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Title: The Alhambra and the Kremlin - The South and the North of Europe
Author: Prime, Samuel Irenæus
Language: English
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[Illustration: THE GENERALIFFE.]
THE ALHAMBRA AND THE KREMLIN.
The South and the North of Europe.
by
SAMUEL IRENÆUS PRIME,
Author of “Travels in Europe and the East.”
New York:
Anson D. F. Randolph & Company,
770 Broadway.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
Anson D. F. Randolph and Company,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Press of
John Wilson and Son,
Cambridge.
Bindery of
Robert Rutter,
82 and 84 Beekman St.,
New York.
TO
MRS. E’LOUISA L. PRIME
THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
[Illustration: Decorative illustration]
THE South and the North of Europe are contrasted in this volume. Not by
any formal comparison of the morals and manners, the institutions and
condition of the peoples in different latitudes, but by candid statement
and description, I have sought to give a fair view of life as it is in
Spain and Scandinavia.
Since the journey was made, the Queen of Spain has fled, and the Emperor
of France has perished from among men. But the social life of the
nations remains the same from age to age.
The Alhambra is a type of the South. The Kremlin is a symbol of the
North. Both of them are fortresses enclosing palaces: the glory of Spain
in ruins, the pride of the North in its strength and beauty.
Vague and indefinite ideas of these wonderful edifices, and of the
countries they represent, have been entertained by many, who may find in
these pages pictures of things as they are, which the writer trusts are
faithful and portable.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Generaliffe _Frontispiece._
Bridge, Gateway, and Cathedral of Burgos 16
The Cid 17
The Escorial 22
The Royal Palace, Madrid 40
Toledo 54
The Alcazar 59
Cordova 82
Court of Oranges, Cordova 87
The Great Mosque, Cordova 89
“La Geralda,” Seville 93
She wept and told her Beads 96
The Bull-Fight 101
The Picador 106
In the Alameda, at Malaga 118
The Diligence 125
Outer Wall of the Alhambra 130
Portion of a Door 138
The Vermilion Tower 142
The Alhambra 156
Geneva and the Rhone 166
Merle d’Aubigné 167
D’Aubigné’s Birthplace and Residence 169
Lausanne, and the Lake of Geneva 171
Castle of Chillon 173
The Lake and City of Geneva 175
Cathedral and Platform at Berne 182
On the Lake of Thun 184
Pilatus, Lake of Lucerne 190
Monument to the Swiss Guard. (_By Thorvaldsen_) 195
Tell’s Chapel, Lake of Lucerne 198
Swiss Horn Blowers 211
Peasants of Eastern Switzerland 212
Female Costumes in Appenzell 217
Death of the Chamois 231
On the Rhine 241
Aix-la-Chapelle 245
Frankfort Dining-Table 269
Polish Peasants 283
Scene at Railway Station 294
A Rainy Day in a Russian City 309
Street Scene in a Russian City 315
A Russian Porter 321
The Kremlin 331
Plan of the Centre of Moskva City 335
The Russo-Greek Service 342
Helsingfors 383
Stockholm Steamers 396
Upsala 413
Costumes of Sweden 421
Roxen Locks 435
Travelling in Carioles in Norway 457
Palace of Frederiksberg 462
A Domestic Scene in Denmark 469
Façade of the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen 471
Portrait of Thorvaldsen. (_By Horace Vernet_) 473
Hamburg 480
Home Again 482
CONTENTS.
-------
CHAPTER I.
GRANADA.
PAGE
Lodgings at the Alhambra.—Restoration.—Webs of Falsehood.—The Sierra
Nevada Mountains.—Fruits.—Progress of the Peasantry.—The Moors.—Adam’s
Visit to Spain.—Expulsion of the Moors.—Decline of the Empire.—
Railroads.—Mines.—Early Settlers.—Iberians.—Phœnicians.—Goths.—Moors.—
Waning of the Crescent.—Capture of Cordova.—Flight of the last Moorish
King
1
CHAPTER II.
OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN.—THE BASQUE PROVINCES.
Biarritz.—Chateau Eugenie.—Dangerous Coast.—Breakwater.—The Virgin’s
Partiality.—Bathing Grounds.—Couriers.—Antanazio.—His Honesty and
Zeal.—Crossing the Boundary.—Island of Conference.—Spanish Courtesy.—
The Basque Provinces.—Peculiar Customs.—Ancestry.—The Language.—
Spanish Stupidity.—La Fayette.—St. Sebastian.—Duke of Wellington’s
Sack of the City.—Bull-ring.—Likeness of the Country to Switzerland.—
Physique of the Inhabitants.—Productions.—Industries.—Primogeniture.—
Tolasa.—Vittoria.—Wellington’s Victory.—Miranda.—Roderick, the last
King of the Goths
6
CHAPTER III.
BURGOS.—THE ESCORIAL.
A sleepy Town.—Origin of the Name.—Fusion of the Crowns of Leon and
Castile.—The Coffer of the Cid.—Swindling a Jew.—Moorish Lies.—
Hotels.—A Change of Base.—The Cathedral.—Statues.—Carvings.—Verdict of
Charles V. and Philip II.—Devil beating the Railroad.—Carving by
Nicodemus.—Miracles.—Castle.—Engineer hoisted by his own Petard.—
Burgos Taverns.—Philip II. His Character.—Conception of a Palace,
Monastery, and Tomb.—The Escorial.—Dimensions.—St. Lawrence.—
Turning-point of his Life.—Description of the Palace.—Death of Philip
II.—Mausoleum.—The Sagrario.—A _toe_-tal Loss.—Cellini Crucifix.—
Library
15
CHAPTER IV.
MADRID.—A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL.
A polyglot Valet.—Missionary Schools.—Foreign Chaplains.—The Church
_Militant_.—Upper Chamber.—Religious Intolerance.—Inquisition.—
Persecution.—Spanish Sabbath.—Devotion.—Infidelity.—The Prado.—
Bull-ring.—Wine Shops.—Frolicking.—Dancing.—Cheap Wines.—Carnival.—
Costumes.—Politeness.—Maskers.—Ancient Belle.—Hobbling Monk.—Pope.—
Natural Goose.—Devil.—Orang-outang.—General Abandon.—Religion and
Folly.—Good Humor
29
CHAPTER V.
MADRID.—PALACE.—BANK.—PICTURE-GALLERY.
Napoleon’s Epigram.—Royal Palace.—Cavalry.—Military Parade.—Plains of
Castile.—Armory.—Swords of Gonzalo de Cordova, Ferdinand, and Charles
V.—Armor of Boabdil.—Revolvers.—Mighty Men of War.—Toledo Blade.—
Stables.—Spanish Horses.—Merino Sheep.—Royal Equipage.—Crazy Jane’s
Carriage.—Her Effigy.—Mischievous Display.—French Language and
Influence.—Slow Coaches.—Cheap Labor.—Architecture.—Banking-house.—
Bank of Spain.—Repose of Manner.—Gold at last.—Railroads.—
Post-office.—Personal Identity.—Rebel General.—Lost Letters.—
Telegraphs.—Progress.—Picture-gallery.—The Immaculate Conception.—
Vision of St. Bernard.—Christ sinking under his Cross.—Equestrian
Portrait of Charles V.—Titian.—Correggio.—Mary in the Garden.—Blas del
Prado.—Hidden Gems.—Murillo.—Material and Ideal Art
39
CHAPTER VI.
TOLEDO.—ITS FLEAS, LANDLORDS, ANTIQUITIES, AND LUNATICS.
Progress.—Hotel Lino.—The wicked Flea.—Easy Manners.—Breakfast.—Model
Landlord and Waiters.—Toledo Butter.—City set on a Hill.—Monuments of
departed Peoples.—Romance.—Architecture.—Oldest City in the World.—
Mythic Founders.—Perfidy of Roderick.—Reign of the Archbishops.—
Decline of Power and Glory.—Cathedral.—Descent of the Virgin.—A fair
Penitent.—Orthodoxy of the Priesthood.—Burning of the Missals.—The
Muzarabe.—The dead Lion better than a living Dog.—Eloquent Epitaph.—
Honors paid the Virgin.—The Alcazar.—Derivation of Mango.—Spanish
Pride.—Peacocks.—Foreign Impressions.—Moorish Gates.—San Juan de los
Reyes.—Thank-offerings.—St. Florinde.—Cave of Hercules.—Legend of the
Cid.—Café.—Toledo Blades.—Virtues of the Tagus.—Sword of Boabdil.—
Lunatic Asylum.—Don Quixote.—Crazy Editors.—Statistics.—Causes of
Insanity.—Spanish Slowness and Temperance.—Sophomores
53
CHAPTER VII.
LA MANCHA.—ANDALUSIA.
Smoking.—Cigarettes at Dinner.—Taking Sanctuary.—Retort.—Tobacco
Culture.—Cuban Monopoly.—Chewing tabooed.—Early Smoking.—Children and
Ladies.—Tobacco Factory.—Cigareras.—Flavored Cigars.—Potash.—Soda.—
Opium.—Intemperate Clergyman.—La Mancha.—Don Quixote.—Treeless
Landscape.—Sheep.—Corn.—Primitive Ploughing.—Husbandry.—
Primogeniture.—Lands of Church and Crown.—Agricultural Schools.—
Periodicals.—Sierra Morena Mountains.—Cautious Engineer.—Manjibar.—
Pickled Chicken.—Moving on.—Perfumes of Arabia.—Resting-place.—
Transatlantic Indigestion.—Andalusia.—Ignorance and Crime.—Government
Education.—Statistics.—Salamanca.—Influence of Climate.—Population.—
The Aloe and Olive.—Oranges and Lemons.—Hills of Andalusia.—Sheep
69
CHAPTER VIII.
CORDOVA.
Cleanliness.—Paved Streets.—Bridge over the Guadalquiver.—Age of the
City.—Wholesale Butchery.—Government.—Mosques.—Baths.—Inns.—Schools.—
Library.—Rural Fête.—Departed Glory.—Palace of Abdurhama.—Beautiful
Evergreens.—Fruits.—Interior of an Ancient House.—Moorish Style.—
Cathedral.—Converted Mosque.—Gate of Pardon.—Court-yard.—Orange
Grove.—Fountains.—Gold Fish.—Elders in the Gate.—The Mecca of Europe.—
Holy Shrine.—Symbolism.—Indulgences.—Bronze Ornaments.—Inscription in
Gothic and Arabic.—Dimensions.—Precious Stones.—The Mihrab.—The
Kalif’s Oratory.—Mosaics.—Devout Mussulmans.—Chapels.—Etching on
Stone.—Impressive Monuments
83
CHAPTER IX.
SEVILLE, ITS CATHEDRAL AND BULL-FIGHTS.
Delicious Climate.—Customs.—Exile of the Moors.—Consequent Decay.—The
Alcazar.—Barbaric Splendor.—A Christian Kingdom.—Cathedral.—A House of
God.—Giant Columns.—High Mass.—Unconscious Worshipper.—Beautiful
Women.—Venus-worship.—Port of Seville.—Fruits.—Don Juan.—Barber of
Seville.—Murillo’s House.—Mosaics.—Moorish Castle.—_Auto-da-fé._—The
Quemadaro.—Field of St. Sebastian.—Circulation of the Bible.—Tower of
Gold.—Treasure House.—Prison.—Bins of Gold.—Decline and Fall of
Spain.—Demoralizing Influences.—Corruption and Robbery.—Yellow Fever.—
Guadalquiver.—Amphitheatre.—A Delicate Lady.—Warlike Husband.—Her
Description of a Bull-fight.—The Ring.—Spectators.—Trumpet-blast.—
Picadors.—Entrance of the Bull.—Charge.—Horseman.—Terrible Sight.—
Chulos.—Banderilleros.—Squibs.—Matador.—Applause.—The Ladies.—
Different Tastes.—Squeamish Husband
92
CHAPTER X.
SEVILLE.
La Caridad.—Art Treasures.—St. John.—Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.—
Moses striking the Rock.—Recovery of Pictures at Waterloo.—French
Thieves.—Venus de Medici.—Thoughtful Amateur.—Museum Fees.—Guardian
Angels of Seville.—Martyrdom.—Murillo’s Pages of the Gospel.—Old
Masters.—Decay of Art.—Bull-fighting.—The Season.—Exaggeration.—
Curious Development.—Effect on the National Character.—Street-plays.—
Feats.—Demoralization.—Spanish Pride.—Morality.—Contrast between the
North and South of Europe.—Costume of Andalusia.—Fashion.—Life of the
People.—Price of Labor.—Food.—Climate.—Beer.—Wine cheaper than Water.—
Sack.—Intemperance.—Physical Circumstances.—Social Burdens.—Beautiful
Trait.—Obedience.—Veneration of the Aged
107
CHAPTER XI.
MALAGA.
An ill Wind that blows no Good.—Curious Excuse for Crime.—Old World like
the New.—Resort for Invalids.—Genial Clime.—Range of Thermometer.—
Mineral Waters.—Sunshine.—Rainfall.—Heavenly Skies.—Advice to
Consumptives.—Grapes.—Raisins.—Wine and Oil.—A Sabbath.—Service at the
British Consulate.—Mrs. Partington.—English Chaplain.—Sermon.—Narrow
Streets.—Sweet Memories of Cologne.—Picturesque Moors.—Cathedral.—High
Mass.—Florid Architecture.—Fruits.—Prayer of a Dying Moor.—Florinde.—
Chronicles of Washington Irving.—Luxuries of Travel.—Diligences.—Out
of Malaga.—Obstinate Mules.—Night.—Mountains.—Setting Sun.—Lovely
Scenery.—Orchards.—Armed Guards.—Gentlemen of the Road.—Loja.—Inn.—
Flock of Fleas.—A Stimulant.—Setting out for Granada.—Santa Fé.—Its
History.—Granada at Last.—In the Grounds of the Alhambra
118
CHAPTER XII.
THE ALHAMBRA.
The Paradise of the West.—Rivers of Eden.—New Damascus.—Granada.—Origin
of the Name.—Fruits.—Mountains.—Skies.—Moorish Empire broken.—Zawi Ibu
Zeyri.—Alhambra.—Meaning of the Name.—Extension of the Castle.—
Original Grandeur.—Its first Prince.—His Improvements.—Roads.—
Colleges.—Hospitals.—Canals.—Arts.—Sciences.—Degeneracy.—Intrigues and
Murders.—Ruin.—Final Overthrow of Moorish Power.—Ferdinand and
Isabella.—Columbus.—Fleas and Cake.—Blessing and Gold.—New World in
the West.—Bookstore.—Irving’s Tales.—Gate of Judgment.—Plateau.—
Desolation.—Court of Myrtles.—Court of Lions.—Boabdil.—Abencerrages.—
Treachery.—Hall of Ambassadors.—Bensaken.—Walking Cyclopedia.—
Prudence.—Washington Irving.—Dolores.—Queen’s Garden.—Hall of Two
Sisters.—Harem.—Linderaka Gardens.—Queen’s Dressing-room.—Gypsies.—
Perfume Bath.—Water Bath.—Governor’s Court.—Bowed Slab.—The Morning
Star
129
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ALHAMBRA (_continued_).
The poor Cobbler of Granada.—Spanish Rule of Living.—Xantippe.—Search
for Gold.—Messenger Dove.—Dreams.—Landslip.—Fever cured.—Conversion.—
The Watch Tower.—Magic Bell.—Parapanda Mountains.—Reign of Law.—Gift
to the Duke of Wellington.—Bloody Pass.—Vega.—Water Gates.—The Last
Sigh of the Moor.—His Mother’s Reproof.—Moorish Race.—Political
Prisoners.—Birthplace of Eugenie.—The Generaliffe.—Ancient Tree.—
Suspected Queen.—Women of Spain.—Sins of Climate
144
CHAPTER XIV.
GRANADA.
Troubadour and Gypsy Life.—Dwarf.—Horse.—Fair.—Physique of the gitanos.—
Habits.—Habitations.—Moral Principle.—Chastity.—Swindling.—
Superstition.—Fortune-tellers.—Credulity.—Trickery.—Parisian
Spiritualist.—Gypsy Creed.—Musings.—Causes of Astonishment.—Paintings
and Cathedrals.—Unworthy Ambition.—Silence in Church.—Cathedral of
Granada.—Chapel Royal.—Tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella.—Tomb of Philip
and Crazy Jane.—Obliging Priest.—Fees.—Leaving Granada.—Disguised
Thief.—Seizure and Imprisonment.—Out of Granada
155
CHAPTER XV.
GENEVA.—FREYBURG.—BERNE.
Geneva.—Color of the Rhone.—Cæsar’s Wall.—Cathedral.—Calvin.—Lady Jane
Grey.—Rousseau.—Voltaire.—Madame de Stael.—Byron.—Jura.—Mont Blanc.—
Celebrities.—Coppet.—Ninon.—St. Protais.—Lisus.—Morges.—Grand
Muveran.—Diablerets.—Mont Rosa.—Mont Blanc.—Lausanne.—St. Anne.—Sacred
Rat.—Cathedral.—Convention of Reformers.—Gibbon.—Classic Ground.—
Chillon.—Bonnivard.—Torture Chamber.—Hotel Byron.—Railroad.—Ice.—Swiss
Valleys.—Freyburg.—Suspension Bridge.—Great Organ.—Cathedral.—
Wonderful Music: its Power and Sweetness.—Berne.—Morat.—Burgundian
Custom.—Public Bears.—Unfortunate Englishman.—Curious Clock.—Market
Women.—Federal Palace.—Swiss Cantons.—Bernese Alps.—Thun.—Jungfrau
165
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BRUNIG PASS.—LUCERNE.
Pleasant Ride.—Interlaken.—Lakes Thun and Brienz.—Abendberg.—Faulhorn.—
Giesback.—Illumination.—Ascent of the Brunig.—Vale of Meyringen.—Falls
of Reichenbach.—Lungern.—Splendid Courage.—Cheap Suffering.—Modern
Reformers.—Mount Pilatus.—Myths.—Lucerne.—Population.—St. Leger.—
Service.—Crucifix.—A Devotee.—Mass.—Organ.—Cloisters.—Lake Lucerne.—
Lion of Lucerne.—Dance of Death.—Striking Scenery.—Gersau.—Brunnen.—
Bay of Uri.—Sir James Mackintosh.—Swiss Patriots.—Chapel of Tell.—
Cascades.—Fluellen.—Altorf.—Captain Lott
186
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BLACK VIRGIN OF EINSIEDELN.—LIFE IN SWITZERLAND, ETC.
The Hermit Meinrad.—His Black Virgin.—Murder.—Detective Ravens.—
Monastery.—Miracle.—Shrine.—Pilgrims.—Revenue.—A Barefooted Penitent.—
Village Church.—Fountain.—Gallery.—Abbot.—Hospitality.—Library.—
College.—Monastic Life.—Adieu.—Pleasant Quarters.—Meals.—Hotel Life.—
John Bull.—A Charming Couple.—Americans.—A National Feature.—Slang.—
Language.—Manners.—An Elegant Lady.—Selfishness.—French and Swiss
Railroads.—Improvements.—Accidents.—Accommodations
200
CHAPTER XVIII.
CANTON APPENZELL.—SWISS CUSTOMS.
Trogen.—Convent.—Memento mori.—Scenery.—Religion.—German Service.—
Curious Custom.—Constance.—Martyrs.—Dividing Line.—Remarkable Change.—
Cause.—Pillory.—Evening Bell.—Watchman’s Song.—Bridal Custom.—Athletic
Sports.—Democracy.—Assembly.—Office Seekers.—Council.—Roads.—
Taxation.—Schools.—Foreign Pupils.—Pedestrians.—Moral Culture.—
Treatment of Women.—Cows.—Farm Work.—Manufactures.—Mechanics.—God’s
Acre.—Graves.—Funeral Ceremonies.—Simplicity.—Lonely Burial.—
Unpleasing Custom.—Costumes.—The Upper Classes.—Refinement and
Culture.—Manners.—Patriotism.—A Challenge
212
CHAPTER XIX.
GERMAN WATERING-PLACES.—BINGEN ON THE RHINE.
A German Watering-place.—Land of Salt.—Salt Works.—Last of the Barons.—
Homburg.—Kursaal.—Palace.—Gaming.—Kreusnach.—Spas.—Salt Springs.—
Cure-house.—Kissingen.—Baths.—Cures.—Long Sledge-ride.—Princess of
Mecklenburg.—Clerical Postman.—Whey-cure.—Grape-cure.—Rest.—
Rheingraffenstein.—Ebernburg.—Relics of Reformers.—French Cannon
Balls.—The Bingen of Poetry.—The Real Bingen.—Bishop Hatto’s Tower.—
Maüse-thurme.—Southey.—Ehrenfels.—Rudesheimer Vineyards.—Wine-making.—
Shallow Soil.—Johannisberg Vineyard.—The Rhine.—Mayence.—Printing.—
Guttenberg’s Statue.—Cathedral
232
CHAPTER XX.
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
Tomb of Charlemagne.—The Dead Emperor.—Cathedral.—Consecration.—Holy
Shrine.—Healing Waters.—Palace.—Holy Relics.—Remarkable List.—
Septennial Exhibition.—Sultan of Turkey.—Crowd.—Order and Devotion.—
Sultan and Suite.—Stolidity.—Priests and Women.—A Crush.—Pageant
opened.—Procession.—The Relics.—Puseyite Priest.—On the Road to Rome.—
Superstition.—Pictures.—Virgin’s Garment.—Modern Style.—Holy Shirt.—
Other Relics.—Pilgrims.—Revenue.—Waters.—Fountain.—Music.—Invalids.—
Kurhaus.—Social Ease.—Baths.—Sulphur Water.—Antiquities.—Tower of
Granus.—Statue of Charlemagne.—Bust and Skull
245
CHAPTER XXI.
FRANKFORT.
Graveyard.—Childish Plays.—Cheerful Graves.—Grave of Goethe’s Mother.—
Inscription.—Lovely Sentiment.—Coffin of Goethe.—Wealthy Jew.—
Humiliation.—Ancient Glory.—Ariadne.—Elegant Cars.—Smokers.—Pine
Forests.—Women’s Rights.—Beer Drinking.—A Good Arrangement.—
Frankfort-on-the-Oder.—Krewz.—Dinner.—Gardens.—Scenery.—Nakal.—
Bromberg.—Wedges.—Attentive Servant.—Frontier.—Passports.—The
Vistula.—Poland.—Warsaw
264
CHAPTER XXII.
WARSAW.
Historic Legend.—The Jesuits.—Partition.—Last Insurrection.—Nationality
crushed out.—Attempted Insurrection.—Defeat.—Warsaw.—Armed Despotism.—
Discontent.—Precarious Prosperity.—Russian Rule and Language.—Fate of
a Spy.—Consequence.—Russian Soldiery.—Ill-manners.—Botanical Gardens.—
Observatory.—Palace.—Sobieski’s Monument.—Grave Error.—Illumination.—
Streets.—Drunkenness.—Climate.—Lutheran Church.—Relics of Romanism.—
Mendicants.—Jewish Quarter.—Hospital.—War of Religions.—Statue of the
Virgin.—Little Russia.—Funeral.—English Cock
273
CHAPTER XXIII.
FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
Pretentious Hotel.—Splendid Bridge.—Polite Ticket-seller.—Cars.—
Prairie.—Wretched Peasantry.—Jews.—Railroad Employes.—Lapy.—Mother and
Son.—Bialystok.—Grodno.—Diet of Poland.—Last King of Poland.—Jewish
Holiday.—Lithuania.—Plains.—Napoleon’s Hill.—Monument.—Wilna.—Ruins.—
Insurrection.—Babel.—Dunaberg.—Captive.—Short Night.—Serfs.—Reform.—
Board of Arbitrators.—Emancipation.—Pskof.—Lady Smoker.—St. Petersburg
284
CHAPTER XXIV.
ST. PETERSBURG.
Searching Process.—Peculiar Costumes.—Rough Streets.—Russian Bath.—
Dinner.—Model Guide.—Elegant Diction.—Peter the Great.—Catharine I.—
Striking Contrasts.—Accommodating Weather.—Palace of the Emperor.—
Column of Alexander.—Statue of Peter the Great.—Boy Czars.—Peter’s
Lawyers.—Devotion.—Cathedral.—Trophies.—Isaac’s Cathedral.—Amazing
Splendor.—Worship.—Offerings.—Holy of Holies.—Behind the Scenes.—
Careful Husbands.—Greek and Romish Churches.—Lent.—Sabbath.—Exorcism.—
Honors paid the Virgin
293
CHAPTER XXV.
RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS.
Winter Palace.—Ways of Royalty.—Crown Jewels.—Orloff Diamond.—
Hermitage.—Art Galleries.—Curious Code of Laws.—Royal Museum.—Peter’s
Walking-stick.—Art Culture.—Condition of the Masses.—Laborers.—
Mechanics.—Prices.—Rent.—Food.—Dress.—Peculiar Custom.—Polite
Bankers.—Despot.—Justice.—Verdicts.—Story of Labanoff.—Siberia.—
Abuses.—Academy of Science.—Zoological Museum.—Sunset on the Neva.—
Boatman.—Light at Evening-tide
310
CHAPTER XXVI.
FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW.
American Engineers.—Sleeping Arrangements.—Newspapers.—Drama.—Courtesy.—
Lubanskaia.—Dinner.—Villages.—The Volga.—Murdered Bishop.—Sleeping
Car.—Ladder.—Russian Jargon.—Pathetic Appeal.—Board.—Refreshments.—
Greek Ecclesiastic.—Patriarch Nicon.—New Jerusalem.—Profanity.—
Tyranny.—Revolt.—Pope of the North.—Emperor’s Slight.—Nicon’s
Humility.—Banishment.—Patriarchates.—Dead Level.—Flight of Freedom
322
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW.
A Swiss Landlord.—Fleas.—Shrines.—Palaces, Cottages, and Churches.—The
Moskva.—Circular City.—Kremlin Walls.—Gates.—Chief Entrance.—Picture
of the Redeemer.—Respect.—Cannon.—Miracle.—Splendid Scene.—Tower of
Ivan.—Bells.—Medium of Worship.—Holy City.—Pilgrims.—Bell-making.—
Precious Metals.—Silver Bells.—Chapel of the Betrothed.—Music of the
Bells
330
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW.
Cathedral of the Assumption.—Bones of the Patriarchs.—The Iconastasis.—
Sanctuary.—Archbishop’s Throne.—Coronation Ceremony.—Tombs.—Cathedral
of the Archangel Michael.—Religious Freedom.—Churches.—Cathedral of
St. Basil.—Archangel Cathedral.—Pilgrims.—Golgotha.—Sacristy.—
Religion.—Holy Oil.—Baptism.—Making of the Holy Chrism
340
CHAPTER XXIX.
PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW.
Royal Palace.—Empress’s Drawing-room.—Empress’s Cabinet.—Hall of St.
George.—Hall of St. Andrew.—Gold Court.—Napoleon’s Descent.—
Treasures.—Historical Curiosities.—Precious Orb.—Foundling Hospital.—
Mortality of Foundlings.—Orphan Asylum.—Sheep’s Clothing.—Harvest
Season.—Jews.—Peasants.—Riding School.—Wax-show.—Ethnological
Society.—Travel.—Sydney Smith’s Stick
350
CHAPTER XXX.
FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
Commercial Travellers.—Sparrow Hills.—Church of the Saviour.—Simonoff
Monastery.—Novo-Devichi Convent.—The Moskva.—A Holiday.—Napoleon’s
March.—Borodino.—Evacuation of Moscow.—French Enthusiasm.—Triumphal
Entry.—Surprise.—Incendiarism.—Return of the French.—Horrors of the
March.—Russian Barbarism.—Public Kissing.—From Moscow to St.
Petersburg.—Fussy Ladies.—Klin.—Dinner.—Tver.—Beggars.—Night without
Darkness.—The Fussy Ladies again.—Sunrise.—Marriage Customs
359
CHAPTER XXXI.
FINLAND.
Americans.—Cronstadt.—Fortifications.—Vessels.—Smoking.—Wyborg.—
Saw-mills.—Channel.—Ruined Tower.—Submission of Finland.—Religion.—
Government.—Harvests.—Famines.—Army.—Wages.—Fens.—Lakes and Islands.—
Drosky.—Huge Stones.—Excursion.—Eden in the North.—Serpent in the
Garden.—Long Bills.—Attentions paid Strangers.—A Finnish Lady.—
Fishermen.—A Killing Man.—Gulf of Finland.—Fredericksham.—Sclava.—Hard
Case.—Social Customs
371
CHAPTER XXXII.
Finland (_continued_).
Helsingfors.—Sweaborg.—Fortified Islands.—Society House.—Ducal Palace.—
Finnish Gentlemen.—Senate House.—University.—Observatory.—Library.—
Literature.—Kalewala.—Schiller and Shakespeare.—Language.—Congress.—
Coats of Arms.—Botanical Garden.—House of Refreshment.—Health
Establishment.—Mineral Fountain.—Rocky Islands.—Fishing.—Peasantry.—
Abo.—Hotel.—Good Manners.—Castle.—Cathedral.—Tombs.—Conflagration.—
Carriole.—Kibitka.—Bondkara.—Finns
383
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SWEDEN.
Harbor of Abo.—Swedish Customs.—Eating and Drinking.—Climate.—The
Baltic.—Stockholm.—Porters.—Hotel Rydburg.—Pleasant Quarters.—
Scandinavia.—Odin.—Sagas.—Christianity.—Lutheran Religion.—King.—
Congress.—Hospital.—Physicians.—Clergymen.—Education.—Religious
Toleration.—The Press.—Cost of Living.—Vice.—The Riddarholm’s Kyrkan.—
Tomb of Gustavus Adolphus.—Reformation.—Royal Palace.—Picture
Gallery.—Library.—Codex Aureus.—King of Sweden.—Mimic War.—Standing
Army.—Order.—Thieves
394
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Sweden (_continued_).
Drottningholm.—Lake Malar.—Sigtuna.—Odin.—Superstition.—Pirates.—Rural
Life.—Professor Olivecrona.—Islands.—Chateau.—Commercial Life.—
Manuscripts.—University of Upsala.—Codex Argenteus.—Icelandic
Literature.—Standard of Education.—Students.—Costume.—Cathedral.—
Statue of Thor.—Old Upsala.—Mora Stone.—Mass Meetings.—Graves of Pagan
Deities.—Temple of Odin.—Ancient Tower.—Battle-field of Faith.—Deer
Park Restaurant.—Social Customs.—Swedish Homes.—Content.—Moral
Progress
409
CHAPTER XXXV.
Sweden (_continued_).
Steam Canal.—The Oscar.—View of Stockholm.—Sodertelje.—St. Olaf.—The
Gota Canal.—Castles and Legends.—Soderkoping.—Tavern Breakfast.—
Sabbath in Sweden.—Church.—Costumes.—Service.—Snuffing and Nasal
Singing.—Watering-place.—Physician.—College of Health.—Baths.—Mineral
Waters.—Emigration.—Lodging and Board
423
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Sweden (_continued_).
On the Gota Canal again.—Working-girl.—Lake Asplagen.—Swedish
Professor.—Lake Roxen.—Berg.—The Vetra-Kloster.—Graveyard.—Tombs of
the Douglases.—School-house.—Dinner on the Canal.—Crops.—Lock-keeper.—
Lake Boren.—Motala.—Iron-works.—Lake Wetter.—Wadstena.—Pea-crop.—
Peasantry.—Labor.—Cold.—Sunset.—Forsvik.—Russian Gentleman.—Lake
Wenner.—Trout.—Falls of Trollhatten.—River.—Unfortunate Sailor.—
Collection.—Hongfel Castle.—Gottenburg.—Cheap Lodgings.—Museum.—Daily
News.—Training House for Servants.—Philanthropy
433
CHAPTER XXXVII.
NORWAY.
Embarkation.—Breakfast.—Skager-rack and Cattegat.—Freidericksvern.—
Christiania.—Hotel du Nord.—Flowers and Fountains.—Stove.—Norwegian
Breakfast.—Museum.—Superstition.—Duel of the Girdle.—Bridal
Ornaments.—Heathen Relics.—Learning and Letters.—Lake Mjosen.—English
Commercial Traveller.—Boat Library.—Sportsmen.—Church.—Fat Pastor.—
Remnants of Popery.—Costumes.—The Lord’s Supper.—Service.—Devotion and
Reverence.—Oneness of the Church.—Lillehammer.—Cheap Living.—Cripple.—
Christiania.—Carriole.—Post Horses and Boys.—Agershaus.—Robin Hood of
Norway.—Benevolent Institutions.—Grave of Bradshaw
447
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
DENMARK.
Skager-rack and Cattegat.—Magnificent Sunset.—Elsinore.—Toll.—House of
Tycho Brahe.—Kronborg.—Treaty of Vienna.—Danish Giant.—
Fortifications.—Hamlet’s Grave.—True History.—Royal Castle.—Queen of
Christian II.—Touching Prayer.—Royal Forest.—Castle of Peace.—
Denmark.—Her History.—Valdemar II.—Schleswig-Holstein.—Christianity.—
General Intelligence.—Education.—Copenhagen.—Thorvaldsen’s Museum.—
Statues.—Vanity.—Hall of Christ.—Gems and Bronzes.—Vor Frue Kirke.—
Religion and Art.—Church Service.—Baptism.—Love of Amusement.—
Theatres.—Public Gardens.—Museum.—Ruins.—Monuments.—South American
Gentleman.—Zealand.—Fleas.—Kiel.—Elmshorn.—Home Again
462
SPAIN.
CHAPTER I.
GRANADA.
IN the grounds of the Alhambra, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings
of Granada, what time those conquerors of Spain here held their right
regal court, I have come to sit down and to rest.
My lodgings are just under the walls of the old castle, in sight of its
crumbling towers, in hearing of its many falling waters, and under the
shadow of its English elms, which the Duke of Wellington gave to Spain.
At any moment a few steps take me into the courts and halls and chambers
of the Alhambra. In years past, while this pearl of Arab art and
Oriental splendor was silently suffered to fall into ruin, with the
lapse of centuries, it has been the habit of some travelled authors more
addicted to romance than others, to get the easy privilege of sharing
lodgings with the bats in some deserted chamber, and they doubtless
fancied themselves inspired with the genius of the place, as they
dreamed and wrote where fair sultanas with their charms eclipsed the
splendors of the fairy place itself.
As it is no part of my purpose to indulge in romance while writing these
sketches of the Alhambra and of Spain, and as the walls of a comfortable
inn are much more to the taste of a weary traveller than the stone
floors and open windows of a tumbling old castle, it is my preference to
take up my abode for the present with the good people in the Alhambra
Hotel, and not with the keepers of the palace itself. Besides, there is
no choice left. The government has undertaken the work of restoring the
Alhambra to its pristine beauty, and this process is now going onward
under the direction of Sr. Contreras. He has already displayed so much
skill in imitating the arabesque decorations of the walls, that only a
practised eye perceives the difference when the ancient and the modern
art appear in the same chamber.
Architects as well as amateur travellers from all parts of the civilized
world, for centuries past, have made artistic and pleasure journeys
hither to study and admire the style that has nothing like it except in
Spain, and here only where the Moors held sway. And perhaps no work of
art in the whole world has been more frequently and fully described than
the Alhambra of Granada. History, poetry, and science have tried their
several hands upon it. Romance has been so busy with it that it is not
an easy task to disentangle the web of fiction, and get the only part of
the tale worth knowing. So dear is truth, the simple, naked truth of
history, to every true soul, that he is a great doer of evil who seizes
upon history, and while professing to write it, weaves into his story
the fancies of his own prolific genius, and that so deftly and so
charmingly that the whole is accepted as veritable history, and the
romance as the most credible and interesting of the whole. Early English
history has thus been illustrated and inextricably confused. The spell
of the magician’s wand has thus made the conquest of Mexico a poem
rather than a reliable narrative. And Spain, more than any other land,
is now hopelessly given up to legends and doubtful chronicles, modern
and antique, so that one who reads must have either the credulity of a
devotee, or the indifference of folly, to read with satisfaction the
ancient history of the Peninsula.
But the Alhambra is here! Granada is where it was a thousand years ago!
The same deep blue sky, the bluest sky that covers any land, hangs over
its magnificent Vega or plain, through which the Darro and the Genil,
united, flow! The hills, each one with a story that can be scarcely
heard without a tear, stand where and as they did when the Moors were
masters of this region, which they thought the terrestrial paradise of
man, and immediately under the celestial mansions where the Prophet and
the Houris await the coming of all true believers. The Sierra Nevada,
covered with perpetual snow, seems close at hand, as it lies on the
eastern horizon, and in this cloudless sky and brilliant atmosphere the
long range shines like silver mountains in the noontide, as it did when
fleet horsemen brought its ice in baskets to cool the drinks of Wali
Zawi Ibu Zeyn, its first Moorish king. Those snowy summits reminded the
Arabs when they came here of Mount Hermon, and this plain seemed to them
to surpass in fertility and beauty the Vega around Damascus.
And to this day the palm-tree, the pomegranate, and the fig, the orange
and lemon, the olive and vine, flourish under the genial sun. In these
declining years of the nineteenth century, with a railroad running into
the city across the heart of this paradise, and telegraphs linking it
with Madrid and London and Washington, the peasants still scratch the
ground with the root of a tree for a plough, and carry their produce to
market on the back of a donkey.
The creations of the Moors in Spain form the most remarkable chapter in
human art. To me, Spain has been a new discovery; a sudden revelation of
a world within a world; the monuments of an extinct or departed race
standing alone in a desert. The generation that now possesses the soil
has nothing of the genius or taste or spirit of the barbaric tribes that
were once their masters. And the Alhambra at Granada, the Mosque at
Cordova, and the Alcazar at Seville, look like the wrecks of a stranded
empire, whose people live only in their glorious ruins.
In the language of a brilliant historian, “Spain stands to-day a hideous
skeleton among living nations.”
They have a legend here that Adam made a visit to the earth a few years
ago, to see how his farm was getting on. He alighted in Germany, and
found schools and colleges and books, and the people intent on learning.
He soon left it for France, where the people dressed in fantastic
styles, and were mad upon works of art and improvements unknown to our
great ancestor. Disgusted with all he saw, he came down to Spain, and,
with delight, exclaimed, “This is just as I left it.”
Adam was nearly right. Of all the countries in Europe this is more _as
it was_ than any other. The greatest calamity that ever happened to
Spain was its expulsion of the Moors; and it will be a century, perhaps
many centuries, before the arts and sciences will flourish on this soil
as they did before that year, so memorable for the discovery of the New
World by Columbus, and the overthrow of the kingdom of Granada by
Ferdinand and Isabella. Both those events, forming the most momentous
epoch in the history of Spain, occurred in the year 1492, from which
period we may date the decline of an empire enriched by the untold
wealth of a new world added to its possessions, and strengthened by the
destruction of the last stronghold of its former conquerors and masters.
Foreign capital and enterprise have forced railroads across her
mountains and plains, but the capital and enterprise of the world cannot
make them profitable, when the people have no industry and no ambition.
The mines of Spain are so rich that she has no need of possessions in
the gold fields of the western hemisphere; and they have been known and
worked ever since the days of the Phœnicians, when Andalusia was the
Tarshish of Holy Scripture. Yet Spain is more distinguished to-day, as
being behind the world, than for aught it has done or is doing for
itself or others. And it often seems to a traveller here in Spain that
he is in the Orient, so many manners and customs, so many works, and,
much more, such a want of things he is wont to meet with in the more
civilized nations, remind him that he is among a people who have derived
much of what they have and are from lands at the other end of the
Mediterranean Sea.
It has a mixed race of inhabitants. It would not be strange if it had a
mixed government also. Successive tides of people have swept over it,
and the vestiges of all are left on the surface of the nation. Very
little, indeed, is known of the days when the Iberians from Caucasus,
and the Celts from Gaul, were the rude settlers of Spain; but the traces
are more plain of the Phœnicians, who came here 1500 years before the
birth of Jesus, and founded Cadiz and Malaga, and Cordova and Seville.
In the year 218 before Christ the Romans came, and, of course, conquered
all Spain, and reigned here just six centuries. Then came the Goths,
sweeping the Romans out of Spain as they crushed Rome in Italy. And the
Goths ruled Spain precisely 300 years. Then came the Moors, and, in two
pitched battles, smote the Gothic Christian power to the earth; and,
like a hurricane from the African coast, rushed up from the south, and
never stayed its destructive course till the crescent had supplanted the
cross on every tower in Spain. The Moors were lords of Spain just seven
centuries. Gradually the crescent waned, as the Catholic Christian kings
recovered strength, until St. Ferdinand captured Cordova, in 1235, and
Ferdinand and Isabella completed the work at Granada, on the third day
of the year 1492, and the last of the Moorish kings fled from the
Alhambra.
CHAPTER II.
OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN—THE BASQUE PROVINCES.
AWAY down in the south-west corner of France, on the Bay of Biscay, was
a hamlet on a rock-bound coast, which has of late years suddenly sprung
into the notice of the world. The sunshine of imperial favor ripened the
modest bud of a humble village into a flower of remarkable beauty. What
was a short time since quite unknown, is now the fashionable
watering-place of France. Selected by the late Emperor as his autumnal
resort, he built a handsome chateau, and named it _Eugénie_, and thus
made the fortune of Biarritz.
Here we spent a few days of rest after a long and wearying journey. The
coast is dangerous. The bay is rough to a degree that has become a
proverb. An attempt was making under government direction to construct a
breakwater, so as to enclose a “harbor of refuge,” and one is greatly
needed. A process, new to me, but perhaps common, was going on: that of
building rocks, or blocks, to make the projecting pier. Thousands of
square feet of rock are here in the hills, but, for some reason, it is
preferred to form a concrete mass with stone and cement. These are made
in cubes of six or eight feet, with two grooves underneath them, and
when they have stood long enough to be proof against water, levers are
thrust under them, a derrick hoists them upon a platform which is moved
on a railway to the pier, where they are launched off into the deep. The
fury of the waves at this point, especially in rough weather, is
frightful. The new breakwater was recently swept away. Two or three
workmen were caught by the waves rushing higher than was expected, and
the poor fellows were carried off into a deeper ocean. This terrified
the others, and they declined to expose themselves to such dangers. The
priests came to the rescue. They set up an image of the Virgin on an
overhanging rock. She looks down benignly on the work and the workmen.
Not one has been swept away since she stood there!! Confidence is
restored. The breakwater is gradually extending. It will cost an immense
sum, and if the Virgin is so successful in saving the lives of the
landsmen in building it, one would think she might just as easily save
the sailors, and so render the harbor unnecessary.
On this stormy coast, where the surf breaks over huge rocks, and
sometimes rushes curiously through them by passages worn in ages of
incessant roll, there are several coves where the beach slopes gradually
to the sea, and the smooth sand floor furnishes delightful bathing
grounds. Here, in the season, the court used to disport itself in other
robes than those of royalty, and among the crowds of fashionable people,
who in fantastic _deshabille_ indulge in the ocean bath, were daily seen
the Emperor and Empress and the remarkable boy who astonished the mayor
by being the son of an Emperor when only ten years of age!
A courier, or travelling servant, is usually more of a nuisance than
assistance, but I had to have one. He had the Spanish name of Antanazio,
was of course familiar with the language, and he spoke French also, but
not a word of English. He was a half devout Catholic, and professed to
be very discriminating in his faith, rejecting many of the notions of
his countrymen, and swallowing others without a strain. He was a big
fellow, so big that he could easily have taken me under one arm and my
companion on the other, and marched into or out of Spain at any moment.
He was the terror of the cabmen and porters and waiters, bullying,
swearing, and pushing his way through the thickest of the fight, in
those struggles that attend every arrival of a passenger in any part of
the world. He was just about as honest as the race to which he belongs.
Every traveller thinks his own courier a pattern of honesty. I have had
them in a dozen different countries, and never yet was able to put the
word _honest_ into the certificate which they craved at the end of the
journey. Some are better than others. Any one of them is worse than
none, if you have a slight knowledge of the country. Antanazio was in
league with every hotel man to get as much out of us as he could, and he
made up for his frauds on a large scale by an excess of zeal to save a
few coppers for us when a poor porter or sacristan was to be paid for
service. The gnat and the camel were familiar to Antanazio. Yet he was
one of the best couriers to be found, and he shall have the benefit of
this notice.
Just before we leave France to go into Spain we pass a village, here
mentioned only to cite an eloquent epigram inscribed around the dial of
the clock on its tower: “_Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat_.” Even so; each
flying moment wounds: the last slays. And after quitting the Hendaye
station, we dash across the river Bidassoa, which divides the two
kingdoms. It would take us the rest of the day merely to read the
history that invests this crossing with interest for all time. A little
dry spot is in the bed of the river. There kings and queens and generals
have met to settle affairs of state as on neutral ground, and the petty
patch has come to be called the Island of Conference. Here, in the
middle of the dividing river, Louis XIV. of France had his first meeting
with Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. of Spain, and they were
married in the cathedral of St. Jean de Luz on the French side of the
river. On the same spot the kings of France and Spain met in 1463 to
negotiate; and here too, in 1645, Isabella the daughter of Henry IV. was
_exchanged_ for Anna of Austria, the one to be the wife of the king of
Spain, and the other of France. In 1526, Francis I., who was a prisoner
of Charles V., was here given up, and his two sons accepted as hostages
in his stead. We go thousands of miles to visit a spot that has thus
been made sacred and famous, yet one can hardly tell why he looks with
interest upon ground so sanctified. The grass and the weeds grow just as
freely, and the birds are as careless in their songs, and the water
flows on as it always flows; but still no thoughtful traveller can pass
such landmarks in the march of great events, without pausing to observe
the effect which those events have had on the history of the world. And
this is one of the greatest objects before us as we enter and traverse
Spain. It is a land of history: of romance too; and perhaps both are
equally interesting. For every line we cross, and every city and
province we visit, is rich in association, even if the land is now but a
great sepulchre of great peoples.
And we were in Spain. On the northern frontier, and in instant contact
with the people of France, is a race that is Spanish only in name, and
hardly that; a race that has, through all the mutations of government in
this unstable country, maintained a sort of independence, with rights
and privileges, manners and customs so peculiar to themselves, that they
may be said to be _in_ Spain, but not _of_ Spain.
On the anniversary of the death of one of their number, the friends
gather at the grave, and offer to the departed gifts of bread and fruit,
as if they required supplies of food for the endless journey in another
world. On the holidays, which are many in a year, they are wild in the
dance, with the tambourine and bagpipe and castanet, being far more
demonstrative in the height of their excitement than the more southern
inhabitants of Spain. They are a proud race, and more proud of their
ancestry than any thing else, the poorest peasant among the hills
displaying on the door of his hut a coat of arms, and claiming descent
from some ancient and illustrious house. As a race they have no trouble
in reckoning their pedigree back to Tubal and Noah, and unless your tree
of genealogy has branches springing out of a trunk that bears the name
of Adam, these people are far ahead of you in the line of their
ancestry.
They occupy the Basque Provinces, three divisions, small in extent,
lying among the Pyrenees and on the Bay of Biscay. They are probably
lineal descendants of the first settlers of Spain, and may be correct in
their boast that they are not tainted with Roman or Moorish or
Gothic-German blood. They still speak a language so strange and so
formidable to a foreigner that it is said no one has been able to master
it. There is a tradition among them that the devil himself spent five
years in studying it, and was able to learn three words only. But after
much inquiry I could not trace this tradition to any reliable source. In
fact, it is said that one or two bold and persevering scholars have
actually made some inroads into the language, but the discoveries made
were a very poor reward for the time and labor spent.
Into this new yet ancient country we enter at once, for it is the
northern gateway of Spain. At the outset of our journey we must “change
cars,” for the Spanish government, in granting license for a railroad to
enter its domains, refused to allow it to be made of the same width with
that of France, as it would in that case afford to the French facilities
for invasion in case of war! The idea is very characteristic of Spain.
And the same stupidity that dictates such an impediment to travel
forgets that every train of passengers coming in from the north is an
invasion that is just as fatal to the regime of Spain as would be
another incursion of Goths or Gauls. Ideas, rather than arms, work
revolutions now-a-days.
The mountains have stretched themselves across this frontier to the
verge of the ocean, and on our right as we go south is a narrow pass
between two precipitous hills, and thus a safe and easily defended path
for ships is made. Within is a snug harbor, where the largest fleet may
lie unseen, and unreached by the storms at sea. Out of this little port
once sailed a man whose name is dear to the American heart; for in the
days that tried the souls of our fathers La Fayette came here into Spain
and took passage to the Western world, to give his sword and his fortune
and his life to the cause of liberty. A little farther on, a high
castle-crowned hill defends the city of St. Sebastian. It is the first
place of any importance after entering Spain. Being so near to France,
and so easy of access by rail, it is common for Englishmen and others to
take a trip to St. Sebastian, from Biarritz, which is only two or three
hours distant, and _then_ they can say they have been to Spain. There is
nothing of interest here to attract the traveller. The Duke of
Wellington, after losing 5,000 men in storming it, drove out the French,
and when his army got possession of the town, they sacked it, set it on
fire, and enacted such scenes of wild debauchery as are not remembered
without a blush of shame after the lapse of more than half a century. To
please visitors from the north, and to make their town a fashionable
resort in the season, the people of St. Sebastian have a bull-ring, and
exhibit on a small scale the national entertainment of a weekly
bull-fight. For it must not be supposed that Spanish blood only is
delighted with this savage sport. The French love to see blood; and the
English, whose highest national sport is the prize-fight; and Americans,
who have been known to allow a prize-fighter to be sent to their
national Congress,—all take great pleasure in seeing horses, bulls, and
men, in one grand _mêlée_, wounded, bleeding, dying; and the fairest of
some of the most delicate little women of these Christian countries clap
their hands when the bull gets the advantage and tosses his bleeding
victim into the air.
We are now in the midst of the mountains. The road gradually rises as we
advance, and frequently makes its way through the heart of the hills.
The valleys lie sweetly far below. If the road followed the line of the
valleys it might be exposed to frequent injury by floods. And as this
range must be crossed, it is better to make the ascent as easy as
possible. We might be in Switzerland, so like it are these farms on the
hill-sides and in the valleys; the sounds that break on the ear are the
same: the houses scattered in cosy nooks, or clustered in little
villages which the church crowns with a blessing as of heaven. The oxen
have their head and necks covered with a sheepskin or a woollen blanket
to protect them from the rain. They drag a cart of which the wheels are
a solid block of wood secured with a tire. There has been a fair to-day
in some one of the villages, and men and women are going home, leading
cattle they have purchased. The men are well formed, athletic, straight,
and good-looking. The women are a superior race, and even when leading a
calf the peasant woman steps proudly along as if she were entering her
drawing-room. Their hair is their glory, worn pendant on their backs. Of
their moral and mental culture little is known, as they have slight
intercourse with the outer world. From the beginning they have had a
government of their own, sometimes being cut up into republics, and
managing the most of matters in their own way. Even when they have
claimed their own congress, and tariff, and army, the Spanish government
has thought it the part of discretion to humor them. When emerging from
these provinces into Castile, our luggage was searched to find any
tobacco we might be smuggling: for this is one of the privileges of the
Basque Provinces, that they may import tobacco free of duty, but it is
under a tariff the moment we pass beyond. In this region the Indian corn
of our own country is the principal production. Peaches, apples, and
cherries are abundant. Iron mines are worked, and furnaces are
frequently seen in full blast. Cloth and paper mills are in operation.
The inhabitants have an energy and enterprise far superior to that of
the people farther south. Many of them become seamen. Some have made
discoveries in distant seas. One of the most peculiar of their ideas,
and one that may account for the lofty bearing of their women, is, that
the right of primogeniture exists among them, but it applies to the
first-born child, whether son or daughter! This often places the woman
at the head of the house, so that she can say, as few women elsewhere
can say, “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is my own.”
Property is very widely diffused among the people; farms seldom comprise
more than ten acres, so that there can be no great practical
distinctions among them on account of wealth. They divide their farms
with hedges instead of fences or walls, while in the more southern parts
of Spain they put up no fences of any sort, but merely mark the bounds
of land with a stone, which cannot be moved without incurring a curse.
In a charming valley, among hills clothed with chestnut-trees, and the
meadows with orchards of apples and pears, lies the village of Tolosa,
and farther on we rested at Vitoria, a famous city, the capital of the
Province of Alava, and celebrated as the scene of a great battle between
the English and the French in 1813. The Duke of Wellington led the
British and beat the French under Joseph Buonaparte, who fled in such
disorder and haste that all the pictures he had stolen in Spain, and
five millions of dollars, fell into the hands of the Duke.
We are now leaving the Basque Provinces: Miranda is the first town in
Castile at which we stop. An immense railroad station is in progress of
erection, showing the expectation at least of a great amount of
business. We hope the hope may be realized. Crossing the river Zadorra,
and now the Ebro, and along the Oroncillo, we are again in the midst of
the wildest and grandest mountain scenery, as we take our iron way
through the frightful gorges of Pancorbo. And even here the legends of
Spain begin to invest the crags and ruined castles with the interest of
romance. For on these heights are the remnants of the castle where
Roderick, the last king of the Goths, brought the beautiful Florinda,
whom he saw as David saw Bathsheba, and seeing loved, not wisely but too
well, and loving, lost his crown, his honor, his kingdom, and his life.
CHAPTER III.
BURGOS—THE ESCORIAL.
NOTHING purely Spanish comes in sight till we get to Burgos. This old
city is half-way from the frontier to Madrid, and is just so slow,
sleepy, and sluggish a town as one should see to get a correct
impression of Spain at the start. About a thousand years ago, Diego
Porcelos, a knight of Castile, had a beautiful daughter, Sulla Bella,
who was loved and won by a German, and they founded this city, calling
it from a German _Burg_, a fortified place, Burgos. For many long years
it was independent, governed by a council. Afterwards, Gonzales was made
the governor, as Count of Castile, who and his heirs reigned until,
under Ferdinand I., in 1067, by a happy marriage, the crowns of Leon and
Castile were fused into one.
[Illustration: BRIDGE, GATEWAY, AND CATHEDRAL OF BURGOS.]
The legendary hero of Spain, whose exploits are only less than those of
Hercules, was born in Burgos, and what is more and better, his bones are
here in the Town Hall; and if any doubt is entertained of the fact that
he actually lived and died and was a wonderful man, between the dates of
his birth and death, such doubts ought to be dispelled by a sight which
I had of an old brass-bound, mouldering chest, sacredly preserved in one
of the inner and holy chambers of the cathedral, and called the coffer
of the Cid. Once on a time the Cid had occasion to borrow a large sum of
money of two Jewish bankers in Burgos, and he left with them as security
this trunk, with, _as he said_, all his jewels and gold in it. He did
not pay the money when it was due, and the chest being opened by the
lenders was found full only of sand! It was thought in those days a
merit to cheat a Jew, and the Romanists show their estimate of the trick
to this day by keeping the swindling coffer among their precious relics.
But it is hardly probable that a Jew ever lived who would lend money
without first _seeing_ the security, and the story therefore lacks
probability. However this may be, we are now in the city of the Cid, and
though a Christian knight, he had read the words of the Prophet of the
Moor,—“There are three sorts of lies which will not be taken into
account at the last judgment: 1st, One told to reconcile two persons at
variance. 2d, That which a husband tells when he promises any thing to
his wife; and 3d, A chieftain’s word in time of war.” Such is the
morality of Mahomet, and there is not a little of the same Jesuitism
under other names.
[Illustration: THE CID.]
The city has 25,000 inhabitants, and one of the most splendid cathedrals
of Europe; but not a hotel that is decent. We went to the best, and its
entrance was strong with the smell of the stables. The first flight of
steps inside was littered with dust and straw, and it looked as if we
were to be led to a manger, which word is, indeed, the same with the
French _salle à manger_, a dining-room. Yet this proved to be as fair a
hotel as Spain at present offers to its friends from abroad. They are
all inferior to second-rate hotels in France or Switzerland, and many
that profess to be first-class are execrable. The charges are higher
than in better houses in countries where living is dearer, so that the
business of entertaining strangers in Spain is an organized imposition.
The roads are now free from robbers who formerly infested them and made
travelling dangerous. The robbers have evidently left the highway and
gone to keeping the hotels. They still rob travellers, with less risk
and trouble than in the olden time.
An Englishman by the name of Maurice, being high in the favor of
Ferdinand, the saint and hero, laid the foundation, A. D. 1221, of the
Burgos cathedral, which fairly challenges comparison with any or all of
the finest specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in the world. Having
been built in successive periods, and these at long distances from each
other, there is a want of harmony in the parts, but this is observed
only by the professional eye, while to others, and especially on one who
enters this first of the great edifices of Spain, its interior bursts
with a blaze of grandeur covered with beauty, that fairly dazzles while
it awes and delights him. And after having visited and leisurely studied
half a dozen others, including those of Toledo and Seville, I regard the
cathedral of Burgos as exhibiting a degree of perfection in detail, an
elaborate execution to adorn and embellish a sanctuary, not equalled by
any of its rivals in Spain.
And it is to Spain that we must come to see what the art and consecrated
wealth of princes and priests can do to build temples in honor of God.
Italy has nothing like them. St. Peter’s is the largest Christian church
in the world, and perhaps more labor and money have been expended upon
it. But as a Christian church it is a failure, without and within. Not
so with any of these magnificent monuments of human power and devotion.
The towers of this, at Burgos, with their graceful, open-worked
pinnacles, spring up as if seeking the sky. The gates are grand, and
surrounded and crowned with _bas reliefs_. Around the towers are seventy
statues, of prophets and apostles, and over the transept are twenty-four
life-size statues of female saints, each covered with a canopy, as
guardian angels on this house of prayer. Moses and Aaron, in stone,
stand by one of the doors, with Peter and Paul, and in the vestibule is
the Saviour, and around him the four evangelists are writing the holy
gospels, while at least fifty statues, apostles, angels with
candlesticks, seraphs, and cherubs, add to the ornament of this one
gate.
It is quite impracticable to convey by words, and it is a fact that
drawings or photographs of interiors fail to convey an idea of the view
which one meets on entering a vast cathedral. The impression is on a
devout mind, whether of the same faith with that professed by the
ministers at these altars or not, the impression is one of solemnity and
sublimity. When the enlightened stranger comes near to study the
wretched additions which superstition has made to the simplicity of
Christian worship as established by its founder, his taste and
principles may be shocked and revolted by what he sees and hears in
gorgeous and glorious cathedrals. But these are abuses that have crept
in: _fungi_ on the trunks of grand old forest trees, under whose
branches it is a delight to sit and think of him who dwells in a nobler
temple not made with hands. Three hundred feet long, and two hundred
feet and more wide within, and chapels yet beyond, each one large enough
for a church, and two hundred feet to the roof, which is supported by
vast pillars of stone, and each one of them wrought elaborately with
garlands, and fruits, and images of angels, and historic scenes and
incidents in Scripture,—such is the first grand view that lies before
us, as we enter the gates of this cathedral in Burgos. It is in the form
of the Latin cross, and at the intersection, the _crucero_, as it is
called in Spanish, the effect of the vaulted dome, and of the whole
minute and elegant workmanship, is so exquisite that the Emperor Charles
V. is reported to have said it should be placed under glass, and Philip
II. pronounced it the work rather of angels than men. I could discern
nothing worthy of such exaggerated eulogy, while admiring the harmonious
proportions and the graceful combinations that enhance the effect of
elaborate sculpture and ingenious decorations.
Four massive columns, embellished with allegorical sculptures, form the
transept, and above them the main arches spring. Angels bear aloft a
banner, inscribed, “I will praise thee in thy temple, and I will glorify
thy name, thou whose works are miracles.”
Just here, for we were coming toward the high altar, Antanazio dropped
upon his knees, on the marble floor. A little bell had been rung, and
all the Catholics in the cathedral bent to the ground as the host was
elevated for their adoration in the celebration of the mass. We stood
before the high altar, resplendent above and about it with wrought
silver and gold and rich carving and sculpture, in which the life and
death of the blessed Saviour are inscribed in mute yet expressive
symbols. In the choir are more than a hundred stalls or seats of carved
walnut, each one of them an elaborate work of art, rich with figures of
men and beasts, the virgin and saints in martyrdom and in glory; and one
of these saints is astride of the devil, in memory of the fact that the
devil did carry this saint from Spain to Rome in one night. That’s
better time than any of the Spanish railroads can make.
We were led by a kind sacristan through the various chapels, all rich in
tombs of costly workmanship, and some containing relics which, to the
believer in their virtue, are of priceless value; one of these precious
treasures being a statue of Christ on the cross, which we were expected
to behold with deep reverence. It is asserted and believed to have been
carved by Nicodemus just after he had buried the Saviour. It is,
therefore, an authentic likeness; and if any doubt existed of its being
a genuine work, it is removed by the facts that the hair, the beard, the
eyelashes even, and the thorns, are all natural, _real_; that it sweats
every Friday; that it sometimes actually bleeds; and that it has
performed many miracles. It would have been more impressive on my
unbelieving mind if it had not been girt about with a red petticoat!
[Illustration: THE ESCORIAL.]
The castle has a history in which the names of all the great warriors of
the last thousand years have a part; it has been the prison of some
kings, and the bridal-chamber of queens, and the birth-place of more. In
modern times Napoleon conquered it. And what is more remarkable,
Wellington tried to drive out the French, and failed. It is now a heap
of ruins; for when the French abandoned it they blew it up, but so
bunglingly that some three hundred of them went up with it. The
explosion destroyed the painted windows of the cathedral, an irreparable
loss.
There is nothing in Burgos to see but the cathedral; and that is worth
going to Spain to see, though you may have to put up _at_ and _with_ a
Burgos tavern.
Philip II. came to the throne of Spain in 1556, less than twenty years
before the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day in France, and in the same
century with the Reformation led on by Luther. His history and his
character are familiar to the world. Cold, cruel, bigoted, intolerant,
morose, gloomy, superstitious, the grandson of a woman who was known by
the name of Crazy Jane, and who earned the title, the son of the great
Emperor of Germany, Charles V., who was also Charles I. of Spain, this
Philip II., thus descended and thus endowed, was less a king than a
monk, and in the cloister or the cell was more at home than on the
throne. He was the husband of Bloody Mary of England, and, like her,
verily thought to please God by persecuting the saints and mortifying
himself. Perhaps his queer grandmother had put the idea of a palace and
a monastery and a tomb into his head. Perhaps his father, in the gloomy
hours when he meditated retirement and abdication of his sovereignty,
inspired the son with this strange purpose. Or, more likely, the
conception with him was original, and as no monarch, before him or
since, had such a heart under the guide of such a head, it is only just
to give him all the credit of devising and achieving one of the most
stupendous follies and gigantic monuments that was ever executed by the
hands of men.
The Spaniards reckon the ESCORIAL as the eighth wonder of the world!
About twenty-five miles north of Madrid, in the midst of the dreariest
wilderness of barren, rocky, all but uninhabitable hills, a region where
no beauty of scenery cheers the eye, no silver river winds along through
fertile vales, no verdant slopes are covered with grazing herds, and no
forests with their cool shades invite the tired traveller or the weary
citizen to seek repose,—here, in the last of all places for such an
edifice, is placed the ESCORIAL, the largest and grandest edifice in
Spain, and the most remarkable building now standing on the earth. What
Egypt had when Karnak and Thebes were in their prime, what Babylon and
Nineveh knew in the days of their now buried glory, we have but faint
knowledge. This house covers a square of five hundred thousand feet! It
is about 750 feet long, and 600 feet wide. It is a royal palace. It is a
monastery. It is the sepulchre of the royal family of Spain. It is a
church; and in that church, the chapel of this strange house, there is
more wealth lavished on the pulpits and altars than on any other that I
have seen, in this or any other country. Yet all this is in a
wilderness, far away from cities and the abodes of men who might be
supposed to admire and enjoy such grandeur,—a temple in a desert, a
palace and a sepulchre.
Passing on by the rail from Burgos, we might stop at Valladolid, once
the most renowned of all the cities of Spain, now so utterly decayed as
to be of interest only to antiquarians. Here Ferdinand and Isabella were
married in 1469. Here Columbus, the worn and weary, died in his own
house in 1506. Here he slept in death six years, and then his bones were
removed to Seville, and again to Cuba, that they might rest in the New
World he found. Philip II., whose ESCORIAL we are going to see, was born
here in Valladolid, and after he grew to manhood had the pleasure of
seeing at one time fourteen Protestants, and thirteen at another, burnt
alive, in the Grand Square of the city: a most edifying spectacle, which
strengthened his faith so much that he afterwards dedicated his mighty
structure to the good St. Lawrence, who was broiled to death on a
gridiron, enduring his torments with so much fortitude that he said to
his executioners, “I am done on this side, perhaps you had better turn
me over,”—whence comes the expression, “done to a turn.”
Philip II. made Madrid the capital of his kingdom, holding his court
there or at the Escorial, at his pleasure, for they were only a few
hours apart.
It is a long but pleasant walk from the station to the palace, and it is
better to stroll along the shaded avenues, resting at times on the solid
stone seats, looking upward at the solitary pile ahead, and musing on
the wonderful dead past; the pomp and pageantry, the vast processions of
priests and kings and countless armies of Spain, of France, of England,
that have marched up this same street, in triumph, in penitential grief,
or in funeral array. Away from the world, the world has often come
hither, under the many garbs the world wears, according as it is in
glory or in shame. Entering the grand quadrangle by the chief gate, the
colossal edifice presents its central front and the two lateral
projections in one view; the main façade is adorned with statues of the
principal personages in Old Testament history. Crossing the court, paved
with great granite blocks, we enter, and the massive walls, the cold
damp halls, gloomy in their naked, solid grandeur, make us feel that we
are entering a fortress, and not a palace. It would be impossible to
find your way without a guide. There are sixteen courts within, and out
of each of them long passages lead to eighty staircases, and up these we
may go, if we have time, to twelve thousand doors, and look out of two
thousand six hundred windows, and worship at forty altars!! You wish to
be excused from such climbing and kneeling. Come, then, with me at once
into the church. It is more than 300 feet long, and 230 feet wide, and
320 feet high: of granite all; its columns are majestic in their
proportions, severe in Doric simplicity, supporting twenty-four arches,
so beautifully sprung that, wherever you stand, the eye takes in the
whole at a glance. The pulpits surpass, in the splendor of their finish,
any thing in Italy. The richest, variegated, and most precious marbles,
used as freely as though they were common wood, are adorned with gold
and silver, strangely in contrast with the severity of the church
itself. The altar is reached by a flight of several steps, and on the
right, as we stand in front of it, a window opens into a little chamber,
which we sought with more interest than any other apartment of this
remarkable structure. We went out of the church and into the room. It
was scarcely ten feet by six in dimensions; but it was the favorite
closet, the study and the bedchamber of the monarch who built the whole.
This was all he wanted for himself. It was in sight and hearing of the
service at the high altar. At midnight and before daybreak he could rise
from his couch, and join in the service of the church. I sat down in the
plain old chair, by the table, the same that he used, and put up my feet
on the camp-stool that often held his diseased and agonized limbs, and
looked down from the little window on the priests and people in the
church below. And here in this room death came and called for Philip II.
For long months he had suffered anguish not less than that he had
inflicted on better men than he. Let us leave it for others to say if
like Herod he was smitten for his sins, and destroyed with the same
disease. But when he saw that his end was near, at his order his
servants bore him on a couch through the palace, and the monastery and
the church, that his poor dying eyes might rest once more on all that he
had done, and then they brought him back to his lonely, comfortless
cell, and left him to die. It was on a September Sabbath morning, in
1598, while listening to the service at this altar, and holding in his
hand the same crucifix that fixed the dying eyes of the Emperor his
father, that Philip yielded his spirit into the hands of a just as well
as merciful God!
We left this sad chamber, and descending a flight of steps made of
precious stones, the walls lined with beautiful, polished marbles, we
stood in a subterranean chapel, a mausoleum, shelves on each of the
eight sides, and on each shelf a bronze sarcophagus, and in each coffin
a dead king or queen. The name of each occupant is inscribed on the
outer shell. One of the queens scratched her name on her coffin with a
pair of scissors before she was put in. She could not have well done it
after. There is an altar in this dungeon, and here the late queen of
Spain, who is very devout in her way, came once a year and had a service
at midnight. It adds nothing to the solemnity to have mass here in the
night, for at noonday we had to hold candles in our hands to see our way
in and out.
The _Sagrario_ was a more interesting apartment than this. It has some
fine paintings. I valued them more than the 7,400 relics which are here
preserved with pious care, including the entire bodies of eight or ten
saints, twelve dozen whole heads, and three hundred legs and arms. It
once had—but the fortunes of war have deprived the house of the
treasure—one of the bars on which St. Lawrence was burnt, and one of his
feet, with a piece of coal still sticking between its toes! but the coal
and the toes are lost _in toto_.
One of the priests, who was leading a company of strangers visiting the
place, overheard me asking for the Cellini crucifix, and immediately
took us to the choir, and opened the door of a closet in which this
remarkable work is carefully preserved. It is a Carrara marble statue of
Christ on the cross, and marked by the great Benvenuto himself with his
name and the date, 1562. He was the first who made a crucifix in marble,
and the patient toil and great genius expended on this work have made it
justly esteemed as his master-piece of sculpture.
Yet have I alluded to but one or two out of a thousand things that fix
the attention, and impress one rather with astonishment than delight. I
have not even mentioned the library, which is the crown of the whole,
designed to be the repository of all learning, and in spite of all its
sufferings by violence, it is still rich in rare and valuable books and
manuscripts. The cases are of ebony and cedar. Jasper and porphyry
tables stand through the hall, about 200 feet long, and allegorical
paintings adorn the ceilings.
It was refreshing to get out of it, after walking through the palace and
the cloisters, and to enjoy the warm sunshine beyond the gloomy walls.
Two or three cottages have been built among the groves planted here, and
it seems a mercy to children to provide a more cheery home for them than
a sepulchral palace could be, though of wrought gold.
CHAPTER IV.
MADRID—A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL.
A VALET-DE-PLACE who was leading us to church on Sunday morning in
Madrid, spoke very fair English, and I asked him where he had learned
it. He said, “At the missionary’s school in Constantinople.” He was
quite a polyglot, professing to be able to speak seven languages
fluently. It was interesting to meet a youth who knew our missionaries
there, and entertained a great respect for his old teachers,—and it gave
us an idea, too, of the indirect influence which such schools must be
exerting, when youth are trained in them, and afterwards embark in other
callings than those that are religious in their purpose.
He led us to the Prussian ambassador’s, where the chaplain preaches in
the French language. No Protestant preaching was then allowed in
Madrid,—none, indeed, in Spain,—except under the flag of another
government. The ambassador, or the consul, had the right, of course, to
regulate his own household as he pleases; and, under this necessary
_privilege_, he has, if he is so disposed, a chaplain, and divine
service on Sunday, when his doors are opened to all who choose to
attend. The practical working of it is that a regular congregation comes
to be established under each flag, if there are so many persons of that
country and of a religious tendency as to make it important. In most of
the great capitals of Europe there are people of other countries
resident for business, health, or pleasure, and they find a place of
worship in their own tongue.
The Germans resident in Madrid speak the French language, as well as
their own, and the present chaplain preaches in French. He is an
earnest, excellent man, and his pulpit abilities would make him greatly
useful in a wider sphere than this. In an upper chamber, that would seat
fifty persons, a little congregation, not more than twelve or fifteen,
had come together to hear the Word. The desk, or pulpit, was habited
after the fashion in Germany, with black hangings, embroidered neatly by
the hands of the wife of the Prussian ambassador, and with the words in
French, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.” I was told
that on Christmas and Easter festivals of the church some two or three
hundreds of German _Christians_ come to church and to the communion; but
the rest of the year their spiritual wants do not require the weekly
ordinances, and the congregation rarely exceeds thirty people.
We went after church to the old Palace of the Inquisition. It is now
converted into dwellings. Over the main entrance was the inscription,
common all over these foreign countries, as in some parts of our own,
“_Insured against Fire_.” The poor victims who in former years were
dragged under that portal would have been glad to read such words, if
they could be interpreted into an assurance that they were to be safe
from the fire of an _auto da fe_.
The Spanish Inquisition affords the saddest story in the annals of the
human race. Whatever the name or creed of the persecutor,—Jew or
Gentile, Roman, Greek, Protestant, or Mahometan,—the saddest of all
possible facts is this, that man has put to torture and to death his
fellow-man on account of his religious opinions. Let God be praised that
in all the earth men now may worship him in their own way, with none to
molest or make them afraid.
And it is very well to bear in mind that persecution has its spirit, and
some of its power, even where the victims are by law insured against
fire. In the press and in the pulpit the venom of bigotry and the
bitterness of intolerance may be poured on the heads of those who are
guilty of other opinions than ours, and in God’s sight such persecution
may be as offensive as the rack and boot of the Inquisition. The spirit
of the Master rebukes the use of the sword, even in the hands of Peter,
to cut off a servant’s ear, and the same spirit forbids us to be
uncharitable towards the meanest of those who have not the light of the
grace to see as we see, or to defend Christ in our way.
They have no cathedral in Madrid, but their churches are many, and on
Sunday morning they, women especially, go to church. The Spaniards are
more devout than the Italians. There is a proverb that to go to Rome is
to disbelieve. The people in Spain have not seen Romanism as it has been
seen in Italy, until the popular mind is sick of it. But they make short
work in Spain of their devotions.
The Prado is their park, on the skirts of the town. And this is not
enough for them on Sundays. We saw the crowds pouring out towards one of
the gates, some in carriages, but most of them on foot,—men, women, and
children, hundreds, thousands, in holiday attire,—and we followed.
Beyond the Alcala gate, near which is the bull-ring, half a mile into
the country, we came to the meadows over which these pleasure-seeking
Castillians had spread themselves to enjoy their national and favorite
pastime. A little later in the season, when the weather is warmer,
thousands of these people would stop at the bull-ring, and see the
battle of men and beasts. It is too cool as yet, and the bulls do not
fight well except in hot weather. But it is not too cool to dance out of
doors, and for this divertisement these thousands have come. On the wide
meadows there is not a house, not a shanty, not a shed or booth. We have
passed on the way scores of wine-shops; and there the people can resort
if they choose. But on the grounds there is nothing to be had but the
pure and blessed air. The people are distributed in groups all over the
plain. The grass is green. The sun, a winter sun, is kind and genial.
The city lies in full view, with palaces and domes and pinnacles. And in
the distance, but in this blazing sun and lucid atmosphere apparently
very near, long ranges of mountains stand covered with snow, white,
pure, glistening like silver in the sunlight, and forming a magnificent
background to the gay picture at our feet. In the centre of each of
these many groups a dozen, more or less, of young men and women are
dancing to music. This is furnished by one, two, or three musicians,
strolling bands, with guitars and violins. Often one is an old man,
blind. His wife and daughter are with him, with their instruments. The
airs are not wild, not even lively, as compared with those of Italy. But
they are spirited, and sometimes familiar to a foreign ear; for the airs
of music, like the airs of heaven, travel all around the world. The
dances are pretty and modest, singularly tame, and far from being as
full of frolic and _abandon_ as one would expect to see in the
out-of-door amusements of the common people. For these are the lower
classes only. It is the pastime of the sons and daughters of toil, and
perhaps want. They were not ill dressed, and most of them were well
dressed. But they appeared to be the class of people who had but this
day in the week for pleasure, and were now seeking and finding it in a
way that cost them little or nothing. More were looking on than danced.
Yet the sets changed frequently, and the circle widened as the numbers
of dancers grew, and there was always room for more; for the meadows
were wide, and the heaven was a roof large enough to cover them all.
And the strangest part of this performance is yet to be mentioned; more
than half the men in this frolic of the fields were soldiers of the
regular army, in their uniforms, without arms, enjoying a half holiday.
They and all the rest, men and women, seemed to be as happy as happy
could be. If we had thought the people of Spain, and especially of
Madrid, where the government is felt and seen more severely and nearly
than elsewhere, to be gloomy, sullen, discontented, miserable, and ready
to rise in revolt, such a thought would be put to rout by seeing these
soldiers and others, men and women, thousands and thousands, making
themselves so easily happy of a Sunday afternoon.
In one of the circles of dancers two young men, better dressed than the
rest, were either the worse for liquor, or were feigning to be tipsy. As
the other dancers paid no attention to them, and let them amuse
themselves in their own way, it is quite probable they were playing the
fool. These were the only persons in that multitude, of the lower orders
of the city, who gave any sign of having been drinking any thing that
could intoxicate. There were scores of wine-shops on the street, within
the easy walk of all who wished liquors. It was necessary to pass them
going and coming to and from the city. And thousands doubtless “took
something to drink,” both going and coming. The young men would treat
the girls, and, of course, all would have as much wine as they wished.
For it is almost as cheap as water,—cheaper than water in New York
perhaps; for there the tax that somebody pays for the use of Croton is
something, but here in Spain wine is so cheap that what was left of last
year’s vintage has often been emptied on the ground, or used instead of
water to mix mortar with! Yet drunkenness is not one of the common vices
of Spain.
And so passed my first Sabbath in Spain, worshipping in French with a
dozen Christians in the morning, and looking at thousands of the people
dancing on the green in the afternoon.
Three days before Lent begins the people give themselves up to the
wildest kind of frolic, with a looseness of manner that to a grave and
thoughtful foreigner unused to such scenes at home is at first sight
exceedingly foolish, and then very stupid. The Carnival is a carne-vale,
a farewell to flesh; a grand celebration of the approach of Lent, or the
season when _lentiles_, beans or vegetables only, are to be eaten for
forty days. As the people see the time coming when for more than a month
their religion requires them in a very special manner to abjure the
world, the flesh, and the devil, it seems to be their idea to give the
last three days of liberty to the enjoyment of these three forms of
mammon-worship. If afterwards they served the Lord with half the zeal of
these three days of devil-worship, they would be the most pious people
on the earth. But to one whose religious prejudices are quite vivid
against the nonsense of a Catholic carnival, it seems the queerest way
in the world to get ready for serving God by plunging headlong into a
scene of mad revelry that utterly abjures all sense and reason, and
converts an entire city for three days into a pandemonium.
Yet it is all in such perfectly good humor, so free from riot and
violence and drunkenness, that the only fault to be found with it is
simply this, that the whole community make fools of themselves. The
Romans had a proverb, “It is well to play the fool sometimes,” and
perhaps it is. But when the whole town takes leave of its senses, and
goes frolicking day after day, if it is a good thing, it is too much of
a good thing, and that spoils it all.
Our windows look out upon the Puerta del Sol, the great square of the
city. From it radiate the eight chief streets, and through it every
moment the tide of life is flowing. Now it is the great centre of the
carnival. Along the streets are seen parading small companies of men in
masks and fantastic costumes, with all sorts of musical instruments,
making harsh melodies as they march. Two or three of the set are
constantly soliciting gifts from those they meet, or holding a cap to
catch money thrown to them from the people in the windows and balconies,
who are looking down to see the sport. Some of these rangers are women
in men’s clothes; more are men in petticoats and crinoline, ill
concealing their sex, which a close shaven chin and hard features too
plainly reveal. In this disguise, great liberties are taken. A young
woman stops a man on the sidewalk, claps him on the shoulder, asks him
for money, perhaps chucks him under the chin, and sometimes more
demonstrative still, she throws her arms around his neck and gives him
an affectionate salute in the broad light of day on the most public and
crowded thoroughfare. Even this boldness is taken in good part, and
seldom or never leads to any quarrel. The men were polite to the women.
In no case did I see any rudeness offered by a person in male attire to
a female on the street. The maskers were only out in hundreds, while the
others, looking on and enjoying, were thousands on thousands. These were
in the usual dress of ladies and gentlemen. They expected to find
walking somewhat rough, but they were prepared for it, and would have
been disappointed had it been otherwise. The maskers wore costumes as
various as the fancy of the wearers or the makers could invent them.
Some were clothed in white from head to foot, with stripes of red or
black; their faces painted white like ghosts, or with horns to look as
much like devils as possible. Many were imitation negroes, and this
seemed to be a fashionable attire, as if the African were popular among
the Spaniards, who once had a great horror of the Moors. Some wore a
fantastic head-gear that excited shouts of laughter as they passed. One
man strode along with a false head five times the life size, so nicely
fitted to his shoulders that it looked to be a sudden expansion of his
head into that of a monster. Solemnly the bearer of this prodigious
topknot walked the streets, apparently unconscious of the presence of
the little-headed race of beings who were laughing at his swelled head.
Carriages, open, splendid barouches, and some with seated platforms
prepared for the purpose, drawn by four or six horses, passed by, with
six, eight, and even twelve maskers, all clad in the most inconceivably
ludicrous robes, with queer hats and trimmings; and some of them with
musical instruments, singing, gesticulating, bowing to the ladies in the
windows, and exchanging salutations with the people in the way. The
drivers and postilions and footmen were all rigged in livery to match
the costumes of the company in the carriage, who thus aped the nobility
and even royalty itself in its mockery of stately grandeur. And in the
midst of these maskers, carriages with elegant ladies, in full dress for
riding, go by, and among them, with his legs hanging over the side of
the carriage, is one of the most fantastically got-up maskers, whose
outlandish costume and ridiculous situation call out tremendous
applause.
On the Prado, the great park of the city, thousands of elegant equipages
are out in the afternoon, and the most fashionable people of Madrid are
in the frolic. The ladies are loaded with sugar-plums to throw among the
maskers, and these gay fellows will rush up to any carriage, leap on the
steps, and demand a supply. On the walks, an old dowager in a splendid
velvet cloak and dress, masked and representing an ancient belle, got up
regardless of expense, attracts marked attention as she displays her fan
and feathers, and struts as if in a drawing-room where she imagines
herself admired. An old monk hobbles along, as if broken down with age
and poverty. A procession of priests mocks at religion itself, in a
country where we had thought it a capital crime to make fun of the
priesthood.
And there goes the Pope himself; a man has actually mounted a hat like
the Pope’s, and with white robes and gold lace has made a disguise that
tells its story instantly. And the people laugh to see it. Nothing is
too sacred nor too dignified to be travestied here. A company of mock
soldiers pretend to keep order by making confusion more confounded. By
some strange metamorphosis a man has turned himself into a very
creditable goose, and waddles along most naturally, having some wires at
his command with which he works his bill, his wings, and tail. A bear on
horseback rides up, and Bruin is received with bravos. An ox is mounted
also on a horse, and then a wolf; and even the devil is represented on
horseback, and a woman rides astride behind him and her arms around him,
a hideous, incongruous, but exceedingly ludicrous spectacle. Her hoops
spread far behind, covering the horse’s hips and tail, so that the
figure is half horse, half devil, and the other half woman. One man, as
an orang-outang, leads and exhibits another dressed in the same way.
Parties of dancers, all in these ridiculous costumes, form a ring and
dance the fandango, with castanets and cymbals and guitars, executing
the freest flings and giving themselves to the wildest _abandon_ in the
public streets. Others, men and women, disguised as if in their
night-clothes and ready to go to bed, are wandering about, pretending to
be lost, and their appearance is so comical that one almost forgets it
is play, and pities the poor wanderers.
But the description is growing more wearisome than the scene itself.
Nonsense all, but such nonsense as makes one laugh at first and then
feel sad that grown-up men and women can find amusement, day after day,
in such infinite folly. And where the religion comes in, it is hard to
see. Yet we observe that our American and English friends who have
leanings through their own church towards the Church of Rome, take a
wonderful interest in the carnival. They have some associations with it,
and the fast that follows, that give to all this sport some significance
quite incomprehensible to the uncovenanted unbelievers in the outer
courts.
CHAPTER V.
MADRID—PALACE—BANK—PICTURE-GALLERY.
WHEN Napoleon, as conqueror of Spain, entered the royal palace of Madrid
(it was in 1808, his brother Joseph, the new-made king of Spain, being
at his side), the great captain paused on the splendid marble staircase;
and, as the magnificence of the mansion burst upon him, he turned to his
brother, and said, in his epigrammatic way of putting his thoughts, “My
brother, you will be better lodged than I.”
It is far more splendid than the Tuileries, or any palace in France,
England, Germany, or Italy. It cost more than five millions of dollars a
hundred years ago; and that was a much greater sum of money than now. It
has been enlarged and embellished from year to year ever since. When we
drove up to the grand court, it was so formidably filled with cavalry
that we thought the predicted insurrection was imminent, and the army
had been summoned to the defence of the palace. Not at all. These
mounted soldiers are only the regular guard. In this inner court, or
square, the cavalry, in long line and fierce array, are ready for a
fight with the revolutionists, if they are brave enough, or mad enough,
to try their hands in a tussle with the troops of government, trained
and paid to defend the existing order of things. From the windows of the
armory this martial parade was imposing, though there were but a few
hundreds of mounted men. The officers were clad in polished steel back
and breast plates, which flash brightly in the sun. The uniform is
brilliant, and the riding splendid. Artillery companies, with cannon
mounted, drawn by horses, manœuvre in the square, crossing and
recrossing constantly, under the eye of the royal household. A long line
of lounging people look on also; and, as they go and come all day, an
impression is certainly insinuated by this military parade that the
government is always ready to take care of itself.
[Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.]
The palace stands on the verge of a height that commands a wide and
exciting view of the plains of Castile. The thought of what those plains
have seen in the last two thousand years makes them of more than
romantic interest to one who takes in the past with the present. What
successive tides of conquest have there ebbed and flowed! To know that
Charles V. and Napoleon and Wellington have followed one another up
those shaded avenues to this summit, with their legions, is enough to
invest them with grandeur.
And here in this armory is the very sword that Gonzalo, of Cordova,
wore, and the sword with which Ferdinand, the saint and hero, smote the
Moors; and the sword of Charles V., and the complete suit of armor which
the great emperor often wore, and in which he was painted by Titian; and
the suit of armor worn by Boabdil, the last Moorish king who sat on the
throne in this Alhambra, and who left it behind, doubtless, when he
delivered his sword into the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the
foot of the hill on which I am writing. We had thought revolvers a
modern invention, but here are elegant pistols, on the same principle,
used in the seventeenth century, and now as good as new. A crown, a
sword, a helmet, or something else, illustrates the life of all the
heroes of Spanish history; and the number of warlike memorials here
displayed is about three thousand. How men managed to fight while clad
from head to foot in these suits of steel armor is to me, a
non-combatant, one of the mysteries of the art of war. We read of
tournaments, and—more to be wondered at—of battle-fields, where all the
knights are clothed from head to foot in the identical garments that are
now before us, or in others made after the same pattern; and how, with
such a weight of steel and so constrained in the freedom of action, they
could manage to wield their swords and thrust their spears, I do not
understand. They were not men of more physical power than our soldiers.
Some of them were less than the present average size of men. But they
were mighty men with the sword. The Toledo blade was quite equal to that
of Damascus; and the helmet was often insufficient to save the brain,
when the sword, in a strong hand, came down, cleaving through steel and
skull.
Two or three hundred horses stood in the stables; and the grooms are
only too happy, for a consideration to be paid at every door, to show
these pampered and famous steeds. Each one of them has a name, in large
letters, over his head, and on his blanket. Spain has some celebrated
breeds of horses, but, like every thing else in Spain, they are run out,
and the stock is only kept up by importation. It is so even with the
_Merino_ sheep, which belongs to Spain, but would have been extinct ere
this, if it had not been perpetuated and improved abroad. You may see
five hundred finer horses any pleasant afternoon in the Central Park, in
New York, than any one of these pet horses of royalty. But you will
never see, I hope, such a wealth and folly of equipage as the hundred
carriages, and more sets of harness, and plumes, and liveries, and
coachmen’s hats, and velvet saddles, and embroidered hammer-cloths,
which fill long apartments, and are shown together with the gilded
chairs of state in which the king or queen is borne by hand in
processions, and the chariot on which the royal personage is enthroned,
with a canopy overhead, trumpeters below, and herald angels above, for
the coronation parade. The carriages used by successive monarchs are
here preserved in long lines of antiquated grandeur, even to the one in
which Crazy Jane, the widow, carried about with her the corpse of her
handsome husband, Philip the First. Queer woman that she was, jealous to
insanity, she would not let her husband be buried while she lived; and
now she lies by his side, down here in Granada, in the cathedral, and
her marble effigy gives her an expression so gentle and loving, you
would not believe she was ever the victim of the fiercest and meanest
passion that makes hell of a woman’s heart.
I have been taking you with me through the palace and armory and royal
stables, to give you a type of Spain. The poorest of all the
governments, compared with its population and resources, it has these
contrasts of wealth and poverty that mark its want of judgment,
principle, and power. In the stables is invested a capital of more than
half a million of dollars! This prodigality is royal, but also absurd.
The people see it, and the world has gone by the age, when gilt
trappings and gorgeous pageants struck the multitudes dumb with the
reverence of royal glory.
The city of Madrid is well built, and has the appearance of a modern
French town. Indeed, it is more French than Spanish in its out-of-door
look, and the French language is very largely spoken in the shops and
private families of culture. The intercourse now so frequent and ready
with France by means of the railway and telegraph, and the abolition of
all passport regulations and annoyances, have given the Spanish capital
a start, and it will undoubtedly make rapid advancement.
But there is nothing rapid in Spain just yet. Opposite the hotel in
Madrid where I was staying, an old building had been torn down to make
room for another. Workmen were engaged in removing the debris to renew
the foundation. You would suppose that horses and carts, or wheelbarrows
and shovels, would be in use. Such modern improvements had not reached
the capital of Spain. One man with a broad hoe hauled the dirt into a
basket made of grass, holding half a bushel; another man took the basket
and carried it a rod to another man, who handed it to another a few feet
above him, and he emptied it on a pile of dirt up there, and sent the
basket back to be filled again. And so, day after day, a job that with
our tools and appliances would be done in a few hours, was here spun out
indefinitely. Yet the palaces and cathedrals and fortresses of the
southern climes have all been erected at this snail’s pace, numbers and
cheapness making up for enterprise and force. In Paris, in the street, a
small steam-engine was at work to mix mortar, and the ease with which
the process was put through revealed the secret of the wonderfully rapid
transformations going on in that ever increasingly beautiful city. Here
in Spain, to this day, where there are smooth, good roads for wheels,
they still put a couple of baskets across the back of a donkey, and fill
them with dirt or brick or stones, and so transport them, even when they
are putting up the largest buildings. The architecture of Spain is more
imposing than that of any other country in Europe. It is the climate
that makes men differ so much in their physical as well as mental
manifestations.
To see the mode of doing business in Spain, take the simple story of one
day’s work of mine in getting some money in Madrid. Holding a “letter of
credit” which is promptly honored in any part of the world, and is just
as good for the gold in Cairo or Calcutta as it is in London, I went in
search of a Spanish banker to draw a hundred pounds sterling, say five
hundred dollars. Anastazio led the way, and soon brought us to the house
where the man of money held his court. Being shown up stairs, through
two or three passages and an ante-chamber, we were at length ushered
into _the_ presence. Señor Romero, the banker, was a man of fifty,
dressed, or rather undressed, in a loose morning gown or wrapper, a red
cap on his head, slippers on his feet, and a pipe in his mouth. A clerk
was sitting near to do his bidding. I presented my letter. It was
carefully read, first by the clerk, then by the principal. A long
consultation followed, carried on in a low tone, and in Spanish, quite
unintelligible to me, if it had been audible. It was finally determined
to let me have the money, and after an amount of palaver sufficient for
the negotiation of a government loan from the Rothschilds, and taking
the necessary receipt and draft from me, I was presented with a check on
the Bank of Spain. When I had fancied the delays were over, they had
only just begun. The bank was in a distant part of the city, and thither
we hastened, taking a cab, to save all the time we could. The bank is a
large and imposing edifice of white stone. In the vestibule was a guard
of soldiers. A porter stopped us as we were about to enter the inner
door. We must await our turn as some one else was inside! One at a time
was the rule. Benches were there, and we sat down, admiring silently the
_moderation_ of banking business in Spain. At length our turn came. We
entered a room certainly a hundred feet long. Tables extended the whole
length. Behind them sat clerks very busy doing nothing. We were told to
pass on, and on, to the lower end of the room, where we entered another,
the back parlor, or private room of the officers. They were closeted out
of sight, smoking, of course, and giving their wisdom to the business in
hand. I presented the check at a hole out of which a hand was put to
take it. I saw nothing more. We sat down and waited. Waiting is a
Spanish institution. Everybody waits. Nobody gets any thing without it.
We waited, and waited, and waited, and at last the little hole opened
again, the mysterious hand was thrust out with the——money, you suppose;
not a bit, but with the check approved. We must present it at the table
or counter for payment. Returning to the long room, we presented the
check, and were directed to the proper bureau. And here, of course, we
got the money. Not yet. Bills of the Bank of Spain were given us, and
when I required the gold, I was told that gold was paid only at the
bureau of the bank in another street. Thither we now pursued our weary
way. It was a rear entrance of the same bank building. A long line of
gold hunters was ahead of us. We stood in the cue, and at last were
inside. In the ante-room we had to wait so long that we took to the
bench again. At last, admission being granted, we were told that only
_one_ could be admitted with a single draft. We sent Antanazio in, and
returned to the door. Here we were told that no _exit_, only _entrance_,
was allowed at the rear! Explaining the case, we got out, and returning
to the front, patiently as possible, we looked for the appearance of
Antanazio loaded with gold. At last, for the longest delay has an end,
the man emerged with the money in his hands. It had cost me from two to
three hours in the middle of the day to draw this money, which in New
York, London, Paris, or any city out of Spain, would have cost five
minutes or less. And I have been so particular in the detail, because it
lets you into the mode of doing business in the capital city, and the
greatest bank of this country.
Until the French and English companies pushed railways into Spain,
travel and mails were on the slow-coach system. When the royal person
made a journey, it was like the march of an army, such was the retinue
required for comfort and display. And as the railways are now completed
only along a few great routes, the mails are largely carried in the
diligences and coaches expressly made for the purpose. It is said, and
there is no reason to disbelieve it, that down to the year 1840, when a
Spaniard proposed to himself the danger and toil of a journey, it was
his invariable custom to summon his lawyer and make his will; his
physician, to learn if his health were adequate to the undertaking; and
finally his priest, to confess his sins and get timely absolution. It is
not regarded now so formidable an excursion to go across the kingdom,
but the native travel is so little that the railroads are very
unprofitable. If it were not for _freight_ they would not be supported
at all. They have, however, greatly increased the correspondence of the
country, and the rate of postage has been reduced, so that it is about
as low as in other European countries. But the government keeps a sharp
look-out upon the letters that come and go. In times when conspiracies
are snuffed in every breeze, it would be quite unsafe for any one to
entrust a secret in a letter going by mail. A government spy would be
sure to have his hand on it and his eye in it, before it reached its
address. The letters in the post-office at Madrid are held four hours
after the arrival of the mail, before they are ready for delivery. The
mail from the north, the London and Paris mail, comes in at ten o’clock
A.M. We must _wait_ until two o’clock P.M. for our letters. Then a list
of all letters not directed to some particular street and number, or to
some post-office box, is posted up in the hall of the office,—an
alphabetical list. You look over the list, and if you find a letter for
yourself, you ask for it at the proper window. If you are a stranger,
your passport is demanded. But you had been told before coming to Spain
that no passports are required, and now you must have one merely to get
your letters. In default of a passport, you must in some way establish
your identity. This is not always easy in a foreign country, but then
nothing is easy in Spain. I got no letter from the post-office addressed
to me while I was in Spain! The noted rebel, General Prim, was a
dreadful bugbear to the authorities, and all letters addressed to me
were suspected by the local postmasters to be intended for the General.
They were therefore sent to the government, or otherwise disposed of. No
efforts to recover them were successful. Much good may they do the
people who had to read them. Some of them had hard work, I know.
Telegraphs are spreading over Spain, as they are over the world,
civilized or not. Spain is one of the last countries where they could
become popular; but the business of any kingdom that has relations with
the outside world must be armed with the telegraph, or it cannot hold
its own. In traversing wild and secluded parts of the Peninsula, I have
been surprised by finding the telegraph poles set up, and the wire
stretching on, over hill and dale. Spain is slow, and the telegraph is
not demanded here by the energy and enterprise of the people as it is
elsewhere. Despatches of more than a hundred words are not sent. To or
from any part of the Peninsula ten words may be sent for about
twenty-five cents, twenty words for fifty cents, thirty words for
seventy-five cents; but the count includes each word written by the
sender, date, address, signature, and if a word is underscored it counts
two. Great precautions are taken to insure accuracy in transmission, and
a small extra charge is made for delivery.
Before coming to Spain I had been told that the picture-gallery in
Madrid is the richest in the world. It seemed to me an idle tale, the
boast of boasting Spaniards, repeated until perhaps somebody believed,
as I certainly did not. But having seen it, day after day, for a week, I
cheerfully cast a vote in its favor. It is superior to any other in
Europe; and, of course, in the world. It is not complete in the series
of art studies. There are gaps of time which the student may desire to
see filled. But there are few who visit these great European galleries
as learners. The world comes to see them for the momentary pleasure to
be found in the contemplation of the pictures. And they will be
astonished to find that so many and so splendid pictures have been
gathered and preserved in the Spanish capital.
The gallery is open to the public only on _Sundays_, but the director
allows it to be shown every day to strangers, who are expected to give a
fee to the attendants. On rainy days it is always shut; an obvious
reason is, that visitors will soil the floors with their shoes, but a
better reason is that the gallery is so badly lighted that in gloomy
weather some of the pictures are quite invisible.
Who would suppose that sixty pictures by Reubens are to be seen in one
gallery in Spain! and fifty-three by Teniers; and ten grand pictures by
Raphael; and forty-six by Murillo; and sixty-four by Velasquez, some of
them very large and magnificent; and twenty-two by Van Dyck; and
_forty-three of Titian_, who spent three years in Madrid, by invitation
of Charles V.; ten of Claude Lorraine; and twenty-five by Paul Veronese;
and twenty-three by Snyder; and more than thirty by Tintoretto!!! There
are more than two thousand here. Among so many, of course, some are good
for nothing, as in every large collection. But one gallery in the world
has masterpieces only,—that is in the Vatican. And _there_ you have less
than a hundred pictures, all told. But they are all great. Here, as in
Florence and Dresden, good, bad, and indifferent have been hung
together; and perhaps the contrast makes the good appear better, and the
bad worse.
Murillo, the greatest of Spanish painters, is here in his glory. We have
associated his name with his “Immaculate Conceptions” more than with any
other of his works. One copy was brought to America a few years ago, and
is now in the gallery of W. H. Aspinwall, Esq. A duplicate is in the
Louvre, at Paris. And still another is in Madrid. These are three
originals, undoubtedly, and they have been copied in every style of
human art, especially in Paris, until they are as common as heads of the
Saviour, all the world over. Yet this is not the _Murillo_,—not his
“Conception.” It is a grand conception by the artist, but it is not the
great picture of that subject on which, more than any other, his fame is
founded. This is in another attitude, with another expression; the
Virgin is looking downward, and not gazing, in an ecstasy, heavenward.
The artist, in this picture, imagines the Virgin Mary at the moment she
becomes conscious of the fact that by the overshadowing of the Holy
Ghost she is to be the mother of the Son of God! The accessories of the
painting are of no account, but into the countenance of the Virgin he
would throw the expression such as a spotless maiden might be supposed
to have when first alive to such a wondrous, awful, yet transporting and
delightful thought, “I,—I,—of all the daughters of Israel, am the highly
favored among women. Of me is to be the Messiah! I am the mother of the
promised Saviour!”
Not far from this is a picture of the Vision of St. Bernard, exhibiting
marvellous skill. The head is one of those prodigies of the painter’s
art, that is to haunt the memory in after years. Like the “Communion of
St. Jerome,” in the Vatican, to see it is to have it photographed in the
mysterious chamber of the brain. Raphael painted one of his most
remarkable pictures, “The Christ sinking under His Cross,” for a convent
in Sicily. It is said by some to be a greater work than the
“Transfiguration,” which is held to be the finest picture existing. To
me, this in Madrid is the most impressive, the most nearly perfect. It
is taken at the moment when Simon, the Cyrenian, attempts to lift the
crushing cross, while the patient sufferer, with a face radiant with
love and holy resignation, says to the weeping women near, “Daughters of
Jerusalem, weep not for me but weep for yourselves and for your
children.”
Titian’s equestrian portrait of Charles V. is sublime,—like a majestic
mountain, or a mighty rock in a desert. The solemn grandeur of the
picture is indescribable. The man and his times, a whole volume of
biography and history, on one grand tableau, seen and remembered.
Perhaps it would be as well to forget the women that Titian seems to
have been fond of painting. Two of them here are not less perfect, many
think they are more perfect, than the Venus of the Tribune. In other
times the zealous priesthood condemned these nudities to the flames,
with heretics, as corrupters of the people; but some have been saved.
The picture that I desired more than any other to carry away and cherish
as a life-long treasure, is one by Correggio. After his resurrection the
Saviour appeared to Mary, and she supposed it was the gardener; but
Jesus, turning, said to her, “MARY,”—and the truth burst upon her, it
was her Lord! That moment of transport is the time the artist has seized
for the representation of the kneeling and rejoicing Mary and Jesus. The
love and tenderness in his look, the joy and reverence in hers! What
beauty, too: how the yellow hair falls in living lustre on her fair
shoulders, and her eyes speak the full expression of her yearning soul.
“Jesus said unto her, ‘MARY.’”
In another hall I found a picture of great merit, unmentioned by the
guide-book, and by a painter unknown to me even by name before. It is a
Virgin and Child, with four venerable saints kneeling before them. The
artist is Bias del Prado. Few pictures in any gallery deserve more
admiration than this. The heads of the old men are done with great
power, and the thoughtful feeling in the face of the Virgin shows that
the artist had both the genius to conceive, and the skill to create, an
idea on the canvas, quite equal to the best of many others who have won
a world-wide fame. And scattered through these long apartments, in
narrow halls and basement rooms, in bad lights, and some almost in the
dark, are many gems of rare value, “blushing unseen,” and worth a better
place, and deserving wider renown. It would be tedious to read even a
brief mention of the celebrated pictures of the famous old masters here,
and that form so large a part of the attractions of Europe.
There are very few minor galleries in Madrid. Probably there has been a
lack both of private wealth and taste to make collections. In one of
these we found Murillo’s “Queen Isabel of Hungary healing the Lepers,” a
picture that would be admired as one of his greatest and best, if it
were not so true to life as to make one almost sick to look at it. But
this is the height of the highest art. Birds have been deceived by
painted fruit. Bees have sought honey in flowers on the walls. And
perhaps this cheating of the senses, even to disgust, is the perfection
of human skill. But the imitation of the _material_ is easy. If portrait
painting were merely the reproduction of the form and features, it is
the lowest department of the art. But to conceive the expression that
belongs to the character of a saint, a prophet, a hero, a sibyl, a
Madonna, and thus to create an ideal that will demonstrate its reality
and truthfulness to an unbelieving or indifferent world, challenging
admiration and asserting its own immortality, this is the attribute of
genius only, and such is not the birth of every day or age.
CHAPTER VI.
TOLEDO—ITS FLEAS, LANDLORDS, ANTIQUITIES, AND LUNATICS.
Ignorant of the state of civilization in the ancient city of Toledo, the
capital of Gothic Spain, the glory of the Jews and the Moors when they
lived luxuriously on its airy heights, we had imagined it easy enough to
find lodgings for a night. Unconscious of the fate awaiting us, we put
up at the Hotel Lino, the largest and best in the city; and here we
sought sleep. The search was vain. For the fleas are always going about
seeking whom they may devour. We fell a prey to them and to the
landlords too. Surviving the bloody night, we left a weary, wretched bed
at eight in the morning, and ordered breakfast with coffee. At nine it
was announced as ready. In the room where it was served three waiters
attended us, each one smoking a cigar in our faces, as we sat and they
stood around. The coffee was not on the table. On asking for it we were
told there was none in the house.
“And is there none in Toledo?”
“Perhaps so.”
“Well, we will wait until you bring it. Give us some butter.”
“There is no butter in the house.”
“Is there none in Toledo?”
“None that is fit to eat; it is all rancid.”
[Illustration: TOLEDO.]
After a time some wretched stuff for coffee was brought from a
restaurant, and we made a breakfast, paid as much for it as if we had
been in Paris, and left the house in disgust.
The city stands on a hill; it is up, up, up, in a succession of narrow,
irregular, crooked, clean, and curious streets, showing at every step
the vestiges of successive stages of civilization, and often suddenly
revealing monuments of departed peoples that arrest the attention and
excite wondering interest. The Goths succeeded the Romans. The Moors
drove out the Goths, and, like eagles perched among these rocks, defied
the storms of centuries. Here the master of empires, the great Charles
V., reigned in grandeur, and gave laws to the world. It is a fitting
place for such a history as it has; and no other city has a more
romantic life. Indeed, romance has done so much to embellish the story
of Toledo, it is difficult to be in it, and study it here on its own
rocks, without asking for its enchanted towers, and haunted caves, and
knights, with magic swords and spectre horses, and its 200,000 mighty
men and beautiful women, that once made this castle-crowned crag the
glory of Spain, and as famous in the earth as Babylon or Damascus.
It is more Oriental in its appearance than any city we have yet seen in
Spain. But it is too far north, and too far up in the air, to be adapted
to the life of Orientals. Its houses are usually low; and they have the
court in the midst of them, out of which doors open into the several
apartments. Many of them are very old, five hundred years, at least, and
repetitions of those that stood on the same site before; for this
reproduction of itself, from age to age, is a feature of the peoples and
climes with which Scripture history has made us familiar. Many of these
old houses are fine specimens of the Moorish manner of building; but
with this, perhaps the predominant style, is blended more or less of the
Roman, the Gothic, and the Saracenic, and every style except the modern;
for Toledo is a city of the dead past, and no resurrection is before it.
The Spanish chroniclers claim that Toledo was founded at the same time
with the creation of the world, but who lived in it before the human
race was made they do not help us to understand. Others less ambitious
find that Nebuchadnezzar, and others that Hercules, laid the first
stones.
The last of the Goths who sat on the throne of Toledo was Roderick. And
when weighed down with the guilt of a seducer and a betrayer of his
friend, he went forth from Toledo in his chariot of ivory, and, with his
mailed legions, marched to the banks of the Guadalquiver, and at
Guadalete encountered the flood of Moorish barbarism just then setting
in upon Spain, he disappeared, the city began its downward career, and
no emperors, no bishops, no kings, have since been able to purge it from
the sin and the shame of the perfidious Roderick.
In after centuries, when the Moors were expelled and the cross again
supplanted the crescent, the archbishops of Toledo were more than kings,
and lived here in luxury, and wealth, and grandeur, without a parallel
in the history of the church. Great patrons of art and science, they
founded universities and cultivated the arts of peace, while they were
often plunging the country into war, which they waged with valor and
skill. Under them the city reached a degree of splendor unsurpassed in
the dreamy reign of Oriental voluptuousness and taste. But when it
succumbed, as it did to the great German Czar, and the court was removed
to Valladolid, its sun went down, never to rise again.
The cathedral is a glory, even in Spain, which is richer in cathedrals
than any other country. Toledo has always been favored by the Romish
Church. It is believed by many that the Virgin Mary came down from
heaven, in person, to attend the investiture of one of its archbishops,
and there is not to be found a grander and more beautiful Gothic temple
than this. As we entered it the dim light that was chasing away the
shades from among the vast columns and the lofty arches gradually
brightened as we became more accustomed to it, and a sense of majestic
proportions and solemn grandeur took possession of the soul. A service
was in progress, and we paused till it was concluded, for it matters not
what the form of religious worship, and however much our views may
differ from those engaged in it, it is unseemly to be gazing at the
temple while its ministers are serving at its altar. In the midst of the
service a priest was receiving a young woman’s confession. As she put up
her lips to his ear to whisper her penitential words, she beat upon her
breast with one hand, as if she were in agony of soul. Her tale of sin
completed, she rose from her knees, bowed low again, kissed her
confessor’s extended hand, and went away.
Toledo and its priesthood have been famous for their devotion to the
strictest orders and dogmas of the church, till Rome itself scarcely
stands higher for holiness and orthodoxy. In the disputes that have at
different times agitated the Romish communion, they have not been afraid
to appeal directly to the judgment of God, and to claim his verdict in
their favor. In the great contest about the proper form of words in the
mass, when the old missals were used in Spain, in spite of the orders to
substitute the Gregorian mass, or the Roman improved form, the first
appeal to the divine judgment was in favor of Toledo, and the early
missals. Again the trial was demanded; and the old and newer missals
were brought out, great folio volumes, into one of the public squares,
and, in presence of the city, fire was applied to them. The older was
burnt to ashes, and the newer survived the ordeal. Toledo was not
willing to abide even by this very conclusive test, and finally it was
settled by blending the two masses into one.
Their richest and most sacred chapel in the cathedral is the Muzarabe,
or Mixed Arabic; so called because it was built to preserve the forms of
the old Gothic service, such as was used when the Goths consented to
live under the dominion of the Moors while allowed their own religious
rites. In this cathedral lie the ashes, and over them are the tombs of
some of the early kings of Spain, and several of those grand archbishops
whose reign was not less kingly than that of kings. Cardinal Albornoz
died in Italy, and the Pope sent his body home to be buried here. To
save the expense of transportation, for there was no express company,
not even a steamboat then (1364) to bring it,—Urban V. issued a decree
granting a plenary indulgence to all who would lend a hand in carrying
the dead cardinal on his long journey. Gladly did the poor peasantry
bear the body on their shoulders from one town to another till it
reached Toledo. In front of one of the chapels I was suddenly arrested
by a strange Latin inscription in a brass plate in the pavement. It was
in these words:—
“HIC JACET PULVIS, CINIS, NULLUS.”
_Here lies dust, ashes, nothing else._ Over the bones of one of the most
powerful cardinals who ever reigned in Spain, and himself called a king
maker, the epitaph is eloquent: perhaps an affectation, however, of
humility, a virtue for which Fernandez de Portocarrero was not
illustrious in his life.
The Virgin Mary has been pleased to come from heaven to this cathedral,
as I have said, and if any one doubts it, he can see the very stone on
which she first set foot as she alighted from her aerial excursion. And
now the faithful kiss this precious stone, touching with their loving
lips the very spot which her foot once pressed. Her image is clad with
gold and precious stones and costly raiment, crowns and bracelets and
chains, the gifts of royal hands, and the greatest ladies of the kingdom
are her maids of honor. On gala-days she is borne in state through the
streets, and honors are paid to her at every step, as the Queen of
Queens.
A sleepy old porter let us into the ALCAZAR. Al-casa-czar is the house
of Cæsar, or the czar’s house, the king’s house, the palace.
[Illustration: THE ALCAZAR.]
The palace, or what was once a palace, crowns the summit of the hill on
which the old city of Toledo stands. Around the base of the rock below
the Tagus rushes rapidly, and away in every direction stretches the wide
plain, gloomy, desolate, and yet grand in its storied past. It is not
certain that the Moorish, still less certain that the Gothic kings
preceding them, had their royal residence on this bleak height. But the
Catholic kings for centuries held their courts on this spot, and the
prints of their hands are visible everywhere. The porter who opened the
door for us is a model of a Spanish official. Too proud to be a
door-keeper, and, with nothing else to do, he would impress even a
stranger with the idea that he was born with a higher destiny than to
tend a gate. It was a pleasure to him, evidently, to tell us we must not
go here, nor there, nor anywhere, except where it was of no use to go;
and the scanty information he was willing to impart was extracted with
difficulty, and worth nothing then.
We stood in the midst of a spacious square, the patio, or court, and on
its four sides rose the walls of the ancient palace. Charles V. and
Philip II. rebuilt the most of it on the ruins holding some of the
apartments that date as far back as Alonzo X.; and in modern times the
hoof of the war demon has trodden the stairways and galleries and
gorgeous halls, until what with English and French soldiery, and some of
other nations more barbarous still, the Alcazar of Toledo is a more
comfortable residence for bats and owls than kings and fair princesses.
Two or three proud peacocks were strutting in the warm sunshine of the
patio, displaying their gaudy plumes and arching their graceful necks,
reminding us of other beauties who had often gone blazing through these
doors, with radiant jewels and shining robes, yet, in all their glory,
were not arrayed like one of these. This patio shows, on its four sides,
two rows of galleries, one over the other, supported each of them by
thirty arches, with columns crowned with Corinthian capitals,
embellished with the arms of the many kingdoms that Charles V. had
conquered. A staircase, designed by Philip II. while he was in England,
and built under orders sent by him while there, leads up to the royal
apartments, long since deserted, and now worth seeing only because they
were once the home of men and women whose names are part of the history
of the world.
An English gentleman said to me in the rail-car in Spain one day, “I
should be glad to have you tell me what it is that impresses you the
most in coming from America and travelling in Europe.” I answered that
it required some time to make a fitting reply to so great an inquiry.
“Well,” he said, “will you take fifteen minutes to think, and then give
me the result?” I replied, “I am ready to answer now: what impresses me
more than all else is, that these old countries, having been what they
once were, are _what I find them now_.”
It is the law of the earth, I suppose, and what has been will be, and so
on to the end of time.
We left the melancholy palace to its porter, its peacocks, and the bats,
and wound our way down and around the corkscrew streets, narrow, close,
and dirty, admiring the ancient Moorish gates and doors, studded with
iron balls. The older doors have two knockers, one high for a horseman
to use without dismounting; and, the gate being opened, he would ride
right into the court. We were looking for the Church of San Juan de los
Reyes, and soon found it, a church that dates back to the Moorish-Gothic
period, or the time when the severity of Gothic grandeur was adorned
with the more florid embellishments which Moorish art introduced into
Spain. On the outer walls are suspended the massive iron chains which
were found on the limbs of the Christian captives when Granada was
conquered by Ferdinand and Isabella; and the rescued prisoners hung up
their chains on this church as thank-offerings. And still farther down
the hill we come to the Bridge of St. Martin, and here are plainly the
ruins of the old Moorish castle and palace. A square tower on the
water’s edge bears the name, to this day, _Florinde_, and tradition says
it was here that Roderick unluckily saw her while she was bathing. The
rest of the story we have hinted at already.
Irving, in his bewitching Spanish tales, gives a marvellous account of
the Cave of Hercules, which is said to extend three leagues beyond the
river, and is full of chapels and genii and enchanted warriors. To visit
it has cost kings their crowns; and the terrible sounds that are heard,
and the rushing winds assailing the bold explorer, make the attempt too
formidable for modern valor. The entrance is from the Church de San
Gines, but is now walled up. In fact, it was never unwalled, except in
the fancies of romantic historians.
One day, long time ago, as the Cid was riding through Toledo, his horse
stopped suddenly, and knelt before a wall built against a bank of earth.
The hill was opened, and within was found a niche, and in the niche an
image of the Saviour, with the same lamps burning in it which the Goths
had put there long centuries agone. A Moorish mosque is standing
opposite, which has been converted into a Christian church, and in it
the first mass was celebrated in 1085. It takes its name from the legend
of the Cid, and is called Christo de la Luz. It is perhaps the smallest
church in Toledo, only twenty-two feet square, yet the quaintest and
most curious thing to be found in the city; short columns support arches
in the shape of a horse-shoe, and three narrow naves, crossing each
other, cut up the church into nine vaults. There is nothing in it worth
seeing.
It took us half an hour to find the sacristan to open the door of Santo
Tome, or St. Thomas, where we went to see a famous picture by El Grecco,
a burial scene, of considerable power, and were it not that Spain has
hundreds of finer pictures than this, it would be worth the time it cost
us to see it.
Passing through the Zodocover, the largest public square in the city,
where in the “good old times” of torture for the church, the poor
unbelievers in papal faith have been made spectacles before the world, I
met a boy with a pop-gun, anxious to show his skill in shooting with
that formidable weapon. Yielding to his urgent desires, I set up a bit
of money which he was to hit and take. A dense crowd, a hundred
certainly, were the idle gazers on this ridiculous scene, forming a ring
around me and the boy! I confess to a sense of great amusement when I
stood where cardinals and bishops and priests, with armed soldiers and
executioners, had burnt heretics in sight of kings, and multitudes
thronging the tiers of balconies that look down into this square. It was
certainly more human, not to say Christian, for me to divert this idle
crowd by setting up coppers for a boy to shoot at with a pop-gun, than
for my illustrious predecessors to entertain the populace of Toledo with
the sight of martyrs burning at a stake.
Tired of walking, for Toledo is so up-and-down, that you might as well
ride on a ladder, we entered a café for refreshments. In the wide, open
court was a deep well sunk into the solid rock on which the city stands,
and the water thereof was as cool and sparkling and delicious as that
which the woman of Samaria gave to him who told her all things that ever
she did. The saloon was fifty feet long or more, filled with marble-top
tables, and men were eating and drinking, playing dominoes, and smoking.
It was toward the close of the day. Of all the people there, none called
for spirits, scarcely any asked for wine. Coffee and chocolate were the
principal drinks. There was no noise, no gambling. It was chilly, and
the servant brought in a brazier filled with live coals, and set it near
us. Others drew around it, as they did in the high priest’s court-yard
when Peter denied his Lord. Many Oriental customs brought in by the
Moors are still retained in Spain. I made an excuse for wandering up to
the house-top, and found the houses so closely built against each other,
with no intervening spaces, that you could easily look into your
neighbor’s, and sometimes see what was quite as well not seen.
While here we looked about for some specimens of the famous blades,
which have made Toledo as celebrated as Damascus itself in this line.
But we found nothing worth seeing. The manufactory of arms is outside of
the town, and has no reputation beyond that of others in Spain. England
or Connecticut will furnish as perfect a sword to-day as Toledo. Yet
this is only another, and a very striking illustration of what Spain is,
compared with what Spain was. As far back as under the Romans, Toledo
had a character for the perfection of its weapons of steel. The Toledo
blade has been a proverb for temper ever since.
The idea has prevailed, and the workers in metals in Toledo have not
been unwilling to encourage it, that the waters of the river Tagus have
virtues to impart peculiar firmness to the steel that is cooled in them.
The manufacturers, of course, have long been constituted into a guild,
or corporation, and the secrets of the trade preserved with care. So
long ago as in the ninth century Abdur-rhaman II. gave a great impulse
to the art in Toledo, and its fame was spread still wider. A thousand
years have rolled away since that time, and now, in the nineteenth
century, they do not make as good weapons as they did then.
In the museum at Madrid we saw the splendid swords which the famous
warriors of Spain have worn, and, in the saloon of the Director of the
Generaliffe, in Granada, the identical sword of Boabdil, the last of the
Moorish kings; but they make no such steel now. Indeed, the steel they
use is imported from England, just as they keep up the stock of horses
and cattle and sheep, by importations from other countries. It is very
probable that long, thin blades, that may be curled up like a ribbon,
can be produced in China, or Persia, or Sheffield, as well as here. The
men of Milan and Florence made as good swords as these. The use of
fire-arms naturally diminishes the value of a sword as a weapon of war.
Spanish people do not go CRAZY! Now and then there is a lunatic in
Spain, but, as compared with the United States, or England, or France,
the Spanish people manage to keep what wits they have. Just outside of
Toledo there is a lunatic asylum. It is the successor of the one that
Don Quixote ought to have been kept in, and which is mentioned in that
knight-errant’s biography, the first work of fiction that I ever
perused, and which then, in childhood, fired me with a desire to visit
Spain. Don Quixote was crazy; and there may be thousands crazy whom the
world do not reckon so.
In London the latest tables show that one person in every 200 is insane.
In Paris one in every 222 is in a lunatic asylum, or ought to be. In
Madrid, the capital of Spain, only one in every 3,350. In the year 1860
there were 2,384 lunatics in Spain, when the population was 15,673,481;
and this would show one insane person to 6,566 inhabitants. In 1864
there were 3,818 persons in houses for the insane, but they do not
regulate these institutions with the same strictness that prevails in
some other countries, and they confine in them many of those criminals
who would otherwise be let loose on the community to pursue their career
of crime under the cloak of monomania. It would therefore appear, and
there is no good reason to doubt the fact, that comparatively little
insanity exists in Spain. One report of 1861 gives the following as the
percentage of the cases, when pathologically classified: “Maniac
exaltation, 31.91; monomaniacs, 11; melancholy, 6; derangement of mental
faculties, 20.53; imbecility, 6.15; epileptic madness, 11; undetermined,
10.41.”
The medical faculty will understand this classification, but I do not
know the difference between some of the sections into which the victims
are thus divided. But when we come to the proximate causes of insanity,
we are in a region level to the uninstructed mind, and here we find that
moral and mental excitements growing out of love, such as jealousy and
disappointment, are prolific causes: that physical ailments badly
attended or wholly neglected frequently result in derangement; and the
political turmoils of the State are followed by the same effects. But,
on the other hand, there are at least three common causes of insanity in
the United States, and probably in England also, that have a limited, if
any, influence in Spain. These are religious excitements, haste to be
rich, and intemperance in drinking. In Spain they take things easily.
The people do not work the brain unduly in matters of religion or trade.
The church takes care of the souls of the people: the law or the
government excludes all disturbing elements that might come from the
efforts of others to proselyte the people, and in their ignorance of any
other way of getting to heaven than the church teaches them, they are
quiet on that subject. Religion never made any one crazy; on the
contrary, it has soothed the madness and healed the malady of many a
crazed brain and distracted soul. But the wild and unenlightened
excitement, begotten of blind fanaticism and erroneous teaching, has
often driven men and women mad, as statistics of American insanity
fearfully show. And in Spain there is not energy enough, not life
enough, to make speculation dangerous in philosophy, morals, or even in
money. I think it very unlikely that they will ever go wild after
tulips, or mulberries, or petroleum. They are making railroads, but the
French and English furnish the capital and send the engineers. And the
great safety-valve, or rather the great preserver of the people’s
intellects, is found in the fact that they are never in a hurry about
any thing. The old Romans had a good motto, _Festina lente_, hasten
slowly; but the Spaniards never _hasten at all_. They despise
punctuality. An hour after the time when a positive appointment had been
made with me, a man in Seville said, when I told him I had been waiting,
“Why, the Queen never comes till an hour after the time announced for
her arrival.” And this utter indifference to the value of time, which is
money all the world over, begets, or is begotten, for it is hard to say
if it be the cause or the effect, of that perfect sense of ease, content
with one’s condition, idle carelessness, that dismisses all anxiety for
the future. Such people do not go crazy.
And far above all other immediate causes of insanity in northern climes,
is the use of spirituous liquors. The scholar drinks to keep up his
mental fire, and when he becomes insane his malady is marked “excessive
study.” The banker or merchant drinks too much, and when he is put into
an asylum his madness is ascribed to his devotion to his business. The
millions of our people drink, drink, drink,—and this vice of the north
of Europe and of America yields thousands on thousands of cases of
insanity every year. But in those countries where cheap wines, with
little alcohol in them, are the common drink of the people, intemperance
is comparatively rare. An English engineer, employing hundreds of men in
building and repairing Spanish railways, assured me that intemperance is
wholly unknown among them. The class of men who would be the most
addicted to the vice with us in the United States, are here more
temperate than any class of people in England or America. It is not to
be supposed that this temperance is the result solely of the culture of
the vine and the abundance of weak wine. It would be a false conclusion,
from very inadequate premises, to infer such an idea. It is due in most
part to the climate itself, which is at once favorable to the vine, and
unfavorable to that elevation or excitement which strong drink begets.
And in this delightful clime, where to live and breathe is a luxury, and
to keep cool is at once a virtue and a joy, the heating stimulus of
ardent spirits would not be sought as one of the pleasurable vices of
the land.
Therefore, and to this conclusion we are easily led, the people here in
Spain are not likely to be, as a general thing, insane. And if we of
colder climes could be so humble as to take a lesson from poor, old,
decrepit Spain, we might learn from these facts to moderate our desires,
to pursue the good we seek with less haste and more speed, to use the
world as not abusing it, and resting now and then, avoid the lunatic
asylum on our journey to the grave.
At dusk we went to the station to take our departure from Toledo. In the
train going up to Madrid was a large party of young men. Noisy,
boisterous, rude, they cheered every lady who came to the cars, calling
out to the good-looking ones to come to their apartment, and making
sport of others; and all this with a freedom and indecorum that would
not be tolerated even in our land of universal liberty. I was surprised
both at their impudence and its impunity, and asked who the fellows
were.
“Oh,” said Antanazio, “they are college boys: the same all the world
over!”
Even so, I do believe.
CHAPTER VII.
LA MANCHA—ANDALUSIA.
AS I took my seat in a “first-class” car and left Toledo, a gentleman in
the same compartment asked me, “Is smoking disagreeable to you?”
It was the first time that such a question had been put to me in Spain.
I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days before, but generally no
one pretends to _ask_ the privilege of smoking in the cars, or the
parlor, or anywhere. Everybody smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted
in any department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some hotels,
I notice a rule posted in the dining-room, “Smoking not allowed.” But
nobody heeds it. An attempt to enforce it would probably lead to the
sudden departure of all Spanish guests from the house. At the largest
and best hotel in Madrid, sixty or seventy persons, ladies and
gentlemen, were at dinner, (table-d’hôte), and in the midst of dinner,
between the courses, gentlemen lighted their cigarettes, smoked them,
and resumed their eating. Yet the notice forbidding smoking was in full
view, or was until the clouds of smoke obscured it. In the reading-rooms
of the hotels, oftentimes small and unventilated, nine out of ten are
smoking all the time, and the thought never occurs to one of them that
this may be a nuisance to others. I am told, that at the theatres in
Spain, in the midst of the play, the audience smoke in their seats, and
if any managers attain to such a moderate height of civilization as to
publish a rule restraining the odious habit, the Dons of Spain pay no
sort of attention to it. All attempts at reform end only in smoke.
I asked Antanazio if smoking is allowed in the churches of Spain. “Oh
no, no,” he answered, with a pious horror; “it was shocking to think of
such a desecration.” “Then,” said I, “when I come to Spain to live, I
will get a little church for myself, for nowhere else in this country
can a man find refuge from this intolerable nuisance.”
“Ah, yes,” he replied; “but perhaps the incense will make a smoke quite
as disagreeable as the _American_ weed.”
This was a double hit, as it reminded me of my Protestant aversion to
incense in churches, and also of the fact that the weed and the habit of
using it came from my part of the world.
By this time the compartment was so densely filled with smoke that I
opened the window and put out my head for breath, as a signal of
distress, in the hope, but vain, of enlisting the sympathies of the
smokers, and inducing them to forego their pleasures while I recovered.
I detected grim smiles of satisfaction on the dark faces of my
fellow-travellers, who puffed away the more vigorously, as they looked
on my woe-begone face.
Perhaps by advertising a reward for the discovery, it might be possible
to find a man in Spain who does not smoke. Yet, strange to say, the
culture of tobacco in Spain is forbidden by law. The soil and climate
are favorable, and its cultivation has been a great success. But by that
kind of legislation or decree peculiar to Spain, and constantly
reminding one of the Chinese, the mother country, Spain, is prohibited
from raising tobacco in order that the daughter, Cuba, may have the
monopoly. The right of importation is sold to contractors, who make a
great business of it. In the middle of the fifteenth century the
Spaniards began to get tobacco from America, and they have been getting
more and more of it ever since. In 1860 they smoked seven millions of
cigars, and cigars are not the thing they usually smoke. They have their
tobacco rolled up in little bits of paper, and these they carry in their
pockets, with matches. Often they carry the tobacco and the paper
separately, and make a cigarette when they want it, making one while
smoking another. These interesting manufactures are not peculiar to
Spain; they are common in our own country, but not so general. The weed
is used only for smoking and snuffing in Spain. I cannot learn that it
is _chewed_ at all.
Children smoke at an earlier age in Spain than in other countries. It is
not uncommon for them to begin at six, or even five years of age. And
they never leave it off till they die. Ladies smoke. Not often do we see
them with a cigarette in their pretty mouths on the street or in the
cars, but in the café and in the drawing-room they enjoy it, as well as
in the boudoir and the bath. By cool fountains, in a marble-paved patio,
among the orange-trees, or lolling at noon on their silken-hung couches,
they love to smoke, and their lords have spoiled their own breaths and
taste too effectually to make any objection. Where both eat garlic it
amounts to the same thing.
In Seville we saw a tobacco factory, erected more than a hundred years
ago, at a cost of nearly two millions of dollars then! It is 652 feet
long and 524 feet wide. Five thousand persons are at work in it all the
time, putting the imported tobacco into cigars or cigarettes, and making
snuff, and they use two millions of pounds of tobacco every year. Most
of these workers are women. Mothers who bring their children have
nursery arrangements provided for them during the hours of work. But the
most of them are young women, a class by themselves, known as
_cigareras_, or cigar-girls. Smart at their business in the factory,
they are wild as hawks and gay as larks at the bull-fight on Sundays, or
the dance on the green. This is the largest establishment of the kind in
Spain, and produces as good an article as any other, but the cigars made
in Spain are not as popular with good judges as those brought directly
from Cuba. The manufacturers there prefer sending the best to London,
New York, or Paris, where they find a readier market for the high-priced
article. And the Cubans are as cute in concocting peculiar flavors for
their cigars, as the French or the Italians for their wines, or
Jerseymen for their cider. The connoisseur in tobacco pays a quarter of
a dollar (more or less) for a “first-rate” cigar, and smokes it with
delicious enjoyment at his club, or after dinner in his study, rejoicing
in the dreamy, balmy languor that softly steals upon his senses, soothes
his nerves, and makes him sweetly oblivious of the cares and toils of
the day just passed. He is sure it does him good. And he does not know,
and will not believe when he is told, what every one knows who looks
into the subject to learn, that at the very root and source of the
business there is as much concoction of tobacco as there is of coffee or
wine. Potash and soda are in abundant use to impart peculiar pungency to
the plant. And many in the excited atmosphere of New York or London life
demand a sedative cigar more soporific than the narcotic plant in its
natural state. For them, cigars are made of tobacco leaves _steeped in
opium_. Many of our clergymen, renowned for eloquence and piety and
learning, denounce with blazing zeal the baneful practice of smoking or
chewing _opium_, a habit becoming almost as common in the United States
as in China. But these same excellent men are daily smoking opium in
their cigars, quite unconscious of the evils, physical and mental, they
are gradually but surely inhaling with every breath they draw through
this venomous weed. The cigar burns freely when first lighted, its ashes
are grayish white, and the ring is faint at the end, the smoke rises
lightly, and the taste, if any, is nearly imperceptible; therefore they
_know_ it is a good cigar. But the opium-eater is not more surely a
suicide than they. Dyspepsia often follows; and nervous debility,
despondency, melancholy, insomnia, maladies supposed to be relieved by
what is their producing cause. Epilepsy and apoplexy are not unknown
effects.
We now cross the wide pastoral regions of La Mancha. Readers of Don
Quixote recollect these plains as the scene of many a gallant exploit by
the knight-errant who took his title from this province. And we had no
sooner called him to mind than we saw a windmill, and then another, and
soon many more, brandishing their huge arms, as when the crazy hero
supposed them to be challenging him to fight, and with mad courage
rushed to the encounter. Flocks of sheep are roaming over the plains as
when he mistook them for hostile armies. His trusty squire Sancho
proposed that they should wait until they saw which side was likely to
come off conqueror, and join _that_; but the hero of the windmill
denounced the counsel as worthy only of a craven, insisting it would be
more becoming a valiant knight to join the weaker side, and insure it
the victory.
_No trees are seen._ This is the peculiar feature of the Spanish
landscape. Across vast plains that reach the horizon the eye seeks in
vain to find a single tree to relieve the monotony of the view. And when
the hills stretch away in graceful lines, bending and rising with
voluptuous swells that seem to be carved and set against the sky, they
are destitute of trees. In centuries past these have been stripped off,
and none have been planted since; and the country is as bare as the back
of your hand.
The sheep are tended by shepherds, who migrate from the higher to the
lower pastures, according to the season of the year. They constitute a
large part of the wealth of the people. Ten years ago there were
seventeen millions of sheep in Spain. The number is, doubtless, much
greater now. The wool trade of Spain was at one time of vast importance
to the world, but England and Germany now far outstrip it, and the trade
with Syria, in the coarser wools, has opened an outlet for the produce
of Lebanon and the plains of Mesopotamia.
Corn, including cereals of all kinds, does well in this central part of
Spain. It thrives in spite of the stupidest, or rather the most
primitive style of agriculture, still prevailing. “Tickle the ground
with a hoe,” and the crop will spring. But there is little tickling done
with a hoe. They plough to this day with a tree, the root sticking into
the ground and scratching it a little; or they leave a branch shooting
out at an angle from the stem of the tree, and sometimes they cover this
stick with a bit of iron, and with mules or oxen drag it along the
field. They sow broadcast, and plough it under. They use no harrows. It
is barely possible that one of the modern civilized ploughs has found
its way into Spain, but I saw none, and heard of nothing better than the
but-end of a small elm-tree. Yet agriculture is the great business of
Spain, suited to the habits and genius of the people, who love the sun
and enjoy the open air, and dislike trade or mechanics of any kind. And
more than any other people in Europe the Spanish do as their fathers
did, despising all innovations as unworthy of their ancestral dignity.
The farmers of Virgil and Homer, and the rural scenes which are
described in the Old Testament Scriptures, are the counterpart of what
may be seen in Spain to-day. I am reminded daily of the fields in Asia
Minor, in Syria, and Greece. If it were strange that improvements in
husbandry had made very little progress there, much more surprising it
is to find that all things in this country continue to be as they were.
They are so near the rest of the world, and the means of communication
are now so ready, it is a marvel of marvels that they are still in the
same ruts their fathers were in a thousand years ago.
But there are signs of better times. The law of primogeniture has been
abolished, and this new measure tends rapidly to the multiplication of
owners of real estate. The lands of the church have been sold and
divided. Vast tracts held by the crown have also been distributed by law
among the people, at a moderate price. Agricultural societies have been
formed, and cattle shows and fairs are becoming common. These things are
in the right direction. The government has established agricultural
schools and model farms. A few periodicals are published, with the
intent of spreading useful information among the people; and those who
can read will get some good out of them.
After crossing the plains of La Mancha we reach the Sierra Morena range
of mountains, and are to work our way through and over them. The daring
of the engineers who would push a road into such recesses is prodigious.
The precipices are frightful. Peaks of mountains start up suddenly, and
seem to pierce the clouds. Rocks of gigantic grandeur rise abruptly, and
sometimes stand apart in solitary dignity. Deep gorges are to be spanned
by the iron road. Long and frequent galleries lead, in gloomy state,
through the bowels of the mountains. The road is sublime, if safe, and
it appears to be well made. We come to a bridge under repairs. All the
passengers are requested to walk. In single file we march over the
bridge, and then await the train. It comes across, lightened of its
load, slowly and safely. It is quite likely that in America the engineer
would have put on all steam, and dashed across in a second, or, if not,
he would have gone down a hundred feet, into a frightful chasm, and the
verdict, if any were sought, would have been, “nobody to blame.” Fret as
we do about the railroad management in Europe, it is safer and surer
than ours. They err generally on the safe side, provoking us by their
delays, but very rarely breaking our necks. And, on the whole, their way
of doing things is the best.
At Manjibar we stopped for lunch, or breakfast, or dinner, whichsoever
any one might call it. It was hard to say where or when our last meal
was, and what was the name of this. Still more difficult was it to
ascertain the names of the dishes set before us. One dish _had been_
chicken, but in some advanced stage of its post-mortem existence it had
been consigned to a bath of pickle, and was now offered for our
consumption. A single taste sufficed. It probably returned to its brine,
to wait a bolder customer, with a better appetite. Then they gave us a
stew. I suggested that it was hare. My companion thought it a cat. I
gave it the benefit of the doubt, and turned away. The price of this
meal that we tried in vain to eat, was the same as the table-d’hôte
dinner at many hotels in Paris,—four francs.
Sick, I went into the air. I sat down on a trunk outside, sighing for
other lands, and something to eat. A servant came out and drove me off
the trunk, saying, “It is forbidden to sit here.” Into the waiting-room
I directed my steps. It was full of dirty, disgusting people, some of
them beggars, some gypsies, some in queer costumes, some in rags. The
fragrance was too much for me, and I walked out again. Over the way was
a table with candies and liquors to be sold. It was in front of a door
that opened into the side of a hill. There was no other sign of a house.
I went across the railway, and entered the open door. It let me into a
small room, nicely cemented above and on all sides; a fire in a neat
arrangement for it, and a chimney reaching out of the ground above. A
man was sitting by the fire; a babe was in a cradle; the wife was
bustling about. It was a very comfortable affair. Another room was the
bed-chamber; and a third was a storeroom; and the three completed the
underground cottage. In other climates it might be damp. Here it was dry
enough; cool in summer and warm in winter. I spent a few minutes very
cheerfully with these people, and they seemed to be pleased with a visit
from a stranger. It was a far better house than the rude huts we had
seen on the way.
We are now in Andalusia, and in one of the _worst_ parts of Spain. True,
it is ANDALUSIA, and the very sound of the name is musical, suggesting
beauty and pastoral delights. But in the province of Jaen, and we are
near the city of that name, out of a population of 360,000, more than
300,000 are unable to read; and as ignorance and crime go hand in hand,
the number of murders is between 350 and 400 every year, and nearly as
many robberies. Such is a picture of much of Spain. This is, perhaps, as
dark a picture as could be honestly drawn, but there are hundreds of
towns, of which the mayor or chief officer does not know how to read or
write.
Ten years ago, when the last census was made, in a population of
15,613,536, there were actually 12,543,169 who could not read and write,
leaving only 3,070,367 people in Spain possessed of these
accomplishments. In 1860 there were 1,101,529 children in the public
schools of Spain, and they must learn something.
It is encouraging to learn that the government is paying increased
attention to the subject of education. There are 25,000 primary schools
in the kingdom, which ought to be exerting a powerful effect upon the
people. Spain has ten universities, and the number of students in them
is far greater than one would expect under the low state of _popular_
education. They are thus distributed:—
Madrid 4,194
Barcelona 1,365
Seville 887
Valladolid 828
Granada 617
Valencia 624
Santiago 403
Saragossa 389
Salamanca 242
Oviedo 155
The course of study pursued in these institutions is substantially the
same as that in other countries: 2,040 of the students are in the
Philosophical and Literary course, 1,617 in the Exact Sciences, Physics,
and so forth; while Law, Theology, and Medicine include the rest. Some
of these universities once had a reputation as wide as the civilized
part of the world, and students from all nations flocked to them as to
the purest and sweetest fountains of knowledge in the earth. At
Salamanca, where now there are less than 250 students, there were 10,000
in the fourteenth century, and its reputation has been higher than
Oxford’s. It was at this university that the Copernican system of
astronomy was held and taught, when the Romish Church denounced it as
heretical and contrary to the Holy Scriptures. Yet even here Columbus
could make no impression in favor of his theory of another continent,
but all his arguments were treated with the greatest contempt by the
learned men of the university of Salamanca. The professors of the modern
school, which still retains the name and distinctions of the days of its
glory, get $600 a year for their services, and that is probably an index
of the estimation in which learning is held in these decayed and
benighted regions.
The present population of Spain, making due allowance for increase since
the last estimate, is about 16,400,000. It is therefore the _eighth_ of
the European powers in numbers, Italy and Turkey being both ahead of it.
The increase of population in Spain is only at the rate of less than the
half of one per hundred annually. At this rate the number would double
only once in 181 years, placing Spain behind every country in Europe, in
this respect, except poor Austria. She doubles once in 198 years; then
Spain; then France, once in 122 years; Holland, once in 80 years;
Scotland, once in 46 years; Prussia, once in 41 years; England and
Wales, once in 29 years.
One of the most curious questions in morals, politics, and physiology,
is started by these facts. They furnish food for thought. One class of
speculators will find moral causes to explain the circumstances, and
they may easily gather a pile of facts to sustain their positions.
Climate, too, has its influence. The civil government, with the physical
condition of the people, is to be considered. But when the physical, the
moral, the civil, and the social state of Austria, Spain, France,
Holland, Prussia, Italy, and England is duly examined, it still remains
to be ascertained why it is that the number of inhabitants increased
more rapidly among the colored people of the Southern States of North
America while they were slaves, and now increases more rapidly among the
Irish portion of the American population, than it does among these
highly favored countries of Europe. The statistics of births in New
England and other parts of the United States unhappily show that, with
the increase of the cost of living, and of luxury and effeminacy, the
number of children born is less and less from year to year. There is no
truth in social economy better established by the comparison of an
adequate number of facts than this, that the diminution in the number of
births is attended by, if not consequent upon, the deterioration of the
health and the morals of any people. Oppression which makes a wise man
mad may depress the spirits, exhaust the energies, and retard the
increase of a population, not supernaturally sustained as were the
Hebrews in Egypt, who, the more they were afflicted, the more they
multiplied and grew. But favored as the middle and southern countries of
Europe are by climate and soil, affording the people an easy and
comfortable subsistence, they might and would increase in numbers as
rapidly at least as the northern, if they were so disposed.
We are now coming down into the region of the aloe, the olive, the
orange, and the vine. Since we have crossed the Sierra Morena, the
climate has softened. At this season of the year (February), the
vegetation is not far advanced, but the leaves of the olive are always
green, and the orange and the lemon bear leaves and fruit and flowers at
the same time. The orange should, in some climates, like this and the
south of France, remain on the tree, after it appears to be ripe, for
two years, before it is sweet. Much of that delicious fruit which we
have in our country is too sour to be good, because gathered and sent to
market before it is fully ripe. Here, and all over the southern parts of
Spain, it is a _glorious_ fruit. It is very large, very yellow, and very
sweet; and being abundant, is very cheap. A cent of our money will buy
the largest, and the natives get them much cheaper than that. Sweet
lemons are also common. But they are not agreeable. They seem to me a
miserable attempt to be an orange. And the good sour lemons grow to an
enormous size. I got one in Cordova to measure, and my hat would hold
one lemon only! The skin was at least an inch thick; the juice not so
acid as of the lemon generally, and there was no more of it than in one
of ordinary size. These large lemons are used in preserves, the skin
being the only available part of the fruit.
We are now on the plains, in sight of the graceful hills of ANDALUSIA.
In the soft sunlight of this warm winter’s day the hills appear to be
sleeping and enjoying their repose. All nature, even now, invites to
rest. We begin to feel the languor of the clime. There are no trees but
the olive. No birds are singing, or we should know that summer is nigh.
We stop frequently at little stations, to leave and take the mail. The
letters and papers are tied up in a packet with a string, and are handed
from the mail-car to a boy or a woman on hand to receive them. The
letters _from_ the place are delivered to the mail-agent in the same
way. No bag, no box, no lock or key, not even a wrapper around the
letters protects them. It is the way they do things in this country.
Over these wide plains there are few or no habitations to be seen. The
peasants must travel many miles to their daily work, for they live in
villages far away from the lands they till. Few cattle are to be seen;
now and then a flock of sheep. More black sheep than white ones were in
sight, and many of the blacks were singularly marked, having but one
white spot on them, and that at the tip of their tails.
[Illustration: CORDOVA.]
CHAPTER VIII.
CORDOVA.
A NEW, but old world, a sudden vision of the ORIENT, rose on the sight,
when we reached the city of CORDOVA. Never did I enter a city that
filled me with a deeper sense of the transient, temporal, and fleeting
nature of all things material. It is not in ruins. It shows no tokens of
decay to the coming traveller. A cleaner city is not in the world. It
was the first city in Europe whose streets were paved, and the
traditional habits of the people are so well preserved, that although it
was a thousand years ago (in 850, under Abdurhaman) that this work was
done, it has been done again and again, and the stones in the streets
are kept as clean as the floor of a house. The Guadalquiver flows gently
by the side of it, and under the shade-trees planted on its banks the
idle and the fashionable have their favorite lounge and promenade. The
bridge over this widely famed river was first built by Octavius Cæsar
and rebuilt by the Moors. Standing on sixteen arches, it is a striking
monument of two departed dynasties and forms of civilization. The city
itself was great before Christ came into the world, and Julius Cæsar
writes of it as it was in his day, when his armies swept over Spain. In
the civil wars of Rome, Cordova declared for Pompey, and then Cæsar put
28,000 of its inhabitants to the sword.
After the Moors came over from Africa, and, in the battle of Guadalete,
struck down the power of the Goths, this city was governed by the Caliph
of Damascus, until it became independent and the capital of Moorish
Spain. Then began its career of glory. In the tenth century it had
300,000 inhabitants (now 40,000), and for these devout and cleanly and
hospitable and learned Mussulmans there were six hundred mosques, and
nine hundred baths, and six hundred inns, and eight hundred schools, and
a library of 600,000 volumes.
Outside of the city the people had gone in crowds to a rural fête. Men,
women, and children, old and young, rich and poor, on foot, on horse, on
mules or donkeys, and in carriages,—any way to go,—all had gone to have
a jolly time in the country, as the custom is in Spain. It was a gay
sight, but rising among the grounds were scattered here and there the
remnants of ancient buildings, broken columns, fragments of capitals,
and blocks of stone, that lay there silently speaking of departed glory.
For here once stood the fairy palace of the Moorish Abdurhama, which
that prince built for his favorite sultana, whose name it bore, and
whose statue stood above the principal gate. The whole palace was of
marbles and precious stones, adorned with the florid architecture which
the genius of the East would invent. More than four thousand marble
columns did this luxurious monarch bring from France and Italy and
Africa to adorn his halls. And when he had spent more than fifty
millions of pounds sterling upon it, he brought into his harem four
thousand and three hundred women! Guarded by twelve thousand valiant
men, he gave himself up to the pleasures of “the life that now is.” The
city of Cordova was the city for such a king!
It is Moorish, Oriental, languid, voluptuous, in its decay. Walking
along its quiet, almost noiseless streets, we looked in upon the courts
that form the central _patio_ around the four sides of which the house
is built. In the midst, a fountain springs, and the water falls back
into a marble basin. Around it shrubs with blooming flowers fill the air
with fragrance and beauty. In some of them evergreen trees, of unknown
age, are growing, and these have been trained so curiously, as to
produce surprising effects. Planted at the four corners of a square,
their tops are brought over to meet each other, the branches are joined,
the redundant leaves and twigs being pruned away, they grow together,
the whole four, like one tree of arch over arch, a perpetually verdant
bower. The windows of the dwelling look down into this court; and in
them, or on its marble pavements in the heat of the day, the women sit
with their needle-work, enjoying the fragrant shade and the music of the
falling water. The gardens abound in oranges, lemons, and limes, hanging
over the walls in clusters of extraordinary size.
The interior of these ancient houses is no less interesting. One, to
which we were invited, was said to be the best example of the Moorish
domestic architecture extant in Cordova. A few jasper columns were
standing under the archway by which we passed from the court. The modern
whitewash had covered the most of the arabesque embellishments upon the
walls. We ascended a flight of broad, brick steps, with a solid beam of
wood at the outer edge of each step, and at the head of the stairs the
venerable master of the house met us kindly and made us welcome. We
heard a piano as we were coming up the steps, but it suddenly ceased,
and a young lady flitted out of view. The house is said to be more than
a thousand years old. It may be so, but the Moorish style is so
imprinted on the tastes of the people that they build age after age with
substantially the same models, and it is not safe to affirm that the
hands of the Moors laid any of these stones. The ceilings are very low,
the rooms small, the furniture, as in all lands, is according to the
taste or means of the owner, but Eastern in its style, and adapted to
the quiet, languid type of the modern as well as the ancient inhabitants
of this and all such climes.
The wonder of Cordova is also one of the wonders of the world. Its
cathedral has been a mosque of the Moors. To see it once is an adequate
reward for all one has endured in travelling thus far through the most
comfortless country in Europe. To see it often, and study it in the
minute details of its extraordinary plan and finish, is to lay up a
store of imagery for dreams of memory through the rest of a lifetime. At
least so it seems to me now, since entering its magnificent Gate of
Pardon, and suddenly standing in the midst of a thousand variously
colored columns,—marble, jasper, porphyry, granite,—all surmounted by
Corinthian capitals, a forest in a temple, a petrified grove of trunks
of majestic trees, enclosed in walls. Perhaps the memory of it will
fade, so that a year or two hence the impressions of wonder, of
sublimity, of vastness, will not be so strong as they are now. But at
the moment when the interior first broke upon my sight, it was as
strange to me that the art of men _could_ construct such an edifice, as
that the great Architect _should_ build the walls over which the Niagara
rushes for ever.
[Illustration: COURT OF ORANGES, CORDOVA.]
Stepping out of the street through a gate in a solid wall, we are in the
midst of a court-yard some 400 feet long: an orange grove, venerable
trees that have been bearing fruit, as now, a century or more; and three
fountains send up jets of waters that fall back into large marble basins
filled with goldfish which groups of children are feeding. Near the
gate, on benches, elderly men are sitting, smoking, and enjoying the
sunshine. The elders sat in the gate in the Scripture times, and do now
in Eastern towns, and here also, where Oriental manners still obtain. In
former years this court became a great resort for the people who made a
mart, or exchange, as in all ages men have been tempted to make the
house of prayer a market-place, and so it often becomes a den of
thieves. Now, this Court of Oranges, as it is called, is the resort of
old men and children, who enjoy the warmth and shade and waters of the
holy precincts. Passing through this court we come to the sacred edifice
itself. Its history is as eventful as that of Spain. It was built by the
Moors as a mosque, and when the Christians conquered Cordova, they
converted the mosque into a church, though they could not convert the
Moors into Christians. And this now-called cathedral is the one that
Abdurhaman began to build A. D. 786, and his son completed in 796,
pushing on the work with such tremendous energy that in ten years he
constructed one of the most remarkable edifices in the world. His
father’s idea was to surpass every temple on earth in extent and
strength and splendor. It was to be the Mecca in Europe; and when the
Western world was subdued to Islam, as he and all the believers believed
it would be, the holy place to which pilgrimages from all these lands
would be made was Cordova. It is, therefore, the finest example that
Spain possesses of that peculiar style of architecture and ornamentation
which the Moors introduced, and which have been gradually disappearing
with the lapse of centuries. It doubtless has a symbolism behind its
material forms, and the student of art and religious thought will read
in the plan and a thousand details, a meaning that does not meet the
unanointed eye of the simple traveller.
The Gate of Pardon is so called because, under the Roman Catholic
dispensation, indulgences were granted to those who entered by it into
the temple. There is one gate of the same name in each of the cathedrals
that I have visited in this country. The bronze ornaments upon the doors
are very curious, the royal arms are displayed, and while the Christian
inscription, in Gothic letters, of the word DEUS, proclaims the true
God, the Arabic letters also testify that the Mahometans worshipped him,
for they write, “The empire belongs to God.”
Within the temple there is at first a sense of gloom, almost of
oppression, arising from the vastness of the area and the want of
height. The roof cannot be more than 40 or 50 feet high, while the floor
stretches away 640 feet in length and 460 feet in breadth. A thousand
columns in long lines, like trees planted in the garden of the Lord, are
each of one single stone,—the spoils of temples in the East and the
West, and some of them imperial gifts, and hence a variety of colors and
size, showing all sorts of marbles, the green and red jasper, black,
white and rose, emerald and porphyry. Crossing each other, at right
angles, these rows of pillars form nineteen naves one way and
twenty-nine the other; long-drawn aisles, over which the
horse-shoe-shaped arches, standing one upon the other and supporting the
roof, produce a marvellous effect.
[Illustration: THE GREAT MOSQUE, CORDOVA.]
The Holy of Holies in the mosque was the Mihrab, and it has been
preserved in the converted temple, with religious care, as at once a
curiosity and a memorial that the Mahometan has ceased to defile these
courts. It is a recess in the wall of the temple, in which the Koran was
kept, and where the Kalif came to say his prayers, looking out of a
little window toward Mecca. It is a small six-sided room, about twelve
feet across, the floor one piece of marble, and the roof, in the shape
of a shell, is also, we were assured, of a single block, and up the six
sides rise marble pilasters, the whole adorned with strange Arabic art
and mysterious inscriptions. When Hakem was Caliph of Cordova, he sent
messengers into the East to ask for skilful artificers in painting glass
and giving this strange effect to tracery in metals and stone; for there
is in mosaic work, when well done, something superior to the softest
painting, and quite incomprehensible. The workers in mosaic came, and
their skill now shines in this miracle of Oriental art, which has been
here since 965, and is as fresh and beautiful as when it shone at the
feast of the Rhamadhan, in the light of a thousand lamps. In the marble
floor is worn a deep groove, by the knees of devout Mussulmans, who have
thus gone around it while at their devotions.
On the sides of the cathedral are many chapels, each with its altar, its
pictures, its relics, and its history. By one of them, once a Moorish
sanctuary paved with silver, is a rude painting of a crucifixion, and an
inscription in Spanish which tells us that that—
“While the Mahometans celebrated their orgies in this temple, a
Christian captive uttered the name of Christ, whom he held in his heart,
and he engraved this image with his nails on the hard stone of this
pillar, for which his death has purchased this aureole.”
On the stone column is etched a crucifixion which tradition says the
prisoner scratched in with his finger nails. The stone is very hard, and
the story harder.
Come again and again, and this strange pile, with its thousand columns
and its thousand years of history, grows on you with every visit. We
come from a land where all is fresh and new, and these old temples fill
us with awe. But if we are impressed with a ruin as in Rome, where
Paganism built its temples to become the sites of Christian churches,
which themselves have been buried and again dug up to be the wonder of
the present age, how much more impressive is a building still fresh and
unbroken by the march of centuries, where the pomp and ceremony of a
religion, corrupt indeed, yet recognizing God the Father as the only
true God, are perpetuated year after year till their number becomes a
thousand years.
CHAPTER IX.
SEVILLE, ITS CATHEDRAL AND BULL-FIGHTS.
NOT until reaching Seville does one feel what a luxury it is to
live,—just to breathe,—to inhale the delicious air and rejoice in
_being_. Other climates had been cold, or damp, or chilly; some hot,
debilitating; but this was just right, and when a man comes to the place
where the weather just suits him, it is time to sit down and enjoy it.
It was a privilege to be any thing that could breathe in this delightful
clime. It is the latter part of February. If one of my lungs was out of
order, or both of them, I would stay here till they were well, or until
the weather became too hot for comfort, and that will be but a few weeks
hence.
The city is clean, well-built, and in the evening the inhabitants throng
some of the streets so as to make it difficult to walk. The courts
around which the houses are built are beautifully adorned with flowers
and shrubs, and trees; in warmer weather awnings are spread over them,
and here the family enjoy themselves with the piano and guitar, the song
and the dance. Here, too, the table is spread, and all Seville, it is
said, takes tea out of doors.
[Illustration: “LA GERALDA,” SEVILLE.]
It was a dreadful day for Seville, and indeed for Spain, when the Moors
were driven out of the country; they had conquered it, and ruled eight
hundred years. Four hundred thousand Moors, Jews and Arabs, left this
city of Seville in a few days after it was surrendered to St. Ferdinand.
Wealth, learning, taste, art, and the charm of Eastern life went out
with them, and Spain has been lower in the scale of morals and manners
ever since. This is no compliment to Mahometanism. To compare the
present condition of Spain with any thing that has gone before it, and
say that the former days were better than these, is saying very little
for the better times. In this old city of Seville we found the Alcazar
or palace, being the first specimen of Moorish magnificence we had seen.
It consists of a group of palaces, on the banks of the Guadalquiver, and
exhibits the same style of architecture and mural decorations that are
so much admired and celebrated in the Alhambra. Indeed, the pavements
and columns and arches and apartments have been preserved or restored
with so much greater care than the Alhambra itself, that the latter
appears to be a feeble example of Moorish taste and skill, compared with
these glorious rooms in Seville. Fancy must people these chambers with
men and women, of flesh and blood; clothe them in Oriental and gorgeous
raiment, surround them with every luxury that gold and labor and power
can give; hang these passages with curtains whose richness has not been
excelled by any thing that modern art has produced. When the sleepy
janitor opens the outer gate and leads you through these deserted and
empty halls, in which your footfalls make the only sound, into
apartments that for centuries have been silent as the grave, yet on
every hand is beauty of coloring and carving and curiously wrought
adorning that you must pause to admire; even in the midst of admiration
one cannot but mourn that the barbaric splendor of Moorish glory has
departed, and the degenerate race of effete Spanish civilization has
taken its place. A thousand wives of a proud Moor once made these walls
jocund with their mirth, and the adjoining gardens and the beautiful
Guadalquiver were gay with their revels and song, and the moral tone of
the palace was as high, and the happiness of the people just as great as
when a dissolute queen and a profligate court, and an ignorant,
depraved, and impoverished people, constituted the government and
inhabitants of a nominally Christian kingdom.
Instead of a mosque, is the cathedral of Seville. It is the noblest
example of the Gothic ecclesiastical architecture in the world. St.
Peter’s at Rome produces no such effect on the soul when first you enter
it. The Cologne cathedral is nearer it in power. I have no superstitious
feeling that compels me to be awed by a place. But I cannot enter this
temple without worshipping! Instantly, as you stand within its walls,
its giant solemn columns rising around, scarcely visible in the twilight
at the noon of a brilliant southern day, its vastness, its amazing
height, the roof like a firmament, and resting on arches, dividing it
into sixty-eight compartments, one feels that this surely ought to be
none other than the house of God. High mass was celebrated during one of
my many visits to the cathedral. When the tinkling of the bell gave the
signal for the “elevation of the host,” the faithful, wherever they
chanced to be in the vast area, fell on their knees and silently adored
the idol which superstition had just held aloft for the worship of an
ignorant multitude. A woman entered one of the chapels and knelt before
an image of the Virgin and poured out her soul in prayer. As if
unconscious that spectators were all around her, she wept and told her
beads.
[Illustration: SHE WEPT AND TOLD HER BEADS.]
The women of Seville are celebrated for their beauty. In the Central
Park of New York, Hyde Park of London, or the Bois de Boulogne of Paris,
you notice that many of the most splendid equipages carry very plain
women, and one often admires the compensation system that gives the
signs of wealth to some and saves the good looks for others. But you may
stand by the fashionable drive of Seville and the first hundred
carriages that pass shall have four handsome women in each of them. As
“you would scarce expect one of my age” to be a connoisseur in this
matter, I will give in the words of my guide the types of Spanish
beauty: “Deep blue-black eyes, _adormilados_ sometimes, and at others
full of flashes, each a _puñalada_; a small forehead; raven hair, long
and silky, which they might almost turn at night into a balmy soft
pillow, and a long flowing mantilla by day; a peculiar _meneo_, _sal_,
and indescribable charm, naturalness, and grace in every movement,
together with liveliness and repartee,—form the principal features of
their appearance and character.”
The dance and the song, the bull-fight more than any thing else in the
season of it, make this city the home of the gayest, wildest, most
dissolute men and women in the south of Europe. Corinth, in the days of
Venus-worship, was not more wholly given up to the lust of the flesh and
the pride of life than Seville to-day. Yet it was once the emporium of
the New World. From its port set sail the fleet that carried Columbus to
a land beyond the sea and brought back the wealth of the Western Ind. It
has been the residence of kings; and successive dynasties, faiths, and
customs have in turn made Seville their capital and terrestrial
paradise. It is girt on every side by fertile plains, the orange and
lemon trees hang loaded all the year with their golden fruit, and the
silver river, whose name is poetry and whose banks are haunted with the
memories of Eastern delights, washes the feet of this beautiful city.
If there was ever an original to Byron’s Don Juan, and there was perhaps
an original to him as to Cooper’s Spy or Irving’s Schoolmaster, then the
tradition may be true that points to a low white-washed house, close to
San Leandro, and belonging to the nuns of that convent, where that
graceless scamp once lived. And the “Barber of Seville,” of course, had
his shop somewhere in town, and it has been conveniently located in the
same neighborhood, so that when you visit the St. Thomas Square you can
see them both. They are nothing to see, unless you are at that age when
the poetry of Byron has charms they lose as you get older and wiser.
The house of Murillo, the painter of Spain, and not far from being the
painter of the world, is an object of attraction, and Seville has it,
and also some of the greatest pictures of this master. The Queen of
Spain would send the Pope a present worthy of a sovereign to give to
another, and she sent two of Murillo’s paintings. The Pope had them
copied in mosaic, and sent the copies to the Queen of Spain. It is
surpassingly wonderful that stone can be set so skilfully as to make a
picture with all the softness of shade and color that belongs to the
finest work in oil. We will look up some Murillos on our way, but just
now we are near the site of the Old Moorish Castle, which is not more
distinguished for the tales of Oriental life and love and war than it is
for being the place in which the Inquisition was first established. What
tales of horror its stones might tell if they were permitted to cry out!
Nowhere on this planet has the notion of converting men to believe a
lie, by roasting them if they will not believe, been carried to a higher
finish than in Spain. In each of its chief cities a spot is still
cherished with affectionate regard by the faithful, where in the good
old times of their fathers the _auto-da-fé_ was celebrated with pompous
processions, when priests and soldiers and hosts of men and women
marched to the public square with a company of those who had been
condemned to the stake! The _Quemadaro_, or burning place of Seville, is
outside of the city, and the plain is called the Field of St. Sebastian.
Aceldama would be a more appropriate name.
On the banks of the Guadalquiver, near the Moorish Alcazar, stands a
famous pile called the Tower of Gold, as well so called from its ancient
color as the uses to which it has been put. Its summit gives an outlook
far upon the plain across the river, and in times of old it has been a
fortress of huge strength, to resist the enemy when threatening the
palace itself. It was built by the Moors as a treasure-house. When the
Spaniards got possession of it, Don Pedro made it a prison for his
friends, men and women, who fell under his disfavor. And then came a
time when it was wanted for the purpose of holding heaps of gold, for
when Columbus had gone from Seville to a new world, and the stream of
gold began to flow back to Spain, this Seville, which had sent out the
great discoverer, received the returning treasures, and this tower
became the reservoir to contain it. Eight millions of ducats and more
have been stored here at one time, _private_ and public funds, and the
monarchs of Spain often put their arms deep into the bins of gold, and
helped themselves.
The decline and fall of Spain would be the fitting theme for another
Gibbon, and the lesson it teaches might be studied with advantage in the
new world, whose discovery had so much to do with enriching, and then
destroying the kingdom. It is very hard to speculate or philosophize on
the causes that led to the prostration of a great power like this, when
the element of _religion_ is excluded from the study. Without the
demoralizing influences of a political religion, there were causes
enough to work the ruin of Spain, and foremost among these was the
influx of wealth, that made every man greedy of a chance to get rich, at
the expense of the State. It is useful to recur to it now, and in our
own country, because the same causes are working mightily in the same
direction, and producing the same deplorable effects. It was always so,
but increased opportunities increase temptation and multiply the
consequences. Men now seek and obtain office not for honor and the power
of usefulness, but to get rich. Government in the hands of such men is
an instrument of robbery, an engine of corruption, and it has in itself
disease and death. The influx of gold from California has corrupted the
American people in the same way, if not to the same degree that the
Mexican gold and silver demoralized Spain.
Antanazio proposed to drive out of town, along the banks of the river,
to the ruins of an ancient city. A charming ride of an hour, in a
delicious winter day, without the winter, brings us to the ruins of an
amphitheatre built by Scipio Africanus, A. U. C. 546. Here, away in this
end of the then known world, three men were born, each one of whom
became a Roman emperor! The glory of nations was once over all the
palaces, temples, and theatres that distinguish this spot. But now the
ruins themselves are ruined. We can mark, or rather we can believe when
we are pointed to, the places where the nobles sat to see the games of
blood in the arena of the amphitheatre, the dungeons of the wild beasts
are laid open, and the chambers where gladiators stripped for the fight,
that gladdened the hearts of men and women two thousand years ago. Yet
they were quite as rational and refined, quite as Christianable and
decent, as the bull-fights of to-day.
“Have you been to see a bull-fight?” was one of the first questions put
to me by a delicate little lady-friend whom I met.
“No; have you?” I answered and asked in the same breath.
Her husband was sitting by; a splendid soldier-like looking man, six
feet high, and well proportioned, who could take the bull by the horns
when he pleased, and would do it were there any occasion. He did not
wait for his pretty wife to answer my inquiry, but laughingly replied:
“Yes, _she_ has, and I went with her, but could not stand it; the sight
made me sick, and I had to leave in disgust; but she staid it out, and
saw—how many killed was it, dear?”
“Six bulls and five horses,” she said with a smile of supreme delight.
“Killed!” I cried.
[Illustration: THE BULL FIGHT.]
“Yes, killed,” they both answered, and he went on to say,
“butchered;—horrid!”
“Tell me all about it, please; I would like to _hear_, at least.”
“Well,” said the amiable husband, “if you are going to talk _bull_, I
will go into the reading-room and have a smoke.” He went out, and she
went on:—
“These _men_” she said; “but I ought to say, _you_ men, are so
squeamish; you faint at the sight of a little blood; what would you do
in a fight, a real battle with bullets and brains flying all about you
and men bleeding to death by hundreds, if you can’t bear to see a bull
cut down or a horse ripped up. Why, I saw a horse run all about the
bull-ring with his entrails trailing on the ground, and a bull with his
hamstrings cut, and making splendid fight on his knees. You must go and
see it; now there’s my husband, poor fellow, he ought not to go to such
places, it doesn’t agree with him!”
“Well, I would rather have you describe a fight,” said I, “than to go
and see it. I have no particular taste for blood, but any thing would be
agreeable that you would undertake to describe.”
“Thank you. You have seen the ring; every city in Spain has its
bull-ring: a circular theatre, open to the sky, with seats rising from
the arena in the centre. The seats on the east and southerly quarters
are covered to protect the grandees, while the multitude sitting in the
sun hold fans before their faces or take it as it comes. This ring will
seat some fifteen to twenty thousand people, and a gayer, grander sight
it is rare to see, than these bright-colored, dressy people; the women
are the most beautiful in the world; they are far handsomer than
American women, you _know_ they are, don’t you?”
“Perhaps so, present company excepted, and one or two others: but pray
go on,—I am more anxious to hear of bulls than women.”
“A blast of trumpets sounds the hour for the spectacle to begin, and the
eager shout of the multitude shows their impatience to see the fun. A
great show precedes, the magistrates riding in with a troop to give
something like dignity to the occasion, and when they have swept around
the circle and retired, the spectators sit in breathless silence. Two
mounted men, called _picadors_, ride in, each with a long spear at rest,
and take their position, some fifty feet in front of the gateway through
which the beasts are to enter. All things being ready, and the
breathless throng thirsting for the fray, the huge door unfolds, and a
fierce bull dashes into the arena. The multitude greet him with a shout
of ecstasy. He makes straight upon the picadors, if he is a bull of
spirit. There’s a great difference in the animals; some of them go
scouring all around the ring, head down and tail up, pursued by the
picador; but a real bull of Navarre—they are the fiercest and
pluckiest—pitches right ahead for the first enemy he sees. The horseman
levels his lance to meet the tremendous monster as he comes; sometimes
catches him on the shoulder, and the blood spouts from the wound. But he
does not stop for trifles. It takes more than a scratch to stop a good
bull; he rushes on and sometimes buries the iron deeper in his flesh, or
tosses it off, and catching the horse on his horns, hoists him and his
rider into the air, and as they come down in a heap, he drives on to
meet other antagonists lying in wait, and ready to do him mischief. The
very last time I was there, it was this sight that made my husband sick;
the horse scrambled up, and actually went trotting around the ring, when
there was more of him outside than in, he was so terribly ripped open by
that one lunge of those splendid horns. I was in hopes that the bull
would beat the whole of them; now he met the men on foot, with red
cloaks on their arms, which they shake to attract the excited
gentleman’s attention. He sees them and bears down gallantly upon them
like a Monitor or a Miantonomoh, and the wily _chulos_, or cloakers,
leap dexterously to one side, and sometimes they jump over the barriers
among the spectators, where they have been followed by the raging bull
himself. This is not often, however. He has still another set of
fighters to drive out of the ring. These are the _banderilleros_, who
throw fiery darts into the bull’s neck; these darts are provided with a
powder squib which explodes when it strikes in the flesh, and puts his
majesty into a horrid rage: by this time, the bull, hunted by all these
foes, charging upon one and speared by another, is becoming exhausted,
or the spectators are wearied with the sameness of the fight, and want a
new victim. The _matador_, or chief butcher, then enters the field in a
full court dress, with a scarlet robe in one hand and a sharp stiletto
in the other. He brandishes the red skirt to draw the bull on, and as he
comes he aims a stab at his neck, and, if he is a master at his work,
takes him in the right spot, and the huge fellow falls dead at his
victor’s feet. Once I saw the matador miss his aim, the bull wheeled
suddenly, one horn took him in the side, and he went over the head of
the bull and came down a mangled corpse. Then a shout went up as if to
shake the skies. I felt badly myself, but these Spanish people seemed to
relish it amazingly, and I suppose they get used to it. But the bull
generally gets the worst of it. When he has had the finishing stroke, a
team of mules is driven in, the dead beast is hitched on by a hook and
chain and drawn out rapidly, and the ring is clear for another fight.
All this has not taken half an hour, and a similar scene is repeated
until four, five, or six bulls, and often as many horses, are killed.
“When a good hit is made the spectators rise _en masse_ and shout their
applause. This is the triumph of the gladiators in the sand. A little
riband on the bull’s mane is a prize which the combatant seeks to
capture, and this he presents to his lady-love as the evidence of his
bravery and skill. The ladies are evidently quite as enthusiastic in
their love of the national sport as the men, and they show it by
clapping their little hands or fans and crying _bravo_, as eagerly as
any.”
“And do _you_ really find pleasure in this bloody spectacle?” I inquired
somewhat anxiously, for I had been quite interested in her graphic
description, and could readily see that she had spoken with feeling.
“Well, I must say that I do like the excitement of it. I never could see
any sport in looking on when two or three or four horses were thrashed
to make them run faster; yet many women think it the height of enjoyment
to see a horse-race. The noblest men of England delight to stand in a
ring around two men who beat each others’ faces into a jelly, and they
call it the ‘manly art’! The ladies of New York go to theatres and
operas with their necks and more exposed to the gaze of men, and the
ladies look at the licentious dancing of _ballet_ girls who have been
tortured into the art of showing themselves disgustingly to every
virtuous taste. And I have come to the conclusion that in all parts of
the world people have their own ideas about amusement, and there is no
great difference in the _moral_ of it. For my part I like a good fair
stand-up bull-fight more than any of them.”
My fair enthusiast rested; I thanked her for the information she had
given, and added:
“I agree with you entirely, my dear madam, as to the _moral_ of the
sports you speak of; only I think the New York amusements are the most
corrupt and corrupting. And when I write on ‘Bull-Fights in Seville,’ I
shall do my best to put it in your words.”
“If you do,” said she, “send me a copy of your book; I want my husband
to read it. He can’t bear bullfights.”
[Illustration: Drawing of Matador]
CHAPTER X.
SEVILLE.
DON MIGUEL DE MANARA, a Spanish rake, one of many like the Don Juan who
stands as type of his race, having spent his life in the way rakes love
to live, undertook to be religious in his later years. He had sowed his
wild oats, and never got much of a crop, and now that death was likely
to call for him soon, he thought to get ready for his coming by making
over to some pious uses what he had not spent upon his lusts. According
to the theory of that church which takes care of all Spanish souls, he
made a sure thing of it by founding a hospital, to which was given the
name of “LA CARIDAD.” A brotherhood, whose special vocation was to
minister to persons sentenced to death, and to bury their bodies, took
charge of it. It is famous far beyond Seville and Spain. Its patients
are tended by young men of good families in the city, who minister by
turns to the sick and dying brought to this CHARITY. Perhaps some of the
young gentlemen nurses, like the founder, have an eye to a compromise of
their own infirmities, by giving attention to these miserably sick poor.
But the fame of the hospital is so great because it has within its walls
some of the noblest paintings in the world!
The building stands in an obscure part of the town, and we had a long
search to find it, Antanazio, our guide, being quite unused to take his
travellers to hospitals and out-of-the-way churches, as theatres and
bull-fights and fandangoes among the gypsies are much more attractive.
But we found it; an old woman janitor let us in, and led us to the
chapel where the art-treasures are to be seen.
This church is the guardian of the masterpieces of MURILLO. His manner
is as distinctly marked as Raphael’s or Titian’s, and the power of none
of the Italian masters, unless we except Leonardo da Vinci, is greater
than his. It was difficult to believe this in Italy, where Murillos are
comparatively rare, but here, where alone his greatest and best works
are to be found, it is easy to believe that he is among the first.
Several of his pictures in this church are of St. John, and in one of
them an angel assists the saint in carrying a sick man, and in another
the same saint washes the feet of a pauper. The Miracle of the Loaves
and Fishes is a wonderfully faithful presentation of that sublime scene.
But the great picture, the one we specially came to see, is “Moses
striking the Rock in the Desert.” Its eloquence tells and pleads its own
story: a famished multitude pressing to the gushing stream and gathering
the precious waters in their hands; mothers drinking, while their
children, with parched lips, are pleading for the life-saving draught;
even the beasts declare their joy at the sight of water, and gratitude
lights up the faces of the thronging Israelites. But the central,
majestic figure in the group, on which the painter’s high art is
lavished with a wealth of skill, is Moses, with folded hands and
upturned eyes, acknowledging the goodness and the power which this
miracle, almost as wondrous to him as to his people, has so suddenly
revealed. Near him is his brother Aaron, scarcely less than Moses in the
scene, for he, priest-like, is still in the act of prayer. And in the
people every form and feature of human life and feeling are portrayed,
each after its own kind, with the hand of a master.
There are several pictures here by others, as well as other Murillos,
that I have not space to mention. Marshal Soult carried off five of the
great pictures by Murillo, and two of them, “Abraham entertaining the
Angels,” and the “Prodigal Son,” were bought by the Duke of Sutherland.
Wellington recovered, at Waterloo, some of Soult’s spoils of the
galleries of Spain. The French are great thieves when they get among
pictures or statuary. They once had the Venus de Medicis boxed and ready
for Paris. War is pretty much the same game all the world over, and
always.
The picture-gallery of Seville was saved from French spoliation by the
forethought of a Spanish amateur, who sent all the paintings to
Gibraltar before the French reached Seville. We found, to our
disappointment, that the museum was closed for repairs, and a special
order from the governor was necessary. Instead of sending the order, he
promised to send us a guide to conduct us through the gallery the next
day. An hour after the time he came, and the only service he came to
perform was to lead us to the door of the museum, which was close to our
lodgings, and then to receive his fees for this needless service. That
was very Spanish. The porter then admitted us and received his fees.
Another led us across the court into the hall where the pictures were
standing along the walls, unhung, and he received his fees. When the
convents in Spain were suppressed, the best pictures among them were
gathered into this museum. Murillo painted some of his finest works for
the Capuchin convent, which stood near the Cordova gate. One of the
sweetest and most perfect of paintings is that of the two saints of
Seville, the maidens Justa and Rufina, who held up the giralda, or tower
of the cathedral, when it was likely to be blown down in a tempest. In
the days of Pagan Spain a procession was passing through the streets
bearing an image of VENUS, to which the people made homage. Two young
women, lately converted to the Christian religion, by name Justa and
Rufina, refused to worship the idol, and the multitude in their madness
made martyrs of them on the spot. When the Christians became masters of
the city, the maidens became its tutelar saints, and are painted as
holding the giralda in their hands, in honor of their kind interposition
in a storm.
Here is Murillo’s first and last page of the gospel,—the Annunciation is
the first page, with the beauty and joyful hope of the motherhood of him
who is the desire of all nations; the last page is the Mother of Jesus
weeping over the death of him who was to have redeemed Israel. The St.
Thomas giving alms, by Murillo, has been praised by the best critics as
not excelled by any of his works. Wilkie placed it among the finest.
It is a question often asked, and never answered, Why can we not have
these pictures, or such as these, in the Western World? Few of the many
who would enjoy and appreciate them ever can come to Spain or Italy, and
must they live and die without the sight of all these glorious works of
art? It would be an easy matter to have copies made of the most
celebrated and magnificent pictures, and transported to New York, into a
national gallery. Copies may be made so as to challenge comparison with
the original, and to give a fair idea of the distinctive manner of each
of the artists. It does not require the same genius to make a perfect
copy that it does to conceive and give birth to the original. And there
are no living artists, and have been none in the last three hundred
years, to paint character, soul, thought, feeling, as those men did whom
we call the Old Masters. We have as great painters now as they. But not
in their line of things. England and France and America have had, and
now have, artists whose works could not have been produced by Da Vinci,
Giotto, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, Carlo Dolce, or Murillo. But
there is no one alive now to paint the Last Supper, the Judgment, the
Transfiguration, the Charles V. on horseback, or the Smitten Rock,
comparable with those majestic transcripts of sentiment which stand up
in the world of art among man’s works, as Niagara and Mont Blanc are
sublime among the works of God.
After writing the account of the bull-fight in a former chapter, it
occurred to me that you might ask whether I went to see the _sport_
myself, or relied altogether on the descriptions of the ladies and
others. That is a fair question, and I am therefore obliged to say that
I did not; that I have never seen a bull-fight. Three reasons prevented
me from going. First, they are usually to be seen only on Sunday, and I
never go to places of amusement on that day, at home or abroad.
Secondly, I have no taste for sights of blood, and would rather go the
other way than into the bull-ring at any time. And thirdly and lastly,
in the way of reasons for not going, there was not a bull-fight while I
was there! It was and is yet the winter season, when the weather is cool
compared with spring and summer, and the bulls do not fight well except
when the weather is hot. The “season,” which is even more distinctly
marked than that of opera in Paris or New York, begins the first Sunday
after Lent, and a performance takes place every Sunday afterwards, if
the weather permits, till the height of summer suspends it for a few
weeks when the heat is excessive. It is resumed from the latter part of
August until the first of October. Then the fall and winter are made
dull by its absence, and the Spaniards long for the return of hot
weather and the beasts.
There is a great deal of exaggeration in the descriptions given by those
who enjoy the sport. The horses selected for the sacrifice are miserable
jades, that are fit for nothing else but to be killed, and the bulls are
rarely so fierce as to be dangerous, unless goaded or provoked into
phrensy by the tricks of the combatants. The men who go into the fight
are all hired butchers or fighters, who are paid regular salaries, like
actors in a theatre, and they make a business of it. And so universal is
the rage of the people to see this, the national sport and pastime, that
the ring must furnish seats for ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand people,
and the price of admission for such a multitude readily supplies the
means to meet the great expenses of the entertainment.
One of the most curious facts developed by the bull-fight is the
fondness that women have for such scenes. It is no fiction that ladies,
whose refinement cannot be called in question, are in raptures when the
fight is the most savage and bloody. It always was so. In the
amphitheatres of Italy, when martyr Christians were compelled to fight
with wild beasts, the fairest and proudest of women were among the
spectators, who looked on with delight when their fellow-creatures were
torn limb from limb. I have often heard it said, here and elsewhere,
that women are more fond of these bloody spectacles than men are. We
know they are more sympathetic with suffering, and in the hospital and
chamber of sickness and anguish, they minister with a long-suffering
patience and fortitude from which the sterner stuff that men are
supposed to be made of revolts at once, or soon shrinks worn out, “used
up,” as we say.
What is the effect of these scenes of blood and butchery on the national
character? In the streets the boys play bull-fight: one holds up a red
handkerchief and shakes it in the face of another boy, who makes a lunge
at him with his head, and then pursues him, and another sets off after
_him_, and so the bull-ring is enacted in the highway. As all the large
towns have bull-rings, and the poorest classes of people manage to get
money enough to see the show, and the country boy can give his girl no
greater treat than to take her to a bull-fight, the thing is in the
widest sense national, and its influence reaches down to the lowest
ranks, while it is the pet of the nobility and gentry. And its effect
must be degrading, brutifying, and demoralizing. If there were any thing
in the Spanish character to work upon, for good or evil, the influence
of such a decided national pastime would be more distinctly pronounced.
But the senseless _pride_ of the Spaniard,—pride with nothing to be
proud of; pride with idleness, ignorance, and poverty; pride of the
meanest and most contemptible sort,—is the warp and woof of Spanish
character, and there is hardly any thing more in them than there would
be in a nation of peacocks.
When you have excepted the vice of intoxication, and a great exception
it is, you have said all that can be said in favor of the moral habits
of the Spanish people. They do not steal from one another, that I know
of, any more than other people do. But they certainly commit murders
more frequently than other nations do, unless the slayer is maddened by
drink. In estimating the comparative morality of peoples, this matter of
intemperance holds the balance. It is the prolific parent of the greater
part of the crimes of a people where it is the prevailing vice, yet very
few moralists are disposed to reckon it the crime of crimes. In Spain
the women are said to be almost universally corrupt. As a matter of
course, the men must be just as bad. I have been assured here in
Granada, by those who ought to know, having long resided here and become
thoroughly acquainted with the state of things, that there is no social
morality among men and women in Spain: that from the highest to the
lowest they have all gone out of the way, and that they are known—the
women are—as divided into four classes, with different degrees of
refinement in vice, but all four classes lost to virtue and without
conscience of sin. It is quite probable that such a statement is to be
taken with many grains of allowance. But making all deductions that
one’s good nature demands, there still remains a sediment of truth that
one shudders to admit. In this plane of inquiry we are met with the
truth that Austria, Italy, France, and Spain are the Roman Catholic
countries where the vice of licentiousness corrupts the moral of social
life. The Protestant countries of Europe are in colder climes, and
intemperance is the vice that among the poorer people breeds misery more
ruinous to their health and prosperity.
At the railway station, when we were leaving Seville for the Alhambra by
the way of Malaga, a group of natives in the costume of Andalusia
presented a picturesque and not unpleasing appearance. In the _cities_
of Europe it is rare to see any thing national and peculiar in the dress
of the people. Fashion is an empire that extends over every nation, and
reigns in London, Berlin, Vienna, and Madrid with resistless sway. The
seat of government is in Paris, and her edicts are obeyed in free
America as well as in France. But when you get into the rural districts,
the people cling to an ancient _régime_; a fashion, indeed, who sat on
the throne long years ago, and has never been put aside by any
revolutions of modern invention. These rural Andalusians, in breeches
and sandals, with red belt or sash, and loose jacket, and conical hat
and wide rim turned up all around, are dressed as their
great-grandfathers were, and as their own great-grandchildren will be,
and others, for generations to come. They had been to the city _on an
excursion_, and were now going home again, none the better, but a deal
the worse for the change of life they had suffered in town.
It was a good opportunity to learn something of the life of these
people, who form, after all, the great mass of any nation, and the part
of the people with whom every true heart is in sympathy. The rich and
the gay, the fashionable people who throng in cities, can live as they
please. The poor, who live from hand to mouth, and cannot choose for
themselves, but must live as they can, these are the people in every
country whose condition we want to inquire into; and when we have
learned of their state, we know what their country is. It is the average
of human comfort that we want to get at.
And it is a real help towards one’s satisfaction with the condition of a
people to know that it does not take a vast amount of the good things of
this life to make one happy, if he has never had any thing more or
better than the little he has been contented with. These Andalusians
work on the farms of large proprietors, and get six to ten cents a day
and their food, when they are working by the season. This sounds small.
The wages of laboring men who find themselves, and who work by the day,
will average forty or fifty cents a day. To know what such pay is worth
we must know how they live, and what it costs to buy the food they have.
Their food is chiefly soup of bacon oil and vegetables, with bread and
fruit. They take a kettle of this thick soup, more like a pudding than a
soup, to the fields with them; and day after day, year in and year out,
eat substantially the same thing. And this food costs the peasants a
very little more than nothing. The ground is easily worked, the climate
is so favorable to growth and land so abundant, that what can be raised
for food is almost as accessible to the poor as if vegetables were
spontaneous and free to everybody. So it is that these _poor_ people are
quite as well off, as to the mere physical comforts of life, as those
who get one, two, and five dollars a day in other lands, and have to pay
so much for food and lodgings as to be sorely puzzled to do what a cat
often tries to do,—make both ends meet.
These Spanish peasants appear to be lively, intelligent, and wide-awake.
They give a reason for doing any thing, when they are asked; and that is
more than the Irish or English peasantry can do at home, or in the land
of the soaring eagle. Except in Russia, there is not a people on the
continent of Europe that appear more stolid and unthoughtful, more like
mere cattle or machines, than the farm peasantry of merry England. This
may be in appearance only; but the truth is that you can get more out of
an ignorant laborer on the continent of Europe, whose language you do
not more than half understand, than out of an English farm hand who is
supposed to speak English.
Beer has something to do with this matter of stupidity. These southern
climates in Europe and this soil are favorable to the culture of
wine-grapes, and wine is the solace and stimulus of the commonest
people. You may buy as good a bottle of wine for thirty cents in Spain
as you would have to pay three or four dollars for in New York. And if
you will not give thirty cents for it, you can have as much as you want
for little or nothing. Until the railroads were built and transportation
made easy and cheap, it was common, when the new vintage came in, to
empty the casks that held what was left over of former years. And a
church was pointed out to me that was built with mortar made with wine
instead of water, there being a scarcity of water in the vicinity but
plenty of wine that was to be thrown away. Sherry wine, which is the
_sack_ of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, is the leading wine of Spain, and
is made now and here just as wine was made in the times of Hesiod and
Isaiah; for in such climes as this the people keep on doing things as
their ancestors or others did in the same place thousands of years ago.
They drink wine as freely as the English drink beer, and as Americans
drink rum and water. But they do not get drunk as our people do, and
they are not so stupid as the beer drinkers of England are. They are
stimulated, of course, and the exhilaration is carried to excess
sometimes. It is not true to say there is no drunkenness in wine-growing
countries, but the best informed men, who had the most abundant
opportunities of learning the facts in the case, assured me that
_intemperance_ is not common; that it is very rare among the working
people of Spain. This is not to be used as an argument in favor of wine
raising and wine drinking in America. It would indeed be better for the
health of the drinking men to drink pure wine than bad whiskey, or the
vile compounds that are sold as wine in our country. But if wine were as
cheap in the United States as in Spain, there would be just as much
intemperance in the United States as now. The climate and the strife of
such a country as ours furnish causes for the use of stimulating drinks
that do not exist in Italy or Spain; and philanthropists who discuss and
legislate on the subject of temperance, without regard to the physical
circumstances of a people, are in the same case with the traveller who
reckoned his bill without his host. It is well to multiply and fortify
wholesome laws to restrain men from evil indulgence, and it is our duty
to ply all possible moral agencies to reform and save our fellow-men;
but our duty does not end with legislating and preaching. There are
social burdens to be raised from the poor by the voluntary action of the
rich, and by the application of the gospel principle of brotherhood,
which will so ameliorate the condition of the lowly that they will not
be tempted as now, by the pressure of weariness, care, and woe, to fly
to the intoxicating cup for help to bear their load, or to forget that
it is on them. But this disgression is getting dry, if it is on
drinking.
A beautiful trait of character and a lovely custom of the Spanish
peasantry appear in their love for parents. They yield to them
_obedience_, respect, veneration, and love, after they are aged, and the
children are men and women grown. The married children delight to have
their parents to direct and govern them as in childhood, and these
children even quarrel among themselves to get and keep possession of
their aged parents. This trait of character is said to mark a slow
country, where the past, the ancient, is held in honor; while progress
has no such reverence for old age. Would to God that we had a little
more Spain in young America, if it is Spanish to honor one’s father and
mother.
[Illustration: IN THE ALAMEDA, AT MALAGA.]
CHAPTER XI.
MALAGA.
THE wind blowing from the north-west,—that is, a land breeze, at Malaga,
excites the nervous system so much, that in courts of law it is held to
be an extenuating circumstance in case of crime. It is therefore of
great importance to know which way the wind blows when you are proposing
to kill your neighbor or to commit a forgery. In our country we have
hardly got to that point, but in Boston, where easterly winds prevail,
the phrenologists set up a plea in behalf of the Malden murderer that
was quite as absurd as the Malaga weather. In New York, the doctrine of
mental and moral disturbance is held to be an extenuating circumstance
in crime. And some of our eminent citizens, merchants, bankers, lawyers,
doctors, and ministers have united in representing the strong excitement
engendered by stock speculation, as an excuse for forgery. From all of
which it is fair to infer that the guilt or innocence of a man in the
New World, as well as the Old, depends very much upon the way the wind
blows.
Malaga is one of the most celebrated resorts for invalids. It is not a
resort of fashion, like Nice and Mentone, and perhaps Sicily is more
sought by those whose maladies are partly imaginary and the other part
nervous. But Malaga is a place to which intelligent physicians send
hundreds of patients who are in a bad way, and yet have a fair chance of
getting well if they spend a few winters in this uniform, genial, mild,
but not enervating clime. The warm south wind comes in upon it from the
sea, on whose shore it lies, and the mountains in the rear shield it
from the northern blasts. In an ordinary room, without fire, the
thermometer (Fahr.) ranges all winter long from fifty-two to seventy
deg., never higher or lower, unless when an extraordinary fit of weather
is on, and the average temperature is about fifty-five deg. from
November to March. It is six degrees warmer than Rome, which is one of
the dampest, chilliest, and most disagreeable places for an invalid to
winter in. I tried hard to get well in Florence and Rome and Nice, and
then fled to Spain, and found what neither Italy nor Southern France
would furnish,—an equable clime; warm, but not debilitating. Nature has
a laboratory for making mineral waters that chemists in vain attempt to
imitate, and there are peculiar combinations of atmospheric elements in
divers places, that must be tried on the spot if you would get the good
of them. The invalid who wishes a climate that braces him up without
exciting him to cough, will have to breathe in a great many places,
perhaps, before he finds those opposite qualities blended, and if an
unprofessional opinion is worth any thing, it is here given, that the
south of Spain is the paradise desired. But nothing is more important
for consumptives than uniformity of climate, and the argument in favor
of Malaga is complete, when you learn that the range or variation of its
temperature is _less_ than that of any other place on the continent of
Europe! Pau, that beautiful little nest in the Pyrenees, so sheltered by
the hills that no wind visits it too roughly, has a range of no less
than sixty-eight degrees during the year, and Rome has sixty-two, and
even Nice, fairest of watering-places for winter, ranges sixty, but
Malaga has only a range of forty-nine degrees in the year.
It rained almost every day in Rome. It rains in Florence implacably,
just when you wish it would not. Nice is fairer, but not always fair.
Malaga is so uniformly pleasant, that a day without sunshine is very
unusual in the months of November, December, and January. Good authority
says there are not, during the whole year, more than ten days on which
rain would prevent an invalid from taking exercise. It seemed to me that
the winter weather in Malaga is more nearly like to that of Cairo, in
Egypt, than any other place, and there are but four degrees of
difference in the average temperature.
But take it summer and winter through, and in the last nine years it has
rained only 262 times, or thirty-nine times in the course of each year:
and think of it, O ye dwellers in London, or Paris, or New York, it has
been foggy or misty but sixteen days in three times three years! And
this bright, beautiful atmosphere gives a blue sky so deep and pure,
that it would take a poet of more than average fancy power to invent a
firmament of superior glory, or to find a sunset in Greece or Italy to
be mentioned in the same day with the gorgeous splendors that clothe the
skies of Southern Spain at shut of day.
If you have consumption, or bronchitis, or any malady that is working
mischief with your breathing apparatus, do not be governed, nor even
guided, by the hasty generalizations of a man who writes from what he
sees and hears in a tour for health and pleasure through half a dozen
countries in the course of a season. The most that he can tell you is
that such a climate as this is said to be excellent for those who have
consumption already, and is likely to engender it where it is not; and
if you cannot reconcile those two sayings of the books and the people,
it is well enough to know that a sickly plant may be saved by being
cared for in a hot-house, that might have been made to droop if taken in
when it was in healthful vigor. Dr. Lee, whose opinion is of great
weight, regards the climate of Madeira, Pau, or Pisa better than that of
Malaga, for incipient tubercular disease, in persons of an excitable
habit. And so much caution is to be used in deciding upon the means to
be used for saving life by change of clime, that I would not write a
line on this subject if I supposed that any one would be foolish enough
to make a voyage on the strength of it.
When a miserly client attempted to get an opinion out of a lawyer by
asking him at dinner, “What would you advise me to do in such and such a
case?” the lawyer answered, “I should think the best thing you could do
would be to take advice.” And this is what I advise.
No finer grapes than those of Malaga do we enjoy at home in the winter
season, and the trade in raisins is enormous. We have been familiar with
a raisin-box, but it was something quite novel to see extensive
factories making nothing else but these rude little cases, all to be
used for packing raisins. The raisin stores or depots where the boxes
are waiting to be exported were so vast as to astonish me, but when one
thinks of the extent to which they are distributed throughout the
civilized world, it is only wonderful that the trade is not far greater.
The country around is flowing with wine and oil. It might easily be made
to yield cotton and sugar enough to supply the market of Europe. But it
is in _Spain_, and nothing thrives in Spain but Romanism and its sister.
Through a succession of streets so narrow that no wheel carriages can
pass, and designed only for bipeds and quadrupeds to go on foot, reeking
with smells that made fragrant the memory of Cologne, we wound our way,
meeting Moors from Morocco, in their picturesque costume, caps, togas,
or shawls, with bare legs and sandals; meeting gypsy women and gypsy men
whose home is Spain, and whose story is part of life in Spain, we plied
our devious walk on Sunday into the little square in front of the Malaga
Cathedral. Built of white stone, on the site of a mosque, and still
retaining part of the old Mahometan structure, it rises in a mass about
three hundred feet square, to the height of 130 feet, and the tower
rises 220 feet above the roof. High mass was celebrated when we entered,
and few worshippers were present: most of these were women of some
“religious” order, and some priests, not serving at the altar but on
their knees before it, on the beautiful pavement of blue and white
marble. Perhaps the interior is too light and florid: the various
decorations have been added at periods so remote from each other that
they lack harmony. But what is wanting in severity and solemn majesty is
made up in the variety of ornament, portals, statues, and wood carvings.
The tribes of Jordan, in Palestine, once held this city and region,
reigning and rejoicing in the climate, the soil, and the sea. They sent
the luscious grapes away to China, and Ibu Bathula, who was here in
1630, was quite as delighted with what he had to eat and see as we are,
who come 230 years after him, for he says: “I have seen eight pounds of
grapes sold for twopence; its pomegranates are like rubies, and
unequalled in the whole world; its courts have no rivals in beauty, and
are shaded by wonderful groves of oranges.” He adds that he saw a
preacher collecting money to ransom some Moors whom a Spanish fleet had
captured. He rejoiced in the wine of Malaga, and all the more, it is
probable, because its use was forbidden by the Koran: for we have the
highest authority to say that stolen waters are sweet. And is it not
Al-Makkari who tells the story of a dying Moor who prayed: “O Lord, of
all things which thou hast in Paradise, I only ask for two; grant me to
drink Malaga and Muscat wine!”
The old fortress once stood here, from which the beautiful Florinde
threw herself into the sea, and by her death roused the rebellion that
was headed by her father, and drove from the throne her betrayer,
Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings. But all these stories, are they
not written in the chronicles of Washington Irving, and is there any one
so incredulous as to doubt the truthfulness of the thousand-and-one
legends of that fascinating and most learned historian? For my part,
since I have been dreaming here in the Alhambra, I have no more doubt of
the Spanish tales that he told than I have of the verities of the
Arabian Nights or the legend of Sleepy Hollow.
What travel was in Spain before the invention of _diligences_ I know
not, but probably the rich rode on horse or mule back, and the poor
footed it; now that railroads have brought distant cities near each
other, it is only occasionally that you are treated to an old-time ride
in a coach, and perhaps you may be glad that once at least, in Spain, it
was necessary for us to undergo this species of locomotion.
Between Malaga, a great seaport, and Granada, the ancient and glorious
city of the Alhambra, there is no communication except by _diligence_.
The time is fourteen hours. And the hour for starting is six in the
evening! You have before you this luxury, of one long, jolting,
execrable night ride, with no rest, no change from dewy eve till morn.
You may be a delicate lady, or a feeble old man, or a middle-aged
invalid, seeking rest and finding none; but you must go by the
diligence, and go in the night and all night, or hire a carriage for
yourself, and then there is no certainty that you will ever get to the
other end of your journey.
The Spanish _diligence_ is divided into two inside compartments, the
_berlina_ or _coupe_ of three seats in front, and interior of six. By
waiting over a day or two, we were able to get possession of the three
seats in front, and though the fare was more than in the interior, we
had the comfort of escaping suffocation by tobacco smoke, and of seeing
the fun ahead.
At least a hundred ladies and gentlemen, evidently of the higher class,
assembled at the coach office to take leave of some one who was going to
Malaga to hold an office under government. It was a genteel and decorous
company, and a sight quite peculiar to the country. In America or
England, men are often escorted to and from the station, but this was a
social, rather than a public ovation, and was a quiet and handsome
farewell to a popular man in society.
[Illustration: THE DILIGENCE.]
Wherewithal shall I give you an idea of the team that took us out of
Malaga that lovely winter evening! Ten mules, the most refractory,
ill-mated, and discordant beasts that have served a master since the
days of Balaam, were hitched together and to the diligence with rope
harness of primitive construction. On one of the leaders rode a
postilion: by the side of the midway pairs ran a man whose duty and
privilege it was to beat them; and the wheel mules were guided by reins
in the hands of the driver on the top of the diligence. The driver
thrashed the mules at his feet; the whipper thrashed the three pairs in
the middle of the team, and the postilion thrashed the leaders. All
thrashing at once as fast and as hard as they could. All shouting at
once at the top of their voices, the lumbering vehicle is at last fairly
launched and away it goes. The postilion on the forward beasts blows his
horn to signal the people in the narrow and crooked streets that the
thing is coming. The driver snaps his whip like a revolver, and after
the snap brings the lash around the flanks of the lazy brutes: the
whipper is now on one side and now on the other; whip, whip, whip all
the while; kicking, punching, shouting, the mules spread themselves all
abroad, never pulling in concert, but each one on his own hook, and as
we got along out of the suburbs and into the broader ways of the
country, the rebellious creatures seemed to grow frantic under the
ceaseless blows rained upon them by their tormentors, and plunged and
kicked till one of them made confusion all confounded by turning a
somerset out of his harness and bringing the whole concern to a
standstill. It was a short process, putting him in again, and then away
they all scampered, more like a drove of cattle than a harnessed team,
but the beating was redoubled the more they ran, till I really began to
think it was time for these dumb beasts to open their mouths and speak
some words of remonstrance. And yet how soon we became so demoralized,
as rather to enjoy the excitement and frolic of the ride.
Night was drawing on. We begin to ascend the mountains behind Malaga.
The city lies at their feet, all glorious in the golden light of a
setting sun. The bay is a lake of loveliness; and the sea, unbounded,
stretches off under the southern sky. Orchards of olives, always green,
and hills that are vineyards in the season of grapes, and orange-trees,
are around us,—evidence of a rich and fertile country. Yet every half
mile or so an armed patrol guards the road to make it safe for
travellers, and we have two or three on the top of the diligence with
their guns loaded to give a welcome to any “gentleman of the road” who
might be disposed to make free with unsuspecting travellers. And so,
with the excitement of the novel mode of transportation, and listening
with ears erect to the tales of robbers with which Antanazio beguiled
the mortal hours, we passed a long and wretched night, winding among
craggy mountains on the verge of precipices, and crossing deep ravines.
It was three o’clock in the morning when we reached Loja, where we were
to stop for refreshments! out of the _diligence_ tumbled a miserable set
of people, sleepy but sleepless, cross and hungry, and made a general
rush to the hostelry—by courtesy called an inn. Nobody was up, but in
the course of ten or fifteen minutes a dirty old man brought in a pot of
chocolate and put a plate of cakes in the middle of a table which had
been spread with a cloth overnight. I noticed little black spots around
on the cloth, and putting my finger at one of them, away hopped a flea,
and a flock of them were soon in motion. The chocolate was good, and the
fleas were stimulating. In twenty minutes we were caged again, and, with
fresh teams and good spirits, set off for Granada.
About six o’clock in the morning we were passing through Santa Fé,—a
large town—in the streets of which hundreds of men and women were seen
standing, about to march off in gangs to distant fields to work. The
inhabitants do not live in scattered houses over the country,—here and
there a farmer’s cottage, as with us,—but, dwelling for safety in
villages, they must go miles and miles away to and from their fields of
daily labor. This Santa Fé has a history. It was built by Ferdinand and
Isabella while laying siege to Granada, and here Columbus came and
successfully made his plea for their royal favor and help to go out into
the ocean in search of a new world. He found it that same year. Granada
fell in 1492, and the last of the Moorish strongholds yielded to Spanish
power.
As we rode across the wide and fertile plain that lies in front of
Granada, the lofty mountains appeared; the east was in shadow, and the
west tinged with the rising sunlight. Soon the city on a hill rose on
the right, crowned with the Alhambra. One could not fail to be excited
as the dreams of childhood and youth were becoming real. An hour more
and we were in peaceful possession of Granada, and comfortably lodged
within the grounds of the Alhambra.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ALHAMBRA.
WHEN the followers of Berber, the Moorish chieftain, some of whom came
from the regions of Damascus and the valley of the Jordan, first entered
the plain that lies in front of Granada, they imagined, in the fervor of
their Oriental fancies, that they had struck Paradise itself. Perhaps
they had come back to Damascus, the blessed and glorious city of the
East, but that and Paradise to them were about the same thing. The wide
and fertile plain was and is watered by two streams like those that
flowed round about the Eden of sacred story, and if the earthly gardens
of man’s delight were to be an emblem and foretaste of the flowers and
fruits, the beauty and plenty of the gardens of the skies, they were
certainly now before their eyes. They gave the name of “Damascus of the
West” to the city that crowned the hill, and shone in the summer sun
like the great dome to the temple of the King of kings. This city was
called Granada, from the granates, or pomegranates, that then as now
grew in abundance, with luscious grapes, figs and citrons and olives,
and all the fruits of a southern and delicious clime. Near by, the
snow-clad Sierra Nevada reminded them of their own Mount Hermon, and
over all these was hung a canopy of blue, so deep and pure and clear
that the sea, reversed and lightened by the sun by day, and set with
stars at night, could not have been more lovely to behold.
[Illustration: OUTER WALL OF THE ALHAMBRA.]
When the empire of the Moors in Spain was broken into hostile factions,
preparatory to its final extinction, the city of Granada fell into the
hands of Zawi Ibu Zeyri, who was its first king, and established his
royal residence here. The towers or castle on the summit of the hill,
and commanding the whole city, were called _Alhambra_, which means _red
castle_, and to this color the stones turn after exposure to the air,
from the oxide of iron they contain.
Within the walls of this castle, covering an area of several acres, the
successive Moorish kings erected palaces, and embellishing them
according to their own tastes, joined walls and towers, and courts and
fountains and gardens, until in process of time the great enclosure
became filled with the edifices which this luxurious and extravagant
race of monarchs desired for themselves, their wives and concubines, and
the hosts of servants and dependants which such a style of life, in such
a country, must demand. At this moment, the palace of the Russian
emperor holds five thousand persons, all actually required to wait upon
the Czar and his household and one another. In the Seraglio of the
Sultan of Turkey 40,000 oxen were eaten yearly, and 400 sheep a day. An
army would therefore be as easily lodged as the family of a Moorish king
in the palace at Granada. What it was in the days of Abu-Abdallah, who
has the traditional honor of having built the palace itself, or of Yusef
I., who added lustre to its walls by his gorgeous decorations, we can
form but a faint conception from what we see of it now that it is
stripped of its purple and gold, and has nothing of its former splendors
but the mouldering walls and shattered stairs and broken floors.
The first prince who took up his abode in the Alhambra itself was
Alhamar, from whom it has been by many supposed that the palace itself
was named. He was a wise, gentle, and noble ruler, so widely differing
from most of his race that he actually preferred peace to war; and, to
make it possible for him to pursue without interruption his vast
beneficent plans for the improvement of the condition of his people, he
consented to pay an annual tribute to Ferdinand, King of Arragon.
Alhamar constructed roads to the distant parts of his empire, which then
reached to Gibraltar; he built colleges and hospitals; and the canals
that carried waters far into the plains for irrigation were the work of
this barbarian king. Under his reign the city rose to its zenith of
splendor. The arts and sciences flourished as the vine and fig-tree in a
genial soil. Wealth, learning, genius, taste, and chivalry lent their
aid to heighten the attractions of this fair city. Yusef, one of his
successors, added many buildings to those that he had left, and others
were crowded into the arena in after reigns, so that for two hundred and
fifty years it was growing in such magnificence and beauty, as the soft,
languid, and effeminate tastes of a luxurious, debauched, and decaying
race of irresponsible, licentious, and decaying monarchs, with a host of
wives to prompt them to indulgence in every whim of fancy, could invent
to add to the delights of their terrestrial paradise. What could be
looked for as the result of such lives but the ruin of the empire. Kings
had but short reigns, for intrigue, lust, ambition, and murder made one
after another give place to a rival who sought his bed quite as much as
his throne. The usurper soon became the enfeebled voluptuary of the
harem, and the arm that was as strong as Hercules in the battlefield
became as weak as a woman’s when love, not war, was the passion of the
hour. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. The cities of the
Moors no longer were in league, but each, jealous of the rest, was in
succession sieged and sacked.
At last Granada stood alone in its independence and its impending ruin.
Mohammed Ibu Otsman had bowed his neck to the Queen of Castile, and the
Alhambra was the only Moorish gem which remained to be transferred to
the Christian crown. Ferdinand of Arragon, by marriage with Isabella of
Castile, formed at once a union of hearts and arms that prepared the way
for the overthrow of the last remnant of Moorish power in Spain.
Columbus, repulsed from his native country, had strangely sought aid in
this distracted land. As if a higher will than his own were directing
his weary steps, he had pursued these conquerors of the Moors over the
mountains, and found them in their tents within sight of the red towers
on the heights of Granada. They had other conquests than of unknown
worlds in view. The prize they sought was gleaming, like a sun, between
them and the snows of Sierra Nevada. They turned a deaf ear, in the din
of war, to the tales of the adventurous sailor. And he went away.
He had gone a day’s journey on his solitary way to Seville and had
reached Loja, where we had fleas and cake for our lunch this morning,
when a messenger from the queen arrested his steps and brought him back
to the royal presence and favor. They gave him the blessing and the gold
he needed, and then they conquered the Moors, and Granada, with its
Alhambra, fell into their hands. And in the same year Columbus gave them
a new world in the West.
Years and years since, even in the long time ago when the sunny days of
childhood were yet in the glow of their noon, I remember wondering “what
the Alhambra is.” It had to me then, and all the way along the
lengthening years of life, a dreamy rather than a real existence, and if
at times I read its story, the “Tales of the Alhambra” rather increased
than weakened the sense of dream-life in which alone it was to be
enjoyed.
In Malaga I went into a Spanish bookstore and asked for English books on
Spain. The bibliopole sent me into the garret of his shop, where in a
corner was heaped a pile of odds and ends of English literature, such as
might have been left behind by some poor invalids who had perished in
their perusal, while seeking to get a new lease of life in this
delicious clime. But among them were several copies, in paper covers, of
Irving’s “Tales of the Alhambra,” whose uncut leaves showed them to have
been unread and kept for sale to passing pilgrims like myself. I carried
one off. It would be pleasant to read on the spot: and I have read them
with fresh delight, while every court and wall and tower, every
fountain, stream, plain, hill is linked with the stories that the old
master told while he dreamed within the ruins of the palace that his
fiction has made more famous than its history. But reading tales about
the Alhambra do not tell us what it is, and it is quite likely that my
account will give you no more intelligible an idea of it.
We have ascended the hill through a long avenue shaded with elms, and
approach a massive gate, the gate of judgment, a seat of justice in
olden times, where in the open air, as was common in Oriental climes,
the magistrates, the elders, were accustomed to administer the law.
“Then he made a porch, where he might judge, even a porch of judgment.”
I Kings, vii. 7. Many other passages of Scripture allude to the same
custom. A square tower surmounts the gate, and the pillars are inscribed
with Arabic legends. The horse-shoe arch has a mighty hand in
bas-relief, with the fingers pointing upward, and on the second arch is
a key in stone, and the tradition is that the gate was impregnable until
the stone hand should take the stone key and unlock the gate for the
enemy to enter. Without waiting for such a miracle, we pass through the
two-leaved gates, and by a winding and still ascending path we reach the
terrace on which the palaces and villas of the Moorish kings were built.
This plateau is about half a mile long, and narrow, surrounded by red
walls six feet thick and thirty feet high, and made strong by many
towers, each one of which was the residence of some of the household of
royalty. The various styles of architecture within and on these walls
are the best illustrations of the successive races and tastes and power
of the men who have ruled on this lofty eminence. Rome and Carthage has
each in its turn been master here, and left his sign-manual in
characters that time has spared. More incongruous than any thing else is
the Tuscan palace of Charles V., and a modern parish church has risen on
the ruins of a mosque. Napoleon’s soldiers were followed by the English,
and modern war is not a whit more mindful of the proprieties of art and
sentiment than the old savagery which we despise. Ruin, desolation,
decay is now the spirit of the place. It is impressive, eloquent indeed;
perhaps more so than those ruins in Egypt and Greece and Rome that have
the hoar of more centuries upon them. It is not so strange, nor so
mournful, that the columns and walls should now be in the dust that did
their duty two, three thousand years ago. It seems to be almost becoming
that the temples of old paganism should moulder in the dispensation of
faith that worships in spirit only. But it is painfully suggestive of
the transient nature of all human art and power that these massive
structures with gorgeous decorations, whose splendor is only equalled by
the fancies of romance, have had their rise, their reign, and their ruin
all within the lapse of the last ten hundred years.
Antonio Aguilo ’y Fuster, Conseije del Palacio Arabe, Alhambra, gave me
his card, as we entered a small door in the side of a plain wall, and
were informed that we were now in the palace of the Moors, the veritable
Alhambra itself! The important personage whose card was in my hand was
the guardian of this mysterious realm, and would, for the usual
consideration of a dollar to him paid, introduce us to the several
apartments. The contract was concluded, and the porter led the way.
He brought us first into the Court of Myrtles. It is a vast open oblong,
170 feet by 74, with a lake in the centre, surrounded by a marble
pavement and myrtle-trees, from which it takes its name. In this lake
the wives of the Moorish monarch bathed, of course secluded from all
eyes but his own, and the eunuchs, whose “sentry boxes” still remain.
Light and beautiful columns, with graceful arches springing from the
capitals, support a gallery on all sides. Out of this court open many
rooms, whose floors and walls and ceilings, with their inscriptions,
their delicate tracery work, not worth the name of sculpture, but
beautiful as perishable, are the types of the race that revelled here in
the beginning of the fourteenth century. Right here Mohammed III. had
his head cut off, and his body was pitched into the water where the
usurper king Nasr often enjoyed the luxury of a bath with his wives.
The governor, or more properly the janitor, made brief comments on the
architecture and uses of the various apartments, and then led us to the
_Court of Lions_. Above all other portions of the Alhambra this gives
the most correct idea of the palace as it was in its ancient and early
glory. A process of restoration has been going on for some years, under
the direction of government, and Sr. Contreras having the work in
charge, has succeeded so happily that Yusef himself, who was the first
monarch to indulge in these Oriental shawl-pattern tracery and tawdry
designs, would have been delighted to have the modern architect to help
him from the beginning. And the Emperor of Russia has heard such reports
of the wonderful restorative powers of this skilful manipulator of
plaster, that he has ordered an Alhambra for himself, a copy of this
series of ruined palaces, which he will keep for a curiosity on the
banks of the Neva. In the midst of the court is a fountain supported by
twelve marble lions, in the centre of a vast alabaster basin. Standing
on the four sides of it are 124 white marble pillars, sustaining a light
gallery and a pavilion projecting into the court, elaborately adorned
with filagree-worked walls, and a domed roof that admits the tempered
light and excludes the heat of the sun. This fountain too has been
filled with blood, for here in the midst of all this luxury of splendid
decorations the children of Abu Hazen were beheaded by the order of
their own father. One only was spared, and he lived to regret it; for he
lived to be the famous and unhappy Boabdil, the last of the Moorish
kings of Granada. The next hall into which we will enter is that of the
_Abencerrages_, an illustrious family, who fell under suspicion of
disloyalty to the throne. The wily monarch invited all the leaders of
this line to a feast, and when they had been sumptuously entertained,
they were invited, one by one, to the Court of Lions, which we have just
left, and each man’s head was cut off as he entered. The dark spots on
the marble floor are, of course, kept sacredly dark from year to year,
in memory of the treacherous punishment of imaginary treason.
The most magnificent of all the halls is that of the Ambassadors. It is
the largest of the apartments, and is seventy-five feet high. It was the
grand reception-room, where the throne of the Sultan was placed, and
around the sides of the room are niches where each one of the
ambassadors of foreign courts was seated in state, on great occasions.
The ceiling is curiously wrought in different colors,—blue, white, and
gold, inlaid wood in crowns and stars and wheels. All around are
inscriptions celebrating the praises of the kings, and couched in the
panegyric imagery of the Oriental style.
It would be tedious to read, if I had patience to describe, the many
courts and halls and baths, saloons and chambers, the galleries leading
to them, the little gardens where the sun looks kindly down upon a few
plants and flowers, and to tell you of the thousand-and-one tales with
which so many of these towers and chambers have been made historic.
Murder has followed close on the heels of jealousy, in all ages, and
under a system that makes intrigue and lust the great amusement of life,
the history of the harem has always been a story of suspicion and blood.
[Illustration: PORTION OF A DOOR.]
Bensaken is _the_ guide to the Alhambra. Others are willing to lead you
through the labyrinth, and will talk to you as they go, in a mixture of
Spanish, Italian, French, and English, with a dash of Arabic, which they
have picked up from the translations of inscriptions on the walls; but
they are all ignorant fellows, who live by the ignorance of those to
whom they tell their stories. Now Bensaken is an Englishman, born in
Gibraltar, and has lived to be seventy years old in Spain; has been
through all these years adding to his knowledge of the country, its
history and its condition, especially all that relates to the Moors,
Granada, and the Alhambra, until he has grown into a walking cyclopedia
of Spanish lore. And this learning of his he guards so cautiously that
when other guides and interpreters, with travellers so unhappy as to
have fallen into their hands, would come near to us while our learned
Bensaken was discoursing to us of the wonderful mysteries of the
Alhambra, its legends and its uses, he would suddenly pause in his
interesting narrations, and begging pardon for his silence, would wait
until they had passed beyond hearing; for, said our veracious and most
agreeable Bensaken, “I cannot afford to let them fellows know what I
have been learning all these years of my life, I have forgot enough to
set all of them up in business.”
“Did you know our countryman, Washington Irving, when he was here?” I
inquired.
“Oh yes, and a nice, worthy gentleman he was: so kind, so pleasant
always; but he did not keep very closely to the facts: to tell you the
truth, those are very beautiful stories of Mr. Irving, but the most of
them are all in your eye, sir.”
“He speaks of the good people who lived here when he lodged in the
Alhambra, and a fair maiden to whom he gave the name of Dolores, and a
noble young man, Molina, or something like that; what ever became of
them, can you tell me?”
Bensaken gave a low little laugh, and said that Dolores was a coarse and
dowdy drudge, whom the warm imagination of the author had invested with
purely rhetorical charms, and the other occupants of the palace had no
claims to distinction. One of them whom he mentioned was murdered in a
street brawl, and the whole family had passed into oblivion. Yet their
names will live in the stories of the Alhambra while the genial and
smoothly flowing pages of Irving are read as the pleasantest and most
_reliable_ account of the traditions of this wondrous pile.
We went down into the garden of the Queen’s prison, and on a little
patch of green we stood while Bensaken pointed to the gallery where she
was permitted to walk and take the air and enjoy the sunlight, but the
various chambers to which she was restricted had no exit. This was not
very close confinement, to be sure, but it becomes intolerable, even the
luxury of a palace, with a flower garden in its court, and gorgeous
hangings and gilded ceilings and marvellous sculptures, if the royal
lodger is a prisoner, and hopes for no exit but through the gate that
opens in the tomb.
And then we visited the “Hall of Two Sisters,” so fancifully named
because of two immense marble slabs, which form a part of the pavement.
The decorations of this apartment are exceedingly beautiful. The
stalactite roof is said to consist of 5,000 pieces, and though all this
plaster ornamentation is supported only by reeds, it remains almost
unbroken as it was when first put up. These were the private apartments
of the wives and slaves of the Sultan, and were furnished with couches
and divans, and the walls are covered with love poems, in the glowing
language of the East, celebrating the sensual delights of these
voluptuaries of the harem. All that architecture and upholstery, poetry
and taste could supply for the embellishment of chambers of pleasure,
were lavished with wasteful profusion here, or, to use the more familiar
terms of our Western phraseology, “they were got up regardless of
expense.”
Passing out upon a balcony we looked down upon the _Linderaka_ gardens,
which once were the delight of a princess whose name, Linda Raxa, was
the same as Pretty Rachel; she became a Christian, and her story, if put
into the hands of a skilful manufacturer, would make a beautiful
romance, with more truth than is necessary for half a dozen modern
historical novels. The dressing-room of the Queen in one of the towers
has a look-out upon the surrounding country; the Sierra Nevada, rising
11,000 feet, and so near in this clear atmosphere that it seems close at
hand, and one feels the coolness of the snow-cliffs on its sides; there
is the house, now a college, where Christians suffered martyrdom under
Domitian and Nero; those huts in the hill in front and those holes into
the hill itself are the habitations of gypsies, whose home is Spain, and
who are very numerous in these parts; the city of Granada itself lies at
our feet; once it had more than a thousand towers, and now it has more
than 500, and they are monuments of departed glory. Yet there is nothing
in the city so mournfully eloquent of human folly and frailty as the
ruin in which we are standing. Here is a wide marble slab, pierced with
twelve holes, and below the slab is the chamber where the perfume was
prepared, and as it ascended the Queen stood over these holes, and was
made suitably fragrant! In the days of Esther similar means were
evidently in use, and they were probably quite as salutary and agreeable
as the modern condensations which in a bag or bottle furnish the
necessary facilities for making lovely woman odorous to her friends.
Down below was a suite of rooms where the baths for the Sultan and the
children were arranged, with pipes for the supply of hot and cold water,
as convenient as in “a house with all the modern improvements.” Places
for couches, galleries for musicians whose melodies would make the
luxury of the bath more enjoyable; the pavement is of white marble, the
roof is pierced with holes like stars, and the whole arrangement
corresponds with the baths of Turkey and Cairo at the present day.
[Illustration: THE VERMILION TOWER.]
And the long passage through which we were now conducted led to the
dungeons of the castle; most of them are walled up, but one was left
open that we might see how short and easy was the mode of disposing of
an unhappy victim of jealousy or revenge, who could be built into a
recess and find it a dying bed and grave. It was a long subterranean
walk till we came out to the governor’s court. Here I saw what I had not
supposed to be possible,—a marble slab bent into the shape of a bow by
the weight of a wall falling and resting upon it.
On every balcony and at every window the wise Bensaken was ready with a
tale of love, or blood, or gold; and it would be hard to say in which he
most delighted to indulge. He was sure that out of this window the
beautiful Zoraya, the “Morning Star” of Abu Hazen, she that was once
Dona Isabel de Solis, a fair Christian captive who became the favorite
Sultana, and the mother of Boabdil, let him down by a basket into an
abyss from which he escaped and saved his life, to become afterwards the
last of the race of princes here. But I must tell you one of his stories
that he knows to be true, and which has never yet been entered into any
chronicles of the Alhambra.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ALHAMBRA (_Continued_).
BLASICHO, or, in good English, poor Blas, was an honest worker in
leather, a mender of soles, in the city of Granada. There are streets in
this queer old town wholly given up to one or another handicraft, and it
is rather pleasing than otherwise to see the rule disproved that two of
a trade can never agree. Perhaps it is easier for a whole street full of
cobblers, or tinkers, or carders, or smiths, to live in peace, than it
would be for only two rivals in trade, who would be jealous of each
other as natural foes. It was curious to follow the walks along and see
the little shops, sometimes not more than five or ten feet square,
filled with the wares and the workmen, so that a customer would have had
hard work to wedge himself in if he would be measured for a coat or
boots, or examine the goods for sale. It looked as if there were some
people willing to work, though we heard of a shoemaker who was called
upon by a traveller like ourselves to repair his dilapidated shoe: the
cobbler called out to his wife to tell him how much money there was on
hand, and learning that she had enough to get them supper, he declined
doing the work. This was in literal compliance with the Spanish rule
which requires a man never to do to-day what can be put off till
to-morrow.
Blasicho had a hard time of it to get work enough to earn the bread that
his wife and his little ones must have from day to day, and he hated
work, as all his neighbors did, and all his race do. If he had a wife
with a cheerful temper, to cheer him as he beat his leather on his knee,
perhaps it would have been better for him and his, for it does make work
light and easy to have a good-natured woman near at hand, to say a
pleasant word and hear even one’s complaints with a sympathetic smile.
But the wife of Blasicho was neither fair to look upon nor gentle in her
temper, and she led the poor cobbler a vexed and weary life of it. His
lapstone was not harder than the heart of his spouse, and the blows that
he gave it were more in number, but not more severe, than she rained
upon him, when their words grew into quarrels that always ended in the
thorough discomfiture of the man of the house. Her great sorrow was that
she had not wealth: her sisters had found husbands who could give them
the best of every thing, and as much as they required to make fine
ladies of them, but she had married a cobbler too poor to live without
work, and too lazy to work, and the only blessing they had in abundance
was a flock of children that grew in stature and numbers every year, and
demanded more and more to keep them alive. She dinned her woes into his
ears, and his poor soul was worried to despair by the ceaseless pother
of her querulous tongue.
He wanted money. If California had been part of the known world in the
day of Blasicho’s misery, his greed would have driven him to the mines
in search of gold. But gold he must have, or his wife would worry him to
death. He had heard that the Moors had left heaps of gold in the earth
all around him, and if he had some rod to guide him to the sacred spot
where the treasure was concealed, it would be the making of him for
life, to dig it and carry it home to gladden the heart of his
discontented wife, and stop the everlasting run of her complaining
tongue. Day after day he walked around the hill of which the Alhambra in
its glory and decay is still the crown, and he studied the projecting
rocks and the graceful curves and gentle depressions, and the peculiar
growth of the citron and pomegranate, to discover some signs of a place
where it might be that in the olden time some Moorish miser, or in later
time some Spanish pirate coming home from foreign pleasures, had buried
his gold. His hope was suddenly kindled into certainty. One sunny
morning he was taking his daily walk about the sacred hill, and passing
through the deep cut on the eastern side, where far above his head the
aqueduct with the waters of the river run into the Alhambra with its
refreshing and ceaseless flow, he sat down to rest awhile and muse upon
his hapless lot, and the hopeless search in which he was wasting his
days. He looked up at the craggy side through which the red rock
cropped, and on the scanty soil in which the almond shrubs were
struggling to hold their own, and he was wishing that one of those red
rocks were a ruby or even a lump of gold, when a dove, whose home was in
the Tower of Comares, flew down upon a projecting rock, and cocking his
eye most knowingly, looked below as if it saw something there that would
be worth having. Blasicho observed the motion, and the thought came to
him that the dove was a messenger to point him to the spot where his
treasure lay. He took note of the rock, and drew a line, with his eye,
to the foot of the hill where the bird’s eye had guided his search. A
few feet from the path, up the cliff-side, was a ledge of rock, and it
was easy to see that, a century or two ago, a man might have stood on it
and worked into the mountain and buried his gold. The ledge would be the
mark by which he could find it, and its height was such that no one
would suspect that such a spot would be chosen as a hiding-place for
money.
Poor Bias went home with his head full of the dove and the gold. All day
as he sat on his bench pretending to work, the beautiful neck of the
dove, with his head turned sideways, and his one eye down looking to the
ledge, was before him. That night he dreamed that he went there and
broke into the hill with a pick and found a heap of gold. The next
morning he went there and the dove came again, and again she peered into
the ledge from above, and again Blasicho was comforted with the
strengthened hope. He dreamed the second time the same, and came the
third morning and the dove met him as before; and again, the third
night, he dreamed that he burst into the mountain and was the possessor
of more gold than his insatiable spouse had ever dreamed of having. This
was more than the anxious cobbler could endure and be quiet. That night
in the darkness and alone, for there was no one in Granada he could
trust with his discovery, Blasicho sought the ravine, climbed cautiously
to the ledge with a bar of iron to aid him in his burglary. He struck in
vigorously, for it might be a long night’s work, and time was precious.
The hollow sound that answered his blows quickened his heartbeats, for
it assured him there was a chamber within. The _débris_ was fast piling
at his feet. He was already inside the hill. He heard something grating,
rattling above and near him; he rose to his feet only to be struck with
a land-slip which his digging had started: it caught him, dashed him off
his perch, buried him, bruised him, half killed him, at the foot of his
golden hill. The poor fellow struggled from underneath the mass of dirt
and stones, and luckily finding no bones were broken, but more dead than
alive, he crept home and went to sleep, while his wife was dinging into
his ears her reproaches for his bad habits of being out late at nights.
He was cured of hunting for gold in the dark. He became a new man, a new
cobbler. His early hammer advertised his conversion. Business revived.
He had to have some more help in the shop. The shop was soon too small.
He wanted to enlarge it, and for that purpose he got permission of his
landlord to dig away the hill in the rear to make room for an extension.
This work he performed with his own hands after the day’s work in the
shop. That digging made him rich! What he found he had wit enough to
keep secret, even from his wife, for if his landlord should hear of it,
he would lay claim to it as in his soil. But Blasicho went on with his
cobbling and building. He bought a few lots in one of the fashionable
quarters of Granada, and to each of his daughters, to whom suitors came
in numbers, now that he was evidently prosperous, he gave a handsome
house and portion.
More than all, and better, his wife’s temper improved. He and she still
lived over the shop, but the apartments were embellished with all the
comforts that the amiable woman wanted, and she was proud, and not
humbled, when her sisters came to see her. None of them knew the source
of his sudden wealth, and indeed he was cunning enough to develop
gradually, so that it was attributed to his increasing business, and his
good luck in trade.
He knew that it all came of his being cured of money digging, and
sticking to his work. He had never heard of the Latin proverb, _ne sutor
ultra crepidam_,—let the cobbler stick to his last,—but he knew the
soundness of the principle. And he taught his grandchildren, who were
fond of visiting him, that when he tried to get rich in a hurry he got
nothing but wounds and bruises; but when he worked faithfully and
steadily at his trade, prosperity followed his labors, and his days were
crowned with plenty, contentment, and love.
An old woman sat at the foot of the stone stairway, and took the fee
that admitted us to the Watch Tower. On the southern edge of the hill,
and rising high above the rampart, the broad flat roof of the tower
affords an off-look that scarcely has an equal for beauty of prospect
and interest in historical association. A bell swings in a turret; the
rope hangs within reach; and there is magic in the ring. For the second
day of January is a great fête day in Granada,—the anniversary of the
capture of the city by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492,—and every maiden
who ascends this tower on that day, and rings the bell with her own
hand, is sure to have a wedding ring on her hand in the course of the
year. The bell therefore rings right merrily on the fête day from early
morn to set of sun, and the sign is as sure as any of the many that love
and folly have conjured.
And in the far west, across the plain, rise the Parapanda Mountains, on
whose top a cloud resting is a sign of rain, and when it hangs there
they say it will rain “if God wills;” but if the cloud descends the
mountain-side they say “it will rain if God wills _or no_.”
There too, off on the verge of the plain, lies a farm of 4,000 acres
which the Spanish government gave to the Duke of Wellington for his
expulsion of the French, and his heirs now derive a revenue of some
$20,000 annually from the land.
And that gap in the mountains is the pass where Moor and Christian, the
Cross and Crescent, have encountered each other in murderous fight, when
knights in armor met hand to hand, and in protracted battles far more
bloody and fierce than in our modern warfare they contended for the
possession of this beautiful vale.
It is called the _vega_, or the plain, and from the watch-tower on which
we are now standing we have the best view of it. Two rivers, like those
that watered Paradise, flow across it,—the Darro, which the Moors called
Hadaroh and the Romans Calom, and the Genil, which the ancients knew as
the river Singilis. This fertile and beautiful plain stretches thirty
miles or more away from the city of Granada, like a vast amphitheatre, a
prairie sea: now and then a white cluster of houses, a little village,
like an island on the surface of this great ocean of corn and wine. The
snow-clad heights of Sierra Nevada rise to the bluest of blue heavens
that cover it as an infinite dome, and the five-hundred-towered city
stands on this rocky height in the midst of this magnificent panorama,
the green meadows and vineyards of the _vega_ below, the white-capped
mountains around, and the cerulean skies, so pure, so deep, so lovingly
bending over and embracing the whole.
But the bell on the watch-tower answers a better purpose than merely to
ring husbands for the lively Spanish girls. This plain is to be watered
by these rivers, and they must be led away from their own banks by
artificial channels to the thousands of plantations into which it is
divided. But the rivers are not sufficient to allow the continuous flow
of water through all these canals for irrigation, and the time and
quantity of water are regulated by law. Each man has his water-gate,
through which the stream is to come, and the hour when he is to open his
gate and when to close is announced from the tower. At the stroke of
one, all within a certain distance open their gates, and the water flows
in upon their fields, until the bell strikes again, when they close, and
the next open theirs, and so the supply is extended from one to another
and the whole plain is watered.
The “Sigh of the Moor” is the name of that mountain in the south-east
horizon, on the way to the sea-coast, and it gets its name from the
tradition that when the last of the Moorish kings, the unhappy Boabdil
of whom we have been speaking often, was flying from the city, he paused
here, and as he looked back upon Granada “he saw a light cloud of smoke
burst from the beautiful and beloved Alhambra, and presently a peal of
artillery told that the throne of the Moslem kings was lost for ever.
‘Allah Achbar, God is great!’ he exclaimed; and, unable to refrain his
grief, he burst into a flood of tears. ‘Weep not,’ said his mother, the
stern proud Azeshah, ‘weep not as a woman for the loss of a kingdom
which you knew not how to defend as a man.’”
As Bensaken pointed to the mountain of “El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro,” and
told this sad story of the Sigh of the Moor, the tears stood in the old
man’s eyes, and he was actually in sympathy with the Moor Boabdil who
ran away from this tower nearly four hundred years ago.
Behind those hills, and in the valley beyond, there are to this day
villages inhabited by a race of people who retain the Moorish manners
and customs, mingling the Roman and Mahometan forms of worship, using no
knives or forks, but eating with their fingers, in the Oriental style,
and preserving with traditional jealousy the prejudices of the race that
has been so long extinct in Spain. Rarely does a traveller climb the
heights that stand between those settlements and the higher civilization
of the plains and cities, but the few who push their adventurous way
into those uninviting regions find themselves suddenly carried back into
life and times of which we read now-a-days as if in the pages of
romance.
Walking across the tower, we look down into a court, where a guard of
soldiers is keeping watch over a prison! And, to our amazement, we find
that we are in the very midst of the walls that contain four or five
hundred _political_ prisoners, who are here in durance vile for real or
suspected offences. It is not the fashion at present to put to death
political offenders, and the poor fellows that are shut up in these
walls, hopeless and helpless, are perhaps on the whole disposed to think
themselves better off than if they had lost their heads. Once the late
queen punished the whole of her congress, some hundred and fifty, and
sent them to prison, or foreign parts, thinking that their room was
worth more than the advice they were disposed to give her. Some of the
prisoners here confined are men of high social standing and of
commanding influence in the country, but in the miserable strife for
power and wealth, and the game of politics, which is more corrupt, if
possible, here in Spain than in our own country, they have fallen
victims to successful rivals, and are now wasting away in the dungeons
of the Alhambra. Some of them had obtained the special favor of working
in the gardens and among the flowers and shrubbery; and, under the
genial beams of the bright sun in winter, they found a grateful
mitigation of their sufferings.
We had seen enough for one day, and took a ride over the city. Bensaken
pointed out, as we passed the modest mansion in which the late beautiful
Empress of the French was born. Her father, Count Montejo, fell in love
with a daughter of the British consul at Malaga, Mr. Kirkpatrick, whose
name unites Scotland and Ireland. The count married her, and Eugenie is
their daughter. Her grandfather is therefore a Scotch-Irish-English
gentleman. Some of her relatives are not of much account. One of them
asked of me the gift of a glass of whiskey.
Not far from the Alhambra, and a pleasant walk across the fields, is the
Generaliffe, a pleasure-palace in olden time, a retreat in the country
from the more stately grandeur and closer confinement of the citadel.
It has been preserved with greater care, or perhaps restored from time
to time, and is now one of the most interesting remnants of the Moorish
dynasty. Its courts are paved with marbles, gladdened with fountains and
flowers, and from some of them tall cypresses rise, which in other
countries would rather adorn a burial-place than a palace court. One of
them is the famous tree under which the beautiful Sultana Zoraya was
sitting when one of the Abencerrages came to prefer a petition, and
being seen to kneel before her, was suspected of making love, and her
life and that of all his family was the forfeit. Bensaken was greatly
provoked by the evident disposition of the writers of historical tales
to insinuate that the Queen was actually receiving a lover, while he
makes out a case of innocence and positively merciful virtue that would
melt a heart of stone.
But if Bensaken was kind in his judgment of the ancient Queen, whose
guilt or innocence will never be made the subject of inquiry before a
court of impeachment in this world, he was less inclined to say a good
word for the women of Spain. And in this matter he was no harder on them
than others who have lived long enough in this demonstrative country to
know the facts in the case. The women of Spain are, as a nation, more
beautiful than those of any foreign country in which I have travelled,
and this average beauty covers the peasant classes as well as the
better-born. This is to be mentioned in connection with the fact stated
by all who are familiar with Spain, that virtue is scarcely known. It is
impossible, without disregard of the proprieties, to go into the
statistics which an illustration of this fact would require. I was
repeatedly assured that ladies would regard it as a reproach, an
evidence that they were slighted, if they had not an acknowledged lover
besides their legal lord. Of course the men are worse than the women, if
worse can be, and little or no disgrace can be said to accrue when the
vice is so common that virtue is an exception, and is despised at that.
If it be asked, how can such a state of things be, when the church
embraces in its bosom all the people, young and old, and confession is
required of all who commune? the answer is easy. The forced celibacy of
the priests tends to corruption, and they have no moral power over the
people, unless it be a moral power for evil. And this vice is not
necessarily a vice of a Roman Catholic people: it is the vice of the
climate: as genial to the south as intemperance in drink is to the
north. We must be charitable in our judgments of our neighbors and our
fellow-sinners everywhere. It is a very common impression that the sins
of a people are fashioned by the type of the religion they profess; and
that this vice, which prevails all over the south of Europe, has some
relation to the Roman Catholic religion, which is also the ruling
influence of church and state. Doubtless the reformation of the church
would reform the state also, but human nature will remain substantially
the same, and the vices peculiar to the climate would still discover
themselves to a greater or less extent. Under the Protestant influences
of the north of Europe, intemperance prevails fearfully. So it does in
our country, in spite of the highest moral culture and the best
opportunities of education. Religion in its purest forms does not reach
the masses of mankind in any country so as to save all of them from
vice, and in its imperfect development, as in Romish or half-reformed
countries, it is even less powerful to deter the multitude from evil.
CHAPTER XIV.
GRANADA.
WHEN we came down this evening from the Generaliffe, we found a curious
group in the vestibule of the inn where we were lodged, and a picture of
troubadour and gypsy life in Spain was before us suddenly. A dwarf, so
stout and short as to be a monster in his appearance, and two or three
girls to sing and play with a rude tambourine, made hideous dancing. The
landlord and landlord’s wife, the two daughters of the landlord and
their husbands,—two lazy fellows who helped one another do nothing all
day long,—were seated around, enjoying the scene. The short fellow was
short mainly in his legs, which, indeed, were not much longer than his
neck; and the antics he cut up were grotesque and ludicrous in the
extreme. But who could refrain from joining in the dance to the music,
rude as it was? The landlord’s daughters could not, and with a little
coaxing the dandy husbands were brought upon the floor; other young
people, hearing the fun, dropped in, the frolic became general, and we
were treated to an impromptu Spanish fandango, of which I do not propose
to be the reporter. It was not amusing merely, but interesting also to
observe the phase of lower life among these people, and to see how
easily they could find entertainment without going out of doors to get
it. The ugly dwarf went through the company, cap in hand, gathered a few
pence, and with his little troupe hobbled off to try his luck at some
other place. They told me that he lives in the mountains, many leagues
away from Granada, but comes down to town, during the season of company,
to exhibit himself. And in this, too, he is not unlike the degraded in
other parts of the world, who are always willing to make a living by
their deformities, if they can get a chance.
[Illustration: THE ALHAMBRA (FROM THE GENERALIFFE).]
The gypsies held a horse fair in Granada to-day. We found them in great
numbers, from distant parts of the country. It was a new scene and phase
of life. Gypsies are seen in England, in America, in Germany, in Italy,
indeed there is hardly a country unvexed by gypsies. Wandering over the
world, having no continuing city or abiding place, like the frogs of the
land from which they get their name, they find their way into king’s
houses and everybody’s house,—lying, cheating, stealing, peddling, and
meddling, a nuisance and a curse. But the gypsies of Spain are a race by
themselves, and not the ancestors nor the children of the gypsies of the
other lands I have named. They have indeed a language with many words in
common, and their habits are similar all the world over, but these
gypsies of Spain are a race by themselves. Where they came from, and who
they are, it is hard to say. They are usually spoken of as from Egypt,
and being once called Egyptians, then gyptians,—the name easily runs
into gypsies in the English tongue. But they are called _gitanos_ in
Spanish, and the race has no relations with the wandering tribes or
families that roam throughout Europe and the Western World.
They are, as a people,—at least they seemed to me,—larger and stouter
than the Spanish; and by no means so well-favored. Dark complexions,
black eyes, long straight black hair, high cheek-bones, and short noses,
they resemble North American Indians more than any European race. They
are not cleanly in their persons, nor their dwellings; their roaming
habits lead them to eat and sleep anywhere, with their dogs and donkeys;
they dwell in caves if no better houses are at their command, and the
hill behind the city, which we see from the towers of the Alhambra, is
pierced with holes that lead into the chambers where they make their
homes. They have also one quarter of the town where they have dwellings,
but the walls of a city are not agreeable to the freedom of their wills,
and they prefer the hills and the country.
They have no _moral_ principle. There is but one virtue known among
them, and that is so rare in Spain, and so remarkable among such a
people, that it must be set down to their credit at the very start. The
women are chaste, and that to a degree that perhaps no other people in
the world can claim. It is the one feature of their character that
redeems them from the curse of utter and hopeless vagabondism, and,
standing out as it does like an ivory tower in the midst of a waste of
moral ruin, its beauty is the more lovely and its existence the more
wonderful. I cannot say what I would of the care with which mothers
guard their daughters from contamination with their own race and the
outside world; and I cannot add another word in their praise. They live
by fraud. Known to the world as swindlers and liars and thieves, they
are nevertheless tolerated, and perhaps because feared; their ill-will
being dreaded, and their friendship supposed to be conciliated by
complying with their demands.
They get power over people in the same way that _spiritualists_ do: by
appealing to that latent superstition which lurks in almost every human
bosom, and is much stronger in some than others, and is often strongest
in those who would be the least suspected of such a weakness. Thus the
women of this gypsy race are fortune-tellers. The young women of Spain,
like the young women of every country that I have seen, have some
curiosity and credulity, upon which a shrewd impostor will easily play
and extort money as the reward of her trickery. To these young women
lovers are promised, and when the pride or the passion of the young is
tickled with the promise, the prophet is not very sharply questioned or
judged. One very common trick performed by the gypsy women in Spain has
been reproduced in our country and in England again and again, and will
be repeated as long as rogues can find fools to be duped. As love is the
ruling passion of the young, avarice is of older people, and to make a
heap of money out of a handful is the great desire of the soul. The
gypsy woman promises a lady to teach her how to make a trunkful of gold
out of a few hundred dollars. The lady is to take all her gold, and to
get as much as she can, and tie it up in a white handkerchief in the
presence of the gypsy, then to keep it carefully by her side, night and
day, for three days, then the gypsy is to return and they are to deposit
it in a trunk over which the gypsy is to say her form of words, and then
the trunk is to be carefully locked and guarded for three weeks, and
when opened is to be found _filled_ with gold. The gypsy, returning
after three days’ absence, comes with a bundle of rubbish tied up in a
white handkerchief concealed under her mantle, and easily substitutes it
for the one which the lady has watched for three days, and after the
other is well locked up she disappears, to be heard of no more in that
quarter. A trick so stupid and silly one would hardly believe could be
practised once; but it is played every year, upon many victims, in all
countries. Last summer a spiritualist woman in Paris assured a gentleman
that large treasures were buried in the grounds about his house, and he
spent thousands and thousands in tearing up his place to find it. The
woman got the most of the money spent, and he is hunting yet. But these
gypsies are not mere fortune-tellers, they are traders and tinkers; they
deal in horse-flesh particularly, and are a striking illustration of the
curious fact that trading horses, buying and selling horses, all the
world over, has some affinities with trickery. Why it is, perhaps, the
attention of psychologists has not been sufficiently long directed to
the subject to say; but gypsies and jockeys are usually reckoned as
belonging to the same class, and nobody is expected to trust either.
Bensaken went with us among these strange people, and as he understood
their language, he made our visit among them exceedingly entertaining,
and the facts that we gathered from him and them of their haunts and
habits are perhaps as reliable as those which Borrow and others have
furnished. I could not learn that they have any religious system. They
believe in one God, but they have more to do with the devil, whether
they believe in him or not. They have no faith in anybody. Why should
they, or rather how could they? Intending to keep faith with nobody, and
living only to deceive, they cannot be expected to believe. If they are
not lineal descendants of Ishmael, they are like the Arabs, a nomadic
race, and their hands are against every man, and every man’s against
them.
I fell to musing over the change that three or four hundred years had
made in the state of things on this famous spot. For we are within the
grounds of the Alhambra. And the time was when the splendor of Oriental
courts was shining here in its brightest array, and the luxury of kings
and queens was spread about these seats that are now the scene of this
low revelry and mirth. The vanity of earth is impressed upon me by this
miserable show. The fashion of this world passeth away. And, indeed, the
lesson of the Alhambra is the strangest, saddest lesson that ruins
teach. Its walls, its towers, its turrets, its gates, in their decay, as
they yet linger on the heights overlooking the city and the plain, seem
to say, We are witnesses to-day that the glory of kings is fleeting as
the dew of the morning:
“The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples—”
have dissolved; and the wreck behind is the monument of a departed race,
an extinct dynasty, a better, wiser, nobler race by far than that which
now inhabits the land. For when the Moors went out of Spain, they
carried with them arts, science, enterprise, energy, strength, and
taste. They left a people in possession ignorant, proud, bigoted, and
indolent: a people that now, in the midst of an advancing age, is making
no advance; a people who carry earth in baskets instead of wheelbarrows,
and wood on donkeys instead of using carts!
Two things astonished me in Spain: the one, that the pictures in her
galleries were so great and good, and the other that her cathedrals so
far excel the rest of European temples in the grandeur of their
architecture. Poor as Spain is now, we must not forget that it was once
the most powerful of kingdoms, and the mistress of a world of its own.
And the arts and sciences once flourished here as they did in the
brightest days of Grecian and Roman glory. The paintings that are
gathered in Madrid are probably as valuable in the eyes of the artistic
world as those of any other gallery; and there are half a dozen
cathedrals in Spain that are not equalled by the same number in all the
rest of the Continent. One who visited them will not be apt to forget
the florid beauty of the one at Burgos, the massive grandeur of that in
Toledo, the thousand columns that sustain the arches on which rests the
roof of the converted mosque at Cordova, or, the most majestic of them
all, the vast and solemn pile that stands in Seville; nor will he
readily lose the impressions made upon his soul by the cathedral at
Granada, into which we are now entering, as we are about to take leave
of the Alhambra, and go to the north of Europe.
It was the design of the founders of this temple to make it the most
splendid in the world; and this weak and unworthy ambition has doubtless
given to us many noble monuments of genius and labor which a less
exciting motive might have failed to produce. We are met with a notice,
on entering, that we are not to converse during service; and it is a
caution that might well be put up in the Protestant as well as Catholic
places of worship. Five naves are divided with massive pillars; the
pavement is marble, and very beautiful; the interior 425 feet long and
250 feet wide, with chapels on the sides, on which private wealth has
been lavished with a profusion that seems absolutely incredible; one of
them was built by an archbishop, whose wealth was so great that he
imitated the royal manner of living, and preferred to be like his Master
a king, rather than like his Master a servant.
Charles V. called upon the artists of the world to come and embellish
this house, and to assist him in building the sepulchres of his father
and mother, and the kings of Spain. The chapel royal is the most
impressive mausoleum in the whole kingdom; for here, in full view, are
the tombs, and upon them the images, in marble, of Ferdinand and
Isabella, and beneath these monuments repose the ashes of those
illustrious monarchs whose names are so indissolubly linked with the
history of our own distant land. By them lie the relics also of Philip
and his wife, who was called Crazy Jane. There are no more elaborate
sepulchral monuments than these. Four statues of learned divines and
twelve apostles surround the royal tombs, as if keeping eternal guard
over the inevitable dust. The statues of the royal dead are said to be
good likenesses, and I hope they are, for these people had so much care
and trouble in life, it is certainly pleasant to see them looking so
quiet in their stone beds. Even Crazy Jane, the wife of Philip, is as
calm and peaceful, in the effigy that lies at our feet, as if she never
had been in the habit of carrying the corpse of her husband about with
her from place to place, refusing to have it buried, and insisting on
the pleasure of embracing it whenever she took a notion for so cold a
comfort.
Isabella, the fair patron of Columbus, desired to be brought here and
buried; and here she lies, one of the noblest women that ever sat upon a
throne: a wonderful contrast with the late Isabella who came from Madrid
to Granada, a few years ago, descended into the vaults, and caused mass
to be performed for the souls of the departed; which souls are quite as
well off without any masses as hers will be with many. Her visit was
made here in 1862, and Ferdinand and Isabella took possession of the
city in 1492, nearly four hundred years between the visits of the two
Isabellas; and there is as great contrast between the characters of the
two women as there is between the condition of the country under the
reign of the one and the other.
A very obliging priest led us from chapel to chapel, and pointed out to
us the several distinguishing marks of antiquity and sacredness that
make the cathedral a joy to the believer, and one of the most—in many
respects the most—sacred in Spain. He was not unmindful of a trifling
fee when we parted, and one cannot but be amused with the solemn gravity
with which this office of guide to the holies is performed by the
priests, who doubtless have the mixed motive of displaying the charms of
their sacred places, and of getting the little money that grateful
travellers leave in their hands. It is best to have their services, for
they answer a hundred questions that without them would be unanswered,
and their weary life seems to be lightened by the brief companionship of
strangers.
In the evening we set off from Granada by diligence, leaving the place
in the same style that marked our entrance. A crowd gathered at the
office to witness our departure. A woman at the window put down her
money to buy a ticket to take a seat with us. Before she had received
the ticket, a couple of officers of justice rushed in and seized her.
They stripped off her bonnet and her luxurious head of hair: they tore
off her mantilla, and, shocking to relate, her loosely-flowing dress
fell at her feet, in the midst of the derisive shouts of an admiring
multitude; and, thus stripped, she remained a well-dressed man! He had
helped himself freely to the money in the shop where he was employed,
got together all he could borrow and steal of others, and, in the
disguise of a woman, was about to abscond to parts unknown! Probably he
was going to that happy land far, far away, which is still believed by
them to be the paradise of thieves. His career was suddenly arrested.
The crowd followed hooting at his heels as the officers led him off to
prison; the horn of the postilion rang out its call on the evening air,
the dozen horses and mules at last consented to pull together, and we
plunged out of Granada.
CHAPTER XV.
GENEVA—FREYBURG—BERNE.
BY a very circuitous route, over which I will not ask you to follow me,
I came to Switzerland, on my way to the north of Europe.
When I was a boy of nine, I read in Cæsar’s Commentaries, “Extremum
oppidum Allobrogum, proximumque Helvetiorum finibus est Geneva,” and
rendered it into English, “the farthest town of the Allobroges, and
nearest to the frontiers of the Helvetii is Geneva.” Out of the lake
flows the river Rhone, with waters so blue that they seem to have been
colored with indigo, and Sir Humphrey Davy, who died here, attributed
the deep color to the presence of iodine. The outlet of the lake is
crossed by several bridges, and the city stands on both sides. The old
wall on the left bank was originally built by the men of Julius Cæsar,
as is attested by coins and other remains of those days, to this day
occasionally found. Its antiquity, its remarkable history, its past
greatness, and its present beauty, the many eminent men who have here
spent their lives, and more than all its situation on this lake, give
the city of Geneva an attraction that no other place in Switzerland
possesses.
The cathedral here in Geneva is the venerable edifice in which John
Calvin and his peers in the Reformation preached the doctrines that are
now working their way into the minds of the entire Christian world, as
the real basis for civil and religious liberty and progress.
[Illustration: GENEVA AND THE RHONE.]
As we entered it, we trode upon the nearly worn-out epitaphs in the
stones of the floor, to the memory of Roman Catholic dignitaries, who
ruled here before the Reformation, for the edifice is more than five
hundred years old. A chapel of the Virgin Mary, no longer needed for her
worship, holds the tomb of the Duke and Duchess of Rohan, 1638, and in
another part of the church is the monument to the memory of Agrippa
d’Aubigny.
[Illustration: Portrait of Merle d’Aubigné]
In the old library, just behind the cathedral, are many interesting
manuscripts of Calvin, forty-four volumes of his sermons, twelve of
letters written to him, his own letter to Lady Jane Grey while she was a
prisoner in the Tower of London, and 394 other letters by his own hand.
Besides these, there is nothing more than the severe simplicity and
solidity of the edifice, with its remarkable history and associations,
to make it interesting.
It appears like a slow old town. But the names of good great men, and
great bad men, are so identified with Geneva, that it is never spoken of
without being associated with their works and influence. Calvin came
here three hundred years ago and more,—the three hundredth anniversary
of his death was commemorated a few years ago,—Rousseau was born here,
Voltaire and Madame de Stael and Lord Byron have resided here; and a
long list could easily be made longer, of illustrious men, some of them
flying from religious persecution, some from the reach of the sword of
justice, some hiding from themselves, for it has been, and still is, an
asylum for all, of every name, faith, and aim, who would be free to
think and speak, while they yield wholesome obedience to the laws. I was
quite surprised to-day when the excellent United States consul at this
place showed me in one of the infidel Rousseau’s works a note in which
that brilliant writer speaks in the highest terms of John Calvin, not
only as a theologian, but a statesman whose views, he says, will be
always held in reverence.
[Illustration: D’AUBIGNE’S BIRTHPLACE AND RESIDENCE.]
At the foot of the lake, and near the city, are many beautiful villas,
with the water in front of them, the Jura mountains on the north to be
seen by those on one side, and the mountains of Savoy on the south-east
in full view from the other. Mont Blanc towers above them, “the monarch
of mountains,” his white head and shoulders seen above the dark ranges
in front of him, like the bare form of a giant among the hills. Rev. Dr.
Merle d’Aubigné, the historian of the Reformation, Sir Robert Peel, and
other eminent men, have had their residences on the south-east side, and
Baron Rothschild has a splendid palace on the opposite shore. Voltaire’s
house, and the residence of the Empress Josephine, are also there. The
shores, as we go up the lake, are covered with vineyards, and every
village that we pass is marked with some features of historical
interest. Madame de Stael formerly resided at Coppet, a little village
where is a Roman tombstone with this inscription, “Vixi ut vivis:
morieris ut sum mortuus: sic vita traditur, vale viator et abi in rem
tuam.” Ninon is an old town that boasts of Julius Cæsar as its founder,
and under its castle are those gloomy dungeons which are the terrible
witnesses of the cruel customs of past ages. On the left shore as we
advance we notice a village on the extremity of a cape, which is called
St. Protais; this saint was the Bishop of Avenches, the Roman Aventicum,
who died in 530, and was buried here, tradition says, because “his body
did not seem inclined to go any further.” And in 1400, nearly a thousand
years after his burial, it was proposed to remove him to Lausanne, but
he showed such signs of repugnance, that it was deemed improper to
disturb him any more. Near this was once a town named Lisus, which was
destroyed in 563 by a sudden rise of the lake occasioned by the fall
into its waters of an entire mountain on the Savoy side. It was an
important place, as the remains of vases, statuary, and mosaics attest
to this day. As we reach the town of Morges the scenery of the lake has
opened upon us with grandeur and beauty which is impossible to describe.
The snow-clad summits of the Grand Muveran, the rocks of the Diablerets,
and the tapering jagged peaks that are appropriately called teeth, and
have their several names, which one is scarcely expected to remember,
now rise in full view, and the excitement of the voyage is fairly begun.
Away in the distance is Mont Combin, one of the stupendous Mont Rosa
group, and there are the mountains of Abondance and the cragged peaks of
Meillerie, while in the background, overlooking all, glows and blazes in
the splendors of this summer sun the everlasting snow-crown of Mont
Blanc.
That square tower in Morges is the old donjon of Wufflens. It rises 170
feet, and towers above a group of turrets, all of brick. It was built in
the tenth century by Bertha, whose memory is so sacred, the good queen
of the Burgundians, who visited every part of her kingdom on horseback
once a year, with a distaff in her hand, to set her subjects an example
of industry.
[Illustration: LAUSANNE, AND THE LAKE OF GENEVA.]
The most picturesque in its situation, and the most famous city on the
lake, except Geneva, is _Lausanne_, the capital of the canton of Vaud,
built on three hills, along the slope of the Jorat, and dating back to
the year 563. And then, oh wonderful to relate! it became in 580 the see
of a bishop, the prelate Marius bringing hither the relics of St. Anne,
from whom the town is named, _Laus Annæ_, and a part of the true cross,
and some of the Virgin Mary’s hair, and, more than all, a _rat_,—a
veritable rat, which had devoured some of the bread after it was
consecrated, and was thus converted into the body of our Lord! These
valuable possessions drew immense numbers of pilgrims, and raised the
celebrity of the place, which afterwards had a remarkable history, civil
and religious. Its cathedral was consecrated by the Pope himself. In
1479 the whole region was overrun with a species of beetles like
locusts, devouring every green thing. The invaders were _excommunicated_
by the bishop, but the sentence had no effect! Farel and Viret and
Calvin, with other reformers, were here in convention in 1536. Here
Gibbon finished his work, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,”
and the principal hotel bears his name, while the house he lived in and
the terrace where he often walked, are pointed out as objects of
interest to travellers. We rode through the quaint old place, and then
continued our journey.
But if we pause even to mention the places on the northern shore of the
lake, and allude to the events that have made them classic, we shall not
get over the ground or the water to-day. We have now reached the upper
section of the lake, and the mountains round about it have been rising
in sublimity and beauty as we advance. The water is a thousand feet
deep. On the right hand the mountains rise precipitously from the
water’s edge, and on the left vineyards cover the sloping hills:
sometimes walls sixty and eighty feet high have been built to support
the soil, and on the terraces so formed luxurious vines are flourishing,
and in the days of the old Romans a temple to Bacchus, the god of wine,
was standing here, the ruins remaining to this day. The view from Vevey
is regarded by many as the most delightful on the lake, and the
situation of the town is so picturesque and healthful, so cool in summer
and so warm in winter, that it is sought for as a residence by strangers
all the year round, and in this strangely ordered region, in sight of
everlasting snows, the pomegranate and the rose-laurel and myrtle
blossom in the open air, as in the south of France. And now we come to
the upper end of the lake, and such an amphitheatre of mountains, rocks,
and hills, sure no other lake in the wide world presents. The sun was
low in the west as we approached this eastern end, and a flood of golden
light was poured in upon the bosom of the waters, and covered the
stupendous battlements on either side with a living glory.
Close down on the edge of the lake is the old Castle of Chillon, more
than six hundred years of age, where the Dukes of Savoy ruled with
terrible power. Down into its dungeons we were led, to one where on a
flat rock the condemned prisoners spent the last nights of their lives;
to another where, on a cross-beam still here, they were hung; to the
stone column, one of the supports of the castle, where for seven long
years the Prior of St. Victor, Francis Bonnivard, for his heroic defence
of the liberty of Geneva, was chained to a ring yet remaining in the
pillar, the chain passing around his body, and allowing him space only
to walk around it, year after year, or to lie down and sleep by its
side. In this dungeon many of the reformers were imprisoned.
[Illustration: CASTLE OF CHILLON.]
In an upper room we found the chamber of torture, in which was a wooden
column, to which prisoners were put to the _question_, chained, and
tormented with fire, or drawn and stretched with rings and pulleys; and
in another room a trap-door is open, and a spiral stone staircase leads
downward,—the prisoner, unconscious of what was before him, steps down
three steps into the darkness, and the fourth is eighty feet below,
where he is dashed to pieces on the rocks. Yet in this castle, and near
to these horrid places, are the bed-chambers and parlors and
dining-rooms of dukes and duchesses, men and women like ourselves, who
could eat, drink, and be merry under the same roof with all this cruelty
and misery.
And this is at the head of the Lake of Geneva. Within ten minutes’ walk
is the Hotel Byron, one of the best places to stop at in all Europe. It
is in the centre of a semi-circular sweep of beetling crags, and
snow-peaked mountains, and wine-growing hill-sides; it looks away down
the lake, and not another house, not a sound disturbs its deep
tranquillity, while nature, history, poetry, and art invite us to
repose.
Leaving Chillon in the morning _by rail_ gave us a new idea of the way
that Switzerland is now explored by tourists. When I was here, a dozen
years ago, it was to be seen only by footing it through the passes, or
riding on horseback, with now and then a lift in the _diligence_, or
antiquated stage-coach. Now railroads have been made to connect so many
of the principal places and points of interest, that only the younger
and more vigorous of travellers strike out into the mountain fastnesses,
and toil over the hills where as yet no roads have been made. I inquired
of the porter this morning how to get across from Martigny to the Vale
of Chamouny. “You takes von leetel hoss,” he said, from which I knew
that the ponies still do the work through that finest of all the day’s
rides in Switzerland. There are hundreds of interesting tours yet to be
made where no rail or coach will ever intrude, and no other locomotive,
unless Professor Andrews makes his air-ship a success: in which case it
would be admirably adapted to travel in this country. One of the last
places in the world I should have thought practicable for a railroad is
the border of this lake, and yet here it is entering the valley where
the Rhone empties, and so extending to Martigny and to Sion.
[Illustration: THE LAKE AND CITY OF GENEVA.]
Penetrating secluded regions where frost has been king since the world
began, the rail has made even the everlasting glaciers, these frozen
cataracts, articles of merchandise. As the quarries in the mountains are
worked by the art and spirit of man, so the icebergs that here grow from
age to age, and scarcely seem to melt at all, are cut into blocks, and
transported by the rail to Paris. The glacier of the Grindelwald is
drank in brandy punches at the Grand Hotel and the Louvre. To get the
ice, these mighty frozen seas are excavated in galleries and chambers,
and magnificent saloons. The depths of snow on the surface exclude the
sunbeams, but calcium lights shed a brilliant lustre, reflected as from
a thousand mirrors of glass, and in small apartments fitted up for the
purpose, the furniture of a well appointed parlor, sofas, chairs, and
cushions, invite to cold but not inhospitable repose. When the Mer de
Glace is taken by rail down into Italy, and thence by ship to the East
Indies, ice will be reasonably cheap in Calcutta. And this will be more
readily done than to tow an iceberg from the North Pole.
As I said, we left Chillon in the morning, and retraced our course a
part of the way by the railroad which passes on the hill-sides, away
above the lake, through luxuriant vineyards, and over stupendous gorges,
spanned by stone bridges, and arrived before noon at Lausanne. Here we
struck out into the interior of Switzerland. And I was at once impressed
with the great progress, even in this stationary country, made in the
last thirteen years. Then we traversed this wild and wonderful country
mainly over paths that no wheel had ever marked, and sometimes by ways
that only the footstep of the most cautious traveller might tread. Now,
we take the _coupé_, or front compartment of an elegantly fitted up
rail-car. It has seats for four persons only, with rests for the head
and the feet, and a table before you, and windows in front and sides, so
that you can see all that is around you, or write of what you see and
feel. Before us are the peaks of untrodden hills, all covered deep in
perpetual snows, the pink color on the white like the hues of roses, as
the sun shines on but never melts them; here, on the right, I see the
lake that yesterday we sailed through from end to end; now it is smooth
as a silver sea, and as beautiful; reflecting majestic mountains, and
cities and villages where wealth and art and letters and taste have for
ages delighted to dwell. And on the other hand, and sometimes on both
sides of us, we see Swiss valleys teeming with a busy, peaceful, happy
people, whose homes suggest to me the thought of contentment, and
therefore happiness. The old city of Romont we pass below, as it stands
on a hill with an ancient wall and towers surrounding it; good enough in
those old times when bows and spears and stones were the weapons of war,
but of no account in these times of Columbiads and Paixhan guns. At the
foot of the hill on which it stands, the fields are laid off with walks
and garnished with groves, showing that the people of these regions
delight in those enjoyments that indicate culture and taste.
The city of Freyburg, where we passed the night, is remarkable as being
the seat of the chief power of Romanism in Switzerland. It has as many
as ten convents and monasteries and high seminaries of learning. The
suspension bridge is said to be the longest in the world, nine hundred
feet: it is not so beautiful as the one at Niagara, but may be longer.
The organ of Freyburg has been long celebrated as one of the best
instruments in the world, and there is probably but one superior to it.
Yet the performances upon it are so unequal, varying with the skill or
the humor of the organist, that very different reports are made of it by
parties hearing it at different times. Perhaps it was my good fortune to
hear it under circumstances the most favorable. Certainly the music was
the most effective of any that I have ever heard, more so than any I
expect to hear till the “nobler, sweeter strains” of the divine melodies
break on the spirit’s ear among the harmonies of heaven.
The cathedral dates back to 1285. Over the front entrance is a queer old
bas-relief, representing the last judgment. The Father, God himself,
done in stone, sits aloft, with angels blowing trumpets around him. At
his feet, on the right, the righteous are led off in triumph to their
places in glory, and on the left a devil is weighing souls in a pair of
scales; another devil, with the head of a pig, is carrying a lot of poor
sinners in a basket on his back, and is about to cast them into a great
kettle where others are boiling, while little imps are blowing the fires
with bellows, and hell itself, represented by the jaws of a monster,
yawns near, and Satan sits on his throne above. We studied this strange
device until the evening shades were too dense to permit us to see it,
and then entered the portals. Darkness and silence reigned within. Two
candles on the columns near the altar gave all the “dim religious
light,” that only served to deepen the gloomy grandeur of the venerable
pile. A few persons had already been admitted, and were conversing in
whispers, invisible and scarcely audible in the distance. We sat as far
away from the organ as we could, and where it was probable it could be
heard to the best advantage. As the hour approached (it is played from
half-past eight to half-past nine every evening), the strangers, who
pause here on their travels, entered in little groups, and then a large
crowd of gentlemen, who, as I learned the next day, were the teachers,
professors, and other literary men of Switzerland, came in together,
filling every available place. They were in Freyburg in convention, and
by invitation were now present to enjoy the musical feast. It may be
that owing to this unusual attendance of the learned and cultivated men
of the country, we had the highest possible development of the powers of
the instrument and the ability of the organist.
Something in the circumstances doubtless added to the dramatic effect of
the exhibition. The cathedral seemed to be full of people, but a few
only could be seen, and a sense of solemnity, devotion, awe, began to
steal upon me as I sat waiting for the first notes of the organ, which
was lighted only by a single candle, and that unseen, so that the
instrument seemed away among the stars. Some of its pipes are thirty-two
feet long. They are 7,800 in number, with sixty-four stops. As I looked
up expectant, I thought, “Oh, if it had only a soul!” And then, just
then, a breath of melody, so soft, so sweet, so soul-like, came along on
the still air, it might have been the first notes of the advent song of
peace that fell like this by night over Bethlehem. This gentle stream of
music rose and swelled into a river of melody that soon burst its banks
and became a rushing torrent of sound, mighty in its power, almost awful
in its expression. This was but the prelude. Then came, in successive
anthems, songs and passages of master-pieces of the great composers;
some of them familiar, all of them exquisite in their effect, to
illustrate the wondrous faculties of this uninspired, untenanted
mechanism, that was yet able to represent with such fidelity the deep
and lofty, the softest and strongest emotions of the soul.
Now, the imitation of the human voice was so perfect, it required an
effort of the mind to believe that a living being was _not_ rendering
those plaintive strains in some distant chamber of this vast hall; and
now, the ring of bells broke musically on the ear, and the far-away toll
of some solemn church-bell added its voice to the harmony. The Alpine
horn, the flute, and other instruments were so distinctly given, it was
hard to comprehend the truth that, in the midst of one grand
performance, on a single instrument, so many and so distinct and perfect
imitations of others could be introduced. Perhaps nothing was more
beautiful than the tinkling of water dropping into a fountain; yet, when
one effect had been enjoyed, as if the most complete, another soon
succeeded, so delicate and so touching, that it seemed as if the last
were more lovely than all which had been heard before.
It is quite impossible to speak of the closing performance without being
suspected, by those who have not heard it, of exaggeration. And, indeed,
so differently are we constituted, that some will be charmed with a
picture or statue, ravished with eloquence of oratory or music, and
delighted with a landscape or waterfall, while others exposed to the
same influences are as unmoved as the marble or the instrument. I know
that I am not one of them, thanks to him who made us to differ; and I
know, too, that they who sat near me, when the last grand movement of
this organ was made, are not of them. For when the strong wind began to
shake the walls of the old cathedral, the rain to pour in torrents on
the roof, the thunder rolling in terrific majesty,
“Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance seemed,”
we bowed our heads, with such a sense of awe and adoration, as could
scarcely have been increased if the war of elements had indeed been
bursting on us, and the voice of the Almighty had suddenly filled his
temple.
I will not describe the effect of this music: how it soothed, subdued,
and melted the heart when its tenderest utterances fell like balm on a
wounded spirit; how it carried me away to other days, and far-away
lands, and lifted me again to thoughts of heaven and the harmonies of
the saints; and so pure, so holy were the strains and the associations
they brought with them, I wept that I had ever lived but in the hallowed
atmosphere of the Good, the Unseen, and Infinite! Nor was this a
transient sentiment, fading when the hour of such strange teaching was
ended, and the gothic temple ceased to tremble with these majestic
tones. It has followed me for days and nights among these stupendous
mountain fastnesses, over ice-clad plains, where “motionless torrents,
silent cataracts,” proclaim the power of him who “clothes them with
rainbows,” only less lustrous than the one around his throne. I hear the
voice of God everywhere, in this sublime and awful land. But if these
silent works of his are eloquent to speak his praise, how much more is
such a voice as that organ, the great achievement of a mind and hand
that God made, endowed, and guided in their work.
I have thought in years past that words are not essential to a train of
thought: we think in words, always and only in words. But now I know
that we need no words to make us feel, and words are not made that are
capable of expressing what we feel. As we sat in silence beneath the
majestic harmonies of this surpassing instrument, even so it were better
that I had made no attempt to portray with pen what is not in the
compass of words to utter. It is to be heard and felt and enjoyed.
Just beyond Freyburg, as we go to Berne, is the battle-field of Morat,
which battle was fought four hundred years ago, but is famous to this
day: for the bones of the slain were gathered into a heap, and some of
them are still to be seen. It was formerly the custom for every
Burgundian who passed to carry a bone home with him to bury in his own
country, and Lord Byron said that he took away enough to make a quarter
of a man. But they are mostly gone now, and an obelisk is set up to mark
the field.
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL AND PLATFORM AT BERNE.]
By stopping over from one train to another you will see all that is
worth seeing in the quaint old city of _Berne_,—the German for Bear,—the
city of Bears, so called because it is built on the spot where its
founder, Berchthold, of Zahringen, slew a bear long time ago. So the
people keep three or four of them in a stone pit, at the public expense,
for the idle and youthful to look at and feed and see them climb a tree.
It is amusing to see a city worshipping bears. Therefore go to see the
bears, when you go to Berne. Do not fall over the parapet, for if you
do, the bears will tear you to bits, as they did an unfortunate
Englishman on the 3d of March, 1861. If you happen to be at the old
clock tower when it is striking the hour, you will see a curious
procession, which presents a very striking appearance; and, indeed,
every fountain and statue and mountain is deformed with ugly bears, till
you cannot bear to see them. You will be quite willing to leave the city
after walking through its principal streets, where the second story of
the houses projects over the sidewalks, making a covered promenade, and
the shops are half-way in the street, and the market-women sit all along
the way with their baskets of vegetables, and the chicken vendors are
ready to cut off the heads of the fowls over a drain that carries off
the blood, and so forth.
Besides the hotels, the only notable edifice is the Federal Palace, a
new and truly beautiful building. Here the National Diet, or Congress of
Switzerland, meets annually in July. There are twenty-two cantons, or
states, in the Swiss Confederation, and they are severally independent,
but unite in this council for purposes of mutual protection and support.
Each canton has a dialect, or patois, peculiar to itself, and sometimes
unintelligible to its neighbors; and the French, the German, and the
Italian languages are so generally spoken in distinct cantons, that they
are obliged to have an interpreter in Congress to redeliver a speech, or
restate an argument in two other languages after a member has made it
first in the only one that he understands. What a blessed thing it is
that our congressmen understand, at least, each other’s language, for if
their speeches had to be repeated three times, when would the assembly
ever break up?
The grandest sight in Berne is the range of Bernese Alps, and a grander
spectacle, perhaps, the country itself cannot present. When that long,
white, rifted, mountain-boundary of the world stands up in its majesty,
lighted as we saw it by a blazing noonday sun, it is sublime as well as
beautiful.
[Illustration: ON THE LAKE OF THUN.]
It is only an hour by rail to Thun, and then we are on a lovely little
lake ten miles long, with lofty mountains on each side of it; so lovely
indeed is this lake, that days after we had left it, when other views
were spoken of, Thun always had its admiring advocates, who claimed for
it the pre-eminence in beauty over all that we had seen. And so in this
land of glorious natural scenery, where every valley is a subject for a
picture, every mountain a study, and every lake a gem, it is easy to
exhaust the words of admiration, and then fail to convey any adequate
idea of the constant succession of splendors that greet the traveller’s
never-wearied eye.
Writing these last words, I look up, and before me is the Jungfrau,
clothed in white raiment from crown to foot. The sky kisses her cold
brow. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so are the everlasting
hills about her now and ever. But no words can give to you, beyond the
sea, the faintest conception of what one feels who exposes his soul to
these visions of grandeur and beauty, and rejoices as he thinks “My
_Father_ made them all.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BRUNIG PASS—LUCERNE.
IF it were required of me to name the pleasantest day’s ride thus far of
this summer’s tour in Switzerland, I should give the palm for beauty to
the day that took me with two friends from Interlaken to Lucerne by way
of Brienz and the Brunig Pass.
Interlaken, as its name implies, is between the lakes Thun and Brienz.
Thun is a beautiful gem of a sea; Brienz is a little smaller, but
fortified by formidable mountains and scarcely less lovely than her
sister Thun. Our carriage-road, after leading us out from
Interlaken,—that great English boarding establishment with a road
running through it, and interesting only as a flat valley in sight of
the Jungfrau, and so full of people all summer long that you can find no
sense of quiet or retirement, though the hotels are good, and the rides
pleasant, and the mountain scenery sublime,—our road led us along on the
western shore of Lake Brienz, and is cut into the hill-side so far up
that all the way along we were able to survey the whole lake. I looked
back to the _Abendberg_, a mountain which I once climbed to visit the
Institution for the Relief of Cretins, the idiots of Switzerland, which
Dr. Guggenbulre established there. That remarkable philanthropist and
physician, in whom and his labors I became intensely interested when
here before, has since that time been removed by death, and no one being
found to carry on his benevolent and self-denying work, it was
suspended, and the building is now a hotel.
On the east side of the lake some of the finest mountains in the country
are to be seen, and the flat summit of the Faulhorn is even more
inviting than the Rigi, which now is visited by scarcely more tourists.
Cascades are leaping frequently from lofty heights into the abyss below,
and we have scarcely exclaimed at the beauty of one before another
rushes into sight. By and by we come to one more imposing than all the
rest; at first we catch but a single fall; as we advance it takes
another plunge, and then another, and soon the whole reach and all the
leaps of the GIESBACK are roaring and tumbling down the lofty precipices
before us. I had been under it and around it, at its base, but had not
before stood, as now, where its successive falls are all blended into
one, and the white crystal flood pours more than a thousand feet,
through the green fir-tree borders, into the lake. If you have a night
to spare, when you come here, you may cross from Brienz and spend it at
the Falls, which are illuminated with Bengal lights, producing a
spectacle of enchanting and bewildering magnificence and beauty. But if
you have not time, get some one who has just been there, and who knows
that you have not been, to tell you about it, and you will get an idea
_from his description_ that will quite surpass the original!
After passing the little village of Brienz,—where the English-speaking
landlord of the Bear (Ours) will entertain you well if you give him a
call,—we soon began the ascent of the Brunig mountain. It gives you at
once some conception of the immense expenditure of money, time, and
science of engineering required to construct these Swiss roads. As
smooth as those of Central Park, and as solid, they are made to wind
around and about so as to render the ascent gradual. Sometimes we seem
to be returning on our track, but always singing _Excelsior_, and yet so
gradually that the strain is not severe on the horses, and you feel no
sense of danger as you are borne along without jolting or fatigue. And
what a lovely vale is every moment in view at the foot of the mountain!
A rapid river sweeps through it, and by its side a white, smooth road:
sweet Swiss homes in the midst of green farms dot the valley, that may
well be the pride of the whole land. Now we are looking down into the
Vale of Meyringen. For two or three hours we have seen in the distance a
splendid cascade, and now that we have approached it, we find it the
lower leap of the celebrated Reichenbach Falls, and into the valley so
many are pouring constantly, that you are not surprised to learn the
inhabitants have often suffered sadly from the swelling of these
mountain torrents, which come down so rapidly and fearfully as to bear
away every thing before them. A hundred years ago, almost the whole
village of Meyringen was buried twenty feet deep in the sand and rocks
and rubbish. A mark on one of the principal buildings shows the height
to which the waters rose in that memorable deluge. And as we are wound
along up the Brunig, we enter the clouds and find the rain descending,
so that we are obliged to shut the carriage up till we pass through the
cloud, and emerge as we come down into a sunnier region. At the foot,
the village of Lungern offers us dinner, and we rest. One of my friends
had been suffering all day with toothache, and had at last reached the
reckless determination to have it out, if a dentist, or even a
blacksmith, could be found in the place. I admired his courage more than
his discretion, but probably had only a feeble sense of his suffering.
The village doctor was summoned, a fine-looking, self-reliant,
intelligent young man. The landlord stood with solemn face at the door
of the room where the dread operation was to be performed. The landlady
wrung her hands in sympathy. The head waiter held the sufferer’s head. I
held my peace. In a moment it was done! And then the charge, it was one
franc! twenty cents!! Think of that, ye man tormentors, who, with
forceps dire, tear a tooth by the roots from one’s bleeding jaw and
charge him two dollars, or five!
Lungern, where now lies the bone of one of my countrymen, stands by a
lake of the same name, which was once much larger than it is now. But
the people, more in need of land than water, at the cost of $25,000 dug
a tunnel under a hill that held the lake, put 1000 pounds of gunpowder
at the end of the hole and touched it off. Away it went, and away went
the lake, and the village itself was nearly whelmed too. Down went the
lake 120 feet, leaving several hundred acres of ground which is now
tilled. But not enough to pay for the work. God has given the seas and
the lakes their bounds, and man is a poor tinker when he tries to blow
the world up and make it over. I sympathize with the poet who rejoices
that the sun and moon are swung out of reach,
“Lest some reforming ass
Should take them down and light the world with gas.”
The whole region beyond is historic, and the quaint villages we pass
through have their several stories of battles, sieges, and victories.
Every step of the way presents a new picture of loveliness or sublimity.
At last we are brought into sight and now are riding along the base of
Mount Pilatus, his head as usual crowned with clouds and storm. The
tradition is,—and you must believe in all the traditions of this
country, or you lose half the interest of travel in it: even the life
and exploits of William Tell are traditional rather than historic, yet
who that lives here or travels here thinks William Tell a myth? If he
does, he had better not tell anybody he doesn’t believe in Tell,—the
tradition is that Pontius Pilate, after condemning the Saviour, wandered
over the world with a conscience goading him to death; that finally he
committed suicide on the top of this mountain, which is almost always,
in consequence of this awful event, begirt with tempests. And the
popular belief that these storms were of infernal origin was so
prevalent, that for a long time it was forbidden by law to make the
ascent. But the mountain is the first great barrier the clouds meet as
they are marching southerly into the Alpine regions. There they break,
and around the peak of Mount PILATE the thunder and lightning play with
vengeance, when elsewhere it is “clear shining after the rain.” The
carriage-path is now along the shore of Lake Lucerne and at the foot of
the mountains,—ahead of us it seems as though we were coming to the
sudden terminus of travel, but the narrow way opens as we advance, and
we sweep securely under a frowning precipice, and over a solid rock for
the bed of the road, and having made the circuit of the mountain we
emerge upon a plain which lies between us and Lucerne.
[Illustration: PILATUS, LAKE OF LUCERNE.]
The sun was just sinking to rest as we were bringing to a close our
journey of ten hours, memorable for the picturesque views that were
constantly before us, the four lakes that we had skirted in our ride,
the uncounted waterfalls, majestic mountains, alternate rain and
sunshine, and that pleasant friendly converse which an easy-going
carriage permits and encourages, when, with tastes to enjoy the
beautiful world that God has made, we sit all day under the open sky and
admire, wonder, and adore.
Lucerne is one of the most beautiful spots in Switzerland. We have often
laughed at the guide-books for calling each and every place, castle,
river, waterfall, temple, or tower, the most beautiful, the oldest,
largest, most romantic, or something quite as superlative. But we get
into the same habit, and readers must make allowances for the enthusiasm
of travellers. Take off as much as you please, and Lucerne is very
lovely.
It was my first Sabbath, on this journey, in a place almost wholly given
up to Romanism. The population is about 13,000, and less than a thousand
are Protestants. At nine o’clock in the morning, with two American
friends, I went to the cathedral or church of St. Leger, and found it
already crowded and a sermon in progress. The preacher was arrayed with
so much magnificence that I supposed he must be some very distinguished
personage in the church of Rome. The Papal Nuncio, or representative of
the Pope of Rome, has his official residence in Lucerne, but I presume
he does not officiate as a preacher. The audience filling the seats and
thronging the aisles were giving devout attention, each one on entering
bending his knee and crossing himself. The women occupied one half, and
the men the other, of the house. I could find no seat, but a young man
in a pew rose, gave me his seat, and stood up himself, a politeness not
common in any Protestant church in any part of the world to which my
weary steps have been directed. The preaching was in German, and more
unintelligible to me than if it had been in Greek or Latin, so that I
was at liberty to study the surroundings. Over the altar was a statue of
Christ crucified: the body made of wood painted to the life, and
life-size, suspended so low that the face, with all its expression of
intense agony, was perfectly visible. The blood had settled all below
the knees and the lower part of the chest, and was trickling from the
spikes through the hands and feet. The altar was richly adorned with
gold, and candles were burning on it. On either side of it were minor
altars; over one of them was an inscription in Latin recording the
sacred relics there treasured. These are to be found in all the great
churches on the continent, but have lost none of their hold on the
reverence of these superstitious people. The toe-nail of the prophet
Jeremiah would be the fortune of any relic-hunter who should light upon
it. Over another altar, called _Privileged_, but why I did not learn,
was a representation, in full life-size, of the descent from the cross.
The weeping women had very sorrowful faces, and the wound in the
Saviour’s side was gaping fearfully, and the blood still oozing out. As
I was looking at it, a lady elegantly dressed, leading two children,
four or five years old, entered a side door, and approaching this altar
knelt before it, and turning her face upward to these images of the
Saviour’s death, gazed long, and I suppose was praying. The sermon was
still in progress, but she gave no heed to it. Perhaps, like myself, she
was not able to understand it, and had come to worship, not to hear.
When she had closed her protracted devotions, she took the little boy
and girl and made them both kneel, where she had been kneeling, and look
up as she had done, and when they had thus performed the service which
she evidently prescribed, she led them out. Others cast themselves down
before this and other altars, and with no attention to the service in
progress, went on with their own prayers, and then left, or joined with
the rest according to their pleasure. When the sermon was ended, long,
and well delivered, in a persuasive, conversational tone, without notes,
and with an evident air of earnest feeling, another priest, in gorgeous
apparel, came to the high altar, and, attended by two or three boys to
hold up his robes and move his missal-book from place to place, as he
had to change his position, he proceeded to celebrate the mass. The
officiating priest was an elderly man whose face indicated great
intellectual force, and his appearance was that of a student and man of
learning. As he took a golden chalice and laid his hands over it, and
prayed, and then lifted it up while all the people bowed themselves with
profound reverence, it filled me with amazement that such a man as he
seemed to be could suppose that the wine in that cup had been
miraculously and instantly converted into the blood of the Son of God!!!
And when he held up in the same way a bit of bread in the shape of a
wafer or thin cracker, two inches or so in diameter, and again all the
people bent themselves in adoration, he himself, with uplifted hands and
downcast eyes and moving lips, appeared to regard the ceremony as an
immediate exhibition of a present and new-born God. Then he took the cup
again and drank it, and drank once more, turning it bottom upward over
his face; and when this was done he took a white napkin and dried the
inside thoroughly, as if no drop of the sacred blood must remain within,
and the door of a golden casket or closet on the altar being opened, he
placed it within, with the bread he had converted, and locked it safely
there. While this ceremony was going on, a priest had emerged from
behind the altar, and with a brush in hand went up and down among the
people, sprinkling them with holy water. A splendid organ and a choir of
singers took part in the service, which was in all its parts imposing to
the senses, fitted to make a deep impression on the ignorant masses.
The cloisters that surround the church are filled with tombs and
memorial paintings and inscriptions, and the windows on the south
command charming views of the lake and mountains.
From this service, which was rather to be called _interesting_ than
edifying, we went to the English church service. The Protestant Germans
have a new and very pretty edifice, which they permit the
English-speaking residents and travellers to enjoy for two services on
the Sabbath. The sermon we heard was on the nature and blessed effects
of prayer. It was evangelical and useful, some passages very touching
and impressive. The prayers were read by a young American clergyman, and
the audience, which was quite large, filling the church, was probably
one-half American.
I have never found a more romantic, more sublime, more classic and
beautiful lake in the little part of the world I have seen, than the
Vier-Wald-Statter See, the Four Forrest Cantons, or, as it is more often
called, Lake Lucerne.
You will come to Lucerne, to the Schweitzer Hof, the best hotel in
Switzerland. From the wharf in front of it steamers go five times a day
the whole length of the lake and return, making the excursion in five
hours.
It is the lake of William Tell. Unbelieving sceptics intimate a doubt
that such a man as Tell ever lived; but the apothecary in whose house I
am lodging now has his scales in the form of a cross-bow, with a gilt
apple on the top, to represent the great exploit of the hero’s life, and
every house has its memento of the man without whom there is no Swiss
history. You might as well tell me that George Washington is a myth, and
that he never hacked his father’s cherry-tree with a hatchet. I have a
piece of the tree, and know it to be true. And every Swiss patriot knows
that William Tell shot the apple off his son’s head, and the monster
cruelty of the order that made him do it roused the fires of indignant
resistance to tyranny, and resulted in the independence of the country.
It is necessary to believe this, to enjoy the scenes made sacred by the
story.
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO THE SWISS GUARD. (_By Thorvaldsen._)]
You will leave the city of Lucerne, having seen the lion cut in a solid
rock as a monument to some Swiss soldiers who were killed in Paris
fighting for pay in 1792, and having also walked through the covered
bridge that is distinguished, but not adorned, with a series of
paintings by Holbein, representing the Dance of Death; and after the
boat has gone from the landing about fifteen minutes, you must look back
on the crescent city rising from the water’s edge, flanked by the
ancient wall on which the useless towers still stand; and on the spires
of the cathedral whose organ claims equal honor with that of Freyburg;
and the old tower in the centre of the river which was once a
light-house, Lucerna, whence the name of the town; and on the green
hills, behind and on either side of the city, elegant residences of
opulent citizens, and of some who from Paris and more distant parts come
here to enjoy the summer in a delicious and healthful clime. Naples is
grander, but hardly more beautiful, as she lies around her lovely bay,
with Vesuvius, like the Rigi, keeping watch over her Italian charms.
For an hour or two out we are in the midst of the same bold and striking
scenery which is common to all the Swiss lakes, with nothing of special
interest except the historic associations that cluster about the little
villages at the foot of the hills on the shores. We would be slow to
believe that a population even of a few hundreds could hold on upon the
sides of the mountains, or find the means of support among those green
meadows, where lies the little village of Gersau, and there are only
about 1,500 people in it. Yet so tenacious are these Swiss of
independence, that this little, secluded, poor, portionless community,
not more than two miles square, maintained its existence as a separate
state for more than four centuries, and was then swallowed up by the
French in the devouring fires of 1789. It is now part of one of the
Swiss cantons. We cross the lake again and come to Brunnen, where the
figures of the three historic patriots of Switzerland stand with each a
hand held up to heaven, on the outside of the Sustenhaus, on the bank of
the water. But when we leave Brunnen, and through a narrow pass enter
the Bay of Uri, the grandeur of the view breaks instantly upon us with
such a power as to set at defiance the attempt at description unless one
has a bolder pen than mine. Philosophers have tried it. Poets have done
what they could to illustrate and repeat it. So prudent, and yet so
capable a writer as Sir James Mackintosh says it makes “an impression
which it would be foolish to attempt to convey by words.” I will
therefore not be foolish. Yet you may look with my eyes upon precipitous
mountains starting from the bosom of the lake and pointing with silent
and solemn majesty into the sky: here and there as we pass are verdant
meadows, few and far between, but beautiful as they nestle at the feet
or on the breasts of these gigantic cliffs, not a human habitation,
sometimes for miles, to be seen, but all still, serene, and impressive
in its solitude, and awful in its manifestation of the stupendous works
of God.
A sharp rock rises perpendicularly from the water on the western shore,
and some foolish people have put a gilt letter inscription on it: as if
the words were of use to perpetuate the histories of these shores. We
come to a low pasture, a narrow ledge, the most hallowed spot in
Switzerland, for here the three great patriots whose portraits we saw at
Brunnen,—Furst, Stauffacher, and Melchthal,—were wont to meet to concert
their plans. And here at midnight, Nov. 7, 1307, they, with thirty
trusty men whom they had chosen, took the oath that bound them in a
solemn league to break the hated yoke of Austria, or die. They fought
and conquered, and they perished too, but their names and deeds live, in
revolving centuries, and pilgrims from lands that were then unknown now
come and look with reverence upon the spot thus consecrated, for the
lands of Tell and of Washington are lands of liberty, and the sons of
each are brothers.
And across the See, a few miles on, is the chapel of William Tell. It
marks the spot where the hero jumped from the boat to the rock and
bounded away into the woods, when the tyrant Gessler was carrying him to
prison. A storm had overtaken them: the tyrant, a coward of course, was
afraid, and, as Tell was an expert in the boat, he ordered him to be
unbound, that he might manage the little bark. Tell steered her close to
the rock, and leaped ashore, and was gone. A little chapel, open on the
lake front, is erected here, preserved with pious care, adorned with art
and taste, and once a year a long procession of Swiss, in boats,
approach the sacred place and listen to a discourse in honor of their
sainted hero.
[Illustration: TELL’S CHAPEL, LAKE OF LUCERNE.]
Adown the sides of these majestic mountains frequent cascades leap and
hang and play, and not far from the chapel two fountains spring directly
out of the mountain side and pour two copious streams into the lake
below. They are said to flow from a lake in the valley on the other side
of the mountain; but whether this is true or not, it is an illustration
of the way in which the veins of water run along beneath the earth,
rising even on the sides and summits of the hills, and springing to the
surface when reached by art, or, as in this case, discharging by a
natural outlet. The earth has its mysteries yet unsolved. Some of these
bare mountain rocks are laid in convoluted strata, a few feet only in
thickness, but wrapped over and over, as if they were a heap of great
sheets once, easily thrown into these forms. It is easy to say that they
are of volcanic origin, and that these hills were once flowing down in
presence of the Lord. But this explains nothing. The philosopher is no
wiser than the poet. And neither sees any farther into the bowels of
these mountains than the Christian pilgrim who sits with me on the boat,
and, as he sees the water gushing out of the rock as if smitten by the
rod of Moses, he says: “Who hath divided a watercourse for the
overflowing of the waters? Out of whose bosom came the ice? There is a
path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen.”
And this is the way the waters go, through chambers cut in the rocks by
Infinite skill, that they may flow just where they are wanted to bless
or beautify the world.
Reaching the end of the lake at Fluellen, we enter at once upon the
highway over the St. Gothard into Italy. Two miles on is Altorf, where
William Tell shot the apple on the head of his son. And still farther on
is the place where he finally lost his life, drowned while seeking to
save the life of a child. The road beyond is one of the grandest and
most historic of the Swiss passes, but I am not going that way now, as
Capt. Lott said. What did _he_ say? Why, this,—a passenger asked him why
the ship was going so slow: the captain told him the fog was too thick
to make much headway. “But,” said the passenger looking up, “it’s clear
enough overhead.” “Yes,” replied the Captain, “but we’re not going that
way just now.”
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BLACK VIRGIN OF EINSIEDELN—LIFE IN SWITZERLAND, &c.
MORE than a thousand years ago, a holy hermit, by the name of Meinrad,
of royal blood, sought the wilds of Finsterswald, and here (for I am now
on the spot) lived in a hut, and spent his days in prayer, with a little
black image of the Virgin and Child which had been given him by the
Abbess of Zurich. But his piety and the Holy Virgin did not shield him
from the violence of wicked men. He was murdered in his hut by two
robbers, who would never have been caught but for the interposition of
the Virgin, who sent two ravens after them. These birds followed them to
Zurich, and there hunted them till their guilt was detected, and they
were put to death.
The odor of Meinrad’s sanctity spread far and wide, and the Benedictine
monks came and established a community, built a monastery and a church,
and have flourished on this spot ever since. So long ago as 948 the
Bishop of Constance came here to consecrate the newly erected church,
and in the night before the ceremony was to be performed he was awakened
by the music of angels filling the place, and a voice from heaven came
to him, saying that he need not proceed with his holy services, for in
the night the house had been sanctified by the coming of the SAVIOUR in
his own proper person. This was reported to the Pope, who pronounced it
a genuine miracle; and in obedience to his decree a plenary indulgence
is granted to all pilgrims who come here, and on the church is
inscribed, “Here is full remission from the guilt and punishment of
sins.” During all these thousand years that have since revolved, this
spot has been the shrine to which not less than 200,000 human beings
each year, with heads and hands and feet like other people, have
journeyed, to bring their offerings, and worship a black image of the
Virgin Mary holding a black baby in her arms. Why the image is painted
jet black I cannot learn. So great is the concourse of pilgrims here,
and so large are their offerings, that this monastery, in a bleak Alpine
vale, 3000 feet above the sea, and off from all highways, has become one
of the richest in the world. One in Styria, one in Spain, and a third in
Italy, are, perhaps, more numerously visited. But the annual revenue of
this is immense. The abbot has his banking house in Zurich, where he
deposits the funds, and the investments are constantly increasing. They
are buying lands largely in the United States of America, especially in
Indiana, and the order of Benedictines at Vincennes is in constant
correspondence with Einsiedeln.
Hither have I just made a pilgrimage, not on foot, as many do. An old
woman of seventy-five, carrying her shoes in her hand and toiling up
with bare, sore feet, said the priest had bade her travel so to
Einsiedeln, and her sins would be pardoned. But I came by the steamboat
from Zurich to Ricksterwyl, and was then brought up the hill in a nice
covered carriage, a much pleasanter way of doing a pilgrimage than
walking barefoot, or even with peas in your shoes. It is a two hours’
ride from the lake, the ascending road being alive with travellers going
and coming, and public-houses to entertain the pilgrims invite you to
rest. The village itself consists of a multitude of taverns and shops
for the sale of images, crosses, medals, &c. Passing through it, we come
to a large paved square. On one side of it, and at the foot of a hill
which rises behind it, stand the sacred edifices: a vast temple, with
the monastic buildings on each side of it, imposing in their appearance
among these wilds of nature, where it seems almost a miracle that they
can ever have been reared and enjoyed by man. The church itself is
adorned with extravagant pictures and marble chapels and shrines, and
just at the entrance stands the image of “Our Lady of the Hermits,” the
only black image of the Virgin I ever saw. She and the Holy Child wear
crowns of gold, and glitter with diamonds and embroidered garments,
their faces of ebony shining in the blaze of jewelry and tinsel finery.
Before them, worshippers are always kneeling, counting their beads. At
the other shrines others are bowing and murmuring their prayers. Painted
skeletons of celebrated saints lie exposed in marble shrines. The
offerings of those who have had their prayers answered hang around on
the walls. All sorts of prayers are here made, and they who make them
believe they are answered.
In the square in front of the church is a fountain with a dozen jets of
water, and each pilgrim drinks from each one of them, to be certain that
he drinks of the one out of which the Saviour refreshed himself nine
hundred years ago!
The monastery is freely opened to strangers. Through long halls on each
side of which are guest-chambers where their many visitors are lodged,
we were led to a gallery, adorned with several splendid paintings,
presented by Catholic monarchs: Louis Napoleon and his Empress, the
Austrian Emperor, and several historical pictures. Out of this we walked
into the reception-room, where the abbot himself was so condescending as
to meet us. He speaks only German and Latin. A very large man, of
commanding form and presence; with a face shining like the sun with good
humor, good living, and content, he answered perfectly to your idea of
the abbot of a Romish monastery. He gave me a cordial greeting, and
understanding that I was from America asked if we enjoyed universal
peace. When I assured him we did, he spoke of the late contest in
Europe, which he pronounced “bellum atrocissimum,”—a most atrocious war.
Then he inquired about the President, and produced from his private
rooms a photograph of the late Lincoln in the arms of Washington in
heaven!
After a little further general conversation he withdrew. He is by virtue
of his office a prince of the Austrian empire, and is so addressed by
all the Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland. I was highly pleased with
the interview, and not less with one of the monks to whose kind care I
was now committed. He led me to the interior of the monastery, where the
cells of the monks are arranged on the several stories or floors: each
one is a comfortable room, with one window looking into the walled
garden and the hill that rises behind. When we reached his own he
unlocked it and showed me in; placing its only chair, he bade me be
seated, while he went to look for the key of the library. “While I am
absent,” said he, “enjoy yourself as you please, examine every thing,
and be quite at home.” A few books were in a case over his writing-desk,
by which he could sit or stand and the closets, shelves, every thing was
bare of paint, and plain as could be. A little bed was in one corner
near the door, simple enough for an anchorite. No images, pictures, or
crucifixes were in sight. In a few minutes he returned, and led me
through the cabinet of natural history, into the library of 30,000
volumes, neatly arranged in niches. When we came to the folios of the
fathers, I pointed to the works of IRENÆUS, and said: I have the name of
that father, my own father having given it to me because he admired the
writings of the old author, the disciple of Polycarp, who sat at the
feet of the apostle John; I was thus in the line of the succession. We
took down the folio and looked at its imprint. Then he asked me if I
would like to see the manuscripts, and upon my expressing a strong
desire to do so, he raised an iron trap-door, and conducted me by a
flight of stairs into a room below, where an immense number are
deposited, and admirably preserved and disposed. None of them, however,
are very ancient.
A college of two hundred students is maintained in the same range of
buildings, and taught by some of the monks. Of these monks there are
about forty, besides the priests who minister at the altars, and receive
confessions in German, French, Italian, and Romanesch languages,
according to the nationality of the pilgrims. The monks spend their time
in reading, writing, and in the refectory, where they eat together, and
enjoy the good things of this life as well as other people. Some of them
are quite old. Death comes here as elsewhere, and closes up a life of
apparent indolence, yet possessing some strange fascination that is hard
to be comprehended by the outside world. It certainly is not favorable
to the highest usefulness, for these men might be doing far more for God
and their fellow-men in the pursuit of some honest calling, preaching
the gospel, or working with their hands. They consume and do not
produce. Nor is this mode of life friendly to holiness. Passions are
part of man’s nature, and they are not quenched or dwarfed by seclusion
from intercourse with the outer world. Human sympathies, which are
cultivated and refined by the practice of social virtues, and so tend to
make us better, are not apt to flourish in the cell of a monk. And
although the walls of this magnificent monastery, in a sterile Alpine
valley, shut out the pomps and vanities of the world, they cannot be
made so high or so strong as to confine the wandering desire, which will
sap the foundations of the sternest virtue, and make the bosom the seat
of vice to which the soul consents, and therefore suffers. The pure in
heart see God. Not in the cloister of the anchorite, the monk’s lonely
cell, nor the hermit’s cave; but in the steadfast pursuit of the Good,
the True, and the Great, in the daily walks of life. It is virtue to
live above the world, while living in it. None but the children of the
Holy One can walk through the furnace without the smell of fire on their
garments.
Such were my thoughts as I left the monastery, shaking hands with Father
Reifle, the Benedictine, who had so kindly waited upon me, and by his
intelligent conversation and lively interest in my enjoyment had won my
warm regards. He put the key into the lock of the iron gate at the head
of the stone stairs, and unlocking it let me out, and we bade each other
Adieu, as he stood within and I without the door.
Returning to Zurich, and going thence to St. Gall, I mounted a
diligence, and rode an hour and a half into the hill country, up hill
all the way, to a place unheard-of in the guide-books, and unvisited by
travellers, unless business or the search for solitude should call them
there. It is at least a thousand feet above the lake, of which a distant
view is had, and in the midst of beautiful high valleys, green pastures,
and thrifty villages, three or four of which are in sight, each with its
single church spire or tower. Not a boarding-house was to be found in
the place. There is a hotel, but hotels had been my dwelling-place long
enough, and now I would have a home, and such a home as the people
around me enjoy. In a private family, the village apothecary’s, I
learned that, perhaps, a room could be had, and thither I bent my steps.
Happily for me, they were willing to take me in, and in a short time the
apartments were ready and I was duly installed.
My quarters are a parlor and bedroom, on the front of the house, first
floor, up stairs over the shop. The floor is uncarpeted, made of various
Swiss woods laid in mosaic, in diamond shapes, of three different
colors. A large, earthen, polished, white, monument-like thing, gilt at
the corniced summit, stands on one side, and I soon learn that it is a
stove, the door of which is out in the hall, where the fire is kindled,
and now in the middle of August a fire is needed all the time. On the
corners of this ornamental as well as useful pile stand two Parian
busts, one of Goethe and the other of Schiller. An engraving of Schiller
reading one of his poems to his friends hangs on the wall, and a
portrait of Columbus, and another of Luther and other celebrities are
around me. The windows extend without interruption over the entire
length of the room, and a row of flowers in pots are on the sill
outside, and embroidered curtains within. The shutters are closed by
raising them with a strap, as the windows of a rail-car. A sofa, an easy
chair covered with leather, three tables, a divan, and a chair or two,
with rugs lying around, and little gems of art with books scattered
about, complete the furniture of this perfectly comfortable and
delightful room. The walls and ceiling are all panel-work in wood,
painted white, and as purely white as the Alpine snows. In the bedroom,
the floor, the wall, and ceiling are as in the parlor, only the color is
a light salmon, very chaste and clean. The bed has a down comforter on
the top of it, and two pillows, with double cases, the inner of figured
green silk, showing at the open embroidered end of the outer linen. It
is almost too pretty to sleep in, in the dark. Over the head of the bed
is a beautiful engraving of Uhland’s “Landlord’s Daughter.” On the stand
at the bedside is a little basket of confectionery, a porcelain
transparency of the Saviour standing among the clouds and pointing
heavenward; a china night-lamp burning with a bowl of water over it,
kept hot by the lamp; and every little nick-nack that delicate taste and
an appreciating sense of what comfort is would be likely to suggest.
I am asked, before retiring, at what hour I will breakfast, and I reply,
“When the family do; and let every thing be as you are in the habit of
having it.”
The times of eating and the food were not to my taste the first day. It
took me a little while to get adjusted to the change. But in every
country I would live as the well-to-do people of the country live. And
here I soon learned that the number of meals and the hours of eating
were regulated by the climate, which is so bracing as to indicate
frequent eating and substantial diet. I am writing this at ten o’clock
at night, and I will give you the journal of the day.
Breakfast at 7½ A.M., consisting of coffee, bread and butter, with honey
and cold meat.
Dinner at 12, noon, soup, fish, boiled beef, beef _à la mode_,
vegetables, salads, cucumbers, apricots, pears, plums, apples,
preserves, pastry, &c.
Lunch at 4 P.M., coffee, bread and butter and honey. Everybody takes
this meal as well as the others. They come in from the fields and the
shops to their coffee at 4.
Supper at 8 P.M. I am almost ashamed to say that at 8 this meal was
served in my parlor, for me only: soup and a roast chicken, which
disappeared, leaving scarce a wreck behind. And I forgot to say that at
six o’clock I took tea out with a private family in the village, where
the table was spread with the richest cream, butter, strawberries,
currants, bread, and honey,—all but the tea being the fruit of the
gentleman’s own grounds. And at my table there were presented several
dishes not enumerated above, the names of which were worse than Greek,
and the compound of a color and odor that did not enlist my sympathies.
However, I try a little of every thing, and eat all the time. I
understand there is a doctor in the village, whose fame extends to
distant cities, and ere the week is out I may have to test his skill.
IN THE HOTELS AND ON THE ROAD.
It is one thing to travel in a country, stopping only at the great
hotels, and quite another to get off the highways, among the people, and
live as they live. At the hotels, the aim is to give you the kind and
quality of food you are accustomed to in your own land, to put you into
a good bed, and charge you just as much as you will pay. It is my way,
when I can, to get out of the beaten paths of travel, and mingle, if
possible, with the natives of the country, and those, too, who are not
in the habit of entertaining strangers, and soon learning that they are
fair game to be plucked as long as they have any feathers.
More than half the guests in the Swiss hotels are Americans. The English
complain—John is generally grumbling—that the Americans get the best
rooms at the hotels, and that travelling on the continent is not half so
agreeable. It was my misfortune to travel last week in the same
compartment of the rail-car with an English clergyman and his wife [and,
by the way, she called him _hubby_, for husband, whenever she spoke to
him,—an appellation for the head of the house that was new to me, and
not very agreeable]. He said he would write a letter to the
_Times_,—that is an Englishman’s universal refuge when he thinks himself
imposed upon in travel. “I sh_o_ll write to the _Times_ about this
country, and I sh_o_ll say that the cookin’ is exceedin’ly mean, the
scenery very dull, and the travellin’ decidedly uncomfortable.” But he
was as near being a fool as a man could well be, and be at large. His
tongue ran incessantly, and he talked so loud that no other conversation
could be had, and everybody must listen to his twaddle and complaints.
“The ’ills were too ’igh” for him to think of climbin’ any of them, and
not “’igh” enough to interest him in lookin’ at them; and on the whole
he thought Switzerland a failure.
It is curious to observe how soon Americans are known to be such,
anywhere in Europe. In England, a hotel waiter or a porter at a lodge or
castle would know you to be an American, certainly the moment you spoke,
and perhaps before. A woman said to me when I had said that I was an
American, “You don’t speak like one.” When I pressed for an answer to
the question, “What is the difference between my speech and others,” she
replied, after much hesitation, “Why, I thought all your countrymen
talked through the nose.”
That educated Americans, and all of them accustomed to good society at
home, speak the English language with as much propriety and purity as
the most cultivated Englishmen, is certainly true, and it may safely be
added that the masses of the people in America, born to the manner,
speak it far better. Small as England is, the dialects of the provinces
are so diverse, that one is often sorely puzzled to understand a
commonplace remark or inquiry. It was very amusing, too, to perceive
that many _slang_ phrases, or technical terms, that we had supposed to
be of local origin and use in the United States, were as common in
England as with us at home. “You’ll ’ave lots of time,” says the
coachman. “I’ll pop out your luggage,” when he would tell us that it
would be done instantly, said the conductor.
But the language is not more marked by its peculiarities than the
manners. There are all sorts of people in every land. Some of each
variety go abroad, so that we must expect to meet them, and it is very
absurd to judge of a country by the few specimens you meet on the road.
But while I am heartily ashamed of some of my own countrymen who are
abroad, and make themselves ridiculous by an extravagance of
_independence_ that amounts to a contempt of every thing and everybody
except themselves and their country, still I think that, as a whole,
they are the best behaved people abroad. At the Baur du Lac Hotel,
Zurich, day before yesterday, at breakfast, a German lady took her seat
at the head of a long table, rested both elbows upon it, and taking a
roll of bread eight inches long, held it in both hands, and without
taking it from her lips, or taking her elbows down, she ate the whole of
it from end to end. I sat next to her, on the corner, and saw it done.
She then took another roll, a round one, and devoured that: all this
while waiting for her coffee. What more she ate, or how, I did not see,
having turned away in disgust. It is not probable that any woman from
America would go through such an exercise at home or abroad.
Yesterday, in the rail-car in which I was riding, an English gentleman
and family entered the compartment in which I was seated, the only
passenger. There were four seats, two on each side of a little table, on
which we could lay books or papers. Overhead were racks and pegs for
bags and bundles. He piled his, and his wife’s, and his wife’s sister’s,
on the top of the table, usurping the whole of it, and utterly ignoring
the right of anybody else to any of it. Jonathan would put a thing in
its place, and be ashamed to interfere with the convenience of his
neighbor. John Bull looks out for number one. This selfishness extends
to neglecting those little attentions to women, on which an American
prides himself, and which makes it so easy for women in America to
travel alone.
On the French and Swiss railroads has been introduced an improvement
that may be commended to our directors. In every train there is a car
with one compartment, marked on the outside, “For women unattended.”
Into this carriage ladies who have no male escort enter, and are
properly cared for by the conductor. They can travel in this way in
seclusion and with entire safety; but after all it is quite probable
that the women in America would be quite as willing to take their
chances with the men; and, perhaps, the experiment, if tried, would be a
failure. One thing the railway people might learn of us, and that is, to
check the baggage. In place of it, here they give you a slip of paper
with a number on it, and paste a corresponding slip on your trunk, which
is some protection, but not so safe nor so convenient as our plan. In
many respects the European railroad system is far, very far, superior to
ours. Its safety is incomparably greater than ours. An accident is very
rare. I have not heard of one since coming abroad. The connections are
invariably made. The track is more solid and secure. The road is made
for ages. There are grades of fare according to the accommodation. The
first class is better than any of ours. The second is not equal to ours,
and the third is inferior to the second.
[Illustration: Drawing of boys in the mountains]
CHAPTER XVIII.
CANTON APPENZELL—SWISS CUSTOMS.
[Illustration: PEASANTS OF EASTERN SWITZERLAND.]
You have never been in Trogen. You have never heard of Trogen. You do
not know where on the map to look for Trogen, and you probably would not
find it, if you looked for Trogen.
Trogen is one of the little villages in Canton Appenzell, in
Switzerland. It is reached by carriage from St. Gall, a large town on
the railroad from Zurich to Constance. As soon as you leave the line of
the rail, you begin to ascend, and it is all the way up, up, up, till
you get here. We passed a convent about half the way up, inhabited by
nuns, who were once expelled from St. Gall. They have now a rich
establishment, very secluded, and perfectly impenetrable in its interior
mysteries. You can see the reception rooms and the chapel, and the
grating that separates the nuns from you and all the world: that’s
all,—no, not quite all; in the chapel they will show you a human
skeleton, decked with magnificent jewelry, enough to adorn a princess;
and this may teach you that the pomps and vanities of the world are
wasted on one who is soon to be a bundle of bones.
When you reach the summit of the hill, a scene of extraordinary grandeur
and loveliness lies around and below you. As far as the eye reaches, it
is a succession of green, cultured, and peopled hills, often crowned
with villages, but mostly marked by scattered dwellings in the midst of
beautiful farms, white roads winding around and over the hills, and in
the distance, through an opening, lies the lake of Constance, a picture
of silver in a fair setting of emerald. Trogen is the largest of the
villages; but there are three more in sight, Speicher, Wald, and
Rechdobell, each with its single church tower; for the people are all
Protestants, and all Lutherans. In this village and Speicher, close by,
there is not one Roman Catholic family, and I believe that is a very
unusual fact in this country, where there are nearly as many of the one
as the other, and they are mingled closely in many of the cantons.
Here there is only one church, and that German. Service is held on
Sunday at _nine_ o’clock in the morning. The church is a well-built
edifice of stone, about one hundred years old, with frescoed ceilings,
representing the Ascension, Christ blessing the children, and other
scenes not intelligible to me. The women sat by themselves and made
three-fourths of the congregation. As each one came in, he or she stood
in silent prayer, reverently bending; the women then sat down, the men
remained standing. They stood patiently till the minister came in and
opened the services, and they did not take their seats until the sermon
was begun. On this occasion there was an unusual number of children
present, as in one of the large schools there had been during the week
past the death of a scholar, and now all the pupils came in procession,
and took their seats together. All the men, who were relatives of the
deceased, wore black bombazine gowns, swinging loosely on their backs, a
badge of mourning. The service opened with a voluntary hymn by the
children in the gallery, well sung. Then the pastor read a psalm, which
was sung by the entire congregation,—there was no organ. I should think
every one in the house had a voice, and used it with the spirit and the
understanding also. Prayers were then read by the pastor, all the people
standing. At the close, the minister announced his subject, and then the
people—the men for the first time—sat down.
He was a young man, clothed in a black gown, with a blue silk or woollen
ruffle about his neck. He read his text, “On earth peace, good-will
toward men,” and, shutting the book, delivered his discourse without
notes, with great ease, fluency, animation, and much eloquence. His
manner was good, and the attention of the congregation was kept closely
fixed. His leading idea was that _peace_ is to be found only by union
with God through Jesus Christ. And he pursued this thought beyond the
experience of the individual to the wants of the community and the
nation, insisting with great earnestness that wars come from the want of
Christian love, that good-will which Christ came to bring, and he warned
his people and the people of Switzerland, that now, as in ages past,
their only hope for national unity and peace was in union with God, on
whom alone they could depend.
At the close of the sermon he read prayers again, the people all
standing. Then he proclaimed the names of certain parties intending
marriage, and also he mentioned the names of any who had died during the
past week. After a hymn had been sung, he descended from the pulpit. The
people, still standing, bowed their heads reverently in silent prayer
for a moment, and just then a man in the body of the church cried out an
advertisement of an auction sale to take place in the neighborhood. The
women now left the house, not a man sitting down, or moving from his
place, till all the females, old and young, had reached the door. The
minister next walked out, and the men followed. The service was over in
one hour and a half. An hour-glass stood on the pulpit, but was not in
use, as the large clock was in full sight, and the bell clanged every
quarter of an hour, as it does day and night.
It was a kind and beautiful providence that turned my weary footsteps to
this remote and unfrequented canton of Switzerland. Harper’s Hand-book,
an invaluable guide for American travellers in Europe, has not even the
name of the place in its index. Murray’s Hand-book, which all the
English go by, says “it is but little visited by English travellers.” To
get into it by any other than the easy road through the north-eastern
passage, you must cross the high Alps and glaciers which bound it, and
add as much to its picturesque beauty as they take from the comfort of
travelling. But if you visit Constance,—where John Huss was tried and
condemned and burnt at the stake,—it is easy to come to Appenzell.
And speaking of Constance leads me to that memorable spot, on the border
of the lake that for a week past has been always under my eye, a spot
that deserves a monument, a beacon to warn the church of the guilt and
shame of religious bigotry and intolerance. It is almost like a judgment
that the city itself, which for four years harbored the ecclesiastical
council that murdered John Huss and Jerome of Prague, has now but
one-fifth of the population that once inhabited it. As I stood on the
place where it is said the martyr’s stake was planted, and remembered
the glorious truths which he witnessed in the flames, I thought how
little is the world improved even to this day, where the civil and
ecclesiastical powers are still in the same hands. For as we travel in
these European countries, the line that divides the Protestant from the
Roman Catholic canton, or part of a canton, is just as clear as if a
wall of adamant, high as the sky, were set up between. Even Murray’s
Guide-book, which does not pretend to any religious opinions, speaking
of the two parts of Canton Appenzell, says:
“A remarkable change greets the traveller on entering Roman Catholic
Inner Rhoden, from Protestant Outer Rhoden. He exchanges cleanliness and
industry for filth and beggary. What may be the cause of this is not a
subject suitable for discussion here.”
Yet the moral philosopher, the philanthropist, the patriot, above all
the Christian, even a Christian traveller, wishes to consider “the
cause,” whether it is proper or not for a guide-book to discuss it. As
travelling tends to promote liberality of sentiment, to enlarge one’s
charity, and to convince even a strict adherent to his hereditary faith,
that many, far from his way of thinking, are just as sure of heaven as
he is, so travelling opens one’s eyes to the effect of the different
systems of religion upon the social, temporal, political, as well as
moral condition of men. And I have been amazed to find how powerful is
this effect upon mere men of the world, men who have never given a
thought before to the influence of one religion rather than another on
the face of society. Even the guide-books call attention to the shameful
fact that “filth and beggary” are the distinguishing features of a part
of one country that differs from the rest _only_ in being Roman
Catholic. The same laws, the same climate, the same facilities for
acquiring the means of living, and just as much soap and water in one as
the other, but the thrift and the neatness of one are in brilliant
contrast with the poverty and nastiness of its neighbor.
[Illustration: FEMALE COSTUMES IN APPENZELL.]
The customs of the canton are somewhat peculiar. I was informed that
they still adhere to the use of the pillory for the punishment of petty
offences, and the machine stands by the wayside, with a hole for the
neck, a padlock, and a chain. But I did not see any thing of the kind.
Nor did I see the _bone-house_, in any churchyard, where it is said the
bones are deposited of those who have been buried a certain number of
years, and who must then give place to others. Their bones are taken up,
properly labelled and laid away on shelves in the bone-house, so that
their friends can get them, or any part of them, when wanted. As the
graveyards are usually small, and no attention is paid to the
relationship of the parties buried side by side, it is quite likely
that, after the lapse of thirty or forty years, there would be no
objection to this arrangement, which strikes us as exceedingly
unpleasant, if not positively revolting.
Every evening at half-past eight o’clock the church bell is rung, and
all the children must immediately go home. If they are abroad after
that, they are taken into custody by the patrol of the streets, and
either delivered to their parents, or, if frequent offenders, they are
kept in durance overnight. This is an admirable regulation, which I
commend to imitation in free America. It is adopted here in a pure
democracy, and works admirably well. In the cities it would be a great
moral life preserver, worth millions of dollars and as many souls, that
would be saved by the plan.
At eleven o’clock the watchman sings a set of phrases in a clear, loud
voice, which often disturbs me as he shouts, just under my window, “Put
out lights, cover up your fires, lock your doors, say your prayers, and
go to bed.”
I learned here a bridal custom of this region, so sensible and proper,
that I shall mention it for the benefit of the young folks. The custom
of making gifts to the bride prevails here, as everywhere, but it is
better regulated. The bride makes out a written list of things that she
will require in beginning to keep house, especially those things that
are over and above what would naturally be furnished by her parents.
This list is taken by her friends, and one of them says, “I will give
her this,” and marks that as provided for; another will give her that,
and sometimes two or three or more will combine and furnish a more
expensive present than any one would give alone. After the wedding, the
couple usually start off on an excursion, and on their return they find
their dwelling filled with these presents, each marked with the giver’s
name.
These people are very fond of athletic sports and exercises, games that
call forth prodigious strength, and make the inhabitants of this canton
famous for their skill and power. Every holiday, and many a Sunday, is
given up to wrestling and boxing. They are like the Scotch in hurling a
heavy weight. They will throw a stone of 50 or 100 pounds. A man some
fifty years ago threw a stone ten feet that weighed 184 pounds. But
their great sport is shooting for a prize. They are splendid shots.
Shooting matches are held every year in the villages, and sometimes they
are matches between the people of the whole canton, and again of the
whole country. As we travel we see the targets standing at the foot of a
hill, and buildings that are put up for the purpose of accommodating the
companies that are formed for the encouragement of this national
accomplishment.
So ignorant was I of the forms of government existing in this part of
the world, I did not know that six out of the twenty-two cantons, or
states, of Switzerland are purely democratic in their government. It is
true that this is modified, in a measure, by their confederation with
the others, and that they have delegated to their general government the
power of declaring war, coining money, and regulating a system of mails.
And, by the way, postage is cheap in Switzerland: five centimes, or one
cent of our money, conveying a letter anywhere within the country, and,
in all the villages and cities, delivering it at the residence of the
receiver. These several cantons are, in other matters, independent of
each other; and, in times long past, have had fearfully bloody wars
among themselves. They are at peace now, but from father to son is
handed down the story of the wars.
This canton, containing a population of about 50,000, is a simple
democracy, and as primitive and pure as ever could have existed in the
earliest days of Greece or Rome, before an oligarchy or a monarchy was
known. Here the people, all the males over eighteen years old, actually
assemble, personally, and in one place, to choose the necessary
officers, and to make their own laws. This popular meeting is held
annually, in April, and on _Sunday_ always.
On that day there is no preaching in any church in the canton, except
the one where the election is held. All the ministers come with the
people. At the close of the morning service, the election is opened by
prayer, and then the people proceed to the discharge of this serious
duty, the act of their individual sovereignty. Every man wears a sword
by his side, a token of his being a _freeman_; for, centuries ago, when
serfdom prevailed, only _freemen_ could vote, and they wore swords. Now,
all wear swords on election day, for all are free.
The canton is not so large but that they can all come and return on the
same day, and, for the most part, they come on foot. It is expected that
they will all come. And where the power of voting is equally distributed
in this way, and every man feels that he is an equal part of the
government, there is little danger of any one’s staying away who is
physically able to come. They meet sometimes in one place, and sometimes
in another, but mostly in this village of Trogen, on the public square.
Here a platform is erected, and the officers chosen last year conduct
the proceedings. The landeman, or chief, presides, and the clerk
announces the name of any one nominated for public office. All in favor
hold up their right hands. All opposed then do the same. If there is any
doubt, a count would be resorted to, but that is never necessary. Office
is not sought with any great rapacity, and the people are not divided
into parties fighting for the spoils. The several officers thus elected
are charged with the execution of the laws. A council is appointed,
which meets from time to time, in the state-house here, and consults in
regard to the internal affairs of the canton. If any new legislation is
necessary, they frame the law, put it into print, and a copy of it is
then placed in every house in the entire canton. It is not yet a law; it
is thus distributed that the people, who are the law-makers, may examine
it, talk it over among themselves, and make up their minds as to its
expediency. If it is of importance sufficiently pressing to require
immediate action, a meeting of the people may be held four weeks after
the law has been proposed; but generally this is avoided by having the
measures submitted to the annual assembly in April. Then the law is
submitted to the mass meeting, and they vote for or against it, by the
uplifted hand. As ample time has been given to the people to discuss the
matter, there is no call for long speeches, nor would they be tolerated
by an assembly that was bound to break up and get home the same night.
And the laws thus adopted are put in force by the magistrates appointed
by the popular vote, and often at the same time that the laws themselves
are adopted.
Among the principal cares of such officers must be the construction and
repairs of the highways. Oh that our American people would send a
commissioner of their country pathmasters over here! Within the last
four years two of these cantons have built a road along the eastern side
of Lake Lucerne that would do honor to Napoleon in the days of his
mightiest power. For miles it is cut into the edge of solid rock, which
makes the bed of the road, and a parapet; sometimes it is a tunnel, and
once a tunnel with windows looking out on the lake. All are made by the
voluntary, self-imposed taxation of a hard-working people. And so far as
I can judge or learn, this community, so governed, is as orderly and
happy as any other. Whatever good government can do for a people is done
for this, and the people do it for themselves. Switzerland is an
enlightened country, and probably as moral a people as any other. By law
every child is required to attend school from three to four hours every
day till he is twelve years old, and a certain number of hours every
week afterwards till he is sixteen. This makes education a necessity,
unless the children are incompetent to learn. And there is an enthusiasm
on the subject of education surprising even to an American. The various
grades of schools meet the wants of all, and fit the young for any
department of life’s great work. In this village the cantonal college,
or high school, is located. Any parent may send his son here from any
part of the canton, and he is educated at a trifling expense. Young men
go from this school, at once, into mercantile employment in Asia, in
France, England and America. And there are pupils in it from India, from
Smyrna, from South America, Mexico, and New York. I heard a tramping in
the street last evening, and, looking out of my window, saw a host of
boys marching by. I learned, by inquiry, that they were a school of one
hundred and twenty, making a pedestrian tour through a part of their
native country, Switzerland. Accompanied by their teachers, they thus
walk day after day, getting health and knowledge and fun, for they make
play of it as they go. Early this morning I was awakened by hearing them
again. They had been lodged, how I know not, at the inns in the village,
and now at three o’clock, A.M. (for I looked at my watch), they were up
and off. Just then they struck up one of their merry songs, and
serenaded the sleeping villagers as they took their leave. And even now,
while I am writing these lines, I am called to the window to look out
again, and here is a large school of girls, some of them small, and
others young ladies grown, making a pedestrian tour. Both of these
companies are three or four days’ journey from their homes. They will be
absent, perhaps, a week or a fortnight. And they will be wiser,
healthier, and happier for the little tour.
I mention these pleasant incidents to show the interest which teachers,
parents, and pupils must take in the business of education, when the
school is thus made a part of the pleasure, as well as the labor, of the
young. Nor is the moral culture of the young neglected. Far, very far
from it. These schools are not godless schools. Religious instruction is
not legislated out of education in this country. In this canton they are
nearly all Protestants. But in St. Gall, where they are nearly equally
divided, the Romanists have their own schools, and the Protestants have
theirs, both supported by the same system, and working harmoniously, so
far as any co-operation is required, but kept distinct in the matter of
instruction.
If the treatment of women, of the higher or lower order of creation, is
a fair test of the civilization of a country, this Switzerland will rank
very low. Good roads are considered an evidence of a high standard of
civilization, and very justly; yet there must be some exceptions, for
here in Switzerland, where they harness the cows and make them draw
heavy loads, the roads are first-rate, smooth as a floor, and solid in
all weathers.
Probably this glorious land that I am now rejoicing in, can find some
excuse for the sin and shame of making the cows and women do so much of
the hard and heavy work; and they may pretend that the women like it,
and the cows are all the better for it. But it strikes me that nature
has required certain duties of the gentler sex, that are so incompatible
with the severer labors of the country, that they may be fairly excused
from a service that requires the greater strength which God has given to
men and oxen. In the beautiful city of Zurich, the most enlightened,
cultivated, and refined city in the interior of Switzerland, where the
most learned of her sons are educated, the city of Zuingle and Lavater
and Pestalozzi,—and that boasts a monument to Nagel, a university, and
polytechnic institute,—in that fair city I met a team, composed of a
horse and cow, harnessed side by side, drawing a heavy load, the driver
walking by the side of the cow, whose side was in welts, raised by the
stout whip which he carried, and used mainly on her to make her keep up
with the horse. It is more common still to see a single cow in harness
drawing a load, and a yoke of oxen is a sight that I have very rarely
seen in travelling here. Whether the males are more generally sold for
beef or not I cannot learn; but it does not appear to any one here that
it is out of the way to make this use of the cows. And I was rather
pleased than otherwise, in conversation with a great and good
_philanthropist_ and reformer, to find that he professed to be ignorant
of the fact that cows were put to such service, and when I assured him
that I saw one in harness going by his door that day, he said it must
have been an ox!
And to understand why it is that women work so much in the fields, we
must see what is the principal employment of the people. I have seen
forty women at work in the same field here, and not a man among them. No
sort of work on the farm is considered too heavy for the women. How
could it be, when at Boulogne we had crossed the British Channel, and
landed in France, women rushed on board the steamer to carry our baggage
ashore! And here the women dig the fields, when a plough would do the
work far better and more quickly. They carry out manure, or drive a cow
that drags a load of it, and spread it on the soil. They mow. They rake
and pitch hay. They plant and sow, and reap and pull, and manage the
farm as they would do if the men were all off at war. And where are the
men?
They are not idle, nor dissipated, nor away from home. They are at work,
and in the house, not tending the baby, nor baking the bread, nor
washing the clothes; but they are industrious, and what are they at? The
Swiss are a frugal, saving, thriving people. The amount of arable land
is not enough to meet their wants. They are a manufacturing, not an
agricultural people, though they export cattle, butter, and cheese.
Watches, jewelry, muslins, embroidery, and carved wood-work, are the
principal articles of manufacture for export, and these, with a few
other branches, employ the most of the men; for the work is done in the
country very largely. The city of Geneva sells 75,000 watches yearly;
but as you are riding in a _diligence_ among the mountains, a man will
step out from a little cottage and hand a neat, small package to the
postilion, who puts it carefully into a place prepared for such
deposits. It is the works of watches, or some jewelry, which the man has
made in his own house, and is now sending to his employer in Geneva. In
the retired village where I am now writing, so secluded that if a man
should commit a murder and come here to live, the New York detectives
would never find him, even here the cellars of small houses are filled
with machinery to weave Swiss muslins, and to embroider it exquisitely.
The buyers from the Broadway stores have learned where to come, and
boxes are lying in front of my window directed to Stewart, and to Arnold
and others in New York. The places where this delicate work is done are
damp and unhealthy; but unless it is done in a damp room the gossamer
thread becomes so brittle that it breaks in weaving.
And all through the mountainous parts the carving of wood is the great
business of the people. Saw-mills are run to cut up the trees to be made
into ornamental articles for sale, and these extend from mantel clock
cases worth $1,000 to some gimcrack not worth a cent. The centre tables
and chairs, the game pieces and desks, knives and forks, and whatnots,
are far too numerous to mention; but they display a degree of skill and
taste in execution that would do no discredit to Greece or Italy in the
days when sculpture was their glory. And all this mechanical work is
done by men, and men only.
The tendency of things is always to extremes, and here in the
working-classes, and nearly all are in those classes in Switzerland, the
men have pushed the women too largely out of doors, usurping employments
that women might follow with success, while the men should take upon
themselves the labors that are too heavy for their wives. But
Switzerland itself is an exceptional country. It has no fair chance in
the world as a nation; and so large a part of its surface is
impracticable for the use of man, and it has become so great a resort
for foreign tourists, they are expected to spend all the money they can
afford in the works of art which the natives produce.
Walking out with a young German friend, who did not understand a word of
the English language, I saw at a little distance an enclosure, neat
gravel walks and shrubbery, with flowers showing through the iron
railing that surrounded it. I asked what the enclosure was, and the
answer, in German, struck me pleasingly: “GOTTESACKER.”
I had never heard the word for graveyard before in German, though the
English of it, “GOD’S ACRE,” is familiar, and has often been the theme
of poetry and prose. GOTTES ACKER is the acre or piece of ground that
belongs not to man of all the land in the earth that he claims as his
own, but is the Lord’s. And why is it his? The earth is the Lord’s, and
the fulness. The mountains and the valleys, the plains also, and all
that are therein. Why is this small enclosure, a petty piece of ground
in the midst of a wide, magnificent domain, alone called God’s?
Yes, it is his, because all who inhabit this place have gone to him. We
walked into the sacred enclosure, for the gate was open, inviting the
passer-by to come in. The paths were neatly gravelled, and the plots
surrounded with flowering shrubs, and the graves not raised above the
ground as ours often are, but levelled, and each grave bordered with
boxwood and planted with flowers. Few were marked with a headstone, but
most of them had a staff set up in form of a cross, and on it a plate
with a brief inscription. The centre of the graveyard was laid off in a
circle, planted with trees and furnished with seats, where friends could
sit in the shade, and meditate among the graves of departed friends.
“And is Gottesacker the only word for this place in your German tongue?”
I asked.
“It is also called FRIEDHOF.”
_Fried_ means peace, and _Hof_ is the yard or a court of a house, and
Friedhof is “the Court of Peace.” This was another beautiful and fitting
name. It speaks for itself, and sweetly expresses the feeling of this
place. It is peace, all peace here. The battles of life are fought, and
there is no strife in this court of peace. The struggles, cares,
anxieties, rivalries, jealousies, fears, all that disquiet, harass,
fret, and annoy, all, all are buried here. The tramp of a million men in
arms awakens no sleeper here. The church itself may be rent and torn and
shaken to its base, but its members in this court of peace are not
distressed. These hearts that once panted, burned, and bled in the race,
the stripes and sorrows of the world, are all at peace now. Blessed is
the rest that cannot be broken till the trumpet calls.
“That is a beautiful word,” I said; “and does your language furnish any
other than these two, Gottesacker and Friedhof.”
“Yes, we sometimes speak of it as TODTENGARTEN.”
The GARDEN OF THE DEAD! And so they plant flowers among the graves, and
along the walks, and make the rural village graveyard an attractive, not
a repulsive spot, a garden where friends, members of the same family,
are at rest. Jesus was laid in a garden when he was dead. His members
slept with him, and will blossom in the Paradise above, where the
flowers never fade.
Long before Abraham asked a burying-place to put his dead out of sight,
the living had their funeral rites and ceremonies. And it is wonderful
how widely they differ, in different parts of the world. There is,
doubtless, a great difference in the customs of the various cantons of
Switzerland, for though the whole twenty-two of them would not make a
state larger than New Jersey, they have a _costume_, or dress, peculiar
to each, and many of their habits are equally singular. If the weather
will permit, it is customary here to defer the funeral until Sunday,
even if the person dies on Monday; and thus it often occurs that there
are two or three on the same day, and sometimes more. In a population of
three thousand, all belonging to one church, and the funerals being held
in it, the number is frequently more than one or two at the same hour.
The average number of deaths is about ninety in a year. Last Sunday
there were three funerals here. The friends of the several deceased met
in front of the respective houses where the dead were lying. None but
the relatives enter the house. The three funerals were to be attended at
the village church, and all at the same hour, as early as nine in the
morning. The body is placed in a plain deal coffin, sometimes, but
rarely, painted. And the custom of the country forbids the rich to have
a coffin more elegant than the poor; the idea being that death abolishes
all distinctions, and a plain coffin is good enough to be hid away in
the ground. At the hour, the coffin with the dead is brought out of the
house, and on a bier is borne on the shoulders of the nearest male
relatives or friends. One of these funerals was that of an aged mother.
She left eight sons and two daughters; six of the sons were grown men,
and they bore their mother on their shoulders to the grave. The three
processions met near the church, and the three coffins were then borne
in the order of the ages of the deceased, to the church, but not into
it. The body is never taken into the church. But when the relatives and
friends have entered, the body is carried by the bearers immediately
into the Gottesacker, God’s Acre, the graveyard, which usually adjoins
the church. It is there buried, while none are present except those who
do the work. I stood at a little distance while this melancholy service
was performed. It was not pleasing to me that the dead should be thus
put away unwept. And another custom was equally unpleasant to me. The
graves are arranged in regular order, without any distinction of
families, and as each person in the place dies, he is buried in the
grave next to the one who was buried before him. It may have been a
neighbor with whom he was at enmity, but now in death they sleep side by
side, and know it not. Families are separated by the grave, as well as
by death, and no two of them, unless they die together, may be laid
together in the grave. This is surprising when we notice the remarkable
attention they bestow on the Garden of the Dead. For when the dead are
buried, the friends come, day after day, and adorn the grave with
flowers, and surround it with a border of green, and water it with their
tears of love.
While the body is thus cared for by the bearers, the funeral service is
proceeding in the church. This is similar to the service in our own
country, the prayers and selections of Scripture being read, and a
sermon preached, the same discourse answering, of course, for all who
are buried on the same day. At the funeral, all the men in attendance
wear a black mantle, of bombazine or serge, which they may get, for a
trifle, of the undertaker, who keeps them for hire. Persons of property
have them of their own, to wear only on funeral occasions, but the most
of the people hire them when wanted, and thus every man at the funeral
appears as a mourner. All the women dress in black when attending a
funeral, and they never go to church in any other than a black dress.
This is a very peculiar custom, but is invariably followed by all the
people of this country. Not a light-colored dress appears in the great
congregation on the Sabbath-day, or at a funeral.
If I have not already spoken to you of the cultivation, refinement, and
manners of the intelligent, wealthy, and “upper” classes of the people,
I say that a very erroneous and unjust opinion has been formed on this
point, by travellers whose observations have been confined to hotels and
highways, their only intercourse with men who make it their business to
get as much as possible out of all who fall into their hands. It has
been my pleasure this summer to meet in social life among the Swiss some
of the pleasantest, most intelligent, and agreeable women and men that
will be found in any country. Their manners and minds, as well as their
persons, would grace any assembly, and they appeared to be only the
fitting representatives of the best circles of society in this
remarkable land. They admire their own country. Patriotism burns as
brightly among these mountains as on our own shores. And when it was
mentioned that I might write a book on Switzerland, a beautiful and
accomplished lady bade me be careful, or she would make another and set
me right if I failed to do justice to her beloved Switzerland. I could
only say to her, in reply, that the threat was a temptation to error.
But any one who becomes familiar with the inner life of this people,
will find as much to admire and esteem as in any European country.
[Illustration: Drawing of a hunt]
CHAPTER XIX.
GERMAN WATERING-PLACES—BINGEN ON THE RHINE.
A GERMAN watering-place, with its nauseous springs, its inviting groves
and garden and shady walks and rustic seats and bowers, its conversation
house, and sweet, clean beds and airy rooms and quiet halls, was in our
way, and a Sabbath was just ahead of us. So we would rest there
according to the commandment.
I have been left alone, or with my little party only, in a wayside inn,
among the Swiss valleys, and have seen troops of travellers, some of
them with white cravats and straight coat collars, go on their way of a
bright, glad, summer Sabbath morning, when it seemed to me the mountains
looked down with a divine benediction and invited us to sit all day
under their shadows and worship toward the holy hill of Zion. And a
Sabbath in a wilderness, alone, is well spent, if the soul is at peace,
and the wearied limbs of a pilgrim are suffered also to have rest.
If a land impregnated with salt is cursed, this region ought to be
barren; but it is not. It is a rich, picturesque, rolling country, and a
beautiful river flows through its waving harvest-fields, just now white
for the sickle. Sometimes a bold cliff stands majestically on the
river-side, and an old feudal castle hangs on the summit, where once the
lord of the domain held high revel and strong rule, a robber on land and
a pirate on the river he would be called now, since his race has run
out, and kings who do the same things that he did are reckoned as the
lawful plunderers as well as rulers of the people. So the robber told
Alexander, and the king couldn’t see it, but it was true nevertheless.
They make salt curiously in these parts. The water is pumped up from
springs or wells into troughs, which are raised on scaffolding thirty or
more feet high; and below these troughs a solid mass of brush is piled,
a wall some ten feet thick, standing on a reservoir; this brush wall
reaches hundreds and thousands of feet along, according to the extent of
the works employed. The pumps are moved by water-power, and slowly and
steadily, ceaselessly, day and night, they raise the water into the
troughs above, through which it trickles upon this brush and drops down,
down, down into the basins below; this exposes the water to the action
of the air and rapidly evaporates it; so that what runs through the heap
and finally reaches the reservoir below is exceedingly strong, and by
completing the process with boiling is readily converted into salt.
The vicinity of these works is a healthful resort for invalids, who find
the atmosphere more highly charged with saline particles than the shores
of the sea itself. In the neighborhood of the mighty wall of wood are
boarding-houses, as at the sea-shore, and in the pleasant, shady side
the ladies sit with their needle-work or books in hand, inhaling the
invigorating air, and enjoying the quietest, coolest, and most bracing
climate in hot weather, and on the outskirts of the fashionable world.
On the bank of the river we found a place to stay, and from it made
excursions into the regions beyond. A rock, rising one thousand feet
perpendicularly from the water, held on its giddy summit the tottering
remnants of the fortress of one of the petty tyrants of the olden time,
and a circuit of five or six miles, in a broiling day, brought us by a
path that no wheels can traverse to the height. Tradition tells of the
last of the barons who held his court in these walls; how his daughter
was loved and wooed by his rival chieftain, whose castle still stands
erect across the river a few miles below and in full view of this; how
the “cruel father” refused to give his daughter to his foe, and the
lover lured her by the arts of love to aid him in his daring scheme to
capture her father’s castle and compel him to surrender her in exchange
for his liberty and his home; how the stratagem succeeded, and the
circumvented parent threw himself headlong from the rampart into the
frightful abyss, and the lovers, after destroying the stronghold,
removed to their castle below, and became the ancestors of a
distinguished family of an unpronounceable German name. All this
tradition tells, and to write it all out would be perhaps worth the
while of some one who has nothing better to do.
Our next stopping-place was Homburg, one of the more modern, but the
most brilliant of the watering-places in Europe. Like some of our own
cities, it has rapidly rushed into _notoriety_; that is just the word
for the reputation it has made for itself, and by which it has made its
fortunes and ruined the fortunes of thousands who have sought its
hospitalities.
A very few years ago a wide waste of marshy meadows, swamps we would
call them, lay around and over the spot that now gathers and holds for
the season the fashion and style and rank of the gayest European
capitals,—the largest and most distinguished circle of “the upper
classes” to be found at any fashionable resort in the world. It is a
city of hotels, and these on a scale of elegance that is not surpassed.
But between these hotels and the waters of health that first drew the
crowds hither, are these original meadows, now covered with young woods,
and intersected by numberless walks and drives, in which a stranger
might easily be lost, and left to wander hours and hours without finding
his way out. Beyond these shaded groves we come to the springs, several,
with various properties, very kindly arranged to meet the many maladies
of man, and all of them sufficiently disagreeable to be medicinal.
Neatness, order, elegance reign everywhere. Around the springs, through
the avenues overhung with venerable trees, along the rows of beautiful
lodging-houses and residences of those who permanently pass the summer
here, the quietness of private life rests with a grace and charm quite
rare in a great watering-place. This gives to Homburg such an attraction
that thousands of the quietest class of people in the world love to come
here for refreshment and repose. They need not go into the Kursaal,
though that word means cure-hall or cure-house. I would call it Kursaal,
or curse-all, because it is the curse of all who are drawn into its
vortex.
It is a palace. In its extent, its proportions, and appointments, it is
fit for a royal residence, all the arts of ornamentation being exhausted
to make it a splendid temple of pleasure, instead of a hospital or
asylum for the sick and suffering. This palace, with its broad piazzas
looking upon beautiful gardens, where elegant women are sitting under
the shade, with their books or fancy needle-work, while a German band
fills the soft and fragrant atmosphere with delicious waves of music;
this palace, with its concert-rooms and ball-rooms and reading-rooms,
filled with all the choicest periodicals of all nations, which studious
old men are diligently pondering; this palace, so still, so beautiful,
so gorgeous in its decorations, and so well fitted to bear the
inscription which Ptolemy Soter put upon his library at Alexandria, “The
Medicine of the Soul,”—this palace was also the great gambling-house in
Europe.
A grand saloon that stretches across the house holds two long tables,
around which are seated thirty or forty men and women, intent, silent,
more statue than life-like. With your eyes closed you would scarcely be
conscious that any one was in the room. The clicking of gold and silver
on the table, the few words of the manager as he decides a point, an
occasional deep-drawn sigh as pent-up emotion finds escape, with now and
then an involuntary exclamation, evidently out of order and quite
disagreeable to all concerned,—these are the only interruptions to the
_solemn_, painful stillness of the Homburg gaming-table. I have heard
that something more startling than an oath or a groan sometimes has
interrupted the current of the play, and that a gambler, in a paroxysm
of rage and despair, has blown out his brains at the table. But such
incidents are not of every-day occurrence. Besides, people who play here
have not many brains to blow out. They are not insane. But as a class,
they are below the average of the human family in intellectual force,
because they stake their money with the knowledge that the chances are
not _even_, are always against them, and in favor of the bank, or
managers of the table. In playing _roulette_, or _rouge et noir_, the
two games which are constantly going on, a bystander sees that the
_taker_ draws in more than he shoves out, and that the tendency of
things is steadily in favor of the bank, while _chance_ favors the
victims just often enough to keep up the hope that they will make a
grand hit by and by and make up all their losses. Yet the game is so
transparently in the hands of the managers, that one wonders any one can
be so big a fool as to lose all his money in such hopeless ventures. The
bank sets up a certain amount of money every day, as the capital for
_that_ day, and stories are told of some heavy gambler now and then
breaking the bank, but that means only that by a fortunate run he has
cleaned out what was set up for the time, and to-morrow it is all right
again with the same or a larger capital. But these stories are mostly
fictitious, set afloat by the bank itself, which, by pretending to be
_broken_, encourages the idea that it is just as apt to lose money as
those who are playing against it.
Some of these people are historic characters. One of them here now is
the brother of the Viceroy of Egypt, and he plays heavily, but stops
when he has had excitement enough. A fatalist by profession, he takes
his chances as decrees, and consoles himself with other pleasures when
these go against him. A German princess, who is the model of all the
virtues at home, gratifies a darling passion during the summer months by
wasting half her income in this gambling-house. American travellers are
the most cautious of all the company; but now and then a dissipated
youngster takes a plunge into swifter ruin in the waters of this
terrible stream. Most pitiable it is to see fair women, and sometimes
women that are known to be exemplary in society beyond the sea, trying
it just once, tempting luck; and if they lose they usually stop after
the first loss, but if they win they try again, and so on, until they
lose all they have about them and can borrow of their friends.
A few hours’ ride across the country brought us to Kreusnach. The name
of this watering-place had never reached me before, and it added one
more to the many _springs_ or _spas_ with which Germany abounds. An army
of servants rushed out to the carriage, as we drew up to the door of the
Hotel Hollande, and in good English proffered their services to take us
and our luggage in. The luggage we leave on the carriage until the rooms
and the terms are found agreeable, and as we could have a handsome
parlor and bedroom adjoining, on the front of the house, second floor,
for one thaler, or six francs ($1.20) a day, we were not long in
deciding that this was the place to stay in.
The salt springs of this region have long been known, but only of late
have the wonderful medicinal properties of the waters been understood.
Now some sixty thousand persons come here annually, and the number is
increasing. The people, waking up to the idea that they have a fountain
of wealth as well as of health in the bubbling spring, have erected a
cure-house on an island in the river Nahe, and hotels and lodging-houses
have sprung up along the stream; a regimen has been prescribed, by which
the greatest good of the healing waters may be had, but it is left to
the choice of the visitor whether he will follow the rules or disobey
them, and go away no better than he came.
At Kissingen it is not so. In that delightful little town, where royal
blood comes to be purified, and nobles as well as commons gather in
great numbers every year, they are so jealous of the honor of their
waters, that no visitor is permitted to tarry in the place who will not
comply with the rules of eating and drinking and bodily exercise which
are prescribed by the medical authorities. These rules are simple and
wholesome, and it will do you good to take the course, but if you will
not, they take their course with you, which is to send you out of town
forthwith, lest you should lose your health by your imprudence, and so
bring discredit on the Kissingen waters. Fancy such a law as that at
Saratoga! It is said that more sick people go away from the springs than
come, but this is not to be affirmed of Kissingen, beautiful Kissingen,
the cheapest and prettiest of the health-giving spas of Germany. A
clergyman in Paris told me that he spends a month in Kissingen every
summer, fifty dollars paying all his expenses,—going, staying, and
coming home!
You can live nearly,—not quite,—as cheaply here at Kreusnach. The band,
a fine German band, discourses sweet music in the park near the spring,
at six o’clock in the morning; we drink,—faugh! yes, we drink the salt
and horrid water and return to breakfast at eight, after a promenade in
the groves; at eleven a bath is to be taken in the hotel, to which the
water is carried in barrels and emptied into a reservoir, from which it
is led into the baths; it is artificially warmed to the temperature of
the blood; it is strengthened by the addition of the strong, boiled salt
water that remains uncrystallized at the salt-works in the vicinity; and
this water, sold for this purpose, brings more money, by a third, than
the salt itself. This drinking and bathing are good for scrofulous and
all cutaneous complaints; for bad livers, that is, for those whose
livers are bad; for dyspeptics, rheumatic people, and all kindred
ailments. Indeed, these German springs are a pretty sure cure for almost
any of the ordinary, perhaps extraordinary, ills of the flesh, because
the climate is good, the mountain air is bracing, and the regimen
requires a fair amount of temperance and exercise; and he must be in a
very bad way who will not get well under the simple, exhilarating,
purifying, and strengthening influences of this kind of life.
Here in Kreusnach we meet with men and women from the most distant parts
of the Continent, attracted by the fame of this salt water. A Russian
gentleman and wife, with an infant child, on whose account they came,
had travelled six weeks in a sledge to St. Petersburg. Their children
had died of scrofula, and they brought this live one over that vast
tract of country, through northern cold, that its system in infancy
might be renovated by this modern Bethesda. The Princess of Mecklenberg
is here now, and last Sunday she proposed to attend the English Church
service. The good rector heard of her intention, and thought it his duty
to call and pay his respects. Unhappily he could not speak a word of
German, and when he attempted to introduce himself at the door of the
Princess’ lodgings, the servant understood him to be the postman, and
brought him the letters ready to go to the post-office. His call was
only deference to rank, and there was no need of it, except as every
sinner needs a pastor’s care, and the Princess took no notice of it.
At a cell in the hill-side near the spring, _whey_ is dispensed to those
who daily drink it for the whey-cure. It has a great repute. So has the
grape-cure in August and September. Either of them is just as good as
the salt-water-cure, and that is good beyond a doubt. I have great faith
in any kind of doctoring that includes rest from business, with moderate
eating and drinking, and plenty of exercise in the open air. Give the
waters the credit of it, or the whey, or the grapes, or the doctors, it
makes no difference what or who has the credit, if you have the cure.
But stop this everlasting rushing after the world that is perishing, and
wait a little while at Kreusnach, or Kissingen, or one of a dozen places
I could name. Here take your ease. Eat, drink, and be happy. Bathe your
weary limbs in these youth-renewing waters. Walk out among these
surrounding forests and hills. There stands the ruined Castle of
Rheingraffenstein, on a crag that overhangs the Nahe; wind your way up
one side, and when you have rested on the height, pick your way down the
other side to a garden on the banks of the river; there refresh again;
then in one of the little boats be rowed down to Ebernburg, the site of
an ancient castle, which has now been remodelled into a hotel; but the
relics of Luther and other Reformers who once were sheltered here are
still preserved, as well as the balls with which the French blew the old
towers off the hill into the waters below. Rusty swords, spears, chains,
and old keys are laid in heaps, as some slight index of the good time
coming, when spears and swords shall be turned into ploughs and
pruning-knives.
Where the Nahe flows into the Rhine, there or about there, stands
Bingen, and no amount of pretty poetry that has been said or sung about
“Bingen on the Rhine” can make it any thing but a dull, dry, flat, dusty
village, and horribly disagreeable at noon on a scorching hot day, such
as this. We footed it half a mile from the station under a blazing sun,
as there was no way to ride, and found a cool shade, while waiting for
the steamboat to come up the river. The sight was romantic and
picturesque. In the water, a little way above us, stand the ruins of
Bishop Hatto’s tower, the story of which is too familiar to be told
again. He had hoarded corn in a time of famine, and the rats pursued him
for his wickedness. He fled to this tower in the river. The rats swam
out to it, ran up the walls, found their way in, and cleaned the
Bishop’s bones for him. Southey has done the story into a ballad.
[Illustration: ON THE RHINE.]
The Castle of Ehrenfels is on the side of the hill across the river, and
the Rudesheimer vineyards on the hill-sides furnish that celebrated
variety. All the Rhine wines are named from the castle, chateau, or
neighborhood where they are made. The flavor depends more on the soil
than on the art with which the wine is made. The process is
substantially the same in all the vineyards, but the flavor of the
liquor is decidedly different. The hill-sides are so steep, and the
rains are sometimes so heavy, that the soil is often carried down into
the bed of the rivers. It can then be recovered only by scooping it from
the bottom, and carrying it up in baskets. This is done every year. We
might fear it would be spoiled by being carried into the river, but the
loss of strength is not enough to alter the nature of the original. Some
of the brands are famous, and the prices vary accordingly; but the
cheapness of these wines here on the ground, compared with New York,
makes one readily believe that the importation of wines must be among
the most money-making of all kinds of business. Vinegar and water is
quite as good a drink as much of this wine, and a little sugar added
makes it better. Prince Metternich owns the famous Johannisberg
vineyard, a little farther on, of seventy acres, of which many and
fabulous tales are told of the small quantity and great prices of the
wine, of the celebrated men who have owned the vineyard, and how very
costly the wine becomes by age. But I will not weary you with them. The
river itself is identified with the history of Europe. Taking its rise
in the St. Gothard Pass in Switzerland, it receives tributaries all the
way down, yet it is a small and comparatively insignificant stream. But
kings have often fought for it, and it was the late French Emperor’s
highest ambition to water his horses in the Rhine.
The art of printing makes Mayence immortal, and here we stopped to look
at the monument to Guttenberg, its inventor, a grand statue by
Thorvaldsen. It is the fate of few inventors to get their due in their
lifetime; some of them want bread, and the public will not give them
even a stone till long after they have been starved to death. It was the
fate of Guttenberg to struggle hard for years against rival claimants to
the credit and the profit of his invention, and so incredulous is the
world of the truth,—though ready enough to believe a lie,—that his
existence was called in question, and his name has been pronounced a
myth. And to this day there are people who think that Faust, who is
popularly reported to be the—or in league with the—devil, had more to do
with the black art invention than Guttenberg. They, that is Guttenberg
and Faust, were in partnership for a while, but that was long after the
real inventor had made the art a success, and the claims of Faust and
his son-in-law Schoffer, both of whom were willing to be credited with
the invention, have now given way to the light of evidence, and
Guttenberg holds his own against the field. It is in legal proof that as
early as 1438 Guttenberg was at work with his press and movable types.
In 1450 he formed a partnership with Faust to carry on the business of
printing, and he died in 1468. In a book published at Mayence in 1505,
Johan Schoffer states “that the admirable art of printing was invented
in Mentz (Mayence), in 1450, by the ingenious Johan Guttenberg, and was
subsequently improved and handed down to posterity by the capital and
labor of Johan Faust and Peter Schoffer.” The writer of this was the son
of Peter Schoffer. He is mistaken in the date, for it is easily proved
that Guttenberg was printing many years before 1450, which was the date
not of the invention, but of his entering into partnership with Faust.
As I stood in front of this monument to a man whose genius and industry
gave to the world this great boon, the statue itself appeared to be
sublimely eloquent, as if from those lips, representatives of the lips
long since returned to dust, was now going forth the streams of wisdom
and knowledge and power that make up the rivers of happiness and
usefulness in the art of printing as it has blessed mankind for four
centuries, and will continue to flow with increasing volume to the end
of time. Perhaps somebody else would have _invented_ the art if he had
not. It may be that God would have made another man whose brain would be
the womb from which this grand invention would have sprung. But there
stands the man who first began to print with movable types, and from his
beginning the work has gone forward, widening in its reach and power,
and is yet only in the infancy of its career. If he could have
anticipated even the present extent of its influence, what mighty
emotions would have swelled his heart! And as I look upon this image of
him, I feel that beyond any other mere man who has ever lived in the
annals of time, he is entitled to stand pre-eminent as the benefactor of
the human race. And it is worth remarking that scarcely any art has made
so little real improvement for the last three hundred years, as the art
of type-making. The types were as clear cut, and the impression just as
perfect then as now. We do work faster and cheaper, but not better.
I walked into the cathedral and fell to musing among the ruinous tombs;
a few children were gathered in one corner and a priest was engaged in
giving them instruction; the setting sun was lighting up the colored
arches and naves of red sandstone, giving a peculiar effect to the
shabby temple, but there was nothing here to divert my thoughts from the
statue, the man, and the work commemorated. It was glory enough for one
city to have been the birthplace of such an art. Pilgrims will come
hither with increasing reverence in far distant years. And I hope they
will have a cooler day than I had. The mercury is now at 96 in the
shade.
CHAPTER XX.
PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
[Illustration: AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.]
IT is now nigh upon a thousand years since King Otto ordered the tomb of
Charlemagne to be opened. The floor of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle
was broken up, the sacred mausoleum that cherished the remains of the
mightiest of emperors was entered; and there he sat in the chamber of
death, as in a hall of state, on a marble chair, in the vestments of his
imperial office, a sword at his side, a crown on his head, and a Bible
in his hand!
Charlemagne was born in this place in the year 742. The cathedral is his
monument, and under the central dome is a slab in the floor with the
simple inscription, “Carolo Magno.” The cathedral was adorned with the
richest marbles the world could furnish, and the highest art of the age
was lavished in its structure and ornament. The windows reach from the
roof nearly to the ground, and with their rich decorations give a
peculiar beauty to the interior. The city has again and again been
ravaged by enemies; other buildings have been razed to their
foundations, but this has steadily stood in the midst of war and fires
and centuries of decay and change. Long has it been the shrine of Roman
worship, for Pope Leo consecrated it in 804; and thus, a thousand years
and more, it has been gathering treasures of wealth, of association, and
interest. It is now the most sacred shrine in the north, and, indeed, it
is not likely that any spot this side of Rome has half so much to excite
the veneration of the faithful.
Perhaps Rome herself has not more holy relics. This is a bold
supposition. But the list of sacred things here collected is so long and
so wonderful, and the estimate in which they are held is so high, that
the city fairly lays claims to the first rank among the favored.
Therefore pilgrimages are made to these shrines as to the Holy City
itself.
My pilgrimage hither was accidental, or, rather, providential. As I came
into it at the close of a summer’s day, the streets were thronged with
men and women, moving up and down, apparently without an object, swaying
like the waves of the sea, and I asked if this was the usual crowd on
the streets of an evening. It was at the height of the season for
visitors to its famous fountains of water; for long before it was a
shrine for pilgrims coming to pray, it was known for its mineral springs
and their remarkable healing virtues. What more could be desired than a
charm to cure diseases both of the bodies and the souls of strangers.
The old pagan Romans knew the efficacy of these waters; and through all
the centuries, since their rule, the city has been a fashionable
watering-place. It was once the seat of empire, and the palace of
Charlemagne, whose name invests it with more than romantic interest, has
now passed away. Yet the city is frequented annually by thousands from
distant parts, drawn here by the well-established reputation of the
springs. It was, therefore, natural for me to ask if these crowds were
the usual concourse of people on the streets of a summer evening.
The answer to my inquiry indicated as much surprise as the disciples
exhibited when they said, “Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and
hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?”
I was told that it was the last day but one of the pilgrimage to the
holy relics, and that this was the grand eve of the procession, the most
remarkable pageant that is ever to be seen in these parts of the world.
Of course this led to further inquiries, and I found myself suddenly and
accidentally participating in one of the most extraordinary spectacles
that I had ever seen or heard of. It will be a long story, but you must
read it.
How the many precious relics came to be collected here I cannot learn;
but the antiquity and wealth of the cathedral, and the vast power
wielded for centuries by the Catholic emperors who were here crowned,
would easily make this spot the nucleus around which superstition and
faith would rally all their strength. So it came to pass in the lapse of
time that the number and value of the offerings which popes and kings
and others made to this shrine became immense, and no money would now be
considered an equivalent for the priceless treasures. Here is a list of
them, to be read with all the faith you can summon:—
THE RELICS OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
_A. The superior relics_,
known under the popular name of the “great” relics.
1. The white garment of the mother of our Lord.
2. The swathing-clothes of our Saviour.
3. The cloth in which was laid the body of St. John the Baptist after
his decapitation.
4. The cloth which our Saviour wore around his loins in the dreadful
hour of his death.
These superior relics are shown every seventh year only, or
exceptionally to crowned heads on their special demand.
_B. The inferior relics_ are
5. The woven linen girdle of the Holy Virgin, in a reliquary
(liburium).
6. The girdle (cingulum) of Jesus, made of leather, in a precious
vessel.
7. Part of the rope with which our Saviour was tied in his passion.
8. Joined in a reliquary:
a. A fragment of the sponge that served to refresh our dying Lord
upon the cross.
b. A particle of the holy cross.
c. Some hair of the Apostle St. Bartholomew.
d. Several bones of Zachary, father to St. John the Baptist.
e. Two teeth of the Apostle St. Thomas.
9. In a reliquary: Part of an arm of old St. Simeon, and in a vial of
agate some oil that once came forth from out the bones of St.
Catherine.
10. In a gothic chapel:
a. The point of a nail with which our Lord was nailed to the cross.
b. A particle of the holy cross.
c. A tooth of St. Catherine.
d. Part of a leg (tibia) of the Emperor Charlemagne.
11. In a shrine representing a gothic church, richly enamelled and
adorned with pearls and precious stones:
a. A fragment of the reed that served to make a mock of our Saviour.
b. A part of the linen cloth which was spread over his holy face in
the grave.
c. Some hair of St. John the Baptist.
d. A rib of the first martyr, St. Stephen.
12. In a reliquary, in the form of a great arm, is enclosed the upper
part of the right arm of Charlemagne.
13. The bugle-horn of Charlemagne.
14. A bust of Charlemagne, containing a part of the scull of the great
emperor.
15. A golden cross, containing a particle of the holy cross.
16. In a shrine representing a Greek chapel, the scull of the holy
monk St. Anastasius.
17. A statue of St. Peter the Apostle, showing in his hand a ring from
the chain with which this man of God, who has suffered so many
persecutions and trials, was chained in the prison.
18. Bones of the holy bishop and martyr Spei, in a little ivory chest.
19. A great gilt silver shrine, containing several bones of
Charlemagne.
_C. The principal works of art in the treasure of the cathedral._
20. A shrine, the depository for the great relics.
21. A chest richly ornamented, used when the relics are borne to the
gallery for the public show.
22. A vessel, containing the pectoral cross of Charlemagne.
_D. Relics and other remarkable objects of the other churches of the
town._
a. _In the parish church of St. Adalbert._
1. The scull of the bishop and martyr St. Ethelbert, conveyed to
Aix-la-Chapelle by Otto III.
2. A shoulder-bone and a leg-bone of St. Mary Magdalen.
3. Two small particles of the sponge with which our Lord was refreshed
on the cross.
4. Two particles of the scull of St. Quirinus.
5. The scull of St. Hermetis, of which Henry II. made a donation to
this church.
6. Bones of St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Mira.
7. The shoulder-blade of St. Laurence the martyr.
8. A leg-bone and a fragment of the coat of St. Benedict.
9. An arm-bone of St. Sebastian.
10. The hunting-knife of the Emperor St. Henry, founder of this
church.
11. The veil of St. Gertrude.
12. A leg-bone of St. Agnes.
13. The jaw-bone with a tooth of St. Denis Areopagita.
14. A bone and some blood of St. Stephen.
15. A part of the coat of St. Walpurgis.
16. A part of the holy cross.
17. The arm-bone of St. Christopher.
18. A fragment of the crib in which our Lord was laid at his birth.
19. Some bones of St. Marcellus and other saints.
b. _In the church of St. Theresa._
1. A piece of the linen cloth that covered the face of our Lord in the
house of Caiphas, when he was beaten, and asked, “Now, do prophesy
us,” &c.
2. A “corporate,” reddened with the holy blood that an inattentive
priest shed while he was consecrating the chalice.
3. A linen cloth of the Holy Virgin. The knight-german of Randeraidt
carried it from the Orient, and by the intercession of the father
Lector Arnold, of Wallhorn, it was deposited in the convent of St.
Augustin in Aix-la-Chapelle.
4. The scull of the holy martyr Theodore.
5. A piece of the linen cloth in which was laid the body of St.
Laurence when taken from the fire.
6. A part of the soutane in which deacon St. Laurence served at the
altar.
7. Some oil that is recorded to have come from the bones of St.
Elizabeth.
8. A part of the holy cross.
c. _In the parish church of St. John the Baptist at Burtschied, near
Aix-la-Chapelle._
1. A cross containing two pieces of the holy cross, pieces of the
clothes of Jesus Christ, of the pillar and the whip serving at the
scourging of our Lord, of the garment of the Holy Virgin and bones of
St. Paul and St. James the younger, and finally a piece of the rod of
Aaron and Moses.
2. A silver gilt bust, with a large piece of the scull of St.
Laurence.
3. A silver gilt bust, with an arm-bone of St. John the Baptist.
4. A bust, with the scull of St. Evermarus.
5. The scull of the Holy Virgin and martyress St. Agatha.
6. A relic shrine, containing in its top a piece of the holy cross; in
the centre, bones of St. Andrew the Apostle, teeth and bones of the
apostles Simon Juda, James the younger, Matthias, and of the
evangelists St. Luke and St. Mark, of the levites and martyrs St.
Timotheus, Vincent, of the martyrs St. Fabian and St. Sebastian, of
St. Stephen, St. Barbara, and the saints Vitus and Fortunatus; in the
four corners, relics of the saints John the Baptist, Donatus,
Emerentia, Cornelius, the pope and martyr, of the saints Cyprianus,
Hermet, Aegidius, Pancratius, and Luzia; and in its base, a relic of
St. Adrian and an arm-bone of St Laurence.
7. A shrine, containing in its top a piece of the holy cross; in the
centre, different bones of St. Laurence, a piece of the scull of St.
Sixtus; in the four corners, relics of St. John Chrysostomus, of St.
Calixtus, of St. Gregorius, and pieces of the sculls and bones of St.
Apolinaris, and of St. Maurice; in the base, relics of St. Damasus and
an arm-bone of St. Alexis.
8. A shrine, with bones of St. Maximus and his colleagues, viz.: Of
the saints Lambert, Gervasius, and Protasius, of St. Peter
Justinianus, of the apostles St. Andrew, Matthias, and Matthew, of the
saints Gregorius, Chrysostomus, Servatius, Felix, Luzia, and
Elizabeth, mother to St. John the Baptist.
9. A shrine, with relics of St. Valerius and Germanus, St. Cosmas and
St. Damianus, St. Martin and St. Constantia, teeth of the apostles St.
Peter and St. Paul, of St. Cordula, teeth of St. Sixtus, St. Cassius,
St. Juliana, St. Matthias, St. Evermarus, and of the holy queen
Binosa.
10. A pyramid, with relics of St. Barbara, St. Peter, St. Juliana, St.
Apollonia, and St. Apollinarus; in the base, a relic of the holy
martyr Laurence.
11. A pyramid, with a tooth of the holy apostle St. Matthias, bones of
St. Vitalis, of John the Baptist, and the apostles St. James and St.
Bartholomew, and of St. Marcellus and St. Laurence.
12. Little fragments of the swathing-clothes of our Lord.
13. A bone of the Holy Virgin and martyress Luzia.
14. The penitential coat of St. Margaret, royal princess of Hungaria.
15. In a small vial some blood of St. John the Baptist.
16. A portrait of the holy bishop Nicholas in Greek mosaic.
17. A grave wherein lie the bones and relics of St. Gregorius, son to
the Greek Emperor Nicephorus, who was the first abbot of this church,
that once had been a free imperial chapter.
18. A fragment of linen tinged with blood of the priest St. Francis,
of Jerome, S. J.
19. A particle of the bones of St. John the Baptist.
20. A little box, containing a particle of the scull of St. John the
Baptist, particles of the bones of St. Raynerus, of St. Lewis, king of
France, and of the Holy Virgin, and martyress Catherine.
21. A fragment of the cloak of St. Francis, of Assisi.
22. A particle of the bones of the innocent children.
Several hundred years ago it was the custom to expose these relics every
year in the month of July; but it was found that in some stormy war
times the precious things were in danger of being carried off, and it
was ordered that once in seven years they should be exhibited to the
believers. It was the year and the day of the septennial demonstration
when the Sultan of Turkey and I arrived at Aix-la-Chapelle. The
unbelieving Mohammedan did not stay and see the show, but I did.
It was now dark; but I walked around the cathedral. All the streets
leading to it were thronged with people, and through the crowds it was
hard to thread one’s way. At the door, which I finally reached, the
people were coming out, and the guards informed me that the only
entrance was on the other side. It was a long way, and not very
pleasant; but at last I gained the court, where the blessed pilgrims
were permitted to enter. Two lines of men, women, and children, in
single file, stretching far away into the darkness and into some remote
part of the city, were marching steadily into the cathedral, saying
their prayers aloud as they walked slowly, devout in their appearance,
and full of anxiety to get a sight of the precious treasures within. The
prayers they were repeating are prepared for this service, and have
reference to the sacred relics whose sovereign virtues they are now
hoping to enjoy. When the remains of President Lincoln were for one day
and night exposed in the City Hall of New York, the public were admitted
to view them, and the line extended some miles up town, and marched
steadily into the park all night long. Except that procession of gazers,
I never saw a crowd intent on such a sight to equal the number of these
pilgrims. It was impossible to enter the cathedral under these
circumstances, and I was told that by coming early the next morning I
could be admitted alone. But the next morning the gates were closed
against all comers, and preparations were on foot for the grand
septennial procession of the relics. The court and the streets leading
to it were filled with rude benches, and thousands were seated where
they could look with reverential awe on the cathedral in which these
holy things were preserved. From the multitude there was rising on the
air, like the sound of many waters, the voice of prayer. Away up one of
the towers was a gallery passing around it, and on that gallery a
procession of priests was making a frequent circuit, while the crowd
gazed upwards with evident edification, as the holy utensils and the
cross were borne aloft between them and heaven. There in the sun they
sat, and thousands stood gazing and praying, the perfect embodiment of
superstition, and the easy dupes of a cunning priesthood. They were of
the lowest class of the population, if we could judge correctly by their
dress and appearance. Yet were they orderly and devout, and only when
some special spectacle led them all to rush to get the best place was
there any need of the many guards who were on hand at all times to
prevent disorder.
The grand procession was to emerge from the cathedral at two o’clock
P.M. Then all these relics were to be carried in pomp in the hands and
on the shoulders of the prelates through the streets of the city. “Good
places to see the procession” were advertised for sale on the walls of
the houses, and selecting one whose windows looked out upon the court of
the cathedral and near its great door, I entered and hired half of one
of the windows, taking a ticket that was to secure my seat when I
returned.
Thus sure of the wonderful privilege of seeing the wealth of holy things
which had brought these thousands here, I went off, and “assisted” in a
demonstration with the Sultan of Turkey. He was on his way home from
England, and was expected to reach Aix-la-Chapelle in the evening. But
in consequence of delays on the road he did not arrive until five
o’clock in the morning. He was then escorted to the palace, a modest
mansion which the King of Prussia occupies when he is here, a rare
event. When the Sultan had taken a brief rest and breakfast, he was to
depart for Coblenz at ten A.M., and the better part of the city turned
out to see him as he rode through the streets to the railroad. He is a
much better-looking man than his predecessor on the Ottoman throne, whom
I saw in Constantinople some years ago. This man is stout, short, grave,
with heavy black beard, and very _Turk_ in his appearance. His visit to
the west is regarded by his subjects as a part of the great work he is
supposed by them to have on his hands,—the government of the world. To
this day the most of them believe that France and England simply obeyed
his orders when they came to the aid of the Sultan, and that he has now
been out west to look after his provinces there.
In front of the palace and all along the streets dense masses of people
pressed to get a sight; two Romish priests stood by me, and were
intensely curious to see the Turk. After a dozen carriages with his
suite had passed, the state coach, with two fat horses and one very fat
coachman,—coach, horses, and coachman covered with gold lace and
trimmings,—came along with the solitary Sultan inside. The people sent
up a very faint cheer, but he took no more notice of it than he would if
the dogs had barked; looked stolidly down into the coach and rode out of
sight.
At one P.M. I returned to my hired window. The crowd was vastly
increased, dense masses of humanity filling every inch of space in sight
of the line of march. But the court of the cathedral had been cleared,
and a strong bar, guarded by soldiers, forbade the ingress of the
multitude. The house where I was to enter was opposite to the door of
the baptistery, and the whole court which was to be the scene of the
great display was in full view from my window. I was early on the
ground, and when I took possession of the humble chamber was the only
person in it. To get to it I had to pass through _the_ bedroom of the
house, and in that was a double bed, two or three single beds, and a
crib, in which the whole family slept side by side. Presently three
Romish priests and two women entered, having also previously engaged
places in this eligible apartment. The priests appeared to be
intelligent men, and we conversed freely in French. They told me they
had come from Holland to see the holy relics, and to participate in the
solemnities of the occasion, and were then going to make a tour in
Germany. The women were travelling in company. Presently one of the
priests took out his prayer-book, and, retiring to one side of the room,
entered upon his devotions. One of the women called my attention to him,
and, giving me a wink of the eye, put up her finger to the side of her
nose, and expressed the greatest possible contempt of the man _at
prayer_. She was very lively, sometimes put her foot on the table,
slapped her sister on the back heartily, drank three glasses of beer,
which the priests paid for, and said it was _goot_.
A band of musicians arrived, and took their stand in the court. Officers
in black dress with _staves_ appeared. The crowd pressed more and more
densely on the bar, and in the struggle to get nearer, I feared some
would be crushed to death. In years past, there have been many disasters
of that kind here. Roofs of houses, overloaded, have sunk down with
their living burden. And as far as my eyes could see, the picturesque
multitude swarmed and heaved. Many in blue blouses; women with red
shawls over their heads; and every color was seen in their variegated
costumes, yet none but the commonest of the common people were there.
At two o’clock, a few horsemen rode into the crowd and opened a passage
for the procession soon to emerge from the church. Where the people were
to retire, how they could be compressed into a smaller space, it was
impossible to see. Walls on all sides, but down the streets they had to
go, and, as they were pressed against the houses, fright was on the
faces of many; children were held up overhead to save them from being
crushed; closer and closer they were stowed away; women put up their
hands imploringly, but the horses tramped among them, and a way was at
last cleared through the solid mass of human beings. It was not yet time
for the procession to come out: this was only to let the officiating
ecclesiastics, and servants bearing vestments, and boys in white with
banners to pass in. But the time wore on, and at last the bells began to
ring, a cannon was fired, a strong sensation swayed the waiting
multitude, there was a sound of martial music, there was the roar of the
voices of the crowds who could not restrain their feelings, the door of
the cathedral opened, and the great pageant began.
In front marched a band of boys in white raiment, with banners in their
hands; a few Capuchin monks came next, in the coarse costume of their
order; then followed a company of ecclesiastics, in white robes, with
prayer-books in their hands, reading aloud as they walked; a large
number in red and gold embroidered robes followed; a choir of young men
singing; a brass band, making fine music; and then, wonderful to behold!
in the midst of all this pomp appeared the dignitaries of the church,
gorgeously attired, and bearing in succession the various relics which
have already been named. They were enclosed in glass, some of them, and
others were in magnificent chests of gold and silver, borne aloft on the
shoulders of six men each, and surrounded with the richest trappings, as
if the wealth of the universe might well be lavished on such precious
treasures as these. The sacred procession was greeted everywhere as it
proceeded with the prayers of the people, kneeling while it passed them.
It took its way up into the city, through various streets by a
prescribed route, in the midst of living masses of people, the windows
and roofs filled with anxious spectators, who might never see the like
again, and thousands of whom had come from afar, and had never seen it
before. The march was about an hour long, and then they returned to the
same court. But the procession was now largely increased. Two hundred
“sisters,” of some order, had joined in, dressed in white, and perhaps
as many of another order, in black; companies of infirm old men and
women, as if from some asylum, and hundreds of lads in uniform, bearing
flags, and four of them in white, with branches of lilies and green
leaves in their hands. The procession entered the court, and, opening to
the right and left, filled the area; the holy relics were borne into the
midst, while the vast company lifted up their voices in singing, the
band played, the bells rung, the cannon roared. It was a mighty choir in
the open air, under the walls of a cathedral that had stood there a
thousand years; the vast multitude were hushed to silence to hear the
music of this holy band of monks and priests and women and children, and
while the whole atmosphere was full of song, the pageant passed into the
temple.
My companions at the windows, the priests and their women, took leave of
me, as they were in haste to take the railroad for Cologne. I stepped
down into the court, and on the heels of the procession entered the
cathedral. The relics were deposited in the holy places; the great
golden chests were placed in front of the altar, and high mass was
celebrated with the splendor of ceremonial becoming this great occasion.
When the procession was finished, the holy relics in their several
repositories for another seven years, and mass duly celebrated, I
returned to the hotel to dinner. About twenty persons were at the table.
On my right sat a party of French people, gentlemen and ladies, and the
fun they made of what they had seen on the street was immense. They
ridiculed as ludicrous in the extreme, and as the very height of
absurdity and nonsense, the idea that the clothes and sponge and
garments worn two thousand years ago, and constantly exposed to air and
all the chances and changes of these eighteen centuries, should be here
to-day in good condition; and, of course, the priests and church came in
for a good share of denunciation. In front of me, and on my left, was an
English-speaking party, the central and principal personage in the group
being an English priest. His garb was that of Rome, and his conversation
was becoming his garb; but whether he had ever been received into the
full communion of Holy Mother, or was only aping her manners and wearing
her vestments, it is impossible to say. It makes little difference,
however. He was disgusted by the infidelity of these French people, and,
supposing none at the table understood the English, he went on to say
that it was highly improper to come into a foreign country and ridicule
the customs and faith of the people. “For my part,” said he, “I think
they are very stupid, as well as very ill-bred, to make such remarks at
a public table where there are others who hold these relics in high
honor as memorials of their holy religion.” The ladies of the party
joined him fully in these sentiments, and, to my surprise, I soon
discovered that the two ladies between whom he was sitting, and whom he
always addressed as “My dear,” were both Americans, and evidently
destined to become, if they had not already, excellent Romans. All of
them, and the party was six or seven in number, had been gazing on the
same spectacle that I had seen with mingled indignation and pity, and
these enlightened, cultivated English and American people received the
whole exposition as a glorious manifestation to their eyes of the
veritable objects that were used at the time and in the midst of the
scenes of the sufferings and death of our blessed Lord, and, therefore,
justly to be held in reverence by all the faithful in all coming time.
Pictures of the relics were for sale in all the shops, and I bought a
few as souvenirs of my pilgrimage. Particularly I sought for a good
representation of that one which is first on the list and first in the
admiration of the people. As the Virgin Mother Mary is held in higher
honor by all good Catholics than the Son of God himself, so they
likewise venerate with a deeper reverence the linen garment that she
wore than the cloth which was around the loins of the Saviour on the
cross. Having found two or three good copies of this peculiar garment,
my curiosity was gratified to see the style which the ladies of Judea
wore it in the year of our Lord 1 and onwards. Fashions change, and with
the ladies they change more frequently than among the other sex. But the
Virgin’s “linen garment” is exactly in the form and pattern of those in
use in modern times. It has short sleeves, reaching but a little over
the shoulder; it has a lace frill or something of the sort around the
neck, with a place for drawing strings in front. It looks, in fact, like
any other shirt with the sleeves cut off.
Now, just imagine, if you can, a company of fine-looking men, fifty or
sixty years old, in gorgeous costume, with the symbols of priesthood and
the pomp of kings, marching through the streets of a city, and bearing
aloft, for the admiration of a gaping multitude, an old shirt. That is
the mildest way of putting it! That the Virgin Mary ever had it on,
there is not the slightest possible reason to suppose. That such
garments were then worn is contradicted by our knowledge of the costume
of the Orientals of the present and former times. But to argue the
question is as absurd as to believe in the shirt. Faith in these relics
comes not by reason or argument, but is hereditary, blind, morbid, and
against the senses. To doubt is fatal, and nobody here doubts. They
believe in the holy linen of Mary, her girdle, the rope, the sponge,
Bartholomew’s hair, Thomas’ teeth, Simeon’s arm, St. Catherine’s oil,
Stephen’s rib, Peter’s chain, and the child Jesus’ crib. If they believe
in these things, what will they not believe? And English and American
men and women come here and profess their faith in the whole!
Pilgrimages to this shrine have been made for the last six or seven
hundred years. The number of believers crowding in at one time has
sometimes been so great that it was found necessary to shut the gates of
the city in order to prevent the increase. Every pilgrim was expected to
pay a penny, and in one year these amounted to 80,000 florins, or
1,600,000 pence. In that year 142,000 persons were present in one day.
In that period the numbers were so great that separate quarters of the
town were assigned to different nationalities, and they were allowed to
see the relics in their turn. They approached the relics on their knees,
and in regular order, each bearing a pure wax candle. Great preparations
were required to feed these multitudes, and it is not to be wondered at
that it was found too much of a job to have this thing going on every
year. Once in seven is certainly quite often enough. But the same forms
and ceremonies of opening and displaying the treasures have been
preserved from age to age. The exhibition begins July 10th and
terminates July 24th. The rush became so great at one time that it was
determined to dispense with the farce. But the inhabitants of the city,
who, like the Diana smiths, make great gains out of the pilgrims, raised
such a clamor that the show was resumed; and it is now as fixed in the
routine of religious rites in this Protestant country of Prussia as the
toting of the Pope on men’s shoulders at Christmas in Rome. Once in
seven years the people flock hither for two weeks in July, and on the
24th the grand procession takes place.
But if the sight of these relics does the souls of the pilgrims no good,
you may rest assured that the waters of these fountains will prove a
Siloam to you if you have gout, rheumatism, or any cutaneous disease.
Perhaps it is not well for me to prescribe without knowing the peculiar
symptoms of your case; but for so many centuries have these waters been
flowing for the healing of the people, that I have great faith in their
secret virtues. Over the principal fountain is a temple, and from it
extends a covered walk. The visitors take the water early in the
morning, and, as it is too hot to drink off at once, they walk up and
down, glass in hand, sipping as they go. Near by is the garden where,
under shade-trees and by the side of fountains, they sit and chat, or
listen to sweet music which the band discourses. As I was lounging here,
a young Englishman was helped in by his sisters, and he was placed near
me, so that I heard all their conversation concerning his progress
toward being cured. Then a lady on two crutches hobbled in, and,
arranging herself as comfortably as her evident lameness would permit,
sought a little rest from pain. An elderly man with his leg in splinters
had two servants to hold him up, and his condition seemed to suggest
that the waters were sought even for the benefit of broken limbs. The
variety of diseases is not so great perhaps as at other springs; but the
gouty, the lame, and the halt, seem to lie around among these
orange-trees, flowery shrubs, gravel walks, and cool shades. But by far
the greater part of the visitors to the springs come for pleasure only.
There is a large _Kurhaus_, in which are rooms for concerts and balls,
for reading and conversation, and in the court a beautiful garden, into
which subscribers are admitted. There the ladies take their work or
their book, and, around little tables on which is a cup of tea or glass
of light wine, they spend the afternoon, the gentlemen smoking if they
please, and an orchestra of splendid performers playing. It is a scene
of social and elegant ease, the _dolce far niente_ to perfection, with
really more enjoyment in it than is often to be found where people have
nothing to do. There is no gambling here, and that drives off a class of
men and women that infest every watering-place where gaming-tables are
licensed. The company is therefore select, compared with the Badens and
Homburg. And the baths are splendid. They are furnished at all the
hotels, and there are establishments specially fitted up for them. Into
one of these I went to enjoy the luxury. Each bath has a dressing-room
adjoining it, out of which when ready you go down four or five stone
steps into a large cemented bath, while the water from two large pipes
is pouring in. On a stone bench at one end of the bath you sit down till
the water comes up to your chin, and then it ceases to flow. At first
the smell of sulphur is strong; but this ceases to be disagreeable. The
temperature is perfect, the water abundant, plenty of towels, and a
sheet besides, and the price is about 25 cents. I enjoyed it
exceedingly, and commend it before all other bathing establishments this
side of Turkey.
The antiquary finds much to interest him in this old town. It is
something to be where Charlemagne was born and buried, and to see the
works of his mighty hand; to visit the town-house, a tower of which
still bears the name of Granus, a brother of _Nero_, who is said to have
built it, and to have founded the city 124 years after Christ. In this
house is a great hall, where for many successive centuries the Emperors
of Germany were crowned. In front of it is a statue of Charlemagne, and
the priests carry a silver bust of him in their septennial procession,
with a bit of his skull in the top of it.
CHAPTER XXI.
FRANKFORT.
WITH faces at last fairly turned towards Russia, we stopped to rest for
a day at the old town of Frankfort—the _Ford of the Franks_. Towards
evening I wandered out to an old graveyard.
Like some in our own cities, it had ceased to be used for interments,
and its walks and shade and vacant squares had become places of
recreation for the children of the town. The gates were never shut, and,
indeed, the walls were broken, so that it was a public square for the
living rather than a quiet resting-place for the dead. A party of little
folks were amusing themselves with children’s plays, and I paused in my
solitary stroll to see them go through the old-time game of “Oats, peas,
beans, and barley grow,” the same that our children from generation to
generation play with so much zest on the grass or the carpet at home. It
was pleasant to know that the young ones, in another language, were
singing the same simple song that millions on the other side of the sea
have sung and will sing in their childish glee. It was a queer place for
children to make a playground. Our children would not fancy it. The
Germans have more pleasing associations with the burial-places of their
dead than we have. They indulge in cheerful sentimentalism more than we
do, in this direction. These old graves are covered with flowering
shrubs; some of them are cared for by the children or friends of the
sleepers who have been here so many years that their names might be
forgotten but for the tombstones. I read the inscriptions on many, and
sought and found names familiar in history.
One grave was covered with wreaths and flowers. Yet it was an old grave,
and evidently some special interest attached to it. I drew near and read
in German,—
“THE GRAVE OF THE MOTHER OF GOETHE. BORN FEB.
19, 1731. DIED SEPT. 13, 1808.”
It was her request that this inscription should be put upon her
headstone. The mother’s pride is in it, but so beautiful and so just! No
man of this century has wrought himself more thoroughly into the German
mind, and only one writer has led captive more minds in the world at
large, than Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe, whose mother lies under this
brick wall, with deep shade-trees hanging over her grave, and fresh
flowers lying on it, though she was laid here sixty years ago. “From my
dear little mother,” said the poet in one of his poems, “I derive my
happy disposition and my love of story-telling.” And she said of
herself, “Order and quiet are my characteristics. I despatch at once
what I have to do, the most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down
the devil without looking at him. I always seek out what is good in
people, and leave what is bad to Him who made mankind, and knows how to
round off the angles.”
If this saying of Goethe’s mother could be told in all the world as a
memorial of her, it is quite likely it would do as much for the good of
mankind as all that her son ever wrote, though he was the prince of
German poets, and the master intellect of the age.
His coffin lies in the Duke’s vault at Weimar, or did when I was there,
by the side of Schiller, and not by the side of the Duke, as royal
etiquette forbade, even in the grave, such common dust as that of these
two great poets to be laid along with that of royal clay. Yet the Duke
is more honored by having had the friendship of the poets than by his
crown or kingdom.
Twelve years after the birth of Goethe’s mother, in 1743, a Jew was born
in Frankfort, whose name and power in the world are quite as great as
that of the poet. It is a question for the debating societies, whether
money or mind rules in this age; but there is little doubt that the
Rothschilds have been more of a power in Europe during the present
century than Goethe and all the poets put together. This man was named
Anselm. He had five daughters and five sons: all of the sons becoming
bankers like the father, and establishing themselves in various cities,
London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfort, came to control the finances of
Europe, and to wield an influence before which the conquerors of
kingdoms were often compelled to bow. They furnish one good lesson that
is rarely mentioned or thought of: the father and five sons, and their
children, have continued in one firm,—the five brothers were at one time
the firm,—and, thus standing by one another, have been strong and
prosperous; in this particular, Jews as they are, they set an example
for Christians to follow. So great is their wealth and credit, that when
the revolutions of 1848 in Europe instantly robbed them of forty
millions of dollars, it did not disturb them, nor the confidence of the
world in their stability. Kings and emperors are their guests as well as
their customers; and this summer, one of them on the banks of Lake
Leman, and another at his palace in Paris, has entertained royalty in
right regal style. To us sovereigns in our own right, this is nothing
very remarkable; but here, in the land of kings and princes, it is a
matter always of wonderment, and it is also just a little detriment to
dignity, when a crowned head condescends to eat off the plate of anybody
but a brother of blue blood.
This old city of Frankfort has had its ancestral pride sadly humbled in
being swallowed by all-devouring Prussia. A lady said to me, “I hate the
Prussians; I know it is not very Christian, but I do hate them; and I
believe the royal family will be poisoned yet!” This venerable city was
once the capital of the German empire, the seat of its Congress; here
the German emperors were elected, for successive generations. The glory
that invests a spot so sacred has now departed; and the firm policy of
Bismark, and the unification of Germany, have reduced the proud old town
to one of the many second-rate cities of Europe. A city, now-a-days,
cannot live on the past. Trade and travel will not obey traditions.
Frankfort still holds a financial importance that is fast passing away;
and more people will linger here for a day to see the marble ARIADNE, by
Danneker, than to visit the “Hall of the Cæsars,” where the portraits of
the emperors are hung.
We left by rail at nine in the morning. The cars were large, convenient,
and elegant. For first-class passengers they were divided into
apartments for six, and were lined with red plush. The second class were
quite as good, but lined with drab; and the chief difference was in the
price, which, being high in the first class, makes the company more
_select_. In all the cars _smoking_ is allowed, unless notice is posted
on the outside to the contrary. In our compartment, which was one of the
_interdicted_, there were three ladies and as many men, only one of them
a smoker; and he kept on, regardless of the notice and the company. The
third-class cars had plain board seats with no backs; but they were
clean, and very decent-looking people rode in them. A fourth class were
like our cattle cars, only not so good, for ours are well ventilated,
whereas these were close, and were filled with dirty people, standing
up, and getting what air they could through one or two little windows.
Yet these people were generally smoking, their poverty compelling them
to ride like cattle, but not prevailing to make them give up tobacco.
We passed through large pine forests. Wind-mills were frequent, as they
are in flat countries, where no waterfall power can be had. Women were
at work repairing the railroads; showing that here woman has her
“rights,” as the women reformers call the privilege of doing any thing
that men do. Of course they are degraded, as they will be with us just
as fast as public sentiment allows them to assume the duties that do not
belong to their sex. The waiting-rooms at the stations are restaurants
also, and beer is guzzled incessantly. Little children drink beer with
their parents.
Vast tracts of level country are on our right and left. Not a hill is in
sight. The scenery is uninterrupted prairie. Passengers are informed, by
notice posted in the cars, that they can have a dinner served at certain
stations ahead, and that the conductors will send on the order by
telegraph without charge. At all the stations cake and beer are passed
along by waiters at the windows of the cars, and you may take in the
dishes if you please, and leave them at the next station.
_Frankfort-on-the-Oder_ is a venerable town of 37,000 inhabitants,
memorable as the scene of a great battle in 1759, when Frederick the
Great was defeated by the Russians and Austrians. We crossed the Oder at
Castion, the bridge being strongly fortified, as if war were imminent or
guns relied on as the best peace preservers. Immense tracts of peat-beds
are on the route, and women are at work wheeling heavy loads of it just
cut out, and men cutting it, the women being made to do the hardest
work.
[Illustration: FRANKFORT DINNER-TABLE.]
At Krewz we stopped for dinner. We had sent forward our names by
telegraph, and were curious to see what was the result. It proved to be
a good soup, a stew of beef and potatoes, roast veal with stewed prunes,
and the usual condiments, but no dessert or wine, unless extra. The
tables for dinner were set out on the platform, under shade, and every
thing neat and clean, and the table furniture good. Beautiful gardens
are around the railroad stations: large peonies and lilacs, seringas and
roses, and other flowers like our own, in full bloom. We met an
excursion train with two or three hundred people, who had left the cars
at a way-station to get water; and as our train came between them and
theirs, they were thrown into the greatest alarm and confusion, lest
they should be left behind. The cottages of the peasantry are very neat
and comfortable; no signs of great poverty, no beggars at the stations.
I have scarcely been solicited by a beggar in Germany. As we are going
north, the country appears less fertile: there is more grass and less
grain; few fruit-trees, some apples, cherries, and pears; poplar trees,
sycamores, and some willows are seen. We have ceased to see forests on
the line of the road: we pass another peat-bed, and a dozen women are
working it, one man overseeing them.
At _Nakal_ twenty peasants were standing, each with a staff in hand, as
if they had just arrived from a journey on foot, and were waiting for a
train to take them on to the seaboard to emigrate. They were swarthy,
stout, and well clad. They will all be voters soon on the other side of
the sea.
Two hundred miles from Berlin, on our way to Warsaw, we came to
Bromberg. We had marked it down as the half-way place, and here we were
to pass the night. We found an elegant railroad station; porters from
three hotels, with plates on their hats, begged the pleasure of our
company at their respective houses. The _Englischer Hof_ had the honor
of taking us in, and we were hospitably and comfortably cared for. This
city was once in Poland. When the kingdom was carved and partitioned,
this fell to Prussia. But Polish names predominate upon the signs, and
the Polish language still prevails. Its trade is in wool and iron and
steel, by canal connecting it with Oder and Wexsel. We went to the top
of a hill near the hotel, and found beautiful walks and seats,
commanding fine views of the town. The churches are both Protestant and
Catholic. We were near a cemetery, and all the tombstones had their
inscriptions in Hebrew. It was a Jewish burial-place. Adjoining it was a
dead-house, into which every dead person of this people is brought, and
washed, and ceremonially prepared for the grave. A young man showed us
over the apartments. He seemed to be the solitary dweller in this gloomy
house. A fine monument in the grove near by is in memory of the good
citizen who had given the grounds, and embellished them, as a resort for
the people.
Only in Germany have we had bolsters in shape of a _wedge_, hard, and
designed to be laid with the edge under the shoulders, making an
inclined plane, from which one is slipping down all the time. The old
feather-bed comforter on top is now dispensed with; but in place of it
is a quilt inside of a sheet, like a bag to hold it, and a very
uncomfortable thing to manage. It requires a deal of patience to put up
with the curious ways of other people; but when one gets used to them,
they are just as well as his own.
We were to take an early start, and the servant was so anxious to do his
whole duty, that he called us, as Samuel the prophet was called, three
times in the course of the night, and finally succeeded in getting us
out an hour too soon. But that was better than to be an hour too late,
and so we had breakfast, and were off again by the rail at six in the
morning. By eight we were at the frontier of Poland, now Russia. Our
passports were demanded, and our baggage searched. Even the little bags
were taken out of the cars and examined. The only article sought for was
tobacco, and nobody ever found a bit of that in any luggage of mine. At
the station signs of progress were evident. Carts drawn by oxen were
loaded with brick, each brick twice as large as one of ours. Large iron
pipes for aqueducts were lying around. A photographic apparatus, of a
pattern quite novel to me, was in use, taking views of the works going
on. The names of all the passengers were copied from their passports
into a register; the passports were returned to their several owners,
then each passenger was asked if he had his passport, and, the formality
being over, we were allowed to proceed after an hour’s detention.
We are now travelling in Poland. We soon pass miserable dwellings, half
under ground, and with stagnant water about them, giving every
appearance of unhealthiness and wretchedness. Yet the country was better
tilled than in Northern Germany. We are now on the Vistula. At one of
the stations we saw a meeting of friends, men kissing each other; young
people stooped down, and old men kissed them on the back of their heads.
Elegant parks and gardens surrounded the villa of the Princess
Racziwill. For centuries it has been the residence of the titled and
rich.
At half-past three P.M. we arrived at Warsaw. All the passengers, as
they left the cars, were required to give up their passports again; were
led into a room where all ingress and egress was cut off; here to each
person was given a receipt for his passport, and he was required to give
the name of the house at which he intended to stay, also to state when
he expected to leave. He was then allowed to go. At the door a metal
check was handed him, having on it the number of the hack in which he
would ride; and thus, with a deep conviction that we are at last in a
country where we are to be looked after, we were taken to our hotel.
CHAPTER XXII.
WARSAW.
ON the banks of the Danube, but just _where_ the story does not say, and
_when_ it is quite uncertain, lived three brothers, whose names were
Lekh, Teckh, and Russ. They were of the Slavonian race. Ambitious to
found distinct dynasties of their own, they set off on their travels.
Presently three eagles appeared, flying in as many directions, and the
brothers instantly agreed to follow the birds and the example. Russ went
after one of the eagles, and the region he went into he called Russia;
Teckh went to Bohemia, whose people were anciently called Teckhs; and
Lekh, led by a white eagle, came to Poland. The people adopted the white
eagle as their national emblem, and they were called Polekhs, or Polaks,
and in Shakespeare the people of Poland are Polaks. In some parts of
this country the Poles are yet called Lekhs. The great importance of
this recondite history is not very apparent; but it is enough to
intimate that the origin of nations is often involved in obscurity, and
this is specially true of these northern peoples.
The history of Poland, through its early centuries down to 1772, is one
of the most _romantic_ in the “book of time.” With the coming of the
Jesuits into Poland came trouble, as trouble always comes with those
pests of the human race. War with Russia followed, and the Polish
territory east of the Dnieper, or Little Russia, was subjected to the
Czar; and by and by, when the kingdom of Poland lay at the mercy of
three surrounding powers, it was “partitioned” between Russia and
Prussia and Austria. This was but the beginning of her trials. Never
conquered, though always overcome, fighting for independent existence
again and again, she has in her death-struggles shown a tenacity of life
that has commanded the admiring sympathy of mankind. Three times she has
been _divided_ among these devouring kingdoms; and at the settlement of
1815, after the battle of Waterloo, when a new map of Europe was made,
it was decided that a part of Poland, Galicia, should belong to Austria,
Posen to Prussia, and the large part which Napoleon had made into the
Duchy of Warsaw, should be a constitutional monarchy under the Russian
Emperor as King. In 1830 the Poles made another insurrection, and when
crushed they were deprived of their constitution, their language was
proscribed, and the last vestige of their nationality was beaten out.
There is a savage wickedness in this cutting up of nations, that does
not touch the moral sentiment of the world as it ought. To murder a man
is something palpable, and so obviously damnable. But to blot a nation
out of being, to strike down the life of a people and bury it out of
sight for ever, this is what has been done for poor Poland, and we have
only to drop a tear over her grave, enter a protest in the name of human
rights, and pass on. The most extensive portion of ancient Poland is
under Russia, the most populous in the grasp of Austria, and the most
commercial is held by Prussia. Warsaw is the unwilling serf of Russia.
The present Emperor has sought to gild the chains that bind this people;
but the iron chafes them, and will. He restored their language and
schools; a council of state was formed; all the local officers were
Poles. But nothing will satisfy a noble race but to be their own
masters: in 1863 Warsaw was again in insurrection; the men rushed to
arms, the women to the altars; the streets ran blood, the weak sank
under the strong, and the end came.
The city of Warsaw has nearly 200,000 inhabitants. It is a well-built
town, modern in its appearance, with many of its streets straight, and
having large and handsome houses. It stands on the Vistula. It is more
gay and attractive than you would expect to find it, under the heel of
an oppressor, and after years of fruitless struggle with a crushing
power. On every hand we see the signs of the ruler’s presence, in the
persons of his armed deputies, the soldiers of Russia, who are here to
keep order in Warsaw. In our hotel, the dining-room is always occupied
by soldiers, who are eating and drinking, especially drinking. “Sherry
cobblers” in quart tumblers are in front of them, and they are sucking
at them diligently. Venice, under Austrian rule, was not more vigilantly
guarded than Warsaw is at this day, after a subjugation that has been
endured for forty years! It will take two or three generations to make
Poland contented under foreign rule, and then the hereditary love of
nationality will remain, and rise to the surface whenever it gets a
chance for demonstration.
The city has a very unfinished appearance: there are splendid public
edifices near by others that seem only begun, or neglected in the midst
of building. Revolutions and the fears of revolution have made its
prosperity precarious, and the inhabitants lack the highest stimulus to
enterprise and exertion, the hope of permanent possession and enjoyment.
The splendid government houses are in many cases the palaces of the old
Polish nobility, now decayed or extinct families. Many of the former
owners, who once rolled in hereditary wealth, have long since been
exiled to the desolate wilds of Siberia, and their places will never
know them again. A pall, like a perpetual cloud, is on the face of
Poland, and by degrees the spirit of liberty will be extinguished. The
language and rule of Russia will become universal. There is no hope in
the future for the nationality of Poland.
In 1863 a spy of the Russian government was stopping at the _Hôtel de
l’Europe_ in Warsaw, where we are now writing; and, his business being
suspected, the patriotic Poles, who are not likely to abide the presence
of such a fellow if they know him, took the liberty of murdering him in
his bed. The Russian government seized the house, shut it up, and for
some years it has stood closed, a monument and a warning. Russia will
not allow her spies to be murdered without visiting her vengeance on the
house itself in which the murder is committed. As this hotel was
formerly the palace of one of the noble Polish families, and the only
hotel of large proportions, it was a serious injury to the city as well
as to the proprietors. And I do not apprehend that the Poles will be any
more gentle in their treatment of Russian spies, because their largest
tavern was shut up half a dozen years.
Out of my window I see a soldier standing with his back against the
wall; he has a soldier’s cap and long cloak reaching nearly to the
ground; he has been there five or six hours, marching now and then a few
rods and returning to his post: five soldiers come and stand in front of
him, one of them takes off the cloak and puts it on his own shoulders,
and, stepping into his place, mounts guard; and this process is
continued and repeated all over the city, day and night, year after
year. Thousands of Russian soldiers are thus quartered on the city
continually: lazy, intemperate, and licentious, they are a moral
pestilence; using their power to compel the subject people to submit to
their insolence, and corrupting by their example and association those
with whom they come into contact.
With this admixture of foreign and native people, it is impossible to
discriminate between them; but a more unmannerly set of people I have
never met at public places than they are here. The servants have no
manners but bad manners. They enter your private room without knocking;
they are grouty in their address, sulky in their answers, and generally
disagreeable. The same may be said of the officers of the hotel:
disobliging, inattentive. The women appeared to be lively in each
other’s company, but the men of Warsaw are grave and thoughtful.
We rode in the afternoon through the beautiful parks and meadows and
groves where the Russian military exercises are held, and through the
_Botanical Gardens_, and to the _Observatory_, for the pursuit of
science has not been arrested by the revolutions that have overturned
the government; and then we came to _Lazienki_, a splendid rural palace,
built by King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski. Here the Emperor of
Russia has his temporary abode when he visits Warsaw, which, by the way,
he does not often, for his presence is not specially agreeable to the
people. Beautiful villas are scattered through the park, the residences
of persons connected with the court; fountains play, a beautiful stream
flows by, and a monument to Sobieski, John III. of Poland, stands
conspicuous, the sight of which is said to have led the Emperor
Nicholas, in 1850, after the war in Hungary, to make the remark: “The
two kings of Poland that committed the gravest error are John III. and
myself; for we both saved the _Austrian_ monarchy.” It is hard to say
whether such reflections are sound or not; the rise and fall of kingdoms
are all in the plans of Infinite Wisdom, and what to us seems
exceedingly desirable may be the height of folly in the eye of Him who
reads the future. It is certainly not human wisdom that has spared
Austria or Turkey and sacrificed Poland, but the end may yet be well.
It was dark when we returned to the city. A feeble attempt at
illumination was going on in some of the public buildings. Dim lights
were hung along some of the walls, and now and then a private house had
an extra lamp or two in its windows! We inquired the cause of this
miserable imitation of rejoicing, this abortive demonstration. The
telegraph had brought the intelligence that to-day an unsuccessful
attempt had been made to assassinate the Emperor Alexander. The
illumination was thus very satisfactorily and _exactly_ explained. The
assassination was attempted by a Polander, and Poland would have madly
rejoiced if it had been a success. I was at a loss to know whether the
illumination signified joy at the Emperor’s escape from death or joy
that his death had been so nearly accomplished. The melancholy
exhibition of lights was just enough to suggest the two conflicting
sentiments; and if the Russian soldiers and officials and dependants did
their duty in hanging out the lamps, the inhabitants of Warsaw almost
without exception will go to bed regretting that the shot of the
assassin did not lodge in the heart of the Emperor whom they regard as
their oppressor.
The streets of Warsaw are badly paved; riding in some of them is a
protracted punishment. They are badly lighted, and it is not unusual for
an ordinance to be in force requiring every one going out after dark to
carry a light, under pain of arrest.
The first drunken person I saw in the streets of a city on the Continent
of Europe was here. In the southern capitals, as of Spain and Italy, and
even of France, there was gayety, but not intemperance. I had not been
long in the city before I saw a woman lying on the pavement dead drunk.
And nobody seemed to heed the spectacle, always and everywhere
disgusting as the most shameful exhibition of fallen humanity. They have
their favorite vices in the south of Europe, but this of drunkenness is
not one of them. The use of wine, light wine, is not the cause of the
sobriety of the people, though it is a fact beyond all denial that the
wine-growing countries are the most temperate countries in the world.
Yet they are not temperate _because_ they have wine to drink. They would
be just as temperate, and perhaps more so, if they had no wine. They are
temperate because the climate does not invite them to the stimulus of
alcohol. That’s all. It is not their virtue, nor their wine, that makes
them so. They are not tempted to drink strong drink. As soon as we get
into these northern countries we find the people making free use of
distilled liquors and getting drunk: and intemperance is the prevailing
vice of the clime, as licentiousness is the vice of the south of Europe.
Climate is to be considered in all our studies of the habits of a
people, and it must be allowed its proper effect when we are estimating
the virtues and vices of our fellow-men. Climate is no excuse for
wrong-doing, but it helps to know why people fall into one or another
class of sins.
On Sunday, after searching in vain to find the English service which was
said to be performed in an _evangelical_ chapel by a clergyman of the
Church of England, we went to the Lutheran Church. Its dome, rising from
an open square, is a prominent object in the city. The building itself
is a _rotunda_, and very large. The yard was filled with all sorts of
carriages, wagons, droskies, and carts, with horses of various grades,
by which the people had come in from the surrounding country. Some of
these vehicles were the rudest kind of rustic wagons, and being covered
with mud, and filled with straw as the only seat, having no springs, and
long and narrow, indicated that the roads were bad, and that the people
had encountered some difficulties in getting to the house of God. It is
rare to see such a show of _teams_ about a city church. It was all the
more interesting in Warsaw, in the heart of the old kingdom of Poland.
I entered the porch, and it was crowded by people unable to get into the
thronged church. Looking over their heads, I saw three successive
galleries rising above each other; and, following the winding staircase
in the vestibule, we reached the first, and, unable to get admission
there, we mounted to the second, which was also full, and then to the
third, where there was plenty of room. A singularly imposing spectacle
was presented. The vast audience-room was a perfect circle; the three
galleries sweeping completely around to the pulpit and organ behind it.
The pews on the ground floor were occupied by a class of persons by
their dress and manner more elevated in rank than the others. The pew
doors were kept locked, until the sermon was to be commenced, when they
were opened, and the crowd in the porch were permitted to take those not
occupied by their owners. The first gallery pews were filled with
plainer people. The second gallery had a set of worshippers whose coarse
and humble attire indicated the harder worked and poorer people; but
their dress was cleanly, and an air of comfort pervaded the whole
assembly. The third gallery, into which I found access, was not seated,
and the few persons in it stood at the front. It was a sublime
spectacle, this crowded sanctuary, perhaps three thousand people,
worshipping in a strange tongue, and all animated with the spirit of the
hour. Behind the pulpit was a life-size statue of the Saviour on the
cross. In front of it four immense candles, each four feet high, were
burning. These candles and statue would lead us to suppose that the
Lutheran was not wholly reformed, and that some relics of Romanism still
lingered. The minister read a hymn, and around the organ a large choir
of young men and boys, no females in it, stood up and sang,—the whole
assembly, men and women,—with the organ, singing with a mighty noise.
The sermon followed. The Polish is not one of the tongues with which I
am familiar, and I shall not undertake to pass an opinion upon the
eloquence or the orthodoxy of the discourse. But the clear rich tones of
the preacher’s voice fell upon attentive ears, and the earnestness of
his manner spoke well for him, though I could not understand a word.
At the door, as I came out, there was a row of mendicants, not asking
alms, but willing and expecting to receive the charities of those who
passed, and they were remembered by many. It was an inoffensive way of
begging. Whoever gave was moved to do a good thing without being
importuned.
The principal streets of the city had as many people in them, going to
and from church, as you would see in New York, and so widely do the
fashions of Paris prevail in the west and east and north, that the
fashionable people of Warsaw, riding or walking, looked to be the same
sort of people that one meets in cities with which he is more familiar.
I walked into the Jewish quarter of the town. Their Sabbath was
yesterday; but to-day is one of their feast-days, and they were all out
of doors, “a peculiar people” everywhere. The men wore long frock-coats
reaching to the ground. Their dwellings were mostly mean and low; but we
saw women going in and out of them dressed in rich silks, with splendid
velvet mantillas, and they were doubtless as well off for this world as
their people seem to be in all countries where they have a chance to
live and trade. They have the best hospital in Warsaw. They retain their
nationality, the expression of countenance, the curve of the nose, the
faculty of making and keeping money wherever they go. And they are
strangely hated in the Christian world since they crucified the Lord of
Glory, as the serpent has been among men since he tempted the woman in
Eden. Of the five or six millions of people in Poland, nearly one
million are Jews. This is a large proportion, perhaps larger than any
other country in Europe.
There are only about 300,000 Protestants in Poland, and when you learn
that of the Russian or Greek church there are but five or six thousand,
out of the five or six millions, you will see one grand reason why
Poland will never be submissive to the rule of Russia. Their religions
are at war. Poland is intensely bigoted in its Romanism. In the public
square we see a statue of the Virgin Mary, with an iron railing around
it; flowers in pots are kept before it, lamps by night are burning in
its presence, tumblers of oil with lighted wicks in them, and an old
woman to light them as often as the wind blows them out, and here the
people are constantly coming and throwing themselves down on the stones
and saying their prayers: one young man was so earnest in his devotions,
that he prayed with a loud voice, regardless of those around him, as if
he knew the statue was quite deaf and could hear no common prayer. In
1863, the frightened people rushed to this image, when they saw that the
insurrection was not to be successful, and the Russian troops charged
upon the praying multitude of men and women and scattered them on their
knees.
Before one of the churches two crosses are erected, to commemorate the
union of Poland and Russia. Tradition says that they also mark the scene
of the strangest duel that was ever heard of,—two brothers being jealous
of each other on account of their own sister’s love, fought here and
slew each other. The province of “Little Russia” lies between Russia
proper and Poland, and for the possession of it the two kingdoms have
fought till it has sometimes been thought they would devour each other.
As I saw people going into a court-yard I followed them, into a little
chapel, where a corpse was lying in state. It was of an old man; thirty
or forty candles were burning around him, but he was raised on a
platform so high that his face could not be seen. Leaving him, I came
out and met a funeral procession. The body was borne in a hearse,
surmounted with a gorgeous crimson canopy, and drawn by six horses
richly caparisoned and led by six grooms. The Emperor could not have
desired a more ostentatious funeral; all hats were removed as the
procession passed, and this practice, which prevails on the Continent
generally, and especially in France, is a beautiful and becoming tribute
of respect, which I would be glad to see prevalent at home. They uncover
their heads when the King passes by; and what monarch is mightier than
he to whom the stateliest head must bow.
Ours were the only English names on the register of the hotel, the
largest in the city; we called at another hotel, and not an English name
was there, and during the three days we were in Warsaw we did not hear a
word of our tongue, except when we spoke ourselves. We were not,
however, as much disturbed by this as the lady was in Paris, who was out
of all patience and spirits hearing nothing but French day after day.
One morning she heard a cock crowing, and exclaimed, “Thank God, there’s
somebody who speaks English.”
[Illustration: POLISH PEASANTS.]
CHAPTER XXIII.
FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
WE were to leave Warsaw in the course of the forenoon. At half-past
eight we came downstairs, and found the breakfast-room closed, and
nobody up in the house who could provide the morning repast. As time was
precious, we went out to another hotel, and it was still closed; when at
nine o’clock we succeeded in getting in, there was no one stirring but
the landlord himself, and he managed to get breakfast for us with his
own hands. Returning to our own hotel we called for the bill, and found
the prices for rooms and board one-third more than we were assured they
would be, by the same man who now made the charges. I mention all these
little things to show the ways of the world we are travelling in. We do
not remember any country, nor any hotel, where we were more
systematically imposed on, and where we got so little for so much, as at
the Hôtel l’Europe, the largest and most pretentious house in Poland.
We rode from the hotel across the Vistula, over a new and splendid
bridge, and found the railroad station a mile beyond. It is put at this
safe and very inconvenient distance from the town to be secure against
sudden outbreaks of popular violence. The people are of the excitable
order, and this road is the grand route between Warsaw and St.
Petersburg, over which their Russian masters come to govern the Poles.
The young man selling tickets was civil, and he was the first man who
had spoken civilly to us since we entered unhappy Poland. The Russian
officials at the station were all civil. Before we could purchase our
tickets our passports were examined, and a “ticket of leave” was given
us, for which we paid thirty copakes, about twenty cents. We paid a cent
for the baggage check. The cars were splendid; the first and second
class had spring seats, cushioned, with racks for parcels; and the
second class was quite as good as the first in France or Germany. The
passengers were very few; the train, the only one for the day, had but
three cars, and none were full. We had an apartment for six entirely to
ourselves, two of us.
We rush out into a vast prairie country, very sparsely inhabited, but
well cultivated; large herds of cattle were grazing on the plains; pine
groves were frequent; the north side of trees was torn by winter storms;
houses were thatched with straw, and appeared to be miserable abodes for
the poor inhabitants; they became poorer as we went north, sometimes
partly under ground. They are now more scattered; fewer villages; but
they are doubtless more frequent off the line of railroad, which may be
laid through parts of the country less settled than others. The peasants
in their rude working clothes had a wretched look, and the women were
all barefooted. We passed a village that seemed to be Jewish, the men
and boys being clad in long coats, such as we saw on the Jews in Warsaw.
Once in every half-mile, on the road, was a neat house for the railroad
man, whose duty it is to see that the road is in perfect order. These
houses are numbered in order, over the whole route; they are of brick or
stone, small, warm, and substantial, with a little ornament. The idea is
excellent. A man thus provided for is impelled by his highest interests
to be vigilant and faithful; and it would be strange, indeed, if the
road were ever suffered to be out of order for a moment with such care.
The road is solid, a single track with frequent turnouts, and the cars
run smoothly. At every cross-road for wagons a man stands keeping guard.
Accidents must be very rare on a road so managed.
We stop at Lapy, on the river Narev, for dinner; they give us good soup,
stewed veal, and potatoes, and a ball of forced meat, and charge us
about fifty cents, two or three times as much as it was worth, but they
do not expect to entertain you twice; certainly we do not expect to dine
at Lapy again.
At Bialystok, the next station, a lady left the cars and was met by a
young man, perhaps her son, in military dress; they kissed each other
four times, and he then kissed her hand, and the salutations were
completed. Many Jewish women were out to-day, which is one of their
feasts; the cross-roads were thronged with Jews, who seemed to be
gathering there to see the cars passing; they were not allowed on the
track or on the side of the railroad, but must keep themselves on the
wagon-roads, where they crossed the track. This town of Bialystok is
quite an important place of 16,000 people, on the borders of the old
kingdom, and in the cutting up of the country it has sometimes been
Prussia, sometimes Russia, and aforetime Poland. It is now Russia, of
course. We come on to Grodno, with its 20,000 inhabitants, which is a
large town in Russia proper, and we feel a pleasant relief in being
within the bounds of the empire itself, though even this was once in
Poland, and the residence of some of her kings. Here sat the diets, or
congress, of Poland, and even that most celebrated of all of them, the
diet of 1793, which gave its consent to the partition of Poland. Here,
too, the last king of Poland, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, laid down
his sceptre. We find the Jews, in great numbers, out on a holiday; the
grand-high-priest, with his gorgeous breastplate on, with long hair, as
if it had never been cut and he were a Nazarene from his birth. We are
now travelling in Lithuania, once a duchy, whose duke married the Queen
of Poland, by name Hedwiga, in 1386. This union made Poland powerful to
resist the Tartars and the Dukes of Moscow, and to maintain the
independence of the kingdom for a long series of years. The union of
Lithuania and Poland continued until the third partition in 1795. The
country appears poorer as we advance; the soil is less fertile; there is
more sandy and barren waste. Pines and firs and white birches are the
trees we see now; the houses of the peasants are low and poor; we have
long since ceased to see improvements about the railroad stations; we
are getting into regions of less civilization. As far as the eye reaches
away to the horizon, no hills are in sight. It was across these wide
plains that the great French captain led his hosts to invade Russia,
sixty years ago! We shall be frequently on the track of that army’s
awful march, and its disastrous retreat. We have come to Kowno, where
the rivers Vilia and Niemen meet. Here the French army crossed the
Niemen, June 23, 1812, on their way to Moscow, and a gentle rise of
ground, on the bank, is still called Napoleon’s Hill. It was a mighty
host when it was here in June. All the annals of war and of the world
furnish no parallel to the story of that campaign; it was an epitome of
Napoleon’s whole career. But it is rare that marble is so modest as the
monument which the Russians have set up at Kowno to commemorate the
miserable failure of Napoleon’s stupendous plan of subjugating Russia.
In the centre of the market-place they have set up a stone bearing this
significant inscription,—
“In 1812, Russia was invaded by an army numbering 700,000 men. The army
recrossed the frontier, numbering 70,000.”
When Napoleon entered Wilna on his fatal march to Moscow, he occupied
the same rooms in the episcopal palace that the Emperor Alexander had
hastily vacated the day before. We shall not have the same apartments,
but we are here at the same season of the year; it was June 28, 1812,
when the French army took possession of Wilna, the Russians having
evacuated it in the night.
We had been riding eleven hours steadily, yet the cars were so
comfortable, the road so smooth, and the motion so easy and gentle, that
we had suffered little fatigue. The scenery had been improving. The
country was more uneven, rolling, and actually rising sometimes to the
dignity of hills, until we were able and obliged to pass through a
tunnel, being our first experience of the kind in some days, so level
had been the regions through which we had travelled. Wilna is surrounded
by hills, and enjoys a river flowing out of the valley, and the ravines
are filled with birch and larches, giving something of the life and
beauty of verdure, which is quite inspiring in this latitude. In the
fourteenth century the people here were pagans, and a fire was kept
burning day and night at the foot of one of the castle-crowned hills.
The ruins of the castle, which was reared in 1323, are still visible on
the summit. What a history of war, famine, and fire these intervening
centuries have seen. Thirty thousand inhabitants were destroyed by
famine in one year, 1710, and five years afterwards nearly the whole
town was burned. The people are still impatient of the Russian yoke.
They are always ready for an outbreak. In 1831, they tried and failed;
and in 1862 they made a desperate effort, and the leaders of the
movement were summarily hung or shot.
The beauties of travel in Russia begin to be seen even in the dark. We
are in the station, in the midst of a crowd of people, who seem to be
talking all the languages of Babel; such a jargon does the Russian,
Polish, and German make, when all are spoken at the same time by an
impatient multitude. We are to wait an hour for the train to leave, and
that will bring it near to midnight. If we spend the night here, there
is no train until to-morrow night at the same hour, and we shall
therefore be as badly off when it comes. It is better to go on and make
a night of it. Twelve hours will bring us to St. Petersburg, and then we
can rest. There are no _sleeping_ cars. We must sit up or lounge the
best way we can. It is now eleven o’clock and is getting to be dark. But
we are so far north that the days are long, and the night will be very
short. At midnight we curl up in the corner of the seat, and the train
starts as we go to sleep. At two o’clock in the morning we awake, and it
is broad daylight! At three we enter _Dunaberg_, a large town of small
houses; 27,000 inhabitants: the most of the buildings are of wood, and
only one story high, like the little farm-houses scattered over the
country. It is well fortified, though it is hardly worth fighting about.
John the Terrible captured Dunaberg in 1577, and the Swedes took it in
1600. The railroad station-house towers above the dwellings, that look
like ant-hills scattered around. We stop a few minutes only, and push on
through vast quantities of charcoal and railroad fuel collected here,
and pine forest succeed, and white birch-trees, and over a flat,
uninteresting country. The sun rose between four and five o’clock, and
at a wayside station we were refreshed with a cup of coffee. The night
was over, and the shortest I ever spent with my clothes on. We now pass
tilled fields, and at one time we counted twenty villages of low, small
houses in sight at one time, as we rushed along. The grain is well up,
and with a warm summer will come to maturity. Wide tracts of land are
destitute of vegetation; and with the evidences of want of agricultural
knowledge, and the brevity of the summer, it is easy to see that these
crowded villages may be pinched for want of food in a bad season. These
famines have sometimes reached the cities, and the sufferings of Moscow
in 1600 were not exceeded by the horrors of Jerusalem besieged by Titus.
One hundred and twenty-seven thousand dead bodies remained for some days
unburied in the streets, and 500,000 perished.
The peasants are astir in the early morning at their work in the fields.
They are decently clad, and have the appearance of being “comfortable;”
they and their houses indicating that they have time and inclination to
take care of themselves. They are no longer serfs. This term is not the
same as slave. The serf was sold with the land on which he worked, not
away from it, or without it. So long ago as 1597, a decree was issued
forbidding peasants to leave the lands on which they were at that time
employed. This made every working-man a fixture on the land of the
landholder. At a date even earlier than this, they were forbidden to
leave except at stated periods, but the complete attachment by statute
of the husbandmen to the soil did not take place until the sixteenth
century. This continued to be the established order of things until the
accession of Alexander II. to the throne in 1856. The serfdom of Russia
was not absolute slavery. It did not subject the man to the unrestricted
will of the master. The peasant remained the tiller of the same soil,
and changed his master only when the soil changed owners. But the
grievance was inexpressibly great. In some cases it worked extraordinary
results. The serf sometimes by energy and ability became a man of wealth
and power. But he was under a social ban that kept him down as color
depresses the black man. The reign of the present Emperor has been
marked by the introduction of great and beneficent reforms. Railways
were begun, and a new impulse given to trade at home and foreign
commerce. The manumission of the serfs had long been discussed, but an
opposition from the nobility had been too formidable to make it safe. In
1838, some of the nobles petitioned for the abolition. In 1859, the
nobles of Lithuania offered to free their serfs. A general plan was then
devised for the whole empire, and by a decree of March 3, 1861, about
twenty-three millions of people were raised to the enjoyment of civil
rights. A certain amount of land, varying in different districts from
two and a half to ten acres, was allotted to each peasant. He is allowed
to acquire more land by purchase. A board of arbitrators, in different
parts of the country, regulate the price and terms of payment to the
original owners. The government advances the purchase-money to the
peasant in the form of a five per cent bond, and this the proprietor
receives for his land, and the government takes the payment of the
peasant by instalments, through a series of years. The districts, or
towns, being made responsible for this repayment to the government, a
wholesome restraint is put upon the inhabitants, by which they are kept
within bounds until this debt is paid. Thus the entire population is
made interested in the accomplishment of the great work. The nobles who
were the proprietors of the soil, receive government bonds bearing
interest, and thus derive a fixed income, while each peasant becomes an
independent landed proprietor. The change has been effected with no
convulsion, and is gradually becoming a settled and peaceful state of
things. A few outbreaks occurred at the time, chiefly from want of
understanding the plan, and on the whole it has worked well.
This beneficent reform has been effected without passion, and with the
intelligent approbation of the masters who were by a single decree
deprived of 23,000,000 of bondmen. The original owners of the soil are
not reduced to poverty by the emancipation of their men. The men are not
turned loose upon the world without means to earn their living, and
without incentives to industry. The government is not made to bear the
expense of supporting them, or of finding work for them to do. The
emancipated man is at once put into a position to earn his living where
he has always lived. The master is left with a large surplus of soil,
which he may cultivate with hired labor, which must be abundant, when
the peasants have but small farms of their own, which are easily and
chiefly tilled by the women. And this work has been accomplished with so
much moderation, wisdom, and justice, as to compel the approbation of
every enlightened judgment and conscience. It is in most aspects of the
case a model plan of emancipation.
It seems strange to me that this rapid travel is hurrying me on to St.
Petersburg! The cathedral and churches of PSKOF are before us, and we
stop for breakfast. We enter the breakfast-room and find the dishes
laid; each one helps himself to whatever he wishes, and pays for what he
takes; not a word being necessary, except to learn the price of the
food.
A lady and gentleman were walking up and down on the platform, _both_
smoking. We are coming to a city where smoking in the streets is
prohibited by law. The peculiar garb of the rustic Russian is seen on
the men around the station. They wear long woollen coats, reaching
nearly to the ground. A girdle is about the middle. The hat is a
low-crowned beaver, and rapidly expanding toward the top.
CHAPTER XXIV
ST. PETERSBURG.
WE were in Russia, at Warsaw. At that point in the journey we were put
through a searching process, and the result having satisfied the
officials that we were not of the dangerous classes, and had no designs
upon the life of the Emperor, or the emancipation of Poland, we had been
allowed to enter. And now that we had come to St. Petersburg, there was
no need of overhauling us again, for we had been certified to already.
We were as free on arriving at the capital as if we had come to New
York.
At the station-house we were reminded at once that we were in a strange
land, by the peculiar costume of the porters and drivers, who were as
numerous and noisy as at home. They wore low-crown hats, with bevelled
rims; long coats reaching to the feet, and a belt about their loins.
They were as clamorous for hire as in more civilized countries, but they
pulled and hauled less. It was easy to see that the hand of government
was upon this most ungovernable class of men. We found the same kind of
omnibuses that run in our own streets, and on the one inscribed with the
name of the hotel to which we were bound we took our seats, and were
soon riding over the roughest paved streets that ever disgraced a city.
For a long series of years St. Petersburg was unpaved. At length an
imperial decree was issued that every vehicle coming into the city
should bring a certain number of stones to be left for paving. If each
carriage had dumped its load, without regard to size or order, just
where it happened, the result would have been about the same as we found
and felt the state of the streets to be, as we were bounced and tumbled
on our way to the Hôtel de France.
[Illustration: SCENE AT RAILWAY STATION.]
The manager of the hotel bade us welcome in good English. We were grimed
with the dust of thirty hours’ steady railroad travel, and the luxury of
a bath was more enjoyable than bed or board. The Russian is a very
different bath from the Turkish, where to the preliminaries of warm air
to set the system into a perspiration is added the thorough and
plentiful scrubbing with hot water, poured on mercilessly. The Russian
is the vapor bath only, and its effect is to open all the pores of the
skin, to empty them completely as the streams of perspiration gush from
every little mouth, and to incite a pleasurable languor, when all sense
of weariness, soreness, or stiffness is gradually steamed away. The
Russian dinner that followed was of the best: soup, fish, cutlet, roast
beef, partridges, vegetables, and varied dessert. Wines or not, as you
choose to order.
To see a city whose language is not one of your accomplishments, you
must have a guide, a _commissionaire_, a _valet de place_. Now we knew
precious little of the Russ. We had picked up a little Polish—mark, I do
not say polish—at Warsaw, and had startled the natives by sudden
outbreaks in what we supposed to be perfectly proper language, but which
only served to awaken their pity or make them laugh; but the Russian is
another thing, and not expecting to spend a winter here, nor to study
the literature of the country, we had given no time to the language. We
must have some one to be our mouth to the people, somebody who could
answer a thousand questions out of his own stores of information, or
serve as our interpreter when we attempted to get it out of others.
In the city of St. Petersburg resides an old Englishman whose name is
Russel. He has an understanding with the hotel men that whenever a guide
is wanted by travellers, he is to be sent for, and at our intimation he
made his appearance, and very respectfully offered his services to make
us familiar with the lions of the town. Mr. Russel is a venerable man in
years, having completed his threescore and ten some time since. Half a
century of these years he has dwelt in this capital of the Russian
empire, and toiled in this interesting service of expounding its wonders
to the visitors from other countries. Mr. Russel has become so familiar
with the objects of interest in his adopted city, that he imagines his
strangers to be equally familiar with them, and in no need of being
enlightened. He is so far gone in the loss of his faculties, if he ever
had any great quantity to lose, that a question must be proposed to him
often and in many forms, before he comprehends it, and when he answers,
you are not sure that he understood you, or that he knows any thing
about the matter. He never speaks except when he is spoken to, unless to
tell you something you knew before, or that was not worth knowing. He
would pass the most important and interesting buildings or monuments or
historic places in the city, and not mention them, unless you asked
him,—“What’s that?” Yet he was very English. He dropped the H
invariably. He exaspirated his vowels most unmercifully. Pointing to the
tombs of the kings and royal family, he said: “That’s the _hare_ to the
throne; that’s his _haunt_, and there’s his _huncle_.” In a
picture-gallery we came to Danae, and he was kind enough to say, “That’s
a woman, I believe,” and there was not much room for doubt on the
subject; and in a group of mythological sculpture he remarked for our
information, “That’s Jupiter,—these is all gods.”
This was the intelligent man who was to make us acquainted with the city
of St. Petersburg. If you are to be told only what he could tell me, it
would not be worth while to read any further. But we have eyes and ears
of our own, and already the barbaric splendor of this northern capital
is breaking upon us. You shall have our first impressions and our last,
for we have made two visits here, and have become familiar with the
city, if not in love with it. It is not a city to go into raptures over.
Perhaps it will become beautiful one day. But nothing in it is finished.
Streets with palaces on them are still disfigured with insignificant and
miserable dwellings. Palaces are not completed. Wealth has been
lavished, but nothing is done. It resembles our own capital in this,
that its public buildings are far apart, and the city is not half built
up.
In the year 1703, Peter the Great began to build a city, to be called
after his own name. He selected a miserable site on the banks of the
Neva, and here he gathered a host of Russians, Tartars, Kalmucks, and
Fins, and set them at this stupendous work. We expect to grow as the
people want houses to live in. Peter built a city, and then looked for
people to come and find it. The little cottage that he built for himself
on the shore is still standing where he placed it, and the tools with
which he worked, with his own industrious and skilful hands. For several
successive years, 40,000 men were annually raised by draft, as for an
army, to come from distant parts of the empire and build. The nobility
of Russia came and caused residences to be reared for them, when they
saw that Moscow was no longer to be the capital. Peter died, and
Catharine I. did not push on the work with energy. Her successor, Peter
II., loved Moscow more, and died there. Anne, the empress, adopted
Petersburg as her residence, and it flourished under her reign.
Catharine strove hard to defend it from the inroads of the river, but it
lies so low that no art can avert inundations. It lies in the midst of
waters, a vast morass. Canals easily traverse its bosom. Bridges and
islands and quays are part of the streets and squares of the city. The
houses are too many for the inhabitants. The thoroughfares are never
thronged. You may walk long streets and scarcely meet a person. Half a
million is the number of its inhabitants, but there is room for many
more.
The contrasts are more sudden and striking than in other capitals. The
rich are very rich; the poor are very poor. Society is rigid in its
laws. The nobles have no sympathies with the serf, though a serf no
longer. Caste is stronger in Russia than in England.
But I am impatient to be out in the town, sight-seeing. It is a very hot
day, and I asked Russel if they often had such hot weather in June.
“Well,” he said, “sometimes it is ’ot as this, and sometimes not so ’ot:
it depends very much on the weather;” and with this profound observation
he led the way into the city.
It was but a step from our lodgings, under the arch that divides and
connects the state apartments into the grand square in front of the
Winter Palace, the residence of the Emperor of Russia.
But before us rises a red granite column, the grandeur and beauty of
which instantly fix the eye. A single stone, eighty-four feet high and
fifty feet in circumference,—the loftiest single shaft of modern times,
only less in height than Pompey’s Pillar,—stands in the midst of the
square, surmounted by an angel and the cross. The pedestal bears a brief
inscription, but it tells the whole story,—“Grateful Russia to Alexander
I.” Originally this stone was cut out of the mountain, 104 feet long,
and the order was to make the loftiest monolith in the world; but from
fear that it was too long to stand firmly on its base, which was
fourteen feet in diameter, it was shortened to its present length. With
incredible labor it was erected upon a pedestal twenty-five feet high,
and there, polished, it stands, perhaps the most splendid shaft that now
presses upon the earth. It seemed to grow as I gazed upon it. And daily
as I caught sight of it from other parts of the city, or as I drove into
the magnificent area of which it is the central figure, its simple
majesty and exceeding beauty impressed me more and more. What vast labor
it cost to bring this block from the mountains of Finland, and plant it
perpendicularly on the banks of the Neva, in the heart of the city!
In the Admiralty Square is a more famous statue, and one of which we
have heard from childhood; pictures of it had made it so familiar that
it seemed an old acquaintance,—PETER THE GREAT, the founder of the city,
its inventor and builder, is on horseback, riding up a rock, to the
verge of which he has come, when he reins in his steed and sits looking
upon the river and the city he has raised upon its banks. The horse is
rearing, and the immense weight rests upon his hinder legs and the tail,
which touches a huge serpent, coiled at the horse’s feet. This is
deservedly reckoned one of the finest equestrian statues, and it honors
the most extraordinary man of his age.
Two boys were together crowned as Czars of Russia, at Moscow, by the
Greek patriarch, on the 15th of June, 1682. They were brothers, and one
of them soon yielded to the superior energy of the other, and resigning
his share of the government, left PETER the sole sovereign of an empire
but little above the range of barbarism. This Peter, who became PETER
THE GREAT, was then but seventeen years old. He was far in advance of
every one, and his reign marks the era of Russia’s rise to greatness
among the nations. Yet this man never rose to the conception of what
must be a nation’s true glory. His ideas all ran in the line of material
grandeur, and not in the direction of moral and mental progress. He was
a born mechanic, and he built a nation. He thought to build a people
just as he built the city that bears his name. His superstitious nobles
considered it wicked for him to go abroad, but he had heard of the arts
of civilization, that made France and Holland and England glorious in
the world, and he determined to see for himself what it was that made
them so. He laid aside his imperial purple (if he ever had any), and
travelled into distant lands. Sometimes he concealed his royal person in
the garb of a common workman, and wrought in the shops with his own
hands. I have seen many specimens of his handicraft that would do credit
to any artisan who earned his bread by his industry and skill. He was a
capital ship carpenter. Russia was in want of a navy. Peter learned how
to build ships, and made a navy for Russia. In foreign countries he
studied every thing, but learned nothing truly great in the art of
government. Going into the courts of Westminster with a friend one day,
in London, and seeing many men with wigs, he asked who they were.
“They are lawyers,” said his friend.
“Lawyers!” he exclaimed; “why, I have only two lawyers in my dominions,
and I mean to hang one as soon as I return.”
In all that he saw in England and Holland, where he spent most of his
time abroad, he never learned that _mind_ makes nations great; that
intelligence is the security of national progress and prosperity, and
that the people, even under despotic governments, have the power to help
themselves if their rulers will give them a chance. But he came back
with the idea of making his empire greater by making it broader, and he
took the sword as the instrument of success. He was partially
successful. After a reign of half a century, he died and left his empire
on the highway to civilization and glory. It is wonderful that Russia
has made so little progress since his death in 1725. Yet no monarch ever
reigned who descended to such minute details in legislating for his
people. Inured to hardships himself, and possessed with the idea that
nothing was invincible which his will was set to overcome, he undertook
to force his subjects into sudden and astounding reforms, from which
they revolted. He could not make them see with his eyes, nor work with
his hands. He made his clergy shave their faces, and the enemies of his
innovations called him the antichrist. No man ever lived who impressed
himself more indelibly upon a people than Peter the Great. His name is
held in honor second only to the Divine. The relics of his handiwork are
preserved with religious care. Every museum has some specimen of his
genius and industry, and the lapse of a hundred and fifty years since
these things were made by imperial fingers invests them with interest
approaching reverential awe.
But the greatest of all his works, and one that is the most
characteristic of the man, is the city of St. Petersburg itself. Why he
selected such a site for it, it is impossible to say, unless its very
unfitness and apparent impracticability developed that faculty for which
he was so remarkable, and impelled him to undertake what to others was
an impossibility. From the summit of a monument, or the dome of St.
Isaac’s Cathedral, the city seems to float in the waters. And this would
not be a fatal objection to the site if it stood in such relations to
the rest of the empire or the world as to make it important to fix it
here. But it does not. Winter shuts it out from communication with the
sea about half the time.
As we were walking on the most thronged of the thoroughfares in St.
Petersburg, the Nevski Perspective, a well-dressed gentleman paused,
and, turning toward a church which he was passing, took off his hat and
offered a silent prayer. What at first appeared the eccentricity of a
single individual, or excessive devotion, I soon perceived was the
practice of many, and indeed a custom of the country. In passing a
church, of course one passes an altar; and it may be, and indeed is, out
of sight, but the devout believer recognizes the fact by a token of
reverence, slight perhaps, but nevertheless sincere. Women hurrying by
with baskets of market stuff were often willing to put down their
burdens before the cross and pass a moment in thoughts of their Saviour.
I went into the church, the Kazan Cathedral, with a colonnade in feeble
imitation of St. Peter’s at Rome. The Greek religion is as nearly like
the Romish as this church is like St. Peter’s: it is a copy _after it_,
and a good ways after it, but still so near that it amounts to the same
thing. They do not make unto themselves graven images, because that is
forbidden by the second commandment; but they do make the likeness of
things in heaven and earth, although that is forbidden, and they do bow
down and worship these likenesses, or pay apparently the same honors to
a picture of the Virgin that the Romanist does to a statue. The
distinction is without a difference. But when I entered the cathedral, I
saw a sight that never met my eye in Rome or any Roman Catholic city. In
the middle of the day, and on a week-day too, respectably appearing,
well-dressed gentlemen were standing or kneeling before the altar
offering their devotions. Women were there numerously, and the poor,
whose garb denoted their poverty; and these classes are largely
represented in Romish churches everywhere; but the Greek religion had
such hold upon the people of another set, as to excite remark. The same
lavish expenditure upon the churches is to be seen here as in Italy and
Spain, though the architecture is far from being so effective as that
which prevails in Spain and Italy. This church was built sixty years
ago, at an expense of three millions of dollars then. A colonnade inside
in four rows extends from the centre pillars supporting the dome, which
is 230 feet above the floor, and from the three great doors. These
columns are fifty-six in number, each one a single stone, thirty-five
feet high, with bronze Corinthian capitals. In the midst of the main
door the name of God is recorded with precious stones, and a miraculous
painting of the Virgin blazes with gold and jewels of untold value. And
in the midst of this temple of religion, sacred to the worship of the
Prince of Peace, hung trophies of victories over France, Turkey, and
Persia.
But this church is not the wonder of the city. You must go with us to
the Isaac Cathedral, whose gilded dome has attracted our eye from every
part of the city, and whose glittering cross above the crescent we have
studied with an opera-glass, again and again, at a distance. Peter the
Great built a church of wood just here, and Catharine another when the
first was destroyed, but that gave way to this glorious pile, which was
forty years in building, and was completed in 1858. It is far more
imposing in its external appearance than St. Peter’s. Its proportions
are perfect and stupendous. Like all other Greek churches, it is four
square and in the form of the Greek cross. A grand entrance on each side
is approached by a broad flight of red granite steps, vast blocks of
stone from the quarries of Finland. Each flight of steps is surmounted
by a peristyle, each pillar of which is sixty feet high, one solid,
polished, red granite column! Above them, thirty pillars support the
central cupola, and on the crown of this vast hovering cupola is a
miniature of the temple below, a beautiful finish to the whole, on the
summit of which stands the shining cross.
Within, the splendor is amazing. Think of columns of solid malachite
fifty feet high! A bit of this stone is a gem to be set in gold for an
ornament on a lady’s dress. But here it is in lofty pillars, and steps
for altars, with lesser pillars of lapis lazuli standing near. The
worship is in the form and manner of the Greek Church, and is strikingly
Oriental, more so than that we see in the Church of Rome. Men and women
not merely bow and kneel and cross themselves, touching their fingers to
their foreheads and breasts, but they prostrate themselves with their
faces on the cold stone floor, and lie there as if dead. Women thus
lying in a heap looked more like a bundle of rags or old clothes, than
human beings worshipping the Almighty. Others brought candles and
lighted them, to be burned before the images, that is, the pictures of
the Virgin Mary and the Holy Child. Some of the people lighted the
candles themselves, repeating a prayer; the verger lighted them for
others, and presented them to the Virgin as he proceeded with the
service.
One woman brought a napkin or some cloth embroidered, and gave it to the
verger, who opened a golden door into the Virgin’s panel, and placing
the offering in it, locked it again. This was as truly idolatrous as any
worship you would see in Romish churches, and wherein it differs from
offerings to idols in pagan temples I do not see.
A collection was now taken up, by assistants going around with bags, and
gathering from the multitude standing before the altar. Every one seemed
to put in something, and their alms and prayers went together.
Three priests were officiating. One went about swinging a censer with
burning incense. A choir of men-singers stood near the altar and made
the responses with great power and singular sweetness of tone. The
sacristan came to us and offered to show us the sacred things in the
temple, and when we objected that the service was in progress, and we
did not wish to be sight-seeing at such a time, he assured us it was all
right, and we need not stand upon ceremony. He led us to the holy
places, and pointed out the sacred relics, which were useful to him in
extracting a fee from the stranger, and that is the only miracle they
are able to work. If they do this every day, and often enough every day,
they will be held in honor as long as the temple stands.
In the course of our wanderings under the lead of the sacristan, we
found ourselves behind the veil, or the hanging curtain which was opened
for the priests to go out and in during the service. Fearful of
intrusion, we were about to retire, when one of the priests came from
his place, and invited us into the apartment where he was standing, and
responding as his associate read the service. The inmost shrine, perhaps
it may be called the Holy of Holies, is in a round temple, whose dome is
held by eight pillars of solid malachite, and the walls and floors are
of polished marbles of various colors. The steps by which we ascend to
it are of polished porphyry.
The freedom with which a stranger was admitted “behind the scenes” in
the midst of the service was surprising to me, and I had an opportunity
not expected, of coming into contact with the priests and ministers of
the Greek religion, while in their service. The priests are a very
inferior order of men; very unlearned, of low extraction, and in their
appearance and manners what you would expect after such a statement.
They are obliged to be married once, and if the wife die, they are not
allowed to marry a second time, but the widower continues to serve at
the altar as before. It is said that the priests are very watchful of
the health of their wives, on the principle that a good thing which
cannot be replaced must be preserved with the greatest care. This is
better than the celibacy of Romish priests, which is offensive to nature
and good morals, a curse to the church and the world. You cannot be long
in any country where the Romish priests abound without hearing of their
bad morals, but the reputation of the priests in the Russo-Greek Church
is better. In their religious services, the most effective part is the
singing, and indeed the praying is intoning, which is a drawling kind of
singing, now coming into use in the ritualistic churches, which are only
feeble imitations of the Romish and Greek. Boys are employed in the
choirs, and for some parts of the service, the solos particularly, they
get the deepest bass voices that can be hired, and sometimes they render
the sublime passages with great effect. I have said the men, as well as
the women, appear to be religious in Russia. And it struck me as very
strange to see a fine-looking, full-grown man coming in at noonday into
a church, bringing a little wax candle, walking up to a shrine over
which is a picture of the Virgin, kneeling before it, bowing his head to
the floor, crossing himself again and again, lighting his candle and
sticking it into a hole prepared for the purpose, and once more
prostrating himself to kiss the pavement, and then retire! This lighting
of candles is an emblem of life, and is designed to keep the spiritual
nature of man continually in view. The Russians have no religious
ceremonies without this symbol of the Spirit. It is fast finding its way
into the churches of England and America that copy after these Oriental
customs, without apprehending their meaning.
Nothing in the mode of worship distinguishes the Greek from the Roman
Catholic. I would not speak with confidence, but it appeared to me that
the people were more _deeply_ religious than they are in Roman Catholic
countries. It is not, as with the people in Italy and Spain, and more
especially in France, merely a matter of form to be gone through with,
and that the end of it. In the Romish cathedrals, it was rare that I
could get into sympathy with the worshippers so as to feel devotional in
a service foreign from that with which I was familiar. For anywhere on
earth where men are worshipping God in their way and we are present,
from curiosity, or any other motive, I would desire also to be a
worshipper, and offer among strangers the incense of a loving heart,
touched with a sense of sin, and longing for divine favor. There is no
danger of becoming an idolater by worshipping the only living and true
God in the midst of idolaters. The soul goes out to him who heareth
prayer for those who are bowing down to stocks and stones. And he whom
they ignorantly worship I would find in their temples, for the way to
him is through the open door in the side of his crucified Son. But the
Roman Catholics do not get so near to God as these Greek Christians do,
for the former seem to be so much engrossed with saints and the mother
of Jesus, that they lose the joy and blessedness of coming right to
Christ, who is in the Father, and by whom they are saved.
The Russians keep Lent very rigidly, and are also careful to fast every
Wednesday and Friday. They have four great fasts in the year: Lent,
Peter’s fast, Conception fast, and St. Philip’s fast. The children are
taught the catechism of the Greek Church. The Sabbath is not observed
with any more regard to rest and worship than it is in France or Italy.
They make long pilgrimages to monasteries and holy places. There are no
pews or seats in the churches; all stand, the rich and poor, the emperor
and empress, high and low alike on a level in the presence of God. When
the Emperor was assailed in the park by an assassin, a few years ago,
and escaped the blow aimed at his life, he rode directly to this Isaac
Cathedral, and here in the midst of the thronging multitude, gave thanks
for his deliverance from sudden death. The language of the church
service is the Slavonic, and it is quite as unintelligible to the masses
as the _ora pro nobis_ and the rest of the Latin to the Roman Catholics
in our country. The whole service is quite as imposing as the Romish,
with processions and banners and sonorous responses. Religious services
are often celebrated in private houses to cast out evil spirits; and
always the fortieth day after a person’s death is observed in memory and
improvement of the event. In one corner of every room that you enter
from the street is the image of the Virgin, and you are expected always
to remove your hat on coming in; at first, it seems to be required as a
token of respect to the persons in the house, but it is solely to honor
the Virgin in the corner. The Russians are a very superstitious people,
and they believe in houses haunted with good and evil spirits,
especially the evil, and the constant presence of a pictured Mary is a
protection; at least they think so.
[Illustration: A RAINY DAY IN A RUSSIAN CITY.]
CHAPTER XXV.
RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS.
I HAD always supposed the WINTER Palace of the Emperor was an edifice
prepared with some special reference to the climate of this northern
country. It is called the Winter Palace only because the Emperor has, as
a matter of course, other palaces in the country in which to spend the
summer. This is a vast structure on the very border of the river Neva,
and in the midst of the city. It is built of brown stone, and makes some
pretence to architectural elegance.
It, the palace, has five thousand inhabitants! I confess that those
figures of speech seem to be very large, and it is a wonder how so many
people can find employment in the service of one household. But the ways
of royalty are not readily comprehended by mortals of common clay, and
perhaps if we knew how many servants there are who have servants to wait
upon them, how all these have families of their own, and these are all
to be fed and lodged within these walls, we may begin to understand that
one house may become a village, and quite populous also.
But if this number of dependents exceeds that of any other palace in
Europe, as it probably does, it is safe to say that it is the most
gorgeously decorated and furnished. Whatever extravagance the wit of man
could devise to adorn a house has been lavished here, and the result is
what might be expected,—a great display without that quiet elegance
which distinguishes true from meretricious art. The Russian is between
the Eastern and Western. The Russian is not a barbarous people, nor yet
thoroughly civilized. On the borders of the two, he delights in the
barbaric splendor of the Orientals, and has not yet reached the point
where simplicity imparts the highest charm to elegance and grandeur.
This accounts for the architecture of Russian palaces and temples. More
emphatically it shows itself in the immense amount of gold which
overlays every thing they wish to adorn. Even the domes of their
churches blaze in gold, so that each one looks like a rising sun.
The crown jewels of Russia are the chief object of interest in the
Winter Palace, for it is dreadfully tiresome to be led over miles of
polished floors to look through room upon room, in endless mazes lost,
seeing the same things substantially everywhere, and hearing the same
story over and over again about the kings and queens that slept here and
died there; though, as it was built since 1840, there is little or no
historic interest about it. But the crown jewels are worth seeing. One
loves to look at a diamond worth a million, though he cannot use it for
a button. The Orloff diamond is as famous as the Koh-i-noor, and was,
perhaps, at one time part of the same stone. Its history is romantic. It
was once the eye of an idol in a temple in India, and being plucked out
and stolen by a soldier, it passed through many hands till Count Orloff
bought it and gave it to the Empress of Russia. It cost the Count or the
Empress about three hundred thousand dollars. It weighs 194 carats,
being eight carats more than the Koh-i-noor weighed when it came from
India. The Orloff is the largest of the crown jewels in Europe. The
imperial crown itself is radiant with the most magnificent gems, forty
or more in number, and the crown of the Empress contains the most
beautiful mass of diamonds known to be set together; a hundred of them
at least. Some of the richest are precious stones presented to Russia by
sovereigns in the East who would conciliate this mighty power. And what
are they good for, when gathered into such a treasury? They are the
playthings of royalty; baubles that delight the eye, pure carbon that is
sold by the ton for a few dollars, but in the form of a diamond, it has
a value scarcely to be reckoned, when they lie around in such heaps as
we see them here.
The Hermitage is a palace near to the other, in which are the Russian
galleries of art. If it was surprising to find in Madrid the most
valuable collection of paintings in Europe, it was not less astonishing
to find in Russia such magnificent pictures and so large a number of
those that deserve admiration. For many years past the government has
been spending large sums of money in the purchase of pictures. It has
had and has its agents in Italy, and in every picture mart in Europe,
ready to pay any price for “an old master.”
And it has shown its good sense in this, that when it cannot compass the
original, it gets the best possible copy, and hangs it on its walls,
with its story fairly told. This is the true way to cultivate the taste,
and instruct the intellect of the nation in art. Catharine the Great
built a pavilion on the end of the Winter Palace, to which she might
retire from the cares of State, and here she drew around her the wits of
the age. She called it the Hermitage, and that it might be a real
refuge, into which royalty and its stiltedness could not intrude, she
made a curious code of laws to govern the company that she here
assembled.
The Hermitage is now the Royal Museum, and its grandeur and extent are
unequalled. It is 515 feet long and 375 feet wide. The roof of this vast
hall is supported by sixteen columns, each one a single block of granite
from Finland, with Corinthian capitals of Carara marble. Successive
stories on the same scale are filled with statues and pictures, and
curious works of art, in which the genius and skill of all schools and
nations are represented. Even to mention them would take up more of your
time than would be proper for me to consume, and I let them pass
unnoticed. I was even more interested in Peter the Great’s gallery,
where his turning-lathes and other tools that he used with his own hands
are preserved; and what is even more remarkable, the instruments that he
manufactured for himself, from a telescope to a walking-stick. His iron
staff that he carried about with him would not be credited as genuine,
were it not that a wooden rod tells of his gigantic stature, and thus
makes it quite probable that he could walk with a rod of iron.
Art-culture in Russia has advanced to a far higher point than we would
expect to find. The painting and sculpture of Russia in the Paris
exhibition astonished the outside world, and the galleries in the
Hermitage devoted to native art are marvellously illustrated with
splendid achievements of the chisel and pencil.
In all countries I am more interested in studying the condition of the
masses than the “upper classes.” In all countries the rich and the
titled, the “well-to-do in the world,” can take care of themselves, and
they are substantially the same kind of people in all civilized lands.
The nobles of England, of France, of Germany, of Russia, have plenty to
eat and to drink and they know wherewithal they are to be clothed, and
when one is travelling in their country, he has no need to ask whether
or not they are enjoying themselves after their own fashion, and have
any need of human sympathy. But when we pass through a Russian town with
a thousand huts in it, all about the same size, and not one aspiring to
the dignity of a respectable American farm-house, and see vast tracts of
land well tilled, but not a house nor a man in sight, then I wonder how
the people live in these parts; what do they eat and drink, and do they
have enough? Are they contented and happy, or do they hunger and pine,
and drag out a miserable sort of life of it, here in these far-away
lands?
In the agricultural districts of Russia, not very far away from the
chief cities, a laborer gets for a day’s work his food and about fifty
copeks, or, of our money, about forty cents a day. A mechanic gets about
one rouble, which is a hundred copeks, or about eighty cents of our
money, for a day’s work, and he finds his own food. In the winter season
beef is sold in St. Petersburg for ten or twelve cents a pound, and in
summer it is as low as eight cents. This will enable you to compare the
rate of wages with the price of food, and to see that there is not so
great a difference in the cost, to the poor, of living in that country
and ours, as might at first be supposed.
The rent of the hotel at which I am staying in St. Petersburg—and it is
one of the largest in the kingdom—is about fifteen thousand dollars per
annum, and that is about seven per cent on the valuation of the
property.
The food of the peasantry is largely composed of cabbage soup, which is
a great article among them, and they consume it day after day, year in
and year out, and are always fond of it. This is one of the pleasantest
compensations of Providence, that people may continue to be fond of a
dish that they have to eat every day. Their bread is black, and they
have some meat, for it is not costly, and on the whole they are
comfortably fed. So they are decently clothed. Their dress has the
appearance of warmth and comfort, too much for the hot weather that is
now raging; but they have so much cold and so little heat, that they do
not care to make a change for the brief summer. A poor peasant swelters
in a jacket of sheepskin with the wool on it, or wears a fur collar if
he can afford it, and sticks to it under a blazing hot sun, as well as
in midwinter.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE IN A RUSSIAN CITY.]
A peculiar custom is observed in Russia that I never noticed elsewhere.
You are expected always to take off your overcoat on entering the house
to make a call, of business or pleasure. Even when you call at the bank,
to draw or deposit your money, a liveried servant in the hall conducts
you to an anteroom, where you lay aside your overcoat and hat, and then
enter the business-room as if you were to be presented to the lady of
the mansion. My bankers here are Wynken & Co., at the end of the iron
bridge over the Neva, and, upon entering, I was shown to a seat, and my
letter of credit taken by a clerk to one of the firm, who immediately
came out from his office, and after a few complimentary inquiries, asked
me what he could do for me, and in a few minutes the business was done.
A despot is the Emperor of Russia. We have come to associate only a bad
meaning with the word _despot_. It had not such a sense as we liberty
worshippers give it. Now it means a tyrant, a hard master, one who has
unlimited power and uses it to oppress. _Despotes_ is the Greek word for
master in the New Testament, and sometimes the _Lord_ himself is spoken
of and addressed under this name. The apostle Paul says: “Let as many
servants as are under the yoke, count their own _despots_ worthy of all
honor.” And again: “they that have believing _despots_;” and again, he
commands servants to be obedient unto their own _despots_. So Peter
tells them to be subject to their own _despots_. And good old Simeon
cries; “_Despotes_, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” And
Peter speaks of those who deny the _despotes_ that bought them; and in
Rev. vi. 10, we read: “Plow long, O _despotes_, holy and true,” &c.
These quotations show us the good sense in which the word was once used;
and now, when we speak of a despotic government, we do not understand
that it is necessarily an oppressive government, but one in which the
power is concentrated in the hands of one man, who can use it at his
pleasure, unrestrained by constitution or legislature.
Justice is administered under laws the issue of the sovereign will, and
liable to be repealed at his pleasure. _Trial by jury_ is of recent
introduction, and may be considered as an experiment. In the court-room
I inquired of an intelligent gentleman how it was working. He said,
quite well; and then related the following incident to show how the
royal will comes in, even to the smallest affairs of private citizens:
An officer under the government promised to give a certain _place_ of
profit to a man, who was soon surprised to find that it was given to
another. Such mishaps are not unusual in milder governments, I believe.
But the disappointed office-seeker sought the man who had promised it to
him, and slapped his face in open court, charging him with a breach of
faith. He was arraigned and tried by jury for the assault and battery,
and the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty, or more
accurately,—“Served him right.” The verdict was received with great
applause. The Emperor gave the office-seeker and the office-holder also,
the striker and the struck, appointments in distant parts of the empire,
where neither of them wanted to go or to stay, and thus he punished them
both: one for breaking his word, and the other for breaking the peace.
There is a vein of humor in such administration of justice.
“The bookkeeper of a mercantile house in Thorn was arrested in the
Russian town of Rieszawa, by the burgomaster of that place, on a
perfectly unfounded charge of an intention to smuggle. Although the
bookkeeper succeeded in establishing his respectability, he was thrown
into a dirty prison cell, and kept there twenty-four hours. His
principal, of course, complained of this most unjustifiable treatment,
and has lately received an official communication that the burgomaster
has also been imprisoned twenty-four hours, and in the same prison in
which he had shut up the unhappy bookkeeper.”
M. Andreoli, a Russian writer, who was exiled some years ago to Siberia,
is now contributing to the _Revue Moderne_, under the title of
“Souvenirs de Sibérie,” his recollections not only of Siberian but also
of Russian life. In the last number of the _Revue_ he tells a story, the
end of which belongs to the present reign, the beginning to the reign of
Paul, of whose period it is strikingly characteristic. The Emperor’s
favorite was at that time a young French actress, of whom he was madly
jealous. One evening, at a ball, he noticed that a young man named
Labanoff was paying her a great deal of attention. He did not lose his
temper, but at the end of the ball gave orders that Labanoff should be
arrested and thrown into the citadel. He only intended to keep him there
a few days, “to make him more serious,” after which he proposed to
reprimand him and to appoint him to an office which had been solicited
for him. Labanoff, however, was forgotten. At the death of Nicholas,
Alexander II., then full of magnanimity, liberated all the prisoners in
the citadel, without exception. In a vaulted tomb, in which it was
impossible to stand upright, and which was not more than two yards long,
an old man was found, almost bent double, and incapable of answering
when he was spoken to. This was Labanoff. The Emperor Paul had been
succeeded by the Emperor Alexander I., and afterwards by the Emperor
Nicholas; he had been in the dungeon more than fifty years. When he was
taken out he could not bear the light, and, by a strange phenomenon, his
movements had become automatic. He could hardly hold himself up, and he
had become so accustomed to move about within the limits of his narrow
cell that he could not take more than two steps forwards without turning
round, as though he had struck against a wall, and taking two steps
backwards, and so on alternately. He lived for only a week after his
liberation.
We often read such facts as these, and they are sad and awful
illustrations of what unlimited power may be left to do. Recently there
have been horrible stories of cruelties inflicted by the agents of the
Russian government, but they are not worse than have sometimes been
perpetrated in the name of liberty and justice in other and more
enlightened countries.
Look on the map of Asia and see that vast country of SIBERIA, a part of
the colossal empire of Russia. The tales that are told of the exiles of
Siberia have formed a large part of the sensational literature of other
days. In that lone, distant, cold, inhospitable clime, is the region
where for many long years this government has sent its prisoners of
state, and many others who have incurred the despotic displeasure.
Banished for life is to all intents and purposes death. The wife of the
exile, if not allowed to go with him and share his sorrows in a wretched
land, is free to be married again. His property goes to his heirs as if
he were dead. He has not even his own name in Siberia, but is known by
the _number_ that he receives when he enters upon his new estate.
It is terrible to think that one imperfect man holds in his own hand
such power. The mere possession of it tempts to evil. And limit it as we
may, divide it among many, apply checks and balances, there will yet be
abuses under all systems of human government. Even our own boasted
democratic republican form has its defects. We have made ignorance and
vice too mighty in our popular elections, and have come to know that no
despot is more irresponsible than the many-headed monster of a corrupt
and unthinking multitude.
Taking a boat on the Neva and being rowed across to the Academy of
Science, we made an interesting visit to the Zoological Museum, which
has some things of interest far beyond that of any other museum in the
world. Here we have something more than fossils, we have the veritable
meat of the mammoth and mastodon and elephant, and perhaps they may all
belong to one and the same animal. But the Siberian rivers have
furnished ice-tombs in which these beasts have been buried for
centuries, and when they are brought to light by the change in the
course of the streams, or by accidental discovery, they are certainly
the most interesting of all the remains of extinct races. The great
mammoth in this museum was found in 1799, on the banks of the river Lena
in Siberia, and the flesh was so fresh upon it that the beasts and birds
of prey were ready to devour it as soon as it was exposed.
The chief interest in this Russian collection lies in the actual skin
and hair and flesh of these animals so remarkably preserved. Here is a
rhinoceros, but of a species now extinct, with its head almost entirely
covered with the original skin, and its feet also, the fine hair being
still visible. The seals and otters, sharks and sea-horses, sword-fish
and alligators, lions, tigers, bears, elks, and mooses; birds of
countless kinds,—make up an assortment wonderful in its extent and
variety, and the more interesting as the pursuit of science has led to
the gathering of splendid specimens from the tropical regions, to be
contrasted with the aboriginal growth of these Arctic climes.
It was the edge of evening as we returned from this expedition, and the
declining sun was flooding the river and the eastern shore with golden
glory. We were tired; the evening was cool and refreshing; the scene was
beautiful, indeed exciting, as other boats and barges and steamers swept
by us and ships and schooners swung listlessly in the stream.
The Winter Palace and the Hermitage, the Alexander Column, the Admiralty
Buildings, and other splendid edifices were on the western bank, the
fortress and arsenal and academy on the east, and the domes of the Isaac
and Kazan Cathedrals hung like suns in the sky. We seemed to be far away
from home, and lost in an enchanted sea. We rowed along under the stern
of a vessel and read her name, “Favorite, Arbroath;” it sounded Scotchy,
and hailing a sailor leaning over the ship’s side, I asked him, “where’s
Arbroath?”
“Aboot twelve miles from Dundee,” he said.
“And what brings you here?”
“The ship,” he answered, and then added that the cargo was fire-brick,
made in England, and brought here for the Russians, who make great use
of it in their stoves. He did not like the Russians, he said, and hoped
he should never have to come there again.
Our boatman landed us on the western shore, and as we walked up and down
the river enjoying the evening breeze, he soon passed us with another
company in his boat, and taking off his cap saluted us as old customers
with a grace that would do credit to a Paris waterman.
It was half-past nine o’clock when we saw the last rays of the sun on
the spire of the arsenal church, and we then went home. It is now eleven
o’clock at night, and I am writing by the light from the window opening
into a court. It would be easy to write all night without a candle.
[Illustration: A RUSSIAN PORTER.]
CHAPTER XXVI.
FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW.
MY roughest railroad ride in Europe was from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
It did not improve the road to be told, as I was, that it was built by
American engineers; but it did jolt me so naturally that I felt at home
as soon as we were under way. And there was a slight infusion of a
familiar morality in the excuse made for the present condition of the
road, that the managers of it under the government were seeking to buy
it, and were letting it run down that they might get it at a lower
figure!
A great throng of friends were at the station to take leave of the
passengers about to set off for Moscow. It is a ride of about twenty
hours; hardly a journey to call for as much leave-taking as with us
demands a voyage over sea. The journey of four hundred miles includes
the whole night and part of two days, and only one train a day, with no
good place to stop for the night, so that we are literally shut up to
the necessity of going through at once. The arrangements for sleeping
are of the rudest kind. Into the cars the passengers brought pillows and
blankets, preparing to make themselves as comfortable as circumstances
would permit. The fare through was $15, and my little trunk of less than
fifty pounds weight was $1.50 extra. As soon as we were off, a man
decorated with three medals entered with an armful of newspapers for
sale, and as many bought them and read them as in a car going out of New
York or Boston. It was a good sign. Small thanks are due to the
government from the press, however. It is subjected to the strictest
censorship. No foreign papers are allowed to come into the country,
unless they are _subscribed for_ by permission, and _then_ they are
interdicted if any thing dangerous to the existing order of things is in
them. Nothing unfriendly to good morals is allowed to be printed, and an
excellent regulation requires the examination and approval of all plays
before they can be put upon the stage. These barbarians of the north
will not have the luxury of the “dirty drama” which is so fascinating to
the highly cultivated Parisians and New Yorkers.
A lady and gentleman entered the car as we were just starting, and could
not get a double seat; it was a long car like our own, with seats on
each side of the passage. They could find separate seats, but they were
to ride all night, and of course desired to sit side by side. They
sought to make exchanges, but in vain. Seeing their distress, my son and
I agreed to separate and surrender our places to them. Their gratitude
was equal to their surprise. “We were French, they were sure.” Not at
all. “Ah no, we were English.” By no means. “And pray, would we tell
them of what nation?” AMERICANS: and they were nearly overcome with
pleasure, and poured out their grateful acknowledgments.
At Lubanskaia we stopped to dine, and you will be more amused by reading
the names of some of the places we touched in passing, than by the names
of the dishes we had for dinner. Thus we passed through Kolpinskaia,
Sablinskaia, Ouschkinskaia, Babinskaia, Tehondoskaia, Volkhooskaia,
Guadskaia, Mainvisheskaia, Bourgurnskaia, Borooenskaia, Okouloviskaia,
Zarebchenkeskaia, Kaloschkooskaia, Ostaschkooskaia, Reschchilkooskaia,
Paadsulnelchookaia; but I am getting a headache in copying them out of
the time-table, and will spare you. Wales is nothing to Russia for hard
names.
The station-houses are well built, and refreshment rooms well supplied;
so that you get comfortable meals on the route.
At Tver we crossed the Volga, and here we had the first sight of that
famous river. It is at this point downward navigable for steamers, and
we might step on board of one and steam away two thousand miles to
Astrachan! Tver is a place of remarkable historical interest, which
lingers around the cathedral and the monastery in which a bishop was
murdered by order of John the Terrible, though his death was reported as
occasioned by the fumes of a stove.
As night drew on we learned that one car in the long train was fitted up
for sleeping, and we were glad to pay a couple of roubles apiece for the
chance of a horizontal nap. Toward midnight the process of
reconstruction commenced. The long car is divided into four
compartments, each eight feet square; across each side is swung a shelf,
the seats below are converted into berths, and two more are made _up_ on
the floor; a pillow of homœopathic proportions is assigned to each
passenger, and unless a man is afraid it will get into his ear he takes
it. By a ladder of seven steps I ascended to the topmost perch, and
there sought to rest. Alas! the search was vain. My refuge in
sleeplessness is to old-time hymns, and Watts often composes me to
slumber as his cradle lullaby did when the best of mothers sang it in my
infancy. But now the only lines that haunted me were these, and
perfectly descriptive of my present experience,—
“So when a raging fever burns,
We shift from side to side by turns;
And ’tis a poor relief we gain,
To change the place and keep the pain.”
For half a dozen Russians sat together in this little chamber; all
smoking, all laughing, all talking, and in that jargon of a language
worse to hear than any other that ever crashed upon my auricular nerves.
There was no railroad law to be invoked to stop them. We were two, they
were six. They wanted to smoke and talk all night; we were invalids,
fighting for a wink of sleep. As the night wore on, they grew more
earnest. At frequent stops by the way they rushed out and returned
fortified with strong drink; the smoke, the breaths, the smells, the
talk became intolerable. I put my woe-begone visage over the edge of the
shelf, and arresting their attention by a groan, asked if any of them
spoke the French language? A military officer in uniform rose and said
he did. Then in tearful accents I said, “You behold two American
travellers who have paid for these luxurious couches to get a little
rest in their weary travels. If you gentlemen are to keep up this
discourse, sleep is as impossible as if we were under the tortures of
the Inquisition; is it too much to hope that you will soon suffer this
discourse of yours to come to an end for the night, to be renewed at
some future day.” Before my speech was finished he had begun to laugh,
and assuring me of his regret that we had been disturbed, he represented
to his friends the wishes of two _Amerikaners_, and they soon turned in.
In the morning, looking down from the shelf, I counted thirty-two stumps
of cigars lying on the floor, in one quarter, and at least a hundred
must have been consumed in that one compartment.
At half-past seven we stopped for coffee. A forlorn-looking set of men
and women crept out for fresh air and refreshment. They had been badly
stayed with, all of them. But the longest night has its morning, and so
had this. The coffee was good; we paid five times as much for it as it
was worth, even there, but we were comforted with the beverage. At one
end of the car was a wash-bowl and water, and over it a notice: “Towel,
5 copakes; soap, 15 copakes,”—so for about 20 cents you could have the
use of everybody’s towel and soap!
The face of the country improves as we get on. More trees, more hills,
more culture, and signs of thrift on every hand.
Into the car came a venerable ecclesiastic of the Greek type. A heavy
gold cross was suspended from his neck and hung on his broad breast; and
his gray hair rested in curls on his shoulders. The scarlet and gold on
his robes attracted the eye of the stranger, but he seemed to challenge
no special attention from the people with whom he came in contact. We
called him the Patriarch Nicon at once, for he came in upon us as at
Krukova, which is the station where we would stop, if we had time to
make a visit at the Monastery of New Jerusalem, or Voskresenski, which,
being interpreted, meaneth Resurrection. This monastery was founded in
1657 by the Patriarch Nicon, whose story is told by Dean Stanley in his
lectures on the Greek Church, and condensed into the travel books in the
hands of wanderers in these wilds.
At this village of the Resurrection, Nicon, a patriarch of the Greek
Church, was wont to stop in his journeys through the country, and in
1655 he built a church here, and the Czar of all the Russias did him the
honor to come to its consecration and name it the New Jerusalem. Nicon
obtained a model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at old Jerusalem,
and he made one like it here. He found hills and vales and brooks like
those in the Holy Land, and gave them names to correspond, which they
bear to this day, though two hundred years have since gone by. The river
Istra became Jordan, and he made a little one for Kedron, and called a
village at a distance Nazareth, and one nearer by was Bethany; and with
these sacred associations he gathered around him the odor of sanctity,
and with it came dreams of power and glory, such as priests are apt to
have when they leave the service of God and substitute their own
imaginings for the teachings of his word. The Czar saw what he was at,
and soon let him down from his Jerusalem. The Patriarch began to claim
civil as well as sacerdotal power. Just as the Bishop of Rome became a
king as well as priest, so Nicon would sway a sceptre as well as a
shepherd’s crook. He put stringent laws upon his inferior clergy, and
they became restive under his authority. He rode into town on an ass in
profane imitation of Christ, and the people could not see the sense of
being compelled to cast their garments in the way of him who was so
unlike the meek and lowly Jesus whom they would have loved to honor. His
tyranny drove them to revolt, and many sects sprang up which even now
continue to maintain their existence in the empire and in a certain
hostility to the regular Greek Church of the empire. Nicon grew more and
more despotic, as his enemies grew formidable in numbers and power. He
seized in the houses of the nobles, wherever he could find them, all
pictures not painted in the style that pleased his royal will. In all
his dealings with them he claimed the authority of the sovereign. He was
fast becoming the pope of the north. At last the Emperor, no longer
willing to acknowledge the lordly assumptions of this proud subject,
refused to honor his festivals with the royal presence, or to recognize
the Patriarch as spiritual father. Nicon was enraged at this slight, and
thinking to humble the Czar, threw off his robes of office, resigned his
crozier, and retired to his monastery at Resurrection. The sepulchre
would have been a more fitting place for retirement. Hither he supposed
the Czar would hasten, and with apologies, penitence, and tears beseech
him to return and resume his reign. He reckoned without his host. The
Czar could make and unmake such ecclesiastics, and he put another man in
his place, and left poor Nicon to chew the cud of regret in his
ignominious solitude. He stood it six years, and then sent word to the
Czar that, after long fasting and prayer, he had been honored with a
vision of the prophet Jonah, in a dream, who had told him it was his
duty to resume his seat on the patriarchal throne of Moscow. But the
Czar could not see it. Jonah said nothing to him about it, and he had an
idea that unhappy Nicon might, indeed, have had a great many dreams of
the same kind, but that Jonah was not the man to make patriarchs for
him. He called a council of Eastern patriarchs, presided in the midst of
it himself, and this council came very naturally to the decision that
Nicon should be degraded and banished to a monastery in Novgorod. The
next Czar who came to the throne pardoned Nicon, who soon after died.
Such was the sad career of a great genius, whose brief reign was
signalized by the aggrandizement of the Russian Church, for he magnified
five patriarchates,—Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and
Moscow. And now his remains are lying in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, which he built, in the chapel of Melchisedek, at the foot of
the Golgotha, and over his tomb hang the heavy chains which, to mortify
his body, he wore around his person, while he put heavier chains on the
souls of those whom he reduced beneath his ghostly power.
I think there is a lesson in the life and death of such a man, and that
we may read in it the workings of human ambition and pride, even under
the garments of holy offices; we see the conflict between church and
state, whenever they are allied, and the doom that awaits the men who
pervert the institutions of religion to their own glory and the
oppression of others.
We are now approaching Moscow. Two thousand miles by rail we have come.
The whole region over which we are now passing seems to be one dead
level of lowly toiling, dreary living, without one sign of such
enterprising life and energy as we would find in France or England, not
to speak of that young world in the West, to which freedom seems to have
taken her flight.
The train is moving slowly into town. We have come to Moscow. We are at
the gates of the Kremlin!
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE KREMLIN AND THE BELLS OF MOSCOW.
M. BILLOT is a Swiss landlord, who keeps a good hotel in Moscow. He has
a charming wife and family around him, a well-trained corps of servants,
and makes his house a home for American and English guests. It is
something for a weary traveller to find a home when he gets to Moscow.
I have but one fault to find with Moscow’s bed and board. Mind, it is
not a complaint against mine host, M. Billot. It is the fault of the
city, that it is full of fleas. We charged upon them with a flea powder,
the second night of our sojourn there, but the powder about M. Billot’s
pillows was as troublesome as the fleas.
We had heard of this house and landlord; for the Swiss go into all the
countries of Europe, and some others, to keep the hotels. We found a
connected line of them all through Spain, and in Italy, and they commend
travellers to each other, as old neighbors ought to do. So, when we
arrived at Moscow, we gave our baggage to M. Billot’s man, he put us
into a carriage, and away we were whirled over the roughest roads that
we had ever endured in a city. Moscow seemed to be too small for its
people, as the people appeared to be too sparse for St. Petersburg. The
streets were thronged with people in the pursuit of business, and their
market-places presented the liveliest scenes imaginable.
[Illustration: THE KREMLIN.]
Frequent churches and shrines arrest us as we pass, for every Christian
crosses himself before each of them; even the coachman in front of us
drops his whip from his right hand, and makes the sacred sign on his
breast, as he drives by the holy place. Some stand before it and humbly
bow themselves at a great distance from the altar.
Our way was winding, through streets that had no aim apparently, for
after the city committed suicide in 1813, on the coming of Napoleon, it
was rebuilt in haste, without plan or purpose, but to get shelter for
living and trade. But the city was spread out to a greater extent, and
gradually houses of more architectural taste arose, with gardens about
them, even in town. Here and there rises a splendid palace in the midst
of the white cottages of humble neighbors, and the three hundred and
seventy churches are interspersed, with their green or gilded cupolas
and shining stars. We pass long rows of uniformly painted houses that
belong to some public institution, and then we break in upon a wide
square where the people seem to be gathered for some special purpose,
and out of this square the streets extend on every side. Then we come to
the high banks of the river Moskva, which flows through the midst of the
city, and on either side of it are splendid edifices crowning the hills
that rise from its side. The map of the city makes it appear circular.
The circumvallation is twenty miles in extent, and within this are two
concentric lines of fortification, rendered necessary perhaps for
defence, as this remarkable city is the outpost of civilization on the
borders of barbarism.
THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW.
I never had a very definite idea of the KREMLIN of Moscow. It has been
mentioned in books about Russia as a part of the city that every one
must understand. The Acropolis of Athens and of Corinth, and the
Capitoline Hill of Rome, enclosed with a wall to shut them off from the
rest of the city, a refuge for the people in time of peril, the site for
the most sacred temples and the most gorgeous palace for the sovereign,
would be the Kremlin of Athens, or Corinth, or Rome. As far back as in
1340, walls of oak enclosed these heights. A few years afterwards, to
resist the Tartars, the wooden walls gave place to stone, but treason
gave the fierce barbarian hordes possession of the citadel, and the
walls were destroyed. They were built again and again, but in 1485, when
it was needful to protect the Kremlin against the attack of artillery,
the walls were rebuilt on a scale never before attempted. The solid and
lofty stone walls now enclose an area of about a mile and a half in
circumference. Five massive gates admit the flow of life to the temples
of religion and of justice within this enclosure. The chief entrance is
called the “Redeemer” Gate. The passage through the wall by this gate is
like going through a railroad tunnel. It is a holy hole, for over it is
a picture of the Redeemer of Smolensk, and no one may pass under it
without taking off his hat. Formerly, whoever was so hasty or forgetful
as to neglect this mark of respect, was punished by being compelled to
prostrate himself fifty times before the insulted picture. The Emperor
of all the Russias never fails to uncover his head as he enters this
gate. Hundreds were going in as I approached: on foot, in droskies, in
carriages, but all were mindful of the place, and entered as if they
were going into a holy place. Between the Nicholas and Trinity Gates are
the arsenal and great cannons, some of them monster guns, quite
antiquated by modern progress, but formidable in their proper place; and
the long rows that are marked as left behind by the French in their
retreat, tell a grim tale of the madness and folly of that disastrous
campaign. Through this very Gate Nicholas, the French troops under
Napoleon entered the Kremlin. Short as the stay of the Emperor was in
the city, it was long enough for him to attempt to blow up the tower
over this gate; but a miracle, as the superstitious Russians believe,
was wrought to preserve it; for over the gate is a picture of St.
Nicholas, “the comfort of suffering humanity,” and when the explosion
took place which was to blow this massive structure into ruins, it made
a rent indeed, extending upward to the frame of the picture, and there
it suddenly stopped, not cracking the glass over the picture, nor the
glass lamp hanging before it! And Alexander I. caused an inscription to
be put up in memory of the miracle.
We ascend the hill and stand upon a wide paved plateau, or esplanade,
with a scene immediately around, before, and below us, of interest,
grandeur, beauty, and novelty. A cloudless sky and a blazing sun are
over us. All the buildings are dazzling in whiteness, and the domes of
thirty-two churches within the Kremlin, and hundreds below and around,
are blazing at noon-tide in their gold and green. Each one of three
hundred and seventy churches has several domes, and besides them there
are theatres and palaces, and convents and other public buildings, roofs
painted green, sides white, and gilt overlaying domes, turrets, and
spires. Gardens filled with trees, among the dwellings, as in more
Oriental cities, and the river circling its way into and out of the
town, give us some idea of what Babylon or Nineveh might have been in
their vast enclosure and picturesque rural attractions within their
massive walls.
In the midst of the Kremlin, and above every other structure in Moscow,
rises toward the sky the white, solid, simple Tower of IVAN; majestic in
its simplicity and height, as if it were the axis about which this fairy
world of Moscow was revolving, it stands sublimely there, with a bell of
444,000 pounds at its foot, and another of 130,000 swinging in its
crown.
[Illustration:
PLAN OF THE CENTRE OF MOSKVA CITY.
_Scale of Feet._]
_A._ THE KREMLIN.
1. _Uspenski Sobore, or Cathedral._
2. _Archangelskoi Sobore._
3. _Annunciation Church._
4. _Spass na Boru Church._
5. _Birth of the Virgin Church._
6. _Granovitaya Palata._
7. _Court Church._
8. _Uair the Martyr Church._
9. _Constantine and Helen Church._
10. _Ivanovskaya Kolokolnya._
11. _Twelve Apostles Church._
12. _Holy Synod Office._
13. _Chudor Monastery._
14. _Voznesenskoi Nunnery._
15. _Our Saviour’s Gate._
16. _St. Nicholas’ Gate._
17. _Trinity Gate._
18. _Borovitskiya Gate._
19. _The Secret Gates._
_B._ THE KITAI GOROD.
1. _Pokrovskoi Sobore._
2. _Kazanskoi Sobore._
3. _Iverskaya Chapel._
4-25. _Churches and Monasteries; amongst which No 7 is the Church of
the Mother of God of Vladimir; and No. 15, the Church of the Mother of
God of Georgia._
26. _Varvarskiya Gate._
27. _Ilyinskiya Gate._
28. _Nikolskiya Gate._
29. _Voskresenskoi Gate._
30. _Monument of Minim and Pojarskii._
At the foot of the Ivan Tower, supported by a pedestal of stone, is the
largest bell in the world, and probably the largest that ever _was_ in
the world. A piece is broken out of its side, and the fragment is lying
near. The breadth of the bell is so great,—it is twenty feet
across,—that the cavity underneath has been used as a chapel, where as
many people can stand as in a circle sixty feet around.
In Russia, the bell is an instrument of music for the worship of God as
truly and really as the organ in any other country! This fact is not
mentioned in the accounts we have of the wonderful, enormous, and almost
incredibly heavy bells that have been cast in Moscow. But it is the key
to what would otherwise be difficult to explain. It appears absurd to
cast bells so large as to be next to impossible for convenient use; in
danger always of falling and dragging others to ruin in their fall. But
when the bell is a medium of communication with the Infinite, and the
worship of a people and an empire finds expression in its majestic
tones, it ceases to be a wonder that it should have a tongue which
requires twenty-four men to move, and whose music should send a thrill
of praise into every house in the city, and float away beyond the river
into the plains afar.
Moscow is the holy city of the Greek Church. Pilgrims come hither from
thousands of miles off, and on foot, and sometimes without shoes. I have
seen them with staves in their hand, and their travel-worn feet wound up
in cloths, wending their way to the sacred hill. And when they draw nigh
unto the city, and on the evening air the music of these holy bells is
first borne to their ears, they fall upon their faces, prostrate, and
worship God. If they could go no further, they would be content to die
there, for they have heard the bells of Moscow, and on their majestic
tones their souls have been taken up to heaven. This is the sentiment of
the superstitious peasant, and it is a beautiful sentiment, ideal
indeed, but all the more delicate and exalted.
As long as five hundred years ago, this casting of bells was an _art_ in
Russia. It is one of the fine arts now. Perhaps our great bell-founders
will not admit that the founders there have any more skill in their
manufacture than we have, and I am not sure that their bells have any
tones more exquisite than ours _would_ have if we would put as much
silver and gold into our bell-metal as they do. But so long as those
precious metals are at the present premium, little or none of them will
find its way into our church bells. We have not the idea of the Russian
as to the use of a bell. We use it to call the people to the house of
worship. They use the bell for worship. Our bells speak to us. Their
bells praise God. They cast their silver and their gold into the molten
mass, and it becomes an offering, as on an altar, to him who is
worshipped with every silvery note and golden tone of the holy bell.
This one great bell is the growth of centuries. In 1553 it was cast, and
weighed only 36,000 pounds. It fell in a fire, and was recast in 1654,
being increased to the astonishing weight of 288,000 pounds. This was
too vast a weight to be taken up to the top of the tower, and it was
sustained by a frame at the foot of it. In 1706, it fell in another fire
and was broken into fragments, which lay there on the ground about
thirty years. It was recast in 1733; four years afterwards a piece was
knocked out of the side of it, and it has been standing here on the
ground more than a century. It weighs 444,000 pounds! In the thickest
part it is two feet through. It has relief pictures on it of the Emperor
and Empress, of the Saviour and the Virgin Mary, and the evangelists.
Ascending the Ivan Tower, we find on three successive stories bells to
the number of thirty-four. Some of these are of a size to fill one with
astonishment had he not seen the giant below. The largest is on the
first story above the chapel, and weighs more than sixty tons. It swings
freely and is easily rung. I smote it with the palm of my hand,
supposing that such a blow could not produce the slightest vibration in
such a mighty mass of iron, but it rung out as clear and startling as if
a spirit within had responded to my knock without. Two bells are of
solid silver, and their tones are exquisitely soft, liquid, and pure. It
was exciting to go from one to another and strike them with their
tongues, or with your hand, and catch the variety and richness of their
several melodies.
The chapel below is dedicated to the patron saint of all ladies about to
be married, and it may be readily believed that the bell that gives
expression to their prayers will have, at least to their ears, the
sweetest tone of all the bells in Moscow.
I came down from the Kremlin to my lodgings at Billot’s, and, wearied
with the wanderings of the day, have been lying on the bed and looking
out on the city. It is just before sunset, and the day has been
oppressively warm. A delicious glow from the gorgeous west is bathing
all the domes and roofs with splendid colors, and silence is stealing in
with the setting sun upon the crowded town. It is the eve of one of
their most holy festivals of the church. One vast church edifice is
directly in view of my window and but a short way off. As I lie musing,
from this church comes the softest, sweetest tone of an evening bell.
Another tone responds. A third is heard. The Ivan Tower on the height of
the Kremlin utters his tremendous voice, like the voice of many waters.
And all the churches and towers over the whole city, four hundred bells
and more, in concert, in harmony, “with notes almost divine,” lift up
their voices in an anthem of praise, such as I never thought to hear
with mortal ears: waves of melody, an ocean of music, deep, rolling,
heaving, changing, swelling, sinking, rising, overwhelming, exalting. I
had heard the great organs of Europe, but they were tame and trifling
compared with this. The anthem of Nature at Niagara is one great
monotone. The music of Moscow’s bells is above and beyond them all. It
is the voice of the people. It utters the emotions of millions of
loving, beating, longing hearts, not enlightened, perhaps, like yours,
but all crying out to the great Father, in these solemn and inspiring
tones, as if these tongues had voices to cry: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of thy glory.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW.
WE were alone in the holiest of all the holy places in the empire of
Russia: a church and a sepulchre; the place where the emperors crown
themselves and the primates of the church are lying in their
grave-clothes all around; the grandest of all earthly grandeur, and the
solemn evidences of the mightier power of King Death staring at the
pageant in mockery of all that man is and does.
We were alone in the Cathedral of the Assumption; four gigantic gilded
and pictured columns in the midst of it support five great domes; and on
the sides are arranged the huge sarcophagi in which repose the bones of
old patriarchs whose names are part of the history of the church, and
whose relics are thus kept near at hand impressing the worshipper with
something of awe, as one will feel it in the presence of the dead. There
was no attendant in the church when we entered, and the deep silence
reigning seemed befitting the place. We were silent, for the grandeur of
the scene, the historic associations with the place, the evidences
around us that this spot is holy in the eyes and hearts of the millions
of this vast empire, made us solemn. Before us is the Iconastasis, or
screen for sacred pictures, and behind this screen are the pictures of
the patriarchs and fathers of the church. _No woman may enter this holy
place._ It is very plain that the woman’s rights ideas of equality have
not penetrated this veil. Here, too, are views of the final judgment
scene, and of the life and death of the Virgin Mary. These sacred
pictures surround the _sanctuary_, the holy of holies, before it is the
principal altar, and behind it the throne of the Archbishop of Moscow.
In the centre of the church, with the four great pillars at each corner,
is the coronation platform, on which takes place the most august
ceremony known to the Greek Church or the Russian people. We cannot
enter fully into the sentiment of awe that possesses the minds of a
half-civilized race, who receive their sovereign with a mingled
conception of the divine and human in his person. He seeks to perpetuate
this reverential sentiment. He secludes himself from the world before he
comes to take the imperial crown; he mortifies himself by fasting and
prayer; and when the appointed day arrives for his investiture with the
high office to which God has called him, there is none in all his realm
that is high and holy enough to put on him the emblem of the power he is
to take. This cathedral is thronged with the highest dignitaries of
church and state, and the representatives of other empires, eastern and
western, with the richest display of all that can illustrate the glory
of this scene. They surround this empty platform, and gaze upon it with
fixed expectancy. A solitary man enters and ascends alone; he speaks,
but it is to repeat the words in which is expressed his faith in the
doctrines of the church; he kneels to pray for his empire; he takes his
own golden crown, and with his own unaided hands he places it upon his
head; he descends, and entering the holiest sanctuary takes the bread
and wine from the altar, and thus _alone_ with God, whom alone he
confesses to be his superior, he consecrates himself to the throne of
Russia. Thus from Ivan the Terrible, all the way down to the Alexander
who was shot at in Paris during the exhibition, have the Czars been
self-crowned on this sacred spot.
[Illustration: THE RUSSO-GREEK SERVICE.]
In a side chapel near the altar lies Peter, the first metropolitan of
Moscow, with a nail of the Saviour’s cross and a part of his seamless
robe. On the right is the coffin of Philip, who had the courage to
rebuke the Terrible Ivan, a terribly brutal ruler, murdering his nobles
without mercy, and when Philip became too troublesome he murdered him.
Now the dead prelate lies here with one of his skeleton hands exposed to
view on his breast, and it is part of the Emperor’s service, when he
approaches this tomb, to kiss the holy bone, that is left convenient for
the purpose.
Very like this cathedral is that of the Archangel Michael close by; and
here lie the coffins and relics of the early rulers of the Runic and
Romanoff dynasties, all the way down to Peter the Great. The tomb of
Demetrius, son of Ivan the Terrible, is the most sacred of all; he
disappeared mysteriously, and the country was plunged into a long and
bloody civil war; and, finally, his murdered body and coffin were
brought to view by a miracle, and the forehead of the dead prince being
exposed, or a hole about an inch in diameter being cut through the
coffin and the forehead raised up to it, or what is just as good, a bone
being put across the hole, the people approach with reverence and press
their lips upon this holy and disgusting skull.
Our meditations among the tombs were disturbed by the entrance of
visitors, many of them natives of the country, whose reverence in the
midst of so much that to them was specially sacred, we could not fail to
respect. I cannot kiss a bone with any enthusiasm; but there is no
accounting for the tastes of people; and disgusting as is the idolatry
of the Greek Church to me, I know that many English and American
Christians wish to have that church united to theirs. I would like to
see it reformed first.
There are no restrictions on religious worship in Russia! On one street
in the capital of Russia, where the Emperor himself resides, and the
Greek Church reigns in all its glory, there are six churches of as many
different religious persuasions, all protected by the law.
The English have a church of their own in Moscow, and a rectory, for
there are a large number of English-speaking people in these cities, not
only men in trade, but tutors and governesses who are induced to come to
Russia from England to teach the children and youth the English
language. It is quite as great an accomplishment to speak English, as
with us it is to speak French. And such is the extension of business
westward, it is quite important that one who is in commercial pursuits
of any kind should understand a language which more rapidly than any
other is spreading over the world. We meet more Russians speaking our
own tongue than of almost any other people.
During the Crimean war complaint was made to the Emperor that the
English chaplain in Moscow offered prayers every Sunday that Queen
Victoria might be victorious over all her enemies, and the Emperor
replied that the chaplain might pray for the Queen or anybody else.
In the city of Moscow there are three hundred and seventy churches of
the Greek faith, two Roman Catholic, and four Protestant; of these four,
two are for those who worship in the German language, one French, and
one English.
On the Sabbath I attended the Greek service in the St. Basil Cathedral.
The crowd was so vast that multitudes were unable to get within the
doors. A narrow door at the side yielded to the touch, and the sacristan
received us as strangers and conducted us into the holy place where the
priests were performing service. A choir of five—two old men, two young
men, and a boy—made the responses and sang parts of the service with an
energy and power that was exciting and astonishing as we stood by them
and saw the effort they made to give effect to their utterances. The
devotion of the crowded auditory was affecting. If one may judge of
emotion by what he sees of people worshipping in a strange language, he
must believe that these are truly devout, and deeply impressed with the
services in which they are earnestly engaged.
It is Trinity Sunday. Wagon loads of green branches of trees are carried
through the streets for sale. Every house, shop, shrine, church, and
station is adorned with evergreens; windows and doors are garlanded; the
humblest house in the poorest quarter we passed through had its sprig of
green, and where the poverty of the person prevented any display, it was
evident that no one was ashamed to do what he could in honor of the day.
The women and children carried flowers, the lily of the valley seeming
to be the favorite; and bunches of it were constantly offered for sale,
by those who would do a little business for themselves and help the rest
to worship after their fashion.
We went up the Kremlin to the Archangel Cathedral. Thousands on
thousands of people, a countless multitude, were standing around the
Ivan Tower and the big bell, unable to gain entrance into any church,
for these were all filled to overflowing by the densest mass of
sweltering humanity. Many of this crowd were common and unclean people,
like the very poor everywhere; they were ragged, unshod, and dirty.
Those in better order had long frock-coats on, reaching to the ground
nearly, with high boots over their pantaloons. These crowds were quiet,
lounging around as if they had nothing to do and were doing it
patiently, but not earnestly. They seemed to me a dull, phlegmatic race,
incapable of emotion; but this is a judgment of no great account, for it
is not unlikely the Russians may be as easily roused to action, for good
or evil, as the Germans or English.
Work of all sorts was going on in the city, with not the slightest
indication that the day was a sabbath. It was only wonderful that so
many people could be busy with the work of every day, and such
multitudes at leisure to enjoy a holiday.
Now and then a procession of poor pilgrims passed along, with sandals of
bark bound upon the soles of their feet, for they had come a long
distance from the far interior to worship in this holy city. Weary and
foot-sore they were, men and women, in scanty, but heavy clothing, even
in this hot weather, and wearing a look of solemn suffering as they
trudged along with staves in their hands. They have not yet learned that
the hill of Zion is now as near to them as in the Kremlin, and that God
is worshipped acceptably only by those who worship in heart and truth.
Some of these pilgrims may be beggars so disguised, for here, as at
home, there is no form of swindling more common than religious
imposture. The Russians are very kind and tender to idiots, and beggars
go about barefoot even in winter, pretending to be underwitted!
On the wide area in front of St. Basil is the Golgotha, or skull place,
a name given to a circular stone platform, said to be the place of
public executions in old times, but if so, it has long since ceased to
be used for any such purpose. Here the Czar sometimes stands in the
midst of myriads of his subjects. Here the Patriarch blesses the people.
Here the Patriarch has mounted an ass and the Emperor of all the Russias
has led the beast by the bridle to the Cathedral of the Assumption. But
the church has no such supremacy over the state now, as such a ceremony
would imply. The Czar is a devout member as well as head of the Greek
Church, and the Patriarch is his friend and coadjutor. The progress of
the truth on the great question of religious liberty has made itself
felt here as well as in western nations, and with all the ignorance and
despotism and superstition, and the semi-civilization of this people,
the government does not obstruct the spread of the Holy Scriptures, nor
interfere with liberty of worship in any part of the mighty empire.
One of the priests of this church very kindly led us into the sacristy
of the former patriarchs and now of the Holy Synod, where he would show
us the treasury, the library, and the vestry of the ancient
metropolitans of Russia and the patriarchs of Moscow. It was the same
old story which had been told us over and over again in the cathedrals
of the Romish Church, _ad nauseam_; and unless we had been advertised of
the fact, we would not have supposed that we had taken a departure from
Italy or Spain.
A reliquary containing a part of the purple robe which the Saviour of
sinners was clad with in mockery of his kingship, and a bit of the rock
of Calvary, are among the most precious relics which this rich
collection boasts; yet they are not more admired by the faithful than
the robes which were worn by the metropolitans five hundred years ago,
and are now exhibited; a sakkos of crimson velvet, covered with great
pearls, rubies, emeralds, almandines, garnets, and diamonds, making it
weigh more than fifty pounds. And it is said that the Czar John the
Terrible presented this priceless robe to the church as an expiatory
offering after he had caused his own son to be murdered. The crimson
garment, price of blood or not, is cherished with religious care as one
of the most valuable things in the treasury of the Holy Synod.
But it is more wearisome to read of, than it is to see and note the
robes and mitres and images worn by the bishops, figures of the Virgin
and infant Saviour and St. John, cut in precious stones, the crucifixion
scene done on an onyx stone, and others in gold and silver. Yet all
these yield in value and religious interest to a few pots and kettles
which are used in this chamber, and were now presented to what were
presumed to be our admiring eyes. It may be that our instantaneous
conversion to the Greek faith was anticipated as the effect of the
sight. We stood it unmoved, and will venture to describe the things seen
with no expectation that the perusal will make a convert of you.
Here is prepared the Holy Oil, or MIR, with which every orthodox Russian
subject is baptized. The same mixture is used to consecrate every
emperor who comes regularly to the throne, and to sanctify every church
in the empire that is to be used for worship by the orthodox Greek
communion. Now, if all the oil to be used for all these purposes, in an
empire of sixty millions of people and by the adherents of the same
church in other countries, is to be prepared in this room and by the
priests here employed, it is plain they must have their hands and
kettles full pretty much all the time.
The ceremony of oiling a child in the Greek Church, at its baptism, is
performed by the priest taking a little brush or feather, dipped in the
holy chrism, and touching with it the mouth, eyes, ears, hands and feet,
back and breast; the eyes are thus anointed that the child may see only
what is good, the ears to prevent him hearing the evil that is in the
world, the lips that they may speak the truth, the hands and feet that
they may be always found in the right way. Whence this oil that has such
wondrous properties? When Christianity was first introduced into Russia,
Constantinople furnished an infinitely little portion of holy oil that
was then in use in the church for these sacred purposes; and this
portion being used by the priests in preparing a large quantity, and
some of that being used in preparing more, and thus from time to time
each new supply being composed in part of what was prepared before, it
comes to pass, on the strictly philosophical principle of the infinite
divisibility of matter, some of the same unguent that came from
Constantinople many centuries agone, is now used in anointing the eyes,
ears, and mouth of every child that is baptized in Russia. If you do not
believe it, it still comes to the same thing, and I do not see that it
makes any difference.
The holy chrism is made by the clergy during Lent, with great care and
solemnity; about thirty different ingredients being used, gums, balsams,
and spices. These are put into two large silver kettles and a huge
caldron, scrupulously clean; and when the mixture is thoroughly made it
is poured out into sixteen silver jars, which are distributed among the
several bishops of the empire. The silver utensils used in this work,
and all of which are exhibited as the most sacred treasures of the
church, are said to weigh thirteen hundred pounds. And with them is a
vessel of copper with mother-of-pearl coating, that contained the
original oil as it came from Constantinople; and each year a few drops
are taken out of it, and as many of the new mixture returned, so that
the supply is always kept good, and the faithful of the church believe
that this is the true succession of the oil with which Mary anointed the
feet of her Saviour.
CHAPTER XXIX.
PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW.
IF you are weary reading of royal palaces, you will be sorry to be
invited to the one more gorgeously adorned and illustrated than any
other which you and I have entered in company. You have often heard of,
and perhaps have seen, some specimens of barbaric splendor! You have
associated with the word _barbaric_, ideas of Oriental and excessive
magnificence, laid on without the more refined and chastened taste of
modern civilization. It is a word the old Romans used to define _foreign
people_, and whatever came to Rome from foreign parts: all the world was
barbarous or Roman. We do not use the word in the same sense as
barbarous. But with it, in connection with gold and pearls and
decorations of the palace, we associate a wealth of luxury and
brilliancy of ornamentation, that would suit the meridian of Persia
rather than of Paris.
Not having seen the palaces of the interior of Asia, I cannot draw a
comparison between them and the royal residences of European monarchs.
But we are now on the border between the East and the West, between Asia
and Europe, between barbarism in its best estate and civilization. Take
a map of the world and see where Moscow stands! What vast, uncultured,
desolate regions lie at the east of it, and still further on, what
empires and peoples that make up the bulk of the human race! Out of the
barbarism of that eastern portion of the earth’s plane, Russia is
emerging, and Moscow is her frontier town; a wall and a monument: a sign
and guide, signifying what Russia has been, and leading on to something
higher and better, though the future is still in the depths of political
and moral uncertainties.
The Tartar hordes have in ages past been fond of making raids upon
Moscow, and leaving her palaces heaps of smoking ruins. In old times the
Russians built them of wood for the most part, though one of stone
erected in 1484 is still standing. Then the Czars removed the capital to
St. Petersburg, and for a long time the Kremlin was without a palace or
an emperor. The celebrated Empress Anne gave Moscow a palace, and her
presence now and then, and Catharine II. designed a royal residence so
vast and gorgeous as to rival the palaces of the world, but it was never
finished; its model is preserved as a curiosity in the treasury. What
she did build, the French wantonly burned when they were compelled to
desert the city which its own inhabitants had consigned to destruction.
This house, at the doors of which we have been standing while I have
given you these historical facts, is the work of the late Nicholas, and
is only about twenty years old. It has no likeness in the various orders
of architecture; there is no correspondence or harmony between the
within and without of it: yet the whole interior is a blaze of gold and
upholstery that leaves all rules of taste and art out of the question.
We pass through the Empress’s drawing-room, hung with white silk, her
cabinet in crimson, her dressing and bath rooms with malachite mantels
and priceless ornaments; the Emperor’s cabinet, with magnificent
paintings of the proud French coming into Moscow, and the poor French
skulking out,—grim satires these on the horrors and fortunes of war; the
state apartments, with huge crystal vases at the entrance; the Hall of
St. George, with the names of regiments and soldiers inscribed in gold
upon the walls, who have been decorated with this order for bravery on
the field; the Hall of St. Andrew, hung with blue silk, and inscribed
with the names of heroes; the Emperor’s throne, more ostentatious and
imposing than any other in Europe; the audience-chamber and
banqueting-room, on which is lavished the last resource of gilt and
paint to make a show,—and yet when we are ushered into the Gold Court,
all former magnificence is for the moment forgotten in the dazzling
splendor that fills the place, as if the walls were blazing with living
golden light. A flight of steps at one end of the room, called “the red
stair case,” is never trodden upon but when the Emperor, on the greatest
of all occasions, goes to the Cathedral of the Assumption. This is part
of the old palace begun by Catharine, and has a history running back to
the time when John the Terrible stood here and saw the comet that he
construed into an omen of his doom. And up this flight of stairs came
Napoleon, the greatest of actors, when he took possession of the palace
of the Kremlin. And when he went down these stairs he began that descent
which never stopped till he touched the bottom of his tomb.
The right wing of the palace is the treasury building, with the most
remarkable collection of objects to be seen in Russia. The Tower of
London illustrates England as this museum tells the history of the
Russian empire. Her past and present intercourse with the Asiatic
nations, and her more modern commercial relations with the West, have
made Moscow the emporium of all that distinguishes her ancient and
modern commerce, and exchange of presents when treaties have been made.
What riches of plate, jewels, silks, manufactures, which China, India,
Persia, Armenia, and other powers, peoples, and tribes have poured into
the lap of this colossal power in the progress of centuries! When the
French were coming, the prudent Russians, foreseeing the evil, removed
these pearls and diamonds and rubies, these vessels of gold and silver,
these costly fabrics of art and toil which could never be replaced, and
concealed them far in the interior, where the feet of the enemy would
not be apt to follow them.
Among the historical curiosities here preserved with religious care, the
traveller from the land of liberty views with sorrow and indignation the
throne of Poland! Other thrones, as trophies of conquered kingdoms,
stand near. One of ivory was brought from Constantinople in 1472.
Another is from Persia, taken as long ago as 1660. It is covered with
876 diamonds, 1,223 rubies, and many other precious stones. Blazing in
front of these thrones is an orb, which the Greek emperors, Basilius and
Constantine, sent to Wladimir Monomachus, Prince of Kief, with a piece
of the true cross! This orb is adorned with fifty-eight diamonds,
eighty-nine rubies, twenty-three sapphires, fifty emeralds, and
thirty-seven other stones, and with enamels colored in the highest style
of Grecian art, to tell the story of King David, of the land of Israel.
One of the most wonderful institutions of Moscow is the hospital for
foundlings, into which about twelve thousand children are taken yearly.
As many, if not more, are received into a similar institution in St.
Petersburg. It is said that no cities in the world surpass those of
Russia in the comforts provided for the care of these outcasts from the
birth, the most forlorn and helpless of all the objects that appeal to
human sympathy. The government makes a yearly grant of about a million
of dollars to this hospital in Moscow, and it has large resources
besides, so that there is no lack of funds to meet the wants of these
unfortunate little people, whose fathers and mothers forsaking them are
taken up by the Lord.
In some cities I have seen a table made to revolve outside the walls of
the asylum, and in, so that a child could be placed upon it outside, and
on the door-bell being rung the table would be set in motion, and the
infant is gently rolled into the house. The mother or friend who brought
the child and laid it upon the table would thus be relieved of its
charge, and would silently depart, leaving the child, yet utterly unseen
and unknown. This system has its advantages, and many attendant evils.
But here in Moscow they affect no such mystery about the matter. The
hospital receives the infant children of poor and honest parents who are
willing to give their babes to the state, and it also takes the
offspring of sin and shame who are brought by their mothers or left on
the highway and picked up by the police or the wayfarer. A
reception-room is always open. A man or woman enters with a babe. No
question is asked but these:—
“Has the child been baptized?”
If yes, “By what name?” If it has not been baptized, that sacrament is
at once administered, and the name given is registered opposite a
number, which is hereafter worn as a sign around its neck, and this
number is handed to the person who brings the child. This number
entitles the bearer to come back any time within ten years and claim the
child. The nurses are mothers who have left their own children in the
country, and come here to get the wages and living in the hospital,
which are far better than they enjoy at home. And some of the nurses are
the mothers whose children are here, and as they have the number that
marks their own, they can easily change about till they get the care of
the babe they seek to watch, without its ever being known to be theirs.
Nothing is now wanting that medical skill and good nursing can supply to
preserve the lives of these orphans. We go from ward to ward, admiring
the cleanliness, order, and comfort on every side. The babes are bathed
in copper tubs, convenient in shape, and lined with thick flannel. They
are not laid on the hard knees or sharp hoops of unfeeling nurses to be
dressed, but they are suffered to lie on pillows of down while this
operation is performed. After four weeks of such tender care, and when
the child may be supposed to have gained some strength, they are sent
with their nurses into the country. They are, however, exposed to such a
climate, and the fare of the peasantry is so coarse, that it takes a
tough child to weather the first year of life, and at least one-half of
them die before they are twelve months old. Half of the remainder who
survive the year fall by the way before they grow up; and so it comes to
pass that only one quarter, twenty-five out of a hundred, of these
children of the state live to be men and women. This is a small
proportion, and it is quite likely that full as many of them would have
lived to grow up, if there had been no hospital to care for them.
Another institute we find here in Moscow that has nothing to match it,
and cannot have in our democratic country. The female orphan children of
servants of the Emperor are taken into it, and eight hundred are
constantly receiving an education to fit them for being teachers! They
are bound to devote six years after they leave the institute to the
business of teaching in the interior of the empire. They have a small
salary, and thus provide for themselves while they are doing a good work
for the state. No foundlings are admitted into this house. The orphans
are all supposed to be children of honest parents, and this supposition
keeps up a higher tone of self-respect than would be possible among a
thousand children who did not know who their parents are.
Wolves in sheep’s clothing we have read of in the figure language of the
Bible, but men in sheep’s clothing I had never seen till I met them
to-day, in midsummer, in the market-places of Moscow. They could have
but one suit of clothing, and to cover their nakedness must wear it
summer and winter. It was made, “coat and pants,” of sheepskin with the
wool on, and was worn by some with the wool outside, and by others with
the wool in. On a day like this of sweltering heat, when it was not safe
for us to walk in the sun without parasols, these natives of the north,
with their winter clothes on, were not apparently oppressed; and it was
a comfort to believe that they had become accustomed to it, and had no
idea of any thing more enjoyable than an indefinite degree of heat.
As winter is the _longer half_ of the year, it is the _harvest_ time for
those who are in the line of buying and selling meats and all provisions
that are preserved by frost. As soon as the cold weather fairly sets in,
the fatted cattle and pigs and poultry are doomed to die by the hands of
the butcher. The carcasses are instantly frozen and sent to market. Here
it is packed up in enormous heaps, and families who are able to buy at
wholesale prices lay in their winter supplies, and those who live from
hand to mouth can buy at any time fresh meat that was killed in the
fall. The weather is so uniformly cold that little danger of a thaw is
apprehended, but if it comes, away goes the meat. And it must at any
time be cooked immediately on thawing, so that it is rather a precarious
mode of preserving provisions. But it is adapted to the country and
climate, it saves packing and salting, and has the advantage of
furnishing fresh meat, at moderate prices, at all times. The fish from
the White Sea are also kept, like wood-piles, in heaps with oxen and
sheep and deer. The flesh of mammoths and elephants of past ages has
been found in perfect preservation in the icy regions of the north, and
it is certainly one of the remarkable _provisions_ of nature that cold,
which is so destructive of animal life, should also be the preserver of
flesh, for indefinite periods, after the life principle has been
extinguished.
The Jews in Chatham Street, New York, who press their wares upon the
notice of passers by, are modest compared with the vendors of old
clothes and miscellaneous matters in the markets of Moscow. It was hard
to get away from them without making an investment in the most
undesirable of all worldly goods,—a coat that somebody else had cast
off. And such a jumble of things! reminding one of the sign on the
country store window-shutter of an alliterative dealer: “Bibles,
Blackball, Butter, Testaments, Tar, Treacle, Godly-books, and Gimlets,
for sale here.” Ironware, pot-metal, in the shape of utensils for
cooking, seemed to abound; and if the poorer people, who are the buyers
here, have any thing to cook, it is very pleasant to know it. Their food
is mainly milk, eggs, pickles, cabbage, and black bread, with beef and
mutton according to their ability to buy it. As a general thing the
Russian peasants are not underfed; the land being so largely in the
immediate care of the laborer himself, he can manage to get food for
himself and family. And as they clothe themselves in the rudest and most
primitive way, literally using skins of beasts, and in their natural
state, they ought to be able to live comfortably without handling much
money.
The “Riding School” of Moscow is the building in which a remarkable
museum is gathered. This building is one of the longest with an unbroken
area in the world, the roof, without a column to support it, covering a
space 560 feet long and 160 wide. It is constructed on this enormous
scale for the exercise of regiments, cavalry and foot, in winter, when
the weather is so severe as to render drills out of doors impossible.
The Ethnological Society of the North of Europe had selected this
place—and it was my good fortune to be here at the time—for the
exhibition of the Slavonic races in wax! Here they are in all their
varied employments, according to the climate, habits, and necessities of
the several peoples; with their actual surroundings of forest, ice,
snow, sea, river; the men, women, and children, with dogs, poultry,
oxen, reindeer, and sledges, hunting and fishing, freezing and trying to
keep warm, marrying and trading and travelling; here are Albanian
costumes, and there a cavern and human skeletons sitting in it, telling
a story I could not understand, and here a cottage out of whose roof the
smoke curls gracefully, and the open door and chickens and children
playing near, need no interpreter to speak of comfort and content.
If one were writing a volume of the manners and customs of the Slavonic
races, he would learn more of them by the study of this museum than in
months of travel among the people. The society is composed of learned
and thoughtful men of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, &c., who meet
annually for the collection and diffusion of useful knowledge on the
subject of their own race specially and the family of man. We are very
apt to think that, outside of our own English-speaking countries, there
is little doing to promote the civilization and thus the happiness of
the human race. Travel takes this and many other conceits out of a man.
One of the first things he learns, if he is capable of learning any
thing, is that he knows very little of what is going on in the world.
Then he finds that people whom he thought slow and only half civilized
are far ahead of him in many things, and by degrees he comes to the
conclusion that there is much in the world to be learned that he had
never dreamed of. But if he sticks to it that what he does not know is
not worth knowing, like my fellow countryman who insists that there is
more art in Illinois than in all Europe, then you may be sure that he
answers to the cane shown to Sydney Smith by one of this sort of
travellers who said:
“This stick, sir, has been all around the world, sir.”
“Is it possible,” replied Mr. Smith, “why it’s nothing but a stick for
all that!”
CHAPTER XXX.
FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
A COUPLE of English commercial travellers arrived to-day and were very
conversable at dinner. No class of men one meets abroad are more free to
impart what they know, than these agents of trading houses in England,
who infest all countries, and push their way into every company that is
willing to hear their ceaseless flow of talk. At dinner one of them
asked a Frenchman in what country of Europe Egypt was situated, and the
Frenchman did not know; they discussed the subject for some time,
neither of them thinking it was not in Europe at all. But the two having
failed to settle the geographical position of Egypt came back to matters
nearer at hand, and the invasion of Russia by the French and the
downfall of Napoleon, made the conversation lively. For when did or will
a Frenchman and Briton agree upon the character, the genius, or the
deserts of the Man of Destiny. And this led to the mention of the
SPARROW HILLS, and to an excursion thither, from which we have just
returned.
On our way out of the city, we passed the church of the Saviour, the
largest church in Moscow, with the most splendid dome, which, being
covered with gilding, looks like a mighty sun rising. The church has
been in process of building more than fifty years, and is far from being
finished yet. It is intended as a memorial of the French invasion and
its awful fate; and it was begun in the year 1812, so memorable for that
critical event in the history of Russia, of France, and of mankind. And
it was on the Sparrow Hills that Napoleon first saw Moscow.
An hour’s ride from the hotel brought us to the Simonoff Monastery,
which has been here through all the storms of weather and war these last
five hundred years. Rich in lands with thousands of serfs, and the
treasury into which emperors and princes poured their royal gifts, it
has been sacked again and again by invading hordes, but has lived on,
with six churches within its walls. A lake near by is reached by an
underground passage, and miracles of healing are _said to be_ wrought
upon the sick who come here with faith, and stay until they get well. In
the midst of the enclosure rises a tower more than three hundred feet,
and a blind bell-ringer delights in leading you to the look-out loft,
and answering every question you can ask respecting every object in
_your_ sight. You may be sure that he is right in his answers, though he
is blind as a bat.
The Novo-Devichi Convent, with six churches and a romantic history, the
Donskoi Monastery, and the Novospaski Monastery, are scattered through
this region, and are all visible and accessible in the visit to the hill
country around Moscow. But the roads are wretched and the weather hot;
the sun is getting low in the west, and we are in haste to enjoy the
glories that are to burst upon our sight when we come to stand where
Napoleon stood at the head of his proud legions and first saw Moscow!
At the foot of the hill flows the river Moskva, and row-boats are plying
back and forth to carry the many passengers, chiefly of the humbler
classes of people, who are going to and from the hills, on this
feast-day in the Church, and so a holiday for them all. Leaving the
carriage, we were ferried across and then climbed the hills, where
hundreds of the Muscovites were enjoying themselves on the green slopes,
eating, drinking, and laughing gaily, playing tricks upon one another,
and making themselves merry, as the same class of people do in every
part of the world. And it is pleasant to think that other people have “a
good time” as well as we, in what clime soever they chance to live, and
however much they lack the things that we think indispensable to
enjoyment. Some of them were playing cards on the ground, some were
drinking _quas_, a strong spirit; and some who had already taken too
much for their manners, called out saucily to us to come and take a
drink of _gin_.
Before us, as we turned on reaching the brow of the hill, stood the holy
city of Russia, its ancient capital, the border city between the Eastern
and the Western worlds! The sun unclouded and intensely glowing is
behind us, and shedding its golden radiance in floods upon the domes and
pinnacles of three hundred and seventy churches, countless towers and
roofs and walls, the Kremlin standing above the rest in its majesty,
with its crown of cathedrals and palace, a constellation of splendor
rarely equalled in the cities of the world. The river makes a circular
sweep through the plain at our feet, and then flows through the city.
It was June, 1812, when Napoleon, at the head of the French army,
crossed the Niemen and pushed on to Wilna, from which the Russian army
retired, drawing him on in pursuit, and, with masterly foresight,
involving their enemy in more and more hopeless difficulties. Napoleon
would have been glad to meet the Russians in signal battle, but the
leader of the Russians understood his ground too well to risk an
engagement. The Emperor Alexander, however, had not the sagacity to
perceive nor the patience to bear the policy of his general, and,
displacing him, put another man in his place, who gave battle at
Borodino on the first day of September, when 80,000 men were killed or
wounded, and the Russians retired to Moscow. The French were sadly
crippled by the losses in this battle, and their provisions were now
nearly exhausted. They were hastening on to the capture of Moscow to
save their own lives. On the 12th of September the Russian army silently
marched out of the city, carrying with them every thing that could be
removed. Of three hundred thousand inhabitants, only the convicts and a
few others remained to take the chances of war.
On the very next day, the advance of the French army reached the brow of
the hill where we were standing a few hours ago; and Napoleon, excited
by the sight of the sunny domes and roofs of the golden city, cried out,
“All this is yours.” The soldiers caught up the cry, “Moscow! Moscow!”
and it ran like fire along the ranks till the whole army shouted in
concert, “Moscow! Moscow!” An hour or two more and they made their
triumphal entry into a city whose gates were open without a defender,
and to the dismay of the conqueror the city was a desert without food or
inhabitants. Through the deserted streets and up to the sacred gate of
the Kremlin the conqueror took his silent and sullen way, and ascended
the steps of the palace which was left ready for his reception. He had
reached the end of his awful march of two thousand miles, but one was
before him more terrible by far. His army was starving, and the city was
empty. On the morning following his occupation, a fire broke out and
defied all efforts to arrest it. Perhaps the wretched remnant of
inhabitants were the incendiaries. This is not a settled question. But
the soldiers sought to save the city, and could not. The hospitals, in
which 20,000 wounded had been left, were consumed. The glorious churches
were now shining in flames. The palaces and houses of the rich were
given up to the soldiery, and the sacredness of temples and altars was
no protection against the lawless rabble that rioted in the ruin and
plunder of the town. The liberated convicts and ragged poor ravaged the
homes of princes and the vestries of priests, and now roamed the streets
in furs and robes. What the fire spared the battle-axe destroyed. Works
of art and elegance and luxury, the vast accumulations of wealth and
ages, all went down in the vortex of remorseless war.
And now Napoleon sought to make peace with the enemy whose chief city he
had in his possession. But his enemy was his master, and refused to hear
of peace. After a month of delay, and the dreadful winter of the North
at hand, he set off with his shattered hosts to return. And the story of
that return is frozen into the memory of man. Its horrors the pencil has
sought to portray, and no pen can do it justice. The frost and snow made
havoc with the miserable soldiers: they froze by thousands and died on
the march. Wild disorder reigned, and death was the only commander whom
officer or man obeyed. Napoleon, always true to himself, deserted his
faithful army and fled to Paris. Of the half a million of men who
composed his troops when he began the invasion of Russia, about 200,000
were made prisoners, 125,000 were slain in battles, and 130,000 perished
by cold, hunger, and fatigue! A disaster without a parallel in the
annals of the race.
And this was the beginning of the end. The powers of Europe combined
against him, and the world knows the story.
Moscow is a city of so much historical interest, and it is so peculiar
in its architecture, plan, and people, that we have lingered longer than
perhaps has been agreeable to you. But the time was when Moscow was far
more of a city than it is now. Two hundred and thirty years ago (it is
written in history), Moscow had two thousand churches; but the
statements of the former population of this city are so astounding as to
be scarcely credible. In 1600 the plague made such ravages here that
127,000 persons were dead in the streets at one time, and 500,000 died
in the city. All of these stories, including the number of the churches,
must be greatly exaggerated, and yet they are some index to the former
extent and power of this splendid capital. But all this greatness must
have been when the people were only a little removed from barbarism. Dr.
Collins, physician to the Czar, says in 1670, “the custom of tying up
wives by the hair of the head and flogging them, _begins to be left
off_.” It was certainly time, though it was two hundred years ago. No
traces of that ancient custom remain. The doves that inhabit the
streets, are held to be sacred birds, emblems of the Holy Spirit, and
more of the spirit of love, than would be indicated by such rough
treatment of wives, may be counted upon as prevailing within the houses
where these peaceful birds are cherished. In no country that I have been
in, is there more _kissing_ done in public. At the railroad stations and
in the market places, when a party of friends meet, they rush into each
other’s embrace, and all kiss; the men the men, the women the women, and
the men and women kiss each other. These are the peasants. I could not
say that it is common among the more cultivated people.
Our host, M. Billot, sent us to the station with extra style; his wife
was going into the country to see her children at school, and in her
private carriage we were to ride to the depot with her, as a special
mark of attention. During our stay in Moscow the family had done every
thing in their power to make the visit agreeable, and it was crowned
with this last act of attention, an escort to the station when we took
our leave.
There is but one train in twenty-four hours from Moscow to St.
Petersburg, and as it is to be a ride of twenty hours, it is important
to have some accommodations for sleeping. Our experience in _going_ to
Moscow had been so unhappy that we sought to improve upon the matter on
the return trip. We learned that the first-class cars were arranged in
compartments for six persons, and that the seats at night were to be
converted into berths, so that each passenger buying a ticket was also
the holder of a berth for sleeping in. The compartments were elegantly
fitted up, and we (two of us) found ourselves upon setting off, on one
side, and two Russian ladies on the other. They spoke the French
language, and being as innocent of English, as we of Russ, the
conversation that soon sprang up, was in the only tongue we could use in
common. The apartment was hot to the verge of suffocation. We put up a
window, which in a bright June day would be considered pleasant in any
country, but the ladies gave instant signs of apprehensions that they
would take cold. Soon one of them shut the window with a decision that
forbade appeal. We ventured to set the door open to admit the air from
the open window across the passage, but this was too much for the
sensitive women, and we had to close it. I found the same dread of cold
in hot weather to be common to all the natives. An omnibus, the body of
which was made of sheet iron, which I was riding in on a blazing
summer-day, was heated literally like an oven. I was obliged to leave
it, but the people evidently enjoyed the baking. They have it so cold in
cold weather, that the brief hot season seems to be refreshing, and the
hotter the better they like it. At four P.M. we stopped at Klin for
dinner—thirty minutes—all seated at table, and dinner was decently
served: soup, boiled chicken and rice, quails, vegetables, jelly: price
one rouble (sixty-four cents), wines and fruit extra. The natives at
table were well mannered, with just such exceptions as you meet with in
all countries; one man left in disgust because there was too much
confusion, and another refused to pay for his dinner until after he had
eaten it. But the order, the dinner, the price of it, and the time to
enjoy the meal, were all more agreeable to travellers than they would
have been on most of the routes in our own beloved and well-regulated
country.
At Tver, on the Volga, we halted for a few moments only. A little girl,
four or five years old, barefoot and poorly clad, came before the car
window begging. She bowed to us as if before a picture of the Virgin,
crossed herself, touched her forehead, bent her head low, the hair
falling over her face, and then, raising her head quickly, threw the
hair back, and so amused the people. We threw her money, which she
caught in her lap, crossed herself, blessed us, and asked for more.
Three girls came up and joined her, going through the same motions, and
got some coppers; and now a big boy made his appearance and put in his
claims which proved unsuccessful. Then he turned upon the little girl,
knocked her about for a minute, robbed her of her alms and fled. Boys
are boys all the world over. I wish the cars would wait long enough for
me to catch the little rascal, and recover the money for the girl.
This is a city of nearly 30,000 inhabitants; its splendid domes and
beautiful Greek temples, as seen in passing, speak of a city of unusual
culture.
Night came, according to the watch, but no darkness. Nine, ten, twelve,
no signs of night, except that sunshine was gone. We wished to go to
sleep. But here an unexpected difficulty arose. The two ladies declared
it to be impossible for them to sleep in the cars, and therefore they
did not wish the seats disturbed. We proposed to the conductor to
arrange ours into berths, and let the others remain _in statu quo ante
bellum_. He said they must be worked together: all or none. In vain we
argued the case with these implacable women; and, when we found that our
appeals to their pity and their sense of justice were alike without
avail, we gave it up. Each of us four settled into a corner, and the two
ladies soon gave certain infallible signs that they were sound asleep,
and so they continued until long after the break of day. The truth was,
and the conductor understood it, but we did not, there was an extra
charge for making up the berths, and the ladies saved the money by
sleeping perpendicularly.
At midnight it was as light as noon often is with us. I could write at
any hour, and these lines you are now reading are written at half-past
two o’clock in the morning. At three, the east began to glare with the
rising splendor of another day. The heavy clouds that skirt the horizon
are robes of fire. Gorgeously the colors of the rainbow are painted one
by one on these shifting scenes,—orange, red, purple, violet, I could
count them all. How mean, tame, pale, all earthly pageants seem: the
domes, the minarets, the golden-jewelled orbs and crowns of Czars,
compared with this wasted wealth of glory that the King of kings
scatters from his full hand with the rising of each day’s sun. I had
never seen the sun rise in a latitude so far north. Its splendors
charmed me out of all my hard feelings towards these sleeping Russian
dames, who deprived me of a night’s repose and gave me such a
magnificent morning.
Sitting up all night with a couple of Russian ladies might, or might
not, suggest the idea of telling you something of the marriage customs
of this strange country. A French writer, whose name I forget, has said
“the Russians are a nation of polite savages,” a remark that is not very
apt, but it helps us toward a proper understanding of the social
condition of the people. The rich are very rich; the poor are very poor.
The nobles are courtly, polite, and as refined in manners as those of
the same social class in Germany; but the serfs, or those who belonged
to the nobles with the soil, before the emancipation, are rude, and not
half civilized. The two classes, or rather the extremes of the two
classes, would justify the description of the Frenchman, who, like many
writers of his country, would not be specially tied by the truth, if he
wished to point an epigram.
It was no uncommon thing in those days of serfdom for the proprietor to
order this matter of marriage among his people, telling the young men to
get a wife when he thought it time, and providing them, if the young men
were slow in making their choice. And in the peasant class the marriage
was liable to all the caprices and irregularities to be expected in a
state of things where the will of the master was scarcely restrained by
law or custom, so that he had the social happiness of his people very
much in his own hands. In such a country, and under such circumstances,
it would not be strange if some social evil was suffered.
Almost as soon as a girl is born, in the better ranks of society, her
parents begin to prepare the _dowry_ she must have when she goes to her
husband. For this is indispensable in the eyes of any Russian young
gentleman who proposes to be married. She must furnish every thing for
an outfit in life, even to _a dozen new shirts for her coming husband_.
I have just heard of a lady of rank and wealth who had prepared a costly
dowry of silks, linen, jewels, plate, &c., for her beloved daughter, who
died as she came to be twenty years old. The mother resolved to endow
six girls with these riches, and actually advertised for them. A host of
applicants came, and she selected six. None of them had lovers. But now
they had a respectable dowry secured, each girl was speedily engaged,
and with the husband took the dowry, and paid the rich lady by promising
to pray for the repose of her daughter’s soul.
In no country is this arrangement of terms carried on with more caution
and completeness than in Russia. The young man goes to the house of his
proposed bride, and counts over the dresses, and examines the furniture,
and sees to the whole with his own eyes, before he commits himself to
the irrevocable bargain. In high life such things are conducted with
more apparent delicacy, but the facts are ascertained with accuracy, the
business being in the hands of a broker or a notary. The _trousseau_ is
exposed in public before the wedding day. And this publicity has long
been as unblushing as the customs that are now becoming fashionable in
New York. The publication in the newspapers of intended marriages; of
descriptions of bridal dresses and presents; of the names and
_toilettes_ of guests at fashionable parties; the value of jewels worn,
&c., now common and approved in the highest circles of American society,
is the same thing with the exposure to the public gaze of a bride’s
dowry in Russia.
At Whitsunday there is a curious custom, which is gradually giving way
with the advance of civilization. The young people of a neighborhood
come together, and the girls stand in a row, like so many statues,
draped indeed, and not only draped, but dressed in their best, and
painted too; for the young ladies, and the older ones also, of this
country use cosmetics freely, and a box of lady’s paint is a very common
present for a young man to make to the girl he likes. Behind the row of
girls are their mothers; the young men having made known their choice,
the terms are settled between the parents of the parties.
The ladies in Russia are very anxious to marry, because they have no
liberty _before_ marriage. They are kept constantly under the maternal
eye until they are given up to the husband, and then they take their own
course, which is a round of gayety and dissipation, only regulated by
their means of indulgence. The Greek Church, like the Roman, permits no
divorce, but the Emperor, like the Pope, can grant special
dispensations.
The marriage ceremonies vary, as in all countries, according to the rank
and wealth of the parties. A procession is sometimes met in the streets;
and the Emperor’s carriage would, at any time, turn out and give the
right of way to a bridal party.
It pleases me always, in a strange country, to find that social
enjoyments are so equally distributed over the earth, varying in kind
and degree, indeed, according to the religion and civilization of the
people, but still all of them having their own ways and means of making
themselves happy.
CHAPTER XXXI.
FINLAND.
AT nine in the morning we were to be on board the steamer WYBORG,
Captain Nystrom, to go from St. Petersburg to Finland, and thence to
Sweden. When we reached the wharf, so great was the crowd of passengers
and the crush of luggage and the pressure of freight, that it seemed
doubtful if we should be able to get on board. It was summer time, very
hot, and the people who had not yet escaped from the city heat, and were
able to, were rushing to their rural residences on the sea-coast. They
are as much in the habit of this, as our rich people at home are of
flying in midsummer to the hills or the sea-shore.
Americans are abroad. Four or five families from the city of New York
met on the deck of this steamer, all of whom were making this northern
tour, and none of whom were known to each other as away from home. As
the boat was to be our hotel for several days, this sudden accession of
neighbors was very agreeable, and made the prospect of the excursion
more pleasant. And gradually this circle widened, till it embraced
Russians and Finns and Swedes and English, with whom our own tongue was
more easily a means of communication than it was in Italy or Spain.
We are steaming out of one of the four mouths of the Neva, as it widens
into the Gulf of Finland, and for several miles the intricate channel is
staked out with care. CRONSTADT is the famous port of St. Petersburg,
one of the strongest fortifications in the world, and we had expected to
see a frowning precipice, a long and lofty range of rocks, defying
attack, a Gibraltar in the north of Europe. There is no rock at all. The
fortifications are low, and all the more impregnable for that; but we
were taken down by their appearance, the situation being so widely
different from our anticipations. Napier came here with the British
fleet, at the opening of the war that was afterwards called the
_Crimean_, for the very good reason that when the Admiral hurled the
whole power of the navy of England against Cronstadt in vain, the war
was prosecuted to its close in the southern part of the Russian empire,
the Crimea.
The approach to Cronstadt is difficult, and the channel easily defended
by the immense fortifications which successive emperors have
constructed, well knowing that this is the northern gate of the empire.
The dry docks are on a gigantic scale, to meet the demands of a
first-class naval power, which Russia is not, and will never be till she
moves her seat of government and field of operations to the Bosphorus.
Forests of masts, denser forests of masts than we had seen since leaving
New York, stood along the docks of Cronstadt. A steamer crowded with
passengers, from stem to stern, passed us as we were lying here; she was
bound to Revel, and all the Russian coast of the Gulf of Finland. The
people are apparently as given to travel as the Americans.
By this time we had begun to get accustomed to the people around us. The
Russian children had fur caps on and the ladies wore woollen cloaks,
though the weather was so hot as to make the shade of an awning
indispensable. Smoking was strictly forbidden, but the captain and all
who chose, smoked in the face of the signs that were posted up to
prohibit the practice. The Gulf of Finland, on which we are now, is
smooth as a summer lake; the day is lovely, skies bright, the breeze
delicious, the air bracing; if we have associated chills and fogs and
ice and bitter cold with Finland, we must come in winter to find them,
for the Hudson River in summer was never more quiet, nor its banks more
brilliant in the noontide, than this region to-day. The day has been one
to be remembered, among pleasant memories of travel, and toward sunset
we run into the harbor of Wyborg. The ancient city stands on an arm of
the gulf that sets up six or eight miles, the lumber station of Tronsund
being at the mouth. Near this are saw-mills that cut up 160,000 logs in
a year, and ships from all parts of Europe come here for lumber; one
vessel, rejoicing in the name of Pius IX., was lying at anchor waiting
her turn to get northern pine to carry home to Italy. The channel was
obstructed in 1854 to prevent the British under Napier from getting up
to Wyborg, and now the trouble is just as great for friends as foes,
only that the Russians have put the poles into the water, each pole
being made to hold a flag above the waves, to designate the tortuous
channel. Two large islands lie in front of the town, and make a safe,
snug harbor. An arm of the sea stretches away between the lines of
fortification and the old town, and in the midst of the water a mighty
rock rises majestically, crowned with a tower of other times, partly in
ruins now, for the storms of heaven and the storms of earth and sea have
often beaten upon it in peace and war. Its roof is gone, but it is a
prison still, and its hollow sides have secrets never to be revealed
till the final day. The sun is in the west, as we approach the city, and
its domed churches blaze in its setting glory. The old castle, now in
ruins, has a history of just six hundred years, a history of courage,
endurance, and heroism, while it resisted the might of Russia, until in
1710 it yielded to Peter the Great. Then followed, with an interval of a
few years only, the submission of Finland to the yoke of Russia, which
it still wears.
Finland is a Protestant country, Lutheran being the established religion
of the country. The Greek and Roman churches are regarded with equal
dislike. All native Finlanders are obliged to have their children
baptized in the Lutheran Church. They must also be able to read before
they can be married, or take any part in the government of the country.
The public officers are appointed by the Russian government, but the
Finns pay no tribute to Russia, except the support of the civil list for
their own officers. The Grand Duke of Finland is the Emperor of Russia
himself. Under him are four orders, the nobles, clergy, citizens, and
peasants. Each of these orders is represented in the legislature of
Finland, meeting annually to regulate the domestic affairs of the state,
subject to the veto of the Emperor of Russia.
For the last ten years every harvest has failed, being cut off by
untimely frosts. Great famines have therefore prevailed, with diseases
incident to want, and many have perished. Men on salaries have
voluntarily paid fifteen per cent of their incomes to feed the poor, and
they will do so for a few years more; but if the same destitution should
continue five years, the country will be depopulated. So severe has been
the distress, that the inhabitants have eaten the bark of trees, and as
little or no nourishment can be found in bark, they are rapidly dying
out. The Russian government is preparing to transport all who are
willing to go, to some portions of Russia where there is land in
abundance, and a population is wanted.
The Emperor is popular among the Finns, who have ceased to regard him as
a conqueror, and now look up to him as a protector and friend. He is
bound by an oath to preserve the integrity of their constitution, and
they trust him. The Finns are not drafted into the Russian army. They
enlist in it freely, under the temptation of bounty money. But they have
a strong national feeling of their own, refusing to be called Russian,
or to admit that they are part of that empire.
Wages are very low. A skilled mechanic gets only about a rouble (eighty
cents) a day, and a farm hand is glad to earn ten cents a day. But with
this terrible state of things, poor pay and no food, emigration is not
allowed, either by Finnish or Russian law, and there is no prospect
before the peasantry but to perish on the ground.
The country is more thoroughly sunken in the water than any other
inhabited part of the globe. It seemed to me that the inhabitants might
have been called Finlanders, because they ought to be amphibious. But
the name comes from the ancient _fen_, or fennen, which is also an
English word for bog or morass. The Laplanders were the original
settlers on the southern shore of the Baltic, but they have retired to
more northern regions still. The interior of the country is almost
filled with lakes, irregularly shaped, and making travelling by land
exceedingly tedious, as one must wind his way far around these arms and
branches. There is one lake, Saima, two hundred miles wide, in which
there are a _thousand_ and more of islands. The largest is called
Amasara, or mother-island; on this island there are _seventy-seven_
lakes, and in these lakes _fifty_ islands. This great lake is connected
with Lake Ladoga, in Russia, and, by a canal here at Wyborg, with the
Gulf of Finland. Now it will pay you to take a map, and, with this
description, see what a stretch of water communication extends through
Finland into Russia. If you were to go by this canal to Lake Saima, and
so to Lake Ladoga, you would not see much of the people, but you would
find it easier and pleasanter getting through than to take the only
other conveyance, that of the drosky. This is a low sulky, in which only
one person can sit, though a driver, if you must have one, manages to
get a seat by the horse’s heels. The horses are small, nervous, and
wiry, and have learned from colthood to go on the jump all the time, up
hill and down hill, and on a level. Ladies who come travelling here must
and do adapt themselves to this unsocial mode of travel, and ride all
day alone, or with the company of a ragged boy, who speaks no word the
traveller understands, and spends his time in walloping the beast, to
quicken his rapid canter. Between the lonely post-houses it is rare to
meet a human being, or to pass a habitation; but the solemn pine-trees
make the gloom more gloomy, and huge boulder stones rise, like towers of
giant builders waiting for their masters to return. Some of them have
been utilized by the progress of art and science. It was one of these
great boulders that was cut into the splendid Alexander column we saw in
St. Petersburg, the largest monolith in the world. The enginery required
to move it from its place, where, perhaps, the deluge left it, and
transport it to the heart of a distant city, fairly rivals the skill of
the Egyptian pyramid builders, or the men who set Pompey’s Pillar on its
base.
A crowd of five hundred people or more were on the dock at Wyborg
waiting for the steamer, when we touched the shores of Finland. At least
a hundred droskies and other conveyances, with little horses attached,
swelled the concourse. Many of the persons were expecting to receive
their friends who were coming by the steamer, and as there are but two
arrivals from St. Petersburg in a week, every steamer brings a goodly
number. Many were well dressed, “fashionable” ladies and gentlemen, who
welcomed their friends with cordial greetings, the kissing being quite
as affectionate and common as in Russia. But more of the people on shore
were the poor, the toilers, looking for a little something to do; and
the drivers of the droskies were as importunate and impudent as the
donkey boys in Alexandria or the hackmen in New York, and none in the
wide world are worse.
A gentleman of Wyborg, with whom we had formed a speaking and very
agreeable acquaintance on board, proposed an excursion through the town
into the country, as the steamer was to lie at the wharf till after
midnight. _It was now only nine_ o’clock at _night_, and there was
plenty of time _before sunset_ to take a ride of a few miles into the
interior! A long line of droskies was therefore engaged, and in single
file we set off, at a break-neck pace, but according to the custom of
the horses and the country.
The town of Wyborg has about six thousand inhabitants,—Swedes, Russians,
Germans, and Finlanders. The churches are numerous, the Lutherans being
more in number than all the rest, which are chiefly Greek for the
Russians. The town is ancient and uninviting in its appearance, with
nothing to indicate enterprise or progress.
Through it we were carried, all flying, by the tower or castle or prison
of the year 1300, and out into the country where villas were here and
there planted, and some little culture was displayed. Our destination
was the summer residence of Baron Nicolai, a wealthy Russian, who has
made himself the possessor of a peninsula, and here has laid out a park
and grounds with the novel and beautiful idea of making A MINIATURE
FINLAND,—a little representation, with the aid of nature and art, of the
lakes and islands, the rocks and hills, of the very country of which
this princely domain is an insignificant part. At the gate we were very
properly required to pay an entrance fee, which goes to the relief of
the poor of the neighborhood, and the visitor is not forbidden to
enlarge his fee to any amount more agreeable to himself. The villa we
soon pass has nothing imposing in its aspect, but in the midst of a park
of ancient shade trees has an air of quiet contentment that justifies
the name its first owner gave it, “Mon Repos”—_My Rest_. Passing it we
pursue the shaded walks, by the borders of little lakes and along
running streams, till we come to a wooded islet, reached by a
foot-bridge and crowned with a monumental tomb, and this is the family
sepulchre. Fittingly did the master of all these grounds call the spot
to which he had retired “My Rest;” for he who spent such vast sums of
money to convert these rocks and wilds into a garden of Eden now sleeps
in the tomb, and his son reigns in his stead, rarely, however, coming
here, and only for a few days in summer.
Such had been our associations with Finland, that we were more than
surprised to find so much culture and taste, elegance indeed, within an
hour of landing on its coasts. And as we emerged from the woods in our
walks we came suddenly upon the shore of the bay, and the glorious sun
was sinking to his “repose” at _ten_ o’clock! It seemed very late for
the sun to be going to bed; he keeps earlier hours in our country, and
it is odd to be out sight-seeing at this time of day!
Yet in the midst of this Finnish paradise there was a pest as bad as the
serpent in Eden. We were nearly devoured by mosquitoes! They beset us
behind and before and bit us horribly. With handkerchiefs over our
faces, and with bushes to drive them away, we were pursued as if they
were starving like the other inhabitants, and they sent in their bills
with no more mercy than landlords in Spain. I would not take the place,
with all its splendor and natural attractions, for a gift, if it were
encumbered with the condition of being obliged to live in it through the
summer season. But some people get used to these little plagues. Nature
is fond of setting off one thing against another, and it may be that the
inhabitants of mosquito regions have some compensating advantages that
make these evils a luxury rather than otherwise. They do prevail in the
cold climates of the north, as well as in malarious southerly regions,
and there is good reason to believe that they are not very troublesome
to the settled inhabitants, however savage they are upon strangers. For
I have observed in the United States, and within a very few miles of New
York, if a man purchases a home, a “Mon Repos” like this we are now
visiting, and says to himself, “this is my rest,” he is able to say, in
answer to the inquiries of friends as to mosquitoes, “We are not
troubled with them at all.” And if the fever and ague has been there
through all generations, he is free to declare, “There is nothing of it
around us.” From which we infer that mosquitoes and other plagues like
them, and the chills, respect the manorial rights of the owners of the
soil, and only draw the blood and shake the bones of strangers, who in
all ages and countries have been considered as lawful prey.
We stood on the shore and saw the sun go down in clouds of glory, and
then returned, in the same style in which we came, to our ship. A great
amount of freight was to be left and more taken in, and this kept the
vessel in such confusion that sleep was quite out of the question. At
two o’clock I was sitting at my cabin window writing without a candle,
and a carriage came to the wharf with a gentleman and lady to come on
board. No one would have thought of its being night to see the arrival.
It was difficult to adjust one’s mind to the fact that we had come into
such a latitude, that night could be told from day only by looking at
your watch.
The ride to “Mon Repos” brought our steamer passengers into pleasant
relations. We had come to feel less like strangers, and more like
acquaintances, not to say friends. I came on deck early this morning,
and had a cup of coffee at the same little table with a lady whose grace
and beauty had rendered her somewhat a point of attraction yesterday.
Two little children were playing at her feet, and a nurse for each was
in waiting. I soon learned from her, as we fell into conversation
naturally, that she spoke all the languages of northern Europe, as Russ,
German, Swedish, Finnish, and the French besides, but not a word of
English, and this she regretted all the more, she said, since so many
Americans are now travelling through her country. _Her_ native tongue
was Finnish, and her education would have been finished had she known
_mine_.
Rarely in any country is a lady to be found with a wider culture and
more accomplished manners than this Finland wife and mother has. She
_reads_ the English language, but has never attempted to speak it; and
the standard authors of our country and of England were her study and
delight, as the best French and Italian writers are familiar to educated
persons among us.
The company by degrees came on deck, and all nationalities were soon
merged into one family. Two or three from the capital are talking in
English to an English party on their way to the interior of Finland,
going a-fishing. Norway is farmed out to English gentlemen, so that it
is hard to find a good stream for salmon and trout that is not the
private property of some one in England, who keeps it for his own
enjoyment. Finland is now persecuted by these piscatorial parties. One
of the English gentlemen was loud in his praises of the fish of Finland,
and his own wonderful skill in “killin’ of them.” The streams are very
swift, and the true sportsman uses only the fly hook. This gent said, “I
kill them _loyally_, with fly only; sometimes, when they will not rise
to it, I take a bait, but in that case I throw them back into the water,
even if they weigh twenty or thirty pounds. It’s the pleasure of killin’
of them that I enjoy; it’s not for the fish, it’s the killin’ of them.”
The “parties” expect to enjoy two or three months in Finland fishing and
shooting. It was an entertainment to note the pleasurable anticipations
of these pleasant people, on their way to _enjoy_ what to me and many
must be about as great a bore and punishment as could be endured in the
name of sport.
The Gulf of Finland, as we are running along the coast, is full of
islands, to the very edge of which our vessel often comes,—romantic,
rocky, hilly islands, to the right of us and left of us, without the
sight of an inhabitant. The weather is glorious, cool, bracing, breezy,
a cloudless sky and a brilliant sun covering the smooth water and these
green isles with a blaze of beauty as we plough our way northward. How
widely does all this differ from what we had expected when meditating a
cruise along the coast of Finland!
We come to Fredericksham by a tortuous channel, among islands and rocks
strongly fortified; but, verily, it seems scarcely worth while to make
special provision to prevent people from coming up into these regions.
The domes and spires of the city tell us that God is worshipped there;
and, as the morning sun tips the temples with fire, we send up our matin
prayers with the people of the town, whose God is also ours.
We passed the ruined fortress of _Sclava_, of some importance once, but
now only a monument of the times when Russia and Sweden were fighting
for the poor bone of Finland, from which all the meat, if it ever had
any, was picked before the war was over.
The war is nominally over, and Russia is the master now; but the people
keep up the old spirit of patriotic love for the mother land and tongue.
The Russ is the language taught in the schools. If a scholar speaks in
his own language the teacher flogs him, according to law; and if the
scholar speaks in the Russian language, the other boys flog him when the
school is out. So that flogging would seem to be the fate of speaking at
all.
We chatted freely with the ladies respecting the social customs of
Finland. There is much less freedom of social intercourse among
unmarried young men and women, in polite circles, than in England, or
even France. Parties of young men by themselves are common, and of young
ladies by themselves; balls for dancing bring them together, and their
parents come with them, but one young lady said archly, “They are not
always near enough to hear what we say.” These fashions are common to
Russia and Finland, and other countries in the north. I had seen it
written, in an English book of travels, that at dinner parties the
ladies sit by themselves, apart from the gentlemen, but have met with
nothing of the kind, and am assured it is a mistake. Yet it is true that
the ladies generally enter the dining-room by themselves, in advance of
the gentlemen, and then sit promiscuously. There is more freedom of
manner and less stiffness and formality than in the same social rank in
England or Germany.
It is not probable that the practice of bringing up children in this
exclusion from social intercourse tends to improve their morals or
manners. On the contrary, it makes matters worse. In well-ordered
households, where the virtues are inculcated in the first lessons that
youthful minds receive, and where parental example, more powerful than
lessons or discipline, is such as children may safely follow, it will be
found that as boys and girls are apt to be mixed up in the family, so
they should be in social life.
[Illustration: HELSINGFORS.]
CHAPTER XXXII.
FINLAND (_Continued_).
AT the close of a delightful day’s sail along the coast of Finland, we
reached the harbor of Helsingfors. The distant sight of the city is
imposing, and one’s admiration is doubtless heightened by the surprise
he feels when first finding such splendid structures in this part of the
world.
The Fortress of Sweaborg, commanding the approach to the city, is rather
a series of fortifications than a single fort. The works of nature have
been turned to as good an account at this point as in the Straits of
Gibraltar. Seven islands were placed by the Great Maker in just the
right position for the purpose of being fortified to protect the city,
and they have been so strongly fortified as to defy the force of any
foe. The combined fleets of France and England tried their guns upon it
in 1855, and retired from the trial, quite content to get away.
Peace is reigning now. The fortress fell into the hands of the Russians
in 1808, after the garrison was reduced to the last extremity by famine,
and it was the last stronghold that Sweden held in Finland. When this
was gone, all was gone, and the Finns changed masters. But their
subjection is rather nominal than real, as we shall see when we enter
the town. On the shore where we land is the “Society House,” or, as we
should call it, “The Company’s Hotel;” and we find similar houses in
many parts of northern Europe. They are hotels built by the company
running the steamers, or by associations, and they combine many of the
features of the first-class hotels at watering-places in England or
America. Near it is the palace in which the Emperor of Russia, who is
also the Grand Duke of Finland, resides when he makes his brief visit,
now and then, to this remote and “outlandish” part of his empire. His
accommodations here are very narrow, but just as comfortable as those in
the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg, holding five thousand people.
On the ship we had formed the acquaintance of a gentleman of
Helsingfors, whose pleasant manners and intelligent conversation had
greatly interested us during the voyage. As we had now reached his home,
and were going ashore, he gave us a warm invitation to his house, which,
of course, we declined, and then he insisted upon being our guide to see
the famous old town. It is one of the richest in historical interest in
the north.
On a grand square stand the chief public buildings, and they present an
appearance that would be commanding in Paris or London. The senate-house
stretches across one side of the square, the Lutheran church adorns
another, the university fills a third, and from the fourth a broad
avenue opens, half a mile long, to the foot of a hill crowned with an
OBSERVATORY.
The University of Finland! In our ignorance, we had associated
Finlanders with the Laps and the Esquimaux, and had never thought of
letters and science and art in connection with this race. Among the
pleasures of a visit to Finland we had not reckoned an introduction to a
venerable university, endowed, sustained, and flourishing on a par with
those of Germany. In fact, very few of the German universities have
accommodations and advantages equal to this at Helsingfors. It would be
considered first-class in England or France, and there is nothing
comparable to it in the United States. It has a magnificent stone
edifice of architectural proportions and finish, that make the building
a perpetual lecture on the beautiful and sublime in art; and within is
the most complete system of rooms for every department of knowledge here
pursued,—for museums, laboratories, lectures, recitations. The
professors were in session in the great audience-room as we entered it;
the place was adorned with a full-length portrait of the Emperor
Alexander I., who is styled, in the Latin inscription, “the father of
his country and the university.” The prophecy is added that art will
preserve his features, and his fame will fill the whole earth. The
professors seemed an earnest set of men, mostly young, all fine-looking
and well dressed. I took them to be happy and successful in their
calling, and I wished much that I understood their language, so as to
enter into the sympathies of a set of scholars giving their lives to the
pursuits of science in Finland.
The university has five separate departments, law, medicine, theology,
&c., with _thirty-one professors_, and it is older than any university
in Russia. It was founded in 1630 by the Empress Christina, eleven years
before the art of printing was introduced into Finland. Its charter was
signed by Axel Oxenstiern, a famous name in his country’s annals. The
library contains 200,000 volumes, in all languages and in every realm of
human learning. It is admirably arranged in a series of beautiful rooms,
in niches and galleries, having an air of repose and seclusion inviting
to quiet study, such as Ptolemy anticipated when he put over the
Alexandrian doors the fitting inscription, “The food of the soul.”
And the halls, floors, walls, and the whole interior, are kept with a
scrupulous neatness unknown in any institution of learning claiming the
dignity of a college, or university, that my feet ever entered, in the
most enlightened, civilized, and beloved land in the world. Yet there is
little in the way of literature in the Finnish language, which is spoken
only by the peasants, the Swedish being the language of law and social
life among the other classes. Some rich treasures of popular poetry have
been discovered floating about in the memories of the people, and these
have been gathered as curious specimens of an unlettered, but
imaginative race. Kalewala, an epic poem, was first printed in 1835, and
an earnest effort has been made to rouse young Finland to seek laurels
in the fields of song. Two of the professors deliver lectures in
Finnish. Schiller and Shakespeare have been done into the native tongue
of the Finns. And the imperial decree has gone forth that after 1883 the
Finnish language shall be the official tongue of the country. If Russia
would be as kind and considerate of the feelings of Poland, she would
conciliate her southern subjects as readily as she has her northern.
We were now led to the Senate-house. The Diet, or Congress of Finland,
consists of four chambers, the nobles, the clergy, the citizens, the
peasants. Each of them has a hall of its own for meeting; that of the
nobles has a large chamber, with two hundred or more handsome chairs. On
the walls is placed the coat-of-arms of each noble family in Finland,
with the name inscribed upon it, an ostentatious display indeed, but
very interesting. We came upon one familiar name; it was that of our
friend who was our guide. His brother is the head of the family, and, in
his absence, the next in order, our friend, takes his seat in the
senate.
We rode out of town a mile to the beautiful Botanical Garden, one of the
resorts of the ladies and gentlemen of the city. Here they come toward
evening, and enjoy themselves in social intercourse, and take a cup of
tea in the grounds. The park is laid out tastefully,—beautiful shaded
avenues, green meadows, banks of flowers, and the walks lead up to rocky
heights overlooking the bay and sea; and these heights have been
fortified to resist the coming foe. The guns, which were brought up here
in the Crimean war time, are now lying about useless; but they are doing
as much service when dismounted and rusting on the ground as they did in
the fight, for they were not big enough to reach the ships of the enemy,
whose bombs went easily over these heights into the town.
Below, and in front of a beautiful “House of Refreshments,” tables are
scattered about in great numbers, and at one of these our company sat,
to enjoy the hospitality of Herr Edelfelt, our new-made friend, who
insisted upon entertaining us at tea in the Finland fashion out of
doors, as we had declined his invitation to his own house. This custom
of taking dinner, tea, or supper at a garden or restaurant is prevalent
among respectable people in many parts of continental Europe, and, by
the accession of Europeans into the United States, is gradually becoming
an accepted custom there.
Near to this garden is a health establishment of great repute. All the
medicinal springs of Europe and America, and of Asia and Africa too, I
presume, are reproduced by skilful doctoring, and whosoever drinks may
be cured of whatsoever disease he has, provided the disease is curable
by any of the waters of the world. To this many-mouthed fountain of life
thousands resort in the morning and drink the waters. As they are
required by the rules of health to take a brisk walk up the heights and
down again, before and after taking the refreshing draught, there can be
no manner of doubt that strangers resorting hither must derive great
benefit. The air is salubrious, the scenery magnificent, the climate
bracing, the regimen judicious, and the morning exercises quite as
edifying for invalids as those prescribed by Dr. Jay, of Bath. It is
quite probable that this artificial fountain in Finland has cured as
many patients as Baden or Kissingen, and yet it has not been celebrated
half so widely. Besides drinking, bathing is plentifully enjoyed; and
his case must be hard that is not softened somewhat by the internal and
external application of pure cold water, with plenty of exercise in the
open air, on the heights of Helsingfors, in Finland. I drank none of the
water, inhaled the air, took the constitutional walk, and was perfectly
well when I came away. As I stayed there only about an hour, the
inference is fair that if I had used the waters and remained a week or
two, I should have been competent to give the cure a first-rate
certificate.
We are now at the _sixtieth_ degree of north latitude, eighteen degrees
further north than New York city, or more than a thousand miles nearer
the North Pole. We have returned to the ship, and night is nominally
about us, but no darkness settles on the world. We can read and write
all night without a candle, if we are so disposed. And there is no sleep
to be had, for all the livelong night the natives are pouring on board
with freight; passengers are coming; they fill up the cabin and spend
the parting hours with friends, eating, drinking, laughing, and talking
obstreperously; and the leaving-taking, with the inevitable
indiscriminate kissing, keeps the place in a constant uproar, that knows
no alleviation until at four in the morning we put to sea, and find rest
in the cradle of the deep.
We are now going further north, by narrow passages among islands simply
masses of rocks, utterly barren, washed by the waves till they are
perfectly smooth; and not a tree, nor shrub, nor blade of grass is in
sight upon them. The channel is very tortuous, marked by poles, and
sometimes it is so near the rocks that we seem to be grazing their
precipitous sides. The weather is cool, clear, and delightful; though
midsummer, the overcoat or shawl is agreeable; and the exhilaration of
the day and the passage among the islands became general among the
passengers, who throng the hurricane-deck to enjoy the scenery. Some of
the islands that we pass in the course of the day have some available
land and a few inhabitants, whose chief pursuit is fishing. And these
scattered islands, and the adjoining shores on the mainland, furnish
sailors that enter the service of other countries, and are among the
most hardy, healthful, and valuable seamen to be found. The subjects of
the Russian government, either here or in any other part of the empire,
are not allowed to expatriate themselves at their own pleasure, as
thousands would gladly do, if they could make their way into some more
hospitable portion of the globe. But they can often find opportunities
to get on board merchant vessels as seamen, and they are not slow to
avail themselves of such opportunities. The soil does not give them
food. They have no market for the fish that the sea would furnish. They
are therefore very poor, and in bad seasons famine overtakes them. The
people that have money, the well-to-do people,—and there are many such
in Finland,—have plenty of dried salmon, and fresh too, beef and
potatoes, which, with bread and butter, make good enough living for
anybody; and to these staples they add some of the luxuries that money
will command anywhere. But the poor are very poor, and they constitute
the masses of the people,—the great multitude whose condition we go to
look into when we visit foreign lands.
Abo is pronounced Obo. It is the name of the northernmost town of any
note in Finland, and a famous old town it is. We were told that the
hotel is the farthest north of any hotel in the world. Away up above us
on the borders of the Gulf of Bothnia,—and Abo is at the dividing line
between the Baltic and Bothnia,—is Bjonneborg, and Christireestad, and
Wasa, and Uleaborg, and Tornea on the very head of the gulf, where there
is something in the way of a house of refreshment for travellers, I have
not a doubt. Perhaps this is the last that aspires to the distinction of
a hotel on the European plan, and we will enjoy the comfortable
satisfaction of thinking that, as we are going no farther north, there
is no place of rest and entertainment to receive us if we should.
A large crowd of people was standing at the wharf to see the steamer, to
greet friends expected, and to hear the news. They were quiet, orderly,
and well-looking. There was no rush to the gangway, no pulling and
hauling to get on, or get baggage and passengers, though there were
hundreds waiting for any kind of a job by which a little money could be
made. The hotel—the Society House, as it is called—is close by the
landing, and affords all the substantial comforts a traveller requires.
The old castle, historic, romantic, and famous, is in full view; a
massive stone tower on which the storms of centuries, in war and peace,
have spent their fury. The streets of the town are wide and the houses
low, and one looks in vain for the appearances of a city that was
founded by Eric the Saint, who reigned from 1157 to 1160, the time when
the Sun of Christianity first softened the rigor of this northern clime.
The castle was founded then, and for long centuries held in check the
Russians who sought the conquest of Finland.
The cathedral has been an object of intense interest for ages past, as
the first monument of Christianity in this region, and the burial-place
of the most illustrious persons in the history of the country. One of
the tombs bears the name of Catharine Monsdotter, who was taken from
humble life and married to the King of Sweden, and by one of those
strange reverses, now ceasing to be strange, she returned to Finland and
died in obscurity, and her husband perished in prison. Her remains
repose among queens and princes, but she finds no compensation in this
for the loss of a diadem. Two white marble statues, life-size, stand on
a sarcophagus in one of the chapels, over the dust of a man and wife who
were celebrated for their wealth and noble birth, having the blood of
kings; and the statue of the wife is even now decked (not adorned) with
necklace and bracelets,—gaudy jewelry indeed to garnish a whited
sepulchre.
In 1827 an awful conflagration swept over this city of only 20,000
inhabitants, and consumed two-thirds of all the houses in it; the inside
of the cathedral was destroyed, the university and its great library,
and the chief public edifices fell a prey to the flames, and the town
will never recover from the disaster. Its university was removed to
Helsingfors, where we have already visited it. Its trade is now of no
account. The interior of the country furnishes little or nothing for
export, and the glory of Abo—for it once had some glory—is departed for
ever.
The Gulf of Bothnia extends six degrees to the north of Abo, but there
is no trade or travel that requires a steamer, and ours is now to strike
across the gulf, through the Aland Isles to Stockholm. We are bound
there to visit Sweden and Norway. Those who have not this trip in view,
and wish to see more of the country, can remain at Abo and go back to
Wyborg and St. Petersburg by land. There is semi-occasionally a coach
for travellers in Finland, but the more excellent way is by private
carriage, or _carriole_, the carriage of the country; a narrow low
sulky, with room enough for one, hardly for two, besides the driver. It
has no top; but there is another trap called a _kibitka_, a long, narrow
wagon with no springs, and a leathern hood which you can draw over you
in case of rain, and with a bed in the bottom of it, on which, if not
too long, you can stretch yourself out, while the driver attends to the
little animal ahead, that tears up and down hill, through the sand, at a
fearful pace, regardless of an occasional break-down and turn-over. This
is a Russian innovation, and in the Paris Exhibition there were several
very handsome specimens of the vehicle, which is far more pleasant to
read about than to ride in. The _bondkara_ is still another wretched
contrivance, about the same thing as our _buck-board_; with this
essential, not to say fatal difference, that ours has four wheels, and
the board extending from the forward to the hind axle makes an agreeable
spring; an experienced driver sitting before, and the passenger behind
him, holding on with both hands, can ride astride and not suffer much.
The _bondkara_ of Finland has but two wheels, and the bench, without a
back, is fastened to the axle-tree, the driver before, the traveller
behind; the equilibrium must be preserved with care or the load goes to
the ground, and when the wild horse tears down hill as if running away,
the passenger must hold on tight with both hands on the sides of the
seat, and the other—but he has no other, unless he’s a little
behindhand, in which case he would do well to use it as best he can. The
average speed of ten miles an hour is made, and that is pretty well in
such a country as this.
It is very strange that the intercourse of nations does not lead to the
more rapid adoption of improvements which have been found to be useful.
Nations are slow to learn of one another. We in America have railroad
arrangements that Europeans know, but will not introduce. They have many
things in their system that we ought to apply, but will not. People of
different countries have an idea that what they do not know is not worth
knowing, and so they prefer a poor way of their own to a better way of
others. But we have nothing to learn from Finland in the line of travel.
Patient endurance is something, and the people of Finland deserve credit
for the spirit with which they have borne themselves through the long
period of their dreary history. They are not numerous, the entire
population amounting to but 1,800,000 souls: 40,000 are members of the
Russian or Greek Church; the rest are Protestants, mostly Lutherans. It
embraces only 6,844 geographical miles of surface, and no other country
is so much covered with water. Yet it has a splendid university, with
thirty-one professors; it abounds in churches, it has a peaceful, moral,
and intelligent population, and some of the gentlemen and ladies whom it
was my pleasant fortune to meet were among the most agreeable and
cultivated persons I have encountered abroad.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SWEDEN.
The day was bright as we left the harbor of Abo, and struck out into the
sea among the Aland Isles. The wind was strong, but not enough to
disturb the weaker brethren who are easy victims of the sea. Breakfast
was served at ten and a half o’clock, and already the Swedish customs at
meals began to show themselves. Before sitting down to the table, or
immediately on taking a seat, as you prefer, little glasses of gin
schnapps are passed around, and each one is expected to take a nip as an
appetizer. The same at dinner. Ditto at supper. Also after meals a
punch, not like the American drink of that name, but something that
looks thick, oily, amber-colored, and inducing a smacking of the lips,
which, without uttering a word, say, “It ees goot.” Breakfast, after
schnapps, comprised radishes sent around as the first course, with
Bologna sausages, tongue and dried beef, salt fish, bread and butter,
beefsteak and potatoes, ham and eggs, with coffee if you insisted on
having it. There is evidently no need of starving when you get all that
for breakfast, and about four hours afterwards sit down to dinner and
take soup (if you _can_), with fish following, and beef, poultry, game,
salad, cucumbers, puddings, fruit, nuts, &c., and wine at your order.
Eating is one of the principal institutions in these northern climates.
There is but one other institution more highly valued, and that is
drinking. They keep at one or the other or both pretty steadily. Besides
the four regular meals, lunch and supper, in addition to those I have
named, they are fond of intermediate refreshments, and a drink never
comes amiss. The amount of strong liquor they can carry without apparent
inconvenience is something wonderful. And it is more remarkable as we
get along into the north toward the Pole. They say it is the bracing
climate which induces such an expenditure of vital force, that the
supply must be replenished with nourishing food and stimulating drink.
We were crossing the Baltic. It was warm off the coast of Finland. It
was cold in the middle of the sea, so cold at noon that we had to wrap
up with shawls and blankets, and then be uncomfortable on deck, and were
finally driven below. But when at four o’clock we ran in among the
islands off the Swedish coast, we found it warm again. So there are
belts about the globe itself.
We approach Stockholm through a thousand isles and more, so near each
other that we seem to be winding our way along a narrow river. Now and
then a tower, solitary and sublime, starts up from some grand cliff. An
ancient castle stands among the rocky headlands. Suddenly the city
rises, like Venus or Venice, from the bosom of the sea, beautiful in the
sunlight that gilds her palaces and domes. The entrance to Stockholm is
magnificent. I have not been more impressed by the approach to any other
city but Constantinople.
As our steamer touched the wharf the captain’s wife and children and a
few friends came on board to welcome him home. He had been absent nearly
two weeks! Had crossed the Baltic and sailed or steamed along down the
coast from Abo to Petersburg and back again, and his friends were here
to receive him as if he had been around the world! And it was good to
see the greeting. His young and beautiful wife the captain was proud to
present to his new-made friends on the ship, while two charming children
clung to his legs as if they would not let him go again.
Porters from the hotels were ready to take the luggage, and the
passengers, ladies and gentlemen, went ashore and walked up the streets
at their leisure. There was a quietness about this quite refreshing. No
bustle, no pulling and hauling, no loud talking and swearing; the
landing in Sweden was a pleasant contrast to that of more highly
cultured countries, our own for instance.
[Illustration: STOCKHOLM STEAMERS.]
Hotel _Rydburg_ received us,—large enough to entertain two or three
hundred guests,—and a curiously arranged house it was, the geography of
which I have not learned, after its careful study of several days. I
know that to get to my room I have to go up two flights of stairs, then
out upon a balcony, then down one flight of stairs, then ring a
door-bell and get admission into a room that is not mine, then across
this apartment into my own, which is a spacious and handsomely furnished
room,—sofa, lounge, ottomans, piano, secretary, bookcase containing a
set of Voltaire’s works in _seventy_ French volumes, pictures,
engravings, stuffed birds, and other specimens in natural history, all
suggesting the idea that the mysterious passages through which I have
been conducted have led me out of the hotel proper into some private
house attached, and that some Swedenborgian philosopher has rented his
premises to the hotel. He certainly has things comfortable if such be
the fact, and I will use them as not abusing them while I stay.
Scandinavia includes the peninsula of which Sweden is but a part, Norway
and Denmark making up the rest of it; and its history, is it not all
written by Pliny and Tacitus in pagan antiquity times? and a thousand
years after they wrote of it, did not Saxo Grammaticus the Dane, and
Snorrow Sturleson, of Sunny Iceland, bring down the story to their
times? Not far from the same time when the Saxons invaded England, the
Gothic tribes under Odin migrated to Sweden, and founded an empire on
the borders of Lake Malar, with Sigtuna for its capital. Odin was a god,
in his own esteem and that of his followers, and he combined in his
sublime and mysterious person all the offices of priest and king and
teacher; he was the law-giver and judge. With lofty aspirations for
power, he conquered by his will, his arms, and his address, and finally
he became the object of religious worship through the north of Europe.
The Sagas, or sacred books of the ancient Swedes, give us the fullest
insight into the views of the Scandinavians in religion, as to the
creation of the world, the government of the universe, and the destiny
of man. It was in the ninth century that Christianity was openly
preached in Sweden for the first time, and the dynasty of pagan kings
did not terminate till the beginning of the eleventh century, when Eric
V., in 1001, being converted, destroyed the great temple at Upsala,
where, to this day, are the graves of Thor and Woden and Freytag, on
which this Eric, the first Christian king, was slain by his pagan people
in their fury, excited by the destruction of their temple.
The history of Sweden since Christianity became its religion has been
glorious among the nations, although she has been a small and
inconsiderable power. Under Gustavus Wasa, in 1529, the Roman Catholic
religion was abolished and the Lutheran established, and just one
hundred years afterwards, Gustavus Adolphus, the grandson of Wasa, was
called upon by the Protestant powers of Europe to put himself at their
head to resist the Roman Catholic movement to obtain universal dominion
in Christendom. He was triumphant in his masterly generalship, and fell
covered with glory at the battle of Lutzen. His name is now inscribed
with that of Washington, among the noblest characters the human race has
ever produced.
At the present time the King of Sweden must be a Lutheran, the
government is a hereditary constitutional monarchy, restricted in its
descent to the _male_ line. The congress is composed of four separate
houses,—nobles, clergy, burgesses, and peasants; and the unanimous
consent of these four houses, and the approbation of the king, are
required to make any alteration in the constitution, which is therefore
not likely to be very suddenly amended. In other measures a majority in
three houses may pass a bill, but if two houses vote _aye_, and two vote
_no_, then a committee of eighteen, from each house, takes the subject
in hand, and their decision, approved by the king, is final. This
arrangement works well for conservatism, but is not favorable to
progress. It is easy to retard legislation, and difficult to press
things through.
Having a letter to Dr. Stolberg, of Stockholm, I was directed to call at
the Caroline Institute to learn his address. A walk of a mile into the
outskirts of the city took me to what proved to be a hospital, with
ample grounds and excellent arrangements. A woman answered my ring at
the door, and led me to the study of one of the professors, and left me
there to await his coming. It was so simple in its furniture, and yet so
well fitted up for business, I could plainly see it was for work, not
rest, that he had that den made. And when he came, a thin, bent, pale
student, cap on his head and pipe in his mouth, and working-wrapper on,
I felt at once that he lived in his books and his thoughts. He would
have me go to his chemical laboratory, and when he found me interested
in the experiments he was making, he became enthusiastic in his
descriptions, and would have cheerfully given up the day to the “pursuit
of science” with a stranger from a distant land. Yet I had but one
question to ask him, and he was able to give me the address of the man I
was seeking.
Here was a hospital, or rather an asylum for invalids, into which, on
easy conditions, a poor body could get admission, and be kindly cared
for at the expense of the state. Many of these institutions are
scattered over the world, the fruit of Christianity, and when I find
them in places where I least expect, they tell me that love works the
same results everywhere. I soon found Dr. Stolberg, in a modest
dwelling, in a garden retired from the street, and he received me with
great courtesy and warmth.
In Sweden a physician makes no charge whatever for medical attendance;
and, what is more remarkable still, very many of the people who can
afford to pay for the services of a doctor are willing to avail
themselves of such aid without paying any thing for it. One physician
told me that of ninety-six cases that he had treated within a certain
time, only six paid him at all! It is customary for those who do pay to
pay by the year, and fifty-six dollars, or about twelve American
dollars, would be a large sum for persons in good circumstances to give
for the benefit of a physician’s counsel for a whole year. There is,
therefore, no great inducement, in the way of profit, to go into the
medical profession. Nor is it an introduction to society, the physician
not being in this respect materially above the apothecary in social
standing.
The clergy, as a profession, are not materially better off than the
physicians. Their pay comes from the state, but their salaries are very
small, and, with only here and there an exception, they have very little
influence, social or political. They are not men of learning, and
perhaps they are as influential as they could be expected to be. The
established religion is Lutheran, with one archbishopric, eleven
bishoprics, with 3,500 clergymen. They are said to be “highly educated,”
but I was assured that there is a great lack of education among the
clergy, and the very small salaries which even the dignitaries receive
would confirm the statement that the church does not retain the aid of
learned and able men.
The press is free, and when a man is called to account for the abuse of
this freedom, the case goes to a jury, whose action is final, and there
is no appeal from it.
Only one in a thousand of the population is ignorant of letters; they
can read, and nearly all can write.
A common laborer gets about twenty-seven cents of our money for a day’s
work, and a mechanic at his trade earns a little more. The cost of
living must be very little, where the working classes can support
themselves and families on incomes so small as these!
Yet they do live comfortably, and if it were not for drinking
intoxicating liquors, they would be well off.
They are, as a people, as little given to other vices as in any country
of Europe, perhaps I might say, in the world. The statistical tables
show that many, very many, children are born into the world whose
parents are not lawfully married, and it is therefore set down to the
discredit of Sweden and Norway that they are very lax in their social
morals. There is this, however, to be said on this delicate subject, the
law forbids the marriage of any parties who have not taken the Lord’s
Supper, and many do not wish to become communicants in the church, who
are also quite willing to be married. But the church will not sanction
their union, and they live together in the marital relation, true to
each other, but without the blessing of the church. Their children are
returned in the census to the discredit of the morals of Sweden! Here is
an interesting point for moralists to study. The practice is wrong, and
so is the law that has made the practice so common.
The mysterious words, Riddarholm kyrkan, provided always your education
has not extended into the language of Sweden, are used to define a
kyrkan or kirk, the Riders’ or Horsemen’s or Knights’ Church in
Stockholm, decidedly the most peculiar and interesting of all I have
seen in the north of Europe.
Divine service is celebrated within its walls but once a year. It is not
a house for the living to pray in, but for the dead to lie in. It is not
for the dead of common clay, but for the dust of kings only,—a royal
mausoleum. It is a structure of nameless architecture, once Gothic
doubtless, but worked over until small trace of its original design
appears. A spire once almost reached the clouds, and when the lightnings
played too fiercely on it, it was replaced by one of cast iron, which
tapers finely to a lofty height, and defies the thunders.
It is a symbol, the whole church is, of a rude age and land. The doors
were opened at noon of a bright summer day, and yet as we entered, a
sense of gloom, of ruin, of vast antiquity, and the utter emptiness of
this poor life of ours, came over me like a thick cloud. Every stone of
uneven, broken pavement was a tomb, and the inscriptions long since were
worn away by the feet of strangers. In dumb silence, for centuries the
royal remains of successive dynasties have been resting here, and their
names are forgotten, rubbed out, and unwritten elsewhere. The flags,
spears, drums, swords, guns, and implements of war unused in modern
times, are hung around the walls, as if this were an arsenal and not a
sepulchre. In front of the high altar, with recumbent effigies of
ancient kings, and in the midst of inscriptions hard to read and some
still harder to understand, was one epitaph in these words:—
JUSTITIÆ SPLENDOR
PATRIÆ PATER
VIVAS IN ETERNUM
O MAGNE BEATE.
On either side of the door, and on elevated pedestals, are equestrian
statues, cased, both horse and rider, in solid armor; and that of
Charles IX. is said to have been made by Benvenuto Cellini. The armor is
more interesting from its association with the name of its maker than
the king who wore it. Such is fame.
On the right of the high altar, and within the choir, is the tomb which
every Protestant who comes to the north visits as a shrine,—not to pray
for the repose of a soul, but to testify his reverence for the name of
Gustavus Adolphus. The trophies of his victories adorn his sarcophagus
of green porphyry, which was made in Italy to receive his remains. His
own “garments rolled in blood,” in which he fell while fighting on the
field of Lutzen, November 16, 1632, are preserved remarkably in their
stains, for more than two centuries! His epitaph is short and fitting:
“Moriens triumphavit,”—
“DYING HE TRIUMPHED.”
The cause of truth, religious liberty, and the rights of man, all denied
and crushed by the Papal power,—the cause which woke the soul of Luther
and inspired the Reformation for these three centuries,—has been
struggling on toward the universal empire of the human soul. That was
the cause in which Gustavus Adolphus died covered with wounds and glory,
and his epitaph says that he triumphed when he died. I think he did.
True, the battle goes on still, and many a hard field is to be fought
over yet, before He whose right it is shall reign unquestioned in His
dominion over the souls of the race. But the grand foe of the Church of
Christ was then the civil power of the Papacy. Rome had the armies of
all papal kings at her command, and they moved at her ghostly will,
propagating her religion, like that of the Moslem, by the sword. It was
to roll back this tide, more terrible than the waves of the Crusades,
that Gustavus Adolphus was called to lead the armies of the Protestant
powers, and the result was complete success. There is not now one
crowned head on earth that acknowledges the supremacy of the popes.
Austria has cast off its allegiance, and it was Austria that led the
South of Europe against Gustavus Adolphus. Italy is independent of Rome.
And Spain, the birthplace of the Inquisition, and the most abject to the
Pope, has cast out the principle of intolerance, and proclaimed the
rights of worship. What Luther did for the truth in the pulpit, Gustavus
Adolphus did for the same cause in the field.
We went down the stone stairway, worn deeply by the tread of
generations, into the lower regions, where lie whole rows of dead kings
turned to dust, coffins tucked away on shelves and in niches, reminding
me of the Bible words: “All the kings of the nations, even all of them,
lie in glory, every one in his own house.” What’s the glory, though, of
such a resting-place, it is hard to say. Their dust is no better than
that of other men. Their names, even among kings, have ceased to be
distinguished from other names. No man could go among these walks of
tombs, these shelved kings, and pick out one or another, and say who is
who. And if he could, I do not see that it would be any particular
satisfaction to the quiet gentleman on the shelf. If the visitor should
say, “Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake
kingdoms?” no answer would come back from the tomb.
We did not set foot within the gates of his majesty, the King of Sweden,
and this neglect was much to the disgust of some of our Swedish friends,
who consider the royal residence a marvel of architectural grandeur and
beauty. We could not see it, even when they pointed to its magnificence
with the same exalted opinion of its splendor that possessed the Jews in
sight of their temple. The Lion’s Staircase, rising from the water’s
edge and leading to the main entrance, adorned with two bronze, and
therefore quiet, lions, presents a grand front to the palace, and within
the same interminable suites of apartments, and the same gaudy
furniture, and the same sort of pictures and statuary, with nothing that
has a title to any distinction above what is common in all palaces.
The picture-gallery has some five hundred paintings, some by Van Dyck,
Paul Veronese, Domenichino, and others equally well known to fame, and
the sculpture gallery boasts a sleeping Endymion, and a few other gems;
but we are out of the enchanted zone, and must not expect to be charmed
with the brush or the chisel in Sweden. We shall find Thorvaldsen when
we come to Denmark.
But the royal library has 75,000 volumes, and if it had the library that
Queen Christina sent to the Vatican at Rome, it would be still a greater
wonder, and then would be increased if the ancient collection made by
Charles X., and consumed by fire in 1697, had been preserved. The _Codex
Aureus_, a Latin manuscript of the gospels, dating in the sixth or
seventh century, “is written in Gothic characters of gold, on folio
leaves of vellum, alternately white and violet.”
“This book is additionally interesting, from its containing an
Anglo-Saxon inscription, of which the following is a translation: ‘In
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I, Alfred Aldorman (Senior or
Prince), and Werburg, my wife, got up this book from a heathen
war-troop, with our pure treasure, which was then of pure gold. And this
we got for the love of God, and for our souls’ behoof, and for that we
would not that this holy book should longer abide in heathenesse; and
now will we give it to Christ’s Church, God to praise, and glory, and
worship, in thankful remembrance of his passion, and for the use of the
holy brotherhood, who in Christ’s Church do daily speak God’s praise,
and that they may every month read for Alfred, and for Werburg, and for
Alhdryd (their daughter), their souls to eternal health, as long as they
have declared before God that baptism (holy rites) shall continue in
this place. Even so I, Alfred, Dux, and Werburg, pray and beseech, in
the name of God Almighty, and of his saints, _that no man shall be so
daring_ as to sell or part with this holy book from Christ’s Church, so
long as baptism there may stand. (Signed) Alfred, Werburg, Alhdryd.’ No
trace appears to exist of the history of this volume from the time it
was thus given to Canterbury Cathedral until it was purchased in Italy,
and added to this library. Here also is a huge manuscript copy of the
Bible, written upon prepared asses’ skin. It was found in a convent at
Prague, when that city was taken by the Swedes during the Thirty Years’
War. A copy of Koberger’s Bible, printed at Leyden, 1521, and the
margins of which are filled with annotations by Martin Luther. Besides
these, the library is rich in manuscripts and rare editions.”
The King of Sweden is the most affable and approachable monarch in
Europe. In his daily walks, or while going about in the public steamers
that ply through the waters of the city, as omnibuses do in New York, he
enters freely into conversation with the people. To strangers,
especially Americans, he is exceedingly kind, or, as his subjects would
say, _gracious_. I saw him frequently while he was riding, but came no
nearer to his Majesty. He had one of the most splendid reviews that I
had ever seen, when the whole of the Swedish army that is stationed in
this part of the country, together with the militia, all liable to be
called on to do military duty, are put through a drill for a few days
and nights every year, in the summer season. A vast open country, hill,
wood and plain, is chosen, tents pitched, and for a few days mimic war
goes through all its motions, saving and except that there is no blood
shed. This annual exercise does something to keep up a martial spirit,
and makes a few grand holidays, when the whole city is agog with the
excitement. A fête day in Rome, an emperor’s day in Paris, or Derby day
in London, would not exceed the annual review in Stockholm. The nobility
and fashion, the beauty and folly, the masses of people in all sorts of
conveyances, and more on foot than on wheels, were out at the parade.
The squadrons were set on the hills, so far apart that a telescope was
needed to see what was going on, and the marching and countermarching
made a pretty show that delighted the people, and gave the soldiers a
taste of the amusements they would have when rushing into battle under a
blazing sun, and blazing guns in front of them.
The wars of Sweden occupy a large place in European history. Yet when we
see how small the population, how limited the resources, and remote the
situation of the country, it seems incredible that human wisdom has been
so foolish as to permit a race of kings to waste the lives and wealth of
a nation of honest men, in the miserable game of war.
But the genius of Sweden is seen in a very clever arrangement to make
the burden of soldiering as light as possible. The standing army proper
is very small and has little to do at present. But the reserve is large,
and consists of men who are distributed about the kingdom and quartered
on the government lands, which they work in time of peace, and thus earn
their own support. If the crown lands are leased to others, a certain
number of these soldiers is set apart for, or quartered on the land; and
the lessee has their labor, and is responsible for their support. In
this ingenious way the government makes its land pay the expenses of its
army in peace. We might take a leaf out of the royal book of Sweden,
and, by a wise administration of our vast national landed property, make
it contribute something to the support of the government, while we
improved its value. That would be certainly more statesmanlike than to
give it away by millions every year to speculators. The Swedish soldiers
are also employed in making roads, and on other public works, as ours
might be, greatly to their own moral benefit, and to the advantage of
the country.
It strikes me that there is more order and less crime in this northern
part of Europe than in any other country I have yet visited. I see
little evidence of abject poverty and low vice. By night or day I have
not seen a person on the streets at Stockholm who seemed to be of the
abandoned class. Longer acquaintance may correct this impression and
reveal another state of facts. Two American travellers were robbed of
their watches and money, at the hotel where I am lodged, but a few days
ago. It is not at all likely the thief is a native of these regions. He
has probably followed the travellers, or, what is quite as likely, been
one of their travelling companions. The landlord paid the losses without
a lawsuit, and the Americans went on their way.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
SWEDEN (_Continued_).
BY the beautiful island of Drottningholm, on which the king’s mother
resides in a palace within a park, that seems the abode of peace and
plenty, and along the shores of other islands small and picturesque, but
lovely to look on as we pass them on our way, we sail out into Lake
Malar.
It is a wide, winding, beautiful sheet of water,—one of the many noble
lakes that Sweden holds in her bosom. Two islands in it come so nearly
together, that a drawbridge for a railroad stretches across, and opens
for us to pass through, and then we sweep out into another expanse of
water, the shores skirted with pines and hemlock; no hills in sight, but
the scenery is lovely, though lacking grandeur. We are going into the
heart of Sweden. Now the shores are cultivated to the water’s edge, and
fine farms rise to view, with here and there a red cottage, with a tile
roof: all the peasant houses and fisherman cottages are painted with red
ochre, cheap, but unpleasant to the eye. Now the shores are bolder,
rocky, and great forest trees, fir and spruce, are abundant.
The oldest place in Sweden, and that carries us back into far antiquity,
is SIGTUNA, and we have come to it, on the shores of Lake Malar, about
four hours from Stockholm. We are in the midst of the remains of the old
pagan worship of Scandinavia, where the altars to heathen deities, whose
graves (!) we are going to see to-day, have smoked with human
sacrifices.
Odin or Woden (whence comes our Wedensday or Wednesday), a hero of the
north,—in time to which history, at least reliable history, runneth not
back,—here established the seat of his power, and it took its name from
his original title, which was Sigge, and Tuna, which is our word town.
Here Sigge, or Odin, reared stone temples, of which the ruins are before
us. Here his power became so great, and such the reverence of rude
peoples for power, that the temples and altars which he reared to gods
whom he worshipped, became, in the eyes and hearts of the people,
dedicate to him, whom they came to revere and worship as a god. From
this spot the worship of Odin, and afterwards of his son Thor (whence
our Thursday), spread through the whole of the North of Europe, and, in
spite of the subsequent triumph of Roman Christianity, and then of the
Lutheran Reformation, the Odin superstition—a secret, unconfessed, but
controlling reverence for those heroic human deities, the hero worship
of the human soul—still obtains among the more ignorant classes of the
people over all this northern country. The legends that have come down
from sire to son, keep alive in successive generations the hidden fear
of these false gods, and form the largest part of the unwritten poetry
and romance of all Scandinavia.
Pirates from Finland came here and laid waste the fortified town of
Odin, and it has again and again been built and destroyed; but here is
the remnant of an ancient temple or church, and three towers, which have
the highest interest of antiquity (whatever that is) hanging, like
mantling ivy, all about them. No one but an antiquary would wish to
spend more than a moment in Sigtuna, among its 400 inhabitants. Tyre and
Sidon on the sea coast are not so desolate as this spot, which seems
accursed for its pagan crimes and impostures in days long since gone by.
Sweet pictures of rural life in Sweden were seen this morning as we
sailed through this Lake Malar. Opposite Sigtuna, and a little farther
on, we touched the shore, and landed Professor Olivecrona, of the
University of Upsala, with his wife and a party of English friends. He
had been to Stockholm to meet them, and bring them up the lake to his
country residence in summer. It was a beautiful mansion, very near to
the water’s edge, in the midst of woods and delightful walks. The
children and servants came down to the landing just in front of the
house, to a private wharf, and as the parents went ashore, and four
lovely children in their light summer dresses welcomed them, and greeted
the friends coming with them, it was a scene of domestic beauty and
happiness that quite touched an old man’s heart some three or four
thousand miles from home.
More islands, among which our boat makes its tortuous course, coming so
near to the rocks that we might easily scrape them; now and then a bare
white rock holds its peak solitary above the water, and a bird of prey
perches on its top, looking into the deep for his dinner. Now the shores
are clothed with green forests, and again we emerge among meadows, and
in the bright sun the contrasts of light and shadow, as we pass by the
pines and fir trees, are constantly pleasing. An air of infinite
quietude pervades the region, and it is painful to believe that it was
once a “habitation of cruelty.”
Suddenly a grand old chateau, the ancient residence of the Brahe family,
one of the oldest and most illustrious in Sweden, opened on our view. It
was built in 1630, and each one of its four towers is surmounted by an
orrery, in honor of the famous astronomer whose name alone has made the
family famous. A boat comes off from the shore, and takes passengers who
wish to visit the house. Its library and museum and galleries of art
make it a popular resort. On its walls are portraits of Tycho, and the
Ebba Brahe, whom Gustavus Adolphus loved, and would have married but for
more ambitious schemes of her mother that never came to pass.
During this delightful passage of six hours through Lake Malar, in one
of the loveliest days of summer, we have not seen a sail nor a steamer,
except the return boat of the line that has brought us. And this fact is
sufficient to show the utter stagnation of commercial life in the
interior of Sweden.
I confess to surprise on coming to Upsala and finding the ancient
university here in high prosperity, with all the appliances of education
that first-class institutions require. Linnæus, the great botanist, was
professor here, and his statue is one of the ornaments of the
university. The Hospital,—a new and extensive building,—a royal palace
on a hill, the Agricultural College, the Library, &c., with a Botanical
Garden and ample parks, suggest to the traveller that in Sweden one
might find a home to his mind, if his lot had been cast in this part of
the earth.
You have a fondness for old books and manuscripts. Here they are in
abundance; not of the sort, perhaps, that most antiquarians would run
after, but, nevertheless, very precious and costly.
Bishop Ulfilas, toward the close of the fourth century, translated the
four gospels into the Gothic language, and his translation was copied in
letters of silver upon vellum of a pale purple color, in characters very
like the Runic. This manuscript is the very oldest extant in the
Teutonic tongue, and was probably made by the Ostro-Gothic scribes in
Italy. It was once owned by an abbey in Westphalia. Then it was
treasured up in Cologne; then by the fortunes of war it passed to
Konigsberg, and to Amsterdam, with Vossius, on whose death the Swedish
chancellor bought it and presented it to the University of Upsala. It is
known among biblical scholars as the _Codex Argenteus_, or Silver Copy,
from the style of the lettering.
[Illustration: UPSALA.]
If you have a taste for Icelandic literature, so refreshing in the heats
of summer, here you can find the oldest and coldest of the Eddas; and
alongside of them is a Bible with the marginal notes of Luther and
Melancthon. Students in and out of the university have free access to
these treasures, and the reading-room is a pleasant resort for those who
love to refresh themselves in the midst of a hundred thousand books, in
all tongues and every realm of human thought.
About fifty professors and fifteen hundred students compose the faculty
and attendance of this famous university. It was founded in 1477, and
has but one rival in Sweden, that at Ludd, founded in 1666. The expense
of a student’s education, including board, fees, &c., is about three
hundred dollars a year.
No one can be admitted to practise in any of three professions,—law,
medicine, or divinity,—without taking his degrees at one of the two
universities. This _ensures_ a high order of acquirements in
professional men, and when we state one fact in addition, that one male
person in every 688 in Sweden enjoys an education at the universities,
it will be seen that these institutions reach the whole people, and
extend their advantages into the midst of the masses. Sweden, and in
this respect she is not singular in Europe, has not made the mistake
which we in the United States have been making, of multiplying little
colleges, and little theological seminaries, one-horse institutions,
with the idea that, by bringing a school to the door of every man, or of
every church, we should be enlarging the area of education, and
multiplying the number of educated men. Thus we have reduced the
standard of fitness for professorships. Thus we have diminished the
number of students. Lowering the mark to which scholars should aspire,
we have cheapened education, suppressed literary ambition, made the
professions less attractive, and filled them with an inferior order of
men, compared with what they would have been had the standard of great
universities, with their high qualifications of professorships and
degrees, been maintained. If all the money which has been expended in
the maintenance of feeble and famishing colleges and divinity schools
had been applied to the education of youth in two, three, or four
universities, they would have been far better taught, and the surplus of
money over and above the expenses of their education would endow a new
university as often as the extension of territory and the increase of
population render it necessary.
A student of the university is required to wear a cap of peculiar make,
to distinguish him, not in the university town only, but wherever he may
travel in Sweden. The cap is white, with a black border, and a rosette
of the national colors in front. This requisition is useful in keeping
the student upon his good behavior, and also as a peripatetic
advertisement of the educational institutions of the country. It is only
by slow degrees that our people come into the habit of putting classes
into uniform. It is but recently that the police were so clad: now we
have letter-carriers, railway officials, &c. The clergy formerly were
generally known by a white neckcloth, but that has ceased to be their
distinction.
The old cathedral had the appearance of neglect; it was out one side
from the busy haunts of men, and this was in its favor, but it seemed to
be neglected. Twenty-four whitewashed columns support the roof. In side
chapels are the tombs and the remains of the old kings of Sweden. And
when I had spelled out some of the Latin inscriptions, and had linked
the names of these sleepers with the old-time stories of the land, the
venerable cathedral began to take upon itself the form of a great
monument of the dead past. And well it might, for the first stones were
laid for its foundation in the year 1289, and it was consecrated in
1435. Its dimensions rise into the sublime, for it is 370 feet long, 141
feet wide, and 115 feet high.
The columns within are capped with carvings of grotesque beasts,
strangely out of taste in the house of God. Linnæus lies buried here,
and a splendid mural tablet and bronze medallion portrait of him adorn
the wall. Here lie Gustavus Wasa and two of his wives, and a long series
of fresco paintings in seven compartments celebrate the great events in
the life of this illustrious man. Here, too, is a tomb of John III.,
remarkable for this,—that it was made in Italy, was lost at sea on its
way here, was fished up sixty years afterwards, and brought to this
spot.
The sacristan was very kind in revealing to our not very reverent eyes
the precious things here kept for special exhibition to those who would
pay for the privilege. With this understanding we were permitted to
behold crowns and sceptres, a gold cup two feet high, a dagger that had
been stuck into a king, and a statue of the old god-king Thor! This last
is not worshipped here, but is cherished as a memorial of the times when
paganism was prevalent, and as a trophy of the triumph of Christianity
over the powers of darkness.
About three miles north of Upsala, the seat of the great university, is
Old Upsala, more sacred than any other spot in Sweden: for here are the
lofty mounds which tradition has consecrated as graves of the gods,—the
gods who aforetime were held in reverent awe and honor by the
Scandinavian race, and who, to this day, hold some sort of sway over the
rude masses of the North.
We rode out in carriages from the university, and passed in sight of the
house which covers the Mora Stone, _on_ which the kings of Sweden were
chosen and crowned. It is made of about twelve different stones joined
and inscribed with the names of the monarchs who have been elected by
the voice of the people. In 1780 the house was built over it by Gustavus
III., but that was seven centuries after the first inscription upon it;
for here it is written that Sten Kil was chosen in 1060, and seven
others, down to Christian I., in 1457. Gustavus Wasa met his subjects
here in mass-meeting and addressed them from this stone in 1520. The
hoar of ages, with all the memories of the revolutions of these
centuries, gathers on this spot. It is now only a shrine for pilgrims
with antiquity on the brain, who wander the world over to see what the
world _has_ been. I have a large development of that weakness, and it
has a great gratification in this part of Europe: more, indeed, than it
had in Egypt; less than in Palestine. In the Holy Land the sacred
associations with the religion we love makes every acre of it dear to
the heart: we take pleasure in every stone, and favor all the dust of
Judea. With less awe,—indeed, with no awe,—but with wonder, we now come
to Old Upsala, to the graves of the pagan deities.
They are three conical mounds, about fifty feet in height, very regular
in shape, with a broad plateau at the summit, and the unvarying
tradition of the country is, that the largest of the mounds is the grave
of Odin; the next, that of Thor; and the smallest, the grave of Freytag,
Odin’s daughter. In all probability these are natural hillocks
artificially reduced to these regular forms, and superstitiously set
apart in the minds of the people as the graves of persons to whom their
ancestors paid divine honors. To this hour, the name of Odin is used as
that of a demon king, and “Go to Odin” is the profane execration which
answers to the modern imprecation, “Go to the devil.”
On this spot the great temple to Odin was erected, and his worship
maintained with horrid rites and ceremonies. The altars here have smoked
with human blood and burnt sacrifices. In the sacred groves that
surrounded the temple these savage deities were propitiated with all
manner of offerings, parents laying their children with their own hands
upon the altars, and slaying them in the face of heaven. A record still
exists of seventy-two bodies being seen suspended at one time from the
limbs of trees in this grove; men, and lower animals than men, if any
animals are lower than such men, being offered in company to please the
deities of the wood.
We entered the old church, the tower of which is said to be a part of
the temple. This tower is the most ancient building in Scandinavia. A
rude stone image of a human being, uncared for and lying in total
neglect and dirt, was pointed out as an idol of Thor, that had once and
often been worshipped on this spot and honored with these human
sacrifices. It seemed more likely that it was a bogus image, and,
therefore, all the more fitting to be presented as one of the false gods
of a superstitious race, whose reverence is not yet so thoroughly
extinguished as to prevent them from leaving hay on the highway at
night, to feed the horses of Odin when he comes riding through the
country on his missions of destruction.
On the reach of the Reformation to this region, the great battle of
faith was fought on this spot. Here Gustavus Wasa, in his robes of
royalty, addressed the crowds of pagan people, and besought them to turn
from their idols to the living God. They replied with sullen rage, and
threatened him with death. He finally flung off his robes, and told them
they might have Odin for their king if they would, but he would not be
their king unless they would worship the Lord God Almighty and his Son
Jesus Christ. This was the decisive hour and word. They yielded, but
only an outward obedience, a lip service, and it required long years and
generations to extirpate the pagan worship from the minds of the people.
One king of Sweden, Domold, was actually offered in sacrifice on Odin’s
altar to propitiate the gods when the people were suffering by famine.
And when Eric V., in 1001, embraced the Christian religion and destroyed
the temple, the tower of which is said to be standing now as part of
this church, the people in their fury put him to death.
From Odin, or Woden, as he was called, comes our Weden’s-day, and from
Thor our Thur’s-day, and from Fry-tag our Fri-day; and these every-day
words make links of association to connect our times with those fearful
days, now past and gone for ever.
I was surprised by finding the practice of dining out of doors in summer
quite as common here as in France. On our return from Upsala to
Stockholm, Dr. Scholberg went with us to spend part of a day at the Deer
Park, a vast tract of land in easy reach from the capital, that has been
set apart for the use of the people. It is entered through a grand
gateway, ornamented with a bronze deer on each side; within are villas
and cafes, and theatres and concert-rooms. Long drives over country
roads take us under majestic old trees,—oaks and elms, pines and spruce;
and now and then we pass parties taking their mid-day or evening meal
under the trees, or among the beautiful gardens that surround their
houses. Our ride takes us up and down hill, in sight often of the sea:
one has a taste of the country, rare indeed to be had so near the town.
The quickest way to get there is to take one of the many little steamers
that ply, like our omnibuses or street-cars, among the waters of this
northern Venice; but many of them do not hold as many passengers as a
horse-car carries. They are just like a large row-boat, with sharp bows
and stern, and a boiler in the middle. They require but very little
coal, and, being driven with great care, very seldom, if ever, blow up
the people sitting so near to the boiler and all its works, as to
suggest continually the idea that it would require no great effort to
scald the company. If our American people could do any thing with
moderation, they might introduce these little iron steamers with great
usefulness into the North and East Rivers, and, indeed, into the waters
of all our great cities. We often availed ourselves of them, for they
run everywhere, and the fare is lower than in our city cars. A few
minutes of fast running brought us to Deer Park, and our Swedish doctor
led us to what was considered the best restaurant in the place. Hundreds
of people were already there to dine, and at the middle of the day. It
did not speak well for the industry and habits of the people, that so
many of them could thus quit business at such an hour and go off out of
town to their dinner. And Stockholm is the only city in the North where
there is such a class of people. The city has the name of being very
like Venice in this matter. And here they were in the middle of the day,
hundreds of people, away from home, and making a business of eating and
drinking.
Dinner was a study and an art. They had some science in it. There was an
ante-prandium and the prandium, and the dessert and the post-prandium,
and more post that I did not see; but what I did may be set down to give
you an idea of the Swedes at dinner. First, every gentleman steps to a
side table and takes a glass of schnapps, or gin, or other liquor that
he prefers, and appetizes himself by eating of salt fish, dried tongue,
cold meats, bread and cheese, making a very satisfactory snack or lunch,
which would serve most of men for a fair dinner. The second course is
soup, and one who is recently from Paris needs a little education to
make it pleasant to his taste. Then follow salmon, chicken, roast beef,
pudding, ice cream, jellies; and with these dishes, which are served one
after another, and all to be eaten, are the usual trimmings of bread and
butter, with vegetables to any extent. When this bill of fare—a dinner
to order, and exquisitely cooked and served in good style—is disposed
of, you are expected to indulge in the national punch, an oily, fiery,
pungent liquor, that should not be taken without medical advice; yet it
may be that it assists digestion after the organs have been overladen
with such a dinner as I have just eaten and described. Now, it is not
unlikely that such dinners are very largely enjoyed by the people, for
all that I have mentioned may be had for seventy-five cents! And as you
pay for just what you order, and no more, it is possible to make a
sufficient dinner for half the money, and thousands do. We protracted
our stay till the evening (not the dark) came on, and rode to the
charming rural retreat for the royal household, and had the pleasure of
gratifying our democratic eyes by seeing the ladies of the family taking
their tea out of doors, so much in the same way that other people take
theirs, we should not have suspected them of being any thing more than
common, had we not been told of it, and actually had seen the august
servant, with a white wig and pompous strut, bringing the “tea things”
out to the little table in the garden. So many other little family
circles did we see enjoying themselves in the same way, that we could
readily see it was a national habit, and quite in harmony with those
domestic pictures which Frederika Bremer has made us so familiar with in
her letters about Swedish homes.
[Illustration: COSTUMES OF SWEDEN.]
One thing impressed me daily in these north countries of Europe,—the
general content and comfort of the people. The climate has not helped
them to this, for it is far less favorable to general enjoyment than
that of the south. But there is an amount of industry, intelligence, and
morality, that make a contrast easily marked between the people of
Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and the inhabitants of Spain and Italy. I
find no such masses of squalid vice and misery here, as one may easily
see in Naples or Seville.
Sweden has all the elements of a great and good people. She is making
progress, too, in moral and intellectual culture, and her people are
rising in the scale of social enjoyment. I notice these things in the
rural districts even more than in the cities, which are so much the same
all the world over.
CHAPTER XXXV.
SWEDEN (_Continued_).
WE are going across the kingdom, from Stockholm to Gottenburg. We might
be carried through by rail in a day; but what should we see of life in
Sweden if we went flying over it in that style? We will take the slower
and better way, by the raging canal. This canal is the Erie of Sweden.
It extends from lake to lake, and so connects sea with sea, the Baltic
with the Atlantic; it leaves Malar lake, and takes lakes Wetter and
Wener in its way, and all the chief towns of the interior; and as the
travelling is rationally moderate, the pauses frequent and long, we have
a fine opportunity to study the country and the people whom we have come
to see.
It is a steam canal; that is, a canal for steam navigation, as the Erie
and other canals of our country ought to be, and might be, but for the
penny-wise and pound-foolish policy of politicians. The steamers are
small. We embarked for this inland voyage on the OSCAR, a royal name.
The cabin had ten state-rooms, with two berths in each; a wash-stand in
the middle had a movable cover, making a table, on which I am writing.
The boat is furnished with great simplicity, but is comfortable. It is
crowded with passengers; several families, with children and luggage
immense, probably emigrants on their way to the land of promise. Their
friends in troops thronged the wharf to see them go, and when the
hand-shakings and hugging and kissing were finished, the boat was off,
and the tears and waving of rags continued as we steamed away.
The clouds wept too, for a few moments, and then, like the passengers,
dried up; smiles and the sun came out again, and beautiful Stockholm
seemed more beautiful as we left it than it did while we were in it. The
green slopes around the city were joyous in the sinking sun. The iron
steeple of the Ridderkolm, and the white palace, and many spires,
glistened in the light. Gems of islands, with pretty bridges uniting
their shores, neat villas, with lawns carpeted with rich verdure,
abodes, we may hope, of sweet content and comfort, are on either hand,
and now and then, from a window or balcony, a white handkerchief greets
a friend on board, who responds, and we have a telegraphic communication
at once with the people we are leaving. I do love to find in strange
lands, and among those whose language is all unknown to me, the same
ties, the same loves and hopes, that fill our own hearts at home. It
makes me know that all these people are my kin, children of my Father.
We have been passing across Lake Malar. But now, at seven in the
evening, we enter a lock, and the Gota Canal begins. The village of
_Sodertelje_ receives us here. So sweet does it seem to be, in its quiet
repose, that every house appears to invite you to stop and make a visit.
It was at this point that St. Olaf, when a viking, was shut in by the
fleets of the Swedes and Danes, and he cut his way out, not through the
enemies’ fleets, but by digging a canal to the Baltic! This was in the
eleventh century, and no such feats of rapid canalling were known from
that time down to the Dutch Gap ditch, during the late war in America.
The story of the saint is history, and the other one will not be
forgotten.
The passage of the lock from the lake to the canal is tedious, but in
the mean time the villagers come on board and greet friends, the
children, as in all other countries, ply their sales of cake and fruit,
till we are out and enter the Gota Canal. The banks for some time are
fifty feet high, but they slope away gradually, and are beautiful in
their green sod. Neat cottages and wooded walks and gardens, signs of
taste and culture, and plenty, are on our right hand and left; and these
dwellings are so near that the canal seems a street like those of
Venice, where you step from the gondola to the marble threshold of your
house. Passengers on board recognize their acquaintance, and exchange
salutations. Now and then an old mansion, with many out-buildings, shows
that an extensive farm is behind; and occasionally we pass a village
which appears to be of modern creation, as if progress was making even
in Sweden. We are following the course of the very same canal that St.
Olaf, the viking, cut in such a hurry eight hundred years ago, and we
soon come to the end of it, and run again into the sea, or a bay of the
Baltic, and keep along the coast, among a wilderness of islands,
touching now and then at one of them to drop or take a passenger. Heaps
of rock on the points are painted white to guide us in the mazes of
these intricate passes, and sometimes trees have been moored in the
water to mark the pathway of the ship. Ruins of castles, each one of
which has its legends as romantic as those of the Rhine, still haunt
these rocks. Stegeborg Castle is the most picturesque in its solitary
grandeur and desolation, and the traditions of the country associate it
with many a hard-fought fight in times so far gone by that history is
rather too romantic to be credited.
The night is now about us, but in these latitudes it makes little
difference for seeing the country whether it is night or day. There was
no sleeping to be done, for some of the rising generation rose all
night, and made the little cabin vocal with their cries, so that only
those who enjoy the music of sleepless babes could be said to have a
pleasant night in that vicinity. Out of my little window I see the
islands, with their stunted firs, shores rarely rising so as to be
entitled to the dignity of hills, sometimes a forest, and here and there
a house, red and neat, with no signs of slovenliness or poverty.
It was very early in the morning when we left the canal-boat, and in the
midst of a drizzling rain followed a porter who had been directed by the
captain to take our luggage to a hotel, the best hotel in the village of
Soderkoping.
This was the village we had selected as a quiet, retired, obscure, but
pleasant place to pass a sabbath in, to see the Swedes in their rural
churches and in their humble homes.
It was so early when we came to the little wooden tavern that no one was
astir. We went around to the back door, as the porter led us, and there
knocked long and loud, till a maid thrust her head out of the window,
and made signs that she would come down and let us in, which she did.
The American language was of no use now. French was no better. But we
managed to let her know, morning as it was, we wanted beds. She led us
to the chambers, and when we pointed to the sheets as having already
seen service since the last wash, she took the hint in a moment, and,
pulling them off, supplied their places with linen without wrinkles.
After a few hours sleep we rose for breakfast, taking what should be set
before us. It proved to be comfortable. Coffee with delicious cream,
bread and beefsteak on a novel plan, chopped fine, made into cakes and
fried in butter with spices.
It was our FIRST SABBATH IN SWEDEN. An ancient brick church with a
spire, a venerable structure, stood near a swiftly flowing stream of
water, embowered in majestic trees, and surrounded with the graves of
buried generations of those who had worshipped within its old walls. It
was a solemn, yet beautiful spot, and all its surroundings were in
keeping. The graveyard was laid off in little plats, and the graves were
bordered with flowers. On some graves pots of flowers were set, and on
others fresh-plucked flowers were strewn, soon to wither and to be
replaced. The bell was tolling and the people were assembling; all came
on foot and by walks leading through the yard from various parts of the
village. Some had come evidently from a distance in the country, with
books in their hands. All were decently devout in their deportment as
they came; even among the young there was no levity, they were on a
solemn errand, and were sensible of the time and place.
The sexton sat at the door, with a big key in his hand, and opened the
door to let the people in, but locked it when prayer began, and kept it
locked till prayer was ended, and then admitted those who had gathered.
Earthen pitchers or jugs stood on stools near the door to receive the
offerings, and many cast in what they had. The floor was of stone, and
many were tombstones, the inscriptions worn by the footsteps of the
living, so that the names of the dead were illegible. Eight immense
whitewashed pillars supported Gothic arches on which the roof rested.
The pulpit was of wood, elaborately carved, with Scripture scenes and
figures. A sounding-board above it was ornamented with quaint devices,
and surmounted by a human figure, perhaps an image of the Saviour. On
the front the word JEHOVAH, in Hebrew letters, was inscribed. The pews
were very plain, unpainted slips, with doors locked until the owners
came, whose names were on slips of paper attached. On the sides of the
church, long rude seats were free. We occupied them. The congregation
was very slow in getting in. The same variety of dress that would mark
one of our rural churches was apparent. Rich and poor met together. Some
of the ladies were dressed elaborately with the flat French bonnet;
others in a costume of the country, a small black shawl or kerchief
thrown over the head and pinned under the chin. The men were all rustic
in garb and manner, accustomed to out-of-door hard work. All appeared
devotional, respectful; old and young, on coming in, bowed in silent
prayer; all stood in singing. The service was Lutheran, the established
religion. All had books of the service, which was read with a loud voice
and much intonation by the clerk. The preacher was a handsome young man,
with great energy of voice and no action. His text had the name Jesus
Christ in it, and the words were often repeated with tenderness and
earnestness. I could understand no other words, and could only hope that
as even those were sweet to my ears, the preacher was commending him to
the congregation as the chief among ten thousand, the one altogether
lovely.
Many of the men took snuff. The man on my right, two on my left, two in
front of me, held the box under their noses to catch what fell back in
the operation. They also offered the same boxes to me. One of the men
sneezed immoderately four or five times. The sexton going up the aisle,
and standing on the tombstone of some old saint, blew his (the sextons,
not the saint’s) nose with his fingers, wiped it with a blue cotton
handkerchief, polished it off with the back of his hand, and then walked
up to the pulpit to do his errand.
Bating the snuff-taking and the nasal twang in the singing, the service
was pleasing even to us who heard no words that we could understand. We
worshipped in spirit, and felt at home among the children of our Father,
not one of whom knew that two strangers from beyond the sea were in
their village church on this pleasant summer sabbath morning.
Soderkoping proved to be more of a place than we had anticipated. It
was, and is even a watering-place. Pleasantly planted on the banks of
the great canal, with historic and towering heights rising by its side,
and rejoicing also in the possession of a mineral spring, whose healing
virtues have been spread among the people of this and other countries,
it has become a resort for invalids. It maintains at one end of the
village a series of bathing-houses, and modest lodgings for visitors,
and a “conversation hall” of moderate dimensions, and some hundreds of
the ill-to-do may be carefully cared for, and, perhaps, cured at the
same time. But there is no hotel, nor any thing worth the name. The
village is primitive, simple, neat as a new pin, not the sign of a new
building going on anywhere. It might have been finished years ago, and
kept in order to be looked at as a curiosity. The dwellings are, all of
them, low, unpretending, small, and usually of wood.
Dr. Gustaff Bottiger, physician and surgeon, called at our lodgings in
Soderkoping. He spoke the French well, and English tolerably, and we
were able to get on with him delightfully. He is a fine looking man,
accomplished in manners, and superintendent of the “Water Cure.”
The mineral waters of this locality have had a reputation in Europe
through the long period of eight hundred years. They were formerly
resorted to by invalids from Italy and Spain, as well as other
countries. But in the course of time, and after the discovery of other
springs, and the invention of more, the fame of these in Sweden
declined. The town declined also. But when the modern water-cure idea
sprang into being, an establishment was opened here, which has proved to
be a wonderful success. It is resorted to by a thousand persons every
year, who come as patients, and patiently submit to the hydraulic,
hydrostatic, and hydropathic, and all the hydra-headed processes of
scientific treatment requisite to purify the system and make the patient
clean inside and out. The cure is sure for nearly all diseases to which
flesh is heir, but is specially efficient in expelling such monsters as
rheumatism, gout, and dyspepsia. The College of Health in Sweden, a
national institution, has the establishment under its control, and the
company that have taken out a royal charter, and built the bath and
packing houses, have made provision for ninety patients, who are
constantly lodged, fed, and water-cured at public expense, and one
hundred and thirty more are treated gratuitously, with the use of the
establishment, while they pay for their board and lodging. Six hundred
patients can be supplied with baths at one time.
The establishment thus combines the advantages of a free and pay
hospital, as do many of our asylums for the afflicted in America. But I
am not aware that any of our States have made provision for sending
their invalid poor to water cures. Our inebriate asylums may be called
water cures in the best sense of the term, and it is quite certain,
whether intemperance be a sin or a disease, or both, there is no hope of
a cure without the use of cold water.
Here at Soderkoping the rich and the poor are so mingled and packed and
purified, that the distinction is not palpable, and the institution is a
model of social and medical propriety and equality.
Dr. Bottiger is enthusiastic in his pursuit of the grand idea he is here
set to work out, and the patients catch his enthusiasm, believe in him
and in the cure, and that helps the cure amazingly. It is not worth
while to discuss the reason of the thing, or to inquire whether the
mineral water here flowing at least eight centuries, and probably
eighteen and many more, is any better for the cure than other waters. I
am inclined to believe that there is superior virtue in the springs. But
any waters are good enough, with the advantage of air, exercise,
temperance, and recreation, to make most people whole who are only
partially broken down. Nine-tenths of these invalids, especially of the
richer classes, are victims of their own imprudences. God gave man
reason, but he makes a poor use, or rather no use of it, when he works
his brain so much as to overwork it, and loads his stomach so as to
overload it, and by neglect of the laws of health, which are just as
well defined as the moral laws of God, brings upon himself dyspepsia,
and that long catalogue of evils that haunt the victim. He must be a bad
liver who has a diseased liver. It was his own fault, in the first
place, and the warning that he had he neglected, and now when he comes
to Soderkoping, or goes to Kissingen, Spa, or Kreusnacht, for the
benefit of his health, he is suffering the penalty of his own indulgence
or neglect. If an ante-mortem coroner’s inquest should be held on his
arrival at the springs, the verdict would be _served him right_.
There are six or eight water-cure establishments in Sweden, one in
Norway, none in Denmark. The system is popular in this part of Europe,
and in Germany. Patients appear to be attracted to them not so much by
advertisements of special advantages, but by the reports which patients
spread abroad, when they go away relieved of their maladies.
Just after the doctor left us a young man called who had heard that two
Americans were here, and he wished to get information respecting the
United States. He brought with him a phrase-book in German and English,
or rather in German and _American_, for the book was called “The Little
American,” and was made to teach the American language. The most it
could do was to aid the young to pick up a few phrases of the language,
and to stimulate their desire to emigrate to the western world. The book
was evidently issued by the steamship or emigration companies, for it
gave all needful directions as to the expense and mode of getting to
America, and it held out the most encouraging prospects to those who
might be tempted to go. The desire is wide-spread—to seek a home in the
New World. Books and papers and pictures are industriously spread among
the village and rural population to stimulate this desire. The wages of
labor are represented as so great in contrast with their own earnings,
while nothing is said of the cost of living,—the price of land is said
to be so low in comparison with land here, which is not to be bought at
all,—that they are filled with the idea of going to a country where they
suppose they may get all they want for little or nothing. To what a sad
reality they wake up when they set their feet on our shores, and find
themselves in the midst of the harpies of New York!
Our bill for boarding and lodging, every thing included, at this village
tavern, where we were well cared for, and had all that we could
reasonably desire, was less than a dollar a day for each person. Board
at private houses can be procured for much less. And if you are not able
to pay any thing, and have the dyspepsia, it is quite likely that I
could give you a line of introduction to the doctor, who would put you
on the free list, pack you, duck you, all but drown you, cure you, and
send you on your way rejoicing, with refreshing memories of Soderkoping.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
SWEDEN (_Continued_).
WE went on board the canal steamer very early in the morning, and found
the deck covered with passengers taking their coffee as comfortably as
if they were at home. This was not breakfast, that was to come by and
by; but they turned out early, and all wanted coffee immediately.
The steamer was large, adapted to the canal, the lake, and sea, for all
these waters are to be ploughed in going from Stockholm to Gottenburg.
One of the sailors hearing us speaking the English, addressed us in the
same language, for he had been in the British service until he spoke the
English as well as his own tongue. Indeed, I have rarely heard the
English spoken by a foreigner so well as by this Swedish sailor; yet he
had acquired it solely by the ear.
Locks are now frequent, and the passage very slow. One of them was
tended by a comely maiden, not more than sixteen years old, dressed
neatly with an embroidered petticoat, which she had to expose in pushing
the beam around to open and close the lock. This was a novel application
of female influence, but not very pleasing, being the first thing I had
seen in Sweden that was uncivilized and offensive. Lock after lock,
slowly and tediously we made our way through a pretty country, the
fields well tilled, woods and green meadows interchanging often, and the
land fenced off into smaller divisions than we had noticed in any other
country. The soil appeared to be good from the abundance of the growth.
The houses were neat, and the out-buildings numerous and well arranged,
showing signs of thrift and taste. The look was that of a farming people
well to do.
We enter another lake, short, but very pretty, by name Asplagen, with
richly cultivated shores and sweet homes nestling among the trees; and
on the rising grounds we see beautiful pictures of Swedish life, rich
and prosperous residences, where it is evident that the good things of
this life are enjoyed, and plenty of them.
An elderly Russian gentleman and a Swedish professor of physics in
Stockholm were among the passengers; the Swede had travelled in America,
and was very happy to meet an American, while the Russian was greatly
interested in learning of that wonderful country. He spoke five
languages, and he said that his countrymen, if educated at all, could
speak both English and French. While these gentlemen were my constant
companions on board, they cordially hated each other’s country, the old
antipathy of Russian and Swede cropping out continually, and making it a
difficult task to keep the peace between them.
[Illustration: ROXEN LOCKS.]
Another stretch of the canal brought us to Lake Roxen, a wide and
beautiful expanse, the passage through it requiring an hour. At the
western end of it is the town of Berg, where a hill is to be surmounted
by a series of locks, eleven in number, opening one into another, and
the process requires so much time that we can leave the ship and make an
excursion to an interesting and ancient church in the neighborhood. It
is the Vetra-Kloster, Gothic in style, and built in 1128, when Inge II.
was king in Sweden, and he is buried in it. The Douglas family of
Scotland, in the time of Cromwell, came to this place to find a safe
retreat, and they became famous in the wars of Sweden. They are interred
right royally in this sanctuary. The mansion they occupied stands
conspicuously on the borders of the beautiful lake, commanding splendid
views of this lovely scenery. Villages are scattered over a rich
country, and the spires of churches pointing heavenward tell the pious
hopes of a people whose God is the Lord. The church stands in the midst
of a large graveyard, and this is filled with flowers and shrubs and
shade trees, and the monumental stones bear dates of great antiquity.
The portal of the church was once the prison of a convent which was
attached to the church, for this was built when Romanism ruled this
region as well as southern Europe. The floor is of stone, and the aisles
are of tombstones bearing inscriptions in German, Swedish, and Latin;
epigrammatic and striking some of them are, and have silently preached
to the passer-by for some centuries. “_Mors certa, hora incerta_,” and
“_Hodie mihi, cras tibi_,” are not very sententious, but they have their
point on a gravestone.
In a stone sarcophagus of very singular form, with a long inscription
upon it, lies the body of Inge II.; wooden effigies of unknown
personages, divine or human alike unintelligible to me, keep the dead
monarch company in his sleep of the ages. Another chapel contains two
sarcophagi, in which side by side through successive centuries the royal
ashes rest of those whose names are now forgotten, but might be spelled
out, if it were worth the trouble. And in another chapel are the tombs
of the Scotch Douglases, who fled their own country and found glory and
graves, that’s all, in this retired spot in the heart of Sweden. For
this is purely a rural church, far from the town and all the busy haunts
of men, a fitting place for worship, and a comely spot for graves. It
has been used for both, more than seven hundred years. The avarice of
man has not encroached upon its acres, nor coveted its stones.
Returning from our excursion, we heard the sound of children’s voices,
and were led to a neat school-house in a pleasant enclosure, retired
from the street, and being in the pursuit of knowledge we turned in to
see and hear. About fifty children were receiving instruction from a
master, who courteously bade us enter, and proceeded with his work. All
the scholars, and they were of both sexes, were standing, and reading in
concert from a history of Sweden. The reading being finished, the
teacher put questions to them on the portion they had read, which they
answered promptly, and showed lively interest in the lesson. Around the
walls were suspended maps of the world and of the several countries, and
there were black-boards and all needful appliances, such as would belong
to a well appointed school. In the Universal Exhibition at Paris I had
seen a Swedish school-house with its furniture, &c., and had remarked
that no country made a better exhibition of the apparatus for educating
children than Sweden.
Returning from the visit to the Vetra-Kloster, and its graves of the
kings and the Douglases, we found that the boat had made its way through
the eleven locks and was once more fairly launched on the peaceful bosom
of the grand canal. It was the hour for dining, and the table was spread
on deck, awnings overhead and at the sides to shelter us from the cool
wind while eating. The Swedish dinner, even on a canal-boat, was good,
preceded by the inevitable schnapps and radishes and other appetizers,
and followed by a tolerable soup, fine fish, veal, puddings, and various
trimmings needless to mention. I give you the bill of fare merely to
show that there is enough to eat all the world over, and that you are
not likely to suffer for want of comfortable food, even on a canal in
the heart of Sweden.
We pass through many villages, each with its venerable church, and
houses shaded with overhanging trees, farms well tilled, and now smiling
with growing harvests and heavy clover. I saw no Indian corn, though I
looked for it often. Probably the warm weather is too short-lived for
the crop to ripen. No women were working in the fields. But we came to a
drawbridge, and whistling for some one to open it, a woman ran from her
house with the lever in her hand, ground away as for dear life, and by
the time we reached it the draw was open for us to pass through. The
poor woman was exhausted by the severe exertion, her lips were white as
snow, and she looked ready to faint as we glided by her, and the pilot
gave her a caution to keep a better lookout next time.
And now we cross another lake, _Boren_ by name, the most beautiful of
any we have yet seen. This frequent change from the monotony of the
canal to the lovely scenery of these lakes, imparts a charm to the
journey across the country which we did not anticipate. We now come to
_Motala_, where the greatest Swedish iron-works are located. An English
company has possession of one of the most valuable iron-mines, and the
Swedish government has set up a vast establishment here for the building
of locomotives, iron-clad steamers, monitors, &c., which are said to be
equal to any that are made in the world. The boat had to lie here for
freight long enough for us to go through all the works, which were
freely open to our inspection.
We enter Lake Wetter, one of the largest lakes in Europe. We are soon
out at sea, at least so far that we cannot see the land. It is very
rough, with high wind. One of the sailors assured me that old salts, for
whom the ocean itself had no terrors, are sometimes made sick by the
pitch and toss of Lake Wetter. We touch at Wadstena, a large town from
which our good ship takes its name: a place of great importance in the
commerce of the country, with shops on the docks, like those of a
seaport. What I supposed were bags of grain, lying in great heaps to be
taken on board, proved to be dried peas, and they, with beans, must be
largely grown in these parts. In the suburbs of the place were elegant
residences, with fine parks and beautiful gardens, old and
wide-spreading trees, flower-beds and ornamental shrubbery, some of them
evidently public resorts for the people, and others the appendages of
private residences. Wealth, culture, and enjoyment were thus revealed,
and I had that pleasure which so often greets me in travel,—the
consciousness that a new and strange people, whom I shall probably never
see again, are taking just as much comfort in life, and working out the
ends of living just as well as the inhabitants of other lands with whom
we are more familiar. The Swedish peasantry live well, generally, and
are not exposed to the evils of want, as the hard-working classes in
Poland and Russia. Labor is cheap, and provisions are cheap also. The
houses of the well-to-do people are often made with double windows; they
are rarely more than one story high, the ceilings are low, and thus they
are more readily kept warm in winter. Indeed, I am assured that the
inhabitants in these northern countries, including Russia, often suffer
more from heat than cold in their houses during the severe weather of
their cold season. Education is generally diffused in Sweden, nearly all
being able to read and write; and, taken as a whole, the people being
moral, industrious, frugal, and contented, what could they have more?
The captain came to my cabin, where I was writing, and asked me on deck
to see the sunset and the loveliest view as we approached the village of
Forsvik. It stands at the head of a small lake, and is embosomed with
field and forest—a sweet picture; the manor-house, whose owner is also
at the head of the iron-works, is large and elegant. Here we pass into
the canal again, and through a dense forest, the banks of the canal
being bold and rock-bound, and we just graze them as we pass; indeed, we
seem to be more on land than water; and in fifteen minutes we have cut
through the woods, and rush out into another lake, coming soon to the
highest level between the two seas. We are three hundred and twenty feet
above the sea level, all of which has been surmounted by locks, and now
we must begin the descent by the same means, seventy-five locks in all
being required to take us up from one sea, on one side of Sweden, and
set us down in another sea, on the other side.
The evening had been delicious on deck, but as it drew nigh to midnight,
I would turn in. My companion for the night was the Russian gentleman
whose friendship I had secured during the day. His long, white beard had
commanded my respect. He had asked me innumerable questions of my
country and myself, all of which I had answered to the best of my
ability. He had learned my name,—which he pronounced _Preem_, as all the
continental Europeans do,—and somewhat of my profession, and he
determined to do the polite thing, and in English too, before going into
retirement for the night. His berth was on one side of the little cabin,
mine on the other. We could shake hands across, but we did not. He
arrayed himself in his robes of the night: a red night-cap surmounted
his head, making a fiery contrast with his snow-white beard. Sitting up
on his couch, he addressed me with great dignity and formality: “My
Reverend Preem, I wish you good-night,” and subsided into the pillow.
In the course of the night we steamed out of the canal into Lake Wenner,
the largest in Sweden, and the third in size of all the lakes in Europe.
Even in bed we could perceive that we were at sea, for the roll of the
ship was as if we were on the Mediterranean. But we made the most of the
passage before morning, and touched the next day at Johkoping, one of
the most important inland towns in the kingdom.
This Lake Wenner abounds in trout, and to catch them of the modest
weight of forty pounds is nothing remarkable. It would have been
remarked, however, if we had had the luck to catch one of that weight,
or any thing like it.
A Swedish ship-captain entertained me with stories of his life on this
canal, with vessels worked by sails, pulled by man, and sometimes
bullock power, creeping cautiously through the lakes, and running in
shore whenever the wind was up. He said that he had lived all his days
in this way, and was now taking his ease. All day, as we were making our
way slowly along, we had been hearing the praises sounded of the Falls
of Trollhatten, which we were to reach in the afternoon. The scenery had
been improving, rising sometimes into the grand, and always picturesque
and pleasing, as we passed well-tilled farms and the abodes of
prosperous peasants. A range of locks must be worried through to get by
the Falls, and this gives us the time we want, to see and enjoy one of
the finest cataracts in Europe! You know they have nothing very great in
that line. I have seen them all, and written them up as much as they
would bear, but they do not amount to any thing very wonderful, nothing
indeed to be compared with ours. We have half a dozen falls that would
outleap and outroar all theirs, and we must praise them as an off-set to
their palaces and pictures and stone women. They have marvels of art;
we, wonders of nature, especially Niagara. Foreigners enjoy a
description of Niagara by one who has seen it more than to hear of any
thing else in America. But they have often been sullenly incredulous
when I have assured them that a mighty river, with the water of half a
dozen inland seas, gathers itself within banks a mile asunder, and then
makes one prodigious plunge over a precipice 150 feet deep, into an
unfathomed gulf!
Trollhatten does not attempt such a feat. But the river is caught among
a mass of rocks in a narrow gorge, just where the mountains break down
to the valley, and the stream comes roaring, tumbling, foaming, rushing
headlong with power, fury, madness, indescribable. Water in motion is
always beautiful, and when a mighty volume of it is struggling with
resisting forces, tearing its way over and down the jagged rocks, and
among the green trees of overhanging precipices, what is beautiful
becomes sublime and fearful, and admiration rises into awe. In one place
the rocks have been actually cut away by art to allow the passage of the
water for use, and then the torrent leaps seventy feet at one bound into
a frightful abyss. One lofty rock, with a broad, smooth face, like a
great tablet, is inscribed with the names of kings, and the dates of
their visit to this romantic and interesting spot.
We are now to take the river. The canal is at an end for us. Already we
have a taste of more exciting navigation. To get the steamer into the
river the sailors are working away as if for dear life. One poor fellow
is caught by the leg in a hawser-line, carried overboard, and when
brought on deck is found to have one of his legs broken. It was a sad
termination to our pleasure excursion of three days. We had been brought
into such constant intercourse with the men that we knew them all, and
felt a personal interest in the poor seaman now stretched helpless on
the deck. He was carried to the forecastle, and put away to be taken to
the hospital at Gottenburg, but we could not put him out of mind so
easily. After the excitement was over, I asked the captain what the
owners would do for a sailor thus injured in their service, and learned
that they would pay his hospital charges, and nothing more; in the mean
time, while he was getting well, his family must look out for
themselves. I then proposed to the captain and the Swedish professor
that we should take up a collection among the passengers to help the
man’s family in their want. To my surprise, they said it was a thing
unknown among them, and would not meet with any favor if attempted. They
regarded the idea as quite fanciful and preposterous. Well, I said, “In
my country the passengers would do it; if you will interpret for me I
will make a little speech, and you will see that they will not only
give, but be greatly pleased with the opportunity of doing something.”
The professor consented to be the interpreter, and we called the
passengers together. I told them that “two or three Americans travelling
with them through their beautiful and interesting country had greatly
enjoyed the pleasant voyage of the last few days; but its pleasure had
been marred by the sad accident that had just occurred to one engaged in
our service. Though he was unknown to us, he was a man and a brother,
and in the country from which I came, when such an event took place, we
were in the habit of showing our sympathy for the injured by giving him
money to lighten the calamity that had befallen him. You would gladly do
so if you were permitted, and we propose to go around with a hat and let
every one who is disposed contribute what he or she is pleased to give.”
The professor turned the speech into Swedish, or at least said as much
in that tongue, probably more and better. I could not understand a word;
but his remarks were received with lively applause, and at his allusions
to the _Americans_ I nodded most intelligently, taking it for granted
that he was saying something complimentary. We then received the gifts,
and I believe that every passenger, male and female, gave something, and
with a cheerfulness beautiful to observe.
A lone tower, rising above a mass of ruins, with a single wall
surmounted by a heap of stones, strikingly resembling a huge lion, is
all that remains of Hongfel, one of the most extensive of the old-time
castles of Sweden. Here the river divides into two. We enter the left
branch, passing near a fertile island; and, as the sun is going down
behind a bank of threatening clouds, the city of Gottenburg, a seaport
on the German ocean, rises upon our view with commanding beauty as we
approach, and see the towers of its churches and the roofs of its
principal buildings glistening in the last rays of the summer’s setting
sun. The harbor is well protected, and the forest of masts presented all
the appearances of a busy seaport. The usual crowd was on the wharf as
our boat came to, but perfect order prevailed. No rush was made for
baggage or passengers, but each one waited to be called for,—a model of
good breeding that might be shown to advantage in the wilds of western
civilization. Those of us who had become _well_ acquainted in three
days’ companionship now shook hands and bade each other farewell in our
several tongues, the broken-legged sailor not being forgotten, as he lay
in his bunk waiting to be taken to the hospital. We were soon
distributed in our several directions, and parted, perhaps not to meet
again, certainly not all of us, in this world.
It will give you an idea of the prices that rule in this country if I
tell you that at the wharf we stepped into a carriage with two horses,
our luggage was put on, we were driven to the hotel _Gotha Kallare_, the
luggage was taken up to the chambers, and the price for the whole
service was less than fifty cents of our money. Sweden still bears the
palm of cheapness over all the countries I have seen.
Gottenburg proved to be an interesting place, though noted more for its
commerce with Britain and America than for any thing else. The
Merchants’ Exchange is a model in its way, combining a hall, and rooms
for social entertainments, concerts, &c., which are managed by municipal
authority. A museum of antiquities, illustrating the history and
condition of the country, is well arranged, and would profitably detain
the traveller a day or two to study it. The paintings are also
interesting, where they preserve the memory of men and things belonging
to Sweden, and of these there were many. The landlord of our hotel
having learned from some of the Americans in our party that I was
connected with the press, took pains to bring me into contact with my
brethren of that fraternity in Gottenburg. Mr. Rubenson called and led
me to the office of the _Daily News_, a paper devoted chiefly to the
interests of merchants and sailors. I went through their press-rooms,
composing and editorial apartments, and found them remarkably like those
I was quite familiar with at home. This paper has a circulation of 8,000
daily, and on Saturday is published an edition of 3,000 extra, because
on that day the poorer classes buy a paper for Sunday reading.
Mr. Rubenson took me to visit an institution the like of which I never
heard of in any other city, and yet so useful in its object and result,
that I had great satisfaction in visiting it. I am very anxious to have
it known to the ladies of my own afflicted land. It was established by
the energetic benevolence of one of the ladies of the city, who
succeeded in getting a building specially erected and fitted for the
purpose of giving young women instruction and practice in the arts of
domestic life.
Impelled by a desire to benefit both the servant and the mistress, by
improving the qualities of the one, and adding thus to the comfort of
the other, this Swedish lady, with charity equal to her countrywoman
Jenny Lind, or Fredrika Bremer, established this school. Girls of good
moral character, who wish to go out to service, are received, and, under
the direction of a competent matron, are made adepts in the sublime
mysteries of the kitchen and laundry. The establishment takes in washing
and baking and cooking for private families, hotels, and restaurants,
and the money thus earned goes far toward paying the current expenses.
The girls are taught to put their hands to every thing that must be done
in the household. By turns they wait upon table, and the matron is at
its head to give instruction, that they may become expert in serving the
dinner as well as in cooking it, and those who sit at table may also
learn to be decent in eating it.
And it was pleasant to learn that admission to this training-house is
regarded as a great privilege. It is even secured as a reward for
proficiency in the free schools; so that a young woman who has
distinguished herself for good conduct in school, is entitled to still
further education in this house as a reward of merit. These young women
are in constant demand by families, who are ready to pay them higher
wages, because they are graduates of a training-school where they have
learned the theory and practice of household labor.
One of the greatest enjoyments of wanderings in foreign lands has been
found in the discovery that there are good people all over the world;
that they are toiling and praying for the good of their
fellow-creatures, trying to make society better, the burden of the poor
more easy to be borne, and this by helping them to help themselves. The
future of these northern countries is more hopeful because of the
enlightened philanthropy of such as the friends I have just met.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
NORWAY.
UP in this part of the world you must be very careful to look out for
yourself, in all matters that require _certainty_ as to times and ways
of travel. It was hard to learn when a steamer would go north from
Gottenburg, and all that we did learn from captains and porters and
landlords proved to be erroneous. But at last it was settled that a boat
would be along the next morning from Copenhagen, bound to Christiania,
and if we were at the wharf at _four_ A.M. we could go! We were called
at three, and it was just as light as noonday. The luggage was taken by
hand-carts, and the travellers, a goodly company, trudged to the wharf,
a sleepy, grumbling set of Americans, who were sore vexed at being waked
so early; four families, who met at Gottenburg, and were now embarking
on the German Ocean to visit Norway. We suffered on deck from the cold,
and were obliged to seek shelter in the cabin, but every berth, settee,
chair, and peg, were occupied, so great was the crowd of passengers on
the Viking to-day. Breakfast was served early, beginning with Norwegian
cheese, quite equal to basswood, followed by eggs, caviar, beefsteaks,
salt fish, and other things, and by the time this was over, the day was
fairly opened; one of the brightest and most beautiful, with its cool,
bracing, stimulating air, that we had ever seen. The Skager-rack (we had
been familiar with the Skager-rack and Cattegat in the geography from
school-days) stretched away to the horizon, seemingly to our own loved
land in the west.
At Freidericksvern we landed a large number of our passengers. This is a
naval station, and the residence of officers with their families. The
hills about the picturesque town are attractive to the mineralogist, and
the “crystals of shining feldspar are seen at a distance.” I did not see
them. Entering a bay, and keeping near to the rock-bound coast, we
steamed up a river for several hours, touched at Moss, crossed over to
Hosten, a great naval station, and found a host of people on the wharf,
to wait the steamer’s arrival. Here the fiord, or bay, divides into two,
one leading to Dremmen, and the other, which we pursue, to CHRISTIANIA,
the capital of Norway. The mountains on the left are bold; sometimes
lofty perpendicular rocks rise from the water. The sight is striking,
grand indeed. Night approaches, but not darkness. It is nine, ten,
eleven o’clock, and still the daylight lingers. At midnight we arrived
at our destined port. We have been steaming almost due north twenty
hours. Our baggage must be searched, for Norway has its own customs,
though under the same crown with Sweden. But the search was slight and
soon over. Perhaps you will be as much surprised to hear as I was to see
that the city of Christiania is so much like other cities; if I had
awoke out of sleep and found myself in it, I would not have supposed
myself in the northernmost kingdom of Europe, and on the confines of the
frozen zone. It has indeed a frigid look, a barrenness of ornament, a
precise, severe, and perfectly plain style of building, if that may be
called a style which is no style at all. But there is nothing about it
to excite observation, except it be that it is more of a city, with
greater attractions in objects of interest to visit, than one would look
for in Norway.
The house at which I am stopping, Hotel du Nord, has rooms for two
hundred guests; it is a hollow square, with a balcony on the four sides
of the quadrangular court within, and each room on the balcony has a
door opening upon it. On the piazza of the central building is a
platform covered with awning, and surrounded with shrubs and flowers,
with a fountain of water playing in the midst. I find in these
hyperborean regions the people take pains to adorn their houses with
plants and blooming flowers, to cheat themselves with the pleasing
delusion that they are just as well off as those who dwell in more
genial climes. This is true of the dwellers in the cities, and in the
rural villages also, where I have noticed that windows are filled with
plants exposed to the sun and the passer’s eye.
The stove in my room is of cast iron, and wood is the fuel. As it is now
midsummer (July 6), we do not intend to use it, but it is a curiosity.
It is four stories high, the lower one for the fuel, and the others are
chambers to hold dishes for warming, and also to increase the surface
for radiation of heat. We enjoy the sight of it, hoping that in the
dreadful weather to come some of our successors may enjoy the heat
thereof.
This morning we took our first breakfast in Norway, and, according to
our usual custom of giving you a bill of fare in each country, to let
you know how we live in strange lands, I will just mention that we had
for our simple repast coffee, cold lobster, beefsteak, ham, tongue,
corned beef, fried sole, boiled salmon, herring, with bread, butter,
cheese, strawberries, and all other things needed to make out a meal.
The city has about fifty thousand people in it, and makes progress very
slowly. It has a palace, which I positively did not visit, having made a
resolution not to be tempted to go through any more, and a museum, which
greatly entertained me for an hour or two.
In these Scandinavian countries (meaning Sweden, Norway, and Denmark),
they are very curious to discover and to preserve all remnants of the
heathen worship of Odin which once prevailed, and this museum has some
very precious relics of that dead past. A massive gold collar, and
various ornaments, which were found buried in the earth, are very
naturally referred to the days of idolatry, when they adorned a statue
of Odin. And I am more and more convinced that to this day there is a
lurking reverence among the ignorant peasantry for the deity of those
old-time heroes, whom their fathers worshipped. So prone is human nature
to superstition, and so hard is it to blot out of the popular mind and
heart those ideas which, even in remote generations, got firm hold.
Another very remarkable memorial of past times and customs treasured in
the museum is the girdle and the knives which the gentlemen of Norway
used in the good old days, now lost, when they _pitched into_ one
another in duels. First, each one of the combatants took a butcher-knife
(we call them bowie-knives now), and plunged it as deep as he could into
a block of wood. The blade, so much as was not in the wood, was then
wound round tight with strips of leather, and the knives were cautiously
drawn out, and each man took his own. It therefore had now a longer or
shorter point, according to the strength he had to plunge it into the
wood. Their girdles were then fastened together, so that they could not
get away from one another. Now they went at it hip and thigh, cut and
slash, till one or both were killed. If modern duellists were put to
such tests of strength and courage, there would be few challenges.
Much more pleasant to look upon, and a memento of a very curious and
perhaps a pleasing custom, which, however, is not of the by-gone times,
but still common in Scandinavia, at least in the Bergen district, is the
crown and girdle and frontlet worn by the bride on the wedding day. But
all brides are not allowed to wear such ornaments as these: only brides
who have been good girls all the time before. If they have been naughty,
they must be married without these distinctions, and we may well believe
that they are therefore very highly esteemed among young women in the
north country. It seems to intimate, also, that it is not altogether a
rare thing for a bride to be deprived of the privilege of being thus
distinguished, for it is hardly possible that such a state of society
can exist anywhere as to have an advertisement made at a wedding that a
bride is no better than she should be. But the manners and customs of
the world are very queer to the notions of those whose manners and
customs are very different, and in no part of domestic life are these
habits so monstrously diverse as in the matter of wedding ceremonies.
While wandering through the museum I found that the collection of
heathen relics was comparatively small. They are often found by the
peasants in their tillage of the land, but they keep them secret and
sacred, attaching peculiar value to them as charms and medicines,
averting evil and healing diseases. So powerful still is this hereditary
heathenism in the vulgar mind.
The university is beautifully situated, and handsomely appointed for the
instruction of about a thousand students, that great number flocking
here to enjoy the lectures of its distinguished professors. But Norway
has done very little for science or literature, though such names as
Holberg and Wessel are well known abroad. The men of learning in Norway
generally publish their writings in the German language, to find
readers. Norway would furnish a limited field. Education is general, and
it is rare to find a person who cannot read and write. Nearly every town
has its newspaper, and at the capital there are reviews and magazines
which evince learning and ability.
In the afternoon we set off to go by rail and boat a hundred miles into
the interior, to spend the sabbath among the natives in the heart of the
country. Going north from Christiania we found the scenery tame, but
cheerful, as we passed among well-tilled farms, through small villages,
with low but comfortable houses, and in each village a neat church,
which told us, as we rode by, of two good things, first, that the people
were Christians, and, secondly, that they were not split up into sects.
Long may it be before a little village in Norway, with five hundred
inhabitants, shall require five places of worship! Now and then in the
open country a white mansion gave evidence of wealth and taste. A stream
of water and frequent ponds, with saw-mills, rafts of logs and piles of
lumber, showed the staple of this region; and we saw forests of fir,
pine, spruce, and birch, the hardy natives of the North. Occasionally we
caught fine views of distant hills, with long intervals of field and
forest and villages.
At EIDSVOLD we came to Lake MJOSEN. You can’t pronounce the name of the
lake? Well, you must do as well as you can. The lake is a beautiful
expanse of water sixty miles long, four or five wide, full of salmon and
trout, and navigated by steamers, on one of which we are speedily
embarked. The company is a curious mixture. Three or four American
families, some English, many natives, and all social and friendly, for
they are beyond the restraints of society, and are willing to give and
take, as people should be, but are not, all the world over. We do not
know how many kind-hearted neighbors we have in travel or at home until
we break our respective shells and speak out.
The English commercial traveller is everywhere, and, of course, was on
this boat. He is altogether ahead of the smartest, cutest, and most
inquisitive Yankee. He will ask more questions and tell you more of his
business than our communicative countrymen are disposed to mention. One
of them was near me this afternoon; he was on his annual excursion among
the inland towns of Norway, to get orders for his employer’s house (iron
goods was the line of trade) in England. When he began his travels, a
few years ago, he was the only agent from the city where the business
was located; now, he said, there are twelve houses in the same trade,
each one of which has its “commercial traveller” persecuting the natives
of Norway into buying their goods. They must learn the language, of
course, and then go from village to village all the summer, driving
their business with energy, followed by other travellers of other
houses, in other lines of traffic. So the shops of England are open at
the door of every trader in the most obscure parts of this secluded
country. So the iron and cotton and woollen goods of Sheffield and
Birmingham and Manchester are forced out of the little island of their
production into all the earth. I presume we do our share of the same
kind of pushing; but John Bull is the master of the business.
On this boat were files of newspapers and a neat library of well
selected books in Norse, and German, and in English, for the use of
passengers. The large number of volumes in our own tongue showed that
they made special circulations on having English-speaking travellers.
Indeed, in the summer season Norway is taken possession of by the
English. All the streams are bought or hired by sportsmen in England,
who come annually, and thus secure the exclusive right to catch the fish
in them. Many who are not aware of this “pre-emption” come to Norway,
and are disappointed of their sport.
Close by the hotel stands an ancient church, well preserved, and very
interesting. The pastor resides five miles away; but he arrived at the
hotel before service, for the good people of the inn were his
parishioners, and they make him welcome every Sunday morning for a
little refreshment after his ride and before his labors begin. He was a
very fat man, with a face that did not bespeak the scholar and divine
any more than did the faces of my lamented friends Bethune and Krebs,
both eloquent and learned, but not _spirituel_ in their _physique_. He
spoke neither English nor French, and our conversation was, therefore,
only of the most general character, patched out of German and Latin.
At eleven o’clock we went over to the church. It is built of logs, in
the form of a cross; the logs fitted nicely together, and boarded rudely
on the outside. No plaster or paint was on the inside. Pine-tree
branches, with projecting sticks, were convenient hat stands. In front
of the pulpit the altar was railed off, and over the railing was the
national coat of arms. Over the altar were little images, a crucifix,
Virgin Mary, and such signs of lingering superstition as the Lutheran
Church in these countries still retains.
The women sat on one side of the middle aisle, the men on the other. The
men were fine looking, generally of good height and stalwart. The women
were not good looking. They wore no peculiar costume. Many had bonnets
on. Some had only a handkerchief on their heads, of white, yellow, red,
or spotted, as the taste of each suggested. Some elderly ladies wore
white lace or muslin caps, extending in front, and some had a black silk
cap on the back of their heads. The men wore plain, black clothes,
coarse, but clean and decent.
They were devout in appearance and very attentive. The preacher was
earnest, and in his manner patriarchal, pastoral, affectionate. He had
no Bible, and no notes before him, but discoursed with great fluency and
fervor.
After sermon the Lord’s Supper was celebrated. The whole congregation
communed. The house was packed full of people, and it appeared to me
that every individual came forward to partake. They went up in
successive groups, knelt, and the pastor placed his hand on the head of
each one and pronounced words of absolution. When this was done the
assistant came out and put a white gown on the pastor, over the black
with a white ruff, in which he had preached. The assistant said a prayer
while the pastor was kneeling, and then intoned a service, in which
there were no responses, except from the organ. Each communicant
received, while kneeling, both bread and wine from the hands of the
pastor.
The service was very long, and it appeared longer to us who did not
understand a word of the language used. But it was very affecting. There
was so much earnestness and devotion in pastor and people; they
approached with such evident solemnity and becoming fear, and yet with
such strong desire, and the venerable pastor, like a father in the midst
of his children, gave them the emblems of redeeming love with such
gracious kindness of tone and manner that I was constrained to ask my
companion what he thought of it, and he answered, “I should like to go
and join them.” This would not have been proper, as we were strangers to
all present, and it may be that it would have been inconsistent with
their rules to receive us. But our hearts were with them, and we came
away refreshed. We had been in communion with them, though they knew it
not, and with our common Lord and Master, whose table in Norway is the
same, and spread with the same simple but delicious fare in the north as
in the south. And when we all come, as we shall come, from the east and
the west, and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom
of God, I hope to meet my Norway pastor and his people at the Supper of
the Lamb.
It made very plain to me the essential oneness of the church on earth.
What did they,—these simple-hearted Christians in the heart of
Norway,—what did they but testify their faith in Him whose sacrifice is
their salvation?
It was pleasant to observe that the village was throughout the sabbath
as quiet and orderly as any place in our own or any land could be. The
scenery around it is picturesque and beautiful. Sombre mountains, sweet
valleys, romantic waterfalls, green hillsides, these are the natural
features of this secluded region, where I came to get into the very
heart of Norway, and spend a sabbath among the people.
Cheap as living is in Sweden it is cheaper in Norway. In
Lillehammer,—this pleasant village at the head of Lake Mjosen, in the
midst of beautiful scenery, where a fire is a luxury in midsummer, and
the windows of the cottages blossom with flowers, and the streams laugh
loudly as they tumbled along among the hills, where the linen on the
beds and the table is as white as the snow of the long winters,—here in
Lillehammer I spent one day and two nights, and my hotel bill for five
meals, two sleeps, and three rides, was three dollars of our money. That
is cheap enough, I am sure; for the eating and sleeping and riding were
just as good as you would get at Niagara Falls, where the prices are so
high that the Falls appear low in comparison.
Early in the morning we returned to the steamboat on the lake, to go
back to Christiania. A young woman, a cripple, was brought in an
arm-chair by two men, and tenderly placed on board. The care they seemed
to take of her was touching, and her gentleness made me wish that I had
the Norse language at command that I might learn something of life among
the lowly and the suffering, in this part of the world.
At _Eidsvold_ we touched, and saw the people launching an _iron
steamer_, for lake navigation, of course, and it was new to me to see a
vessel launched _sideways_.
[Illustration: TRAVELLING IN CARIOLES IN NORWAY.]
At Christiania a large party of Americans—and we were certainly in the
midst of them—spent the afternoon in seeing the sights of the town, and
riding about in the _carioles_ of the country. A _cariole_ is not a
carry-all, for its capacity is to hold one, and no more. A boy may hang
on behind to hold the little horse when you stop, but you ride alone and
drive. Not much driving is required; you take your seat in this low,
uncovered, rattling, comfortless concern, and away goes the rat of a
horse, tearing along like mad; and as each person has to have a machine
to himself, a dozen of them make a long string of vehicles, which,
dashing over the stones, create a sensation. Young ladies from America
are fond of this exciting exercise. It is almost equal to horseback
riding. Some English ladies of title and wealth are making the tour of
Norway this summer with no attendants, travelling only in the cariole.
The government makes all needful provision for travellers that they may
not be imposed upon by the post-keepers. Licensed houses are planted
along the highways at intervals of about ten miles, where the keeper is
obliged to keep a certain number of horses for hire, and if all are out,
when a traveller comes he is required to get horses from his neighbors.
You buy your cariole,—a cheap and miserable thing it is,—hire a bit of a
horse, and are off. At the first post-house you leave your horse, take
another, paying the legal price for its use, enter your name in a book
with any complaint you may have to make of the treatment you have
received, which the Government Inspector is to read when he comes in his
regular tours. These post-houses could, at a pinch, give you something
to eat and a place to sleep in; and a few days and nights of travel in
Norway will make fare and quarters tolerable, at which you might have
slightly elevated your nose in Paris or Broadway. I have been in several
countries and have passed some years in travel, but never spent
twenty-four hours in my life without food convenient for me, and a
better place to sleep in than his who had not where to lay his head.
So we set off from the tavern in the capital of Norway, in a dozen
carioles, rushing amain down the rough streets and out into the country
to _Oscar Hall_, and marvelled exceedingly at the taste and beauty of
its decorations within and without: nature adorned by art, in lovely
grounds about the house, and the views of the Fiord, the mountains and
plains.
The castle of _Agershaus_ commands magnificent views, and keeps in its
strongholds the regalia of Norway and the records of its romantic
history. Old guns, relics of an effete system of warfare, bear on their
faces rude pictures in brass of barbarians in war. The old castle is a
prison now. And if you suppose that it takes an Englishman or even a
United-Statesman to make a cute rogue, just read the story of the Robin
Hood of Norway.
In the castle of _Agershaus_, in Christiania, in a cage of thick iron
bars, is immured for life, Hoyland, the Robin Hood of Norway. His
robberies were always confined to the upper classes, while his kindness
and liberality to those in his own rank of life rendered him exceedingly
popular amongst them. His crimes never appear to have been accompanied
with personal violence. He is a native of Christiansand, where he began
his career. On being imprisoned for some petty theft, he broke into the
inspector’s room, while he was at church, and stole his clothes; these
Hoyland dressed himself in and quietly walked out of the town unobserved
and unsuspected. He was subsequently repeatedly captured, and imprisoned
in this castle, and often made his escape. On one occasion he was taken
on board a vessel just leaving the Christiania Fiord for America.
Previous to his escape, all descriptions of irons having been found
useless, he was placed in solitary confinement in the strongest part of
the basement of the citadel—his room was floored with very thick planks.
Here he had been confined for several years, when one night the turnkey
said to him, “Well, you are fixed at last, you will never get out of
this, and you may as well promise us you will not attempt it.” To this
he only replied, “It is your business to keep me here if you can, and
mine to prevent your doing so if possible.” The following day, when his
cell was opened, the prisoner was gone, apparently without leaving a
trace of the manner in which he had effected his escape. After a
repeated and careful search, on removing his bed, it was found that he
had cut through the thick planks of the flooring. On removing the planks
cut away (and which he had replaced on leaving the cell) it appeared he
had sunk a shaft, and formed a gallery under the wall of his prison—this
enabled him to gain the court-yard, from which he easily reached the
ramparts unseen, dropped into the ditch and got off. No trace of him
could be found. About twelve months afterwards, the National Bank was
robbed of 60,000 dollars, chiefly paper money, and in the most
mysterious manner, there being no trace of violence upon the locks of
the iron chest in which the money had been left, or upon those of the
doors of the bank. Some time afterwards a petty theft was committed by a
man who was taken and soon recognized to be Hoyland. He then disclosed
how he had effected his last escape, which had taken him three years of
steady patient labor to accomplish; while others slept he was at work,
and with a nail for his only tool. Having money concealed in the
mountains he was sheltered in Christiania—disguised himself—made
acquaintance with the porter of the bank—gradually, without his
knowledge, took impressions of the various locks—made keys for them—and
thus committed the robbery before mentioned. He is said to carve
beautifully in wood and stone, but is no longer allowed the use of
tools. His sole occupation is knitting stockings with wooden pins. Twice
during the day, while the other prisoners are not at work, he is allowed
to leave his cell for air and exercise, and he occasionally gets the
amusement of a chat with the governor, by writing to him that he will
disclose where the rest of the bank money is concealed which he did not
get rid of while at liberty.
Then we rode on and took a look at the Asylum for the Deaf, and Dumb,
and at the Home for the Aged, and at the Orphan Asylum, and at the
Workhouse, and all these institutions had the appearance of being the
fruit of intelligent philanthropy and Christian charity.
Manufacturing villages were in the immediate vicinity of the city, with
cotton and iron mills driven by water power, and every thing about them
suggested thrift and comfort.
We rode out to the oldest church of the city, and found in the adjoining
cemetery the grave of _Bradshaw_, whose _guide_ everybody carries and
nobody understands. I thought he was living and working in London, but
it seems that several years ago he came up here, with one of his own
guides, and found a grave.
[Illustration: Drawing of coat of arms]
[Illustration: Palace of Frederiksberg]
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
DENMARK.
WE are coming down to Denmark. Down from Norway and along the coast of
Sweden. First through the Skagerack and then the Cattegat, in the
steamer EXCELLENT TOLL, by name, with twenty American passengers. Fleets
of sailing vessels were in sight, the crews engaged in the mackerel
fishery, a great business off this coast. The day was as lovely as the
suns of Italy ever show, and the sunset revealed such splendors as I
never saw except in Mantua, under Italian skies.
The sun went down as if into the western ocean, where poets often tell
us he “quenches his beams.” A few clouds were lying along the horizon,
in long rifts stretching a quarter of the way around the great circle of
the heavens. They were burnished with golden splendors, and among the
rifts the sky seemed painted with the hues of the rainbow. The
passengers stood on the upper deck, and _all_ were in raptures of
admiration gazing upon the magnificent scene. Long after the sun was
gone the great picture hung on the northern sky, and we watched it till
the many-colored painting gradually and finally faded into the sombre
tints of evening. The moon then gave us silver for gold, and for some
hours after sunset it looked as though the sun were rising!
We passed the night on this voyage, touching at Gottenberg at midnight,
for an hour only. The next day (July 10) was equally brilliant with the
first, and the run along down the coast was exciting and pleasant. About
midday we entered the Sound and soon came to Elsinore, where we had no
Sound duties to pay. From time immemorial—so long that the date of the
origin of the custom is lost in the fogs of the region—the Danes have
been accustomed to demand and receive toll from every vessel passing
Elsinore. No end of trouble was the result of this. The Vienna treaty of
1815, after Napoleon’s downfall, confirmed the Danes in their enjoyment
of this imposition. Some nations afterwards commuted with Denmark, and
the whole thing was abolished in 1857.
In the time of Tycho Brahe, the famous astronomer, whose house we saw on
one of the lakes in Sweden as we were going to Upsala, the Danes built a
mighty castle here, called KRONBORG, and mounted big guns, so as to
sweep the Sound and make it very desirable for vessels to stop as they
were going by and pay their toll. If they refused to do so they were
spoken to by these guns. And sometimes it was a word and a blow. This
castle is famous in the legends and history of Denmark, and within the
last hundred years it has held distinguished and royal prisoners, who
have exchanged dungeons for the scaffold. Down in the subterranean
casemates a thousand men may be stored away—soldiers to defend the
castle, or prisoners to pine in captivity. In one of these secret hiding
places, where neither light nor pity finds its way, a noted mythical
giant of Danish story is said to reside. He never comes up to the
surface of the earth, but when the State is in danger, and then he takes
the head of the army and leads it on to victory. His grasp is so strong
that his fingers leave their imprint on an iron crowbar when he holds it
in his fist.
The views from the castle and from any of the elevations in Elsinore
embrace the town, the fortifications, Helsingborg on the other side of
the Sound, the Great Belt, the Baltic dotted with sails,—a grand
panorama indeed.
Shakespeare was kind enough to make this vicinity classic and famous by
his Hamlet, whose grave is said to be here, and travellers come to find
it, as they look for Romeo and Juliet’s at Verona. In vain we are told
that Hamlet did not live nor die in these parts; that Jutland and not
Zealand, was his country. But they pay their money and they take their
choice, and most of people choose to believe that Hamlet was buried
hereabouts, and any heap of stones with Runic characters upon them would
answer the purpose, but they cannot find even this. Drop the letter H
and we have Amlet, and that signifies _madman_, and so you have the
beginning of the story on which the tragedy was founded. And the story
runs in this wise in the gossipy guide-books, so useful to travellers,
and especially to those who have to write about their travels.
According to the Danish history of old Saxo Grammaticus, Hamlet was not
the son of a Danish king, but of a famous pirate-chief, who was governor
of Jutland in conjunction with his brother. Hamlet’s father married the
daughter of the Danish king, and the issue of that marriage was Hamlet.
Hamlet’s father was subsequently murdered by his brother, who married
the widow and succeeded to the government of the whole of Jutland. As a
pagan, it was Hamlet’s first duty to avenge his father. The better to
conceal his purpose, he feigned madness. His uncle, suspecting it to be
feigned, sent him to England, with a request to the king that he would
put Hamlet to death. He was accompanied by two creatures of his uncle,
whose letter to the English king was carved upon wood, according to the
custom of the period. This Hamlet during the voyage contrived to get
possession of, and so altered the characters as to make it a request
that his two companions should be slain, and which was accordingly done
on their arrival in England. He afterwards married the daughter of the
English king: but subsequently returning to Jutland, and still feigning
madness, contrived to surprise and slay his uncle, after upbraiding him
with his various crimes. Hamlet then became governor of Jutland, married
a second time to a queen of Scotland, and was eventually killed in
battle.
I wish we could stop at Frederiksborg, but we must come back to it from
Copenhagen. For here is the royal castle of Denmark, built in 1600, and
now the repository of works of art and objects of antiquarian interest
connected with the reigning house. It was in this castle that the
unfortunate queen of Christian VII. died at the early age of
twenty-three, a broken-hearted victim of slander and conspiracy. In one
of the private rooms in which this beautiful woman was a prisoner, she
wrote with a diamond upon the window pane this touching and
self-sacrificing prayer:—
“O keep me innocent, make others great.”
The woodland scenery around the castle is charming. The Royal Forest
covers a vast extent laid out with lovely walks and drives, and the
whole island of Zealand is _preserved_ for royal pleasures in forest and
field.
A drive through this forest brings you to the _Castle of Peace_, so
called because a treaty of peace was concluded in it with Sweden; and
perhaps it keeps its name the more fittingly, as the palace is now cut
up into apartments which are occupied by families, once rich, now poor,
belonging to the _aristocracy_. They find it very convenient to live in
a palace free of rent, and as the neighbors are all in the same
condition with themselves, they are not mortified by the fact that they
are dependents of the State. We would call such a place the royal
poor-house. In England, the splendid palace at Hampton Court, which
Cromwell built and gave to his king for fear he would take it without,
is used for decayed families of the British aristocracy, who live
genteelly in kings’ houses at very little expense.
Denmark is not one of the _great_ countries of the earth, but very far
from being _least_ among the kingdoms. It has a history, and a future
too, civilization, religion, science, art, and enterprise. It made a
fine show at Paris in the World’s Industrial Exhibition, and has no
reason to be ashamed of her agriculture, manufactures, and _fish_. I was
surprised to notice in the fields so many of the productions common in
the northern States of America. A kitchen garden looked homelike, with
its pease and beans and cabbage and potatoes and turnips, and all the
ordinary vegetables cultivated in the same way with our own; and the
crops on the broader farms, wheat and rye and oats; so that the
children, playing the games of the country and singing as they played,
were doubtless familiar with the farmers’ song,—
“Oats, pease, beans, and barley grow.”
Let us study the history of Denmark for a moment. Time was when Denmark
was the ruling power in Scandinavia, which name includes her and Norway
and Sweden. Time was when Denmark conquered all England, and Sweyn I.,
the king of Denmark, was on the throne that the Georges and Victoria
have since filled. Canute the Great was also king of Denmark and
England, and a line of kings after him swayed the same double sceptre.
This was when the Christian era was in the 1000’s, and perhaps Denmark
has never had a more illustrious period of history than in the first
part of the eleventh century. Then England and all the north, with part
of Prussia, were under her crown.
She fell. And not by the superior prowess of any rival foreign prince,
but through the treachery and violence of one of her own subjects. Those
were turbulent times doubtless, and it is wonderful that the mighty
monarch of such a kingdom could be seized, as Valdemar II. was (by one
of his own subjects) while he and his son were hunting in the woods,
carried on board a sloop and off to a foreign castle and immured in
prison for three years. The proudest king in Europe was thus insulted
and bearded and degraded, while Europe looked on without raising a hand
to deliver him. At length the Pope threatened, and one word from him did
what the kings of the earth could not. Valdemar was released and
restored, but his prestige was destroyed and he never recovered from the
effects of his fall. Provinces revolted and became independent. England
set up for herself again. In 1387, Queen Margaret came to the throne of
Denmark and Norway, and subdued Sweden. For a hundred years the three
Scandinavian countries were under the same government. In 1448, the king
of Denmark died, and for a whole century no male heir was left by any
sovereign for the throne. Then the German dynasty came in, and the Duchy
of Schleswig was united with Holstein, which was annexed to Denmark
under Christian I. _There_ begins that Schleswig-Holstein question,
which bothered Europe and has plunged the country into war even in our
day. The very next king, Christian II., lost Sweden; and then Denmark
became a little monarchy, all by itself, which you will find embracing a
peninsula and several islands on the north-west coast of Europe.
England and Denmark have been good friends notwithstanding the
unpleasant relations that once existed. Three or four times the royal
families have intermarried, and the Prince of Wales of the present day
depends far more on the popularity in England of his Danish wife, than
on any merits of his own for his future success on the British throne.
These pleasant relations were disturbed in the early part of the present
century when the British destroyed the Danish fleet and commerce; and,
since that time, Denmark has cultivated the arts of peace, making for
herself a name better than the glory of arms or extent of territory.
Christianity fought with paganism in Denmark during the eighth and ninth
centuries; and, after a terrible struggle, triumphed over Thor and Odin,
whose superstitious power is still felt in the minds of the more
ignorant of the people. Then the Romish religion reigned, until the
Luther reformation came with healing in its beams, and Protestantism
became the religion of Denmark. The Lutheran form of worship is
established, but, under the constitution, toleration is enjoyed.
In no one department of public interest have I been more pleased to be
disappointed, than in the general intelligence prevailing among the
people of these northern countries of Europe. They are Protestants, and,
therefore, knowledge is diffused; the people wishing it, and the
government encouraging it. No Roman Catholic government favors free
schools and the universal elevation of the people. The Danes have a
school in every parish, and every child is obliged to go to school and
learn to read and write. There are higher grades of schools in all the
towns, and two universities,—one at Copenhagen and one at Kiel. Thus the
means of education being brought within the reach of the humblest, the
whole country is enlightened.
[Illustration: A DOMESTIC SCENE IN DENMARK.]
The women are good-looking, and in this matter there are national
peculiarities worth noticing. At a fair or public entertainment, where
men and women of the working classes are brought together in great
numbers, the women of Denmark will be pronounced above the average for
good looks, and, perhaps, the same thing would not be said of the men.
Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark, and the capital of Copenhagen is
Thorvaldsen’s Museum. Copenhagen has other and many attractions, but
this museum is _the_ crown and glory of Denmark. Art has her victories,
and those of war are not so enduring in their glory as the fruits of
genius and peace. Here in this ancient and beautiful city, in 1770,—a
hundred years, save one, ago,—was born Albert Thorvaldsen, the son of an
Iceland ship-carpenter. Poor, obscure, and friendless, but inspired with
the genius of his future art, the boy made his own way to Rome. He found
employment in the studio of Canova, and his talents soon commanded
respect. But he lacked the aid of a patron and friend, and he was about
to abandon Italy in despair, when an English banker, by the auspicious
name of _Hope_, appreciated the artist, ordered a marble statue of
JASON, which was standing in the clay, and from that glad hour his
career was onward and brilliant, till he attained wealth and fame
unsurpassed by any sculptor of ancient or modern times. He loved his
native Scandinavian climes, and often visited the city of his birth,
which he enriched with the noblest creations of his marvellous hand. But
he dwelt in Rome, unmarried, save to his art; and when he returned, at
the age of sixty-eight, to Copenhagen, he was received as a conqueror,
was domiciled in the palace, and, six years afterwards, died in the
midst of the lamentations of the people, who loved him and whom he
loved.
[Illustration: FAÇADE OF THE THORVALDSEN MUSEUM, COPENHAGEN.]
As he made the people the heir of his glorious works—in large part the
models of the statuary he had executed for kings and nations and wealthy
individuals—it was resolved to erect a monument to his name, which
should be at once a museum of his creations and a mausoleum for his
remains. In the midst of the city, and on an open square, a building—a
vast parallelogram with a court-yard in the centre of it—has been
reared; the successive stories filled with the productions of the genius
of this one man, including the minutest specimens, up to the model of
his “Christ,” the highest achievement of his, not to say of human, art.
In the midst of the little court-yard, surrounded on its four sides by
the walls of this museum, so that every window on the inner side looks
down into the court, there lie in solemn and sublime repose the ashes
and bones of the man who made all these things! It is silent; but oh!
how eloquent the lesson of the greatness and the vanity of genius! It is
something, it is a grand thing, to have made all these marbles for the
joy and instruction of mankind; and it is sweet to die with the
consciousness of leaving for after generations the works that shall
teach them lessons of virtue and strength and beauty. But to die and
leave them all! To lie and moulder in the midst of them! To be rotting
while even the clay that one’s fingers moulded into life-like shapes is
admired—this makes the cup of life an insipid draught, and the wise man
cries it is vanity, all vanity, after all. Yet not so vain after all! No
man liveth unto himself; and one would gladly take the pay that a good,
great man gets, who adds to the material wealth of the world the
glorious creations of art for all time to come, and then dies in the
midst of them. It is more also to be useful than to be great; and he who
lives to make others happy, though not an artist in stone or oil, lives
to a noble purpose, and his mausoleum is in the hearts made glad by his
kindness while he lived.
On the outside of this museum the walls are covered with fresco
paintings illustrating the mechanical processes by which the statuary
was brought to its place. This is the antique Grecian, and even
Egyptian, idea of celebrating an historical event. It might be called
Thorvaldsen’s triumph. Within the frieze of the grand hall is the
triumph of Alexander the Great. The Hall of Christ contains the casts of
the Saviour and all his disciples—that wondrous group which in marble
illuminates the chief church in Copenhagen. And as we ascend from floor
to floor, and pass through successive chambers—all of them filled with
the handiwork of the same great artist who sleeps in sight of every
window—one is filled with admiring awe, while charmed with the beauty of
the design and execution. Beauty is not the word, though much here is
very beautiful. Thorvaldsen was one of the first to appreciate and
encourage our own sculptor Powers, whose works are more _beautiful_ than
the Dane’s. Strength, majesty, power—these are the attributes that cover
as with a garment the face, the head, the limbs of the heroes whom
Thorvaldsen by his magic chisel turned into stone. The divine is
revealed in his conception of the Redeemer of men. The god-like is in
Moses and Peter and John the Baptist; and his ancient heroes are
inspired with a sentiment that is easily drawn from the mythology of
Scandinavia, in which the worship of Thor and Odin seems to be
incorporated ineffaceably.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THORVALDSEN. (_By Horace Vernet._)]
Away in the farthest corner of the museum is a collection of gems and
bronzes and vases and coins and antique sculpture, which his taste and
money had gathered in Italy. Here is the furniture of his sitting-room
as it was the day he died, and here is a cast of LUTHER, which on that
day of his death he had begun to work! Here are sketches he had made
with pen and pencil, the dawn of his gigantic conceptions, afterwards
made perfect in marble—now interesting as the outlines we have of the
first thoughts of Raphael and Michael Angelo and others on their
immortal works!
Never was an artist so honored by his countrymen; never was one’s fame
more precious in the memory of his fellow-men. And I may easily convey
to you an impression of the reverence in which he is held by saying that
THORVALDSEN is to-day in Denmark what in our country is the name of
WASHINGTON.
VOR FRUE KIRKE, the _Notre Dame_, the Church of our Lady, is the royal
church—the Cathedral of Copenhagen.
I worshipped there yesterday; and of all the days in the year, and of
all the churches in Europe, not one could have been selected more
crowded with interest to a traveller whose tastes flow in the channels
of religion and art.
For as I came to it there were standing on one side of the portal a
statue of David, and on the other one of Moses, in bronze, both of them
by the hand of Thorvaldsen, and sublime with the inspiration of his
power. I stood a few moments before them, and thought of the royal poet
and the inspired law-giver, and wondered at the art which could embody
and express their spirit and mission with such silent eloquence. And
then I entered the church itself, and it was all ablaze, not with five
thousand candles, as I had seen at St. Peter’s at noonday, not with
flaring gaslights, nor even the glorious sunlight alone, but with the
greatest of modern statues, the CHRIST in marble, standing over the
altar, and the twelve apostles, six on one hand and six on the other,
along the sides of the house (Paul being put in the place of Iscariot),
and all by the hand of the same master. Thorvaldsen chose this sanctuary
as the place to be made beautiful and glorious with his works,—his
triumphs. The SAVIOUR is represented with extended arms, as if he were
saying the sweetest of all his words, “Come unto me,” and on the face of
his disciples rests the expression that sacred art might desire to
present as characteristic of each one of the chosen group. In the middle
of the chancel a marble angel, of loveliness unspeakable, is kneeling
and holding in his hands a shell, which is the font for baptism. Copies
of this are multiplied till the world is familiar with it. Near the door
is a group representing a child walking with his face heavenward, and an
angel follows, pointing with his finger over the child’s head. And on
the other side of the door is a Mother’s Love in marble.
Those who worship here from day to day become familiar with all this
sculpture, and are not distracted, if they are not aided by the beauty
and the majesty of such a wealth of art. But a stranger within the
gates, for a morning only, seeing it all at once for the first and the
last time, would find it difficult to withdraw his soul from the marble
and contemplate for an hour the unseen and eternal. And this would be
more difficult when the worshipper is unable to understand a word of the
service.
The church was full of people, going out and coming in, as in Romish
churches. The officiating minister had on a white robe, ruffles, and red
mantle, with a broad gilt cross on his back. He stood before the altar,
on which was an image of the crucifixion, and two candles four feet
high, and burning. After a brief service and sermon, he administered the
sacrament of the Lord’s supper to a few who remained to receive it,
kneeling; he gave them the bread, with a few words to each, and an
assistant followed, putting the cup to the lips of the communicant. The
formalities of the ceremony, the tones of the priest, the
tergiversations, the responses of the choir, &c., were similar to the
forms in use in the Church of Rome.
When this sacrament was concluded, I was about leaving the house, which
was now nearly deserted, when I noticed something going on in the
chancel. Twenty mothers, each with a babe in her arms, and a female
attendant, entered and arranged themselves in a large circle around the
kneeling marble angel holding the baptismal font. Twenty women, twenty
babes, twenty female friends, not nurses, but god-mothers; not a man
appeared. It was a beautiful spectacle; perhaps it would be impossible
to invent a more lovely tableaux. The mothers, the infants, the friends,
all clothed in white, all before the altar in a circle, in the midst of
which was this white angel kneeling, and above the whole the finest
statue on earth of Jesus, with open arms, as when he said, “Suffer
little children to come unto me.”
The priest read a form of baptism, and then, passing around the circle,
made the sign of the cross on the face of each child; he then read
again; again he went to each child, and laid his hand upon its head as
if in blessing: then he read again. The service was now so protracted
that the mothers were allowed to sit down, and then, one by one, each
came up with the attendant, and, the cap being removed, the babe was
held over the font, the priest took water and poured it three times from
his hand upon the head of the child, pronouncing its name and that of
the Triune God.
This being concluded, and as I was coming out of the church, a carriage
arrived with an elegantly dressed lady and her attendant with a babe, to
be baptized after the people of the humbler class had received the
sacrament. Alas! I said to myself, is aristocracy in religion the same
everywhere?—and cannot the noble of this world be humble before God? So
I would not return to the baptism of this “better born” infant, but went
on my way praying that all alike might be washed in the blood of Christ,
and made children of the kingdom.
It will surprise you—it certainly did me—to find that the people of
these northern countries of Europe give far more time to mere amusements
than the Americans do. I was struck with this on coming to Sweden, and
saw something of it, but not so much in Norway; and here in Copenhagen
they are as much given to it as the Athenians were to news.
Perhaps the French and Italians are more disposed to make themselves
merry in crowds. But on recalling the habits of the masses as they are
seen in public places in Paris and Florence, I think that I was never in
any city in the world where so many people in proportion to the whole
number go from home to be amused. On the outskirts of the city—but not
so far away as to be difficult of access—there are large gardens, so
called, laid off with walks and shrubbery and fountains, and in the
midst are all sorts of spectacular games and plays, combining in one
enclosure theatre, circus, gymnastics, music and dancing, concerts,
orations, and whatever is usually found scattered in different parts of
a city, and to be visited only after paying a fee for each admission. To
enter this garden—for one is a type of many—you pay about ten cents, and
that gives you the _entrée_ to nearly all the shows. The theatre may
charge another trifling fee, but the one admission makes all these
amusements open to the visitor. Around every stage are little tables and
chairs, and refreshments are served, if you choose to call for them, at
an extra charge. To such places as this thousands upon thousands of
respectable people resort night after night, usually coming _before
dark_, for the days are long and nights short; men bring their wives and
children, and take their evening meal together in little stalls provided
for the purpose, and go home in good season. This is their refreshment
after a day of toil, and it is not unlikely that it helps them to bear
with patience the burdens of a working life.
These gardens are the _institutions_ of Copenhagen, for the
entertainment of the people. They are _cheap_, so as to be within the
reach of all; and they are _cheap_, as one of the proprietors told me,
because _low prices_ bring more money than high. Doubtless there are
other and more intellectual enjoyments provided for those who prefer
them; but when you consider the enormous expense incurred to fit up and
furnish every night such entertainments as these, you see it requires
the attendance of many thousands, at the insignificant charge, to make
them pay at all.
On certain days, the Royal Picture Galleries and Thorvaldsen’s Museum
are thrown open to the people, and the throngs of working people,
evidently in very humble life, as their dress and manner indicate, who
pack the halls and rooms, show that the people have also a taste for
something higher and better than plays. Something might be said of the
effect of so much amusement upon the morals of the masses; but it is not
safe for a transient visitor to speak with certainty of any thing but
what he actually sees as he goes along. To me it is a pleasant, and only
a pleasant reflection, that the people in these northern countries, who
do not accomplish much beyond making a decent subsistence from year to
year, find both time and money to spend in amusements that are not in
themselves as demoralizing as the sensual and intoxicating pleasures
which so many of our own poor pursue to their ruin.
You would have to go far and search long before you would find a more
interesting museum than that of NORTHERN ANTIQUITIES, which occupies
part of the Christiansborg Palace. This northern country abounds in
curious relics of past ages, defunct systems of religious worship, modes
of warfare now wholly unknown; and by law all these remains, wherever
found, belong to the crown. In every parish in Denmark the minister is
made the agent of government, to have every thing discovered, and that
promises to be of any interest, sent to the museum, where a fair price
is paid for it to the finder.
There is scarcely an end to the number and variety of these curious
objects, illustrating the manners and customs of the long-buried past.
Weapons of war form the most conspicuous feature of such an exhibition,
and stone is the material from which the most formidable are made; clubs
and axes, arrow-heads of flint, chisels and knives most singularly and
beautifully wrought; urns from ancient sepulchres, with bones of other
animals than human, are here; and tradition tells us that the old Norse
heroes were buried with their dogs and horses, to bear them company in
the world of spirits. It is hard to say what part in the funeral rites
_a sieve_ could perform, but it is often found in the ancient tombs.
The Runic monuments are the most remarkable objects in the collection;
and the one that has excited the closest scrutiny came from Greenland,
in latitude 73, and is said to bear a date 1135.
Among the fire-arms of the earliest years of their use, we have old
cannons to be loaded at the breech, and guns on the revolving principle,
though we have been in the habit of thinking that both of these are
inventions of our own times.
Besides these collections, there is the Royal Arsenal, and the Museum of
Natural History, and the Royal Museum, and many others, which are but
the repetition and extension of these and like objects of
interest,—interesting, indeed, to look at for a few hours, tiresome
after a while; and I will not weary you with the details.
Setting off by rail from Copenhagen to Hamburg, I encountered a
gentleman who claimed to be a countryman of mine, because he hailed from
South America. He was German born, in England bred, and he went to
Uruguay, S. A., where he had been twenty-four years in business. He was
now travelling with his family in the North of Europe. He was a
shipping-merchant, and vessels in which he was interested come from
Hamburg and Havre and England with furniture, tin-ware, and a thousand
manufactured articles, and carry away hides, tallow, and so forth. It
was easy to see that he had an eye to business in the midst of his
pleasure travel, and that he was learning what wants of the North of
Europe could be supplied from the South of America. My conversation with
him developed the beautiful relations of the different parts of the
earth to each other: the climate, the soil, the position of one country
supplementing another, and showing that no country “liveth unto itself”
any more than a man lives to himself. There is a thorough mutual
dependence running through society and the whole world.
[Illustration: HAMBURG.]
Our rail ride was across the island of Zealand—flat, poor, wet, cold
soil; the peasants’ houses were low, of stone, and thatched. The windows
were so few and small, they must be ill ventilated, and probably
unwholesome. Mustard was growing in large quantities, fields of rye were
fair, and grass was looking well. Cattle abounded in the meadows,—not on
the hills, for those were not in sight.
At ten o’clock at night, and while it was yet light, we reached the
steamer at Corseow. It was a large, commodious, and well-furnished
vessel, excepting that it had no state-rooms. The berths were good, but
were all in one open cabin. The decks were crowded with
live-stock,—pigs, calves, cows,—whose squeals, bleating, and moaning
were to be our serenade till the morning light. A bountiful supper was
served,—tea and coffee, meats, eggs, &c.,—and the charge for the whole
was twenty-seven cents! And this being over, I spent the livelong night
fighting, not wild beasts, nor the tame ones overhead, but those
pestering fleas, which seem to be one of the pet annoyances of the
travelling world.
We arrived at Kiel very early in the morning, and went ashore through
mud and rain; and the only way to ride was on the outside of an omnibus,
to the railroad station. This is a famous seaport, and like all other
seaports, so that Kiel will not have a sketch. We make no stay, but by
rail set off for Hamburg. Wheat and rye and buckwheat cover the fields.
Little Indian corn is raised in these countries, where the soil and
climate are as well suited to it as parts of our country where it
flourishes. The gardens are filled with the same vegetables as our
own,—potatoes, pease, beans, lettuce, radishes, beets, carrots,
cauliflower, cabbage,—making it pleasant to know that the good things at
home are just as abundant here. The flowers, too,—roses and lilies and
lilacs, others wild, and cultivated,—make the wayside and the
court-yards of the humble dwellings smile. All the fields of grass and
grain are ridged, and a ditch is made about every twenty feet for a
drain. Small tiles are used for underground draining. Few evidences
appear of high cultivation; very little attention is paid to scientific
preparation of manures, which might greatly enhance the value of the
land.
At Elmshorn,—a very pretty village where we stopped a few moments, and
large numbers of people gathered about the train, as if they were quite
at leisure,—old women brought baskets of strawberries and cherries to
the cars for sale; as large and of as fine a flavor, and of such
varieties as were quite familiar to the eye and taste.
The train moves slowly on, and the spires of Hamburg appear in the
distance. We are now fairly out of Scandinavia. With hearts full of
thanksgiving to Him who has safely led us through our journey, we turn
away from the land of Odin and Thor, and in a few weeks are
[Illustration: HOME AGAIN.]
Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by John Wilson and Son.
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
This book uses inconsistent spelling and hyphenation, which were
retained in the ebook version. Some corrections have been made to the
text, including adjusting spelling in the table of contents to match the
main text and normalizing punctuation.
Further corrections are noted below:
p. 62: in it the first mass was celebrated in 1805 -> in it the first
mass was celebrated in 1085
p. 179: and the ablity of the organist -> and the ability of the
organist
p. 230: to wear only on funeral occasious -> to wear only on funeral
occasions
p. 265: Order and quiet are my chracteristics -> Order and quiet are my
characteristics
p. 289: vast quantites of charcoal -> vast quantities of charcoal
p. 323: poured out their grateful ackowledgments -> poured out their
grateful acknowledgments
p. 400: fifty rix dollars, or about twelve American -> fifty-six
dollars, or about twelve American
p. 447: followed by eggs, carviar, beefsteaks -> followed by eggs,
caviar, beefsteaks
p. 470: Copenhagen has other and many attactions -> Copenhagen has other
and many attractions
p. 476: Suffer little little children to come -> Suffer little children
to come
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the
public domain.
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