W ^ y % .♦> * ^ t* > ^ ^ O * • • r *"> S » ' , >* „-J> **:**c II. SOUTHERN IRELAND. WE take our waterproofs and umbrellas with us as we step from the steamer. The sun is shining, but Ire- land is one of the rainiest countries of Europe, and no one knows when the weather will change. All parts of the, 1 6 IRELAND. British Isles are noted for their dampness, and Ireland so much so that the people of Ireland have this saying, " In England, it rains all day ; in Scotland, it rains all night ; but in Ireland, it rains both day and night." It is by no means so bad as this, but the air is wonder- fully moist, for the country lies right in the track of the water-laden winds from the ocean, the rains being precipi- tated when they strike the mountains which run around the greater part of the coast. It is this moisture that makes Ireland so green. The foliage looked as fresh as Ohio in June, when we first saw it from the deck of the steamer. There are green trees and beautiful gardens about the white houses of Queens- town, which rise in terraces up the hills from the harbor, and we do not wonder that the country is called The Emerald Isle. Ireland is indeed beautiful. It is about as large as Maine, and somewhat like it in character. It is a mass of mountains and rolling land, with a low central plain slop- ing down to the east, and with many lakes, swamps, and morasses. It has much fine farming land, and ought to be one of the richest and happiest lands of the globe. What it really is we shall learn in our travels. But see that crowd of rosy-cheeked, poorly-clad men who stand on the dock, cracking their whips, awaiting our landing. They are the jaunting car drivers, the jolly cabmen of Ireland. Their faces are full of good nature, and each has a good word for himself as he asks us in his queer brogue, "if we will be having a ride through the town, behind his illigant steed, in a car." We choose our men, and bargain with them to take us to the city of Cork, which is twelve miles away (see map, p. 51). We then get on the " cars." Each is a two-wheeled SOUTHERN IRELAND. 17 affair, with seats high up over the wheels and steps below on which our feet rest. We sit back to back in couples, facing the fields as we ride, and at first hold on tightly at every turn of a corner. The load must be carefully bal- anced, and when there are less than two or four passengers the driver sits at the side instead of in front. Jaunting Car. We soon get used to the cars and then the ride is de- lightful. The road is smooth, and much of our way is under widespreading trees. We ride through fields di- vided by green hedges or stone walls coverad with earth upon which the grass grows. The land is beautifully roll- ing. There is a meadow in which fat cattle are grazing, and there is a large flock of sheep on the other side of that hedge. Here the men are cutting the grass down with scythes, and there is a field where they are hoeing the wide rows of dark green stalks, which lie like great i8 IRELAND. ribbons upon the black soil. Those are potatoes, a crop very important to Ireland, for it forms the chief food of the people. Where are the barns ? We see none to speak of. Much of the grass is fed green, or put up in stacks, after being Digging Potatoes. made into hay. Now we pass a farm cottage covered with vines, with a garden behind it, and a hedge of blood red fuchsias shutting it off from the road. The house is quite small, but it seems to be comfortable. We are told it is the home of a well-to-do tenant farmer. We next go by a park of widespreading oaks and tall elms, with an ivy-grown porter's lodge at the side of the gate which leads into it. Beyond, a great mansion shines out through the trees, and our jaunting car driver tells us that it belongs to a rich lord whose home is in England. SOUTHERN IRELAND. 1 9 He says that the lord owns an estate here of thousands of acres, which he rents out in tracts to the people. Farther on we pass another estate and then another, both of the owners living out of the country. This is the condition of a large part of Ireland. The land is divided up into estates, some of which contain as many as one hundred thousand acres. In several cases one man owns a whole town, all the houses and land belong- ing to him being rented out by his agents to the people. After the rents are collected they are sent off to Eng- land, so that the money is all spent outside Ireland and the country is exceedingly poor. The proceeds of the large farms go the same way, and as the rents are high there are many, many poor in Ireland. There are more than sixty thousand farms of less than one acre, and more than that number which are between one and five acres in size. The soil of Ireland is rich. Nowhere in the world does the grass grow more luxuriantly. There are few briers and weeds and little undergrowth. In the rocky parts of the country the loose stones have been made into walls and fences, and the soil gives large crops. In some years Ireland yields more than a million bushels of wheat, about six million bushels of barley, and almost fifty million bushels of oats. The grass is sweet and the cows feeding upon it produce the richest of cream, much of which is made into butter for export to England. The climate is cool and moist, and turnips, cabbages, and potatoes can be grown in large quantities. The potato might be called the bread food of the Irish. It is about the most important crop, and in good years it sometimes amounts to more than eighty million bushels. This vegetable was not known in the old world until after the discovery of America. It originated on the slopes of CARP. EUROPE 2 20 IRELAND. the Andes, whence it came to Virginia. It was taken from there to Ireland during the days of Queen Elizabeth, and in Ireland it grew so well that it has generally come to be known as the Irish potato. It is now so necessary to Ireland that when the crop fails it often causes a famine. In 1846 the potatoes were destroyed by a blight, and during that year nearly a million of the poor died of starvation, while many thousands left Ireland for the United States. Some Irish people had come to our country before then, but that was the beginning of a great migration which has continued for many years and has given us several million excellent citizens. We see the homes of the tenant-farmers everywhere as we go on with our journey. Some are quite small and contain no more than two or three rooms. Many of the small houses are roofed with straw, thatch, but being built of stone they seem more substantial than the small dwelling houses in our country. Others of the houses are quite large and they compare favorably with the farm houses of the United States. They have gardens about them and barns and other buildings near by. Notice the children! Many of them are bareheaded and barefooted, but their cheeks are rosy with health. They go to school during a part of the year in much the same way as the children of our country districts at home. At other times the boys help their fathers by working on the farms, and tending the stock. There are many sheep in Ireland, and as we ride through the country we see the hills spotted with flocks watched by boys. The little fel- lows run this way and that to keep the sheep from straying. Now and then one puts his hands to his mouth and calls out to a friend who has his flock on an opposite hill, and now one shouts " Halloa " to us as we pass. SOUTHERN IRELAND, As we go on with our journey we pass through regions where the tenants are far more prosperous ; the farms are larger and their houses are comfortable. The people are better dressed and the children well clad. We see better houses as we come near Cork, and in the best parts of the A farmhouse. city we find many fine buildings. Cork is the metropolis of southern Ireland. It is about as large as Troy, New York. It grows but little although it is a thriving port, especially noted for its shipments of meat, live stock, and butter. The cattle of southern Ireland make excellent beef, and Cork butter brings high prices in the markets of England. It is made without salt, and it is so sweet that we eat it like cheese. We walk down St. Patrick Street, stopping a moment at the great cathedral and going into several fine stores to 22 IRELAND. We walk down St. Patrick Street.' see how the Irish do business. We stroll along with many well-dressed people under the widespreading elms of the Mardyke, the chief promenade of the city, and later on take jaunting cars for the Groves of Blarney and Blarney Castle. These are among the chief sights of southern Ireland. Blarney Castle was once the residence of the Earls of Clancarty. It has been besieged many times, and among its besiegers were Oliver Cromwell and King William III. King William destroyed it after the Battle of the Boyne, so that now all that is left is the donjon tower. This is in good preservation, although the ivy has grown into the crevices, and has twined itself about the top. SOUTHERN IRELAND. 23 We climb step by step up the inside of the tower, and then, with our friends holding us by the feet, hang down out of the windows, and try our best to kiss the famed Blarney Stone, set into the wall below. This our guide urges us by all means to do, saying that the kiss will give us such wheedling tongues that no one can resist us thereafter. u Like a magnet its influence such is, Attraction it gives all it touches ; If you kiss it, they say, from that blessed day You may kiss whom you please wid your Blarney." And also : — " There is a stone That whoever kisses, Oh ! he never misses To grow eloquent, Don't hope to hinder him, Or to bewilder him, Sure he's a pilgrim From the Blarney Stone." & & m m Jalfl .., .If USSSi m ■3--. -"'jT^'rf "^ 1 ^^^i^-Jsg^llNre^:' '.' " *" • ' Blarney Castle. 2 4 IRELAND. After leaving the castle we wander awhile through the Groves of Blarney, which are noted for their beauty and their flowers, and then take the railroad through southern Ireland to Bantry Bay, whence we go by coach over the mountains to Killarney. Our ride is through one of the poorest parts of the country. The mountains are covered " — the beautiful lakes of Killarney." with verdure, but they are rocky and wild, and the scenery grows more and more charming as we near the Lakes of Killarney. Here the mountains are higher, and seen from the lakes they tower up like a huge wall. The tallest of them is only about as high as the Alleghenies, but they are the biggest mountains in Ireland. The moisture keeps them covered with green. Ireland has numerous lakes, but those of Killarney are by far the most beautiful. They are three in number, the CENTRAL AND NORTHERN IRELAND. 25 upper, middle, and lower. The upper lake is about a half mile wide and two miles long, and it is connected with the middle lake, of much the same size, by the Long Range River, which is three miles in length. The lower lake is about as large as the two upper ones. It has numerous islands; and the scenery about it, including the purple mountains covered with woods, the silvery water, and the evergreen shores, unite to make a picture wonderfully beautiful. We stroll about the shores of the lake, and taking boats row over them from island to island. >XKc III. CENTRAL AND NORTHERN IRELAND. WE take the cars at Killarney and go north to Limer- ick and Galway, important little cities with fine harbors on the west coast, and then cross Ireland to Dub- lin, passing over the great cen- tral plain. Much of our journey is through vast swamps filled with peat. These are the bog lands of Ireland. They cover a space about as large as Con- necticut, or almost one seventh of the whole country. Peat is a spongy, vegetable matter which might be called half -grown coal. In some places the peat is almost as hard as coal, and in others soft with many little fibers matted together. In some of the swamps the peat beds are thin, and in others they are thirty or forty feet thick. "We see women carrying great baskets of it." 26 IRELAND. Peat is the chief fuel of the Irish. We see women car- rying great baskets of it home on their backs, and as we cross a bog we see men getting the peat out They are cutting the soft, wet stuff up into bricks, and laying them out to dry in the sun. Later they will carry them off to the cabins for their winter fuel, or send them to the towns and cities for sale. A Peat Bed. Peat makes a very hot fire, although it does not blaze up like wood. It smolders away, brightening into a glow under a draft, and giving out a pale blue smoke. In some places logs and branches of fir and oak are found in the peat. These are very inflammable, and they burn so brightly that they have the place that pine knots had in our pioneer times, and the peasants sometimes use them for candles. CENTRAL AND NORTHERN IRELAND. 27 Many of the bogs are now being drained, for there is rich soil under them, and when the peat has been once cut away, they make excellent farms. Central Ireland is a land of fine farms. The country is cultivated like a garden, and there are many great estates with thousands of tenant farmers. Some of the farms are quite large and their tenants apparently live very well. The houses grow better as we come nearer Dublin, and as we continue our travels we find that Ireland has a large population of rich and well-to-do people as well as of poor. Dublin is a magnificent city. ' It is about as big as Min- neapolis, and it is one of the most beautiful cities of Europe. It is the capital of Ireland, being the home of the Lord Lieutenant, who is appointed by the ruler of the United Kingdom to represent the British government there. It is the chief social center of the country. It has magnifi- cent homes, libraries, and schools, a famous monument, fine statues, and other evidences of culture and wealth. Dublin is also noted for its manufactures and commerce. It lies on the Irish Channel, not far from the mouth of the Liffey, whence all parts of the country can easily be reached by water or rail, and just where it is easiest to bring in goods from England or to send them across to that country. It makes great quantities of beer, whisky, and porter for export, and is also famous for weaving a kind of dress goods which is sold in our American stores. This goods is Irish poplin. It is of silk and wool, and although not so fine as the finest of silk, it is almost as beautiful and will wear twice as long. We spend some time in strolling about through the city, visiting the great stores in Grafton Street, where we each buy some poplin and handkerchiefs of Irish lace as presents to take home to our friends. The lace is wonderfully fine. 28 IRELAND. It is made by hand, stitch by stitch, on cushions, by the women and girls in their cabins. It takes a long time to make a lace curtain, and a girl may be employed for a month on a single fine handkerchief. Leaving the stores, we visit the Bank of Ireland, which was built more than a hundred years ago, and then go to we visit the Bank of Ireland." the castle where the Lord Lieutenant lives. We next photograph the statues of Tom Moore, the poet, and the Duke of Wellington, both natives of Dublin, and then take a walk through the grounds of Trinity College, meeting scores of students in black caps and gowns, and remember- ing that Oliver Goldsmith, the poet, and Dean Swift, who wrote " Gulliver's Travels," were once students here. Later we rest ourselves in the great cathedrals of Christ Church and Saint Patrick, and then go out to Phoenix Park, which the Irish say is the finest pleasure ground of the world. It has large fields for cricket and golf, and miles of beautiful drives through the trees. In the woods there are many red deer, so tame that they eat from our hands and allow us to pet them. During our stay we call at the Town Hall and there meet the Lord Mayor. He tells us that Dublin is a pro- gressive city and that it owns the docks and wharves, the markets, the waterworks, and the electric lighting plant. It maintains a museum and library as well as zoological gardens, an art gallery, and a model school. CENTRAL AND NORTHERN IRELAND. 29 We might cross the Irish Channel from Dublin to Eng- land, but we wish to see something of North Ireland before visiting Great Britain, so we take the train for the Giant's Causeway and Belfast, where we can get a ship which will land us in Scotland. We travel all day long through a beautiful country, passing many towns and numerous villages. JFlP liiiifi 11 - IF ' U J Ik — _ Trinity College. At last we reach Portrush, a town situated on the extreme north coast on a bold headland. It is dark when we arrive, and we stay at the hotel over night. The next morning we take an electric car and ride along the coast to the famed Giant's Causeway. What a curious formation it is ! As we step from the cars we see acres of huge stone columns rising out of the 30 IRELAND. sea, as though they were piles driven down by giants They are so close together that we walk upon them. Our guide tells us there are forty thousand in all, but we do not stop to count. The columns are of different shapes and of different heights. Some are triangular, some pentagonal, and others octagonal. Some rise in tiers like so many steps, and others are so arranged that they look like the pipes of an organ, while one formation is like a great pulpit. We walk about on the stones, sitting down now and then to sketch the wonderful scenes, or make photographs of them and our party. We lean over the columns which surround a great hole called the giant's well, and look down into the water; and as we do so an old Irish woman offers us a cup, telling us that if we will drink some water from the well, making a wish as we swallow, our wish will come true before the year closes. We laugh, and give the old woman a penny, but decline to tempt the fates in that way. After a time we hire a boat and are rowed out for a view of the Causeway from the sea. The columns extend far out, gradually losing themselves in the water. As we are rowed about our boatman gives us the Irish tradition as to the origin of the Causeway. He says that it was built be- cause of a quarrel between Fin McCoul, the champion giant of Ireland, and one of the champion giants of Scotland. The Scotch giant dared all the world to come and fight him. He had heard of Fin, and he sent him a message saying that if it weren't for getting wet he would cross over to Ireland and give him a drubbing. Upon this Fin applied to his king, who gave him permission to build this great causeway from Ireland to Scotland in order that the Scotch giant might come over dry shod to fight CENTRAL AND NORTHERN IRELAND. 31 " — the famed Giant's Causeway." him. The boastful Scotchman did come, and Fin gave him a whipping and sent him back home. After this there was no further need of the Causeway, and according to the story it was again thrown down into the sea. We find Belfast full of interest. It is a beautiful city, about as large as Washington, lying on an excellent har- bor which gives it connection with Scotland, England, and all other parts of the world. It is the chief of the Irish manufacturing cities, being so near the coal fields of Scot- land that it can get its fuel for making steam very cheaply. We visit the shipyards, where some of the finest of ocean steamers are built, and go through the vast mills for weav- ing cottons and linens. The linen mills are especially fine, for the firm moist land of this region is well fitted for flax, and the Irish farmers understand how to prepare it for cloth. The most beautiful of tablecloths and napkins are 32 SCOTLAND. made in these mills ; in others linen lawns for dresses and handkerchiefs are made; and thousands of the shirt bosoms worn in America come from Belfast. There are many flax farms in the country near by, which supply a part of the linen used in the great factories in the city. We devote one of our mornings to visiting the largest linen mill of the world. Its buildings cover eight acres, and more than twenty-five thousand people are employed by its managers to turn the flax into cloth. We go through room after room filled with men, women, and children, hard at work making all kinds of fine linens. The women and children are barefooted, but they look healthy and happy. They receive very low wages, although they work from half-past six in the morning until six in the evening, with recesses for breakfast and dinner. Near the mill we see bleaching farms, great fields upon which the cloth is spread out on the grass in the sun and sprinkled until it grows white. We learn that Ireland has been noted for its linen for more than six hundred years, and that until 1805 its linens were all made by hand. Now machinery does almost everything, although the very finest of the damask table linens are still made on hand looms. >**< IV. GLASGOW AND THE CLYDE. WE have left Belfast and crossed the Irish Channel to Glasgow, in the lowlands of Scotland. These lowlands are the most important part of the country. Scotland has only a little more than one half as much land as England, and less than one fourth of it can be cultivated or used for grass growing. You can get some idea of how GLASGOW AND THE CLYDE. 33 the land lies if you will make your hand like a cup and imagine it to be Scotland. There is an expanse of high- lands at the north corresponding to the upper part of your fingers ; there are uplands at the south like the hand near the wrist, and there is a basin of lowlands, the district where we now are, represented by the palm. The lowland district contains more than half of the people in Scotland. It has all the large cities and is cov- ered with villages. It is gridironed with railroads ; it has several rivers, and a canal has been cut across it from Grangemouth to Dumbarton. On the east is the Firth of Forth and the fine harbor of Leith, and on the west is the Firth of Clyde with the wonderful harbor of Glasgow. The lowlands of Scotland are so underlaid with coal and iron that they have become one of the chief manufacturing places of the globe. There are hundreds of mines, from which millions of tons of coal are taken out every year. The country is dotted with factories and foundries. Some towns are noted for making cottons, others for woolens, and some, like Dundee, are devoted to linens and jute. We find that Scotland has industries of almost every de- scription, including machinery and hardware. Glasgow reminds us of Pittsburg. We see its smoke for hours before we come to it. We steam amongst ships from all parts of the world in entering the Firth, and sail on up the Clyde to the city through the chief shipbuilding center of the world. The Clyde is a narrow stream, but its banks are lined with the skeletons of great ocean steam- ships, and we are almost deafened by the noise of the thousands of hammers upon the cold steel. The works are right out in the fields. In some places the crops are growing about them, and as we stand on the deck of our steamer, we look down upon cozy farmhouses, and see 34 SCOTLAND. the cattle grazing on the meadows undisturbed by the din. The Clyde grows narrower as we approach Glasgow, and as we sail on into the heart of the city it is like a canal, with long lines of ships tied to its banks. The citizens of Glasgow are now very proud of the Clyde. It is due to them that it has become, navigable clear out to the sea, and has thus aided in making Glasgow, The Clyde. not only the manufacturing center of Scotland, but also, next to London, the largest city of Great Britain in com- merce and trade. Glasgow remained a village long after it was founded, for the Clyde was so shallow that no ships could come to it. Much of the land upon which the city now stands was then covered with marsh, which was over- flowed at high tide. Seagoing vessels could come only to Greenock, at the mouth of the river, and for a long time many thought that Greenock would be the chief town of GLASGOW AND THE CLYDE. 35 the Scottish lowlands. Then the people of Glasgow deter- mined to have a port of their own. They began to deepen the Clyde and to wall it in. They built docks upon it, and about a half century before we declared our independence of England, a vessel of sixty tons was able to sail from Glasgow for New York. Later the channel was deepened still more, and now steamers of three thousand tons can come right into the heart of the city, and men-of-war, three hundred times as large as that sixty-ton vessel which made the first voyage, are being built in its suburbs. We are told that the Clyde was the first river of Europe to be navigated regularly by steam vessels. The little steamboat Comet, which drew only four feet of water, made voyages upon it in 1812; and six years later a line of steamships was established to connect Glasgow with Ireland. We are interested to learn that the United States has had much to do with making Glasgow such a great city. As soon as the Clyde was deepened, a thriving trade grew up between Glasgow and Virginia and Maryland. The chief article sold was tobacco, which was sent from the plantations direct to Glasgow, and from there distributed to all parts of Great Britain. The business was profitable, and many of the Scotch fortunes of to-day were founded upon it. Later on, the abundant coal and iron near by caused the building of all sorts of factories, and shiploads of our cotton were sent here to be made into cloth. Glasgow is about half the size of Philadelphia, and it is one of the most substantial cities of Europe. It has fine buildings of sandstone, granite, and marble from the quarries of Scotland, and its stores, with their immense stocks of goods, are equal to the best on Broadway. The streets are wide and well paved, and crowded with CARP. EUROPE — 3 36 SCOTLAND. people. We take a walk down Argyle Street, the com- mercial center of Glasgow. The traffic is as great as that of lower New York. We are jostled by the crowds on the pavements, and have to ask the policemen to help us "We take a walk down Argyle Street." across through the jam of wagons, carriages, and cars, which are always moving up and down street. It is almost as bad in the fashionable shopping section of Buchanan Street. Here costly goods of all kinds are displayed in the windows, the people on the sidewalks are well dressed, and we see that there must be plenty of money in Scotland. But let us take a street car and ride on through the city. The conductor comes forward and we ask him the fare. He tells us it is only a ha'penny, or one cent of our money, and we learn that Glasgow has about the cheapest car fares of the world. This is largely because the city GLASGOW AND THE CLYDE. 37 itself owns the street cars and manages them at cost for the people. It is the same with the ferries, the gas plant, the waterworks, and even with the concert halls; so that the citizens here get all such things at cost. The town of Glasgow takes the place of a father, so to say, in caring for its people. The city government builds houses to let to workingmen at very low rents ; it has lodging houses where the poor can stay for less than ten University of Glasgow. cents a night, and fine public baths where the regular charge is four cents a swim, with special rates for school children. It has public washhouses where a woman can have the use of a stall with hot and cold water for four cents an hour, and where there are hot air chambers in which she can quickly dry her washing so as to take it home with her, ready for ironing. 38 SCOTLAND. Glasgow has good public schools, as have all parts of Scotland. Nearly all the Scotch read and write, and it is the ambition of every poor man to send his chil- dren to college. There are great universities at Glasgow and Edinburgh, and academies in many small cities. We visit the University of Glasgow, which stands on a hill high over the Clyde, and climb to the top of its tower — the cemetery rising in terraces." for the view. The tower is three hundred feet high, and we are far above the city, which fills the valley of the Clyde for miles. We see it extending on and on, lined with factories, foundries, and shipyards, almost to the sea. About, and even in the city itself, are hundreds of tall, round, red smokestacks, each pouring forth a volume of smoke into the low-hanging clouds, while on the house chimneys are hundreds of queer little pots about a foot long and six or eight inches wide. They look like mam- GLASGOW AND THE CLYDE. 39 moth combs growing out of the bricks ; they are white tiles, placed on the tops of the chimneys to keep them from smoking. Notice that great building just below us, with the ceme- tery rising in terraces behind it. That is the Glasgow cathedral, where John Knox once preached, and there in the business part of the city is George Square. That statue of the man in a shepherd's plaid, standing near the center, on that column eighty feet high, represents the great novelist, Sir Walter Scott, and the bronze statue near by is that of James Watt, a native of Scotland, who, in 1763, first made steam do good work for man. He invented the first condensing steam engine, and was in reality the father of the vast manufacturing interest represented by the thousands of smokestacks about us, and by the fac- tories, steamships, and railroads all over the world. Leaving Glasgow, we visit the different parts of manu- facturing Scotland. In Paisley, a few miles away, we see four thousand men, women, and children turning our raw cotton into the thread wound upon spools which is used for sewing all over the world. In other factories they are weaving silk, and in others the famed Paisley shawls. In the towns of the Tweed valley we visit woolen mills, where they are weaving the Scotch tweeds and Scotch cheviots which our tailors import for fine clothing. The term tweed comes from the Tweed valley, and the cheviot cloths are so called because much of the wool of which they are made is cut from the sheep that graze on the Cheviot Hills. 40 SCOTLAND. V. THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS— EDINBURGH — THE HOMES OF ROBERT BURNS AND WALTER SCOTT. WE shall take our guns with us this morning. We are going into the Highlands, and may get an in- vitation to hunt upon one of the big estates. In the past, northern Scotland was owned by the Highlanders, who lived chiefly by raising sheep and cattle and by hunting. They were divided up into clans or tribes, much as our American Indians were. Each clan was one family, some clans containing thousands of cousins, all of whom went by one name and fought and worked together. Every clan had its chief, and was ready to fight at any time with the neighboring clans or outsiders. The clans had their own war cries, and badges and shawls woven in different plaids. The chiefs had great castles, and maintained a sort of court about them. At that time the lands belonged to the clans, being divided out from time to time among the members by the chiefs. Later on, they passed into the hands of the chiefs, and the poor cousins served as their tenants. Then the chiefs found they could get more for the lands by selling or letting them as hunting grounds to outsiders than by rearing sheep and cattle. They drove the poor tenants away, sometimes burning the cabins over their heads to keep them from returning. One by one they sold their farms, so that the greater part of northern Scotland now belongs to rich strangers. The country is one of large estates, seventy men owning more than half of it. Many of the estates are held by Eng- THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS. 41 W $ * BE ■ ••7"' - % - V; A ! 7 l'i' •'"" £ ' ^a\ :y^6 : &> ■HP^ , ^ , *,,. — . . v*. * ^ -« -— * ' .*^i.^>"-\ •' " .^ ; «■" Loch Katrine. lishmen and Americans, who come here during a part of each year to shoot game, and the demand for such shoot- ings is so great that the pastures have been allowed to grow wild to supply it. Hills and valleys, upon which hundreds of cattle and sheep once fed, are now given over to the deer and grouse; and there are millions of acres devoted to hunting and fishing. There are deer parks of thousands of acres, vast forests in which all but the owners are forbidden to go, and where the poor Highlander will be surely arrested if he kills the deer or snares birds or rabbits. There are more than four thousand shooting grounds. Some of the shootings bring high prices, and it is said that the Duke of Sutherland receives about a quarter of a million dollars a year as rent for his fish streams and forests, 42 SCOTLAND. We skirt the edge of the Highlands as we go from Glasgow to Edinburgh by the Trossachs, seeing many men hunting grouse with dogs and guns as we ride in stages over the moors. We sail over Loch Lomond and across Loch Katrine, through the scenes described in Sir Walter Scott's poem, " The Lady of the Lake." All the Highlands of Scotland are beautiful, and the Trossachs are especially so. The moorlands are covered with heather, — low bushes which look like sprigs of dark green pine set into the ground, and which, with their little rose-colored blossoms, coat the low hills and the sides of the mountains with masses of dark green and rose. "Edinburgh castle stands on a rock." We stop at Stirling to see the great castle where Mary Stuart was crowned queen of the Scots, and afterward visit the chamber in the castle at Edinburgh where her son, James VI of Scotland, who was afterward James I of England, was born. Edinburgh castle stands on a THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS. 43 rock three hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea, and when you read more of English history you will learn what a terrible time Queen Mary had here. Mary was the last ruler under whom Scotland was a sepa- rate nation, for her son James became king of both England and Scotland, which since then have been united. The Scottish Highlanders are now among the best soldiers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. We see many of them when we visit the castle in Edinburgh. They are dressed in the cos- tume once common through- out the Highlands, and at first we hardly know whether they are women or men. They wear plaid shawls on their shoulders, and have kilted skirts of bright colors falling in plaits from the waist to the knee. Their knees are bare, and below them that the plaid stockings begin. They wear turbanlike caps with ribbons at the back, and their shoes are bound around with white canvas bands. Each man carries a sword and a musket, and has a fur pouch at his belt, while some have a knife in the top of one stocking. We see boys wearing this costume on the streets of Edin- burgh, although most of the children dress as we do. Excepting the soldiers, the style of dress of the Scotch is much the same as our own. Some of the poorer women and children go about without hats, and some are barefooted. Highlander. it is several inches 44 SCOTLAND. We meet fishwives from Newhaven, in short gowns and bare arms, carrying great baskets of fish on their backs; and out in the country we see women standing in tubs, with their skirts tucked up to their knees, treading the dirt out of the clothing, in- stead of using washboards as we do. The Scotch people are noted for their thrift and economy. Both men and women are industrious and saving, and the women hoe in the fields and work in the stores, the hotels, and the factories. We are delighted with Ed- inburgh. It is a beautiful city, noted as a center of culture and learning. More books are published here than in any other city of Great Britain, except London ; its university is attended by about three thousand students, and it has so many great scholars that it is sometimes called the Athens of the United Kingdom. We are in the city on Sunday. How quiet it is ! The cars are not running, the stores are all closed, and the streets are almost deserted. The Scotch keep the Sab- bath more strictly than any other people of Europe. They go to church or remain at their homes. There are no Sunday newspapers, and it is hard to get a carriage for a ride in the parks. We go to the cathedral and find the church filled. It was here that John Knox preached, and We meet fishwives." EDINBURGH. 45 by taking a little walk down High Street we can see the old stone house where he lived. He was a great religious reformer who did much to make the world better. Over the door of his house we see the words carved in the stone, " Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself." we see women standing in tubs." Have you ever heard of the great bridge which crosses the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh ? It is bigger than the one connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn, and is the me- chanical wonder of Scotland. It is an enormous structure of stone, iron, and steel, more than a mile and a half long, built upon piers with spans high over the water. We get 46 SCOTLAND. some idea of its size when we are told that it has cost more than our Capitol building at Washington, and that the rivets used to fasten the iron together are so many Forth Bridge. that, if placed end to end, they would reach from Edinburgh clear to the end of Great Britain and across the English Channel to France. From Edinburgh we make a trip to Ayr, where Robert Burns, the great poet of Scotland, was born. The train takes us through rich fields separated by green hedges and moss-grown stone walls. *The crops are luxuriant, and we see that the lowlands have excellent farms. There are many small farmhouses with stables about them, but no great barns such as you see in our country. Robert Burns was a farmer, and he plowed the fields just as that farmer is plowing them now over there at the side of the road. His home was near Ayr, where we leave the train and take a carriage to drive out to Alloway, the little village in which he first saw the light of this world. We visit the cottage in which he was born. It is a stone THE HOMES OF BURNS AND SCOTT. 47 hut with roof of thatched straw. The door is low, and there is now a turnstile within it so arranged that we have to pay a penny before we enter. The floor is of stone, and at the side of the chimney is the iron crane which was used to hold the kettle over the fire. After leaving the cottage we visit the ruins of Alloway kirk, then walk for a time upon the beautiful banks of the Doon, and Where Burns was born. after a lunch in Tam O'Shanter's Inn in Ayr, go back to Edinburgh. Another day is spent at Abbotsford, the home of the great novelist, Sir Walter Scott. The house is much like a castle. It is a grand stone structure on the banks of the Tweed, with large windows giving magnificent views. We walk through the library, where Scott's interesting stories were written, and admire his collection of weapons, includ- ing Rob Roy's gun and a pistol which once belonged to 48 ENGLAND. Abbotsford. Napoleon Bonaparte. Afterward we visit Melrose Abbey, and also the Abbey of Dryburgh, where Scott was buried, and then take a train south for England. >XX< VI. RURAL ENGLAND. WE have crossed the Cheviot Hills and passed over the border of Scotland into merrie old England. How fresh the air is and how luxuriant the crops ! The country is like a garden, and even the banks on the sides of the railroad are velvety green. We have seats near the windows in one of the little rooms or compartments into which the English cars are divided. The door is in the side of the car instead of at RURAL ENGLAND. 49 the end. There, it opens. The conductor stands on the footboard outside as he asks for our tickets. Now he has shut the door and gone on to the next compartment. We wonder how it would be if a crazy man were with us. The door is locked, and the car is now moving at forty miles an hour ; but fortunately we have the room to our- selves and feel comparatively safe. We find the English railroads very good. England is so small and its people do so much business that they can afford to have a good railroad system. c : " We find the English rail- roads very good." There is a network 01 tracks covering the country. There are so M*V- many tracks that if they were joined end to end they would reach almost around the world. The roadbeds are smooth, and even the small stations are of stone with solid stone platforms. Every station has its garden about it, and the grass is as smoothly cut as a beautiful lawn. We find that on every train there are two classes of cars, and that some trains have three. The cars of the first class are fine, and those of the second and third are almost as comfortable ; as they are much cheaper, we fre- quently travel third class. Indeed it is a common saying in England that only princes and fools travel first class. The English railroads have some of the fastest trains of 5o ENGLAND. the world. We might have gone from Edinburgh to London on the " Flying Scotchman," at an average speed of more than a mile a minute ; but we are traveling leisurely, stopping now and then to visit places of interest. Notice the farms as we go ! The fields are divided by green hedgerows. There is a flock of fat sheep in that v£& 1 — a little farm settlement.' meadow and farther on are some beautiful cattle. This country is noted for its delicious mutton, and its people pride themselves on " the roast beef of old England." There is a man holding the handles of a plow which two horses are dragging along, and in the next field a steam plow is puffing as it drives the share through the earth. The peo- ple use mowers, reapers, and threshing machines. They are good farmers, and they have the best farming tools. 52 ENGLAND. Look at the farmhouses ! We see many of them as we go by on the railroad. Each has a barn, sheds, and hay- stacks about it, forming a little farm settlement. The barns are different from ours. They are broader and lower, and some have heavy thatched roofs. They are used chiefly for stables, and for storing grain and tools. The hay and straw are ricked up out of doors, the tops of the ricks being thatched or covered with canvas. How old everything is! The moss is growing on the roof of that barn, and the side of that farmhouse is cov- ered with ivy. The hedges look as though they had al- ways been here, and these roads were traveled by men when the only roads in our country were Indian trails. Now we get an outlook over a valley. There is a stream flowing through it lined with wide-branching trees. The stream is crossed here and there by little bridges made of heavy stones closely fitted together, and now half covered with moss. The bridges, like everything else, are substan- tial, for the English believe in doing things well, and think that the best is the cheapest. We see this in their rail- roads, their houses, and in all public improvements. Look again over the valley. The fields have little paths through them. The people usually cut across lots to visit their neighbors, and we see many persons strolling through the green meadows. The English are great walkers ; the ordinary boy or girl here thinks nothing of a five-mile tramp in the country. They are fond of outdoor sports. We frequently pass parties playing golf, and now and then see a crowd of boys playing cricket, the English national game. But what is that great stone building which rises like a fortification upon the hill in the distance ? That is the ruins of an old English castle like Kenilworth, Warwick, RURAL ENGLAND. 53 and other castles of which we have read. It was built hundreds of years ago, during the Middle Ages, as the home of a knight or baron with his chief soldiers or re- tainers. If we should enter it, we should find that it has narrow stone stairs, that its rooms are lighted by slits in the walls or by small barred windows, and heated by great fireplaces. We should see that even the best parts of the castle are gloomy and dreary, and that the Ameri- can workingman of to-day has more comforts than that noble had in the past, even though he owned all the land he could see from the top of his castle. The most of England is still in the hands of a few peo- ple. It is the property of the nobility and other rich men, who rent it out to the farmers, charging them from five to twenty dollars an acre per year for its use. We see the houses of many of these rich landowners as we ride on through the country. There is one rising out of the grove of trees just beyond us. It is a great mansion, shut off from the road by high walls and surrounded by a beautiful park. It has a fine garden and hothouses, and a velvety lawn. Its owner has perhaps a score of servants, and he may own many farms. He probably has woods stocked with pheasants, partridges, and other game in- tended for his own shooting, which the poor people dare not touch. There are such estates in all parts of England. They are usually willed by the father to the eldest son, and thus kept in the same family from generation to generation. But the train has stopped at a station. It is a village, and we stay over night. The houses are substantial. Many of them are old, and some are covered with vines. The walls are thick, and the roofs of tile or thatch often extend far out. Most of the houses have little gardens in CARP. EUROPE — 4 54 ENGLAND. front of them. There are rose bushes and other plants reminding us of our gardens at home. That house on the corner, with a sign " The King's Arms " over the door, is the public house or hotel, and that little building with the big tower farther down is one of the churches, while still farther on is the school. " — still farther on is the school." The people on the street dress and look much like our people at home. Some of the storekeepers have come out at the sound of the train, and they stare at the Ameri- cans as they pass. There, on the left of the road, is a shoemaker, and beyond are a carpenter, a butcher, and a grocer. Each wears a white apron which covers almost the whole front of his person. This is common with many of the mechanics of England. MANUFACTURING ENGLAND. 55 See that man with the white smock over his clothes. He looks as though he had put on his nightshirt over his ordi- nary suit. He is a carter, and is driving a team of four horses bringing in a cartload of grain. The cart is bigger than any used in our country. Its wheels are broader and it will carry far more than our com- mon farm wagon. The horses are hitched up tandem ; they have heavy harness, and each has a bell fastened to his collar, which jingles merrily as he tramps along. Now another team has come down the road, and the two are passing. See, each turns to the left ! This is the custom in England. Drivers always go to the left, but foot passengers turn to the right as we do. VII. MANUFACTURING ENGLAND. "See that man with the white smock over his clothes." AT one time the farms of England were more important than her factories. The English not only raised all the food they needed, but were able to export wheat to other countries. It is far different to-day. The soil still produces abundantly, but the people have so grown in number that if all the farms were worked they could not supply England with enough to eat for one month. The result is that most of the food is brought in from abroad, and 56 ENGLAND. the greater part of it from the United States. Steamships loaded with grain, flour, and meat are always leaving our seaports for different parts of Great Britain. The English are raising less and less food every year, and there are now more than six persons in the factories to every one on the farms. To-day we shall travel through some of the great manu- facturing districts. We go on southward, passing many towns and stopping at big cities half hidden in smoke. The farms are still large, but the landscape is dotted with groves of smokestacks much as our Middle States are dotted with trees. Those smoking groves are the sites of manufacturing villages. We are now in a district where the whole country is one vast workshop. We pass mines where sooty-faced men are getting coal and iron out of the earth. We go by long trains of coal cars, by great piles of slag, the refuse of the furnaces which are turning the ore into pig iron and steel. See how their tall chimneys are pouring out smoke and flames into the sky. The din of the machinery from the vast, ugly, many-windowed factories almost drowns the noise of the train. How dirty everything is ! The towns and cities are black with the smoke, the air is full of soot, and we look with disgust on our soiled collars and cuffs, each wonder- ing if his face can possibly be as dirty as that of his neighbor. We ask if much of England is like this, and are told that it is, and that the English are one of the chief manu- facturing nations. They make more woolen cloth than any other people. They weave enough cotton every year to carpet a road wider than almost any road in our country clear around the world. They make more things out of Manufacturing England. 57 iron, steel, and copper than any other nation of Europe, and there is scarcely an article in common use which they do not manufacture for sale. They sell more goods to other countries than any other people, notwithstanding much of the stuff which they use in making the goods comes from abroad. But why is this little island such an important manu- facturing country ? We shall see some of the reasons as we travel from one busy district to another. In the first place, England has railroads and canals almost everywhere, and so many good seaports that it costs but little to put the goods on the ships which are to take them to the markets. The Eng- lish are so rich that they have plenty of money to build factories. They are a thrifty people, and skilled in hand- ling tools and machinery. But what is still more important, they have the richest coal fields of Europe, and their coal fields are near the sea. We shall find the chief factories right in the coal fields, for it is cheaper to use the coal where it is mined than to carry it over the country. The freight rates are so low, however, that we find factories almost everywhere. We first visit the Northumberland coal fields, in north- eastern England ; they are the largest in Great Britain, producing thirty million tons of coal every year and feed- ing many great factories. We stop at Newcastle at the mouth of the Tyne, and watch the great steamers loading coal for shipment abroad, and wander about through its noisy shipbuilding yards, which are almost as large as those we saw on the Clyde below Glasgow. Farther south we enter the coal fields of Yorkshire. It is smokier than ever, but we forget all about the dirt as we go from town to town and from factory to factory, 58 ENGLAND. We stop at Newcastle." seeing many wonderful things. We spend some days in Leeds on the River Aire (ar), visiting the great woolen mills and watching the sales in the cloth halls on market days. Leeds is the center of the English woolen indus- { try, and in it and in the towns near by all sorts of weaving" are done. We watch them making all kinds of cloth, and learn that England has long been noted for its woolens. It employs more than a quarter of a million people in its cloth factories, and consumes vast quantities of wool from Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina. We visit the mills where silk velvets are woven, go to Halifax to learn all about carpets, and at Bradford watch them make worsteds. At Dewsbury, near Leeds, we visit one of the chief blanket factories, where our guide informs us that the MANUFACTURING ENGLAND. 59 first blanket ever made was woven in 1 340 by an English- man named Thomas Blanket ; his goods were so peculiar that the people called them after his name, blankets. We listen without comment, although we know that blanket is from a French word meaning white. Do you want a good pocketknif e ? They make some of the best knives in the world at Sheffield, in this same Yorkshire coal district. The city lies in a nest in the hills at the junction of several streams with the Don. It is as smoky as Pittsburg, and has almost as many factories and foundries. It is the center of the cutlery industry, being especially noted for its razors, scissors, and all kinds of fine tools, which it exports to all parts of the world. It has been making tools for three hundred years, and it annually sends hundreds of thousands of knives across the ocean to us. Let us enter one of the knife factories. A knife is a little thing, but it may give us a lesson in geography. There is a box of samples showing the different kinds of knives made in this factory. Take a dozen knives out and look at them. Open one and draw the edge of the blade across your thumb nail. It cuts smoothly and is as sharp as a razor. That blade was made of iron from Sweden ; it was dug from the mines there and sent across the North Sea to England, that the workmen might have the best ore for their steel. Look now at the other parts of the knife, and see how each of them has traveled far and long to get here. Shef- field makes one think of Cinderella, for she sits in the ashes of her coal pits and prays to her fairy godmother, Commerce, who straightway waves her wand and per- forms miracles for her. The fairy raises her hand, and the miners of Sweden dig out this ore and it is carried to 60 ENGLAND. the ship. She moves it again, and starts the metals in those brass rivets from their homes in the mountains of South America and the United States. Again, and the nickel which plated the ends of the handles comes from the mines of Canada across the Atlantic Ocean, while the silver in the name plate was probably contributed by the inhabitants of Peru, and crossed the Isthmus of Panama, or went south around through the Strait of Magellan, before it began its longer ocean voyage to Sheffield. Observe the variety of materials in the knives, and wonder what a story each handle could tell of its travels. Here is one of ivory from the wilds of Central Africa. The handle of that knife beside it came from the horn of a reindeer, which perhaps dragged the sleds of fur-clad people over the snows of Siberia ; and this lady's penknife has a handle made from an opalescent shell which was once the house of a pearl oyster in the waters of our Philippine Islands. There are some of brown shell from the backs of tortoises which were crawling along the banks of the Amazon when they were captured for Shef- field, and just beyond is one made from the horns of an East Indian buffalo. This white-handled knife is bound with plates of vegetable ivory grown on the palm trees of tropical South America, and those bone handles have come from skeletons of cattle which once galloped over our Western plains with cowboys behind them. The manager tells us they are made from the shank bones, and are known to the trade as Boston bones. We think he should rather name them Kansas City, Omaha, or Chicago bones, for it is at those cities that most of our cattle are killed for shipment to Europe. If we had time to spend in manufacturing England, we should find Dame Commerce performing wonders like MANUFACTURING ENGLAND. 6l these for every city and village. She sets all nations to work to get out material for the English to make over into things for themselves, or to ship abroad for sale. We should see how hides and skins are torn from the backs of all sorts of animals to keep busy the half million English- men who are working in leather, how the wool is clipped from millions of sheep in other parts of the world to sup- ply her vast army of weavers, and how silkworms are raised and their cocoons reeled off by the almond-eyed people of China and Japan to furnish thread for the factories near Leeds which we saw making silks, ribbons, and velvets. We next visit Birmingham, the industrial capital of middle England. It is situated where was once the forest of Arden, a dense woods which in former times extended through Warwickshire and others of the Midland Counties of England. In the country about there are iron mines, and long before it was known that coal could be used to smelt iron the people made charcoal for the purpose from the trees of this famous forest. At that time every house was a little factory, having its own blacksmith shop, in which the whole family worked, the women and children pound- ing out nails, chains, and other small articles. Later coal was brought from the mines near by, and Birmingham became one of the chief iron-making centers of the world. The people were already skilled in handling tools, and they soon learned to make things by machinery. At present Birmingham produces millions of steel pens every year, and millions upon millions of screws and nails, and so many pins and needles that if you should sit down and try to count the number made in one month, you could hardly finish the job in your lifetime. The city has also foundries and factories for heavy machinery, steam engines, 62 ENGLAND. and cannon ; it makes vast numbers of bicycles and sewing machines, and also buttons and jewelry and other articles of every description from iron, brass, steel, copper, and tin, as well as from silver and gold. It makes so many toys that it has been called the toy shop of Europe, and we enjoy ourselves going through the establishments where toy engines, little iron wagons, and countless other things to amuse children are made in large quantities. From Birmingham we take a train for Manchester, situ- ated in the Lancashire coal fields, to see the cotton mills which are fed by the plantations of our southern States. England is our best customer for cotton, and we sell her millions of bales every year. Her soil is such that she cannot raise cotton ; but, nevertheless, making cotton thread and weaving cotton cloth are by far the most important of all her industries, and she has twenty- five hundred factories, in which more than a half million people are employed, including one hundred thousand children. We pass through many cotton-spinning towns on our way to Manchester, for the Lancashire coal fields are densely populated. The country is dotted with smoke- stacks, and the water is so discolored by the dyes used for calicoes and other cloths that the streams and canals seem to flow ink. We visit Preston, where in 1768 Arkwright set up his first mill to weave cotton by machinery, and at Blackburn, in a little valley nine miles away, see where Hargraves established his " spinning jenny " at about the same time. Both towns are still important weaving places, Preston being noted for its yarns and fine cotton cloths. We spend some days in Manchester going through its many warehouses and its numerous factories. . It is the fourth city of Great Britain in size, and its commerce has MANUFACTURING ENGLAND. 63 been much increased by the canal which its people have dug out to the sea. For a long time all the cotton used here was landed at Liverpool, and thence shipped by rail to the factories. By the Manchester Canal large steamers can come from the ocean right into the city, and bring the cotton from our country almost to the doors of the mills. Manchester Canal. This canal is one of the wonders of Great Britain. It is more than thirty-five miles long, one hundred and twenty feet wide, and twenty-six feet deep. It cost a vast sum, but Manchester people believe it will make their city grow as Glasgow did after the deepening of the Clyde. A part of this canal was made by deepening the little river Irwell, which flows through Manchester on its way to the sea. We take a trip on the canal, passing cotton mills all the way down. Now we pass ships from New Orleans, 6 4 ENGLAND. Savannah, and Galveston, coming up or unloading cotton bales at the mills on the banks, and now pass cotton ships from Egypt and India. There are other vessels loaded with manufactured goods going down stream, and we have The Harbor, Liverpool. company all the way until we enter the mouth of the Mersey mer'zi) in the crowded harbor of Liverpool, and anchor there in one of the chief commercial ports of the world. Liverpool is about as big as Boston ; it is next to Lon- don the chief port of Great Britain, and is one of the busi- MANUFACTURING ENGLAND. 65 est places in Europe. We land at the magnificent stone docks which wall the banks of the Mersey for miles, look- ing longingly at the great steamers from New York, which are unloading meat, wheat, and other American products, and taking on English manufactured goods to carry back home. See that ocean greyhound which is about starting out ! We might go on board and within less than a week be back in dear old America ! We hesitate only a moment, however, and then turn our eyes toward the great steamers from Germany, France, Scandinavia, and the Mediter- ranean ports, remembering the many strange countries of Europe which we have yet to see. We stroll about the docks. Many of them surround great pools into which the ships are admitted through water gates, for it is often difficult to unload in the harbor on account of the great rise and fall of the tide in the Mersey. Other ships use floating landing stages for this reason, the floats rising and falling as the tide comes in and goes out. We soon leave the wharves for a trip through the city. We visit the custom house, the town hall, and the stock exchange, and then take a train for Stratford-on- Avon, for all of our party are eager to spend a day in visiting the birthplace of Shake- speare, the great poet and dramatist. We stay over night here at the old Red Horse Inn where Washington Irving lived when he was in Stratford, and next morning wander about the town, visiting the house jS: — the house in which Shakespeare was born." 66 ENGLAND. in which Shakespeare was born, the church where he was buried, and the cottage in which he courted Ann Hatha- way who became his wife. In the after- noon we drive to the old castle of Kenil- worth, only a few miles away. Thence we go into Coventry, a town famous for Keniiworth. its manufactures of watches, bicycles, and ribbons, and from there by fast express to London. S*K<*> VIII. LONDON — THE COMMERCIAL CENTER OF THE WORLD. WE start out this morning to see something of Lon- don. It is the biggest city of the whole world, bigger than any two capitals of continental Europe, or both New York and Chicago combined. It has more people than New England, so many that it forms a little world of its own. The most of its citizens are English, but there are thousands of others who have come here to live and do business. It is said London has more Scotch- men than Edinburgh, more Irishmen than Dublin, and more Jews than the Holy Land. It has a vast number of French, Germans, and Italians, and many thousand Americans. It grows so fast that a new house goes up every hour, a baby is born every six minutes, and enough people to make a large city are added to its population every year. LONDON. 67 London has been described as an enormous beehive of humanity. It is a great sea of bricks and mortar, and we are appalled in our attempts to comprehend its extent. We might climb to the top of the monument in the center of the chief business section and look over the great city, but we could not see it all. It has thousands of factories, which cause dense clouds of smoke to hang over it. The Thames, which flows through it, sometimes sends up fogs, which at certain seasons are so thick that the people can hardly see their way through the streets. Some of the fogs have a yellowish tint, and in them you seem to be looking through spectacles of yellow smoked glass. How long do you think it would take to explore the city on foot ? A week ? More than that. A month ? More than that. Perhaps a year ? More than that. If we should walk day and night, not stopping a minute, we could not go through all its streets in a year. Indeed, the streets are so long that if they were placed end to end, beginning at the Thames, they would reach across Europe, making a paved walk walled with houses through France, Germany, and Russia, over the Ural Mountains and the Highlands of Thibet, and clear across China to the Pacific Ocean. We might learn something about London by a trip down the Thames which flows through it on its way to the sea. The city is sixty miles inland on this wide, deep, and smooth-flowing river, so situated that it is the natural out- let for the rich Thames valley, and so connected with other parts of England by railways and canals that it forms the best port for the shipment of all sorts of English manufactures to Europe and the other continents, and the place from which goods from abroad can most easily be sent out to all parts of England. London is the greatest commercial port of the world, 68 ENGLAND. and the Thames has always thousands of ships anchored within it. The river for miles is lined with wharves, and there are so many vessels in some places that you can hardly make out the houses behind them. Standing upon London Bridge, we see a forest of masts extending on and on until our eyes are lost among them in the dis- tance, and in the inclosed docks near by, the rigging of the vessels rises high among the chimneys of the great warehouses surrounding them. We shall get an idea of the immensity of London by a visit to the grain and provision docks, where Dame Com- merce is kept busy unloading food for its gigantic stomach. They are taking off live cattle and sheep by the thousands, and discharging shiploads of beef which have come across the ocean from the United States in cold storage chambers. London eats so much beef every year that the cattle required to supply it, if driven along close together in single file, would make a drove as long as the distance from New York to a hundred miles beyond Omaha. The city eats so much mutton that vast factories have grown up in Aus- tralia, New Zealand, and Argentina to freeze mutton for its markets. The mutton is frozen hard before it is put into the cold chambers of the ships, and when it reaches here is thawed out and sold. In the fish markets there are hundreds of vessels, for London eats more than oue million pounds of fish every day; and there are many great oyster farms all along the Thames which supply the city with oysters. The peo- ple of Denmark would suffer if it were not for the money they get from the butter which spreads London's bread, and northern France receives much of its income by supplying London with poultry and eggs. Canada and the United States send it vast quantities of cheese, and LONDON. 69 indeed almost every part of the world finds something to do towards supplying food for it. We are fortunate in having good weather during our travels in London. To-day the Thames is glistening like diamonds under the rays of the sun, and the dingy build- ings about us look less somber than they did last night in the fog. We leave our hotel at Trafal- gar Square, near the great granite col- umn with the bronze statue of Admiral Nelson on top, and walk down to the Strand at Charing Cross, where we get an omnibus for Lon- don Bridge. This will take us through the very center of business London. How narrow the streets are and how crowded ! They are so thronged from morning till night, that there is no room for car lines, and the people ride chiefly in cabs, motor cars, and omnibuses. We take an omnibus and sit on the knifeboard in front on each side of the driver, who points out the sights as we go. He is a jolly, rosy-cheeked, man in a tall hat and rough clothes, who uses his h's in a way that seems strange to us. He calls " he " "e," and ''horses" " osses," and speaks so queerly that we hardly understand half he says. CARP. EUROPE — 5 We climb up. 70 ENGLAND. How interesting it is ! We are high up above the crowds that are hurrying in all directions ; while a tangle of hansoms, four-wheeled carriages, drays, and omnibuses reaches on and on, filling the streets as far as we can see. The buildings on each side of us are dingy and old. There are few tall structures like our so-called " sky scrapers" of New York, and were it not for the dense throng of people, we could not believe we are in the world's chief busi- ness center. We are traveling through a part of old London where many of the houses were built generations ago, and where the streets are narrow and crooked. Now we are passing through Fleet Street by the great publishing houses. See the boys and girls coming out with bundles of newspapers under their arms. The girls are bareheaded, and they cry out the papers almost as loudly as the boys. It is here that the chief London dailies are printed. Now we are going past Saint Paul's Cathedral ! What an enormous building it is. It is one of the grandest churches of the world. It is twelve o'clock, and its great bell is striking the hour. That bell is tolled only at the death of one of the royal family of England, but it strikes the hours, and its rich mellow tones can be heard far out of the city. Saint Paul's Cathedral. LONDON. 71 Leaving Saint Paul's, we pass through Cheapside and Poultry to Lombard Street, where we get down and walk about through the alleys lined with banks and business houses. We are now in the money center of London. We walk through Cornhill, Lombard, and Threadneedle Streets, seeing banking signs everywhere. The buildings are usually of five or six stories. They are substantial, but not so large as the great office buildings of New York and Chicago. We see many well-dressed men about the stock exchange, and realize that this is the chief money market of the whole world. There are men here interested in under- takings all over the globe. Railroads in South America, diamond mines in Africa, silk factories in China, sugar plantations in Cuba, vast sheep farms in Australia, and gold, silver, and copper mines everywhere, are worked with capital supplied from this part of London. These buildings are filled with offices. They are occupied only by day ; at night they will be deserted by all but the care- takers, for the rich men and their clerks will then be in their homes in other parts of the city. But what is that vast structure of somber gray stone ? It covers eight acres, and is the biggest building of this part of London. It looks like a prison. There is a guard at the door in a long scarlet gown and a velvet cocked hat. He has a staff in his hand, and at first we wonder if he is not some great money king and whether the staff is his scepter. That is the Bank of England, one of the most famous banks of the world. It has charge of the government funds, and also does so much private business that it often has as much as a half billion dollars worth of gold and other valuable things in its vaults. We have a permit from a banker, which we show to the scarlet- gowned guard, and he waves us to enter. 72 ENGLAND. "That is the Bank of England." We first come into a large square room surrounded by counters, behind which clerks are giving out gold. They are not counting the coins as we do, but are weighing them on scales like those used by our grocers. See that man there scooping up gold just as a grocer scoops up sugar. He knows exactly how many coins go to the ounce or the pound, and in giving out large sums can count more easily by weight than by numbers. For this reason the coins used by the bank must be perfect, and none that are much worn or chipped will be taken. Every coin which the bank receives is weighed separately to see that it has just the right amount of gold in it ; but this is done by machines which work . very rapidly, automatically throwing out the light coins. There are ten such machines in the bank, each of which can weigh six thousand pieces of gold a day. Quitting the bank, we visit the Royal Exchange near by, and then cross over to the Mansion House where the LONDON. 73 Lord Mayor lives. We next visit the Tower of London, which for years was the prison and place of execution for the celebrated criminals and traitors of England. It is a gloomy building on the banks of the Thames, some of it almost one thousand years old. A quaintly attired warder acts as our guide, taking us from room to room, upstairs m r "We next visit the Tower of London." and down, and making us shudder as he tells the horrible stories of the suffering and death which have occurred within it. He shows us Queen Elizabeth's armory, where are all sorts of weapons and instruments of torture, and lets us handle an ax which has cut off the heads of some of England's great nobles. In another room we see the crown jewels of England. They are kept in glass cases inside iron cages and carefully guarded. That crown there which fairly blazes with precious stones was once Queen Victoria's. It has two thousand, seven hundred and eighty-three diamonds in it, and the large ruby in front was worn by Henry V on his 74 ENGLAND. helmet in one of his battles with the French, hundreds of years ago. The great stone near it is the celebrated Koh-i- noor, one of the largest diamonds known. It once belonged to an Indian rajah, and came into the possession of the English when they conquered him. From the Tower we visit the Tower Bridge over the Thames, and thence walk on to London Bridge, the busi- est of all the twenty bridges which cross the Thames in the city. The bridge is of granite, and the bronze lamp posts upon it were cast from cannon which the English London Bridge. had captured in battle. We stand on the bridge watch- ing the throng of people and vehicles which is always moving over this way and that. The Thames is filled with shipping. There are steamers carrying passengers up and down stream, and we are told by the policemen that we, if we wish, can ride back on one of them to Charing Cross for a penny. We decide, however, to return by the underground railroad. LONDON. 75 We return by the underground railroad. The streets in the heart of London are so thronged that people in a hurry travel under ground. Great tunnels have been dug out under the houses and streets, below the gas pipes and sewers. There are railroads in the tunnels, and fast express trains fly along through them, stopping at the openings which have been made here and there with stairs to the streets. A trip costs but four cents, and the cars are so convenient that the trains annually carry many million passengers. The tunnels are lighted by electricity. They are walled with brick, and are so well ventilated that we find riding in them more pleasant than jolting along on the omnibus. 7 6 ENGLAND. IX. THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT ENGLAND IS GOVERNED. HOW PUT on your best clothes this morning. We are to go through the fashionable parts of London. We shall drive in the chief shopping sections, take a turn in Hyde Park, and later visit Parliament, and perhaps meet the chief officials of the great British Empire. We go in couples, each couple taking a hansom, a queer two-wheeled cab entirely open in front. The driver has a seat fastened to the back of the roof, and directs his horses with lines which are high over our heads. ' We leave Trafalgar Square for a ride through Regent Street, Ox- ford, and Piccadilly. The build- ings are cleaner and better than farther down in the city, and the stores are filled with fine goods of every description. We stop here and there to buy pres- ents or things we need on our tour ; and then go on into Hyde Park, by the great statue of Wellington cast from twelve French cannon, some of which were captured from Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo. How beautiful the park is ! The drives are through groves of magnificent trees and thick velvety lawns of the greenest green. We go to the Serpentine, a long winding lake where, before eight o'clock in the morning and after eight in the evening, crowds of boys and men may be seen Nelson Monument, Trafal- gar Square. HOW ENGLAND IS GOVERNED. 77 swimming and plunging about in the water. The time for bathing is limited by the raising and lowering of a flag, the park authorities setting aside an hour twice a day for the sport. Not far from the Serpentine is Rotten Row, where fash- ionable London rides and drives every afternoon. The usual riding hour is from twelve till two o'clock, when MwBP^&ffi.^ Sk&l Y W*fr^Qwm bfii ^«8 ft 1 Sy » \ - i Rotten Row. hundreds of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen and boys and girls may be seen on their spirited steeds, walking, trotting, or galloping along. After looking at the magnificent houses near Hyde Park, we are driven on to the palaces of St. James and Buckingham, two of the residences of the king of England, where he sometimes holds his levees or receptions. The palaces are enormous structures more like our great gov- ernment department buildings at Washington than ordi- nary residences. They face St. James Park, and each palace has a beautiful garden about it. At the times of royal receptions richly dressed ladies, gentlemen in uniforms trimmed with gold lace, and serv- yS ENGLAND. ants in gorgeous liveries wearing knee breeches, silk stockings, and powdered hair, may be seen going into the palaces. Then the mounted band of the Life Guards plays outside, and gay carriages, driven by coachmen wear- ing curled wigs and three-cornered hats, dash through the streets, the policemen keeping the crowds back. from the roadway. Had we the proper introductions, we might enter and be presented to the ruler of England. We should probably find him only a man after all ; and if he should tell us just what his powers are, we should learn that, although he is a king, he has little more authority over his people than the President of the United States has over us. The government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is a limited monarchy ; that is, its king can rule only as the constitution and laws prescribe. The laws are fixed by Parliament, a body of men representing the people, much like our Congress. Parliament directs what the king shall do ; it directs just what taxes shall be collected, how the money shall be spent, and it makes all the laws for the people. For this reason the English say they have a country as free as our own, although ours is a republic. But let us visit the Houses of Parliament. They are in Westminster Palace, a magnificent building covering more than twice as much ground as the Capitol at Washington, situated on the north bank of the Thames. We call up to our cabman through the little hole in the roof to go through St. James's Park, and down Whitehall Street to the river. We dismount in front of the palace, but are stopped at the gates by one of the policemen on guard, until we show him our pass from the American Minister. We find other policemen in the halls, who wear uniforms HOW ENGLAND IS GOVERNED. 79 and tall helmets, and look very imposing. The door- keepers also wear uniforms, and each of the messengers has a brass medal as big around as a teacup, with a lion and unicorn upon it, on his breast. Westminster Palace. We are taken through room after room. There are more than a thousand in the palace. We visit the library and then go on into the House of Commons, and sit down in the galleries surrounding the great rectangular pit where the House meets. The walls of the pit are of richly carved English oak, darkened by age, and the roof is composed of panels of stained glass through which the light comes. Cast your eyes into the pit. There, on those long, cush- ioned benches, sit the men who, elected by the people, really rule England. Nearly all are dressed in black clothes, and each has a tall silk hat on his head, or on his knees, or on the seat beside him. There are no desks, and many of 8o ENGLAND. the members are writing on papers which they rest on their hats. Notice that man in the long black gown sitting in the pulpit at the end of the chamber. How white his hair is and how curly ; it is done up in a queue at the back, and it surrounds his rosy face and falls down on his breast. Still, the man's face is unwrinkled, as are those of the other white-haired men who are writing at that table «m m 14 — the great rectangular pit where the House meets." below him. They seem to be young men notwithstanding their hair. You are right. They are young. They are the speaker and clerks of the House of Commons, and custom requires they wear black gowns and gray wigs, as was done by judges and some other officials of our coun- try in early days. There a member rises to speak. He uses a conversa- tional tone and his fellows are quietly listening. Now he is growing excited. His words stir up the whole House. HOW ENGLAND IS GOVERNED. 8 1 There are cries of Hear ! Hear ! and No ! No ! from all parts. The Speaker calls Order ! Three other mem- bers have jumped to their feet. They cry out; their objec- tions, and for a time there is quite a hubbub in the great pit below us. Ordinarily the House of Commons is more quiet than our House of Representatives, but when im- portant questions come up, the members often lose their dignified ways and shout at, each other. But let us go into the House of Peers, where the chief nobles of the United Kingdom have seats. The English people are divided up into peers and commoners, largely according to birth. There are about six hundred peers and something like thirty-five million commoners. The peers are of the five orders of nobility: dukes, marquises, earls,, viscounts, and barons. There are also other orders whose members have only the titles of Honorable and Sir. In England the eldest son usually succeeds to the rank of his father, while the other children are only commoners, although they sometimes by courtesy have minor titles. We find the House of Lords much like the House of Commons, save that it is more quiet and prosy. There are about six hundred members. Some became members by birth, some were appointed by the king, others were elected for life or for shorter periods, and some are bishops of the Church of England. Leaving Westminster Palace, we visit Westminster Abbey near by, to see the statues and memorials of the English monarchs, military and naval heroes, scientists, and liter- ary men. We admire the monuments of the kings, but are more interested in those erected to Sir Isaac Newton, the great philosopher, to James Watt, the father of the steam engine, and to such writers as Addison, Goldsmith, Dickens, and Thackeray. We stay some time in the " Poets' 82 ENGLAND. Corner," before the tombs or monuments of Milton, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and other great poets, and also before the monument of Longfellow, who is as much loved in Eng- land as in our own country. On our way back to the hotel we drive by the chief public buildings, visiting several of them to learn more about the government. We find that the king has his Westminster Abbey. Cabinet just as our President has, but while our President need not act on the advice of his Cabinet, the king must act on the advice of his Cabinet if it is approved by the House of Commons. Each of the king's ministers has a great department, with thousands of clerks under him. We visit the Treasury, which has to do with the finances of the empire, and then enter the great buildings which contain the Home, Foreign, Colonial, and Indian Offices, where we get some idea of the enormous size and impor- tance of the British Empire. HOW ENGLAND IS GOVERNED. 83 The United Kingdom is but a small part of the territory governed by the British people. They have colonies on every continent, and islands in almost every sea. The colonies and the United Kingdom make up the British Empire, which contains, all told, about eighty times as much land as Great Britain and Ireland, and altogether almost one fifth of the land surface of the globe, inhabited by about one fourth of all the people upon it. It is the greatest empire of the whole world, and of all the world's peoples the English own the most land. We might travel around the world, landing only at English ports. We could cross the Atlantic to Montreal, and thence go by railroad to Vancouver where there are steamers which would land us in Hong Kong, an English island off the coast of South China. From there we could steam on to Singapore, another English possession, and thence north by way of Rangoon in Burmah to Calcutta, the capital of British India. From Calcutta there is a rail- road to Bombay, where other English ships would take us over the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal, stopping at Aden, a British port in Arabia. Egypt, which is under British protection, would be on our left as we went through the canal, and in crossing the Mediterranean we should call at Malta, and go by the English rock of Gibraltar out into the Atlantic, and thence northward to Liverpool. This tour would leave out the vast possessions of the British in Africa and Australasia, as well as other important colo- nies, including islands in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. These vast territories are all governed more or less from the Colonial and Indian Offices in London, although some of them, such as New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, have parliaments of their own. Each colonial country has a 84 ENGLAND. great trade with Great Britain, and does much toward making the English rank with ourselves as the greatest of the commercial and manufacturing nations. We visit the Departments of War and Navy. A large army is needed to keep so many people in order, and to defend their many possessions. The English must have war ships to guard their enormous commerce, and their gunboats are to be seen in all parts of the world. We are more and more impressed with the greatness of the British Empire as we go from building to building, and from office to office. In the Postal Department we learn something of the intelligence of the English from the vast amount of mail they send and receive. We see that they must be thrifty from their savings banks, which are connected with every post office, and where one can deposit as little as twenty-five cents at a time. Many school children put their money into such banks, and nearly all the depositors are poor people; but their deposits amount to many hundred million dollars. We ask about the telegraph and telephone systems, which are managed by the government in connection with the post offices, and are told that there are telegraph lines and telephones to all parts of the kingdom, and also cables run- ning under the Channel to the Continent, and to most of the colonies. We ask the cable clerk to send a message across the Atlantic for us. He gives us a blank, and we each write a dispatch. A few minutes later our words are flying through the wires, up hill and down, on their journey of two thousand and more miles over the bed of the ocean to Nova Scotia, and thence through the land wires to our homes. They will arrive there before we can reach our hotel, and our parents will know we are safe, happy, and well. RURAL FRANCE. 85 X. RURAL FRANCE. w E are in France this morn- ing. We landed some days ago, and are now leisurely trav- eling from city to city and village to village through one of the most interesting coun- tries of Europe. How pleas- ant it is to be again upon land ! We shall never for- get our trip across the Channel. It took us two hours on the railroad from London to Dover, where the English Channel is narrow- est and where we got an express boat which carried us across to Calais in an hour. But such an hour! We never thought so much misery could be crowded into sixty short minutes. We were rolled and pitched about by the waves even more than on our voyage across the Atlantic. We could not walk upon 'deck, and were seasick all the way over. We spent but a few hours in Calais (see map, p. 103), going first to the customhouse to open our trunks, that the officials might see we had no goods for sale. We visited the shipyards, watched the French women making lace, and looked at the fortifications built to defend the port in the event of a war between England and France. For a similar reason the English have fortifications at Dover. CARP. EUROPE — 6 86 FRANCE. We took a train at the station, not far from the boat, and since then have been traveling by rail from one place to another. How different it is from anything we have yet seen ! The signs on the stations are strange. They are printed in French, and we have to translate the advertisements before we know what they mean. Our fellow passengers speak a strange language, gesturing ■33 ML , a. ■ ^Slp *•" ttjj'ipwm ^^JRrIESbk IS«*^^| ■;:■■■':.': ::■:■' ■ ' ' '.'.. .'■■ " -^ "We spent but a few hours in Calais." much as they talk. We thought we knew something of French, but these people speak so fast we cannot make out the words. The conductor comes to the door, and touching his cap, calls out something we can hardly under- stand, for he runs his words all together ; but the French passengers are showing their tickets, and we do the same. Listen to the crowd at the stations ! They are all jabber- ing in French, and what really seems strangest, is that the RURAL FRANCE. 87 little children are speaking this language as easily as we do our own. How polite every one is, and how jolly ! Even the boys take off their hats when we ask them a question. Men shake hands when they meet, and again when they part, and boys often kiss the hands of their relatives when they greet them at the cars. Over there are two men embrac- ing each other. They kiss on the cheeks, each pressing one kiss on each cheek of his fellow. Such salutations are common in France. The French are fond of society. We see women chatting and laughing as they sit with their knitting outside their " — women chatting and laughing." houses. There are family parties about the tables in the parks and in the streets in front of the cafes, playing dominoes or other games, while they drink wine, chocolate, coffee, or lemonade. They seem to enjoy themselves very 88 FRANCE. much. Many are reading the papers, for the French are intelligent and have all sorts of schools, as we shall see farther on. But there, the bell rings ! The train is leaving the station, and that ring is the notice to start. We are rapidly moving over the country. How comfortable it is ! France has a good railroad system connecting its cities and towns with one another and with all parts of Europe. See the woman there at the road crossing ! She has a little red flag in her hand, which she waves at the engineer as he passes. She blows a horn to warn people that the cars are coming, and at the same time puts down the bars to keep them from crossing the track. How fine the farms are, but how small. France is largely composed of small farms. It is divided up into garden patches, and the most of. it belongs to the common people. In the United Kingdom, which we have just left, the most of the lands were owned by twenty thousand men, composed chiefly of the rich and the nobility. France is only a little less than twice as large as Great Britain and Ireland, but it has millions of landed proprietors. Nearly every farmer has his own bit of land, and even those who work for others own several acres apiece, which they tend between times. This is a good thing for France, for every owner feels that a part of the country belongs to him, and he is interested in its welfare. The people are fond of their country, and do not emigrate like the English, Irish, and Germans. They think no other place equal to France, and hence stay at home; many foreigners come into France every year, but few Frenchmen go out. The peo- ple farm their lands well and are thrifty. The French are noted for their thrift. Nearly every one of them has money in the bank or in a stocking hidden RURAL FRANCE. 8 9 away somewhere at home, and they are often said to be the richest people of the world. They have learned how to use food materials so economically that it is said they could take what we waste, and by their knowledge of cooking, live upon it. The common people we see dress plainly and look healthy and happy. "The road is as hard as stone." Now we are traveling through one of the wheat regions. There are many such in the northern and central parts of the country. Besides wheat, the French produce quantities of oats, rye, barley, and corn, as well as sugar beets, pota- toes, and other root crops. They have orchards of apples, peaches, and pears in the north, and in the south groves of lemon, orange, olive, and mulberry trees. There are many provinces in which we can go for miles and not be out of sight of the vineyards, for France is the chief wine- producing country of Europe. 90 FRANCE. But let us leave the train and visit some, of the farms. The road is as hard as stone and as smooth as a floor. We ride along under the shade of the poplars and other trees that line the roadsides. It is early morning, but the people In the Fields. are already at work. The women are laboring along with the men in the fields. Some of them are bareheaded, some have bright handkerchiefs about their heads, and some wear sunbonnets. They do all sorts of light work. There is one weeding among those sugar beets, and here is another cutting the thistles out of this field of green wheat. On the other side of the road a man is plowing; he wears a cap and a suit of blue cotton, with a long shirt or blouse buttoned down in front outside his trousers ; he has RURAL FRANCE. 9 1 on wooden clogs or sabots. . In that field farther on three little boys are planting something. They are bareheaded, but they laugh as they work, and say : " Bon jour " (boN zhoor) or "good day," to us as we pass. But where are the farmhouses and barns? There are none in the fields. The farm people of France live in villages, and go out from them to their work. There is a village now about three miles away. Let us go to it. How different it is from our small country towns ! The houses and barns are all mixed together. They are of one and two stories, built of stone or of mud mixed with straw, and roofed with red tiles or straw thatch. The walls are whitewashed, except near the ground, where there is a black coating of tar to keep out the damp. Each house has a stable and outsheds about it, and the stable is often a part of the house, the cow stalls being next to the bed- room or kitchen. Nearly every house has a rabbit yard connected with it ; rabbits are as common here as chickens are in our villages. One of the farmers invites us to enter his home. He takes us into the kitchen, which is the chief room of the house. It has a brick floor ; there is a great fireplace at the end and a bed in one corner. Hams and sides of bacon hang from the ceiling, and there are some prints on the walls. Our farmer wears a cap, a blue blouse, blue trousers, and wooden shoes. His wife has on dark clothes and a white cap. She has a half-finished garment in her hand, and sews as she talks. See that hand loom over there ! Our hostess weaves cloth in the winter when she cannot work in the fields. Many of the women make beautiful laces and embroideries. Leaving the house, we stroll through the village, visiting its little church, and then drive on to a large country town 92 FRANCE. not far away. Let us stop before we go in, and watch the women washing at that stream outside the town. Each woman has a wooden box or tray at the edge of the water, in which she kneels, and, leaning over, dips in the clothes and rubs them clean upon the flat stones. There is a girl who is pounding the dirt out with a paddle. She has laid the blue cotton shirt she is washing upon a rock in the s^jf % - " ^^jgf?^ \~ ^ ■ - >j|fe J ' <-***: gy £- 1P? '■ c * ^0®f ^ y* ^ j^ *■*'■ ^^sgi & 131 * f\ - v%^:?- ^ i"^^!:-: ^sl * ~ -***&•' ^ - -.„ Kd^k. *^t? f . .- An Outdoor Laundry. water, and is striking it again and again. Now she is dip- ping the garment into the stream, and now she has doubled it up to pound it again. Others have finished their wash- ing, and are hanging the clothes on the fence at the back or spreading them out on the grass to dry. This sort of washing is done all over France, although in some of the cities there are public laundries where the women may wash free of charge or for a few cents a day. RURAL FRANCE. 93 In the town we find all sorts of work going on in the streets. The French are fond of open air life. We see women and girls knitting and sewing on their house steps, others near by are cleaning vegetables for dinner, and farther on a girl is combing her hair, right out on the street. It is the same with the men and the children. Tailors and shoemakers bring their work out to the sidewalks, school children bring their books home and study out- doors, and the little ones play all sorts of games in the streets. See that girl on that doorstep with her doll in her arms. What a pretty little French mother, and what a very odd doll ! The doll's legs are wrapped round and round with a white cloth in a tight bundle. That is the way the live French babies are dressed, and the little girl could not imagine her baby real if it were in one of the long gowns our babies wear. We visit the public museum and the library, and then go into the schools. Every town in France has these institu- tions, for the French are among the most advanced of all nations in their learning and culture. They have many colleges and large universities, and are noted for their scientific and literary ability. We spend some time at the schoolhouses, smiling a little at the boys, who are dressed too much like girls to suit young Americans. Many quite large boys wear black dresses which fall below the knees of their trousers. Some of the boys have on stockings so short that they do not meet the ends of their knickerbockers, and a strip of red, bare skin eight inches wide shows. It makes us think of the soldiers we saw wearing kilts in the Highlands of Scotland. 94 FRANCE. The teacher tells us the school hours are from eight o'clock in the morning to four in the afternoon, with two hours for dinner. He shows us the school savings bank, in which the children can make deposits equal to one cent or more at a time, and says that the parents sometimes teach their children habits of saving by giving them money to put in the school bank, so that they may have a capital with which to start life when they leave school. These school banks are connected with the postal savings banks, and are so popular that hundreds of thousands of accounts have thus been opened by children. Our town is on the edge of a forest, and we take a long drive through the woods. How clean and well kept everything is! There is hardly a twig on the ground, not a rotten log or a stump to be seen. Even the bark of small trees is saved, and that of some kinds is stripped off and used to tie the sheaves of wheat and oats. There is a woman preparing such bark and putting it up in bundles for sale. Where the trees have been cut they have been chopped off close to the ground, and every chip saved. Fuel is expensive in France, and the people do not waste it as we do. The wood is made up for sale in little bundles not much bigger "There is a woman preparing such bark." COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING FRANCE. 95 than a bundle of kindling wood, and in the cities it is often sold by weight. The French are always planting trees ; they have a say- ing that every tree earns its own living. Every forest has its keeper, who can tell when a tree reaches the right age for firewood ; and in the government forests it is forbidden by law to destroy the trees. The result is that, although France is a very old country, about one sixth of it is still wooded. We meet one of the forest guards now and then during our drive, and when we propose to break off a stick for a cane our coachman warns us that if we do so we may be arrested. XI. COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING FRANCE. LET us look at France on the map to learn, if we can, why it has been the home of one of the greatest of the European nations. The country consists of a great block of rolling plains so guarded by mountains and seas that its inhabitants can easily defend it. There are the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean on the north and the west, the Mediterranean and the mountain wall of the Pyrenees on the south, and the Alps, the Jura, and the Vosges on the east, so arranged that only a short chain of fortresses is needed to ward off a sudden attack. Is it not natural that a great nation should grow up inside such walls of mountains and water? Yes; and when the country within has good seaports, and also navi- gable rivers connected by many canals, we see that it is naturally fitted for commerce and trade. It has also coal and other minerals, and thousands of streams flow 9 6 FRANCE. down from the mountains, giving water power to all sorts of factories. As we make our way from one great port to another, we shall see that all parts of France are connected by water, so that, notwithstanding the good railroad system, much of the freight still goes upon boats because it is cheaper. In some places the coal rate is one cent per ton per mile, while in others a ton of goods is carried three, miles for a cent. We could, if we chose, visit all parts of France by the Seine, the Loire, the Rhone, and Garonne, and the canals which connect them. The Burgundy Canal connects the Rhone, through its tributaries, with the Seine, and the Canal du Centre joins it to the Loire, while the Canal du Midi unites with the river Garonne and brings the waters of the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean together, so that boats can go from one to the other and thus save the voyage of two thousand miles around the Spanish Peninsula. There is also a canal from the Seine to the Rhine, in which by locks the boats are lifted over a pass in the Vosges Mountains more than a thousand feet high. We visit the " — shipping from all parts of the world." chief seaports of France, and find them filled with shipping from all parts of the world. At Havre, the port of Paris at the mouth of the Seine, we see steamers which have crossed the Atlantic from New York, with loads of our cotton, tobacco, ^iyL^HBL*r m&i COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING FRANCE. 97 and wheat to be sold to the French. There are ships from Brazil and other parts of South America, and also from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the many other coun- tries with which France has a great trade. "We spend some time in Bordeaux." We spend some time in Bordeaux, near the mouth of the Garonne. It is larger than Louisville and is a beau- tiful city. At its wharves are many vessels loading wines, and we learn that Bordeaux is the chief wine port of the world. The French raise grapes in nearly all parts of their country. They produce more wine than any other people, making enough annually to give a gallon to every man, woman, and child upon earth, and have plenty left for themselves. The French consume almost a billion gallons a year. Nearly every one has wine with his dinner, and we see even the little children drinking wine with their lunches as we ride through France on the cars. We take a run from Bordeaux out into the country to look at the vineyards. They are much the same as in 9 8 FRANCE. many other parts of France where fine wines are produced. There are vines everywhere ; not trained upon arbors or latticework, but tied to stakes about as high as your waist. Each vine has its own stake, the branches being cut almost down to the ground every year. Many of the hills are terraced, the rows of vines making green steps up the hillsides. See, there are women hoeing in the field over there ; on that hill to the right they are weeding the vines, A Vineyard. and tying them with strings to the stakes. Some of the women wear bonnets so deep we cannot see their faces except when they look up. There are children at work in the vineyards, as well as women and men. On our return to Bordeaux we visit the wine cellars. They are to be found in every part of the city. We walk through cave after cave, filled with great casks, and thou- sands of bottles carefully arranged upon shelves. Such cellars are common in all the wine centers. COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING FRANCE. 99 At Bordeaux we take the express train for Marseilles, the chief port of southern France, on the Mediterranean Sea. For miles there is nothing but vineyards on both sides of the track. Now we pass an orange orchard, and now see pale yellow lemons gleaming out through the green leaves. There are dark green olive trees and semitropical plants. There are men, women, and children at work everywhere. ■LltfKWK- ., "" j &&Wak '■ V* WmmSmmP ' *^S | J! PIP jjfi i Wf v^HR&^B . •„■,-' . MiBI - ; 1 1 ;%«*Str~ In an Olive Grove. The women wear white caps and woolen dresses with short skirts. Even the children wear wooden shoes. There is a drove of little donkeys, each carrying two pan- niers of vegetables or fruits to the market. Farther on are some mules at work in a field. Everywhere there are roses and other beautiful flowers. There is so much to see that we are almost sorry when we reach the end of our journey. 100 FRANCE. Harbor, Marseilles. We spend some days at Marseilles. It is the outlet for the trade of the rich Rhone valley, and for all France to the Mediterranean, and the Far East. It is as big as Pitts- burg, and, owing to its excellent harbor and the busy and rich French people about it, is the chief port of the Medi- terranean Sea. We take the cars at Marseilles, and travel northward through the valley of the Rhone to Lyons, at the head of the navigation of the Rhone, where the turbulent Saone flows into it. We are now in what is, next to Paris, the chief man- ufacturing city of France, and in a city where more silks are woven than anywhere else in the world. The French make more of these goods than any other nation of Europe ; and in this city there are thousands of men, women, and children who do nothing else but make silk thread, and weave silk. : COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING FRANCE. IOI In Lyons. Lyons is as big as Buffalo, and it has become great chiefly from its silk manufactures. Let me tell you how the business started. Until the latter part of the Middle Ages, Europe got the most of its fine silks from Italy; but a few years after Columbus discovered America, Francis I, then king of France, sent out word to the silk weavers of Europe that if they would come to France they should have more rights than other workmen. He said that they should pay no taxes, their lodgings should be free, and they should have the right to wear swords, a privilege at that time seldom accorded to any but the nobles. The result was that many Italian weavers came to Lyons, which through its industrial fairs was already noted as a trading place. They first wove thick silk goods and brocaded velvets such as they had made at home, but afterward lighter silks were manufactured. CARP. EUROPE — 7 102 FRANCE. The French soon learned silk weaving. They made all sorts of new designs, until at last it came about that the most beautiful of all cloths were made by them. In the meantime Paris became the center of European fash- ion and art, and merchants from all nations went there to get new fabrics and styles, until it was found that if a pattern or style originated in Paris it was pretty sure to sell well everywhere. This is the position which the French hold in the world to-day. They are supposed to know what is beautiful better than any other nation, and they are always inventing new styles. We visit schools in Lyons where designing is taught, and where any one who will pay can learn how to weave the most beautiful silks, satins, and velvets, if he will only apply himself. These schools have students from all parts of the world. But where does France get the silk thread to weave these fine goods ? Some of it, as we saw at Marseilles, is im- ported from Asia, but much is produced right here in the Rhone valley. In southern France there are many orchards of mulberry trees, whose leaves are used for feeding silk- worms. The people pick off the leaves and lay them upon boards, where the worms, having been carefully hatched from the eggs of the silk moth, are lying. After the worms begin to eat they must be kept supplied with food, and the people are often up all night tending them. At such times you can hear the worms chewing, the thousands of little jaws of a large colony making a peculiar noise. They grow very rapidly, and after a time stop eating and spin their cocoons, from which the silk threads are after- wards reeled off by machinery and by hand. Leaving Lyons, we visit other silk-weaving towns. There are many in France, for it is a great manufac- turing country, and there is scarcely a village that is not (i©3) 104 FRANCE. noted for some industry or other. We spend some time in the thriving city of St. Etienne (saNt a-te-enn'). It is on the swift River Furens in the midst of coal fields, where the water power and cheap fuel have caused numerous factories to spring up. It might be called the Sheffield of France, for it makes all kinds of fine cutlery, manufac- turing five thousand knives every week. We are more interested, however, in the ribbons. St. Etienne weaves more ribbons than any other place in the world. It produces more than half of all the ribbons of Europe, and I think there are many girls in our party who have St. Etienne ribbons upon them. There are many thousand people here who work only on ribbons, many millions of dollars worth of such goods being annually exported. Let us enter some of the establishments. Many of them consist of a single hand loom in the home of the weaver. How pale and wan the workpeople look, and how their tired faces stand out in contrast with the bright threads they are using. They must work very carefully upon the best ribbons, and some of them labor many hours a day for wages much lower than those paid in our country. How beautiful the ribbons are ! They are of all kinds. Some have flowers and birds raised in satin on soft silken grounds. There are ribbons of gold and ribbons of silver, ribbons decorated with all sorts of leaves, and ribbons as wonderful in their colors as a peacock's tail, all made in these mean little homes. We next visit some of the towns where they make lace. There is one not far from St. Etienne where nearly every family is engaged in this work, and where in one little district there are more than a hundred thousand lace workers. Most of them are women, but there are many COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING FRANCE. 105 small children knitting away. We often see the workers sitting in the street outside their houses, plying their reels, and even find them in the market places and on the church steps. They are making the torchon lace which is sold all over the world. Some of the most deli- cate patterns are stitched upon pillows, while others are put together with needles. The centers of the woolen and linen industries of France are also quite interesting. We have all heard of lisle thread gloves and stockings, and we wish to visit the place where they are made. This is at Lisle, a city of two hundred thousand people in northeastern France. Cam- brics are made at the town of Cambrai (koN-bra/), not far from Lisle. There are curious manufacturing villages in the Jura and Vosges Mountains, little Pittsburgs walled in by hills, each of which has its blackened chimneys and clouds of coal smoke. One town produces nothing but clocks, another makes nails, and a third, strange to say, devotes itself to the study of noses. In the last the people are all engaged in manufacturing spectacles, making them so they will fit the long nose, the short nose, and no-nose-at-all people, all the world over. But there is one thing we must see before we go on to Paris, and that is how they make china. The French are noted for their beautiful porcelains. You will find their wares in almost any town of our country, the plates or dishes being stamped with the name of the place of their manufacture. Many of the finest bear the word Limoges (le-mozb'). That town is one of the centers of the porce- lain manufacture of France, and there we shall go. Li- moges lies in the south-central part of the country, near some rich coal mines and close to the beds of fine white I06 FRANCE. clay of which the china is made. We watch them dig the clay from the earth, and follow it to the mills, where it is ground very fine. It is next mixed with water into a stiff paste, and this paste is treated in certain ways until it becomes a mass not unlike bread dough after kneading. The workmen take the white dough and mold it into all sorts of beautiful dishes, vases, and other such things, which are then put into kilns and burnt until they are as hard as glass, when they are taken out and cooled. Some of the dishes are painted and some are decorated with gold. Some are as thin as an eggshell, and so translucent that we can almost see through them. Later on in our tour we visit St. Cloud (saN kloo'), near Paris, where the famous Sevres (savr) ware is made. The factory there has been in the hands of the government for more than one hundred years, its chief object being to design beautiful things for the benefit of private manufac- turers. While we are in the works we see a tea set worth three thousand dollars, and copies of famous pictures on porcelain, some of which sell for as much as ten thousand dollars apiece. They are very beautiful, but far too costly for us. XII. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE WORLD LET us stand together on the top of the Eiffel Tower and take a look over Paris before we begin to explore it. We are nine hundred feet above the ground on a great framework of iron, rising upon the banks of the Seine in the midst of the most beautiful city of the world. Below us lies a vast network of cream-colored houses, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE WORLD. 107 built in regular lines along wide streets which cross one another in almost every direction. There is a wall around the edges, and with a glass we can see many forts with soldiers moving about on the ramparts. Paris has been compared to a camp. It is about twenty-two miles in cir- cumference, and is the largest city of continental Europe. Look down upon it and see how clean everything is ! Notice the very wide streets. They are walled with mag- nificent buildings and lined with great forest trees. Those are the famous boulevards of Paris. Each of them has sidewalks as wide as the ordinary roadway, and the space between is paved with asphalt or smooth wooden blocks. The streets are washed with the hose every morning. They are swept and mopped, and in the evening the rag pickers go about and pick up the scraps of paper, cloth, and other things which fall during the day. See how the river winds its way through the city, and how the water sparkles under the rays of the sun. It is so far down that the many boats upon it look like toys, and the men on the quays like pygmies hanging over little stone walls. That is the Seine. It flows from here down to the sea, with a deep channel most of the way, and this has been so dug out that ships that do not draw more than ten feet of water can come right up to Paris. This has made Paris the chief port of France, although it is situated one hundred miles from the coast. There are boats there below us which have come from London and the other ports of northern Europe. There are always boats floating down from the upper parts of the Seine, and if we should travel up the Marne, which joins the Seine just outside Paris, we might find a canal by which we could go clear to the Rhine, where other boats would take us out through Belgium and Holland to the North Sea. io8 FRANCE. What a number of railroads there are coming into Paris from every direction. This is the railroad center of France. You can get fast trains here any day for any capital of Europe. Seven hours will take you across the Channel to London ; we could leave now and be in Berlin in the morning, or going on reach St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia, by day after to-morrow. That train which is shoot- ' 1 J !t ' if ' ; ■ '■:.■■ ■ -■ ■ ■ I« ..-:■■ fj ."■' ■ - ;, . ■ i ■ : 0%.' : ■ -■ ... ' : ""■,:.. :;"'.■ .';:- : ,.. ■,■■■ -V''.;; ,,'.":, .■ '-■■:.;..:':■ ■ : -. ...... .\ ■ -.■: '■' '' : % h. .:■: : ' :.: '- / : " ^ ' ._ " Iffii t iffci, VJTr^TilMlitl '"i^i Hie? r ^ m Ek ' ^3fefe^-^^9?l " That is the Seine." ing off to the south is bound for the Mediterranean, there goes another on its way to Switzerland, and there are other roads in that network of steel which extend on to the Rhine and the Danube, carrying the fast Oriental express by which one can go from Paris to Constantinople in less than three days. Cast your eyes down to the Seine. See that little island farther on up the river, with the great church upon it. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE WORLD. 109 That is the Isle de la Cite upon which the Parisii, a tribe of half-savage men, had their chief town when Caesar sub- dued this part of Gaul, almost two thousand years ago. Caesar conquered the Parisii and rebuilt the town. It became an important settlement under the Romans, and centuries later was made the capital of France, having been the residence of the French kings for almost one thousand years. But let us go down and begin our explorations of Paris. We take carriages and drive for miles through one beauti- ful street after another, all walled with cream-colored build- ings of five and six stories. The buildings are in blocks built close to the inner edge of the sidewalk, and they look so much alike that we wonder that a Parisian does not sometimes lose his way and go into the house of his neigh- bor. There are no gardens except at the back of the houses, or in little courts inside them. Each building con- tains many families. The Parisians live in flats or apart- ments, and even in the best sections of the city there are stores on the ground floor, with homes on the floors higher up. One family will have five or six rooms; it may be a dining room, parlor, and kitchen, with two or three bedrooms, all on the same floor ; and many must climb three or four pairs of stairs every time they go in doors or out. This is one reason why we see so many people on the streets and in the parks. The French love the open air, and as most of them can have no gardens of their own, they come to the boulevards and walk up and down. There are benches on the streets where we see women knitting, and there are crowds walking in the public gar- dens at almost any time of the day. Girls take their sew- ing out on the streets, and chat and work while they no FRANCE. watch the people go by. We see women stitching and knitting outdoors; they knit even while riding on the street cars, and we are rarely out of sight of a woman working away at a stocking. Each of the public gardens and parks looks as though a picnic was being held in it, especially on Saturday afternoons, when many families eat their lunches under the trees. si«Wiy^g ■^Ixlglf^ B ^a : " ^^^^^lJBfc^Hrrilii'lERTO\" ! 'B H vUM l^m-A;-. ■■■-■ . ... . . ',- " _" Arc de Triomphe. We drive to the Arc de Triomphe (ark d'tre-oNf') and down through the Champs felysees (shoN' za-le-za/) to the Place de la Concorde (koN-kord'). The Arc de Triomphe is one of the most beautiful monuments of the world. It was begun by the great Napoleon in 1806 to commemorate the glories of the French in some of their wars. We are delighted with the Champs Elys^es. They are beautiful gardens with a magnificent avenue bordered with trees running through them. Every afternoon the avenue is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE WORLD III crowded with carriages, and men and women on horseback, and under the trees on each side children are playing all sorts of games. There are little booths where toys and cakes and candies are sold, and there are merry-go-rounds and Punch and Judy shows. But there is so much to see that we leave our carriage and walk down the avenue. Isn't it interesting to watch Champs Elysees. the French children playing? They are romping about almost as lively as little Americans; and we cannot help wishing we knew enough French to stop and play with them. Those chairs along the shady side of the walk are not free. If you sit down in one it will cost you a penny, whether you sit there an hour or a minute. It is only the benches that are free to the public. But here we are in the Place de la Concorde. How beautiful it is ! I dare say we shall not see anything 1 1 2 FRANCE. so fine elsewhere in our travels. We are surrounded by gardens and parks and beautiful buildings. There at the east is the Garden of the Tuileries (twe'le-riz), where the kings of France used to live, and just beyond are the Grand Museum and Art Gallery of the Louvre, one of the finest of its kind in the world. At the west as far as we can see runs the Champs Elysees with the great Arc de Triomphe on the hill in the distance, while on the south is the Seine, with its boats of all kinds puffing along to and fro, with the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies on the opposite bank. Now let us turn our backs to the Seine and look in the opposite direction. That tall round pillar with Napoleon's statue on top rising high out of the houses is the Column Vendome (voN-dom'), made from the cannon which Napo- leon captured from the Austrians and Russians ; and that church to the left is the Madeleine, one of the most beauti- ful of the whole world. A little farther on our eyes catch the roof of the Opera House, another magnificent struc- ture ; while near us in the Place are beautiful fountains, the great obelisk brought here from Egypt, and statues repre- senting the chief towns of France. But let us go for a walk on the boulevards. They are filled with people laughing and chatting. There are many fashionably dressed men and women moving along arm in arm. There are laborers in blue cotton walking this way and that. Newsboys are crying their papers, girls are peddling flowers, and hawkers are selling pic- tures, toys, and all sorts of knickknacks. We pass crowds of people eating and drinking out on the sidewalks. There are cafes at every few steps, and most of them have more customers without than within. Families are chatting as they eat and drink. Many men are reading the papers, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE WORLD. 113 and not a few boys are playing dominoes at tables out in the street. What fine store windows ! The boulevards are lined with shops, and as we go along we seem to be walking through a great expo- sition. Paris is cele- brated for its beauti- ful wares, known as " Articles de Paris." It makes the finest of furniture, clocks, silverware, bronzes, and pictures. We pass many jewelry stores where pre- cious stones set in all shapes are spread upon purple velvet cushions behind the plate glass ; and stay for a time in the great department stores, and wander about among so many fascinating knick- knacks and fine goods of all kinds that we do not wonder that people from everywhere come to Paris to shop. We have trouble in tearing away the girls of our party from the millinery and dressmaking establishments, for the latest styles in hats and gowns come from Paris, and they think anything they buy here is sure to be new. We next visit the Halles Centralles (al soN-tral') to see something of the markets of Paris. The French have great respect for their stomachs, and the best of every- thing comes to the capital. The Halles Centralles are the largest markets of the city. They are great pavilions of iron and glass, covering, all told, about twenty acres. — cafes at every few steps.' 114 FRANCE. " — we find the markets already crowded." It is early morning, and we find the markets already- crowded with women dressed in white caps and short petti- coats, and men in caps and blue blouses, all gathered about little pens where the supplies for the day are being sold at auction. We stop before a stall where they are selling chickens at wholesale. That Frenchman in white cap and apron behind the counter is the auctioneer, and the black-dressed woman beside him is his cashier and bookkeeper. Nearly all the buyers are women, who bob their white-capped heads up and down as they shout out their bids, shaking their hands at the auctioneer as THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE WORLD. 115 they do so. The chickens are brought to the stall in crates on the heads of porters, and disposed of at the rate of a crate to the minute. Through one pavilion after another we go, past crowds who are buying eggs, butter, and cheese, jostled now and then by the market women rushing hither and thither, and by blue-bloused porters who are carrying great loads of vegetables and meat on their heads. In another pavilion " — selling baskets of live rabbits." we see women selling baskets of live rabbits, and in an- other stall farther off, oysters and snails and frog legs. We ask a snail seller about her business, and are told that a million pounds of snails are sold here every year. They are esteemed a great delicacy, and when ready for eating bring about one franc a dozen. Many are imported from Switzerland and many come from the vineyards of France. A little later the retail market begins. The thousands Il6 FRANCE. of stalls have been trimmed up for the day and all wares are neatly displayed. The officer in charge tells us that the food sold at wholesale alone brings in more than a hundred thousand dollars a day, and that the supplies come from all parts of France, from North Africa, and from all over Europe. He shows us reindeer from Norway, mut- ton from England, eggs from Belgium, and bread made of wheat grown in the United States. How queer the bread is ! It is baked in loaves about as long and as thick as a baseball club, so long that they reach high above the head of that boy who is carrying some home. Let us buy one and taste it. Is it not good ? Yes, the French cook everything well; we have not tasted frog legs and snails, but our everyday meals are delicious. We soon become fond of the French way of living, al- though it is different from ours. We enjoy the light breakfast of a cup of coffee, two rolls of bread, and a pat of unsalted butter. This we have upon rising ; it is the breakfast of well-to-do people all over France. The poor eat still less at this time, many having nothing but a piece of dry bread and a glass of cold water. Some well- to-do people take their breakfasts in bed, and at our hotel we are told that we may have our coffee in our bedrooms without extra charge. The next meal comes about noon. The French call it breakfast with the fork ; it consists of meat and vegetables with sometimes a soup, and it is usually quite as good as our midday dinner at home. The people eat slowly, and in parts of south France two hours are set aside for this meal, when even the business men stop work for lunch and a nap, or a chat with their friends. The chief meal of the day, however, is dinner. This comes in the evening, when every one eats as well as his HOW FRANCE IS GOVERNED. 117 purse can afford, even the poor having a soup, vegetables, and some kind of meat and a dessert. Among the well- to-do the dinner consists of a half dozen courses or more, the plates being changed at each course and only one piece of meat or one vegetable brought on at a time. Such a meal usually ends with a small cup of black coffee. >aK< XIII. MORE ABOUT PARIS — HOW FRANCE IS GOVERNED. WE are delighted with Paris. Everything is bright and gay. The city is a vast treasury of industry and art, and there is something worth seeing wherever we go. We stroll through palace after palace filled with pic- The Louvre. Il8 FRANCE. tures, and in the great museums of the Louvre grow so tired of the long galleries walled with fine paintings that we are glad to leave them for the Garden of the Tuileries and the children playing on the Champs Elysees. We make excursions to Fontainebleau and Versailles in the suburbs of Paris, where in times past the monarchs of France had vast country homes surrounded by extensive gardens and forests. Their palaces still stand and we re- people them with the scenes of French history as we wander from bedroom to bedroom and parlor to parlor, now sitting in a chair where Napoleon Bonaparte sat, Versailles. and now patting the cradle-like bed where his little son, the king of Rome, lay when he was a baby. We go through the rooms where Marie Antoinette and the Em- press Josephine lived, and admire their gorgeous furniture and the beautiful paintings which look down from the walls. At Fontainebleau we take a drive through the forest, stopping at the fish pond near the palace to watch the carp swimming about. An old Frenchwoman in a white HOW FRANCE IS GOVERNED. 119 cap and blue gown comes up with some bread. We buy a loaf, break it in pieces, and throw them into the water. The great fish rush for the bread. They push each other about and fight for the crumbs, even as the nobles fought with one another for the favors of the kings who once lived in that palace. " — admire their gorgeous furniture." Returning to Paris, we make a trip under ground. About one tenth of the city is built over catacombs, great cellar- like caves made by digging out the stone from the deep- lying quarries. More than a century ago some of the buildings above these caves began to sink in, and the gov- ernment decided to use the catacombs as tombs. They strengthened the roofs and divided the caves into rooms, filling them with the bones of the dead from the cemeteries of Paris. The cemeteries were centuries old, and so full CARP. EUROPE — 8 120 FRANCE. that it is estimated that the skeletons of three million peo- ple were taken from them to these catacombs. We are led by our guide down the steps into the caves and are shown chapels walled with human bones. The sight is a hor- rible one, and we pant for pure air. Leaving the catacombs, we spend part of the day in go- ing through the sewers, taking a boat and riding for miles through one great tunnel after another. We are below the water mains, in tunnels so big that a railroad train could run through them without touching the walls or the roofs. A wide water way with pavements on the sides runs along the bottom, so that we can leave the boat and walk along away down here under the great city. The water comes from the Seine, and ij; moves so fast that there is no per- ceptible odor. Paris has about eight hundred miles of such tunnels, so many that if they were placed end to end they would reach as far as from New York to Detroit ; they have cost a vast sum, but they have made Paris healthful. We finish our underground journey near the church of the Madeleine, in one of the gayest parts of gay Paris, and our eyes are dazzled as we come again to the street. We stop at the flower market at the side of the church, and buy bouquets of the little old women in white caps and clean calicoes who sit there behind counters and chat with their customers. We spend a few minutes in the Madeleine and later on visit Notre Dame, another famous church, and then go to Notre Dame. HOW FRANCE IS GOVERNED. 121 the Pantheon, where many of the noted Frenchmen are buried, and from there go to the Hotel des Invalides (o-tel' da-zaN-va-led') to take a look at the tomb of Napoleon. The Hotel des Invalides was founded centuries ago as a home for the old soldiers of France. It is situated on the south side of the Seine, and is inhab- ited by many French veterans, one of whom acts as our guide. He leads us into the church, and shows us the great circular crypt under the dome, where Na- poleon's sarcopha- gus lies. We lean over the marble bal- ustrade and look down upon an im- mense block of red- dish brown granite thirteen feet long, fourteen feet high, and six feet wide, resting on a pedestal of polished green stone. It is a gigantic coffin which was cut from one solid block in the quarries of Sweden, and brought here at an enormous expense. The crypt is floored with mosaic, deco- rated with crowns of laurel in stone. There are monuments about it, and the old soldier points out this quotation from Bonaparte's will which is carved on its entrance : " I desire that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine in the midst of the French people whom I have ever loved." Tomb of Napoleon. 122 FRANCE. We have seen monuments and pictures of Napoleon, not only in Paris, but in all the cities of France. He is the greatest of the French heroes, and as you read more of history you will learn how wonderful his life story was. He was born of well-to-do parents in the little French island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea, and began his studies in a military school. Later he entered the army in Paris and was made a lieutenant. He rapidly rose from one rank to another, until at last he commanded the whole of the French army, having proved himself the greatest general of Europe. He became emperor of the French, and as such waged wars with the other nations of Europe, conquering them one after another, until at last it seemed that he might make himself ruler of the whole world. Then there was a combination of the Rus- sians, Germans, English, and Austrians against him ; they joined armies and finally defeated him. They drove him from France, telling him that he might be the emperor of the island of Elba, a little place not so big as Corsica, for the rest of his life. This was in 1814. About a year later Napoleon slipped out of Elba and came back to France. As soon as he landed, his old soldiers flocked to him from all parts of the country ; the French government gave its support, and he soon had another large army. He marched against the Powers which had defeated him, and a great battle took place at Waterloo, in Belgium, where Napoleon, although he fought very bravely, was finally defeated. After that his enemies resolved that Napoleon was too dangerous a character to be allowed any freedom whatever. They decided to keep him a prisoner for life. They banished him to the rocky little island of St. Helena, in the Atlantic Ocean, off the west coast of HOW FRANCE IS GOVERNED. 123 Africa, and kept him guarded there until he died. He was buried in St. Helena, but years afterwards his remains were brought back to France and placed in this tomb. During Napoleon's time France became the greatest empire of Europe. It is now a republic in which the people elect their own rulers and govern themselves. The French have a President, just as we have, and their laws are made by a Senate and Chamber of Deputies, the latter corresponding to our House of Representatives. It is but a few steps from the Hdtel des Invalides to the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies, a magnificent building on the banks of the Seine. We stroll along the river to the palace, and going by the colossal statues of Prudence and Justice at the entrance, walk up the stairs to the front doors. We present our cards of admission from the American Minister to Paris to one of the guards, and he gives us seats in the gallery of the Legislative Hall, from where we can look down upon the chief branch of the Congress of France. The room. is in the shape of a half moon. The members sit in semicircular rows rising one above the other to the back of the chamber. The President, who holds the same position as our Speaker of the House of Representatives, sits on a rostrum in front. Notice that little desk in front of the President. One of the members has just left his seat and gone into it. He is addressing the Chamber, but he is speaking in French and so rapidly that we cannot understand what he says. Now he has finished and another man has taken his place. In our Congress the members rise at their seats when they address the House, but here every one speaks from that desk. Watch the man who is talking! See how he gesticulates and how excited he is! Now 1 24 FRANCE. he is interesting his fellows ; they are clapping their hands, and making even more fuss than the members of the House of Commons did the day we were there. The President raps on his desk with a paper knife, and calls order, but the men do not mind him. See ! He has taken a silver bell and is ringing it. Several members are shouting for order, and we wish we knew enough French to understand the cause of all this commotion. Leaving the Chamber of Deputies, we go to the Senate in the Palace of the Luxembourg, and then crossing the Seine, make a short call upon the President of France in his official palace on the Champs Elysees. From him and other officials we learn that France is very well governed, although many of its methods are different from ours. The President, for instance, is chosen not by the people through an electoral college as in the United States, but by the majority vote of the Senate and Chamber of Depu- ties. His term lasts seven years, and his salary, including the amount given him for entertaining, is five times as much as that of our President. He has a cabinet like our President, but, while the President of the United States may select any American citizen to be one of his Ministers, the French President must choose his cabinet from the Chamber of Deputies. He may conclude treaties with other powers, but must not declare war unless Congress assents, and every one of his acts must be countersigned by a Minister. We call upon the Ministers, who give us many details in regard to the government. The Minister for the Colonies gives us maps showing the enormous possessions and de- pendencies which France has outside Europe. They have a total area larger than the whole United States, or more than sixteen times as large as France itself. THE BUSIEST WORKSHOP OF EUROPE. 125 XIV. BELGIUM — THE BUSIEST WORKSHOP OF EUROPE. WE have left France and aretravelingthrough Belgium. How busy it is and how crowd- ed ! The farms are small and the farm- houses are scattered so thickly over the landscape that the country seems one vast town, each little farmhouse having its big garden about it. The people are everywhere working ; women and men are spading the fields. Many women are hoeing and weeding ; we see them doing all sorts of farm work, and pass many fields in which they are cutting the grass and throwing it about, mak- ing hay. There are no fences. The crops of wheat, oats, rye, and flax stand out like the patches of a crazy quilt as we ride through them. The Belgians are the best of farmers, and they cultivate their little land so well that it produces more to the acre than almost any other part of Europe. — making hay." 126 BELGIUM. What excellent roads ! They are even better than the highways of France. Many are paved with stone blocks fitted closely together, and some are shaded by great forest trees which seem centuries old. The farmhouses and barns are low, one-story buildings roofed with red tile or gray thatch. See those chil- Belgian Peasant. dren going along with their mother. They all wear wooden shoes. This is so of most of the poor people of Bel- gium, and also of those of Holland and many parts of northern Eu- rope. Now we are passing a little city half hidden in smoke, and we see almost everywhere the smokestacks of manu- facturing towns stand- ing out against the blue sky. Even in the farm districts we are rarely beyond the hum of weaving machinery or the din and buzz of mills making all sorts of things out of iron and steel. Belgium is one of the great workshops of Europe. It is only one fourth as big as Pennsylvania, and about one eighteenth as big as France ; but nevertheless it is quite important in its commerce and trade. It is easy to see why this is so : Belgium has such rich THE BUSIEST WORKSHOP OF EUROPE. 27 In Antwerp. soil that its people can raise nearly all their own food, and in the south it is so underlaid with iron and coal that it can have all sorts of factories. It has also many railroads, good waterways, and excellent seaports at Ostend and Ant- werp (see map, p. 1 34), so that it can easily ship goods to and from all parts of the world. In addition to this it is surrounded by people who are glad to buy what it makes. On the south live the rich, thrifty French, and on the east the Germans, while on the north in Holland are the Dutch, another rich business nation. The English are just across the Channel, and railroads connect the country with the Rhine and all parts of Europe. In addition the Belgians are noted for their industry and their skill in handling machinery. They were famous as manufacturers even before the discovery of America, when their cities were among the richest of Europe. During the Middle Ages Antwerp was almost as important as 128 BELGIUM. London, and ships from everywhere came there for fine goods. Then a thousand vessels could be seen at one time in the river Scheldt, and five hundred loaded wagons passed daily through the gates of the city. The people then made so much money in weaving fine cloths, in other industries, and in commerce, that the leading men dressed in velvets and satins. They had their guilds or trades unions, and in the great cities we shall see the old town halls, magnificent buildings put up at that time. The burgomasters or mayors of the principal towns were very proud. It is related that when they once went to Paris to pay homage to King John of France they were displeased because they were not furnished cushions at one of the banquets held in their honor. They wished to show the French how they felt, and, as the story goes, took off their velvet cloaks all covered with embroidery and sat upon them. When the banquet was over, they left their cloaks on the seats. They were re- minded that they had forgotten their cloaks, whereupon one of them scornfully answered, "We Flemish are not accustomed to carry our cushions away after dinner." In traveling about we find that the Belgians are still making beautiful cloth. They have large woolen and linen mills at Ghent and elsewhere, and also factories in which thousands of women and girls are weaving cotton from our southern States. We go to Liege where there are large iron works, to Tournai to see Brussels carpets made, and to Brussels and Mechlin to study the manufacture of lace. Belgium produces some of the finest lace of the world. Its soil and climate are especially suited for flax. It grows almost everywhere. We travel through fields where roughly dressed men and women wearing wooden shoes are kneeling, weeding the flax, and through villages THE BUSIEST WORKSHOP OF EUROPE. 129 where they are breaking it and turning it into thread for linen and lace. There are thousands of women and girls in Belgium who do nothing else but make lace ; and in some places almost all are engaged in this work. The lace is made upon pillows, the design being marked out with pins. Every worker has her own pillow, and only one can work on one piece at a time. The threads are wound in and out through the pins, over and under, making the lace. The finer pieces require months, for in some of them eight hundred different threads are needed, and a girl may be weeks in making one handkerchief. A Brussels Milk Cart. Some lace is white and some black. It is of many dif- ferent grades, each of which has its own name. Much of it is made into vests, collars, and cuffs, some into fans, and some into dresses for babies and brides, a fine lace dress often costing as much as ten thousand dollars. We are shown lace fans worth fifty dollars apiece, and find it easy to hold in one hand a hundred dollars' worth of very fine lace. We spend some time at Brussels, the chief industrial city 130 BELGIUM. of Belgium, and also its capital. It has long been noted for its beauty and has so many fine buildings that it reminds us of Paris. We walk along the boulevards, watching the people chatting at the tables outs-ide the cafes ; and stop to buy some lace at the principal stores in the Boulevard Anspach. This street is one of the finest " — we visit the palace of the king." of Brussels, and strange to say it is built over a river. When the city was first started it was on the banks of the Senne ; but the people thought it unhealthf ul to have an open stream running right through the town, so they built a wall over it and covered it with stone and earth ; and now you have to go out of the city to know that a river runs through it. Later on we visit the palace of the king, spend a few hours in the Belgian Parliament, and drive through the THE BUSIEST WORKSHOP OF EUROPE. 1 31 great park outside the town. We go to the museums and the markets, asking questions everywhere, but even those of us who speak French have great difficulty in making ourselves understood. Many of the Belgians understand neither French nor English, and more than one half of them speak Flemish, which is somewhat like a mixture of German and Dutch. The other part speak French, but even they have many strange words, and it is only when we meet the people of the educated classes that we can make ourselves understood. The Belgians have been greatly affected by the nations about them. In the south and in the cities they are much like the French. They speak more French than Flemish, and, like the French, they are fond of music and dancing. Every large town has its park where, on holidays, the bands play, and the people walk about or dance. Every city has its amateur musical clubs ; and Bruges, Antwerp, and Ghent have annual musical contests, where the best performers get prizes. We are delighted with the chimes. Belgium is a land of fine bells ; they are rung not only in the church steeples, but also in the towers of the town halls, some towers having as many as one hundred bells which are rung in chimes every day. In the large cities the bell ringer is an accom- plished musician, who plays upon the bells, using keys like those of an organ, except that they are much larger. The work is so hard that the performer wears thick leather gloves, and it takes so much strength that even a strong man becomes exhausted at playing the bells in a quarter of an hour. In northern Belgium the people are more like the Hol- landers, and we need an interpreter almost everywhere, for they use many Dutch words. 132 BELGIUM. We make an excursion from Brussels out to the battle- field of Waterloo, where Napoleon and the French were defeated by the allied armies under the Duke of Wellington, in 1815. It is only a half hour by train and a short ride by carriage to the bottom of the great hill which has been thrown up in the center of the battlefield as a monument of the event. On the top of this hill, on a pedestal of granite, a bronze lion, the emblem of Belgium, has been erected. We climb up and stand beside the lion while our guide de- * >'' "-'.■■ scribes the stirring scenes of the battle. The coun- Monument at Waterloo. -,-, ■> , • 1 try all about is covered with green. The land is now cultivated close up to the hill, and as we watch the farmers working so peacefully among their crops, we cannot realize that upon that same ground was fought one of the greatest battles of history. We ask our guide about the battle, and he describes it in vivid language, although he evidently favors the French. He tells us just how the battle should have been fought, and apparently thinks that if he had been present to advise Napoleon the French might have conquered. He tells us how the people in Brussels expected Napoleon to conquer, and how they were surprised at the news of his defeat, repeating Byron's poem describing Brussels on the eve of the battle — " There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, A COUNTRY BELOW THE SEA. 1 33 Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell ; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! Did ye not hear it ? — No ; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; On with the dance! le>- joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet. — But hark ! — that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat ; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before ! Arm ! Arm ! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar ! " The other verses describe how the terrified Belgians acted, and also some features of the battle. It takes us just an hour to go from Brussels to Antwerp, the great port of Belgium. It is situated on the river Scheldt (skelt), about sixty miles from the sea, and has a harbor almost as large as that of London. We walk along the magnificent docks made by Napoleon y I, passing steamers from the United States, England, Africa, and all parts of Europe. We visit the great cathedral, where we see the famous pictures made by Rubens, who was born in Antwerp ; then we take a train for Holland. >X*c XV. A COUNTRY BELOW THE SEA. HOW would you like to live not far from the ocean, in a land below the level of the sea, where the fishes swimming at the surface outside are higher up than your head, and where the ships are even with your second-story windows ? This is the nature of a great part of the Netherlands. The word " Netherlands " means lowlands, and Holland may be derived from hollow-land. KETHERILA1SCDS AND BELGIUM SCALE OF MILES 6 10 20 Eonen'tude (134) A COUNTRY BELOW THE SEA. 1 35 Lying at the western end of the great plain which ex- tends across Europe from the Ural Mountains to the North Sea, the country was formed by the earth washings from the Alps and highlands of Germany and France, brought down by the Rhine, the Maas, and the Scheldt. The land is so low that these streams have been walled in to prevent the spring floods from covering it, and enor- mous dikes or embankments of wood, stone, and earth have been built along the coast to keep the sea from rushing in and drowning the people. Less than one half the country is so high that no walls are needed. The rest is the result of a long fight be- tween the Dutch people and their enemy, the sea. The dikes are their fortifications made to keep old Neptune out. They have been centuries in tearing their land away from the waters. Acre by acre, farm by farm, township by township, and county by county, they have wrested it from the sea, until now they have one of the best little countries of Europe. They accomplished it in this way. First they marked out a certain piece of swampy land, and put walls about it, and then pumped up the water by windmills into canals so that at last it flowed out into the ocean. They made ditches to drain the inclosed land, and when it became dry they cut it up into fields, planted trees, and built houses. Then they marked out another piece and reclaimed that the same way. They had to keep the pumps going, and we shall see windmills everywhere tossing their huge arms about, raising the water ; for it requires thousands of windmills and many steam pumps to keep Holland dry. We shall see how the fight with the ocean is still going on when we visit the dikes, and how the brave Dutch are ever victori- ous. They are getting more land every year, and they are 136 THE NETHERLANDS. now building dikes to drain the Zuider Zee, a great bed of shallow water three-fourths as big as the state of Rhode Island. Is not this wonderful ? It seems even more wonderful as we go along the coast and see how the great dikes are built. Most of them are as tall as a three-story house, and so wide that two carriages could easily be driven upon them side by side without touching. There are so many dikes in Holland tfiat if they could be lifted up, placed end to end, and dropped down upon our country, they would make a great wall reaching from Boston clear across the Appalachian Mountains to Chicago, and on to the Mississippi River, across Iowa to the Missouri, and hun- dreds of miles on into Nebraska. In making a dike the first thing is to get a foundation. Great forest trees are trimmed off and driven down deep into the sand in two wide rows facing the sea. These mighty fences are walled with planks which are studded with an armor of flat-headed nails so that the teredo, the wood- eating sea worm, cannot get at them. Now, huge blocks of granite or other stone, brought mostly on ships from Nor- way, are thrown in between the walls, and on the top earth is added, and so, gradually, a great rampart is built up. Some of the dikes are faced with masonry, and others have walls of basketwork to hold in the stone and earth. Trees are planted on top, and grass is sown upon the top and sides, that the roots may aid in binding the whole together. The dikes are carefully guarded. During the winter they are watched by men day and night. Then Neptune seems most angry at the loss of his territory, and in his rage he drives the sea almost to the top of the dikes. He is always watching for a crack or a break, which he knows he A COUNTRY BELOW THE SEA. 1 37 can quickly enlarge. The people appreciate the danger, and they have watchmen to warn them. At critical times the alarm bells are rung, and every one hurries to help build the dike higher, or to repair it. Notwithstanding all this, the ocean sometimes breaks through, as was the case about seventy years before Columbus discovered America, when a tidal wave swept in, flooding towns and villages, and drowning more than one thousand people. i— 1 fS^I^Br^V ^^(HBpiL "The canals of Holland are almost as wonderful as the dikes." The canals of Holland are almost as wonderful as the dikes. There are about two thousand miles of them in the country ; some great ship water ways, and others little ditches dividing the fields like fences, the bridges with bars across them serving for gates. The biggest canals con- nect the great cities of Holland and the sea. Amsterdam has the North Sea Canal, a wide water way fifteen miles long and twenty-five feet deep. This canal is walled by CARP. EUROPE — 9 138 THE NETHERLANDS. enormous dikes, and it flows above the rest of the country out to the sea, where there are great gates to keep the ocean from rushing in. In many Dutch cities the canals form the principal streets, and in the country they serve as highways and roads. As we travel through Holland we see huge ships "i • - -- : apparently sailing £5S ? 4 through the green grass, and some- times notice their tall masts moving along above the tops of the trees which now and then line the canals. Here is a boat loaded with wheat hauled along by a horse on the bank. There is one filled with vegeta- bles dragged onward by two men who bend over and pull at a rope attached to its mast, and there is another loaded with hay moved by a woman, a boy, and a dog, all harnessed together. The boy and the woman bend almost double, forcing the boat through the water by throwing their weight against the wide straps over their breasts to which the towline is fastened. Both wear wooden shoes, and we cannot see how they can move along as they do. Other boats are being pushed onward with poles from the decks, and not a few are aided by sails. Storks. A COUNTRY BELOW THE SEA. 139 But what are those queer long-legged birds we see wad- ing about through the ditches, poking their heads into the mud ? Those are storks, and they are after frogs, worms, and other things which live in the canals and the ditches. The storks are great friends of the people, for they eat the reptiles which destroy the dikes and embankments. We see storks' nests in the trees and on the chimneys of the farmhouses, and frequently spy one of the great birds rest- ing on one leg on the roof. " Nearly every farmer has one." Notice the windmills. They stand in rows along the canals, and we often count a hundred in sight. Nearly every farmer has one. Each mill consists of a huge tower with arms or sails from fifty to one hundred feet long. The tower is so large around that the first story is often used as a house. The most of the windmills are for pumping water from one level to another in draining the I4Q THE NETHERLANDS. fields, but others grind corn, and furnish the motive power for sawmills and factories. Holland is so flat that the winds from the ocean blow as regularly as at sea, and the mills can be relied upon to do their work every day. Many of the country roads are along the canals, and near them are railroads and steam tramways. . Holland has a good railroad system, and steam and electric tram- ways have been built all over the country. We travel mostly on the tramways, stopping now to explore a quaint city or village, and now to chat with the farmers about their cattle and corn. It is summer, but the fresh air from the sea keeps us delightfully cool. How beautiful it is ! There are rows of tall willows along many of the canals, and the combina- tion of water and green fields foruis ever changing pic- tures. We stand on the bridges and watch the fat cattle grazing. How clean they are and how smooth ! They look as though they had been curried. They are eating from feeding boxes out in the fields. Although the grass grows luxuriantly, many of the people feed their cows in the pastures, and they know just what food will produce the most milk. The Dutch people are noted for their delicious butter and cheese, which they export so largely to England that Holland is sometimes called the dairy farm of Great Britain. Notice how careful they are of the cattle. Many of the fine cows are covered with blankets to keep off the flies. In the spring they have covers to protect them from the cold rains, and in the winter they are brought into the house and stabled under the same roof as the family. Holland has but few barns. Wood is scarce, and all stone has to be imported, so the people find it cheaper to build one large house, and give up a part of it to hay lofts A COUNTRY BELOW THE SEA. I4I and cattle, than to have separate stables or sheds. The most of the houses have low walls and very high roofs ; the walls are whitewashed, and the roofs are of red tile or gray thatch made so steep that the rain quickly runs off. Every house is kept clean inside and out, even the stable being frequently scrubbed. Most cows have their daily cold bath, and in some stables there is a ring in the rafter over each cow to which her tail is tied up while milking. In the summer the cows stay in the fields and the peo- ple go out to milk them. See, there is a girl milking now. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows, and she sits on the heels of her wooden shoes as she draws out the milk in white streams. There comes a man with a wagon full of brass cans. He has driven across the bridge into the pasture, the girl brings her pailful of milk, and pours it into one of the cans, and goes on to milk more. The Dutch are excellent farmers. We pass rich fields of wheat, barley, and oats, and see everywhere potatoes and other vegetables growing. We spend some time in the great flower gardens about Haarlem, where they raise the finest of tulips, hyacinths, and gladioli, exporting the bulbs to all countries. More than a million dollars' worth are shipped away every year, including vast quantities to, the United States. The Dutch are fond of flowers, and at one time they went almost wild over tulips. It was at about the time Boston was founded. Then Holland had tulip bulbs that actually sold for their weight in gold and some that brought much more, for it is said that one kind of bulb, known as the Semper Augustus, was worth an amount equal to fifteen hundred dollars of our money. The tulip bulb is somewhat like an onion, and a story is told of a rich merchant who was showing one of the bulbs 142 THE NETHERLANDS. to a friend, when a sailor came in and announced that a cargo of silk had arrived. The merchant in his hurry laid down his Semper Augustus, and the sailor, thinking it an onion, picked it up and went away with it. When the merchant came back he was almost crazy at the loss of his treasure. He rushed through the town looking for the sailor, only to find that the sailor had sliced up the bulb to eat with his lunch, before he had found it was a tulip and not an onion. Take a look at that crowd coming upon the opposite side of the canal. What good faces they have. Both men and women are rosy cheeked and bright eyed. It is a holiday, and they have on their best clothes. The men wear short jackets and full baggy black velvet trousers, held up by wide belts at the waist, and fastened with silver buckles as big as the palm of your hand. They have on caps with wide brims, and their long hair is cut straight off at the neck. The women wear short skirts and some are bare armed. What is that bright stuff on their heads ? It looks like silver or gold shining out, through their lace caps. There are horns of gold sticking out on each side of their eyes. Those are the helmets which many Dutch women and girls wear on special occasions. They are thin plates of gold or silver, or imitations of those metals, so made that they fit the head like a cap, almost covering the hair. The gold ones are very costly, and are kept in the family from one generation to another. Now look at their feet. Did you ever see such shoes ? They are as white as newly planed pine. They are wood, and though they look clumsy, they serve very well, espe- cially in a damp country like Holland, where it rains so frequently that the ground is often as soft as a sponge. A COUNTRY BELOW THE SEA. 143 "The women wear short skirts." There comes a party of little children ! Their fathers and mothers are watching us from the bank, and the little ones have stopped for a moment to play. They are dressed much like their parents. How they run over the ground in their thick wooden shoes ! I am sure not one of us could run any faster. Observe how the little ones greet their parents, and how they hold on to them as they stand open mouthed and stare at our boat. The Dutch are fond of their children ; they send them to school and give them quite as many advantages as we have at home. There are few people better educated than the peo- ple of Holland, and there are none who have more of the elements which make up really good men and good women. They have had to fight so hard to build up their country and keep back the sea, that they have become 144 THE NETHERLANDS. strong and self-reliant. They have had to watch their dikes so carefully that they have grown cautious, and the long con- tinued work of building the dikes has made them patient and industrious. Being on the sea, they have become a nation of traders, and have grown rich by their thrift. There is one thing for which the Dutch are especially noted. All travelers speak about it. Look around and see if you can guess what it is ! Observe the fresh paint on the bridges, the new whitewash on the houses. Look down on the deck of our canal boat ! See how it has been scoured until it is as white as snow. How clean everything is ! The Dutch are famous for keeping things clean ; they are so neat that it is sometimes oppressive. We walk on our tiptoes when we enter the houses, for the floors fairly shine, and the front steps are washed every day. In our early morning walks through the city we have to go carefully to keep from being spattered with water. Bare-armed housemaids in white caps and short dresses are scrubbing the streets and washing down the house fronts. Each girl has a mop on a long pole so that she can reach every crack and corner. She first washes the windows and walls, and then scrubs off the doorsteps and pavement. XVI. IN THE DUTCH CITIES — AMSTERDAM, ROTTERDAM, AND THE HAGUE. ABOUT one third of the people of Holland live in towns. There are thirty towns of more than twenty thousand inhabitants, and several large cities. Amster- dam, the largest city, is as big as Baltimore. Rotter- dam, which is the chief seaport, is as big as Buffalo. IN THE DUTCH CITIES. H5 and The Hague (hag), the capital of Holland, is about the size of Indianapolis. Amsterdam and Rotterdam have ship canals connecting them with the ocean, so that big vessels come into the cities to load and unload. P H BpWrIP I rT--.:. ^x . : . . - 1 ?-' ■JW* - d W :v ^m^i\i | --- ** \*~i " — they largely take the place of streets." Almost all the Dutch towns are cut up by canals, and in some the water ways are so many that they largely take the place of streets, boats containing all kinds of goods being dragged through them. The city canals are walled with stone and the ways along their banks smoothly paved. In some places the houses are built close to the canals, so that the children can easily lean out of the win- dows and drop their fishing lines into the water; or, in the winter, when everything is frozen, can put on their skates inside the house, and slide off to school. In both city and country, a large part of the winter travel and traffic of Holland is on the ice of the canals. The Dutch cities have fine buildings ; they have beauti- 146 THE NETHERLANDS. ful palaces, large stores and banks, free libraries and museums, schools of all kinds, concert halls and theaters, public gardens and parks. The people dwell in large houses, several families often living in the same house. Let us take a stroll through Amsterdam, and see for ourselves how a Dutch city looks. We start at the Dam, the chief public square. This is one of the great business centers. Here are the stock exchange, the king's palace, and many fine stores and hotels. We climb up the steps inside the palace tower, and when we come out at the top, we are high above the biggest city of the Netherlands. Look at the vast expanse of red-tiled roofs below us. They are ridge-shaped, and out of their sides little dormer windows faced with white curtains protrude. See the broad canals running in all directions through the red field. There are almost as many canals here as in Venice. They divide the city up into islands, and three hundred bridges are required to connect the islands with one another. Notice the ships moving along through the streets ; in the wider canals the masts are above the roofs of the houses. Isn't it strange ? Now look beyond the red field of houses. See that great silver sheet out there upon which the sun dances. That is the wide Zuider Zee (zoi'der za), and that canal going through it, bearing a stately line of ships, is Amster- dam's chief highway to the ocean. Now look down at the docks in the city ! This is one of the great shipping stations of Europe. There are vessels from Java, Sumatra, and almost every other part of the world. Amsterdam has been a noted port for centuries, and although Rotterdam has now the more shipping, Am- sterdam is still one of the chief coffee and spice markets. The Dutch have many colonies in the East and West IN THE DUTCH CITIES. H7 Indies ; and their great steamers are always carrying goods to the colonies and bringing sugar, coffee, and spices and other things home. The Dutch own more than sixty times as much land outside Holland as in the whole of Holland it- self. Now turn your eyes again from the water to the land. See the green fields beyond the red city, striped with silvery canals. Those white spots on the landscape are cat- tle, and the little round towers, each flinging its arms about in cir- cular motion as though it were practicing some new exercise with Indian clubs, are windmills. What a 9$ Z lot of towns and vil- \^ lages there are scattered ~^i over the country — those % white cottages are the homes of the farmers. Let us climb down and take a walk through the streets. How tall the houses are and how sharp their peaked roofs! Most of them are of five and six stories. Many A Canal in Winter. I48 THE NETHERLANDS. lean far from the perpendicular, as though about to topple over into the canals, or to fall on the shoulders of their neighbors across the way. There is a new house just going up, and farther on foundations are being laid. Let us stop and see how they are working. The men are driving great piles down into the earth. The land beneath Amsterdam is as soft as a swamp, and these streets and all the houses and buildings about us are standing on the tops of trees driven down into the ground. This made Erasmus, a noted scholar of Rotterdam, say that " the people of Amsterdam live like birds, in the tree tops." Sometimes the piles settle unevenly, causing the build- ings to lean. They seldom fall down, however, so we may walk on and feel perfectly safe. Nevertheless we must be careful at the bridges, for many of them are moved about now and then to let the boats through, and a stray step might drop us into the water. Take another look at the houses ! See how clean they are and how neat. Observe those little mirrors set at right angles with the walls just outside each window. Can it be that the people lean out for fresh air while making their toilets ? No ! Those mirrors are to let the owners learn what is going on in the street without looking out. They are so arranged that a woman can knit away in her chair and see all who pass by. She can see her callers before they ring the door bell, and can watch her children coming home from school when they are still blocks away. Let us enter one of the stores. The prices marked on the goods are in Dutch, and it takes some time for us to tell just what things cost. The Dutch money is in guldens or florins, and cents. A gulden is a silver coin a little larger than our twenty-five cent piece. It is worth one hundred IN THE DUTCH CITIES. 1 49 Dutch cents, or forty cents of our money. There are half guldens, quarter guldens, tenth guldens, and twentieth gul- dens, each of which has its own name. The quarter gulden is called a kwartje, the tenth a dubbeltje, and the twentieth a stuyver, the last being worth about two cents of our money. There are copper cents and half-cents, each worth respectively two fifths and one fifth of an American cent. There is also a silver coin, the two and one-half gulden piece, the size of our dollar, and there are gold pieces worth ten guldens, or four dollars of our money. We spend a ten-gulden piece in making purchases, and in change for our gold are given a handful of kwartjes, dubbeltjes, and stuyvers, and also a good lot of Dutch cents. It really seems that we have more money now than when we came in, and we generously reward the first beggar we meet with ten copper coins, which are worth not more than two cents. Fortunately our merchant speaks English, and we have no trouble in making ourselves understood. We find the Dutch language difficult to pronounce, and make our way about by signs when our guides are not with us. The Dutch is one of the Teutonic tongues, being somewhat like a mixture of German and English. Leaving the stores, we visit the factories. The Nether- lands have no coal fields of value, and hence there are fewer factories here than in France, Belgium, or England. Still, the cities can get cheap coal from abroad, for they are situated close to the sea, and, besides, the wind aids the steam in running their mills. The Dutch import quantities of raw silk and wool, and a great deal of our cotton ; and they make excellent cloth of all kinds. They are noted for their manufactures of china and of many kinds of machinery, as well as for their gin, a spirituous liquor, 150 THE NETHERLANDS. There is one thing that requires great skill which the Dutch do better than any other people. . I wonder if you can guess what it is. You need not look in Holland for the reason, for this business has nothing to do with any- thing raised here. It is connected with mines. Is it com- posed of gold, iron, silver, copper, or zinc ? No, although they may furnish tools to aid in the work. It has to do with the diamond, the costliest precious stone upon earth. Amsterdam is the chief place of the whole world for polishing and dressing diamonds so that they will shine most beautifully and be of the most value. As the diamonds come from the mines they are rough and misshapen, and often have flaws which lessen their brilliancy. In 1456 a Belgian jeweler named Berghem discovered that rubbing one diamond over another wore off a little of each, and that if he took the powder made by the rubbing he could use it to smooth diamonds. The diamond, you know, is the hardest of stones. It is so hard that only a diamond will cut it, and only diamond dust can be used in polishing diamonds. After Berghem made this discovery, jewelers began to study how to make diamonds more beautiful. The Dutch engaged in the business, and with their wonderful patience and skill became so proficient that they now polish dia- monds better than any one else. They know just how to split them so as to remove the flaws, and how to grind them into prismatic shapes so that they will blaze under the light like balls of fire. There are more than sixty fac- tories for dressing diamonds in Amsterdam, and some of them employ hundreds of hands, including many women and girls. We enter one of the diamond-cutting establishments, and are first shown how diamonds are split. This is done IN THE DUTCH CITIES. I 5 I to remove the flaws. They can be split at the flaws ; and, by using one sharp diamond, cemented into a handle, as a knife, a rough diamond can be split up into pieces each of which is pure or without flaws. The work is carefully done, for a wrong stroke might easily destroy a stone worth thousands of dollars. The next operation is cutting the pure diamond into shape. This is done by rubbing it with diamonds which have been cemented into handles, and by pressing it on a revolving plate upon which diamond dust mixed with oil has been spread. The plate, moved by steam, makes about fifteen hundred revolutions a minute, and the little grains of diamond dust gradually wear off the roughness from the diamond till it assumes the prismatic forms which it has when it is set into jewelry. Notice how carefully the polishers work and how they save every grain of the dust. The rubbing and polishing is all done over metal boxes into which the dust falls. Every bit of it is saved to polish other diamonds ; or, it may be, is spread upon a steel wire to make diamond saws, which will gradually cut their way through these hardest of stones. Many of the diamond workers are quite poor. We observe that they are dressed in rough clothes, and that some look pale and wan. It is sad to think that, although they are always working upon stones worth hundreds of dollars, they really receive smaller wages than our workers in iron. The grinding is confining; and it is trying to the eyes, for some of the diamonds are so small that it takes eight hundred of them to weigh a carat. The larger diamonds are set for jewelry, but the smaller and imper- fect ones are used in the arts. Many are bought by glaziers to cut glass, some are made into tools for splitting 152 THE NETHERLANDS. and polishing hard stones, and for boring, engraving, and the like. Leaving the diamond factory, we take the cars for Delft, where a famous china decorated in delicate blue with paintings of windmills, ships, canals, and other Dutch scenes, is made. The trip is a short one and we are soon walking through one large room after another, where Dutch boys and men are molding the clay, and with lathes are turning it into dishes and ornamental figures. We watch the men take their work to the ovens, where it is kept under an intense fire for thirty hours and then taken out to be painted. After this it is dipped into a bath of white glaze, and then fired again, so that the pictures are actually burned into the china. V'\i'' ' •".*-. *** 'U^g 1 * •* Houses of Parliament, The Hague. From Delft we make a quick railroad journey to The Hague, the capital of Holland. It is a beautiful city of over two hundred thousand people, situated three miles IN THE DUTCH CITIES. 1 53 from the shore of the North Sea and thirty-two miles from Amsterdam. We spend a day strolling about through its wide streets. They are paved with brick and lined with shade trees with seats under them ; there are many canals and great vatlike ponds here and there in the heart of the city. We visit the museum and the picture galleries, and after- wards go to the palace of the queen and spend some time in the Houses of Parliament. The Dutch government is a limited monarchy. It has a Queen and a Congress called the States-General. The latter is elected by the people, so that in reality the Dutch are almost as free as we are. Leaving The Hague, we go by tramway to Holland's most fashionable watering place, situated about three miles away, on the shores of the North Sea. We ride to it through a forest park, where the trees stand so close to the sides of the railroad that their branches meet overhead. We seem to be riding through a long, high arbor of green, our heads almost touching the leaves as we go. We each pay a dubbeltje for a seat on the top of the car. There are ladies and gentlemen riding along on both sides of the roadway, and there are so many people on fine horses that we are reminded of the gay throng we saw on Rotten Row in Hyde Park, London. At last we arrive at the watering place. It is called Scheveningen (sKa/ven-in-Hen), the name of a fishing vil- lage, near by. As we get down from the car we see a group of queerly clad fishwives walking along in wooden clogs, bending half over as they carry great baskets of fish on their backs to The Hague. Passing these, we go to the beach. The tide is coming CARP. EUROPE — IO 154 THE NETHERLANDS. in, and the waves of the blue North Sea are rolling over one another, making great lines of foam as they dash up on the sand. How different the scenes are from those of our seashore at Atlantic City, Cape May, or Long Branch. There are large hotels some distance back from the water, but the beach is covered with what look like giant bonnets or hoods. They are great wicker chairs, On the Way to Scheveningen. so made that the people sitting within them are pro- tected from the wind and sun, provided they turn their chairs the right way. There are hundreds of such hoods on the beach, and at first we wonder whether they are not some kind of sea monsters sunning themselves on the sands, and if they will not soon get up and walk off. See the Dutch children playing about ! They are en- joying themselves just as we do at the seashore. Some are IN THE DUTCH CITIES. 155 "The beach is covered . . . with giant hoods." digging out forts or building castles, waiting for the tide to wash them away. Some are burying their playmates in the sand, and some are riding over the beach upon donkeys. We hire donkeys ourselves, and race along with them, paying only one kwartje, or about ten cents of our money, for a ride of an hour. After a gallop we hire suits and refresh ourselves with a salt water bath in the North Sea. We do not wade out from the shore as at home, but hire little bathhouses on wheels. As we enter men push and pull them far out into the water; there we undress, put on our bathing 1 56 SCANDINAVIA. suits, crawl down the steps, and plunge into the surf. When we have finished our swim we climb back into our little cab houses, put on our clothes, and then are pulled back to the shore. 3**C XVII. THE LAND OF THE DANES. WE decide to visit Denmark, Sweden, and Norway before beginning our tour of the great German Empire. We are tired of traveling by land, and therefore take ship at Rotterdam for Copenhagen. Our steamer car- ries us out through the canal into the North Sea, and up through the Skagerrack, about the peninsula of Jutland, and down through the Cattegat into the long narrow sound which separates the Danish Island of Zealand from Sweden, and which forms the principal entrance to the Baltic. Denmark has been called the Keeper of the Baltic. It consists of the northern part of the peninsula of Jutland, and the islands to the east, with some smaller islands out- side. It is a little country not more than twice as big as New Jersey, but it almost blocks the entrance to this vast inland sea. The sound where we now are is only seventy miles long, and a little more than a mile wide at its narrowest part, but nevertheless it is the chief gate through which the ships that carry on the commerce of Scandinavia, North Germany, and Russia must pass on their way to and from the ocean. There is another passage, but the sound is by far the safer and better. What a lot of shipping there is all about us! There are Russian vessels from St. Petersburg ; German vessels SCALE OF MILES 0* £5 I5o 150 200 Longitude East 16 f>nm Greenwich (157) 158 SCANDINAVIA. from Lubeck, Stettin, and Kiel ; Danish vessels from all ports, and vessels from New York, London, and Havre. Now we are passing Elsinore, the little city which was the scene of Shakespeare's play of " Hamlet," and which has in times past been very important to this part of the world. Elsinore was the place where all the ships passing through the strait had to stop and pay toll. The Danes once owned not only the Island of Zealand on the right, but also that part of Sweden on the left. They con- trolled this gate into the Baltic, and made every ship which passed through pay well for the privilege. It was largely from this system of tolls that Copenhagen became a great city. It has an excellent harbor, and the ships stopped there on their way through. The w^ord " Copen- hagen " means "Merchant's Haven." After a time many men came to Copenhagen to buy and sell goods, and the Danes sent their ships from there to all parts of the world, so that it has grown into a great commercial center. Later on Denmark entered into the treaties which made the Sound free to all nations. This has so increased the commerce that thousands of vessels now pass through it every year ; the most of the ships stop at Copenhagen. The result is that Copenhagen is one of the principal ports of northern Europe. It is as big as Detroit, and is important, not only as the capital of Denmark, but also because it is the chief manufacturing and industrial city of the country. We find the harbor filled with vessels as we steam in by the great forts and come up to the wharves. We push our way through the crowds of men who are loading and unloading the ships, and then, having sent our baggage on to the hotel, start out for a walk. How clean the streets are ! They are narrow, but well THE LAND OF THE DANES. 59 paved and well kept. So many of them have canals that we are reminded of Amsterdam. There are cars and carriages moving this way and that. Great drays are carrying freight to and from the docks, and the business streets are crowded with foot passen- gers. The buildings are chiefly of stone or light-colored brick with tiled roofs. Notice the stores ! Many are on the sec- ond floor, and we have to go upstairs to do most of our shopping. We pass large churches and other big buildings. We go to the stock exchange and then visit the palace in which the king lives. Later in the day we spend an hour in the Danish Parlia- ment, and through our interpreter try to learn something about the government. The Danish Parliament or Con- gress is called the Rigsdag (rix'tac). The Danes have a King, but they decide for themselves through the Rigsdag what the laws are to be, how much they are to be taxed, and just how the money from the taxes shall be spent. The Rigsdag is composed of two Houses. The upper one is called the Landsthing. It is much like our Senate ; but some of its members are appointed by the king, and others are selected from the chief taxpayers of the coun- How clean the streets are! i6o SCANDINAVIA. try. The lower House is called the Folkething. In this all the members are chosen by the vote of the people ; no man is allowed to vote until he is thirty years old. Leaving the palace, we take a stroll through the beauti- ful parks for which Copenhagen is noted. We spend " — the business streets are crowded with foot passengers." some time in the Tivoli Garden listening to the music of the bands and watching the children play about on the green. We visit the Thorwaldsen Museum, and then make a photograph of the bronze statue of Hans Christian Ander- sen, of whom the Danes are so proud. You may or may not have heard of Thorwaldsen, the great sculptor, but every boy and girl ought to know of Hans Christian THE LAND OF THE DANES. 161 Andersen, for he composed some of the most beautiful stories ever written for children, among which are " The Tin Soldier," "The Ugly Duckling," "The Match Girl," and how little Tuk learned his geography lesson in his sleep. Hans Christian Andersen was born in the Danish town of Odense (o'den-sa). He was the son of a poor shoe- maker, and his mother wanted to make him a tailor ; but he was fond of books, and told her he would rather go away and try to become famous by writing. He had only about five dollars when he arrived in Copenhagen, but he worked and studied, and after many misfor- tunes succeeded in getting a good education. When his stories were published, they were liked so well that kings and princes in- vited him to their palaces to have him read to them. He traveled much, but his last days were spent in Copen- hagen. Here all the children knew him. The boys took off their hats when they met him and the girls bowed. He was a kind old man and told them many stories, often seeking out children who were sick to amuse them. He died here in 1875, and the people then erected this statue. In the statue the great story-teller is sitting ; on one side of the pedestal has been engraved a picture from " The 1 62 SCANDINAVIA. nlWl^^i f f Ugly Duckling," and on another side a little child riding on the back of a stork. Before leaving Denmark, we take a railroad train for a rapid run over the country. It is nearly all flat and the greater part of it is pasture. This is so, not only in Jut- land, but in the Danish islands as well. There, are rich crops of wheat, oats, and rye in some places, and now and then a patch of potatoes. We see many beech trees, and the roads are frequently lined with them. The pastures, however, are more important than any- thing else. How well the grass grows. See the fat cattle feeding upon it. There are many dai- ries, and we stop now and then to watch the men and women making butter and cheese. Denmark is one of the best dairy countries of the world, and I doubt whether there is any other land which pro- duces so much butter in proportion to its size. Denmark annually exports to England alone more than thirty million dollars' worth of butter, and it sends butter in tin cans to all out-of-the-way parts of the world, where the people for any reason do not make butter them- selves. It ships millions of eggs and a great deal of bacon and other kinds of meat. Now we are passing through one of the small Danish towns. It has but one long street, bordered by quaint one- Danish Milkman. THE LAND OF THE DANES. 1 63 story houses with white walls and roofs of red tiles. The houses are neat, and the people seem healthy and happy. Notice their rosy cheeks, their light hair and blue eyes! They are comfortably dressed and seem well-to-do. The Danes are noted for their thrift ; they are industrious and economical, and many of them have money in the savings banks, which are to be found everywhere. The Danes are intelligent. All children are compelled to go to school from the age of seven to fourteen, and there are few men or women who cannot read and write. But how dark it is growing ! We can see only a short distance outside the car windows. The wind has blown the fog in from the ocean, and the country about us is enveloped in mist. Denmark is so low and so surrounded by seas that it is often covered with fog. It frequently blows hard, and there are also sandstorms which are very unpleasant. XVIII. WHERE THE SUN SHINES AT MIDNIGHT. THE Scandinavian Peninsula is often called the "Land of the Midnight Sun " because its northern part lies within the Arctic Circle, so far north that in the sum- mer the daylight lasts for months, when the sun can be seen the whole twenty-four hours, and in the winter there is continuous darkness for months. This is true of only the northern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, although the whole of it is so far north that the summer days are much longer and the winter days much shorter than ours. We shall notice this as we go onward from place to place through it. Even as far south as Christiania 164 SCANDINAVIA. and Stockholm one can read after ten o'clock at night in summer out of doors, and when we go to bed we shall hang our traveling rugs over the windows to darken the room so we can sleep. We begin our explorations by a trip to the land of long days and long nights, for we wish to see for ourselves how the sun looks at midnight. The journey will give us some idea of Norway and of the general character of the Scan dinavian Peninsula. Scandinavia is the largest peninsula of Europe. It is a vast body of land, more than four times as big as New England, rising abruptly out of the Atlantic Ocean and sloping somewhat toward the east and south to the Gulf of Bothnia and the Baltic Sea. The land is rugged and mountainous. In the north there are snow-clad peaks and enormous glaciers. Farther south the mountains uphold high wooded plains with many gorges or canyons running through them. Some of the mountains are steep, and countless streams dash down their sides. The peninsula has also numerous lakes, many of them joined by canals. In Norway alone there are three thou- sand, while in Sweden the lakes cover almost one tenth of the country. Norway is much more rainy than Sweden. The winds from the ocean precipitate most of their moisture as they strike the mountains, and when they descend the opposite slopes to the Baltic they are comparatively dry. Along the Atlantic Ocean there is a mountain wall, with many great breaks or chasms in it. Some of these chasms extend a hundred miles into the land, forming ocean ave- nues, as it were, by which the ships can steam far into the interior. These narrow arms of the sea are called fiords (fyords). They are of great value in commerce and trade, WHERE THE SUN SHINES AT MIDNIGHT. 16$ and the people have built nearly all their towns and vil- lages upon them. They give Norway and Sweden a coast line so long that, if it could be stretched out, it would reach more than halfway round the world. But we shall see this better as we go in our steamer along the shore to the North Cape. We make the trip leisurely, stopping now and then for a journey into the interior by the fiords. Now we have entered one of these great breaks in the mountain wall. We are sailing up a mighty ravine, right into the heart of the country. The walls of trees, moss, and bushes rise above us so high that we seem to be roofed with the blue sky. Lean over the side of the boat and look down. How clear the water is ! It is a hundred feet deep, yet we can see bot- tom, and as the vessel slows up we observe the fishes swimming about far below us. Now we have gone farther inland. We have lost sight of the ocean through a turn in the fiord, and we seem to be traveling through a mountain-walled canyon. Hear that noise which comes from the front. Ask the pilot to guide the boat more to the left. The noise is made by that great volume of water dashing down into the fiord from the cliff on the right. That is a mountain stream which is taking its last plunge on its way to the sea. Now we are almost under it. Does it not look like a torrent falling out of the sky? Now we have gone past. The sun is shining through the spray, turning it into myriads of dia- monds and painting rainbows high above the surface of the fiord. As we go still farther inland the height of the walls decreases. We find little towns and villages along the banks, and now and then a small city. The houses are like great wooden boxes on foundations of stone. The i66 SCANDINAVIA. walls are painted red, white, gray, or yellow, and the build- ings look very pretty against the background of green. Now we are back again in the ocean and on our way to the north. How smooth the sea is ! This is because of the islands which everywhere line the coast of Norway ; they form a breakwater against the storms, and give the sailors a quiet ocean channel from one end of their A r - «r "We find little towns and villages along the banks." country to the other. Is it any wonder that with these fiords, this great seacoast, and this easy sailing coast chan- nel, the Norwegians should have many seamen ? They, as well as their brothers of Sweden, have an enormous number of ships. They do much trading and fishing, and you may find their merchant vessels in all parts of the world. We stay for a day at Trondhjem (trond'yem), on a great fiord, and are surprised to find, away up here at the north, WHERE THE SUN SHINES AT MIDNIGHT. I6 7 Norwegian Fishermen. a city of about fifty thousand, with wide streets, good pavements, and fine buildings. It has also shipbuilding yards, lumber mills, and fish-packing houses. We visit the cathedral, one of the oldest in Europe, and the one in which the Nor- wegian kings are crowned. It is built of blue-colored slate, and some parts of it are beautifully carved. Trondhjem is the third city of Nor- way, and is an im- portant seaport and railroad town. It Trondhjem Cathedral. is connected with Christiania by a railroad three hun- dred and fifty miles long. It has also much shipping, and •fe*4Wfc 1 68 SCANDINAVIA. its harbor is open all the year round, although it is several hundred miles farther north than northern Labrador. It is nearer the North Pole than the mouth of the Yukon River in Alaska, and it is on about the same parallel of latitude as southern Iceland. . All of these countries are frozen up during the winter, and most of them have from six to eight months of ice. Why is it that Trondhjem does not freeze too ? It is on account of the prevailing westerly winds, which are kept warm by the drift from the Gulf Stream. The warm Gulf Stream, having flowed along our Atlantic Coast, sup- plies to the northern Atlantic a vast amount of warm water, which is drifted across the ocean by the westerly winds and keeps them warm. These winds give the British Isles a temperate climate, and then flood the coast of Norway with a bath of warm air. The drift water is so warm that all the harbors along the west coast of Nor- way are free from ice during the winter, while the harbors of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia are frozen. The greater part of Norway would be uninhabitable were it not for the water-warmed westerly wind. The people owe their food, their commerce, their very lives, to it Were it not for its heat, the fiords would be blocked with ice, and the coast be as cold and barren and desolate as Labrador. A part of Sweden is colder in winter than Norway, although both countries are covered with snow for months at a time. The people go about upon sleds and skates, and they travel from one place to another upon long snowshoes or skis. They have tobogganing parties, and enjoy themselves coasting down the steep hills. Leaving Trondhjem, we sail northward inside the islands, by snow-clad mountains, upon the sides of which WHERE THE SUN SHINES AT MIDNIGHT. 169 great glaciers hang. We cross the Arctic Circle, and then stay for a day at Tromso to have a look at a village of Laplanders not far away. Some of the Lapps live in tents made of skins stretched upon poles, with a hole in the top for the smoke to go out. Others have huts of stone and earth, but everything is of the rudest description. " — everything is of the rudest description." The people gather round us as we walk through their little town, offering to pose for our cameras. How dirty they are and how small ! They look like dwarfs. The men are about five feet tall and the women about six inches shorter. They are dressed in reindeer skins with the fur on the inside. They belong to the yellow race, and their complexions are almost as yellow as their leather cloth- ing, their skins having been darkened by the smoke which fills their tents the greater part of the time. 170 SCANDINAVIA. The little Lapps look and dress just like their parents. All have high cheek bones, flat noses, and large mouths. Their eyes are small and black, and often twinkling with laughter. They seem good natured, and foi a few cop- pers will allow themselves to be photographed as often as we wish. We see but few reindeer about Tromso. They are to be found farther back in the country, where nearly every Lapp has his own herd, and where the people live largely upon reindeer meat and reindeer milk. They milk the reindeer just as we milk our cows, but they can keep milk better than we can, with all our ice chests and spring houses, for it is so cold in the winter where the Lapps live that they freeze the milk into hard blocks, after which it will keep for months and they can use it as they need it. Many of the Laplanders are nomads ; that is, they have no settled habitation. It takes quite a large space to support a reindeer, for the vegetation is scanty in these northern latitudes, and the people drive the deer from place to place to find pasture. In traveling many of them use reindeer sledges upon which their tents and other things are carried. The reindeer can travel very fast, and they take the place of horses in all the lands along the Arctic coast of Europe. From Tromso we steam on to Hammerfest, to get a look at the northernmost town of the world before going to the Cape. It is early morning when we cast anchor in the harbor, but we are now so far north that it is light through- out the whole night. We are far beyond the latitude of Iceland, beyond that of Cape Brewster in Greenland, farther north than the gold diggings of the Klondike in Alaska, and in seas which, were it not for the Gulf Stream, would be filled with ice almost all the year round. WHERE THE SUN SHINES AT MIDNIGHT. 171 Hammerfest is a thriving city. It contains about three thousand people, who dwell in hundreds of wooden one and two story houses on the edge of the sea. It has a telegraph station and weekly newspapers. We eat our dinner at a good hotel, and find that the people live well Landing, Hammerfest. here at the northern extremity of the world. They have very long winters, but in the summer for months the sun shines all day and almost all night as well. The plants then grow very rapidly, and vegetables mature in much less time than with us. Now we are again on our way to the north. We have CARP. EUROPE — II 172 SCANDINAVIA. left Hammerfest, and in seven hours we shall be at the North Cape, the northern extremity of Magero Island and at the northernmost point of Europe. We have been within the Arctic Circle for days, and are now sailing through the Arctic Ocean. The water is clear and of a beautiful blue. It is not very cold, for we are still float- ing upon the warm drift of the Gulf Stream, although we now and then see an iceberg, and we are always in sight of the glaciers on the mountains of Norway. How fresh the air is, and how pure ! The winds blow continu- ally, so that we almost have to fight our way from the stern of the boat to the prow. Now we are steaming amongst islands, with birds in great flocks soaring about in the air over our heads. There are scores of sea gulls following the steamer, and hundreds of black and white eider ducks flying over the islands. The ducks are of value for their feathers, which are so soft and light that they make excellent wad- ding for quilts. They are also used for trimming cloaks and for collars, muffs, wraps, and other such things. The ducks build nests of twigs and rushes, and line them with soft feathers which they pluck from their own breasts. Our captain tells us the ducks are protected by law, as many people make their living by gathering the feathers. The hunters, when they find a nest, are careful not to de- stroy it. They merely take out the feather lining, after which the ducks will line them once again. When they Eider Ducks. WHERE THE SUN SHINES AT MIDNIGHT. 1 73 have been twice robbed they will slip off and build a nest somewhere else. As we go on among the islands, we pass many rocks half submerged by the sea. See that one away over there at the right ! It apparently has a geyser upon it, for it is spouting water high into the air. See, it is moving. Take your field glass and look again. That is not an island at all, it is a whale. There are many whales in these waters, and many ships are engaged in catching them for their oil and whalebone. There, the great whale has dived, and we see him no more ! We sail on and on, until at last, rounding a great, bleak point of rocks, we enter the harbor of the North Cape, and drop our anchor in a little bay surrounded by moun- tains, on some of which snow can be seen. We take out our lines, and amuse ourselves fishing while we wait for the hour when we are to see the sun shining at midnight. How slowly the time goes, and how strange is this turn- ing of night into day ! The sun was already high in the heavens at about three o'clock this morning, when we came into Hammerfest ; and when we think of all we have seen since then the day seems a week long, and it is hours yet till midnight. We look again and again at our watches, ob- serving that the sun still stands high above the horizon. It is well up at 10. 30 p.m., when we leave the ship for the shore. We have decided to climb the bluff which overhangs the harbor, for our midnight view of the King of the Heav- ens. The captain warns us that we must hurry back, for he wishes to leave as soon as we return. He gives us a boat, and we row to the land and walk along a rugged path through the rocks to the foot of the bluff. The way from here on is so steep that we are glad to use the thick rope which has been passed through iron rings fastened by 174 SCANDINAVIA. staples into the rock in order that travelers may help them- selves up by it. The bluff is nine hundred feet high, but step by step we climb up its bleak sides to the top, and take our stand beside the brown stone monument which was erected here when Oscar II, King of Sweden, visited the Cape about a generation ago. North Cape. We stop a moment trying to realize where we are as we look at the glorious scenes all about us. We are about as far north as man ever gets, if we except the few Arctic Explorers who have risked their lives in trying to find the North Pole. We are at the northern edge of Europe, and are looking out upon the great polar world. To the north of us are the regions of icebergs, Eskimos, and polar bears. To our right and to our left, seas unsailed except by whal- ing and sealing ships extend on and on, a vast watery WHERE THE SUN RISES AT MIDNIGHT. 1 75 waste dotted here and there by icy islands where Jack Frost reigns supreme. And still it is wonderfully beautiful. We are gazing over the great Arctic Ocean, which is rolling about under a glorious sun. It looks not unlike the Atlantic as we have seen it from the rocks of our New England coast, when the sun was still several hours from its setting. The scene is so fine that we almost forget the time, until we notice some rockets shooting up from the ship far below us. That is the signaj from the captain for us to hurry, as he wishes to sail. We look at our watches, and lo ! it is midnight. The sun is as far down as it will go during this twenty-four hours, and as near the horizon as it will get for months to come. We stand on the bluff and wave our American flags in honor of the occasion, while we sing " Hail Columbia " away up here on the mountain. We go to the edge of the bluff and throw stones down into the ocean ; and as we look out over it we feel that if we had not a large part of Europe yet to explore, we might easily take a boat and steam on to the Pole. We wait for a few moments in order to say that we have seen the sun rise, although in this lati- tude there is little difference between its rising and setting, and then we say farewell, and make our way down the bluff to our boat. We eat our breakfast on board about two o'clock in the morning. The cook has fried the fresh cod that we caught when we first came into the harbor, and to us, hungry from our climb up the bluff, they seem sweeter than any fish ever eaten before. An hour later we are again in our cabins, which we have darkened by hanging our coats over the port holes, ready to take our first sleep after our long working day of more than twenty -four hours. 176 SCANDINAVIA. XIX. TRAVELS IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN. WE have left our steamer at Trondhjem, and are going through Norway to Christiania by rail. The distance is less than four hundred miles, but we spend several days on the journey, for we wish to study the country. We leave the train frequently, and ride in car- rioles from one town to another. The carrioles are .little carts not unlike "^^^^^^Ju^r^Kfc,— our American sulkies, save that each carriole has a seat behind for the boy or girl whom the owner sends along to bring it back home. „ . . . D Uur carrioles are drawn Carriole and Pony. by Norwegian ponies. They are stocky little cream-colored beasts with Jong tails and short manes. They are so patient and gentle that we fall in love with them, and wish we could send them home to America. They go very fast, and will travel all day without tiring/ Sometimes one goes too fast for our com- fort. We pull on the reins and cry whoa ! but the pony goes faster than ever. At last, in despair, we look back at the little boy riding behind. He laughs, and then makes a noise like the loud purring of a cat, saying pur-r-r. The pony stops instantly, and we thus learn that pur-r-r means whoa in Norway. Much of our travel is through the forests for which Nor- way and Sweden are noted. Scandinavia has long been one of the chief lumber regions of Europe. In the north- ern part of the peninsula there are vast tracts of pine and TRAVELS IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN. 177 fir, and in the south many beeches, elms, and other hard wood trees. About the best shipping timber used in England and on the continent comes from Scandinavia, Sweden sometimes exporting as much as twenty-five mil- lion dollars worth of lumber a year. A great deal is shipped as logs, some as window sashes and doors, much as boards, and not a little split up into matches. Swedish matches light the fires of a great part of the world; so many are sold every year that, if they were all loaded into two-horse wagons, at a ton to the wagon, it would take a line of teams more than a hundred miles long to carry them all. Let us stop our carrioles and think for a moment of the possible future of this forest we are now passing through. There is a great pine which has been marked for cutting ! Within a short time it will start on its travels to Holland to serve as a pile to support one of the great buildings of Amsterdam or Rotterdam. That tall tree beside it may form the mast of a German steam- ship which will carry goods to South Africa or China, and those others near by may be cut up into posts of from three to nine feet in length, to prop up the roofs of the tunnels in the coal mines of England. Farther on are some which may be Peasant Girls. i 7 8 SCANDINAVIA. ground into pulp to make printing paper, and they may again come before us in the newspapers which a little later we shall read at our breakfasts in Vienna or Rome. So musing, we go on through the woods and come out into cleared lands, where men, women, and children are Haymakers. cutting hay and curing it for winter. How different it is from the harvest scenes of our great western farms ! There are no mowing machines, nor iron rakes drawn by horses. There are no hay wagons such as we use. The men are cutting the grass with scythes, and the women are raking it together and carrying it in their arms to those TRAVELS IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN. 179 racks of wood or wire at the sides of the field, where they tie it up in bundles and hang it out to dry in the sun and the wind just as we dry our washing. It is so rainy that the people dare not let the hay lie on the ground. After it is cured it is carried off to the barns by ponies, in little wagons not much bigger than baby cribs, which move along on small wooden wheels. On some farms the hay is packed in baskets and carried home by the women on their backs, and on others, where the fields are high up, they tie the hay into bundles and slide it down on wire ropes to the barns. Sometimes buckets of milk are sent down from the hills in this way. The farms are so small and so rough that the people could not possibly use our heavy farming machinery. We stop at one of the farmhouses for lunch, and are told we can have bread and milk, fresh eggs, and salmon. The farmer's daughter first brings in the bread. It is of the kind known as "flat-brod," which is used all over Nor- way. It is made of rye meal and water in thin cakes twice as big around as a dinner plate, and so hard and crisp that we break it like crackers. The fish and eggs follow ; they are well cooked and delicious. We have excellent butter and very good cheese, and as we go on with our journey we find that the Norwegians live very well. They have but little meat in many parts of the country, but we can always get eggs and fish, and in the north we often have venison and reindeer steaks and roasts, with reindeer hash next day. The country people live plainly in all parts of Scandi- navia. The houses are small, seldom containing more than two or three rooms, although one farmer may some- times have several houses for himself and servants. Every one works. We see women knitting away in the hay l8o SCANDINAVIA. fields while resting, and in the evening find them spinning inside the houses. The women and girls make all the clothes of the family. They weave the cloth, and cut out the garments and sew them. In some parts of Scandi- navia they make beautiful lace. The people of one town will often follow only one pattern, stitching the same pattern over and over again from one generation to an- other. The men manufacture the most of their farming tools, and not a few make the harness for their ponies. The people are well educated. Children are compelled to attend school, and nearly every one can read and write. Our train is now coming into Christiania, the capital of Norway and the second largest city in the Scandinavian Peninsula. We take a carriage at the station and drive to our hotel, where we leave our baggage and then drive on through the city. Christiania is about as big as St. Paul and quite as beauti- ful. Its wide streets are well paved, and lined with large buildings of stone. There are many fine residences and public squares and parks. The people must be fond of flowers, for nearly every window has a row of plants in it. Christiania is situated on a wide, deep fiord, and large ocean steamers can sail up into the town. We visit the wharves and find there a steamer about starting out for Gothenburg (got'en-borg), Sweden, and as we wish to cross Sweden by the celebrated Gotha Canal which con- nects Gothenburg with the Baltic, we take passage. The ride is a short one, and we are soon again upon land. Gothenburg is the chief city on the west coast of Sweden. It was once famous as a fishing place, and it is now important as the western terminus of the Gotha Canal. We walk through its long, wide streets, bordered by canals walled with stone and crossed with bridges of iron. TRAVELS IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN. 181 The city reminds us of the Dutch towns, and we enjoy its quaint old houses of brick, its beautiful parks, and its canal streets filled with shipping. We go out to the ship- building yards, and also visit the factories where they are weaving linen and cotton cloth, and making all kinds of machinery, paper, matches, tobacco, and sugar. It is early morning when we start on our journey up the Gotha River and on into the canal. We steam around the Falls of Trollhatten. high falls of Trollhatten into Lake Wenern (va'nern). The canal is about three hundred miles long, but it is so largely made up of lakes and rivers that it has only fifty miles of excavated water ways. Our boat is carried up past the falls by means of eleven great locks, and, after cross- ing the lake, we again rise by other locks until we are three hundred feet above sea level, on the highest point between Lake Wenern and Lake Wettern (vet'tern). From 1 82 SCANDINAVIA. this point we begin to descend ; we fall from one level to another by means of locks, till, at last, we sail out into the Baltic Sea, and a few hours later are steaming into the capital of Sweden. Stockholm is a beautiful city. It lies on both sides of a channel which connects the Baltic Sea with Lake Malar (ma/lar). We coast in and out among islands as we come in, and if we should go through into the lake beyond, we should find other islands, almost as many as the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence above Montreal. Stockholm is cut up by water ways. It has bridges con- necting its islands, and its water ways are so many and so beautiful that it has been called the Venice of the North. Everywhere we look we see boats moving about. There are many ships at the quays ; the vast buildings rise right up from the sea, so that the city looks as though it were built on the waves. We leave the ship and walk through the city. The streets are wide and well paved, and we cross at least two bridges every half mile. The buildings are large, and there are many five-story structures with dormer win- dows stretching their heads out of the steep slanting roofs as though asking what the weather might be. There are many statues ; for the Swedes are noted as sculptors, and are fond of the fine arts. We see children everywhere going to school. The Swedes are as well educated as any people of Europe, and there are very few of them who cannot read and write. They are energetic, and so thrifty that when they emigrate to the United States, as many of them do every year, they soon become good American citizens. It is diffi- cult to find stronger, more thrifty, and more intelligent people than those of Norway and Sweden. Centuries ago, TRAVELS IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN. 183 when they were known as the Norsemen, they were noted for their bravery on sea and on land; their war vessels sailed many seas, and they made themselves feared in their wars with the other peoples of northern Europe. Now they have proved themselves equally great in the arts of peace. Continuing with our walk we pass parks and public gar- dens at frequent intervals. There are cafes in the gardens, Palace of the King. and the family parties, sitting about the tables, under the trees, in front of them, remind us of the boulevards of Paris. Notice the people we pass on the streets. What fair faces they have, and what very blue eyes ! Scandinavia is the land of the blue eye and the tow head. There is a girl from the country. We have seen some dressed much like her in interior Norway. She wears a cap which comes down over her ears, rising in a peak at the front. 184 SCANDINAVIA. Her short black skirt is of homespun, and her white waist has very full sleeves. She has on a long apron of red and blue stripes, and about her neck is a bright-colored hand- kerchief. There is a little girl clad the same way. We shall see many dresses like those out in the country, although most of the city people dress as we do. But what is that huge building over there on the edge of the harbor ? I mean the one with the wide terrace looking out over the water. That is the palace of the king of Sweden. It contains eight hundred rooms, and is one of the fine buildings of Europe. The two countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula were ruled by one King for many years, although each elected its own Parliament which made all the laws for its people. This union between Norway and Sweden existed for nearly one hundred years, but in 1905 Norway separated from Sweden and established an entirely independent kingdom. Both countries are constitutional monarchies, and their Parliaments are known as the Storthing, in Norway, and the Diet, in Sweden. It is provided by law that the Kings of these countries must be of the Lutheran faith, for this is the established church of both Nor- way and Sweden. Soon we leave Stockholm for a trip L - out into the country. We visit some of the great factories for which Sweden is noted. We go down into the iron and copper mines, and travel through many farming districts not unlike those of Norway. The farms are Old Swedish Grain Cart. TRAVELS IN NORWAY AND SWEDEN. :8 5 exceedingly small. Some are not much bigger than a vil- lage lot, and some are so long and so narrow that you could hardly turn a dray about in them. Sweden has many thousands of such little farms. According to law, when a man dies his land must be divided evenly among his chil- dren, so his farm is cut up into strips and one strip is given to each child. Many of the strips are so small that there are no houses upon them. One man often owns a score of these little farms. You would not think that people could make much out of land so divided, but the Swedes are thrifty and they do very well. Their cli- mate is so damp that grass grows luxuri- antly, and they are such good dairymen that their butter and cheese sell well in all parts of northern Europe. We see quite as many women and children at work in the fields as in Norway. The women look odd with their sharp-pointed caps, short skirts, and bright aprons. There comes one now with a baby slung to her back ; the little one is wrapped up in a cloth, the ends of which are tied over the mother's breast. How can the woman possibly work with such a big load on her back ? Her baby will surely fall off if she stoops down and tries to tie the grass into sheaves as the other women are doing. Yes, that is Plowing in Sweden. 1 86 GERMANY. so, and she knows it ; for, as you see, she has unslung the baby, and tied the two ends of the cloth in which it is wrapped to the branch of that tree, so that the little one swings to and fro in the breeze while the mother works. The Swedes are fond of their children. The usual cradle is a box with cords tied to its corners and brought together above the center, so that it can be hung to a hook from one of the rafters. A slight push sets the box swinging, and with the motion the little one drops off to sleep. 3XKC XX. IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE. WE have left Stock- holm and are crossing the Baltic Sea on our way to the great German Empire. There are educated Germans on board, and as some of us speak German we have no trouble in mak- ing ourselves under- stood. We have so many Germans in the United States that we feel more at home than at any time since we left Eng- land. So we take our maps and try to get a general idea of the land and its people before we begin to explore it. German Peasants. IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 1 87 We learn that the German Empire is composed of twenty-six states, of which the largest are Prussia and Bavaria, comprising about three fourths of the whole. Prussia is much larger than all the others ; and all the states are combined under its king into one great confederation for protection against the rest of the world and to better themselves in commerce and trade. What a magnificent country Germany is and what an important position it holds on the continent of Europe ! As we travel over it we shall see that it could hardly help being the home of a great people. It contains more land than any of the other European states except Russia and Austria-Hungary, and nearly every bit of its territory is good for something. The most of the empire is one vast farm divided up into small fields which are kept like gardens. It has mil- lions of acres of vineyards, grain fields, and pastures ; and it raises vast quantities of wheat and rye, oats and barley, potatoes and sugar beets. It has some of the finest cattle of Europe and is noted as a stock-raising country. Germany stands next to Great Britain among the mining countries of Europe. It has mountains rich in silver, lead, zinc, copper, and tin. It has more than a thousand iron mines, and rich coal fields not far from the iron, so that a vast manufacturing industry has risen upon them. The land is a beehive of all kinds of industries. It has hun- dreds of factories which make machinery alone, and among them are some of the largest in the world. One covers more than a thousand acres, and another, just outside of Berlin, has built more than four thousand railroad loco- motives. But Germany has other 'natural advantages in addition to its fat soil and rich mines. Its position and the lay of 1 88 GERMANY. the land fit it for the home of a great trading people. It is situated in the heart of Europe, surrounded on all sides by rich nations. It touches the greatest of the European states, and does business with all of them. On the west are the French, the Belgians, and the Dutch, all manufac- turing people and all anxious to buy and sell. On the south are the Austrians, the Swiss, and also the Italians,' for they are accessible by the tunnels through the Alps ; while on the east is the vast population of Russia. The Baltic Sea gives an easy sea road to Norway and Sweden, furnishing northern Germany an outlet to the ocean, while the safe ports of Bremen and Hamburg make the English the next door neighbors of Germany, and give it access to America and all other parts of the world. Now look at the lay of the land. Germany consists chiefly of a vast rolling plain gently sloping toward the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. It is a part of the lowland of Europe, which, beginning in Russia, extends westward to the Atlantic Ocean. Farther south the land rises ; the plateau of Bavaria begins and slopes upward to the foot- hills of the Alps ; so that the whole of Germany may be called the northern slope of those mountains. What should be the condition of such a country? It should have plenty of water, for the streams from the mountains would flow through it. It should have navi- gable rivers, for the slope is so gentle the streams would flow slowly ; and it might have canals, for it is easy to cut canals through a country comparatively level. This is the condition of Germany. The empire has great water ways which with their branches inclose it almost like a net. On the west the Rhine, fed by Alpine glaciers and snows, forms a wide trade route from the south to the north. A few miles to the eastward is the Weser, another large river, IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 189 iWJ*fc "ZtrZ'lx. Bavarian Farmers. and farther east the Elbe, carrying thousands of boats to and from the ocean. Still farther to the eastward are the Oder and the Vistula, which flow into the Baltic Sea ; they are great water ways loaded with traffic during most of the year. All these rivers have navigable branches, and their main streams run almost parallel with one another. Their chan- nels have been deepened in places, and such a system of canals has been constructed between them that they give the western, central, and northern parts of Germany an almost perfect system of commercial water ways. In 1 g Q ' GERMANY. addition the great Danube River rises in southern Ger- many and furnishes a trade route to Austria- Hungary and the Black Sea, connecting Germany with Asia. Is not this a fine water system ? It has so many rivers and canals that if they were joined end to end they would make a navigable highway nine thousand miles long, or more than twice as long as the main stream of the Missis- sippi-Missouri, the longest river of the world. Now observe the lacework of steel tracks which covers the German Empire. The land lies so that railroads could be easily built throughout every part of it. We shall have no difficulty in going wherever we please, for Germany has more railroads than any other country except the United States. From Berlin there is scarcely a city in Europe that cannot be reached in twenty-four hours, and fast express trains are always shooting back and forth across the empire from one part of the continent to another. All the great trade routes go through Germany. By the tunnels of the Alps the cars bring the passengers and goods from Asia, Africa, and Australia through Italy into Germany and other parts of northern Europe; There are fast express trains which cross Bavaria on their way from Paris to Constantinople, and there are railroads to Russia, in addition to the enormous system required for the busi- ness of the country itself. But something more than a fertile soil, rich mines, a network of railroads, good seaports, and navigable rivers is needed to make a country great in manufacturing and commerce. It is necessary that it have a thrifty people with a talent for trade. This is the nature of the Germans. They are among the best traders and manufacturers of the world, and there are so many of them that they hold a very important place in the world's commerce. Ger- IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 191 many has a larger population than any other nation of Europe except Russia. Its people are steadily growing in number, and are now pushing their commerce into all parts of the globe. The Germans are fast becoming a great colonial nation. They have colonies in Africa and China, and own many islands in the Pacific Ocean. They have five times as much land outside Europe as at home. They have estab- lished their business houses in all parts of the world, not only in their own colonies but in all others; so that there is scarcely a place of any size in South America, Africa, or Asia where you may not find Germans selling goods, and buying raw materials and other things to be sent back to their people at home. There is one thing which every one notices upon enter- ing Germany, no matter where he comes in. This is the enormous fortifications which guard the country, and the soldiers, who are to be seen everywhere. From now on we shall be awakened in the morning by the bugle of the trumpeters calling the companies to drill. We shall hear the military bands playing, and may have a chance to see some of the maneuvers or mock battles in which many regiments of cavalry and infantry practice at war. A rich land like Germany, surrounded by other countries, must always be on guard. Its frontier is more than four thousand miles long, and at points of strategic importance enormous fortresses have been built and military camps established. Railroads have been constructed so that soldiers can be sent quickly to these camps and fortresses ; and the telegraph lines connecting them with the capital and with one another have been laid in secret trenches under the ground, in order that they may not be easily found and cut by the enemy. K)1 GERMANY. Germany is always striving to improve her army. The people are proud of their soldiers, and indeed they have reason to be so, for they have one of the finest armies of the world. Every able-bodied man in the country must be a soldier, and in times of war boys of seventeen may be called into the army. From the age of twenty to twenty- seven every well man is expected to serve as a soldier, and this has made the army so large that if the Germans should have a war they could easily put three million men in the field. We see something of these military defenses when, after crossing the Baltic, we land in the harbor of Kiel. We have come here to go through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, which has been cut through the land from the Baltic Sea to the mouth of the Elbe, in order that the German men-of-war and other ships may be able to go out to the sea without taking the long trip around Den- mark. This canal is about sixty miles long. It is deep enough for the largest steam vessels and so wide that ships can easily pass. It was completed in 1895 at a cost of almost forty million dollars ; but it is of enormous value to the Germans in the way of trade and in the defense of their empire. A German Windmill. IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE. 1 93 We steam into the long wide harbor of Kiel, passing many German war vessels moving on their way to and from the Baltic Sea. There are shipbuilding yards, docks fixed and floating, and many foundries and arsenals, mak- ing arms and fitting ships for war. This is the chief naval station of Germany, and there are many war ships here ready to start forth if at any time Germany should have trouble with other nations. We are almost deafened by the din when we leave our steamer and walk through the vast works ; and we enjoy coming out again into the busy city of Kiel, and looking at the many merchant ves- sels which lie at the wharves ; most of them are on their way to or from the canal. We enter the canal early in the morning. Our ship is raised by a great lock from the harbor to the canal level ; the gates in front of us are opened by machinery, and we steam slowly on toward the southwest. The ride takes the whole day. The distance is not so great, but there are so many ships going through that it is stipulated none shall steam faster than five miles an hour. How interesting it is ! We can see far away on either side. The land is low and flat, and in many places sandy and swampy. Now we go by a meadow upon which fat Holstein cattle are feeding, and now a marsh where long-legged storks are wading about, poking their bills deep down into the mud, searching for food. We see storks' nests on many of the farmhouses; there are wind- mills like those of Holland. We pass many ships, and wave our handkerchiefs to the people on board. At last we enter the great lock at the end, and are lowered down to the Elbe, where it flows out into the North Sea. Here our ship turns about, and we steam rapidly up the wide estuary of the Elbe ; and within a few hours are pass- (*94) THE SEAPORTS OF GERMANY. 1 95 ing through the shipping which belongs to the port of Hamburg. Our boat steams into the city, and when we step off we are in one of the most important commercial centers of the world. i&ic XXI. THE SEAPORTS OF GERMANY. HAMBURG is one of the oldest cities of northern Europe. The Emperor Charlemagne built a castle here about 800 a.d., and even in the Middle Ages Ham- burg had considerable trade. It is now the biggest sea- port on the continent of Europe, and the chief outlet for Germany in its commerce by sea with the rest of the world. But why has Hamburg become the principal port of this part of Europe? You can see if you will but think for a moment of the vast industrial and commercial region behind it, and how closely it is connected with it by river and canal and by rail. Hamburg lies on the navigable Elbe, so far back from the sea that the shipping is safe from the storms ; and here great highways of commerce, between a great part of northern Europe and the rest of the world, converge. On the Elbe itself, goods are carried clear across Germany, and on its tributary, the Moldau, far into the great industrial province of Austria. All the heavy traffic for Berlin now goes from Hamburg by the Havel and Spree, and is thence taken by river and canal to the great water ways farther east. Hamburg has direct connection, not only with our coun- try and England, but also with the principal ports of South America, Australia, Africa, and Asia, as well as with those of other parts of Europe. It has a free port ; that is, no 196 GERMANY. duty is charged on goods which are brought into the port for transshipment. We see in the harbor, not only German ships, but ships from all other countries. We are surprised at the number of vessels discharging goods from the United States. See that great steamer unloading cotton, the bales being lifted by derricks from the ship right into the warehouses ! A little farther on is one taking off a cargo of meat, while others are unloading wheat and corn in vast quantities. Germany is one of our best customers. We supply its cotton mills with raw materials, and also furnish a large part of its food, for, although the land is rich, it does not raise enough to feed all the people. There is a tank steamer which has just arrived with a load of petroleum. That cargo came from the wells of Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. It was carried in pipes to the Atlantic seaboard, and will soon be on its way to light the lamps in the homes of the Germans all over the empire. The Germans consume a great deal of our copper, pig iron, and steel, and within recent years we have been sending them many manufactured articles. The most of our trade with them is through Hamburg and the port of Bremen on the Weser not far away. Let us continue our walk along the wharves. What a lot of them there are, and what a variety of shipping ! There is a ten thousand ton steamer which has just arrived with a cargo of wool ; it came from Australia, stopping at the German colony of New Guinea on the way. There are tea and silk ships from China, and there are some starting out on their way to German Africa with all sorts of goods to be exchanged for palm oil, rubber, and ivory. There are English ships discharging manufactured goods. Italian ships unloading oranges, wines, and olive oil, vessels THE SEAPORTS OF GERMANY. 197 from Norway and Sweden loaded with lumber, steamers which have just arrived from the west coast of South America filled with nitrate of soda to fertilize the beet- sugar farms, and steamers from Brazil with their cargoes of coffee and rubber. There are so many ships that our heads grow dizzy in trying to remember what they contain, and we give up in despair. Docks, Hamburg. We walk along wharf after wharf, past miles of such ships. The wharves are so arranged that the vessels come right to the warehouses. There are inclosed docks, such as we saw in London and Liverpool ; and goods are also being unloaded into flatboats or barges, to be towed by the canals through the city. There are railroad tracks everywhere, so that cars can be brought right to the ships, and the freight handled quickly and cheaply. 198 GERMANY. Many of the warehouses line the canals. Some of them have their upper stories projecting several feet above those below. They look like gigantic stairs turned upside down, and seem to be trying to reach out and rub noses with their neighbors on the other side of the water way. Ex- tending out from the roofs are beams holding pulleys, to which long ropes are attached so that they hang down over the canal. There is one now, with a barge of wool bales just below. The men have wrapped the rope around one of the bales and fastened it tight. They have seized the other end of the rope, and, aided by the pulleys, are rais- ing the bale high into the air. There, it has reached the third story of the building, where it is caught by a hook and pulled in through the barnlike doors which have been opened to receive it. Now we have left the ships, and are walking through the main business streets of the city. Did you ever see anything finer? The stores contain beautiful goods, and the sidewalks are crowded with people as well dressed as those of New York. We visit the Stock Exchange about two o'clock in the afternoon, and look down upon the thousands of brokers and merchants who are buying and selling. The din is as great as that of our stock exchange in Wall Street, but the language used is the German, and the brokers shout their words so rapidly that we can not understand them. We stroll along the Binnen Alster, a great walled pond in the heart of the city, and then go out to the zoological gardens to see the collections of lions, tigers, and other wild beasts for which Hamburg is noted. This place has long been famous as a wild animal market. The ships from Africa, Asia, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific bring wild beasts with them for sale, and any one who THE SEAPORTS OF GERMANY. 199 wishes can get an elephant, a monkey, a kangaroo, or a boa constrictor, if he will but pay the price. It is only a short ride by rail from Hamburg to Bremen on the river Weser, about forty miles from the sea. This is the other chief port by which Germany has access to the ocean, and from it many of the German emigrants sail for America. We see a ship starting out as we walk along the wharves. There is a crowd of men, women, and children at the stern, wav- ing with their hats, shawls, and hand- kerchiefs a last fare- well to their friends and the Fatherland. There are other emi- grants going on the vessels near by, for many, many thou- sand Germans leave Hamburg and Bremen every year " — this quaint old city of Bremen." to find homes in the United States. They think America is the best of all foreign countries, and they come to America to work, knowing that they can soon save enough to have homes of their own. They make excellent citi- zens, and we are glad to have them come. We spend a few hours in examining this quaint old city of Bremen. We visit its factories, including its enormous 200 GERMANY. establishments for making cigars, snuff, and smoking tobacco, and then take a train for a rapid look at the ports of the Baltic, first stopping at Lubeck, on a little river about ten miles from the sea. Have you ever heard of the Hanseatic League ? If not, be sure not to say so in Lubeck, for every child here, no matter if he be so poor that he wears wooden shoes, is proud that his city was once a part of it. This league was for two centuries and more very important in the commerce of the world. It was organized during the thir- teenth century by many of the great cities of different parts of Europe. The people of these cities banded to- gether to better their trade, and to protect it from the pirates who then infested the seas, and from the " robber barons," who lived in castles along navigable rivers and exacted heavy tolls from all passing vessels. The league provided transport ships and maintained a powerful mili- tary force to protect therr . The first two cities of the league were Lubeck and Hamburg, after which came Bremen, Danzig, Berlin, Cologne on the Rhine, Bruges in Belgium, and more than seventy others. These cities had their own factories and fisheries. They had their own ships, and they also had caravans of goods going across Europe. Their merchants attended all the great fairs, to which people from every where came to buy and sell ; and the cities gradually grew very rich and powerful. Of these League cities Lubeck was the capital, and Hamburg and Bremen were of great importance ; they all remained independent towns for many years after the others had come under the rule of kings, and it is only within a short time that they have been absorbed by the great German Empire. THE SEAPORTS OF GERMANY. 20I We find in Lubeck many quaint old houses, some of which were put up centuries ago. The city still has con- siderable commerce, but the discovery of America was the death blow to its supremacy. Hamburg, which is only thirty-nine miles away, has absorbed most of its trade, and it is now even smaller than it was during the Middle Ages. In Stettin. From Lubeck we go by rail to Stettin. The city is on both sides of the River Oder, some distance in from the Baltic Sea. It is an important port, for it is the most southerly point that can be reached by ships from the Baltic Sea laden with goods for Germany. It has a fine harbor, and is connected by the Oder and canals with all parts of North Germany, its water ways being joined with those of the Elbe, and also with the Vistula. Stettin is only eighty-four miles from Berlin, and a great 202 GERMANY. deal of freight is landed here for that city, being taken there by railroad as well as by the river and the canals. We visit the shipbuilding yards, where the biggest of the German vessels are constructed, and then take a train for Danzig, the commercial center of northeastern Germany, at the mouth of the Vistula. . Street in Danzig. Danzig is built on two arms of the Vistula, about five miles from the sea. It has been called the Northern Venice, from the canals running through it. Many of its houses are built upon piles. Some have six or seven stories, with quaint roofs and old-fashioned doors. We see large warehouses with boats anchored before them, and rafts, piled high with wheat, which have come down the Vistula from the rich farms of eastern Prussia and Poland. The wheat is here transferred to vessels which BERLIN. 203 take it to other parts of Germany by way of the Baltic Sea, after which the rafts are broken up and sold, and their owners go back to their homes on foot. There are rafts of lumber brought down the same way, and also queer river boats loaded with all sorts of produce. There are boats starting up the river with manufactured goods and other things which have come in by sea. Dan- zig is the outlet for all the timber grown in the basin of the Vistula. It has a great trade with east Germany, and brings much produce down from Russian Poland as well. It is the chief military post of the northeastern part of the Empire, and there are great forts all about it, with thou- sands of soldiers to guard it. There is one fact in the history of Danzig that we are likely to recall frequently, especially in the midst of summer and winter, when we are always asking how the thermometer stands. It was in this city that the man who first perfected the thermometer was born, and it was here that he died, a.d. 1736. His name was Fahrenheit; and so when you are told that the temperature is so many degrees Fahrenheit above or below zero, you may remember that it was a citi- zen of Danzig who has enabled us to know just how hot or how cold it is. XXII. BERLIN — THE CAPITAL OF GERMANY. "I \ J E start out from our hotel in Berlin this morning to V V learn something of the capital of the German Empire. The sun is shining, and the city looks wonderfully beautiful under its rays. The blocks of light yellow houses, four, five, and six stories high, seem to have received a fresh coat of paint, the gilding and carving on the palaces and great 204 GERMANY. public buildings stand boldly out, and the statues of marble and bronze, which are to be seen in the squares, on the bridges, and in the gardens and parks, seem almost alive. The policemen strut about as spick and span as so many dandies, there are soldiers and officers in uniforms among the well-dressed people on the sidewalks, and the whole city looks new. We drive through one long street after another, our carriage on its rubber-tired wheels moving along noise- lessly over the asphalt pavements. The streets are wide and well kept. There is not a scrap of paper to be seen on the roadways, although some of them are still in the hands of the cleaners. See those little froys in caps and uniforms who are pushing the dirty water toward the sewers. They are scrubbing the streets with rubber mops, which leave them as clean as a floor. Berlin pays a half million dollars a year to keep its streets free from dirt, and a large part of the work is done by boys who receive twenty-five cents a day. How orderly everything is ! The Germans are noted for doing things methodically. The whole country moves like a machine. The police are on hand everywhere to enforce the laws, and there are so many policemen that we are seldom out of their sight. The moment we arrived at our hotel, we were given a paper upon which we had to set down just who we were, what our business or profession was, and whether we should stay long in the city or not. The government rules are such that the officials know where each man in Prussia sleeps every night. When we came out this morning we found the servants cleaning the pavement in front of the hotel. We are told that the family on the ground floor has to clean the pave- ment in front of the house every morning, and are warned BERLIN. 205 that if we break a bottle or jug on the street, the police will make us pick up the pieces and carry them off. The Berlin boys dare not shoot with blowpipes at the birds in the trees. In the winter when there is good skating, the police put. up green flags to let the children know they may skate, and they mark out with red flags the parts of the ice they are permitted to use. Companies of chil- dren are not allowed to go about alone after dark, and if a child makes a noise on the street his parents may be punished. In Berlin, the police watch even the dogs, and they warn you that your dog must not bark on the streets later than ten o'clock in the evening. There are also fire police who aid in putting out fires, •; .^ . and building police who see that the mortar and rubbish of new buildings are kept inside the walls, and that no one puts up a building or even a busi- ness sign unless his plans have been approved by the officials. The people are proud of their city, and they will not allow anything erected which will injure its beauty. But what are the little towers we see on the street corners ! Each is as big around as a hogshead, and about fifteen feet high ; it is covered with printed matter containing various announcements. Those are the advertising stands of the city, which announce CARP. EUROPE — 13 — it is covered with printed matter." 206 GERMANY. what is going on at the concert halls and theaters, and give all sorts of information valuable to strangers. In one section of the tower is a plan of the streets about it, so that we can know just where we are. The tower gives the location of the nearest police station, hospital, fire alarm, and post office. There are also some advertise- ments in frames, but nothing ugly or out of place. The city authorities will not allow bills to be posted upon the walls, and those who advertise must use these towers, or hire men to distribute handbills. Such advertising is far better than that of the ugly bill boards which so deface the streets of our American cities. We conclude to get a general idea of Berlin by riding about it on the Ringbahn and Stadtbahn. The Ringbahn is a steam railroad, which runs around the outskirts of the city. The trip shows us what a great place Berlin is. The city covers more than twenty-five square miles. It lies in and extends beyond the Spree River valley, which is here about three miles in width. The country about is so sandy and marshy that Berlin was once nick- named "The sand box of Europe." It is an old city, although it has been growing so fast of late years, and has been so much improved, that it now looks new. Its oldest part is on an island in the Spree. There was a town there several hundred years before America was discovered. The Spree River gave the people access by the Havel to the water ways of the Elbe, and canals were made later by which they could get to the Oder. The town was situated just where the trade routes to different parts of northern Europe crossed, and so the city soon became important. Later it was made the capital of Prussia, and it continued to grow. Then, in 1870, the Germans had their great war BERLIN. 207 with the French, and conquered them. After this the Prussians persuaded the other German states to unite with them into one Empire, of which the King of Prussia should be the Emperor, and Berlin the Imperial Cap- ital. Since then people from all the states of Germany have come to Berlin, and it has rapidly increased in size, wealth, and importance. It is now, next to Paris, the finest capital on the continent of Europe, and its people think it will soon be surpassed in size only by the city of London. We cross many railroads in our ride on the Ringbahn. There are hundreds of smokestacks on the outskirts, pour- ing their black columns into the sky. They belong to the factories of the city. Berlin is perhaps the greatest manu- facturing town of continental Europe. It has silk, woolen, and cotton mills, it has vast engine factories, and it makes beautiful gold and silver ware, fine jewelry, and all sorts of fancy goods and notions, as we shall see in the stores when we shop. Much of the work is done by the people in their homes, and there are hundreds of small factories, as well as many large ones. The Stadtbahn is an elevated railroad built upon a wall of masonry and iron. We cross the Spree three times during our ride upon it, and go over bridges which have been built above the principal streets. We leave the cars not far from the Thiergarten and take carriages for a drive through this, the great park of Berlin. It contains six hundred acres, and looks like a cultivated forest with lakes, little canals, and many beauti- ful walks and drives. We visit the zoological garden, where we see the keepers feed the wild beasts, and in the monkey house see the largest collection of monkeys in Europe. 208 GERMANY. In our drive through the Avenue of Victory, the chief promenade of the park, we pass scores of well-dressed men and women riding fine horses. There are beautiful carriages with coachmen and footmen in livery, and hun- dreds of children with their parents or nurses walking about or playing near the lakes and under the trees. The Germans are fond of nature, and even at daybreak there are people in the park. Brandenburg Gate. On going out we drive by a sandstone column two hundred feet tall, with a beautiful gilt statue of Victory on top. It was erected in honor of the victories of the Ger- mans over the French. We then pass out through the Brandenburg Gate into Unter den Linden (oon'ter dan lin'den). This gate is a huge stone structure with five entrances, one of which is reserved for the king. It has BERLIN. 209 on its top a magnificent statue of the Goddess of Victory riding in a bronze chariot drawn by four bronze horses. That statue was captured by Napoleon when he conquered the Prussians ; it was taken to Paris, but was brought back again after the battle of Waterloo. gsT|i: i ♦ i Unter den Linden. We are delighted with Unter den Linden. It is the finest street of the city, and one of the famous streets of the world. It is as wide as Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, and is about a mile long, extending from the Thiergarten to the palaces of the king. It has seven differ- ent roadways or paths, some for heavy vehicles, others for carriages, some for people on horseback, and others for bicycles and pedestrians. We ride through it under the trees, admiring the large public buildings, going by the statue of Frederick the 2 16 GERMANY. Great and the royal palaces, and then, on turning to the right and to the left, making our way through miles of other streets walled with magnificent buildings. We ride through Friedrich (fred'rich) Street and Leip- siger (llp'siker) Street, by many beautiful stores, and go on and on, seeing big buildings everywhere. There are no little houses in Berlin, such as you see in other cities, and no cottages with gardens in front of them, so we wonder where the poor live. We soon discover when we get out for a walk. Their homes are scattered everywhere throughout the city. Very few people own the houses they live in. Nearly all hire flats or apartments, so that you find the rich, the well-to-do, and the poor, in the same house. Each family has its own quarters and its own floor, according to what it can pay. In all Berlin, it is said, there are only a few thousand families who have a whole house to themselves, while a multitude have less than six rooms, and vast numbers of families live in two or three rooms, and in basements or cellars under the ground. Let us go into one of the big buildings and see for ourselves. The one we enter has six stories, extending back from the street ; it is built about several great courts, each walled with six tiers of rooms. We first go into the cellar like basement. At the front are the shops of a butcher, a cobbler, and a grocer, while farther back, each living in two or three rooms, are many poor families, the most of whom do work at home for a livelihood. On the first floor facing the street there are some good stores, not unlike our stores at home. There is a restaurant at the corner, while in the courts at the back of the building are small shops and homes. Entering the hall, we climb the stairs to the first story, BERLIN. 211 and there find a number of well-to-do families, each of which has six or more comfortable rooms opening into one another. On the floors farther up we find other apart- ments, smaller and less elaborately furnished, the homes of people who are not so rich as those just below, for the rent grows less the higher you go. It is in apartments " — going by the statue of Frederick the Great." like these that the most of the Berliners live. Often the poor work in the same room where they sleep, and many families have but one room that can be heated. Such buildings in our cities would have hot air furnaces, or steam or hot water to heat them. Here the people have stoves of porcelain, each so big that it fills one corner of the room, reaching from the floor almost to the ceiling. 212 GERMANY. Near the bottom of the stove is a brass door a foot square, and inside this an iron door which opens into a little fuel chamber. A small amount of coal with some kindling is put in ; this will heat the bricks and porcelain, and, once hot, the stove gives forth heat the whole day. Coming out, we walk through one street after another. The most of them are full of people rapidly moving to and fro. There are men and women of all classes, rich and poor, old and young. Here come some students from the university, and behind them boys with bags of books re- turning from school. On the corners are messengers in caps and uniforms, ready to take bundles or notes for any one at a few cents a trip. There are women and men carrying baskets and boxes in their arms and on their backs, and business men and mechanics rapidly moving along. What is that black-faced little boy coming toward us ? He has a pole over his shoulder to which a long brush is attached, and he carries a short brush in his hands. He does not look like a negro. No, he is a German boy, and his business is sweeping out chimneys. There are hun- dreds of chimney sweeps in Berlin, boys and men who go down into the chimneys and clean them out once a year. Be careful in crossing the streets. They are full of vehicles of every description. There are automobiles moved by steam and electricity. There are many street cars ; there are carriages of all kinds, and wagons and carts. There are great drays dragged along by horses, and little wagons hauled by dogs. There is a dog now pulling a load of fresh meat through the street. He looks very hungry, and we wonder why he does not turn about and take a good meal, until we see the wire muzzle inclosing his head. All dogs must have muzzles, or they will be taken up by the police or the dog catchers. BERLIN. 213 Get out of the way of that carriage ! Don't you hear the driver hissing at you ? That is the way you are warned to look out in Berlin. If you allow yourself to be run over, you may be arrested and fined, for every person on foot is expected to take care of himself. Beer Garden. What a lot of restaurants, hotels, and cafds there are everywhere. We are inclined to think that the chief occu- pation of the people of Berlin is eating, till we see the thriving general business going on all around us. The Germans are fond of good living. There are many delicatessen or cook shops, where you can buy cakes and pies, sausages, and all kinds of cooked meat to take home. There are plenty of restaurants, and at frequent intervals 214 GERMANY. are caf^s where you can have a cup of coffee or chocolate or some other liquid. Beer is sold almost everywhere, for it is the favorite drink of the Germans. They take it with their meals, and also in the beer gardens, where they sit about at tables under the trees and drink while they listen to the playing of the bands. Early one morning we go to the market. It is in an enormous building roofed with glass, covering six acres of ground. It has five hundred wholesale dealers and com- mission merchants and many retailers. The most of the small dealers are women who stand behind marble coun- ters, loaded with vegetables, dressed fowls, and meats of all kinds. What a lot of geese there are ! The Germans are so fond of this fowl that Berlin alone consumes two millions of them every year. It is no wonder the cab drivers hiss, they eat so much goose ! There is a woman now bringing in a half dozen geese in a basket. She is one of the porters, for the women here do such work more cheaply than men. We see them everywhere in the market, going about with great baskets of meat and vegetables strapped to their backs, or standing with their empty baskets waiting to carry provisions home. One part of the market is devoted to fish, of which Ber- lin eats forty million pounds every month. The people are determined to have their fish fresh, and hence buy them alive. We walk by one vat after another, watching the fish swimming about in the water, and are told we may choose any we wish and the fishwife will dip it out with her net. We have no difficulty in finding the butter and cheese market! We have only to follow our noses and let them follow the smell. Most German cheese has a strong odor, and some kinds, such as Limburger, scent the whole build- ing. The Germans use more cheese than we do, and the HOW GERMANY IS GOVERNED. 21 5 poorer classes eat it as a food rather than as a relish or for dessert. The German butter is sweet, and of good flavor. Much of it is sold wrapped up in cabbage leaves, the golden butter surrounded by green. XXIII. THE EMPEROR — HOW GERMANY IS GOVERNED. WE see the emperor several times during our stay in Berlin. He often rides about through the city on horseback; he reviews his soldiers in person, and some- times drives through the Thiergarten in his imperial carriage. He wears the uniform of a general of his army, and although he has great dignity, he looks much like other men. We are surprised to see how his subjects revere and admire him. They speak low when talking about him, and when they meet him the men and boys take off their hats and the women bow. When he rides or drives out in procession, the roofs, balconies, windows, and pavements are full of people. The women wave their handkerchiefs, the men throw their hats into the air, and all cry out Hoch ! Hoch ! Hoch ! which means much the same as " Hurrah ! " The German emperor is one of the chief rulers of Europe. He is known as the Deutscher Kaiser, or Ger- man Emperor, and also as the King of Prussia. As Kaiser he governs about sixty million people, and he has always more than a half million soldiers at his command, while at short notice he can put several times this number of men into the field. The German army has some of the best-trained soldiers 2l6 GERMANY. of the world. We find them drilling almost everywhere in and about Berlin. We are awakened in the morning by their tramp, tramp, tramp, as they pass our hotel on their way from one part of the city to another, and we often see regiments of infantry and cavalry in the streets. In the drills the companies move like so many machines, and even the cavalry horses are taught to take just so many steps to the minute. In the maneuvers or sham battles the army is divided, and thousands of soldiers fight other thousands for practice, using blank cartridges, but otherwise acting just as in real war. The Germans are proud of their army, and all officials and soldiers are highly respected. As we have already learned, every man here must be a soldier for a part of his life, and every one must be ready to go out and fight if the emperor calls upon him. But is it not a dangerous thing for one man to have so many soldiers at his command ? It might be if the emperor had the ambition of an Alexander the Great or a Napoleon Bonaparte and desired to conquer the world. We must also remember that the German emperor has not absolute power over the army, or over his people. He can call out his soldiers at any time to defend the country, if it should be invaded ; but he cannot make an offensive war without the consent of the upper house of the German Parliament. We have seen how the United Kingdom, Belgium, Hol- land, Denmark, and Norway and Sweden each has its king or queen who rules through a congress or parliament which votes all the money and makes all the laws ; so that these monarchies are very like republics with hereditary presidents. It is much the same in the German Empire, save that in local matters each state has a king or prince of its own. The Kaiser has such a position as king of HOW GERMANY IS GOVERNED. 217 Prussia, but as emperor he is more like our President, having to do only with matters that affect all the states, and that only in connection with an Imperial Congress. This Congress consists of two houses, the Bundesrat (boon'des-rat), which has sixty-one members, appointed by the governments of the states for each session, and the Reichstag (rlchs'tak), which has three hundred and ninety- seven members elected for terms of five years by all the "We visit the Reichstag building." people of Germany. In both houses there are more Prussian representatives than any others, for Prussia has by far the most people and is the most powerful of all the states. We visit the Reichstag building. It is a gorgeous struc- ture decorated with statues, carvings, and gold leaf, situated close by the Thiergarten. We pass the uniformed guards at the entrance and in the halls, and take seats in the galleries ; we listen to the members debating, observing that Germany has political parties just as we have. The 2l8 GERMANY. scenes of the Reichstag are much like those of our House of Representatives at Washington, while the Bundesrat is more like our Senate. Afterward we go with our guide to the great palace of the emperor, which stands at the head of Unter den Linden, on an island surrounded by the two branches into which the Spree divides at this point. The building is constructed " — the great palace of the emperor.'' about four courts ; it is of vast extent, containing six hundred different rooms. All the rooms are beautifully furnished, and we enjoy seeing the fine statues and paint- ings. The ceilings are high, and the floors so polished that the palace attendant gives us each a pair of big felt slippers to wear over our shoes as we walk through. From this palace we go to others near by, after which we visit the Zeughaus (zoich' house), or arsenal, full of arms of HOW GERMANY IS GOVERNED. 219 "We spend some time in the university," all kinds, and then go to the great museums and picture- galleries for which Berlin is famous. We spend some time in the university. It is one of the largest in Germany, having over seven thousand students. We visit the other schools which are scattered everywhere over the city, and learn that the Germans have an excellent school sys- tem, and that they are among the best-educated people of the world. They have day schools and night schools ; they have hundreds of academies and universities, which are so good that scholars from all parts of Europe and also from our country attend them. In the Royal Library is one of the largest book collections in Europe, including the first Bible ever printed with movable type. This was made by Gutenberg, forty-two years before Columbus dis- covered America ; and it might be called the father of the millions of books now printed each year. 220 GERMANY. We next go to the stock exchange, the financial center of the empire, and watch the brokers buying and selling just as we saw them in the other great cities. The Ger- mans are fast growing rich, and they have many large banks. They have fine stores everywhere, and in our travels through Berlin we find numerous evidences of their wealth and prosperity. Sans Souci. There is no lack of amusements in the German capital. There are more than a score of theaters, a large opera house partially supported by the government, and so many concert halls that we can hear good music in almost every block. We enjoy especially the military bands which play in the parks. We take excursions to the great resorts in the suburbs of Berlin, and spend one day at Potsdam on the Havel, a HOW GERMANY IS GOVERNED. 221 half hour by rail from the capital. Here the imperial family have their summer palaces surrounded by beautiful gardens. There are many fine buildings, each of which has its history and features of interest. In the Palace of Sans Souci (saN soose-e), for instance, we are shown the chamber, or grotto, walled and ceiled with shells and min- erals and precious stones, which Frederick the Great con- structed during one of his wars. According to the story : - ;.- l&M* 3EU-; Babelsberg. of our guide, Frederick had spent almost all his money in fighting, and his enemies, thinking he was at the end of his resources, were preparing to crush him. Then he began to build this gorgeous jewel chamber, pouring money into it as though there was no end to his wealth. Its extravagance made his enemies think he had all the money he needed, and caused them to withdraw from the field. Not far from Sans Souci is Babelsberg, which was the favorite summer home of Kaiser Wilhelm I, who, after CARP. EUROPE — 14 222 GERMANY. he defeated the French in 1871, was chosen the first German emperor. It is very beautiful, and so plainly furnished that it seems more like the home of a rich citizen than like the palace of an emperor. Wilhelm I was noted for his simplicity and kindness; many stories are told of his love for children. He was especially fond of flowers. There is one flower which grows wild all over northern Germany which is often called the Kaiserblume, or the emperor's flower. It is like a dandelion in form ; its petals are a bright navy blue. We gather great bunches of it as we walk through the country, and find it everywhere in the grain fields on the outskirts of Berlin. A story is told of two peasant children who, having heard that the Kaiser loved these flowers, gathered some for him, and walked all alone, several miles, into Berlin. Here they had much trouble in finding the palace where the em^ ^or lived, but at last they succeeded. A guard dressed in gorgeous uniform met them at the gate; he looked so grand that they supposed he was the emperor, and with great trembling told him their errand. He was about sending them away unsatisfied, when a plain, kind looking old man came out and asked what they wanted. At this the guard stepped back, and the little ones again told their story. The old man took the bouquet and asked them to come in, saying he would present the flowers to His Majesty. He gave them seats in a beautiful room; a moment later a soldier appeared, and told the children that the Kaiser would see them. They then went with the soldier into another room which was even more beauti- fully furnished, and there they saw the same kind old man who had let them in. He held their flowers in one hand, and reached out the other to them, shaking hands with RURAL AND MANUFACTURING GERMANY. 223 them and patting them on the head. It was the emperor himself. He talked with the little ones for a moment, and ordered his servants to show them the palace. After this he gave each a present, and sent them home the happiest and proudest children in Germany. XXIV. RURAL AND MANUFACTURING GERMANY. WE have left the capital, and are traveling leisurely from place to place by rail through the great Ger- man Empire. How clean the stations are, and how orderly everything is! The station agents and railroad guards are in uniform ; they are public officials, for the railroads here belong to the government. They tell us just where to go, and just what we may and may not do. We are locked in during our journeys, and must be at c stations a quarter of an hour before leaving time, or v. ait for the next train. When we stop at a town, the officials give us a metal ticket bearing a number showing us just what cab we may take. Every station has its first, second, and third class wait- ing-rooms, each with its restaurant ; and there are first and second, and sometimes third and fourth class cars. The fourth class cars are very uncomfortable, for the seats are hard wooden benches. We usually ride second class, for we wish to be with the people, and they are so economical that they seldom go first class. We visit Breslau, the second city of Prussia, the great wool and grain market on the Oder, and then cross over to Saxony and spend some time in Dresden on the Elbe, and in Leipsig and Chemnitz. 224 GERMANY. What a busy country Germany is, and how thrifty ! The most of the farms are small, but they are kept like gar- dens. There are no fences, and we ride for miles over flat plains which, with their different-colored crops, look like a great patchwork quilt spread out before us. The barn- yards have many fat cattle ; they are usually kept shut up and the grass is cut and brought to them. We fre- quently see flocks of sheep and geese, watched by a woman, who knits as she keeps them from straying. Now we are passing a smooth white road lined with trees; the rows seem to meet in the distance as the road stretches on and on. There is a woman with a flag guard- ing the railroad track while the train passes. Now we are going by a farm village close to the railroad. The houses are of brick or stucco, with roofs of red tile or gray thatch, and with great rafters or beams set into the walls. The houses are built close to the street, with gardens behind them. The people do not live on their farms, but in these little villages, and go out to their work. Observe how carefully the farming is done ! There are many fields of wheat and rye, and many of beets, for beet sugar is one of the chief exports of Germany. The beets are hoed frequently and are kept perfectly free of weeds. They are cut up and boiled in steam reservoirs to get out the sugar, which is shipped to the markets all over the world. What a lot of women there are at work in the fields ! So many of the men are in the army that the women and girls do all sorts of hard labor. In some fields there are more women than men. We see them hoeing and spad- ing. They aid in the harvesting, turning the grass with pitchforks that it may dry the more quickly; they rake it together and even help load it. RURAL AND MANUFACTURING GERMANY. 225 "They do much of the carting, too." They do much of the carting, too. For instance, in one of the smaller cities through which we pass we see a woman driving a yoke of oxen. They are drawing a farm wagon loaded with beets grown on a farm several miles away. In Bavaria one may see women sawing wood or break- ing stones on the streets of the cities. They sometimes carry mortar for the masons, and also drag about little carts loaded with milk or vegetables, aiding the dogs which are harnessed up with them. They receive lower wages than the men, although they work very hard. 226 GERMANY. We are delighted with Dresden. It is the capital of the kingdom of Saxony, and is one of the finest cities of Europe. The city seems one great museum, there are so many statues, fine buildings, and collections of curiosi- ties and art. Even the palace of the king has a museum in it, and a very wonderful museum too. It is the treasure "We are delighted with Dresden." chamber of the royal family, and is called the Green Vault. It is filled with curiosities and jewels, with gold and silver plate, and with wonderful carvings of gold, silver, and ivory. We walk through room after room, looking at the golden dishes and precious cups and vases. We see all sorts of queer little figures of men and animals made of misshapen pearls, and stay long before the Green Diamond, which weighs five and one-half ounces and is one of the largest diamonds known. In the Dresden Picture Gallery we are shown one of the finest collections RURAL AND MANUFACTURING GERMANY. 227 of paintings, including the Sistine Madonna of Raphael, considered by many to be the most beautiful picture ever painted. We visit the Historical Museum, the Japanese Palace, and other such places, until we are tired of paintings and statues, and are glad to get out among the people in the Grosser Garten, the royal park of the city, or to sit down for a drink of lemonade upon the Briihl Terrace, which borders the Elbe, where every evening there are hundreds Museum, Leipsig. of people walking about or sitting at the tables under the trees, listening to the music for which the Germans are famous. A short ride from Dresden brings us to Leipsig, the chief commercial city of Saxony. It is situated on a plain, at the junction of several rivers, so that it forms one of the best supply and shipping points for the manufacturing districts of Saxony. 228 GERMAxMY. Leipsig has many factories, and it is also the greatest book publishing town of the world. It has five hundred booksellers and one hundred printing offices, in which are made more than sixty million books every year. It holds book fairs which are attended by booksellers from all over Germany. It is a great educational center and its' univer- sity has one thousand students. It has fairs at which furs, leather, cloth, glass, and other things, are sold, and also has long been noted as a leather market. We have seen many factories during our travels through Germany. Each district has its manufacturing towns, and the country fairly hums with moving machinery. Saxony is more like the Midlands of England than any part of the European continent. The country is more thickly settled than almost any place in the world except some provinces of China, and it is doubtful whether any part of China has more people to the acre than this region where we now are. Why is this so ? We have learned that such conditions always have their geographical reasons ; and it is not hard for us to see some of the reasons for the dense population and vast industries of Saxony. In the southern part of the kingdom are the Erzgebirge, or ore mountains, filled with minerals. There are large coal fields near by, so that manufacturing can be done very cheaply. Saxony is noted for its sheep and fine wool, and great woolen mills have grown up here which are shipping goods to all parts of Europe and to the United States. Any of our dry goods merchants can tell you something about this wool, and many American girls use the beautiful Saxony yarns for crocheting and knitting. The city of Chemnitz, southeast of Leipsig, has been called the Manchester of Germany. It makes about as RURAL AND MANUFACTURING GERMANY. 229 many things as Manchester, England, and is almost as busy. We visit the great factories there and in the vil- lages near by. Each of the villages is made up of some large workshops, with the plain simple houses of the working people about them. As we go on with our trip, we are surprised at the many goods of all kinds which are made outside the factories. In some parts of Germany it is hard to find a house in which the people are not making something for sale. We saw thousands of workshops in the cellars of Berlin ; there were thousands of little workshops in Leipsig and Breslau ; and we have found vast numbers in the smaller towns and villages. In some houses the people are weaving the most beauti- ful silks, velvets, and plushes on hand looms. In others they are making woolens and linens in the same way. Here they are knitting stockings, there making clothing, while a little farther on we find them busy pounding out nails and carving beautiful things from wood. The work goes on in the mountains as well as on the plains. In the Thuringian Forest, for instance, there are thousands of men, women, and children who are always making toys, and it is the same in and about the quaint old city of Nuremberg, Bavaria. Germany sells more toys than any other country, and many of those we see being made will be shipped to the United States in time for the next Christmas trade. The toy makers live in mean little houses. Many of them have but two rooms, and the air within is filled with the smell of the fresh paint of the toys which are drying on boards laid on the stove. You would not think beauti- ful things could come out of such places, and it really seems hard that these people should labor so for our pleasure. 23O GERMANY. They receive very low wages. The girls working on toys get less than twenty cents a day, and the men making mouth organs less than three dollars a week. In the large establishments the wages are higher. But suppose we enter one of the factories, and see how they make the doll babies which so delight the souls of our little sisters at home. We first visit the rooms where cheap wax dolls are made. The bodies of the dolls are of coarse white cloth stuffed with sawdust, and their heads, arms, and legs are of papier-mache" coated with wax. The different parts of the dolls are made in different houses, and many hands are engaged on each doll. Cer- tain workmen cut the arms and legs out of wood or mold them and the heads out of papier-mache. Others dip the arms and legs into basins of pink dye to give them a flesh color, while others paint the eyebrows, lips, and hair on the heads; or if the dolls are to have something better than painted hair, mohair is glued on. There are other workmen who make dolls' eyes from glass tubes that they melt over gas flames and then blow into shape. They also fasten the eyes in the heads. So you see a doll baby that costs only twenty-five cents requires the work of many people before it is finished and dressed in its coarse cotton chemise ready for sale. The fine dolls require a great deal more work. Many of them have bisque heads made of kaolin, a fine clay, which is molded into shape and then burned, just as we saw them burning china at Limoges in France and in Delft, Holland. After this the dolls' heads are painted and then burned again. The making of the wigs for some dolls is a fine art ; human hair is sometimes used in them ; and dressing dolls is also an art which keeps thousands of women and girls busy year in and year out RURAL AND MANUFACTURING GERMANY. 2$t How would you like to take a canary bird home to re- mind you of your travels in Germany? In the Harz Mountains and about Hanover there are thousands of people who raise canaries for sale. Nearly every little house has cages hung to the walls of its sitting room, bed- room or garret, and each cage has one or more of these beautiful birds. In some of the cages the canaries are sitting, hatching their young. These cages have the floor covered with dried moss, of which the female bird shapes her nest, lining it with cotton or lint. She insists on making it for herself, and if a ready-made nest is supplied, will build another, sometimes tearing out her own feathers to build it. She lays from four to six eggs three or four times a year. It takes about two weeks for the eggs to hatch, and it is six weeks more before the little canary chicks are old enough to leave their mothers and have separate cages. The birds are encouraged to sing by being placed near older birds which sing well. In the autumn, they are sold to bird merchants who ship them to all parts of the world. About one quarter of a million birds are raised in this way here every year, and of these many thousands are sent to the United States to be sold. The best singers come from the Harz Mountains, and bring high prices, but ordinary birds sell for seventy-five cents or a dollar apiece. The birds are shipped in cages to New York, with care- ful attendants who see that they are watered and fed every day. One man has charge of about a thousand birds, each in its own little wooden cage, so that he has plenty to do during the voyage. The cages are made by the peasants in their homes ; and the birds are raised chiefly by poor weavers or miners, who rely on them for a part of their support. 232 GERMANY. The Harz Mountains are one of the chief mining dis tricts of Germany. They contain all sorts of ores, and there are other regions, such as the Erzgebirge, the Thuringian, along the Rhine, in the valley of the Ruhr, and in Silesia, where coal, iron, and zinc, and other metals Salt Works, Kreuznach, Prussia. are found. There is one district in Prussia, not far from the Elbe, which contains wonderful salt mines. Here there are great beds of almost pure rock salt with potash salts above them. The potash salts are used for making soap, glass, pottery, and gunpowder. They are also used, under the name of kainit, as a fertilizer, and as such are shipped RURAL AND MANUFACTURING GERMANY. 233 in vast quantities to the United States to be sold to our farmers. And so we go on traveling about from one part of Germany to another. We visit Hanover, Halle, Nurem- berg, Magdeburg, and many other large cities, stopping now and then in the busy manufacturing districts and other interesting places. At Meissen, near Dresden, we learn how the famous Dresden china is made ; in Krefeld, on the west of the Rhine, we see looms weaving silks and velvets almost as fine as those of Lyons; and at Essen, on the east of that river, we visit the vast works of Krupp, where are hundreds of acres of iron foundries and rolling mills, with a forest of smokestacks filling the sky with dark clouds. We go through the shops. They are the largest of their kind in Europe, and have all sorts of .machinery, some so fine that a single hammer weighing fifty tons is said to have cost a half million dollars. Everywhere we travel in Germany we find schools for teaching the more important branches of the manufactur- ing industries. In some towns the students learn how to make porcelain, in others they design patterns for weaving, and in others study all about working in wood, iron, and steel. There are business schools, farming schools, mining schools, and schools for educating boys in commerce and trade. Most of the schools have night sessions, and many of the mechanics attend them. These are very important to the country, for through them the Germans are fast becom- ing the most intelligent and most skilled workmen of Europe. They already rank next to the English as the chief of the European manufacturing nations. Their com- merce is steadily increasing, and they are fast growing in industry and wealth. 234 GERMANY. XXV. UP THE RHINE TO SWITZERLAND. TO-DAY we are to take a trip up the Rhine. It is one of the most important rivers of Europe, although by no means the largest. The Danube is more than twice as long, and the Volga about three times as long, as the Rhine, and their vol- umes are very much greater. Still, the Rhine is more important than either of these streams, for it flows through the busiest part of the continent, forming a great com- a trip up the Rhine." mercial highway from the south to the north. Its springs are found in the glaciers and snows of the Alps. It rises on one side of Saint Gothard (got'ard), near the source of the Rhone and not far from the tunnel where the rail- road goes through to Italy, about a mile and a half above the level of the sea. It is fed by many an ice-cold, milk- white glacial stream as it dashes along down the Alps into the beautiful Lake Constance. It comes out of this placid bed only to take another tumble at Schaffhausen (shaf-how'zen) over the greatest falls of Europe, and then flows on west to Basel (ba'zel), where it turns to the north and gives a safe and deep waterway to the North Sea. The Rhine carries a large part of the commerce of this region. Hundreds of steamers and five or six thousand great barges are always moving up and down its waters, and the traffic uppn it is almost as great as upon the rivers UP THE RHINE TO SWITZERLAND. 235 of China. There are boats carrying wine, grain, and mer- chandise of all kinds ; boats loaded with freight which will be transferred to the railroads to go over the Alps into Italy ; and others filled with merchandise from the Mediter- ranean, and other places beyond the mountains. There are rafts of timber cut from the Black Forest floating down toward Holland, and it may be manufactured goods on their way to New York by way of the Rhine and the ocean. The Rhine has had much to do with the history of Europe. Before railroads were constructed, it was even more important than now, for it then formed the easiest road from Italy and the south to central and northern Europe. Silks and other fine goods from Asia were shipped across the Mediterranean Sea and along the Adri- atic Sea to Venice, whence they were carried over the passes in the Alps to the Rhine, and thence to different parts of northern Europe, and especially to the rich cities in Holland and Belgium about its mouths. Goods from the north were sent back in exchange, and a steady stream of merchandise and traders passed up and down. Even in the times of the Romans the Rhine had its important cities and towns. Caesar led his soldiers along its banks ; Charlemagne, another great conqueror, fought many battles near it; and Napoleon Bonaparte marched his armies back and forth across it. There is hardly a foot of the Rhine which has not its notable history, and every town and castle we pass, if it could speak, might tell an interesting story. At present the greater part of the river belongs to Germany, only its beginning and ending being in other countries. It forms a part of the boundary between Switzerland and Germany; and until the Germans con- 236 GERMANY. quered the French in 1870, it was the boundary between Germany and France. After that conquest the Germans moved their boundary line farther west, so that now France has no land on the Rhine. The Germans are proud of this fact, and they always speak of the Rhine as their river and often call it " Father Rhine." As we look at the map of Europe, however, it seems to us that Holland has a better right to boast of its inherit- ance from the Rhine, for that low country was largely built up by the earth washings brought down by its waters, and it is still fed by them. We saw one mouth of the Rhine at Rotterdam, where it is walled in between its embankments, and another where it flows into the Zuider Zee. Our journey begins at Cologne (co-Ion '), on the west bank of the river. This is the chief commercial city of the Rhine basin, and one of the most important cities of Ger- many. It is about as large as Pittsburg, and has many manufacturing industries. It is an old city. Like Lubeck and Hamburg, it was one of the chief towns of the Han- seatic League, and it had at one time during the Middle Ages as many as eighty thousand weavers. Owing to the trade of the Rhine and the looms, its people were then so rich that their neighbors, instead of saying a man was as rich as Midas, would say he was as rich as a cloth mer- chant of Cologne. We take a view of the city from the spires of the cathe- dral, climbing round and round, up the steps, inside one of the towers, until we are at last far above the body of the great structure, and on one of the highest towers of the world. The top of the spires above us are five hun- dred and twelve feet above the ground, only forty-three feet lower than the top of the monument at Washington. UP THE RHINE TO SWITZERLAND. 237 "Our journey begins at Cologne." From the spire we can see the Rhine winding its way about the city, which stretches out over the plain at the back. We cast our eyes down upon the great building below us. It is one of the largest and finest of the Euro- pean churches. It covers almost two acres of ground, and has cost almost as much as our Capitol at Washington. It was begun in the Middle Ages, but was not completed until 1883, when the great bells in the towers were rung for hours in honor of the event. We look at the bells as we go down. One of them is so large that it takes more than a score of men to ring it. It is called the emperor's bell, as we see from the German words carved on the out- side, which translated are as follows : — " I am the emperor's bell, The emperor's praise I tell ; carp. Europe — 15 238 GERMANY. On holy guard I stand, And for this German land, Beseech that God may please To grant it peace and ease." We leave the church, to do a little shopping before we go on our steamer. Can you guess what we buy first? Think where we are and you will guess right. We lay in a good stock of cologne. It is in Cologne that this well- known perfumery is made, and we find it exceedingly cheap. It is sold in many stores near the cathedral, and we are told there are at least forty different merchants, each of whom claims he has the only pure article, and he will sprinkle a little on your clothes or on your handker- chief to prove it. We are clothed in an atmosphere of perfumes from such attempts to induce us to purchase, as we leave the stores and walk down to the Rhine, where we stroll about the quays watching the shipping. We go back and forth over the great bridge of boats which here crosses the river, and watch the boys who are fishing, as we wait for the leaving time of the steamer. The bridge is made of anchored barges on which planks are laid. It rises and falls with the water, and is so constructed that sections of it can be taken out to let the ships through. Soon our baggage arrives. We go on the boat and see it stowed away in the cabins, and then take seats on the upper deck, and enjoy the busy sights all about us. There, the whistle is blowing, the bell has rung for all who are not going to get off, the gang plank is pulled away, and we are steaming off up the Rhine ! We soon leave the city, and after a time can distinguish only the tall spires of its cathedral cutting the sky. How fresh the air is and how beautiful the scenery ! The river UP THE RHINE TO SWITZERLAND. 239 has grown narrower, and we are coming into a region of hills. We wind in and out, now frowned down upon by- great rocks, and now by low mountains which seem high because of their steepness. What is that odd building on the top of that hill at the left ? It is a vast stone structure with a square tower and queer little windows, some of which seem to have iron bars. A part of it has fallen down, and it does not look as though any one lived in it now. That is a castle. It was built five hundred years ago and was once the home of a baron or knight who, with his soldiers, lived there, and made the poor people round about give him support. There is a similar ruin on that rock at the left, and as we go on we see scores of such cas- tles. They were the homes of the barons of the Middle Ages, many of whom were robbers, who oppressed the people, and preyed upon the merchants who traveled up and down the Rhine. The history of this region is full of their extortions and cruelties, although many of the tales told are not true. Al- most every hill along the Rhine has its wonderful story. In some, they say, dragons lived and good and bad fairies had their homes. In the Drachenfels (drach'en-felz), a great rock on the Rhine, there was, it is said, a dragon who killed and ate people, being, I suppose, especially fond of — we see ' -*-,_ scores of such _i; "■- castles." 240 GERMANY. children. He was finally conquered by Siegfried, a German hero. When the dragon died his blood soaked the ground, and as the region thereabout now produces excellent grapes, the people call the wine made from them, dragon's blood. We see vineyards everywhere as we steam on up the river. Both banks are lined with them. Every little white cottage has grapevines about it, and there are many large vineyards. The hills are terraced, and the mountain sides are made up of green steps, each step filled with grapevines tied to stakes. Some places are so steep that the earth is held in with stone walls, and much of it was carried up from below in baskets on the backs of women and men. We see men, women, and children at work among the vines. They are hoeing and weeding them. In the autumn the fruit will be ripe, and then all will be picking grapes from daylight to dark, and carrying them off to the wine presses. The grapes are first tramped to a pulp with the feet, and then the juice is squeezed out. Much of the pressing is done after dark, and, as it is thought disgrace- ful to lie in bed after sunrise, the peasants have a rather hard time at grape harvest. Still, they seem to enjoy themselves. We hear the boys and girls singing as they work. They have parties and dances. In the winter, in some of the villages of these regions, the girls hold spinning bees, when they meet together and spin yarn in the daytime ; in the evening, when the boys come, they have a supper and dance. They are good people and one of their sayings is : " A man who does not go to church is no better than other cattle ; " and another is : " He is a bad man who can relish his sauerkraut without a sermon ! " UP THE RHINE TO SWITZERLAND. 24 1 Wages are very low in the Rhine Valley, and the poor people live plainly. Many of them eat only a little gruel and dry bread for breakfast ; they have plenty of milk and eggs, but little meat. They have many potatoes, making all sorts of dishes of them, including soup, pancakes, and dumplings. The steamer stops some time at Coblenz, near which is the great rock fortress of Ehrenbreitstein (a-ren-brlt'stin), called the Gibraltar of the Rhine. The rock is four hun- dred feet above the level of the river, and the fortress upon it can accommodate one hundred thousand soldiers, although only five thousand are stationed in it. It is the chief of the many fortresses of the Rhine Valley, and has been used as a military stronghold for about one hundred years. We are delighted with Coblenz. It is a fine old city, dating back to the time of the Romans, situated at the joining of the river Moselle with the Rhine. It has a bridge of boats, much like that at Cologne, and many quaint old buildings. Among other curious things is the clock in the old Merchants' Hall, which has an odd figure under it. This is a man with a hideous face, whose goggle eyes roll with every move of the pendulum, and whose great mouth opens when the clock strikes the hour. It is known as " The man in the customhouse," and it is said that when a man from the country meets one from Coblenz, he does not ask him how are all the good people of Coblenz, but says : " How is the man in the custom- house ? " Leaving Coblenz, we steam on up the Rhine, winding our way through the hills, by many towns and villages, past numerous castles, until we come to a place where the river narrows and seethes and foams as it dashes by the Lorelei rock. The rock has a peculiar echo, and there is a story 242 GERMANY. that it was once the home of a wicked maiden, who sat there combing her golden hair and singing. She was very beautiful, and her song was so sweet that the boatmen for- got to manage their boats as they listened, and she lured them on and on until they were dashed to pieces against the rock. The echo from the rock is so strong that it repeats many times whatever we shout at it. Opposite it, but a little farther up stream, under a great ruined castle, is the town of Oberwesel (o'ber-va/zel), whose boys are said to amuse themselves by crying out to the echo rock, " Who is the mayor of Oberwe- sel," in such a way that only the last two syllables are heard, and the cry comes back, " Esel, Esel," a word which means donkey in German. Whether the mayor feels in- sulted thereby we have not time to learn. But what is that weird-looking figure that stands on the v— hill in the distance ? "It was put up by the Germans." jj- j s a gip;antic woman, whose hand seems raised as though she were com- manding the world. Perhaps it is really a giantess, and these fairy stories of the Rhine are true after all. Now we have come closer. It is a giantess indeed. It is a UP THE RHINE TO SWITZERLAND. .243 statue as tall as a three-story house, standing on a pedestal eighty feet high. It was put up by the Germans to com- memorate their victories over the French in 1870. It cost two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and is the greatest national monument in Europe. Maus Tower. That little town opposite the monument is Bingen, "Fair Bingen on the Rhine ! " and that tower on this side of it on a rocky island in the river is the Maus Tower, where, according to one story, the cruel Bishop Hatto was eaten alive by rats. You may read about it in Southey's poem. Bishop Hatto was very rich and his granaries were full of corn, although the people about him were starving. One day he sent out word to the peasants that, if they would come into his great barn, he would give them 244, GERiMANY. enough food for the winter. They came in crowds, men, women, and children, thronging in with their bags, until the barn was packed with them. "Then when he saw it could hold no more, Bishop Hatto made fast the door, And while for mercy on Christ they call, He set fire to the barn and burnt them all. " < In faith, 'tis an excellent bonfire,' quoth he, ' And the country is greatly obliged to me For ridding it in these times forlorn, Of rats that only consume the corn.' " The poem then tells how the bishop returned home, ate his supper, and went to sleep. When he awoke in the morning, one of his servants told him that the rats had eaten all his corn, and another soon came and said that an army of ten thousand rats was on its way to eat him up on account of his cruelty to the people. Thereupon he went to this tower on a rock in the Rhine, and locked himself in. But the rats swam across the river and stormed the tower. " In at the windows and in at the doors, And through the walls by thousands they poured, And down through the ceiling and up through the floor, From the right and the left, behind and before, From within and without, from above and below, And all at once at the bishop they go. " They have whetted their teeth against the stones, And now they pick the bishop's bones, They gnawed the flesh from every limb, For they were sent to do justice on him." This story is interesting, but every one knows it is not true. The tower was really a watch tower erected in the Middle Ages, and its name comes from a German word which means to steal. UP THE RHINE TO SWITZERLAND. 245 A little later on we reach Mainz, opposite the point where the Main flows into the Rhine. Here we leave the boat and take a walk through the town. We visit the ruins of a Roman tower, supposed to have been erected more than nineteen hundred years ago. We go to the house where Gutenberg, the first printer, was born, and then take the railroad for Frankfurt near by. Jewish Quarter, Frankfurt. Here we stroll along the river Main, watching the great rafts of timber which are floating down to the city. We walk on the Ziel, the chief street, and look at the shops. We visit the great red sandstone cathedral, and then go to the stock exchange, for Frankfurt is one of the chief busi- ness cities of Germany. It was for years one of the richest cities of Europe, and its bankers have often loaned money to kings. zafi GERMANY. One of the dirtiest parts of the town is the Jewish quar- ter, where, not far from the stores of old clothes merchants, we are shown the house of the first of the Rothschilds, who are now one of the richest families of the world. They have their great banking houses in London, Paris, and Vienna, and control hundreds of millions of dollars. Heidelberg Castle. We go to see the Gutenberg monument in Horse Mar- ket Square, and then take a train for Strassburg, visiting the cities of Mannheim and Heidelberg on the way. Mannheim is a manufacturing center situated on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite the mouth of the Neckar, and Heidelberg, only a few miles off, is the seat of a famous university, and one of the most beautiful places in Ger- many. UP THE RHINE TO SWITZERLAND. 247 It lies on the Neckar, with a great castle on the hills just above it. We visit the castle, climbing about its ivy- clad ruins. We go down into the dungeon where the prisoners were kept in times past, and in the cellar are shown what is perhaps the biggest barrel ever made. It is known as the Heidelberg tun, and it will hold eight hundred hogsheads, or more than two hundred and eighty thousand bottles of wine. It has been filled only three times in one hundred years. We spend some time strolling about Heidelberg. How queer the students look, and how many of them have scars and strips of court-plaster on their faces. We are told the plaster is to cure the cuts received in the duels which they fight with one another, using sharp two-edged swords and stopping only when the first blood is drawn. A student is very proud of his scars, and he walks like a king if he has two or three cuts covered with plaster. The university is one of the oldest and largest in Ger- many. A short ride on the railroad brings us back to the Rhine, and we are soon at Strassburg, another important center of commerce and trade. It lies two miles from the Rhine, with which it is connected by canals. Strassburg was founded by the Romans, and in the middle ages was one of the most prosperous of the free German cities. The French obtained possession of it in the seventeenth cen- tury, but in the war of 1870 the Germans recaptured it, and it is now one of the military centers of their empire. Strassburg is especially noted for its cathedral and the great clock within it. This clock is a wonder of mechanical ingenuity. Every fifteen minutes a figure of an angel comes out of it and strikes the quarter with a bell, while every hour is struck by a skeleton which appears higher up. Be- 248 GERMANY. side the angel is a figure which turns the sand glass every hour, and about the skeleton are four other figures repre- senting boyhood, youth, manhood, and old age. In the gallery below these stands a figure by which you can tell the day of the week, for a different one appears every day. The most interesting scene, however, is at noon, the time of our visit, when figures representing the twelve apostles come out above the other figures, and ■ march around an image of the Savior, while a cock on the pin- nacle of a side tower flaps its wings, stretches its neck, and crows so loudly that the noise penetrates every portion of the great building. We leave Strass- burg by railroad, and ride along the banks of the river to Basel in Switzer- land, where we end our Rhine journey. The river has still much shipping, not- withstanding a vast traffic of passen- gers and freight is carried by rail. We are greatly im- pressed with the Cathedral, Strassburg. 7 , importance of the Rhine as a trade route, and have learned that it is one of the most useful as well as the most beautiful of the commercial highways of Europe. 7 Longitude East 8 from Greenwich XXVI. SWITZERLAND — THE ALPS. PUT on your rough clothes this morning, and leave your heavy baggage behind. We are about to ex- plore some of the mountainous parts of Switzerland, and much of our travel must be upon foot. Each must carry his own knapsack, and the sensible ones will take just as little as possible. A waterproof, an extra, suit of underclothing, some handkerchiefs and woolen stockings, together with the necessary articles of everyday toilet, will be quite enough. We shall each take an alpenstock, a strong pole with a sharp steel point on its end to aid us in climbing and in walking over the ice, and also smoked glasses to shield our eyes from the glare of the snow. Our guides will bring along ropes to tie us to them while passing over the dangerous places, and ice axes to cut steps into the walls of the glaciers and up the ice banks of the mountains. 249 250 SWITZERLAND. Switzerland is the most mountainous country of Europe. It contains the highest ranges of the Alps. It has several peaks almost three miles in height, and many which are clad with perpetual snow. It has hundreds of great glaciers or ice streams, which fill the mountain valleys and extend down into the green pastures and forests below. " Each must carry his own knapsack." It is not a large country. Altogether it has only about twice as much land as Massachusetts, and one third of it is ice and bare rocks. Another third is covered with forest, but here and there in the woods, in the valleys, and even high up in the mountains, there are good pastures. There are many small farms and rich vineyards, and in all about one ninth of the whole can be cultivated. This is not a great deal, but nevertheless Switzerland is one of the most important countries of Europe. The THE ALPS. 251 snow-clad mountains condense into rain the moisture of the winds which roar about them, and thus become the cradles of some of the greatest of the European rivers. Upon one slope of Saint Gothard the Rhine has its begin- ning in a little brook so narrow that we leap over it with our alpenstocks, and a few miles to the west on the same mountain, so near that we walk from one place to the other, is the great glacier out of which pours the Rhone. To the east are the first springs of the Danube, which forms a vast trade route through Southern Europe to the Black Sea ; and down the other side of the mountains flows the Ticino, the chief feeder of the Po, the principal river of Italy. These streams and others from the Alps water a vast territory; they have much to do in making Europe the richest of the continents, and they are entirely dependent on the mountains we are climbing. Could we rise high above Switzerland in a balloon and look down upon it, we should see that the Central Alps and the Jura with some highlands between them comprise the whole country. We should see that the Alps rise from the plateau, in several ranges ; and that they have many cross valleys ; but that Saint Gothard at the center is the chief dividing mass, with the great trench or valley of the Rhine running down one side of it to the north- east and the valley of the Rhone down the other to the southwest. As our balloon sank down and hovered over the snow masses, we should see that the mountains are cut up into all sorts of strange shapes. There are deep gorges with rocky walls half covered with green, beautiful lakes surrounded by snowy peaks which mirror themselves in the waters; there are silvery cascades, emerald meadows, and level uplands spotted with flowers, and indeed so much beautiful scenery that people come 252 SWITZERLAND. from all over the world to enjoy it and the life-giving air of the mountains. So many thousand tourists come that Switzerland is called the playground of Europe. There are hotels everywhere, and even on the tops of Mount Rigi, and several others of the highest Alps, we can find comfortable quarters. The tourists spend so many millions of dollars in Switzer- land every year that the people have made good roads to all the principal places and have built many hotels. They have constructed roads over the passes, and long tunnels through Mount Saint Gothard and others of the Alps, to carry people and merchandise by railroad to and from Italy. These tunnels and their railroads bring the Mediterranean and the North Sea within several days of each other, whereas before they were constructed the most of the goods were carried about through the Strait of Gibraltar, or to Marseilles and across France by rail. A cog railroad like those we have at Mount Washington and Pike's Peak was built up Mount Rigi many years ago, that travelers might see the view. This was so well patronized that similar roads have since been built to the tops of other peaks, so that Mark Twain has said there is now scarcely a great Alp that has not a railroad or ladder up its back like a pair of suspenders. This is, of course, an exaggeration. There are many conveniences for travelers ; but you cannot cross glaciers by railroad, and the most interesting places must be visited on foot. We take the railroad from Basel over the high plains to the foot of the Alps, and then tramp on our way up one mountain after another, through some of the grandest scenery of the world. The air grows colder as we go up. We leave the culti- vated farms and vineyards, climbing higher and higher, THE ALPS. 253 now passing through forests of beeches, chestnuts, and walnuts ; now walking along a mountain side overlooking a beautiful valley spotted with the cottages of the farm- ers; and now reaching the higher lands where there are Railroad up Mount Rigi. only forests of fir and pine trees, and pastures with cows, sheep, and goats feeding upon them. Higher still the trees disappear, and shrubs and strange flowers are alone to be seen. There are many bushes, lovely Alpine roses, and creeping azaleas. The grass is shorter than below, but it smells so sweet that we do not wonder the cattle and sheep greedily eat it. There are many small but bril- liant flowers among the rocks ; deep blue, light pink, and delicate purple blossoms are everywhere growing, even on the snow line, which we reach at eight or nine thousand feet above the sea. 254 SWITZERLAND. When we started we were in midsummer. Here we seem to be in midwinter, save that the sun is hot at mid- day, and we perspire as we climb. There is snow all around us. It banks the paths, it covers the rocks, and in the higher levels it is deep in the hollows. We see it melting under our feet only to freeze again at night, and turn the pathway to ice. The air is cold when the sun sets. It is damp where the wind blows over the snow. We frequently see white clouds float down from above over our pathway and wrap us in mist. Now they thicken, and we are walking in a light rain ; now the sun sends his rays through them, they disappear, and we are warm again. Near the tops of the mountains we travel slowly. The air is so thin that we sometimes gasp for breath. Our feet grow heavy and our hearts beat with the exertion. Much of the way is over dangerous paths where we move along in single file, each bound in one of the loops of a long rope which is tied to the guide; so that if one should slip, the others would keep him from dashing to pieces over the dizzy precipices along which we are crawling. In the same way we cross the ice wastes where there are cracks hundreds of feet deep, and where we pull ourselves along through the snows. The views are indescribable. At the foot of the mountains we see silvery lakes in nests of green hills, walled with these snowy peaks, which mirror themselves in their waters. In the gorges, roofed by the blue sky, rocks, half moss-covered and scarred by glaciers, rise pre- cipitously for a thousand feet, and at their feet roar and fcam rivers of milk-white glacier water as cold as the icy caves in which they are born. From the peaks we see snowy mountains, one climbing THE ALPS. 255 over the other until they are lost in the blue sky of the horizon. Below is the jumbled mass of green forest and gray rock, and, beyond the snow line, the glassy lakes and silvery streams reflecting the sun and the green pastures, with the dots and spots upon them marking the cattle and the homes of the peasants, while still far below, with our glasses, we can see the towns and cities of the plains. " Much of the way is over dangerous paths." Among our most interesting journeys are those over the glaciers, those great snow rivers of the Alps which were frozen ages ago and which are freezing still. They are vast masses of ice and snow, filling the gorges high up in the mountains ; and slowly, slowly moving down into the valleys, writing their diaries upon the rocks and earth through which they are plowing their way. Switzerland has hundreds of these mighty frozen cataracts or ice rivers. CARP. EUROPE — 1 6 256 SWITZERLAND. The best place to see them is in the Valley of Chamouni (sha-moo-ne'), high up on the side of Mont Blanc. The summit of this mountain is just over the border in France but so much of its slope is in Switzerland that many people have looked upon it as a Swiss mountain. It is, with the exception of certain peaks of the Caucasus, the highest mountain in Europe, its snow-clad peak rising 15,781 feet above the sea, and high above the Valley of Chamouni into which sixty-four of its great glaciers drain. We walk across the Tete Noire (tat nwar) Pass to Chamouni, where we stay over night at one of the hotels to get an early start for the glaciers. The sun is just rising when we come to the great walls of ice beyond the terminal moraines. Our guides cut steps into the ice, and climbing up, help us along by the ropes they have fastened about their waists. It is hard work, our hands are sore with the pulling and cold where we have seized the ice to hold on, but at last we reach the top and stand on the glacier. We are now in the midst of a wide, turbu- lent ice river. The waves are piled up in all sorts of shapes, and the surface looks as though the stream had been rolling and tossing like the sea in a storm, when by the wand of Jack Frost it was changed into ice. The surface of the glacier is rough with little peaks here and there. It has many great cracks or crevasses, some of which are several hundred feet deep. We lean over one and hear the water rolling along away down there under the great mass of ice. There are streams of ice water flowing into the cracks and crossing the glacier this way and that. Here is a pool and there is a great crevasse half filled with melted snow. We get down on our knees, and take a drink of ice water from the pool, and then start over the glacier. We drive the steei THE ALPS. 257 points of our alpenstocks into the snowy white surface to steady ourselves, although we are tied with ropes to one another and to the guide. In single file we thus make our way up the frozen river, now jumping a crevasse, now winding about to avoid the greater ice mounds, and now skirting the banks or moraines, the masses of boul- Mer de Glace. ders and clay which the glacier has forced up and is carry- ing along as it moves on its way. And is this glacier moving ? Let us stop and watch it. We hear a great crack now and then, and sometimes a stone rolls down from the mountains upon it ; but we see no signs of motion in the great icy river under our feet. And still it is moving now as it has been moving for ages. It is one of the oldest travelers of history. It began its 258 SWITZERLAND. journey centuries ago, and it will probably go on for ages to come. It is traveling at the rate of two feet per day, or about an inch every hour. Be careful how you jump across that crevasse ! If you should slip you might be lost in the ice, and by the rope to "We travel under the Saint Gothard Pass." which we are tied pull us all down to destruction, as was the case of eight travelers on one of these Mont Blanc glaciers in 1820. They were walking along just as we are, when they slipped and were buried two hundred feet deep in the Grande Crevasse. The snow covered their remains, and it was not until about forty years later that THE ALPS. 259 Lake Como. their frozen bodies began to appear at the end of the glacier. In that time they had traveled about five miles, or six hundred and eighty feet per year, borne along in the glacier. After exploring the Mer de Glace (mar d' glas), or Sea of Ice, and other glaciers about Chamouni, we climb through the snows to the top of Mont Blanc, and later on go up the Rigi and other mountains by cog railroads. We travel under the Saint Gothard Pass through its famous tunnel ten miles long to the south side of the Alps ; and after visiting the Lakes of Como and Maggiore (mad-jo'ra) come back over the Simplon (saN-ploN 1 ) Pass in a great coach drawn by six horses, three abreast. We have seats on the roof so high up that we need a ladder to reach them. Each of the horses has a necklace of bells which jingle merrily as we gallop along. The coachman blows a 2DO SWITZERLAND. horn now and then, and the people come out and stare at us as we dash through the villages and down the steep hills. We spend one night at the Hospice, a large stone house on the top of the mountain, where we are entertained by the monks. They are kind-faced, shaven-headed men, in cowls and long gowns, who live here high up in the Alps all the year round to succor travelers who may be lost in the storm. They show us the huge red and white St. Bernard dogs, which are trained to hunt for persons who may, perhaps, have been lost in the snow, or knocked senseless by an avalanche, or by a stone falling down from the mountains. Every day during the winter these dogs are sent out, each carrying some food and a small bottle of brandy about its neck. When they find a lost traveler who is unconscious, they endeavor to arouse him ; they sit down beside him and howl for their masters, or perhaps run back to the Hospice and lead them to the spot. XXVII. THE SWISS PEOPLE AND HOW THEY ARE GOVERNED. WHAT a busy country Switzerland is! It is the playground of Europe, but it is the workshop of the Swiss. Every one of the natives seems to be busy. The men are doing all sorts of work, and the women knit and make lace even while they are resting from their other labors. All are well dressed according to their station. There are no beggars, and no one seems to be suffering. The cities are clean and well kept The houses have gardens about them in which are beautiful roses and other flowers ; the stores are filled with fine goods, and all the surroundings are those of thrift and good living. The THE SWISS PEOPLE. 26l Swiss, although there are more than three millions of them in their little mountainous country, have become the most prosperous people of Europe. They all make a good liv- ing, and many grow wealthy. How do they do it? In all sorts of ways. They are skilled in manufacturing and trading. Their little country is surrounded by rich nations, and they have commerce with all of them, export- ing many million dol- lars' worth of goods every year. They are one of the chief of the manufactur- ing nations. They not only work them- selves, but make their mountains work for them, using the water power furnished by the turbulent streams to run thousands of factories and mills of all kinds. About Zurich, on a beautiful lake, cot- Making Lace. tons, woolens, and silks are produced; at Basel, on the Rhine, ribbons as beautiful as those we saw made in France are woven by hand, and at St. Gall trimmings, em- broideries, and laces of all kinds are manufactured for export to Europe and the United States. If you want a fine music box you can buy wonderful ones at Geneva, and as for watches, they are sold at such low prices that we are tempted to carry several home to 262 SWITZERLAND. our friends. In many towns in the Jura Mountains, and about Lake Geneva, nearly every one seems busy making watches and clocks. Some are filing out the cog wheels, others adjusting the springs or polishing the cases. Swiss watches are sold all over the world, and many are sent to our country. It is really wonderful, the different things they do in the villages. Each town has its own specialty. In some places the people are all making leather goods, in others they are carving things out of wood, and in others turning out manufactures of metal by machinery and hand. In one district on the south side of the Alps the people breed silkworms, and in the canton of Grisons they raise snails for sale. In some mountain villages the boys learn special trades, and go to other parts of Europe to practice them. One town sends out skillful masons and glaziers, another is noted for its fine pastry cooks, another for its chimney sweeps, while others supply waiters for the big hotels all over Europe. We see the people farming everywhere as we travel through Switzerland. Their country is so small that they have to import much of their food, but they raise all they can. Nearly every family owns some land, and there are three hundred thousand feasant farmers. We find patches of cabbages and potatoes, little hay fields and pastures almost to the line of perpetual snow, and every bit of the plains and valleys is given up to orchards and vineyards, grain fields and hay fields, and gardens raising all sorts of vegetables. We are surprised at the smallness of the farms in the mountains. Some of the fields are no bigger than a bed quilt, and others are so steep and rocky that they cannot be plowed, but are dug up with spades and hoes. The THE SWISS PEOPLE. 263 r*' t. 3^i &&■"'■'&.#$ A Vl ~ i V'^rr n.V ^^vr:'^^ ' 4I B*^ ^f \\B Jit.' W v * Pir "' ^ ?■ a fa <£C *~ , " j, ,,r * ft k. ■"...: \V~ . ' - "'- I - . ' - ^-% ^ ■wfe ^fr'J' " V» <^ !v ••'^wpiBBii , 4*, > Eg^. -ri^'jfc " ' : *«x}l • - "'■""-. 3F ^* J^^L "They carry loads on their backs." grass must be cut down with sickles or scythes, and carried to the barns on pitchforks or in blankets or baskets on the backs of women and men. We see women and children everywhere working. They tend the cows in the mountains, knitting as they keep them from straying. They carry loads on their backs over the roads, and on some of the farms they really seem to be very beasts of burden. We see them tottering along with heavy baskets on their backs, held there by straps like knapsacks. There is a family preparing a hillside for planting! The field is so steep we use our alpenstocks to climb it, and yet the women and children are walking 264 SWITZERLAND. up with heavy loads on their backs. They are carrying up the manure from that stable on the other end of the road. The father of the family is loading the stuff with a fork into baskets on the backs of the women and children. That old woman who stands there may be the Swiss Vineyard. grandmother, for her hair is gray, and her face is covered with wrinkles. She is leaning down, for her basket is full ; now she totters up the hill, and bending down, pitches her load out on the ground over her head. Now a girl of eight and a boy of ten, each carrying a similar basket, have taken their places at the pile, and the man is filling THE SWISS PEOPLE. 265 the baskets, while a woman, who may be their mother, awaits her turn at the work. A little farther on we see some girls picking up stones, and near them two women are spading the sod. Just across the road a man and a woman are planting a field, and still farther down an ox cart driven by a boy is climbing the hill. House in the Highlands. Here in the mountains are the chief pasture lands of Switzerland. The country is noted for its excellent butter and cheese, which are shipped everywhere. The grass is rich, and it has such a sweet smell that the milk and butter are both fragrant and delicious. We pass many dairies, and we hear the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of the bells on the necks of the cows. In many villages the pasture lands are held in common, 266 SWITZERLAND. and the cows are sent out to them under the care of the village herdsman. He drives them to the highlands in the spring, going higher and higher as the snow melts, and coming back in the autumn as the snow falls. He has a house, and sometimes a dairy, away up in the mountains, where, with his assistants, he makes butter and cheese, sending some from time to time to the village. In the farms farther down the cheese is often made in the living room of the family, and the hayloft and stables are often a part of the chalet, or cottage, the cows living under the same roof with the people. There are lumber camps and sawmills along the moun- tain streams, and huts and cottages are to be seen every- where. In the highlands many of the houses are of only one story, with low, wide, overhanging roofs, on which flat stones have been laid to keep the fierce winds from tearing them off. Almost all the houses are of wood, but they are comfortable, and many are very picturesque; they have roses and other flowers about them, and are often covered with vines. The Swiss of the lower lands, and especially of the cities, dress much like the people of other parts of Europe ; but in the mountains there are many strange costumes. The women wear short skirts, with their arms bare to the elbows. Their best gowns have velvet vests decorated with rows of big silver buttons and silver chains. They have curious headdresses of cotton and lace, which vary in the dif- ferent parts of the country. The men often wear hats with feathers in them and velveteen suits with great silver buttons. The Swiss are a very strong people. They are so noted for their powers of endurance and bravery that in the past the other nations were glad to hire them as soldiers. At THE SWISS PEOPLE. 267 Lucerne there is a huge lion carved out of the side of a rock to commemorate the bravery of the Swiss Guard in defending the king of France at the time of the Revolution. The brave Swiss died at their posts rather than admit the Lucerne. mob, and this monument has been erected at their native place in praise of their devotion to duty. In recent years the custom of hiring men out to fight has passed away, for the Swiss prefer to remain among their own mountains in the land they so dearly love. They pride themselves on their freedom, and look upon their country as the birth- place of liberty. Switzerland is the oldest of the republics, now in exist- ence. Its people governed themselves long before America was discovered, and many stories are told of their inde- 268 SWITZERLAND, pendence and pride. We have all heard of William Tell ; how he refused to bow down before the cap of Gessler, the Austrian governor, and how, as a punishment, he was required to shoot the apple off his little son's head in the market place of Altorf near Lucerne. He did shoot at the apple and hit it ; but he had also another arrow, with which he expected to shoot Gessler, if he had wounded his son. There are people who will tell you this story is not true ; but the Swiss, who should know, evidently believe it, and in Lucerne celebrations in honor of Tell are held every year. The government of the Swiss republic is somewhat different from ours. The little country is divided up into twenty-two cantons or districts, each of which has its own local government, and elects members to a National Con- gress which sits at the capital, the city of Bern. These little cantons correspond to our states ; but they are governed differently, and some of them have curious ways of making their laws. In certain cantons, the men all meet together at a fixed time in a large field, and there, out on the grass, they elect their officers, and make the laws. In the larger cantons, they choose men to make their laws for them, but even there important things must be voted on by the people themselves. At Bern we learn all about the National Congress, which has to do with matters which concern the whole country, having much the same powers as our Congress. It even elects the president and vice president, and makes all treaties and provisions for the defense of the nation. Switzerland has fortifications at the passes over the Alps, and also in some other places. According to law a stand- ing army cannot be maintained within the country ; but every Swiss serves as a soldier for a part of his life, and THE SWISS PEOPLE. 269 every public school has its military drills, in which the boys, beginning at eight years of age, are taught to bear arms. So if the nation should be attacked, it could put half a million men at once in the field. The Congress has charge of the railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, with which the country is well supplied. The Swiss republic keeps up a good postal system. It has such excellent schools, and so many universities, that its people are amongst the best educated, and most intelligent of Europe. Nearly every one speaks two or more lan- guages, for the nation has no language especially its own. In most of the cantons of northern and eastern Switzer- land they speak German, in the districts nearest France they speak French, and on the southern side of the Alps many speak Italian. There are so many American and English travelers that English is taught in the schools; and we find people everywhere with whom we can talk. We are delighted with the cities of Switzerland. There are not many of them, for most of the people live in small towns and villages. Zurich, about the size of Indianapolis, is the largest city, then comes Basel, noted for its manu- facturing, Geneva, the commercial and business center of the country, and then the capital, Bern. We spend some time in Bern. It is a quaint, old- fashioned town lying under the shadow of the Alps on both sides of the turbulent river Aar. Its streets run up hill and down, and the houses of the upper level sometimes hang out over those below. The most of the buildings are of gray stone, with roofs of red tiles. The stores front on arcades or cloisters, which seem as dark as a pocket, when you enter them from the dazzling sunlight outside. Beside the doors, out in the arcades, are benches or chairs, on which women sit knitting, while they sell toys, fruit, and laces. 270 SWITZERLAND. We go to the federal palace to call upon the president. We visit the public gardens, and stop for a moment before the hideous statue of the Child-eating Ogre. This is a figure of a giant sitting on a stone column, with a bundle of babies beside him. He has taken a baby out of the bundle with his right hand, and is putting it into his mouth, while the other little ones calmly wait their turns to be eaten. The " We visit the bear v giant is horrid, and we may see it again in our dreams, imagining ourselves in his power. We next visit the bear pit, a well with a railing about it where some huge bears are always kept by the cir honor of its name " Bern," which means bear. For the same reason there are stone bears ornamenting many of the buildings, and also the procession of little wooden bears, which every hour comes out of the great clock on FROM ULM TO VIENNA. 27 1 the tower in the center of the city. As the clock strikes, a cock claps his wings, and crows, and then the bears come forth, and bow their heads, as they march about a figure of old Father Time, who reviews them. We buy some bread and apples from an old woman, near the bear pit, and feed the live monsters, which stand on their hind legs and catch the food in their red mouths as it falls. Later on we buy gingerbread bears, and bears of white candy, with red peppermint tongues, at a cook shop near by, and also toy bears of brass and carved wood, to take home as mementos of Bern. *<*<: XXVIII. THE UPPER DANUBE — FROM ULM TO VIENNA. THE Danube is, next to the Volga, the largest river of Europe. It drains a basin more than six times the size of the state of New York, and is also connected by canals with the basins of the Rhine and the Elbe. It is about twice as long as the Rhine, and is quite as important as a commercial water way. Until about the time Columbus discovered America, the Danube was one of the two chief trade routes from Asia to Europe. Then no one thought it possible to go to India and China by sea, as is now done, about the Cape of Good Hope, or through the Suez Canal. All the spices, tea, and dried fruits, all the fine silks, pearls, and other beau- tiful things from China, Japan, India, and the various parts of Asia, were carried overland to the Mediterranean ports. Here they were shipped either to Venice, tc be taken across the Alps to the Rhine, or to Constantinople and CARP. EUROPE — 17 2?2 THE UPPER DANUBE. across the Black Sea to the mouths of the Danube, and on up that stream to be transferred to the Rhine. In the same way woolen clothes and other goods from Hol- land, Belgium, France, Germany, and England, were sent up the Rhine and thence down the Danube to Constan- tinople. The Danube :*:< XXIX. IN THE CAPITAL OF AUSTRIA- HUNGARY BEFORE we go out to explore Vienna I want to tell you something about the great country of which it is the capital. Austria-Hungary is larger than any land we have yet visited. It is the largest country of Europe except Russia, and it has more different nations in it than IN THE CAPITAL OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 28l any other. You may think its people are much like the Germans. So they are in the western part through which we have passed, and also here in Vienna ; but in Bohemia at the north they have a different language, near Russia they speak the Po- lish, and on the bor- ders of Italy they speak Italian. Aus- tria has thousands of schools where the children are taught in the Czechs (chechs or cheks) tongue, and other thousands where they speak the Slav. In Hungary it is even worse. There are many there who speak Magyar, and many who talk like our gypsies ; other dialects are almost Turkish. There are so many strange languages that if we leave the main traveled roads we shall need a new guide every day. We shall find the people are as odd as their speech, for they are of many races joined together under one ruler. There are in all more than forty millions of them, and they are a very great nation indeed. The people are as odd as their speech.' Roumanian Girls. 282 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. The Austro-Hungarians have one of the richest coun- tries of Europe, although it is not so fully developed as those through which we have traveled. The land is one of many mountains and two very large plains. The moun- tains comprise the Eastern Alps or the Tyrol, where the scenery is much like that of Switzerland, and the Transyl- vanian and Carpathian Mountains, which are wilder, as well as smaller ranges. All the mountains contain min- erals, including coal, iron, gold, silver, quicksilver, lead, copper, and zinc. Some have great beds of salt and others deposits of sulphur, bismuth, and alum. Some are also covered with dense forests, in which are bears, wolves, deer, and wild hogs. At the north, surrounded by hills in the upper basin of the Elbe, is the plateau of Bohemia. It is very near the thickly populated district of Saxony, which we visited after leaving Berlin. Here the land is densely populated. There are many factories, glass works, and other industries sup- ported by the coal and other minerals near by. At the south, in the basin of the Danube, partially walled in by the Carpathian and Transylvanian Mountains, is the vast flat plain of Hungary, which produces so much wheat, rye, corn, and barley that it is called the granary of Europe. It feeds millions of sheep, hogs, and cattle, and raises food stuffs for export. Not one of the other countries we have visited raises enough food for its own people. Austria-Hungary not only supplies its own people, but is able to sell meat, flour, and grain to Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France, and England. It is rapidly growing as a manufacturing country, and although it is in the heart of southern Europe, with only a small strip of seacoast, it has a large trade with other nations. It has two thriving ports at the IN THE CAPITAL OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 283 head of the Adriatic Sea in the cities of Trieste and Fiume, and by the Danube it sends grain down to the Black Sea, and out through the Bosporus to all parts of the world. At Vienna we learn how the empire is governed. The two states of which it is comcjsed are independent of each other in most things, but chey have only one ruler as to national affairs. Do you remember any other part ot Europe which is governed in this way? We found the same thing in Norway and Swe- den, but the people there were of one race. Here, as we have seen, they are of many different races and hence are less closely joined. Austria and Hun- gary form the Austro - Hungarian monarchy, which is a union of the Aus- trian empire and the Hungarian king- dom, under a ruler who has the titles of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Hungary. The ruler is required to spend part of the year in each country. His home in Austria is at its capital, Vienna, and in Hungary at Buda- pest (boo'do-pest), the capital of that country. He has palaces in both places, but exercises far more power over the Austrians than over the Hungarians. Each country has its own Congress, elected by the vote of its people, and it therefore governs itself ; although for The Emperor's Bodyguard. 284 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. defense and for dealings with other nations it is united in a combined monarchy. For instance, one minister repre- sents the two countries at Washington. Take a look at your map and notice the extensive frontier of Austria- Hungary. It is almost as long as the distance from California to China. The monarchy is sur- rounded by other nations, its only strip of seacoast being upon the narrow Adriatic Sea, with Italy just over the way. The result is that large fortresses and a great army are required to defend it. We shall meet almost as many soldiers here as in Germany. Every man belongs to the army, and must be ready to go out to fight at any time, so that if war were declared four million soldiers could at once be put into the field. It costs a vast amount to sup- port such large armies, and the people must therefore pay heavy taxes. Is it not a fine thing for us that our country is off by itself and so protected by the oceans that we can get along with few soldiers ? But let us start out for a ride through Vienna. Here we are on Ring Street, the wide avenue which surrounds the heart of the city. It is a broad street about two miles in length, with double rows of linden trees in the center, lined with such magnificent buildings that it has been called the finest street of the world. Here are the Houses of Parliament, the university containing six thousand stu- dents, the great museums and picture galleries, the large hotels, and so many fine stores that we seem to be driving through a long exposition. The buildings are enormous. Some single establishments cover a whole block. Nearly all have five or six stories, with stores on the ground floor and apartments above, like the houses we saw in Berlin. The Viennese live in flats, and very few single families own a whole house. IN THE CAPITAL OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 285 How gay and lively everything is ! Did you ever see more beautiful stores, better buildings, or people who seem to enjoy themselves more ? Vienna vies with Paris as the gayest city of Europe. Its people are noted for their fondness for pleasure and their extravagant ways. They are said to have more rich among them than any other city on the Continent. Every one lives up to his means and all seem to live for the day. They are well dressed and fond of showing their clothes. They are famous for their jollity and their love of music. There are concert halls in every section of the city, and the Im- perial Opera House on Ring Street is one of the largest of the world. As we stroll along through the well-dressed crowds on the streets we see many strange faces and costumes. There comes a dark-bearded Turk with a red fez cap on his head. Behind him is a light-haired Jew from Bohemia, with two blond curls hanging down in front of his ears, while farther back are a Bulgarian peddling canes, a gypsy from the lower Danube, and two Greeks in skirts. We stop a few moments to watch the crowds as they pass, seeing Hungarians ,and Bohemians, Italians and Rus- sians, Armenians and Swedes, as well as Germans and French, and " 7 we ** many stra f, ge , . ,. _ _ faces and costumes. others from all parts of Europe. Vienna is at one of the great crossroads of this conti- nent, and people of all nations pass through her wide streets. One human stream of many races flows up the valley of the Danube, coming out of the Orient, and an- other from northern and western Europe is always flowing 286 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. down. A third stream comes from Italy across the low passes of the Austrian Alps on its way to and from Russia and Germany by way of Bohemia, the Elbe and Oder, and others flow down from East Russia and Germany. It was its situation at the junction of these great streams that first started Vienna. Even in the Middle Ages it was con- sidered a good place for commerce and trade, and of late years railroads have been built out from it in every direc- tion, so that it is now connected by steel tracks with all other parts of Europe. To-day fast express trains will take you from here to Berlin or to Rome, or by the famous Orient Express you may almost fly to Paris or Constanti- nople. Vienna is also the center of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and as such is the supply point for a large part of the trade of its fifty millions of people. But let us take a stroll out to the Prater (pra'ter), the chief pleasure grounds of this pleasure-loving city. It is a great forest park, embraced in the arms of the Danube, and reached by bridges filled with foot passengers and vehicles going over and back. The Prater has about four thousand acres of oaks, ash, chestnuts, and elms, the branches of which meet over its driveways and shut out the sun. It has lakes and canals, and velvety lawns, and shady nooks with seats under the trees. Formerly it had many tame deer, which ran about through the woods and allowed the children to pet them. But here we are just inside the park. How crowded it is, and how all are enjoying themselves ! We are hustled this way and that by the good-natured people, who beg our pardon in German for rubbing against us. We say, " Bitte," which, as they understand, means "it does not matter," and go along with them. Soon we come to a part of the grounds where there are more shows for children IN THE CAPITAL OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 287 than at Coney Island and Atlantic City combined ; and we are glad of the fun after our hard study and travel. We take rides upon the wooden horses, lions, elephants, and camels of the merry-go-rounds ; we fly about on the roller coaster railroads; we slide down "chutes" like lightning, and see so many peep shows, Punch and Judys, and But let us take a stroll out to the Prater." other things, that we are almost distracted. Then there are donkeys to ride, and so many goat and dog carriages to drive that we can't try them all, although the fare in most cases is only five kreutzers, or about two cents of our money. We see many little Austrians picnicking under the trees, and watch boys and girls with their mothers eating at the restaurants, while they listen to the music of the bands. CARP. EUROPE — 1 8 288 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. We look in at the concert hall, where hundreds are danc- ing, and take a free plunge into the city baths, where more than a thousand can wash themselves at one time. We then go to the Haupt Allee, to watch the splendid car- riages of the rich, who drive there every evening, and then walk out and take the street cars back to our hotel. Another day is spent in the Belvedere Picture Gallery, the great museums, and the imperial library, one of the We visit the emperor's palace. largest of the world. We visit the emperor's palace, and linger long in the treasure vaults, carefully watched by the guards ; for here, spread out in cases before our eyes, separated from us only by plates of glass, are some of the most valuable diamonds, pearls, and other precious stones that have ever been found. Among them is the Florentine diamond that Charles, the Bold lost on the battlefield of Granson in 1476. It was picked up by a IN THE CAPITAL OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 289 Swiss soldier, who thought it a piece of glass and sold it to a merchant of Bern for two dollars and a half, although it is now valued at $125,000. Near this diamond is an emerald which weighs almost three thousand carats, and in the cases about us are so many necklaces, crowns, and other things set with diamonds, that our eyes are dazzled by them, and we wonder if we have not by mistake got into the cave of Aladdin, and look about for the lamp to rub our way out. There are cups, vases, and basins of gold beautifully carved, the crown of Charlemagne, the sword of Haroun al Raschid, a Persian ruler who figures in the "Arabian Nights," and also the silver cradle set with jewels in which Napoleon's little son, the king of Rome, lay when a baby. The cradle weighs five hundred pounds, and we wonder if the nurse did not grow tired rocking it when the little king was fretful over cutting his teeth. We climb to the top of the great cathedral of Saint Ste- phen's for a look over Vienna. The spire is four hundred and fifty feet high, and we have a grand view of the city and its surroundings. Below us lie many of the battle- fields of the past ; we look over the wooded hills in the distance and see the wide Danube, spotted with shipping, flowing amongst them. The forests, we are told, once came clear to the square in which the church stands, and beside one of the buildings upon it there is a stump pro- tected by iron bands which once marked the limit of those great woods of the past. It is called the Iron Stick, and its surface is studded with nails driven in by the locksmiths of Vienna. According to our guide, each smith had the right to put in a nail upon leaving the city, after which it was supposed he would have the protection of the spirits and be lucky. 290 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. " — we walk through the Graben." Coming out of the cathedral, we walk through the Graben, one of the oldest streets of Vienna and its chief shopping section. The stores have plate glass windows in which are displayed all sorts of beautiful things made of leather, ivory, silver, and gold. There are quantities of fine china and cut glass, and almost as many knickknacks and notions as we saw on the boulevards of Paris. Vienna is noted for its novelties. It weaves silks, cottons, and woolens ; has great works in which machines of many kinds are turned out, and it has factories of almost every description. The people manufacture many things in their homes, and we notice that the lives of the poorer classes are by no means all play. The women do as much work as the men. They wait upon us in the stores, they are the cashiers of the restau- rants, and while we eat and drink our ears are delighted IN THE CAPITAL OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 29 1 by bands of female musicians. The Austrian women do all sorts of work in the factories, and in Vienna itself we sometimes see them pushing loaded wheelbarrows through the streets, and even carrying bricks and mortar on their shoulders up ladders to the masons on the new buildings. They have long hours and receive less wages than the men. Among the most beautiful things in the stores of Vienna are the various kinds of Bohemian glassware and jewelry, including opals and garnets. The opals are from Hungary ; and the garnets are so cheap that we ask where they come from, and are told that they are mined in Bohe- mia, not far from Prague. Garnets are precious stones which lie in the earth mixed with gravel. In gathering them the dirt is first washed off, and the stones- are then sorted by running them through sieves. After this, they are cut much as we saw them cutting diamonds in Amster- dam, save that emery paste instead of diamond dust is put on the revolving grinding plates. The garnets are fastened to sticks with cement, and are held against the plates in such a way that many sides or facets are cut in them. The most beautiful are of a bright red color, although white, yellow, green, and black garnets are found. During our stay in Vienna we take many excursions to the suburbs, visiting among other places the emperor's summer palace at Shoenbrunn (shon'broon), where Napo- leon Bonaparte had his headquarters when he besieged Vienna and made it surrender. The garden and park are both beautiful. There are long avenues broken by statues and fountains, and the whole looks more like fairyland than sober nature. Every tree has been cut and trimmed into some curious form. At one place there is a wall of green r -fifty feet high, as smooth as though it were made by a sculptor, and in others are trees of all shapes. ; >>t4 Truth B. fPtwSk x o r i l>^__. S -i \! ^7 s > »8 fa ^ C5. #^ ##r< wp» if Ml WW- • ? ^s (292) HUNGARY AND THE HUNGARIANS. 293 XXX. HUNGARY AND THE HUNGARIANS. WE take the steamer at seven o'clock in the morning and have an all day ride down the Danube to Buda- pest, the capital of Hungary. Our ship is as comfortable as that in which we sailed up the Rhine. It is crowded with peasants on the two lower decks, but we are above, In the first class, and have plenty of room. We take our camp stools out under the awnings which have been stretched over the steamer, and make notes of the scenery as we steam on our way. The river widens as we leave Vienna, branching out into great arms embracing islands covered with woods. We pass gardens, orchards, and vineyards in which men, women, and children are working, and steam on by quaint villages where the boys stand on the banks and cry out salutations in German to us as we go by. After a few hours we pass out of Austria and enter Hungary, one of the richest countries in Europe. It is more than fifteen times as big as Massachusetts; and al- most the whole of it has excellent soil. The northern part, where we enter the kingdom, is hilly ; we pass through the little Carpathian Mountains where the Danube has cut its way down to the great plains which lie just below. Now we are stopping at Pressburg, a little city with a ruined castle standing on the hill high above it. This town is noted in Hungarian history. For generations the kings were crowned in one of its churches, and its Parliament sat in that castle there on the hill. At one time, when it was sitting, Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary and a claimant of the Austrian throne, was attacked by several of the great nations of Europe. The young queen, so it is said, 294 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. appeared before the Parliament with her little baby boy in her arms. She held the boy out before her and appealed to the members to aid her in maintaining his rights. She was so beautiful, so brave, and so eloquent that she carried the Parliament by storm ; the nobles arose and cried out, Pressburg. "We will die for our queen, the brave Maria Theresa!" They fought for her, and it was through their help that she succeeded in holding her own. From Pressburg we steam rapidly southward, passing many more towns and villages. There are railroads all along the banks of the Danube, and the region seems to HUNGARY AND THE HUNGARIANS. 295 have a great population. As we approach Budapest, we ride for miles through densely populated suburbs before coming to anchor at the stone quays. We are surprised at Budapest. We knew it was the capital of Hungary, but it seemed so out of the way that Quays, Budapest we had not thought of it as one of the most beautiful cities of Europe. Indeed, in many respects it is finer than Vienna, although it is much smaller. The city lies on both banks of the Danube. Six great bridges have been built across from one side to the other, and there is a 296 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. suspension bridge which makes us think of our bridges at Cincinnati and Niagara Falls. We ask why a city has grown up at this point, and are told that Budapest lies at the northern end of the great Hungarian plain where the highlands begin, and that its situation on the Danube makes it the best supply place and shipping place for this rich agricultural region. We see many large steam flour mills on the banks of the river, with hundreds of vessels and barges beside them, loading and unloading flour and grain. Budapest is the Minneapolis of Europe. It is one of its chief milling centers, for there are vast wheat fields all about it, and Hungarian wheat is of such excellent quality that bakers will pay the highest prices for its flour. Budapest is so situated that it has naturally become a great railroad center. We can get through express trains from here to Paris and Constantinople, and there are lines connecting us with all other parts of the Hungarian king- dom and with every other section of Europe. The city has also grown because it has been the capital of the many mil- lions of the Hungarian people, and because it is*the center of their social life, and manufactures, commerce, and trade. We land in Budapest on the left bank of the river. The town on the right bank is called Buda and that on the left Pest, the two now forming one city. The towns were for a long time separate, Buda being the older. Indeed, Buda was an important place in the time of the Romans and it has still the palace of the king. With this exception it is of no great importance, for Pest has outstripped it, having by far the greater part of the half million people who live in the two towns. It is in Pest that the chief buildings are situated, and there we find all the large stores, the best residences, and HUNGARY AND THE HUNGARIANS. 297 Suspension Bridge, Budapest. the great government buildings. We walk from the boat to our hotel. The streets are wide and well kept. They are paved with asphalt, and now in the dusk of the early- evening we see electric lights in long lines, while between them electric cars are flying in both directions. Budapest was the first of the capitals of Europe to introduce electric railroads, and we can ride in electric cars under the streets in tunnels which have been made for the purpose. Our hotel is on Franz Joseph Square, not far from the river. The long steamboat ride has made us quite hungry, and we appreciate the meal, which is served in Hungarian fashion. Everything is well cooked and the food is deli- cious. The band plays as we eat, and the small fee we give at the close of the meal makes the waiters address us with respect, and insures us good service thereafter. The custom of feeing is common in all the cities of Europe. 298 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. The hotel waiters expect it; but in Budapest they are easily satisfied, and there is no other place where one gets so much honor for so little money. If you hand the man two kreutzers, an amount equal to one of our cents, he Royal Palace, Budapest. will address you as " Sir." If you give him three cents he will probably call you "your Highness," and for six cents you can be elevated to the rank of the nobility. We spend some time in Budapest. It is a gay city, with many theaters, concert halls, and garden cafes, where the people sit out of doors and partake of HUNGARY AND THE HUNGARIANS. 299 refreshments while they listen to the music. We go to Margaret Island one afternoon, and eat our supper under the trees while the gypsy band plays. This island is the chief pleasure ground of Budapest. It makes us think of the Prater in Vienna, for there are many peep shows, concerts, and merry-go-rounds. We enjoy ourselves in strolling along the fine drives, and watching the chil- dren play on the grass. It is funny to see the babies carried around by their nurse maids on pillows. Each little one is pinned down under a white muslin cloth so that it cannot raise its arms or even kick very high. The babies wink and blink as we look at them, and sometimes one cries out in fright at the strange Americans. Returning to the city, we take a drive through the wide Andrassy Road, a boulevard more than two miles in length, lined with magnificent pal- aces and villas, surrounded by gardens. We visit the Parliament Houses, the mar- kets, and the great picture galleries. Budapest has pub- lic libraries, a university containing more than four thousand students, and all sorts of schools, including kindergartens for children of from three to six years. The schools of Budapest are conducted in the Magyar language, but in many parts of Hungary other languages are used. There are seventeen different peoples living in Hungary, each of which has its own dialect, so that it is Peasants. 300 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. difficult for even a Hungarian to make himself understood in all parts of his country. There are Magyars, Slovaks, Roumanians, Bulgarians, Servians, Germans, Jews, gypsies, and many others. The Magyars are the ruling race, and they own the richest parts of the country. They originally came from Asia, but centuries ago made their way up the Danube, and settled in Hungary. They are a very brave people, patriotic and strong, proud and hospitable. They are fond of titles, and children are taught to show great respect to their elders as well as to one another. On ceremonial occasions a child addresses its father as Mr. Father, and its mother as Mrs. Mother. The oldest brother is then called Mr. Elder Brother, and the oldest sister Miss Elder Sister, w T hile the younger members of the family may be Miss Younger Sister and Mr. Younger Brother. The better classes of the Magyars are well educated. The rich dress in costly clothing, the court costume of the men being a satin jacket embroidered with geld, tight- fitting breeches, and top boots with spurs, to which are added a belt of gold and a fur cap, sometimes orna- mented with precious stones. The dress of the peasants of Hungary varies with the locality. We see strangely clad people in the markets of Budapest, and we shall meet others at almost every port, as w r e go on down the Danube. It seems queer to see women wearing top boots, but we grow accustomed to this long before we leave Hungary. The women of many sections have on boots of green, red, and other bright- colored leathers, which reach almost to their knees. They wear short skirts, and often have tight-fitting waists of different colors, and aprons which are beautifully embroid- ered. They seldom wear bonnets, and frequently have ON THE LOWER DANUBE. 3OI nothing at all on their heads. In some places their hair is braided into one long plait interwoven with ribbons which are tied in a bow at the end. The dress of the peasant men is as odd as that of the women. One costume consists of a jacket with silver or nickel buttons, a bright red waistcoat with white linen sleeves of great width, and wide fringed drawers which are embroidered with red and green, and tucked into high top boots. In the winter many of the peasants wear sheep- skin coats with the wool inside, and in the summer they sometimes have similar coats with the wool showing. In the Carpathian Mountains are the Slovaks, whose dress is somewhat like the Magyars', but not so neat. They wear the top boots and wide short trousers, but instead of a waistcoat they have a broad yellow belt a yard wide covered with buttons, coins, and other ornaments. These people have large hats, and woolen coats of white embroidered in red and green. The women plait ribbons in their hair, and then tie it up around their heads. The gypsies have their peculiar costume, and so have the peo- ple of nearly every other Hungarian tribe. 3>^C XXXI. ON THE LOWER DANUBE FROM BUDAPEST TO THE BLACK SEA. ALONG the lower Danube are some of the most inter- esting parts of Europe. The river flows across the great plain of Hungary, and between the Transylvanian Alps, and the Balkan Mountains, through lands inhabited by strange peoples, many of which are little civilized and some almost unknown. The great river has several large 302 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. tributaries in Hungary. We pass the mouth of the Drava on the right, and that of the Theiss (tis) on the left, before reaching the Servian boundary. Both rivers are filled with shipping. The Theiss has hundreds of steamers, and a stream of grain barges and lumber rafts is always flowing through the Francis Canal, which has been cut from that river across to the Danube. We are intensely interested in the strange sights of the Hungarian plain. The country reminds us of the Missis- sippi Valley. Now the land is rolling like the prairies of Illinois and Iowa, and now it is as flat as Nebraska and Kansas. We see vast crops of wheat, corn, rye, oats, and barley, but there are no fences, barns, or farmhouses standing alone on the landscape, as in the grain-growing parts of the United States. Now we are passing through a region where there is nothing but wheat, wheat, wheat. It is spread out about us in a great golden ocean, which rises and falls in billows as the wind sweeps over it. We see more and more grain as we go on with our journey. We are travel- ing through some of the chief bread lands of Europe, lands which for centuries have produced the finest of wheat, and which are still yielding some of the richest crops of the world. We saw something of the product in the great flour mills of Budapest. We see more of it in the scores of huge barges loaded with grain which are steaming slowly on up the river. Many of them carry as much as five hundred tons of wheat. They have double rudders, and high carved red and blue prows ; some are roofed over so that they look like floating houses. Each barge has a family or two living in it, and the children sit on the roofs and stare at us as we go by. See that barge we are now passing ; it is poled and rowed along by men, and behind ON THE LOWER DANUBE. 303 come three others towed by a steam tug. Some of the barges have their own engines to move them. There are also other steam vessels laden with wheat, and in fact a steady line of grain ships is always moving to and fro on the Danube. There on the right are barges at anchor. I mean those two not far from the shore, with the great wheel between them. See! the wheel is rapidly turning, moved around by the swift-flowing current. That is one of the famous A Floating Flour Mill. floating flour mills of the Danube; they are anchored in it here and there throughout the wheat belt. The large barge contains the grinding machinery, which is moved by the paddle wheel. You can see the white-faced miller in his dusty clothes standing there at its stern. The small barge is merely a support for the other end of the wheel. Now look beyond the mill to the banks. See the ox carts which are coming up loaded with wheat. There on the edge of the water men are throwing the bags into a boat ; they will soon row them out to the mill, and when the grain has been ground, will take back the flour. By and by the mill may be floated down the river to some other wheat region, and there go on with its grinding. 304 SERVIA, BULGARIA, AND ROUMANIA. See that town farther on where the farmers are thresh- ing. It has stacks of straw about its flat, hard, earthen threshing floor. The men are pounding the grain out with flails. At one side they are driving some cattle about over the wheat that the beasts may tread out the grain. Such threshing places are common along the banks of the Danube. The people bring their crops to one place and thresh out the grain, bagging it up and shipping it on the targes and steamers which stop there for cargo. We see similar work going on as we float down past Servia, Bulgaria, and Roumania, save that the farming is much ruder in Servia than in Hungary. There are very few reaping and mowing machines anywhere. The grain is cut with scythes, a score or more of men moving along in a row through the fields, while as many women follow behind, binding the sheaves. Almost as important as the grain are the immense herds of horses, pigs, cattle, and sheep which are found everywhere along the lower Danube from Budapest to the sea. See that immense flock of sheep over there on the left bank. The man standing among them, lean- ing on his crook, is the shepherd. He is dressed in sheep- skin clothing, and wears a pair of high boots. Farther on is a drove of hogs watched by a swineherd, and on the opposite bank are cattle and horses under the care of He is dressed in sheepskin clothing." ON THE LOWER DANUBE. 305 Hungarian cowboys. Those little straw huts are where they take shelter in stormy weather. The cowboys of the Danube are quite as lively as those of our Western plains. They are high-spirited fellows, and when they come into town for a holiday they discard their sheepskin jackets, and wear the gayest of clothing. They have silk sashes about their waists and overcoats embroidered with flowers, while their hats are often deco- rated with ribbons. They are proud of their horses, and on such occasions ornament them with tinkling bells and strips of bright silk. The towns of the lower Danube are as queer as the country. The farmers live in villages and go out to work in the fields. The usual village is composed of one long street in which there are benches under the trees, where the people sit in the evening and gossip. The women knit as they talk, and they knit even when they rest at their work in the fields. Many of the houses are painted white, with blue doors ; their roofs are of red tiles or straw thatch. Each house has a fence about it, and at the back there are stables with ricks of grain near them. On some of the houses the storks have built their nests, and we now and then see storks feeding in the mud along the banks of the river. We float past the mouth of the Theiss River and stay over night at Belgrade, the capital of Servia, at the mouth of the Save. The Danube forms a part of the boundary between Servia and Hungary, and for the next day we shall travel along between the two countries. Belgrade is situated on a high point at the junction of the Save and the Danube. It is a flat town of yellowish white houses, which look bare and lonely on the hills above the river. We take a walk through the streets CARP. EUROPE — 19 306 SERVIA, BULGARIA, AND ROUMANIA. before going to bed, and meet many men in fez caps, short jackets, and white skirts which reach to their knees. Not a few carry knives and pistols in their belts, and we wonder if it would not be dangerous for us to go about "We stay over night at Belgrade." alone after dark. There are also people dressed as we are, and Turks wearing turbans or caps of red fez, and full baggy trousers. Not only Servia, but also Rbumania and Bulgaria and other countries of this part of Europe, have until recently belonged to the Turkish Empire, and we shall see more and more Turks as we travel on southward. Belgrade has Mohammedan mosques, and so have most of the other towns and cities of the Balkan peninsula. But who are those fine-looking, queerly-dressed men coming toward us ? They have dark faces, long hair, and ON THE LOWER DANUBE. 307 long bushy beards. They wear tall black caps and black robes with wide sashes of blue. Those are priests of the Greek Orthodox Church, the religion most common in this part of the world. It is the principal religion of Servia, Bulgaria, and Roumania, and also of Russia and Greece. We shall see many, many priests as we go on with our travels. Servia and Roumania are now independent countries. Each has its own king and a Parliament elected by the people, and each is rapidly growing in intelligence and prosperity. Bulgaria is also practically free, for it elects its own prince and Parliament, although the Sultan of Turkey must confirm the election of the prince. Servia is a little larger than our two states of Vermont and New Hampshire ; Roumania is larger than New York, and Bul- garia is just about the size of West Virginia. The chief business of all these countries is agriculture and stock raising, although there is some manufacturing, which will probably be increased in the future, as there are coal, iron, and other minerals in the mountains. We are on the edge of the mountains at Belgrade, and we float in and out through the hills as we go on with our journey. The Danube narrows and widens. There are many rapids, and now and then we pass through great canyons. We steam slowly through the gorge of Kazan, where the cliffs rise above us for hundreds of feet, and where it looks as though the rocks were torn apart to let the great river through. We say good-by to Hungary at the lively town of Orsova (or-so'vo), the last steamer station of that country on the Danube, and then go on through the famed Iron Gate to the smoother waters below. The Iron Gate is one of the most dangerous places in the course of this mighty 3o8 SERVIA, BULGARIA, AND ROUMANIA. river. It is a ledge of gigantic tooth-shaped rocks, about a mile wide, which almost fills the Danube. The tops of the rocks rise high above the surface when the river is low, and the water seethes and foams as it dashes over them. Hundreds of steamers have been wrecked on the Iron Gate, and for ages it has been a great obstruction to navigation. Within the past few years a canal has been cut through it, and now ordinary ships can easily pass. The Iron Gate. Our journey for a short time after leaving the Iron Gate is between Roumania and Servia, and, farther on, through Roumania and Bulgaria, between which countries the Danube flows on and on, until it branches out into several mouths and empties into the Black Sea, on the edge of the great Russian Empire. There are more signs of thrift in Bulgaria and Rou- ON THE LOWER DANUBE. 309 mania than in Servia. The countries are richer, Roumania having some of the richest wheat fields of the European continent, while Bulgaria exports a vast deal of Indian corn. The people here wear better clothes than in Servia, and they seem to be more prosperous and more enterpris- ing. Both the Roumanians and the Bulgarians are noted for their intelligence and thrift, and the Roumanians especially are a fine-looking race, the women being famous for their beauty. At the Roumanian ports, gypsy bands come to the boats and play for us. Roumania is the home of the gypsies, although they form but a small part of the popu- lation. They have always been a wandering people, living in covered wagons and moving about over the country. They have curious customs and many a band has its gypsy queen. Some of the gypsies tell fortunes. They also do manu- facturing in a small way, and many are tinkers, blacksmiths, and horse traders. In the past they have been despised and ill treated, but they now are better off in this part of the world on account of the love of the people for music. The Roumanian gypsies are natural musicians. Even the smaller of the gypsy children play the violin, and the gypsy bands are in demand almost everywhere. Many of the gypsies leave the valley of the Danube, and we find them in all parts of Europe and even in the United States. We end our journey on the Danube at Rustchuk, from where we make a side trip to the fine large city of Bucha- rest, the capital of Roumania, and then take train for Varna on the Black Sea, where we get a ship for Odessa, in Russia. ftBL ■,BJ«*W» Jobruig^T —irex 6 100 200 300 400 30 Longitude East 40 from (3io) IN ODESSA- 311 XXXII. IN ODESSA — GENERAL VIEW OF RUSSIA. GET out your passports and have your keys ready! We are at anchor in the harbor of Odessa, and the Russian officials are coming aboard. There they are now, just inside the gangway, those big, black-bearded men in long coats and black caps with the soldiers beside them ! We shall have to show them papers from our government describing just who we are, before they will permit us to land. This custom is universal in Russia. All who enter the empire must have passports, and it is impossible to travel through the interior without them. We shall be asked for our passports at every hotel, and our names will be registered at the police stations wherever we stop. We may need them when we buy tickets on the railway, and also at the post and telegraph offices. Even the natives must have passports when they leave home, for records are kept of the strangers in every town, so that it is said the Czar knows just where every man in his empire sleeps every night We need our keys to open our baggage, that the officers may see that there are no books or papers in it containing articles against the government, and also that we are not smuggling goods into the country. The Rus- sian Empire is so vast and it has so many different kinds of people that it is difficult for one man to rule it. It has some citizens who would like to overthrow the government, and for this reason the officials are always on guard. Our passports, however, show that we are good American citizens. We are treated politely. The officials merely look into our trunks, and within a short time we have 312 RUSSIA. Drosky. received permission to enter the city and are riding in our droskies over the paved streets of Odessa to the hotel. H ow strange everything is ! We seem to be in a new world. The people are different, and even the horses look queer, as they trot along with great yokes above them, draw- ing all sorts of odd vehi- cles. Notice the drosky in which we are riding ; It is about half as big as one of our carriages ; its wheels are no larger than those of a bicycle, and its floor is about a foot from the ground. A big black horse is harnessed to the shafts, which end at the front in a yoke rising a foot and a half above his neck. There are no tugs ; the shafts are fastened to the collar just under the yoke. What an odd-looking driver ! He weighs about three hundred pounds, and his long navy blue gown, tied with a red sash at the waist, makes him look bigger. His hat is bell-shaped, and his long black beard hangs far down on his breast. He is proud of his size, for to have a fat coachman is the sign of prosperity; and it is said that many of the gowns of the drosky drivers are padded and quilted, and that some even have little pillows inside them to make their owners look fat. Our man holds his arms straight out in front of him as he drives. He slaps the horse with the reins to make him go faster, and stops him by saying " burr-r " instead of " whoa." Now look at the people on the streets. What a variety of curious costumes ! Odessa is the chief city of southern IN ODESSA. 313 Russia, and men from all the countries about come here to trade. There are Turks and Armenians in fez caps and dark clothes ; there are Greek sailors wearing gay jackets, white petticoats, and red shoes turned up at the toes ; there are fierce-looking Circassians in high caps of astra- khan fur, and merchants from Persia in turbans and gowns. There are Russians everywhere. We know them by their big frames and fine faces. The men are tall and broad - shouldered, and most of them have long, thick beards. The women are tall, handsome, and stately. Many are very " ^^ a variet y of curious costumes ! ■■ well dressed, although the peasant women wear rough shoes, bright cotton gowns, and have handkerchiefs bound around their heads. What a lot of caps, long coats, and top boots. Every man and boy is thus clad. The soldiers wear caps, the officers wear caps, and so do the common people; even little boys have visored caps and overcoats just like their fathers', and some very little girls wear caps of bright silk. How queer the stores are. The signs are in the strange Russian letters, so different from ours that we cannot tell what they mean. There is a newsboy crying his papers. The printing upon them looks as strange as the Chinese characters on tea boxes, and we cannot understand the jargon he utters. We can't talk even with our driver, and are glad when we reach the hotel, where the porter speaks English. He acts as our interpreter, giving us our rooms 314 RUSSIA. and arranging our meals. Next day we take a guide and explore Odessa. It is the chief grain port of south Rus- sia, and has a vast trade. We visit the wharves and the chief business sections, and then take the train for our long ride through Russia in Europe. Palace of Justice, Odessa. Russia is by far the largest country in Europe, and one of the largest of the whole world. The Russians have more land than any other nation except the British. They own more than half of all Europe, and considerably more than one third of all Asia. Their possessions in Asia are almost as big as the whole of South America, and in Europe they have two thirds as much land as the United States without Alaska, the Philippines, and Porto Rico. Altogether they have more than one seventh of all the land surface of the globe. Our travels at present are to be confined to Russia in GENERAL VIEW OF RUSSIA. 315 Europe, and even this is so vast, as we see by the space it has on the map, that we might travel a year and not visit every part of it. Still, a rapid run through it, stopping in the great cities, and spending some time in the villages and on the farms, will give us a good idea of the country and people. Let us first take a bird's-eye view of European Russia. It consists of a vast plain hemmed in by the Ural Mountains on the east, and by the Baltic Sea, Germany Austria-Hungary, and Roumania on the west, extending from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and nowhere having any hills over eleven hundred feet high. The chief hills, except those at the extreme south, lie just north of the center of Russia, where the land rises, making a watershed from which the rivers flow north and south, furnishing water to the most of the plain, and giving a cheap means of carrying goods from one part of it to another. Many of the rivers are connected by canals, and, as we shall see later, the country has an excellent system of commercial water ways. If a bird should start at the Arctic Ocean and fly clear across Russia to get the view we are taking, it would start upon a coast which is bordered with vast morasses or cold swamps called tundras. Everything there is bleak and dreary, the trees are stunted, and the only human beings to be seen — live in bark tents." 316 RUSSIA. are the strange Lapps and Samoyedes, semisavages with light yellow faces, high cheek bones and eyes somewhat slanting. They live in bark tents and look not unlike the Laplanders we saw in Norway, and they have much the same habits, roaming about with their reindeer, grazing them on the mosses and the lichens which grow on the tundras. Passing this region, the bird would fly southward for hundreds upon hundreds of miles over vast forests. It would go for days over nothing but trees, trees, trees. Now and then it might see a bear, a deer, or a wolf, but seldom anything human. In this forest zone of Russia there are thousands of square miles which are entirely uninhabited, where there are no railroads, and where all nature is as wild as it was in our country in the days when the Indians owned it. At the north the trees are chiefly stunted pines, but farther south there are magnificent beeches, firs, and other valuable timber. The forests cover two fifths of the country, extending, with some clearings here and there even as far south as Moscow. Coming out of tha trees our bird would next pass over a well-populated region which produces vast quantities of barley, flax, and hemp, and then enter the third zone, the famous black earth zone of Russia. This is a vast plain which stretches from the Carpathian Mountains clear across to the Urals, and which is covered with some of the richest soil on the face of the globe. The land is a thick sheet of black earth, a sort of half mold, from three to twenty feet deep, so rich that it has yielded good crops of wheat for many generations without fertilization. This is the best part of Russia and the chief source of its wealth, producing large quantities of grain for export. The coun- try here is well populated. It has cities and towns and countless farm villages. GENERAL VIEW OF RUSSIA. 317 Beyond this there are lands producing Indian corn, and farther south, bordering on the edge of the Caucasus Mountains and the Black and the Caspian seas, are other plains, or steppes, which are not so rich, but upon which wild grasses grow in great luxuriance, where vast herds of horses, cattle, and sheep are to be seen. Such is a rough idea of European Russia : great flat plains of cold swamps, of mighty forests, of rich farms and pastures, of a few large cities, and a vast number of villages. We shall visit the chief cities later on. Odessa is about as large as Detroit; so, too, is Kief just north of it, on the Dnieper, surrounded by a rich farming country ; Warsaw in Poland is bigger than St. Louis; and Lodz than Cin- cinnati; while Riga is of about the size of Minneapolis. St. Petersburg has more people than Philadelphia, and Moscow is almost as large. In addition to these important places, there are other cities ranging in size from three hundred thousand to fifty thousand, and there are many still smaller. But we shall see all this better as we go on with our travels. Russia has the longest railroads in the world, and there are steamers on all the chief rivers, so that we can visit the principal parts of the country. Our train from Odessa takes us rapidly northward. The road is smooth and well built ; the track is as well kept as our gardens. We often see women on their knees pulling the grass from between the ties, and every few miles there are men working on the railroad. At each road crossing a barefooted, bareheaded peas- ant girl in a dress of bright colors stands waving a flag to warn the people back while the train passes ; and at every station a tall guard in uniform, with a pistol on his hip and a long sword at his side, walks up and down 318 RUSSIA. the platform. He is the representative of the Czar, and he wears the Czar's uniform : a red cap with a tall feather in it, a long overcoat, and high boots with spurs. There are many things about the trains that are dif- ferent from ours. Look out as we go around this curve, and see the dense black smoke pouring out of the engine. That comes from the petroleum which is used as fuel, because the oil fields about the Caspian Sea make it cheaper than coal in this treeless region. Farther north, in the forest zone, the smoke will become a light blue, for our locomotive will make steam with wood. We shall have great racks filled with wood just back of the engine ; it will keep two firemen busy throwing it into the furnaces, while at every few stations we shall see acres of wood piles. Our cars are by no means uncomfortable. We are riding first class on an express train. We have seats near the windows, and our fellow passengers are officials and well-to-do Russians, many of whom speak English and tell us much of their country and people. Every now and then we pass a slower train, largely composed of second and third class cars. The second class cars are more cheaply furnished than those of the first class ; they are patronized by the merchants and the richer of the common people. The third class cars are not much better than cattle cars. The seats are rude benches, and they are crowded with peasants. Notice that train which is waiting there on the side track! It is filled with long-bearded, shock-haired men in rough cotton clothes, and with women in short cotton gowns of bright colors, with shawls and handkerchiefs tied around their heads. The men wear caps, and they have boots of felt or leather ; the shoes of many of the GENERAL VIEW OF RUSSIA. 3*9 women are of straw, and in place of stockings they have rags tied around their legs. Each man has a great bundle beside him or under his feet ; that is his baggage. In the third class the most of the baggage is taken into the cars. At some of the depots we see the people using their bundles as pillows, sleeping on the stones while they wait for the train. Take a look at the station where our train is stopping. It has a stone platform, and the building is large and well kept ; that bell against the wall is for starting the train. The station has an excellent restaurant. The Russians are fond of good living. They are always eating ; and tea, cake, and fruit are brought to our window at every station. The tea is served in glass tumblers, with two or three lumps of sugar and a slice of lemon, but without milk. We try to drink it in the approved Russian fashion. We squeeze the lemon into the tea, and then, putting the hard sugar lump be- tween our teeth, slowly suck the tea through it. It tastes good, but we soon go back to our old way of drinking, for the custom ruins the teeth, and we notice that many Russians on this ac- count have teeth which are badly decayed. The Russians drink more tea perhaps than any other people, and every family has its samovar filled with hot water. The samovar is a brass urn with a pipe running through its center, in which burning charcoal keeps the water hot, so The Russians drink more tea perhaps than any other people." 320 RUSSIA. that, by turning a spigot, fresh tea can be made at any time of the day. There are samovars at all the stations, and the tea peddlers behind them are long-haired, long-bearded men, with faces as rosy, fat, and jolly as that of old Santa Claus. We are a long time crossing the steppes of southern Russia. We pass vast herds of cattle and horses watched by Russian cowboys, and see large flocks of sheep, some of which are tended by women and children. Now we go through a re- gion of vineyards, and again through fields of Indian corn, barley, and rye. As we travel northward, the country grows better and the land more densely populated, until at last we reach the black earth zone. We are now in the granary of Russia, which produces a large part of the food of the empire, and which in good seasons grows so much wheat that it forms our chief competitor in the food markets of Europe. A Samovar. *Oic XXXIII. THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS — A NATION OF VILLAGES. WE are now in the great black plain, in one of the regions where we can best study the people of Russia. This vast empire may be compared to a huge farm ; for the Russians are largely a nation of farmers. The Russian people are made up of the emperor and his officials, of comparatively few nobles, of a few million THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS. 32 1 merchants and artisans who dwell in the cities, and a vast number of peasants, living in villages surrounded by farms. The most important part of Russia is village Russia. The country contains about one hundred mil- lion peasants, who live in five hundred thousand vil- A Peasant Family. lages. Let us stop a moment and try to realize what this means. There are so many of these peasants that if all the men, women, and children of all the world could be gathered into one place, one in every fifteen would be a Russian peasant farmer. In our ride to the black earth zone from Odessa we have not seen a single house by itself in the fields. There were 322 RUSSIA. no fences marking off the farms as in America, and no barns nor haystacks standing alone. Excepting the cow- boys and the shepherdesses watching the flocks, we did not see a person alone in the fields. The people were working in gangs of from half a dozen to a hundred, going out together in the morning, and coming back in the same way at night. At every few miles we passed little groups of thatched huts, and we could see other huts in groups dotting the country on both sides the track. Each collection of huts was a Russian village, a type of the thousands of villages in all parts of European Russia, and even in the newest settlements of Siberia as well. But let us get off at this station and visit one of the villages. That man over there in the long overcoat, cap, high boots, and sword is the government guard. He puts his hand to his cap and makes a military salute as we accost him. He gives our guide the proper directions, and within a short time we are driving at full speed over the fields. Our vehicle is a sort of boatlike tub on wheels, to which three horses are fastened. One horse is inside the shafts, and the others, one on each side, are hitched to bars which extend from the ends of the axle of the front wheels. The carriage and team look sorry enough, and we get in with much fear and trembling. We have hardly taken our seats, however, before the driver cracks his whip, and the horses go off at great speed. The one in the shafts trots at a four-minute pace, and those outside go on the gallop, so that we fairly fly through the air. The road is right over the fields, and we drive through green and yellow oceans of rye and wheat, which are mov- ing up and down in billows under the winds. We cross long fields of yellow sunflowers, and go on through meadows THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS. 323 rs where hundreds of sheep are feeding, watched by shepherds who lean on their staffs and gaze at us in wonder. At last we come to our village. It has but one long street lined with straggling thatched huts. There are no sidewalks, and the street is a wide grass plot, except in the middle, where the carts have cut deep ruts in the earth. There are trees here and there on each side of the roadway. Under one of them a woman is knitting, with her chil- dren about her ; she has tied a box in which lies her baby to one of the branches above her, and she swings it now and then as she works. Farther down on the other side of the street are some frowsy- headed, bare-footed boys and girls playing. As we stop, they stand and stare at us, while the dogs run out and bark, showing their teeth. Take a look at the huts ! Few of them have gar- dens about them. There are no fences to shut them off from their neighbors or from the road. The average home is a one-story log cabin, about twenty feet square, roofed with straw thatch about a foot and a half thick. Where wood is scarce the huts are often made of woven twigs plastered with mud. A few of the larger houses have barns or stables joined to them in an L at the rear, so that the animals and people live under the same roof. Let us enter one of the little homes ! They are all made she swings it now and then as she works." CARP. EUROPE — 20 324 RUSSIA. the same way, each having two rooms and a loft. We first go into an anteroom which is used as a storeroom and stable. There is harness hanging upon the walls, farming tools lie upon the floor, and bags of corn are piled up in a corner. A chicken runs between our legs as we enter, and a calf at the back looks as though it might do the same. .a^M^rSHB ■;■■■ :'-., A ~~~Z jl * ' t * """--.-^ Wm' 1 ■• ^^B '.] " """ f "The average home is a one-story log cabin/' Passing through this room, we reach the other room cf the house. Indeed, it might be called the only room, for the first is little more than a vestibule, while this room serves as kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and parlor. At one side of it there is a brick stove, or oven and chimney combined, so built up from the floor that there is a ledge four feet wide THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS. 325 and about six feet long just over the oven and under the ceiling. In the oven the cooking is done, and that ledge above it is the common bed of the family. There in the winter as many as can crawl in and sleep on the hot bricks, while the others lie on the floor. There are no bedsteads, and little or no bed clothing. The whole family hud- dle together like so many sheep : men and women, boys and girls, babies and grandparents, all bunched in to- this room serves as kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and parlor." gether. They sleep in the same clothes they wear in the daytime, and rely largely upon their own animal heat and the oven to keep themselves warm. As we enter, our host asks us to be seated, and we look around for chairs. There are only two to be seen, but we take seats on the benches which run around the wall. There is a bare table at one side of the room, and the man asks us to stay and have dinner with him. We do so, and watch his wife lay the table. She does this very quickly, for they use no tablecloth, and no plates, knives, or forks. All she does is to put a wooden basin, about as big as a common tin washbasin, filled with cabbage soup, in the center of the board, and lay some wooden spoons beside it. We are hungry after our jolting ride over the fields, and the soup gives forth an appetizing odor as it smokes away on the table. The woman now motions us to draw up our benches. We sit down with the, family. We are 326 RUSSIA. each given a wooden spoon about as big as the largest tablespoon, and are told to dip in. We are at a loss how to begin until our host puts in his spoon and conveys some soup to his mouth. We do likewise, each dipping in turn until the basin is empty. In addition to the soup we each have black bread and raw cucumbers. There is no butter, and the meal seems plain and scanty, after our luxurious liv- ing at the Russian hotels. Still, such is the common every- day food of millions of Russians. Some of the peasants have cows and chickens, and hence milk and eggs. Now and then they may have a little fish or meat, but as a rule, if they have cabbage soup and bread, they think they do very well. We are surprised to find how many people live in one hut ; sometimes as many as twelve live in one room. ^The most of the Russian peasants are poor and very few save money. They do not seem to care for the future, and live from hand to mouth ; so that if a bad season occurs, a famine ensues and they die by the thousand. If you tell them they should save, for bad times may come, they will say, " Oh ! God and the Czar will provide ! " The Russian peasants have but few wants. If a man has a suit of sheepskin for the winter and of cotton for the summer, with perhaps an extra suit for Sundays and holidays, he is quite content. In the hot weather he wears a red calico shirt outside his white or blue cotton trousers. The trousers are fastened by a string around the waist, and are often bound in just below the knees with rags, which, wrapped round and round the legs and feet, serve also for stockings. The richer peasants wear leather boots and long overcoats of cloth or skin. The poor have felt boots for winter, and slippers of woven grass or bark for summer. The woman's dress consists chiefly of a bright- THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS. 327 <:4J3 colored handkerchief, which is tied round the head so that one corner falls down over the neck at the back, a loose gown of white, red, or blue cot- ton, cut low at the neck, which reaches almost to her ankles, and an apron gathered in at the waist and extending down to her knees. A pair of rag stock- ings and straw or bark shoes completes the costume. The dress of both women and men varies considerably in different parts of the empire. One of the oddest things in our village is the bath house. The peasants do not wash often, but when they do they boil or steam themselves clean. They get into an ovenlike bath house, which is filled with steam, and remain there until they have perspired the dirt out of their pores. They look par- boiled when they come out, but the steam makes them really much cleaner than a bath in warm water would. In the cities there are large public baths containing many steam rooms. The peasants are very religious. We shall find churches in every district, and in every hut we enter a candle is burning away under an icon (l'kon) or a painting of the Savior, the Virgin Mary, or one of the saints. The peasant always says a prayer when he starts out to work. He says a prayer and crosses himself whenever he passes a church, and he crosses himself when he stops work to go home. He would not think of living in a house without 328 RUSSIA. one of the holy pictures on his walls, and he often makes pilgrimages to shrines and churches which are considered especially sacred. The most of the peasants are uneducated. Very few of them can read and write, although of late schools for peasant children have been established in the different parts of the empire. The peasants are much like children. They ••' ' '-. : * 1 ' < * 4- ; w-B| fJjNHffiJw*' V^ 3 t$L > %Hj3 " — schools for peasant children have been established." call the Czar father, and look up to him with reverence. They were for a long time in a state of serfdom to the nobles ; they were almost the same as slaves, and it was only at about the time of our Civil War that the Czar made them free. They are gradually growing more and more independent, and at some time will probably form a very strong and great nation. The peasants own about one third of the cultivated lands of Russia, but they hold this land in a curious way. In the United States every farmer has his own farm, and THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS. 329 he plants his crops and pays his taxes without asking questions of any one. In Russia each village owns a large block of land in common, and the taxes are paid by the village and not by the individual. Each village is known as a mir. This word means "world," for each village is a little world in itself. The mir is supposed to own the houses and lands of the village, and to divide them up among the people from year to year, each person having an equal right to the whole. Every family keeps its house and a little strip of ground, but the lands outside are divided among, and farmed by, the people in common. This is the reason we saw no one working alone in the fields. The men, women, and older children all go out together to sow, reap, and bring in the crops. The village authorities fix the times for sowing and reaping ; they appoint leaders for the people at work and say just when to begin. The villagers elect their own officers, and as to local matters, they govern themselves. They choose their own judges and policemen, and can punish wrong-doers. The village assemblies and elections take place in the open air, when the people discuss among themselves all matters relating to their crops and their government. Several such villages constitute a volost, containing about two thousand householders, each village electing members to the district council, which chooses the officers for the district. The districts of each province in turn send representatives to a provincial assembly composed of not only the peasants, but the nobles as well. All are elected, so you see the Russians largely govern them- selves; although the Czar appoints the governors of the provinces, and his authority is over all. 330 RUSSIA. The Russian peasants are very fond of this village system, and a man will not leave his mir, for he does not want to lose his right to the property owned by his vil- lage. If he can save money, he can buy lands outside this, but, as a rule, the peasants have only the lands which they hold in common. XXXIV. IN ST. PETERSBURG. STAND with me on the dome of Saint Isaac's cathe- dral, and take a look at the great city of St. Peters- burg. We have been traveling for days to the northward, and are at last in the capital of the Russian Empire, on the Neva River ? not far from the Baltic. We have driven in our droskies from our hotel down the Nevski Prospekt, the chief street of the city, and along the banks of the Neva, to this mighty church. We have climbed around and around, up the five hundred steps inside its dome, and we now stand on its topmost point, three hundred feet above the earth, in one of the most curious cities of the world. Below us, on every side, extends a vast plain of houses, cut up by the great River Neva and the many canals. Off in the distance, at the west, we can see the fortifications of Kronstadt at the mouth of the river, on the Gulf of Finland, and in front of us are beautiful islands dotted with the homes of the nobles, while at our back, both to the right and the left, stretches the city. The country about is composed of swamps and morasses. There are green woods and fields to be seen here and there, and everywhere the silvery river and canals sparkle under the rays of the sun. The city is a vast plain of two, three, and four story IN ST. PETERSBURG. 33 1 houses, built of brick or stone, plastered with yellow stucco, and roofed with iron plates painted dark brown. It is laid out in acute angles ; and here, from the dome of Saint Isaac's, it looks like an immense crazy quilt of brown diamond-shaped patches, sewed together with white streets, and tied with knots of white chimneys. What a lot of chimneys ! There are hundreds to every square, and every house is dotted with them. St, Petersburg is far to the northward. It is covered with ice and snow throughout the winter, and the sparks fly up those chimneys from November until May. It is so cold that the houses have double windows, and every room has its enormous porcelain stove, such as we saw in Berlin. Notice how solidly the city is built, and what a space each building covers. The Neva is walled with stones, and the great houses seem founded on rocks. They are so large that they cover a mighty area. That crazy quilt is twenty-five miles in circumference, and many of its blocklike patches are as big as a good-sized farm. The vast houses are built in flats or apartments, as in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna ; but the rooms are much larger and the buildings cover more space. Here and there we can see a great palace belong- ing to one of the nobles. That red structure on the banks of the Neva, at the end of the Nevski Prospekt, is the Winter Palace, where the emperor holds his recep- tions. It has rooms which are larger than a good-sized house, and its halls are so wide that you could turn a four- horse wagon load of hay inside them without touching the walls. It has so many rooms that the emperor does not know what is going on in all of them ; and it is said that the servants once rented some of them as a stable, and that, 332 RUSSIA. when a great fire occurred, a cow and a goat were dragged out with the furniture. Now let your eyes run along the Nevski Prospekt. That is the widest avenue of St. Petersburg, and its chief business street. Many of the enormous buildings upon it are pal- aces ; others are stores and great bazaars, which are filled The Winter Palace. with hundreds of merchants. On the opposite side of the Neva you can see immense wholesale houses extending for miles along the quays, while the river and its canals, filled with shipping, make you think of the views from the tower of the palace in Amsterdam. But what are those immense golden mounds which rise above the buildings in different parts of the city? Some have tall spires, painted in the brightest of IN ST. PETERSBURG. 333 colors. Those are Russian churches and cathedrals. They are among the grandest of Europe, some having cost many millions of dollars. Notice this church of Saint Isaac's, upon which we are standing. Its dome is almost as big as that of the Capitol at Washington; and it is made of copper, plated with gold. It took two hundred pounds of solid gold to cover it, and the cathedral itself has cost about twenty million dollars. " Now let your eyes run along the Nevski Prospekt." Let us descend and go through the church. It is like walking through a museum, it has so many beautiful things in marble, precious stones, and gold carvings. The cathedral floor covers almost two acres. It is of many colored marbles, and the walls are of marble inlaid with gold carvings. Only a rich man in America can own a table of malachite, and we sometimes see jewel boxes and 334 Russia. breastpins of that precious stone. In Saint Isaac's, on the two sides of the altar, there are eight columns of malachite, each us high as a three-story house ; there are also two pillars of lapis lazuli, while the fence about the altar is of golden posts, set into a railing of the purest white marble. The Kazan cathedral, not far away, has a balustrade of Saint Isaac's Cathedral. solid silver about its altar; while the cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul blazes with gold, and its mighty golden spire can be seen for miles around. There are scores of other churches here in St. Peters- burg. There are chapels in all parts of the city, and it is the same in the other great cities of Russia. Wherever we go, all over the country, we shall find churches and chapels. The Russians are very religious. It is the same in the large towns as we found it in the villages. Every IN ST. PETERSBURG. 335 man has a picture of the Savior, of the Virgin Mary, or of a saint in his house, and every person crosses himself and says his prayers many times a day. The chief religion of Russia is that of the Greek Ortho- dox Church. The emperor himself is the head of the Church, and there are priests by the thou- sands all over the country. They dress in black gowns, wear their hair long, and have high caps on their heads. They are appointed by the emperor in connection with the Holy Synod, which aids him in managing the Church. There are, however, other churches in Rus- sia, for the empire is so vast that it has all sorts of religions. It has many Roman Catho- lics, and in Finland many Lutherans. There are numerous Mohammedans along the Volga " The y dress ™ and in southern Russia, and hundreds of thou- sands of Jews in western Russia and Poland. There are Chinese Confucianists and Buddhists in the east, and in the Caucasus Mountains there are many Armenians. From Saint Isaac's cathedral we take droskies and drive to the great government buildings. Some of them are larger than the biggest department buildings of Wash- ington, and as we ride on through one magnificent street after another we are more and more amazed at the solidity of the great Russian capital. And still St. Petersburg is built on a swamp. Its very existence is an evidence of the strength of character of the Russians. The other great capitals, we have seen, have arisen largely from commercial and manufacturing reasons growing out of their situation. London is at the head of navigation of the Thames, Paris is on the Seine 336 RUSSIA. in the center of manufacturing and commercial France, Venice grew up on account of the shipping trade of the Adriatic, and Amsterdam and Rotterdam were built up because they were the commercial centers of the seafaring Dutch nation. St. Petersburg was formed at the com- mand of Peter the Great, by a people who lived far away from it, in the interior, and who had no reason for building it except the command of their ruler. Peter the Great had traveled through the different countries of Europe in order to study how he might better govern his people and make the most of the great Russian Empire. He visited Holland, and England, and other countries, where he saw how the seaports helped build up a nation, and how valuable the navy was for its defense. While away he learned shipbuilding, and he came back determined that his country must have both a seaport and a great navy. He could not start his men-of-war out from the Black Sea, because he was shut off by Turkey, which held then and still holds the Bosporus, the only passage out to the Mediterranean. The lands along the Arctic Ocean were too far away and too cold, and so he chose this place on the Gulf of Finland, at the mouth of the Neva. He was not alarmed because it was swampy, nor did he fear because it was covered with woods. He said to himself, " Here I will erect my seaport and my capital ! " Peter's command went forth, and at his word like magic this great stone city sprang into being. Piles by the millions were driven down to make the foundation, the river Neva was held back by walls of granite, and every Russian subject was called upon to do something to build the new capital. Every noble in the land was ordered to build a house in St. Petersburg, and every Russian who IN ST. PETERSBURG. 337 owned five hundred serfs had to put up a two-story house, no matter whether he lived on the edge of the Caspian Sea or on the border of the Ural Mountains. Every vessel on the Russian rivers and every Russian ship on the Baltic had to bring a load of stones to aid in building the city, and all the peasants near by were ordered to help. Forty thousand men were drafted every year to aid in the work, and nobles as well as peasants dug out the ■the emperor lived in a little house by the river.' foundations and built up the houses. Even the criminals from prisons were made to toil here under the guns of the guards ; and through it all the emperor lived in a little house by the river and watched the building. This house still stands, and we drive across the Neva to see it. It is so small that it would hardly be noticed if it were placed in the great ballroom of the Winter Palace. It contains two rooms and a kitchen, and is not unlike one of the cabins of our forests of Wisconsin and Michigan. 338 Russia. The Russians reverence it as the home of their great em- peror, and they have built another house over it, that it may withstand the weather. As we walk through it, we can hardly realize that when it was built, less than two hundred years ago, the wolves howled in the woods all about it, and that now more than one hundred million people look upon it as the chief place upon earth. Leaving this lowly hut, we again cross the Neva to visit the palaces and government departments, and learn more about the Russia of to-day. We find that the emperor has still, nominally, almost as much power as had Peter the Great; although in reality he rules largely through his cabinet ministers and state council representing the provinces. We have learned that there are seventy-nine states in the Russian Empire, each of which has some officials appointed by the Czar, but most of which are more largely ruled by the people themselves. We learn that the empire contains the enormous number of about one hundred and thirty million people, and of these more than one hundred millions live in Russia. The European Russians are chiefly of the Slav race, but there are many other races in different parts of the country, and more than thirty different peoples in the Caucasus alone. At the War and Navy Departments we are shown that the Russians have a great navy, and that their army is one of the strongest of the world ; and at other offices are told that the government is doing its best to develop the enor- mous natural resources of the empire by building railroads, opening mines, and encouraging the people in all sorts of manufacture and trade. Russia is also rapidly developing its vast possessions outside Europe. Railroads are building in Siberia and central Asia, which have opened up rich territories in that IN ST. PETERSBURG. 339 continent. Mines of gold, silver, iron, and coal are being worked, and vast tracts of grain and cotton are cultivated. Many thousand Russian peasants emigrate to these coun- tries every year, so that in time much of Asia will be populated by the Slav race. We make excursions north into Finland, traveling through the woods, by hundreds of beautiful lakes ; and also along the coast, where there are fiords like those of Scandinavia. The inhabitants remind us of the Swedes, although there are some people in the extreme north, known as Finns, who are of the yellow race. The people — Fin- landers — everywhere are different from the Russians, although they are ruled by the Czar, who has the title of the Grand Duke of Finland. They have a senate at Hel- singf ors, where they make their own laws and have to some extent a government of their own. The Finlanders are chiefly farmers, dairymen, and lum- bermen. They are far more thrifty and better educated than the Russians. They have neat villages made of log cabins, and some fine cities such as Helsingfors, the capital, which lies on the Gulf of Finland, having an excellent harbor. Another trip takes us to Warsaw, on the Vistula, in Rus- sian Poland. Here the inhabitants are almost all Poles. They are a high-spirited people who for a long time had a kingdom of their own. They had some of the best lands of Europe, but the Russians and Prussians, who coveted their property, made war upon them and conquered them, and divided up Poland, so that Russia now has here a state about as large as New York with a soil fully as rich. The Poles still keep their own language and customs, but they are ruled by the Czar. They have many large towns, Warsaw being the third city in size of the whole Russian Empire. CARP. EUROPE — 21 34Q RUSSIA. XXXV. MOSCOW— COMMERCIAL AND MANUFACTURING RUSSIA. A DAY'S ride from Warsaw has brought us to Moscow, the commercial capital of the great Russian Empire. The city stands right in the heart of European Russia, on Moscow. the navigable Moscow River, which connects it with the Oka and Volga. It has easy access by rail to the Don, Dnieper, and Dwina rivers, and is so situated that it is the chief railroad center of Russia. It is in the most densely populated part of the empire, and its situation especially fits it for the center of Russian manufacture and trade. It has more than a thousand factories in and MOSCOW. 341 about it, and the smokestacks rise here and there above the city, rivaling in height the golden spires of its churches. The factories employ more than a quarter of a million work- men, and turn out a product worth several hundred million dollars per year. A great quantity of goods of all kinds is required to supply the vast population of Russia, and the factories are rapidly growing in number. There are now more than a hundred thousand in the empire, and more are being built. There are many cotton, linen, woolen, and flour mills in Russian Poland ; there are factories of all kinds in St. Petersburg, and also in Odessa, and along the Volga River; while there are many little silk mills in the Caucasus Mountains. Not far south of Moscow is Tula, the Sheffield of Russia, where are the great gun factories which supply the Russian army, and enormous railroad shops and works for making knives, tools, and machinery. In Moscow there are vast cotton mills, sugar mills, and establishments which turn out almost everything made of wood, iron, and steel. The chief workshops of Russia, however, are in the homes of the people, the product made there annually amounting in value to more than five hundred million dol- lars. Six sevenths of all the goods made are the result of such house industry, for the peasants are everywhere working at their trades in their homes. Nearly every Russian village has its specialty. In some the people spin yarn and weave cloth, and in others they make boots and shoes. There are towns along the Volga which turn out fine axes and knives ; just outside Moscow is a village whose people are noted for beating gold leaf, while near Tula there are two thousand people who work away in their little houses making accordions. In southern Russia rugs and carpets as beautiful as those of India and Turkey 342 RUSSIA. are woven by hand, and in central Russia there are many thousands who paint icons or pictures of saints, such as we have seen in the houses and stores with candles and in- cense burning below them. These icons are cut out of plates of carved gold, silver, or brass, only the faces being painted. They are of all sizes and prices, from little ones no bigger than a watch, which sell for a few cents, up to some as big as a barn door, worth thousands of dollars. There are stores in Moscow which sell nothing else, and we can find icon stores in all the large cities. There are some villages in Russia where the people make a business of raising canaries for sale, and some where they raise cats for their skins. The cats bring five or ten cents apiece ; they are bought by travel- ing merchants, who ship their skins to the fur markets of the empire. In other villages pigeons are bred for their skins, which are cured with the feathers on, and sold at the fairs to be exported to all parts of Europe and our country, for decorating ladies' hats and lining fine cloaks. You have all heard of Russian leather. It is prized everywhere for pocketbooks, valises, slippers, and book bindings. It has a delightful odor from the birch bark employed by the tanners. Much of it is made in small tanneries, and there are hundreds of thousands engaged at their homes making various articles from it, both for export and for sale to the Russians. In some parts of the empire the women wear high boots of soft leather, and every Russian man who can afford it has at least one pair of boots which come up to his knees. There are thousands of women who knit beautiful lace, and Russian velvets are noted all over Europe. The Russians are skillful in making all sorts of things, Moscow. 343 and some day, when machinery has taken the place of hand labor, they will be one of the greatest of the manu- facturing nations. The empire has vast deposits of gold and silver, and of coal, iron, and copper ; it has more wood than any other European country; it raises quantities of wool and flax and tobacco, and also in Asia a great deal of cotton, so that it has all the materials for a great manu- facturing country. Until a few years ago the most of the Russian peasants were practically in slavery, and all sorts of work were done in the rudest way. Now the people are intro- ducing modern inventions, and they are establishing large factories with the finest machinery. They are opening up their mines both in Europe and Asia, the government is encouraging improved methods of farming, and the education of the people has begun. They are rapidly growing in intelligence and wealth, and they will continue to grow. Many believe that the two greatest nations of the world of the future will be the Russians and the Americans. But let us take a stroll through the business sections of Moscow. We shall find them different from those of the other great cities we have seen, for Russia is in some respects more like Asia than Europe or the United States. Here we are, in one of the great bazaars which we find in all Russian cities. It is a vast building cover- ing many acres, filled with all sorts of shops, opening out into covered corridors or arcades, so that there are hun- dreds upon hundreds of stores under one roof. This one bazaar has twelve hundred stores; it is a whole town of stores roofed over, and the stores are of all kinds, so that you can buy anything you want from a slate pencil to a sealskin coat, or from a toothpick to a set of furniture. 344 RUSSIA. There are jewelry shops and clothing stores, stores sell- ing leather goods, and stores which deal only in pictures and books. We wander through one arcaded street after another, past beautiful things of all kinds, and some of great value, realizing as we do so that Russia must have a large class of rich people to buy goods so very expen- sive. We are also surprised at the way they do business. When we attempt to purchase, the merchant usually charges us more than he expects to receive, and we must bargain with him if we would pay only a fair price. The result is that we offset his price by an offer of much less, whereupon he comes down a little. We then go up a few cents, and if we hold out we at last get it perhaps for what we are willing to give. The business hours in the bazaars are from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon. We visit them one day about shutting-up time, and watch the merchants lock up for the night. Each store facing the street has windows and doors, which are closed tight and then fas- tened with padlocks. The merchant turns the key and then ties the padlock to the staple, sealing the two ends of the string with hot wax, into which he presses his stamp, so that the store cannot possibly be opened with- out breaking the seal. He then stands in front of the closed doors and crosses himself, saying a prayer, before he leaves for the night. He will probably say another when he opens his shop in the morning. Outside the bazaars there are many stores scattered over the city, some of which have curious signs. They have pictures painted on the walls facing the street, which show what articles are sold within, so that those who can- not read may understand from the pictures. Take, for Moscow. 345 instance, that barber sign over there on the opposite side of the street ! The whole wall of the shop is covered with it. One part of it represents a man in his shirt sleeves shav- ing a customer, while opposite him is a lady holding out her arm, from which a stream of blood is spouting, while a man stands beside her with a knife in his hand. Farther down in the picture sits a boy having a tooth pulled, and the whole sign shows us that the man within is not only a bar- ber, but a dentist and surgeon as well. That store farther on is a feed store. There is a bundle of hay in the doorway, and on the walls at the sides are pictures of horses and cows feeding and grazing. The tea signs represent China- men sipping tea ; while the dairy signs are pictures of cows with maids milking them. We visit the markets before going back to our hotel. They are of enormous extent, and are filled with the finest of game, meats, fish, and vegetables. The better class Russians are noted for their extravagant living, and the markets of St. Petersburg and Moscow are as good as those of any other European city. Fish may be bought alive. They are kept in stone vats of running water, each filled with its own kind of fish. In the dining rooms of some of the great restaurants there are marble fountains with fishes swimming about in them. You can point out the fish you want for your supper, and the waiter will catch it in a net and cook it for you, and I am sure you will say it is the best fish you ever ate. Russia is noted for fine fish, and it exports quantities of fish and fish eggs every year. The Volga, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea have rich fishing grounds, and there are fisheries along the Arctic Ocean and the Baltic Sea. In the markets we see cans, buckets, and tubs of caviar. This is a Russian dainty made of the roe of the sturgeon. 346 RUSSIA. Caviar looks like bird shot, but it is in reality the eggs of the sturgeon, which are eaten in great quantities by the people throughout Russia. The fresh caviar is the best, but a great deal of it is canned, and thus sold all over the world. After the eggs have been removed, the sturgeon meat is salted, and you can buy it in the market at about ten cents a pound. There are also stalls where only dried fish is sold. This is eaten by the people everywhere, and it forms a part of the diet of the peasants. The queerest market sights are those of the winter, when almost everything is sold in a frozen state. The Russian winter is so cold that fish and meats can easily be kept frozen for months. The butcher can lay away his beef, mutton, and chickens in October, and bring them forth at any time during the winter. The meats are frozen so hard that a knife will not cut them, and they have to be sawed, or chopped up with an ax, when it is said splin- ters of meat fly about in every direction, and the beggars collect them and take them off home. Leaving the markets, we go back to our hotel. It is an enormous structure, having a dining room so large that a thousand people can be seated in it at one time. The food is excellent, and we find that we can live as well in Moscow as in any other city we have visited. The customs of eating, however, are different from those of the other Euro- pean countries. The first thing the Russian does upon entering the dining room is to go to a lunch counter, which is always found at one side of the room, where vodka, a Russian liquor, and such relishes as caviar, raw herring, smoked salmon, radishes, butter, and cheese are laid out. He drinks a small glass of the vodka and eats a bit of a relish while standing, and then goes and takes his seat for his dinner. Moscow. 347 The first thing that is served at a regular dinner is soup ; and we find the ordinary dish of Russian soup almost a whole meal. One of the most popular kinds is known as stchee. Sneeze hard and you will get the right pronuncia- tion ! Stchee is made of cabbage and beef, to which is often added a bowl of sour cream. Each plateful of the soup has a big chunk of beef in the middle, and we are expected first to eat the soup and then to cut up the beef and eat it. There are other soups of all kinds, hot and cold. There is even iced soup, as we discover when we lunch one day at a restaurant. We cannot read Russian, and point to the odd letters where the word soup should be on the bill of fare, and ask the waiter for that. He goes to the kitchen and brings a great bowl of white liquid with a piece of ice as big as his fist floating about in it. We try it. It tastes like iced vinegar, and one taste is enough. After the soup, meat and vegetables of various kinds are brought on, and then most delicious desserts. The Russian bread and butter at the better hotels is always good. Leaving the markets, we take droskies and ride about Moscow. It is built upon the hills and hollows which here line the winding Moscow River. It is twenty-five miles in circumference, and the shortest car line from one side of it to the other is nine miles long. In the very center of the city is a great fortress or citadel known as the Kremlin, which contains the old palace of the Czar, several famous Russian churches, the cathedral in which the emperors of Russia are crowned, and the tall tower of Ivan the Great. The tower is five stories high, and its golden dome seems to float in the air away up there three hundred feet above the ground. There is a stairway in it, and we climb up 348 RUSSIA. four hundred and fifty steps to the top, for a view of the city. We are hanging over a vast expanse of trees and houses, out of which rise the golden spires and domes of hundreds of churches. There are thousands of green trees, the roofs of the houses are all painted green, while some of the church domes are of sky blue, spotted with stars of gold. On the opposite side of the river we can see the The Kremlin. golden dome of the Church of our Savior, and beyond the city the smokestacks of the factories ; while just under us is the great triangular walled space known as the Kremlin. It is paved with cobblestones, and its massive wall is entered by five gates, each of which has a history. There is the one through which we came. It is called the Gate of the Redeemer on account of a picture of the MOSCOW. 349 Church of our Savior. Savior above it, and every one, from the Czar to the peas- ant, takes off his hat to that picture as he goes through. Every inch of land within the walls of the Kremlin is his- toric and sacred. In the church below us all the Czars of Russia have been crowned, and there to the left is the imperial treasury, where are the jewels and the costly plate belonging to the Russian crown. There are hun- dreds of millions of dollars worth of gold and precious stones in that building ; there are basins of gold as big as a foot bath, some of the world's greatest diamonds, and two tables of solid silver. As we go down from the Tower of Ivan the Great, we pass the many bells for which it is noted. Russia is a land of bells, and there are said to be two thousand in Moscow alone. The largest bell that rings, so large that you 350 RUSSIA. could not get it into an ordinary parlor, hangs within the tower ; and there are others, some of which are made of solid silver, but of smaller size. As we come out of the Tower we see at its foot, on a pedestal of stone, the big- gest bell ever made. It is as tall as a two-story house, is fifty-five feet in circumference, and two feet in thickness. A piece taller than a man is broken out of its side, and when we climb up and crawl into the hole where this piece once was, we are in a great tent of bronze. This bell was first cast in the sixteenth century, and was hung in Ivan's Tower. The tower burned, and when the bell fell it was broken in pieces. It was cast again in a larger size, but when the metal was still molten the women of Moscow, in a religious frenzy, threw their jewelry into the mass, and this rendered it so imper- fect that when it was rung a great piece broke out of its side. Then there was another fire, and the bell fell once more, never to rise again. From the Kremlin we visit the great Church of our Savior, built to commemorate the deliverance of Moscow " — the biggest bell ever made. DOWN THE VOLGA TO THE CASPIAN SEA. 35 1 when the French soldiers under Napoleon invaded the country. The church cost about forty million dollars, or about three times as much as our Capitol at Washington. Later on we spend some time in the Moscow University, which was founded by Peter the Great, and which has now several thousand students. We next drive out to the peoples' park, and enjoy our- selves with the Russian children in the roller coasters and merry-go-rounds; we listen to the open air concerts, and drink our tea under the trees. We find that the Russians are fond of enjoyment and pleasure. They have shows of all kinds, and their musicians are among the best of the world. XXXVI. DOWN THE VOLGA TO THE CASPIAN SEA. WE are at Nizhni Novgorod (nezh'ni nov'go-rod), on the River Volga. We have come from Moscow by train, and are now on a bluff overlooking the Volga, at the point where the Oka flows into it. Above us upon a hill is a great fortress, and behind and about us a city with fine streets, many stores and churches, and large public buildings. It contains one hundred thousand people, and the noise of its business and traffic makes a din in our ears. Below, on the tongue of land formed by the junction of the Volga and Oka, is another city almost as large, but, strange to say, as quiet and deserted as a city of the dead. We cannot see a wreath of smoke coming from its thou- sands of chimneys ; its many stores are closed, and their shelves have no goods upon them. It has theaters, but no actors ; its electric lights have not shone for months, and 352 RUSSIA. the grass is growing in its streets. It is the Fair City of Nizhni Novgorod, which for about a month in late summer is one of the liveliest trading places in the whole world, but which for the rest of the year is deserted and dead. Nizhni Novgorod. In the Middle Ages the most of the business of Europe was done in great fairs held at all the principal centers, and visited by buyers and sellers from everywhere. These fairs were usually held once a year, and they often lasted for weeks. They were established because there were but few large cities with stores of all kinds such as are found in Europe to-day. Most of the people lived in villages as they still do in Russia ; there were no railroads, and but few good wagon roads, and no way of moving rapidly about upon the rivers, so that the people could not go often from one place to another to buy or sell goods. As the DOWN THE VOLGA TO THE CASPIAN SEA. 353 means of communication improved and the cities grew, the fairs passed away, but there are still a number in Russia, and now and then one in other parts of Europe, such as Leipsig, where we heard of the book fairs and fur fairs which are still held every year. The principal fair of Russia meets annually in that de- serted city below us. Those houses have been built for it; they contain more than six thousand shops, which a month or so hence will be filled with goods. There will be more than six thousand merchants selling them, and many, many thousands of purchasers. Then the banks of the Volga for ten miles above here will be covered with merchandise, and both the Volga and Oka will be crowded with shipping. Vessels from the Caspian Sea will bring raw cotton from Central Asia, and bales of fine wool from South Russia, as well as carpets, rugs, silks, and other such things. Barges of pig iron from Siberia will be floated down from the Ural Mountains, and great loads of brick tea will be carried on camels over the highlands from China. Every variety of goods made in the thousands of factories of Russia will be brought hither, as well as skins, furs, fish, sugar, coffee, rice, and, in short, almost everything that is made anywhere. Most of the business will be at wholesale, and a vast deal of money will change hands. The customers will be of all the nations and races of eastern Europe and southern and western Asia. One section of the city will be given up to the Chinese, another to the Persians and Turks, and others to the Russians. There will be Georgians and Circassians, Armenians and Roumanians, Germans and Hungarians, and merchants from every part of the Russian Empire. There will in all be several hundred thousand strangers in the great fair city, and we regret we cannot stay for the sight. We 354 RUSSIA. have time for only a drive through the now deserted streets, after which we take the steamer for our long ride down the Volga to the Caspian Sea. How interesting it is ! We have steamed out of Nizhni Novgorod, and are now moving southward upon the great- est river of Europe. The Volga is twenty-three hundred miles long, and is navigable almost all the way from its source to its mouth. It is one of the great trade routes of Russia, and one of the commercial water ways of the world, including, with its tributaries, more than seven thou- sand miles of navigable water ways. It is connected by canal with the Neva, so that boats and barges from the Baltic can be taken through that river and the canal into the Volga, and carried on down to the Caspian Sea. It has other canals which connect it with the Dwina and the Arctic Ocean, and one joining the Oka to the Don, by which goods can be taken from the Volga, up the Oka, into the Don and the Black Sea. The river is winding, and the scene continually changes. Now we are going north and now south. Now the stream widens, so that we seem to be steaming through a great lake, and now it is narrow and deep with high rugged banks. One day we have a storm and the water changes from silver to ink, while the winds from the plain sweep in gusts over our vessel. The storm passes, and the sun sets in a blaze of red in the western horizon. Every few miles we pass a large village of log huts, and now and then go by a city. There are forty large cities on the Volga, and more than one thousand towns and villages. We see many windmills, and everywhere, above the towns, the spires and domes of the churches. Our first long stay is at Kazan, which we reach about a day and a night after leaving Nizhni Novgorod. It is one DOWN THE VOLGA TO THE CASPIAN SEA. 355 of the oldest cities of Russia, having been the capital of the Tartars when those almond-eyed, yellow savages over- ran Eastern Europe, and for two hundred years fought for the country with the Slavs. They were finally conquered by the Russians, under Ivan the Terrible, but many of the Tartars remained in Kazan, and there are thousands of Tartars in it to-day. There are three now in that crowd on the wharf ! You can tell them by their yellow faces and slant eyes. They have caps of black astrakhan fur, and their heads are shaved close; while the Russians have caps with visors, and wear their hair long. Farther back is a group of Tartar women. They are queer-looking creatures with sacques over their heads. The Tartars are good Mo- hammedans, and Moham- medan women seldom show their faces to any men but their husbands. The country is densely populated, and we see children everywhere. Farther down the river we spend an hour in Samara, a large city with many windmills about it, and stop again CARP. EUROPE — 22 Tartar Women. — we see children everywhere. 356 Russia. farther on at Saratof, in a grain-growing region. Every- where we see rich crops of wheat, barley, and rye. There are miles upon miles of pastures, herds of cattle and horses, and great flocks of sheep, and vast tracts of sunflowers with their great golden blossoms swaying to and fro in the wind. The Russians raise sunflowers for their seeds, and they consider them a very profitable crop. The seeds when pressed yield a rich oil, which is used for salads and cooking, and also for lighting and making candles and soap. The refuse of the seeds after the oil is squeezed out is an excellent food for pigs, cattle, and sheep, and also for rabbits, pigeons, and poultry. The people eat the seeds as we do peanuts, keeping a handful or so in their pockets, and nibbling away on them from time to time. There is such a demand for the seeds for various purposes, that more than forty million pounds of them are raised every year. The flowers are rich in honey, and the farmers keep bees, which feed upon them. A yellow dye is made from the blossoms, and the stalks have a fiber which the people in some districts use as we do flax. We ask how the sunflowers are raised, and are told that the seeds are sown very late in the fall or in the early spring, and harvested in the summer. The seed is drilled in rows about eighteen inches apart, and the plants thinned out so that there is a space of a foot or so between them. An acre of plants should yield about fifty bushels of seed. We are interested in the shipping of the Volga. The river is filled with vessels from Nizhni Novgorod to the sea. We go by many passenger steamers, past great barges loaded with grain, and tank ships of petroleum on their way from the oil fields below the Caucasus Mountains to the railroads and factories of the north. We pass enor- mous rafts of lumber, each with a neat house upon it, DOWN THE VOLGA TO THE CASPIAN SEA. 357 where the lumbermen live during the voyage. The rafts come from the northern forests, where the timber was cut, and the lumbermen will sell both timber and houses when they reach their destination in one of the towns of the tree- less plains farther down stream. Nearer the shore are small boats towed along from the banks by horses and by red-shirted peasants ; there are fishing boats here and there, and other craft of every description. We are more than four days on the river before we reach Astrachan, at the head of the delta of the Volga, where it divides into about two hundred mouths and flows on to the Caspian Sea. Here the river is wide ; its volume increases with the floods of the spring, when it becomes a great sea, from ten to twenty-five miles broad, for hun- dreds of miles from its mouth. Even here the Volga is frozen for three months, and above Nizhni Novgorod it is covered with ice for five or six months every year. Astrachan is the chief port for the Caspian Sea, al- though it is situated about eighty miles north of it. It is a very old city, largely inhabited by the fishermen of the Caspian, and having a vast trade in fish as well as in wool and other products of the region about it. We visit the establishments where they are putting up caviar for export, and then take steamer for Baku, the chief port of the Rus- sian oil regions on the Caspian Sea. It takes us all day to get to the mouth of the Volga, and we are more than another day in sailing on to Baku. The Caspian is rough, for a storm rises when we are far out from land, and in our little vessel we are rolled about more than we were during our passage across the Atlantic. The Caspian is the largest of all inland seas, and the winds from the Russian steppes roll up immense billows upon it. The water is salt, and the spray which is dashed 358 Russia. in our faces makes us think of the ocean. We are now ninety feet below the surface of the Black Sea, which we left at Odessa, and as we near Baku we are in sight of the Caucasus Mountains, the southern boundary of European Russia. When we leave the steamer we step out on the soil of Asia, but as the oil fields are closely associated with Euro- pean Russia, we have decided to include them in our tour. They begin at Baku. The strip in which they are found is only a few miles in width, but it is more than a thousand miles long. We seem to be steaming through oil as we come into the harbor. The water is coated with it, and there is a strong smell of petroleum from the great tank ships, and from the trains of tank cars as well as from the pipes which bring the oil into the city. We ask for a drink of fresh water, and when it is brought we taste it, and then hand it back in disgust, for it has the flavor of kero- sene. In Baku much of the cooking is done with oil, and the factories use oil for fuel. The city for a long time was lighted with oil, and everything we see seems mixed with it. The train which carries us through the oil region burns petroleum. We ride for miles through a forest of black towers sixty feet high, each standing above an oil well ; and when at last we get out of the cars, and walk on the ground, the oil oozes out under our feet. The scenes are somewhat like those of the oil regions of the United States, save that, instead of the skeleton-like derricks which stand over our wells, we have here towers like pyramids boarded up, and as black as though they were covered with pitch. At each tower is a shed for the engine used for boring the well, also for pumping oil. The black on the tower DOWN THE VOLGA TO THE CASPIAN SEA. 359 has come from the oil and sand which spouted forth from the well when the oil was first struck. The petroleum of this part of the world is nearer the surface than in our oil fields. Some of the wells are only- two hundred feet deep, and many are less than a thousand feet deep. When a good well is first struck, the oil often bursts forth to a great height, falling in a dense shower all I >■■■■ mKm -.--..-- " — a forest of black towers." about. Sometimes so much oil comes from the foun- tain wells that it is impossible to save it, and it flows off in streams over the land. Ditches are then dug to carry it to the reservoirs, and we see streams of oil, ponds of oil, and great tanks of oil everywhere. From one well bored some years ago, the oil spouted up to the height of four hundred feet, and it kept spouting for months; so that within less than two years it produced enough petroleum 360 RUSSIA. to fill a ditch more than a yard wide and a hundred miles long, and deep enough to cover the head of a man stand- ing upright within it. As we proceed, we see more and more evidences of the great extent of the Russian oil fields. There are five hun- dred ships on the Caspian Sea which carry nothing but oil ; vast amounts are shipped to Russia and other parts of Europe ; and trains of tank cars are always carrying petro- leum and kerosene to the Black Sea ; from there it is shipped through the strait of the Bosporus and the Mediter- ranean Sea to Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe. The United States now sells more oil than any other coun- try, but Russia is competing with it in the markets of the world ; and as we ride on and on through these forests of black towers, we wonder whether Russia may not at some time surpass the United States in exporting petroleum. From the oil regions we take a train for Tiflis, the capi- tal of the Russian dominions in Transcaucasia, a territory which is as large as France, and which contains more than eight million people. The city is a beautiful one of about two hundred thousand inhabitants. It lies in a valley with vineyards about it, with rocky heights farther back, and with many snow-clad peaks far off in the distance. We are now in the heart of the Caucasus Mountains, but on the lower side of the range, and quite a long way from Mount Elburz, the highest of these mountains, and also the highest mountain of Europe. The people of Tiflis are chiefly Asiatics. We see many strange faces and costumes as we ride about the town and shop in the bazaars ; and we feel that we might linger for weeks here in Asia had we not a large part of Europe yet to explore. We visit the different quarters of the city, buy a few things of the Persian, Turkish, and Armenian mer- IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 361 Tiflis. chants in the markets, and then take the train through the Caucasus to Batoum on the Black Sea, where we find a ship which within a few days will land us in Constantinople, the capital of Turkey. :>XK< XXXVII. IN CONSTANTINOPLE. THE strait of the Bosporus, which connects the big Black Sea with the little Sea of Marmora and the Mediterranean, winds in and out through a deep mountain valley which here lies between Europe and Asia. The hills in some places slope almost precipitously down to the water, and in other palaces great cliffs overhang it. Here and there along the strait are the palaces of the Sultan 362 TURKEY. and of Turkish nobles, interspersed with fishermen's huts and peasant villages, with rich farms and forests. There are castles and fortresses on some of the hills, and the scenery often reminds us of the Rhine and the Danube, The Bosporus is one of the great water highways between Europe and Asia, and vast cargoes of grain, oil, wool, and other products are always passing back and forth through it. The strait is only nineteen miles long, but so wide and deep that the largest ocean steamers can easily navigate it. At the southern end of the strait, where it empties into the Sea of Marmora, there is a lofty little peninsula, a tongue of land extending far out, and almost blocking the entrance. The northern side of this peninsula is bordered by a horn-shaped inlet which forms a wide and deep harbor, so covered with rich shipping that it is called the Golden Horn. The peninsula itself is not much larger than a big Texas farm, but it is the site of Constantinople, one of the most beautiful cities of the world (see map, p. 382). We have learned that there is always a reason for cities being situated just where they are. Even as villages are built at country crossroads to catch the business of the people moving each way, so cities grow up on the great highways of commerce, and especially where such high- ways cross. This is one of the reasons for the growth of Constantinople. It is at the chief crossroads of Europe and Asia. The grand divisions here come close together, and goods brought in by caravan for Europe can be easily shipped over the narrow strait to Constantinople, from where they can be sent on to the northward. Moreover, Constantinople occupies the best position on the great water road of the Bosporus which connects the whole world with the Black Sea and all parts of eastern # Europe. The Golden Horn gives Constantinople an excellent harbor, and its situ- IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 363 ation at the mouth of the Bosporus makes it really the chief port of the Danube, the Dnieper, the Don, and the other great rivers which empty into the Black Sea, and as such it has always had a great trade. The city also has the advantage of being easily defended. There are high- lands about it, upon which are great fortifications, and forts Along .the Bosporus. have been erected along the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, so that the Turks can, if they wish, prevent ships from moving out and in through the strait. The site of Constantinople is so central that a city was founded here more than twenty-five hundred years ago, under the name of Byzantium, which for centuries was a center of commerce and trade. About a thousand years later the Emperor Constantine made it the capital 364 TURKEY. of the whole Roman Empire, and called it Constantinople. For many centuries it was a Roman city. Then it was taken by the Crusaders, and, in the Middle Ages, by the Mohammedan Turks. A few years before Columbus started out on his first voyage to America, the Turks, a yellow race of Tartar Mohammedans who had overrun Asia Minor, captured the city, and extended their conquests farther on into Europe, taking country after country along the Danube and elsewhere, until they had almost as much territory as there is in the German Empire of to-day. They had still larger possessions in Asia than in Europe, but they so liked Constantinople that they chose it for the capital of their empire, and it holds this position to-day, although the greater part of their European territories have been taken from them. But we are now at the end of the Bosporus, right in front of the city. Our ship is slowly steaming in and out among craft of all kinds. The Golden Horn in front of us is filled with vessels of every description, and there are hundreds of little caiques (ka-eks'), or Turkish gondolas, containing passengers and pleasure hunters, moving in all directions. Steam launches and tugs are darting in and out through the shipping. The boats are manned by queerly dressed sailors, and' all our surroundings are strange. We are on the water, but nevertheless almost in the midst of the great city of Constantinople. There on the right bank of the Golden Horn are the marble palaces of the Sultan, some high up on the hill, and others on the edge of the water ; while farther on are the houses and business structures of Pera, where the most of the Europeans live. &t the left, on the opposite bank of the Bosporus, a village of IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 365 pink houses of curious shapes rises out of green trees. That land is Asia, and the town is Scutari, the suburb of Con- stantinople, where the largest of the Turkish cemeteries is located, and where many Turks who do business in Con- stantinople live. Before us on the peninsula is spread out the main part of the city, known as Stambul, which contains the vast bazaars, the hundreds of mosques, and the dwellings of most of the million and more who make up the population of this great Turkish capital. As we come closer the city appears to rise straight up from the sea. There is a low ruined wall about it, built centuries ago ; but back of this are palaces, here and there on the edge of the water, surrounded by green. The city is made up of hill and hollow, and as it lies before us it is a vast rolling expanse of houses, with huge domes and tall white towers extending high above them. Each of those domes is on the roof of one of the great Mohammedan churches or mosques, some of which cover acres, and the white towers are their minarets. The minarets have gal- leries about them in which, with our glasses, we can see dark-faced men in turbans and gowns standing, as they call the people to prayer. We can hear their shrill tenor voices coming over the water, and we see the Moham- medans on our ship turn toward the south in the direction of Mecca, their holy city, and kneel down and bend their heads to the deck, as they utter their prayers. Now we have entered the Golden Horn and landed at Pera. We have walked through the business part of the city and gone down to the bridge of boats, which is the main highway across to Stambul. We have paid our toll to the tall Turk in turban and gown at the entrance, and are standing on the bridge gazing at the strange throngs that are moving back and forth on their way to and from 366 TURKEY. pers turned up at the toes, they walk. Their faces are dark, and their eyes some- what slanting; many have long beards which reach down their breasts. Most of those who dress in this way are Turks, and all are Mo- hammedans. There are also hundreds of dark-faced men wearing clothes like ours, but with red fez caps on their heads, and there are boys in red caps and long gowns. But what are those two curious creatures now com- the great city. Constan- tinople is a mixture of ~J~ many strange races. It has more Turks perhaps than any other people, but there are thousands of Ar- menians, Persians, Circas- sians, Greeks, Georgians, and Jews, as well as strange characters from all parts of Europe and southwest- ern Asia. There are scores of men in long gowns, with white, red, blue, or green turbans about their heads. They wear red or yellow slip- which clap on the boards as ■each looks like two mammoth sausages." IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 367 ing toward us ? As they enter the bridge, in the distance, each looks like two mammoth sausages tied together one on top of the other. Those are two Turkish women, who have their heads and faces so wrapped up that they hardly seem human. Their dresses look like balloons, for their outer clothing hides their forms as they walk through the street. Now they are closer, and we see that each wears a veil, so that only the eyes and a strip of the forehead are visible. One of the women has a black ser- vant with her, a slave who is going along to guard and protect her. Mohammedan women do not show their faces on the street; and indoors they are rarely seen by any other men than their hus- bands. Get out of the way of that porter! Don't you see the enormous box he is carrying on his back, bending over so that he can hardly look up ? He is one of the drays of Constantinople, and he competes with the donkey and the camel for his share of the freight. There are but few heavy vehicles in the •we see that each wears a veil.' 368 TURKEY. — as much as five hundred pounds." city. Trunks and boxes of all kinds are carried about by the porters, called hamals (ha-mals'), who rest their bur- ly dens on saddles fastened to their backs. Some of them are so strong they can carry as much as five hundred pounds at one load. But let us walk over the bridge, keep- ing close to the railing and out of the way of the carriages, donkeys, and camels, and of the turbaned soldiers rid- ing Arabian horses. We walk behind a Greek priest, who strolls along arm and arm with a Circassian in uniform, wear- ing a high cap of astrakhan fur. As we go on we are accosted by beggars in tur- bans. We pass peddlers and hucksters dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, and selling all kinds of goods. We stop one for a drink from a great bottle of lemonade which he carries on his back, and from another we buy some of the Turkish fig paste for which Constantinople is famous. Now we have left the bridge and are making our way through the city. The streets are narrow and winding. They are paved with cobblestones, and in many places are dirty and filthy. What a lot of dogs there are everywhere ; many lie asleep on the stones so that we have to kick them to get them out of our way. They put their tails between their legs and move off growling, for they are poor-spirited curs and are perhaps the leanest dogs of the world. They excite a pathetic interest, for they have no masters. They belong to the city and their only homes are the streets. The Turks never think of letting dogs come into their houses, for they consider them unclean, so that, although IN CONSTANTINOPLE, 369 Constantinople has thousands of dogs, no man in the city owns a dog. Each dog has its own quarter, however, and when a stray cur comes into a strange alley, the dogs of the alley pounce upon him and drive him out. The dogs serve as the scavengers, and they seem to be the only street cleaners of Constantinople. " — a town of stores all under one roof." But here we are at the bazaars, where we can learn how they do business in this great Mohammedan city. We push our way through the crowds at the entrance, and enter a town of stores all under one roof. There are acres upon acres of little cell-like shops ranged along narrow cobble- stone streets, lighted here and there by small domes. Some of the stores are not bigger than packing boxes. Here is one so small that it is entirely filled by the mer- 370 TURKEY. chant, who sits cross-legged on the floor, with his goods piled around him. Other shops are larger ; and many are furnished with divans upon which long-gowned, long- bearded men sit, and smoke and drink coffee as they bar- gain. The floors of some of the stores are as high as a chair, and we sit on the floor with our feet in the street as we shop. All business is done by bargaining, and it takes us a long time to make every purchase. It is customary to find fault with the goods, and at the suggestion of our guide we offer only about one third the amount that the merchant demands. If he refuses we come up a few cents, and if he will make no reduction whatever, start away expecting to be called back, as is often the case, although he protests that such sales will ruin his business. There are no fixed prices, and the Turkish dealer takes all he can get. In many of the bazaars the turbaned storekeeper sends out a servant for coffee, and we drink as we bargain. The coffee is served without cream, in a little cup no bigger than half an eggshell. It is as thick as chocolate, and almost as sweet as molasses; we are told that it is made of the roasted coffee beans pounded to a fine powder. We grow very fond of it, although it seems more like a sweet syrup than coffee. We devote a long time to the bazaars, strolling about through one narrow street after another. Each section has its own kind of goods. We walk through roofed alleys walled with slippers and shoes of the brightest of colors, and of all grades and prices. There are men's shoes of red leather made without heels, and with the toes turned up at the ends like an old-fashioned skate. There are ladies' shoes of fine silk in the most delicate shades of pearl, pink, and sky blue, some of which are covered with AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS. 37 1 gold and silver embroidery. We each buy a pair of chil- dren's shoes to take home. They are of red leather, with a tassel of wool on each toe as big as a walnut. Under the tassel is a bell, so that some of the little Turks actually go about with bells on their toes. We stay some time in the Persian bazaars, looking at beautiful shawls and other things from that country, buy a fez cap apiece in the fez shops, and in the perfumery sec- tion lay in a supply of attar of roses, for this is the land of that delightful perfume. In European Turkey there are vast rose farms each containing many thousands of bushes. The roses are picked when in full bloom, and from their leaves is extracted an oil, the scent of which is so strong that a drop of it put into a box of clothing will make it smell like roses for weeks. This oil is called attar of roses. Vast quantities of it are sold in Constantinople, and a great deal is exported to other parts of the world. Passing through the spice bazaar, we enter streets where scores of merchants are selling the oriental carpets and rugs for which Turkey is famous. The rugs are made on hand looms by the women and girls in different parts of the empire. The work is done in their homes, and it takes them a long time to make a fine rug. Only a few square inches can be made in one day, and the larger rugs require many months of continuous work. XXXVIII. AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS. OUR first business this morning is to learn something of the Turkish empire and how it is governed. We leave our hotel and go to the Sublime Porte, a vast build- ing which contains the chief public offices of the Sultan. CARP. EUROPE — 23 372 TURKEY We are met at the door by the guards, one of whom takes us through room after room filled with clerks, each wearing a turban or a red fez cap on his head. Some wear Euro- pean clothes, and a few have on long gowns like the mer- chants of the bazaars. " — the Sublime Porte, a vast building which contains the public offices of the Sultan." The Empire of Turkey is ruled by the Sultan and a Parliament of two Houses which is elected by the people. The Sultan has a council of ministers much like the Cabi- net of our President. His chief officer, who has charge of all civil affairs, is called the Grand Vizier, and another very great man is the Sheik-ul-Islam, or chief of the Church, AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS. 373 who has to do with all matters relating to the Mohamme- dans in Constantinople and throughout the empire. Not only is the Sultan the civil ruler of the Turkish people, but he is the head of the Mohammedan religion, which is pro- fessed by more than one hundred million people in differ- ent parts of the world. The Turkish Empire once included a large part of Asia, Africa, and Europe, but now it covers a territory only about a third as large as the United States. The European possessions of the Turks have for years been steadily decreasing. Country after country has been taken from them by Russia and Austria, and the Sultan is now able to hold Constantinople, and his re- maining territories north of the Bosporus, only by the consent of the great powers who fear Russia, and think Europe will be safer from her as long as the entrance to the Black Sea is in the hands of the Turks. All the countries of European Turkey combined are not so large as some of our Western states. They now comprise only a part of the Balkan Peninsula, a rich land, inhabited by many different peoples, much like those we saw on our trip down the Danube. There are Roumanians, Servians, Bulgarians, Slavs, Albanians, Armenians, gypsies, and a great many Turks. About one half of the whole popula- tion is Mohammedan ; and of the other half the most be- long to the Greek Orthodox Church, which we learned about during our travels in Russia. Turkish Officer. 374 TURKEY. The people throughout the whole Turkish Empire are poor. The Sultan and his officials prey upon them by demanding large taxes. The laws provide that one tenth of all the crops shall go to the government, and the officials come out to the harvest fields and carry away their share of the grain. There are also heavy taxes on imports and exports, so that the people cannot save money. Men will not work hard in a country where the government takes the lion's share of the profits ; the result is that there are comparatively few industries in Turkey, and the minerals and other resources are but little developed. In European Turkey the people live chiefly by farming and stock raising. They dwell in villages, having but few large towns, and only about a dozen cities of more than twenty thousand inhabitants. The largest city outside Constantinople is Saloniki. It is on the ^Egean Sea, and has a railroad connection with other parts of Europe. It has an excellent harbor, and is becoming a commercial port, as it is on the shortest sea route from London to the Suez Canal. Another important city is Adrianople, situ- ated where the road from Constantinople to Vienna crosses that from Bulgaria to the sea. It is also the center of the rose-growing region, where the attar of roses we bought in the bazaar is made. We observe that education is backward in Turkey. The chief teachers are the Mohammedan priests, and the schools are largely connected with the mosques, or Mo- hammedan churches. Very few of the cities have any modern improvements, and everything is somewhat Asiatic. European Turkey is a Mohammedan country, ruled by Mohammedans, and all of our surroundings show the evil effects that Mohammedanism has upon the people, and their advancement in civilization and wealth. AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS. 375 "The people live chiefly by farming." But let us go to the mosques, and see something of this interesting religion which is professed by about one fifteenth of the population of the globe. There are more than two thousand mosques in the Turkish Empire, and about three hundred of the finest of them are in Con- stantinople. Our first visit is to Santa Sophia, the largest mosque of the world. It was built as a Chris- tian church centuries ago ; ten thousand masons worked upon it for seven years, and one hundred architects were required to oversee its construction. It had doors of ivory, amber, and cedar, and its altar was made of precious stones, embedded in gold. The finest temples of Ephesus, Thebes, Athens, and Rome were robbed of columns in 376 TURKEY. order to decorate it, and it was a huge mass of precious marbles, gold, and jewels. When the Turks conquered Constantinople they destroyed much of its beauty. They defaced the paintings, and tore down the altars, and turned it into a mosque. Nevertheless, it is still one of the most interesting of the world's churches, and one of the largest. It covers almost as much ground as the Capitol at Wash- Interior of Santa Sophia. ington, being built in the shape of a Greek cross; it is covered with a vast roof upheld by a forest of columns with a grand dome in the center. But let us go in and see for ourselves. We shall first enter the court. There are turbaned, long-gowned Turks guarding the doors, and we are asked to take off our shoes ; for the Mohammedans consider their churches holy, and no one is permitted to enter them with his shoes on. There are fountains in the court, and about them are hundreds AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS. 377 of Turks washing themselves before they go in to pray. The good Mohammedan prays five times every day, and he washes his face, hands, and feet before every prayer. We walk through corridor after corridor of the great mosque, and later attend one of the evening services, held in the light of its thousands of lamps. We stand in the galleries above great stars of flame, which seem to be floating in the air between the dome and the floor. Every pillar and every alcove is ablaze, and the galleries are walled with fire. The service has already begun when we enter the building. The floor below us is covered with worshipers. There are at least five thousand Moham- medans on their knees, with their faces toward Mecca, on that floor below us. In turbans and gowns, with their shoes in front of them, and their bare feet turned up to the gallery, they form long lines of color upon the white mats away down there under the floating flames. They are all praying in response to the shrill cries of the iman, or priest, who stands in the pulpit at one end of the vast church, and leads the service. He utters a sentence, and the long lines of turbaned men below us rise and fall like clockwork in their devotions. Now they stand upon their feet. Now they kneel down in prayer, and the strik- ing of ten thousand knees upon the floor sounds like the rumbling of cannon in the distance. Now they bend their heads to the mats, and the sound comes up like the fall of a great weight, rather than the touch of thousands of human heads. The Mohammedan prayers and methods of praying are fixed by the Koran, or Mohammedan Bible, and the peo- ple all pray the same way. They are not ashamed of their religion, and we see them reading their Korans in their stores, and kneeling down at their prayers in the 378 TURKEY. bazaars. We observe them praying in the fields outside Constantinople, and near every mosque see thousands of them washing themselves before going in. We look at one of the Korans. It is printed in Arabic characters, and we cannot understand it. We are told, however, that it contains not only the religion of the Mo- hammedans, but also many of their laws, and that the " He has his own mosque." Sultan in governing his empire is supposed to follow its teachings. The Sultan is required to be a devout Moham- medan. He has his own mosque not far from his palace, where he goes to pray on Friday, which is the Moham- medan Sabbath. Once a year he makes a great show of kissing the mantle of the prophet Mohammed, which is kept as a precious relic in Stambul. During our stay in Constantinople we visit the Seraglio AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS. 379 (se-ral'yo) in which is the old treasury of the Sultan, and later we drive out past the palace of Yildiz, where His Majesty lives. His grounds contain many acres of for- ests and gardens, in which are ravines, lakes, and bab- bling brooks, for he has a large income, although his people are so poor. He has altogether over thirty pal- aces, and keeps thousands of servants. There are a hun- dred porters, for instance, and it takes hundreds of cooks to prepare the food for the palace. In the Sultan's stables there are two thousand horses, and the finest of all the Arabian horses are sent to him. He has many slave girls as wives, according to law ; and formerly the most beautiful women that could be found in* Georgia and other parts of the Caucasus Mountains, regions where the women are noted for their beauty, were bought, and brought here to be made members of his im- mense family. According to the Mohammedan law, every true believer has the right to four wives, although most Mohammedans, for several reasons, have only one. One reason is that the better class women do but little work, and only a rich man can support several wives. Another reason, so the Turks tell us, is that with one wife a man may have peace in his family, but that more than one often bring trouble and discord. When we visit the Mohammedans in their homes, only the girls of our party are permitted to go into the women's apartments. It is not polite for a man to ask after the wives and daughters of his friends. The sexes are kept apart, and a young man seldom sees his betrothed until the wedding. The marriage is all arranged by the par- ents, and the young people are supposed to take without question whomsoever their fathers and mothers select. 380 TURKEY. In many Mohammedan families the men and women do not eat together, nor do they associate with one another at parties; and as we have seen, whenever a woman goes about on the street, she keeps her face well covered. The Turks are very polite. They are continually making elaborately courteous remarks to one another. When we meet them, they accost us by saying in Turkish, " May thy day be happy," and if we would be as polite as they are, we must reply, " May thy day be happy and blessed." They are very hospitable, and we are frequently asked out to dinner. They usually eat but two meals a day, one at ten o'clock in the morning, and the other at sunset, although they may take a cup of coffee on rising. They do not use tables, but have their meals served on tra^s, some of which are as large around as a washtub. In the center of each tray is a mat on which the hot dishes are put with the salt, pepper, pickles, and other such things about them, new trays being brought in with the different courses. At a real Turkish meal, in the interior, every person has his own spoon, and helps himself to the soup in his turn. Meat and other viands are often brought on cut in small pieces, and are eaten with the fingers. The people are very dainty in using their fingers, touching the food only with the thumb and two first fingers, or dip- ping it out with a piece of bread doubled up and held in the hand. One Turk being asked if he did not think our way was more cleanly, said, " Every one knows whether he has washed his fingers, but you never can tell who washes the knives and forks ! " We find the food very good. One of the most com- mon dishes is pilaf (pe'laf), made of rice and chopped meat stewed together. This is served at almost every dinner, and when well cooked is delicious. We enjoy the IN MODERN GREECE. 38 1 Turkish fig paste and the nougat, or candy of nuts and sugar, and also the rose jam which the servant brings in with a glass of water and a spoon. We eat the jam in the approved Turkish fashion, taking first a spoonful of jam, and then a swallow of water, which dissolves the jam and leaves a taste of perfume in the mouth. :>:*;< XXXIX. IN MODERN GREECE. HOW would you like to make a trip into Fairyland ? There is a little country not far from Constantinople from which have come some of the strangest stories ever told. There are stories of huge giants who breathed forth fire and flame, who were conquered by Hercules ; stories of Pegasus, a horse which had wings so that it flew through the air, carrying its master over mountains and seas ; stories of Io, a beautiful maiden who was turned into a snow- white cow through the jealousy of the goddess Juno ; and stories of the soldiers of Ulysses, who among their other experiences were changed into swine by the wicked witch Circe. There are stories of gods and goddesses, of sweet singing sirens, of horrible harpies who were half bird and half woman, of centaurs who were half horse and half man; so many strange stories, in fact, that I must not stop even to mention them all. You may read of them, perhaps, in the poems of Homer, who lived there several thousand years ago, or in the " Tanglewood Tales" and " Wonder Book " of our own Nathaniel Hawthorne, who has retold these old stories in a beautiful way. This wonderful land is Greece. It is a little country con- sisting of some mountainous islands and the mountainous 382 GREECE. s.StE JR. V\T A% °Istip\ Q |HrV#^feWastii] * tf ^%Flariua i?. Varna -. ... B L A C K (rfrghas OyW-efLIA *^|j SEA -jOM'^-'iKirklplisseh . qf ^^^^^pfv^ y peninsula which extends from the foot of the Balkan Peninsula between the ^Egean and Ionian seas. Greece is only about as big as our state of West Virginia, and it is so wild and rugged that most of the land cannot be culti- vated, but it has nevertheless been one of the most impor- tant countries of the world. It was the birthplace of our civilization. When the rest of Europe was inhabited by savages and wild animals, Greece had cities and towns and cultivated farms. It had many little republics, each with its own government and its own laws. IN MODERN GREECE. 383 The Greeks were then noted for their strength and beauty, and they often held public games where the men and boys from everywhere came to try who was the strong- est and most skillful. They were artistic, and they built some of the grandest temples and carved some of the most beautiful statues the world has ever known. They were learned ; they had famous orators, poets, and schol- ars ; and their language was so beautiful, and their methods of thinking so clear, that the literature of ancient Greece has always been a source of inspiration to scholars every- where ; it is still studied in the colleges all over the world. The ancient Greeks became a great commercial nation. The country has many excellent harbors, so that its people naturally have always taken to the sea. Their huge boats, propelled by triple banks of oars, went to all parts of the Mediterranean Sea, exchanging the choicest products of Greece for those of other lands. They became so rich after a time that other nations made war upon them. They resisted the attacks of the Per- sians, but were conquered later by the Romans, who read- ily assimilated Greek culture and refinement, and in time carried the Greek civilization with them along the Rhine, and to all parts of southern Europe. Hundreds of years later this same civilization, developed and modified some- what by the different peoples that transmitted it, came with our forefathers to North America ; so that the little country of Greece was really the originator of much of our own manners and customs and thought. All this, however, came from the ancient Greeks, who lived long before Christ was born. Since that time the coun- try has been conquered again and again; and its people have been so oppressed and ill treated by their savage victors that it has at times become almost barbarous. The 384 . GREECE. Goths overran it during the Middle Ages ; and when the Turks captured Constantinople they took possession of it, and ruled it in their miserable way until shortly after the beginning of the last century, when the Greeks rebelled, and through the assistance of some of the great nations of Europe again became an independent people. They have now their own Parliament, elected by themselves, and a King who is a descendant of the royal family of Denmark ; and they are rapidly improving in civilization and wealth, as we shall observe during our travels among them. We have left Constantinople by steamer, and have come to Athens, the capital of Greece. What a beautiful city it is, and how modern ! It has many magnificent build- ings of the purest white marble, and thousands of two, three, and four story houses of brick covered with stucco. The walls of the houses are either white, or of the most delicate pinks, blues, and yellows, so that we seem to be in a city of many colored marbles, roofed with red tiles. The streets are paved with cobbles, and the sidewalks with flag- stones. There are palaces with gardens about them, and parks filled with trees and beautiful flowers. The business sections look like those of an American town, and the stores have plate glass windows, displaying all sorts of beautiful goods. Do you hear that locomotive ? That shrill whistle an- nounces the arrival of the steam cars from The Piraeus (pl-re'us), the seaport of Athens, which is over the plain about five miles away ; and that bell that you hear is rung by the conductor on that street car over there, by which we can ride to any part of the city. We thought we were coming to one of the oldest places of the world ; but we seem to be in one of the newest, IN MODERN GREECE. 385 until we take a stroll outside the town, through the ruins which are lying about on every side. We realize still more that we are on the site of old Athens when we climb the Acropolis. This is a gigantic block or hill of rose-colored stone which rises almost straight up above Athens on the edge of the city. Upon its top there is a plateau of about ten acres covered with broken columns, marble statues, The Acropolis. and the remains of the most wonderful buildings of ancient Greece. Here are the ruins of the Parthenon ; the great columns which once upheld the roof of that beautiful tem- ple still rest on their pedestals; here was the statue of Athena, the goddess of war, which was thirty-eight feet high and made of ivory and gold. Near the Parthenon are the ruins of another temple, with a portico upheld by tall Grecian maidens in marble ; and there are so many 386 GREECE. other wonderful ruins to be seen outside Athens, and in other parts of Greece, that it would take many months to explore them. We are more interested in the Greeks of to-day. Notice, for instance, that man driving some goats, who is now " — a portico upheld by tall Grecian maidens in marble." coming toward us. He is dressed in short skirts and tight trousers, with an embroidered jacket which comes to his waist. He has red shoes with black tassels as big as a chestnut bur on the toes, and a red nightcap on his head. He is one of the milkmen of Athens, and lives in the coun- IN MODERN GREECE. 387 try near by. See, he has stopped at that house over there and is kneeling beside one of his goats. He is milking it for the servant girl who stands by his side and looks on. The most of the Athenians drink goat's milk, and to be sure they get it fresh and unwatered, they insist that the goats be driven from house to house and milked at their doors. Do you want a ripe orange, or some figs fresh from the trees? If so, you can buy them cheap of that Greek boy coming down the street; he is driving two little donkeys loaded with baskets of fruit. Greece has many fine fruits. It "He is dressed in has the most delicious of oranges, and short skirts -" they are so cheap that we can buy all we can eat for a very few cents. But perhaps you desire something sweeter ! Well, in that case we shall call over that old woman, who is walk- ing along on the opposite sidewalk behind the fruit ped- dler. She has a thick comb of honey fastened to a branch in her hand. It is the honey of Hymettus, and it was gathered by the bees from the yellow flowers which grow on the mount of that name. It has a delicious flavor ; the honey of Hymettus has been noted for ages. Greece is a land of sweet-smelling, honey-filled flowers, and the bees work as hard here as anywhere else in the world. But look at the boy who is coming out of the street at the left ! He is carrying a big dish of smoking roast meat. Behind him comes a girl with a plate of baked fish sprinkled with onions, and farther back are several children carrying loaves of hot bread and other things fresh from the fire. Where can they be going ? They must be on their way to 388 GREECE. supply some great public dinner. No ; each child is carry- ing only the food for its own family. The dishes were dressed at home and taken to the baker to be cooked in his oven at so much a dish. The Greeks have small kitchens, and their ordinary cooking stove is not fitted for roasting and baking. It is a brick or stone ledge built about three feet high against the wall, with several small holes in the top. Each hole has a grating and an opening below it in the side, which furnishes the draft. Upon the grating a little charcoal is put, and the fire is made hotter by fanning. Only boiling and stewing can easily be done on such stoves ; so when a family has a large roast it sends it out to the baker. If we follow those boys and enter their houses, we shall discover that the poorer Greeks live very simply. Many families have but two rooms, one often serving as dining room, bedroom, and kitchen; some of the houses are built around courts without yards or gardens. The better classes have homes much like those we saw in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris. They live in apartments or flats, a number of families in the same house, only the rich having separate houses. We see all sorts of peddlers as we go on with our walk. There are men with lemonade and candies, and men ped- dling onions, and garlic, which they have woven together in ropes and sell at so much a string. There are men driving turkeys along from house to house, so that the cus- tomers may pick out the turkeys they want from the flock. There are men in skirts and red caps riding on horses and donkeys, and men, women, and children, dressed as we are, in carriages, driven by coachmen in skirts and red caps. There are private soldiers wearing the jackets and petticoats, which form a part of the national uniform, and IN MODERN GREECE. 389 smart-looking officers in suits of white linen. There are many priests dressed in black gowns and high caps, which remind us of the churches of Russia, for the Greeks and the Russians have much the same faith, and nearly all here belong to the Greek Orthodox Church. There is a great deal of business done on the streets. We see women wearing the long, loose gowns of the country, knitting outside their houses, and shoemakers pegging away on the steps. There are cafes everywhere with tables out- side them, surrounded by men who are playing dominoes while they chat and drink coffee. The coffee is black, and costs two or three cents a cup. Some of the men are very excited. They are talking politics ; for these people are great politicians, and even the waiters at the hotels and the drivers on the street cars think they know just how the governments of the whole world should be run. The Greeks have their own political parties, and elect the Parliament which makes all their laws. They are patri- otic, and very proud of their progress since they became free of the Turks. They have built hundreds of miles of railroads. They now have public schools all over Greece, which all children are required to attend. The Greeks are fast becoming well educated. The boys and girls are anxious to learn, and we shall meet few who can not read and write. The school books are in the same characters that the ancient Greeks used, and it is not uncommon to hear a boy recite CARP. EUROPE 24 f: - ■ fd| •"■I IS kj Bh OfewT 1 . .JT J H ''-[■''$ *?*##^|L . i \m 'ft .■>*■« We see women wear- ing the long, loose gowns of the coun- try." 390 GREECE. che tales of Homer in the original, or repeat the orations of Demosthenes, a famous Greek orator who lived over twenty-two centuries ago. Athens has again become a seat of learning. It has a university with thousands of students, a girl's college which is one of the largest and best of the Far East, and many scientific institutions. Fifty different newspapers and periodicals are published, most of them in the Greek text. Many of the people speak several languages, and we fre- quently meet girls and boys of eight and ten years who address us in English. We learn that scholars come here from all parts of the world to study the ruins of old Greece and the wonderful collections in the museums; and we spend some time at the American College, where students from our own country come to study Greek literature and art. We are surprised at the wealth of Athens and at the extent of Grecian commerce and trade. The ports are crowded with shipping. The country has several hundred merchant steamers, and more than three thousand sailing vessels in addition to numerous coasters. Owing to the excellent harbors and the nearness of all parts of the coun- try to the coast, many of the Greeks become sailors, and Greek ships now do a large part of the business of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The Greeks almost monopolize the trade of this part of the world. They have established Greek banking houses and stores at all ports of Asia Minor and Egypt, and at the chief cities along the Black Sea and the ^Egean Sea. There are many more Greeks living outside Greece than at home. There are about eight millions of them in the world, and only a little more than two millions live in Greece, the others having gone abroad as sailors or to engage in com- merce. They are so successful as traders that it is a com- IN MODERN GREECE. 39 1 mon saying in the countries about the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea, that one Greek is equal to two Jews at a bargain, and every one knows that the Jews are shrewd traders. But suppose we leave Athens and take a trip across the peninsula to Corinth, where we can get a vessel which will land us in Italy. We go by rail, stopping now and then at a station for a drive off into the country. How beauti- ful everything looks ! The sky is bright blue, there is a silvery tinge to the mountains, and the shadows of the fleecy clouds make patches of dark blue velvet on the silver gray hills. We pass through fields of wheat, barley, and rye, in which great blood-red poppies are growing. We go by orange groves, where the yellow balls peep at us out of the green foliage, and see thousands of gnarly olive trees with the plumlike fruit ripening upon them. There are fine-looking men and women at work in the fields gathering the crops. They are cutting the grain with sickles and scythes, and tying it into sheaves with their hands. Nearly all the farming is of the rudest descrip- tion. The fields are hoed or spaded instead of being plowed, and all the seeds are sown by hand. There are many small farms, and the farmer in most cases owns the land that he tills. As we near Corinth we enter a region of vineyards, and should we go on south across the Corinth peninsula, we should see hill after hill covered with vines. It is these vineyards that yield the Zante currants, the seedless grapes or raisins which are shipped to all parts of the world. They form the chief export of Greece and bring in many millions of dollars a year. Shiploads of them go to the United States ; and I doubt not every one of us has eaten them again and again in puddings and cakes. They 392 ITALY. are not much bigger than peas, but they have such a deli- cious flavor that there are no other grapes equal to them, and they grow best right here near Corinth. It is from Corinth that their name, currant, comes ; and our currants, although they are a different fruit, were probably named after the Zante currant on account of the similarity in size and appearance. We see the people picking the grapes. Hundreds of men, women, and children are gathering them and laying them out on trays to dry in the sun. After drying they are packed up in boxes and crates, and then sent to Patras and other ports. XL. VENICE. WE take ship at Corinth and steam out through the Gulf of Patras into the Mediterranean Sea. The sky is bright, the water is a deep blue, and in the bright sunlight the mountains seem to be dusted with silver. We sail in and out among the Ionian Islands, and then turn to the north, and are soon going through the Strait of Otranto into the Adriatic. We sail up this long narrow sea for two days, coasting by Albania and the inde- pendent little country of Montenegro (see map, p. 406), and on the third morning find ourselves at anchor in front of a great city which seems to rise up out of the waves. There are thousands of buildings apparently resting in water, which flows through the streets, and washes the walls of the houses. There is water to the right, and water to the left, between the city and the shore ; and by climbing up the mast of our steamer we can look over and see water behind the city. VENICE. 393 And still the shore is everywhere but a few miles away. It is low and marshy on the water's edge, but farther back; the land rises, and away off in the distance is a wall of high mountains, their peaks covered with snow. Those moun- tains are the Italian Alps, the other side of which we explored while in Switzerland ; and the country off which we are lying, extending hundreds of miles to the westward and southward, is the great kingdom of Italy, which we are now to explore. The city in front of us is Venice, the Queen of the Adri- atic, a mighty port which has grown up on about one hun- dred little islands away out here in the sea. The islands have bridges connecting them. They are covered with houses and are so cut up by canals that the water itself seems to form the foundations of the city ; the canals are the streets. Grand Canal and the Rialto. 394 ITALY. Our steamer sails up into one of the widest of these water highways. It is the Grand Canal, an avenue of water wider than one of the boulevards of Paris, filled with barges, launches, and all sorts of queer little boats moving to and fro. In Venice almost all the traffic is carried on by boats. There is not a dray, a cart, nor a carriage in the whole city. There is not a cow nor horse, there are not even the little donkeys of which we saw so many in Greece. The hucksters and vegetable peddlers go about in boats from door to door, stopping under the kitchen windows to cry out their wares. The cargo from the steamers is taken in barges to the factories and warehouses. People go calling in boats, and many of the children use boats in going to and from school. The houses rise abruptly from the canals, and you can step from your house right into your boat. There are no front yards, back yards, or side yards, and a Venetian boy never swings on his father's front gate. The streets are usually back of the houses. They are narrow stone pave- ments bordering the canals, and are for foot passengers only. They wind in and out, crossing the canals by bridges so arched that boats can pass under them, and in our walks we shall be always going up and down hill. But see those odd-looking boats coming out to the steamer. They are long and narrow, and turned up at the ends, with a little cabin in the center. They are painted black, and the only sign of color about them is in the bright cushions which can be seen through the cabin windows. Those are gondolas, the water cabs of Venice, in which we shall make our trips through the city. At the stern of each boat stands the gondolier, who is sculling it along with an oar which he twists from side to side, swaying to and fro as he does so. VENICE. 395 The Water Cabs of Venice. We motion to one of them to come to the ship and give us a ride through the city. The gondolier moves his boat to the gangway ; he helps us aboard, and we step inside the cabin. He then takes his place at the stern, and we soon hear the splash, ^_ splash, splash of his oar as he sculls us on through one street after another. We move up the Grand Canal, among craft large and small, past palaces which have been turned into hotels and warehouses, by great factories with humming machinery, and on by the homes of the people, where families are sitting out on their balconies, chatting, and enjoying the air. Now we are floating under the parlor windows of a magnificent house, and the music of a piano comes down to us. We hear the soft strumming of a guitar in the hands of one of a pleasure party rowing toward us, while the cries of hucksters peddling vegetables, fish, and fruits from other boats sound loudly over the water. We tell the gondolier to turn into the smaller canals, and are soon floating through alleys so narrow that we can touch the stone walls on either side. The high houses shut out the sun, and the water seems black in the shadows, while our walled road is roofed with a strip of blue sky. What a lot of strange things are going on in the canal. We see men and boys in swimming suits diving down into the water and floating about. Here are the playgrounds of the children. Every boy in Venice must learn to swim, and the little ones take to the water like ducks. There is 396 ITALY. a boy now diving out of the side window of his house, and there is another crawling up out of the water to the front door. There are women washing clothes on the steps of their houses, and drying them on the roofs or on ropes stretched from one house to another across the canals. Farther on are some children in boats, and beyond them are passenger boats going from one part of the city to another. Leaving the smaller canals, we come again into the Grand Canal, our gondola rocking up and down in the waves of the larger boats passing near it ; we stop for a moment to look at a great marble bridge which crosses the canal from one island to another. This bridge is the Rialto, one of the most famous bridges of the world. It is more than three hundred years old, and was formerly noted as one of the business centers of Venice. It swarms with foot passengers from daylight to dark. It is so wide that shops have been built upon it, and passing over it is like going through the aisle of a department store where men, women, and children are shopping. We buy some oranges of the fruit peddlers at the end of the bridge, and then step down into our gondola and glide onward past some of the finest buildings of the city to the hotel. Our hotel is in one of the old palaces. We walk up marble steps, and go into wide halls floored with mosaic. Our bedroom is enormous; it has a stone floor, and its walls and ceiling are covered with paintings, so that angels and cupids are looking down upon us from above as we awake in the morning. Almost all the houses of Venice are built of stone brought in ships from the mainland. In many instances cedar piles were driven down into the sand to make the foundations, as in Amsterdam and St. Peters- burg, and upon them these great stone structures were Venice. 397 built. On account of the dampness, stone and cement are still used for the floors, layer after layer being put on until a thick floor is formed. The last layer is composed of fine bits of colored stone carefully fitted together, and so rubbed down that it forms a mosaic as smooth as pol- ished marble or glass. Venice is celebrated for this sort of stonework. The Venetians make not only floors and walls of mosaic, but also the most beautiful jewelry and pictures, one picture often containing thousands of bits of colored stone and glass, so fitted together that you cannot see the joints and might suppose that the colors were put on with a brush. We spend several days in studying the industries of Venice. We visit the glass works, the mosaic works, and the factories where they are weaving beautiful silks and cloths of all kinds. We frequently go to the square of St. Mark's to look at the famous cathedral and the four bronze horses which stand high up on its front; and also the famous bronze lion on a tall column near by. When I said there were no horses in Venice I meant only flesh and blood horses. The horses of St. Mark's are of metal and hence do not count. Yet they have, probably, traveled more than any live horses you know. They are supposed to have once adorned one of the triumphal arches of Nero, the emperor of Rome. The Romans considered them so beautiful that they took them to Constantinople when that city be- came the capital of the Roman Empire. Later Venice conquered Constantinople, and brought the horses back here. When Napoleon overran Italy he carried them to Paris. There they remained until he lost his empire, when they were brought back to Venice. The square of St. Mark's is the largest square in the 398 ITALY. city, and about the only place where there is much room for strolling about. It is walled on three sides by build- ings which seem one vast marble palace, blackened by age and the weather, with this square in the center. On the other side of the square is Saint Mark's cathedral. Saint Mark's. The lower stories of some of the buildings are occupied by shops and cafes, which open out upon arcades, where in the evening thousands of men, women, and children walk to and fro. There are tables and chairs in the square, and people sitting at them eating ice cream and drinking coffee, chocolate, or wine, while they listen to the music of the military bands which play there four nights a week. More interesting than this is an event which occurs every afternoon at just two o'clock, when grain is scattered VENICE. 399 over the stones, and the pigeons come by the thousands from all parts of the city to eat it. We are late in arriving, and find the square filled with these beautiful birds. We buy a little bag of corn from an old woman peddler, and throw out several handfuls, stooping down as we do so. The pigeons swarm over us. They light upon our heads, shoulders, and backs, and even eat from our hands. We must be careful how we treat them, for if we should kill one we might have to go to jail for six months. This feeding the pigeons is one of the old cus- toms of Venice. The people love them, for it is said that once, when the city was in danger, it was saved by a letter brought by a carrier pigeon ; at another time, we are told, Venice gained a great victory over its enemies by infor- mation obtained in a similar way. We spend some time in wandering about Saint Mark's cathedral, which is one of the finest of Europe ; and then go through the Palace of the Doges, in which the Venetian Council sat, centuries ago, when the city was a republic. From the second story of the palace, we cross the canal to the prison near by upon the Bridge of Sighs. It is a cov- Brid S e of Si 2 hs * ered stone passageway through which the criminals came to be tried and punished. We stop here a moment while 400 ITALY. our guide reads the verses from Byron's poem which refer to the city : — " I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand ; I saw from out the waves her structures rise As from the stroke of some enchanter's wand. A thousand years their cloudy wings expand . Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times when many a subject-land Looked to the winged islands' marble piles, Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles." Even the foundation of Venice is interesting. It was started by the Veneti, who lived near the coast on the main- land, when the barbarians under Attila came over the Alps into Italy and took Rome. The Veneti fled for refuge to these sandy islands, and here built their little homes. At first they caught fish and sold them. They evaporated the salt from the water, and after a time built up a great busi- ness in fish and salt, which were then in even greater demand than at present. As they grew richer they began to trade in other things. They sent out merchant vessels, and soon became the chief commercial people of the Mediterranean. Their islands were situated at the head of the Adriatic Sea; hither goods could be most easily brought by water to be sent across the low passes of the Alps ; this gave the Venetians a great trade with northern Europe. Their ships soon went to all parts of the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, and in time out through the Strait of Gibraltar to England, France, Holland, and Belgium. In the Middle Ages, the fine goods from Asia were brought overland to the Mediterranean ports, and thence shipped to Venice ; from here they were carried across the Alps to the Rhine, and from there to all parts of northern VENICE. 4OI Europe. Other goods were sent back in exchange, and Venice increased in wealth. Factories of various kinds were established, and as the Venetians were skillful, their city soon became a noted manufacturing center. It grew more and more powerful, and in the fourteenth century it was an independent republic. It had its own army and navy, and made war on other cities and took some of them. Its merchants were among the richest of that time, and they owned three thousand trading vessels, which car- ried their goods to all parts of the known world. This was at the time of the Crusades, when all Europe was excited because Jerusalem and the Tomb of our Savior were in the hands of the Mohammedans, and armies of soldiers were formed to go to the Holy Land to redeem the city. One of the best ways thither was by way of Venice, so that for many years a stream of soldiers poured through the city, adding thereby to its wealth. It continued to grow until the route to India around the Cape of Good Hope was discovered. After that it was found that goods could be brought more cheaply from Asia by sea, and the trade of Venice began to decline. The discovery of the new world by Columbus was another blow to the prosperity of the city, for this brought the Atlantic ports into prominence ; and now there are several ports on the Mediterranean which have more commerce than Venice, and scores of cities in the world which are richer and more powerful. Venice has now less than two hundred thousand people, although it has grown through the opening of the Suez Canal, by which it has regained some of its Asiatic trade. A railroad has been built which connects it with the mainland, and goods from Asia now come by way of the canal to Venice, and are sent on through the tunnels in the Alps to central and northern Europe. 402 ITALY. XLI. NORTHERN ITALY. WE have left Venice, and are riding on the railroad through the rich plains of Lombardy. On the north we can see the mighty snow-capped wall of the Alps, which shuts Italy off from the other countries of Europe, and not far to the southward is the long range of the Apennines, which extends down through the peninsula clear to its foot. We are traveling over some of the richest soil of all Europe, so rich that it produces two crops of grain every year, and, in the irrigated portions, as much as ten crops of grass. The plain of Lombardy is the basin of several large rivers, such as the Po and the Adige (a-de'je). It is twice as large as Massachusetts and about one half of it is composed of irrigated lands. We ride for hours through rice fields, through grain fields and plantations of cotton, passing many orchards and vineyards. There at the right of the track they are cutting the grass; the men are mowing it down with scythes, and women and boys are turning it over with long poles, while others are raking the dry hay together. There are no mowing machines ; many of the fields are spaded and hoed, and the plowing is done with old-fashioned wooden plows tipped with iron. The chief business of Italy is farming. The country has a great deal of excellent land. There are rich valleys on both sides of the Apennines, and many plains upon which millions of cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys are pastured. There are vineyards which produce grapes so abundantly that Italy ranks next to France as the chief wine-producing country of the world, and there are orchards of olives, oranges, and lemons in almost all parts of the peninsula. NORTHERN ITALY. 403 Much of the land is owned in large tracts, and let on shares. In some districts the people who live in the moun- tains come down in families and bands to work in the har- vest fields. Each band has its own leader, who makes all the arrangements as to wages, and who tells the men, women, and children just what they shall do. The wages are very low, good-sized boys and girls getting but a few cents a day. But suppose we leave our train at this station, and visit one of the villages to find out how the farmers live. The houses are of rough stone and mortar, and in some cases covered with stucco. The smaller houses have but two rooms, a kitchen on the ground floor and a bedroom above. The floor is of brick, stone, or earth, and everything is of the rudest description. The window panes are of paper, and the furniture of many a house consists of a bench, two or three chairs, and a table. We look about in vain for beds. The children sleep on the floor of the kitchen, and the grown people on great sacks of straw laid on the plank floor of the room above. That brick ledge at the side of the room is the cook stove. Those little basinlike holes in the top are for char- coal, and the draft comes up through the holes in the side. They are much like the stoves of the Greeks. The baking is usually done in an oven outside the house, and such families as do not have ovens take their bread to the pub- lic bakeries, as we saw them doing in Greece. The Italian peasants live plainly. Their food is chiefly bread and a corn meal mush called polenta, with now and then a bit of meat or some coarse macaroni. The farmer often goes out to work after eating only a piece of dry bread. At eight o'clock he stops for another meal of dry bread, and at eleven comes home for his breakfast 404 ITALY. of corn meal mush, and perhaps some vegetable soup. At night he has a dinner of corn meal soup or bean soup, with some rice or macaroni. As a rule he has meat only on feast days, but he eats plenty of onions, garlic, and let- tuce, with olive oil as a dressing. In some parts of Italy the people eat a great quantity of chestnuts, roasting them, or grinding them to a meal and mixing them with flour for their bread. The nuts are not so sweet as our chestnuts, but they are three times as large ; many are bigger than horse-chestnuts. The houses we have described are among the poorest of Italy, but there are thousands like them. There are also thousands of coun- try houses much better, where each family has several rooms, and there are houses still larger owned by well-to-do peas- ants. There are castles and palaces belonging to the nobility, and large tenement houses in the cities, where many fami- lies are crowded together, each having but one or two rooms. The most of the peasants are poor and their homes are little better than hovels. As we travel from one part of Italy to another, we discover that the peasants dress differently in the different sections. In Lombardy they wear cotton clothing while at work in the fields. Many go barefooted, and some Italian Peasants. NORTHERN ITALY. 405 wear wooden shoes, not unlike those we saw in Holland and Belgium. On Sundays and feast days the young men wear clothing of wool mixed with silk. Many of them have jackets and knee breeches of cotton velvet, hats of soft felt, and thick leather shoes. At such times the women wear dresses of wool — or in some rare cases silk ; an Italian woman's greatest ambition is to own a silk gown. In many places the women wear square pieces of embroidered muslin on their heads instead of bonnets or hats, and some have bead necklaces of gold, silver, or gilt. The Italian peasants are very good looking, the most of them having dark hair and eyes and dark rosy faces. Many of the poorer Italians carry on some kind of work in their homes. The people are very artistic, and the men do beautiful carving and painting. They also manufacture all sorts of small articles. The women knit, spin, and weave, and even the little children do their share of such work. How would you like to raise silkworms? There are more than a half million people engaged in this business in Italy, and of these many thousands are little boys and girls. Italy produces more than one hundred and fifty million pounds of silk cocoons every year, and it has a large industry in silk weaving and reeling. We pass by groves of mulberry trees as we go on with our journey. It is upon the leaves of these trees that the silkworms feed, and the soil of northern Italy is just right for grow- ing them. We see little children of six and eight years gathering the leaves, and spreading them out upon the trays where the worms are. The worms bite off bits of the leaves and eat them. In some places thousands of worms are feeding, and as we stand and look on we can hear the chopping of their jaws as they cut up the green leaves. "XemTi^ilvenice' G> Theieaiipel ,- /N I A irajevo Longitude East from Greenwich After feeding in this way for a time, the worms are ready to spin their cocoons. They draw the silk out of their bodies, and wrap it around and around themselves in an egg-shaped cocoon, each making a little house for itself, where it hopes to lie until it comes out a butterfly. After the cocoons are made, the people boil them to kill the worms inside, and then unwind the silk, and by doub- ling it again and again, and twisting it together, they make the thicker thread from which silk cloth is woven. NORTHERN ITALY. 40; Italy, as we know, has long been noted for its silks, for you may remember we have already heard how the silk weavers of Italy went to Lyons, France, during the Middle Ages, to make silk. At the present time the best silks of Europe are made in France and Germany, and millions of pounds of Italian cocoons are shipped there every year to be turned into silks. We see more people reeling silk as we go on toward the slopes of the Alps, and to the beautiful Italian lakes, and we find great quantities of beautiful silk goods in the stores of Milan and Genoa. Milan Cathedral. We are delighted with Milan, for it has such a business air about it that it reminds us of our American cities. It is situated in the heart of the rich plain of Lombardy, where it can easily be reached from northern Europe by CARP. EUROPE — 25 408 ITALY. the railroad tunnels through the Alps, so that it has be- come a great commercial center. It now contains more than a half million people, and is one of the best busi- ness cities of Europe. It has fine buildings of marble, as well as big stores, broad streets, and beautiful parks. Its people are good looking, and are noted for their wealth and fine dressing. The Milanese are very proud of their city, and espe- cially of their cathedral, which is one of the most beauti- ful in the whole world. The Milan cathedral is a great Gothic structure, made o'f the purest white marble beauti- fully carved. There are marble statues on every part of it, so many indeed that we count several thousands, and then leave off in despair. We climb up the four hundred and ninety-four steps of the tower for the magnificent view which we there get of the city, the Alps, and the plain of Lombardy, and then take train for Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus. We see the monument of Columbus as we leave the railroad station. It is a white marble statue standing near an anchor, with a marble figure kneeling before it, and other figures representing America, geography, religion, strength, and wisdom sitting about. Columbus was born in Genoa in 1436. He was the son of a wool comber, but his father gave him a good education, and he began life as a sailor. He had already made a number of voyages when he applied to Genoa for money that he might attempt to discover a new route to India by sailing to the westward, but he was refused. He then laid his plans before the courts of Spain, Portu- gal, and England, and finally persuaded King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to give him the three small ships with which he found the new world. NORTHERN ITALY. 409 Genoa, in the time of Columbus, was a very great city. It was a rival of Venice, and its people owned numerous islands in the Mediterranean. They had their factories and business houses in Constantinople, Asia Minor, and along the Black Sea, and their ships went to all parts of the known world. Genoa has an excellent harbor, and it is to-day an im- portant port and a great manufacturing center. It is so beautiful that its people call it "La Superba," or the superb city. The land about the harbor rises in hills which are backed by the Apennines. The houses cover the hills, and in our walks about through the streets we seem to be always climbing up or going down. The most of the buildings are large; many of them were erected as palaces by the rich nobles and merchants of ancient Genoa, and many are now divided up into apartments so that a score of families may live in one old palace. In most of the buildings, the first and second floors are given up to offices and stores, while the floors higher up are the dwellings. Some of the streets are very narrow, winding about between walls a hundred feet high with breaks at the cross streets. The people who live in such streets have no gardens, and they stretch wires or ropes from building to building, and from window to window, to dry their wash- ing upon them, so that at times we have to walk carefully to avoid the dripping water. We drive out to the Aqua Sola, the great park of Genoa, and afterward to the Campo Santo, its strange ceme- tery, where many of the monuments are statues represent- ing the dead as they looked while alive. We spend some time in the shops, admiring the fine silks and velvets and the silver and gold filigree work for which the city is 410 ITALY. noted, and then take a train for Rome, stopping at Pisa, Leghorn, and Florence on the way. At Pisa we see the wonderful leaning tower, and at Leghorn watch the making of hats and straw braid. At Florence we visit the great cathedral, the bell tower of Giotto, and the cele- brated picture galler- ies, which are among the finest of the world. We stroll along the River Arno, which flows through the town, and make ex- cursions into the fer- tile plains of Tuscany, driving through vast vineyards and groves of olives and oranges. The scenery is very beautiful, and we re- gret we cannot spend months exploring the country. We make an excur sion, however, to the tiny republic of San Marino, situated on a rocky hill in the Apennines, about a half mile from the sea. This republic is, perhaps, the smallest of the world. It is only twenty-four miles square, and it has a popula- tion of only about eight thousand ; but its inhabitants have governed themselves for hundreds of years, while the other countries of Europe have been governed by kings. " We see the wonderful leaning tower.' ROME, THE CAPITAL OF ITALY. 411 XLII. ROME, THE CAPITAL OF ITALY. ITALY is shaped like a great boot, about half as wide as from New York to Washington, and about as long as from New York to Toledo. The top of the boot ex- tends out in a wide flap up the foothills of the Alps, and the toe looks just as though it were about to kick the island of Sicily. Not far from the center of the front of the boot, just where the middle of the shin would be, if it were a human leg, a little river flows out of the Apennine Mountains down to the Mediterranean. It passes over a wide plain called the Campagna, and as it nears the sea it flows by seven little hills, which, for more than two thou- sand years, have formed the site of one of the greatest cities of the world. This river is the Tiber, and the city is Rome, the capital of Italy. When Rome was first settled, the Tiber was deeper than it now is, and sea-going vessels came right up to the hills. The town, being on the hills, could be easily defended ; and the rich country about it was well fitted for pasture and farming. There were easy ways over the mountains to other parts of Italy, and ships could be sent out to all the lands of the Mediterranean ; so you see the situation of Rome helped to make it a great city and the capital of Italy. The race which founded it was brave and warlike, and it soon conquered the whole Italian peninsula, and made war upon nation after nation outside, until in time it formed the great Roman Empire, and became master of almost all the known world. At that time the chief civilized nations lived about the Mediterranean Sea. Italy has the most central position of all countries on this sea. It has excellent harbors, and 412 ITALY. one of the best situations for commerce and trade. The Romans cultivated their territory largely by means of the slaves that they took in war, and as time went on they grew richer and richer. Their city became not only the capital of the world, but also the center of all that was inspiring in art and learning. The Romans had magnificent palaces and great public works. Their scholars wrote books, which are even now studied in our colleges; and their language, laws, and customs form a part of our civilization. In time the Roman Empire was broken to pieces, but we shall find reminders of it in the ruins which are scat- tered everywhere throughout the city. Centuries later Rome came under the control of the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church. This church was the chief one of Europe for hundreds of years, and it was the founder of another phase of civilization. Under it great cathe- drals were built, colleges were established, and some of the finest of the paintings of the world were made. We shall see evidences of all this in old Rome. We shall, at the same time, see the Rome of to-day, the capital of modern Italy, and the home of the King and his Parliament. We leave our hotel and drive to the top of the Pincian Hill for a bird's-eye view of the city, winding our way up over roads shaded with cypress trees, and lined with gar- dens and beautiful flowers. At the end of our drive we find ourselves on a terrace high above Rome, north of the city, which covers the hills to the southward and fills the valley of the Tiber winding along not far below us. That mass of huge buildings, with the high dome above them, on the opposite side of the river, is Saint Peter's cathedral, and the palace of the Vatican, where the Pope lives. The square at our feet, with the obelisk in it, is the Piazza del Popolo, and that long, straight street, which ROME, THE CAPITAL OF ITALY. 413 cuts its way through the city, dividing it almost in half, is the Corso, one of the chief business streets of the Rome of to-day. Turning to the right we see a great wall wind- ing its irregular way about the town, inclosing many ruins, some rising out of gardens and vineyards. That is the wall of old Rome, which was fourteen miles in circumfer- ence, but which incloses only a part of modern Rome. The ruins are of wonderful interest. We can see some of them from the Pincian Hill. That vast amphitheater " — all that is left of the Coliseum." beyond the buildings in front of us, with its walls half in ruins, is all that is left of the Coliseum, the greatest show ground of all times. There lions and tigefs and wild beasts once fought together; there half-naked men tried to. kill one another with swords and spears ; and there men, women, and children were thrown to wild beasts because they were Christians, to give the heathen Romans a holi- day show. A little to the left of the Coliseum is the Forum, where the Romans held their meetings when the city was a republic, and where the greatest of the Roman orations were uttered. It now looks more like an exca- 414 ITALY. vation for a building than anything else. The Rome of olden times was many feet below the Rome of to- day, but the Forum has been dug out, and it now forms a great pit, filled with broken columns and blocks of marble, in the heart of the city. The Forum. Notice the great building above the Forum. That is the Capitol, on the site of the citadel of old Rome. It is there that the Italian Senate meets, and there also is a museum in which are some of the finest statues which have come down from old Rome. Everywhere we turn, there are so many wonderful buildings and ruins that it will be impossible for us to visit them all. The city has scores of museums. It has many picture galleries; it has priceless collections of ancient manuscripts, and is celebrated for its paintings, sculpture, and architecture, as well as for its business and social advantages. ROME, THE CAPITAL OF ITALY. 415 We engage carriages at the Pincian Hill and drive about through the streets. There are many old palaces, with modern buildings among them ; there are fine stores with plate glass windows ; there are street cars, telegraph wires, and all the appointments of our most modern cities. We can hardly realize we are in a town two thousand years old. We stop in the People's Square and take a drink from the fountain, where the water spurts forth from the mouths of the lions ; we pause a moment before the great obelisk from Egypt, and then drive on through the Corso, passing magnificent turnouts filled with richly dressed ladies and gentlemen. The Corso is crowded. The better classes are dressed as we are, and the people upon the streets look not unlike those of Paris and London. Now and then we see a peasant in a cap and short jacket, his trousers held up by a sash about the waist, and now a rosy-cheeked maiden in short skirts, with a bright handkerchief tied round her head. There are peddlers going about with their wares on their heads, and hucksters driving donkeys and mules. There are priests everywhere, walking along singly and in pairs, or in processions from one part of the town to another. They wear long gowns, some white, some black, and some brown, and many have high hats and cowls. There are processions of nuns and sisters of charity, for Rome is still the chief city of the Catholic Church, and as such it is a holy place to Catholics all the world over. We visit the Church of St. Peter. It is by far the largest church in the world, and we feel lost within it. We next wander about outside the Vatican, where the Pope lives. He has a magnificent palace, with four thousand rooms, and a library of one hundred thousand volumes, including some of the most valuable manuscripts ever written. 4i6 ITALY. "We visit Saint Peter's Cathedral." Some of our mornings are spent in driving about outside Rome, in the Campagna; where one day our guide takes us down under the earth into the Catacombs, which are vast caves and tunnels cut out of the soft volcanic rock. There are miles of these tunnels, some lined with cells and shelves which contain human bones. They are not far from the city, and were probably first dug as the burial places of the Romans. Later on, when the Christians were persecuted, they fled to them for refuge, and lived here for years, away down out of the light of the sun, having their food brought in at night. Our guide goes in front with a light, taking us through tunnel after tunnel, and winding his way this way and that. We follow him closely and hold tightly to one another's hands, trembling at the thought of being lost away down here under the ground, and of trying in vain to find our way out. NAPLES AND MOUNT VESUVIUS. 417 We visit the palaces of the king, and spend some time in Parliament watching the Italians make laws for them- selves. . We go to the government buildings, where we discover that Italy still holds an important place among the countries of Europe. We learn that it has a great army and navy, and that its inhabitants are fast growing in intelligence, although the education of the common people is still far below that of the French, Germans, or English. The law requires that all children be sent to school, but it is not always enforced, and many of the men and women cannot read nor write. We ask as to Italy's trade, and are informed that it is rapidly growing, and that the people are among our good customers. They are importing a great deal of grain, cotton, and other things from America, and sending back fruits and olive oil, as well as silk and wool and other goods, in exchange. XLIII. NAPLES AND MOUNT VESUVIUS. THE Italians have a saying, " See Naples and die," for, they say, you will then have seen the most beautiful city of the world. And indeed it is beautiful. The sky is almost always bright, and it is nowhere brighter than at Naples. The Mediterranean is almost always blue, and at the Bay of Naples its color is glorious. The city, as it rises about the bay, tier above tier, seems a city of palaces. There are hazy blue mountains behind it, and south of it is the great brown volcano of Vesuvius, with its steaming cone standing out against the blue sky. But let us see how it looks in the city itself. We leave our hotel and climb up through the streets. Many of 41 8 ITALY. them are steep, and we are always going up or down hill. The high buildings are close to the sidewalks, and the streets are so narrow that in places the walls shut out the sun. They are not over clean, and in some streets the smells are offensive. The people live in flats or apartments, and in the poorer quarters of the city whole families dwell in one room. What curious things the people do on the streets ! We see men and women sitting down on the pavements making their toilets. There is a woman combing her hair, and here is one washing her baby. There is a cobbler at his bench soling a pair of old shoes, and beside him a tailor is working away. What a lot of children there are everywhere. There are two babies sprawling on the edge of the gutter ! Here comes a boy of eight driving a donkey, and there is another with a can in his hand pulling along two milk goats from door to door. He is one of the little milkmen of the city, and is probably helping his father, whom we see with those goats farther on. There are donkeys carrying all sorts of things. Here comes one loaded with fruit, and behind are two others ridden by boys. The donkeys are not bigger than New- foundland dogs, and their ears are almost as long as their legs. Many of the Neapolitan boys have their own donkeys, as our boys sometimes have ponies. Do you like roasted chestnuts ? There are men selling them here on almost every block. They have little fur- naces and basins of charcoal, on which they roast chest- nuts out in the streets. We pass fruit stands every now and then, and buy delicious pears for ten cents a dozen, and oranges two for a cent. See the crowd of men and women about that cook NAPLES AND MOUNT VESUVIUS. 419 stand ! They are buying roast sausages and stewed maca- roni. Italy is famous for its macaroni, and quantities of it are exported to our country every year. See, there is a man eating some now ! He twists his fork around and around in the dish, and takes a great mass of it in at one gulp. He does not cut it, but sucks in the long strings until the whole has gone down his throat. Naples. Suppose we visit one of the factories and learn how macaroni is made. Such factories are to be seen in all parts of Italy, for macaroni forms a large part of the food of the people. It is made in different sizes and shapes, sometimes in long strings, sometimes in pipes as big around as your finger, and sometimes in sticks about as 420 ITALY. thick as a knitting needle. The finer kinds are called ver- micelli and spaghetti. We see the tubes of white dough drying on the racks in front of the factory, and when we go in find a score of men and boys hard at work. Each boy is so covered with flour that his dark, rosy face looks almost ghastly in con- trast with his sparkling black eyes. He is in his bare feet, Drying Macaroni. and his sleeves are rolled up to his shoulders. The men are mixing the flour into dough, and kneading it with great bars so fastened to hinges that they can press the dough down on the table. After it is thoroughly kneaded they carry it to a cylinder, in which there are many small holes, so arranged that it can be pressed through them. It comes out in long pipes or sticks, which the boys carry to the NAPLES AND MOUNT VESUVIUS. 42 1 racks in the sun, or to the hot drying rooms which some factories have for the purpose. Let us stroll on down to the bay. It is filled with ship- ping, for Naples is the chief port of the Italian peninsula, and its harbor is one of the finest of Europe. The city is as big as St. Louis, and has a vast trade with all parts of the Mediterranean, with northern Europe, and with North and South America. It also does a great business in fish and in coral and sponges. It has many fishing vessels, and its people go fishing, not only in the Mediterranean, but out to the Atlantic and elsewhere. But the most interesting thing about Naples is not in the city itself. It is the great volcano outside, only a short drive away. Vesuvius is the only active volcano on the continent of Europe, and it is one of the most interest- ing volcanoes of the whole world. It is early morning when we start out to explore it. The first part of our journey is in a carriage driven by a Neapolitan coachman, who cracks his whip every minute and keeps his team on the gallop. We rattle out of the city over pavements of lava, now almost running over a baby, and now making the dogs howl, as with drooping tails they leap out of our way. We go through small villages of lava-built houses, by vine- yards and gardens walled with lava, and then up through foothills of volcanic sand, until we enter a region which is all bare, brown lava. There is lava everywhere and in all sorts of shapes. We pass through seas and rivers of lava which once flowed like fire, but which now are cold and dead ; and as we look up, see a column of steam hanging like a gigantic umbrella over a brown lava mountain, the volcano of Vesuvius. The mountain is perfectly bare. There is not a bit of grass to be seen anywhere. It is all lava, ashes, and vol- 422 ITALY. canic sand. The road going up winds in and out until it at last becomes so steep that we must leave the carriages and mount donkeys. When about two thousand feet above the sea we reach the observatory, where instruments are kept to register the movements of the mighty volcano. How the earth rumbles ! It was shaking as we rode up on our donkeys, and here by the instruments we can see just what motion is going on away down in the heart of the mountain. The director of the observatory informs us that Vesu- vius is always more or less active, but that there is no present danger. He describes the first recorded eruption, telling us how a little more than eighteen hundred years ago the volcano was covered with farms, the slopes being cultivated almost to the top. Then there were vineyards all over the land where the lava and ashes now are, and hot springs on the edge of the mountains, where the rich Romans came for their health and for sport. There were beautiful towns on the plains near by, and, among others, the two fashionable resorts of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Pompeii contained about twenty-five thousand people. It was a rich residence city, and its inhabitants had beautiful homes, temples, and theaters. The rich were living in fine style, giving parties and dinners, and driving about in their chariots with gay prancing horses. The poor were at work at their trades, the merchants were selling goods in the stores, the children were going to school, and all sorts of business were being carried on, when one day, without warning, the great mountain burst forth, sending vast volumes of steam, ashes, burning rocks, and mud high into the air. There were so many ashes that they dark- ened the sun and turned the day into night. Even at Rome, hundreds of miles to the northward, the sun was NAPLES AND MOUNT VESUVIUS. 423 hidden. The people thought that the end of the world had come, and that an age when it would be always night had set in. At the same time it rained mud, and rivers of boiling hot mud flowed out of the crater down over the plain. The horses, sheep, and cattle which were pasturing there were drowned, the fields, the vineyards, and gardens were Vesuvius in Eruption. covered, and in the towns even the tallest buildings were soon buried. They all disappeared, and the region became a great plain of ashes and mud. As time went on new towns grew up on the plains, and crops of all kinds were raised there. The buried cities were blotted out of the memory of man, as the volcano had blotted them from the face of the earth. So it remained until a little more than a hundred and CARP. EUROPE — 26 424 ITALY. fifty years ago, when a peasant who was digging a well struck his spade against a statue. He dug it out, and soon it was found that there was a city down there, buried under the earth. The government of Italy took possession of the place, and for years it has had men at work unearthing the city. The scholars began to investigate the history of the region, and it was found that the site of the lost city of Pompeii had been discovered. The great eruption occurred in the latter part of the first century of our era, and for a long time thereafter the volcano lay quiet. During the eighteenth century there was another terrible eruption, and in 1822 the whole top of the mountain burst off and formed a great chasm, three miles in circumference, and about half a mile deep. Since then other eruptions have caused streams of lava to flow out of the crater, until now Vesuvius seems to be only a vast mass of lava, rock, sand, and ashes. Leaving the observatory, we again mount our donkeys and make our way up the mountain. At last we reach the station from where we are to ride up to the crater by rail. The railroad is a little like the one up Pikes Peak, but more like one of our cable car lines. The track has three rails, one in the center which supports the weight of the car, and others at each side for the guiding wheels, which keep the car from jumping the track. The cable attached to the car runs around a wheel at the top of the mountain, and is moved by an engine at the station below. The sides of the car are open, and we get a magnificent view of the Mediterranean as we rise through the volcanic sand up the steep mountain. We go rapidly upward, and at last we stop near the crater, over four thousand feet above the sea. Here we hire other guides, and pick our way over the thin coating of lava to the mouth of the volcano. NAPLES AND MOUNT VESUVIUS. 425 Pompeii. The air is hot and full of sulphur fumes. We cough, and hold our handkerchiefs to our faces in a vain effort to keep out the fumes. The wind is blowing the steam away from the crater, and we walk carefully over the crust and look down into a vast pit walled with yellow sulphur, in the bottom of which a lake of fire is seething, sending up steam, ashes, brimstone, and rocks. Now it seems to be quiet, and now it bursts forth, throwing stones high up into the air. They fall back, and we can hear them splash away down there in the crater. But now the wind changes. It is rising into a gale, and the stones are falling almost at our feet. Our guides drag us back and hurry us away, for fear we may all be killed by the burning hot stones. This is only a gentle eruption. When the great out- bursts occur the noise is like that of a battle, and rocks 426 ITALY. weighing many tons are shot upwards for hundreds of feet. About fifty years ago twenty sightseers were killed where we now stand, by a sudden eruption of lava, pieces of rock being thrown a mile high. At such times the steam rises to a height of more than two miles, and the whole moun- tain is covered by an umbrella of ashes and vapor more than five miles in height. How warm the earth is ! We dare not stand still. We seem to be walking upon a hot stove ; we smell our shoes burning ; we bend down and touch the lava with our fingers, but draw them away quickly, smarting with the heat. One of the guides asks us to look at the cracks in the earth ; and we see golden streams of molten lava flowing through them under our feet. He thrusts an iron rod into one of the cracks and brings out a lump of the red-hot metal. He asks us for a penny and he presses it into the mass with a stick. He then drops the lava off the rod into a bucket of water which a boy has brought up. The water hisses and steams, but the lava soon cools and the guide takes it out. Our penny is now embedded in the lava like a raisin in a bun, and we take it home as a relic. But see, the boy is pulling some eggs out of his pocket ! He points to the water, and offers to cook them for us. He rests the bucket over a wide crack where the molten lava is not far from the surface. The intense heat soon boils the water, and the eggs are cooked hard. We carry them with us back down the mountain, and eat them with our lunch at the railroad station below, priding ourselves that we are among the few Americans who have eaten eggs cooked on a volcano. We then ride back to the carriages, and drive over the plain to the site of the once buried city of Pompeii. There is a great wall about it made of the ashes and stones which NAPLES AND MOUNT VESUVIUS. 427 have been already dug out ; and we find many boys and men digging, and carrying the stuff out in baskets on their backs and their heads. A large part of Pompeii is already uncovered, and we walk through streets walled with the curious buildings which were blotted out by Vesuvius eighteen hundred years ago. The earth and ashes have so preserved the buildings that they look to-day almost as they did at the time of the eruption. The roadways are paved with stone, and in some of them we can see the ruts made by the wheels of the chariots. We walk through the amphitheater where the people had their shows, and sit down on the marble seats of the bath houses where the boys of Pompeii sat when they had finished their baths centuries ago. We wander about through the houses, peopling them with their old Roman owners. Many buildings are of brick and many of stone. They are nearly all of one or two stories and some are very large. They had wooden roofs which were burned off by the ashes. Many of the houses have walls covered with paintings, and in some beautiful statues in bronze and marble were found. Some had fine paint- ings and all sorts of beautiful things in metals and carv- ings. The floors of many were formed of different colored stones, fitted together in mosaic pictures, and the Latin word " Salve" or " welcome," was carved over their doors ; while in one entrance floor there was a mosaic picture of a fierce dog gnashing his teeth, and tugging at a rope as though he wished to get at you, while at his feet were the words, " Cave Canem," or " Beware of the dog." We are interested in the business parts of Pompeii, where there are streets of shops with marble counters, where the merchants were selling their goods when the mighty volcanic flood came. We peep into a public bake 428 SPAIN. oven, in which black loaves of burnt bread were found when the mud and ashes were first dug away. We see casts of men, women, and children, and even of dogs, made by pouring plaster of Paris into the holes which their bodies formed in the ashes ; and when we again visit the Museum of Naples, we are shown cooking utensils, toilet articles, rings, earrings and bracelets, fishhooks and knives, and thousands of other articles of every description, all in common use among these people when, without warning, they were destroyed by the ashes and boiling mud of the terrible mountain. XLIV. RURAL SPAIN. WE have crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Naples to Barcelona, and are now traveling over the high- lands of Spain. The country is different from any we have yet visited. The sun is wonderfully bright ; there are few clouds; the air is dry, and the weather is hot. We are now on the great peninsula which forms the end of south- western Europe, comprising the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. It begins at the Pyrenees, and extends so close to Africa that we could go from Gibraltar to that continent in a small boat in a very few hours. The Spanish peninsula is twice as large as Great Britain, and larger than either Germany or France. It is a high plateau crossed by many ranges of snow-clad mountains, with rich valleys and dreary plains lying among them. It has but few navigable rivers, and although it is washed on almost all sides by the sea, its coasts are so steep that it has very few harbors. On the plateau the winters are cold, and the summers exceedingly hot, and in the far RURAL SPAIN. 429 south it is so warm that bananas, dates, and other tropical fruits can be grown. We reach the hills soon after leaving Barcelona, and ride for miles in the mountains, now passing through forests, and now crawling along above magnificent valleys with their many colored crops spread out like a vast quilt below us. Now our train flies by orange groves, and now through a country where for miles there are olive groves. We enter dense woods of chestnuts and oaks, and spend days upon high plains where vast flocks of sheep are graz- ing, watched by queerly dressed shepherds assisted by dogs. The sheep are the famous Spanish merinos. This breed of sheep has been introduced into Australia, Argentina, and the other great sheep-raising parts of the world. There are many -^-%fv*^ „ „ small towns with stone or brick build- ings covered with stucco and roofed with red tiles. There are numerous vil- lages in which the farmers live, going out to their work in the fields. Sometimes their farms are so far away that they use donkeys to ride back and forth. The roads are poor, and in the moun- tains everything is carried about on the S!r^*w, — a donkey carrying two little boys. 430 SPAIN. backs of donkeys and mules. See that fat farmer riding up the road at the side of the track ! He is as big as his donkey, and his long legs almost touch the ground as he urges the little beast onward. He wears a broad-brimmed, sharp-crowned hat, and has a great cloak on his shoulders. Farther down the road is a donkey carrying two little boys, and still farther on a drove of donkeys loaded with grain, each having a bag on his back. They have neither bridles nor saddles, and are being driven byasrosy-cheeked, barefooted boy in the rear. Behind comes a boy with a cart load of grass; he is leading a little donkey which is drawing the cart. We see donkeys laden with fruit, and donkeys so covered with loads of hay that the hay seems to be walk- ing off on four legs. There are also mules similarly loaded, and the whole of this part of Spain seems to be going mule- back or donkey-back. Now we have left the mountains, and are out on the plains. See the huge ox carts lumbering along the wide roads ! Some of them are piled high with grain. The oxen are yoked to the tongue of the cart by a bar which rests on their necks and is fastened to their horns, so that they pull the loads along with their heads, and not with the shoulders as our oxen do. Notice the man plowing in that field over there. He is goading his oxen along with a stick with a sharp-pointed : ' : -ftiSV^ " Behind comes a boy with a cart load of grass." RURAL SPAIN. 431 steel in the end. How simple the plow is ! It is only a piece of rough wood tipped with iron, and it merely scratches the soil. That is a fair sample of the farm tools of the country. More than half of the Spaniards are farmers, but they farm very poorly. They raise quantities of wheat, barley, corn, and rye, but they do not get half so much out of the land as they might with better tools. "See the huge ox carts! " A large part of Spain is so dry that little will grow upon it, but there are irrigated provinces which are exceed- ingly fertile, and yield abundant crops. They produce the finest of olives and grapes, oranges and lemons, and all sorts of vegetables. Take, for instance, the lands near the Mediterranean Sea about Malaga in southeastern Spain. In that region are grown the big green grapes sold in our 432 SPAIN. stores. The soil of the vineyards is of a bright red color, and it is so rich that every bit of it is used. The vines are planted in terraces up the sides of the hills in regular rows, and only a few feet apart. They are carefully tended, and a little trench is dug about each vine to catch the water when it rains. The grapes are packed in cork dust, and thus shipped to all parts of Europe and to the United States. Other varieties are made into raisins, and hun- dreds of thousands of pounds of large Muscatel raisins are exported every year from Malaga Bay. In other provinces wine is made in large quantities, and in some regions there are so many vineyards that we are reminded of our travels through the wine country of France north of the Pyrenees. Another fruit of great value to Spain is the olive. There are olive orchards everywhere, and at one place we leave the train to visit a hacienda, where they are picking the fruit, and turning it into the oil we use on our salads. The old Spaniard who owns the farm bids us welcome. As we walk along with him he tells us that his house is at our disposition, and that his orchard is ours. The olive trees are much like plum trees, save that they are knotty and gnarly, and their leaves are a darker green. On some of them the fruit has a pale green color like the olives sold in our grocery stores. Such fruit is not yet ripe, but it is pulled off at this stage and salted for eating. On other trees the olives are of a dark glossy purple ; they are ripe, and it is of them that they are making the oil. There are men shaking the trees, and knocking the fruit off with clubs ; and rosy-cheeked, barefooted, bareheaded children are gathering the olives from the ground, and putting them into the bags and baskets in which they are carried upon donkeys and mules to the mill. There is a man starting off for the mill ; he has a half RURAL SPAIN. 433 dozen donkeys, each carrying a two-bushel bag. The pro- prietor asks us to go with him, and we follow the donkeys to a rude building in which a mule is dragging one stone, shaped like a wheel, around through a circular trough or groove in the top of another stone which lies flat. This is the grinding machine. The olives are put into the trough in the flat stone, and the wheel crushes them to a pulp as it rolls over them. After being crushed, the olives are laid on straw mats, and these mats are placed one upon another, in a press where, by means of a long, heavy beam in the top as a lever, the oil is squeezed out into a rude tank below. Water is mixed with the pulp, in order to make the oil flow the more easily. The liquid that comes out is made up of water and oil, but the oil rises to the top and is skimmed off. The squeezed pulp is kept for fattening hogs, and the oil, having been cleared, is put into bottles for sale. Only the best of the oil is fit for the table, the poorer kinds being used for cooking. This olive plantation is not one of the finest, but it is a fair type of the plantations of Spain. There are many other estates where the olives are more carefully picked and handled. On such farms the fruit is pressed only lightly at first to get out the best oil. Afterwards it is ground up and mixed with boiling water and pressed again. Upon inquiring, we learn that olives grow in most parts of Spain, and that they are used everywhere by the people. About one thirtieth of all the fertile land of the country is devoted to olive raising, and the orchards cover more than two million acres. The trees are well tilled. They have their first fruit when two years old, and con- tinue to bear for so long a time that the people have this 434 SPAIN. saying : " If you would give a lasting fortune to your children's children, you have only to plant olive trees for them." The Spaniards use olive oil largely in cooking. We see the people eating it on bread and vegetables, and are told that it is cream and butter to many of the people, as well as their favorite dressing for salads. It takes the place of meat also, and many a Spaniard, when he takes a long journey, hangs a wicker basket of olives to his saddle horn, and eats them as he rides. We are delighted with the country people of Spain. The men, women, and children are polite, and they wear such gay costumes that we have a new picture wherever we look. Many of the men wear blankets about their shoulders ; they have broad-brimmed hats with sharp conical tops, and short jackets and knee breeches, their legs below the knees being covered with stockings or wrapped around with rags ; they wear sandals or queer- looking shoes. There are many beautiful women. Some of the peasant girls have caps with tas- sels so long that they hang down their shoulders. On Sunday they wear dresses of black velvet, over which they drape striped shawls of bright colors. Their skirts are short. Some have gaiters laced up to their knees, and others wear stockings bound with ribbons crossed over and over. In the fields we see barefooted women with handkerchiefs on their heads, and farther south ' We are delighted with the country people of Spain." RURAL SPAIN. 435 are many dark-faced peasant men in turbans. Spain has a large variety of strange costumes, nearly every province having a dress of its own. In the larger cities the people look much as we do, save that the men often wear cloaks, and the women have on mantillas or veils instead of bonnets ; they usually wear black gowns when out on the street. The Spaniards are a fine-looking race, and their women are famous for their beauty. The most of them have dark rosy faces, dark hair, and dark eyes, although now and then you meet a beautiful blonde. They age rapidly, however, the poor through hard work and the rich through idleness. The women of the upper classes take so little exercise that when middle-aged they become fat and dumpy. We are much annoyed by beggars as we travel through Spain ; and we observe that there are many poor people. The peasants live simply. Their chief food is bread and olives, although they sometimes have eggs, or pork, or goat's meat. They are fond of salt fish and salt meat, and with their neighbors, the Portuguese, are the greatest cod- fish eaters of the whole world. The living at the hotels is fairly good, although the break- fasts are scanty. When we rise in the morning we have only a little cup of chocolate or coffee with bread and butter; this meal is called " desayuno." About noon we have a breakfast of eggs, fish, and stew ; and at the end of the day a very good dinner. One of the most common dishes is puchero, a vegetable soup cooked with boiled beef or fowl. The soup is served first, and then the meat and vegetables which were cooked in it are brought on. After this we have some kind of fried meat or croquettes, and then perhaps fish, and after the fish a dessert and fruit, ending our meal with cheese and black coffee. 436 SPAIN. We are surprised to see the men everywhere smoking at their meals. They light their cigars and cigarettes even when the women are present, and we are horrified at times to see a woman take a cigarette and smoke with them. This is not common in public, although many of the Span- ish women smoke in their homes. After dinner the people sit about the table and chat, and it is the same at the midday breakfast or luncheon. All business in Spain stops from noon until two o'clock, in order that the people may get their breakfast and have their siesta or their rest or sleep after it. This seems lazy to us, but in Spain the climate is so warm that it is not well for men to work in the middle of the day. ^c XLV. IN THE CITIES OF SPAIN. ONLY a small proportion of the Spaniards live in large towns. The most of them are farmers and fruit growers whose homes are in villages scattered at wide dis- tances apart over the country. The chief cities, with the exception of Madrid, which is in the middle of the plateau, a half mile above the sea, are along the seacoast or in the river valleys of the high plains, where the water can be used for irrigation. The cities of the northern provinces are somewhat like the other cities of Europe. Take, for instance, Barcelona, where we landed at the close of our voyage from Naples. It is as large as Baltimore and has fine stores, theaters, and many cafes. It is the chief business city of Spain, having an excellent harbor with a rich country behind it. Its chief street, the Rambla, running up from the wharves, IN THE CITIES OF SPAIN. 437 is wide, and lined with rows of trees furnishing magnifi- cent shade. Barcelona has electric lights, street cars, and business buildings and houses which would do credit to any great city. Madrid, the Spanish capital, contains over a half mil- lion people. It is a great square town made up of im- mense square buildings surrounded by a wall twelve miles L, Jl -.. <-*■?:.,'-■.- ;.--." . '-'.-■'. 1.--. u mag**'"' ^ m*< ; ' '^* ^ Royal Palace. in length. It is the highest of the European capitals, and is situated almost in the center of the plateau, with dreary plains reaching out for miles on every side. The climate is far from delightful ; it is so bad that its citizens are said to live in an ice house for three months of the year, and in a furnace for the other nine months. We spend a week in Madrid, and although it is summer find it by no means uncomfortable. We follow the custom of the Spanish, and take a siesta in the middle of the day, 438 SPAIN. driving about during the mornings and evenings. We usually start out on our excursions from the Puerto del Sol. This is the chief public square of the city, and one of the liveliest places in Europe. It is of the shape of a half moon, surrounded by high buildings, with ten wide avenues opening into it. From here all the street cars start, and here we can get cabs to take us to any part of the city. We enjoy the strange sights of the square. There are carriages of rich Spaniards coming in and going out of it in every direction; there are donkeys and mules loaded with all sorts of goods passing through, and now and then we see a regiment of soldiers moving across to the music of a band. The streets about the Puerto del Sol are usually crowded. There are many well-dressed men and many women in black gowns wearing black shawls over their heads. There are priests and monks in big hats and long gowns of various colors, some with cowls which hang far down their backs. There are sober-faced nuns and sisters of charity, and now and then a band of school boys walking along under the charge of a priest. The Spaniards are almost all Roman Catholics, and in many of the schools the priests are the teachers. Then there are newsboys shouting their papers, peddlers selling lottery tickets, milkmen, and men of all trades. In the evenings there are many people in cafes reading, chatting, or play- ing dominoes, and scores of promenaders on the streets laughing and chatting with one another. Every Sunday afternoon during our stay in Madrid there is a bull fight in the great ring which the people have built for such shows. We are urged to attend, but we refuse. We do not approve of bull fighting, and we certainly would not go to a show on Sunday. Nevertheless, we cannot help IN THE CITIES OF SPAIN. 439 learning a great deal about the sport, for at times our Spanish friends will talk of nothing but bulls and bull fighting. Attending such shows is the favorite amusement of the Spaniards, and a great bull fight here will attract more spectators than will gather to see a base ball match between champion teams in one of our cities. All the large towns of Spain have their bull rings, and hundreds of bulls are killed in them every year. Much of the fighting is upon horses, and as many as five thousand horses have been gored to death in one season. At such fights the wildest and fiercest bulls that can be found are brought into the circus. This is a big ring with walls about it, above which are the seats for the people, In Madrid many thousands attend, and men, women, and children of all classes are among the spectators. We are told that even the women and girls clap their hands as they watch their favorite actors torturing the poor animals to death. The fighters are both on foot and on horseback. They are dressed in gay costumes, each having his hair done up in a knot at the back of the neck. The men on foot have red blankets which they shake in front of the bull, as soon as he enters the ring, to enrage him. As the animal darts for them they jump to one side; and when he turns about they again shake the red, the color which every bull hates, in his face. The men on horseback tease him with sharp lances, and as he grows angry the men on foot throw sharp arrows decorated with bright-colored ribbons into his shoulders or back. The arrows have sharp points barbed like a fishhook, so that they cannot come out, and the rib- bons tied to their shafts wave gayly as the tormented bull runs around the ring. After a time even the quietest animal can be made angry CARP. EUROPE — 27 440 SPAIN. by such treatment. The beast soon becomes wild with rage; he darts after the men on horseback, and tries to drive his horns into their steeds. Sometimes a horse is thrown to the ground, and its rider gored to death. When the bull has reached this angry state, one of the men on foot tries to kill him by stabbing him with a sword. If he makes just the right stroke, he can drop him dead to the ground; but in many cases the poor beast is stabbed again and again. After the bull is killed a team of horses is hitched to its horns, and the band plays while it is dragged out and another victim brought in. We spend some time visiting the great museums and art galleries for which Madrid is noted, and at the palace and in the government departments learn about the country. Spain is ruled by a King, and a Parliament, the lower house of which is elected by the people. The government of Spain has been bad in times past, and this is one reason why the Spaniards are poor. Both in city and country civilization is backward, and the common people are so ignorant that only one in every four can read and write. Spain has but few railroads; and although it has much good land and many rich mines of iron, copper, zinc, quick- silver, and lead, it is poor and the government is greatly in debt. Its resources are little developed, and it is not increas- ing in population and wealth like many of the other parts of Europe. This is partly due to the character of the Spaniards, who were so enriched by the countries they obtained through the discoveries of Columbus and others that they became lazy, extravagant, and cruel ; for people rarely make good use of wealth they have not earned. The Spaniards then secured fortunes without working for them, and became the richest nation of Europe. Spain owned almost all IN THE CITIES OF SPAIN. 44 1 South America with the exception of Brazil, and all Central America and Mexico, as well as the West Indies and the Philippine Islands. She enslaved the natives and brought gold and silver by the shipload home from those countries. She established colonies in them, but oppressed the people so that they rebelled and one by one broke away from her, and now Spain has no colonies of any importance. From Madrid we travel by rail, visiting the various provinces of the kingdom. We find that each state has the general Spanish characteristics, but that the people of the different sections each have ways and customs of their own. The Spaniards are made up of several race ele- ments, owing to the fact that the country has been overrun again and again by other races. Spain was conquered by the Carthaginians and afterwards was long held by the Romans ; these in turn were overthrown by the Goths from the north. In the eighth century the Moors crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from Africa and drove out the Goths. The Spanish of to-day are the result of the inter- mingling of these different races. They resemble the Italians and French more closely than they do the Anglo- Saxons and Germans. The people are proud and patriotic and very hospitable in manner. If we admire anything in the hands of a Spaniard, he straightway offers it to us, knowing we shall refuse to accept it, and whenever we visit at any man's house he tells us that the house is ours. We make one trip northward into the provinces where the Basques live, on the edge of the Pyrenees. These peo- ple are among the best of the Spaniards, being descended from the earliest inhabitants. The Basques are noted for their thrift. Their country is rich in minerals, especially in iron and coal, much of which is exported from the port 442 SPAIN. of Bilbao, on the Bilbao River, not far from the Bilbao Bay. Another excursion is made to Valencia, the great silk and wine port of the Mediterranean, and afterward we go westward and visit Cordoba, Granada, and Seville. In this region the people are somewhat darker, and we see many who remind us somewhat of the people of Turkey. The houses are different, and some of the cities are like parts of Constantinople. This region was long in the hands of the Moors, a race of warlike Mohammedans who crossed the narrow Strait of Gibraltar, and conquered the country, pushing their rule so far north that for a time the French had the proverb, " Africa begins at the Pyrenees." The Moors held south- ern Spain for several centuries, and estab- lished their own civiliza- tion in it. They were among the ablest and most learned people of their time. They built great cities in' Spain, and among them Cor- doba, which at one time had almost one million inhabitants. It had hundreds of public schools and a great university ; it had one hundred public baths and one hun- dred mosques, the ruins of the greatest of which are still standing. We visit these ruins, and stroll about through the forest of columns which upheld the great roof. We Interior of the Alcazar. IN THE CITIES OF SPAIN. 443 enter the Catholic cathedral, which has been built inside the mosque, and then stroll out into the narrow, dirty streets of the Cordoba of to-day. The great glory of the ancient Moorish city has long since passed away. Its population has dwindled to fifty thousand, and it now ranks with the smaller cities of Spain. Still, it has houses which make you think of its past. Many of them are of Moorish architecture, with lattice work balco- nies, and with iron bars over the windows and doors. In Granada, not far away, we explore the ruins of the Alhambra, the huge red stone pal- ace where the Moorish kings lived, and then go on to Seville. Here there is another great Moorish palace, the Alcazar (al-ka/thar), and also many beautiful Moorish houses, with walls painted in the bright- est colors and windows heavily barred. Each 'is built about a court in which oranges grow and cool fountains play. There are date trees on the edge of the city, and, in the country about, groves of oranges and lemons and other tropical fruits. There are tobacco plantations, and we are shown a tobacco factory employing five thousand women, which is said to be the largest in Europe. "There are date trees on the edge of the city.' : 444 spain. Seville is situated at the head of navigation of the Gua- dalquivir (gwa-dal-kwi-vir') River, and hence has a large trade. There are steamers loading oranges and lemons at the wharves, and we take passage on one of the orange steamers. We float down the Guadalquivir through a beautiful and almost tropical country, and at last come to Cadiz, the chief Spanish port on the Atlantic. Cadiz is situated on a beautiful bay, and is surrounded by villages. It is one of the oldest settlements in Europe, having been a thriving port in the days of the Phoenicians as well as in the times of the Greeks and the Romans. We find many ships in its harbor, and take passage on one for Gibraltar, for we wish to see this great English for- tress at the entrance to the Mediterranean before leaving Spain. The voyage is a short one, and we are soon landed at the foot of the enormous bare rock commanding the strait. We can see the forts before we come to it. Two thousand big cannon are looking at us out of its sides, and it fairly bristles with batteries and fortifications. This rock belongs to England, and, although it is so small that you could walk around it in less than two hours, it is one of the most important forts of the world. It is the key to the Mediter- ranean Sea, and through it, to the Suez Canal, and is of the greatest value in protecting the English ships, which must go through on their way to and from Asia, Austra- lia, and the Mediterranean ports. The English have also a naval station and a coaling port here. There is a good harbor at the foot of the rock, and upon it a town of about thirty thousand people, including Spaniards, Greeks, Arabians, Italians, Africans, and Eng- lish. We are met by English officers as we step from our steamer, and are delighted as we stroll about through the THE KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL. 445 BHIl^ii ■ „nn, .,„„ , „ Ti^^ffn, «fr... Vii ii iiim" y^^^* : -^^$^'^-'?^£}ObaK£4£:^lJ?£ ■ w Hf ^ "* ■ >-** --gfe— , -jngnff^Si Gibraltar. town to meet many people who can speak our own lan- guage. The English keep several thousand soldiers at Gibraltar all the year around ; and the king of England appoints a governor who has charge of the colony and who is also commander in chief of the fort. :>XKc XLVI. THE KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL. HOW our hearts jump as we go to the shipping office near the wharves of Gibraltar and take passage for London ! Our long tour is now about over, and we shall soon be crossing the Atlantic for dear old America. We have already traveled through every country in Europe except the little kingdom of Portugal, and of this we shall 446 PORTUGAL. see something while our steamer stops to take on cargo at Lisbon and Oporto on its way north. Portugal is like Spain in that it is generally mountainous, but it has also many rich plains. It is almost as large as Indiana, but it has far less arable land. It is noted for its fine fruit, its great vineyards, and forests of the oak whose bark furnishes the cork of commerce. It raises Longitude Greenwich many cattle and sheep, and thousands of hogs are fed on the acorns which grow in the woods. Much wheat, corn, barley, and rye are raised in the valleys, although not enough to feed all the people. It is a land of flowers, and roses bloom all the year round. The breezes from the mountains and ocean make it cooler than Spain, so that in many parts of the country the climate is delightful. Portugal has several good harbors, and as most of its THE KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL. 447 people live near the coast, they are a great seafaring nation. They early took to trading and in the Middle Ages their ships sailed to Africa, to England, and to all parts of the Mediterranean. The Portuguese were the first to explore the west coast of Africa, and Bartholomew Diaz (de'as), a Portuguese sea captain, was the first white man to reach the Cape of Good Hope. This was five years before Columbus discovered America ; and ten years later Vasco da Gama (ga/ma), another Portuguese, made the first voyage around Africa to India. The most of the eastern coast of South America was discovered by Portuguese. It was a Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, who in 1520 sailed up the Rio de la Plata, and then, after passing through the Strait of Magellan at the southern extremity of the continent, crossed the Pacific and discov- ered the Philippine Islands, where he was killed. Some of Magellan's ships sailed on around the Cape of Good Hope to Europe, and thus made the first voyage clear around the world. At that time the Portuguese went everywhere, and Portu- gal established colonies in South America, India, and other places, so that to-day there are more people who speak Portuguese outside Portugal than in that country itself. In South America, for example, Brazil, a state more than eighty times as large as Portugal, is inhabited by almost three times as many people. It is but a short voyage from Gibraltar to Lisbon, and we are soon steaming in through the mouth of the Tagus River and up to the city, which is twelve miles back from the coast. The river widens within a short distance from its mouth, and it is so broad and deep in front of the city that it forms one of the best harbors of Europe. It is visited by vessels from all parts of the world. We sail 448 PORTUGAL. through shipping all the way up the river. The banks are high and steep, and upon them massive buildings painted in the brightest of colors show out through the trees. There are castles and churches on the tops of the hills, and beyond them are the ragged Cintra Mountains, with their peaks in the sky. Lisbon and its suburbs border the Tagus for more than nine miles, the buildings extending for three miles back Lisbon. from the river. The city has a population of about four hundred thousand, and it looks quite imposing as we steam up to the wharves. Landing, we stroll about through the streets. Some of them are wider than the best avenues of our American cities. They are lined with trees, and have excellent pave- ments. The buildings are large two and three story struc- tures of gray stone, or of brick covered with stucco ; and THE KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL. 449 many of them are painted in the most delicate tints of red, blue, and yellow, so that the city looks fresh and gay. The people are as gay as their homes. They are well dressed, and wear clothes of bright colors. Many of the men have suits of white linen with hats of white straw, and the women wear brighter colors than the women of Spain. The Portuguese are somewhat like the Spaniards, but not so tall or so heavily built ; their faces are darker, and we frequently meet one as dark as a mulatto. We now and then see a negro among them, for the Portuguese were great slave traders in the past. They took cargoes of negroes from Africa to Brazil, and some were brought here to Portugal. How many queer characters there are on the street! We meet peddlers going about with boxes and baskets on their heads, crying their wares ; there are men upon horse- back and ladies in carriages ; there are scores of donkeys, some ridden by men, and others driven along loaded with bags, baskets, and even with stones. We see many priests and nuns, for the country is Catholic, and there are churches and monasteries in all of its towns. We pass fountains at every few steps ; there are more than thirty in Lisbon, all fed by a great aqueduct which conducts water from the hills eight miles away. Each fountain is surrounded by men, women, and children who are filling stone jars and casks and carrying them off on their heads to their homes. Many of the water carriers are Spaniards from the province of Galicia, who have hired themselves out as servants to the Portuguese. After our walk we visit the library of Lisbon, which con- tains three hundred thousand volumes, and then spend some time in the government offices. We learn that Por- tugal has a King, and a Parliament, the lower house of 450 PORTUGAL. which is elected by the people. We find that the country is backward in its adoption of modern improvements. It has but few railroads, and not more than one third of the people can read and write. The chief business is farming, although in the north there are many cotton mills which make gay colored calicoes for the African trade. Later we leave Lisbon for a trip through the rich valley of the Tagus. This river rises in Spain, and after leaving the 'mountains flows through plains of great fertility down to the sea, dividing Portugal into two almost equal parts. There are windmills on all sides of us as we ride up the valley; we pass bullock carts dragging great loads over the highways, and donkeys and mules jogging along with brushwood, timber, and bags of grain on their backs. There are women and men at work in the fields. We stop to lunch in an orange grove, picking the ripe juicy fruit from the trees, and as we near the mountains we pass by many large vineyards. We are especially interested in cork trees, from whose bark come the stoppers used in bottles all over the world. There are thousands of acres of such trees in Portugal and Spain, some wild and some in cultivated groves. The cork tree is an evergreen oak which, when full grown, is forty or fifty feet high and sometimes as much as five feet in thick- ness. The corks are made from the bark, which is so soft that it can be easily cut into shape. The bark grows very slowly ; a tree must be fifteen years old before its bark be- comes an inch or so thick and ready for cutting. After this, if the bark is properly taken off, the tree will grow a new coat every eight or ten years for more than a century. In taking the bark, two rings are cut around the tree, one just above the ground, and one below the main branches. Between these, cuts are made lengthwise just THE KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL. 45 deep enough not to injure the innermost bark, and the strips are pried off. After stripping, the bark is flattened out by heating it over a fire. It is scraped and cleaned and hardened by boiling or steaming, and then it is ready to be shipped to the markets. the strips are pried off. The bark is used for making bottle stoppers, cork legs, hat linings, the soles of shoes, life preservers, and many other things. The cork of Portugal is so valuable that it brings in more than three million dollars a year, being next to wine the chief export of the country. We find men loading cork on our steamer when we get back to Lisbon, and as we sail out of the harbor towards the stormy Atlantic we rejoice in the fact that we have so 452 PORTUGAL. much cork on board that, if our ship should be wrecked, we could not possibly sink. We stay only a short time in Oporto, the great wine city of Portugal, loading a cargo of sherry and port, and then steam on to London. Here we remain a few days to re- " We stay only a short time at Oporto." pack our baggage and complete our list of presents for our dear friends at home, and then, having finished our long tour of Europe, take a train for Liverpool, where one of the fastest of the great ocean greyhounds is waiting to carry us back to New York. INDEX. Acropolis, 385. Alps, 249-271, 275. Amsterdam, 145. Andersen, Hans Christian, 161. Antwerp, 127. Army — Austrian, 284 ; British, 83 ; German, 1 91-21 6; Russian, 338; Swiss, 268. Astrachan, 357. Athens, 384. Atlantic Ocean, 12-15. Austria-Hungary, 280-301. Bank of England, 71. Barcelona, 436. Basques, 441. Bazaars — Russian, 343 ; Turkish, 369-37I- Beer, 214, 275. Belfast, 31. Belgium, 125-133. Belgrade, 305. Berlin, 203-223. Bern, 269. Birmingham, 61. Blanc, Mont, 256. Bog lands of Ireland, 26. Bohemia, 282. Bordeaux, 97. Bosporus, Strait of, 361. Bremen, 199. Brussels, 129. Budapest, 295-300. Bulgaria, 308. Bull fights, 438. Burns, Robert, 46. Byzantium, 363. Cable, Atlantic, 84. Canals — France, 96; Germany, 189, 192, 198; Holland, 137, 145; Man- chester, 63 ; Sweden, 180; Venice, 393- Canaries, 231, 342. Caspian Sea, 357. Catacombs, Paris, 119 ; Rome, 416. Caviar, 345. Christiania, 180. Clyde, the, 333. Coal — Belgium, 127; England, 56-62; France, 104, 105 ; Germany, 187, 228, 232 ; Russia, 343 ; Scotland, 33; Spain, 441. Coblenz, 241. Coliseum, 413. Cologne, 236. Columbus, Christopher, 408. Commerce, 59, 68, 261, 27 1, 390, 400. Constantinople, 361-381. Copenhagen, 158. Cordoba, 442. Corinth, 391. Cork, bark, 450. Cork, city of, '21. Cotton, manufactures, 62-64, 96, 341 , 353- Czar, 331, 338. 453 454 INDEX. Danube, 271-280, 293, 301-31 1. Danzig, 202. Denmark, 156-163. Diamonds, 150. Diaz, Bartholomew, 447. Dikes of Holland, 135. Dresden, 226. Droskies, 312. Dublin, 27. Edinburgh, 44-46. Education — Denmark, 163; France, 49 ; Germany, 219, 233 ; Greece, 389; Holland, 143 ; Hungary, 299; Italy, 417; Norway, 180; Russia, 378; Scotland, 38; Sweden, 182; Turkey, 374. Eider ducks, 172. Elbe River, 193, 195. England, 48-84. Europe, general, 10. Fahrenheit, 203. Fairs, 228, 352. Farming — Belgium, 125; England, 50- 55; France, 88, 91; Germany, 187, 224, 276; Greece, 391; Holland, 140 ; Hungary, 302 ; Italy, 402 ; Ireland, 18-21, 27, 29 ; Norway, 178-180; Russia, 320-330, 356; Spain, 431; Sweden, 185; Switzer- land, 262-266. Finland, 338. Fiords, 164. Firth of Forth, 45. Florence, 410. Flour mills, floating, 303. Fontainebleau, 118. Forests — France, 94 ; Norway, 1 76 ; Portugal, 450 ; Russia, 316, 357. France, 85-124. Frankfurt, 245. Gama, Vasco da, 447. Garnets, 291. Genoa, 408. Germany, 186-248. Giant's Causeway, 29-31. Gibraltar, 444. Glaciers, 255-259. Glasgow, 32-39. Gondolas, 394. Gotha Canal, 180. Gothenburg, 180. Governments — Austria, 283 ; Den- mark, 159 ; England, 78 ; France, 117-124; Germany, 215-223; Hol- land, 153; Italy, 417; Russia, 329, 338; Scandinavia, 184; Spain, 440; Switzerland, 267-270; Turkey, 371. Granada, 443. Greece, 381-392. Gulf Stream, 168. Gutenberg, 245. Gypsies, 309. Hague, The, 152. Hamburg, 195-198. Hammerfest, 170. Hanseatic League, 200. Harz Mountains, 231. Havre, 296. Heidelberg, 246. Highlanders, 43. Holland, 133-156. Hungary, Austria-, 293-301. Ireland, 15-32. Iron, 33, 56, 59, 61, 127, 187, 232, 233. 353* 44i. Iron Gate of Danube, 307. Italy, 392-428. Jaunting cars, 16. Kazan, 354. Kiel, 192. Killarney, Lakes, 24. Knives, how made, 59. Koran, The, 378. Kremlin, The, 347. INDEX. 455 Lace making in Belgium, 128; France, 104; Ireland, 27. Laplanders, 169. Leeds, 58. Leipzig, 227. Limoges, 105. Linen, 31, 341. Lisbon, 447, 450. Lisle, 105. Liverpool, 64. Lombardy, 402. London, 66-84. Lubeck, 200. Lyons, 100. Macaroni, 419. Madrid, 437. Magyars, 300. Mainz, 245. Manchester, 62. Manufactures — Belgium, 126-129 ; England, 55-56 ; France, 95-106 ; Germany, 227-233 ; Holland, 149- 151 ; Italy, 405, 407, 419; Russia, 340-343 ; Sweden, 181 ; Switzer- land, 261; Turkey, 371. Markets — Berlin, 214; London, 68; Moscow, 345; Paris, 113. Marseilles, 100. Midnight Sun, 163-175. Milan, 407. Mines, 33, 56, 62, 104, 105, 127, 187, 232, 233, 282, 343, 441. Mohammedans — Russian, 355 ; Span- ish, 442; Turkish, 361-381. Moors, 442. Moscow, 340, 351. Mosques, 365, 375~37 8 - Munich, 275. Naples, 417-421. Napoleon Bonaparte, 1 21-123, 132. Netherlands, The, 133-156. Newcastle, 57. Nizhni Novgorod, 351. North Cape, 173. Norway, 163-180. Nuremberg, 273. Odessa, 31 1-3 14. Olives, 432. Opals, 291. Oporto, 452. Paisley, 39. Paris, 106-125. Parks — Berlin, 206 ; London, 77 ; Vienna, 286. Parliament — Denmark, 159 ; Eng- land, 76-81 ; France, 123; Ger- many, 217; Holland, 153. Peat, 25. Peter the Great, 336. Petroleum, 358-360. Pisa, 410. Poles, 339. Pompeii, 422, 426. Pope, the, 415. Porcelain, 105, 152, 233. Portugal, 445-453- Potato, 18, 20. Railroads, 49, 86, 88, 108, 176, 190, 206, 223, 317. Reindeer, 170. Rhine, the, 234-248. Ribbons, 104. Rigi, M., 252. Rivers — Arno, 410 ; Clyde, 333 ; Danube, 271-280, 301-31 1 ; Elbe, *93» x 95; Forth > 455 Garonne, 97; Loire, 96; Main, 245; Mersey, 64; Po, 402; Rhine, 234-248; Rhone, 100; Seine, 108; Tiber, 411 ; Tagus, 447, 450; Thames, 67; Vistula, 202; Volga, 35!-357- Rome, 411-417. Roumania, 306, 309. Russia, 311-361. St. Bernard dogs, 260. St. Etienne, 104. 456 INDEX. St. Gothard, Mt., 258. St. Petersburg, 330-339. Salt, 232, 276, 278. Samara, 355. San Marino, 410. Scandinavia, 163-185. Scheveningen, 153—155. Scotland, 32-48. Scott, Sir Walter, 39, 47. Seine, the, 107. Servia, 305. Seville, 444. Shakespeare, William, 65. Sheffield, 59. Shipbuilding, ^^, 202. Silk, 101, 405-407. Slovaks, 301. Spain, 428-445. Stettin, 201. Stockholm, 182. Stores — Berlin, 220; Constantinople, 369; Denmark, 159; Holland, 149; Russian, 313, 343, 353. Storks, 139, 193, 305. Strassburg, 247. Stratford-on-Avon, 65. Sultan, the, 364, 372-374, 378. Sunflowers, 356. Switzerland, 249-271. Tagus River, 447-450. Tartars, 355. Thames River, 67. Tiflis, 360. Toys, 229, 273. Tromso, 170. Trondhjem, 166. Trossachs, the, 42. Tula, 341. Tulips, 141. Turks, 364. Tweed, 39. Ulm, 272. United Kingdom, 15-84. Venice, 391-401. Versailles, 118. Vesuvius, 421-428. Vienna, 280-291. Vineyards, 97, 240, 391, 431. Vistula River, 202. Volga River, 35**357- Vosges Mts., 105. Warsaw, 339. Waterloo, 132. Wellington, Duke of, 76, 132. Westminster Abbey, 81. Windmills, 139. Wines, 97, 240, 391, 431. Wool, manufactures, 27, 39, 58, 1055 128, 149, 229, 341. -^v •0. •<<* > - . , , ' f O - o N -, <& *+ %y^vv x ^ v ^

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