of news they contained, the most startling, as well as the most important communication, was—the old farm was mine! Its former owner had died, the property was sold, and had been purchased in my name. I went on deck. The midwatch had just.relieved the first: the night was pitch dark, only now and then a wave burst in a flash of white phosphoric fire. But, as I looked westward over theA COUNTRY HOME IN AMERICA. stern-rail, I saw the giant oaks, rising black against the crimson sunset, and knew that they were waiting for me— that I should surely see them again. Five months afterwards I approached home, after ar absence of nearly two years and a half. It was Christmar Eve—a clear, sharp winter night. The bare earth was hard frozen ; the sun was down, a quarter-moon shone overhead, and the keen nor’west wind blew in my face. I had known no winter for three years, and the bracing stimulus of the cold wag almost as novel as it was refreshing. Pre- sently I recognized the boundaries of my property—yes, I actually possessed a portion of the earth’s surface! After all, I thought, possession—at least so far as Nature is con- cerned—means simply protection. This moonlit wilderness is not more beautiful to my eyes than it was before; but I have the right, secured by legal documents, to preserve its beauty. I need not implore the woodman to spare those trees: Pll spare them myself. This is the only difference in my relation to the property. So long as any portion of the landscape which pleases me is not disturbed, I possess it quite as much as this. During these reflections, I had reached the foot of the ridge. A giant tulip-tree, the honey of whose blossoms I had many a time pilfered in boyhood, crowned the slope, drooping its long boughs as if weary of stretching them in welcome. Behind it stood the oaks, side by side, far along the road. As I reached the first tree the wind, which had fallen, gradually swelled, humming through the bare branches until a deep organ-bass filled the wood. It was a hoarse, yet grateful chorus of welcome—inarticulate, yet8 AT HOME AND ABROAD. mtelligible ‘‘ Welcome, welcome home!” went booming through the trees, “welcome, our master and our pre- server! See, with all the voice we can catch from the winds, we utter our joy! For now there is an end to fear and suspense: he who knows us and loves us spreads ovet us the shelter of his care. Long shall we flourish on the hill: long shall our leaves expand in the upper air: long shall our grateful shadows cover his path. We shall hail his coming from afar: our topmost boughs will spy him across the valleys, and whisper it to the fraternal woods. We are old; we never change; we shall never cease to remember and to welcome our master !” So the trees were first to recognize me. Listening to their deep, resonant voices, (which I would not have exchanged for the dry rattle of a hundred-league-long forest of tropical palms,) I was conscious of a new sensation, which nothing but the actual sight of my own property could have suggested. I felt like a tired swimmer when he first touches ground—like a rudderless ship, drifting at the will of the storm, when her best bower takes firm hold— sike a winged seed, when, after floating from bush to bush, and from field to field, it drops at last upon a handful of mellow soil, and strikes root. My life had now a point PVappui, and, standing upon these acres of real estate, it seemed an easier thing to move the world. 100 AT HOME AND ABROAD. tinez. I hastened up the long pier, and up the hot village street, until I discovered a livery stable. The keeper was lounging indolently in the shade, and the horses seemed to be dozing in their stalls. ‘Can I magnetize this repose, nd extract speed from it?” was the question I put to ayself; whereupon the following dialogue ensued :— ‘J must reach Oakland in time for the last boat for an Francisco. Give me two fast saddle-horses and a guide.” “ Tt can’t be done!” (with a lazy smile.) “Tt must be done! What is the shortest time you have done it in ?” ‘¢ Four hours.” “ How much do you get—two horses and a man ?” *¢ Fifteen dollars.” “You shall have twenty-five—saddle the horses imme- diately.” ‘“‘ There’s no use in taking saddle-horses—a two-horse buggy will get along faster.” “ Get it then! Instantly! Don’t lose a second!” He was magnetized at last. The pass which I made over the region of his pocket, subjected him to my will. Hos- tlers, horses, and vehicles, were magnetized, also. There was running hither and thither—examination of bolts, buckling of straps, comparison of horses—chaotie tumult burst out of slumber. At half-past two I jumped into the puggy. We had exactly three hours in which to make a journey of twenty-five miles, by a rough road, crossing a mountain range two thousand feet high. The horses were small, not handsome, but with an air of toughness andNEW PICTURES FROM CALIFORNIA. 10% courage: the driver had the face of a man who possesses a conscience, These were encouraging signs. My spiritual mercury immediately rose to fifteen degrees above zero. It was hard, though, to sit still while we drove mode. rately up the hot glen behind Martinez, waiting for the horses to get the requisite wind and flexibility of muscle. I quieted my restless nerves with a cigar, sufficiently to enjoy the Arcadian beauty of the scenery. Clumps of evergreen oak, bay, and sycamore, marked the winding course of the stream; white cottages, embowered in fig- trees, nestled at the foot of the hills, every opening fold of which disclosed a fresh picture ; and to the eastward tow- ered, in airy purple, the duplicate peak of Monte Diablo. Out of this glen we passed over low hills into another, and still another, enjoying exquisite views of the valleys of Pacheco and San Ramon, with Suisun Bay in the distance, The landscapes, more contracted than those of Napa and San José, had a pastoral, idyllic character, and I was sur- prised to find how much loveliness is concealed in the heart of mountains which, as seen from the Bay, appear so bare and bleak. Searcely any portion of the land was unclaimed. Farm succeeded to farm, and little villages were already growing up in the broader valleys. The afternoon sun burned our faces, though a light breeze tempered the heat enough to allow our horses to do their best. I urged upon the driver the necessity of mak- ing all he could at the start, and evaded his inquiries with regard to the time. This plan worked so well that we reached a village called Lafayette, thirteen miles from Martinez, in one hour and ten minutes. Here we watered102 AT HOME AND ABROAD. the horses, and I lighted a fresh cigar. The mercury had risen to 32°. Beyond this extended a wild, winding valley, some three or four miles in length, to the foot of the high range. The hills shut us in closely: settlements became scanty, and at last we entered a narrow gorge, through which the road had been cut with much labor. A clear brook murmured at the bottom; bay-leaves scented the air, and climbing vines fell over us in showers, from the branches of the trees. Through the dark walls in front rose the blue steep of the mountain which we were obliged to scale. The roughness of the road and the chance of being stopped by meeting another team could not wholly spoil my delight in the wild beauty of this pass. Now we grappled with the bare mountain-side, up which the road zigzagged out of sight, far above. Of course, it was impossible for the horses to proceed faster than a walk, and the lingering remnants of my anxiety were lost sight of in the necessity of preserving the equilibrium of our vehicle on those sidelong grades. We leaned, first to the right and then to the left, changing at every turn, to keep our wheels upon the slippery plane, until the shoulder of the range was surmounted, and we saw the comb about half a mile distant. From the summit we looked down, as from the eaves of a house, into the throat of a precipitous cafion which yawned below us. Between its overlapping sides glimmered, far away, a little triangle of the Bay of San Francisco. Now, let us see how much time is left to reach the shores of that blue vision? Fifty-five minutes! The mercury immediately sank to 10°. What a plunge it was until we reached the bottom of theNEW PICTURES FROM CALIFORNIA. 103 suinmit-wall, where the first springs gushed forth !—and how the horses held back, with our weight pressing upon them, was more than I could understand. The narrow canon then received us, and the horses, as if maddened with the previous restraint, dashed recklessly down the shelving road, which, as it crossed from one side to the other, back and forth, obliged us to fling our weight always on the uppermost wheels. From the rapidity of their descent, a little jolt would have been sufficient to have hurled us over into the bed of the stream. The excitement of the race made us perfectly regardless of the danger: there was even a keen sense of enjoyment, to me, in the mad, reckless man- ner in which we turned the sharp corners of the ravine, or spun along brinks where the pebbles, displaced by our wheels, rattled on stones twenty feet below. Neither of us said a word, but held fast for life, flinging our bodies half out of the vehicle as the road shifted sides. There was one fear hanging over us, but we no more mentioned it than the Alpine traveller would shout under the poised avalanche which the sound of his voice might start from its bed. Corner after corner was passed ; the horizon of the Bay, seen through the gap in front, sank lower, and the inter. vening plain glimpsed nearer. Then ahouse appeared—lo! the end of the cafion, and in fifteen minutes from the top we had made the descent of more than two miles! We both, at the same instant, drew a long, deep breath of relief, and the driver spoke out the thought which was in my own mind, ‘ That’s what I was afraid of,” said he, without further explanation. “So was I,” was my answer. “I didn’t say a word about it, for fear talking of it would make it104 AT HOME AND ABROAD. happen—but think, if we had met another team on the way down!” “But we didn’t,’ I shouted; “and now we'll catch the boat! And my thermometer stands at 90°—and the world is beautiful—and life is glorious—and all men are my brethren!” He smiled a quiet, satisfied smile, merely remarking: “I thought I’'d do it.” The remaining trot of five miles over the plain was child’s play, compared with what we had done. When our smok.- ing and breathless horses were pulled up on the steamboat pier at Oakland, there were just eight minutes to spare! We had made the trip from Martinez in two hours and fifty: two minutes—the shortest time in which it had ever been accomplished. The bystanders, to whom my driver trium- phantly proclaimed his feat, would not believe it. I paid the stipulated twenty-five dollars with the greatest cheer- fulness—every penny of it had been well earned—jumped aboard the ferry-boat, and threw myself on one of the cabin sofas with an exquisite feeling of relief. The anxiety I had endured through the day wholly counteracted the fatigue of the journey, and the excitement continued without the usual reaction. When we reached San Francisco, at seven o’clock, I found my friends waiting for me on the pier. They had arranged to send the boat back in case I should not arrive, which would have cost one hundred dollars. Fortifying myself with repeated doses of strong coffee (for there was no time to get dinner), I made my appear- ance on the rostrum at the appointed hour. My face was baked and blistered by the sun, and my lungs somewhat exhausted by the day’s labors, but I went through the dis- sourse of an hour and a half with very little more than theNEW PICTURES FROM CALIFORNIA. hOE c usual fatigue. At the close, when I felt inclined to congra tulate myself a little, I was rather taken aback by my friends, who seeing my fiery face, and knowing nothing of the day’s struggle, exclaimed, with wicked insinuation: “You have been dining out this evening!” At ten o’clock, my wife arrived in the Sacramento boat, and our supper at the Ori ental was a happy finis to the eventful day, 5.—Tue SAcRAMENTO VALLEY, Brrore completing my engagement at San Francisco, I had already made arrangements for a lecturing tour through the interior of the State. Literary associations are few in California: the prosperity of the mining towns is, in general, too precarious—their population too shifting—to encourage the growth of permanent institutions of this character; and the lecturer, consequently, misses the shel- ter and assistance to which he has been accustomed at home. He must accept the drudgery along with the profit. [ confess that, after my previous experience, the undertak- ing was not tempting; but while it was incumbent upon me to visit the mining regions before leaving California, it was also prudent to make the visit (such is human nature!) pecuniarily advantageous. For Sacramento and the moun- tain-towns, I secured the services of Mr. E , news-agent, as avant-coureur, hirer of theatres, poster of placards, and distributer of complimentary tickets. This arrangement took the drudgery of she business ce vo106 AT HOME AND ABROAD. off my hands, it is true; but, at the same time, it brought me hefore the public in a new and less agreeable character. No longer the invited guest of societies—no longer intro- duced to audiences by the presidents thereof—I fell to the level of itinerant phrenologists and exhibitors of nitrous oxide gas: nay—let me confess it—I could no longer look down upon the Ethiopian minstrel, or refuse to fraternize with the strolling wizard. It did not surprise me, therefore, that the principal of a classical academy, in a town which shall be nameless, not only refused to hear me, but denied permission to his scholars. “ He is an author!” exclaimed this immaculate pedagogue; ‘yet he degrades his calling by thus appearing before the public. I have too much respect for authors to countenance such degradation !” My lecture in Sacramento was to take place on Saturday, and my friend, Judge Hastings, of Benicia, arranged for the previous evening at the latter place. Preparing our- selves, therefore, for a month’s journey, we left San Fran- visco in the afternoon boat. About twenty-five miles from the Golden Gate, the Bay of Pablo terminates, and we enter the Straits of Carquinez, which connect it with Suisun Bay, the reservoir of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, lying beyond the Coast Range. These straits are from six to seven miles in length, with a breadth varying from half a mile to four miles. With their bold shores, and their varying succession of bays and headlands on either side, they have been compared to the Bosphorus—which, indeed, they sur- pass in natural beauty. When the hills, folding together in softly-embracing swells, which give the eye a delizhtNEW PICTURES FROM CALIFORNIA, 10% like that of perfect music to the ear, and now draped in gilded velvet as the sunset-strikes along their sides, shall be terraced with gardens of never-fading bl oom— when, besides the live-oak, the dark pillars of the cypress, the wmbelliferous crowns of the Italian pine and the plumy tuits of the hardy Chinese palm shall flourish in their shel- tering arms, and when mansion on mansion shall line the water’s edge, with balconies overhanging the tide, and boats tossing at the marble steps—then the magnificent water-street which leads from Constantinople to the Euxine will find itself not only rivalled, but surpassed. As the sun went down, in a blaze of more than Medi- terranean beauty, we reached Benicia. In 1849, many persons actually supposed that this place would become the commercial metropolis of the Pacific, and speculation raged among the lots staked out all over its barren hills. Vessels of the largest tonnage could lie close to the shore, said they—forgetting that it was possible to build piers at San Francisco. There was a fine back- country—as if all California were not the back-country of its metropolis! In fact, there was no end to the argu- ments (especially if you owned a lot) advanced to prove that San Francisco must go down, and Benicia must go up! But Commerce is a wilful and a stubborn goddess, She pitches on a place by a sort of instinct, and all the coaxing and forcing in the world won’t budge her a jot. Benicia was made the headquarters of the Army—but it didn’t help the matter. Lots were given away, shanties ouilt, all kinds of inducements offered—still, trade wouldn’t sume, It was made the State capital—but, alas! it is notAT HOME ANL ABROAD. even the county seat at present. It is still the same bara looking, straggling place as when I first saw it, but witk more and better houses, the big brick barracks of the sol diers, and the workshops of the Pacific Steamship Company The population is about 3,000. I haveno doubt the failure of his plan broke old Semple’s heart. Robert Semple, the lank Indiana giant—one of the first emigrants to California, and the President of the Con- stitutional Convention at Monterey—owned a great part of the land, and it would bring, he believed, millions of money into his coffers. He never spoke of San Francisco, but with the bitterest disgust. ‘‘ Augh!” he exclaimed to me, as we once camped together in the Pajaro Valley; ‘don’t mention the name: it makes me sick!” If this feeling was general among the speculators, there must have been a great, many invalids in California about that time. The superb, solitary mass of Monte Diablo, robed in the violet mist of twilight, rose before us as we landed at Bent- cia. Monte Diablo isa more graceful peak than Soracte: he reproduces the forms as well as the tints of the storied mountains of Greece. Like Helicon or Hymettus, he over- looks aruin. At his base, on the shore of Suisun Bay, ano- ther metropolis was founded by Col. Stevenson, who com- manded the New York Regiment sent to California in 1846. He called his embryo city (Heaven help us!) “ New-York- oftthe-Pacific!” Nature tolerates many strange names in our United States, but this was more than she could stand. In 1849, I saw three houses there; and then, one could not rs. What was my joy, wher o o venture to laugh at beginnin one of them uninhabited— I now beheld only éwo housesNEW PICTURES FROM CALIFORNIA. 109 and was mformed that the shore was covered with the ske letons of musquitos which had died of starvation! To keep my engagement at Sacramento the next evening, it was necessary that we should make the journey thither by land, a distance of sixty miles After riding in a jolting tage around the great tulé marsh, to Suisun City, twenty miles off, I had the good luck to meet a gentleman who placed a two-horse team at our disposal. We were thus free to finish the journey on our old independent footing. The day was cloudless, and intensely hot, and even the dry, yellow grass appeared to have been scorched off the cracked and blistered earth. Low undulations of soil rolled away before us, until the plain vanished in fiery haze, and the wind which blew over it was as the blast from outa furnace. At intervals of four or five miles, we found a set- tler’s cabin, with its accompanying corral and garden, and a windmill, lazily turning in the heated gusts. Miles away on our right, a blue line of timber marked the course of the Sacramento River, apparently separated from us by a lake, dotted with island-like clumps of trees, Every distant depression of the plain was filled with the sameillusive water. Newly-arrived emigrants, unacquainted with the mirage, often ride far out of their trail, in the endeavor to reach these airy pools. An accustomed eye has no difficulty in detecting them, as the color is always that of the sky, whereas real water is a darker blue. After a steady travel of nearly five hours, the road swerved to the right, and ascended an artificial dyke, or embankment, which has been made with much labor, in order to raise it above the reach of the winter floods. Ati109 AT HOME AND ABROAD. intervals of fifty or a hundred yards, there are bridges, te allow passage for the water: and I think we must have crossed twenty-five of them in the distance of amile. On ‘either side were dried-up swamps of giant tulé. This causeway conducted us to the river-bank, which is consi- dezably higher than the plain in its rear. Thence, for six miles, we followed the course of the stream—the road, deep in dust, winding among golden and purple thickets, which exhaled the most delicious fragrance, and under the arching arms of the oak and sycamore. It was a storehouse of artistic foregrounds. I know not which charmed us most —the balmy, shadowed sweetness of the air, the dazzling gaps of sunshine, the picturesque confusion of forms, or the splendid contrasts of color. Four miles below Sacramento, we crossed the river on a ferry-scow, and hastened onward through Sutterville; for the sun was nigh his setting. A cloud of white dust hid the city, and lay thick and low all over the plain. Increas- ing in volume, huge, billowy eddies of it rolled toward us, and we were presently blinded by the clouds that arose from our own wheels. Of the last two miles of the drive I can say nothing—for I saw nothing. Often there was a rattling of wheels near me, as the strings of vehicles return- ing from the fair-grounds passed by; but the horses instinct- ively avoided a collision. I shut my eyes, and held my breath as much as possible, until there came a puff of fresher air, and I found myself in one of the watered streets of the eity. Blinded, choked, and sun-burned, we alighted at the St. George Hotel, and were so lucky as to find a room, The city, like San Francisco, was altogether a differentNEW PICTURES FROM CALIFORNIA. FP place from the picture in my memory. Having been not only laid in ashes, but completely washed away by the ‘nundation of 1853, not a house remains from the pioneer times. It was, in reality, only six years old—a fact which accounted for the light character of much of the architec: ture, and the unusual number of one-story buildings, The streets are broad, inflexibly right-angled, and prosaically named after the numerals, and the letters of the alphabet. The business portion of the city extends five or six blocks back from the river, and a greater distance along J, K, and L streets. Beyond this region, there are many beautiful private residences and gardens, The place is greatly admired by its inhabitants, but the uniformity of surface and plan made it appear tame and monotonous, after San Francisco. The first thing I looked for, and totally missed, was the profusion of grand, ancient oaks and sycamores, which once adorned the streets. Every one had fallen—some destroyed in the conflagration, but the most part cut down, because they interfered with buildings, or dropped their aged limbs inastorm. Their place was miserably filled with rows of young cottonwoods, of astonishing growth, which cast alternate showers of down and sticky gum upon the gar- ments of those who walk in their shade. I grieved over he loss of the noble old trees. Perhaps it was inevitabl hat they should fall, but it was none the less melancholy. Sacramento is a cheerful, busy town of about 15,000 g if Oo inhabitants, with a State-house which would be imposin it were all one color, substantial churches and school-houses, a few flourishing manufactories, and drinking saloons innu or 1Sp12 AT HOME AND ABROAD. merable. It boasts the best daily paper in the State (Zhe Union), the biggest hotel, and (being the capital) the worst class of politicians. It is a city whose future is sure, but whose character must necessarily be provincial. Its difference from San Francisco, in this respect, is already striking. Hearing the sound of solemn singing in the street, on ss) Sunday morning, I went upon the baleony. ‘There was a crowd below, collected around a young man with a pale face and short-cut blonde hair, who was singing a Method- ist hymn, in a clear, penetrating voice. After he had finished, he commenced an exhortation which lasted about twenty minutes, the crowd listening with respectful atten- tion. At its close, a seedy-looking individual went around with a hat, with such good result, that some twenty or thir- ty dollars in silver were poured out on a stone at the preacher’s feet. By this time, most of the ladies in the hotel were collected on the balcony. Casting his eyes up- ward, the preacher acknowledged their presence in a series of remarks rather courtly than clerical. He concluded by saying: “ That distinguished traveller, Bay-ard Taylor, has also stated that, wherever he went, he was kindly treated by the ladies! When he visited the Esquimaux, in the Arctic Regions, the ladies received him with great hospitality ; and even among the Hottentots, his friends were still—the ladies !? Not content with attributing Ledyard’s senti went to myself, he made that noble traveller guilty of a vul- garism. Ledyard said “woman,” not “lady.” After this, I can almost credit Miss Martineau’s statement, that an American clergyman said, in one of his sermons: ‘ WheNEW PICTURES FROM CALIFORNIA, 11E were last at the cross? Ladies! Who were earliest at the sepulchre ? Ladies!” The State Agricultural Fair (then in progress) was held in a Pavilion, the erection of which, for this special occa sion, was the boast of the city. It was a hall of brick, rest; ing on a basement—two hundred, by one hundred and fifty feet in dimensions, and fifty in height. About seven weeks, only, were consumed in building it. The display of pro- ductions—agricultural, horticultural, mineral, mechanical, and artistic—astonished even the Californians themselves. Few of them had been aware of the progress which their State had made in the arts—nor, though familiar with the marvellous energies of her soil, could they guess how rich and varied were its productions, until thus brought toge- ther. Few of the annual fairs of our Atlantic States could have surpassed it in completeness, to say nothing of the vegetable wonders which can be seen nowhere else in the world. Entering the basement, you saw before you a collection of carriages, fire-engines, saddlery, harness, furniture, and agricultural implements—all of California manufacture: blocks of granite and freestone, blue, white, and amber Suisun marble: statuary, cured hams, pickles, sauces, pre- serves, canned fruits, dried fruits, honey, oil, olives, soap butter, cheese, vinegar: twenty or thirty different varietie of wine: rows of bee-hives near the windows, which were opened, that the unembarrassed insects might go on with their work: rope, tanned hides, boots, clothing ; in short all the necessaries of life, and not a few of the luxuries Coming upon a pile of green boulders—huge geodes of114 AT HOME AND ABROAD, malachite, you suspect—you find them to be water-melons walking down a glen, between rounded masses of orange colored rock, you see, at last, that they are only pumpkins, weighing two hundred and sixty pounds apiece! What 1s this silvery globe, the size of your head? Bless me, ar onion! Are those turnips, or paving-stones? White columns of celery, rising from the floor, curl their crisp leaves over your head; those green war-clubs are cucum- bers; and these legs, cut off at the groin and clad in orange tights, are simply carrots! Again, I say, it is useless to attempt a description of California vegetables. The above comparisons suggest no exaggeration to those who have seen the objects—yet my readers this side of the Rocky Mountains will not believe it. Growth so far beyond the range of our ordinary expe rience seems as great a miracle as any which have been performed by the toe-nails of saints. Ihave been informed even, that some vegetables change their nature, after being transplanted here for a few years. The lima-bean becomes perennial, with a woody stem; the cabbage, even (though [should prefer seeing this), is asserted, in one instance, to have changed into a sort of shrub, bearing a head on the end of every branch! I believe no analysis of the various soils of California has yet been made. It would be curious to ascertain whether this vegetable vigor is mostly due to a fortunate climate, or to a greater proportion of nutriment in the earth than is elsewhere found. The great hall was devoted principally to fruits, and pre. sented a rare banquet of color and perfume. Green, lemon yellow, gold, orange, scarlet, pink, crimson, purple, violet 13290 AT HOME AND ABROAD. Veuirkapelle (the Chapel of Annoyance); so called, I pre. sume, because you have it in view during a day’s walk Its situation is superb, on the very crest of a wooded moun: tain. Peasant-women, with gay red cloths on their heads, brightened the fields, but the abundance of beggars showed that we were in Bavaria. At the little town of Ebermannstadt two young ladies joined us. They wore round hats, much jewelry, and expansive crinolines, which they carefully gathered up under their arms before taking their seats, thereby avoiding the usual embarrassment. They saluted me with great cordiality, apologizing for the amplitude of dress which obliged me to shift my seat. I was a little disappointed, however, to find that they spoke the broadest patois, which properly requires the peasant costume to make it attractive. The distance between their speech and their dress was too great. “ Gelt, Hans, ’s geht a bissel barsch ’uf'?” said one of them to the postillion—which is as if an American girl should say to the stage-driver, “‘ Look here, you Jack, it’s a sort o? goin’ up-hill, ain’t it ?” The valley now became quite narrow, and presently I saw, by the huge masses of gray rock and the shattered tower of Neideck, that we were approaching Streitberg. This place is the portal of the Franconian Switzerland, Situated at the last turn of the Wiesent valley—or rather at the corner where it ceases to be a gorge and becomes a valley—the village nestles at the base of a group of huge, splintered, overhanging rocks, among which still hang the ruins of its feudal castle. Opposite, on the very summit of a similar group, is the ruin of Niedeck. The names ofA WaLK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 29] vai the two places (the “Mount of Quarrel” and the “ Corner of Envy”) give us the clew to their history. Streitberg, no doubt, was at one time a very Ebal, or Mount of Curs- ing—nor, to judge from the invalid who accompanied us thither to try the whey-cure, can it yet have entirely lost Its character. At the cure-house (as the Germans call it) there were some fifty similar individuals—sallow, peevish, irritable, unhappy persons, in whose faces one could see vinegar as well as whey. They sat croaking to each other in the balmy evening, or contemplated with rueful faces the lovely view down the valley. I succeeded in procuring a bath by inscribing my name, residence, and the precise hour of bathing, in a book for the inspection of the physician. I trust he was edified by the perusal. Then, returning to the inn, I ordered a sup- per of trout, which are here cheap and good. They are kept in tanks, and, if you choose, you may pick out any fish you may prefer. A tap on the nose is supposed to kill them, after which the gall-bladder is removed, and they are thrown into boiling water. In Germany, trout are never eaten otherwise. The color fades in the process, but the flavor of the fish is fully retained. A slice of lemon, bread, butter, and a glass of Rhenish wine, are considered to be necessary harmonics. I took a good night’s sleep before commencing my walk- ing-cure. Then, leaving my travelling-bag to follow with the diligence, I set out encumbered only with an umbrella-cane, a sketch-book, and a leather pouch, containing guide-book, map, note-book, and colors. Somewhat doubtful as to the result, but courageous, I began a slow, steady march 1292 AT HOME AND ABROAD. the valley. Many years had passed since J had undertaken a journey on foot, and as I recalled old experiences and old feelings, I realized that, although no sense of enjoyment was blunted, the fascinating wonderment of youth, which clothed every object in a magical atmosphere, was gone for ever. My perception of Beauty seemed colder, because it was more intelligent, more discriminating. But Gain and Loss, in the scale of life, alternately kick the beam. The dew lay thick on the meadows, and the peasants were everywhere at work shaking out the hay, so that the air was sweet with grass-odors. Above me, on either side, the immense gray horns and towers of rock rose out of the steep fir-woods, clearly, yet not too sharply defined against the warm blue of the sky. The Wiesent, swift and beryl-green, winding in many curves through the hay fields, made a cheerful music in his bed. In an hour I reached the picturesque village of Muggendorf, near which is Rosen- miiller’s Cave, celebrated for its stalactitic formations. I have little fancy for subterranean travels, and after having seen the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky and the grottoes of Crete, I felt no inclination to visit more than one of the Franconian caverns. After resting half an hour, and re freshing myself with a glass of water and the conversation of a company of ladies who alighted at the little tavern, | started again, still feeling tolerably brisk. The valley now contracted to a wild gorge, with almost perpendicular walls of rock, and a narrow strip of meadow in its bed. Ina distance of five miles I passed two fine old mills, which were the only evidences of life and habitation, Suddenly, on turning a rocky corner, the castle of GéssA WALK-THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZEREAND. 293 weinstein appeared before me, as if hung in the sky. The picture was so striking that, in spite of the intense heat, I stopped to sketch it. On reaching a mill at the foot of the mountain I found there was no bridge over the stream, which I should have crossed some distance back. I was sufficiently tired, however, to be glad of a good excuse for not scaling the height. Presently I reached a little village in anook where the gorge splits into three prongs, through two of which wild trout-streams come down to join the Wiesent. The meadows were covered with pieces of coarse linen in the process of bleaching. Here there was a tavern and a huge linden-tree, and after my walk of ten miles I considered myself entitled to shade and beer. It occurred to me, also, that I might lighten the journey by taking the landlady’s son to carry my coat, sketch-book, etc. This proved to be a good idea, The main road here left the valley, which really became next to impracticable. We took a foot-path up the stream, through a wild glen halffilled with immense fragments that had tumbled from the rocky walls on either side. The close heat was like that of an oven, and, as the solitude was com- plete, I gradually loaded my guide with one article of dress after another, until my costume resembled that of a High- lander, except that the kilt was white. Finally, seeing some hay-makers at a point where the glen made a sharp turn, I resumed my original character; and it was well thai I did 80, for on turning the corner I found myself in the village of Tiichersfeld, and in view of a multitude of wonsen whe were bleaching linen. I know of few surprises in scenery equal to this. T wasAT HOME AND ABROAD. 294 looking up the glen, supposing that my way lay straight on. when three steps more, and I found myself in a deep trian. gular basin, out of which rose three immense jagged masses of rock, like pyramids in ruin, with houses clinging, in gid- dy recklessness, to their sides! On a saddle between two of them stands the Herrensitz, or residence of the propric- tary family. A majestic linden, centuries old, grows at the base, and high over its crown tower the weather-beaten spires of rock, with a blasted pine on the summit. The picture is grotesque in its character, which is an unusual feature in scenery. One who comes up the glen is sO un- prepared for it that it flashes upon him as if a curtain had been suddenly lifted. Here I rested in the shade until the mid-day heat was over. A Jew and a young Bavarian lieutenant kept me company, and the latter entertained me with descriptions of various executions which he had seen. We left at the same time, they for Bayreuth and I for the little town of Pottenstein, at the head of the gorge, five miles further. By this time, I confess, the journey had become a toiljc. Jt dragged myself along rather than walked, and when a stout boy of twelve begged for a kreutzer, I bribed him for twelve to accompany and assist me. His dialect was of the broad- est, and I could sooner have understood a lecture on the Absolute Reason than his simple peasant gossip. His tongue was a very scissors for clipping off the ends of words. The pronoun “ich” he changed into “a,” and very oftén used the third person of the verb instead of the first. I man: aged, however, to learn that the landlord in Ttichersfeld was “fearfully rich :” all the hay in the glen (perhaps terA WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 295 tons) belonged to him. I had already suspected as much for the landlord took pains to tell us about a wedding trip he had just made to the old monastery of Banz, a day’s journey distant. “It cost me as much as forty florins,* e2id he, “but then we travelled second-class. To my thinking it’s not half so pleasant as third-class, but then I wanted to be noble for once.” For an hour and a half we walked through a deep, wind- ing glen, where there was barely a little room here and there for a hay or barley field. On the right hand were tall forests of fir and pine; on the left, abrupt stony hills, capped with huge irregular bastions of Jura limestone. Gradually the rocks appear on the right and push away the woods; the stream is squeezed between a double row of Cyclopean walls, which assume the wildest and most fantastic shapes, and finally threaten to lock together and cut off the path. These wonderful walls are three or four hundred feet in height—not only perpendicular, but actu- ally overhanging in many places. As I was shuffling along, quite exhausted, I caught a glimpse of two naked youngsters in a shaded eddy of the stream. They plunged about with so much enjoyment that I was strongly tempted to join them: so I stepped down to the bank, and called out, “Is the water cold 2” Whoop! away they went, out of the water and under a thick bush, leaving only four legs visible. Presently thes zlso disappeared, and had it not been for two tow shirts more brown than white, lying on the grass, I might have supposed that I had surprised a pair of Nixies. The approach to Pottenstein resembles that to Tachers096 AT HOME AND ABROAD. feld, but it is less sudden and surprising. It is wonderfully picturesque—the houses are so jammed in, here and there, among the huge shapeless limestone monoliths, and the bits of meadow and garden have such a greenness and brightness contrasted with the chaos which incloses them. I found my way to the post-inn, and straightway dropped into one of the awkward carved wooden chairs (the pattern of five centuries ago) in the guests’ room, with a feeling of infinite gratitude. The landlord brought me a mug of beer, with black bread and a handful of salt on the plate. I remembered the types of hospitality in the Orient, and partook of the hallowed symbols. ‘Then came consecutive ablutions of cold water and brandy; after which I felt sufficiently refreshed to order trout for supper. But what- ever of interest the little town may have contained, nothing could tempt me to walk another step that day. In the morning I engaged a man as guide and sack- bearer, and set out by six o’clock for Rabenstein (the 2aven-rock) and its famous cavern. We first climbed out of the chasm of Pottenstein, which was filled with a hot, silvery mist, and struck northward over high, rolling land, from which we could now and then look down into the gorges of the Piittlach and Eschbach. There was not a breath of air stirring, and even at that early hour the heat was intense. I would have stopped occasionally to rest, but the guide pushed ahead, saying: “ We must get on before the day is hot.” The country was bald and mono tonous, but the prospect of reaching Rabenstein in two hours enabled me to hold out. Finally the little foot-patkh we had been following turned into a wood, whence, after 8A WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND, 294 hundred paces, it suddenly emerged upon the brink of a deep, rocky basin, resembling the crater of a volcano. It was about four hundred feet deep, with a narrow split at either end, through which the Eschbach stream entered and departed. The walls were composed of enormous overhanging masses of rock, which rested on natural arches or regular jambs, like those of Egyptian gateways, while the bed was of the greenest turf, with a slip of the blue sky mirrored in the centre, as if one were looking upon a lower heaven through a crack in the earth. Opposite, on the very outer edge of the rock, sat the castle of Raben- stein, and the houses of the village behind it seemed to be crowding on toward the brink, as if anxious which should be first to look down. Into this basin led the path—a toilsome descent, but at the bottom we found a mill which was also a tavern, and bathed our tongues in some cool but very bitter and dis- agreeable beer, ‘Sophia’s Cave,” the finest grotto in the Franconian Switzerland, is a little further up the gorge; and the haymakers near the mill, on seeing me, shouted up to the cave-keeper in the village over their heads to get his torches ready. The rocks on either side exhibit the most wild and wonderful forms, In one place a fragment, shaped very much like a doll, but from eighty to a hundred feet in height, has slipped down from above, and fallen out, resting only its head against the perpendicular wall. On approaching the cave, the rocky wall on which the castle of Rabenstein stands projects far over its base, and a little white chapel sits on the summit. The entrance is a very oroad, low arch, resting on natural pillars. 13*298 AT HOME AND ABROAD. You first penetrate for a hundred feet or more by a spacious vaulted avenue: then the rock contracts, and a narrow passage, closed by double doors, leads to the sub- terranean halls. Here you find yourself near the top of an immense chamber, hung with stalactites and tinkling with the sound of water dropping from their points. A wooden‘ saircase, protected by an iron railing, leads around the sides to the bottom, giving views of some curious forma- tions—waterfalls, statues, a papal tiara, the intestines of cattle—and the blunt pillars of the stalagmites, growing up by hundreds from every corner or shelf of rock. The most remarkable feature of the cave, however—as of all the Franconian grottoes—is the abundance of fossil remains in every part of it. The attention of geologists was first directed to these extraordinary deposits by the naturalist Rosenmitiller, who explored and described them ; but they were afterward better known through the writ- ings of Cuvier and Humboldt. Here, imbedded in the incrusted stone, lie the skulls of bears and hyenas, the antiers of deer, elk, and antelopes, and the jaw-bones of mammoths. You find them in the farthest recesses of the save, and the rock seems to be actually a conglomerate of them. Yet no entire skeleton of any animal, I was in- formed, has been found. Under the visible layers are other deeper layers of the same remains. How were al] these beasts assembled here? What overwhelming fear 01 neces sity drove together the lion and the stag, the antelope an the hyena? and what convulsion, hundreds of centuries ago, buried them so deep? There issome grand mystery of Crea tion hidden in this sparry sepulchre of pre-adamite beasts.A WALK THROUGH THE FRANCUONIAN SWITZERLAND, 29$ We passed on into the second and third chambers, where the stalactites assume other and more unusual forms, such as curtains, chandeliers, falling fringes of lily-leaves, and embroidered drapery, all of which are thin, transparent, snowy-white, and give forth a clear, bell-like tone when struck. The cave is curious and beautiful rather than grand. The guide informed me that I had penetrated two thousand feet from the entrance, but this I could not believe. Eight hundred feet would be nearer the mark. On returning, the first effect of daylight on the outer arches of the cavern transmuted them into golden glass, and the wild landscape of the gorge was covered with a layer of crystal fire so dazzling that I could seareely look upon it. By this time it was ten o’clock, and the heat increasing every moment: it was 90° in the shade. An hour’s walk over a bare, roasting upland brought me to the Wiesent valley and the town of Waischenfeld, which I reached in a state of complete exhaustion. Here, however, there was an omnibus to Bayreuth. My guide and baggage-bearer was an old fellow of sixty, who had waited upon me the evening before in Pottenstein, and besides had fallen in the street and broken his pipe while going to the baker’s for my breakfast: so I gave him a florin and a half (60 cents). But I was hardly prepared for the outburst which followed: “Thank you, and Heaven reward you, and God return it to you, and Our Dear Lady take care of you! Oh, but I will pray ever so many paternosters for you, until you reach dome again. Oh, that you may get back safely! Oh, that you may have long life! Oh, that you may be rich. Oh, that you may keep your health! Oh, that I might go on300 AT HOME-AND ABROAD. with you, and never stop! But youw’re a noble lordship: It isn’t me that likes vulgar people: I won’t have nothing to do with ’em: it’s the fine, splendid gentleman like your- self that it does me good to be with!” With that he took my hand, and, bending over, kissed me just under the right eye before I knew what he was after. He then left; and when I came to pay my bill I found that he had ordered dinner and beer at my expense ! I waited at Waischenfeld until late in the afternoon, and then took the post for Bayreuth. The upper valley of the Wiesent exhibits some remarkable rock-forms; but they become less and less frequent, the valley widens, and finally, at the village of Blankenstein, the characteristics of the Franconian Switzerland, in this direction, disappear. The soil, however, is much richer, and the crops were wonder- fully luxuriant. We passed a solitary chapel by the road- side, renowned as a place of pilgrimage. ‘The people call it die Kédbel,” said my fellow-passenger, a Bayreuther. “Tf you were to say Aapelle [chapel], they wouldn’t know what you meant.” The votive offerings placed there are immediately stolen; the altar-ornaments are stolen; even the bell is stolen from the tower. At last the Fichtelgebirge (Fir-Mountains)—the central chain of Franconia—came in sight, and the road began to descend toward the valley of Bayreuth. My fellow-pas senger proposed that we should alight at the commencement of a park called the Phantasie, belonging to Duke Alexan- der of Wtirtemberg, and he would conduct me through to the other end, where the omnibus would wait for us. We entered a charming park, every foot of which betrayed thrA WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 30] most exquisite taste and the most tender care. Nowhere could be found smoother gravel, greener turf, brighter flow: ers, or amore artistic disposition of trees, fountains, statues, and flower-beds. Presently we reached a stately Italian palace of yellow stone, with a level, blossomy terrace in front, overhanging a deep valley, which seemed to have been brought bodily from Switzerland. In the bottom was a lake, bordered by the greenest meadows; the opposite hill was wooded with dark firs, and every house which could be seen was Swiss in its form. Two men were on the ter- race, looking over the heavy stone balustrade—one of them a very stout, strong figure, with a massive gray beard. Ah,” said my companion, “there is the Duke himself!” His Highness, seeing us, returned our salutes very politely, and then slid behind a bush. ‘“ He always does that,” said the Bayreuther, “ when strangers come: he goes away lest they should be embarrassed, and not see as much as they wish.” This is really the extreme of politeness. The Duke’s wife was the Princess Marie d’Orleans, that gifted daughter of Louis Philippe, whose statue of Joan of Are is in the Versailles Gallery. She died, however, not in consequence of excessive devotion to her art, as.is often stated, but from a cold contracted after her first confinement. Duke Alex nder has never married again, The Phantasie struck me as being one of the most exqui- site specimens of landscape gardening in Germany. It is an illustration of what may be accomplished by simply assisting nature—by following her suggestions rather than forcing her to assume a new character, As we approached Bayreuth my friend said: “Now ]802 AT HOME AND ABROAD. will try and show you the grave of Jean Paul (Richter).’ But the foliage in the cemetery was too thick, and I only thought I saw the top of a black marble tombstone. “1 remember him very well,” he continued. ‘ When I was a boy I often saw him on his way to Frau Rollwenzel’s. He wore a wide coat, and always had a bottle of wine in his pocket. One hand he held behind him, and carried a stick in the other. Sometimes he would stop and take a drink of wine. I remember his funeral, which took place by torch-light. He was a most beautiful corpse! His widow gave me one of his vests, a white one, with embroidery upon it, and I was fool enough to let it go out of my hands ; I shall never forgive myself for that. But then, nobody im Bayreuth thought he was a great man.” And this was said of Jean Paul, the greatest German humorist! There is a melancholy moral in the remark. Bayreuth is a stately town for its size (the population is some 18,000); the streets are broad, the houses large and massive ; but over all there is an air of departed grandeur like Ferrara, Ravenna, and the other deserted Italian capi- tals. In the former century it had an ostentatious court— its Margraves, no doubt, considered themselves Grands Monarques in miniature, and surrounded themselves with pompous ceremonial—but all this is over. Now and then @ curious stranger arrives, and he passes with scarce a glance the palace of the old rulers on his way to the statue of the grand plebeian, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter. At least the latter was the only object in the city which J cared to see. It is of bronze, colossal, and from Schwanthaler’s mo lel. The poet is represented as leaning against a tree,A WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND, 3503 with a pencil in one hand and a notebook in the other, while his head is slightly lifted, as if with the inspiration of a new idea. But it is by no means a great work. _ In spite of the heat (92° in the shade) I walked out to the Hermitage, a summer resort of the Margraves, about four miles from the city. The road thither is an unbroken avenue of magnificent lindens, from which, as the ground gradually rises, you have wide views of the surrounding country. On the summit of the ridge stands the famous coffee-house, formerly kept by Frau Rollwenzel. On a tablet beside the door are the words: “ Hier dichtete Jean Pauw.” (Here Jean Paul wrote his works.) He had a garret room in the little low house, and it was his habit for many years to walk out from Bayreuth in the morning, and write there all day, returning in the evening. I climbed the steep, dark stair-case, and entered his room, a narrow den, with two windows looking toward the Fichtelgebirge. Every thing is kept in precisely the same condition as dur- ing his life. There is the same old ealico ‘sofa, the same deal table and rude book-shelf which he used. In the table- drawer is one of his manuscript works: “ Remarks About Us Fools.” The custodian informed me that he had been offered 300 florins ($120) for it by an Englishman. Over the sofa hangs a portrait of Jean Paul, under which is a smaller one of Frau Rollwenzel. In a quarter of an hour more I reached the Hermitage, which I found entirely deserted. Laborers and loafers alike had fled from the unusual heat. In the deep avenues of the park, where the sunshine, passing through triple layers of beech-leaves, took the hue of dark-green glass, I found a304 Af HOME AND ABROAD. grateful coolness; but the fountains, the sand-stone dra gons, and rococo flower-beds in front of a semicircular tem: ple of rough mosaic, dedicated to the Sun, basked in an in- tense Persian heat. The god really had visited his altar. Here there are very remarkable jeux d’cau ; but I confess, with humiliation, that I had not sufficient energy remaining to find the person who had them in charge, and thus did not see their performance. The water, I was told, comes forth from all sorts of unexpected places; forms suns, moons, and stars in the air; spouts from the trees; spirts out of the bushes; and so envelops the beholder in a foun- tain-chaos that he is lucky if he escapes without a drench- ing. There is one seat in particular which the stranger is directed to take, in order to obtain the best view. Woe ‘to him if he obey! All the trees and rocks around fling their streams upon him. The Hermitage is a good specimen of what is called in Germany the Zopf (Queue) style—the quintessence of for- mality. Its position, on the opposite side of, and equidis- tant from, Bayreuth, challenges a comparison with the Phantasie, and the difference is just this: in the Phantasie one sees that Nature is deloved—in the Hermitage, that she is patronized with lofty consideration. Returning to Bayreuth, I took the railroad to a little town called Markt-Schorgast, in order to enter the Fichtel. cebirge from the most approved point. Here I tried tc - procure a man to carry my sack to Berneck, some three miles distant, but only succeeded in obtaining a very small boy. “Really,” said I, when the mite made his appear- ance, “he can never carry it.” ‘Let me see,’ said theA WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 305 station-master, lifting the sack; “ja woAl, that’s nothing for him. He could run with it! True enough, the boy put it into a basket, shouldered it, and trotted off as brisk sa grasshopper. The load was larger than himself, and | walked after him with a sense of shame. There was I, a proad-shouldered giant in comparison, pufling, and sweating and groaning, finding even my umbrella troublesome, and the poor little pigmy at my side keeping up a lively quick- step with his bare feet on the hot road. We crossed a burning hill into a broad, shallow valley, with a village called Wasserknoten (the water-knots). Be- yond this valley contracted into a glen, shaded with dark fir-woods, which overhung slopes of velvet rather than grass, they wore so even and lustrous a green. Aftera while the ruins of Hohen-berneck (High Bear’s Corner), consisting of one square tower, eighty feet high, appeared on the crest of the hill. The town is squeezed into the bot- tom of the glen, which 1s only wide enough for a single street, more than a milelong. I was so thoroughly fatigued when I reached the post-inn at the farther end of the place that I gave up all thoughts of going further. The landlord made much of me on learning that I was an American. He not only regaled me with beer, but took me to see another Bernecker, who had been in England, India, niChina. Several “ cwe-guests” joined the company, and was obliged to give them a history of the Southern Rebel | ion, which was no easy matter, as so much incidental expla. nation was necessary. In Berneck there is a frequented whey-cure. In fact, there are few towns in Germany with out a “cure” of some kind. Whey-cures, water-cures,806 AT HOME AND ABROAD. grape-cures, hunger-cures, cider-cures, pine-needle-cures, salt-cures, and herb-cures flourish in active rivalry. In addition to all these the beer-cure is universally employed. I had engaged a man to be ready in the morning te asccompany me to Bischofsgrtin, ten miles further; but the man turned out to be an old woman. However, it made little difference, as she walked quite as fast with her load as I was willing to walk without one. The same temperature continued ; there was not a cloud in the sky, and a thin, silvery shimmer of heat in the air and over the landscape. We followed the course of the young Main, at first through a wide, charming valley, whose meadows of grass and flow- ers fairly blazed in the sunshine, while on either hand tow- ered the dark blue-green forests of fir. Shepherds with their flocks were on the slopes, and the little goose-girls drove their feathered herds along the road. One of them drew a wagon in which a goose and a young child were sitting cozily together. The cuckoo sang in all the woods, and no feature of life failed which the landscape suggested, unless it were the Tyrolean yodel. After an hour’s hard walking the valley became a steep gorge, up which the road wound through continuous forests. The scenery was now thoroughly Swiss in its character, and charmed me almost to forgetfulness of my weak and bruised knees. Still, I was heartily rejoiced when we reached Bischofsgrtin (Bishop’s-green), a village at the base ef the Ochsenkopf, one of the highest summits of the Fich teleebirge. Here a rampant golden-lion hung out, the wel- come sion of food and rest. Before it stood a carriage which had }rought a gentleman and three ladies—veryA WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 307 genial and friendly persons, although they spoke a most decided patois. They had just ordered dinner, and the huge stove at one end of the guests’ room sent out a terri ble heat. The landlord was a slow, peaceful old fellow, with that meek air which comes from conjugal subjugation, But his wife was a mixture of thunder, lightning, and hail. The first thing she did was to snatch a pair of red worsted slippers from a shelf; then she rubbed her bare feet against the edge of a chair to scrape off the sand, and, sitting down, pulled up her dress so as to show the greater part of a pair of very solid legs, and put on the slippers. “There!” said she, stamping until the tables rattled, “now comes my work. It’s me that has it to do. Oh yes! so many at once, and nothing in the house. Man! and thou standest there, stock-still. Ach! here, thou Birbel! See there! [Bang goes the kitchen door.] It’s a cursed life! [Bang the other door.]| Ach! Hai! Ho, there!” she shouted from the street. Just then came a hay-wagon from Berneck, with thirteen additional guests. The thunders again broke heavily, and for half an hour rolled back and forth, from kitchen to sta- ble, and from stable to kitchen, without intermission. The old peasants, with their beer-se/d/s before them, winked at each other and laughed. I was getting hungry, but scarcely dared to ask for dinner. Finally, however, I appealed to the meek landlord. “Beso good as to wait a little,” he whispered ; “it will come aftera while.’ Presently his son came in with a uewspaper, saying, ‘‘ Mammy, there’s t? Ziting (Zeitung).” “Get out o? my way!” she yelled. *¢ Ja, jo, I should read t? paper, shouldn't 1? Ha! Ho,308 AT HOME AND ABROAD, there! Man! Barbel!” and the storm broke out afresh. I wish it were possible to translate the coarse, grotesque dialect of this region—which is to pure German what Trish is to English, and with as characteristic a flavor—but | now not how it could be done. Not quite so difficult would be the translation of an aris- vocratic poem, written in the Hremdenbuch, two days before, by a sentimental baron. It might very well compare with Pope’s “Lines by a Person of Quality.” But no; we have an ample supply of such stuff in our own language, and I will spare my readers. Bischofsgriin is noted for its manu- facture of bottles and beads for rosaries. There is a glass furnace here which has been in steady operation for eight hundred years. I doubt whether anything about it has changed very much in that time. I peeped into it, and saw the men making bottles of a coarse texture and pale green- ish color, but the mouths of the furnaces, disclosing pits of white heat, speedily drove me away. Although the village is at least eighteen hundred feet above the sea, there was no perceptible diminution of the heat. The men were all in the hay-fields, and I was obliged to take a madel (maiden), as the landlord called her—a woman of fifty, with grown-up children. As the last thunders of the landlady of the Lion died behind us, the “ maiden” said, “Ach! my daughter can’t stand it much longer. She’s been here, in service, these five years; and it’s worse and worse, The landlady’s a good woman when she don’t drink, but drink she does, and pretty much all the time. She’s from Schénbrunn: she was a mill-daughter, and her husband a tavern-son, from the same place. It isn’t good when #A WALK THROUGH THE F XANCONIAN SWITZERLAND, 399 woman drinks schnapps, except at weddings and funerals; and as for wine, we poor people can’t think 0’ that ! It was near three o’clock, and we had twelve miles through the mountains to Wunsiedel. Our road led through a valley between the Schneeberg and the Ochsenkopf, both of which mountains were in full view, crowned with dark firs to their very summits. I confess I was disappointed in the scenery. The valley is so elevated that the mountains rise scarcely twelve hundred feet above it; the slopes are gradual, and not remarkable for grace; and the bold rock- formations are wanting. Coming up the Main-glen from Berneck, the lack of these features was atoned for by the wonderful beauty of the turf. Every landscape seemed to be new-carpeted, and with such care that the turf was turned under and tacked down along the edges of the brooks, leaving no bare corner anywhere. If the sunshine had been actually woven into its texture it could not have been brighter. The fir-woods had a bluish-green hue, pur- ple in the shadows. Buton the upper meadows over which I now passed the grass was in blossom, whence they took a brownish tinge, and there were many cleared spots which still looked ragged and naked. We soon entered the forest at the foot of the Ochsenkopf, and walked for nearly an hour under the immense trees, The ground was carpeted with short whortleberry-bushes, growing so thickly that no other plant was to be seen. Beyond this wood lay a rough, mossy valley, which is one of the water-sheds between the Black Sea and the German Ocean. The fountains of the Main and the Nab are within Minie rifle-shot of each other. Here the path turned to the310 AT HOMe AND ABROAD, left, leading directly up the side of the mountain. In the intense heat, and with my shaky joints, the ascent was 2 terrible toil. Up, and up we went, and still up, until an open patch of emerald pasture, with a chalét in the centre, showed that the summit was reached. A spring of icy crys tal bubbled up in the grass, and I was kneeling to drink, when a smiling Aausfraw came out with a glass goblet. I returned it, with a piece of money, after drinking. ‘“ What is that 2” saidshe. “‘No, no; water must not be paid for!” and handed it back. “Well,” said I, giving it to her flaxen- headed boy, “it is not meant as pay, but as a present for this youngster.” “God protect you on your journey !? was her hearty farewell. The ridge, I should guess, was about twenty-eight hun- dred feet above the sea-level. The descent, I found, was a very serious matter. I was obliged to limp down slowly, with a crippled step, which in itself was no slight fatigue. When the feet have not free play it seems to tire some unused internal muscle—or, to judge by my own sensations, the very marrow of the bones. We had a tough foot-path through a dense forest for half an hour, and then emerged upon a slanting meadow, whence there was a lovely view of the country to the east of the Fichtelgebirge, with Wun- siedel away in the distance, a bright island-spot in the sea of dark-green firs. Down on the right was a broad, rich ralley, in which ponds of water shone clear and blue; vil- lages dotted the cultivated slopes, and the wooded heights of the Luisenburg and the Késseine rose beyond, Here I began to find again the scenery of Richter’s works, which had sruck me so forcibly in the vicinity of Bayreuth.A WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 31] By the time we had reached the bottom of the mountain and left the forest behind us, I had almost touched the limits of my endurance. But there was still a good three miles before us. The “maiden,” with twenty pounds on her back, marched along bravely; I followed, a disabled veteran, halting every now and then to rest and recruit, All things must have an end, and it is not every day’s jour- ney that winds up with a comfortable inn, Iam not sure but that the luxury of the consecutive bath, beef-steak, and bed, which I enjoyed, compensated for all the pain endured. A shower the next morning freshened the air, diminished the heat, and put some little elasticity into my bruised muscles, It was a gala day for Wunsiedel. The Turners of the place, who had formed themselves into a fire-company, performed in the market-square, with engines, ladders, hose, ete., complete. Early in the morning the Turners of Hof and their female friends arrived in six great hay-wagons, covered with arches of birch boughs and decorated with the Bava rian colors. There wasasham fire: roofs were scaled, lad- ders run up to the windows, the engines played, the band performed, and the people shouted. The little city was unusually lively; the inns were overflowing, and squads of visitors, with green boughs in their hats, filled the streets. Afvter dinner I undertook an excursion to the Luisenburg, notwithstanding I felt so decrepit at starting that I would have given a considerable sum to anybody who would have insured my coming back upon my own legs. A handsome ‘inden avenue led up the long hill to the southward of Wun.312 AT HOME AND ABROAD. siedel, from the crest of which we saw Alexandersbad, at the foot of the mountain, and seeming to lean upon the lower edge of its fir-forests. By a foot-path through fields hare-bell, butter-cup, phlox, which were beds of blossoms clover, daisy, and corn-flower intermixed—we reached the atately water-cure establishment in three-quarters of an hour. I first visited the mineral spring, which, the guide informed me, was strongly tinctured with saltpetre. I was therefore surprised to hear two youths, who were drinking when we came up, exclaim, “ Exquisite!” “delicious !” But when I drank, I said the same thing. The taste was veri tably fascinating, and I took glass after glass, with a con- tinual craving for more. This watering-place, once so frequented, is now compara- tively deserted. But fifty guests were present, and they did not appear to be very splendid persons. The grounds, however, were enlivened by the presence of the youths and maidens from Hof. I visited the Aurhaus, looked into the icy plunge-baths of the Hydropathic establishment, tasted some very hard water, and then took the broad birchen avenue which climbs to the Luisenburg. On entering the forest I beheld a monument erected to commemorate the presence of Fred. Wilhelm III. and Louisa of Prussia, in 1805. “On this very spot,” said my guide, “the King and Queen, with King Max. I. of Bavaria and the Emperor of Aus- tria (!), were talking together, when the news came to them that Napoleon was in Vienna. They hired a man to go to Nuremberg and see whether it was true. The man—he is still living, and we shall probably see him this afternoon [in fact, I did see him]—walked all the way [ninety EnglishA WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 313 miles] in twenty-four hours, then rested twenty-four more, aud walked back in the same time. Then the King of Prussia immediately went home and decided to fight against Napoleon, which was the cause of the battle of Leipzig!” The road slowly but steadily ascended, and in half ar hour we reached the commencement of the Luisenburg Huge, mossy rocks, piled atop of one another in the wildest confusion, overhung the way, and the firs, which grew wherever their trunks could be wedged in, formed a sun- proof canopy above them. This labyrinth of colossal granite boulders, called the Luisenburg (or, more properly, the Lugsburg, its original name), extends to the summit of the mountain, a distance of eleven hundred feet. Itis a wilderness of Titanic grottoes, arches, and even abutments of regular masonry, of astonishing magnitude. I have seen similar formations in Saxony, but none so curiously con- torted and hurled together. Although this place has been, for the past eighty years, a favorite summer resort of the Bavarians, it has scarcely been heard of outside of Germany. Jean Paul, during his residence at Wunsiedel, frequently came hither, and his name has been given to one of the most striking rocky chambers. There is an abundance of inscriptions, dating mostly from the last decade of the past century, and exhibiting, in their over- strained sentimentalism, the character of the generation g which produced ‘‘ Werther,” ‘Paul and Virginia,” and “The Children of the Abbey.” In Klinger’s Grotto, the roof of which is formed by an immense block fifty-four feet long and forty-four feet broad, there is a tablet, erected in 1794 by a certain Herr von Carlowitz, on which he says‘ 14814 AT HOME AND ABROAD. “My wish is to enjoy my life unnoticed, and happily mar ried, and to be worthy of the tears of the good when I fear. lessly depart!” This is all very well; but it can scarcely be expected that for centuries to come the world will care much whether Herr von Carlowitz was happily married or not. Climbing upward through the labyrinthine clefts of the rocks, we find everywhere similar records. The names “Otto, Therese, Amalie,” deeply engraved, proclaim the fact that the present King of Greece met his two sisters here, in 1836. Just above them six enormous blocks are piled one upon the other, reaching almost to the tops of the firs. This was a favorite resort of Louisa of Prussia, and the largest rock, accordingly, bears the following descrip- tion: “ When we behold the mild rays of the lovely spring sun shining on this rocky colossus, we think on the gentle elance of blissful grace wherewith Louisa to-day made us happy: and the rock itself suggests our love and fidelity to her!” As a specimen of aristocratic sentiment, this is unparalleled. Beyond this point the immense masses lean against each other, blocking up the path and sloping for- rard, high overhead, as if in the act of falling. In 1798 somebody placed the inscription here, “Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther ;” but under it is carved, “I made the attempt, and behold! I went farther. 1804.” A ladder enables you to reach an opening, whence the path, travers ine sunless clefts, crawling through holes and scaling gigan- tic piles of the formless masonry of the Deluge, reaches the summit. Here, on a lonely rock, still stands a single tower of the old robber-fortress which was destroyed in the thirA WALK THROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. 316 teenth century by Philip of Streitberg, in revenge for the abduction of his bride by the knight of the Lugsburg. From the tower we had fine views to the north, east, and west. The day could not have been more fortunately chosen. The air was unusually clear, and the distant villages showed with remarkable distinctness, yet a light golden shimmer was spread over the landscape, and, by contrast with the dark firs around us, it seemed like ar illuminated picture painted on a transparent canvas. On the side of one of the largest boulders is an inscrip- tion recommending those who are at enmity to mount the rock and behold the landscape, as a certain means of recon- ciliation. It records the meeting of two estranged friends, who first looked around them and then fell into each other’s arms, without a word. This was truly German. Enemies of Anglo-Saxon blood, I am afraid, would have tried to push each other off the rock instead of allowing the scenery to reconcile them. One more inscription, the climax of sentiment, and I will cease to copy: “ Nature is great, Love is divine, Longing is infinite, Dreams are rich; only the human heart is poor. And yet—fortunate is he who feels this, miserable he who does not even suspect it. Thou losest a dream and winn’st—Rest !” To be candid, silly as many of these inscriptions were, they gave a human interest to the spot. Even the record of human vanity is preferable to the absence of any sign of man. Feeling myself in tolerable condition, I went on, along the crest of the mountain, to the Burgstein, a mass of rock one hundred feet high, and crowning a summit nearly three thousand feet above the sea. The top is about seven316 AT HOME AND ABROAD. by nine feet in compass, and inclosed by a strong railing to prevent the visitor from being blown off. Hence I looked far down into the Upper Palatinate of Bavaria, away to the blue Bohemian mountains, and, to the west, on all the dark summits of the Fichtelgebirge. The villages shone white and red in the sun; the meadow-ponds were sapphires set, in emerald, and the dark-purple tint of the forests mottled the general golden-green lustre of the landscape. A quarter of an hour further is the Haberstein, a wonderful up-building of rock, forming a double tower, from eighty to a hundred feet high. On returning to Wunsiedel I did not neglect tc visit Jean Paul’s birth-place—a plain, substantial house, adjoin- ing the church. Here the street forms a small court, in the centre of which, on a pedestal of granite, stands a bronze bust of the great man. The inscription is: “ Wun- siedel to her Jean Paul Fr. Richter.’ Nothing could be simpler or more appropriate. In front, the broad street, lined with large, cheerful yellow or pink houses, stretches down the hill and closes with a vista of distant mountains. The place is very gay, clean, and attractive, notwithstand- ing its humble position. Jean Paul describes it completely, when he says: “I am glad to have been born in thee, thou bright little town!” I was aroused the next morning by the singing of a hymn, followed by the beating of a drum. Both sounds proceeded from a company of twenty or more small boys, pupils of a school at Ebersdorf (in the Franconian Forest), who, accompanied by their teachers, were making a tour on ‘oot through the Fichtelgebirge. The sight admonish dA WALK FHROUGH THE FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND. ake mie to resume my march, as I intended going southward ta Kemnath, in the Upper Palatinate. The wind blew fresh from the southwest, and heavy black clouds filled the sky. My road led up a valley between the twin mountain-groups, ‘rossing a ridge which divides the waters of Europe. The forests were as black as ink under the shadows of the clouds, and the distant hills had a dark indigo color, which gave a remarkable tone to the landscape. Take a picture of Salvator Rosa and substitute blue for brown, and you may form some idea of it. Presently the rain came, at first in scattering drops, but soon in a driving shower. My guide, to keep up my spirits, talked on and on in the broad Frankish dialect, which I could only comprehend by keeping all my faculties on a painful stretch. ‘ Down in the Palatinate,” said he, “ the people speak a very difficult language. precisely what he himself did! They cut off all the words, and bring out the pieces very fast.” This was For instance, what German scholar could understand “wid’r a weng renga!” (wieder ein wenig Regen)—which was one of the clearest of his expressions. To becuile the rainy road he related to me I S 4 the history of a band of robbers, who in the years 1845 and °46 infested the Franconian mountains, and plundered the highways on all sides. By this time I had the.Fichtelgebirge behind me, and the view opened southward, down the valley of the Nab. The Rauwhe Kulm, an isolated basaltic peak, lifted its head ‘n the middle of the landscape, and on the left rose the long, windy ridge of the Weissenstein. rocky summit was crowned with the ruins of an ancient Here and there a818 AT HOME AND ABROAD. robber-castle. But the scene would have been frightful on canvas, it lay so bleak and rigid under the rainy sky. In two hours more I passed the boundary between Franconia and the Upper Palatinate. Here my Franconian excursion closes. The next day I reached Amberg, on the Eastern Bavarian Railway, having accomplished about a hundred miles on foot, to the manifest improvement of one knee at the expense of the other. But I had, in addition, a store of cheerful and refreshing experiences, and my confidence in the Walking. Cure is so little shaken that I propose, at some future time, trying a second experiment in the Bohemian Forest—a region still less known to the tourist, if possible, than the Franconian Switzerland.V. TRAVELS AT HOME 1—TxEe Hupson ann Tue CatskKr1s, JULY, 1860. I wave been so often asked, “ Where are you going next ?” and have so often answered, “I am going to travel at home,” that what was at first intended for a joke has naturally resolved itself into a reality. The genuine travel ler has a chronic dislike of railways, and if he be in addi- tion a lecturer, who is obliged to sit in a cramped position and breathe bad air for five months of the year, he is the less likely to prolong his Winter tortures through the Sum- mer. Hence, it is scarcely a wonder that, although I have seen so much of our country, I have travelled so little in it. I knew the Himalayas before I had seen the Green Moun- tains, the Cataracts of the Nile before Niagara, and the Libyan Desert before the Illinois prairies. I have never yet (let me make the disgraceful confession at the outset)820 Al HOME AND ABROAD. beheld the White Mountains, or Quebec, or the Saguenay, or Lake George, or Trenton Falls! In all probability, I should now be at home, enjoying Summer indolence under the shade of my oaks, were it not for the visit of some European friends, who have come over to see the land which all their kindness could not mak their friend forget. The latter, in fact, possesses a fair share of the national sensitiveness, and defended his country with so much zeal and magnificent assertions, that his present visitors were not a little curious to see whether their own impressions would correspond with his pictures, He, on the other hand, being anxious to maintain his own as well as his country’s credit, offered his services as guide and showman to Our Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, and Cata- racts ; and this is how he (I, you understand) came to start upon the present journey. On the whole, I think it a good plan, not to see all yout own country until after you have seen other lands. It is easy to say, with the school-girls, “I adore Nature !”—but he who adores, never criticises. ‘‘ What a beautiful view !” every one may cry: “ why is it beautiful?” would puzzle many to answer. Long study, careful observation, and various standards of comparison are necessary—as much so as in Art—to enable one to pronounce upon the relative excellence of scenery. I shall have, on this tour, the assist ance of a pair of experienced, appreciative foreign eyes, addition to my own, and you may therefore rely upon my giving you a tolerably impartial report upon American life and landscapes. When one has a point to carry, the beginning is everyTRAVELS AT HOME. 32] ad thing. I therefore embarked with my friends on a North River day-beat, at the Harrison-street pier. The calliope, or steam-organ attached to the machine, was playing “ Jor- dan’s a hard road to travel,” with astonishing shrillness and power. “ 'There’s an American invention!” I exclaimed, in triumph; “ the waste steam, instead of being blown off, is turned into an immense hand-organ, and made to grind out this delightful music.” By-and-by, however, came one of my companions, who announced: “I have discovered the origin of the music,” and thereupon showed me a box of green wire-gauze, in which sat a slender youth, manipulat- ing a key-board with wonderful contortions. This dis covery explained to us why certain passages were slurred over and others shrieked out with awful vehemence—a fact which we had previously attributed to the energy of the steam. Other disappointments awaited me. The two foregoing and days had been insufferably warm—92° in the shade we were all, at my recommendation, clad in linen. “This Is just the weather for the Hudson,” said I; “the motion of the boat will fan away the heat, while this intense sun- shine will beautify the shores.” But, by the time we reached Weehawken, the north wind blew furiously, streak- ing the water with long ribands of foam; we unpacked heavy shawls and coats, and were still half frozen. The air was so very clear and keen that the scenery was too distinct —a common fault of our American sky—destroying’ the charm of perspective and color, My friends would not believe in the actual breadth of the Hudson or the height of the Palisales, so near were the shores brought by the 14*AT HOME AND ABROAD. 322 lens of the air. The eastern bank, from Spuyten-Duyvei to Tarrytown, reminded them of the Elbe between Ham- burg and Blankenese, a comparison which I found correct. Tappan and Haverstraw Bays made the impression ] desired, and thenceforth I felt that our river would amply justify his fame. Several years had passed since I had seen the Hudson from the deck of a steamer. I found great changes, and for the better. The elegant summer residences of the New Yorkers, peeping out from groves, nestled in warm dells, or, most usually, crowning the highest points of the hills, now extend more than half-way to Albany. The trees have been judiciously spared, straggling woods carved into shape, stony slopes converted into turf, and, in fact, the long landscape of the eastern bank gardened into more perfect beauty. Those Gothic, Tuscan, and Norman villas, with their air of comfort and home, give an attractive, human sentiment to the scenery, and I would not exchange them for the castles of the Rhine. Our boat was crowded, mostly with Southerners, who might be recognised by their lank, sallow faces, and the broad, semi-negro accent with which they spoke the Ame- cican tongue. How long, I wondered, before these Chivs (the California term for Southerners—an abbreviation of Chivalry) start the exciting topic, the discussion of which they so deprecate in us? Not an hour had elapsed, when, noticing a small crowd on the forward deck, I discovered half a dozen Chivs expatiating to some Northern youth on the beauties of Slavery. The former were very mild and guarded in their expressions, as if fearful that the outragesTRAVELS AT HOME. 323 inflicted on Northern men in the South might be returned upon them, ‘ Why,” said one of them, “it’s our interest to treat our slaves well; if we lose one, we lose a thousand dollars—you may be shore of that. Noman will beso much of a d—d fool as to waste his own property in that way.” “‘ Just as we take care of our horses,” remarked a North ern youth; “it’s about the same thing, isn’t it?” ““ Well—yes—it is pretty much the same, only we treat "em more humanitary, of course. Then agin,” he con- tinued, “ when you’ve got two races together, a higher and a lower, what are you gwine to do?”—but you have read the rest of his remarks in a speech of Caleb Cushing, and I need not repeat them. The Highlands, of course, impressed my friends as much as I could have wished. It is customary among our tour- ists to deplore the absence of ruins on those heights—a very unnecessary regret, in my opinion. To show that we had associations fully as inspiring as those connected with feudal warfare, I related the story of Stony Point, and André’s capture, and pointed out, successively, Kosciusko’s Monument, old Fort Putnam, and Washington’s Head quarters. Sunnyside was also a classic spot to my friends, nor was Idlewild forgotten. “Oh,” said a young lady, as we were passing Cold Spring, “ where does the poet Morris live?” Although I was not the person appealed to, I took the liberty of showing her the dwelling of the warrior- bard. ‘You will observe,” I added, “that the poet has a full view of Cro’nest, which he has immortalized in song. Yonder willow, trailing its branches in the water, is said c ‘o have suggested to him that gem,AL AND ABROAD. HOME ‘‘¢ Near the lake where drooped the willow.’ ” ° Oh, Clara!” said the young lady to her companion, “isn’t it—zsn’t 1t sweet ?” In due time, we reached Catskill, and made all haste to get off for the Mountain House. There are few summits so easy of access—certainly no other mountain resort in our country where the facilities of getting up and down are so complete and satisfactory. ‘The journey would be tame, however, were it not for the superb view of the mountains, rising higher, and putting on a deeper blue, with every mile of approach. The intermediate country has a rough, ragged, incomplete look. The fields are stony, the houses mostly untidy, the crops thin, and the hay (this year, at least) scanty. Even the woods appear: stunted: fine tree- forms are rare. My friends were so charmed by the pur- ple asclepiads, which they had never before seen except in ereen-houses, the crimson-spiked sumachs, and the splendid fire-lilies in the meadows, that they overlooked the want of beauty in the landscape. On reaching the foot of the mountain, the character of the scenery entirely changes. The trees in Rip Van Winkle’s dell are large and luxuriantly leaved, while the backward views, enframed with foliage and softly painted by the blue pencil of the air, grow more charming as you ascend. Ere long, the shadow of the towermg North Mountain was flung over us, as we walked up in advance of the laboring horses. The road was bathed in sylvan coolness; the noise of an invisible stream beguiled the steepness of the way ; emerald ferns sprang from the rocks, and the red blossoms } ' of the showy rudus and the pate blush of the laurel brightTRAVELS AT AOME. o25 ened the gloom of the undergrowth. It is fortunate that the wood has not been cut away, and but rare glimpses of the scenes below are allowed to the traveller. Landing in the rear of the Mountain House, the huge white mass of which completely shuts out the view, thirty paces bring you to the brink of the rock, and you hang suspended, as if by magic, over the world. It was a quarter of an hour before sunset—perhaps the best moment of the day for the Catskill panorama. The shadows of the mountain-tops reached nearly to the Hudson, while the sun, shining directly down the Clove, interposed a thin wedge of golden lustre between. The farm-houses on a thousand hills beyond the river sparkled in the glow, and the Berkshire Mountains swam in a luminous, rosy mist. The shadows strode eastward at the rate of a league a minute as we gazed; the forests darkened, the wheat- fields became brown, and the houses glimmered like extin- guished stars. Then the cold north wind blew, roaring in the pines, the last lurid purple faded away from the distant hills, and in half an hour the world below was as dark and strange and spectral, as if it were an unknown planet we were passing on our journey through space. The scene from Catskill is unlike any other mountain view that I know. It is imposing through the very sim plicity of its features. A line drawn from north to south through the sphere of vision divides it into two equal parts. The western half is mountain, falling off in a line of rock parapet; the eastern is a vast semi-circle of blue land. scape, half a mile lower. Owing to the abrupt rise of the mountain, the nearest farms at the base seem to be almost326 AT HOME AND ABROAD. under one’s feet, and the country as far as the Hudson presents the same appearance as if seen from a balloon Its undulations have vanished; it is as flat as a pancake; and even the bold line of hills stretching toward Saugerties can only be distinguished by the color of the forests upon them. Beyond the river, although the markings of the hills are lost, the rapid rise of the country from the water level is very distinctly seen: the whole region appears to be lifted on a sloping plane, so as to expose the greatest possible surface to the eye. On the horizon, the Hudson Highlands, the Berkshire and Green Mountains, unite their chains, forming a continuous line of misty blue. At noonday, under a cloudless sky, the picture is rather monotonous. After the eye is accustomed to its grand, aerial depth, one seeks relief in spying out the character- istics of the separate farms, or in watching specks (of the size of fleas) crawling along the highways. Yonder man and horse, going up and down between the rows of corn, resemble a little black bug on a bit of striped calico. When the sky is full of moving clouds, however, nothing can be more beautiful than the shifting masses of light and shade, traversing such an immense field. There are, also, brief moments when the sun or moon are reflected in the Hudson—when rainbows bend slantiugly beneath you, striking bars of seven-hued flame across the landscape— when, even, the thunders march below, and the fountains of the rain are under your feet. What most impressed my friends was the originality of the view Familiar with the best mountain scenery of Europe, they could find nothing with which to compare itTRAVELS AT HOME. 327 As my movements during this journey are guided entirely by their wishes, I was glad when they said: “Let us stay here another day !” At the foot of the Catskill, the laurel showed its dark-red seed vessels; halfway up, the last faded blossoms were lropping off; but, as we approached the top, the dense thickets were covered with a glory of blossoms. Far and near, in the caverns of shade under the pines and oaks and maples, flashed whole mounds of flowers, white and blush- color, dotted with the vivid pink of the crimped buds. The finest Cape azaleas and ericas are scarcely more beau- tiful than our laurel. Between those mounds bloomed the flame-colored lily, scarcely to be distinguished, at a little distance, from the breast of an oriole. The forest scenery was a curious amalgamation of Norway and the tropics. “What a land, what a climate,” exclaimed one of my friends, “that can support such inconsistencies!” * After this,” I replied, “it will perhaps be easier for you to com- prehend the apparent inconsistencies, the opposing elements, which you will find in the American character.” The next morning we walked to the Katterskill Falls. Since my last visit (in 1851) a handsome hotel—the Laurel House—has been erected here by Mr. Schutt. The road into the Clove has also been improved, and the guests at the Mountain House make frequent excursions into the wild heart of the Catskill region, especially to Stony Clove fourteen miles distant, at the foot of the blue mountai which faces you as you look down the Katterskill glen, The Falls are very lovely (I think that is the proper word)— they will bear seeing many times—but don’t believe thos¢328 AT HOME AND ABROAD. who tell you that they surpass Niagara. Some people have a habit of pronouncing every last riew they see: “the finest thing in the world!” The damming up of the water, so much deprecated by he romantic, strikes me as an admirable arrangement, When the dam is full, the stream overruns it and you have as much water as if there were no dam. Then, as you stand at the head of the lower fall, watching the slender scarf of silver fluttering down the black gulf, comes a sudden dazzling rush from the summit; the fall leaps away from the halfway ledge where it lingered; bursting in rockets and shooting stars of spray on the rocks, and you have the full effect of the stream when swollen by spring thaws. Really, this temporary increase of volume is the finest feature of the fall. No visitor to Catskill should neglect a visit to the North and South Mountains. The views from these points, although almost identical with that from the house, have yet different foregrounds, and embrace additional segments of the horizon. The North Peak, I fancy, must have been in Bryant’s mind, when he wrote his poem of “The Hunter.” Those beautiful features, which hovered bc fore the hunter’s eyes, in the blue gulf of air, as he dreamed on the rock—are they not those of the same maiden who, rising from the still stream, enticed Goethe’s “ Fisher” ‘nto ts waves ?—the poetic embodiment of that fascin: tion which lurks in height and depth? Opposite the Nuirth Rock, there is a weather-beaten pine, which springing f+7m the mountain-side below, lifts its head just to the levw’ of the rock, and not more than twelve feet in front of iv]TRAVELS AT HOME. 328 never see it without feeling a keen desire to spring from the rock and lodge in its top. The Hanlon Brothers, or Blondin, I presume, would not have the least objection 40 perform such a feat. In certain conditions of the atmosphere, the air between you and the lower world seems to become a visible fluid— an ocean of pale, crystalline blne, at the bottom of which the landscape lies. Peering down into its depths, you at last experience a numbness of the senses, a delicious wan- dering of the imagination, such as follows the fifth pipe of opium, Or, in the words of Walt. Whitman, you “loaf, and invite your soul.” The guests we found at the Mountain House were ~ather a quiet company. Several families were quartered there for the season; but it was perhaps too early for the even- ing hops and sunrise flirtations which I noticed ten years ago. Parties formed and strolled off quietly into the woods; elderly gentlemen sank into arm-chairs on ‘the rocks, and watched the steamers on the Hudson; nurses pulled venturous children away from the precipice, and young gentlemen from afar sat on the veranda, and wrote in their note-books. You would not have guessed the number of guests, if you had not seen them at table. I found this quiet, this nonchalance, this “take care of your- self and let other people alone” characteristic very agree- able, and the difference, in this respect, since my last visit, eads me to hope that there has been a general improve: ment (which was highly necessary) in the public manners of the Americans.ABROAD AT HOME AND 2,—BERKSHIRE AND Boston. We descended the mountain on the third day, in a lum bering Troy coach, in company with a pleasant Quaker family, took the steamer to Hudson, dined there (indif ferently), and then embarked for Pittsfield, which we made a stopping-place on the way to Boston. My masculine companion, who is a thorough European agriculturist, was much struck with the neglected capacities of the country through which we passed. His admiration of our agri- cultural implements is quite overbalanced by his deprecia- tion of our false system of rotation in crops, our shocking waste of manures, and general neglect of the economies of farming. I think he is about three-fourths right. The heat was intense when we left Hudson, but, during the thousand feet of ascent between that place and Pitts- field, we came into a fresher air, A thunder shower, an hour previous, had obligingly laid the dust, and hung the thickets with sparkling drops. The Taghkanic Mountains rose dark and clear above the rapid landscapes of the rail- road: finally old Greylock hove in sight, and a good hour before sunset we reached Pittsfield. As I never joined the noble order of the Sponge—the badge whereof so many correspondents openly sport—but pay my way regularly, like the non-corresponding crowd, my word may be impli eitly taken when I say that the Berkshire House is one of the quietest and pleasantest hotels in the country. Here let me say a word about hotels in general, The purpose of a tavern, hostel, inn, hotel, house, or whateverTRAVELS AT HOME. 33] it may be called, is, I take it, to afford a temporary home for those who are away from home. Hence, that hotel only deserves the name, which allows each of its guests to do as he pleases, no one conflicting with the rights of th others. If I would not allow close, unventilated bed-rooms, lack of water, towels the size of a handkerchief, dirty sheets and general discomfort, in the home I build for myself, should I not be permitted to eschew such things in the home I hire for a night? Should I not call for what I want, and have it, if it is to be had? Should JI, late arrived, and suffering from loss of sleep, be roused at day- light by a tremendous gong at my door, and be obliged to rush down to breakfast, under penalty of losing it alto- gether? But in too many of our hotels the rule is the reverse. ‘The landlord says, in practice: “This is my house: Z have certain rules by which it is governed: if you pay me two dollars and a half a day, I will grant you the privilege of submitting to my orders.” One is often received with a magnificent condescension, which says, as plainly as words: “See what a favor I am doing you, in receiving you into my house!” In reality the house, the furniture, the servants, do not belong to the landlord, but to the traveller. I intend some day to write an Essay on Hotels, in which I shall discuss the subject at length, and therefore will not anticipate it here. My friends were delighted with Pittsfield, which, in its summer dress, was new tome. We spent so much of our time at the windows, watching the evening lights on the mountains, that it was unanimously resolved to undertake an excursion the next morning before the arrival of the ex832 AT HOME AND ABROAD. press train for Boston. We took an open carriage to the Hancock Settlement of Shakers, four miles west of the vil- lage. ‘The roads were in splendid order, last night’s rain having laid the dust, washed the trees, and given the wooded mountains a deeper green, The elm, the characteristic tree of New England, charmed us by the variety and beauty of its forms. The elm, rather than the pine, should figure on the state banner of Massachusetts. In all other trees— the oak, the beech, the ash, the maple, the gum, and tulip trees, the pine, even—Massachusetts is surpassed by Penn- sylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, but the elm is a plume which will never be plucked from her bonnet. “Tere! said one of my companions, pointing to one of the many wooded knolls by the roadside, “is one of the immeasurable advantages which America possesses over Europe. Every one of these groves is a finished home, lacking only the house. What we must wait a century to get, what we must be rich in order to possess, is here cheap and universal. Build a house here or there, cut down a tree or two to let in the distant landscape, clear away some of the underwood, and you have a princely residence.” Bear in mind, my fashionable readers, that my friend has only been six weeks in America; that he has not yet learned the difference between a brown-stone front on Fifth Avenue and a clap-boarded house in the country; that (I blush to say it) he prefers handsome trees out-of-doors to rosewood furniture in-doors, and would rather break his shins climb ing the roughest hills than ride behind matched bays in a carriage ornamented with purchased heraldry. I admit his want of civilization, but I record this expression of hisTRAVELS AT HOME, 333 u taste that you may smile at the absurdity of European ideas. Our approach to the Shaker settlement was marked by the superior evidences of neatness and care in cultivation, Ihe road became an avenue of stately sugar maples ; on the right rose, in pairs, the huge, plain residences of the bre- thren and sisters—ugly structures, dingy in color, but scru- pulously clean and orderly. I believe the same aspect of order ‘would increase the value of any farm five dollars an acre,so much more attractive would the buyer find the property ; but farmers generally don’t understand this. We halted, finally, at the principal settlement, distinguished by 99 huge circular stone barn. The buildings stood upon a lot grown with fresh turf, and were connected by flag-stone walks. Mats and scrapers at the door testified to the uni- versal cleanliness. While waiting in the reception-room, which was plain to barrenness, but so clean that its very atmosphere was sweet, I amused myself by reading some printed regulations, the conciseness and directness of which were refreshing. ‘ Visitors,” so ran the first rule, ‘‘ must remember, that this is not a public-house. We have our regulations just as well as other people, and we expect that ours will be observed as others expect theirs to be.” ) oO ing in chorus, with a hearty scorn of all artificial proprieties, To me, the hesitation to break through rule occasionally, mplies a doubt of one’s own breeding. Those whose behavior is refined, from the natural suggestions of a refined nature, are never troubled by such misgivings, and show their true gentleness most when most free and unrestrained354 AT HOME AND ABROAD. Gue may ride to the top of Mount Willard in an omm bus, but it is not a severe walk, even for ladies. In spite of the dead, sultry heat of the air, we found refreshment in that steep, unvarying line of shade, with its mossy banks, starred with a delicate owalis, the pigmy cornus, ground- pine, club moss, and harebells. Nothing was to be seen, so thick was the forest, until we reached the top of the mountain, about 3,500 feet above the sea. Here, after two or three hundred yards of comparative level, the wood suddenly opened, and we found ourselves standing on the very pinnacle of the great cliff which we saw last night, blocking up The Notch. The effect was magical. The sky had in the meantime partially cleared, and patches of sunny gold lay upon the dark mountains. Under our feet yawned the tremendous gulf of The Notch, roofed with belts of cloud, which floated across from summit to summit nearly at our level; so that we stood, as in the organ loft of some grand cathe- dral, looking down into its dim nave. At the further end, over the fading lines of some nameless mountains, stood Chocorua, purple with distance, terminating the majestic vista. It was a picture which the eye could take in at one glance: no landscape could be more simple or more sub- lime. The noise of a cataract to our right, high up on Mount Willey, filled the air with a far, sweet, fluctuating murmur, but all round us the woods were still, the hare- bells bloomed, and the sunshine lay warm upon the granite. I had never heard this view particularly celebrated, and was therefore the more impressed by its wonderful beautyTRAVELS AT HOME, 355 As a simple picture of a mountain-pass, seen from above, it cannot be surpassed in Switzerland. Something like it ] haye seen in the Taurus, otherwise I can recall no view with which to compare it. A portion of the effect, of course, de- pends on the illumination, but no traveller who sees it on a day of mingled cloud and sunshine will be disappointed. 4.—TnE Ascent or Mount WaAsuINGTON. “You breakfast at seven, start at eight, and ride up in four hours,” said Mr. Gibb. Everything depended on the weather. There had been two glorious days for the ascent, the beginning of the week, and a third was almost too much to expect. At seven, the mountains in front were covered with heavy layers of cloud, and countenances fell. 1 went to the back of the house, and, seeing a low, arched gap of blue sky in the west, denoting a wind from that quarter, confidently predicted a fine day. Ladies prepared for the ascent by taking off hoops, putting on woollen jackets and old straw hats (hired of the porter), and gentlemen by adopting a rough, serviceable rig, leasing, if they did not already possess one. Kight o’clock came, but the stages had to leave first, each accompanied by a pathetic farewell from the band in th balcony. For half an hour I had been striding about in a woollen wamms, uncomfortably warm, while the other gen- tlemen luxuriated in horsemen’s boots: the ladies kept their collapsed skirts out of sight until the last moment. Finally,856 AT HOME AND ABROAD. Mr. Gibb, with a list in his hand, took his place, like a mas ter of the ring, in the midst of a whirlpool of rough-looking horses, and the travellers mounted, as their names were called, the beasts which he assigned to them. A little con- fusion ensued, slight shrieks were heard, saddles were ad- justed, girths looked after, stirrup-leathers regulated, and then, falling into a promiscuous line, we defiled into the bridle-path, while the band played “ Away to the mountain brow.” We might have been a picturesque, but we were not a beautiful company. The ladies resembled gipsies on the march, wearing the clothes they had picked up on the way: the gentlemen might have been political refugees, just arrived from Europe, and not yet received by the Com- mon Council of New York. The horses were intended by nature for use rather than ornament, and our two guides, in fact, were the only figures that were handsome, as well as vastly useful. Accustomed to walk up and down Mount Washington (nine miles from Crawford’sto the summit) three or four times a week, they had the true Zouave development of muscle. Tall, strong, tireless, cheerful, kind-hearted fel- lows, I looked on them with pride, and wished that more Americans were like them in the possession of such manly qualities. One of the ladies of my party had never before mounted a horse, and could never have gotten through her first lesson in so rough a school without their careful tutor- ship. Striking into the woods, we began immediately to ascend, gently at first, until we had scaled the lower shelf of Mount Clinton, when the ascent became more steep and toilsomeI'RAVELS AT HOME. 357 she road has been judiciously laid out, and made practicar ble with considerable labor. The marshy places are cordu royed with small logs, and the gullies bridged in the sama manner, so that you pass easily and securely. Indeed, nearly half the distance to the summit of Mount Clinton— three miles—has been paved in this manner. The rains have gradually worn the path deeper, and you frequently ride between high, mossy banks, bright with flowers. The oak, birch, maple, and other deciduous trees become less frequent as you ascend, until the forest consists entirely of fir. The lower boughs have rotted and dropped off, and the upper ones form a dark roof above your head, while all the ground is covered with a thick growth of immense ferns, A young tropical wood seems to be springing up under the shadow of an Arctic forest. Perhaps this singular contrast of forms (for the fern is Nature’s first attempt at making a palm-tree) explains the charm of this forest, wherein there is no beauty in the forms of the trees, We rode on steadily—delayed sometimes by the guide’s being obliged to mend his corduroys—for three miles, when the wood, which had been gradually becoming more ragged and stunted, came rather suddenly to an end, and we found ourselves on the summit of Mount Clinton, 4,200 feet above the sea. Looking to the northward, we saw before us the bald, rounded top of Mount Pleasant, about five hundred fect higher, while beyond, a gray cloud-rack, scudding rapidly from west to east, completely hid from view th dome of Mount Washington. To make our position clear, I must give a little geogra- phy. Mount Washington is the culmination of a connected368 AT HOME AND ABROAD. series of peaks, which have a general direction of N. W and §.E. Mount Webster, which forms one side of The Notch, is the commencement of this series, as you ascend the Saco Valley. Then follow Mounts Jackson, Clinton (which we have just surmounted), Pleasant, Franklin, Mon: roe, and finally Washington, summit rising above summit in Titanic steps, from 4,000 until the chieftain attains the crowning height of 6,285 feet. Beyond Mount Washing: ton are the peaks of Clay, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, all of which exceed 5,000 feet in height. The road from the Crawford House, therefore, scales five mountains in succession: it is the longest, but by far the most compen- sating road to the top of Mount Washington. That from the Glen House, at the eastern base of the mountain, touches no other peak, which is also the case with the road from Fabyan’s, up the valley of the Ammonoosuc. Both the latter, however, are practicable for carriages about half the way. The still heat we had felt in the woodland path suddenly ceased, and a strong wind, chilled by the elevation of be- tween four and five thousand feet, blew upon us. The ladies were glad to use the porters’ rough pea-jackets, and those who were unaccustomed to saddles looked at the blue mountain-gulfs which yawned to the right and left, with an awful feeling of apprehension. In the rocky dip which separated us from Mount Pleasant, trees no longet grew: the path, in many places, was a steep rocky ladder, toilsome both to man and beast. Our sturdy guides leaped back and forth, supporting and encouraging the timorous iadies ; nervous gentlemen dismounted and led their horseTRAVELS AT TOME. 358 but the latte: were as nimble and sure-footed as cats, and I rode my “Sleepy David” (so the beast was properly called) down and up without fear or peril. On either side opened a mountain landscape—great troughs of blue forest at first, then dimmer ranges, lighter patches of cleared land beyond, sparkles of houses and villages, and far waves 0 urple mist, merging in the sky. Our path did not scale Mount Pleasant, but crept around its eastern side, where a few old trees—bushes in appear- ance—egrew, being sheltered somewhat from the nor’west- ern winds. Here my lady-friend, appalled by the road, and the perils of the side-saddle, was about to give up the jour. ney, but having convinced her of the greater security of the masculine seat, we changed saddles, and thenceforth all went well enough. I would advise all ladies who are at all nervous, to take a man’s saddle, and ride as Catharine of Russia did. It may not be so graceful, but then, I hope you don’t go up Mount Washington to display your own points of attraction. Mount Franklin came next, and we found him rougher, steeper, and more laborious than his Pleasant predecessor, The path goes directly up his side to the very summit: path, did I say ?—rather a ruined staircase, with steps vary- ing from one to three feet in height, agreeably diversified by smooth planes of slanting rock. It seemed impossible that the horses should climb these latter without slipping, yet they all did so, to an animal. At the top, we had reache a height of 4,900 feet, without encountering a cloud, while, to our joy, the hood of Mount Washington was visibly thinner, and shoved higher up on his brows.360 AT HOME AND ABROAD. From Franklin to Monroe the ridge is but a sharp comb, barely wide enough for the bridle-path, and falling sheer down to the wildernesses of forest which collect the waters of the Saco and the Ammonoosuc. This comb, in my opi- nion, commands a finer view than that from Mount Wash ngton. Looking either to the right or left, the picture is artly framed by the vast concave sweep of the mountain sides; below you, the solitude of the primeval forest ; beyond, other mountains, broader valleys, the gray gleam of lakes, and the distant country, flattened into faint blue waves by the elevation from which you behold it. All the noted summits of the White Mountain region are here visi- ble, and Kearsarge, Chocorua, and the Franconia Group display themselves with fine effect. Your satisfaction is not dininished by the presence of the rocky, cloudy mass, which still towers high over you: you only fear that its summit will not give you grander panoramas than those unrolling below you—which is the case. “ What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), Tn height and cold, the splendor of the hills?” A great deal, certainly. But I imagine such pleasure springs not merely from the sense of beauty, because alt details, wherein, mostly, Beauty lies, are swallowed up in the immensity of the airy picture: there is also a lurking, flattering sense of power, which we feel, although it may got consciously float on the surface of our emotions. We are elevated above the earth: other men and their concerus are below us: their stateliest possessions are insignificant patches, which we look down upon without respect or envyTRAVELS AT HOME. 361 Jur own petty struggles and ambitions fade away also in the far perspective. We stand on the pinnacle of the earth, whereof we are lords, and above us there is nothing but God. For this reason, a height is not a proper place for a home Great elevations and far prospects excite the intellect rather than move the heart. -No man of loving nature would build his house upon a mountain-peak. “Love is of the valley,” and his chosen home is shut in and sheltered by hills and woods, nestled in a warm hollow of the earth, accessible, familiar, and yet secluded. One would rather see his aelghbor’s trees and fields near him, than look from his window upon a hundred miles of blue earth. “I have élimbed to this summit with much toil,” says Herwegh, in one of his poems, ‘‘and now the dust of those streets where I lived is dearer to me than this pure, cold air. I can almost grasp Heaven with my hands, and my heart desires to be down on the earth again.” A mountain-top may be « fine place for lovers, in the spring-time of their betrothal, but when thei: day of exaltation is over, and the common loves and common cares of the world approach, they will vome down and settle contentedly at the base. Mount Monroe is a sharp, rocky mass, rising abruptly irom the spinal ridge. Its summit has an elevation of five thousand three hundred feet. This, however, we do not cale, but climb around it by a dangerous-looking path, and fii ovrselves on the ridge again, which here broadens out and slopes upward to Mount Washington. On the left, in a hollow, about a hundred feet below us, is the Lake of the Clouds, a little pool of blue-black water, out of which 16362 AT HOME AND ABROAD. trickles the Ammonoosue, highest-born of New-England rivers, but (like the scions of certain families) not much of a stream, after all. The Saco, of three or four thousand feet lower origin, achieves a much more conspicuous destiny. By this time, every vestige of cloud had disappeared, and the chieftain summit rose before us bare, bleak, and cold, a steep, slightly conical mass of greenish-gray rocks, destitute of a single shrub. Here and there grew a tuft of brown, hardy grass, or a bunch of dwarf, delicate white flowers, with a sweet odor of May about them. The strong wind blew cold and keen from Canada, and there was no longer any shelter—no higher peak in that direction, nearer than the Rocky Mountains. The path, or rather stairway, was so rough and laborious, that I dismounted for awhile, to the great joy of my horse, and climbed until the thin air failed to supply my lungs. It was a steady upward pull of half an hour, before we found the sharp crest flatten under us, and reached the fold of piled stones where the horses are left. The rest of the company (twenty-eight in all) had already arrived, and some of the gentlemen were engaged in mixing the waters of an icy spring among the rocks with the contents of pocket-flasks. In such a place, and under such circumstances, all even the ladies—partook of the mixture without hesitation. ‘The Maine Law, I suppose, is inoperative up here,” I said to the guide. “Oh,” he replied, ‘no law comes this high: we are out of the State of New-Hampshire.” Ifa man should commit a crimein a balloon, where should he be tried ? A few steps further brought us to the summit, which isaTRAVELS AT HOME, 363 platform of Icose rocks, containing, perhaps, half an acre, Against the loftiest pile, in the centre, is built a long, low hut, styled the “Tip-Top House.” Having a register, a bar, kitchen, and dining-room, it may be considered a hotel. A few steps further is the “Summit House” (a little below the summit), where travellers can pass the night in com- fortable bunks, and (perhaps) see the sun rise. There is one room for ladies and one for gentlemen, and an ancient chambermaid, who sleeps in the doorway between. A magnificent hotel is projected, with a carriage-road to the very summit. The latter, I was informed, will be com- pleted next year, but I have my doubts about it. The enterprise, to be sure, is not half so great as that of the Simplon Road, but it could scarcely be remunerative, while there are such excellent hotels as Crawford’s and the Glen House, in more agreeable locations. One thing, however, is greatly needed—a tower about fifty feet in height, which will enable the traveller to over- look the edges of the rocky platform and take in the whole grand panorama from one point. Any of us would have gladly paid a handsome fee for such alift. At present, you must climb over heaps of stone, from point to point, to catch the various views, each of which is superb of its kind, but the effect would be infinitely sublimed if they could all be united in one picture. To the south-east you have the valley of the Saco, with its sentinels of Chocorua and Kear- sarge; to the south, Lake Winnipiseogee, lying in its cradle of purple hills; south-westward, the tossing sea of wild, wooded, nameless peaks, stretching away to Franconia, whose summits shut out further horizon; westward, the364 AT HOME AND ABROAD. valley of the Connecticut, the Green Mountains, with Mans field and Camel’s Hump, far and dim; Canadian wilder. nesses on the north, and the scattered lakes of Maine— glinmering among pine-forests which seem the shadows of clouds—to the east. Earth and sky melt into each other, a hundred miles away, and the ocean, which is undoubtedly within the sphere of vision, is not to be distinguished from the air. The atmosphere, according to the guides, was as clear as it ever is, yet so great were the distances, so vast the spaces overlooked, that all the circle of the landscape, except the nearer gorges of the mountains, appeared dim and hazy. The sense of elevation is thereby increased: you stand, verily, “ringed with the azure world.” I have stood on higher summits without feeling myself lifted so far above the earth. This—although there are many grand features in the different landscapes—is the predominant characteristic. On the southern side of the peak, under a pile of stones, which shelters you from the wind, a mountain panorama is unfolded, which most of our party barely honored with a glance—some, in fact, did not see it at all—but which, to me, was grandly and gloriously beautiful. Here you see the main body of the White Mountains, ridge behind ridge, summit over summit, in lines commingling like the waves of the sea, harmonious yet infinitely varied—an exquisite study of mountain-forms, tinted with such delicate grada- tions of color as would have plunged an artist into despair. I counted no less than twelve planes of distance, the fur thest no less distinct than the nearest, and gem-like in their fine clearness of outline.TRAVELS AT HOME. 865 The sound of a bell called us to dinner, and it was ne less welcome than miraculous a fact, that beefsteaks and potatoes, pies and puddings grew on the barren granite. Our dining-room had walls of stone, four feet thick, plas tered and ceiled with muslin, and the wind whistled in a hundred crannies; yet the meal was epicurean, and the shelter inspired a feeling of comfort beyond that gorgeous saloon at Crawford’s. There was a party of thirty up from the Glen House, making fifty-eight visitors in all. The ladies, in their collapsed gowns and pea-jackets, huddled on the warm side of the house in melancholy groups, while the gentlemen unstrapped their telescopes and opera-glasses and climbed upon the roof. Two o’clock was the hour fixed for our return, which allowed us but an hour and a half upon the summit. The descent was more toilsome than the ascent. We walked, in fact, to the Lake of the Clouds, where, by spreading ourselves among the rocks, we caught the cun- ning, unwilling horses. The wind still blew furiously, although the sun blistered our faces: we began to be sore and shaken, from the rough ride, and the cheerful chatter of our company subsided into a grim, silent endurance. So, nearly four hours passed by, until, in the ferny forests of Mount Clinton, we heard the strains of the distant band— not now discordant, oh no! a seraphic harmony, rather— and, by-and-by, a bruised, jaded company straggled out of the woods, tumbled out of the saddle, and betook them- selves to sofas and rocking-chairs. The ladies, without exception, behaved well in courage and endurance they quite equalled the gentlemen.366 AT HOME AND ABROaD. And now, if any gentleman ask me: “Shall I ascend Mount Washington?” JI answer “Yes”—and if a lady, “ves” again: and if they reproach me afterwards for the advice, I know how to classify them. 5.—MontrREAL AND QUEBEC. At Crawford’s we were advised to take a road which leads northward over Cherry Mountain, and so around to Gor- ham, on the Grand Trunk. We should have followed this advice, but for two circumstances—first, there was no direct conveyance thither, and secondly, had there been one, as the day was Saturday, we should have been obliged to wait thirty-six hours at Island Pond. On the other hand, by leaving Crawford’s at 4 4.m., one can reach Montreal at PM Fae a round-about journey of 270 miles, but very de- lightful as regards scenery. My friends were greatly impressed by the difference be- tween Vermont and New Hampshire scenery. Our after- 100n ride up White River Valley, and onward to the shores of Lake Champlain, bore no resemblance to those of the previous days. We missed the almost Alpine grandeur of the White Mountains, the vast pine woods, and the broad .onely lakes; but the mountains on either hand assumed every variety of form. Their chains were broken by deep, lateral glens, the meadows were smooth and green, the foli age richer, the crops better, and even the farm-honses mere inviting in their aspect of thrift and prosperity. We hadTRAVELS AT HOME. 367 a constant succession of such landscapes as you see in the Northern Swiss cantons. Glorious showers of Summer rain dropped veil after veil of dim gray between us and the pictures of the car-window; then the sun burst from behind a cloud, filling the air with palpable gold; then a deep in digo shadow fell on the valley and the gray film of the shower dropped again. To have properly enjoyed and appreciated this scenety, we should have spent three days between the Junction and Essex, not in a railway car, but in an open wagon, propelled by horse power. We had sunset at St. Alban’s, and by the time we reached touse’s Point, it was confirmed night. Here you must change your tickets, and have your baggage examined— which consists in your telling the official that you are tra- vellers and carry only your necessary clothing, whereupon he makes a chalk mark on your trunks, and don’t ask for your key, There is nothing,in fact, to indicate that you are entering a foreign country (I have been asked the same question about my baggage on the Camden and Amboy, and Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroads). But I forget : there is one circumstance, which shows, at least, a change in the character of your fellow travellers. The sombre silence of the American car no longer lulls you into slum- ber ; you see animated gesticulations; from end to end the var rings with the shrill, snapping voices of the Canadian French. I have never crossed the frontier from Rouse’s Point without being startled by this change. We were heartily weary, but sleep was impossible. Our progress was slow, and it was a welcome sight when, towards mid- night, we saw the lights of Montreal reflected in the dark waters of the St. Lawrence.368 AT HOME AND ABROAD. The Sunday repose was doubly pleasant in the fresh Ca nadian air. Next morning we took the Grand Trunk road to Quebec, passing through the deafening Victoria Bridge. Of the road, there is little to say. After leaving St. Hya- cinthe, the country is mainly a level stretch of wild wood- land, until you reach the Chaudiére. We arrived at Quebee in season to view the sunset from Durham Terrace, which was for us the splendid drop-curtain of the day. After that, we were satisfied to return to the Russell House, and sleep upon the impressions of the scene. The sky threatened rain, but we set vut boldly for the Falls of Montmorenecy. Descending through an ancient and fish-like quarter of the city, we crossed the St. Charles River, and entered the long suburban street which extends to the Falls. This highway, crowning the undulating rise of the northern shore, commands a broad and superb view of the queenly city, the St. Lawrence, the Isle d’Orleans, and the opposite bank. It is therefore a favorite location for country residences, though the greater part of the soil seems to have been pre-occupied by the French habiians. Quaint old houses, old gardens (which are always beauti ful), small fields of grain and potatoes, and village-clusters of neat cottages succeeded one another rapidly on both sides—all with the same mellow aspect of age and use. I saw scarcely half a dozen new houses in all the eight miles, The old dwellings, with their heavy stone walls, tin roofs tall chimneys, and the snug way in which they crouched for shelter among groves of firs, were strongly suggestive of comfort and domesticity. But I was even more charmed with the French cottages and their cheerful oceupants. ForTRAVELS AT HOME, 369 the inost part simple, one-story structures, a hundred years old o1 more, they were scrupulously neat and orderly, and the women and girls whom we saw through the open doors nd windows, at their knitting and sewing, or engaged in ively gossip, were the fitting pictures for such frames. Many of the cottages had their little gardens, with beds of cab bages and onions, and some bunches of gaudy marigolds, snapdragons, bergamot and lavender. ~All the northern bank, sloping below us, carefully cultivated and thickly in- habited, basked in an atmosphere of pastoral peace and simplicity, while in the background towered the city and citadel, a mountain of glittering roofs. We passed the Insane Asylum, a handsome building of gray granite, in front of which a harmless patient, in fan- tastic attire, was walking with a banner in his hand. A mile or two beyond, on the other side of the road, stood an ancient stone building, with steep roofs and tall chimneys, which, according to the coachman, was once the residence of the Marquis de Montcalm. Little boys, with bunches of wild flowers, lay in wait for us as we advanced, and all the French children, standing in the cottage-doors, saluted us by a quaint, old-fashioned wave of the right hand. I wish our own race partook a little more of the ingrained cheerfulness and courtesy of the French. These habitans are not only kind, faithful, and as virtuous as the averag of men—and a little cheerful cordiality wins their hearts at once—but they also offer an example of religious tolerance worthy of imitation. They are very devoted to their own faith, but regard their Protestant neighbors without the least bitterness of prejudice. Loe370 AT HOME AND ABROAD. The gray clouds which had been gathering during out drive finally broke out into rain, just as we reached tha Falls. We drew up at a house—a compound of tavern and Indian curiosity-shop, in a grove of evergreens, and were met with the hospitable announcement ‘‘ Twenty-five cents apiece!” A party of Southern gentlemen who preceded us grumbled loudly at this tax and openly expressed their disgust with Canada; but where platforms must be built, and staircases erected for the traveller’s accommodation, it is nothing more than fair that he should pay for it. The native American mind, however, which can complacently contemplate the spending of fifty dollars on a spree, rebels against the payment of fifty cents in the shape of a just tax. We might have fine macadamized highways in all the older portions of the United States, if our people would calculate the present wear and tear of teams, and be willing to pay the same amount in the shape of tolls. But no—none of your tolls!) Give us our bad roads and our glorious inde- pendence! There was no sign of a cessation of the rain, and we therefore descended through the grove under umbrellas, to the river, which, above the fall, flows in a rough bed, some forty or fifty feet deep. The stone piers of the former suspension bridge stand on either side, as melan- choly monuments of its fall. The chains gave way a few years ago, as a farmer with his horse and cart was passing over the bridge, and all plunged down the abyss together A safe platform leads along the rocks to a pavilion on a yoint at the side of the fall, and on a level with it. Here the gulf, nearly three hundred feet deep, with its walls ofTRAVELS AT HOME, 371 chocolate-colored earth, and its patches of emerald herbage. wet with eternal spray, opens to the St. Lawrence. Montmorenci is one of the loveliest waterfalls. In its general character it bears some resemblance to the Pisse- vache, in Switzerland, which, however, is much smaller The water is snow-white, tinted, in the heaviest portion of the fall, with a soft yellow, like that of raw silk. In fact, broken as it is by the irregular edge of the rock, it reminds one of masses of silken, flossy skeins, continually overlap- ping one another as they fall. At the bottom, dashed upon a pile of rocks, it shoots far out in star-like radii of spray, which share the regular throb or pulsation of the falling masses. The edges of the fall flutter out into lace- like points and fringes, which dissolve ‘into gauze as they descend. The peculiar charm of a cataract depends or the character of these exquisite, transient forms. The view of the fall from below must be still finer, in some respects; but it can only be obtained by taking a circuitous path, too long to be travelled in a driving rain. We omitted visiting the Natural Steps for the same reason, and set off, dripping, for Quebec. All afternoon the win- dows of heaven were opened, and muddy cataracts poured down the steep streets. At Russell’s, the roof of the dining saloon leaked in such a manner that little streams poured upon the heads of the guests, and a portion of the floor was swamped. After the long drouth, this rain was indeed a blessing. Ever since, as a boy, I read Prof. Silliman’s “Tour te Quebec,” it had been one of my wishes to visit the city. Pictures and descriptions, I found, had given me a verya72 AT HOME AND ABROAD. accurate idea of its appearance. The high, massive, steep roofed stone houses, crowded together at the foot of the rock, and climbing around its eastern side, the nar: row, crooked streets, old churches, contracted, badly paved squares, and the citadel, with its huge walls of de fence, crowning all, exactly answered my anticipations but I was conscious of disappointment in one particular The rock is not a perpendicular cliff, but sloping, covered with a growth of hardy shrubs, and capable of being scaled in some places. I read, some years ago, of a soldier on guard having incautiously steppéd over the edge, and fallen two hundred and fifty-seven feet through the air, alighting upon a pile of earth in the back-yard of a house below, without any other inconvenience than a general sense of soreness, from which he recovered in a few days! This struck me as one of the most beautiful accidents of which I had ever heard. I placed it on my list of ‘ remark- able escapes,” beside the case of the Vermont quarryman who had a crow-bar shot through his brain. But I fear I must give it up. When I came to look at the citadel, I found no place where such an accident could possibly happen. A man, indeed, might roll from top to bottom, and find himself sore at the end of the journey. We again walked on Durham Terrace, the view from which surpasses that from Calton Hill, in Edinburgh. The Jitadel cannot be entered without a special permission. The flat summit of the hill, westward, is the celebrated Plain of Abraham, which we saw from the other side of the St. Lawrence, but were not able to visit. In fact, when we left Quebec, it was with the consciousness that we hadTRAVELS AT HOMIE. 374 hot done justice either to its natural beauties o: its historic associations. Several weeks might be spent with great pleasure and profit here, and in the neighboring portions of Lower Canada. It is pleasant to notice the friendly feeling which is growing up between the inhabitants of Canada and the United States. The number of American tourists and sportsmen who come this way is annually increasing, and with it there is a certain assimilation of habits, by which both parties are the gainers. For travellers the frontier is but a nominal line, and in the newer parts of Canada there is nothing but the preponderance of English faces among the inhabitants to indicate a difference of nation- ality. On steamboats, and in hotels, the two peoples fra- ternize readily and naturally, and discuss their points of difference without acrimony. Twenty years ago this was not the case. An American was looked upon with preju- dice, if not with suspicion, and if he settled in the country was treated as an unwelcome intruder. Now, there are communities of American residents in Montreal, Toronto, and the towns of Canada West, many of whom are deserv- edly honored by their Canadian brethren. The increased facilities of intercourse, the intimacy of commercial rela- tions, and, above all, the difference of tone adopted towards the United States by the English Government—/for Canad not only reflects, but exaggerates English opinion*—have * The reader will naturally compare this expression, written in July, 1860, with the present condition of affairs (December, 1861). Nothing seems to be so reckless and fickle as the tone of popular sentiment. Three months after my visit to Quebec the heir to England's throne was received3874 AT HOME AND ABROAD. wrought an entire revolution in public sentiment. Let me confess, also, that this change is reciprocal. No decent American can visit Canada without finding many people whom he ean esteem, and, when he is tempted to pick at he flaws of the Colonial Government, let him first think of the flimsy patches in the woof of his own. 6.—Up THE SAGUENAY. Lxr us now step on board the steamer Magnet, Capt. Howard, bound fortheSaguenay River. Most of theSummer tourists whom we had met at Russell’s, on our arrival, were booked for the same trip, and of the hundred passengers on board, more than half were Americans. The remainder were English Canadians, bound for the various watering: places down the St. Lawrence. As so much—nay, all—of our enjoyment depended on the weather, it was comforting to find the morning mist rolled away, the sky clear, and a warm, genial sun in the midst of it. The St. Lawrence, which, at Quebec, is not more than in the United States with a welcome, truly sublime in its sincerity and generosity. Now, the English press and people, and their subservient iritators in Canada, are convulsed with a madness—so blind and unrrea: sonable that it taxes our powers of belief—to rush to war in consequence of a slight technical difference, and in defence of an “ institution,” which they have heretofore held in utter abhorrence! Who shalf venture to write history when the professed ‘moral sense” of half a century turng out to have been a sham—when England, whose conscience on this point at least, was conceded, becomes the Pecksniff of nations?RAVELS AT HOME. 375 a mile wide, broadens immediately below the city into a majestic expanse of water, which the great Isle d’Orleans divides into two nearly equal arms. The hurricane-deck of the steamer, from the moment of departure, offered us a panorama so grand, and fair, and attractive on all sides, that the fear of losing any portion of it kept us vibrating from fore to aft, and from aft forward again. Behind us lay the city, with its tinned roofs glittering in the morning sunshine, and its citadel-rock towering over the river; on the south ern shore, Point Levi, picturesquely climbing the steep bank, embowered in dark trees; then the wooded blufis with their long levels of farm-land behind them, and the scattered cottages of the habitans, while, northward the shore rose with a gradual, undulating sweep, glittering, far inland, with houses, and gardens, and crowding villages, until it reached the dark, stormy line of the Laurentian Mountains in the north-east. In front, the Isle of Orleans reproduced the features of the shores. Pictures so bright, so broad, so crowded with life and beauty, I had not expected to find. “This is no longer America,” said my friends. There was not a feature in all the wide view (except our double decked steamer), to remind us of the New World; yet, on the other hand, we could not have referred it to any one portion of Europe. The sky, the air, the colors of the land- scapes were from Norway; Quebec and the surrounding vil lages suggested Normandy—exeept the tin roofs and spires, which were Russian, rather; while here and there, though rarely, were the marks of English occupancy. The age, the order, the apparent stability and immobility of society, as376 AT HOME AND ABROAD, illustrated by external things, belonged decidedly to Europe This part of Canada is but seventy or eighty years older than New-England, yet there seems to be a difference of five hundred years. on the northern shore—then a long, wavy line, and, at length, the whole cascade of Montmorenci opened to the view, glittering in the sun. We were two or three miles distant, and no sound reached our ears, but the movement of the falling water, the silent play of airiest light and sha- dow over its face—like ripples on a skein of snowy silk— was exquisitely beautiful. Many varieties of scenery as I have looked upon, it was at last something new to see a great waterfall set in the midst of a vast, sunny landscape, where it is seen as one of many features, and not itself the point to which all others are subordinate. Taking the channel between Isle d’Orleans and the south sliore, we lost sight of Quebec, and settled ourselves quietly on the forward deck, to contemplate the delicious pastoral pictures which were unfolded on either side. The island, which is twenty miles long, is densely populated and most thoroughly cultivated. The high, undulating hills are dotted with cottages, mostly white as snow, roof and allTRAVELS AT HOMR. 5g uid every cove of the irregular shore has its village. Most of the St. Lawrence pilots have their homes upon this island, the population of which is exclusively French. The per- manence of habits to which I have referred, is exhibited on the southern shore of the river, where the broad, original fields of the father have been portioned among his children, and their diminished inheritances among theirs, until you see narrow ribbons of soil rather than fields. There is thus an apparent density of population, an aspect of age and long culture, which is scarcely to be seen anywhere else on the American Continent. The grand features of the scenery, no less than the power of transmitted associations, must bind these people to their homes. They are happy, contented, and patriotic—if such a term can be properly applied to them, who, governed by a foreign race, have forgotten the ties which once bound them to their own. The soil, I believe, is good, but the climate that of lat. 60° on the European Coast—makes their lives necessarily laborious, and diminishes the profits of agriculture to such an extent that most of them barely live. Cattle must be stabled during seven months of the year, and when the hay-crop fails, as this Summer, half their resources fail with it. A gentleman who owns a farm on the northern shore informed me that he can just support his family, and no more, Another, who has several cows during the Summer, which are valued at $20 apiece, sells them in the Fall, on ascertaining that it costs just $28 to keep them through the Winter. By buying fresh ones in the Spring, he saves $8 ahead. Itis now the height of Sum: mer, and a wind is blowing which makes us shiver: what%78 AT HOME AND ABROAD. must it be in the dead of Winter? I never visit these northern regious without a vivid recollection of those tropic islands where life is one long g, splendid Summer—where twenty days’ work in every year will supportaman. Here, however, is a home, as well as there; and, so long asa man is happy, it makes no difference whether he lives at the Equator or the North Pole. Below the Isle d’Orleans, the St. Lawrence exhibits a majestic breadth. In fact, this is already an inlet of the sea rather than a river. The water is brackish at flood-tide, and the wind soon gets up a disagreeable sea. At Quebec, the rise and fall of the tides is sixteen feet, but in the Lower St. Lawrence it frequently amounts almost toa bore. Seve- ral low, wooded islands succeed; the Laurentian Mountains come down boldly to the river on the north, and as we stand across toward Murray Bay, the south shore fades into a dim blue line, above which rise, in the distance, groups of lofty hills. These are the connecting link between the White Mountains and the Laurentian chain, which stretches away across the country to the coast of Labrador. We ran along the bases of headlands, one thousand to fifteen hundred feet in height, wild and dark with lowering clouds, gray with rain, or touched with a golden transparency by the sunshine -—alternating belts of atmospheric effect, which greatly in- creased their beauty. Indeed, all of us who saw the Lower St. Lawrence for the first time were surprised by the impos- ng character of its scenery. The Isle aux Coudres, which we next passed, is a beauti- ful pastoral mosaic, in the pale emerald setting of the river Here, I am told, the habitans retain their ancient customeTRAVELS AT HOME. 379 -0 2 greater extent than in any other part of Lowe Canada, One need not refer to History to ascertain their Norman descent: it is sufficiently exhibited in their fields, cottages, and gardens. Murray Bay, a short distance beyond, is the fashionable watering-place on the north shore, as Kakouna is for the southern. It is a small cove, opening up into a picturesque dell among the mountains. Access to it is had by means of an immense wooden pier—a Government work, built by con- tract, and, of course, put in the wrong place. “It seems, then,” I said to the Canadian gentleman who imparted to me this piece of information, “that your Government jobs are no better performed than ours.” ¢“ Oh, much worse,” was hisanswer. “Is it possible they can be worse?” I asked incredulously. ‘TI assure you,” said he, “our official cor- ruption surpasses yours; but we have the English reluc- tance to say much about such things. We quietly cover up, or ignore, what we eannot help; whereas, you, in the States, make an outcry from one end of the land to the other. The difference is not in the fact, but in the procla- mation of it.” If this view be true, it is consoling to us, but discouraging to humanity. The wind blew violently from the west, and our steamer pitched dangerously at the end of the pier. The passengers were thrust up the plank, or tumbled down it, to the great diversion of a crowd of spectators, whose appetites were whetted by the prospect of an accident. I was much amused by the timidity of three priests, who, when the vessel gave a mild lurch, sprang to some awning-stanchions with every appearance of extreme terror. One of them, seeing no other380 AT HOME AND ABROAD. support near at hand, seized upon a lady, and clung to her arm rather longer than was necessary. They then rushed collectively into the cabin, whence they did not emerge afterward, although the water became smooth. This re- minds me of the singular fact that the most timorous clase of persons at sea are clergymen. Why those who can cou- rageously face death in other forms should exhibit this weakness, I am at a loss to understand, but the fact is sO patent as to have become a sailor’s proverb. A jolly, red-gilled, full-blooded Englishman, lying at full ° length on a narrow lintel above the’ gangway, was recount. ing his exploits in trout-fishing. I forget how many hundred he had caught in the mountain-streams the day before ‘How about the bathing?” asked some one. “ Capital !” he exclaimed, “I had a bath to-day.” We were wrapped in the thickest shawls, and the bare idea made us shudder, but one look at the speaker, whose frame contained latent earbon enough to melt an iceberg, explained to me the mystery of bathing in such waters. We, who are thin- blooded Southerners, in comparison, would not have found it so enjoyable. Leaving Murray Bay, we stood diagonally across the St. Lawrence to Riviére du Loup, which is on the southern shore, nearly a hundred miles below Quebec. The river is here about twenty-five miles wide, and presents a clear sea- horizon to the eastward. It was almost sunset when we succeeded in making fast to the long pier, and the crowd of habitans, with their ricketty, one-horse caleches, who had been patiently watching our battle with the wind for an hour »r more, were enabled to offer their services. SomeTRAVELS AT HOME, 38° of our passengers were bound for Kakouna, six miles fur- ther down the shore, and landed here; while those who had shipped for the entire trip were anxious to visit the village, whose white houses, and tall gray church crowning the hill; gleamed softly in the last gold of the sun. It was pleasant to find hackmen who could accost you once, and once only, in an ordinary tone of voice, and whose first de- mands were moderate enough to be accepted. I chose an honest fellow, whose face was English, though his language and nature were decidedly French, and pre- sently we were bouncing in his car over a rough road, around the deep cove which separates the landing-place from the village of Riviére du Loup. “Voila du bon b16!” said he, pointing to some fields of very scanty oats, and his admiration appeared so genuine that I was compelled to admire them also. ‘Votre cheval est boiteux,” I replied, pointing to his limping horse. “ Oh, pardon, monsieur !” said he, “est une jument, vaillante, vigoureuse! Get up, ma paresseusse /” and with an extra shake of the lines, away we dashed, showering the mud on all sides. By this time, the sun had set, and the village appeared before us, neat, trim, and home-like, with a quaint, Old-World air. Houses one story high, scrupulously white-washed doors, raised above the average level of the winter snows, well-kept gar dens, and clean gravel roads, were the principal features of the place. The river comes down a wild glen in two bold waterfalls, and finishes its course by driving a large flour mill. A mile inland is the terminus of the St. Lawrence branch of the Grand Trunk Railroad. We drove around and throu: y oO h the village in the gather-382 AT HOME AND ABROAL. ing twilight, visited the new Catholic Church, of immense dimensions, and finally turned about, on tke top of the hill, whence a broad, macadamized road struck southward into the country. This was the Government highway te St. Johns, New Brunswick, three hundred miles distant. It is now finished, with the exception of eighteen miles along Lake Temiscouata, which will be completed this year. The American frontier is not more than thirty or forty miles distant from Riviére du Loup. The overland jour- ney from the Bay of Fundy to the St. Lawrence offers many inducements to the home tourist. Were I travelling alone, I should undertake it myself. In winter, the trip from Riviére du Loup to Madawaska is sometimes made in a day. The Magnet lay at the pier until three o’clock this morn- ing, when she started for the Saguenay, across the St. Law- rence, but twenty-seven miles distant. When I went on deck, we were passing Tadoussac, a post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, just inside the Saguenay. Here, an old Jesuit church is pointed out to the visitor as the first church built on the American continent. This must be a mistake, however, as one which was built by Cortez is still standing in Vera Cruz, and Jacques Cartier’s first visit to Canada was made, I believe, in 1542. Nevertheless, che little chapel of Tadoussac is not only an interesting antiquity, but a picturesque object in itself. Two miles further is LZ’? Anse & ? Hau, a lumber station, where we touched, and where, to my regret, Mr. Witcher, an official surveyor, whose conversation I had found very instructive, left us.TRAVELS AT HOME. 383 Passing around the headland of La Boule, we found our sclves at last surrounded with the gray rocks of the Sague- nay. The morning was clear, but cold; an icy wind blew down the river, and the more delicate lady-passengers congregated about the cabin-stove. No magical illusions of atmosphere enwrap the scenery of this northern river, Everything is hard, naked, stern, silent. Dark-gray cliffs of granitic gneiss rise from the pitch-black water; firs of gloomy green are rooted in their crevices and fringe their summits; loftier ranges, of a dull, indigo hue, show them- selves in the background, and, over all, bends a pale, cold, northern sky. This keen air, which brings out every object with a crystalline distinctness, even contracts the dimen- sions of the scenery, diminishes the height of the cliffs, and apparently belittles the majesty of the river, so that the first impression is one of disappointment. Still, it exercises a fascination which you cannot resist. You look, and look, fettered by the fresh, novel, savage stamp which Nature exhibits, and at last, as in St. Peter’s or at Niagara, learn from the character-of the separate features to appre- ciate the grandeur of the whole. The Saguenay is not, properly, a river. It*is a tremen- dous chasm, like that of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, clett for sixty miles through the heart of a mountain wilderness. The depth of the water varies from twenty- five to one hundred and forty-seven fathoms, and the height of the rocks on either side from five hundred to fifteen hundred feet. On approaching Chicoutimi, sixty miles from the St. Lawrence, the river suddenly becomes shallow, and thenee to Lake St. John it is an insignifican$384 AT HOME AND ABROAD. stream, navigable only for canoes. The upper valley, which is rapidly becoming settled, is said to be very fertile, and to possess a milder climate than Quebec, although nearly two degrees further north. But, from L’Anse 4 bEau to Ha-ha Bay, the extent of our voyage, there are not more than half a dozen places where a settler could find room enough for a house and garden. Steadily upwards we went, the windings of the river and tts varying breadth—from half a mile to nearly two miles —giving us a shifting succession of, the erandest pictures. Shores that seemed roughly piled together out of the frag- ments of chaos overhung us—great masses of rock, gleam- ing duskily through their scanty drapery of evergreens, here lifting long, irregular walls against the sky, there split into huge, fantastic forms by deep lateral gorges, up which we saw the dark-blue crests of loftier mountains in the rear. The water beneath us was black as night, with a pitchy glaze on its surface, and the only life in all the savage solitude, was, now and then, the back of a white porpoise, in some of the deeper coves. 3y nine o’clock, we saw the headland of Eternity before us, with Trinity beyond. These two celebrated capes are on the western bank of the Saguenay, divided by a cove about half a mile wide. They are gray, streaked masses of perpendicular rock, said to be fifteen hundred feet in height. By the eye alone, I should not have estimated them at over one thousand feet, but I was assured the height had been ascertained by actual measurement. Cer- tain it is, they appear much higher on the second than on the first view. These awful cliffs, planted in water nearly aTRAVELS AT HOME. 385 thousand feet deep, and soaring into the very sky, form the gateway to a rugged valley, stretching inland, and covered with the dark, primeval forest of the North. I doubt whether a sublimer picture of the wilderness is to be found on this continent. Toward noon, we reached Ha-ha Bay, which is a branch or inlet of the river, some miles in length. At its extre. mity, there is a flourishing settlement. The hills around were denuded of their forests; fields of wheat, oats, and barley, grew on the steep slopes, and the cold ridges were dotted with hay-cocks. Capt. Howard gave us but an hour, but we determined to spend the most of it ashore. As we approached the beach in the steamer’s boat, we noticed a multitude of caleches, drawn by ponies, standing in the water. Presently we grounded, and there was a rush of vehicles to our rescue. With infinite yelling and splashing, and much good-humored emulation on the part of the drivers, half a dozen caleches were backed out against the boat (the water rising over the shafts), and we stepped into them. Away went the delighted coachmen, and our wheeled gondolas soon reached the shore. The village contains about a hundred houses, most of which were quite new. I noticed some cherry and plum trees in the gardens, and the usual vegetables, which appeared to thrive very well. Our coachman, an habitant, was loud in his praises of the place, although he had so little to show us.‘ Where is the hotel?” I asked, after we had seen all the cottages and saw-mills. ‘There is none,” he answered. ‘But where do strangers go, when they come here?” ‘“ Why,” £7386 AT HOME AND ABROAD. said he, with a grin, “they don’t come!” Thereupon, we drove hurriedly back into the’water, stepped from our carriages into the boat, and returned to the steamer. Our return down the Saguenay convinced me that the scenery of the river cannot be properly appreciated at a single visit. Viewing the same objects a second time, we found them markedly grander and more imposing. The Fiver is a reproduction—truly on a contracted scale—of the fjords of the Norwegian coast. One of my companions was also a fellow-traveller in Norway with me three years ago, and was no less struck with the resemblance than myself. The dark mountains, the tremendous precipices, the fir forests, even the settlements at Ha-ha Bay and L?Anse 4 Eau (except that the houses are white instead of red), are as completely Norwegian as they canbe. The Scandinavian skippers who come to Canada all notice this resemblance, and many of them, I learn, settle here. As we passed again under the headlands of Trinity and Kternity, I tried my best to make them fifteen hundred feet in height—but without success. The rock of Gibraltar and Horseman Island, both of which attain that height, loomed up, in my memory, to a much loftier elevation. The eye, however, is likely to be deceived, when all the proportions of a landscape are on the same vast scale; as in St. Peter’s, the colossal cherubs which hold the font, appear, at the first glance, to be no larger than children of six years old. From long practice, I can measure heights and distances with tolerable accuracy by the eye, under ordinary circumstances; but even our most certain and carefully-trained faculties are more or less influenced byTRAVELS AT HOME, 387 habit. The compositor, who has been using minion type for some days, knows how unusually large long primer appears, and how small, after pica. I have no doubt but that the dimensions of the Saguenay scenery were some. what dwarfed to me, by coming directly from the White Mountains. Capt. Howard kindly ran his boat a little out of her course, to give us the best view of Trinity and the sublime landscape of Eternity Cove. The wall of dun-colored syenitic granite, ribbed with vertical streaks of black, hung for a moment directly over our heads, as high as three Trinity spires, atop of one another. Westward, the wall ran inland, projecting bastion after bastion of inaccessible rock over the dark forests in the bed of the valley.