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AND THE NEAR EAST/ Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, ctAuslria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, T^mania, Italy, Greece, Turkey '^BY FRANK G. CARPENTER / LITT.D., F. R.G.S. i i WITH I 15 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS ^ GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1924 L 3^1 . 0^7 I COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY carpenter’s world travels ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. First Edition RUG 30 1924 ©C1A800G24(L ^VV<2« 'V ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I N THE publication of this volume on my travels in Europe, “The Alps, the Danube, and the Near East,” I wish to thank the Secretary of State for letters which have given me the assistance of our official representatives in the ten countries visited. I thank also the Secretary of Agriculture and our Secre¬ tary of Labour for appointing me an Honorary Commis¬ sioner of their Departments in foreign lands. Their credentials have been of great value, making accessible sources of information seldom'opened to the ordinary traveller. To the officials of the several republics and the king¬ doms included in these journeys I desire to express my thanks for exceptional courtesies which greatly aided me in my investigations. I would also thank Mr. Dudley Harmon, my editor, and Miss Ellen McB. Brown and Miss Josephine Lehmann, my associate editors, for their assistance and cooperation in the revision of notes dictated or penned by me on the ground. While nearly all of the illustrations in CARPENTER'S WORLD TRAVELS are from my own negatives, those in this book have been supplemented by photographs from the official collections of the Czechoslovakian government, from the Publishers' Photo Service and Ewing Galloway, of New York, and C. D. Morris, of the Near East Relief, Athens, Greece. vii F. G. C. ^;:M-'^- ■■■y; ' f'j,, M HI Vf:\. •; ‘ ^':u' \ i 'MJ:4:r,' d'^ ' '''0ml' '■/! ' ... E ^ fa- ; 'VisAyiiaiiMii^ ““ Km > ohl: 4 ..' ' . f {. CONTENTS CHAPTER page I. Introducing Ourselves . i II. At the World's Peace Capital . . 3 III. Europe's Oldest Republic .... 13 IV. The Beehives of the Alps .... 23 V. Erom the Top of the Jungfrau . . 30 VI. Venice .38 VII. Over THE Plains OF Lombardy TO Milan 46 VIII. The Eternal City .56 IX. The Grandeur That Was Rome . . 65 X. In Czechoslovakia.78 XI. Motoring Through Bohemia ... 88 XII. A Nation of Athletes ..... 95 XIII. Erom Prague to Vienna .... 103 XIV. Vienna .109 XV. Austria, the Republic. 117 XVI. In the Eootsteps of the Hapsburgs 124 XVII. The Country of the Magyars . . 130 XVIII. Budapest, Where East and West Meet i 35 XIX. Bread Lands of the Danube ... 143 XX. Belgrade.152 IX CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXL The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, AND Slovenes .i6i XXII. Peasant Maids and Patchwork Farms .i68 XXIII. Athens.174 XXIV. The Kings of Greece .... 183 XXV. Motoring Through the Land of Homer.191 XXVI. Digging Up Old Greece . . . 200 XXVII. Seen in Sofia.209 XXVIII. Bulgaria and Its King . . . . 217 XXIX. A National Labour Army . . . 225 XXX. Greater Rumania.231 XXXI. In Rumania’s Oil Fields . . . 239 XXXII. At the Queen’s Table .... 246 XXXIII. Constantinople .258 XXXIV. The New Woman in Turkey . . 265 XXXV. Here and There in Stamboul . . 272 XXXVI. Fanatics of Islam.280 XXXVI 1 . The Passing of the Sultans . . 290 See the World with Carpenter .... 298 Index.301 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS In Constantinople. Frontispiece FACING PAGE Mr. Carpenter and League Secretary. 2 The Reformation Monument at Geneva ... 3 A Sail Boat on the Lake. 6 The Palace of the Nations. 7 Waterfalls at Lauterbrunnen.14 A Mountain Home.15 The Clock Tower of Berne.18 House of the Swiss Capital.19 How the Dogs Work.19 An Incline Railway up the Mountainside ... 22 Street Sweeper of Geneva.23 Mountain Climbing on the Snowy Peaks ... 30 The Jungfrau. 3 ^ The Heart of Venice.38 Pigeons of St. Mark’s. 39 Under the “Bridge of Sighs”.46 A Village in Lombardy. 47 In the Arcade of Milan. 54 Olive Trees. 55 Christopher Columbus’s Home Port.62 “Wash Alley” of Geneva.62 Before St. Peter’s. ^3 A View of Rome.* • • 7^ Swimming in the Tiber. 7 ^ XI ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE The Temple of Saturn.71 A Street in Naples.78 Seeing Pompeii.79 The Rebuilt Homes of Pompeii.79 The Oldtown Bridge in Prague.82 The Hradchin Palace.83 Factories of Czechoslovakia.83 Castle Krivoklat.86 Farm Women.86 At Work in the Fields.87 Scene in Bohemia.87 A Roadside Shrine.94 The Annual Meet of the Sokols.95 A Church in Ruthenia.98 Going to the Pump.99 Bratislava.102 At the Church Door.102 A Girl of Slovakia.103 St. Stephen’s, Vienna.. . . 110 Karl’s Platz.in Austrians of To-morrow.in Entrance to Schonbrunn Palace.118 Hochosterwitz Castle.119 The Danube, Highway of Commerce. . . . . 119 Millstaat Lake.126 In Schonbrunn Park.127 The Fortune Teller.130 Going to Market.131 Labourers on a Hungarian Estate.131 The Castle at Budapest.134 A Park by the River.134 xii ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Fashionables on the Corso .... . . • 135 In a Village. 142 A Hungarian Plowman. ... 143 Unloading Wheat. . . . 146 Grain Lands of the Danube .... ... 147 Scars of Bombardment in Belgrade . ... 150 A Gypsy Street Cleaner. ... 151 In the Capital of Yugoslavia .... ... 158 View of Belgrade. ... 159 Cattaro. . . . 159 Gate of the Royal Palace. 166 The Ice Cream Vendor. 167 A Serbian Peasant. ... 174 The Acropolis. ... 175 Amid the Columns of the Parthenon . 182 Sentries at the Palace Gate .... ... 183 Twenty-five Hundred Years of Athens . 190 A Greek Monk. 191 A Burden Bearer of Greece .... 198 A Sidewalk Cafe. ....... 198 In the Stadium. ... 199 The Temple of Zeus. ... 199 The Caryatids. . 206 Acro-Corinth. . 207 The Corinthian Canal. . 207 Market Day in Sofia. . 210 The Cathedral at Sofia. . 211 The Lemonade Seller. . 214 In the Market at Sofia. ... 215 Palace of the King. . 222 '‘Valley of the Roses''. xiii . 222 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Street in Philippopolis .. . 223 Bulgaria’s Labour Army . . 226 A Peasant Woman . . 227 University at Bucharest. . 230 Rumanian News Girls . . 230 The Young Knitter . . . 231 A Farm Boy of Rumania. . 238 Women Workers in the Oil Fields . . 239 A Gypsy Hut. . 242 Oil Well Derricks. . . 243 A Scene in Sinaia. . 246 Queen Marie. . . 247 A Belle of the Summer Capital .... . . 254 The Casino . An Outdoor Restaurant . . . 255 A Terraced Street of Constantinople . . . . 258 The Hill of Joshua .. . . 259 Constantinople . . . 259 The Ahmedieh Mosque . . 262 Porters on the Galata Bridge . . 263 The Modernized Dress of Turkish Women . . 270 Robert College . . 271 Girls' Sports . . 271 Merchants of the Bazaars . . . 274 The Letter Writer . . . . 275 Among the Shops. . 282 At the Fountain. . 283 In Santa Sophia. . 290 Under the Old Plane Tree. . 291 XIV THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND THE NEAR EAST THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND THE NEAR EAST CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING OURSELVES T his is to make us acquainted. Although you are seated in your favourite armchair in your library while I am in Europe some thousands of miles away, yet we are travelling com¬ panions. As I sit here in my hotel on the shore of Lake Geneva, the snowy Alps look down upon me, and Mont Blanc is in plain view over the water. The Palace of the League of Nations is but a stone's throw away, and France is within easy reach. 1 have come here direct from New York to be the personal conductor of our tour together. We are going from Geneva to the Golden Horn; from the oldest Christian republic of Europe to the new democracy of Mohammedan Turkey, drifting leisurely about this way and that through the many countries between. We have no detailed itinerary, but, like Napoleon, shall cross the Alps into Italy, and, like Soc¬ rates, chat as we stroll about the slopes of Mt. Parnassus in Greece. We shall linger under the shadows of the Tatra and Bohemian mountains in Czechoslovakia, talk with the King of Bulgaria on the heights of Sofia, and take I THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST a lunch with Queen Marie at her summer palace in the Carpathians. Much of our time will be spent on or near the Danube and in the rich bread lands of Hungary and Serbia lining its banks. We shall take a run from Yugoslavia down into Greece, and see the modern nation building up a new civilization. Travelling in the footsteps of the Romans in ancient Dacia, we shall make a trip through the oil fields of Rumania, cross the delta of the Danube to the Black Sea, and sailing the Bosporus between Asia and Europe, end our trip in Turkey at the Golden Horn. Our travels will thus embrace ten different countries, all more or less hoary with antiquity, but all alive and young with the regeneration that followed the World War. We shall hear the cry of the new Italy in what was the very heart of Imperial Rome, see the republics of Austria and Czechoslovakia rising out of the ruins of the Hapsburgs, and find in Hungary a constitutional mon¬ archy controlled by the Magyars. We shall meet the newest of modern political movements in Bulgaria and Rumania; and in Turkey, the land of the Saracens, shall behold the followers of the Prophet studying the maxims of our Christian colonial forefathers as they try to build up a republic in the home of the sultans. Our travels include a large territory, and the countries and the peoples are so varied in character that at every step of the trip we shall have some new thing to see. 2 “At Geneva I talked with the Secretary General of the League of Nations. He directs the work of scores of experts assembled here and conducts the world’s biggest bureau for the exchange of international in¬ formation.” The Palace of the League of Nations stands for the ideal of interna¬ tional peace and political liberty, while the Reformation Monument sym¬ bolizes the ideal of religious freedom for which Geneva fought under the leadership of Knox, Beza, Farrell, and Calvin. CHAPTER II AT THE world’s PEACE CAPITAL ROM the Slough of Despond to the Delectable Mountains, from ''isms’' and "ologies” to plain common sense, from nations still prostrated by ^ the mightiest conflict in all history to the people of perpetual peace, that is how one feels when one enters Switzerland from any of the war-exhausted countries of Europe. I have called the Swiss the people of peace, but theirs has been peace after strife. Still, their fights have been only to gain or preserve their freedom and not to acquire more territory by robbing their neighbours. For cen¬ turies this little mountainous country, surrounded, as it were, by the bullies of Europe, has guarded its boundaries and kept its independence. The city of Geneva is emblem¬ atic of peace, and its sturdy stand for liberty has made it the fitting seat of the League of Nations. Strolling about the city to-day, I stumbled upon two monuments that seem to me to symbolize the role Geneva now plays. One is a great wall of sculpture made of white sandstone three hundred feet long and perhaps fifty feet high, built against the old wall of Geneva, with the waters of the medieval moat still washing its base. It is the Reformation Monument and commemorates the battle this city waged for religious freedom, now more than three hundred years ago. In the centre, cut out of the sand- 3 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST stone, are statues of John Calvin and John Knox, together with those of Farel and Beza, who also lived and worked here. The figures are more than three times life size and are beyond description majestic. Besides the cen¬ tral group, there are six smaller statues, representing the most independent thinkers of the great nations of that time. One is of Admiral Coligny, the hero of the Hugue¬ nots; another, of Oliver Cromwell, who freed England from the Stuarts; a third, of the great Dutchman, William of Orange; and a fourth, under the wide hat of Puritan days, is of our own Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island. The other monument stands for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. It is the Alabama Room inside the Cantonal Capitol and City Hall of Geneva. Here a great financial controversy between countries was first settled by arbitration. This was the celebrated case of the Alabama claims and in this chamber it was decreed that England should pay over to the United States fifteen and a half million dollars in compensation for the outrages committed by British privateers during our Civil War. In this same room was held the initial meeting of the International Red Cross. A citizen of Geneva, Henri Dunant, was responsible for the founding of the organiza¬ tion. As an eyewitness of the desperate battle of Solferino he observed the vast amount of suffering resulting from the inability of the army surgical corps to care for the thousands of wounded that lay about the field. He suggested the formation of societies in every country for training nurses and collecting supplies to be used in time of war. The outcome was the International Red Cross Society, which first met in Geneva in 1864. The Swiss 4 AT THE WORLD’S PEACE CAPITAL red-and-white flag, with colours reversed, was adopted as the badge that has since come to mean so much throughout the world to sufferers from war, famine, pestilence, and other disasters. Among the relics in this room is a brass model of the Liberty Bell at Philadelphia. It is as big as a quart cup, and was sent to Geneva from the Paris Exposition. Al¬ most fifty years later it rang to order the opening Assembly of the League of Nations. Here also are a plough and a pruning hook made of the swords of Union and Confeder¬ ate officers of our Civil War. Some of its citizens and the friends of the League of Nations call Geneva the Peace Capital of the world. The city is well situated as a home for the idea of international peace. Lying as it does in the heart of Europe and near the great ports, it is easily accessible to all parts of the earth. On a winding lake of cerulean blue, under the icy eyes of Mont Blanc, and in a climate unsurpassed for comfort and health, there is no other capital with such delightful surroundings. At its widest the Lake of Geneva is only eight miles across, but it is longer than from Baltimore to Washington, and in many places so deep that two Washington Monuments, one on top of the other, could rest upon its bottom and the tip of the second would just reach the surface. The lake is in the form of a goose¬ neck squash with Geneva at the tip of the bill. Its waters are light sapphire and so clear that in sailing over it one can see the fish swimming above the silver stones far below. It is covered with craft large and small, from motor launches and steam boats to the skiffs and canoes plying from town to town and village to village along its shores. 5 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST Geneva is at the southern end, or mouth, of the lake, where the Rhone pours out on its way to the Mediter¬ ranean Sea. The river divides the city into several islands on which are bath houses, restaurants, cafes, a water works, and a power plant. One of the bridges over the Rhone is on the site of a bridge destroyed by Julius Caesar seventy-eight years before Christ, when he had here his first battle with the Helvetians, the forebears of the Swiss of to-day. The whole lake is lined with summer homes set in the midst of beautiful lawns and luxuriant shrubbery. There is a wide quay running back of the water front where the people promenade of an evening. This has long rows of trees much like sycamores, whose silvery trunks reach a height of fifteen feet and then sprout out into gigantic umbrellas of green. Behind this quay with its trees is the Palace of the League of Nations, the chief administrative building of this world peace capital. It stands on land that once belonged to the brave Helvetians and is perhaps but a stone’s throw from where they fought so stubbornly with Caesar’s Roman legions. It looks out on the lake, across which Mont Blanc is in plain view in the distance. I have called the building a palace. This is the name given it by the League and the people of Geneva, though it is, in fact, merely a summer hotel turned into an office building. It is a four-story structure which you could drop into one of the big hostelries of Atlantic City and hardly know it was there, and as for its beauty, many hotels of that seaside resort surpass it. There are perhaps two hundred rooms. It is built of stone covered with stucco and painted light brown. There are fine grounds 6 Motor launches have not yet driven from Lake Geneva the boats with lateen sails of red like the one of which Byron said: This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction. The Palace of the Nations at Geneva, which is only a summer hotel converted into an office building, is in keeping with the moderate expendi¬ tures and the sincerity of purpose of the League. AT THE WORLD^S PEACE CAPITAL and trees between it and the promenade, and at one end is a sun parlour in which 1 am told the Council of the League often meets. Entering the Palace, I was glad to find at the door neither court flunkies in livery nor soldiers with swords and guns. Admission is free to all men and women of every nation, and a messenger behind a desk at the en¬ trance, who speaks English, German, French, and Italian, tells visitors where to go and what to see. When 1 asked for one of the officials of the Information Section, he directed me to take the lift to the fourth floor, walk to Room 5, and show myself in. I took the push button elevator and rose slowly upward. As I stepped out 1 saw a sign over the button notifying me that all persons are expected to walk downstairs, although they may ride all the way up. This may not seem like business efficiency, yet it can be commended on the ground of economy. I explored the building in com¬ pany with a former American newspaperman, now asso¬ ciated with the League I went from room to room, meeting some of the higher officials, sitting in on some of the conferences, and trying to get as best I could a con¬ ception of just what the League is and what it is trying to do toward bringing about better relations between the many powers and peoples of the earth. As a result of my investigations, I am convinced that the idea of the League as it now exists is different from that in which it was conceived or even that in which it had birth amid the terrific labour pains of the Treaty of Versailles. The babe was lusty and many thought of the League as destined to be the strong man with a big stick. To-day it is as quiet and as peaceful as the dove Noah 7 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST sent forth from the Ark, and it now expects to do by con¬ ference what it once thought to do by force. It is founded largely on the faith described in Hebrews as, 'The sub¬ stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.'' But I would say further that this faith promises to be of the kind that moves mountains and that the League is on its way to great accomplishment. In brief, the League of Nations is an association of states pledged to a new way of conducting foreign affairs. These states have signed a contract, or covenant, the Constitution of the League, to do certain things. They have agreed not to go to war with each other or with any non-member nation until they have brought their dis¬ putes to arbitration before the League and have waited from three to nine months after the questions have been submitted. The peoples in disagreement are supposed to follow the advice and abide by the decisions of the League, and if they begin hostilities without submitting their controversies, the other states are bound to sever all economic and political relations with the offending countries. As I understand it, there have been many mental reservations and some modifications of this first provision of the League, and for the time, at least, its teeth have been drawn. The second provision binds the nations to work together for certain objects of the common welfare. These include such non-political matters as promotion of the public health, the control of the traffic in opium and other danger¬ ous drugs, and the suppression of the traffic in women and children. They relate also to certain financial and economic adjustments and to matters of international communications. 8 AT THE WORLD’S PEACE CAPITAL To carry out these objects the League of Nations has been organized into an Assembly and Council. The Assembly is composed of delegates of all the member states. Each delegation has only one vote and the majority rules. The Council might be called the execu¬ tive committee of the League. It is composed of one government delegate from each of the four great powers, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan, and one delegate from each of six smaller powers; the latter are elected by the majority vote of the Assembly. The Assembly meets at Geneva once a year in September; the ten dele¬ gates of the Council meet every two months. Under these two chief parts of the League are sub¬ ordinate branches. The Secretariat-General is devoted to carrying out the decrees of the Council and the Assem¬ bly. It gathers data for them, outlines future work as directed, and suggests methods of procedure. It is the great source of information about every subject with which the League has to deal, and it may be called upon by any of the members at will. This body is headed by a Secretary-General, who has under him about three hundred and fifty experts, clerks, and officials of one kind or another. Furthermore, when occasion demands, he can call in experts from any part of the world. In addition to this body there is the International Court of Justice, which sits at The Hague, and is composed of eleven judges and four deputy judges elected by the Assembly and the Council. Another adjunct of the League, created by the Treaty of Versailles, is the Interna¬ tional Labour Office. It has its headquarters here separate and apart from the Secretariat-General, which alone occupies the so-called World Palace of Peace. 9 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST This is a bare outline of the constitution of the League. What it has accomplished and what it is doing would fill many pages. During my stay I have had talks with experts and officials from a dozen of the leading countries of the world, including Japan. I am impressed with the earnestness and confidence of them all, and with their plain common-sense view of world troubles. The active workers in the Secretariat include representa¬ tives of more than thirty nations, and perhaps an equal or greater number in the labour organization. All these men are authorities on matters relating to their own lands and there is scarcely any subject of international interest that cannot be pretty thoroughly threshed out among them. The meetings of the Council and the Assembly are largely conferences where the delegates come together to discuss not only their differences but all matters of common interest to the nations of the world. I understand that the greatest courtesy prevails at these meetings and that they are really bringing the governments and the peoples of the earth closer together. The work of the League is being done at a very small cost. I see no signs of extravagance anywhere and on every hand are evidences of great industry and practical administration. So far, the annual expenses have been only about five million dollars, a small sum for running the whole universe when you recall that operating the United States government alone costs more than three billions a year. This five-million-dollar expense is pro¬ rated among the several nations belonging to the League according to their hypothetical capacity to pay. With some, I may say in passing, the payment is theoretical only. 10 AT THE WORLD’S PEACE CAPITAL And now a few words about what the League has done. I have before me an official report consisting of seventy- two pages of legal cap typewritten manuscript. The whole weighs one pound and nine ounces, and it contains, I estimate, at least twenty-five thousand words. My report must be confined to a few lines. In the first place, the League has really begun to exert an influence in matters of war and peace. It settled with¬ out warfare the dispute between Finland and Sweden regarding the Aland Islands, which it awarded to the Finns with the consent of the Swedes. It adjusted the Albanian-Serbian boundary controversy even after the Yugoslavs had actually come in by night and destroyed three hundred Albanian villages. It fixed the frontiers of Lithuania and Poland, and, although the Lithuanians do not feel entirely satisfied, they are abiding by the League’s decision. In addition to arbitrating these larger questions, the League has settled minor international contentions which might have caused wars. Among the latter was the friction between Hungary and Rumania which at one time bade fair to burst out into fighting. As an example of the creative work of the League, we have the restoration and re-creation of Austria. This is one of the wonders of international finance. Every¬ one knows how Austria, practically dismembered by the peace treaty, had reached the uttermost economic despair. It had been advanced in one way or another the sum of one hundred and twenty-five million dollars and still its condition grew worse and worse. It was about to give up and go into bankruptcy when the League came in and was given a free hand to find a solution. It brought order out of chaos and by an expenditure of only thirty thousand THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST dollars lifted up the nation, set it on its feet, and started it on the road to recovery. In addition to these things the League is doing much in international welfare work. More than all, it is enabling the nations to see that while each differs from the others in important characteristics and special interests, none has hoofs or horns. Another institution at Geneva that is helping the nations to get better acquainted is the summer school at the university founded by John Calvin. Here the young men and women of America, France, Great Britain, and of every country can meet and receive special instruction from international experts along any lines they may choose. Some of the great scholars of our time live on the shores of Lake Geneva and this and other schools attract students from all parts of the world. Thus, through the mingling of the pick of their youth, the coun¬ tries are being drawn into closer and closer harmony, and more and more people are coming around to the idea that maybe Lord Robert Cecil was right when, during his trip to our country, he said: “The belief held by many that all the naughty people live on one side of the Atlantic and all the goody-goodies live on the other is perhaps, to say the least, open to discussion.'' 12 CHAPTER III Europe’s oldest republic I N THE capital of Switzerland, halfway between the borders of Germany and Italy, and only two hours by rail from where the League of Nations is sitting at Geneva, I write of how the Swiss govern them¬ selves. During my stay in Berne I have visited Parlia¬ ment and talked with the members. I have seen some¬ thing of the Bundesrat, the Council, or Cabinet, that administers the country, and have sat across a plain table from the President of the Republic and discussed with him the differences between his government and ours. We pride ourselves on being the great republic of the world. The Swiss had established the independence of some of their cantons more than five hundred years before our republic was started. It was two hundred years be¬ fore Columbus was born that William Tell shot the apple off the head of his boy. Some of the authorities say that that story is not true but, then, many of them doubt even the Bible. At any rate, in 1291 the men of three forest dis¬ tricts formed an ''everlasting league” for defence, which was the foundation of the Swiss Confederation, and along in the thirteen hundreds a thousand or so Swiss Leaguers defeated an Austrian army of ten times their number and established a republican government. It was after that battle that the name Switzerland was applied to this mountain land. 13 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST But just what is Switzerland? And who are the Swiss? Fancy yourself in an airplane that has just risen to the summit of Mont Blanc. Start there on the border of France and fly eastward to the new boundary of Austria. You have not travelled as far as from New York to Boston, yet you have crossed the country. Now fly to the north¬ west to Basel on the borders of Germany and then directly south to the borders of Italy. If you speed the machine you can make that trip in an hour and twelve minutes. Looking down from the airplane, one is reminded of what a sailor of the days of Columbus said to the King of Spain in describing the island of Santo Domingo. He took up a sheet of note paper, squeezed it in his fist and threw it, misshapen and wrinkled, upon the table, saying: '‘Your Majesty, Santo Domingo is like that.” This would be a good description of Switzerland as seen from the air. The land is all hills and hollows with snow-capped peaks, gorges, and canyons, and here and there a plateau or a wide valley. Nevertheless, the Swiss have made the Alps bloom like a garden. A considerable portion of the country is still covered with forests as carefully looked after as the trees on your lawn. Another large part is pasture from which the stones have been picked so that the sweet grass grows among the big rocks, while in the foothills and valleys are thousands of small farms and vineyards. About one third of the land is in cultivation. The Alps are here in two ranges with a stretch of table¬ land running between the Juras and the higher Alps from Geneva to Lake Constance. This strip, which comprises about one fifth of the country, has a bed of rich soil and is intensively cultivated. It is the backbone 14 The most beautiful of the springs and falls that give Lauterbrunnen its name, meaning ‘‘nothing but springs” is the Staubbach, which has a drop of 980 feet. The rocks on the roofs are to keep them from being blown away in the mountain gales. Switzerland is so mountainous that grazing is the most profitable use of the land, and milk, cheese, and butter are the principal farm products. EUROPE’S OLDEST REPUBLIC of Swiss agriculture, and includes the chief industrial and financial region. Here are most of the cities and hundreds of villages. Switzerland is a country of villages and has but few large centres. The four leading municipalities are Zurich and Basel at the north, Berne in the centre, and Geneva at the west. But these four towns together have not half as many people as has Detroit and only two thirds the population of Boston. The whole country is not quite twice the size of Massachusetts, and its total population numbers about the same as Chicago’s. And now what of the inhabitants of this wonderful country? Like the Americans they are a mixed people, and that makes for strength. Switzerland’s neighbours are Germans on the north and east, Italians on the south, and French on the west. The Swiss are a blending of these three stocks. In Geneva, on the edge of France, the common language is French. On the north and east it is German, and over the divide the popular tongue is that of Italy. Almost everyone can speak French and German and many know Italian as well. One sees French and German signs over the stores, and there are newspapers in all three languages. The Swiss are well educated. Everybody here can read and does read. There are schools everywhere and the nation is known for its educational facilities. People come from all over the world to attend Swiss universities and to have their children taught German and French in the schools. To-day there is absolute equality among the people, who are the most democratic and independent in Europe. They have carried republicanism farther than we have, and have ironed out many of the troubles with which 15 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST we are still struggling. As far as I can learn there is neither graft nor pork barrel in the conduct of the govern¬ ment and the Swiss Parliament is much more respected than our Congress. The whole nation takes an interest in public affairs, and everyone goes to the polls. The Parliament is made up of men from all classes, though most of the members are of moderate means and simple life. Berne is one of the oldest, quaintest, and most charming little cities of Europe. Founded when Richard the Lion- Hearted of England was fighting the Turks for the posses¬ sion of Jerusalem, it was a free city before the Magna Charta was signed. It was chosen as the seat of the Swiss Confederation at about the time of our Mexican War, and since then has been the home of all government activities, except those of the Supreme Court which, as a sop to French Switzerland, sits at Lausanne. Berne is only about one fifth the size of Washington, but it is far more picturesque. The town is divided by the deep, swift rushing Aare, whose glacial waters roar as they tear their way on down toward the Rhine. Magnificent bridges span the stream. The Capitol and the President’s Palace are on a height right over the river. They look toward the Alps, facing a half-dozen mountains more than two miles in height. After my talk with the President we walked out on the balcony in front of his office and His Excellency pointed out the gigantic crest of the Jungfrau, and other snow-capped peaks that are known all over the world. Before entering the government buildings, I strolled about through the business parts of the city. I felt as if I had slipped back into the Middle Ages. The narrow i6 EUROPE’S OLDEST REPUBLIC streets are walled with three- and four-story buildings with overhanging tiled roofs, out of which peep little dormer windows, looking down like so many red-rimmed eyes on the traffic below. Some of the houses are so old that they lean this way and that and make one think of the drunken structures on the Amsterdam piles. Here and there the arch of a tower curves over the highway. In the most noted of the towers is a great clock dating from the six¬ teenth century. When the hours strike a little door in the tower flies open and in the doorway a great rooster struts and crows, while a troop of bears marches in pro¬ cession around a figure supposed to represent Time. This clock has hands and figures plated with gold and its dial, which is about twenty feet in diameter, is decorated with frescoes. I walked through the arch of the tower and under the clock into a mile or so of arcaded stores. The pavements seem to be tunnelled through the walls of the houses and are lined with stores. The stores are like monastery cells looking out upon cloisters. It is so dark in them that most of the shops have to burn electric lights throughout the whole day. The arcades are about fifteen feet wide and, in the oldest part of the town, so low that one’s head is not far from the ceiling. Now and then there are cross tunnels for the streets cutting through to the right and the left, the whole forming a kind of catacomb, quaint and delightful, but not in accord with our ideas of business efficiency. The chief government buildings are situated between these arcaded streets and the Aare, on the high bluff over the river. From the opposite bank of the stream they look like fortifications. They were planned by Swiss 17 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST architects and built of sandstone from the quarries of Berne and marble from several cantons. The wood is all native and the furnishings, even to the great clock in the entrance hall, were made in Switzerland. The clock, which is the official timepiece of the Republic, is as big as a piano box and has a glass case that shows the works. The Swiss keep everything polished up to the nines, and the Assembly halls are scrubbed like so many Dutch kitchens. As I passed through on my way to see the President, I noticed a gang of old women on their knees washing the tiles. There were foot scrapers and foot wipers at the entrance and rugs for cleaning one's shoes at every door. During my whole trip I saw no cuspidors such as one sees in every corner about the halls of our Congress. This afternoon I visited the Assembly rooms and lingered awhile in the lobbies, which are walled with marble and have ceilings gorgeous with paintings and carvings. The Chamber of the National Council is built in the shape of a half moon with the seats rising in con¬ centric rows from the front to the back. The President sits on a raised platform somewhat like our speaker's dais, with a clerk on each side of him, and the press gallery is at the front, so that the members face the newspaper¬ men as they speak. A curious feature is the public translator. Speeches may be made in any one of three languages, German, French, or Italian. The orders of the President are translated by the official interpreter and all his messages are furnished to the press in German and French. The government reports are printed in German, French, and Italian so that every citizen can read them. i8 Just before the hour the little door in the old clock tower at Berne opens to show a procession of carved wooden bears filing around a figure of Time, while on the hour a cock struts and crows in the opening. The old houses of Berne seem to fit so perfectly into this land of clock- makers that one would not be surprised to see wooden cuckoos burst out of the funny little windows and call the hours. “Leading a dog’s life” in Berne isn’t so bad when the master helps to pull the load. The Swiss draft dog is close kin to the St. Bernard of Al¬ pine fame. EUROPE’S OLDEST REPUBLIC The Swiss Republic is as free and democratic as ours, but the machinery of administration is different. The country is divided into twenty-two cantons, or states, which elect a National Council and a State Council. The State Council corresponds to our Senate, being composed of forty-four members, two from each canton. The National Council is like our House of Representatives. It has one hundred and eighty-nine members, chosen by direct vote at the rate of one for every twenty thousand of population in the Confederation. The two houses together are called the Federal Assembly. Clergymen are not eligible for election to either house. General elections are held every three years on the last Sunday in October, and the voting is often done in the churches. Only men over twenty-one have the right to vote; for Switzerland has not yet adopted suffrage for women. Each canton elects and pays two members of the State Council in any way it may choose. The Geneva councillors get five dollars a day, but the average salary of the others is four dollars. Some members get only three dollars. The representatives of the lower house are paid from the government treasury and get five dollars a day for the days they are present. The legislative sessions are held four times a year. As they usually last only two or three weeks, a whole year’s service seldom takes up as much as three months. The members attend regularly; their constituents object if they stay away. If a representative in the National Council cannot give a good reason for his absence he does not get his five dollars. The meetings begin at eight in the morn¬ ing in summer and at nine in winter. The executive authority of the Swiss government is in 19 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST the hands of the Bundesrat, or Federal Council, whose seven members are elected by the Federal Assembly every three years. These seven men have the fattest official jobs in the Republic if five thousand dollars a year can be called fat. They are like our Cabinet members and each one is allotted a department. The Federal Council elects the President of the Republic, who has a far different position from that of the President of the United States. His term is for one year and his salary is fifty-four hundred dollars. He is really only the Chairman of the Council. The Vice-President is also elected by the Bundesrat and it is an unwritten law that he shall succeed the President. Neither President nor Vice-President may hold his office for two successive years. The President, with whom 1 talked to-day, is Carl Scheurer, a citizen of Berne. He is a well-educated, stout little man, with a fair complexion and a scanty thatch of blond hair fringing the shiny baldness of his crown. He was dressed in a business suit, with a high wing collar and a black tie, and wore large glasses with black rims behind which his blue eyes twinkled as he talked. The room where we chatted was plainly furnished. In a cabinet against one wall were models of rifles and cartridges used by Switzerland to guard her neutrality during the World War and opposite this, looking down upon the President's desk, was an old photograph of Abraham Lincoln. In the secretary's room adjoining 1 saw two portraits, one of Robert E. Lee and the other of William T. Sherman, both painted in 1869 by a Swiss artist. My conversation with the President covered a wide range. We talked of the political parties, of which the country has a half dozen or more, including Social Demo- 20 EUROPE’S OLDEST REPUBLIC crats, Liberal Democrats, Catholics, Agrarians, and others. When we touched on the tariff, the President said that our high duties do much to hold down the production of Swiss factories. We spoke of the initiative and the referendum, both of which he approves, though not without some grains of salt. The government of Switzerland owns the railways, and the telegraph and the telephones are under the post-office department. As usual in such cases, the properties are extravagantly managed, and last year the posts and the railways ran almost two million dollars behind. Republicanism goes farther here than with us. Every village and district is a little republic. The communes into which the cantons, or states, are divided, correspond somewhat to our counties, townships, and wards. They are more than three thousand in number and settle almost every local question. The people elect their own school teachers and policemen, and have town meetings in which they decide upon all communal matters. Sometimes the meetings are held in the open air, and the decisions are by acclamation. Some communes own property such as forest lands and houses, and in these every family may be entitled to free pasture or free wood for the winter. In the early morning and again at twilight, one sometimes hears the concert of the cowbells as the cows owned by the various families of a village are being driven to or from the com¬ munal pastures in the mountains near by. Once back in the village every cow straightway seeks her own home without any urging. A few of the communes have grown rich from their forests, rents, lands, and houses. The privilege of citizen- 21 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST ship in such communes is somewhat like membership in a prosperous stock company, and if it is not inherited it may be bought for a good round sum. On the other hand, it may prove less than a blessing, for each commune must pay its local expenses and take care of its own poor. 22 Mark 'I'wain’s prophecy that some day every mountain in Switzerland would have a railroad up its back like a pair of suspenders seems nearly I'uKilled. The incline railway from Murren leads up the Allmendhubel to a marvellous view. The old Genevese street cleaner stands for two cardinal virtues of the Swiss—their cleanliness and their thrift. Switzerland is the land of the apron, which is worn by all classes of workers, men and women, to save their clothes. 1 CHAPTER IV THE BEEHIVES OF THE ALPS P LUCK a hair from the head of your baby. Stand it on end under a microscope and split it lengthwise into five hundred strips. Now meas¬ ure the thickness of each strip and if your work has been absolutely accurate you may have an idea of the exactness of the tools used in a Geneva watch factory. It was almost under the shadow of the Palace of the League of Nations that I went through a factory that has been making watches for one hundred and fifty years. I found the workmen using micrometers that measure a hair as you might measure a log with a pair of calipers. In order to prove this fact, I pulled out one of the sandy gray hairs still left on my head and handed it to a watch¬ maker. He found it was five-hundredths of a millimeter thick, and flattered me by saying: 'Ht is as fine as the hair of a woman.” Some of the screws made for the watches are smaller than the head of a pin, and there are cogwheels with teeth as tiny as the finest grain of sand on the seashore. Indeed I had to use a microscope to see the teeth at all. Every watch has one hundred and seventy parts and the chief difference between large and small timepieces is in the size of their mechanisms. This factory makes some watches not as big as your thumbnail. No watch keeps perfect time, but some made here vary 23 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST only a second in twenty-four hours, or just about six minutes a year. If you will open the back of your watch and look at the flying balance wheel you may have some idea of what this means. That balance wheel is making about eighteen thousand revolutions an hour, and it travels thousands of miles every year. If I remember correctly, it goes eighteen miles every day; nevertheless, in a distance as far as from New York to Detroit, its variation is only five feet. Switzerland has been making watches for three or four hundred years. For generations all the watches were manu¬ factured in the homes of the workers, only one or two parts being made at each house. Later factories were estab¬ lished and after the cheap machine-made American watch began to capture the trade, the Swiss adopted similar methods and turned out watches by the thousands where they had formerly made them by the dozens. The United States has always been one of the chief buyers of Swiss watches, but we import mostly finished movements, mak¬ ing the cases ourselves. Switzerland makes fine clocks as well as fine watches. The stores sell clocks so small that you can carry one in your vest pocket and there are others so large that they are fit only for church steeples. Neither the watches nor the clocks are cheap, yet I doubt whether the average timepiece of this country is any better than or even as good as our own. In Zurich, in eastern Switzerland, where I am now, the people devote their skill to textiles instead of to metal¬ working. This is the weaving and embroidery centre, just as western Switzerland is the watch-making region. The town of Zurich does a big business in silk. Basel, at 24 THE BEEHIVES OF THE ALPS the head of navigation of the Rhine, on the border of Germany, is the chief place for the manufacture of ribbons. Not far from Lucerne a great deal of artificial silk is made and St. Gall sends us hundreds of thousands of yards of em¬ broideries. There are cantons, such as Appenzell, where the people have been producing hand-made lace for cen¬ turies. I spent some time last week on Lake Brienz on the borders of which is a village of wood carvers, who make toys and other articles that are sold all over the continent. In some families all the men have been wood carvers for hundreds of years. On the south side of the Alps, the Italian Swiss are breeding silkworms and one district raises snails for the gourmets of Paris. The villages often specialize in single trades, one town sending out masons or glaziers and another graduating pastry cooks. Most of the waiters and many of the best chefs and managers in the hotels of Europe were trained in Switzerland. The tourist and hotel business is an important factor in the life of the nation. The thousands of hotels represent an investment of about five hundred million dollars. They spend on provisions and wages something like twenty million dollars a year, and earn big profits in good seasons. Formerly the best patrons were the Germans, who came three or four times a year and spent freely. Now most of the money comes from Americans. I am surprised to find how important agriculture is in this land of the mountains. One would think nothing could be raised in a country all hills and hollows, but the truth is that three fourths of the total area of Switzerland is productive. There are several hundred thousand farms and it is estimated that there are a quarter of a million 25 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST acres in holdings of less than fifteen acres each. Every patch not covered with rock^ or snow is either cultivated or used for pasture or forest. About thirty per cent, of the land is wooded and almost forty per cent, is given up to grass. High up in the mountains you will find cows feed¬ ing on patches of green no bigger than parlour rugs and separated from each other by piles of stone. The cows are turned out into the mountains as soon as the grass sprouts in the spring and are driven higher and higher up as summer comes on. The people watch every grass patch and manure each one every year. When the automobiles began coming over the mountains they feared that the dust raised would hurt the grass and I am told that they often threw buckets of filth at passing cars to show their displeasure. Nearly every farmer knows how to make cheese, of which fifteen million dollars' worth is annually exported. The two thousand or more factories engaged in cheesemaking use something like one hundred and fifty million gallons of milk in a year. The cream is excellent, but as a rule one gets only hot milk for his coffee at the hotels. The Swiss also make a great deal of condensed milk and milk choco¬ late. From an industrial standpoint, Switzerland labours at great disadvantage through her lack of raw materials and coal. She has no minerals of value and she has to import all the fuel she uses to make steam or electricity. The charges for coal are so high as to be almost prohibitive and wood is practically the only fuel. An American woman who lives in Zurich tells me she had to pay seventy-five dollars a ton last winter for coal. To make up for her lack of coal, Switzerland has begun 26 THE BEEHIVES OF THE ALPS to develop her water powers and in time the “white coaP' of the mountains will make her practically independent of the “black diamonds'' bought at such exorbitant prices from France or Great Britain. The great hope of the coun¬ try lies in the waterfalls of the Alps. Their force has been measured and it is estimated that the power available is equivalent to about four million tons of coal every year, enough to run all the Swiss factories and railways and light every home in this mountain land. Within a few years all the trains in the country will be electrically driven. They are already drawn through the St. Gotthard and Simplon tunnels by electric locomotives, and the lines from Goldau to Zug, from Immensee to Rothkreuz, and from Lucerne to Zurich have also been electrified. The total railroad mileage now operated by electric power is as great as the distance from Detroit to New Orleans, and in her total per-capita water power development Switzerland is second only to Norway. While Switzerland has a per-capita foreign trade much larger than ours, the value of the goods she sells to the world comes chiefly from the skill with which she manu¬ factures them, and she has to buy all her raw materials from abroad. In the hands of the Swiss, a pound of cotton becomes a pound of lace, worth five hundred times what was paid for the material in it, and a few bits of metal are transformed by the workmen into a delicate watch of great value. The Swiss are among the world's experts in making the most of what they have, and they are one of the thriftiest peoples on earth. This little republic leads all nations in the number of its savings accounts. In a population of less than four millions there are two million six hundred 27 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST thousand savings-bank depositors, and the total sum to their credit is almost five hundred million dollars. The canton of Geneva ranks first in number of deposi¬ tors and amount of savings, and the Genevese care so much for the pennies that a savings account may be opened with as little as four cents. 1 am told that deposits of less than one franc are often made by the grown-ups, and that the children paste uncancelled postage stamps in books and send them to be credited. This saving sense among the Genevese is proverbial. 1 think it was Voltaire that wrote of a woman who fell into Lake Geneva and was drowned. She was taken out ap¬ parently lifeless. The rescuers moved her arms back and forth, but her heart did not beat. A mirror was placed on her lips and no sign of vapour appeared. Her pulse did not throb and her flesh was stone-cold. They were about to put her into a coffin when Voltaire, who stood by, asked about her nationality. He was told she was a Genevese. ''Ah,'' said he, "wait a moment. 1 am sure I can bring her to life." And thereupon he took a five-franc piece out of his pocket and laid it in her open palm. The fingers came togetherwith a jerk and the silver was clutched tightly in her fist. The woman straightway sat up and put the coin into her pocket. 1 cannot vouch for the truth of this story, but 1 should hate to risk a dollar that way to-day. Switzerland is the land of the apron and the patched pantaloon. Neither man nor woman is ashamed of work or working clothes. Every labourer has on his blue jeans and every woman clerk wears a nightgown-like slip of white cotton covering her dress from shoulders to shoe 28 THE BEEHIVES OF THE ALPS tops. The railway porters and the baggage men, the street cleaners, the grocers, the butchers, the bakers, and the candlestick makers, all wear something to protect their clothes. While at their trades the mechanics wear aprons and every school boy and school girl has a loose black overdress, which buttons tight round the throat and catches the ink spots. In Switzerland there is no display for the sake of dis¬ play and the people are democratic both in manner and dress. Geneva, for example, is a city of the rich and there are hundreds of families who live on incomes from their investments. They have beautiful villas and their homes are wonders of comfort and beauty but everyone seems to dress simply. 29 CHAPTER V FROM THE TOP OF THE JUNGFRAU I FIRST saw the Alps when, as a boy I walked from Italy over the Simplon and climbed on foot to Cha¬ monix and the famed Mer de Glace. To-day one shoots under the Simplon in a tunnel and reaches Mont Blanc by railway. An electric road has pierced the heart of St. Gotthard and it was by bottled lightning that I came to the Jungfraujoch in the glacier-covered saddle between the Jungfrau and its mighty neighbour, the Monch. Years ago 1 stopped at the monastery from which the Saint Bernard dogs were sent out with brandy kegs strapped to their necks to rescue mountain climbers lost in the snow. Now at the dangerous spots there are telephones so that one may call up Central and find out where he is. The Alps are latticed with electric ladders and the gods' great gifts of magnificent scenery have been brought within easy reach of man. As I write these words I am more than two miles above the level of the sea, with clouds above and below me and giant peaks of ice all around. Right under my feet is the Aletsch Glacier, a dazzling mass of ice and snow a thousand feet deep and more than twenty miles long. Beyond, through a break in the mist, I can look into a canyon, where far down in the green lies the toy town of Interlaken from which I have come. To right and left there are huge masses of snow-dusted rocks. Towering 30 At the top of the Jungfrau amateurs get a chance to try their skill at mountain climbing amid the snow-clad peaks two and one half miles above the sea level. The journey to the top of the Jungfrau is over little mountain pastures and through mighty canyons, from the lofty walls of which spring water¬ falls and rushing streams. The snow-wreathed Virgin of the Alps is in sight all the way. FROM THE TOP OF THE JUNGFRAU above me, the peak of the Jungfrau is lost in the clouds. The Jungfraujoch is about hal-f a mile from the summit, and the gigantic Monch, whose height is only two hundred feet less, is at my back, like a snow-gloved hand reaching up to the blue. The clouds, the rocks, and the snow make the whole seem a mighty valley of desolation, which just now is curtained with masses of vapour rolling to the sky and shutting in for the time being this cold, awful, stupen¬ dous workshop of the gods. In a few moments the clouds will break and I shall have a glimpse of the Alps tumbl¬ ing over one another away off to the east and the west. I have seen most of the great mountain views of the world, but none which, for sheer, beauty, surpasses that of the Jungfrau. I have stood on Tiger Hill near Darjeeling and watched the sun gild the top of Mt. Ever¬ est, the loftiest mountain on earth. Everest is almost three miles higher than the Jungfrau, but the effect from Tiger Hill is somewhat spoiled by distance and by the lower peak of Kunchinjinga, which stands in the foreground obstructing the view. From the bronze statue of Christ that marks the boundary between Argentina and Chile I have seen Aconcagua, the highest of the Andes. It is almost two miles higher than where I am now, but like Mt. Everest, it is dwarfed by its surroundings. I have seen Mt. McKinley from the heights of Alaska and I know Fuji-yama, the snowy symmetrical cone that the Japanese worship. Each has its own beauties, but none has a more beautiful setting than the Jungfrau, the Virgin of the Alps. Whether viewed from the valley, or here face to face, she has a majesty all her own. My trip up the Jungfrau was made on the cog railway. When Mark Twain was at Interlaken in 1892 he predicted 31 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST that the day would come when every mountain in Switzer¬ land would have a railroad up its back like a pair of sus¬ penders. That prophecy is almost fulfilled. There are something like a hundred cog roads in the Alps, and when the times are good in Europe, they must pay very large dividends. The Jungfrau Railway is remarkable in that a greater part of it is a tunnel through the rock under glaciers and snow. After running for some miles on the face of the mountains, it cuts into the heart of the Jungfrau and the Monch, and crawls upward through a great worm hole excavated in the limestone and gneiss. The trains are pulled by three-hundred-horsepower locomotives run by electricity generated by waterfalls. The rack-and- pinion system used is a new one, which is said to be abso¬ lutely safe. My ride from Interlaken to Jungfraujoch was delight¬ ful. The three cars were walled with windows and had comfortable seats. They were filled with tourists, talk¬ ing German, French, and English. Most of them were provided with guide books and maps and many were busy looking for things mentioned by others instead of seeing what they could observe through their own eyes. Only the summits of the Alps are bleak and bare; the valleys and foothills are covered with verdure. Forests of stately pines climb the sides of precipitous cliffs which may be a thousand feet high. Here all is green and there all is bare rock. In riding up the Jungfrau via Lauterbrunnen to the Little Scheidegg more than a mile above the sea, one goes through a panorama of magnificent scenery with the Jungfrau in sight almost all the way. A part of the journey is through mighty canyons, the walls 32 FROM THE TOP OF THE JUNGFRAU of which seem fortifications a thousand feet high and out of which spring waterfalls dropping almost sheer to the bottom. Now one is climbing over mountain pastures spotted with log huts, their great overhanging roofs held down with rocks, now passing through forests where the trees grow smaller and smaller until at the top they are stunted and flattened bushes that seem to be hugging the ground. There are many wild flowers, dandelions, butter¬ cups, daises and, farther up, violets as blue as the sky. The snow line is soon reached and always one is in sight of the glaciers, which nestle between the mountain peaks. In some places the glaciers move out over the cliffs and break, increasing with their icy walls the dizzy height of the precipices. These ice rivers wind about through the valleys of the giant mountains above, and one wonders whether there may not be a snow slide and trembles lest a terrible avalanche come down on the train. During our trip a part of our way was cut through an avalanche that had rolled down this spring. It was a mass of a hundred acres of snow and ice, many feet thick, which could be seen above and below on both sides of the road. On the cleared track the snow reached high over our cars. As we came out I saw a broken telegraph pole which had been crushed by the slide. I had a convincing evidence here of the value of an experiment made to test the effect of the altitude upon tourists. The original idea was to run the railroad clear to the top of the Jungfrau, a height of 13,670 feet. It goes up by stages and has now reached Jungfraujoch, which is 11,340 feet above the sea. One day it will probably be extended right to the summit and then an electric searchlight will be placed there, which will be 33 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST visible from the Cathedral of Strasbourg on the north side of the Alps to the Cathedral of Milan on the south. When the railroad up the Jungfrau was projected the government held up the enterprise on the ground that invalids and people of weak constitutions would be injured if suddenly lifted into the rarefied air of that altitude, and the promoters had to prove that the trip could be safely made. They employed Doctor Regnard, an expert, to make a test upon two guinea pigs. The learned doctor put the pigs under a glass globe and then slowly lowered the atmospheric pressure within. One of the guinea pigs was put inside a wheel so that it had to run to keep from falling. The other was left squatting on the bottom of the globe. The experiment showed that a person can live when taken quickly to a considerable height above the sea if he is quiet and remains there for only a short time. It also proved that if he takes exercise, or overworks, he is almost sure to get the soroche, as mountain sicknefs is called. In coming up the Jungfrau I had no trouble until I made my way up the steps from the Jungfraujoch out into the open. Then when 1 tried to hurry up the snowy path leading a distanceof perhaps two thousand feet to the view, my heart straightway beat like a triphammer and I fell flat on the ground. After a little while I sat down on a chunk of ice by the side of the path. My heart was soon quiet and I was able to walk a few steps. I took the rest of the climb by relays of about three steps and a halt, and finally reached the top. Heretofore I have been more than three miles above the sea without bad effects as long as I took no severe exercise. In going up the Andes I once reached a height of 15,865 feet, but I noticed that 34 FROM THE TOP OF THE JUNGFRAU as I ascended my feet seemed to grow heavy, and the air was so thin that I hesitated to talk on account of the effort that speaking entailed. In the railroad tunnel inside the mountains we found stations here and there, where the cars stopped to allow us to walk out through cross tunnels for the view. At some of these holes through the rock we were right over glaciers that rolled on and on under our eyes. At the Eismeer Station, almost two miles above the sea, we were just over a great sea of snow of such dazzling whiteness under the sun that it was impossible to look at it without dark glasses. The snow sea wound its way far down in and out under the peaks of the Jungfrau and the Monch, until it was lost in a curve in the mountains. As I looked, two black figures on skis jumped from the station and flew like swallows down the icy surface. One of them tripped and rolled over and over, but he recovered his footing and followed his fellow, who was already a black speck in the distance. As we stood there with some of the world’s most mag¬ nificent scenery all about us, I heard a party of American tourists talking. What do you think was the subject on which they were conversing so enthusiastically? Why, eating and the prices of food! One man was telling how in a hotel in Germany he got a fine meal with wine for eight people for five dollars. The others laughed and held up their hands and then went on to discuss the cuisine of different hotels where they had stayed. As they con¬ tinued, the smell and smoke of cooking seemed to rise and obscure one of the sublimest pictures on earth. But I knew that not all those near me were so unim¬ pressed, for among them was a ten-year-old American boy 35 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST whose earlier characteristic remarks had delighted my soul. My conviction that he was a simon-pure American was born as we stood outside the Hotel Victoria in Inter¬ laken, watching the wonderful Alpine glow that comes just at sunset over the face of the Jungfrau. From this point the Virgin, as she is called, is set in a framework of rocks and forests, and rises snow-white and pure, her head in the clouds. For perhaps five minutes during the sunset her spotless silver turns almost to gold and she looks more majestic than ever. It was at this moment that the boy came up and exclaimed as he looked: '‘Gee, what a hill!’' During the trip we saw many glaciers. I counted six on one mountain side at one time, and from here on top of the Jungfrau they are to be seen everywhere. There are twelve hundred of them, about evenly divided between the Swiss and the Austrian Alps. The glaciers of Switzerland are the largest, and cover nearly half of the total area of sixteen hundred square miles of snow and ice in these mountains. To hear the Europeans talk, one would think that the Alps were the only really great features on the rugged face of old Mother Earth. I am willingto concede all they claim for their beauty, but when it comes to such expressions as the " Biggest, highest, and most stupendous that God ever created,” I must voice my objection. It is true that these mountains are the backbone of Europe, but that is only a wishbone compared to the backbone of Asia. If you could take up the Alps and drop them into some of the larger valleys of the Himalayas, they would scarcely change the landscape in the Asiatic uplands, for they would be lost in their new surroundings. 36 FROM THE TOP OF THE JUNGFRAU Here in the Alps there is not a beautiful view that is unmarred by a hotel, and everywhere are people ped¬ dling sublimity. On the summit of the Jungfrau and at all the mountain stations throughout the country one finds women selling picture postcards, alpenstocks, and smoked glasses. At every stop I meet a Swiss maiden in a white blouse, a black velvet vest laced with white strings, a short red skirt, and a snowy white cap, who has pressed flowers, edelweiss, and carvings for sale. On the top of Mont Blanc 1 was offered St. Bernard puppies, with a repetition of the old story of how they rescue lost tourists, and whenever 1 go to sleep on a mountain, my rest is broken half an hour before sunrise by the horn of the guide tooting me up for the view. . . . But, neverthe¬ less, it is worth it! 37 CHAPTER VI VENICE C /ING Switzerland by sleeper, I made a night trip to Venice and awoke this morning just as my train started to cross the lagoons among which rises the “Queen of the Adriatic.” Look¬ ing out of my car window, I found we were passing over swamps cut into blocks of vegetation. A little later the swamps disappeared, there was no land at the side of the train, and I could look far out over the water to a thin strip of green in the distance. There were boats every¬ where, long caravans of coal boats pulled by tugs, barges of freight moving this way and that, motor boats chugging along. After travelling for more than two miles through the water, our train stopped at the station with the Grand Canal at the front steps. 1 might have taken one of the small steamers that now ply along the main canals of the city, but 1 preferred a gondola, a long, narrow boat with its prow and stern up¬ turned so that they seemed to rise as high as my head. Like all the gondolas of Venice, it was painted jet-black, a fashion that dates back to the fifteenth century. At that time the Venetians were vying with each other in costly decorations on their boats to such an extent that a law was passed making black the universal rule. My boat was not more than four feet wide and it wobbled as 1 plumped down in the seat in the centre. The gondolier 38 If you can imagine New York’s finest public buildings grouped together at the Battery, and 42nd Street moved to the end of Broadway, you will have an idea of St. Mark’s Place, the heart of Venice. “One of the sights of St. Mark’s is the great flock of pigeons, believed to bring good luck to the city. They are so tame that when 1 held out my hands my arms were instantly covered with birds.” VENICE stood upright on the deck behind me and swayed as he pushed and pulled his one oar this way and that. He knew the short cuts and took me down the Grand Canal and past the great palaces that line its whole length. Every time I come to Venice I find it hard to realize what she is and still harder to realize what she was. Other cities are more or less alike. Venice is unique. Her population of two hundred thousand is crowded together into buildings that occupy a space about seven miles in circumference and appear to be afloat in the Adriatic. Her streets are lanes of water on which boats serve as cabs. Moreover, she is enriched by some of the most beautiful specimens of architecture in all Italy and adorned with the master strokes of Titian and Tin- toretti. By the fifteenth century Venice, then in the zenith of her power, was one of the great cities of the earth. In her dock-yards, the largest in the world, ten thousand beams of oak were always ready for the construction of new ships. Her merchant vessels sailed all the known seas. Her war galleys were feared from the Rock of Gibraltar to the Bosporus, and Constantinople acknowl¬ edged her sway. Her ships passed beyond the Golden Horn and into the Black Sea to trade with Russia, and brought goods from Asia to the port of Venice, whence they were carried over the Alps to central and northern Europe. Thus, five hundred years ago, before Columbus had worked out his idea of a new way to the wealth of India, and long before the age of modern invention and machinery, Venice —held the gorgeous East in fee And was the safeguard of the West. 39 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST All this glorious past is the background of the Venice of to-day. Though built upon piles driven into the earth, the palaces stand up well and, for the most part, the city seems as solid as the traditional house built upon the rocks. Yet the houses appear everywhere to rise on no other foundation than the water. One can scarcely realize that Venice is really scattered over one hundred and seven¬ teen islands and so has terra firma beneath her buildings. Hence, the structures along its canals and streets do not lean drunkenly like many of those of Rotterdam, or Am¬ sterdam, or other so-called “Venices.” 1 say streets advisedly, since Venice is a city of streets as well as canals. The streets cut up the islands and cross the canals on four hundred bridges, some of which are as beautifully arched as those of China or Japan. In a gondola trip one winds in and out through a labyrinth of one narrow waterway after another, shadowed by span after span of stone. The bridges are six or eight feet above the water and all freight-carrying boats must be loaded with this in mind. The oldest of the bridges is the Rialto, constructed in the sixteenth century to replace the earlier bridge of wood. For centuries this was the only one over the Grand Canal. It rises twenty-five feet above the water in a huge marble span of ninety feet. Little shops are built along it, leaving a central alleyway about twenty feet wide between them and an outer passage on each side. A stream of people is continually passing back and forth upon it; for, as in the days when the shrewd merchants of Venice droVe their hard bargains here and Antonio pledged his pound of flesh to Shylock, this is still a busy 40 VENICE quarter of the city. Standing on the peak of the Rialto bridge one sees streets lined with awnings and filled with people. A thing that strikes one in looking over Venice is the fact that there is not much green. 1 was about to say there are no trees, but this is not true. Here and there the wealthy owner of a palace has had some earth brought in and has planted a tree in his courtyard. Some of the larger palaces have real gardens and there are places where terraces of vegetation rise up from the water to the ivy- covered marble structures along the Grand Canal. Riding through Venice in a gondola one can easily imagine the cruelties of its past. If he does not raise his eyes he might think he was in a city of prisons, for the windows and doors of the lower stories are covered with rusty iron bars, behind which is a heavy wire net¬ ting with a mesh so fine that your little finger would not go through. I suppose, though, that these are merely precautions against theft. The city is wonderfully quiet. I know of no place less noisy except perhaps Nijni-Novgorod, the great fair city of Russia, between its annual events. While the fair lasts it has perhaps three times as many people in it as the Venice of to-day, but for the remainder of the year it is as dead as Nineveh and Babylon, or Sodom and Gomorrah after the fire. Sitting in a Venetian gondola one does not hear the honk of the automobile, the rumble of the motor truck, the chug-chug-chug of the motorcycle, or even the clatter of horses' feet upon the stone sidewalks. In fact, there is no street in Venice that a man could safely ride through on horseback and there is none wide enough for a motorcycle with side car. 41 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST But let us be going to St. Mark’s Place, the real heart of Venice. It is only three quarters of a mile from our hotel, so we shall walk. We pass along a busy street lined with shops and buzzing with tourists. Venice is for ever alive with tourists, a fact of which the storekeepers take the utmost advantage. The shops remind us of those of Atlantic City, except that the goods displayed are more artistic. Scores of places sell only the beads or the leather goods for which the town is famed. The throng is a gay one and there seems more life and colour in it than in the crowds of the Rue de la Paix or the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. The people are well-dressed. Venice used to be called a city of paupers and it may be one still, but one would not judge so from our walk of this morning. Winding our way in and out through the narrow walls of stores, we come at length to the Piazza of St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice. On three sides the great square is enclosed by marble palaces blackened by the wind and weather of years. On the east side is the pride of the city, the Cathedral of St. Mark. At first it was only the private chapel of the doge, or chief magistrate, of the old Republic of Venice. But it grew in size and im¬ portance with the growth of the city state. A law re¬ quired every merchant trading to the East to bring back something for the adornment of the church. In richness of material and decoration it is said to be unique among all the churches of the earth. St. Mark’s covers acres and is a veritable museum of wonders. Volumes have been written about its beauties and its treasures. But 1 shall write only of the mosaics covering its walls and ceilings. They are on a golden back¬ ground, which has given the cathedral the name of the 42 VENICE “Church of Gold.” Some of the work dates back to the tenth century. Here are the stories of the Bible told in pictures made of millions of pieces of enamel, marble, and gold leaf set together. Some represent only Old Testament subjects. In one dome are shown the creation of the world and the fall of man. In the next are pictured the Flood, the Ark with Noah, and the Tower of Babel. Here are por¬ trayed pictures of Joseph being sold down into Egypt by his brothers and all the incidents of the history of Moses. You may read the life of Christ in these mosaics and the wonderful happenings in the lives of the saints. The marvel about it is that the little pieces of which these pictures are made are each not larger than your little finger nail. If you will take four hundred and fifty or¬ dinary city lots and pave them with mosaics so that every inch of the space is a picture made up of bits of this kind you may get some idea of the labour the mosaic decoration of St. Mark’s represents. Leaving the Cathedral, one passes beneath the four bronze horses, which are no one knows how old. Through the centuries they have travelled many a mile. They were apparently designed for some Roman general’s tri¬ umphal arch, but by whose hand remains a mystery. At any rate, in 1204 the doge of Venice brought them to his city from Constantinople. Here they remained for nearly six hundred years. Then Napoleon carried them off and set them up in Paris. From the shadow of the Tuileries they watched his triumphs, but not for long. After Waterloo, they were restored to Venice and mounted once more upon their pedestals Even then they could not rest undisturbed. A century later, when the city feared extinction from the enemy airplanes continually flying 43 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST back and forth over her and dropping bombs from the skies, the bronze horses of St. Mark's were taken down and hidden away. After the World War had ended they were brought out and set again on their vantage point overlooking the Piazza. As I gazed up at these beautiful glittering horses to-day I saw at least five hundred pigeons perched upon them. 1 can’t give the actual count, but there were thousands of live pigeons hovering over St. Mark’s and filling the great square in front of it. They nest in the nooks of the palaces surrounding the square, which they practically own. No one thinks of disturbing them, and a Venetian boy with a bean shooter who would kill one of these birds would go instanter to prison. In some way or other the people have the idea that they mean good luck to the city. In olden times they were sent out from the vestibule of the Cathedral on Palm Sunday and during the time of the Republic they were fed at government expense. There are literally swarms of them and one can sit and watch their antics as they feed and play. A good business in the square is making photographs of the pigeons eating out of the hands and even from the heads of the tourists. There are peddlers who sell corn, split peas, and beans to those who wish to feed the birds and the photographers will take about a half pint of the grain and pour it over your hands and even on your head. As soon as they drop the corn on you the pigeons come in swarms. I tried holding out my hands and soon had so many gathered there that my arms ached with their weight. They fluttered down also on my head, sinking their claws into the wool of my cap and finally pulling it off. From St. Mark’s, a smaller plaza, the Piazzetta, stretches 44 VENICE down to the waters. On the edge of the Piazzetta rise two granite columns brought from Syria or Constan¬ tinople and set up here in the twelfth century. One column is capped by a statue of St. Theodore, once patron saint of the Republic, standing on a crocodile, while on the other is the winged lion of St. Mark. The Venetians have a phrase: ''between Theodore and Mark,'' which means about the same as our "between hammer and anvil," or "between the devil and the deep blue sea." The saying probably comes from the fact that once state offenders were put to death on a scaffold set up between these columns. Their backs were always turned to the city that had cast them off, while their faces looked out to sea, the symbol of eternity. Now the old shafts throw their shadows upon dozens of gondolas tied up at the canal pier, and instead of the cries of the condemned, one hears the soft Italian voices of the gondoliers chant¬ ing each the advantages of his craft for a swift row up the Grand Canal and back to one's hotel. 45 CHAPTER VII OVER THE PLAINS OF LOMBARDY TO MILAN T O-DAY I have been riding over the Lombardy Plain from Venice to Milan. To the north I could see the low foothills of the Alps gradually rising till they met the sky, and to the south the fertile fields going on and on to the horizon. The whole country is a garden where the luxuriant crops stand out against a background of reddish brown soil. In the Middle Ages the wool industry of this region was impor¬ tant. Now silk has taken the place of wool, and there are great groves of mulberry trees, with other crops grow¬ ing between the rows. When the Austrian troops held this district so much money was made from silk culture that it was said the soldiers and the officers lived on mul¬ berry leaves. No wonder the sight of these rich plains put heart into the cohorts of Hannibal, when, exhausted by their march over the Alps, they looked down upon them and thought of the loot they might yield. No won¬ der that, nearly two thousand years later, Napoleon’s men were inspired by the fruitfulness of the fields to sweep down from the mountain passes upon the Austrian forces. The Po, the largest river in Italy, flows along most of the southern boundary of Lombardy, while part of its western border is formed by the Ticino, one of the chief tributaries of the Po. In the plain are most of the beauti¬ ful Italian lakes. The climate is hot in summer, but in 46 The original of New York’s Bridge of Sighs,’’ connecting the Tombs prison with the trial room, is here in Venice. It joins the Doge’s Palace with the jail for common criminals. Many of the Italian estates are farmed on the tenant system under contracts that sometimes run for centuries. Others depend on day labourers hired from the nearest village at wages we would consider ridicu¬ lously low. LOMBARDY TO MILAN winter, bitterly cold winds bear down upon it from the mountains. The farmers offset the scanty rainfall of the summers by a system of irrigation works begun in the Middle Ages and still so serviceable that it is almost im¬ possible for the crops to fail for lack of water. The scenes here are different from those of other parts of Europe. There are more buildings in the midst of the fields and more of the people live out on the farms instead of in villages. The cottages are usually of brick covered with stucco. It is said that six out of every ten of the people of Italy are on the land and that only about ten per cent, of her nearly one hundred and eleven thousand square miles of area is useless or uncultivated. This one tenth is barren rock. It is true that there is much moun¬ tainous country that can never be put to the plough, but grapes and olives grow on stony slopes, and chestnuts, which are an important food of the people, flourish on the mountain sides. The land is intensively cultivated so that I seemed to be rolling through a succession of truck patches. Mixed farming appears to be the rule. It is a tradition of the Italian farmer that his bread shall be made of his own wheat, his salad mixed with his own olive oil, and his wine pressed from the grapes out of his own vineyard. Corn and rice grow side by side with the vineyards, and mulberry trees compete for their share of the sustenance. From maize, called by the Italian farmer ‘'Turkish corn,'' the people make polenta, which is almost as popular with them as macaroni. Now and then I saw kilns for drying out the corn. These were installed when it was thought that pellagra, the scourge of the Italian peasants, was due to eating damp, 47 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST musty corn. The old method of hanging the corn out¬ side the house in the sun still prevails, however, and in autumn the garlands of golden grain add to the pictur¬ esqueness of the landscape. The worst cases of pellagra are now taken to hospitals for special diet and nursing. A victim of the disease who is allowed to remain at home is supplied with salt free of charge. Salt is a government monopoly in Italy, and its price often puts it beyond the reach of the poorest peasants. It is against the law even to take home a bucket of sea water to get the salt from it. As in other parts of Italy, many of the farms of Lom¬ bardy are rented. There are several rental systems, but perhaps the best is that known as the meneria, under which the tenant gets half the crop. A house, a shed for his cattle, and a vat for wine-making are furnished him and he has also the right to a certain number of the eggs from his hens. The landlord pays for all improvements and supplies half the oxen. In case of a bad harvest the landlord must provide seed grain for the next planting. The rented farm is generally small, ranging from ten to twenty-five acres. The government agricultural experts estimate that there should be a man to every two and a half acres. Much of the irrigated area belongs to big landowners, syndicates, or development companies. One class of labourers on such estates lives on the land, rent free, drawing wages partly in cash and partly in kind. The members of the other class hire out for the best wages they can get and maintain themselves in mean little villages. Everywhere the vineyards are carefully tended, more so now, as a matter of fact, than ever before, for the gov¬ ernment is trying to uproot the old haphazard methods 48 LOMBARDY TO MILAN of the past. Eternal vigilance is the price of wine in Italy, especially in the hill country. Here the wind is a great foe, rushing down in September, rubbing the bunches of grapes together, and knocking off or bruising the fruit so that it does not come to the right maturity and sweetness. The peasants have a saying that '‘The wind has drunk a great deal of wine.'' Another enemy of the grapes and of other crops as well is hail. In many districts the people shoot into the hail-laden clouds in the hope of breaking them up before their downpour can destroy the crops. In some places, as the time of the grape harvest ap¬ proaches, the leaves are stripped from the vines so that the sun may shine full on the fruit, but in others they are left on so as to protect it from hail. As the grapes ripen the vineyard owner, his wife, and his children mount guard night and day against thieves. When the vintage begins ox-carts carrying big tubs are driven among the vines to gather up the grapes picked into baskets by the harvesters. It is considered a sign of a good harvest if swarms of earwigs troop out of the tubs when they are taken from where they have been stored since the previous season. The fruit is pressed in the vats in the wine cellars, and while machinery is being used more and more for this work, many maintain that the old way is the best. These winemakers claim that the mechanical presses squeeze the stems and seeds, whereas the elastic tread of the human foot is exactly what is needed to get only the best from the grape. Some of Italy's wine is still trodden out by the feet of girls and boys in just the same process that Horace celebrates in his odes. Wooden shoes fitted with spikes in the soles are worn for the purpose. 49 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST In the last half century Italy has undergone an agri¬ cultural revolution. It used to be that agriculture was considered no proper pursuit for the well-born and well- educated. A father of the upper classes wished to see his son a graduate of a university with the title of doctor in this or that branch of learning. Then somebody hit on the happy thought of granting the title of doctor to those completing a course of study in a high school of agriculture, and soon the attitude toward scientific farm¬ ing as a profession underwent a change. Italy now has a number of agricultural colleges, and special schools for teaching oil- and cheese-making, fruit-culture, and cattle- breeding. Scattered through the country are experimental farms and in some districts the government lends agricul¬ tural machinery to the farmers for two weeks at a time. Rural credit associations and village banks have been organized to make loans to the small farmers. There are also cooperative banks that accept deposits of the small¬ est sums and lend money on simple notes of hand endorsed by one or two signatures. Italy is also the home of the International Institute of Agriculture founded at Rome to carry out the idea of an American, David Lubin. This unique organization gathers crop reports from all over the world, and collects information about farm labour and other matters relating to agriculture. Fifty-two nations support the institute. Italy has doubled her farm production in the past fifty years. She grows more wheat than anything else, and after that come corn and rice. She ranks next to France as a wine producer, making more than a million gallons a year. A glance at a physical map of the country will show 50 LOMBARDY TO MILAN you that most of the level land is in Lombardy Plain. At the top of the Italian “boot” are the Alps, while down the leg runs the long, low range of the Apennines. The Alps formerly cut off Italy from the rest of Europe, but this barrier has been overcome by the railroads. In the trough between the two mountain systems lies Lom¬ bardy, which has been built up by earth washings brought down by the streams. Within the last six centuries the delta of the Po has added to the land surface an area equal to eight hundred farms of a quarter section each, and the ancient port of Adria, which gave its name to the Adriatic, is now fifteen miles inland. Though Italy is in the same latitude as Indiana, its climate is more like that of Florida; for the peninsula gets warm breezes from Africa and the Mediterranean. In the southern part and in Sicily lemons, oranges, figs, and other sub-tropical fruits grow as well as in southern California. The country has little valuable iron ore and prac¬ tically no good coal, so that she must import fuel for her factories. But development of her abundant water¬ power, which is being vigorously pushed, will eventually make her independent of foreign coal. It is estimated that Italy has in her rivers and streams a total of twelve million horsepower. If this were all developed it would mean the equivalent of sixty million tons of coal in a year. Like Switzerland, she has a great programme for the elec¬ trification of four thousand miles, or nearly half, of her railroads, most of which are operated by the government. Her dependence on foreign raw materials is one of Italy’s great problems. She must bring in, besides coal, nearly half her food, as well as the cotton and the wool needed 31 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST by her factories. The truth is, the country has a great many mouths to feed in proportion to its size. If the United States were as thickly populated we should have one thousand million people, or nearly ten times as many as we have now. In an area about equal to that of New Mexico, Italy is supporting a population of more than thirty-eight millions, or three hundred and forty to the square mile. Over-population has caused much poverty, especially in the southern part of the country, and has led to extensive emigration. The fact that the United States, which used to admit a large percentage of Italian immi¬ grants, now restricts their numbers is a hardship for this country. Not only did the departure of the emigrants mean fewer stomachs to be filled, but the money they re¬ turned to their native land was an important part of the national income. While Lombardy has more than five hundred and forty people to the square mile, it is agriculturally and com¬ mercially the most prosperous section of the country. Again and again, especially as we neared Milan, I was im¬ pressed with the flourishing industrial life of the region. We passed the linen mills, woollen mills, silk mills, and machine shops, and finally drove into Milan, Italy’s chief railway centre and silk market and one of the three big industrial cities of the country. Genoa, the principal seaport and a rival of Marseilles, is one of Milan’s com¬ mercial competitors, and Turin, where the Fiat cars are made in the largest automobile factory of Europe, is the other. After the quiet and dreaminess of Venice, Milan seems to have the atmosphere of a Pittsburgh or a Chicago. Indeed, it is the most modern city in Italy and looks in 52 LOMBARDY TO MILAN some respects like an American town. In shape it is a polygon and its centre is the fine Piazza del Duomo, from which many broad streets radiate in all directions. These streets are connected by an inner circle of boulevards, constructed just outside a canal. This canal marks the site of the moat of the medieval city, for despite her up- to-date appearance, Milan is very old. Some of the streets are wide, it is true, but others are so narrow that motor cars have to drive carefully in passing. Prominent features of the business section are the ar¬ cades here and there. The principal one is that of Victor Emanuel in the heart of the city and within a stone's throw of the Cathedral. This great arcade, which is about one hundred feet high and nearly as wide, is beautifully deco¬ rated. Its ceiling is of glass which at night is brilliantly lighted by electricity. The floors are in mosaic. The arcade is lined with fine stores, the big display windows looking out on the passages. Like the Piazza San Marco in Venice it is the great meeting, promenade, and dining place of the city. All day long it is alive with shoppers, and in the evening is filled with the world of Milan and his wife. Beautiful women and girls and handsome, bareheaded men walk back and forth until twelve o'clock at night. The biggest and best thing in Milan is the Cathedral, which occupies one end of the Piazza del Duomo. It dates back to 1386 and is built of brick cased in white marble. The stone is sadly smokestained since the city has become a manufacturing centre, but the whole is still most beauti¬ ful. The buttresses and roof are adorned with one hun¬ dred and thirty-five pinnacles and twenty-three hundred marble statues decorate the exterior. It is covered with 53 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST carvings in high and low relief, representing scenes from the Scriptures, almost every one of them a work of fine art. The interior is wonderfully impressive. The build¬ ing is in the form of a cross. The huge columns of pink marble upholding the mighty roof are of indescribable beauty and slenderness and I defy any man, no matter what his religion, to go through this cathedral unmoved. Forty thousand people may gather here at one time and unite in the worship of God, who gave to man the mind to conceive and the power to execute such a masterpiece. Besides being enriched with noble buildings and artis¬ tic masterpieces handed down from the past, Milan has vast wealth gained from her industries and her part in the productive enterprises of northern Italy. The city is the chief financial centre of Italy. Its bankers and commercial magnates do business with all the world. Genoa, Italy’s principal port, is less than one hundred miles distant and is the mouth through which the fac¬ tories and the mills are fed with the raw materials from abroad. It has direct steamship service to all Mediter¬ ranean ports, to England, New York, Asia, and Australia. Here are landed coal from Great Britain, cotton from the United States, cotton-seed oil for mixing with the native oil, and iron, petroleum, and other products. Although Genoa’s exports are large, they are usually far exceeded in value by her imports. Since the completion of the St. Gotthard tunnel through the Alps this port has become also an outlet for the manufactured goods of Switzerland, southern Germany, and part of Austria. The city itself is only about half the size of Milan. Like an amphitheatre, it rises from the water in a series of tiers and terraces, on which are many splendid marble 54 All day long the Arcade of Victor Emmanuel is alive with shoppers and in the evening it is filled with the world of Milan and his wife. Through its arches one glimpses the pinnacles of the great Cathedral. The poorest Italian peasant often has better olive oil than the Ameri¬ can housekeeper who pays extravagantly for “pure Italian,” which is frequently only cottonseed oil mixed in Italy with the real article and reshipped to the United States. LOMBARDY TO MILAN palaces. Every American school boy knows of Genoa as the birthplace of Columbus, but it took the Genoese nearly four hundred years to decide to honour the discoverer of America with the statue which now stands before the rail¬ road station. John Cabot, who saw the coast of New¬ foundland and Nova Scotia before Columbus set foot on continental America, was also born in Genoa. 55 CHAPTER VIII THE ETERNAL CITY Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness. S O SAID Keats. Yet I think Rome is less than a Paradise, more than a city, and far more than a I wilderness of ruins, or the grave of an ancient civilization. There are so many Romes—the Rome of the Forum and the Colosseum, the Rome of St. Peter’s and the Pope, the Rome of the king and government of Italy, the Rome of the artist, the archae¬ ologist, and the historian, and the combination of all these, the Eternal City, that is the pride of the Italians and the ‘'port of dreams” for thousands. I am reminded of a story told of the learned Pope Leo XIII. He often asked the foreign visitor: “How long have you been in Rome?” If the answer was, “A week. Your Holiness,” the pontiff would say: “Then you must feel as if you know Rome very well!” If the visitor replied that he had been in the city for six months. Pope Leo’s remark would be: “Then you have begun to look about you a little bit.” But if the foreigner should say that he had lived in Rome for several years, the Pope would smilingly say: “Ah, then you have discovered that a whole lifetime is not too long to learn what Rome really is!” 56 THE ETERNAL CITY The city seems enormous, for it is spread over an im¬ mense area. One reason for this is the fact that a large part of it is taken up with ruins, churches, and historic monuments of one kind or another. The town is actually no larger than St. Louis or Boston, but if you were to reproduce Rome on the site of either of the others, you would have to allot a big space in the heart of it for the relics of the past. The Forum, as big as an eighty-acre farm, is surrounded by the business buildings of modern Rome. The Colosseum is another great field of stone and mortar right in the midst of the business section. St. Peter’s and the Vatican occupy as much land as the Colosseum. Almost anywhere you could throw a stone and hit a church taking up an acre or so of ground. Most of the city is on the left bank of the Tiber, rising partly on the plain of the ancient Field of Mars, and partly on the surrounding hills. On the right bank of the river are St. Peter’s and the Vatican. Modern Rome is confined chiefly to the plain. The heights where stood the ancient mistress of the world were almost uninhabited during the Middle Ages, and only within comparatively recent years have they begun to be reoccupied. Yet these seven hills of Rome add greatly to its beauty. The Pala¬ tine, where Cicero lived and where Augustus, the first of the Roman emperors, built his huge palace, is now a park and verdure hides the ruins of the halls where succeeding emperors lorded it over the multitude. A curious relic here is a little stone altar chiselled with the Latin words, Sei deo, sei deivcz —to the Unknown God. I have been told that this was set up to the patron god of Rome and that only the priests knew the name of the deity to whom it was really dedicated. Even they did not write it down, ^7 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST but handed it on from generation to generation, for it was feared that if the common people should know it, one of them might betray it to an enemy, who would surely bribe the god with offerings and sacrifices to cease to pro¬ tect Rome. Between the Palatine and the Capitoline, on which rose the magnificent Temple of Jupiter, the most sacred shrine of the Roman world, are the ruins of the Forum. Upon the Quirinal is the royal palace of the kings of Italy. On the sides of the Viminal the modern city grows apace. Last night I dined upon the Aventine, not going up in a chariot, on horseback, or afoot, as did Caesar and Cicero, but in an Italian automobile, which landed me at the Castle of the Caesars. Climbing some ragged stone steps past ruined columns, we came out at length upon a stone platform where a gay crowd was dining in the open-air restaurant overlooking the myriad lights of the city. As we ate delicious food amid the laughter and light talk of the twentieth century, my imagination unreeled before me a series of moving pictures. First I saw in my mind’s eye the burial of Remus upon this hillside, after he had been slain by Romulus in a fit of jealous rage. That was twenty-six centuries and more ago. Next I beheld these slopes alive with a surging mob of plebeians, their hearts aflame with the injustices and oppressions of the patri¬ cians. There followed terrible pictures of the wild orgies of seven thousand men and women engaged in their de¬ grading worship of Bacchus. Again the scene changed, and across my mental screen flitted a figure frail and small, yet with an indescribable dignity of bearing. He moved about in a cluster of men with dark, Hebraic coun¬ tenances and long beards, who appeared to be hanging 58 THE ETERNAL CITY upon his every word. And recalling that he was a visitor to Jews of the Rome of two thousand years ago, 1 gave the picture a title: '' Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.’' But here my reverie was interrupted by the waiter pre¬ senting me with such a substantial bill that 1 came back with a jolt to the world of to-day. Since the spell was broken, 1 climbed into my car and was soon again in the midst of modern Rome. The principal streets of the business city of Rome are the Via Nazionale and its continuation, the Corso, one of the most brilliant avenues in all Europe. During the season both of these thoroughfares are thronged with pedestrians and vehicles. A large part of the traffic of Rome is still pulled along by horses, though the taxis are also numerous and cheap. The old-fashioned victoria drawn by one horse, which the driver usually flogs unmercifully, is most prevalent. There are also red street cars, which are a bit shorter than ours and get their power through overhead trolleys. Carts drawn by mules decorated with bells and coloured fringes, so that they look as if they were ready for a holiday, bump over the cobbled pavements. Donkey carts are not so common here as in Naples. One of the striking things about Rome is the number and the beauty of its fountains. The finest of them is the Trevi, which used to be called Virgin Water, either because of its purity or because of the tradition that a young girl pointed out this spring to the engineers of Agrippa. They built a subterranean channel fourteen miles long to con¬ duct the stream that issues here to the baths of that warrior and statesman beside the Pantheon. The same 59 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST aqueduct, restored from time to time, carries daily more than seventeen and a half million gallons of the best water in Rome. The Trevi is in the heart of the city and in the evenings the people gather here and listen to its splashings. There is a tradition that the traveller who throws a small coin into these waters will surely return to Rome. As 1 stood on the edge of it yesterday I asked my guide “ How much shall I throw?'' From the crowd of loafers sitting on the edge of the fountain came, in accents unmistakably of the lower West Side of New York: “T'row in a dollar and I'll dive and get it!" Evidently here was one of the many returned sons of Italy who had brought back from America some of our own ideas of what is *'good businesSc" This morning 1 crossed the Tiber to St. Peter's. There are many bridges but I happened to take the one named for King Humbert I, the beloved Italian monarch assassinated at the beginning of this century. Dominating the bridge on the right bank is the great Palace of Justice, of which my guide remarked, “It is a big palace, but has little justice." Under the shadow of the huge pile 1 saw a hundred or so young Romans swimming and diving, dodging about in canoes, or sunning themselves on the sand. The Tiber was neither so swift nor so tawny as it often is. Some¬ times it is a raging torrent of yellow water that comes tearing down from the Apennines full of the sediment it has gathered from the mountains and the Campagna. Because of past disastrous floods the government has en¬ closed it with massive stone masonry so that, seen from a height, the river looks like a walled fosse of the Middle Ages. One day, perhaps, the talk of making a ship canal THE ETERNAL CITY of the Tiber so as to bring the Mediterranean right into the city may end in action. Rome is only about half an hour by motor from the sea and if it were in the United States the canal would probably have been built long ago. All the plans and the specifications are ready and only the money is lacking. The approach to St. Peter's is through a great plaza in the shape of an ellipse. From the Cathedral, stone colon¬ nades, surmounted by more than one hundred and fifty statues of saints, curve in half crescents about both sides of the space. Two fountains play in the plaza and in the middle is the obelisk which the Emperor Caligula brought from Heliopolis, the city of the sun god in the Nile delta. It was first set up in the Vatican Circus at Rome, where Nero held his shows and chariot races and practised his horrible cruelties upon the early Christians. In the six¬ teenth century the obelisk was removed from that site to the space in front of St. Peter's. There is a story that Pope Sixtus V, who had ordered its removal, had decreed that there should be absolute silence as the obelisk was raised. But just as the men had hauled it almost to the perpendicular it was seen that one of the ropes was slipping. Then a sailor in the crowd yelled out, '‘Throw water on the rope." His advice was followed, the rope tightened, and the obelisk went safely into place. The crowd held its breath at the thought of what would befall him for having disobeyed the Pope's command. But instead of punishment, his family was awarded forever the privilege of supplying palms to St. Peter s on Palm Sunday. Sixtus V, by the way, was that “strong man" of his day of whom Queen Elizabeth declared: “He is the one man who is worthy of my hand." 6i THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST Though the plaza forms a magnificent approach to the greatest church in Christendom, the Cathedral is best viewed from a distant height, so that one may get the full effect of Michael Angelo’s vast dome. Seen from the level, the dome is dwarfed by the great facade stretching across the front of the church. When measured by the eye in close perspective, St. Peter’s does not seem as tall as the Capitol at Washington, though it is in reality twice as high. The interior is enormously impressive. One can scarcely take in the immense size of the church and the huge scale on which every detail is worked out. For example, the two fonts for holy water near the entrance to the nave have marble basins upheld by cherubs. When I looked at them from the door, these cherubs seemed to be about the size of the average baby, but when I stood beside them I saw that the leg of each one was as big around as my waist and that its head would have been a tight fit in a half bushel basket. Looking across the nave 1 saw the people on the other side as mere pigmies. So perfect are the proportions of the whole that it takes such comparisons as these to make one realize that here is space for eighty thousand people to gather at once. The statue of St. Peter is a sitting figure of more than life-size, cast in bronze that looks as if it had been alloyed with silver or pewter. Although it is not by any means beautiful, the statue is rather imposing. The head is very ugly, with hair and beard of short, tight curls. In the right hand the Founder of the Church holds a key, while the left is raised in blessing. The right foot has been kissed by so many thousands of worshippers that it is smooth and shiny and the first three toes have been worn down for an inch or more. 62 The home port of Christopher Columbus now has steamship con¬ nections with all parts of the world and is the mouth through which the industries of northern Italy are fed with raw materials. Italian seaport towns are famous for their smells which assault the visitor at long range. The celebrated “Wash Alley” of Genoa accounts for a part of the redolence of that city. The entire population of Savannah could gather in St. Peter’s, the biggest Christian church in the world. Michael Angelo planned the vast dome, beneath which is the High Altar where only the Pope himself may say mass. THE ETERNAL CITY Some say that the statue was made in the fifth century, others that it is as recent as the thirteenth. One story has it that it was originally a statue of Jupiter and was re¬ modelled by the Christians, who put on a new head and new arms. I do not by any means vouch for the truth of this tale, but it does seem to me that the bronze toga draped about the saint might have been designed for a pagan image and the head does not appear to belong with the body. Beneath the dome stands the High Altar where only the Pope may read mass. Above it is a bronze canopy ninety- five feet high made from metal taken from the Pantheon. In front of the altar is the tomb of St. Peter, to which one descends by marble steps. On the balustrade about the crypt are nearly one hundred lighted golden lamps. Something like five hundred years ago the Roman nobles made up a fund to keep these lights burning for all time to come, and they have been glowing here ever since. Only the body of St. Peter rests in his Cathedral. His head is interred with that of St. Paul beneath the high altar of St. John in the Lateran, called the “mother and head of all churches.’' This church, which is in the eastern section of the city, was a part of the old Lateran Palace bestowed by Constantine on the Pope of his day. Until the fourteenth century, when Gregory XI established the official residence at the Vatican, the Lateran was the home of the popes. It is still a part of the Papal See, and is used as a museum of Christian and secular antiquities. St. John’s has suffered so much from fire, earthquake, pillage, and the hand of the restorer that it is now little save a big modern church. I found much more interesting the Scala Santa, the 63 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST building near the Lateran that contains the twenty-eight marble steps which Christ is said to have ascended when they formed the stairway of Pilate’s house in Jerusalem. They are covered over with wood to keep them from being- worn away, for they may be ascended only on the knees, and generations of pilgrims have climbed thus from the lowest to the topmost step. Pius IX himself made the painful ascent in 1870 on the eve of the entry of the Italian troops into Rome when the temporal power of the popes came to an end. It was while toiling up the Sacred Stairs that Luther heard a voice from heaven declaring that the way to salvation was by faith as well as by works. At Easter time, especially on Good Friday, many kneeling Catholics go up the flight, but, fortunately for those not so devoutly inclined, there is a stairway on each side that may be used in the ordinary way. At the top of the steps one may look down through a barred window into the Sancta Sanctorum, consecrated as the private chapel of the popes. 64 CHAPTER IX THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME T he greater part of to-day I have spent in the Roman Forum, the spot on which perhaps more history has been enacted than on any other of the globe. My “inward eye’’ is still dazzled by hundreds of pictures showing the story of Rome from the time that Romulus and Remus fought over laying her foundations, through the proud days when she was mis¬ tress of the known world, until she lay exhausted and despoiled by the Vandals. Twelve hundred years of history, much of it most glorious, are mirrored in the ruins about the old market place and centre of the Roman people. The Forum is now a great sunken space with masses of debris covering the stone floor. The remains of columns and capitals lie here and there, and the ruins of the storied buildings of the past rise from it. Here is an old palace wall, the Corinthian columns showing all that is left of its wonderful beauty. Flowers are growing in the Forum and trees have sprung up among the stones. I noticed the flaming blossoms of the hibiscus on the edge of the old palace of Caligula and picked a daisy from a crevice in the Temple of Marcus Aurelius. I saw what seemed to me 65 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST a rose flowering in the gray vault of Caesar and thought of Omar Khayyam’s I sometimes think that never blows so red The rose as where some buried Caesar bled; That every hyacinth the garden wears Dropt in her lap from some once lovely head. A little more than a century ago this treasure vault of archaeology was merely a cow pasture, far down beneath which lay the annals of Rome. Early in the nineteenth century, systematic exploration and excavation began. After Italy became a united kingdom the government took charge of the work, so that the most ancient days of the city have been brought back to us by the remains unearthed. The space between the Palatine and the Capitoline now occupied by the Forum was once a swamp, in the midst of which was the Lake of Curtius. Into this lake plunged the Sabine leader when hard pressed by the Romans after the rape of the Sabine women. Here ap¬ peared a yawning chasm which threatened to engulf the young city and which the soothsayers declared would not close until Rome’s most valuable possession was thrown into it. Then Marcus Curtius, a youth of noble birth, vowing that Rome could have nothing more precious than a brave citizen, rode fully armed into the chasm, which immediately closed over him. In the sixth century B.C. the marshy plain was drained and became the civic centre of Rome. Here assemblies were held, orators declaimed, and athletes gave exhibitions, while the people looked on from the galleries built over the surrounding porticoes. There were also shops of various kinds. Those were the days when the soldier, Virginius, snatched a knife from a butcher’s block in the Forum and 66 THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME plunged it into the heart of his beautiful young daughter, Virginia, rather than have her fall a victim to the lust of Appius Claudius, the decemvir. But with the growth of the city and its business more than one forum was needed, and a number of judicial and mercantile fora were estab¬ lished, while the Forum Romanum was enlarged and beautified. The Forum was more than half a mile long and about half as wide. In the days of the Empire it was surrounded by magnificent temples and palaces, the remains of some of which may still be studied. Whole books have been written about these fragments and years of study could be put on all for which they stand, but I shall have to content myself with telling you of only a few of the things that interested me. At the northwestern side of the Forum rises the marble arch erected seventeen hundred years ago to the Emperor Septimius Severus by his two sons, Caracalla and Geta. But Geta’s name is not now on the inscription across the front, for Caracalla erased it after he had had his brother and co-emperor murdered in his mother's arms. On one side of the arch is a round brick core, the remainder of the Umbilicus, the monument once marking the exact centre of the city. Almost in the shadow of the arch is the Black Stone, a square of ground paved in black marble inscribed in an ancient tongue and said to mark the grave of Romulus. Nearly opposite the Arch of Septimius Severus at this end of the Forum rise the eight granite columns of the Temple of Saturn, which was dedicated to the god of crops five hundred years before Christ. In the cellars of the temple were stored the public funds. Here and there on the paving of the Forum one sees coins 67 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST half melted and sunk into the stone. The explanation is that once when the temple was on fire the money was trans¬ ferred from the burning building and in the hurry some of it was dropped and left on the floor. The Italian govern¬ ment, which is extremely careful of its antiquities, has protected many of these coins by covering them with glass. On the road in front of the temple have been found traces of the Golden Milestone set up by the Emperor Augustus in the glorious times when all roads led to Rome. Upon this column were inscribed the names and distances of the chief towns on the highways radiating from the city. The milestone stood at the foot of a flight of steps leading up to the rostrum from which Cicero thun¬ dered forth some of his attacks upon Mark Antony. When Caesar had been killed and Antony was in control, Cicero, balked by unfavourable winds in his efforts to flee by ship, returned to his villa, exclaiming, ‘‘Let me die in the country which I have so often saved.’' He was killed by a man he had befriended and his head was brought to Antony and his wife, Fulvia, as they sat at a banquet. Antony heaped abuses on it and Fulvia drew a gold pin from her hair and thrust it through the tongue that had said so much against her and her husband. Then the head and the hands of the greatest orator of Rome were nailed to the rostrum. This platform was a stone structure, seventy-eight feet long and forty feet wide, adorned with statues and tablets. In front of the temple tomb of Julius Caesar on the eastern end of the Forum was the Julian rostrum. Here stood Antony with the bloody gar¬ ment of the murdered Caesar and swayed the mob by his wonderful oration until they were ready to do his will. Only thirteen years later Augustus decorated this platform 68 THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME with the beaks of the ships he had captured at the battle of Actium, where he won from Antony the mastery of the world. Most beautiful are the three Parian marble columns, nearly fifty feet tall and five feet in diameter, which were once part of a majestic temple to Castor and Pollux. A shrine was built to these twin gods in memory of the help they gave the Romans in their fight against the league of Latin cities about five hundred years before Christ was born. You recall the story of how the Romans under Aulus were sore beset when, all at once, at the head of their ranks there appeared a princely pair clad in white armour and mounted upon snowy steeds. Then— “Rome to the charge!** cried Aulus, “The foe begins to yield! Charge for the hearth of Vesta, Charge for the Golden Shield! Let no man stop to plunder. But slay, and slay, and slay; The Gods who live forever Are on our side to-day.** And close by the temple ruins there still bubbles the fountain where, after the battle was won and they had galloped to Rome with the good news. Castor and Pollux washed their gory horses .in the well That springs by Vesta*s fane. And straight away they mounted. And rode to Vesta’s door; Then, like a blast, away they passed. And no man saw them more. 69 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST Near this fountain of Juturna are the remains of the circular Temple of Vesta, where the sacred fire was always kept alight by the Vestal Virgins. In the shrine were treasured the seven sacred objects upon possession of which depended the safety of Rome. The most important of these was the Palladium, the crude statue of Minerva that /Tneas brought with him from Troy. The sacred shield that fell from heaven in the time of the good old king Numa, the founder of the order of the Vestals, was confided to special priests and not to the shrine of Vesta. Besides keeping the fire burning on the altar, the Virgins had to offer daily prayers for the welfare of the state and bring water every day from a sacred spring for the cere¬ monial sweeping and sprinkling of the temple. If any of them allowed the fire to go out she was scourged by the Pontifex Maximus, or High Priest, while the Vestal who broke her vow of chastity was buried alive. Judging by the remains of their home, near the temple, the Vestals lived well. On the upper floor of the two-story building may be traced a suite of baths and sleeping rooms lined with polished marble and paved with mosaics. On the lower floor are the ruins of storerooms, a kitchen, and quarters for the slaves appointed by the government to serve these priestesses. In one part of the building are statues of the Chief Vestals, who acted somewhat as Mother Superiors to the others. The inscriptions on some of them show that they were erected by people grateful for favours secured for them by the influence of the Ves¬ tals. Indeed, the Virgins were a privileged and influential group. They occupied the best seats at the theatres and were allowed to go to the gladiatorial combats. They took a prominent part in all the religious and state cere- 70 Rome is divided by the Tiber, which is heavily walled in on account of freshets. The dome of St. Peter’s rises above the right bank, but most of the modern city is on the left side of the river. Under the walls of the huge Palace of Justice, by the King Humbert Bridge, modern young Italy goes swimming and paddles canoes in the Tiber. The everyday business of Rome goes on right under the shadow of the ruins of the Temple of Saturn, consecrated in the fifth century B.C., and sweeps past the Mamertine Prison where Peter and Paul suffered for their faith in Christ and His teachings. THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME monies, were exempt from taxation, and might drive through the streets in carriages. After their thirty years of service to the state they might retire to private life and even marry, but judging by the faces of the statues I saw, I should say they seldom got proposals. From one pedestal the name and inscription have been erased because the Vestal to whom the statue was set up became a Christian in 364 A.D. This was at the time when the worship of Vesta was dying out and there is a story that along about the end of the fourth century the wife of a Vandal chieftain took a valuable necklace from one of the statues, as she laughed at the remonstrances of a lone old hag, the last survivor of the Vestal Virgins. As 1 sat in the Forum thinking of these things, I heard a guttural whir in the air, and looking up, 1 saw an airplane cutting the sky overhead. What, I wonder, do the ghosts of the Vestals think of such things when they return and hover about their old home? I can imagine that business in the Forum sometimes adjourned so that the people might hurry over to shows in the Colosseum close by; just as our national legislators take an afternoon off to go to the ball game. I have seen this great amphitheatre under almost every change of aspect it has known for the last generation. When I came here first it was covered with moss, and Nature seemed to be trying to hide some of the wounds of time. To-day, in the bright sunlight, the ruins look as bare and gray as an old, rainwashed bone. The moss of the ages has been scraped away and the structure looks as if it had had a bath of soap and lye and ashes. As I photographed it this afternoon a ten-ton truck came rumbling by and the smell of gasoline rose to my nostrils. 71 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST When 1 went again to see it this evening, the whole thing had changed. The moon gave just enough light to smooth all the rough edges and to touch the giant ruin with beauty. I strolled about the arena, climbed up into the various rows of galleries, and finally sat down in what twenty- five hundred years ago were the bleachers and tried to picture the ancient spectacle. Gladiators, Christian martyrs, lions and tigers with jaws dripping with the blood of the followers of Christ, all passed under my eyes. I could imagine the scene in '‘Quo Vadis,” in which the beautiful maiden is brought into the ring tied to the horns of a bull. I could see the mimic naval engagements when the arena was flooded and the forces on the boats fought for the entertainment of the spectators. 1 saw great walls as high as a sixteen-story building alive with a mass of humanity. Some say that eighty-seven thousand people could be accommodated here at one time. Others put the number at fifty thousand. After the Colosseum was completed by the Emperor Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem, it was dedicated with one hundred days of gladiatorial combats and contests between men and beasts. Five thousand animals were killed and fully one hundred men. A hundred and seventy years later, shows almost as stupendous were staged here by the Emperor Philip in celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the founding of the city. At last Constan¬ tine forbade throwing Christians to the wild beasts and in 405 Honorius put a stop to gladiatorial combats. It was in that year, so the story goes, that the monk, Tele- machus, rushed into the arena in the midst of the gladia¬ tors and commanded them, in the name of the Saviour, to leave off slaughtering one another. He himself was slain 72 THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME by the enraged combatants, but his death made a great impression on the spectators. Wild beasts were baited in the arena for another hundred years, however, and it was not until the sixth century that the building was aban¬ doned to the ravages of time, lightning, and earthquakes. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, the Colosseum, like the other imperial ruins of Rome, served as a quarry for builders. The marble facing was torn olT, the metal clamps that held its slabs and blocks together were gouged out when iron was scarce, statues and frescoes were carried away, and stonemasons even burned marble from it in their kilns to make lime. The amphitheatre was used as a fort, for markets and shops, and once it even housed a woollen factory. In 1750 Pope Benedict XIV consecrated the Colosseum by setting up the Stations of the Cross inside it and thus ended further vandalism. Thirty thousand Jewish captives are said to have worked on the construction of the mighty amphitheatre. It is built in the form of an ellipse and covers six acres. The walls rise to a height of a hundred and sixty feet in four tiers and there are eighty archways serving as en¬ trances. All except four were for the admission of the public, two were for the gladiators and the processions, and two were reserved for the emperor and his court and for the high officials. Beneath the arena were corridors leading to the dens of the wild beasts, which were lifted by machinery through trap doors to the level of the stage. The spectators were shielded from rain or sun by immense sailcloths, manipulated by detachments of sailors from the fleet in the Bay of Naples. I included Naples in my itinerary this time especially because of the excavations at Pompeii, which have revealed 73 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST even more fully than have those at the Forum the every¬ day life under Roman civilization. Since 1748, when a peasant’s spade happened to turn up some ancient uten¬ sils, workmen have been delving there and bringing to light bit by bit the life of the city buried and lost for eighteen hundred years. All this is easily reached on the cars from Naples, which make the sixteen-mile run in an hour. We go out through the most densely populated, the noisiest, and the smelliest town in Europe. The streets of Naples, especially in the tenement district and along the sea front, overflow with men, women, children, goats, donkeys, carts, and wagons, and reek with the odours of cooking, drying linen, fish, garlic, unwashed humanity, the sea, and nobody knows what else besides. There are men selling fish, and women frying potatoes, rice balls, and all sorts of indigestible things in kettles of dingy boiling lard. Goats are being driven into the houses and up the stairs to be milked at the doors of customers’ apartments. The people seem to live in the streets, making here their toilets and their love with the same lack of embarrassment. Gangs of boys and men, stretched at full length on the pavements, doze in the hot sun. From the balconies of the blue, pink, white, violet, or bright yellow houses hang laundry, rags, and strings of new-made spaghetti. In the midst of these bloom flower boxes that often adorn even the poorest tenement windows. Naples, which is about the same size as Baltimore or Boston, is the largest city and second seaport of Italy. It deserves the phrase, ''See Naples and die,” not because of any special beauty in the city itself, but because of its magnificent setting on the hills sweeping up from the wonderful Bay of Naples and arched by azure skies. 74 THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME Twenty miles to the south lies the lovely island of Capri, where some say the sirens dwelt. On the east Vesuvius sulks and broods over the scene, ready, the Romans declare, to do to wicked Naples what it did in the first century after Christ to licentious Pompeii and Hercula¬ neum. Until 79 A.D. Vesuvius was regarded as an ordinary peak. But on the 24th of August in that year there came first an earthquake and then a dark cloud, spreading like a black fleece over the summit. Finally, with a great roar, the top of the mountain was blown off and masses of lava, mud, stones, and ashes were hurled out. In a few days Pompeii was covered with twenty feet of ashes, beneath which, it is estimated, there lay buried two thousand of her population. Now the patient work of years has uncovered about half of the ancient city and we can see how like our own were the nature and the activities of the men and women of centuries ago. Up to the last decade the method of excavation was simply digging a ditch, deepening it until a floor was reached, and widening the pit sideways to the walls. But since the Italian government approved the ideas of the archaeologist, Spinazzola, the digging has been done in horizontal layers and with extreme care. As objects are found they are photographed and their positions are noted so that when a house is restored its contents may be put back in place. Moreover, instead of seeing their finds carted off to the National Museum at Naples, the excavators are allowed to keep them at Pompeii. Some years ago it was thought that the homes of Pompeii were of only one story and had no windows along the streets. But Spinazzola’s methods have shown two- 75 . THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST story buildings with overhanging balconies and front windows aplenty. One of the newly excavated houses has been reconstructed even to the ceilings of the upper floors. In the dining room a meal has been uncovered just as it was set on the table when the owner fled. A space in the floor shows that the food was sent up on a dumb waiter. Frescoes adorn the walls of all the houses unearthed, and the baths are amazingly luxurious. Two of the finest frescoes discovered in Pompeii adorn the doorway of a dyer’s shop. On one side the god Mercury is shown stepping out of a yellow marble temple, his robes blown back by his hurry. On the other side is Venus in a royal chariot drawn by four huge elephants. About her shoulders is a cloak of glorious blue, while on her head is a golden crown. The sign on another shop tells the provincial townsmen that the owner is a citizen of the imperial city. The fresco shows Romulus on one side of the door, and on the other /Eneas, who picked out the site of Rome, escaping from burning Troy with his aged father on his back and his little son by his side. Evidently Pompeii was in the midst of an election when the catastrophe occurred, for the walls are covered with the claims of rival candidates. '‘We beg you to elect G. Gavium Rufum a lawmaking duumvir,” says one. Others show that, while women did not have the vote, they evidently had political influence. “Zmyrina rec¬ ommends C. Julius Polybius for the post of lawmaking duumvir” is written on one wall. G. Gavium Rufum must have hated that sign. Zymrina and Asellina both commend C. Lollium for the post of duumvir charged with maintenance of roads and sacred and public buildings. Maybe it was Lollium who wrote the inscription scribbled 76 THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME on another wall: Farewell, Asellina, try to love me.” C. Cuspius, who aspired to the post of aedile, apparently felt the need of no lady friend's help. He toots his horn in front of his own house by declaring that:If glory must be given to those who live honestly, then to this young man must well-earned glory be given.” On the walls of the houses at crossroads were fixed big bells, which passing chariot drivers struck with their whips so as to warn those approaching from another direction. The crossroads were sacred places, for here sacrifices were offered the patron gods of the city. An altar unearthed at one such place bore the ashes of the last sacrifice to the pagan deities before the eruption of Vesuvius over¬ whelmed the city they were powerless to save. 77 CHAPTER X IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA C ZECHOSLOVAKIA! The name sounds like Ultima Thule, and it , seems to indicate the jumping-off place of creation. ‘'Czecho'' might be a pet name for a monkey, and to many the word “Slovak’' is synony¬ mous with “Dago.” In the minds of millions of Amer¬ icans, the country has no identity, and I doubt if one man out of ten on the street can place it. Still, it contains five times as many people as Denmark, seven times as many as Norway, and ten or more times the number in Turkey. It is in the busiest and best part of Europe, and though still so young, has already taken its place in the finance, the business, and the politics of this side of the world. Most of the other republics that resulted from the Treaty of Versailles are largely farming propositions. Czechoslovakia is an industrial entity with factories ready to turn out goods, not only for the nation, but for the other peoples of Europe, for South America, and even for us. I came across the Atlantic with a representative of the biggest of the Chicago mail-order houses. He was on his way to Europe to buy stocks for his firm and one of the most important countries on his list was this. Czechoslovakia will sell him glassware and notions, laces and embroideries, linens and other textiles, necklaces, 78 Half the population of Naples seems to live in the narrow streets of the city. Here they cook, work, make love, and buy and sell with a total lack of embarrassment. “Twentieth-century bandits carried me about in the blazing sun flooding the ruins of the wicked Pompeii of long ago. This picture was snapped in the Forum of the ancient city.” The finds at Pompeii are now kept there and some of the houses have been rebuilt. The excavations are made so carefully that even the places where there were roots of shrubs and trees are cleaned out. Thus similar plants can be restored to the gardens of eighteen centuries ago IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA brooches, and many of the novelties that our women will skimp their house money to buy. Czechoslovakia is long and narrow and lies like a fat sausage in the great sandwich of Central Europe. It is between Germany and Poland on the north, and Austria, Hungary, and Rumania on the south. One end is in the Carpathian Mountains on the edge of Rumania, and the other is about six hundred miles away, right in the heart of industrial Germany. Turn it on the map of Europe, and it would reach from Milan to London; drop it down on the United States, and it would extend from New York to Detroit. From north to south its boundaries at the widest are not as far apart as New York and Baltimore, and in some places the country is not wider than the distance between Baltimore and Washington. Yet Czechoslovakia has an area almost seven times that of Massachusetts. This stretch of land is composed of three provinces, or states. At the west is Bohemia, a rich plain almost surrounded by mountains. It is peppered with factories and practically every inch of it is intensively cultivated. It is half the size of Ohio and has a population equal to that of Greater New York. In the east is Slovakia, nearly as large. Much of it lies in the high Carpathians, which have scenery as beautiful as that of Switzerland or the Austrian Tyrol. A land of farms, it is also exceed¬ ingly rich in natural resources. Its people number more than three times those of Detroit. Between these two states lies Moravia, which partakes somewhat of the char¬ acter of each of the others. It is as big as Massachusetts and its population approximates that of Chicago. From the standpoint of future development, Czecho¬ slovakia as a whole is one of the best lands of Europe. It 79 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST has a fertile soil, and its farmers are proportionately greater in number than those of any other European country except France or Russia. Four fifths of the mines of the old empire of Austria-Hungary are within its borders. It has soft and hard coal, producing more than thirty million tons in a year, while it mines annually two million tons of iron ore, and its oil wells yield ten thousand tons of petroleum. It has gold, silver, copper, tin, opals, and garnets. In Bohemia is a radium mine, which, until the recent discoveries in the Belgian Congo, was one of the richest in the world. Its annual output is two grams, an amount which, I believe, may be somewhere near the size of a small pea. The land is one of the best wooded of Europe. Of every three acres one is covered with trees, and the annual timber cut amounts to more than enough to make a boardwalk an inch thick and five feet wide from Prague to the moon. The country has nearly fourteen million inhabitants, or about twice as many as Holland or Belgium, and one third as many as Italy or France. It has more than double the number of people left in Austria. The Czechs, the Moravians, and the Slovaks make up the bulk of the population. They belong to the same race as the Russians. Besides the ten million Slavs, there are something like three million Germans. Many of the German-speaking people are, however, of Slavic origin and are classed as Germans only because of their language and their associa¬ tions with Germany in the past. In time it is believed that all will be firmly welded together into one nation. Four out of every ten of the people of Czechoslovakia live on farms or in small villages, but there are several large cities and many small industrial centres. Prague, 8o IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA where I am writing, compares in population with Balti¬ more, St. Louis, or Boston. It is the capital and chief busi¬ ness centre. Brno (Brlinn), the industrial capital of Moravia, is about the size of Birmingham or Atlanta, and Bratislava on the Danube, the biggest town in Slovakia, has nearly one hundred thousand people. Plzen (Pilsen), Bohemia, where there is a big steel mill and where some of the best beer of Europe is made, is about the same size. Czechoslovakia is a land of rivers. The Danube forms part of its southern boundary, giving access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Prague is situated on the Moldau, which flows into the Elbe and thence out to the ocean, so that the city has water communications all the way to the North Sea. The Elbe also cuts through Bohemia and it is now proposed to make a canal from it to the Danube, and one from the Oder to the Danube as well. The Elbe-Danube Canal has already been started, and will probably be completed within a decade. By a series of locks, it will cross the divide between the North and Black seas on the Bohemian-Moravian frontier at an altitude of one thousand feet. The Czechs have an outlet to the sea at Hamburg where they were given the use of certain wharves by the Versailles Treaty. They have also wharf rights at Stettin on the Baltic, at the mouth of the Oder, and wharves at Trieste at the head of the Adriatic, so that, although their republic is in the interior they have access to three of the important seaports of Europe. Every part of the Republic can be reached by railway. The stations are of stone, and the one in Prague named after President Wilson would be a credit to any American city. Train accommodations are as comfortable as in part of Europe. I travelled first class and with my 8i THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST secretary had a compartment at less than half the cost of the same thing in Switzerland. We paid seven or eight cents a mile. The second-class fares are about three or four cents and the third about two cents. Although there was no dining car, there were plenty of chances to eat at the station buffets. On the train journey to Prague I had a good chance to see something of the industries of Bohemia. We rode four or five hours through a beehive of workshops. Every town had its factories of one kind or another and the coun¬ try was a crazy quilt of rich farms. The Bohemian basin is well watered, and its farms are better than those of any area of the same size in the United States. The farm buildings are substantial and larger and more costly than ours. I saw hundreds of huge barns of stone or brick covered with stucco, and roofed with red tiles. The houses of the owners are commodious and the farm¬ stead often consists of a dozen or so large buildings, some of which are given up to the labourers. All were well- painted and in excellent repair. At one station we stopped several hours, and I took a car and rode through the country. Every one I met seemed happy and enthusiastic, and all spoke proudly of the Republic. The people are still rejoicing in their freedom from Germany and Austria. The methods' of cultivation are old-fashioned, and women and cattle furnish a large part of the labour. The oxen draw the ploughs and carts, while the women hoe and weed and help in the harvesting. 1 saw several swinging scythes; they also draw carts, and some of them carry great cornucopia baskets slung to their backs and so heavily loaded as to bend them double. 82 The Old Town Bridge tower is the finest in Prague, “the city of a hundred towers.” It is at the entrance to the Charles Bridge, started four centuries ago by Charles IV, “the father of Bohemia.” In the Hradchin Palace lived the kings of Bohemia, who were crowned in St. Vitus’s Cathedral in the midst of the castle buildings. Now the President of Czechoslovakia and the government offices occupy some of its seven hundred rooms. Bohemia and Moravia hum with factories making sugar, glass, beer, metal ware, and other things. Bohemian glass and Pilsen beer are famous the world over, and the words “Made in Czechoslovakia” are growing more and more common on the goods we buy. IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA The men and the women work in gangs in the fields. Often I saw one man bossing a gang of twenty women. I photographed some girls digging potatoes. They were clad in blue cotton with handkerchiefs wrapped round their heads and some of them were good-looking. They laughed as I snapped the camera. The oxen were fine burly animals, which pulled by their heads instead of their shoulders, as with us. A strap is fastened across the fore¬ head just under the horns and hitched to tugs on the plough. They draw loads in the same way in this region, but I am told yokes are used farther east. I like Prague. Although the white hair of the Middle Ages still hangs on its shoulders, it is full of enterprise and business. Its people seem prosperous and the stores are large and full of fine goods. The city has now in the neighbourhood of seven hundred thousand population, and is creeping out into the country. There is a necklace of smokestacks about the old town and many new factories are going up in the suburbs. The streets are wide and paved with Belgian blocks. The sidewalks in the chief business section are of black and white mosaic set in patterns, the stones being about an inch square. In front of my hotel there is a mosaic pavement at least twenty feet wide laid in the form of a checkerboard of black and white blocks. The arcades here remind me of those in Berne. They are twenty or thirty feet wide and walled with stores often fifty feet or more in height. There seem to be plenty of banks, and not a few of them have Czech-American clerks. I cashed my letter of credit to-day at a bank where the manager was from Pitts¬ burgh He tells me he can make more money here than 83 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST in America, and that this is the belief of many of the Czechs who have returned from our country. The man¬ ager says he is introducing American methods and quick service, instead of making the depositors sit down and wait upon the leisure of the clerks like so many barber-shop customers. 1 have been motoring to-day from one government building to another. It took us generations to build our Capitol and put up our other great government structures. Czechoslovakia had only to reach out her hands and take what she wanted, for the Austrians left her all of the build¬ ings she needed. The mighty castle erected by the kings of Bohemia on the great bluff overhanging the Moldau River is now a home for the President and also contains offices for the various departments. This castle is known as the Hradchin. It covers several hundred acres and is a veritable labyrinth of immense buildings surrounding courts with tunnel-like passages from one structure to another. It is antiquated and badly arranged for offices but it accommodates thousands of clerks and most of the government activities. In the centre of this maze is the famous Cathedral of St. Vitus, which was begun in 1344, almost six hundred years ago,'and a small portion of which is still uncompleted. The church is dedicated to St. Vitus, who is said to have come here from Rome about three hundred years after Christ to bring the people salvation. St. Vitus was not only an evangelist but a physician besides. He had also that faith which can move mountains, and charity as well. He performed many miracles, includ¬ ing the cure of nervous diseases. It is said that when the Emperor Diocletian called him in to cast a devil out of one 84 IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA of the princes, St. Vitus restored the patient in mind and body. Then the Emperor urged the saint to give up Chris¬ tianity, but he refused. Upon being thrust into prison he was seen night after night dancing with the angels to celestial music, and from that time on he became the pa¬ tron of dancers, as well as of all those with nervous affec¬ tions. Later Diocletian sentenced St. Vitus to be put into a kettle of boiling lead, but he came out with no more hurt than was sustained by Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed- nego when they were bound in their hose, their tunics, and their mantles and thrown into the fiery furnace by Nebu¬ chadnezzar. The Bible says not a hair of these three saints was singed and the fire had no effect upon their bodies. It was the same with St. Vitus: the molten lead harmed not a bit of his flesh nor a thread of his garments. After that the saint came to Bohemia and did the work commemorated by the Prague Cathedral. He finally returned to Rome, where because of his religion he was, like Daniel, cast into a den of lions—but the animals licked his feet. Just one more story of the Cathedral. It relates to Sophia, the pious and beautiful daughter of an early king of Bohemia, whose hand was asked in marriage by a Ba¬ varian monarch. Sophia rejected him because he was a pagan and scoffed at Christianity. Her royal father, how¬ ever, insisted for political reasons on the marriage, where¬ upon she prayed to the Virgin to destroy her beauty so that she might not attract the passions of wicked men. When she awoke the next morning, she was cross-eyed and snub-nosed and her face was covered with whiskers. And such luxuriant whiskers! In the painting of the lady to 85 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST be seen in one of the chapels of the Cathedral they are shown falling halfway to her waist and they reminded me of the ancient limerick: There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said: “It is just as I feared— Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren Have all built their nests in my beard/' The pagan lover took one look and abandoned his suit. Thereafter Sophia was plagued no more by proposals. Prague is full of stories like this. It has labyrinthine monasteries dating back to the Middle Ages and spires and domes that have pierced the heavens for seven hundred years. The best view of the city is from the top of a tower in the grounds of the great Schonborn Palace, which serves as the American legation. It is right under the Hradchin and in its seven rolling acres of beautiful gar¬ dens is a stone tower overlooking the Moldau and the surrounding country. It was built, I doubt not, before the United States existed. I climbed the hill and the stone stairs to the top of the tower. At my back was the enormous castle, as well as the palaces that have been bought by the British, French, and Japanese for their diplomatic headquarters, while in front, across the winding Moldau, lay the quaint, many-towered, red-roofed city of Prague. Below was the Charles Bridge, one of seven spanning the river. The bridge is decorated with twenty-eight stone and bronze images of saints, including one of St. John of Nepomuk, who vanquished devils and converted eight thousand Saracens and twenty-five hundred Jews to the 86 In Castle Krivoklat, not far from Prague, were imprisoned the Irish¬ man Kelly and the Englishman Dee when they failed to make gold for Rudolph II, the great patron of the i6th century alchemists. It was a favourite residence of Charles IV and the first of his four wives. The farm women work hard from sunrise to sunset, so that it is no wonder that more and more of the young girls are going to the cities and taking jobs in the factories with regular wages and short hours. There seem to be two or three women to every man at work in the fields. Though they do as much as or more than the men their wages of three cents an hour are lower than those paid to men. Outdoor Bohemia has all the charm of a landscape in New England or Virginia. It has also an air of comfort and prosperity, for this region, with Moravia, produces nearly one tenth of the world’s sugar beets. IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA Christian faith. He is the patron saint of Bohemia. Near by is a marble slab marking the spot where he was thrown from the bridge into the river. As the body floated away, five miraculous stars appeared and hovered over it until it was brought to the shore. Good Catholics, as they pass over the bridge, put their hands on the slab and then kiss their fingers. 87 CHAPTER XI MOTORING THROUGH BOHEMIA T ake a seat with me in one of the automobiles of the State Department of Czechoslovakia for a ride across the fertile plains of Bohemia. It is a big seven-passenger touring car made in Prague and, although it has only four cylinders, it can easily make fifty miles an hour. Our Czech chauffeur wants to show that his Praga” is the equal of any automobile made in Amer¬ ica and, like Jehu, the son of Nimshi, he driveth furiously. We leave the Palace Hotel in the heart of the city, fly down a wide avenue, turn into the busy Graben, the street laid where once was the moat surrounding medieval Prague, and go past the huge Powder Tower. We cross Market Square with its bronze statue of John Huss, and drive over the River Moldau on one of its seven stone bridges. We pass oil mills, locomotive works, electric- lamp factories, and other industrial plants and soon find ourselves in the country. The straight road is macadamized, as smooth as a floor, and lined with fruit trees. On both sides and reaching away to the horizon are the vast plains where men and women are harvesting the fat crops. The fields have no fences; there are no haystacks or barns or other buildings on the landscape. The people live in villages of one-and- a-half-story houses and we run through a town at every few miles. 88 MOTORING THROUGH BOHEMIA But see, Jan is slowing the automobile! We are at the edge of a village and there is a great sign by the road¬ side warning us that we must slow down to six kilometers, or about four miles an hour. We are surrounded by geese. There are flocks of themevery where, each herded by a bare¬ legged girl who looks angrily after the car as we send them flying this way and that. The geese themselves are quite as independent as the citizens of this new republic, and they hiss in shrill protest as we crowd them to the side of the road. Geese are a characteristic feature of every bit of our journey. They are raised by the thousands in Bo¬ hemia and every farm and every house has its flock. They are so big that the portions of goose served in the restaur¬ ants look like chops and steaks. We make notes of the village as we go through. It is different from any town of the same size in America. The houses are of one-and-a-half stories, and their front walls are flush with the street. They are of yellow stucco with red-tiled, overhanging roofs. The doors and the windows are small and are painted pale green. The windows of the attics are hardly bigger than a sheet of note paper. In this town there are no sidewalks, and the gutter runs right along in front of the doorsteps. Other villages I have seen have somewhat better roadways, but none has any sidewalks to speak of. The gardens and the stables are back of the houses, with manure piles often lying between. The only flowers we see are those in the window boxes. The water supply is chiefly from wells or from the streams where women are kneeling and washing their clothes. In large towns, such as Pode- brady, for instance, the water comes from a fountain in the public square and the servant maids come and dip it out 89 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST with basins into huge wooden buckets, which they take through the streets on their backs. I photographed a bobbed-haired, blue-eyed girl carrying five gallons or more at a load. In the centre of the village is the church. It has a great tower with a cross on the top and there is a clock set into the walls. I venture Bohemia has more town clocks than any other land in Central Europe. Almost every steeple has its cross and nearly every house has its shrine. There are also crosses out in the country where the people kneel and pray by the side of the road. The Bohemians have always been deeply religious, and until the end of the World War Roman Catholicism was the faith of the country. Since then a wave of Protestantism and agnosticism has swept over the land. A new National Church having features of both the Catholic and the Greek Orthodox sects has many adherents. Now we are again in the country. We pass heavy teams of draught horses hauling loads of two or three tons. The horses wear high collars trimmed with brass and ending in a leather horn that rises high over the withers. The wagons are like those of Russia and much like the boats in which we haul wood at home. They are high up on wheels and both single and double teams work with a tongue. When one horse is used he is hitched to one side of the tongue, and the singletree at the back holds the two tugs. There are many ox-carts and wagons drawn by white-faced cattle, and now and then a huge motor truck comes plugging along. I saw one ox-cart dragging an airplane on wheels. The lighter traffic is carried by human beings, usually by those of the weaker sex. There are women pushing wheel- 90 MOTORING THROUGH BOHEMIA barrows of bricks, hay, and grain; and women going along with great baskets of fruit or grass on their backs. I have yet to see in Czechoslovakia a job that is too heavy for the women. There seem to me to be four of them for every man in the fields. The women do as much as or more than the men but their wages of three cents an hour are less than those paid to men. There is a nominal eight-hour law for farm labour, but this is arranged so that it means so many thousand hours a year and the farmers and their helpers can divide it into such periods as they please. The result is that the regular farm hand is bound to put in more than eight hours in good weather so as to make up for the days of cold and rain. These farm women seem healthy and happy. The young ones are pretty, and with their red kerchiefs, their bright-coloured waists, their short skirts, and bare legs, they attract the eye. They are as straight as the rake handles they use in the hay fields and graceful withal. The older women are weatherworn, but their exercise keeps down their flesh. In fact, as an anti-fat treatment for our idle, candy-eating American women, I suggest the farm. Every square foot of land here is under cultivation, and the crops are larger on the average than ours. The wheat yield, for instance, is about twenty-seven bushels per acre and the oats yield thirty-six. The potato crop averages ninety bushels on each of the million and a half acres planted to tubers. The corn yield is smaller than ours, but in sugar beets the Czech farmers surpass us, raising more than nine thousand million pounds per an¬ num, or an average of nine tons per acre. In riding over the country I see no weeds, or any fences dividing the fields. 91 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST The land is farmed scientifically. Every bit of manure is saved. Each of the farms 1 have visited, small and large, has a cistern under the stable, and the horses, the cattle, and the hogs stand on concrete floors draining into the cisterns, from which the liquid and washings are afterward pumped into tank wagons and spread over the fields. The farmsteads are interesting. Take, for instance, one at Opelany, a village of about seven hundred people, where I visited the home of my chauffeur’s brother. This holding of one hundred and fifty acres lay on the outskirts of the village and was cut through by a brook. Work was going on in the fields and the farmer had helping him a half- dozen women who put in twelve hours every day. My guide said that the property had been in the same family for more generations than he could number. There were two houses of white stucco, one occupied by my chauffeur’s mother and the other by his brother and his family. Adjoining each home, and practically under the same roof with it, were stables filled with cattle, pigs, horses, and goats. Each was floored with concrete and fitted with all arrangements for economical feeding. Be¬ tween the two houses was a large barnyard containing a storehouse for grain. Both houses were clean and the barnyards looked like tennis courts. We took coffee with Jan’s brother in a sort of kitchen and bedroom combined. There was a porcelain stove in the corner, above which 1 saw this sign in Czech: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and the house is saved. The coffee was good and the cherry shortcake, seeds and all, tasted delicious. During my stay I took pictures of some of the farm girls, among them a sister and 92 MOTORING THROUGH BOHEMIA a cousin of the owner, who came from the village stream in which they had been wading while they washed the clothes. Both were good-looking, I can assure you. The next farm at which I stopped belonged to the presi¬ dent of the Agrarian Bank in Prague. This farm, situated about thirty miles from the capital, contains three or four hundred acres. Although it was a beautiful concrete structure of two stories and in all respects a most comfort¬ able home, the house faced the barnyard. Within a few feet of the home were two one-story barns, or stables, each two hundred feet long. All the buildings were roofed with tiles and all were of brick covered with stucco. I went through the stables with the owner and looked at the livestock, all of which is kept stabled, for here the grass is cut, chopped fine, and fed in the stalls. This farm was especially interesting because it had been bought by the banker as a result of the land reform follow¬ ing the independence of Czechoslovakia. Before the war a great part of the country was owned by several hundred aristocrats, heirs to large estates handed down from their ancestors who had taken part in putting down the Czech Revolution in 1620. It was in that year that the Czechs were defeated by the Austrians at the battle of the White Mountain and the Czechish nobility was practically wiped out. The common people were made serfs, and for a long time the Austrians, with the Hungarians and the Germans who came in to help fight the Czechs, had the best properties, while the original owners had practically no land at all. Some of the German and Austrian nobles had enormous estates. Prince Swartzenberg, for instance, had about six hundred thousand acres. Prince Lichtenstein had more 93 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST than a quarter of a million, and others owned tracts almost as large. These properties were well administered. Their owners took the labour of the peasants, giving them small huts and plots of ground to work for themselves and paying them infinitesimal wages. I have heard that on the estate of a noble relative of a Hungarian Minister at Washington the average peasant received only thirty kronen, or six dollars, a year. When the new republic was formed. Parliament passed a law authorizing the government to buy these great estates and distribute them more equitably among the people. Some millions of acres will thus ultimately come into the hands of small farmers. On this trip through the country I visited some of the cooperative institutions to be found all over Bohemia. Some of these are made up of the farmers, some of labour¬ ing men, and some of consumers. They are closely allied to the political parties, each association having a party as its special defender. The consumers' cooperative societies have a membership of a hundred and twenty-seven thou¬ sand and are doing a business of more than one thousand million kronen. Czechoslovakia has more than ten thou¬ sand cooperative undertakings with above two million members. With their families, these people embrace more than half the population. The Czech societies now propose to combine with the cooperative societies of the Balkan states and the result may be a buying and selling organization of great strength. 94 “ 1 stopped for a moment at one of the wayside shrines common in Bohemia, where nearly all of the people are Catholics. One sees shrines, too, in the front walls of many of the farm houses.” At the annual meet of the Sokols in Prague twelve thousand men and as many women go through their drills with such perfect precision that one can scarcely believe that the various units have come from towns scattered throughout the country, and have had few mass rehearsals. CHAPTER XII A NATION OF ATHLETES S uppose the united states should have a great gymnastic awakening. Suppose the care of the I body should be the slogan not only of the men but of the women as well. Suppose there should spring up over night in every city and village and even out in the country, clubs of from fifty to five hundred, each member of which should engage in athletic training three nights a week, all through the year. Let the clubs include the grown-ups, and let the training begin with children of six years. Let the instruction be given by the best of physical directors, aided by all the first-class gymnasium appliances and, at the same time, let it be accompanied by the inculcation of ideals of clean living, high thinking, and patriotism, so that the soul grows with the body. What an effect all this would have upon the rank and file of our nation! Well, this is just what is going on and has been going on for a generation or so in Bohemia and Moravia. It has built up a people, which, now that it has regained its independence, is bound to be one of the strongest factors in the Europe of the future. The institution that is doing this is known as the Sokol. You have probably heard of the meets in the great stadium at Prague every summer where twelve thousand women and fifteen thousand men, delegates from the many athlet- 95 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST ic societies of Czechoslovakia, go through their gymnastics like one vast machine to music composed for the occasion. You may have seen movies of the great army of girls, dressed in short dark skirts and white waists, tossing their twenty-four thousand bare arms to the sky, bending their backs toward the earth, swaying this way and that in rhythmic motion, or marching with their twenty-four thousand black-stockinged legs rising and falling as one in time with the strains of the band. You may have seen the fifteen thousand men, bare to the waist, going through their myriad evolutions. All this is wonderful as one of the great sport shows of the world, but after all it is only an exhibition. What I want you to see is the Sokol as it works every day throughout the Republic. The Sokols are no new things in Czechoslovakia. They date back to the time of our Civil War, when the awakened spirit of national independence was strong among the Bohemians, then suffering from the oppressions of the Austrian Hapsburg rulers. Within a few years after the formation of the first society in 1862 their number had increased until they were having a widespread influence. In 1866, when war broke out between Austria and Prussia, Doctor Tyrs, the leading spirit of the associations, planned a military organization, made rules for discipline and drill, and formed a corps of volunteers for home defence. The name '‘SokoE' means “falcon,'' and stands for the bravery and love of freedom of the eagle. In the Yugo- slavic songs of chivalry the word is applied to brave heroes. Throughout the years the Sokols helped keep alive the Czechs' desire for nationality and trained their bodies to fight for freedom when the time should be ripe. There are Sokols in every city, town, village, and dis- 96 A NATION OF ATHLETES trict of the state of Bohemia. They are to be found in every ward of the cities, and there are twenty-six in Prague. In the smaller societies, the men go through their exercises on three days of the week and the other three days the gymnasiums are left for the women. In some of the larger halls there are sufficient accommodations to permit the men and the women to exercise in different rooms at the same time. The section we shall visit has three hundred and sixty girl members of all ages from six to thirty-six or more. They are divided into classes, those under fourteen drilling from six to seven o’clock in the evening, those be¬ tween fourteen and eighteen from seven to eight, and the older ones from eight until nine. The whole big building is devoted to gymnasiums. Room after room is fitted up with horizontal and parallel bars, flying rings, leather horses, dumbbells, Indian clubs, and other gymnastic apparatus. We choose the hour between seven and eight o’clock and go to the hall without notice. Entering the lobby, we are introduced to a leader of one of the sections, a girl of eighteen, who has been a member of the Sokol since she was six. She is a beauty, and as straight as one of the poles used for vaulting the cross bar in the gymnasium. Though as plump as a partridge, she moves as gracefully as did Atalanta in her race for the apple of gold. Her face is fair, her hair is blonde, and her eyes are as blue as the Bohemian sky. Her bare arms and neck show no rolls of fat; she seems to be made of steel springs from head to heel. She wears black bloomers and stockings, with a short-sleeved blouse of white embroidered in red at the throat, along the shoulders, and down the front. After she has shown us through the building, we take a 97 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST seat with her in the gallery, where we look down on more than one hundred girls. The young Amazons swing In¬ dian clubs and take setting-up exercises; they flash from the floor to the ceiling, grasping the flying rings in their hands; they run up the springboard and vault over tables four feet in width. Theirs is no dilettante play, either. It is hard work from start to finish and fat girls and lean girls, tall girls and short girls must all do the same. The exercises change every ten minutes, so that during the hour every muscle is brought into play. It is an inter¬ esting sight. Most of the girls are dressed like our guide but not a few are without their stockings and their rosy bare legs show from ankle to knee. After the close of this session, I saw one hundred of these same girls practise a drill with Indian clubs tipped with incandescent electric lights. The room was in dark¬ ness except for the tiny coloured lights that twinkled as the girls swung their clubs in time to the music. The effect was wonderfully charming. The girls were practising for a national exhibition a few months off. As I looked on, I thought of the similar drills going on at this same hour all over the Republic and I could not help but think of the effect on the nation. The girls of this Sokol come from every class of society. Some are de¬ partment-store clerks, some stenographers and typists, and some have their own cars and belong to the idle rich. But the atmosphere is one of perfect democracy, and the best of good feeling seems to prevail. And just here I want to say a word about the women of Czechoslovakia as I have observed them on this flying trip through the country. They are beautiful and womanly and withal free from some of the weaknesses of the girls of 98 In Ruthenia, the extreme eastern part of Czechoslovakia, most of the people observe the forms of the Greek Orthodox Church, though they hold allegiance to the Pope at Rome. This province is autonomous and has a former Pittsburgh lawyer as its governor. Even in a good-sized Bohemian town the water must be brought from the public square. But this is no hardship to the girls, for the pump is a meeting place for the young people of the village. A NATION OF ATHLETES our American cities. There is practically no use of the lip stick, the powder puff, or the rouge pot. Prague is almost as big as Boston and almost half again as large as Washing¬ ton. Nevertheless, in one afternoon’s stroll, you will see more powder and paint on Washington Street, that ancient cow-path of Boston, or on F Street in our national capital, than you could collect if you scraped the faces of the Prague girls from one year’s end to the other. According to the new constitution of Czechoslovakia, both women and men have the right to vote and to sit in the Parliament. There are eleven women members in the House and two in the Senate, but I am told that the small representation in the latter body is due to the fact that to be elected to the Senate one must be forty-five years old, and but few of the women wish to acknowledge that they have reached that age. As to voting here, there is no need of a literacy test. As far as Bohemia and Moravia are concerned, every one can read and write, and the standard of education is above that of almost any other country of the world. Czecho¬ slovakia has about two-million pupils in the schools. It has more than fifteen thousand schools, primary, second¬ ary, high schools, and universities, schools for women, and schools for men. There are twenty-three thousand students in the two universities at Prague alone, and there are universities at Brno and elsewhere. Slovakia is much more backward than the rest of the country, but since the organization of the government three thousand new schools have been established there, including many for adults, and everything is being done to bring its educa¬ tional standing up to that of the rest of the Republic. The boys and the girls feel their responsibility as mem- 99 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST bers of the new nation. They know they will have an equal chance from now on and may, like our American youth, hope to be president some day. They have before them the example of the great heroes of the revolution. Dr. Edward Benes, first premier of Czechoslovakia, left the farm at the age of twelve and worked his way through the university and into international fame before he was thirty-five. President Masaryk was born poor and as a boy was apprenticed to a blacksmith. Nevertheless, he became one of the great scholars and leaders of Central Europe and is now revered as the George Washington of his country. Prague is one of the oldest university cities of Europe, and since the World War it has become the great centre of education for the Slavs. As soon as the new Republic was established, the young people came in such hordes that they could not be accommodated. They slept in the parks, at the railway stations, and on the tables of the coffee houses. The city turned over its gymnasiums and university halls to them, using some of the furniture left by the Red Cross. But more and more came until the people of Prague were in despair. Then it was decided that the students should build houses for themselves. The city contributed the site and the national government pledged four million kronen to start the work. Doctor Masaryk gave a million and a half kronen from the fund presented to him by the nation on his seventieth birthday, and his daughter, Alice Masaryk, and others helped swell the contributions. On the day set to begin building the colony eight hun¬ dred men and women students reported for work, and more than fifteen hundred finally took a hand. The girls 100 A NATION OF ATHLETES established a kitchen to feed the boys, and within a short time there was a big gang of university men doing things they would once have thought beneath their dignity. They dug the foundations and did all the rough labour of carting and carrying. Every man who worked four hours got his meals free and when the dormitories were opened no one was given a room in the colony unless he had worked three hundred hours or would agree to devote that much time to the development of the institution. It was such a novelty to see the intellectuals doing manual labour, that thousands came to watch them at work. The students made the spectators pay fees and sold stones and bricks as souvenirs, realizing fifty thousand kronen the first day. All this work was directed by skilled overseers and mechanics and the result is a group of houses that is now accommodating about seven hundred students. Since my visit to the colony I have gone through the Students’ Home, an institution established by our Y. M. C. A. and the Ohio State University. The home is a sort of clubhouse and cafeteria where meals are furnished to students practically at cost. It is patronized by some¬ thing like six thousand boys and girls and it is now serving several thousand lunches and about fifteen hun¬ dred dinners every day. The lunch costs about eleven cents, and the dinner costs a cent or so less. The meals are almost the same, each consisting of meat, bread, vegetables, and coffee, but the luncheons are the more popular, for most of the students can afford but one full meal a day, in addition to the coffee and rolls they have for breakfast and supper. This is not hardship for most of them, since they would not fare better at home. The students who frequent this institution belong to lOI THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST twenty-three different nationalities. There are, of course, Czechs, Moravians, and Slovaks, but there are also Ukrain¬ ians, Ruthenians, Yugoslavs, Bulgarians, Russians, and a great many Jews. The home has an auditorium for lectures and a social hall. It has reading rooms where the boys come to study, for many of them cannot afford light or heat in their own quarters. The club is governed by a council, one delegate being elected for each two hundred students in such a way that every nationality and faction is represented. As a rule the different nationalities get along well together. Up to the present the only quarrel that has occurred was one be¬ tween the Magyars and Slovaks. The Magyars had sung in public a song that the Slovaks declared immoral. The students' court settled the question in favour of the Mag¬ yars, who showed that the Slovaks had not rightly inter¬ preted the ditty. Both women and men use the home and come together in the social hall. The head of the woman student body is a tall, fine-looking Czech, a young graduate of Vassar. I asked her how she liked that college. She replied: I just love Vassar, and the best I could wish for any Czech girl is that she might go there to study." 102 Bratislava was once the capital of Hungary, and here the Hapsburg kings were crowned. The Austrians called it Pressburg and its Hungarian name was Poszony, but now it is the capital of Slovakia and named for an early Czech king. The costumes of the Slovak boy and girl are as much a part of their Sundays and feast days as going to the village church. Although Bohernia is less orthodox than it used to be, the people of Slovakia are deeply religious. 4 Often in Slovakia the Protestant girls of a community wear a costume entirely different from that of the Catholics. The native garb for Easter is quite different from that for Christmas, and the people of each village have their distinctive dress. CHAPTER XI11 FROM PRAGUE TO VIENNA I HAVE come from the capital of Czechoslovakia to the capital of the Austrian Republic. From one of the newly christened national capitals of Europe to one that was gray-haired and wrinkled when our own city of Washington was laid out along the Potomac. The first was a city when William the Conqueror landed in England, and the second was a centre of trade when the Crusaders floated down the Danube on their way to rescue Jerusalem. It was only one hundred and eighty years after Christ that my old friend, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, died in the Roman fortress on the site of Vienna, leaving ^‘The Meditations” we all love to read; and here Charlemagne built a stronghold after he had driven out the Asiatic tribes that had set up an empire on the Danube. It was in the eighth century that he established the Margravate of Austria, which later on succumbed to the Hungarians. During the Crusades Vienna began to build up its trade with the East, and from that time to this it has been the chief mart of the Danube, that great water highway be¬ tween Europe and Asia. On my way to Vienna I came through some of the lands that Austria lost by the treaty of St. Germain, which the Allied Powers drew up for her signature. I crossed Bo¬ hemia, Moravia, and Slovakia, via the Danube. The 103 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST city is so much the child of that mighty river that I did not want to reach it by railway; so 1 took a train at Prague and rode for the better part of a day to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. There 1 boarded an Austrian steamer and came upstream, fighting the current, to where 1 am now. Along the way I was surprised at the natural wealth 1 saw in Moravia. The province is bigger than Massa¬ chusetts and has as many people as Baltimore and Phila¬ delphia combined. Much of it is beautifully rolling and the hills are covered with forests. We passed numer¬ ous sawmills, and at the stations found lumber stacked up for shipment. There were mountains of pulp wood ready for the market, and truckloads of telegraph and telephone poles going out of the country. The forests seemed to be well cared for and 1 saw no underbrush anywhere. Earther south the soil was richer. On both sides of the railroad fields of wheat, oats, and grass waved to and fro under the wind, and 1 could see nothing but crops reaching on to the horizon. The scenes reminded me of the words of the Psalmist: The valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing. Here all the trees that line every road, ditch, and creek are fruit bearing. The Moravian villages looked prosperous and the farm¬ ers must be rich. Most of the houses were roofed with slate, and their stuccoed walls had been recently white¬ washed. There were industrial centres and towns at every few miles. I spent some time at Brno, the capital, which 104 FROM PRAGUE TO VIENNA has more than two hundred thousand inhabitants and is a manufacturing town in the heart of a farming region. It is noted for its textiles and used to be called the Manchester of Austria.” Brno was once known as Briinn, and its re-christening indicates the new status of things in this part of Europe. As soon as the Czechs won their nationality they proceeded to sow place names in their own language over the new na¬ tion. Pilsen, still famous for its beer, has become Plzen; Pressburg is now Bratislava, after one of the early rulers of Bohemia ;Marienbad onecan scarcely recognize as Marian- sky Lazne; while it would seem that Carlsbad would never be so popular as a health resort with such a tongue-twisting designation as Karlovy Vary. In Slovakia one does not notice so much enthusiasm for the Czechs as in Moravia and Bohemia. The Slovaks are another branch of the Slavic people, not nearly so progressive as the Czechs, whom they call ‘The Prussians of the Slavs.” The people of Prague, on the other hand, seem to regard their more backward countrymen much as the New Yorker does the citizens of Arizona and New Mexico. To them Slovakia is a kind of “wild and woolly East.” The Slovaks explain their high percent¬ age of 'illiteracy by saying that rather than learn to read and write the Magyar tongue, which the Hungarians tried to force upon them, they went without learning at all. The Slovaks and the Czechs use a closely allied speech, so that it is easy for them to understand each other. Slovakia is a mountainous and thinly populated region with fertile valleys separated by ridges sloping toward the Danube. 1 found it a land of small farms, forests, and 105 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST villages rather than one of cities, mills, and shops. I noticed that the women worked hard and saw a number of them bent double under great loads of long poles, which were strapped to their backs. I was struck with the hon¬ est faces of the people. Indeed, I have been told that the Slovak peasant’s honesty is proverbial and that his home bank will lend him money, even to go to America to seek his fortune. The money-lenders know that either he or his family will surely pay the debt. I spent the night in Bratislava, at a good hotel, where my room cost me a dollar and a quarter, and before taking my steamer next morning I drove through the cobble¬ stone streets in a one-horse carriage. Bratislava was once the capital of Hungary and it was here that the Hapsburgs were crowned kings. On the tower of the old Coronation Church, which dates back to the thirteenth century, there is still a gilded Hungarian royal crown. The town was known as Pressburg to the Austrians and Pozsony to the Hungarians. Its population numbers one hundred thou¬ sand, mostly Slovaks and Hungarians. The steamer that brought us from Bratislava up to Vienna was one of four boats plying between Ruschuk, Bulgaria, past Belgrade to the Austrian capital. The steamship company was originally known as the Monarch Line and when they were planned the four boats were to be named after great rulers of the time: Kaiser Wilhelm, Francis Joseph, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and Mohammed V., Sultan of Turkey. The two boats built during the World War were named respectively Frani Josef and Wilhelm, but after the treaty of peace it was decided to throw down the monarchs and put up the planets, as stars that could not be affected by the wars of the future. io6 FROM PRAGUE TO VIENNA JVilhelm and Fran^ Josef became Jupiter and Saturn, and the two boats that were added later were christened Neptune and Helios. I came up on Helios, which was about the only sun we had for much of the way. It rained now and then, but just as we crossed the boundary of Austria and Czechoslovakia, a mighty rainbow appeared spanning the river that separates the two countries. One end of the bow rested in Czechoslovakia and the other in Austria, and the glorious arch of splendid hues seemed like the bow in the clouds God set up for Noah, the token of a covenant that no more should the deluge of war descend upon the nations so bound together. And yet I fear that the peace of the present is one of armed truce rather than of brotherly love, for as I went on toward Vienna, I frequently saw evidence of hatred on the part of the Czechs and the Slovaks for their former masters. On my way to the boat in Bratislava I passed a great pedestal without a statue and was told that there formerly stood the fine bronze figure of the old Hapsburg Empress, Maria Theresa. Some twenty-odd miles west of Bratislava the March River flows into the Danube beneath the shadow of a towering rock. This is one of the ‘'Great Divides” of human history. Southeast are the plains of Hungary; southwest, across the Danube, is Austria; northwest stretch the forests and hills of Bohemia; northeast lie the little valleys of Slovakia. All four of the racial streams represented in these different regions—Czechs, Germans, Slovaks, and Magyars—were formerly subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1896 the Hungarians raised on the rock a beautiful shaft to commemorate the thousand years that the Magyars had held here an outpost 107 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST of western civilization. Now the column lies in ruins, shattered doubtless by some Slovak with hatred of his ancient masters in his heart. Such acts of vandalism keep antagonisms alive and breed more bitterness in the vanquished. io8 CHAPTER XIV VIENNA J OIN me this morning as I step out of the old palace that has been changed into the hotel where I am staying, and go with me on a trip about Vienna. Let us begin our tour at St. Stephen’s Place, which for centuries has been the heart of this old city. There were houses upon this plaza in the days of the Romans. The beautiful south tower, which sends its slender Gothic spire soaring four hundred and fifty feet up into the sky, was completed not long after Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. But what is that crowd on the corner of the square? They are gazing at the cathedral spire, a gigantic stone finger pointing toward heaven. We take our glass and look up. Some daring man is trying to climb the great structure. He seems little bigger than a fly away up there in the blue. There are steps inside the tower by which we may reach its pinnacle. We enter and walk round and round through the darkness, and the climb grows harder as we ascend the five hundred and thirty-three steps to the top. On the way we pass a great bell that weighs twenty tons. Its story goes back to 1683 when the Turks were laying siege to the city and seemed likely to take this stronghold of Christendom. From this very tower the anxious watch¬ ers looked on at the battle outside the old walls until at last 109 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST they saw the tide turnedagainst the Moslems by the arrival of the troops of John Sobieski, afterwards King of Poland. From the cannon captured from the Turks was made this huge bell, which was christened ‘‘Josephine'’ in honour of Joseph I, in whose reign it was cast. It was rung for the first time on the occasion of the coronation of Charles VI, the father of Maria Theresa. The last time its pene¬ trating tones reverberated over the city was when it was tolled in 1898 at the death of Elizabeth, the murdered Empress of Erancis Joseph. Notwithstanding the fact that the top of the tower was restored at the time of our Civil War, the vibrations of the great bell shake the spire so much that it is now considered unsafe to ring it. Standing on the top of the tower, we look to the four points of the compass. That stream at the right, with its long string of barges, is the mighty Danube, the second river in Europe. Rising in the Black Eorest of Germany, it winds its way past Vienna and Budapest, and on down through Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Rumania to the Black Sea. It is a thousand miles longer than the Rhine and is navigable all the way from Germany until it flows out into that mighty body of water which washes a large part of South Russia and gives access through the Bos¬ porus to the Mediterranean and thence to the Atlantic. The Danube is one of the great water highways of Europe and I may say of the world. It is already connected by canal with the Rhine, and projects are under way that will link it with the Elbe and the Oder, so that freight from the North Sea and the Baltic will one day join the traffic on its waters. Now turn around and look to the west. With the glass you can see the Alps, but you cannot distinguish the 110 “From the south tower of St. Stephen’s we look out over the city. Our eyes fall upon the Hapsburg coat of arms embedded in the Cathedral roof and a constant reminder of the dynasty that has been banished.” Karl’s Platz gets its name from Karl’s Church, which was begun in 1715 by the Emperor Charles VI as a thank offering for the end of the terrible plague that had scourged Vienna. To the right is theTechnical High School. Placing their hopes for the Austria of to-morrow on the children of to-day, the Austrians are making many reforms in the public schools and adapting them to the new order of things. VIENNA passes that put Vienna on the great trade route from Italy along which much of the Mediterranean commerce goes northward. There are other passes through the Carpa¬ thians on the north. Vienna is in the basin where many lines of traffic come together. There is a down grade from the chief industrial centres of Europe all the way to Vienna; and it is down grade from Vienna to the Black Sea. The railways follow the easy grades, many of them having been built on the Roman roads that converged at thispoint. It is its geographic location that makes Vienna a great city. As one of the government officials said to me yesterday, “You cannot move a city like this any more than you can change the stars in their orbits. The Powers that drew up the Treaty of St. Germain could do much to weaken Austria, but they could not lift this city out of its place here on the Danube at the crossroads of the north and the south. Its geographical location made the Vienna of centuries past, and will make it the great meeting place of the bankers and traders of the future. We hold the strategic economic position of this part of the world, and will continue to do so until the Lord changes the geography of Europe.’' But let us turn our minds and our eyes from visions of the future of Vienna and observe the city at our feet. From our vantage point we can see a unique feature of its plan. In the days of Maria Theresa and until long after the time when Napoleon occupied Vienna, St. Ste¬ phen’s Place was the centre of a town enclosed by walls and a moat dating back to the thirteenth century. At in¬ tervals there were bridges and stone gateways through which one got glimpses of the fields and the suburbs out¬ side, but the people inside generally had their exercise THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST on the top of the walls themselves. These were more than two hundred feet wide and took the place of parks and pub¬ lic gardens, for which there was no space in the crowded city. Finally, when the congestion grew too great, someone conceived the idea of throwing down the walls, tumbling them into the moat, and making a circular street where once had been the medieval ramparts. This is the Ring- strasse, one of the great thoroughfares of the world. It is two miles long and twenty-seven feet wider than Penn¬ sylvania Avenue in Washington. Double rows of great tree's run throughout its length, and there are three road¬ ways for traffic. The wide flagged sidewalks are lined with magnificent four- and five-story buildings. Suppose we go down from the tower, hire a cab, and take a trot around the Ring to see better what it is like. Upon and within the circle are many huge buildings, every one of which has its history and many of which hold treasures of literature, science, art, and music. Here is the Hofburg, long the palace of the Hapsburgs, and here the Parliament Building, in which democracy has at last gained the upper hand over the proudest aristocracy of Europe. Among the finest structures are the Technical High School and the twin Museums of Art and Natural History. The two museums are separated by the Maria Theresa Place in which is an imposing statue of Maria Theresa sitting enthroned on a granite pedestal. She holds the sceptre she wielded so competently during the forty years of her reign and the document of the Pragmatic Sanction, whereby her father, Charles VI, set aside custom and decreed that his only child, although a woman, should succeed him. 2 VIENNA On the Ring is the great University of Vienna, which has some eight thousand students. It has had more than five and a half centuries of continuous existence and, next to the University of Prague, is the oldest German university. Not far from the University is the Town Hall, which cost more than seven million dollars and which is, except for St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the most imposing edifice in Vienna. Besides containing the offices of the Mayor and the other city officials, it houses the Historical Museum and a famous collection of arms and armour. One of the trophies preserved here under glass is the skull of the Turkish general Kara Mustafa, who led the attack on Vienna in 1683. Near it are his shirt and the silken cord sent him by the Sultan upon the news of the Moslem defeat. When, taking the hint, the officer had strangled himself with the cord, the skin was stripped from his face and sent to Constantinople to prove that he was really dead. Later on, when Belgrade was taken from the Turks, his body was found in a mosque, and a Catholic dignitary sent these relics to the Vienna museum. On the Ring, too, is the great Imperial Opera House. It seems to me the Viennese are more proud of their musical attractions than of anything else. The whole city breathes music. Every night you can hear in almost any important street a concert or opera that would be a star performance in any large city of the United States. There are band concerts in the parks, and practically all the hotels have excellent music at dinner. There are a half-dozen opera houses, and no end of small theatres where music is the chief feature. The two big opera houses here are famous the world 113 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST over. The Imperial Opera, which is partly supported by the government, has as its conductor Richard Strauss; and the People’s Opera is conducted by Felix von Weingartner, who only a few years ago deserted Berlin for Vienna. Rich¬ ard Strauss does not come of the famous Strauss family, headed by Johann Strauss, a native of Vienna, to whose music all the world waltzes. It was Johann who was known as the Dance King and it was he who wrote '‘The Blue Danube.” Richard Strauss is a native of Munich, but his greatest works were composed in Vienna. This city was also the home of Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. It was here that Mozart composed “Figaro,” “The Magic Flute,” “Don Juan,” and “The Requiem,” and here Beethoven lived for thirty-five years. Brahms, although born in Hamburg, said that Vienna was an ideal place for the composition of symphonies. Here to-day lives Franz Lehar in the house where “The Merry Widow” was written, and here modern light music may be said to have originated and to have had its development. In the darkest hours of Vienna’s poverty and starvation after the war, concerts were held right along, and people went hungry so as to hear Jeritza, Slezak, Lehmann, and other favourites in grand opera. I have seen hundreds of school children with their books in packs on their backs. They are fat and healthy and look no different from similar children in an American city. The people on the streets are fairly well dressed, and the crowds one sees in the Prater or at Schonbrunn on Sunday are apparently as prosperous as those in the parks of Paris or Brussels. Vienna had a terrible time and un¬ doubtedly lost some of her population by starvation, but once her currency was stabilized, even though it took seven 114 VIENNA hundred kronen, formerly worth one hundred and forty dollars, to equal one cent, the people recovered their cour¬ age and spirit and went about their business as usual. The stores are filled with fine goods and are doing a good business. Most of the industries are busy, the bank deposits are piling up, and the bankers are lending money to finance new undertakings. The cafes and beer halls are crowded. The Viennese seem to me almost to live in their cafes, of which there must be thousands. Theirs is a city of big apartment buildings rather than detached houses and the citizens appear to use the coffee houses and wine shops as their second homes. Coffee was introduced into Europe by traders with the East. London had its first coffee shop in 1652 and Mar¬ seilles soon followed suit, but it was not until after the siege of Vienna by the Turks that the beverage became known in this city. Among the spoils left behind in the hasty retreat of Kara Mustafa’s army were several bags of hard greenish grain. These were given to a young Polish shopkeeper of Vienna, who had heard of how the grain might be roasted and steeped in hot water to make a delicious drink. He brewed some of the stuff and then went from house to house carrying cups of it on a tray. Finally, when his coffee had grown popular enough, he opened “The Sign of the Blue Bottle,” which soon became one of the most frequented resorts in the city. At one end of the room was a huge fireplace in which were great copper kettles filled with boiling water. There were wooden benches along the wall, but no tables, so that the customers had to set their cups beside them. Swinging lamps lighted the place and shone upon some of the most dis- 115 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST tinguished men of the Vienna of that day, who were among the regular patrons. After the Pole's death, other coffee houses sprang up and to-day everyone goes to the cafes, many of which have tables out on the sidewalks in summer. By four o'clock in the afternoon it is difficult to find a seat, for all Vienna is drinking coffee. The Viennese cafe is a reading room and a club as well as a restaurant. The minute one enters a waiter rec¬ ognizes his nationality and brings him a paper—the London Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Berlin Tageblatt, or whatever the stranger's appearance and accent seem to call for. As one sits reading, sipping his coffee, and eating his good Vienna roll, he is surrounded by crowds of men and women talking animatedly of business, pleas¬ ure, and politics. No one is in a hurry and time itself seems to have stopped for this hour of social relaxation. i6 CHAPTER XV AUSTRIA, THE REPUBLIC W HEN the World War ended, Austria found herself in a desperate condition. The peace treaties had stripped her of the bulk of her territory and the nation felt that it had not enough left to make life worth living. Its money became unstable; it rose and fell over night. The merchant dared not buy, fearing that he could not get back the cost of his goods when he sold them. The banker saw the value of his loans shrinking. The labourer could not tell what his wages would be worth when he got them, and the house¬ wife could not calculate her expenses. The national credit was wiped out and disintegration and complete ruin seemed certain. In this situation Austria’s statesmen consulted with her neighbours, Italy and Czechoslovakia, and with other powers. It was decided, as a forlorn hope in a desperate case, to appeal to the League of Nations for help. In the Palace of Nations at Geneva, the financial, commercial, and technical experts drew up a plan for an international loan. Austria agreed to it and the Parliament at Vienna passed measures engaging that the scheme should be carried out in every particular. Then the League sent a representative here to control all matters relating to the loan and to act as a sort of trustee for the nation, and the task of rebuilding Austria was begun. 117 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST To make you understand the size of the job I shall have to compare Austria with the United States. We will sup¬ pose that our country has gone through a great war and the government and people are bankrupt. We are desper¬ ate and we ask some outsiders to suggest a plan of salva¬ tion. They look into our affairs, and tell us, for one thing, that we have too many government officials and that one out of every three must be discharged. Where a post- office has three clerks, it must get on with two, and where there are thirty men on a government job, ten must be released. With only six million people, Austria had at Vienna as many state employees as when her population numbered fifty million. There were three hundred thousand civil servants, of whom it was agreed one hun¬ dred thousand must go within two years. Think what a fuss it would make in the United States if one out of every three of our government workers were dismissed. Moreover, suppose our Congress should be forced to cut its appropriations about forty per cent. It will spend over three thousand millions this year, but suppose it were told that for every dollar formerly expended it might now have only sixty cents. You remember how our people objected to the proposal of a tax of one per cent, on all sales. The League demanded that such a tax be collected and the Austrians are now paying it. For every dollar’s worth of goods bought, one cent goes to the government, and for every ten dollars spent, ten cents drops into the treasury. This sales tax yields a big revenue. The government was required to reorganize the rail¬ roads and other public services. It stopped printing money and created a national bank which can issue notes ii8 The rich, the poor, and the great unwashed have the freedom of Schonbrunn Palace and its beautiful grounds of 500 acres. Formerly the summer residence of royalty, it is now a great popular resort. In the mountainous district of Carinthia republican Austria has valuable assets in the form of pine forests, and mines that yield lead, iron, zinc, and coal. The ancient Hochosterwitz Castle, rebuilt in 1600, stands near Launsdorf as a symbol of the passing aristocratic order. Located on the Danube and other natural arteries of trade, Vienna stands at the crossroads of Europe. For this reason the Austrians believe their capital will always be an important commercial centre. AUSTRIA, THE REPUBLIC only when there is gold collateral to support them. The stock for that bank, amounting to about six million dollars, was subscribed as soon as it was issued, and the institution soon had double the reserve required by the law. And what has this cost the nations that underwrote the plan? So far, not one cent. They have lent only their credit by guaranteeing that Austria will pay back what she borrowed. The new debt is secured by the customs duties and tobacco monopoly, which have brought enough every year to meet the interest and cut down the principal. The loan was in the neighbourhood of two hundred million dollars. Eighty per cent, of it was guaran¬ teed by Great Britain, France, Italy, and Czechoslovakia, and the rest by outsiders. It was over-subscribed, for people believed that it would surely be paid. The character of the Austrians was a factor in the suc¬ cess of this loan, for these people are known all over Europe as thrifty, hardworking, and peaceful. Doctor Griinberger, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, tells me there is no danger of social revolution. He says that, even though the people were starving when the Bolsheviks came up the Danube within two hours of Vienna and down from Bavaria to within a like distance of the Austrian border, and when the radicals were pushing their propa¬ ganda in from Poland and Russia, there was no inclination here to join with them. The Austrians of to-day speak German and have a large amount of German blood, but they have intermarried with their neighbours and are like the Bavarians rather than the Prussians. They are a happy, easily contented, and intelligent people, with a marked ability to invent and contrive. Moreover, they are conserv¬ ative and believe in business-like method^, as is evidenced 119 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST by the reputation of Vienna’s banking community, which is famous everywhere for shrewd and skilful finance. When Austria came to reexamine her assets after the crisis was passed, she found them by no means so poor as had been supposed. The old Austro-Hungarian Empire had a greater area than any country in Europe except Rus¬ sia, and nearly half as many people as the United States has now. The Republic is just about one eighth the size of the old empire and less than one third as big as the former Austria alone. To-day Austria has thirty-two thousand square miles, which means that it is only half as large as New England and yet bigger than many of the thriving countries of Europe. It is twice the size of Switzerland, almost three times that of Holland or Belgium, and more than one fourth as large as Great Britain and Ireland. The country has double the popula¬ tion of Switzerland or Finland, and more than twice the number of inhabitants in Denmark or Norway. Among the assets of Austria are its mines and its for¬ ests. Many think the land has no mineral resources. The truth is there is high-grade iron, a mountain of it, which in normal times yields two million tons of ore a year. That means forty thousand carloads, or enough to fill a train reaching from New York to Philadelphia. Most of this ore is used for making open-hearth pig iron. There are now two hundred and fifty iron mills, more than a hundred machine shops, seven locomotive works, and nine automobile plants. The country has also magnesite, which it ships in large quantities to the United States, where it is used in the manufacture of paints, paper, and fire brick, as well as in the preparation of magnesia and Epsom salts. As to forests, the present Austria is more heavily wooded 20 AUSTRIA, THE REPUBLIC than any of the countries of Europe except Finland, Sweden, and Russia. A great deal of this is soft wood and a large part of western Europe is supplied with wood pulp from the Austrian forests. The paper mills of the country are turning out one hundred and fifty thousand tons of mechanical pulp, and almost that much cellulose every year. They are making one hundred and eighty thousand tons of paper, much of it news-print, which is shipped all over the world. It is true that Austria has now no black coal to speak of, yet she has many waterfalls that will develop electricity. Only a small proportion of the possibilities have been ex¬ ploited, but the available powers are nearly equal to those of Switzerland and almost half as great as those of France or Italy. Already the government has begun to electrify the railroads, and a project is under way which will ultimately save in the neighbourhood of a half million tons of coal an¬ nually. On my way up the Danube I saw electric trains moving along the Austrian side, and I was told I could go from Bratislava to Vienna by trolley. I understand that the Austrians have invented a new electric locomotive superior to any we have in America. The government plans eventually to have all the railways electrified. It is estimated that full development of her waterpower would save Austria’s railroads three million tons of coal, her industries and agriculture four and a half million tons, and her households one million tons. In terms of money, that means a saving of sixty million dollars. Austria cannot feed herself and she will always have to rely to a certain extent upon her commerce and the products of her factories to pay for what cannot be raised on the farms. The farm lands, put together, equal a tract I2I THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST one fifth the size of Ohio. They lie chiefly in the valley of the Danube in lower Austria, and on the slopes of the Alps. Much of the arable area is unfarmed, however, and Austria now raises less than half of her food requirements. It is estimated that with intensive effort she can increase this to seventy per cent. Stockraising is important in many districts; Vorarlberg, Tyrol, Carinthia, and Styria breed fine cattle, and good horses are raised, especially in Salzburg. Parts of Carin¬ thia and Styria hum with bees, which distil honey from acres of buckwheat blossoms. Austria is a land of factories. It turns out machinery, furniture, leather, and chemical goods. Its pianos are among the best in the world. Tens of thousands of its people are making ready-to-wear clothes and other thou¬ sands are engaged in manufacturing lingerie and under¬ wear. The country is still an important textile centre, having eleven thousand cotton looms with more than one million spindles besides mills making woollens and linens. Such are the chief assets of the Austria arising from the ashes of humiliation and despair following the World War. The once proud monarchy is no more. The nobles and the haughty government officials have been pulled down from their high places. A spirit of democracy is abroad in the land. Realizing at last all that has happened, Austria has now put away her ambitions to be a great power in Europe, and has faced the fact of her lesser estate. Indeed, I am reminded of what the old coloured woman said to one of her “ white ladies.'' She had asked when the latter intended to get married and the lady had laughed and replied, ‘'No, Mammy, I'm not going to get married at all; I’m going to be an old maid." 122 AUSTRIA, THE REPUBLIC Mammy looked at her white friend for a minute, and then said, “Yes’m, I reckon you is right. They tells me it’s a lot better when you quit strugglin’.” Austria seems to have ''quit strugglin’,” and to have decided to make the best of herself as she is. CHAPTER XVI IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE HAPSBURGS ESTERDAY I spent in talks with the men who are directing Austria in the paths of health and sanity. To-day I have been following in the ^ > footsteps of the haughty rulers whose mistaken policies drove the nation to the verge of despair. The Hapsburgs belonged to one of the oldest of the royal houses of Europe. The first of them, an old robber- baron named Rudolph, took the throne of Austria more than two hundred years before Columbus discovered America. It was in 1273 that the family began to live at the expense of the people and they fed at the public crib from then until the twilight of the kings that came with the World War. How well they fared one may guess by going through their mighty palaces, now open to sightseers, who tramp through rooms once reserved exclusively for royalty. I visited this afternoon a little summer palace that you will not find mentioned in the guide books. It was built by Erancis Joseph for his wife, the Empress Elizabeth, who was stabbed in Geneva by an anarchist nearly three decades ago. It was afterward used as a sort of hunting lodge by the royal family. This palace is a cream-coloured brick building of the dimensions of a seaside hotel, and has about it a tract of seven thousand acres of forest, with magnificent lawns and long, winding paths and roadways. 124 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE HAPSBURGS The house is filled with beautiful paintings, and one great hall has its ceiling and walls decorated with scenes from Shakespeare’s ''Midsummer Night’s Dream.” There are some pieces of splendid furniture, including beds as wide as the great bed at Ware. One plain, simple room was the Emperor’s own. It is the room of a hermit. Francis Joseph had no frills and furbelows about him and his bed was of a three quarters size and made of iron. I 'can buy dozens just like it in any town in America for ten dollars apiece. I inquired in vain for the bathroom, for there is none, although the building is lighted by electricity. The palace is now rented for a sum equal in our money to two hundred dollars a year. For six and a half centuries the Hapsburg monarchs lived in the great, rambling group of buildings in Vienna, known as the Hofburg. Now many of those rooms that witnessed the pomp and circumstance of court life echo to the clack of modern typewriters and the walls look down on clerks and officials at their daily business routine, some of them seated on gilded chairs at Buhl tables. In 1805, when Napoleon was bombarding Vienna, there lay in the Hofburg a young princess, who had been too ill to leave the city with the rest of the imperial family. When the French general learned of this, he ordered that the direc¬ tion of the guns be changed so that the palace might be spared. Thus he perhaps saved the life of Marie Louise, who a few years later became his wife and the Empress of the French. One of the buildings of the Hofburg still houses the old riding school, founded by Charles VI in 1729, and ever since famous for its magnificent Spanish horses. It was kept up for the pleasure of the imperial family, who used to 125 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST give private performances for their friends. When Doctor Zimmerman, the expert brought to Austria from Holland to carry out the plans of the League of Nations for her rehabilitation, was looking about for possible economies, his eye fell on the riding school. It seemed doomed to go, but the chief riding master declared that he would make his stables self-supporting. This he has done by having a drill every now and then, to which any one is admitted upon the payment of a fee. So now commoners sit in the royal box and watch the twenty-eight splendid stallions that are left go through their paces. Schonbrunn was the EmperoEs summer residence and was accessible to the public only during his absence. It is now the great holiday resort of the people. There were thousands moving about through the grounds when I went there last Sunday. I visited the swimming pool, which covers at least half an acre and is so deep that no one ex¬ cept a giant like Goliath, who as I remember it was nine feet nine inches tall, could stand up in it. It was filled with men and women who had paid a few cents apiece for the privilege of swimming there. This pool was sacred to the Empress Elizabeth who had it made deep, for she was one of the great imperial athletes of her time, and loved to hunt and ride and swim. Schonbrunn has a park of five hundred acres of woods surrounding its magnificent gardens. It stands on the site of a hunting lodge erected in 1570 and the present building was begun in 1696. Maria Theresa often lived at Schonbrunn, and she planned its present form. It was modelled after the palace at Versailles. For a palace, the building itself is not large, being a two-story structure only six hundred and fifty feet long. There are seats 126 Millstaat, on its deep lake, is a typical village of the mountains of Carinthia. It is surrounded by pine forests, which cover a large part of the district and furnish pulp for Austria’s thriving paper-making industry. Schonbrunn Park with its straight walks and giant clipped hedges, its grottoes and ponds and statues, is a good example of the old French palace prden. Schonbrunn, like most of the palaces of its day, was designed in imitation of Versailles. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE HAPSBURGS round the garden which contains perhaps twenty acres of lawns and beautiful flower plots. In some places benches are free to all, but one is charged for a seat on the iron chairs. I took two chairs for myself and my companion, and a little later an old woman came around and told me the fee was one hundred and eighty kronen each. I handed her a thousand-kronen note, and she started away. I called her back, demanding my change. She grumbled but handed me back six hundred and forty crowns, which I was tempted to return, but my friend objected, saying that the woman had overcharged us and that it would not do to reward her dishonesty. The amount in question was less than three fourths of a cent. Every part of Schonbrunn is rich in historical associa¬ tion. From where I sat I could see the Gloriette, the stone pavilion to which Maria Theresa used so often to retire with her problems of state. When she grew so fat that her weak ankles would not permit her to climb stairs, she had a kind of elevator made to raise her to the balcony on the top of the colonnade, whence she commanded a fine view across the parks and gardens to the city, then several miles away. In 1805 and again four years later Napoleon made the palace his headquarters during his occupation of Vienna. In the courtyard here he held reviews of his troops, while crowds of the Viennese looked on and marvelled at the little man who had subjugated Europe. It was to this palace that, following Napoleon's abdication, Marie Louise returned with her young son, the King of Rome. And here, as the Duke of Reichstadt, the boy died at the age of twenty-one in the same room and even in the same bed that his father had occupied as the conqueror of Austria. 127 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST Another bedroom in the palace was that of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, the brother of Francis Joseph. On the wall hangs his portrait beside that of his wife Carlotta, who, as you remember, went insane with grief when her husband was shot. Kings and emperors have their advantages in that they can construct fine buildings, establish opera houses and theatres, and gather together paintings and sculptures that may be enjoyed by all. For example, there is the Votive Church in Vienna with Gothic towers that remind one of Cologne Cathedral, although this edifice is much smaller. One February afternoon in 1853, the young and popular Emperor Francis Joseph was walking on the old fortifica¬ tion wall of Vienna when a Hungarian fanatic tried to plunge a dagger into the monarch’s neck. But the Em¬ peror’s military collar, stiff with gold lace and braid, turned the assassin’s knife, and later on this church was set up as a thank-offering for the ruler’s escape from death. One of the strangest sacred buildings 1 know of is the Loretto Chapel, built in 1627 as part of the court church by the wife of Ferdinand 11 for the purpose it has served since then. Here in silver urns are preserved the hearts of the emperors and empresses who have ruled in Austria during the past three centuries. Until about three hundred years ago the royal dead were buried in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, but since then they have been laid in the crypt of the old Church of the Capuchins. A double sarcophagus contains the bodies of Maria Theresa and her idolized and handsome husband, Francis I. Near by are the coffins of all except one of their sixteen children. Not far away are the remains of Marie Louise, Empress of the French, and of her son, the Duke of Reichstadt. Here, 128 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE HAPSBURGS too, lies Maximilian of Mexico. After the ill-fated dictator was shot, Emperor Francis Joseph asked Juarez, the President of Mexico, to allow the remains to be returned to Austria. At last this request was granted and in the same ship in which Maximilian and Carlotta had sailed to the New World on their great adventure the body was borne back to Austria for burial. Beside a statue of the Virgin reposes the Empress Eliza¬ beth, the most beautiful queen in all Europe until her life was shattered by the death of her only son. Crown Prince Rudolph, whose colfin is near her own. He committed sui¬ cide eight years after his unhappy marriage to Princess Stephanie of Belgium. His mother sank gradually into greater and greater depths of melancholy and spent less and less of her time in Austria. She probably cared but little when the assassin at Geneva plunged his sharpened shoemaker’s awl into her heart. It was not until eighteen years later that her husband, the aged Francis Joseph, at length came to rest with his ancestors in the vault. He is the last of the Hapsburgs to lie there, for his nephew and successor, Charles, is buried where he died in exile. His body is in Funchal on the island of Madeira, though some day it may be taken up and brought to the Church of the Capuchins. 129 CHAPTER XVII THE COUNTRY OF THE MAGYARS C zechoslovakia is a land of the peasant, whose greatest men have sprung from the soil and whose people believe in democracy; Aus- tria is gradually growing accustomed to demo¬ cratic ideas, but Hungary is a land of the aristocrat where the nobility still rules. What is left of Hungary's portion of the old empire is now ruled by a regent, but ninety- five per cent, of the people, I am told, want to live under a king. The Hungarians believe their country was not as well treated by the Powers as was Germany when peace was patched up. The Germans lost about ten per cent, of their people and a comparatively small fraction of their territory. Hungary lost sixty-eight per cent, of her terri¬ tory and almost two thirds of her people. I have talked with the highest officials and with Hungarians of all classes, but I have yet to find one who is satisfied with the Treaty of Trianon. In that treaty the Powers divided the country, giving generous slices of it to Rumania, Yugo¬ slavia, and Czechoslovakia. Just now the land is quiet and the people are doing as well as they can under the conditions forced upon them, for Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia have erected tariff walls along their Hungarian boundaries, making trade with them difficult, and have placed many restric- 130 Hungary is the home of fortune-telling gypsies, who ply their trade in the cities. Many of these wanderers also live in the country, where they are noted for letting their children go naked, even in cold weather. In spite of centuries of oppression under despotic governments and their present hardships, the Magyar peasants are gay, happy-go-lucky folk, who seize every possible occasion to have a good time. Under the watchful eye of the noble owner of a great Hungarian estate, or one of his foremen, gangs of men and women bend their backs at work in the fields from dawn until dark. THE COUNTRY OF THE MAGYARS tions on the Hungarians still living in the ceded territories. It is claimed that the Hungarians were the intelligentsia of those countries. They did most of the business and international trade was almost entirely in their hands. Under the present conditions it is difficult for the Magyars to reestablish their former connections, and commerce and industry are suffering. Yet I believe that, given a fair chance, Hungary will quickly get back on her feet and be one of the enterpris¬ ing and progressive nations of central Europe. The gov¬ ernment is already planning many public improvements. Budapest has a new scheme for extending the city along modern lines, and land and educational reforms are planned. Hitherto the Magyars have been held back by the Austrians. They are now independent and will ad¬ vance rapidly. I hear many complaints against the government, which rules the people with an iron hand. But a member of the nobility, who is one of the strong men of his country and wants a monarchy, said to me the other day: “We need that kind of government. We are not easily ruled. You remember what someone has said of your im¬ migrants: 'When the German comes to America, he buckles down to work and forges ahead; when the Irish¬ man comes, he jumps into politics and joins the police; but when the Hungarian comes, he starts factions among his own people and is ready to fight.’ Here everyone wants to rule and we need an autocrat to keep us in order.” I find it difficult to give a clean-cut picture of the situa¬ tion here in the valley of the Danube. The old Hungary was one of the richest areas on the continent of Europe. It consisted of a great rolling plain bounded on the north- 131 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST east and southeast by the Drave and Danube rivers. It extended eastward to the sea at Fiume, so that it had access through the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean. The country formed a geographic and economic unit which could have been walled in and yet would have remained self-sustaining. There were vast forests, wheat lands, and vineyards; there were minerals, including the coal and iron needed for industry. The country was well supplied with waterways and the railroads formed a network connecting with the trunk lines to all the great markets. The former kingdom contained one hundred and twenty- five thousand square miles. It was more than three times the size of Ohio, and larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and it supported twenty millions of people. When the Powers came to consider it, they found it was inhabited by a half-dozen different races and they proceeded to cut off a slice here and a bit there on the basis of racial divisions. They wanted to clip the wings of the Magyars and to form new republics and kingdoms that would be more easily controlled in the future. Altogether, they took away more than two thirds of the original territory, leaving the shrunken Hungary of to-day. What remains is not much larger than South Carolina. It contains a population of eight million, most of whom are Magyars, the proudest, the most spirited, and, in some respects, the most progressive people of central Europe. What the Powers have done makes me think of the re¬ mark of John Pierpont Morgan, the elder, when he was told that the Steel Trust must be dissolved and put back into the old companies of which it was made. He replied: “You can’t do it, gentlemen. How can you unscramble eggs?” I am reminded, too, of the farm boy who was 132 THE COUNTRY OF THE MAGYARS asked if he could play the violin. He replied: I guess so. I never tried it, but it looks easy.” The Powers around the conference table evidently thought they could unscramble the eggs in the geogra¬ phic and commercial entity that was Hungary until 1919. Count Teleki, the statesman-geographer, who is one of the best economic thinkers of central Europe, has told me, for instance, how the treaty makers disarranged the whole water system of the Danube. That river is much like the Mississippi in that its floods have to be controlled and vast sums must be expended annually to keep the waters in order. Before the war most of the sys¬ tem of flood control was under the Hungarian Kingdom. Hungary began the work of reclamation more than one hundred years ago and built enough dikes twenty feet high along the Danube and the Tisza to line both sides of the Mississippi from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The total length of those dikes is four thousand miles. Further¬ more, the government has dug eight thousand miles of canals. It has protected from floods a tract of land as large as West Virginia, and reclaimed from the swamps more than fifteen million acres. All the reclaimed lands of Holland are only a little more than one third as exten¬ sive as the areas that were reclaimed by Hungary. This flood-prevention system had hundreds of rain gauges and water gauges along the courses of the river far up in the mountains. There were sixteen hundred obser¬ vation and alarm stations equipped with telephones. The government issued daily reports of the water levels, and there were about eighty cooperative companies keeping the locks and the dikes in repair. When the treaty was made the system of water control 133 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST was cut to pieces. A triple management was established so that Hungary has now to rely upon Czechoslovakia and Rumania to help her keep back the water. She can no longer control the forests that conserve her water supply, and an area of something like six million acres is in con¬ stant danger of floods. Large tracts are also likely to suffer from drought, for lack of the former unified control of the river waters. If a satisfactory joint water control could be established, it is estimated that a wheat crop worth about forty million dollars a year could be raised on irrigated land. In unscrambling the eggs, the Powers chopped off the railways as far as through service is concerned. The country was covered with lines reaching to all the great markets. Now a ride of a few hours in any direction brings one to a new frontier, where a foreign customs house holds up the traffic. Farm labour conditions were badly disorganized through the partition of Hungary. The valley of the Danube is much like that of the Mississippi. It is one of the rich¬ est farming tracts on the globe, and there is a succession of harvesting seasons as one goes from the Black Sea to Vienna. In the United States we have an army of harves¬ ters who start in Texas and Oklahoma and work their way north to the Dakotas as the summer matures. Until the World War, it was the same in the valley of the Danube, but now the harvesters are stopped at the frontiers of each country and the labourers are unable to follow the crop unless they get passports. Moreover, racial feeling is so strong that it might be unhealthy for the Rumanian or Czech to work on the Hungarian plain. 134 On the site of the old Roman citadel at Budapest rises the marble palace of six hundred rooms which was built by Maria Theresa and occupied occasionally by the monarchs of the old Austria-Hungary. Budapest has lined both banks of the Danube with boulevards inter¬ spersed with parks and quays and has made it easy for the people to for¬ get their political troubles in recreation out of doors. The fashionable promenade of Budapest is the Corso, which is thronged every evening with well-dressed men and women. It is lined with outdoor cafes, where the people sit and listen to the music of gypsy bands. CHAPTER XVIII BUDAPEST, WHERE EAST AND WEST MEET Oh, East is East, and West is West, And never the twain shall meet. Till Earth and Sky stand presently At God’s great Judgment Seat. R UDYARD KIPLING is wrong. The East and the West have met here at the capital of Hun¬ gary. Budapest is the beginning of the East - that looks toward Constantinople, and the end of the West that faces toward Paris. Hungary is a great succotash of the nations. The Hungarian people migrated from the little nest in the Ural Mountains, where more than a thousand years ago some seven tribes joined to¬ gether under a Magyar prince called Arpad. They made their way across the steppes of Russia, gathering up a scattering of Einns who had drifted down from the forests of the North, and captured the rich Hungarian Plain in the basin of the Danube. Other peoples had preceded them there. From the West had come the Romans, eager for this bread basket of Europe, which has always been coveted by the nations. Before Christ was born they had fought their way into the valley of the Danube and built settlements here. From the East had come also Avars and Huns, but they failed to weld the valley lands into a state. Equally un¬ successful were the Goths, the Lombards, and the Franks 135 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST from the West. Finally the Magyars came in from Asia and took the land. Before the year looo the Hungarians had established a line of rulers descended from Arpad and had introduced Christianity. In the first year of the eleventh century Saint Stephen, patron saint of the coun¬ try, received from Pope Sylvester 11 the golden crown used at the coronations of all later kings of Hungary. Stephen I brought in German settlers from the West with a view to giving his people a greater measure of civili¬ zation. In the early part of the fifteenth century the Turks began to make inroads on the kingdom, which they overthrew at the battle of Mohacs in 1526. After that the country was under Turkish domination for a hundred and fifty years. Following the defeat of the Moslems at Vienna in 1683, however, Hungary was freed from the yoke of the Sultan, but in return for the help of the Austrians, the Magyar crown was made hereditary in the Hapsburg line. Thus East and West swayed back and forth over the fertile plains of Hungary. Both Orient and Occident have left their marks, as one can easily see in Budapest to¬ day. Here the Gothic, the Romanesque, and the Oriental styles of architecture appear side by side. The Royal Palace, the great castle on the heights of Buda high over the Danube, has a half dozen great domes rising above a wilderness of Greek and Roman col¬ umns, while its interior blazes with Eastern magnificence. It is one of the mightiest palaces ever constructed. It is more than a thousand feet long, and its rooms number eight hundred and sixty. It was built by the Empress Maria Theresa three quarters of a century ago. To-day the Hungarian people keep it as a residence for a monarch 136 BUDAPEST, WHERE EAST AND WEST MEET of the future, and when another king comes to the Hun¬ garian throne, he will probably live there. Not far from it is the Coronation Church, begun in the thirteenth century in the Romanesque style and com¬ pleted in the fifteenth in the Gothic. It was used as a mosque by the Turks and the marble statue of the Virgin looks down on the floor which the Mohammedans touched with their heads in their prayers. Even the present Parliament Building, where the one house of the Hungarian Congress is now sitting, is a combination of the East and the West. It has a great oriental-looking dome in the centre and more than a dozen Gothic spires rising from its walls. I wish I could take you through this national Capitol. It covers as much ground as the Congressional Library at Washington and it cost more. Its construction stretched over almost twenty years, or just about as long as it took to erect the Great Pyramid of Egypt. On the outside there are ninety statues, and within you bump into the image of some national hero at almost every step. The windows are of stained glass, the floors are of parquetry or marble, and the walls are coloured marbles inlaid with gold. A porter accompanied me through the building and, figuratively speaking, gave me the keys. I visited the gorgeous House of Lords. Its seats are empty to-day, but as I looked at them my guide said: “They will be filled as soon as we again have a king.'’ “And when will that be?” I asked. “It may be in ten years and it may be in twenty, but it is sure to come sooner or later. Hungary has had kings for one thousand years. We like them and we want a king back on our throne once more.” 137 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST My way into the top gallery of the House was up wind¬ ing stone steps like those of a cathedral, lighted by win¬ dows with as many colours as the coat Jacob had made for Joseph before the boy was sold down into Egypt. When I came out, it was into a great dome-shaped room that re¬ minded me somewhat of a mosque of Turkey or India. Here again the East and the West seemed to meet. The lower house of Congress sits in a hall that is a combination of the interiors of a cathedral, a mosque, and a palace. The galleries are divided into boxes like those of a theatre, and each box has its pillars carved and encrusted with gold. There is a slice cut out of one side of the cham¬ ber, and against the flat wall sat the Speaker. Below, the members were seated at desks in concentric rows. In a little arena in front of the clerks were the ministers of state seated in red velvet chairs. With one exception, all the members were dressed in business suits. The exception wore silk and I venture had on high-heeled shoes. She was black-haired and black- eyed and the only woman member of the Hungarian Con¬ gress. She is a Socialist. The people of Budapest show everywhere evidence of the blending of the East and the West, although since the Treaty of Trianon carved up Hungary one sees fewer of the Germans and the Czechs and a greater number of the pure Magyar type than in the past. The faces show the mix¬ ture of races, but the life and the fighting spirit of the Magyar are everywhere predominant. The women are especially beautiful; more beautiful, I think, than any I have seen elsewhere. They have olive complexions, dark, luxuriant hair, and great dark eyes. They walk with a swing, and they have fine figures. 138 BUDAPEST, WHERE EAST AND WEST MEET Every afternoon the Francis Joseph promenade along the Danube is alive with a throng of the well-to-do men and women strolling back and forth. They go singly and arm in arm, lovers, sweethearts, husbands and wives mov¬ ing on side by side. There are officers in gorgeous uniforms and representatives of half-a-dozen different nationalities and as many different creeds, the Greek Catholic, and the Roman Catholic, the Protestant and the Jew all mixed up together. This is the social hour of the city and much of it is spent in drinking tea, coffee, or liqueurs at the many cafes that line the route. Even more than in Vienna or Paris is it the fashion in Budapest to frequent outdoor restaurants. Except in cold weather there are tables on the street and thousands sit about them talking or listening to the music of the gypsy bands, which, it seems to me, are playing from sunset to far into the wee hours of the morning. I had thought of this part of the world as having a civilization a little lower than that of the other European capitals. If so, no lack appears in the dress, the talk, or the manners of the people. The women know how to buy their clothes and how to wear them. Their frocks look as if they had just come from the shops of Paris. The men are especially particular about their dress, and the dandies have a fashion of harmonizing the colours, from stockings to collars. On official occasions the men are meticulous about their costumes. The uncomfortable silk hat still holds sway and at day-time events the morning cutaway suit is much in evidence. The men make me think of that stiff member of the Crawley family in ‘Wanity Fair” of whom Thackeray says: ''He would rather die than sit down to dinner without a white necktie.” Everyone here dines late. At seven o'clock there is 139 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST no one in the dining rooms of the hotels, and the restau¬ rants do not begin to fill up until nine. From then until after midnight the eating goes on, many people taking nothing until after they leave the theatre or opera. The gypsy band at the Dunapolata Hotel, where I am stopping, plays from nine until two o’clock in the morning. The food at the hotels is good. Pastries and sweets are shipped from Budapest all over Europe. The beef, the mutton, and the pork are equal to those of Chicago. Some of the dishes are similar to ours. There is, for instance, kukurei, which means corn on the cob, and one bites it off just as he does in America. Another favourite dish is paprikahuhn, or chicken dressed with red pepper, and another is gulvas, or goulasch, which is a steamed dish highly peppered. Gefulltes paprika consists of pepper pods filled with meat, and there is a delicious chowder called halasile. The restaurants serve a kind of macaroni with chicken, called tarhonva, which takes up a permanent residence in one’s stomach. The coffee is good and is served black in French or Turkish style as ordered. It is difficult for the foreigner to know what to eat from the bill of fare, for it is printed in Magyar, which someone has said is a Hungarian goulash of the words the Tartars and the Finns could not spell or pronounce and so threw out of their languages. The combinations of letters ap¬ pear meaningless to me. The words are full of consonants and the marks over the vowels add to the confusion. The accent always falls on the first syllable. In names of persons the family name is put first. For instance, I at¬ tended an Independence Day celebration here when the crowd hurrahed for George Washington. The speaker who started the cheers shouted '‘Heep, Heep-Ooray,” 140 BUDAPEST, WHERE EAST AND WEST MEET with the accent on the “oo"’ and the cry was for ''Wash¬ ington George.” The observance of our Fourth of July took place in front of the great bronze statue of Washington that the Hungarians of America have erected in the Cen¬ tral Park of Budapest to show their appreciation of their adopted country. Everyone here seems to like the United States; and no greater tribute could be given our nation than the thousands of all classes who stood with bared heads for more than an hour in the broiling mid¬ summer sun while the speeches were made. Budapest has grown considerably in the last few years. At the time of the World War it had less than eight hun¬ dred thousand people; it has now more than a million and the population is increasing right along. Like all of the capitals of this part of the world, it has had large accessions on account of the changes in boundaries. The Hungarians claim that they are persecuted in Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, and those who wish to retain their citizenship in the mother country are flocking back home. Many who owned property in what was once a part of the kingdom have been compelled to sell at low prices, and as a result there are upwards of a hundred thousand refugees in Budapest. This is one of the chief reasons for the increase of more than three hundred thousand in population within two or three years. There is naturally a great lack of housing facilities, and the prices of apart¬ ments and rooms are steadily rising. Budapest has a large intellectual class. Hungary has four universities, including one here at Budapest which has above ten thousand students. The city has a school of economics with twenty-five hundred students, 141 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST and a technical high school with more than three thousand. Count Paul Teleki, the well-known professor of economic geography, tells me that he has eight hundred men in attendance upon his lectures and that one of them is a general of sixty-three who takes his notes side by side with beardless boys of nineteen and twenty. Most of the students are comparatively poor. Many of them have lost their all in the countries cut off from Hungary, and a large proportion are working their way through the universities by clerking or other labour during the day. Some have places in the banks, which close here atone o'clock, and others are employed in the jewellery stores, which close at four. The rest of the shops are open until six, when steel shutters come down over the windows, hiding everything until late the next morning. Among other ways of reducing expenses the students have established cooperative societies. They have cloth¬ ing factories where they work part of the day to make clothes to sell to each other at cost price or a little more, and shoe factories where they make their own shoes. They have established a printing house with a half-dozen presses where they print some of their textbooks and lecture notes. 142 The Hungarian peasants live in villages from which they go out each morning to work on the land. The houses are usually of one story, with white walls and broad oyerhanging eaves of thatch or red tile. It is only on the large estates of the Magyar nobles that modern machinery and scientific farming methods are used. The Hungarian peas¬ ant tills his own patch of land with the crude implements of his forefathers. CHAPTER XIX BREAD LANDS OF THE DANUBE HE car was a Eiat manufactured in Italy, sold in Austria, owned in Hungary, and driven by a Magyar daredevil, a descendant of the invaders that overran this Danube basin more than a thousand years ago. It was a seven-passenger, thirty- five-horsepower machine, which could easily be speeded up to fifty miles an hour, and the chauffeur fairly burned the road as we travelled. We left Budapest in the early morning, crossing the suspension bridge to the south side of the river, flying by factory buildings, and then shooting out into the country. We followed the river past the island where the city plans to build municipal docks, and thence drove on into the grain lands of the Danube. The white macadamized roads were lined with fruit trees, with boys perched here and there in the branches, and beyond them, extending as far as the eye could see, were the many-coloured crops. Eields of rye, oats, barley, wheat, sugar beets, and al¬ falfa in different shades of green were now and then bor¬ dered by poppies as red as fresh blood. There was noth¬ ing to obstruct the view, no fences, no barns, no houses, and no haystacks. Nature alone was the architect, and there popped into my mind the old saying: God made the country and man made the town. 143 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST For miles we rode through patches no bigger than a parlour rug, and strips of grass or grain ten, fifteen, or twenty feet wide and many hundred feet long. How the peasants know their own boundaries is hard to under¬ stand, but they till these ribbon-like tracts year after year, going out from their villages at dawn to work in the fields, and returning home from them when the sun sets. When we came to the estates of some of the big land¬ holders, the fields were enormous. The usual area de¬ voted to one crop was fifty acres. Sometimes we passed through vineyards where the hills were covered with thou¬ sands of stakes as high as my waist, each of which sup¬ ported a grapevine as carefully tended as a rosebush in your garden. The vines of Hungary are cut down to the ground year after year, and as the plants grow up again they are tied to stakes with straw so as not to injure the stems. They are thoroughly sprayed and the soil between the rows is kept free of weeds. When the fruit ripens it is made into wine, most of the vineyards having their own wine presses. Hungary is one of the great wine-making countries of Europe, and its Tokay and other vintages are known everywhere. But the import restrictions of Hungary's neighbours are now so stringent that the foreign market has been largely cut off, and out in the country one can buy a quart of delicious wine for a nickel. During my two-hundred-mile ride I visited the grape¬ growing region about Lake Balaton, the largest lake in cen¬ tral Europe and one hundred miles from Budapest. The hills surrounding it are mostly covered with vineyards and forests, but in places there are fields of grain crops sloping 144 BREAD LANDS OF THE DANUBE down to the water. I looked across vast stretches of wheat, oats, and rye, pale yellow or the colour of gold, to the silvery sheet of the water beyond. The lake, which is fifty miles long and from two to nine miles wide, is a beautiful body of water, light green in colour and very deep. It swarms with fine fish, among which are perch, carp, pike, and shad, and also the fogas, which is almost as sweet as the shad, but which seems to have only one bone up the back. Lake Balaton is the great resort of the Hungarians. Many rich men have splendid houses and beautiful gardens on its shores, and the region is sometimes called the Riviera of central Europe. There are several large hotels and I visited a big sanatorium for tubercular patients who come here to get the benefit of the air from the pines and the lake. It was here at Lake Balaton that Charles, the last Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, was interned by his people. Banished to Switzerland, he tried twice to come back and regain his throne. When he came first he was favoured by the higher clergy and the aristocracy, but Admiral Horthy, the Regent, would not give up his job without an order from the National Assembly. More¬ over, the Allies had said that no Hapsburg should reign again in Hungary, so the officials advised Charles to leave, and he went back to Switzerland. That was in the spring. In the following October he got a Swiss airplane, took his Empress Zita with him, and flew back to Hun¬ gary. Here he was met by a small army of royalists, but the countries of the Little Entente reenforced their sol¬ diers on Hungary's borders with three divisions, and the King's troops were defeated with a loss of several hundred, 145 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST killed and wounded. A little later the government asked Charles to abdicate the throne and surrender himself to the British authorities. He did so, and was put on a British gunboat in the Danube and taken to Funchal on the island of Madeira, where he died. His young son. Prince Otto, who is now a guest of his cousin, Alfonso of Spain, is the legitimate successor to the throne of the Hapsburgs. From Lake Balaton I drove across country to visit the estate of Count Batthyanyi. Like other members of the Hungarian nobility, the count is highly educated, a good horseman, and an expert farmer. He can trace his ancestry back to the earliest days of Magyar history and lives in a mansion seven centuries old. During the past two hundred years, six successive generations of his family have held the estate. When I met him in his garden at the back of the mansion he looked, in his white flannels, as if he had just stepped out of a bandbox. We first walked through the gardens which covered several acres. The rose garden was gay with arbour after arbour of crimson ramblers, and other roses of different hues made bowers of gorgeous colour. There were also dwarf and other choice flowers of every description. Adjoining the roses was a sunken Italian garden paved with blocks of snowy marble, with flowers and vines grow¬ ing between the stones so as to form a great coverlet of white embroidered with green vines and brilliant verbenas, geraniums, and other plants, the names of which I do not know. We picked our way over the flags and walked through the wide colonnades around the mansion to its central court. Here we looked out over a plaza covering an acre, laid in mosaic patterns of red and white stones, 146 Budapest is one of the great flour-milling cities of the world. Most of the wheat is unloaded by machinery from barges in the river, but occasionally it is brought to the mills in the old-fashioned long sacks. Regardless of the political fortunes of Hungary, the wheat lands of the Danube will continue to feed millions of people of Central Europe, just as they have done in the past. BREAD LANDS OF THE DANUBE and through long avenues of trees trimmed to form vistas down which we gazed upon the count’s domain. And such a domain! It is a principality. It contains ten thousand acres divided into ten great farms of one thousand acres each, all under the highest cultivation, and all now ripe with the harvest. Count Batthyanyi ordered his car and we drove together over one of the farms. Each has its manager, and the methods of administration and cultivation are the same in all. There are five hundred workers regularly employed upon the estate. In addition to these there are hundreds of men and women, who come from their villages in April and stay until the crops are gathered and the fall planting is done. Everything is managed after the most approved business methods, and the property pays big dividends. For instance, the land is so tilled that the soil is kept rich while yielding annual crops far above those of equally good land in our country. I looked at one rye field where half the grain was yet to be cut. The sheaves had been stacked up in piles and the section already reaped was being ploughed by oxen. The count told me it paid him to have the plough follow the reapers. The spots on which the shocks stand are the only parts of the field left untouched until fall, when the whole is then turned over again with steam ploughs. Before it is planted again the earth will be as finely pulverized as that for a flower bed. We then drove past a tract of sugar beets and great plots of rye, barley, and turnips. Each farm, the count told me, is divided into fields of fifty acres each. He showed me one wheat field where the stalks were bent over by the heavily loaded heads. As I looked at it I saw that the yellow grain was in big patches of different 147 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST hues and tints. I asked the reason for this. The owner replied that there were twenty-four diflferent kinds of wheat in the field, sown in blocks of about two acres to each kind, and that he was testing the varieties to find which was best adapted to the soil. He expects the whole field to produce about two thousand bushels, or forty bushels per acre. Compare that with our average of thir¬ teen or fourteen bushels to the acre! Count Batthyanyi is a plant breeder whose seed grain is sold throughout both Austria and Hungary. The estate supports a variety of industries. We passed fac¬ tories making alcohol, sugar, and other things so as to use as far as possible the raw materials grown here. There are nurseries supplying trees, plants, and flowers to a great part of central Europe. There are one hundred acres of vineyards, and big truck gardens, the products of which are shipped by train daily to Budapest and other cities. Even more interesting, however, are the fish ponds where Count Batthyanyi raises carp for Berlin, Vienna, and other European capitals. He has one pond of fifty acres on the farm 1 have described and on his son’s estate, not far away, there are fish ponds covering altogether three hundred and fifty acres. The fish are caught when just right for the market and shipped alive in cars fitted with water tanks. In our ride we crossed the steam railroads on each side of the estate, and went over the light railways built on the property. It was now almost sunset, but everywhere gangs of women and men were still working. I asked the count what wages he paid. He replied that the men got seven or eight cents a day, and the women a cent or so less. These are the wages of the floating labourers BREAD LANDS OF THE DANUBE that work through the summer. In addition they are given their food and sleep in barracks provided for them. Dur¬ ing the rush periods their hours are from dawn until dark. Each of the year-round employees living on the estate is given a plot of one or two acres of ground and allowed time to farm it. These workers also get rations and other supplies, besides regular wages, which are so small that our labourers would scorn them. I visited the quarters of these permanent employees. They were long, high, one-story, barrack-like buildings, with doors and windows looking out on gardens in front and with small windows at the back. I asked the owner how many rooms were allowed to a family. He replied that he was compelled by law to give each family a store¬ room, a living room, and a kitchen, but that in former times it was possible to crowd two or three families into one room. For generations Hungary has been feeding some of the neighbouring nations and 1 understand that, notwith¬ standing its shrunken area, it will still have tens of millions of bushels of wheat for export every year. What I have seen of the grain fields of the basin, the wheat barges on the rivers, and the flour mills of the city convinces me of the importance of Hungary as a bread basket of central Europe. Budapest is the Minneapolis of the continent. It lies on both sides of the Danube, just as our “Flour City’' lies on both sides of the Mississippi. Old Buda on the bluff and newer Pest on the lowlands are joined by bridges, just as are old St. Anthony and young Minneapolis, and both the Hungarian and the Minnesota cities are noted for their flour mills. 149 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST At harvest time the Danube is filled with barges of wheat moving up to the mills. When they tie up at the docks the grain is sucked through pipes to the top floors of the grain elevators and moved about on belt conveyors. In the mills endless belts carry the bags of flour and drop them into the waiting barges. Even now Budapest claims that it ranks next to Minne¬ apolis among the hour-milling centres of the world. Its annual output is about half that of the Minnesota city, and plans had been made to triple the production when the war came and stopped them. Last week I visited what 1 am told is the biggest single flour mill on earth. It is situated within a stone's throw of the Danube, from which one great conveyor brings up the grain while another carries down the sacks of flour. The building is five stories tall, and adjoining it are two elevators, one for grain and the other for flour. All its machines are automatic and the number of labourers is •surprisingly few. I went through room after room in which only two or three men were to be seen. Just as in our own modern mills, the grain drops by gravity from process to process. The flour goes up and down on its way to the boats or the cars without being touched, and coal is auto¬ matically fed to the furnaces. I have been through the big mills of Minneapolis. They are wonderful in their construction, but they have not the finish and the extraor¬ dinary cleanliness of ‘'The Budapester." As far back as 1890 Budapest was manufacturing five million barrels of flour every year, while at that time Minneapolis was making only one million more. There are now in the capital a great number of flour mills equipped with modern machinery and paying big divi- 150 In the shell-torn forts around Belgrade one sees to-day the scars of the first blows struck in the World War, which began with the Austrian bombardment of the Serbian capital. Gypsy women with brooms of twigs clean the cobbled streets of Bel¬ grade. Throughout the country the women do as much heavy work as the men, hoeing the crops and carrying burdens on their backs. BREAD LANDS OF THE DANUBE dends. There are other mills scattered throughout the basin of the Danube. In what was the old Hungary there are more than twenty thousand flour mills in opera¬ tion, most of which are small establishments, run by water power, and supplying local markets. CHAPTER XX BELGRADE OR the third time I am in Belgrade. I visited the city thirty-five years ago when I went around the world from east to west on a honey- moon tour, and I stopped here again twenty years later with my wife and daughter on my second tour around the globe. In both of these trips 1 came from Constantinople. This time 1 have come from the north, riding nine hours on the train from Budapest to this capital of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, or, as it is generally called, Yugoslavia. When I was here last, Belgrade was a dead town of sixty or seventy thousand people. It was a kind of second-class opera-bouffe show, the capital of the little kingdom of Serbia, which was always quarrelling with its neighbours, the Austro-Hungarians and the Turks. The Kingdom was then independent, but to the west and the north lay the great Austro-Hungarian Empire, rich and powerful, aggressive and domineering. The latter rather despised Serbia and her capital, imposing all sorts of trade restrictions, hindering communications, and doing everything to throttle Belgrade and to exalt Buda¬ pest and Vienna. The Belgrade of to-day is alive and booming. It is the capital of a country eight times the size of Massa¬ chusetts, and of a people one tenth as numerous as we are. BELGRADE The city is being rejuvenated. It is now shuffling off its old clothes, ragged and soiled with the wear of al¬ most two thousand years, and putting on the frills of the modern capitals of Europe. I am writing this amid the din of new building. The sounds of the hammer and saw drown the click of my typewriter, and the rattle of the concrete mixer and the clattering stutter of the riveting machine fill the air. Belgrade is about halfway between Constantinople and Paris, sixty hours by fast train from London, and about the same time from Constantinople. It has always been a capital of some sort or other. It was a Celtic village as early as the third century before Christ, and was called Singidunum when the Romans took it and stationed a strong garrison here. It was a fastness of great impor¬ tance when the Turks overran southeastern Europe and made their way as far north as Vienna. About four hundred years ago it was captured by one of the sultans, and for centuries the people were under Turkish rule. It was less than fifty years ago that they became independent and made Belgrade their capital. Indeed, not until after the close of our Civil War did the Turks evacuate the stronghold on the rock where Danube and Save meet. The old fortifications still stand. They are huge works of brick and earth encircled by a wide moat. Back of them is a park, from the promenade of which I photo¬ graphed the citadel to show the shell holes made by the Austrians during the World War. 1 snapped my camera unthinkingly and for hours thereafter feared I might be tapped on the shoulder by one of the fierce Serbian police¬ men and put in jail as a spy. But perhaps no one saw me. At least, so far I am safe. On the high plateau behind 153 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST the fortifications lay the old Belgrade, and it is there that the new Belgrade is building. Come for a drive through the capital. We shall take a two-horse carriage, for here taxis are almost unknown. The horses are spirited, and we hesitate when we look at the dashboard which has been kicked to pieces this morn¬ ing. However, the driver assures us that he can hold his pair in check, and we go bumping along over the holes in the wide streets, which are paved with wood blocks or cobbles. Now and then we strike a piece of asphalt or a stone roadway; everywhere the streets are in sad need of repair. Belgrade was torn to pieces during the war. It was bombarded by the Austrians from across the river, and outside the town one may see hundreds of great shell holes in the earth that have not yet been filled in. The poor streets will be improved as soon as the bud¬ get permits, but despite their bad condition modern build¬ ings are going up by the hundred along them. There are many carvings, and some of the buildings are most artistic. The old city was one of two and three stories. The new structures are five, six, and seven stories, for, as you know, skyscrapers are few in Europe. The plan is to put up twenty government buildings, eighteen public schools, an opera house, a museum, a library, and a university. The city authorities have decided to make Belgrade the most beautiful city of the Balkans, and have offered prizes for plans which shall pro¬ vide not only for the buildings mentioned, but for a great athletic field and a system of parks, a zoological and botanical garden, and four bridges across the Save and the Danube. The plans must include also drawings for a num¬ ber of churches, railway terminals, and harbour works. It 154 BELGRADE will, of course, take many years to complete such an am¬ bitious scheme. Private building of every sort is being helped by the government. It has made strikes illegal and admits all kinds of building materials tax free. New homes for workers and middle-class people are to pay no taxes for twenty-five years. Dwelling houses, regardless of size, are to be tax exempt for eighteen years, and for fifteen years there will be no levy on apartments and stores combined. It is also provided that the government cannot requisition such new buildings, and all the rent laws favour the land¬ lord rather than the tenant. The result of all these measures is such a building boom as I have seen nowhere else in my travels. I wish I could show our plasterers of Chicago, who are reported to be getting twenty dollars for eight hours’ labour, how the best men of their trade work in Belgrade. They are superior artisans, modelling in stucco and produc¬ ing creations far above those of the ordinary workmen. They are now receiving from eighty cents to one dollar a day. This is for the men at the top; other plasterers get less. The same wages are paid to carpenters, bricklayers, and machinists. Common labour receives from thirty to fifty cents a day, and the women who help at the building trades, mixing the mortar and fetching and carrying, get only twenty-five cents. In Yugoslavia the woman is to be seen at work every¬ where in city and country. She carries great loads on her back or shoulders, she digs and hoes in the fields. She rakes up and binds the sheaves of grain, which the men cut down with cradles, and she keeps the streets clean. I took a photograph to-day of a gang of street sweepers in 155 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST front of the palace of the King. There were twenty girls with a man as the boss. Each had a broom of twigs, with which she scraped and brushed the dirt out from between the wooden paving blocks. The women wore picturesque costumes with a great deal of colour. I am told that they are gypsies and that they receive from fifteen to twenty cents a day. Some of the architecture of Belgrade shows the Turkish influence, but most of the buildings look much like those of the great European capitals. The Moscow Hotel has bands of green tiles around its various stories, and over the way is another large structure, which is faced with rose tiles. A bank that has just been completed has its wrought- iron doors plated with gold, and the new Franco-Serbian bank, upon which I have letters of credit, has a counting room finished in mahogany, with heavy brass mouldings at the base and edges of the counters. The people are proud of their new buildings. I was taken out to-day to see a new paper factory going up in the suburbs, which will give employment to several hun¬ dred workers. 11 is a large four-story structure and almost walled with glass. The proprietor told me that his machinery, which came from Germany, is the most up-to- date in the world. From what I saw I believe his story is true. The mill will make the finest of book and writing papers, bank notes, and tissue paper for cigarettes. The owner said he could turn out his product at one sixth the cost of its manufacture in America, and that he ex¬ pected a big trade with Europe and Latin America, as well as most of the business of Serbia. I am stopping at a new hotel here, which claims to be the last word in hotel accommodations in the Balkans. It has 156 BELGRADE a roof garden with an elevator that runs up but not down and a cabaret, where one can wine and dine from nine in the evening until five o’clock in the morning. The population of Belgrade has nearly doubled since the World War. The city had something like ninety thousand in 1914. It has nearly two hundred thousand at present and promises to grow right along. Before the war Belgrade, as the capital of Serbia, a kingdom of about the size of Indiana, had a population of only some four mil¬ lions to draw from. Now it is the capital of a land more than twice as large as the state of New York, with a popu¬ lation exceeding twelve millions. The people are made up of half-a-dozen races. The men I see on the streets of Belgrade come from all parts of the kingdom, though most of them are Serbs, big-boned, straight, and well-built, with dark, serious faces and fea¬ tures somewhat like those of the Russians. The women are tall and fine-looking and both men and women walk with a swing. The Serbs are most independent and they seem bound to make their way in building up the new principality. Then there are the Slovenes and the Croats, who, as a rule, are better dressed than their cousins, the Serbs. There are the Montenegrins, whom you may know by their pill-box caps, bordered with black, which have crowns of bright red embroidered with four golden stripes. They wear short jackets and very full trousers tied in at the ankles and upheld by a great belt or sash at the waist. There are many Moslems from Bosnia, in red fezzes, embroidered jackets, and the full pantaloons of the Turks. There are Russian refugees wearing their shirts outside their trousers, and the high hat of the Cossacks on their 157 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST heads. There are also priests of the Greek Orthodox Church, in great hats, with gowns that reach from their necks to their feet, and wide sashes of red silk showing un¬ derneath. Most of them have long beards and long hair. There are also the Serbian peasants in homespun, often of the brightest of colours. They wear short jackets, and trousers tied tight around the ankles. Their feet are clad in shoes made of straps fastened to the soles, which are turned up at the front. The women are dressed even more Quaintly than the men, and the whole makes a perpetual moving-picture show worth coming far to see. Besides these picturesque figures, there is that large part of the population that looks just as we do. As a matter of fact, the upper classes of all nations now dress about the same the world over. The best time to see the crowd is from five until nine in the evening and the best place is on Czaritsa Street. This is a part of the main thoroughfare of the city. The roadway, which is paved with wooden blocks laid by Rus¬ sian workmen, was a present from the Czar Nicholas, after whom it is named. It is a good promenade with wide sidewalks walled with fine stores. At five o’clock the traffic policemen, some of whom are armed with muskets, shut off all carriages and cars, and the people fill the street just as they do in the Calle Florida in Buenos Aires, and in the Ouvidor, in Rio de Janeiro. The women wear their fine clothes. Nearly all have bare arms and necks, and the throng is a gay one. In contrast to the promenaders of other cities, these people do not loiter or stroll. They walk as though they were going somewhere, and their movements have a determination and a spring I have not seen elsewhere. 58 Freed from fear of Austria-Hungary, the capital of Yugoslavia has rapidly transformed itself into a modern city, which its people hope will fall heir to much of the commercial prosperity of Vienna and Budapest. Situated at the junction of the Save River with the Danube, Belgrade has always been a strategic point in the wars of southeastern Europe, The Romans built forts here and the Turks held it four hundred years. Austria’s former naval base, Cattaro, which has one of the finest natural harbours in the world, now belongs to Yugoslavia, and is regarded as an important asset in her future development. BELGRADE Here and there along this promenade, and in fact on all the streets of Belgrade, are cafes, which overflow to the sidewalks. There are tables covered with white cloths out in the street, with men and women and children sitting round them, drinking, chatting, and reading the news¬ papers. Some write letters, and others may play cards or dominoes. The cafes are to a large extent the clubs and loafing places where the people come to meet one another and talk business or gossip. Scores of peddlers walk in and out among the tables selling all sorts of trin¬ kets. There are beggars who get alms from almost everyone they ask, and there are men and women crying the newspapers. The Serbian newsgirl has a stentorian voice and shouts the sensational news while she pokes under your nose one of those sheets printed in Greek characters, which, although I studied the language six years, 1 can now hardly name. 1 have met a number of the newspaper men of Belgrade. They are bright fellows, many of them speaking several languages. Two of the men 1 have talked with are gradu¬ ates of Oxford and a third studied at Cambridge. Nearly every reporter speaks German or French, as well as most of the tongues of this polyglot nation. They tell me the circulations of the newspapers are not large, the leading journal in Belgrade having only about twenty thousand per day. There are small sheets scattered all over the country, and many party organs and periodicals of one kind and another. The wages of newspaper men are low; the best writers get from ten to twelve dollars a week and the ordinary reporter much less. One of the lowest-paid men on each journal is the jail editor, who assumes all responsibility for anything that 159 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST appears in his paper. Even in the case of a signed article, if the man who wrote it denies that he did so, the jail editor will affirm that the work was his own, and when the government orders his punishment, he goes to jail without question. After serving his term, he is taken back on the staff, to await the next offence. He receives a salary of about ten dollars a month, with a bonus after he comes out of jail in proportion to the length of his stay. CHAPTER XXI THE KINGDOM OF THE SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES C us jump into a car and drive through the country near Belgrade to the top of Mt. Avala. Some people would call it a hill, but it rises perhaps a thousand feet over the plains and it will give us a view of a region like most of the land between here and the mountains. We bump over the rough roads, passing long-horned white cattle and fat sheep and hogs, and ride through little farms where men and women are working. Entering a pine wood, we go ''in second'' round and round up the steep slopes of Mt. Avala till we come out into the open beside a great stone cross surmounting a pyramid of gran¬ ite. This is the memorial of the people to the Unknown Dead of the World War. While the pine trees whisper a requiem we sit down by the monument and look out over the country. The view embraces many miles, with a moun¬ tain here and there in the distance. There are signs of earth washing and the whole region reminds me of the Piedmont section of the Carolinas. The land is gently rolling. It is all hill and hollow, but the hills are covered with woods and the green patches of grass run in and out between thousands of small sheets of yellow wheat, rye, barley, and oats, and fields of green corn. Here and there is a village, its specks of houses shining white dots in the orchards about them. That streak of silver off to the west i6i THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST is the Save River. It is navigable for a long distance, and flows into the Danube at Belgrade. How small the fields are! Many of them are not more than one or two acres. There are no great estates in this part of the country. Old Serbia, on which we are looking, was a great peasant democracy, made up of small landholders, each of whom owned his farm. In some sec¬ tions nine out of every ten men have some land. As a result, the tracts are so small that but little farm ma¬ chinery is used. On our way to the mountain, we saw men cradling the grain and women binding it by hand. The ploughs were rude and the draft animals were oxen. It is different in the lands taken from Austria-Hungary, which were held largely by the rich and the nobles. In those sections of what is now Yugoslavia, hardly a third of the people owned enough land to maintain a family. They worked for the rich farmers by the day or became tenants, cultivating the soil for a third or fourth of the produce raised. These great tracts have been taken over by the government and are being subdivided under the land-reform laws. They are in excellent condition and many of them have been farmed with tractors and the most up-to-date machinery. It remains to be seen whether they will yield as much in the hands of small farmers. But to understand this kingdom made of pieces of old Austria and Hungary added to Serbia and Montenegro, you must know something of the peoples that inhabit it. Their ancestors lived on the northern slopes of the Car¬ pathian Mountains, between the Black and Caspian seas. A little after the birth of Mohammed and while his follow¬ ers were taking Jerusalem and Constantinople, these Car- 162 SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES pathian tribes established themselves in the valley of the Danube. The newcomers were of the great Slavic family to which the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs, and the Bul¬ garians belong. The name, Yugoslavia, means “Land of the South Slavs,'’ and most of its twelve million people are Slavs. About forty per cent, are Serbs, thirty per cent, are Croats, and perhaps ten per cent, are Slovenes. The rest of the population is made up of Magyars, Ger¬ mans, Rumanians, Albanians, and others. In the early migrations the Serbs settled between the Danube and the Drina. When the great Turkish invasion swept over the land the Serbs were conquered and had to submit to the rule of the Moslems for more than four hundred years. Yet all this time they kept their tradi¬ tions. They fought against their masters again and again, so that when the Turks were finally driven back, the Serbs had developed the sturdy, indomitable character that makes them the strongest element in the new nation. They have stuck to their own language, still using the Greek characters common in Russia. They belong to the Greek Orthodox Church and have many of the traits of the Russians. The Slovenes and the Croats drifted northward and westward. They made their way to the borders of Austria and Hungary and spread out over much of the land to the south along the Adriatic Sea. Thus they came under the influence of the Austrians and the Hun¬ garians. Most of them were converted to Roman Catholicism, the faith to which they still belong. They were affected by the civilization of the West rather than that of the East and adopted the Latin alphabet. In the 163 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST new Kingdom a number of the papers are printed in both Latin and Greek letters, the words being the same. This is also true of the official record of the new Parliament and of many of the public documents. These two streams of culture do not mingle well. The Serbs think more like the Russians, while the Croats and the Slovenes, although they are cousins to the Serbs, think more like the Latins. The Croats and the Slovenes rather despise the Serbs for their roughness, and the Serbs look upon the others as weaklings on the way to degeneration. The Croats and the Slovenes are afraid of the domina¬ tion of the Serbs. They would like to have states' rights and maintain only a rather loose allegiance to the nation except in case of war and a few other international mat¬ ters. The Serbs believe in spelling the word ‘"nation" with a big “N," and in the centralization of power. Under the leadership of Nikola Pashitch, their “Grand Old Man," the Serbs gained the ascendancy and they seem likely to make the country a constitutional monarchy as democratic as England. Raditch, the leader of the Croats, is a demagogue and trouble maker, who reminds me somewhat of “Blue Jeans" Williams, “Sockless" Simpson, and others of our pot-house politicians. Raditch is educated and a writer of poetry, but he so plays on the feelings of the Croatian peasants that he has their seventy members of Parliament in the hollow of his hand. He told the peasants if they voted his way they would be obliged neither to pay taxes nor to go to war and that his election would bring the millennium. He has a considerable following among the educated Croats and Slovenes, who feel as he does, although they do not approve of his demagoguery. 164 SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES I have found the Parliament of Yugoslavia more inter¬ esting than were any of the other Congresses I have re¬ cently visited. It has but one house, known as the Narodna Skupstina, or National Assembly, which contains three hundred and thirteen members. The King sum¬ mons it and has the right to dissolve it. Elections are held every four years. Besides the Radical party now in power, the Assembly has representatives of the Social¬ ists, the Croatian Agrarian party, the Serb Agrarians, the Mohammedans, the Catholic Peoples’ party, and other political organizations. The number of parties gives a hint of the somewhat unsettled condition of the country. I visited the National Assembly, and watched it at work. It was a polyglot crowd. There were perhaps two hundred members present, dressed in all sorts of costumes. Many of them wore the peasant’s homespun. Others had on the clothes of the western business man and looked not unlike our Congressmen in Washington. There were per¬ haps a dozen Greek Orthodox priests in their long gown¬ like coats. The Mohammedan members had red fezzes on their heads and looked just like Turks. I saw one with a green turban, the sign that he had been to Mecca. The tall Montenegrins wore blue jackets and baggy trousers. The speaker sat high above the members, with a portrait of the King behind him and an oriental rug over his desk, while below at the right and left sat the Cabinet Ministers. I was especially interested in the voting. According to Yugoslavia’s law, this is done by secret ballot on every bill. As the clerk called the roll each member dropped his ballot in a box. Afterward the boxes were carried to the clerk’s desk where the ballots were taken out and counted. One representative of each of the politi- 165 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST cal parties, making almost a dozen men in all, came up and watched the tellers to see that there was no cheating. When the vote was declared there was great applause. The speeches I heard were in the Serbian language and the speakers shouted and tore the air just as they do in democratic assemblies everywhere. One of the bills the members were talking about con¬ cerned the building of a new railway and I heard the word “Amerikansky’' again and again in the discussion. Plans have been made to connect Belgrade, the capital, with Cattaro on the Adriatic. The length of the trunk line will be about three hundred and eighty miles, but other projects connected with the scheme will bring the total to more than thirteen hundred miles and it will take some years to complete the project. A concession for these roads has been given an American syndicate, which has engaged to lend Yugoslavia the sum of one hundred million dollars for these and other improvements, and as usual in such cases, the arrangement is the subject of almost continual discussion. The new railway is important to the country politically and economically. At present Yugoslavia has no rail outlet to the sea entirely within her own territory. Her trunk lines were all built with a view to benefiting Austria and Hungary rather than Serbia. One road starts at Fiume, which is Italian, and another at Trieste, also a seaport of Italy, while a third, which gives Yugoslavia egress to the Mediterranean at Salonica, runs for about fifty-five miles through Greece. The road will be all Yugoslavian. The main line will start at one of the finest harbours of the Adriatic and wind over the mountains, following the valleys of 166 Night and day, sentries stand guard at the gates of the royal palace in Belgrade, which in the past has been the scene of the murder of more than one ruler of the Serbs. Only a foolhardy American would sample the wares of the ice-cream and soft-drink peddlers of Belgrade, but germs have few terrors for the peasants in for market day and the excitements of the city. SERBS, CROATS, AND SLOVENES two rivers, the Drina and Save, on the way to Belgrade. It will cross the mountains at an altitude of about three thousand feet. Branch lines will be built north and south, and it is intended to bridge the Danube at Belgrade and extend the railway through the rich Banat grain section to connect with the Rumanian system. At Belgrade the line will join the trunk railway from Paris to Constanti¬ nople. Another possibility is the extension of a branch line from Cattaro across southern Serbia to Bulgaria and on into south Russia. This was a part of a plan originated by the Russians long before the World War. No wonder the Yugoslavs are interested in these railway projects. They mean the binding of their nation into a political unit and the consequent reduction of the army through greater facilities for moving troops quickly. But, more important still, these railroads are essential to the economic development of the Kingdom, which, in grain, minerals, and other resources, is one of the richest of all the states of central Europe. 167 CHAPTER XXII PEASANT MAIDS AND PATCHWORK FARMS T his morning we have left the blazing white cap¬ ital of Yugoslavia, have driven past the trenches where the Serbians lay when Belgrade was bom¬ barded, and are now out in the country. Auto¬ mobiles are few and the horses and the oxen pulling the rude farm carts of the country grow frightened and jump this way and that as we pass by. An occasional motor truck crowds us almost off the roadway, and now and then a lot of building material on its way to make the new Serbia brings us to a stop. For instance, the steel rails for the railroad under construction near Belgrade are being hauled over these rough, narrow roads by oxen. The load for each team consists of three rails weighing seventy pounds to the yard laid on the trucks of a farm wagon, the fore and the hind wheels of which are perhaps thirty feet apart. The peasants tramping along move slowly out of our way. They are queer-looking people, sturdy and stolid, independent and self-reliant. They are dressed rn home- spun and both men and women wear the brightest colours. A man may have a jacket under which shows a vest of red, yellow, and blue, woven in stripes or patterns, and his stockings of brown are sometimes a mass of embroidery. The women wear different coloured cloths about their heads and often have on long white coats decorated with i68 PEASANT MAIDS AND PATCHWORK FARMS gay colours and peppered with tinsel spangles. Their skirts are striped in bright red, blue, and other colours, and below them show substantial legs encased in red stockings embroidered like those of the men. Both men and women wear opantsis, home-made shoes with boot-like soles turning up at the toes, and bound on with straps weaving round the legs halfway to the knees. This footgear seems very comfortable. The more picturesque crowds are generally made up of village groups on their way to the city; for the people wear less striking clothing at their farm work. As we ride we take notes of the farms, stopping now and then to watch a gang of women and men at work in the fields or to make snapshots of the boat-like, home-made farm vehicles, as they jolt over the roads. This agricultural area is different from that of Hungary, with its huge estates and its tiny, ribbon-like farms. Here in Serbia most of the farms are mere garden patches. Some are squares, others triangles, and now and then a wide band of land surrounds a square that belongs to another owner. Sometimes the patches will form curves as they follow the slope of a hill. The whole reminds one of a picture puzzle. At present eighty-five per cent, of the population of the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes is engaged in farming, stockbreeding, and fruit growing. The people pride themselves on belonging to the land. Nearly every family is a landholder and a man will do anything rather than part with his farm. The homestead law provides that even if a man becomes bankrupt, he can retain, debt- free, five acres, a pair of oxen, a plough, and his agricultural tools. Another statute that helps the small farmer is an old law requiring every land owner to contribute a part of 169 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST his corn or wheat to a municipal store, from which supplies are lent to the peasants if they need grain for the next planting. A third helpful institution is the village custom of turning out in a body to aid the poor man in cutting his corn and bringing in his harvest. Yugoslavia claims to be first on the continent in raising corn, fifth in growing wheat, and ninth in its crops of rye. It is next to the United States in the production of corn, and ranks seventh among the lands of the world in oats, tenth in barley, and ninth in potatoes. It produces also beet sugar, raw silk, and tobacco. The lands along the Adriatic have almost as many vine¬ yards as those of the Rhine. There are orchards every¬ where yielding apples, pears, peaches, and plums. It is the paradise of Little Jack Horner, for there are more than twenty plum trees for every family in the Kingdom, and the average yield of each tree is about thirty pounds. I have looked at some of the fruit in the markets of Belgrade. It is abundant and of every variety, but it is speckled and spotted and shows evidence of lack of spray¬ ing and scientific culture. The new government is trying to improve this condition, and has established experimental farms and faculties for agriculture at the universities at Zagreb and Belgrade, and there are also three agricultural colleges and nine agricultural schools. Since there are no fences in Serbia the stock grazing in the fields has to be watched. In our motor trip we see cow-maids, sheep-maids, and even pig-maids herding two or three animals on small patches of grass surrounded by grain. Some of the stock feeds on the stubble of the grain fields, not daring to touch the unthreshed shocks of wheat, rye, barley, or oats under their noses. Much of the herding 170 PEASANT MAIDS AND PATCHWORK FARMS is done by old women or very young children. I have taken many pictures of the little ones watching the flocks. The villages here are different from those of the Euro¬ pean countries I have recently visited. Most of the towns of Germany, Switzerland, France, and the other lands of northern Europe consist of houses close to the streets without large yards or gardens. Here the villages are made up of little enclosures, each containing its own group of buildings with fruit trees and gardens about them. The typical holding contains a hut, a hay stack, a banked-over, cave-like cellar, and a granary. The houses are mean, as a rule. Each village has its school house, and in one that I visited last week I found a teacher writing the text of a French lesson on a blackboard for a half-dozen barefooted boys and girls. The percentage of literacy throughout the kingdom is small. In the old Kingdom of Serbia, in Montenegro, and in the parts of the country that did not belong to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a large proportion of the people cannot read and write. But new schools are being started, and the government has a big educational pro¬ gramme. The Minister of Foreign Affairs tells me that since the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed the college students have increased in number from two thousand to twelve thousand, and that universities at Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubliana are all thriving. The University of Belgrade has about eight thousand students, whereas before the war it had only fifteen hundred. The Zagreb University has more than three thousand and the one at Ljubliana has about one thousand. The latter did not even exist before 1920. In the parts of Yugoslavia taken from Austria-Hungary the educational facilities are better than 171 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST in the old Serbia. The Austrians established many public schools and all kinds of academies and colleges. Under their regime the young men went to Budapest or Vienna for their higher education. It is hoped they will now come to Belgrade. The Hungarians are better farmers than the Serbs, the Croats, or the Slovenes, and the parts of the new kingdom taken from Hungary are much better tilled than the lands through which I have recently motored. The great con¬ trast is seen as soon as one crosses the Save River. In old Serbia the division of the land into small tracts makes the use of agricultural machinery less practicable than where the farms are bigger. The yield of grain is lower than in the areas belonging to Hungary, and the rolling nature of the region makes for greater waste. Here and there are signs of earth-washing, which might be controlled by more scientific cultivation. Some of the best lands of Hungary were given to Serbia, and there is no richer tract in the world than that along the Danube between the new frontier and Belgrade. The moment I went over the new boundary line on the train, 1 could see a difference in prosperity. In the present Hungary there are but few new buildings. That land was ruined by the war and by the fall of exchange. It has no money for repairs and the towns and the cities are shabby. But crossing into Yugoslavia, I noticed the red tiles of new roofs standing out everywhere on the landscape. There was more activity about the stations. There were new cars on the railways, and the locomotives seemed to burn better coal. At every crossroads wagons loaded with hogs, hay, or grain were waiting for the train to pass, and the shocks of wheat and oats peppering 172 PEASANT MAIDS AND PATCHWORK FARMS the landscape showed the natural wealth of the new Kingdom. There is current throughout the valley of the Danube a superstition that the harvest will not prosper unless the sheaves are shocked in the form of a cross. Accordingly, they are not stood on end and capped as with us, but are stacked up so that every pile is an emblem of the crucifix on which our Saviour died. The heads of the sheaves come together at the centre, meeting there in four piles, three sheaves to each pile, and making a perfect Greek cross. Rye, oats, and barley are shocked in the same way. In Hungary the population is Roman Catholic, and the shocks there seem to me to look more like the Roman cross. In Yugoslavia we also saw more and more livestock. It was strange to see hogs that grew wool, but I saw several droves of these animals with such curly hair that, were it not for their noses, they might have been sheep. Their tails were, however, more like those of horses, having long curling hairs so numerous that one would make a good fly brush. The breed is one well known here and it might be a good thing to introduce it into America. ^73 CHAPTER XXIII ATHENS The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung. Where grew the arts of war and peace. Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! — Byron. I HAVE come from Yugoslavia to Greece, going over the railroad to Salonica, where the Yugoslavs have been granted the use of the port for the next fifty years. There I took a Greek steamer and made my way through the /Tgean Sea and its many islands to the harbour of the Piraeus. 1 motored the five miles from the sea to Athens over a road as fine as any in Massachusetts. As I write I can look over the ancient city that Milton describes as Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence. Athens is still the eye of Greece. During my stay I have visited the Parliament House, and it is still the mother of eloquence. As to art, the new Athens has many magnificent buildings made of the marble of Mount Pentel- icus just as were the Parthenon, the Temple of Jupiter, the Temple of Theseus, and other famous ruins. The modern city is built of marble. Some of the sidewalks are paved with it, and the great Stadium, which stands on the site of the ancient Stadion of more than three 174 The Serbs are an independent and self-reliant people. The bulk of them live on the land and almost every peasant cultivates his own freehold in about the same manner as did his fathers before him. The mighty rock of the Acropolis, rising more than two hundred feet above the plain of Athens, is crowned with the ruins of the temples that won for the city the name of “Mother of the Arts.” ATHENS hundred years before Christ, is of the same beautiful Stone. The city is thus wrapped in the glamour of the historic past. Yet it has all the spirit and enterprise of the liv¬ ing present. Under the rule of the Turks it dwindled to a shabby town of ten thousand or so. As soon as the Greeks gained their independence it began to grow, and when I first visited it, about forty years ago, it had one hundred thousand inhabitants. Twenty years later, when I saw it once more, that population had doubled, and to-day it has almost doubled again. At the present rate of progress it will soon have one million, and it is already larger than was old Athens in the height of its glory. It is well- built, with wide asphalt streets and every modern improve¬ ment. One can now ride in a taxi over the ground that Alcibiades traversed in his seven-horse chariot, and an electric trolley will carry you in the footsteps of Demos¬ thenes. The whistle of the locomotive bringing in the train from Thebes and Corinth reverberates against the time-coloured marble pillars of the Parthenon, which com-^ mands the city as it did nearly twenty-five hundred years ago in the golden age of Pericles. Athens is partly on and partly off the site of the ancient city. It is on the edge of a plain with the Acropolis ris¬ ing upward sheer two hundred feet at its back and the low mountain of Hymettus at one side. Near this are other mountains and across the plain are the blue waters of the Mediterranean. From the Acropolis one can see the plains of Marathon where the Greeks under Miltiades de¬ feated the Persian hosts, and away to the west lies the Bay of Salamis where Xerxes, the Persian King, watched his thousand war vessels being destroyed by the Greek fleet. 175 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST Only a stone's throw from the Acropolis is Mars' Hill, which hangs out like a cliflF, forming a pulpit. There stood St. Paul and declared the religion of the Unknown God, and it was there that the Court of the Areopagus tried and convicted Demosthenes for bribery. The poppy flowers mixed with the wheat are of the same blood- red as when Plato sat among them and taught philosophy, and the dark hemlock of the hills is as green as when it furnished the poison for the fatal cup of Socrates. The wild thyme on the rocky, silver-gray sides of Mt. Hymettus furnishes as sweet honey to-day as when the Greek poets sang its praises, and the marble of the modern sculptor is almost identical with that from which Phidias and Praxiteles wrought their glorious statues. There is no better place to study old Greece than right here in Athens. One imbibes the spirit of the ancients in tramping over the hills where they lived. One sees their wonderful works in the museums, meets with their portraits in the statues, and from the ruins scattered al¬ most everywhere rebuilds the famed structures of the past. Take the Parthenon, the remains of which lie on the Acropolis, on the very edge of modern Athens. It was built upon a solid rock of pink marble, that forms a plateau of about ten or fifteen acres. This space is now covered with ruins, but a large portion of the great edifice still stands. I went over it to-day and made photographs of some of the columns, discovering queer things about its construction. One is that the building was partly a graft. The columns on the outside are of excellent marble, and they stand well to-day. Those within another part, which could not be seen, were backed with inferior stone, and the marble there is now rotting away. 176 ATHENS I wish I could show you the Parthenon. Everyone has read of it, but, without seeing it, none can possibly compre¬ hend just how wonderful it is. Imagine a forest of marble columns rising from a marble floor nearly an acre in area. Let each column have the diameter of a cartwheel and let it rise to the height of a three-story house in the most symmetrical form of artistic beauty. Let it be fluted and let the capitals, rich in their plain Doric grace, uphold a wall of marble adorned with a frieze of exquisite carvings, and you have the skeleton of the building. The in¬ terior contains other columns that support the roof, and the whole forms a temple that was regarded as the most beautiful of the known world. The Parthenon, what remains of it, is visible for miles around Athens. It is the first thing seen on approach¬ ing the Piraeus, and it stands out far above the plain upon which the city lies. A great part of the building has been carried away and its most beautiful carvings are in the British Museum. They were taken there many years ago by Lord Elgin, who got a permit from the Turkish Sultan authorizing him to ''remove a few blocks of stone from Athens to England.'' The cost of the transportation of those few blocks was one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, from which you can see that shiploads must have been carried away. This shrine to the Goddess Athene, or Minerva, was begun about twenty-four hundred years ago. Within it was the statue of the goddess made by Phidias. It was of gold and ivory and was forty-two and one half feet in height. It is supposed that the inner kernel of the figure was of wood, upon which the form of the Athene was modelled in some plastic material and that this in turn was 177 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST covered with plates of ivory and gold. The ivory formed the nude portions of the figure, while the gold represented the garments. The value of the gold in the statue was about three quarters of a million dollars. There is a marble imitation of this statue in the National Museum at Athens. It is a pigmy, however, in comparison with the great statue of the Parthenon, being only three and one half feet in height. The Greeks of the present are intensely proud of the Greece of the past. They read the classics, and the lan¬ guage they speak is practically the same as that of Homer and Demosthenes. But these modern Greeks are even more vitally interested in the affairs of the day. Every one of them regards his country as the pivot upon which turns the Near East. They consider themselves a superior people and believe their nation destined for a great future. Indeed, they seem to think the world revolves about them. A popular poet of Cephalonia wrote: In the beginning, God created Cephalonia and the rest of the world. The people are natural politicians. Every boy thinks of himself as a statesman of the future and begins to talk politics before he is ready for shaving. He keeps it up all his life and a large part of every afternoon is spent by the men sitting about the cafe tables out in the streets, or in the parks, discussing the world situation and the part that Greece must have in it. Modern Greece is just about as large as the state of Ohio. It consists of a jagged peninsula stretching down into the Mediterranean, with the Ionian Sea on the west and the /Egean on the east. It has as many islands as the St. Lawrence between Lake Ontario and 178 ATHENS Montreal, and it is mountainous from one end to the other. The country lies in about the same latitude as our Atlantic coast between New York and North Carolina, and its cli¬ mate is much like that of southern California. It is bounded on the north by Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Turkey, and, in the words of Strabo, the Greek geographer who declared two thousand years ago that the earth is round: '‘The sea presses upon it at all parts with a thousand arms.’' Only about two fifths of the country can be cultivated. Much of it is so dry that it needs irrigation. There are but few minerals of impor¬ tance, but the waterfalls are being harnessed and manu¬ facturing is increasing. The Greeks are famous for their merchant marine. In the Piraeus and at Salonica you may see scores of their vessels which go to every port of the Mediterranean. For years the Piraeus was connected with Athens by two long walls which protected the passage between the city and the sea. Now the whole way is planted with trees, which shade the trolley line and overhang the boulevard built and given to the country by a wealthy citizen. This gift is characteristic of the public spirit of the modern Greeks. Every Greek who makes money wants to do something for his city or his country. The Stadion was restored by a Greek who made a fortune in business in Alexandria, and nearly all the public buildings of Athens were gifts from wealthy citizens. In this respect the Greeks are much like us, and in marked contrast with their former rulers, the Turks. The Turk cares nothing for his city and never gives anything for a public improvement. Nowadays Greece is the land of the rich. No country in the world has so large a proportion of wealthy men, 179 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST though the masses of the people have little or nothing. Most of the rich Greeks make their money outside their own country, but after they have accumulated their for¬ tunes they love to return home and build themselves marble palaces and play the role of the philanthropist. In a single valley, I am told, there are forty estates, the owner of each of which is worth five million dollars or more. Before Turkey made herself a republic, the Greeks used to control most of the business of Constantinople. They had also built up at Smyrna one of the largest trading centres of the Mediterranean, and since the days of the Pharaohs they have formed the wealthiest class in Alexan¬ dria and Cairo. They have banking houses in every important city on the Mediterranean. As a people, they are shrewd traders, and it is a saying in this part of the world that it takes two Jews to beat a Greek in a deal, but two Greeks are hardly a match for one Armenian. We in America have abundant evidence of the way the Greeks take to trade and money-making, as they now run most of our boot-black establishments and own a large proportion of our fruit stores, lunchrooms, and cheap restaurants. The last time I was in Athens, hundreds of boys were being shipped to America under contract to owners of chains of shoe-shining shops in the United States. The wages of most of them came back to their parents in Greece, and remittances from Greeks in our country continue to form an important part of the income of the people here. Thousands of refugees from Asia Minor were sheltered in a town of hundreds of houses built with money raised by popular subscription among the Greeks in America. Through the operation of our quota law, only two or three thousand Greek immigrants are now i8o ATHENS admitted each year, but several times that number would like to get in. Nowadays, too, it is illegal for immigrants to come over under contract to employers to this country. Many of the Greeks who had gone to America were summoned home at the time of the World War. Thou¬ sands of others have returned here to spend the money gained in America, which conversion into drachmas at recent rates of exchange makes an impressive total of even a modest sum. 1 have met many of these semi- Americanized Greeks, who do not make me exactly proud of what my country has done for them. The other day I had a chauffeur who swears so much in the style he ac¬ quired in an Oregon lumber camp that he is known among his mates as ''Mr. Goddam.'' Every time he indulged in Anglo-Saxon profanity, he looked at me as if expecting admiration for his command of the language. The village of Megara, about forty miles from Athens, has two thousand people who have been in America. On the long main street is a cafe owned by a Greek who used to live in Seattle. He has adorned the walls with Ameri¬ can flags and pictures of himself at work in a shipyard, and proudly displays a number of Liberty bonds to every American he meets. There is another returned Greek there, now the owner of a big olive orchard, but once the president of a miners' union in Colorado. Although the Athenians think they knowall about every¬ thing, at the same time they are eager to get more educa¬ tion. They are also great newspaper readers. Everybody reads at least one newspaper every day, and each copy passes from hand to hand until it has been devoured by five or six people. There are fifteen dailies publishediin Athens, of which the largest has only fifteen thousand circulation. i8i THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST These sheets are mostly given up to politics. As in the days of St. Paul, the Athenians are always looking for some new thing, and are anxious to get excited about it. In the cities the great gossiping hour is just after sun¬ set. Crowds come out and settle down at the cafe tables. Here in Athens the centre of this sort of thing is in the square in front of the old palace, where an acre or more is covered with the tables of the four great cafes that occupy the corners. There one may see statesmen and politicians, officers and soldiers, young men and their sweethearts, and often whole families. Many of the peo¬ ple regularly spend the evening from six until nine at a cafe, then go home or to a restaurant for dinner, and come back for more coffee and talk until midnight or after. These crowds are made up of well-dressed, intelligent-looking people. They are also good natured; I am greeted every¬ where with smiles and have seen but few scowls. These modern Greeks pride themselves on belonging to the old Hellenic race, but as a matter of fact they are about as much of a mixture as we Americans. There are dark Greeks and fair Greeks; some with blue eyes and others with black. Only occasionally do I see one who seems to belong to the ancient type. Many of the young women have broad, low foreheads, straight noses, and chins and throats so beautifully rounded that they might have been carved by Praxiteles. The other day, at the Phaleron bathing beach, near the Piraeus, I saw some girls with second toes the same length as the first, which is a notable characteristic of many of the ancient Greek statues. Some of the Greeks look like Jews, which they may well be, for thousands of Hebrews came here when expelled from Spain the year after Columbus discovered America. 182 Imagine a forest of fluted columns rising from a marble floor, and upholding a wall of marble adorned with a frieze of exquisite carvings, and you will have an idea of the Parthenon, once the world’s most beautiful temple. The guards before the palace are dressed m the old Greek national costume, with full skirts, blue-tasselled fezzes, long white stockings, and red shoes with blue tufts on their turned-up toes. CHAPTER XXIV THE KINGS OF GREECE Kings are like stars^—they rise and set, they have The worship of the world, but no repose. T hese words of Shelley fit well the kings of Greece, and especially George 11 , with whom I had a talk while he was a star in the imperial constel¬ lation of Europe. To-day, by an act of parlia¬ ment confirmed by vote of the people, Greece is a republic, and George has been banished after a brief reign. ..He is living with his celebrated mother-in-law. Queen Marie of Rumania. The star of George H rose on September 27, 1922, when he succeeded to the throne on the forced ab¬ dication of his father, Constantino I, who was elected after the assassination of his father, George I. His star is now behind the clouds, but whether it has really set remains for the politicians to decide. In Greece revolutions spring up like mushrooms, and another turn of Fortune’s wheel may give him back his throne. Greece was a kingdom for almost one hundred years. It won its independence from Turkey about the time Andrew Jackson was serving his first term as President of the United States. The first king was chosen through the guarantee of the three then greatest Powers, Great Britain, France, and Russia, and the man selected was Otto, the second son of the King of Bavaria. He came to 183 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST the throne at the age of eighteen and reigned for twenty- nine years, before he was expelled by the people. That was when Abraham Lincoln was president and we were in the midst of the Civil War. Then the three Powers made another selection and guaranteed the throne to a son of the royal family of Denmark, which had long been breeding kings and queens for Europe. The man chosen was George 1 , the second son of the King of Denmark, and he reigned over Greece for more than fifty years. He was on the throne when 1 first visited Athens and I then had an interview with him in the royal palace, to which 1 refer farther on in this chapter. I met him again here twenty years later, not long before he was assassinated at Salonica. King George 1 was succeeded by his son, Constantino, who reigned from 1913 to 1917, when he was deposed and his second son, Alexandros, was chosen. About three years later Alexandros died and Constantino was taken back, only to be expelled again in 1922. Constantino went to Switzerland where he soon died, and George II ascended the throne. It was during his brief rule that I talked with him here in Athens. My interviews with King George I took place in the old palace on Constitution Square. It is now occupied by the officials of the Near East Relief, the American organ¬ ization of which I hear nothing but praise in my travels in this part of the world. My audience with King George 11 was in a new building erected in the old palace grounds, just in the rear of the former home of the king. It is an unostentatious but beautiful stone structure, surrounded by a great park, although it is right in the heart of the city. Soldiers in the ballet skirts of the ancient Greek uniform 184 THE KINGS OF GREECE stood at the gate and saluted as we went by. Entering, we came into a hall that would not be considered magnificent in any millionaire’s house in the States. A servant clad in a modest uniform took our hats and hung them up on a rack near the entrance. We walked alone up the white marble stairs to the main floor, and waited in a home¬ like parlour which had none of the stiffness of the usual waiting rooms of royalty. The palace has perhaps forty rooms. It is simply furnished, the paintings are modern, and some of the decorations would not be out of place in the country home of a well-to-do American. For instance, I noticed a centre table covered with an Indian cotton cloth such as might be bought for two dollars in any department store. The chairs had on summer suits of blue gingham, and the walls were kalsomined in light blue. A very ordinary electric chandelier hung from the ceiling. George II is simple in his tastes and always preferred his country home, known as ''Tatoi,” situated about twenty-five miles from Athens. The palace in the city is the property of the nation, but the estate of ''Tatoi” was bought by King George I, this young man’s grandfather, and was run as a farm as well as a royal place of residence. ''Tatoi” has excellent soil, and George I had large vine¬ yards from which he made wine that found a ready market in Athens. The estate is not far from Marathon, where the invading Persians were defeated by the Athenians in 490 B.C. There is a fairly good motor road from there to Athens, over which I understand Alexandros, who was King from 1917 to 1920, could make the trip to his palace here in twenty-five minutes. King Alexandros was fa¬ mous as a motorist. While a prince he was honorary 185 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST president of the Chauffeurs' Union in Paris, and later was wont to drive down University Street in Athens at fifty miles an hour. He was democratic in his tastes, and considered the ''king job” a kind of amusement. You may remember that he died of blood poisoning caused by the bite of his pet monkey. But to return to the palace. I had waited but a short time when the High Court Chamberlain, a plainly dressed man, appeared and asked me to come with him. We walked together across the hall and entered the library where, at a desk, with photographs of his father, mother, and grandfather facing him, sat a young man of thirty- two. It was His Majesty, George H, King of Greece. He rose as I entered, the High Court Chamberlain in¬ troduced me, and His Majesty gave me a cordial shake of the hand, motioning me to a seat at his side. The presen¬ tation was about the same as that one would have to any business man, and the dress of the King struck the same note of simplicity. He wore a business suit of Scotch tweed, and his soft white collar was held tight to a black knit silk four-in-hand tie by a gold pin. I have a pin much like it that cost me three dollars. His shoes were of tan, and his only jewellery consisted of two rings on the fin¬ gers of his left hand. One of these was a gold wedding ring. As we talked I had a good chance to study the King. His appearance was pleasing. I saw a well-set-up, healthy young man about five feet eight inches tall. His features were strong, his hair was dark, and his eyes were as blue as the skies over his palace. He was cordial in his greeting and smiled as he talked. He had no man¬ nerisms whatsoever, and he impressed me as being modest 186 THE KINGS OF GREECE and forceful. Our conversation was in English, and His Majesty spoke without reserve. Among the subjects discussed were the difficulties of Greece in looking after the million odd refugees forced out of Smyrna and other parts of the old Turkish Empire. King George said he wanted to thank the United States for its aid in their care. He said Greece could eventually absorb all its refugees, and that their young blood would add much to the strength of the nation. I asked him about farming conditions. He replied that the crops of Greece could be greatly increased by intensive cultivation and more irrigation. The climate and the soil of this country, he said, are much like those of Cali¬ fornia. He referred to what the navel orange has done for southern California, saying that the Greeks had re¬ cently imported cuttings of that tree and were going to try them out in different parts of the country. In the course of our conversation I said: “Your Majesty, may I ask a personal question?'' “What is that?" he said. “I should like to have Your Majesty tell me frankly how you like your job." A look of disgust came over the face of the young mon¬ arch as he replied: “ I loathe it. 1 hate it. I despise it. I would like to be free from it, but how can I help it?" “It would not be hard, perhaps, to find someone who would change places with you," said I. “Let him come forth and I will give him the chance!" said the King. “How about yourself? I will give you my job and take yours, which seems to me much more interesting." 187 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST It was shortly after this that the King lost his job and departed from Athens almost in tears. When I read the news, I was glad I still held my job. King George married Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Queen Marie and King Ferdinand of Rumania. It was a love match. The two met in Switzerland, when he had no hope of ever becoming king; they fell in love, George popped the question, and Elizabeth said “Yes.'' Their marriage was simple and their wedded life now is as domes¬ tic and retired as that of our grandmothers and grand¬ fathers in the days of the Puritans. They love each other and there has never been a breath of scandal connected with either. I don't know how much money George 11 was able to lay by while he was King, but his grandfather, George I, was rich. Greece gave him two hundred and seventy thousand dollars a year, and in addition Russia, Great Britain, and France each paid him twenty thousand an¬ nually. From a royal standpoint, living in Greece was not expensive, and George I, who was an investor and a speculator, should have laid up a fortune in the fifty years of his reign. I met King George I when he was in his prime. He was the most democratic of monarchs, and this seems to have been a characteristic of the whole royal family. King George and Queen Olga—she was, you know, a niece of Alexander 11 , Emperor of Russia—were fond of strolling about Athens and stopping on the streets to chat with their friends. They liked the Americans and many of our prom¬ inent citizens were entertained at their family table. The King was accustomed to take trips through the country and talk with the farmers. On such occasions i88 THE KINGS OF GREECE he wore no sign of his rank and had no trouble in getting opinions, for every Greek peasant has decided views as to how not only Athens but the whole world should be run. Greece was never a monarchy in the arbitrary or tyran¬ nical sense of the word. Its kings were mere figureheads and the people have ruled to a great extent. The Greek republics of ancient times were usually cities with a few dozen square miles of territory about them. The vote was limited to the free citizens, and these were so few that they could all be addressed in the open air. The republics of that time had no civil service, and there were no organized political parties. There was more graft then than there is now, and to take a bribe was hardly con¬ sidered disgraceful. Athens was full of demagogues, and most of them were willing to sell their souls for votes. Politics in Greece to-day are far less corrupt than they used to be. The country is now ruled, as it has been ever since it threw off the yoke of Turkey, by the National Parliament, called the Buie. This consists of but one chamber, to which members are elected by popular vote for the term of four years. The constitution also provides for a Coun¬ cil of State, which is something like our Senate, though it has much less power. The Buie has three hundred and sixty-nine members, divided just now among five parties. They get only eight hundred dollars a year, and are fined if they are absent from more than five sittings a month. All Greece is divided into departments, each of which is under a governor appointed by the ministry of Athens and sends representatives to the national assembly. On election days, each candidate has his own ballot box with his photograph on top, and he can be present and 189 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST watch the proceedings if he wishes. All citizens whose names are on the voting list are handed as many buck¬ shot as there are places to be filled. The ballot boxes are divided into two compartments, a white one labelled “yes ” and a black one marked “no.'' The voter thrusts his arm through a hole in the top, so that no one can tell into which compartment he finally drops his shot. Wives of candi¬ dates often help their husbands in the campaign, and I have heard of one woman who won the vote of a whole village by distributing free tickets for a trip to Athens. The opening of Parliament is a great social event. The ministers attend in full evening dress, and the dignitaries of the Orthodox Church are present in their black robes and high hats. After the preliminaries are over, the Premier and the Archbishop go to a table in the centre of the hall, on which is a gold vessel filled with holy water. The Archbishop holds out a cross which the Premier kisses. The Archbishop dips an olive sprig in the water and strikes the Premier on the brow with it. The other ministers of state go through the same ceremony. The sessions of the Greek Parliament are often lively affairs, especially in the last few years when the country has had so many ups and downs with rapid changes of governments and kings. Violent speeches are not uncom¬ mon and sometimes lead to disorder within the Chamber itself, and may even result in members meeting outside to fight duels. There are twenty-five hundred years of Athens in this picture. The temples on the Acropolis were the product of classic times; the ruined arch marks the period of Roman domination, while the houses and the peddler are of the Athens of to-day. Greek monasteries are required by law to entertain the traveller, a decree cheerfully obeyed by the monks, who are hospitable and kindly. While the monks are celibates, the parish priests of the Greek Catholic Church are allowed to marry. CHAPTER XXV MOTORING THROUGH THE LAND OF HOMER R iding over Greece one sees how slowly the old gives way to the new. Here and there on the large estates I have seen American tractors and ' other farm machinery, and in the drained Lake Kopais district tobacco and cotton are now grown by scientific methods. In the smaller valleys, however, and almost everywhere in Greece, the soil is tilled as it was in the days of Homer. The same sort of plough is used as those carved on the temple frescoes, and the grain is still cut with the sickle and bound by hand. Threshing is done with flails and by driving horses and oxen over the grain. The women and children winnow it by throwing it into the air. Like many other countries of eastern Europe, Greece is cutting up her large estates in order to provide lands for the people, but these small farms are not so efficiently cultivated and the harvest is small. I find that this clinging to the old fashions lends a special enjoyment to journeys along the dusty highways of Greece. When I see the people at work with their crude ploughs and their ancient flails I think to myself that here are scenes exactly like those Hesiod had before him when he wrote his poems of the soil. During my drive by motor from Athens to Delphi every foot of the way reminded me of the Hellas of the past and of the names 191 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST and deeds of the great ones that have come down to our day. 1 got some gasoline at Amphissa, where Philip H of Macedon stopped in his conquest of Greece, and we changed a tire in ancient Thebes, the home of Pindar, the poet. I asked at Thebes about Pindar, but the modern Greeks could not show me the site of his birthplace, and I looked in vain for any remains of the Sphinx or the Theban republic that vied with Sparta and Athens for suprem¬ acy in ancient Hellas. The Thebes of to-day has only a few thousand people. Under the great trees along the main street were piles of vegetables, baskets of grain, and other farm produce. The people work out in the street, and I saw cobblers pegging shoes in the shade. , The country surrounding Thebes has excellent soil and is a fair sample of what one finds in the plains and the valleys. 1 had always imagined that Greece was all mountains, with farms, perhaps, in the wedge-shaped crevices where the hills came together. This and other trips have given me a different idea. There are many broad flat valleys, with here and there plains of considerable size. About one fifth of Greece is under cultivation and there are more than a million acres covered with olive groves and vine¬ yards. More land is devoted to wheat raising than to any other one crop, while one of the most valuable is tobacco, much of which goes into American cigarettes. Just now many of the tobacco fields are in the blossom. There are great white seed bolls on the tall stalks, and the people are picking off the fine leaves and hanging them up to dry. The chief tree one sees in motoring over the country 192 MOTORING THROUGH THE LAND OF HOMER is the olive. The trees live a long time, and the Greeks say: “ If you would plant for yourself only, set out grapevines; if you would plant for your children, choose the fig tree; but if you would plant for your great-grandchildren, the olive is the thing that will do.” There are thirty-three different varieties of olive trees, and of these, thirty grow well in Greece. In some seasons the oil output is twelve million gallons and the exports are sometimes worth three million dollars a year. The crop varies according to the soil and the season, and the man who gets two good crops out of five does well. I was once here during the harvest. It lasts for weeks, and the women and children do much of the work. On the island of Crete the olive harvest is the gayest time of the year, for the girls then have more freedom, and lovemaking thrives. Some of the olives are gathered green for pick¬ ling, but those used for oil are generally shaken or beaten from the branches, falling upon cloths laid under the trees. The workers are often paid in kind, about two sevenths of the oil going to them. I have seen many groves of these low, squatty trees. They looked ragged and gnarly, each having a rough silver trunk with a huge, wide-branching brush on the top. The trees are carefully trimmed and the ground around them is cultivated with the plough and the hoe. Some of the groves are irrigated. The leaves are pale green and, like all of the vegetation of this limestone land, are almost always covered with dust. The dust is characteristic of Greece. The same sort of limestone rock as that from which the ancient statues were 193 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST made crops out here and there all over the country. The roads are surfaced with this rock, which the traffic grinds up into a dust as fine as flour and of almost the same col¬ our. The trees become covered with it, and the grass and flowers are sprinkled with frosted silver. One's face soon looks like a miller's. Every hotel keeps a bootblack at the door to wipe off the shoes of new arrivals. The whole country has a dusty look, and every automobile raises a cloud that trails behind it like the smoke of a locomotive. Between May and September no rain falls, but in spring and fall the land blooms with flowers and remains green all winter. The roads of Greece are comparatively good, but they are so white and glaring in the bright sunlight that in motoring I always keep on my goggles, and so dusty that I wear the long linen duster common in our country when automobiles first came into use. Many of the highways show good engineering. They climb the mountains, zig¬ zagging this way and that in great loops, and afford fine views of the green olive groves and white villages in the valleys below. Some of them were made for military purposes and were trod by the armies of Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon. Most of the ploughing is done by oxen, and the crops are usually carried from thefields on the backs of farm animals. As I rode across the basin of Lake Kopais I was stopped often by donkeys and mules laden with corn. Each had six corn shocks fastened to its sides by ropes over the back and around the belly, and as they walked they resembled a whole cornfield going off upon legs. In Greece, horses, donkeys, and mules have the place taken by women in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The 194 MOTORING THROUGH THE LAND OF HOMER women here sometimes ride on the loads and sometimes walk behind, driving the animals before them. There are no geese such as I noticed in the lands of the Danube, but, instead, flocks of hundreds of little black goats scamper over the hillsides. I saw many of the homes of the farmers, who live in vil¬ lages strung along the roadside and go out into the fields to work. During the summer many of them sleep out of doors. Their houses are small and mean in comparison with the homes of the peasants of Germany or France, but under the bright summer skies they do not look so squalid as they would elsewhere. They are often wretched huts of stone or sun-dried brick, with the windows un¬ glazed, and no chimneys. The doors are of stone and fre¬ quently an open fire is used for cooking. The houses have little furniture and no modern conveniences, and the peo¬ ple make no attempt to brighten them with flowers or anything green. Clothes are usually washed at the streams, although in Thebes there are municipal washtubs of concrete, fed by cold water. The women stand out in the street as they launder their clothes. In the better cultivated parts of the country, where there are often two- story houses, the people sometimes live in the second story reached by a stairway from the outside, and use the ground floor as a stable. Many of the peasants spin and weave all the wool, flax, and cotton needed for their clothing. Although the looms are very primitive, the woolen and silk cloths made on them are often beautiful. In some parts of Greece the women use little hand cotton gins to separate the fibres from the seeds. They dye their cloth in bright colours and often spin it out in the courtyards or streets. 195 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST Out in the country, goats’ milk cheese and dried olives largely take the place of meat. The people eat bread and vegetables, and they drink wine. Olive oil is used instead of butter. Beef is practically unknown to the farmers. Easter is the great Thanksgiving Day, when roast lamb is substituted for our turkey. One of the delicious dishes often served is pilaf, a stew of rice and chicken, sometimes with raisins mixed in. The country is as famous for its honey as in ancient times when that of Hymettus was prized throughout the classical world. All Greek honey has a fine flavour, supposed to come from the thyme which grows everywhere in this country. An American woman I have met here, who has made a fortune in bee-keeping in the United States, tells me there is no land upon earth that has so many honey flowers as Greece. She thinks this country might supply all Europe with honey if its apiaries were managed according to modern methods. As it is now, the hives are mere baskets plastered with mud, and the bees are smoked out when the honey is taken. Many are killed, and the comb is so crudely removed that most of the honey must be strained for the market. Greece is a land of fine fruits. It has oranges, lemons, and figs, and peaches as rosy as the Elbertas of Georgia. The melons would make a darky’s mouth water, and the white grapes are as large and delicious as those of Malaga. The chief money crop, however, is a grape the size of a marrowfat pea. It is so small that it is known as a currant. Indeed the word ‘‘currant” comes from “Corinth.” At the time of Christ the city was the main shipping point for these little grapes, which thus got the name of Corinth grapes or currant grapes. To-day the chief shipments are from Patras, a little port farther west. 196 MOTORING THROUGH THE LAND OF HOMER It is hard to estimate the richness of that part of Greece. The reddish brown soil shines like velvet under the rays of the sun. I rode for miles through vineyards of low vines which are cut back from year to year. In the winter they are nothing but stumps as thick as my leg and as high as my knee. They put out new sprouts every spring and in summer are one bed of green. In good seasons the yield is almost two hundred million tons. Of late it has been so great that the exporters have restricted production to keep up prices. Within the last year more than six thou¬ sand acres of vines were uprooted for this reason. The currant grape is seedless and as sweet as sugar. It is sold as a raisin, being used all over the world for cakes and puddings. In some years we take as much as twenty million pounds. The cultivation is carried on in sixty thousand vineyards by peasant proprietors who do all the work by hand. In January the roots of the vines are uncovered so that they can get air. In March, when the green shoots are about a foot long and the buds begin to appear on the stems, the soil is again levelled. After the blossoms have fallen, the bark is so cut that the sap does not run down the stem but goes into the fruit, increas¬ ing its size and quality. The grapes are gathered about the end of July, carried to the drying grounds, and spread out in the sun. After that they are picked from the stems, cleaned and sorted, and shipped to the markets. The business is profitable, good grape land often selling for five hundred dollars an acre. 1 wish I could lift up a half-dozen Greek farmers by the napes of their necks and drop them down into the heart of St. Louis or Boston. In their Sunday dress one could hardly tell, except for their beards, whether they were 197 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST women or men. They seem to be clad for the stage rather than for the field, and they might pose as ballet dancers. They wear knee breeches and leggings, above which are several short white skirts that stand out from the body like those of the lady bareback rider in the circus. A vest, richly embroidered, reaches to the waist, and a fez tops the outfit. The shoes are of red leather turned up at the toes like old-fashioned skates, and have fat red woollen tassels at the tips. The costumes of the Greek country women vary accord¬ ing to the locality. A common field dress is of linen homespun falling from the neck almost to the feet. Over this is worn a sleeveless sacque of white wool which reaches to the thighs. The headgear is a knit or felt cap of bright red, or perhaps a coloured handkerchief. The farm girls are uniformly straight, due, it may be, to the heavy burdens which they carry on their heads. They are intelligent, industrious, and thrifty, and they add to the earnings of the farm by their home industries. Every girl is expected to spin, weave, and embroider her own wedding gown, which has a linen skirt so loaded with silk that it may weigh a couple of pounds. In some parts of Greece the farmer’s daughter, when she is married, is supposed to bring a trousseau of at least three costumes. One is for everyday wear, one for Sundays, and the other for festivals. At the wedding, these and the rest of her dowry are borne to the church on the back of a mule. As the married couple leave the church their friends throw candies at them. At the house of the groom the man enters first and shuts the door. The bride then smears the closed door with honey and throws a ripe pomegranate at it. If the pomegranate 198 Wood is so scarce in Greece that roots and branches are carefully gathered for fuel. For the most part Greek agriculture is quite backward; much of the ploughing is done by oxen, while the crops are usually carried from the fields on the backs of animals. The modern Greeks are born politicians and spend a large part of their afternoons sitting about cafe tables discussing the world situation and the part Greece must have in setting it right. When a modern Greek makes a fortune he wants to do something for his country or his native city. Athens owes the re-building of the ancient Stadium to the gift of a great merchant prince. A series of hermits spent fifty years of their lives on top of one of the columns of the Temple of Zeus, not far from the Acropolis. They sub¬ sisted on food pulled up in baskets from below. MOTORING THROUGH THE LAND OF HOMER breaks and the seeds stick in the honey, it is a sign that her married life will be happy. As the pomegranate strikes the door, the husband opens it and offers his bride bread and salt. She dips the bread into the salt and eats it, and then touches some water and oil. After this the husband lifts her inside the house and puts her in a corner with her back against the wall. She stays there without speaking while the man and his friends are eating the wedding feast, and it is not until the last guest leaves that she may make herself at home. This is probably the one time of her life when every Xantippe is silent. 199 CHAPTER XXVI DIGGING UP OLD GREECE I AM on the spot that the ancients called “The Navel of the Earth.” Almost under my feet was the den of Pytho, the serpent oracle, slain by the sun god, Apollo; and I can throw a piece of marble from a broken statue or column into a hole in the rocks that may have been the mouth of the oracle of Delphi. It was the oracle that made the city of Delphi, which is now represented by the ruins about me. It was consulted by the leaders of the republics of Greece on all matters of moment, such as the making of laws, the beginning of wars, and the rise and fall of nations and men. Alexander the Great believed in it; Philip of Macedon bowed down before it; and Solon, the lawgiver, Pindar the poet, and Plato the wise man, all spoke of it with respect. I drove the one hundred and fifty miles between Athens and Delphi in an American motor-car. In ancient times everyone walked or rode on horses or in chariots. They went up from the Gulf of Corinth on foot, for chariots could not climb the steep mountain. Delphi is situated on the slope of Mount Parnassus, as high up as the top of the Blue Ridge, and the mountain rises above it for another mile or more. A good automobile road now winds up to Kastri, a town near the site of the Oracle City. I am writing this in the midst of the ruins. The Gulf of 200 DIGGING UP OLD GREECE Corinth is more than two thousand feet below me, and the land drops in terraces until it is lost in the water. To my left in the valley I can see a gray-green olive grove, its thousands of trees skirting the sea; and all about me are the remains of ancient temples and theatres and the paved streets of the old city, laid bare by the archaeologists. The ruins, which cover hundreds of acres, are backed by gigantic pink and gray cliffs rising straight ’ upward for thousands of feet. I am sitting in the Temple of Apollo, to which I climbed by the Sacra Via, a flagstone roadway lined with broken columns, bits of statues, and the beautiful carvings of the civilization of twenty-five hundred years ago. Except for a column or so and the great stone blocks that made the foundation, the Temple of Apollo is all gone. Its floor covered almost one third of an acre, and by my paces it was about two hundred feet long and seventy-five feet in width. I have counted the columns from the holes in which they were set, and find it took fifteen to support the great roof. My guide tells me that the oracle was supposed to be under the floor of the temple, but so far no one has been able to discover the hole in the rocks over which the Pythoness sat upon her tripod and delivered the words supposed to have come to her from Apollo himself. Before she seated herself there she chewed the sacred bay leaves and drank of the waters of the prophetic stream of Kassotis. Then, according to some, she was intoxicated by the ill-smelling vapours that arose through the cleft, and in this state muttered the oracular answers to ques¬ tions which the priests about her put into intelligible sen¬ tences. The devout even claimed that these vapours were the mystic breath of the god, but the probability is 201 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST that there were no exhalations whatever through the fissure, though there may have been a slight draft of air. This, however, would have been enough to complete the already overwrought condition of the priestess. As 1 looked at the spot where the Pythoness may have sat, an American girl engaged in relief work on the island of Crete was standing beside me and said: '' 1 would like to have seen the old dame who put it over on them.” There was a temple on this site long before Rome was founded. It was burned to the ground and a new one was erected in 548 B.C., when Cyrus was king of the Per¬ sians. Another temple was constructed two hundred years later, at the time of Demosthenes, and additions were made by Nero and Domitian along about the begin¬ ning of the Christian era. In the vestibule of the temple were engraved the sayings of the Seven Sages, such as Know thyself,” ''Moderation in all things,” and "Noth¬ ing in excess,” and inside the building itself was a great stone the shape of half an egg, which marked the centre of the world. On this stone the two eagles that Zeus had caused to fly from the opposite ends of the earth met and roosted together. About this temple were vaults filled with gold and other wealth presented as offerings to the oracle by the great cities of Greece. The treasury of the Athenians has been reerected out of the fragments of the building, but the golden shields taken from the Persians in the year 340 B.C. are still unrecovered. These accumulations of riches were looted by the conquerors who overran Greece. Sulla, who later besieged Athens, used the Delphic treas¬ ures for the payment of his troops, and Nero divided the 202 DIGGING UP OLD GREECE plain below here among his soldiers and took five hundred statues from the temple to Rome. At the time of Pliny there were still three thousand statues at Delphi, and the country about was one vast museum. Higher up on Mount Parnassus are the remains of the great theatre, and higher still those of the stadium where ancient games were held just as modern athletics are cele¬ brated in the big marble stadium of the Athens of to-day. The stadium of Delphi was longer than that of Athens, but not so wide. The stadium at Athens will seat fifty thou¬ sand spectators. The theatre was an open-air hall paved with limestone slabs; it had seats of stone. It was in existence two thou¬ sand years ago, for at that time one of the distinguished citizens of Greece gave money for its restoration. The acoustics seem to have been perfect, for, sitting below in the temple, I could hear the sweet nothings that my secre¬ tary was whispering in the ear of the American maiden from Crete as they stood far above me. Most of the excavations of Delphi have been made by the French. A much greater work, directed by the American School of Classical Studies, has gone on at Corinth, where St. Paul went after his eloquent sermon on Mars’ Hill in Athens. Paul lived in Corinth a year and a half with Aquila, the tentmaker, and he came back six years later and 'There abode” three months in the house of Gaius. During his first stay he established a church and wrote the Epistle to the Thessalonians, and while he was with Gaius he wrote his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. The American School, however, has made no discoveries as to St. Paul. Its work has been in excavating the ancient 203 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST city and reconstructing parts of the ruins. Corinth was at the height of its glory hundreds of years before Christ, and in the days of our Saviour it was noted for its commerce and manufacture. It was then as large as Baltimore is now, and was a rival of Rome in its trade. It was one of the chief ports of the Mediterranean Sea. The historians say that it was twelve miles in circumference. Later Corinth rebelled against Rome, and the Romans destroyed it. They sold its citizens into slavery, and for one hundred years it lay desolate. Julius C^sar reestab¬ lished the town, and by the time St. Paul came, which was about fifty years after Christ, it was again celebrated throughout the Near East for its luxury and vice. St. Paul takes account of these things in his Epistles. 1 went out by train to Corinth a few days ago. The modern town is not far from the western mouth of the Corinth Canal, and it may be reached by boat through the canal, by railway, or by automobile. It is an ordinary little Greek city of five thousand people. The ruins lie about five miles away. There are Ameri¬ cans in charge, and it was with one of them that I wandered over the remains of the great past that are now coming to view. Among the excavations have been those of the waterworks and the fountain, fed by the spring of Pirene, where Pegasus, the winged horse, came to drink and was at last captured by Bellerophon. Pegasus, as the story goes, struck the earth with his hoof and the water gushed forth, even as it did in Meribah when Moses smote the rock for the thirsting Israelites. The fountain dates back to from three to six centuries before Christ, and the water again flows out of the marble lion heads into a square pit of stone, as it did in the past. The American School has 204 DIGGING UP OLD GREECE excavated the old aqueduct. The reservoirs fed by the spring had a capacity of one hundred and twenty thousand gallons. Among the other excavations are those of the streets and shops of the city and the remains of a theatre and the 2,500 year old Temple of Apollo with its lofty columns eight feet in diameter. To me one of the most interesting discoveries is that of the oracle of Corinth, which gave forth decrees like the one I have described here at Delphi. The oracle at Cor¬ inth was connected by a subterranean passage, fitted with a mouthpiece that served as a speaking tube. The ar¬ rangement was such that the priest could crawl in under¬ ground some distance away and, by a little ventriloquism, make his prophetic words seem to come out of the mouth of the oracle. If the ancients had discovered the radio, they might have broadcasted the words of the gods to all parts of Greece. I am proud of what the American archaeologists are doing in digging up ancient Greece and opening its wonders to the eyes of the world. About a half century ago the American Institute of Archaeology established a school of classical studies at Athens. The object was to give gradu¬ ates of American universities and colleges an opportunity to study the classics and Greek art and antiquities on the ground, and to aid in original research in these subjects. The best of Greek professors were chosen, and nine of our colleges and universities undertook to pay the expenses until a permanent endowment could be secured. The school was established in 1882 and the first president of the board was James Russell Lowell. The committee that now runs the institution consists of representatives 205 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST from thirty-three colleges scattered over the United States. During my stay at Athens I went out to see the school buildings. They stand on the southern slope of Lycabet- tus and look out at the Acropolis and Mount Hymettus. The ground for them was given by King George I of Greece and additional space has been acquired partly by gift from the Greek government and partly by purchase. It is in¬ tended to erect a dormitory for American girls who come to this country to study the classics. This school has the largest and best library of ancient Greece known to the world. This was started by the school itself, some of the money having been given by John Hay, the Carnegie Corporation, and John D. Rockefeller. In addition to this, the school has just received the mag¬ nificent library of fifty thousand pieces collected by Dr. Joannes Gennadius, who for forty years was Greek minis¬ ter at the Court of St. James’s. Doctor Gennadius was an eminent scholar and devoted his life to the collection of these books. Dr. Herbert Putnam, the director of our Library of Congress, and one of the best authorities on ancient and modern bibliography, has appraised the li¬ brary and says that it has no equal anywhere. Every American student who comes here is expected to make some definite study or research and write a paper thereon. The school has many lecturers, and the classes go to all parts of Greece, the Greek government giving them half fare on the railroads. They have made import¬ ant excavations, not only in Greece but about the site of old Troy and elsewhere in Asia Minor. Their work at Corinth has been carried on for more than thirty years. During this time they have laid bare the area of a large 206 When the modern Greek girl is contrasted with the classic beauties on the Porch of the Maidens, built twenty-three centuries ago, it is plain that the ancient type has not survived. Dominating the landscape for miles about Corinth is the bold summit of Acro-Corinth. On its top is the spring Pirene, which, the legend says, gushed forth at a stroke from the hoof of the winged horse Pegasus. The canal across the Isthmus of Corinth was planned in Caesar’s time, but It was not until i88i that actual digging began. It shortens the voyage from the Piraeus to the Adriatic by two hundred miles. DIGGING UP OLD GREECE city, and have made remarkable finds, including temples and statues which cast a new light upon ancient Greek civilization. Athens has a national museum where one can build up in his mind the Greece of the past. The excavations are going on everywhere, and many new objects are being dis¬ covered. The Greek government is alive to the responsi¬ bility of safeguarding its antiquities, and for years has been running a lottery the income from which is used for digging up and caring for ancient Greece. This lottery has two hundred and fifty-five prizes, ranging in value from ten dollars to five thousand dollars each. The wonderful discoveries in the tomb of Tut-ankh- amen in the Valley of the Kings along the Nile have their counterpart in the gold and jewels unearthed by Doctor Schliemann and other explorers in Greece. The National Museum has masks of beaten gold in which have been pressed features so lifelike that they seem about to speak. I have the photograph of one representing the face of an old man, which would serve as a portrait of the original except that it has lost the tip of its nose. There are golden cups decorated with portraits, and vases of dull gold beautifully carved. Some of the cups would hold a half gallon, and the golden masks are as large as the tin wash basins outside the back door of an American farm¬ house. , I am especially interested in the collections of jewellery, which show so well the follies and vanities of fashionable life five hundred years before Christ. Among other ex¬ hibits is the skull of a woman with the gold pin which once bound her tresses stuck to it. Time and decay have glued the pin to the base of her neck. Near by are scores 207 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST of gold rings for the fingers, a peck or so of gold anklets, and huge gold rings for the biceps, somewhat similar to the ivory bracelets worn above the elbows by our women of to¬ day. Some of the arm rings which came from Mycen^ are three or four inches wide. They are of pure gold. 208 CHAPTER XXVII SEEN IN SOFIA A RE you tired? Is your soul down in the dumps? /\ If so, put on the cap of Eortunatus and fly across / " A the Atlantic for a plunge into the great munici- ^ pal mineral bath of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. That will take the tired feeling out of your bones, cleanse every one of the million pores of your body, and make your soul sing like the turtle dove in Solomon’s Song. The water is from a hot mineral spring; it is a transparent emerald- green, and it feels like velvet as it flows over your skin. I know of no other city on earth with a bath like this one. The building over the pool is larger than our two Houses of Congress put together. It covers five or six acres and looks like a palace. Rising out of the centre of Sofia and facing the mosque across a beautiful park, it is one of the striking features of this city. It is a great square structure, perhaps fifty feet high, with walls of white striped with red brick. A gorgeous frieze of porce¬ lain blocks bands it just beneath the red-tiled roof. The bath is reached through a stately entrance, and the in¬ terior is so ornate that it would not have been out of place in Rome or Pompeii in the days of their greatest magni¬ ficence. The swimming pool is walled with tiles, and from the mosaic walk about it rises a dado of green porcelain as high as my head. Around the basin are many cells where 209 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST one can lie on a slab while a masseur works on him. There are also douches and showers and hundreds of first- and second-class rooms where one can have a tub to himself. A plunge in the pool costs only about fifteen cents. The huge building is filled from six in the morning until far into the night, and 1 am told that ten thousand people bathe here every day. In the morning it is less crowded than in the evening, for many people bathe after their work is over, and up to midnight there is a long waiting line. Bulgaria is a land of hot mineral springs. I recently motored out to Banke, a bathing resort, whose springs have the same properties as those at Carlsbad, or Karlovy Vary as the Czechs insist that it be called. Here I found another beautifully equipped establishment with a large swimming pool, besides many private baths sunk into the floor. So much for cleansing your body. If you want a spirit¬ ual ablution, Sofia has an establishment grander than its mineral baths. I refer to the mighty Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Imagine a white stone church bigger than any we have in America, covering as much ground as a great government department building and topped with a gold-plated dome as big as a circus tent and shining like a new wedding ring, and you have a faint outline of the picture. To fill in your sketch you must add smaller gold domes over four or five cupolas, put great caps of gold above the entrances, and let the entire structure glisten under the sun of this semi-tropical country. The interior of the Cathedral is even more splendid than its outside. It is a great blaze of carving, frescoes, paintings, and gold decorations. Chapel after chapel is shut off by a lacework of marble that reminds me of that in the Taj Mahal at Agra. There are walls inlaid with 210 Market day in Sofia brings to town people who, to judge by their costumes, have stepped out of the Middle Ages into the twentieth century. The women attend to business, but the men devote the day largely to gossip and politics. The Bulgarians are adherents of the Orthodox Church, which broke away from the Church of Rome during the strife between the Eastern and the Western Empires. The Cathedral at Sofia is the religious capitol Ot the cniintrv ° ^ SEEN IN SOFIA semi-precious stones that recall the palaces of Delhi. There are columns that look like malachite and others of onyx, upholding frescoed ceilings. The whole is a jewel of gigantic size and marvellous beauty. The pulpit, for instance, is of alabaster with an alabaster eagle on whose back is a gold rest for the Bible. The throne of the Archbishop is ascended by steps of onyx and the dignitary sits beneath a carved canopy of white marble upheld by pillars of dark gray, shining stone, with capitals decorated in gold. The pillars in front rest on the backs of life-size lions of pure alabaster, gleaming like polished ivory, and the lacework of stone behind is of exquisite beauty. There is a wealth of mosaics, some of which remind me of those in St. Mark's at Venice. In short, there is such a mass of artistic decoration that it makes me think of the saying about the great temples of India—that their builders wrought like Titans and finished like jewellers. This huge building cost more than five million dollars. Yet it was built by a nation of peasants, whose average holding of land is less than twenty acres per family and who labour for less than one dollar a day. But perhaps you care more for your mind than for either your body or your soul. In that case, you will want to have a look at the intellectual resources of the Bulgar capital. You should visit its universities, with their eight thousand students, its high schools and technical institutes, and its American Y. M. C. A. trade school, ninety per cent, of whose students get jobs as electricians, surveyors, and engineers, before they are graduated. Or better still, go to the two museums, where you can study both the past and the present. First cross the square in which the Cathedral stands 21 I THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST and go past the great bronze statue of Alexander of Russia, the Liberator, to the National Costumes Museum. This contains exhibits of the many different kinds of work that make the Bulgarian peasants independent of the factories and mills of the rest of the world. Here in a large three-story building are the hand looms on which are woven the rugs and the gorgeous gold braid, cloths, and embroideries which are known everywhere. Bul¬ garia is a land of house industries. The farmer clips the wool from his sheep and his wife spins and weaves it into clothes for the family. He makes his own hardware and most of his pottery dishes and other utensils. Here are specimens of the rude contrivances for churning butter, grinding wheat, and making bread that have been in use for generations. In fact, here is displayed on a small canvas, as it were, a complete picture of the home life and work of the people. The other museum is just across the way from my hotel. It is in an old Turkish mosque with eight low domes, each of which is as big as a haystack. This building is full of archaeological treasures and relics, mosaics, frescoes, and paintings. There are no statues of saints, as by the tenets of the Greek Catholic Church such images are for¬ bidden. This is the reason why the icons, the representa¬ tions of Christ or the saints to be found in every church and in almost every home in Bulgaria, are not ''graven images.The statues in the museum are those of the Romans. They date back to the days of the Emperor Trajan or to times still more remote. There are broken and battered columns from the ancient temples, great mar¬ bles from antique fountains, and huge sarcophagi from which the dust of their one-time occupants has long since 212 SEEN IN SOFIA blown away. The exhibits of classic art overflow the building and fill a great part of the yard. And now take a look at the setting of the things I have mentioned. Sofia lies in a plain surrounded by moun¬ tains and has spread herself over a large area. The city is a mixture of the rich and the poor, the grand and the shabby, the sublime and the ridiculous. Each treads on the heels of the other and it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. The town has grown since the war. Refugees from Russia, Macedonia, and other countries surrounding it have swelled the population until it is close to one third of a million. All the dwellings are full, and in the suburbs little houses not much bigger than good-sized dog ken¬ nels dot the plains. In the centre of the city is the royal palace. Sofia is a blending of the old and the new. Its build¬ ings are largely oriental and some of them date back to the five hundred years of Turkish rule. One sees the remains of the ancient bazaars, yet there are many new stores with plate-glass windows. The signs over the stores are in the Greek letters used by the Slavs, and some have on the out¬ side walls pictures of the goods sold within. Any one can read pictures, and when I see a painting of Teddy bears, dolls, and go-carts on a shop front I know the sign is that of a toy store. The city has a half-dozen theatres, a big market house, several good-sized hotels, of which the less said the better, and many parks and public playgrounds. But the most interesting thing about any place is its people. If you could lift the crowd promenading back and forth along Main Street here every afternoon and drop it down into any American town, it would create a sensation. 213 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST To begin with, the women go about with arms bared to the shoulders and in gowns cut low at the neck. They wear bright colours but they lack the beauty of the girls of Budapest and Vienna. There are Russian refugees, the men with their black trousers pushed into the tops of high black boots and their shirts extending outside half¬ way to the thighs; the women are in attractive gowns with shawls wrapped round their heads to form turbans. There are Mohammedans in fezzes, and Macedonians wearing full breeches, each leg of which has enough material for a whole suit of clothes. There are soldiers in brown woollen homespun with visorless caps on their heads, and officers in white caps and with wide red stripes on their trousers. The officers carry swords and some of the soldiers have rifles. There are long-gowned priests with high black caps and peasants dressed in all the colours of the rainbow. But the best time to see the native Bulgars is on Friday in the Sofia market, to which the people from the villages for miles about come in by thousands to buy and sell and get gain. I have been in the bazaars at Burma, Delhi, Algiers, Damascus, and Cairo; I have bought wares in the market encampments of Central Africa, and have shopped in Bangkok, Tokyo, and Peking, but nowhere have I seen a more interesting gathering than that which collects in the wide streets of Sofia on a Friday. The people come in twos and threes and in companies. Many arrive in home-made farm wagons hauled by black water buffaloes, white oxen, or ratty little ponies. Each vehicle is so heavily loaded with vegetables, melons, poul¬ try in crates, and fruit in baskets, that one would think it might break down on the road. Others tramp in with great packs on their backs or fastened to the ends of poles 214 In all tlie Balkan cities the lemonade seller is a popular figure, and always on hand. In Sofia it is not uncommon for street cars to prolong their stops so the passengers can buy drinks from the street vendors. In Bulgaria every village has its own variations of the national costume, so that one who knows the country can tell at a glance the home town of every girl seen in the Sofia markets. SEEN IN SOFIA resting on their shoulders. They get in before daybreak and distribute their wares over the streets, covering a space perhaps two miles in length and crossed here and there by side streets. A large part of the market is given up to foods. There are mountains of vegetables, including white onions as big as your fist, great round tomatoes the colour of blood, green watermelons the size and shape of your head, blue plums, yellow apricots, and peaches of a roseate bloom. There are beans, green and ripe, white turnips and yellow squashes, roasting ears just from the stalk, green peppers six inches long and two inches thick, lettuce, and in fact every vegetable that we have in America. Some of the wares give an idea of the backward ways of the farmer. There are yokes for women to use in carry¬ ing pails on their shoulders, home-made ploughs and other implements, and wagonloads of wooden hayforks that are merely forked sticks, cut in the thickets and peeled. There are wool peddlers selling the dirty black or white fleeces just as they come from the sheep. That wool will be cleaned and spun in the homes of the buyers and used to make the clothing for their families. We have here a nation of five million people, four millions of whom, I venture, are wear¬ ing garments made of materials woven by the women. The market is a good place to study the costumes of the peasants. This is one part of Europe where the styles are the same as they were generations ago. Every village has its own variations in costume, so that those familiar with the country can tell the home of any one in the crowd. Most of the costumes are so gorgeous that one cannot see their like anywhere else except on the stage. Here come half-a-dozen girls. They have yellow silk kerchiefs wrapped 215 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST round their heads and their long braids of black hair hang down their backs. Each has the necklace of gold or silver coins constituting her dowry, and wears a gown heavily embroidered with gold braid. The gown falls almost to the feet. It is dark coloured, but about the bottom there is a band of gold embroidery twice as wide as your palm. Under this band is a fringe of white lace. The sleeves of the white guimpe are embroidered with red and blue silk in quaint patterns. Behind this party come other girls in long yellow aprons and dresses gorgeous with gilt braid. The men are almost equally interesting. Some have high black caps of lambskin with the wool outside, and their clothes are of a butternut brown, often gaily embroidered. They wear vests and belts and trousers all of homespun. The trousers are wrapped tight around the ankle and the soft leather sandals are tied on with straps like the opantsis of the Serbian peasants. Others have on heavy boots reaching almost to their knees. Perhaps the scene and the people would not have seemed queer in the Middle Ages, but in this prosaic, every-day twentieth century the effect is certainly strange. 216 CHAPTER XXVIII BULGARIA AND ITS KING S INCE I came to Sofia I have had the honour of an audience with his Majesty, Boris III, who is now ) the czar, or king, of Bulgaria. He is a constitu¬ tional monarch, having powers somewhat similar to those of the king of England. He is also an hereditary ruler, his father Ferdinand having been made the first king of the Bulgars. The principality of Bulgaria was created forty-odd years ago by the Treaty of Berlin, through which the coun¬ try became self-governing, though it had to pay tribute to the sultan of Turkey. It was decreed that a prince should be elected by the people and confirmed by the sultan, with the consent of the Powers. At last, in 1908, Bulgaria declared its independence of Turkey and Prince Ferdinand was placed on the throne. Ferdinand was naturally a fighter. He was in close alliance with the Germans and brought in German officers to aid in the organization of his army. It was largely through his influence that Bulgaria sided with the Kaiser during the war, although the sympathies of most of the people were with the Allies. In the last days of the war, Ferdinand had to abdicate and he fled to Vienna, where he consoled himself with a third wife, a Brazilian heiress. Boris III, then twenty- seven years of age, came to the throne on October 3, 1918. 217 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST The people like him for his democratic ways. He goes about Sofia like an ordinary citizen, dressed in everyday business clothes. In striking contrast with Kaiser Wilhelm, his father's friend, who loved to strut around in the gorgeous outfit of a general and sometimes changed his uniforms a dozen times in one day. King Boris seldom wears military dress. He shakes hands with his friends when he meets them and may stop and chat. Indeed, he is so unpretentious that his father, who liked to wrap himself in the divinity that '‘doth hedge a king," often reproved him for his democratic ways and now and then referred to him as "that peasant." His Majesty has as royal blood in his veins as any monarch in Europe, for he is a great-grandson of Louis Philippe of France. But he has had the good sense to adapt himself to his situation, which is that of the ruler of a peasant democracy. He is a man of fine education with a scientific bent as well as a mechanical turn of mind. He sometimes drives his own automobile, and he so well under¬ stands the operation of a railway locomotive that on his trips through his country he often leaves the royal coach for the cab of the engine and runs the train for miles. The other day he was going to Vidin, one of the towns on the Danube. He was in the cab with his hand on the levers and had brought the train to a stop at a station where a great crowd had gathered to greet him. They kept on cheering him until he stood up in the blue denim of a locomotive engineer and made them a speech. At Vidin, when he boarded a little steamer for the other side of the Danube, he went into the pilot house and took the wheel, guiding the ship up the Danube to its destination and then back to Vidin. 218 BULGARIA AND ITS KING The people like Boris for his conduct during the war. He is the hero of their army, for he went out with the soldiers and slept in the trenches and was a number of times under fire. He is thoroughly interested in every¬ thing connected with the advancement of the country, particularly in the new athletic movement. He is honorary president of the National Athletic Association and has made football a national game. My audience with His Majesty was fixed for eleven o'clock in the morning at the Royal Palace in Sofia. This is a large yellow building in the centre of the city, surrounded by a beautiful garden. A three-minute walk from the door of my hotel brought me to the gates. Passing the soldiers stationed there, I entered the palace. Here I was met by the master of the King's household and introduced to one of his aides who led me to a big salon on the second floor. This reception room was decorated with arms of every description, including a miniature machine gun mounted on a table. Oil paintings of the two Russian czars who helped so much to give Bul¬ garia its independence looked down upon me, and a por¬ trait of old King Ferdinand occupied a prominent place. I had waited only five minutes when the aide led me into another salon where a lithe, dark-faced young man rose and came toward me. It was Boris, King of Bulgaria. He was dressed in a light pepper-and-salt business suit of a good cut. He wore a stiff collar with a gray knit tie in which was a small ruby encircled with diamonds. His Majesty gave me his hand and we sat down and chatted for some time together. I am not at liberty to quote what he said, but I can say that his talk was full of good common- sense views on conditions in this part of the world, and 219 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST of friendliness and gratitude to the American people for their aid to Bulgaria in settling matters after the war. He said he would like much to go to America and that his father, King Ferdinand, had felt strongly inclined to accept the invitation he received to attend the opening of the Panama Canal. At the close of the audience, I walked with His Majesty down to the rear of the palace, where my photographer made a snapshot of the King. And who are the Bulgarians, the subjects of this con¬ stitutional monarch? He governs a nation of five million people, the descendants of Slavic tribes which centuries ago settled here in the Balkans. They are a sturdy, sober, and hard-working folk, who are also proud and warlike, for they have imbibed the spirit of liberty from the air of the mountains in which they live. Though for hundreds of years they were oppressed by the Turks, they always fought against their rulers and kept alive their desire for freedom. In their communities the people insist on managing local affairs and every little town elects its own officials. Even the school teachers are elected and may be dismissed at any time by popular vote. Considering that less than fifty years ago they had practically no schools at all, the Bulgarians are well edu¬ cated. In the days of the Turkish domination not more than one man in five in the cities could read and write and nearly all the country people were illiterate. Eighty- five out of every one hundred of the population can now read and write, notwithstanding the fact that there are something like six hundred thousand Turks, most of whom study only the Koran. In 1878, when the Treaty of Berlin was signed, there was only one school in the whole country that could be called an academy or high school. There are 220 BULGARIA AND ITS KING now more than six hundred, and the number of elementary schools is above five thousand. There are about as many girls as boys among the eight thousand students in the two universities at Sofia. Doctor Kissimoff, of the State Department, tells me that the Bulgarian peasant will make almost any sacrifice to keep his children in school and that he will even sell his farm in order that they may start life with a better equipment than he was able to get. Despite the losses of the World War and the financial depression following it, new schools have been started and there are thirteen in¬ stitutions for training teachers. Doctor Kissimoff is a graduate of Robert College, a former representative of his country at Odessa and Mos¬ cow, and a man of wide experience in the courts of Europe. Said he: I would like to have the United States know the truth about our people, more than eighty-five per cent, of whom belong to the peasant class. The Bulgarian has good traits and bad ones. Among his good qualities are his great love of education and his desire to better himself and his family. He is careful and thrifty. He is a landholder, and he prides himself on owning his farm. He is not ashamed of his condition and he is independent and honest. ''On the other hand, the Bulgarian is very distrust¬ ful of others,’' continued Doctor Kissimoff. "His psy¬ chology is largely due to his having been for five centuries under the Turks, with oppression and even massacre al¬ ways hanging over him. This has made him afraid of the future, so that no matter how bright the sky to-day, he fears it will be dark to-morrow. If a mother sees her 22 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST children laughing and having a good time, she begs them not to enjoy themselves so much lest something disastrous befall. In fact, the peasant looks upon life as a burden. His attitude reminds me of a hymn sung in some of your churches. I cannot quote it correctly but it goes some¬ what like this: A little more trouble, a few more fears, A few more sobs and a few more tears. We are almost home."" The Bulgarians are essentially pious. I have visited a number of their gorgeous churches and have usually found them full. These people belong to the great class of Orthodox Christians of whom we know comparatively little. Of the six hundred millions, or one third of the whole human family who actually are or pretend to be followers of Jesus, one in every four belongs to the Ortho¬ dox Church. The others are Roman Catholics or Protes¬ tants. This faith was long known as the Greek Orthodox Catholic Church, so named from the branch that broke away from Roman Catholicism during the strife between the Eastern and the Western Empires of Rome. Then these Orthodox people threw off the rule of the Pope and decided to flock by themselves. The first split occurred more than a thousand years ago. The trouble continued until the two bodies became separate churches, each with its own rules of faith. The Greek Church recognizes the guidance of the Bible, and, in common with the Roman Catholics, holds to the doctrines of the seven sacraments, the celebration of the mass, and the veneration of the Vir¬ gin Mary and of the saints, the images, and the relics. It 222 From his modest palace in Sofia the King of the Bulgars rules over a nation of five million people who for centuries were under the rule of the Turk and won their independence less than a generation ago. In prly summer Bulgaria’s “Valley of the Roses” is full of harvesters, gathering the petals to be distilled for attar of roses. An acre produces four thousand pounds of petals, but it takes two hundred pounds to make a single ounce of the perfume. Philippopolis, which aspires to be a second Sofia, is really a transition town, partly old Turkish houses and bazaars, partly modern streets and buildings. It does a large business in rice, silk cocoons, and attar of roses. BULGARIA AND ITS KING believes in fasting and has its monasteries and nunneries. On the other hand, it acknowledges the authority of the Ecumenical Council instead of the leadership of the Pope, and administers the Lord’s Supper in both bread and wine. Although it denies the existence of Purgatory, it encour¬ ages prayers for the dead that God may have mercy upon them at the Last Judgment. It accepts married priests, though they must not marry after they have taken holy orders. The Orthodox Catholics have only one mass a day, and that before the rising of the sun. Until recently the sermon was not considered important. I have talked with the Archbishop of Sofia, His Holi¬ ness Monsignor Stephane, one of the chief ecclesiastical dignitaries of Bulgaria. In times past the whole Orthodox Church was under the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople, but he seems to have lost prestige by mixing politics with his religion, and in time the various Orthodox countries established independent organizations of their own, such as the Synod of Russia and other church councils. The Church has been so divided that now the Greeks are practi¬ cally the only people that acknowledge the supremacy of His All Holiness, the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Church here does not like to be called Greek Orthodox. Its members say it is the Bulgarian Orthodox Catholic Church, and I find that the same prejudices and divisions exist in Serbia, Albania, Rumania, and Russia. Archbishop Stephane is one of the leading Christians of this part of the world. He is tall and fine-looking and wears a long black gown of the finest grosgrain silk. His high black hat makes him look taller and sets off his handsome, intellectual face. When I talked with him, he wore a heavy gold chain around his neck upon which there 223 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST hung a medallion the size of your hand surrounded by a band of diamonds, some of them as big as peas. At the top were five great amethysts, and in the centre was a miniature depicting Christ on the cross. His Holiness received me in the Archbishop’s Palace and after drinking a little cup of coffee made Turkish style, as hot as Tophet and as thick as molasses, we talked for a while about the Church Universal. The Archbishop spoke in a low tone, gesturing now and then with his right hand, about the wrist of which a rosary of big black beads was tightly wrapped. Upon leaving 1 begged the Archbishop to write me a few lines as a message to the United States. He did so and his letter now lies before me. It reads: I believe that America is destined to become the Universal Apostle for the unification of Christendom, for the realization of international brotherhood, and for the establishment of everlasting justice and peace among the nations. The human race must form one family, of which the head shall be Christ. The last word to be uttered to the world has been entrusted to America and America must utter it. It is harmony, brotherhood, and peace among the nations as the children of one'Heavenly Father. The first achievement of this All-American message must be the termination of Bolshevism, which is a denial alike of freedom and of humanity. Under the blessed, starry banner of the United States must rally every force of constructiveness, honour, and idealism the world over in order that the Kingdom of God on earth may come soon. This letter is signed ''Stephane, Archbishop of Sofia,” with a cross before and after the name. 224 CHAPTER XXIX A NATIONAL LABOUR ARMY T he first sight that greeted my eyes upon coming into Sofia was a gang of twenty-five husky, bronzed young men in light gray uniforms unloading cord wood from a train of box cars. That was my first glimpse of the great labour army of Bulgaria, where almost everyone owns a bit of land and practically all work for their living. In this case they were working for the state, for by the law of the country tens of thousands of young men and women have to give from six to twelve months' labour to the government. But let me state the facts one needs to know in order to understand this remarkable situation. Bulgaria is situ¬ ated in the midst of the Balkan mountains east of Yugo¬ slavia, north of Greece, south of Rumania, and west of Turkey. Sofia, where I am writing, is about three hun¬ dred miles from Constantinople. The Kingdom is two thirds the size of England, and its population is about five millions. Agriculture is almost the only industry of the country. Bulgaria has but few large cities. Sofia is twice the size of Memphis; Philippopolis, in the central part, is about the size of Peoria, Illinois; and Varna, the Black Sea port of the country, is about as big as Mobile. There are perhaps a dozen other cities, but the bulk of the popula¬ tion live in small villages, from which they go out to work 225 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST on the farms. All of the towns need public improvements, and the roads are, for the most part, in need of repair. The country has enough standard-gauge railroads to reach from Boston to the Mississippi River, and an even greater length of narrow-gauge tracks. All belong to the state. The fact that Bulgaria has had only a little more than a generation of independence from Turkey makes the land like a new state. The government is anxious to build good highways, to construct new railways, to erect municipal buildings, and to develop the country to the full. When the World War closed, Bulgaria found herself, to use the phrase of the streets, down on her uppers, and burdened with debt to pay reparations. The people had been fighting for years before the war began, and during that terrible struggle three hundred thousand of the best men were killed. The government needed labour to aid in rebuilding the country and so passed laws enlisting as a working force all the young men at the age of twenty and all the young women at the age of sixteen. Every boy who has not been in the army must give from eight to twelve months of his time to the state, and the girls serve six months. Everyone is also supposed to give from eight to ten days service each year, at such times as the authorities of the city, town, or district may select. Suppose our Congress should pass similar laws, and that they should go into force to-morrow. Men, women, and children out in the country and in every village, city, and town would be subject to eight or ten days’ work as the state demanded. The little children might be given dust rags and wash cloths and set to cleaning the schoolhouses, picking the stones from the school yard, or doing as much as they could, however little it might be, for the commu- 226 Bulgaria lists in her labour army all young men at the age of twenty and all young women at the age of sixteen. The youths must work from eight to twelve months for the state, while the girls serve six months. The Bulgarian peasant wife helps her husband work the crops, and weaves the heavy garments and sews the sheepskin coats of the family. She embroiders her daughters’ dresses in brilliant hues and makes them elaborate beaded decorations. A NATIONAL LABOUR ARMY nity. The older children might aid in whitewashing the school fences, painting the walls, washing the windows, or planting trees to beautify their towns, or they might carry water for the gangs of men and women doing heavier work. The able-bodied grown-ups might be called upon to ex¬ cavate for public buildings, to make new roads, to help construct the railways, and to do anything under the sun that Uncle Sam might direct for the improvement of his country and people. Fifty thousand or more men come of age in Bulgaria every year and there must be an equal number of young women who reach the age of sixteen. The young men are divided into groups of twenty or twenty-five each, and are handled just as though they belonged to an army. They live in barracks, and have their clothing and food free. While motoring across country yesterday I saw a gang of two hundred of these labour soldiers returning from their job of grading for a new railroad. They were dressed in gray woollen clothes, woven and tailored in government factories operated with men thus conscripted. The boys were well set up and muscular and their faces were as brown as freshly tanned leather. All looked in perfect health, and they walked as if they were starting to work rather than returning from it. Their captain told me they were in fine condition, and that, although they had put in eight hours that day, they would have a dance of two hours or more in the evening- The jobs for such men are of every description. They include road-building, bridge-building, the making of rail¬ ways and terminals, employment in the factories, stone quarries, and forests, and the draining and the diking of swamps and flood lands. I know of boys who are binding 227 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST books, planting trees, and cleaning up the parks of their towns. The duties of the labour conscripts include also fishing and the care of animals, as well as artistic and intellectual activities. If a man can do sculpture or painting he may be put to ornamenting the public build¬ ings, or if he is well educated he may be made a school teacher or assigned to scientific work. The young archi¬ tect helps in planning the government buildings, the young engineer is put on docks and harbours, the author writes books or pamphlets, and, generally speaking, every man is placed where he can be of most service. Dr. Constantine Stephanove, a graduate of Yale, a pro¬ fessor of philology in one of the universities here, and author of the best Bulgarian and English dictionary, and of books on economic subjects, tells me that his ten days this year were spent in making excavations for an addition to one of the state educational institutions. He had twenty- five college boys under him. His gang used pick and shovel for eight hours every day and enjoyed the work more than their studies. Fifty other college boys aided in rebuilding the theatre, which had been destroyed by a fire, and others helped lay a street railway. The girls and women serve chiefly in hospitals, libraries, churches, and schools, and also do sewing and other work in the government factories. I saw a dozen university girls in the Foreign Office yesterday. The daughter of a rich man, a college graduate who speaks five or six languages, is now translating some of the scientific reports of our Geological Survey. She has been on the job four months and likes it so well that she may continue after the end of the six months for which she was drafted. I know of a banker’s daughter of twelve who spent part 228 A NATIONAL LABOUR ARMY of her allotted time last month washing school windows and the rest in sewing for the state. In connection with their work in the industrial schools, the girls are taught housekeeping and sewing. Home industries, which are important here, are being cultivated and the whole scheme is educational to a much greater extent than one would suppose. The only women exempted are the Moham¬ medans, who are excused from work outside their homes because of the seclusion demanded by their religion. 1 have talked with a number of the officials in charge of the labour service. They tell me it is popular and that they have but few slackers. There is a provision that one can gain exemption upon the payment of from one hundred and twenty to four hundred dollars, according to his wealth. But of the tens of thousands who have been drafted, so far less than five hundred have bought them¬ selves off. Indeed, buying exemption is considered proof of lack of patriotism. The system is a great civic educator, which forces upon all the citizens the fact of their partnership in the govern¬ ment and interests them in the state and the community and in every phase of public welfare. It is bringing the people closer together, helping to level the differences between the various classes, and teaching all better meth¬ ods of work as well as obedience to the law. There are no class distinctions; the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the educated, often labour side by side. In the wars of the future this Bulgarian labour army will be drafted in just the same way as are those who carry the guns and go into the trenches. Had the United States had some such system, we should not have been forced to pay our army of home workers from ten to twenty dollars a 229 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST day for building encampments, making munitions, and do¬ ing other safe jobs, while the boys who faced the guns and endured all sorts of hardships received only a dollar a day and their board. Stambouliski, the author of these labour laws and the man who pushed them through, was one of the most re¬ markable characters that have played their parts on the stage of Balkan politics during the last generation. He was an educated peasant who was active in politics before the war, at the close of which he became the popular leader of the farmers. He was a man of great ability and much common sense, but with his rise to power he lost his head, and many think he was plotting to usurp the throne or to have himself elected dictator or president of a government in which everything should be in the hands of the farmers. Stambouliski strove to excite feeling among his followers against the towns, boasting that he would level Sofia to the ground. He called it another Sodom or Gomorrah, and declared that its people were speculators and non¬ producers. He removed the old police force and govern¬ ment olficials, and put peasants in their places. After his assassination something like half a million dollars, mostly in foreign currency, was found in his villa, and it is believed that he had planned to use this sum for a revolution which should make him the king of the Bulgars. 230 Students of the University of Bucharest go to classes in a palace-like building that symbolizes the Rumanian idea of education as a polish for the aristocracy. Out in the country, schools are not plentiful and there is much illiteracy. "Unlike her Slavic neighbours, Rumania derived her language from the Latins and uses the Roman alphabet, as we do. 1 ^he meaning of the newspaper headlines without any difficulty.” Every Rumanian girl is taught to knit, weave, and embroider, for when she marries she will be expected to make all the family clothing, and rugs and curtains besides. CHAPTER XXX GREATER RUMANIA B ucharest, the capital of Rumania—a city of three quarters of a million, which had only three I hundred thousand at the close of the World War! The capital of a country which has seventeen million people, and which is as large as Great Britain and Ireland, twice the size of New England, and bigger than New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela¬ ware, and Maryland all joined together! A city of hovels and palaces! A city of great white villas and beautiful gardens shaded by tall forest trees and adorned with statues and fountains and all the settings of the luxurious rich! A city of the poor, fringed with miserable shacks in which live half-clad gypsies and their naked babies! A gay city, a pleasure-loving city, a city where license is said to run riot and love affairs are as unrestrained as those of ancient Rome or the wicked Paris of to-day. In short, a pretentious, ostentatious, overdressed municipality in the midst of a nation of peasants. The artistic effects of Bucharest delight the eye, and after the stone roadways and cobbles of other Balkan cap¬ itals its new asphalt streets soothe the soul. Bucharest has long avenues of fine homes and several large parks. One wide driveway the people call “the little Champs Elysees.'' It is a half mile longer than the avenue between the Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and is 231 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST lined with old forest trees. On the bridle paths bordering it a crowd of equestrians trot back and forth. The pave¬ ments are filled with a gay throng on foot. On the main roadway richly dressed women and men roll along in carriages pulled by fine horses and driven by coachmen dressed in green velvet gowns and caps, their brass belts shining like so much gold. There is a sprinkling of auto¬ mobiles, the best of the cars of America moving along with all the well-known makes of Italy, Germany, England, and France. Bucharest is fond of its title of “the Little Paris of the East.'’ It likes to think that the trees along this driveway are as fine as those of the Bois de Boulogne, and right in the centre of the boulevard it has built an Arc de Triomphe. In the distance this looks like a gigantic structure of pure ivory, but when one nears it one sees that the ivory is beginning to peel and that gaping cracks are spreading apart the foundations. This stucco monu¬ ment was erected at the time of King Ferdinand’s cor¬ onation and cannot last, although it is now under re¬ pair. Unkind people say it is typical of the Rumanian capital: all show on the outside and but little substance within. However that may be, the buildings here are beautiful. The houses are covered with decorations that look like carv¬ ings in limestone, but most of which were shaped with a trowel. The people love white, and the homes of the rich are snowy palaces rising amid green trees. The Byzantine architecture, with its curved domes and cupolas inlaid with colours, prevails. In the interior of the dwell¬ ings, the walls are painted or stencilled rather than papered, giving an effect that is surprisingly pleasing. 232 GREATER RUMANIA The stores of Bucharest make a fine show. The goods are well displayed behind plate-glass windows and the shops seem splendid to one who has just come from Russia, Greece, or Bulgaria. Here, instead of the Greek letters, the Roman alphabet is used as with us and one can make out the inscriptions. One can also gather the news from the papers, and keep track of the operas, the theatres, and the moving-picture shows. All the big cities of central Europe are growing. Berlin has gained almost a million in population since the World War, Munich is bigger than ever before, and Prague has nearly doubled in size. Poor as Austria and Hungary claim to be, there are many new buildings in Vienna and Budapest, while as for Belgrade, it seems to have at work a thousand Aladdins who erect a palace or so over¬ night. I find new buildings going up also on all sides in this capital of Rumania. An interesting thing about the new construction is that it is done largely by gypsies. These people do not like steady jobs but will come in from their huts on the outskirts of the cities and take places as mechanics when wages are high. They are especially good bricklayers and masons. They work in gangs of forty or fifty, one gang taking charge of a house and building it according to specifications. The women toil as well as the men. They mix the mortar and carry it in buckets on their heads or shoulders to the masons. They wheel brick and stone in barrows and do all sorts of dirty, hard labour that no American woman could be bribed to perform. This morn¬ ing I saw a gypsy woman sitting on a pile of bricks and nursing her baby, while another was filling a bucket with mortar. As I looked, the mother cut short the baby's 233 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST meal, and laying the little one down on the bricks, lifted the heavy mortar bucket to her shoulder and climbed the ladder. But who are these Rumanians, and where and what is their country? The answers to the questions might make volumes but I can give you at least the main human inter¬ est facts in less space. If you will take your map of Europe and follow the course of the Danube to the Black Sea, you will find on the north side of that river and including its delta the Greater Rumania. It is wedged in between Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Russia, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, forming a block of land equal to eight Switzerlands or twenty Belgiums or Hollands. Its climate is more moderate in summer but much colder in winter than that of our South. Through the treaties following the World War Rumania has been doubled in size, and in natural resources it is now one of the richest states of Europe. It embraces a large part of the Carpathian Mountains, which have wide valleys and plains and plateaus. It has, besides, the great belt of black soil forming the delta of the Danube, which is as fertile as that of the Mississippi. In the past this has been one of the great wheat-exporting regions of Europe. Its crops compare well with those of the Mississippi Valley. It produces wheat, rye, barley, and oats, and it contains the corn belt of south Europe. It has also thousands of acres in tobacco, a crop that comes to more than ten million pounds in a year. Rumania is a land of minerals. Its oil fields are among the richest of Europe, and in the new territory gained by the treaties of 1919 there are coal, iron, and gold. There also are forests so extensive that from them sufficient 234 GREATER RUMANIA lumber can be produced each year to load a train reaching almost all the way from New York to Chicago. The country is well equipped with transportation facili¬ ties. It has enough railways to make a double track across the United States from Boston to Seattle, and its public roads would reach round the globe at the Equator, with several thousand miles to spare. By the Danube it has access to all central and western Europe, and the Black Sea gives it a water outlet to the Mediterranean. The capital is the principal city, and there are about ten towns with populations ranging from fifty to one hundred thousand people. For the most part, the Rumanians are peasants living in an infinite number of villages, some of which straggle for mile after mile along the roads. The inhabitants of Rumania number about seventeen and a half millions almost all of whom belong to a race distinct from their neighbours. Russia is Slavic, Poland is Slavic, and so are Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria. The Hungarians are Magyars, but they come from the slopes of the Caucasus and have no kinship with the Rumanians. These people take their name from old Rome and claim that their blood is richly mixed with that of the Romans who overran this part of the world about one hundred years after Christ and established a great colony at the mouth of the Danube. They conquered the Dacians, who were then living here and who are mentioned in all the early Roman histories. The Dacia of the Romans was larger than the Rumania of to-day. The conquerors imposed their language upon the people and the tongue used to-day is Latin rather than Slavic, though it has some Slavic words in it. It shows a kinship to Italian, Spanish, 235 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST Portuguese, and French. It is said that when Ruman¬ ians go to Italy they can master the language within a few weeks. The people here are proud of their Roman origin and the founders of Rome are among their national heroes. One of the monuments of Bucharest is a great bronze she- wolf, with the two naked babies, Romulus and Remus, feeding away, and a similar picture is engraved on the back of some of the paper currency. Though conquered again and again, the nation has always striven to maintain its own institutions and its own tongue. When the Germans dominated the country from 1848 to 1867, they tried to introduce the German language and culture and the Hungarians attempted to Magyarize the Rumanians of Transylvania. Neverthe¬ less, Rumanian is now spoken by more than half the population and is the official language of the realm. I like it. It is one of the softest and most mellifluous speeches of the world, but nevertheless some of the aris¬ tocrats here will use only French, English, or German. I dine every day in the restaurant of a fashionable club where the waiters speak French and English, and I hear that many of the well-to-do families of Bucharest converse with each other only in French. The highest priced nurses are those who speak English. And this brings me to the matter of class distinctions. Before the World War the Rumanians were divided into two great classes: a small rich one, which owned most of the country, lived in great luxury, and had money to fling away; and a very large one which either had only tiny patches of land or toiled for the nabobs. Prior to 1918, more than nine million acres, or half of the cultivated 236 GREATER RUMANIA lands, were owned by one thousand proprietors and the other half belonged to six and a half million peasants. There was practically no middle class. Many of the aristocrats lived in Paris and their estates were managed by agents, mostly Jews, who sent the profits out of the country. The government was an oligarchy, which to a large extent it is to-day. There are nominal elections but they mean only the ousting of one group of aristocrats so that another group may have a chance. Thus the peas¬ ants are still ground between the upper and nether mill¬ stones of the aristocracy. I am told that this condition is rapidly changing, however, and it is safe to say that in a generation or so we shall see a gulf less wide between the white-collared, silk-shirted politician and the fur- capped, cotton-trousered peasant. The basis of the old aristocracy was land. Before the war many of the great estates covered tens of thousands of acres. On some of them the people were practically serfs, and on many the owners did not farm the lands but gave them over to peasants who paid money rents or half the produce. The peasants owned most of the live¬ stock, they furnished most of the ploughs and other tools, and they erected a large part of the buildings. When the great revolution overturned the nobility in Russia and Bolshevism seemed about to sweep over Rumania, the aristocrats, realizing that this would mean their total destruction, passed laws for parcelling out much more land to the peasants. Only a small portion was to be reserved to the nobles. In all, more than five million acres, a tract about as large as Massachusetts, has been carved out of the estates exceeding twelve hundred acres, 237 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST and this is being distributed among the non-landholders and small farmers. In some of the provinces the size of the holdings that may be retained by the rich is limited to two hundred and fifty acres, and the allotments vary according to the character of the country. Of course, all the land taken from the nobles is supposed to be paid for, but the prices are figured on pre-war valuations and often on a paper rather than a gold basis. In fact, in most of the payments no real money passes, the government giving the former owner of the land long¬ time government bonds which may or may not be paid in the future. The land allotted to the peasant upon pay¬ ment of the government prices is limited to small tracts of from twelve to eighteen acres. A great deal of the land taken over by the government formerly belonged to the churches, the Orthodox Church owning by far the most. 238 This boy’s father is now owner of a part of the great estate on which he used to work almost as a serf. The Rumanian government has divided the vast holdings of the Magyar nobles in Transylvania and put them in the hands of the peasants. For wages of fifteen cents a day, women scoop black muck out of the oil pools and do all sorts of rough and dirty work shoulder to shoulder with the men, who get paid twice as much. CHAPTER XXXI IN Rumania's oil fields I MAGINE hundreds of gigantic oil derricks, black toothpicks as tall as a ten-story building reared up on the plain. Back of them picture mighty moun¬ tains cutting the sky, and in front the grain-laden lowlands through which the Danube is flowing to the sea! Between hills of black sand tossed up in all sorts of shapes, black oil is oozing out, forming black streams and pools. Here and there are clusters of round iron tanks, fifty feet high, each holding tens of thousands of barrels of petroleum. Iron pipes of all sizes lie on the ground, and donkey engines are pumping and baling. A myriad of dirty men and women are toiling away at all sorts of strange jobs. These are some of the features of the oil fields of Ru¬ mania, of which the town of Ploesti, where I am writing, is the centre. Rumania holds sixth place among the great oil producers. She is now taking out almost two barrels of every hundred produced in the world and the bulk of her output comes from this little region where 1 am to-day. The petroleum deposits lie in three zones. One is in Maramuresch, in the basin of the Tisza River. Another is in the Valcea district, but the most important is that of Prahova, which is within two hours by motor of Bucharest and on the southern foothills of the Carpathian Moun¬ tains. Here, in a region ten miles wide and a hundred 239 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST miles long, are something like one thousand oil wells, which are producing from seven to nine million barrels of oil a year. The oil is in great pools, scattered throughout this strip. There are about ten fields, the most important of which is the Moreni-Tuicani field, the one I describe here. It is a small territory. Put it all together, and it would not cover more than four one-hundred-acre farms. Nevertheless, it yields about fifty per cent, of Rumania s production and is the great centre of her oil activity to-day. The city of PloBti is in the heart of the oil-producing territory. The fields run in a great semi-circle round it, covering an area of perhaps forty square miles, and the oil is piped here to be refined. There are a dozen or more refineries, the largest of which has a capacity of twenty thousand barrels per day. You can see the tank farms on every side of the city, and the sweetish smell of petroleum fills the air. Of the more than one hundred companies operating here, the Standard Oil has the best refinery. Its machinery is all new, for it was built after the World War. The oil formations of Rumania are different from those of the United States. In America the deposits lie mostly in rocky strata so hard that the stone does not come up with the oil and the crude petroleum readily flows out or is pumped to the surface. Here, the deposits are from twelve hundred to three thousand feet below the surface and are mixed with sand as fine as flour and with the natural gas that permeates the whole mass. When oil is struck the gas forces the sand out with the petroleum. Sometimes for several hours or even for days nothing but 240 IN RUMANIA’S OIL FIELDS sand will come, and then follows the mixture of oil and sand. Even after the wells have been producing for a long time, there is so much sand mixed with the oil that it is impossible to pump it. Eor this reason, when the wells stop flowing the oil is taken out by baling. A long baling bucket, such as is used in making an artesian well, is lowered by electricity or steam into the well, allowed to fill with the oil and sand mixture, and then raised and emptied. The bucket is as big around as a quart measure and sometimes as high as a five-story house, so that it brings up several barrels at each dip. With a baler fifty feet long as many as five hundred barrels of oil are thus raised in one day. Getting the oil out of the sand is a tough problem. From a flowing well there pours forth a hot mush as thick as molasses, as black as ink, and loaded with these fine rock particles. The mass is run into a great vat half the size of a city lot, below which are a half-dozen other tanks arranged in terraces. In the first vat much of the sand sinks to the bottom before the oil passes on through holes an inch or so in diameter into the second vat. There more sand is dropped, and the product grows purer and purer as it flows on through vat after vat until at the last one it contains no sand at all and can be pumped off through pipes into the storage tanks. As the black stuff issues from the well it deposits much sand around the edges. This is scooped up by bare-legged, bare-footed women, standing ankle deep and often calf deep in the hot, slimy mixture and ladling it out with scoops into holes or little pits on the banks of the pool. Other girls lift the mush from these pools to pools just above. The oil drains out as they do so and finally, at the 24 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST top of the line, perhaps ten or fifteen feet above the great pool below, women raise the now almost clean sand and empty it into a steel car in which it is carried away to the sand pile. In the field 1 have been describing there were hundreds of derricks, each over an oil well, and here, there, and everywhere among them, were veritable mountains of sand, all of which had been lifted out in this way. 1 asked about the wages of the girls, who do most of the work in the oil fields, and was told that they got fifteen cents for a working day of eight hours, or less than two cents an hour for their backbreaking labour. The men get more than the women. Drillers draw as much as seventy-five cents a day, while the common labourer sel¬ dom receives more than twenty or thirty cents. Yet the cost of living is low and the people think they do well to get these wages. Their labour is nothing like so efficient as that of the unskilled workers of the United States. The fact that the sand is mixed with the oil entails drilling difficulties that we do not have in the United States. The sand is as sharp as the particles of a carborun¬ dum grindstone and cuts like diamond dust. When a gusher is struck, the mush-like mixture comes out with such force that it sometimes saws its way through iron and steel. It will also spray over a large part of the surrounding country, and it is for this reason that the derricks are not left open as in the United States, but boarded in from top to bottom. In order to break the force of the geyser of oil and sand, a screen of steel rails is hung about twenty feet above the mouth of the well. Alternate rails are inverted and the whole makes a solid steel ceiling. But the oil sand flies against this in such a blast that it cuts right through the steel in the space of 242 Nearly nine tenths of the Rumanians live on the land. In the typical peasant house a broad bench serves as a bed for the women and children, while the men sleep outdoors or on the floor. Millions of dollars of American money have been invested in the Rumanian oil fields, which rank sixth among the petroleum-producing re¬ gions of the world. The oil here is difficult to handle because it is mixed with sand. IN RUMANIA’S OIL FIELDS eight hours or less. Sometimes a cap of iron, or a flowell, weighing three tons, is poised above the well, yet the sand bites through it. I stopped now and then to watch the drilling. On account of the sand the wells are never shot here with dynamite or other explosives, as with us. The drilling is further complicated by the different degrees of density of the various strata, which cause the earth to slide in much the same way as it does along the Panama Canal. This slipping forces the drill out of the perpendicular, often to such an extent that a second hole must be put down or the bent drill cut through and the hole extended. The soft earth formations add to the difficulty of putting down the casings. In a deep well the pipe sunk at the top may be twenty-five inches in diameter, or so big that a four-hundred-pound hog could crawl through it. After some distance a smaller casing is run down from the top and the drilling continued, the hole growing smaller and smaller until the casing that strikes the oil is perhaps so small that a cat could not run through it. A queer feature of the Moreni field is a huge wedge of salt, which runs east and west, with the oil on two sides of it. It is a mile or so wide at the point and broadens out as it extends from the hills to the plains. The deposit goes down no one knows how far. It has been drilled to a depth of more than a half mile from the surface, yet the bottom has not been reached. Standing on the apex I could see the great black derricks forming long lines on the sides of the wedge. Som¬ breness is a feature of the Rumanian oil fields. The pitchy black sand and the oil spray paint everything the colour of jet. The buildings are black, the machinery is black, 243 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST and even the ground is of a rich, dark hue. In walking I had to watch my step lest I sink to my shoe tops in one of the oil swamps here and there. I had to be especially careful as I had an appointment to lunch with the Queen on the following day and had no other shoes than those on my feet. Among gold miners there is a common saying that the gold is where you find it. It is much the same with oil. For centuries petroleum has been mined in a small way in different parts of Rumania. It was first exploited com¬ mercially in 1857, two years before the Drake well was put down in the United States and opened the story of profitable oil production in America. For a long time the wells were dug by hand and big basins about fifteen feet square and fifty feet deep were made to hold the oil. In the beginning the diggers were not able to go below one hun¬ dred and fifty feet, and as they went down they used to drop snow into the wells to purify the air. At least they claimed this purified it. Later, wells were sunk by hand to six or even eight hundred feet and the oil sands were washed in great wooden vessels half filled with water. The water separated the sand from the oil, which floated on the surface. Later still, the oil was hauled out in wooden barrels by horses hitched to windlasses. Some¬ times ox skins were used to raise the petroleum just as they are even now used in northern India to lift water for irrigation. After the foreign drillers came in, prospecting went on everywhere and new fields were discovered. Among those tested was this Moreni field, and that notwithstanding the advice of Doctor Nerasic, the head of the Geological In¬ stitute of Rumania. The learned doctor said that there 244 IN RUMANIA’S OIL FIELDS was so little chance of finding oil in Moreni that he would agree to drink every quart taken out of the region. Never¬ theless, as I have said, the Moreni field is producing more than half the output of the whole country, and it will yield this year something like four million barrels. In closing this chapter, I want to say a word or so about the Standard Oil Company in Rumania, whose in¬ vestments here amount to upwards of twenty million dollars. It was one of the first foreign companies to aid in establishing the industry and to-day it does a business larger than any other company in the field, with the ex¬ ception, perhaps, of the Royal Dutch Shell. I have gone over its works, which are marvels of effi¬ ciency and modern machinery in a land where most of the methods are crude in the extreme. It has a force of high- class men and the American colony here at Ploesti is a re¬ freshing oasis in this great desert of southwestern Europe. On the outskirts of the town the company has some thou¬ sands of acres on which it has built up a settlement that might be transplanted bodily to the best suburbs of any American city and not be out of place. Beautiful brick houses of two stories, facing well-kept lawns decorated with trees and flowers, extend for a mile on each side of a white macadamized roadway not far from the refineries. The colony has a good school and a clubhouse, tennis courts, ball grounds, and a large swimming pool filled with the purest spring water. Every family has a house to itself, and the homes are well furnished and equipped with hot and cold water and electric lights. The social life of the community is delightful, and I find none of the people anxious to leave. 245 CHAPTER XXXII AT THE queen’s TABLE Hurray/' cried the kitten, “Hurray!'* As he merrily set the sails, “ 1 sail o'er the ocean to-day To look at the Prince of Wales." “But, kitten," 1 cried, dismayed, “If you lived through the angry gales. Surely you’d be afraid To look at the Prince of Wales!" Said the kitten, “No such thing. Why should he make me wince? If a cat may look at a King, A kitten may look at a Prince." —Oliver Her ford. I HAVE just returned from the Royal Castle at Sinaia, the summer palace of the King of Rumania, where I have had the honour of lunching with their Majesties, King Ferdinand and Queen Marie, and of meet¬ ing the beautiful young Princess Ileana. The palace is a home-like building of three or four stories, with roofs as sharp as a knife blade and white walls inlaid in patterns of varnished yellow pine. It has gables and spires and other Rumanian architectural con¬ ceits. It is in the midst of a wooded park covering hun¬ dreds of acres, and is reached by a twisting driveway up 246 In the heart of the Transylvanian Alps is Sinaia, summer capital of Rumania and chief resort of southeastern Europe. Society follows the King and Queen here each season and match-making and politics are carried on together. The most beautiful queen in Europe has made Rumania the leader among the Balkan states. When at her summer palace she usually wears the embroidered peasant costume, with jewels worth a small fortune. AT THE QUEEN^S TABLE the mountain from Sinaia, the summer capital here in the heart of the Transylvanian Alps. The castle looks as if it were a part of the hills that tower over it. The entrance is under a carved porte-cochere and the front doors open into a great hall leading into a square salon from which stairs of polished oak wind their way to the floors above. Portraits of the royal family hang on the walls. Books in a half-dozen different languages cover the tables. After 1 had talked for a time with the High Court Chamberlain, Doctor Misu, for many years Minister from Rumania to the Court of St. James's, the Queen tripped down the stairs with a long-haired black spaniel at her heels. When Doctor Misu introduced me she gave my hand a cordial grasp and we chatted awhile before the King appeared. Her Majesty was dressed in the Rumanian costume and looked strikingly handsome. Monarchs can never con¬ ceal their birth dates, which appear in the statistical annuals and in other books. Therefore, I know that Queen Marie is just about forty-eight, but she does not look it. She has a clear, fair complexion, beautiful blonde hair, and eyes as blue as the skies over the mountains that look down on her palace. Her hands are small and soft, but her grip is firm, and she greets her guests with delightful cordiality. From a photograph in my mind's eye let me give you a pen picture of Her Majesty in the costume of her country. Her head was covered with a long white veil thrown back from her high and rather broad forehead and hanging down over her shoulders almost to her knees. The veil was bound on with a fillet of soft green silk about two inches wide, which came midway down the forehead, and 247 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST was fastened there with a magnificent pearl. Her gown was of white Rumanian linen embroidered with a sort of filigree work of red silk and gold thread in the artistic patterns for which the peasants of Transylvania are fa¬ mous. The full sleeves came to the wrist and were adorned with embroidery in patterns two inches square. About her waist and extending almost to the bottom of her gown was a rich red overskirt of a velvety silk so made that one could hardly tell whether it was composed of strings or plaited. The hem of the gown was covered with gold embroidery and just touched her shoes of white kid. About her waist was a wide belt with carved silver buckles as big as the palm of my hand, which she told me came from Dalmatia. For a luncheon the Queen does not, of course, dress as for her great evening functions. Nevertheless, she wore jewels worth the ransom of a half-dozen kings. From each of her little ears hung a pearl as big as a hickory nut, and about her neck was a great string of pearls, each of which would, 1 venture, pay the salary of a justice of the United States Supreme Court for several years. On her right wrist was a bracelet of diamonds, and above it a tiny platinum watch fastened on with a ribbon of black silk. Her fingers sparkled with rings, one of which was set with a huge diamond and a pigeon-blood ruby so big that the two stones covered the finger from the knuckle to the sec¬ ond joint. Queen Marie’s jewels are famous. She has a large collection, some of which came from her family in Russia and probably date back to her great-grandfather. Czar Alexander 1. Perhaps she has some, too, from her grand¬ mother, Queen Victoria. King Ferdinand has been lavish in his presents and she has bought pearls and diamonds 248 AT THE QUEEN’S TABLE since she came to the throne. She wears her jewels so that they do not look ostentatious, and to-day they seemed quite in harmony with the Sunday costume of her peasant subjects. Her Majesty is tall and stately and talks, walks, and acts the queen. Nevertheless, the woman—and she is a most womanly woman—shows in all she says and does and she has the faculty of putting one perfectly at ease. She is frank in her conversation and before and during the luncheon she spoke without reserve about herself, the war, and the future of her country. She is a woman of great breadth of intellect. She knows the world well and central Europe as you know the palm of your hand. Now she talked about Russia, now about Germany and Poland, and again about Albania, Dalmatia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia. She mentioned the last two countries in connec¬ tion with her children, two of whom are married into the royal family of Greece, and one of whom is the wife of Alexander, King of Yugoslavia. I remember her telling a story about her reply to some¬ one who referred to her as a ''Business Queen.” It was just after she had married one of her daughters to the Crown Prince of Greece, and the King of Greece had sent his daughter to Rumania to marry her son, Carol, the Crown Prince of Rumania. She said: " 1 object to the title of ' Business Queen.’ 1 am not in business and my life is a simple one. Indeed the only business that can be charged against me just now is that of meddling in our foreign commerce. 1 have been ex¬ porting a daughter to Athens and importing a Greek daughter to marry my son.” There is no doubt, however, that Her Majesty has a 249 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST shrewd mind. She has a brilliant imagination and one of her visions is a great future for Rumania. She wants to see the country progress economically and every foreign capitalist who comes to Bucharest or Sinaia is shown Rumania's immense resources and possibilities through the Queen’s rose-coloured glasses. She may object to the expression, but it seems to me that in the best sense of the word Queen Marie is one of the most businesslike of rulers. She would sacrifice herself at any time for her country and she has again and again proved herself the "'great mother” of her subjects by striv¬ ing always after things that will better their condition. The story of her work during the war is a part of Rumanian history. She went out to the field and worked with the wounded. She organized hospitals, and no Red Cross nurse put in more hours of good hard labour. At the same time she brought her common sense and practical suggestions to the aid of the administration and raised money in every possible way. Queen Marie has a contempt, 1 imagine, for the monarch who is only a figurehead in the government of his people. She has a forceful personality and is ambitious to rank with such women as Queen Elizabeth, Maria Theresa, and Catherine the Great of Russia. Her charming daughter, the Princess Ileana, seems to have the same bent. Once, when there was talk of Poland’s being ruled by a king, the future monarch was suggested as a possible husband for the Princess Ileana. When asked what she thought of the idea, she replied: "I don’t know that I would object. Poland is prac¬ tically a new country and the queen there would have plenty to do. I think I might like it.” 250 AT THE QUEEN’S TABLE And this reminds me of the story I heard in Bucharest of how Her Majesty declined the opportunity of becoming the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India. It was when she was sweet sixteen—she must have been very beautiful then—and had only the title of Prin¬ cess Mary. She is, you know, the daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria’s second son, and is conse¬ quently first cousin of King George V of England. She and George were playmates and friends. George was the second son of Edward VH, then Prince of Wales, and as his older brother, the Duke of Clarence, was living, he was not the lineal heir to the throne. At the Isle of Wight, Prince George asked the Princess Mary to be his wife. She refused him, and later on he married the present Queen. Then, his brother having died, he fell heir to the British throne. Had Princess Mary accepted, Rumania would lack what is now one of her most valuable assets. I shall not describe our meal in detail. It was formally served by men in the blue uniforms with silver buttons of the palace livery. The room where we lunched was, I judge, about fifty feet long and twenty feet wide and the dining table ran from one end almost to the other. It was covered with a cloth of damask, and there were no flowers except sweet peas of a delicate pink which were strewn over the cloth here and there. Lunch began with appetizers in the way of salads of tomatoes and cucumbers, sardines, and bird-shot caviar, a teaspoonful of which was served in the hard white of the half of a boiled egg. The black caviar looked most at¬ tractive against the white background of the egg. After the hors d'ceuvres we had fish from the Danube, roast veal, vegetables, a lettuce salad, a dessert of pink ice, and small 251 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST cups of smoking hot Turkish coffee as black as ink, as thick as molasses, and almost as sweet. There were sixteen at the table, the King and the Queen sitting on opposite sides in the centre, with the guests on their right and left. I was second from King Ferdinand, and within six feet of Queen Marie who was almost directly across the table from me. Her Majesty talked throughout the meal, which lasted for more than an hour, eating heartily the while. After we had finished, a silver alcohol lamp, of a beauti¬ ful ancient Roman design, was placed before the Queen. She took a cigarette and lighted it from the flame, raising the lamp to the level of her nose as she did so. She smoked vigorously, and it seemed to me that she liked it. Some¬ times she talked with the cigarette in her mouth. The lamp was next passed to the King, after which it went around the table. There was no stiffness whatever in the conduct of the luncheon. The Queen’s black spaniel trotted about under the table, and for some reason picked me out as his friend. He came up and rested his head on my knees, and I sur¬ reptitiously fed him bits of bread while the Queen chatted. Her Majesty might be called the Queen of the Fairies. She is that to the children of Rumania, and to the multi¬ tude of other children who delight in the fairy stories she writes, some of which have been filmed. During luncheon the question of authorship came up and Queen Marie spoke of her pleasure in creative work. She has written a number of magazine articles and not a few books, re¬ minding me of Carmen Sylva, the literary Queen whom she succeeded. 252 AT THE QUEEN’S TABLE Queen Marie tells me she delights in writing for children. She says their imaginations are much more vivid than those of the grown-ups, and that they appreciate every shade of thought. She has published many stories for children, and upon my telling her that I would like to show one of these to the boys and girls of America she said that she would give me a copy of “The Story of Naughty Kildeen,” one of her books that came out in France some years ago. While we were discussing this book, the Princess Ileana came into the room and was presented to us. The Princess is as straight as an arrow, graceful, and most intelligent. She speaks English fluently and has, I doubt not, a half- dozen languages on the tip of her tongue. She was dressed in a richly embroidered peasant costume, and had a bright silk handkerchief bound round her head. Her mother sent her to get a copy of “Naughty Kildeen” and bring it to me. In all this 1 have not said much of King Ferdinand, for I was especially interested in the Queen and at such times kings do not count. His Majesty came into the re¬ ception hall shortly after Queen Marie, and shook hands with his guests. He was dressed in the uniform of a Rumanian general, wearing an olive-drab suit with a Sam Browne belt. He wore tan boots that reached to his knees and had silver spurs at the heels. His breast was plastered with decorations. King Ferdinand is well-built and of medium height, and looks somewhat like a club man of studious tempera¬ ment. He is shy rather than ostentatious. His voice is low, his manner decidedly pleasing, and his conversation at table showed genuine devotion to his people and their country. 253 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST As the summer capital of Rumania Sinaia has a gay social life centring about the King and Queen. It is the playground of the rich. Situated in a valley of the Tran¬ sylvanian Alps, as high as the tops of the Alleghanies, with great wooded hills rising a half mile or so above it, this is one of the beauty spots of the world. Indeed, it might be called the Simla of Rumania, or better, perhaps, of southeastern Europe. Here one may see dandified young men in soft flannels playing tennis with beautiful young women in lavishly em¬ broidered blouses, with bright-coloured silks tied around their heads. Near by are other women down on their knees weeding the lawn of a park, or tossing bricks to masons putting up a new building. There are indeed two sides of life at Sinaia. Let us walk through the park. It is surrounded by big hotels of dead white, with sharply ridged roofs of red tiles. Behind, climbing the hills and extending up the mountains, are white villas, far more picturesque than the chateaus in the Swiss Alps. Near a pool filled with goldfish a band in military uniforms of delicate blue, black leather boots, and broad green hats turned up at the side with feathers, is playing such music as one hears only near the Danube. Sitting on the benches or strolling about are wealthy women in gorgeous gowns, and peasant women in homespun with their heads tied up as if they had toothache. There are dandies dressed to the nines; officers in gay uniforms, decorated with gold braid; Ru¬ manian flappers, adipose dames in rich clothing, and fat old men ogling the young women. Truly, the Rumanian girls are among the fair ones of the world; their forms are as graceful and voluptuous as that of the goddess of love. 254 One can trace in the lovely dark eyes and hair of the Rumanian girls the Roman descent of which the people are so proud. After the gay spson at Bucharest the young men and maidens flock to Sinaia, with its mineral springs and baths and its fine hotels. In the big salon of the Casino there is dancing in the afternoons and evenings, and in the gambling room adjoining play goes on most of the time. High stakes are the rule. Under the trees of Sinaia’s outdoor restaurants gather the upper classes of Rumania. They wear the latest fashions of Paris and spend lavishly, for many own huge farms and are enormously rich. AT THE QUEEN’S TABLE Among the amusements at Sinaia are mountain climb¬ ing, tennis, riding horseback over the bridle paths, mo¬ toring, and driving. In the evening one strolls about through the parks and listens to the bands until time for dinner, which always begins about nine and lasts more than an hour. After that, there is dancing, to say nothing of gambling at the Casino. The Casino is a great, white, two-story building, with a large salon where the pleasure seekers drink tea and dance in the afternoon, and drink other things and dance in the evening. After the dance and before it, and in fact throughout most of the day, there is gambling. The gambling room adjoins the dance-hall, and both are connected with my hotel by a long underground tunnel. When I entered the Casino last night 1 found a half- dozen tables devoted to a card game known as chemin de fer, or railroad. Each was surrounded by men and women with piles of green and red chips before them, and there was a croupier sitting in the centre of one side holding a paddle of black wood as long as my arm and twice as wide as the palm of my hand. The paddle was almost as thin as an ivory paper cutter and as flexible as a sword from Damascus. With it the croupier scooped up the money or chips and tossed them from player to player, dropping down the winnings of the house beside him. 1 could tell from the expressions of the fat old Rumanian dames watching the cards with their bulbous eyes whether they were winning or losing. Some of the younger men and women also were decidedly nervous, and I venture many a good Rumanian acre is lost at this place. Before leaving I was approached by a dark-eyed young woman who invited me to learn the game, and told me how much some 255 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST Americans had made at the tables. But it was after ten and far past my bedtime, and I refused to join in. Sinaia is within a short distance of the Transylvanian border, and during my stay I have motored over the pass crossed by the military highway between the two countries. Transylvania, as you know, is a province that formerly belonged to Hungary but after the World War it was given over to Rumania. It is about half as large as the state of Pennsylvania, and has more than five hundred thousand Magyars, something like two hundred thousand Germans, and perhaps two million Rumanians, with a sprinkling of Ruthenians, Slovaks, and Jews thrown in for good measure. Travel through these mountains is delightful. We wound our way through valley after valley, frowned on by gigantic peaks, here covered with woods almost to their tops, there showing rocks that look like castles and forts. On the Rumanian slopes the peasant houses are more picturesque than those on the Transylvanian side. The Rumanian houses are always whitewashed and often the whitewash is decorated in the brightest blue. Frequently stripes run down the sides or around the windows, and patterns of blue may be splattered here and there over the walls. This, I understand, is to keep away the Evil Eye. Many of the houses are roofed with red tiles, others with corrugated iron. They are often trimmed with carving and fretwork, and nearly every one has a porch. If there is an attic or second story, it is reached by out¬ side stairs. The houses are usually small, the average having but three rooms. The family all sleeps in one room, the women and girls on a bench, the men on the floor or the stove. The cooking is generally done out of 256 AT THE QUEEN^S TABLE doors or on a rude stone inside. In the yard of each house is a bake-oven, and sometimes a straw shack and a shed or two as well. In other sections of Rumania, the village homes have fenced yards in front of them. In Transylvania the houses are often crowded together close to the street as in Ger¬ many. The stables are at the back. The houses are of brick and stucco, and are unattractive. I wish you could see these peasants on Sunday, when they appear in their richly embroidered dresses. A village woman then wears one or two overdresses gorgeously embroidered in patterns of red, yellow, or blue. Her belt is embroidered in gold thread and even her commonest overskirt has a broad woven band of gold, silk, or wool thread, to which are hung long streamers of red or some other colour. The headdresses vary according to the region. Sometimes they are high caps and sometimes only handkerchiefs wrapped round the head. The women are fond of necklaces of silver and gold coins and they delight in bright belts. The embroidered garments are so pretty that they are eagerly bought by tourists, and many blouses and gowns are made for sale in the cities. In Sinaia one can get a beautiful blouse almost covered with embroidery for five dollars, and a gown almost any girl would be glad to wear at a party for ten or fifteen. 257 CHAPTER XXXIII CONSTANTINOPLE I HAVE come to Constantinople through the Black Sea and the Bosporus. Taking ship at Constanza in the delta of the Danube, I crossed from Rumania to Turkey in a Rumanian vessel. The Black Sea is more than five times the size of Lake Superior. It is nearly as big as the Baltic and its only outlet is the Bos¬ porus Strait, nineteen miles long and from a half mile to two miles in width, which connects it with the Sea of Marmora and the Mediterranean. We left Constanza at night and the next morning found ourselves at the entrance of the winding strait separating Europe and Asia. The Bosporus is perhaps the most famous small body of water in all history. Its very name comes from a story in Greek mythology. Bosporus means ''ox ford” and the strait was so-called because the beautiful maiden lo, trans¬ formed into a cow by the jealous wife of Zeus and pursued by her wrath, fled across it from one continent to the other. We entered the strait near a point named Anchor Key, for the anchor that Jason found here when he and the Argo¬ nauts were seeking the Golden Fleece. On the European side is the giant mountain where Jason made sacrifices and built temples and where Darius, the great Persian king, stood and looked upon Europe. The Turks have a tradition that Joshua, the son of Nun, came to the Bosporus to live after he had conquered Ca- 258 The terraced streets of Constantinople are sometimes connected with each other by flights of stone steps, often lined with small shops. It is said the city grew up originally along paths worn in the hillsides by goats. The Turks say that Joshua, son of Nun, was so great a giant that when he sat on top of this hill and looked across the Bosporus to the shores of Europe, his feet touched the waters below. Constantinople is a city of more than a million people that seems to rise out of the sea. Its hills are crowned with domes and minarets, and its water front is always crowded with the shipping of Europe and Asia. CONSTANTINOPLE naan, and they show you his grave near a mosque on the mountain top. Their story represents Joshua as fre¬ quently standing astride the strait and letting the ships sail between his huge legs. He also loved, they say, to sit of an evening on the summit of the mountain and lave his feet in the water, which was more than two hun¬ dred yards below him. While we waited for the quarantine officers to look us over, we anchored under the mountain at the town of Kevak, not far from some Standard Oil tanks, then wound our way down the Bosporus, between the villas and villages that dot both the Asiatic and the European shores. There are many hotels rising from the waters, and here and there we saw palaces built by the sul¬ tans. The biggest of all is Dolma-Baghcheh, which stretches for more than a third of a mile along the strait, its white marble facade gleaming in the sun. It was built some seventy years ago and the architect's only instructions were to erect a royal palace more splendid than the sultan of that day had ever beheld. Yet, in spite of its magnificence, it fell into disfavour after one sultan committed suicide and another went insane within its gorgeous walls, and it is whispered that the place is haunted. It was here that the Caliph Abdul-Medjid, the last of the line of Osman, was told that he must leave Turkey for ever. From the Black Sea to Constantinople the Bosporus is walled with hills. I noticed castles on some of the heights and both shores seem fairly well settled. The country appeared ragged and rough, but many of the villas had beautiful gardens. Everywhere were signs of the poverty of the Turks. All the buildings lacked paint and the 259 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST windows were like bleary eyes looking out of faded faces. Here and there were new and well-kept structures, among them some buildings flying the American flag. One of these flags belonged to Robert College, the greatest educational and westernizing institution in this part of the world, and another flew over the American College for Women, which holds the place in the Near East that Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley have in our country. As we neared Constantinople, the waters were filled with shipping. There were great steamers lying in the harbour and hundreds of caiques, the famous canoe-like boats of the Turk, were being rowed about. There were barges loaded with lumber and other cargoes, and ferry¬ boats filled with commuters, red-fezzed passengers travel¬ ling back and forth from their homes on the strait. There are fifteen different stops on the Bosporus and the Prince's Islands, and morning and evening the boats are packed like the ferries of New York. Coming down the strait we had a fine view of this great city of more than a million, with its hundreds of minarets cutting the sky and standing out like so many white pins on a huge cushion of green. The city seems to rise from the edge of the sea. Its hills are crowned with mighty mosques, some of which cover acres, and from the minarets the shrill tenor voices of the muezzins calling the hours of prayer ring out across the water. Constantinople is divided into three parts. Galata and Pera form one section. Here most of the foreigners live, modern business has its headquarters, and the sultans had many of their palaces. In Scutari the most fanatical of the Turks have their homes, and there, after the World War, tens of thousands of refugees were cared for by the 260 CONSTANTINOPLE American doctors and nurses of the Near East Relief. Stamboul is the most important part of the city. It con¬ tains the bulk of the Mohammedan population and all the great mosques. In Stamboul are the bazaars, the Sublime Porte, the headquarters of the Turkish Empire before the new government was instituted at Angora, and in short everything that is essentially Turkish. Stamboul is separated from Pera and Galata by the Golden Horn, a deep inlet about a mile wide where it joins the Bosporus, but narrowing as it curves in between the two cities and goes back into the country to meet the stream called the Sweet Waters of Europe. The bridge of boats over the Golden Horn, connecting European Constantinople with Moslem Stamboul, is one of the most remarkable bridges of the world. It surpasses in interest the Rialto in Venice, upon which Shylock bargained with Antonio for his pound of flesh; Brooklyn Bridge, that great cob-web of steel joining New York and Long Island, or even the Thames Bridge in London, which bears perhaps more traffic than any bridge in the world. It is said that three hundred thousand people and not more than one idea cross the Galata Bridge every day. It is the throng that makes it so remarkable; for here is presented a moving picture of humanity such as one can see in few other places on earth. Stand beside me midway between Stamboul and Pera and a hundred feet above the waters of the Golden Horn. Of the more than a million inhabitants of Constantinople only about one half are Turks, and the rest of the population is made up of Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and all the strange characters you will find in this part of the world. There are tens of thousands of Jews. Here comes one now. He is dressed 261 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST in a black gown and from each side of his fur cap hangs a long curl, showing that he belongs to that crowd of Spanish Jews whose forefathers came here when they were driven by persecution from Spain. Behind him struts a Greek Catholic monk, and on the other side of the bridge is a dervish whose Arab features are crowned with a high tan-coloured cap, which stands fully a foot above his head and looks like an inverted tumbler. The dervish wears a long black gown and his face has numerous scars, for he belongs to a sect of fanatics that mutilate themselves in their religious ecstasy. Among the next passers-by are two flabby-faced eunuchs as black as the charcoal in the basket being carried by the porter behind them. Each has a stick in his hand and both talk in shrill, piping voices as they pass. Notwith¬ standing the decrease in the harems, eunuchs are still to be seen in Constantinople. Those men are probably going on errands for the wives of some bey whom they guard. Behind the eunuchs is a Circassian, a big man with a black beard, whose breast is covered with cartridge boxes. His clothes are half European, he has a dagger in his belt, and he wears the uniform of a soldier. With him is a Greek, dressed in ballet-girl costume. At each end of the Galata Bridge are Turkish officials, who are supposed to collect a small sum from all who pass across, from the pasha and the bey to the porter and the beggar. Not long ago, when the taxes were raised, the women, who had previously been exempt, were included among those who must pay toll. But they refused to do so. This put the officials in an embarrassing pre¬ dicament, for according to the Turkish idea a man's wife or daughter is his own special property and no 262 When the Ahmedieh Mosque was completed, there was an outcry because it had the same number of minarets as the mosque at Mecca. So the Sultan added another spire to the shrine at Mecca, thus leaving the A.hmedieh the only mosque in the world with six minarets. The porters are the common carriers of Constantinople, and hundreds of them may be seen on the Galata Bridge any day. These men are so strongly unionized that for generations they have maintained a monopoly of the transport business. CONSTANTINOPLE other man may lay hands upon her. Therefore, the tax collectors dare not interfere with the woman who goes on her way without paying toll. Most striking of all of the characters on the bridge are the hamals, or porters. The hamal of Constantinople belongs to a union in which membership is passed on from father to son. Boys begin to carry burdens at eight and ten years of age and they are still carrying them when their hair is white at three score and ten. Here comes a hamal with a load of boards big enough for a mule. I am told that a porter will take a length of eight-inch iron pipe up the hills of Stamboul on his back. See those three men, each with a three-bushel basket full of watermelons fastened to his shoulders. The melons are held in by a net over the top. Other porters are bent double under dry-goods boxes, tables, stools, even upright pianos and beds. These porters are the ash collectors of the city. I see them every morning toiling up to the dumps, which lie between my hotel window and the Golden Horn. To protect his back the hamal wears a triangular saddle, or padded cushion of leather, with a projection at the bottom to prevent the load from slipping. As I write these notes my guide grabs my arm and jerks me out of the roadway. A caravan of camels is coming and one of these ill-natured beasts might bite me as he passes. This caravan is led by a man with a donkey, which the guide says is a common custom throughout the country. To my surprise, the camels pay no attention to the automobiles. Behind them are mules with pan¬ niers, bringing in stuff from the country, and amid the traffic are horses, and even the black, ugly water-buffalo, half-hog and half-cow, drawing all sorts of vehicles. 263 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST I notice the blue beads that hang in strings around the necks, across the foreheads, and on the tails of the beasts. Every animal has them to ward off the Evil Eye. This superstition has even extended to automobiles. When I was out yesterday I saw a car driven by a gowned and turbaned Turk, which had a strand of blue beads wrapped around the radiator cap at the front. The man was going like the wind and 1 doubt not he had implicit faith in the charm. Speaking of automobiles, these Turks have no speed laws and their driving is the most reckless 1 have ever seen. The main street of Pera is just wide enough for two cars to pass and the red-fezzed chauffeurs fly in and out at a speed that would get them arrested in any American city. Even the street cars are dangerous, for they come so close to the narrow sidewalks that their sides are apt to skin one’s legs as they pass. They go like mad and the ringing of their bells vies with the honking of the automobiles. Constantinople is a noisy city. Street peddlers shriek out their wares. The hamals yell to people to get out of their way. The pavements are of cobbles and every vehicle rattles. Right next my hotel is the Petit Champs, a garden where jazz music and singing keep up until three o’clock in the morning and where the after-midnight sights would disgust Vienna, Paris, or Berlin, in the days of their greatest degradation. 1 do not always sleep well and 1 try to drop off by keeping time to the music. At about 3:00 A.M. the din dies down and the city is quiet. But even then 1 hear theresonant sounds of the policeman’s club as he walks his beat, tapping the flag-stones every so often to warn the thieves of his coming and to show the city fathers that he is still on the job. 264 CHAPTER XXXIV THE NEW WOMAN IN TURKEY T he women of Turkey are coming out of their seclusion, going about with their faces uncov¬ ered, and learning to take a part in politics and business. When I was in Constantinople fifteen years ago, the poorer women wore veils so thick that you could not see through them, and only the high-class ladies of the harems had white gauze veils showing above their balloon-like black dresses. To-day the majority of those on the street have their faces perfectly bare and the veiled woman is the exception. The women still wear unsightly coverings over their heads, but these are drawn tight down around the sides of the face, so that all the features show. Even a few years ago, the better class Turkish girls wore veils when out driving, especially when going to such places as the Sweet Waters of Europe. Now they may be seen with uncovered faces, notwithstanding the many young men riding about in motor cars or on horseback. I see them often in the boats on the Golden Horn, their veils thrown back, and they do not hesitate to look at the men; in fact, they seem to want the men to notice them. Most of the women at functions of the higher classes are now without veils. At an official reception the other evening more than thirty young girls appeared wearing decollete gowns. This would haVe been impossible a few years ago. 265 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST When during the World War the women went to the field and served as nurses, they began to take off their veils. Many of them joined the Red Crescent, which is the Turkish society of the Red Cross. Others did all sorts of war and relief work, and like the nurses, discarded their face coverings. Since the war, the employment of girls has been largely extended and unveiled women work in stores, operate type¬ writers, and run telephone switchboards. There is a dry goods establishment in Pera run entirely by women. Stam- boul has a department store where there are many women clerks. They are dressed in black but their faces are unveiled. There are unveiled women peddlers in the bazaars who called out to me as I passed to come in and buy. Unveiled girls of the higher class, with red ribbons across their breasts, stand on the corners asking alms for special charities. If you give, they will pin a protective tag on the lapel of your coat. Many of the Turkish women are going in for charitable work. Some run orphan asylums and hospitals. Women have recently been allowed to plead their own cases in the Turkish courts and in some instances have been successful. It used to be that husband and wife never appeared together on the streets and there was a law forbidding Turkish men and women to go to a public entertainment together, no matter if they were husband and wife, brother and sister, or mother and son. To-day I saw a dozen men and women walking together across the bridge leading from the European quarters to Stamboul, and some went arm in arm. Up to six years ago there was a statute pro¬ hibiting a man and woman from riding together in the same vehicle; now both sexes are often to be seen in the same 266 THE NEW WOMAN IN TURKEY motor car. The street cars still have compartments in front reserved for Turkish women. But there is a dis¬ tinction between Mohammedans and Christians. A Turk¬ ish woman may walk with a Turkish man, but her going about with a Christian may cause trouble. The Moham¬ medan women are not only attending the movies, but some of the educated girls are acting for the screen. Several are making a success at posing in all sorts of costumes. As to public entertainments, the new Magic Theatre has a special dispensation permitting a Turk to enter with his wife, but at most of the movies there is one section for the women and another for the men. The manager of one of the movies says he doesn’t like the women to patron¬ ize his house, for if a women comes alone she is stared at and if she has a man with her one of the old-fashioned Turks is likely to call the police. Constantinople has a weekly paper of large circulation, published by and for women. It is printed in the Arabic language, and among the illustrations are pictures of women advertising silk stockings and lingerie. The paper con¬ tains political articles, poetry, and fiction, and its chief aim is the advancement of women. I hear all sorts of talk about doing away with the harem and the establishment of monogamy as a national custom. Dr. Fuad Bey, formerly Minister of Health and Child Welfare, says that in a recent trip across Turkey he did not find any man with more than one wife and that the time will soon come when a law will be passed pro¬ hibiting plural marriage. However that may be, there are still harems all over Turkey, especially out in the country where the women do the work and are a labour as¬ set to their husbands. The Koran permits a man to have 267 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST four wives and as many female slaves as he can support. Among the higher classes, each wife has a separate estab¬ lishment. The objections to polygamy are due not so much to conscientious scruples as to the additional expense in these days of the high cost of living, and to the inevi¬ table disquiet in a household of several wives. When I was here the first time, many years ago, I learned much about the harem of Sultan Mahmud 11. Upon his accession, in order to make his throne safe, he sewed up the one hundred and seventy-four wives of Mustafa IV in sacks loaded with shot and dropped them into the cool waters of the Bosporus. Abdul-Aziz, uncle of Abdul-Hamid, was especially fond of blue-eyed beau¬ ties with golden hair. He had twelve hundred slaves in his harem and it is said that his expenses for presents and dresses were about eight hundred thousand dollars a year. Abdul-Hamid had a big harem with scores of eunuchs to watch the women. His chief eunuch wore a uniform of scarlet and gold and built a mosque to serve as his tomb. The eunuchs formed but a small part of the staff of servants for the palace. It took something like seven thousand people to wait upon Abdul-Aziz. His kitchens had three hundred servants and there were one hundred porters who did nothing but carry burdens for the estab¬ lishment. All of his numerous wives had their servants, hairdressers, and dressmakers, and the most favoured had separate establishments with their own eunuchs, slaves, doctors, and cooks. At that time the buying and selling of women was secretly done and the Sultan’s establishment was often in¬ creased by girls from the Caucasus. Their value depended somewhat on their beauty and accomplishments, and the 268 THE NEW WOMAN IN TURKEY good singers and dancers brought the best prices. Then an ordinary slave girl of from twelve to sixteen years of age sold for two hundred dollars, and if very beautiful she might bring as much as two thousand. Sometimes the Sultan paid even as much as six thousand dollars. To-day the officials of the Republic say that there is no longer any buying and selling of women in Turkey, but this is denied and I am told it still goes on under the rose. One of the greatest influences for the advancement of women, not only in Turkey but in Rumania, Bulgaria, and other parts of the Near East, is the American College for Women, located on the Bosporus about five miles from the Golden Horn and within easy access of Constantinople. This institution was founded by Americans more than a generation ago and has been supported by generous gifts from many well-known people of the United States. Among these are Helen Gould, after whom Gould Hall, one of the fine buildings of the institution, is named. Another is Mrs. Russell Sage, who gave her name to Sage Hall. Gifts have also been received from John D. Rocke¬ feller, Mrs. Henry Woods, of Boston, Miss Grace Dodge, and others. The college was started at Scutari, on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, but it is now on the hills of Europe looking out upon Asia and commanding a view up and down the strait. Its campus has more than a hundred acres of hill and hollow, and the walls under the great shade trees remind me of those at Oxford. The white stone buildings stand upon hills, rising perhaps one thou¬ sand feet from the Bosporus. The college has a centml heating plant, is lighted by electricity, and its laboratories and other equipment are equal to the best in our own 269 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST colleges. The science laboratory at Woods Hall is the most modern and complete in this part of the world, and the Bingham Medical Building has laboratories, research rooms, and an operating theatre for medical students. The athletic ground of several acres has a hockey field, a running track, and a baseball court. Basket-ball, ten¬ nis, volley-ball, and all sorts of games are played. The girls are fond of athletics and for the most part they dress just like the girls of our colleges. On the athletic field they wear gymnasium suits, and 1 have photographs of these Mohammedan maidens making the four-hundred- yard dash, jumping the hurdles, and performing all sorts of muscular feats. They do them well, too, even though the Prophet Mohammed, if he could see them, would roll over in his grave. The girls also have a college theatre and some of them actually wear men’s clothes on the stage. The instruction compares favourably with that of Vassar, Smith, or Bryn Mawr. Many of the graduates be¬ come teachers and have for almost forty years been spread¬ ing our civilization throughout the Near East. I have met graduates of this college in all the countries from Austria to the Black Sea. They speak English fluently and are invariably a great force for good. Those that marry usually get the best of the Turks for their husbands. The common language of the college is English, though at times there are about twenty nations represented among the students. There are Slavs, Greeks, Latins, Hebrews, Tartars, Arabs, Persians, Armenians, and Anglo-Saxons. Each nation of the Balkans has its own language, but in Turkey, and especially in Constantinople, people living on the same streets and even in the same apartment house do not speak the same tongue. At the woman’s college 270 Though the modern Turkish woman has discarded the veil, she often wears the characteristic shawl and head-covering in one. The high cost of living and western ideas are killing polygamy. Overlooking the town built on the Bosporus by Mohammed II when he captured Constantinople are the buildings of Robert College, the American institution which Sultan Abdul Hamid said cost him his throne. Mohammed would probably turn in his grave if he knew the daughters of Islam were attending the American College for Women and engaging in the outdoor sports of the infidels. THE NEW WOMAN IN TURKEY each student studies as far as possible the language, literature, and history of her own nation, and this means that there are classes in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Slavic, Greek, Italian, Latin, German, and French. The college not only gives a first-class university educa¬ tion along American lines, but has two-year courses in commerce and agriculture, in home economics and normal training, and also in business. Many of the girls learn stenography in order to take positions as private secre¬ taries. Their wages are only twenty-five or thirty dollars a month at the start, but they are glad to earn the money. There is also a training school for nurses. Within the last year or so the girls of the college have been studying citizenship and political science. The students are governing themselves and they hold meetings conducted by parliamentary rules. They elect their own officers, much to the disgust of some of the students. Among the new arrivals of last year were some princesses from Russia and the Caucasus. One of these, a Georgian girl who had been accustomed to the homage of all about her, told one of the officers of the student government that she was a princess and not obliged to keep the rules. The officer replied: “We have no princesses here, and everybody must keep the rules.” The girls follow the woman's movement in other coun¬ tries. They are watching woman suffrage as it has been developing in Rumania and Bulgaria, and they would like to have it for Turkey. They have their own debating society where national affairs are freely discussed. Among the subjects of recent debates were “The Best Form of Government,” “Free Trade and Protection,” and “The Best Profession for Women.” 271 CHAPTER XXXV HERE AND THERE IN STAMBOUL O NE must cross the Golden Horn to Stamboul I to feel that he is at last in the Constanti- ' nople of his imagination, the meeting-place of East and West, the great centre of Moham¬ medanism, and the heart of the old Turkish Empire. In its narrow, winding streets, Armenians, Persians, Greeks, Syrians, Jews, Turks, dervishes, and priests of every con¬ fession jostle each other, and one may hear almost every language and dialect spoken. In the bazaars the wares of the East, far and near, compete with goods from the mills of Manchester and the factories of Birmingham. The bazaars of Constantinople are the most famous of the world. The two best known are the Egyptian Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar, both of which are in Stamboul. The Egyptian Bazaar forms a street three hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet wide, in which are set out for sale coffee, gums, dates, spices, perfumes, opium, nuts, and dye stuffs. The Grand Bazaar has ninety-odd streets and houses and something like four thousand shops. But suppose we go and see for ourselves what it is like. We cross the Golden Horn, pass up the street from the Galata Bridge, turn to the right, and are soon in the maze of the great market. It is really a city within a city, with arcaded streets, alleys, lanes, and fountains, all enclosed within walls and covered over with a curving 272 HERE AND THERE IN STAMBOUL roof broken by a hundred cupolas. We enter one of the tunnel-like streets. It is dimly lighted by windows high up on the curve of the arch. The walls are yellow, but the arched roof is stencilled with blue and the whole has a cool effect. There are festoons of rugs and hundreds of hanging lamps. This tunnel is floored with cobbles, though there are others paved with asphalt. In each of the little cells looking out on the street sits a merchant waiting among his goods for customers. There is one with his turbaned head bent over a book on his lap; he is reading the Koran. I read my Bible sometimes but never while waiting for business. I wonder how many American merchants snatch the moments between sales to con the Testaments. Here is the leather bazaar with hundreds of merchants, each in his own cave-like establishment. On the walls and overhead hang great sheets of fine leather, black, white, and yellow. In the next tunnel is a shoe bazaar, the cells of which have shelves filled with red, black, and yellow shoes and slippers. In spaces often not more than four by six feet shoemakers are sitting, each with a stump¬ like stool before him, pounding leather or sewing away. One little Turkish boy in a red fez bows to me and laughs as I write. We go on and strike a cross street filled with dry goods. Farther along there are streets of rugs and one that fairly reeks with attar of roses and other perfumes. There are streets of shops selling nothing but jewellery, gold tiaras set with diamonds, gorgeous belt buckles encrusted with sapphires and emeralds, and brooches of pigeon-blood rubies. One would think the wealth of the world had been shovelled into baskets and brought here for sale. In this 273 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST jewellery street and others of the main tunnels several of the merchants have plate-glass windows and up-to-date counters; Western methods seem to be coming in gradually. Some of the finest stores are not visible from the street. One may crawl through a hole in the wall, climb up narrow stairs, and find a room filled with the treasures of Aladdin. Here are jewels that have been worn by the beauties of the harems, gold and silver articles from Russia, and rugs that are worth as much as the gems. There are antiques also. A diplomat friend of mine who was with me in one of these stores to-day brought a little sarcophagus of alabaster, which I venture is two thousand years old. It is about twice the size of a cigar box and was once used to hold the ashes of some beloved dead. Experienced shoppers learn to avoid the Greeks, the Armenians, and the Jews, who send out men to entice people to the shops where they sell so-called antiques. Everywhere merchants and customers are discussing prices. The word “bazaar’' means to bargain and this mar¬ ket deserves its name. There are no fixed prices for any¬ thing, so that each purchase involves a contest. After the sunset chant of the muezzin, calling the Faith¬ ful to prayer, the bazaars of Stamboul are deserted save for the watchmen guarding the wares hidden behind iron doors. On Friday, the Moslem Sabbath, all the Turkish stalls will be closed; the Jews will do no business on Saturday, and the Christian Greeks and Armenians will shut up shop on Sunday. As we leave the bazaar, we notice the public letter- writers in the shade near a mosque. Here is a well-dressed Turk of middle age dictating a business letter to a spec¬ tacled old scribe. Education is nominally compulsory in 274 Moslems find beads useful in counting off the thirty-six prayers and sixteen quotations from the Koran required by the ordinary ritual. Be¬ tween his shrewd bargains with customers, the Turkish merchant often reads his Koran. Since only one in twenty-four of Turkey’s population attends school, illiteracy is considered no disgrace and even the well-to-do patronize the public letter-writer without embarrassment. HERE AND THERE IN STAMBOUL Turkey, but since only one in twenty-four of the popula¬ tion attends school, illiteracy is so usual that it is con¬ sidered no disgrace even for the well-to-do. At the shallow basins in the mosque courtyard worshippers are washing their hands, arms, nostrils, and ears according to the in¬ structions of the Koran, before going in to prayer. To the Moslem cleanliness is not merely next to godliness, but it is a part of godliness. There are more than one hun¬ dred Turkish baths in Constantinople. Every important mosque has its bath and some mosque baths have been endowed so that the poor may enjoy this luxury. Passing on, we pause for a moment at a Turkish res¬ taurant where the food is laid on tables set along the street. Like all the old-fashioned Turks, the customers are eating with their fingers. For this reason napkins are an important item among their people. Finely embroi¬ dered towels and napkins are often used, many of which are bought by the globe-trotters and sent back home as decorations. The ends are sometimes worked in fine patterns of gold and silver thread and some of the pieces sell for five and ten dollars each. As we watch the res¬ taurant keeper serving meat or fish with his hands, plung¬ ing them into one pot after another without even wiping them in between, we decide not to patronize his place. But farther on we do take a drink of coffee while we sit watching the street-life of Stamboul. Turkish coffee is as thick as maple syrup and has a rich dark brown colour. It is served without cream in tiny cups set in holders of gold, silver, or brass filigree work. I often see the cooks at the out-of-door eating places preparing it. The roasted coffee is pounded in a mortar and several spoonfuls of the powder mixed with boiling water. The 275 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST mixture is then held over the fire in a long-handled pot, be¬ ing shaken from time to time as a thick scum rises to the surface. Before it boils, more water is added, after which it is allowed to boil and is then ready for serving. Sugar is added and sometimes a little musk. Coffee cigarettes, and preserves, sometimes of rose leaves, are given callers at Turkish homes, and it is not uncommon in the bazaars for a merchant to have coffee brought in before he proceeds with a sale. The Turks are fond of sweets, and often serve them after each one of eight or nine dishes. Sherbets are popular, and the ice¬ cream vendor does a big business in the streets of Stam- boul. Great quantities of the fig paste of Smyrna are sold here, too, while some of the most delicious candies I have ever tasted 1 have bought at the Stamboul end of the Galata Bridge. I am not surprised that the mixture of fig paste and nougat is called Turkish Delight. In his home the old-fashioned Turk does not use a dining table but eats from a tray of about the diameter of a wash- tub. In the centre of the tray is the hot dish of the meal sur¬ rounded by the salt-cellars, the pepper dishes, the pickles, and the other condiments and appetizers the Turks like so much. At a meal in the villages each person has his own spoon with which he helps himself to the thick soup. Pilaf is to the Turk what macaroni is to the Italian, or rice to the Japanese. It is made of rice cooked with butter and is by no means an unsavory dish. It is served at all the hotels here, being as popular as curry and rice in India. Fire has always been one of the great scourges of Con¬ stantinople, where, it is estimated, it destroys every decade more than twenty-five thousand homes. On the Galata Tower, in Pera, and similar towers in the other 276 HERE AND THERE IN STAMBOUL sections watchmen keep a lookout day and night. As soon as they see signs of a fire, warnings are sent out and soon the volunteer firemen are on the way to put out the blaze. The volunteer firemen of Constantinople are unique. Their organizations are made up of venturesome and more or less disreputable young men of all races. Stripped al¬ most to the skin, bareheaded and barefooted, a hooting squad dashes through the streets on a dead run. In the lead is a man swinging a brass wand and behind him come the firemen, carrying a handpump mounted on a wooden box with two poles at each end resting on the men's shoulders. As they are not paid by the city, they drive a hard bargain with the man whose property is threatened and they have the reputation of helping themselves to what they want. The firemen are superstitious about the use of sea water, which they say makes a fire burn more fiercely than ever, and the city water supply is most in¬ adequate. I dare say, though, that by my next visit the volunteer firemen will be as much a thing of the past as are the dogs that were so prevalent in the streets when I was in Constantinople before. I am told that the Turks will shortly introduce modern fire-fighting apparatus and that the city government took over the apparatus installed by the Allies in Pera. This reminds me of an incident that occurred when Kaiser Wilhelm and Abdul-Hamid 11 were such cronies. In return for some big concessions from the Turkish Sultan, the Kaiser presented him with a modern fire engine for his city. The Turks admired its polished brass and shiny nickel so much that they put it in their museum and roped it off from the touch of sightseers. The Imperial Museum in Stamboul is an archaeological 277 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST treasure house with enough broken statues to fill several rooms of the British Museum, and with sarcophagi that would be considered interesting even in Athens or Rome. It has the collections made by Doctor Schliemann from his excavations at Troy and also some of the finds of the archaeologists at Babylon and in Assyria and Mesopotamia. The most wonderful of the sarcophagi in the Museum is that of Alexander the Great. It was dug up at Sidon not far from Tyre and is supposed to have been made four hundred years before Christ. Some of you remember the jingle you recited as schoolboys: *‘How big was Alexander, Pa? The people call him great. Was he so big that he could stand On some tall steeple high. And while his feet were on the ground His hands could touch the sky?"’ "*Oh, no, my child, about as large As 1 or Uncle James. ’Twas not his stature made him great. But the greatness of his name." Well, I am glad to be able to settle at last the height of the great Macedonian monarch. I have gone over his sarcophagus with a tape measure and can give you its di¬ mensions inside and out. It is a huge block of Pentelic marble six feet in height. The interior would allow Alex¬ ander to be full nine feet tall, or nine inches shorter than Goliath of Gath. Another of the sarcophagi is that of Tabnith, king of Sidon, who reigned in Palestine about 700 B. C. in the days of the Phoenicians. The inscription reminds one of the 278 HERE AND THERE IN STAMBOUL epitaph on Shakespeare's grave in the church at Stratford on Avon: Blest be the man that spares these stones And curst be he that moves my bones. Tabnith's inscription reads: I, Tabnith, King of Sidonians, lie at rest in this tomb. Whoever thou art who discover it, do not, I adjure thee, open my coffin and do not disturb me for there is neither silver nor gold nor treasure beside me. I rest alone in this tomb. Such an act is an abomination in the eyes of Ashtoreth. And if thou openest my coffin, and disturbest me, mayest thou have no posterity with the living under the sun and no resting place among the dead. King Tabnith was a liar, for when the tomb was opened, his embalmed mummy was found surrounded by jewels and precious stones, which are now shown here in glass cases. The mummy is in a good state of preservation. 279 CHAPTER XXXVI FANATICS OF ISLAM F rom what has been published about the changes wrought by the Turkish Republic, one might think that the old Mohammedanism had passed away, and that from now on the lions of the Prophet and the lambs of the Christians would lie down together. The truth is that the democratic and progressive spirit is confined largely to the educated Turks, to the officials, and to the army controlled by them. Though there has been an apparent separation of Church and state, under the surface Islam will probably continue to rule, for the earnest follower of the Prophet is as fa¬ natical to-day as he was when Mohammed II conquered Constantinople in 1453 and made it the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Instances of such fanaticism are to be seen everywhere throughout the interior of Turkey, and the fervour of the believers is evident in their religious celebrations here in Constantinople. The Mohammedans are divided into almost as many different sects as the Christians. Among these are the dervishes, of whom a recent survey of Constantinople un¬ der American auspices reports that there are one hundred and seventy-seven different orders and sub-orders. The dervishes are to be found everywhere in Turkey and their religion is said to be their whole life. They have some two 280 FANATICS OF ISLAM hundred and fifty public meeting-places in Constantinople and each order has its peculiar ceremonies and customs. All claim to represent the mystic side of Mohammedanism and through denial of the earthly claims of the body seek to bring the soul closer to God. The Whirling Dervishes have a mosque in the European section of Constantinople near the Grand Rue de Pera, where you may see the devotees go through their gyrations once a week the year round. In another quarter is a house devoted to the Howling Dervishes, where the be¬ lievers are even more fanatical. This is on the side of a hill just below the Y. M. C. A. and not far from the Pera Palace Hotel. The Whirling Dervishes wear mantles like that of Mohammed and high, gray, sugar-loaf caps, which, they say, resemble the form of the vase in which Mohammed’s soul was kept before the present world was created. They claim that their order originated with a sultan who lived more than two hundred years before the day of Columbus. This man was like Buddha in that he left the throne and renounced the world. He was a writer and many of his verses have become proverbs. The sect is now governed by his lineal descendants and every member has to serve for one thousand and one days as a subordinate before he can be admitted to full privileges. The Mevlevi, as these dervishes are called, have exer¬ cises every Tuesday and Friday, when they whirl wildly around on their toes and dance about to the sound of a tambourine, chanting of the goodness of the ‘‘One God” and the vanity of earthly existence. As they spin around they hold out their arms, the right above the head and the left below, and keep both hands open. Their eyes are 281 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST dosed and their heads are bent sideways on the shoulders. By doing this, they daim, they are able to send their souls into the world of dreams so that for the time their spirits leave their bodies and become one with the Creator. The particular phrases for the invocation of God, which are supposed to prepare them for the separation of soul and body, must be repeated hundreds of times a day. 1 have just spent two hours with the Howling Dervishes. This order has its meetings every Thursday afternoon and visitors are admitted. The ceremonies are wildly fanat¬ ical. The men work themselves into an ecstasy during which they eat fire, run knives through their flesh, batter their heads against the wall, and fall down on the floor, foaming at the mouth in their religious frenzy. One can scarcely believe that such horrible observances could survive in this modern age, but their existence was proved to me this afternoon in the scenes 1 shall describe. The mosque where the Howlers assembled was not large and the room where the services took place was only about thirty feet square. The floor was covered with sheep¬ skins with the wool on, and at the back, in a little alcove not bigger around than a wagon-wheel, was a Turkish rug, upon which sat the sheik, or high priest, wearing turban and gown. Sitting on their heels upon the sheep¬ skins were a motley group. One man was dressed in shirt, vest, and trousers, but the green turban of the pilgrim to Mecca covered his head. When, in the height of his ecstasy, he took off his turban, his long black hair hung from his semi-bald head down to the buckle on the back of his vest. I noticed some boys of ten or twelve in the crowd, little fellows dressed in black and wearing fezzes, and also a 282 In the hole-in-the-wal! shops of the bazaars of Stamboul one may buy anything from gorgeous Persian rugs to egg-beaters made in Birmingham. There are no fixed prices and the merchants love to show their skill in driv¬ ing close bargains. Fountains are plentiful in Constantinople, since before their prayers the Faithful must go through a ritual of washing five times a day. The Sultan Ahmed fountain is the most beautiful in the city. FANATICS OF ISLAM frail-Iooking little girl of six who was to have a place in the exercises near the close of the ceremony. Before the service began a man brought in an iron bowl as big as a wash-basin filled with live charcoal, in which were heating two iron spoons with flat bowls and handles almost a foot long. Behind the sheikh in the alcove were knives of various kinds, swords, and long, sharp steel skewers with wooden knobs on one end. I saw the reason for these later on. The first business was to excite the worshippers. The old sheik began making little sermons, after each of which the believers threw themselves back and forth, whirling their heads around as though on pivots and shouting in unison verses that I suppose came from the Koran. One of these sounded like ''La ilah ilia dlah,” divided into six syllables. As they uttered the first the dervishes bent forward, at the second they raised themselves, and at the third they bent backwards, then swayed back and forth, crying and howling. They sang together, chanting faster and faster to keep time with the music. After awhile the syllables got jumbled together until one heard nothing but wild cries of "IL' and "Lah.” As they went on their faces grew red, some of them foamed at the mouth, and some began to jerk spasmodic¬ ally. Then they rose to their feet and whirled around, jumping up and down and stamping like madmen. Meantime the coals in the brazier had died down, but the old sheik fanned them into a glow and a little later took out the red-hot iron paddles. These were grabbed by two of the worshippers, who trotted around the room gingerly licking them while the rest shrieked in ecstasy. As the irons cooled, the fanatics kept them in their mouths 283 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST longer and longer, and finally handed them back to the sheik. I could see no steam rising and did not hear the flesh sizzle, yet their tongues must have been burned by the red-hot irons. While this was going on, other devotees took the steel skewers 1 have described and allowed the sheik to run them through their cheeks. How this was done without causing the blood to flow I do not know, but I am sure the skewers went through the flesh, for I could see the wooden knob on one side of a man's jaw and the steel point on the other. One man took a stone and, pressing the point of the skewer that had passed through his cheek against a wooden post of the building, pounded on the knob, nailing himself, as it were, to the post. After a while the sheik came and pulled out the skewer. He put some of his spittle on the wound and that, I suppose, made it well. Half-a-dozen different dervishes performed this operation of nailing themselves to the post. Three of them were within ten feet of me and I do not see how there could have been any deceit in the business. By this time the howling had risen to a pandemonium and bedlam seemed to have broken loose. The green- turbaned Mecca pilgrim was one of the most violent. He rolled his head around as if it were on ball-bearings, makingsomething like one hundred revolutions perminute. Then all at once he made a dive for a wooden pillar on the opposite side of the hall, butting it with his head. The noise of the impact was like the crack of a pistol. He did this three times before he sank exhausted to the floor. A little later the sheik began to cure the sick. The little girl I have described was laid face down on the floor. The old man stood on her back and, placing his hands on 284 FANATICS OF ISLAM the shoulders of two men on each side, jumped up and down. The little one did not cry out. He next trod on a sick boy in the same way, and then, it seemed to me, took special delight in performing a dance on the body of a sick man. The whole affair was horrible in the extreme. The crying and foaming of these howlers will recur to my mind whenever I think of the depths of religious emotion¬ alism and how, the world over, it can rob man of his reason. So much for the darker side of Mohammedanism. Now let me show you some of its brighter aspects as 1 have seen them in this stronghold of the Moslem world. You all know how, centuries ago, the Mohammedans were among the most famous scholars of mankind. They were skilled in the sciences, especially in mathematics and astronomy, and the universities of Bagdad, Cairo, and Fez were noted all over Europe. To-day Constantinople is full of books written in languages now largely forgotten. The Mosque of Santa Sophia has a big collection of more than five thousand manuscripts, which are being cata¬ logued and repaired. Among them I saw an illuminated Koran the size of a sheet of note paper and as thick as my finger. Every page was a picture in itself and it must have taken a lifetime to make all those sheets of hand-drawn and coloured characters. The sheik in charge told me that the book was more than a thousand years old and that it was worth fifteen thousand dollars. Another volume in ancient Persian script, much larger, is said to be the third book ever written about the stars. The author was an Egyptian who lived three thousand years ago. Some of the books in the library have gold covers and some are so precious that they are kept under lock and key and are 285 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST not shown to strangers. Many came from the loot of victorious Moslem armies of the past and some have been sent here from the centres of Mohammedanism in other parts of the world. Santa Sophia has been for nearly five centuries in the hands of the Moslems, but it was built by Christians. On Christmas Eve, in the year 537, the Emperor Justinian dedicated the great edifice to Santa Sophia, which means, in Greek, the Wisdom, or Word of God, and thus stands for Christ himself. Standing beside a mosaic representing Solomon looking around in wonder and admiration, the Emperor shouted aloud: ''Glory to God, who has deemed me worthy to accom¬ plish such an undertaking! Solomon, 1 have surpassed thee.” This he had undoubtedly done, for Santa Sophia is ten times the size of Solomon’s Temple and far more splendid. Later it became known as, next to Saint Peter’s, the largest church in the world, a "terrestrial paradise,” "the car of the Cherubim,” "the throne of the glory of God,” and "the marvel of the earth.” It has been estimated by a noted Greek scholar that the cost, including expenditures for ground, materials, labour, ornaments, and church utensils, was sixty-four millions of dollars, or more than has been spent for any other Christian sanctuary ever erected to the glory of God. The usual estimate of the cost of St. Peter’s at Rome is somewhat under forty-eight million dollars. No other Christian church has approached Santa Sophia in the beauty and variety of its marbles or in the lavish use of silver, gold, and precious stones for decorations and for the sacred vessels. 286 FANATICS OF ISLAM The exterior has been changed for the worse since its erection. The huge dome is now dwarfed by the buttresses built to stay it against earthquake shocks and the effects of time. Moreover, the Turks have daubed the building with a coating of plaster, striped with broad bands of a deeper hue, and heavy minarets have been added to the corners of the structure. The first time I entered Santa Sophia was during an evening service in the month of Ramadan. Imagine that immense room with its great dome supported on hundreds of marble columns, its carved pulpit, its thousands of lights, its two great fountains, and its gigantic Turkish emblems, and you will have some idea of my sensations as I entered. Great stars of flame seemed to me to be float¬ ing in the air between the lofty ceiling and the marble pavement. Every pillar and every alcove appeared to be ablaze. The precious marbles of the walls and the gilded friezes of the arches and cornices threw back a thousand reflections. The colours of the prayer rugs and the cos¬ tumes of the worshippers added to the brilliant effect. It was nine o’clock when, through the liberal use of baksheesh, I slipped into the gallery and looked down on the devout Moslems kneeling on the floor below me. At least five thousand were bowed there with their faces toward Mecca. From the back of the mosque came the shrill voice of the imam leading the service. His wonder¬ ful tenor penetrated the remotest part of the vast chamber, and in response to its chanting the bodies of the five thou¬ sand turbaned and gowned men rose and fell as one. When they sank down, the striking of their ten thousand knees on the floor made a noise like the rumbling of a cannon in the distance; and when they touched their foreheads 287 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST on the floor, there was the sound of the falling of some great weight. At the end of the exercises each worshipper took up the shoes he had removed on entering the mosque and, carrying them in his hand, walked silently from the place. In altering Santa Sophia to make it suit the require¬ ments of a Mohammedan mosque, some of the priceless mosaics were covered over with plaster and whitewash and beautiful Christian emblems were removed or defaced. The innumerable gold and silver ornaments have disap¬ peared. The prayer rugs scattered over the marble pave¬ ment and the pulpit from which a priest of Islam reads the Koran every Friday do not belong here. Santa Sophia still looks more like a Christian church than a Mohammedan mosque, and as someone has said, ''re¬ sembles a mighty captive ever mutely protesting against his chains.'’ The Greek Christians declare that some day the chains will be broken and that the church will fall once more into Christian hands. There is a tradition that on the day that the conqueror, Mohammed 11 , rode into the sanctuary to take it over in the name of the Prophet, a priest was sayjng mass at the altar. The Turkish soldiers drove him from his place and would have killed him, but the wall opened and, bearing the consecrated elements in his hands, he disappeared. The marble slabs closed be¬ hind him, never to reopen until the Cross replaces the Crescent on the dome of Santa Sophia. In answer to this legend the Moslems point to a certain pillar in the mosque on which they say there is the print of the hand of Mohammed 11 . When the Turks entered the city twenty thousand Christians crowded around 288 FANATICS OF ISLAM and into the church of Divine Wisdom, strong in their belief in an ancient prophecy that a miracle would deliver them from their enemies. But the Turkish soldiers burst in the doors, threw down altars and tore down crucifixes, gathered up all the treasures they could reach and such of the women as took their fancy, and shackled the rest of the people together to be driven out and sold as slaves. Then entered Mohammed II on his great charger and rising in his stirrups, he struck this pillar with his blood¬ stained hand, and shouted: '‘There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet!'' Thus, say the true believers, he dedicated the Christian temple to the faith of Islam for all time. 289 CHAPTER XXXVII THE PASSING OF THE SULTANS HIS is my third visit to Constantinople during a momentous era in the great city’s history. My first was in 1889, when the notorious Sultan A Abdul-Hamid 11 was at the height of his power. He was ruling Turkey with an iron hand, giving secret orders for massacres, and putting out of the way any of his subjects who opposed him. At the same time, he was in constant fear of assassination, and sat up night after night trembling with terror, until at length he was pushed off the throne by the Young Turks in 1909. The movement that dethroned Abdul-Hamid 11 may be said to have had its birth in the wild extravagances of his predecessor, Abdul-Aziz, the father of the last of the sultans. Emerson says somewhere that a bad king is a blessing to a people if only he is bad enough to drive them to reforms. Abdul-Aziz was that bad. He was one of the greatest spendthrifts that ever sat upon the Turkish throne. His reign was a long series of enormous expendi¬ tures of money borrowed from England and France. He built palace after palace, for it had been prophesied that he would live as long as he kept up his building. He im¬ ported lions and tigers from Africa, filled his palaces with parrots, and had pianos strapped on men’s backs and played there. He liked women so well that his harem is said to have 290 The Emperor Justinian robbed the pagan temples of the East to make Santa Sophia the richest Christian sanctuary ever erected, but for nearly five centuries it has been a Mohammedan mosque. Under the old plane tree near Santa Sophia the Janizaries, the imperial bodyguard established in the 14th century, hatched many a conspiracy and often its giant arms were strung with the dangling corpses of their victims. THE PASSING OF THE SULTANS had as many as that of King Solomon, who, as I remem- Toer it, had thirteen hundred wives and seven hundred con¬ cubines. He fell in love with the Empress Eugenie among others and when she stopped a few days at Constantinople on her way to the opening of the Suez Canal he put up a palace especially for her entertainment. At one time Abdul-Aziz made a tour of the European countries and re¬ turned much impressed by the homeliness of the royal ladies he had seen. He declared that, with the exception of Eugenie and Empress Elizabeth of Austria, all of them were hideous. A king’s wife, he said, should be the most beautiful woman in his country, but the European mon- archs appeared to have selected the plainest. He vowed he would try to find a woman as beautiful as Eugenie and he thought he had done so when he took into his harem a Circassian slave girl named Mihri, who remained his favourite wife until the day of his death. According to the old custom, every sultan was given a beautiful slave girl at the close of Ramadan, or the Mohammedan Lent. He received her on Easter day, or Bairam. The girl was selected by the Valida Sultana, the mother of the sultan, from a large number, fifteen of whom were picked out and taken into the palace. Here they were fed, groomed, and put through their paces. Shortly before Bairam, the lucky girl was chosen and became the bride of the sultan for that year, although he had a right to take also such other girls as struck his fancy. He did not see his Bairam bride until the night after the feast and then only when he had retired to rest. If she happened to please him, she was given separate apart¬ ments and her children were accorded royal rank. On the other hand, if the sultan did not like her, she was 291 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST put with the other slave girls and might never see him again. During my first visit 1 got a peep at the jewels of the sultans which then, of course, stood in Abdul-Hamid's name, but to which Abdul-Aziz had made many additions. Guarded by a squad of Turkish soldiers and accompanied by officers whose swords clanked over the marble floors of the Old Seraglio, I was permitted to feast my eyes on a collection of gems marvellous beyond all the dreams of Aladdin. 1 was astounded by the great collection of quilts embroidered in pearls. Take the largest bed quilt you have ever seen and cover it with embroidery of pearls of all sizes, from the smallest seed pearl to some as big as a bird’s egg. Imagine tens of thousands of these jewels put on in the most elaborate patterns so that only here and there you get a glimpse of the satin ground of the quilt, and you have before your mind’s eye one of the coverlets under which Turkish royalty has rested. In a case was a cradle encrusted with precious stones, in which I doubt not a hundred or so of the children of the sultans had slept. I counted a dozen or more gold hand mirrors set with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies that must have reflected the charms of many a harem beauty. The most amazing feature of the collection was a throne as big as your grandfather’s armchair, made of solid gold and studded with precious stones. This chair of state was made for a shah of Persia, who was conquered by a Turkish sultan of the sixteenth century. It had a cushion of satin embroidered with pearls. There was a magnificent toilet- table with a top of lapis-lazuli richly inlaid with gems and a mirror supported by small diamond-encrusted pillars. The claw feet appeared to be made entirely of diamonds, emer- 292 THE PASSING OF THE SULTANS aids, rubies, and carbuncles, and about the edge of the table was a deep diamond fringe. On one sword hilt I counted fifteen diamonds, each as big as the end of a man's thumb, and there were dozens of other swords decorated with jewelled hilts of solid silver. The costumes on the waxen images of the various sultans of the past blazed with gems, and a manikin carved from a single pearl had an opal for a face and a ruby for a turban. There were gold dishes and plates, agate cups, great pieces of coral and amber, and big bowls of uncut stones. At last I seemed to reach the saturation point and was unable to take in any more of the splendour spread out before my eyes. Yet, while all these treasures were locked up in one of the royal palaces, Turkey had a foreign debt of more than one billion dollars and the country faced bank¬ ruptcy. But to go back to the story of Abdul-Aziz. He spent so much money on his wives and palaces that finally the people dethroned him and confined him in the palace he had built for Eugenie, where he died five days later. According to one story he committed suicide in a room adjoining the harem. He had sent away his ladies, ask¬ ing Mihri for a hand-glass and a pair of Persian scissors, so that he might trim his whiskers. She brought them and he locked the door. It was opened by Ismail Bey, who said that he found the Sultan dying from wounds in the veins and arteries of his arms, wrists, and feet. Another story is that the Sultan was assassinated by his political enemies. Murad V, who succeeded to the sultanate, became terri¬ fied, and after three months went insane. He was kept in 293 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST seclusion until the day of his death and Abdul-Hamid 11 took his place. Abdul-Hamid came to the throne at twenty-four and ruled for thirty-five years. His whole reign was full of conspiracy and treachery and frantic attempts to save his skin and his crown. Although he found the Turkish Em¬ pire bankrupt, he added to its debt. He promised to grant a constitution and then went back on his word. During the latter part of his reign, the sentiment against him grew stronger and stronger. The Young Turks formed secret societies in all parts of the Empire. From their headquarters in Paris they sent out propaganda, smuggling into Turkey tons of literature published in Arabic. Finally they raised a revolutionary army to support their demand that Abdul-Hamid give them a constitution at once. The Sultan was then ready to ac¬ cede to their demands, but before he could do so, the Young Turks had marched upon Constantinople and seized the city. It was just at this time, when Abdul-Hamid was being torn from his throne, that I made my second visit to Turkey. I saw the fighting, watched the Sultan taken from the palace, and photographed the long procession of cabs, hundreds in number, which carried the ladies of his harem and their guard of eunuchs across Constan¬ tinople. On the afternoon before the revolution, as I rode out to the Sweet Waters of Europe, I had noticed soldiers at all the crossroads and had been turned back when I tried to enter certain roads. I heard afterwards that the Young Turks had about forty thousand troops with which they had surrounded Constantinople. They had bribed some 294 THE PASSING OF THE SULTANS of the common soldiers of the Sultan’s army, many of whom had been conscripted from Bulgaria, to kill their olficers, three hundred of whom, I was informed, were murdered that night. At the same time the revolutionists stationed their men in various parts of the city to keep order so that the whole thing was accomplished in the quietest possible manner. The only shooting occurred in the early morning. I was staying at the Pera Palace Hotel and was awakened at about four o’clock by the sound of the rapid-fire guns popping away not half a mile distant. One ball went through the transom above the front door of the hotel but no damage was done. It was all over be¬ fore the sun rose, and when 1 went out on the streets, this city of more than a million showed as little disorder as a New England village on Sunday. Constantinople was under martial law, but the soldiers were most polite and one could walk about without fear of being molested. That afternoon 1 drove past the Yildiz Palace, where the Sultan was then imprisoned. Abdul-Hamid attributed the loss of his throne to the education that had been spread through Turkey by the American schools. In talking of this, sometime before his deposition, he said: "Ht was Robert College that lost me Bulgaria, and it will, I believe, eventually cost me my throne.” The Young Turks chose Mohammed V to succeed Abdul-Hamid. They adopted some reforms, though until the World War much the same conditions prevailed as before the revolution. In 1918 a new sultan was chosen under the title of Mohammed VI, but on November i, 1922, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey voted to abolish his office and title, and claimed for itself the 295 THE ALPS, THE DANUBE, AND NEAR EAST supreme authority. Three days later the administration was taken over by the Assembly, and the Constantinople Cabinet of the Sultan resigned. Mohammed VI, fearing that his fate might be the same as that of Abdul-Hamid, took refuge on a British warship and left Constanti¬ nople. The Assembly then elected as caliph, or spiritual head of the Moslem world, Abdul-Medjid, the only cousin of Mohammed VI and thirty-eighth in the line of succession from Othman, who founded the Turkish Empire in 1299. He was a nephew of Abdul Hamid who, in his insane fear of dethronement and assassination, had kept him in a kind of gilded captivity for many years. But even the spiritual leadership of his people and his titles of Commander of the Faithful, Vice-Regent of the Prophet, Shadow of God on Earth, were soon taken from poor Abdul-Medjid. In less than two years after his ap¬ pointment he was notified in the palace of Dolma-Baghcheh that the National Assembly at Angora had abolished the Caliphate and voted his immediate expulsion from Turkey.' And so, a broken old man, he went with his family to Paris to live a retired life devoted mostly to painting and music. As President of the Grand National Assembly and Com- mander-in-Chief of the Army, Marshal Mustafa Kemal Pasha is the present ruler of Turkey. His government succeeded in getting the foreign troops out of Constan¬ tinople and has made the Turks masters in their own country. It has imposed new taxes, and makes the foreigners as well as the natives pay them. It has nego¬ tiated with other nations and has got them to agree that in Turkey foreigners shall be subject to the same laws as the Turks and must be tried in the same courts. This was 296 THE PASSING OF THE SULTANS not so in the past. There used to be one law for the for¬ eigner and another for the Turk and the great Powers dic¬ tated matters of foreign and domestic policy. Now the Turkish government has taken upon itself the same rights and duties as those assumed by other governments of the world. Whether the people are really ready for all the great changes made or whether they will go back to former conditions remains to be seen. THE END 297 SEE THE WORLD WITH Frank G. Carpenter Doubleday, Page & Company, in response to the de¬ mand from Carpenter readers, are now publishing the complete story of Carpenter’s World Travels, of which this book is the eleventh in the series. Those now avail¬ able are: 1. ''The Holy Land and Syria” 2. "From Tangier to Tripoli” Morocco, Algeria Tunisia and Tripoli "Alaskay our Northern Wonderland” 4. "The Tail of the Hemisphere” Chile and Argentina 5. "From Cairo to Kisumu” Egypt, The Sudan and Kenya Colony 6. "Java and the East Indies” Java, Sumatra, The Moluccas, New Guinea, Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula 298 SEE THE WORLD 7. ''France to Scandinavia” France, Belgium Holland, Denmark Norway, Sweden 8 . "Mexico” g. "Australia, New Zealand, and Some Islands of the South Seas” Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, the Samoas, the Fijis, and the Tongas 70 . "Canada” and Newfoundland II, " The Alps, The Danube, and the Near East” Switzerland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Turkey Millions of Americans have already found Carpenter their ideal fellow traveller, and have enjoyed visiting with him all the corners of the earth. He tells his readers what they want to know, shows them what they want to see, and makes them feel that they are there. Carpenter’s World Travels is the only work of its kind. These books are familiar talks about the countries and peoples of the globe, with the author on the spot and the reader in his home. No other one man has visited so much of the earth and written on the ground, in plain and 299 SEE THE WORLD simple language, the story of what he has found. Car¬ penter’s World Travels are not the casual record of incidents of the journey, but the painstaking study of a trained observer, devoting his life to the task of interna¬ tional reporting. Each book is complete in itself; together they form the most vivid, interesting, and understandable picture of our modern world ever published. They are the fruit of more than thirty years of unparalleled success in writing for the American people, and the capstone of distinguished services to the teaching of geography in our public schools, which have used some four million copies of the Carpenter Geographical Readers. 300 ■m !<• * • ‘ I ■" 4 )vrr:S/;. i,'.' A.;, ■A^r. J . J ' * ‘A .*' Al _ « __J . >' 7 . •-^ W' \y ,■* 1 . 1 ' . r •*. ■ . 'V;' :■!;' '' \ 'i r^ W : ..■'V!- -i ** <. , , / ftUl ♦ 1 * ,t ' '' i’ <', '■' ' 'i' .f iu'' ■w i' .-' ' !■ ■Y, m f:',sA ' ■ i ' ‘ V * ' • I'-/'.. ,, ^■ I'. r' r-». f ?6) A1 ■VA‘ .■'. . .,■ , •,/? ' ’.ivf';, ♦ 4 . :/ /k , ,, - ^ ■■ V *, r ' ' ' '» y irf. \ fy ^' 'V .'•>■; 'V ■■, f. p i:? nvT^..:,-.,, : w* ‘K;, U •'vr-*' t %y.m :*? < !/ A:' • > a .)■ ■• K'VkiW*' ■‘''" H. .'i (I r- ■* .. A ^ m f^ *, »• y/M vC/ ;'i* \ il V,;\„SvV c \ U > i- t.i'f. r‘i s; i ’ '..:'M 'tv j' f i'’ L j j i' • ' ■ ■ ■ ' 'hi' •'.•A,., ;( ;: t ((»• '’:o!’■'>■■' ' yK'iyb V V ■ ‘.» 7 .'•' ;*,v ' A ' a' 'iv. ''Vi^ * k I ]•'»''. Ji' *'')!' ‘ **' ‘ r. vuT 1! /•f' U-'i w I r." ,v u r S'l:’.. INDEX .'i:..;.<.>.)i;*! 4 . tl i’.l’l A Ah-,.' ii,:/ ■I.''.' r'J'■■■ 'V^ ;•• ‘ ■J>^y ;■ AAl-i Ah ;M''' U . in ..';'I A.), i.( '•.*;•■ S' lu.K} r* ’ ip.’V .It', j • ^v 1 If* »\ 4v; k»M r, I- I i< '.»T'' {) *''< .r.‘.' r-" .* Mi; )','.'I- i;sT 'V.r 1 ... ... . #5-;. ' ' • *I‘ 4 / 4 l** ■ > *1 •■' ...V 11? f. ‘ T'V' VL. t I li ' llii t'-y > f ii. !5*| /Wi rA i:'; VL ,f,' • 4 ^ .v'”V .■■;* / V'W (it, <‘f/ 1.1 .v:V, r* !. ‘ rjli-"v I .' ^ I \'i v ■t'f ■.''v-fhiy SM '•■ I "iw i\ i hi -r. HJ, ^ I ^ {:.) ■ . 1 ' fj '!• >h ‘ l\ V 1 -'i' '•.h h\. '. aV! i>.- ’n y/y ‘i\ <■' ^•.v, X- V ' 'i , :tVC ;i 7'^; 1 ^ . 1 - V »v •.< '.'V I' Vh'.'l m •v< 'o!,* • ' ■f/r .V < *■ Y i ’ ' n ■“ ' i / ■'' KA m rm. Vi A'V, p ta: l. f '.. V'-n- » .• \ ‘JiV JxJ? V‘* ''■' K'Vii .' A ' ■ . i 1 n.',. t.V ;•» "f I 'VT <■ t !l * . I » .• \ s jr:’r A ' 'AH I ., ' I.'‘ >.'i 4 y' X \ *t m \m 'I m ■m i V ^ Aj 'Iv h- "V :.y? M.lv. i'. ; -Vi’ U ‘ v.:* M, "a' ,.M'i 'V I My- iVK^ >• ■Vi hi: Q'X ‘s .:!t H' ■ I I Y ^ A* /' W- ■y"':..’ {•ik'k,!''*s; » 1 . -‘t.* ^ k. I H'T '■iV> VSN 9 * m h -A>i -i I \\:j >li I »* « INDEX Abdul-Aziz, wild extravagances of, 290; his death, 293. Abdul-Hamid, attributed his fall to education spread by American schools, 295. Abdul-Hamid 11 , dethroned, 290; vi¬ cissitudes of his reign, 294. Abdul-Medjid, Caliph, exiled from Turkey, 259, 296. Acropolis, the, at Athens, 175. Agricultural schools and colleges in Jugoslavia, 170. Agriculture, extent of in Switzerland, 25; on Lombardy Plain, 47; Italian agricultural “revolution,” 50; In¬ ternational Institute of Agriculture founded at Rome, 50; in Bohemia, 82, 91; well-kept and prosperous farms of Moravia, 104; Austria not self-sustaining, 121; the bread lands of the Danube, 143; in Jugoslavia, 162, 168, 172; of Greece, 191, 192. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, at Sofia, 210. Alabama Claims, settlement of at Geneva, 4. Aletsch Glacier, Switzerland, 30. Alfalfa, in Hungary, 143. Alexander the Great, his sarcophagus in the Imperial Museum at Constan¬ tinople, 278. Alexandros, of Greece, his brief reign, 184, 185. Altar to the Unknown God, Rome, 57. American College for Women, near Constantinople, 260, 269. American colony, at Ploesti, Rumania, 245. American School of Archaeology, es¬ tablishes school of classical studies at Athens, 205. American School of Classical Studies, excavations of at Corinth, 203; founding of the School in Athens, and its work, 205, 206. Appenzell, canton of, an old lace-mak¬ ing centre, 25. Arch of Septimus Severus, Rome, 67. Archaeology, excavations in Greece, 200 et seq. Architecture: type of village houses in Bohemia, 89; of Budapest, 136; of Belgrade, 156; of Sofia, 213; of Rumania, 232. Athene, shrine to, at Athens, 177. Athens, modern and ancient, 174 et seq.; National Museum at, some of the treasures of ancient Greece ex¬ hibited, 207. Athletic training, a national institu¬ tion in Czechoslovakia, 96. Austria, as a republic, iij et seq.; her rehabilitation, 117; present size and population, 120; mineral and timber resources, 120; manufacturing and other industries, 122; “in the foot¬ steps of the Hapsburgs,” 124 et seq.; some disadvantages of the partition of the country, i^i et seq. Automobiles, reckless driving in Con¬ stantinople, 264. Balaton, Lake, the great resort of the Hungarians. 144; Emperor Charles interned at, 145. Banke, Bulgaria, mineral springs at, 210. Barley, in Hungary, 143, 147; in Jugo¬ slavia, 170; in Rumania, 234. Basel, ribbon industry of, 24. Baths, mineral, at Sofia, 209. Batthyanyi, Count, beautiful estate of, m Hungary, 146. Bazaars, of Stamboul, 272. Bee-keeping, in Austria, 122; in Greece, 196. Belgrade, rejuvenation of the city, 152; population, of various races, 157. Belgrade University, great increase in number of students, 171. 303 INDEX Benes, Dr. Edward, first Premier of Czechoslovakia, a self-made man, lOO. Berne, capital city of Switzerland, i6. Beza, statue of, at Geneva, 4. Black Stone, the, Rome, 67. Bohemia, one of the three provinces composing Czechoslovakia, 79; a bee¬ hive of workshops, 82; well-kept-up farms of, 82; motoring through the country, 88. Boris 111 , czar of Bulgaria, his per¬ sonality, 218; interview with, 219. Bosporus, most famous small body of water in all history, 258. Bratislava, formerly Pressburg, capi¬ tal of Slovakia, 81, 104, 105, 106. Bread lands of the Danube, 143. Brienz, Lake, in the country of the wood carvers, 25. Brno, formerly Briinn, industrial cap¬ ital of Moravia, 81, 104, 105. Briinn, now Brno, manufacturing city and capital of Moravia, 81, 104, 105. Bucharest, city of hovels and palaces, 231. Budapest, public improvements planned for, 131; the city where East and West meet, 135; the city’s rapid growth since the War, 141; social life of the city, 139; the Hun¬ garian cooking, 140; the “Flour City” of Europe, 149. Bulgaria, a land of mineral springs, 210; Sofia, the capital city, 210; interview with Boris 111 , 217; edu¬ cation of the people, 220; its Na¬ tional labour army, 225. Caesars, Castle of the, Rome, 58. Calvin, John, statue of, at Geneva, 4. Camels, in Constantinople, 263. Capitoline, the, Rome, 58. Carlsbad, now Karlovy Vary, 105. Carnegie Corporation, aids American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 206. Carp, raised for market in Hungary, 148. Castle of the Caesars, Rome, 58. Castor and Pollux, temple to, Rome, 69. Cecil, Lord Robert, on international relations, 12. Cellulose, production of Austria, 121. Charles, Emperor of Austria, died in exile, 129; failing in attempts to regain throne is exiled to Funchal, * 45 - . . , Cheesemaking, an important industry in Switzerland, 26. Church of the Capuchins, Vienna, 128, 129. Coal, scarcity of, in Switzerland, 26; in Italy, 51; production of Czecho¬ slovakia, 80. Coffee, history of adoption in Vienna, 115; as served in Stamboul, 275. Coligny, Admiral, statue of, at Geneva, 4. Colosseum, the, at Rome, 57, 71. Communism, in Switzerland, 21. Condensed milk, production of, in Switzerland, 26. Constantino 1 , of Greece, his forced abdication, 183, 184. Constantinople, the city and its people, 258 et seq. Cooperative institutions of Bohemia, 94 - Copper, mined in Czechoslovakia, 80. Corinth, Greece, the original source of the currant grape, 196; excavations at, 203. Corn, production in Italy, 50; produc¬ tion in Bohemia, 91; in Jugoslavia, 170; in Greece, 194; in Rumania, 234 - Coronation Church, Budapest, 137. Cromwell, Oliver, statue of, at Ge¬ neva, 4. Currants and raisins, huge production in Greece, 197. Czechoslovakia, principal rivers of, 81; its railway system, 81; busiest part of Europe, 78 et seq. Danube River, southern boundary of Czechoslovakia, 81; travelling on, to Vienna, 104, 106; one of the greatest waterways in Europe, no; immense system of dikes to control floods, 133. Delphi, the city of the Oracle, 200. Dervishes, Howling and Whirling, 281. Dining customs of the Turks, 276. Dolma-Baghcheh, Sultan’s palace at Kevak, 259. Dunant, Henri, founder of Inter¬ national Red Cross, 4. 304 INDEX Education, in Switzerland, 15; in Czechoslovakia, 99 et seq.; in Jugo¬ slavia, 171; in Bulgaria, 220; in Turkey, 274. Elbe-Danube Canal, in course of con¬ struction, 81. Electrical development of railways in Austria, 121. Elizabeth, murdered Empress of Aus¬ tria, no, 124, 126, 129. Embroideries, chief industry of St. Gall, 25. Eugenie, Empress, entertained at Constantinople, 291. Excavations, on the sites of ancient Greek cities, 200 ef seq. Fanatics of Islam, 280 et seq. Farel, statue of, at Geneva, 4. Farm homes, in Greece, 195. Farms and farm buildings of Bohemia, 82, 92. Ferdinand, first Czar of Bulgaria, accession and abdication, 217. Ferdinand, King of Rumania, lunch¬ ing with, 246 et seq. Firemen, volunteer, of Constantinople, 277 - Flood control along the Danube, 133. Flour, great production of, in Buda¬ pest, 149, 150. Food and its service in Turkey, 275. Forestry, well conducted in Moravia, 104, Forum, the, Rome, 57, 58, 65. Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, death of, 129. Fruit trees, planted along highways in the valley of the Danube, 104, 143; in Jugoslavia, 170. Fuad Bey, Dr., on prohibition of plural marriages in Turkey, 267. Fuel, scarcity of, in Switzerland, 26; in Italy, 51. Galata and Pera, a section of Con¬ stantinople, 260. Galata Bridge, the bridge of boats at Constantinople, 261. Gambling, at the Casino, Sinaia, Ru¬ mania, 255. Garnets, mined in Czechoslovakia, 80. Geese, raised by thousands in Bohe¬ mia, 89. Geneva, the World’s Peace Capital, 3. Geneva, Lake, its picturesque beauty, 5 - Gennadius, Dr. Joannes, gives library to American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 206. Genoa, principal seaport of Italy, 52, 54 - George I, of Greece, 183, 184; inter¬ view with, 188. George II, of Greece, accession and banishment, 183; interview with, 184, 186; his home life, 188. Glaciers, extent of, in Switzerland, 36. Gold, mined in Czechoslovakia, 80. Golden Horn, a deep inlet at Constan¬ tinople, 261. Golden Milestone, Rome, 68. Gondola travel in Venice, 38. Government ownership in Switzer¬ land, 19. Grain, transportation on the Danube, 150; method of shocking in the valley of the Danube, 173. Grapes, great extent of the vineyards of Greece, 196, 197. Greece, size and topography, 178; the land of the rich, 179; the govern¬ ment under the kings and the re¬ public, 183 et seq.', its present gov¬ ernment, 189; a motor trip through, 191; her farms, vineyards, and olive groves, 192; home life of the country people, 195; a land of fine fruits, 196; excavations on the sites of the ancient cities, 200 et seq. Greeks, natural politicians, 178; their patriotism, 179; business acumen, 180; many semi-Americanized, 181; modern people a mixed race, 182; costumes of the men and women, 197, 198; marriage customs, 198; Greek Orthodox Church, its doctrines and its strength in numbers, 222. Griinberger, Doctor, on stability of conditions in Austria, 119. Gymnasiums, popularity of, in Czecho¬ slovakia, 95. Gypsies, especially good bricklayers and masons in Rumania, 233. Hapsburgs, the story of the, 124 et seq. Harems, growing scarcity of, in Tur¬ key, 267. Harnesses and method of hitching of horses in Bohemia, 90. 305 INDEX Hay, John, aid to American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 206. Historical Museum, Vienna, and some of its trophies, 113. Hofburg, Vienna, long the palace of the Hapsburgs, 112, 125. Hogs that grow wool, in Jugoslavia, ‘ 73 - Honey, abundant in Austria, 122; in Greece, 196. Horses, bronze, of St. Mark’s, 43. Howling Dervishes, a fanatical Mo¬ hammedan sect, 281. Hradchin Castle, the White House of Czechoslovakia, 84. Hungarian food dishes, 140. Hungary, the country and people since the War, 130 et seqy, a majority of the people desire a kingdom, 130, 131, 136; early history, 135. Hymettus, mountain near Athens, 175, 176. Ileana, Princess, of Rumania, 246, 250, 253. Imperial Opera House, Vienna, 113, 114 - Intensive farming in Bohemia, 92; in Hungary, 146. International Institute of Agriculture founded at Rome, 50. Iron ore, production of Czecho¬ slovakia, 80; in Austria, 120. Irrigation, on the Lombardy Plain, Italy, agriculture on Lombardy Plain, 46 et seq.; wine production, 49; wheat, corn, and rice, 50; climate, 46, 51; waterpower development, 51; population, density compared with that of the United States, 52. “Jail Editors’’ of Belgrade newspapers, 159 - Jewellery, excavated in Greece, 207. Jewels of the sultans, a marvellous col¬ lection, 292. “Josephine,’’ the great bell at Vienna, 110. Jungfrau, view from the top, 30; as¬ cent by cog railway, 31. Jupiter, Temple of, Rome, 58. Justinian, Emperor, builder of Santa Sophia, at Constantinople, 286. Kara Mustafa, skull of defeated Turk¬ ish general in Vienna Museum, 113. Karlovy Vary, formerly Carlsbad, 105. Kevak, quarantine station for Con¬ stantinople, 259. Kissimoff, Doctor, on the Bulgarian people, 221. Knox, John, statue of, at Geneva, 4. Labour, wages on Hungarian farms, 148; wages paid in building trades in Belgrade, 155. Labour army, of Bulgaria, the en¬ forced service of the people to the State, 225 et seq. Lace making in Appenzell canton, 25. Land reform in Czechoslovakia, 93; in Greece, 191; in Jugoslavia, 162; in Rumania, 237. League of Nations, its objects, its organization, and its labours, 7; its help in rebuilding of Austria, 117. League of Nations, Palace of, at Geneva, 6. Lehar, Franz, composer of “The Merry Widow,’’ 114. Letterwriters, public, of Stamboul, 274 - Livestock, of Jugoslavia, 173. Ljubliana University, number of stu¬ dents, 171. Lombardy Plains, Italy, 46. Loretto Chapel, Vienna, contains the hearts of Austria’s rulers for three centuries, 128. Lowell, James Russell, first president of the board of American school of classical studies at Athens, 205. Lubin, David, International Institute of Agriculture founded at Rome to carry out idea of, 50. Maramuresch, one of the principal oil districts of Rumania, 239. Marathon, Plains of, 175. Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 126, 127, 128. Maria Theresa, statue of, in Vienna, 112. Mariansky Lazne, formerly Marien- bad, 105. Marie, Queen of Rumania, lunching with, 246 et seq. Marie Louise, Empress of the French, 125, 127, 128. 306 INDEX Marienbad, now Marianskv Lazne, 105. Mark Twain, prediction of cog rail¬ ways up the Alps, 31. Masaryk, President, the George Wash¬ ington of Czechoslovakia, 100. Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 128, 129. Milan, Italy’s chief railroad and in¬ dustrial centre, 52. Milan Cathedral, a masterpiece, 53. Milk, condensed, production of, in Switzerland, 26. Milk chocolate, manufacture of, in Switzerland, 26. Mineral baths, at Sofia, 209. Mineral products of Czechoslovakia, 80. Mineral resources of Austria, 120. Minerva, shrine to, at Athens, 177. Misu, Doctor, High Court Chamber- lain, Rumania, 247. Mohammedanism and its fanaticism, 280 et seq.; some of its brighter as¬ pects, 285. Mohammed VI the last sultan of Turkey, 295, 296, Moravia, one of three provinces com¬ posing Czechoslovakia, 79; great natural wealth of, 104. Moreni-Tuicani oil field in Rumania, 240. Mosaics of St, Mark’s Cathedral, 42. Mosque of Santa Sophia, some of its treasures, 285; its history, 286. Motoring through Bohemia, 88. Mountain sickness, from climbing the Jungfrau, 34. Murad V, short reign of, as sultan of Turkey, 293. Museum, Imperial, of Stamboul, 277. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the present ruler of Turkey, 296. Naples, largest city of Italy, 74. Newspapers, of Belgrade, 159; of Athens, 181. Nijni-Novgorod, the dead city of Russia, 41. Oats, yield per acre in Bohemia, 91; in Moravia, 104; in Hungary, 143; in Jugoslavia, 170; in Rumania, 234 - Obelisk, at Rome, 61. Oil wells, extent of production in Czechoslovakia, 80; Rumanian fields the richest in Europe, 234, 239 et seq. Olives and olive oil, production of, in Greece, 193. Opals, mined in Czechoslovakia, 80. Opelany, Bohemia, intensive farming at, 92. Opollo, Temple of, at Delphi, 201; at Corinth, 205. Oracle, of Delphi, 200; of Corinth, 205. Otto, first king of the new Greece, 183. Otto, Prince, heir to the throne of the Hapsburgs, 146. Oxen, main beasts of burden in Czecho¬ slovakia, 82; how harnessed, 83, Palace of Justice, Rome, 60, Palatine, the Rome, 57. Paper, manufacture of, in Belgrade, 156. Parliament Building, Budapest, 137. Parnassus, Mount, the great theatre on, 203, Parthenon, the, at Athens, 175, 176, 177. Pashitch, Nikola, the “Grand Old Man” of the Serbs, 164. Pelagra, scourge of the Italian peas¬ ants, 47. People's Opera House, Vienna, 114. Pera and Galata, a section of Con¬ stantinople, 260. Petroleum, Rumanian fields the rich¬ est in Europe, 234, 239 et seq. Petroleum, product of Czechoslovakia, 80. Pilaf, a popular Turkish food, 276. Ploesti, the centre of Rumania’s oil fields, 239, 240. Plzen, manufacturing city of Bohemia, 81, 105. Po, largest river of Italy, 46. Polygamy, growing unpopularity of, in Turkey, 267. Pompeii, excavations at, 73 et seq. Porters, the burden bearers of Con¬ stantinople, 263. Potatoes, yield per acre in Bohemia, 91; in Jugoslavia, 170. Prague, Czechoslovakia, capital and chief business centre, 81, 83. 307 INDEX Prahova, most important oil district of Rumania, 239, Pressburg, now Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, 104, 105, 106. Pulp wood, in Moravia, 104; produc¬ tion of Austria, 121. Putnam, Dr. Herbert, appraisal of library presented to American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 206. Quirinal, site of the royal palace, Rome, 58. Raditch, demagogic leader of the Croats in Jugoslavia, 164. Radium, amount produced in Bohe¬ mia, 80. Railways, of Czechoslovakia, 81; of Jugoslavia, 166; electrification of, in Austria, 121. Reclamation of swamp lands in Hun- Red Cross, International, founded at Geneva, 4. Reformation Monument, at Geneva, Reichstadt, Duke of, son of Napoleon and Marie Louise, 127, 128. Religion, in Bohemia, 90. Rialto Bridge, at Venice, 40. Ribbons, manufacture of, at Basel, 24. Rice, production in Italy, 50. Riding School, Vienna, long a royal institution, now open to the public, 126. Ringstrasse, Vienna, great thorough¬ fare built on medieval ramparts, 112. Robert College, Constantinople, 260. Rockefeller, John D., aids American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 206. Rome, the Eternal City, 56 et seq.; her ancient grandeur, 65. Royal Castle, at Sinaia, Rumania, 246. Royal Palace, Budapest, 136. Rumania, its capital city Bucharest, 231; country doubled in size since the War, 234; its agriculture, min¬ erals, and forest products, 234,; the people and their culture, 235; land reform laws, 237; its oil fields the richest in Europe, 234, 239 seq. Rural credit associations, in Italy, 50. Rye, in Hungary, 143, 147; in Jugo¬ slavia, 170; in Rumania, 234. St. Gall, Switzerland, an embroidery centre, 25. St. Gothard, electric road through, 30. St. John, church of, in the Lateran, Rome, 63. St. John of Nepomuk, statue of in Prague, 86. St. Mark’s Cathedral, Venice, 42. St. Mark’s Place, the heart of Venice, 42. St. Peter, statue of, at the Cathedral, Rome, 62. St. Peter, tomb of, in the Cathedral, Rome, 63. St. Peter’s Cathedral, Rome, 57, 60, 61, 62. St. Stephen’s Cathedral, most impos¬ ing edifice in Vienna, 113; ancient burial place of royalty, 128. St. Stephen’s Place, the heart of old Vienna, 109, 111. St. Theodore, statue of, in Venice, 45. St. Vitus, Cathedral of, in Prague, 84. Sales tax, its help in rehabilitation of Austria, 118. Salt, a government monopoly in Italy, 48. Saturn, Temple of, Rome, 67. Scala Santa, the Sacred Stairs, at Rome, 63. Scheurer, Carl, President of Switzer¬ land, 20. Schliemann, Doctor, excavations of, in Greece, 207; collections of in Imperial Museum, Constantinople, 278. Schonborn Palace, the American lega¬ tion in Prague, 86. Schonbrunn, Austrian Emperor’s sum¬ mer residence, now public holiday resort, 126. Scutari, a section of Constantinople, 260. Septimus Severus, Arch of, Rome, 67. Silk, manufacture of, at Zurich, 24. Silk culture on Lombardy Plain, 46; in Jugoslavia, 170. Silver, mined in Czechoslovakia, 80. Sinaia, summer capital of Rumania, 246. Slaves, in Turkish harems, 268. 308 INDEX Slovakia, one of the three provinces composing Czechoslovakia, 79; the country and its people, 105. Sofia, the municipal mineral baths, 209; the mighty Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, 210; its universities, schools, and museums, 211; its people, 213; the public markets, 214; costumes of the peasants, 215. Sokol, the national athletic institution of Czechoslovakia, 95. Stadium, in Athens, 174. Stamboul, principal section of Con¬ stantinople, 261; among the bazaars, 272. Stambouliski, his work in Bulgaria, 230. Standard Oil Company, controls best refinery in Rumania, 240; work in Rumanian fields, 245. Stephanove, Dr. Constantine, his pick and shovel work in Bulgaria's labour army, 228. Stephane, Monsignor, Archbishop of Sofia, 223; his message to the people of the United States, 224. Stock raising, important industry of Austria, 122. Strauss, Johann, the composer, 114. Strauss, Richard, conductor of Im¬ perial Opera House, Vienna, 114. Strikes, illegal in Belgrade, 155. Student cooperation in Budapest, 142. Sugar beets, yield per acre in Bohemia, 91; in Hungary, 143, 147; in Jugo¬ slavia, 170. Sultans, Turkish, the passing of, 290 et seq. Swiss Confederation, founding of, 13. Switzerland, the country of peace, 3; Europe's oldest republic, 13; inten¬ sive agriculture, 14; comparative size and population, 15; republican¬ ism and good government, 15; the three official languages, 15, 18; the system of government, 19; govern¬ ment ownership of public utilities, 21; the principal industries of the country, 23; extent of tourist and hotel business, 25; waterpower de¬ velopment, 27; foreign trade, 27; thrift and savings bank deposits, 28- Swamp lands, reclamation of, in Hun¬ gary, 133 - Tabnith, King of Sidon, his sarcoph¬ agus in Imperial Museum at Constantinople, 278. Tax exemption, on new building in Belgrade, 155. Teleki, Count Paul, on the flood con¬ trol of the Danube, 133; large attend¬ ance at his lectures, 142. Temple of Jupiter, Rome, 58. Temple of Saturn, Rome, 67. Temple of Vesta, Rome, 70. Tenant farming, in Italy, 48. Thebes, Greece, a visit to, 192. Tin, mined in Czechoslovakia, 80. Tobacco, in Jugoslavia, 170; in Greece, 191, 192; the crop of Rumania, 234. Town Hall, Vienna, an imposing edi¬ fice, 113. Transylvania, new province of Ru¬ mania, 256. Turin, one of Italy's chief industrial cities, 52. Turkish baths, of Constantinople, 275. Tyrs, Doctor, leading spirit in the na¬ tional athletics of Czechoslovakia, 96. Umbilicus monument, Rome, 67. University colony built by labour of its students, in Prague, 100. University of Vienna, second oldest German university, 113. Valcea, one of the principal oil dis¬ tricts of Rumania, 239. Vatican, the, Rome, 57. Venice, the “Queen of the Adriatic," 38. Vesta, Temple of, Rome, 70. Vesuvius, volcano of, 75. Victor Emanuel Arcade, Milan, 53. Vienna, ancient and modern, 103; a trip about the city, 109; its great¬ ness due to geographical locations, III; musical centre and the home of great composers, 114; after great depression business now recovered, 114. Vineyards, in Hungary, 144. Von Weingartner, Felix, conductor of People's Opera, Vienna, 114, Votive Church, Vienna, established as a thank offering by Emperor Fran¬ cis Joseph, 128. Watch factories, in Switzerland, 23. Water buffaloes, as beasts of burden 309 INDEX in Bulgaria, 214; in Constantinople, 263. Waterpower, development of, in Swit¬ zerland, 27; in Italy, 51; resources of Austria, 121; in Greece, 179. Water supply of Bohemian villages, 89 - Wheat, production in Italy, 50; yield per acre in Bohemia, 91; in Mora¬ via, 104; in Hungary, 143; experi¬ ments to increase production, on Batthyanyi estate, 148; in Jugo¬ slavia, 170; the principal grain crop of Greece, 192; in Rumania, 234. Whirling Dervishes, a fanatical Mo¬ hammedan sect, 281. William of Orange, state of, at Geneva, 4 - Williams, Roger, statue of, at Geneva, 4 - Wine making, in Italy, 49, 50; in Hungary, 144. Winged Lion of St. Mark, statue of, in Venice, 45. ^ Woman suffrage, in Czechoslovakia, 99 - Women, as labourers in Czechoslo¬ vakia, 82, 83, 90, 91; athletic and sensible in Czechoslovakia, 98; as farm labourers in Hungaiy, 148; as labourers in Jugoslavia, 155; their work in Bulgaria’s conscript labour army, 228; Gypsy labourers in Rumania, 233; as labourers in oil fields of Rumania, 241; the new woman in Turkey, 265 et seq. Wood carving industry ;in Switzer¬ land, 25. Young Turks, their seizure of power, 294. Yugoslavia, its capital city, Belgrade, 152; smallness of the farms, 162, 168; its various peoples, 162; its Parliament and political parties, 165; project for new railroad to be built by American syndicate, 166; the peasants, and their small farms, 168, 172. Zagreb University, number of stu¬ dents, 171. Zimmerman, Doctor, in charge of Austrian rehabilitation, 126. Zita, Empress of Austria, accompanies Emperor Charles in airplane in vain attempt to regain throne, 145. 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