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diff --git a/42132-0.txt b/42132-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..272244d --- /dev/null +++ b/42132-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6360 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42132 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 42132-h.htm or 42132-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42132/42132-h/42132-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42132/42132-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://archive.org/details/throughscandinav00edwa + + + + + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR.] + + +THROUGH SCANDINAVIA TO MOSCOW + +With Many Illustrations and Maps + +by + +WILLIAM SEYMOUR EDWARDS + +Author of "In to the Yukon," etc. + + + + + + + +Cincinnati +The Robert Clarke Co. +1906 + +Copyright 1906, by +William Seymour Edwards + + + + + DEDICATION + + To my life-long chum, + my father, + these pages are affectionately dedicated. + + + + + +FOREWORD + + +These pages are made up of letters written during a little journey +through Scandinavia and into Russia as far as Moscow, some four years +ago, before the smashing of the Russians by the Japanese. They were +written to my father, and are necessarily intimate letters, in which I +have jotted down what I saw and felt as the moment moved me. The truth +is, I was on my honey-moon trip, and the world sang merrily to +me--even in sombre Russia. + +Afterward, some of these letters were published here and there; now +they are put together into this little book. I had my kodak with me +and have thus been able to add to the text some of the scenes my lens +made note of. + +It was my endeavor at the time, that the kindly circle who read the +letters should see as I saw, feel as I felt, and apprehend as I +apprehended; that they should share with me the delight of travel +through serene and industrious Denmark, among the grand and stupendous +_fjelds_ and _fjords_ of romantic Norway; should visit with me a +moment the Capital of once militant Sweden, and join me in the +excitement of a plunge into semi-barbarous Russia. The transition from +Scandinavia to Russia was sharp. I went from lands where the modern +spirit finds full expression, as seen in the splendid schools and +libraries of Denmark, in the democratic and Americanized atmosphere of +Norway, in the scientific and mechanical progressiveness of Sweden. +Entering Russia, I found myself amidst social and political +conditions, mediaeval and malevolent. The wanton luxury of the +enormously rich, the pinching poverty of the very poor, the political +and social exaltation of the very few, the ruthless suppression of the +many, here stared me in the face on every hand. The smoldering embers +of discontent, profound discontent, were even then apparent. In the +brief interval which has since elapsed, this smoldering discontent has +become the blazing conflagration of Revolution. Driven against his +will by inexorable fate, the Czar has at first convoked the Imperial +Douma and then, terrified by its growing aggressiveness, has summarily +decreed its death. Panic-struck by the apparition of popular liberty, +which his own act has called forth, he is now in sinister retreat +toward despotic reaction; the consternation of the unwilling +Bureaucracy, day by day increases; terror, abject terror, increasingly +haunts the splendid palaces of the Autocracy; and the inevitable and +irrepressible movement of the Russian people toward liberty and modern +order is begun. + +The symptoms of social and political ailment which then discovered +themselves to me are now apparent to all the world. And it is this +verification of the suggestions of these letters which may now, +perhaps, justify their publication. + + WILLIAM SEYMOUR EDWARDS. + Charleston-Kanawha, West Virginia, + September 1, 1906. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + I. London to Denmark Across the North Sea 1 + + II. Esbjerg--Across Jutland, Funen and Zealand, + the Little Belt and Big Belt to Copenhagen, + and Friends Met Along the Way 7 + + III. Copenhagen, a Quaint and Ancient City 15 + + IV. Elsinore and Kronborg--An Evening Dinner + Party 31 + + V. Across the Sund to Sweden and Incidents of + Travel to Kristiania 40 + + VI. A Day Upon the Rand Fjord--Along the + Etna Elv To Frydenlund--Ole Mon Our + Driver 51 + + VII. A Drive Along the Baegna Elv--the Aurdals + Vand and Many More to Skogstad 60 + + VIII. Over the Height of Land--A Wonderful Ride + Down the Laera Dal to the Sogne Fjord 68 + + IX. A Day Upon the Sogne Fjord 75 + + X. From Stalheim to Eida--The Waterfall of + Skjerve Fos--The Mighty Hardanger Fjord 80 + + XI. The Buarbrae and Folgefonden Glaciers--Cataracts + and Mountain Tarns--Odda to Horre 89 + + XII. Over the Lonely Haukeli Fjeld--Witches and + Pixies, and Maidens Milking Goats 96 + + XIII. Descending from the Fjelde--The Telemarken + Fjords--The Arctic Twilight 106 + + XIV. Kristiania to Stockholm--A Wedding Party--Differing + Norsk and Swede 118 + + XV. Stockholm the Venice of the North--Life and + Color of the Swedish Capital--Manners of + the People and their King 128 + + XVI. How We Entered Russia--The Passport System--Difficult + to Get Into Russia and More Difficult + to Get Out 136 + + XVII. St. Petersburg--The Great Wealth of the Few--The + Bitter Poverty of the Many--Conditions + Similar to Those Preceding the French + Revolution 148 + + XVIII. En Route to Moscow--Under Military Guard--Suspected + of Designs on Life of the Czar 158 + + XIX. Our Arrival at Moscow--Splendor and + Squalor--Enlightenment and Superstition--Russia + Asiatic Rather Than European 167 + + XX. The Splendid Pageant of the Russian Mass--The + Separateness of Russian Religious Feeling + From Modern Thought--Russia Mediaeval and Pagan 180 + + XXI. The First Snows--Moscow to Warsaw--Fat + Farm Lands and Frightful Poverty of the + Mujiks Who Own them and Till them--I Recover + My Passport 189 + + XXII. The Slav and the Jew--The Slav's Envy and + Jealousy of the Jew 201 + + XXIII. Across Germany and Holland to England--A + Hamburg Wein Stube--The "Simple Fisher-Folk" + of Maarken--Two Gulden at Den Haag 214 + + XXIV. Map of North Europe. + Map of Scandinavia and Baltic Russia, in profile. + + + + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + + OPPOSITE + PAGE + The Author Frontispiece + The Naero--Sogne Fjord 1 + The North Sea 3 + The Docks, Esbjerg 5 + Our Danish Railway Carriage 7 + My Instructor in Danish 10 + Our Danish Friends 12 + The Krystal Gade and Round Tower, Copenhagen 14 + The Oestergade 16 + The Royal Theatre, Copenhagen 17 + The Exchange, Copenhagen 19 + The Gammel Strand 23 + Along the Quays, Copenhagen 26 + An Ancient Moat, Now the Lovely Oersteds Park 30 + A Vista of the Sund 32 + Elsinore 33 + The Sund from Kronborg's Ramparts 35 + The Fishing Boats, Elsinore 37 + A Snap-shot for a Dime, Kronborg 39 + Kronborg 41 + Karl Johans Gade, Kristiania 42 + Vegetable Market, Kristiania 44 + Kristiania, A View of the City 46 + Our Norwegian Train 48 + Along the Etna Elv 50 + Hailing our Steamer, The Rand Fjord 51 + The Old Salt 53 + Ole Mon 55 + Feeding the Ponies, Tomlevolden 58 + Church of Vestre Slidre 58 + The Distant Snows 60 + The Baegna Elv 62 + The Granheims Vand 63 + A Herd of Cows, Fosheim 63 + A Hamlet Beneath the Fjeld 65 + The Author by the Slidre Vand 67 + Ricking the Rye 67 + The Protected Road 69 + Three Thousand Feet of Waterfall 71 + Our Little Ship, Laerdalsoeren 74 + The Sogne Fjord--Along the Sogne Fjord 76 + Sudals Gate, on the Sogne Fjord 78 + The Naerodal 80 + Greeting our Boat, Aurland 83 + The Hardanger Fjord 85 + The Soer Fjord--Hardanger 87 + Commingling Lote and Skars Fos 90 + The Espelands Fos 90 + Glacier of Buarbrae 92 + The Gors Vand 92 + The Descending Road to Horre 94 + A Mile Stone 97 + Cattle on the Haukeli Fjeld 97 + The Desolate Haukeli Fjeld 99 + Norse Maiden Milking Goat (2 illustrations) 103 + Our Hostesses, Haukeli-Saeter 106 + A Norse Cabin 106 + A Goat Herd's Saeter 110 + Haukeli-Saeter 110 + Tending the Herds 112 + Drying Out the Oats 112 + Dalen on the Bandaks Vand 115 + Norse Women Raking Hay 117 + Stockholm 119 + King's Palace, Stockholm 122 + Ancient Swedish Fortress 124 + A Swedish Church 124 + A Band of Swedish Horses 126 + The Shore of Lake Maelaren, Stockholm 129 + Cathedral of Riddarsholm 131 + Norrbro, Stockholm 133 + Facing the Gale 140 + The Pier, Helsingfors 142 + Fishing Boats Along the Quay, Helsingfors 142 + Market Square, Helsingfors 144 + The Doebln at her Pier, Helsingfors 144 + A Wild Sea--Leaving Helsingfors 145 + Fishing Boats at Mouth of the Neva 145 + Entering the Neva 149 + Along the Neva 149 + Our Droschky, St. Petersburg 151 + Along the Nevsky-Prospekt 151 + Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan 154 + Our Squealing Stallions 154 + Our Izvostchik 156 + Our Landau, St. Petersburg 160 + A Noble's Troika, St. Petersburg 161 + The Railway Porters, St. Petersburg 161 + Our Military Guard, Bargaining for Apples 165 + The Holy Savior Gate, Kremlin 165 + Along the Gostinoi Dvor, Moscow 167 + Cathedral of the Assumption, Kremlin 167 + The Red Square, Moscow 170 + Begging Pilgrims, St. Basil 170 + Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, Moscow 172 + Ancient Pavements, Moscow 176 + Bread Vendors, Moscow 176 + The Kremlin beyond the Moskva 179 + Cathedral of St. Savior 181 + A Tram-Car, Moscow 188 + The Out-of-Works 188 + Cemetery, Novo Dievitchy 190 + Monastery Church, Novo Dievitchy 190 + Holy Beggar, Novo Dievitchy 191 + The Kremlin Beneath the Snows 193 + A Station Stop, En Route to Warsaw 197 + Catching a Kopeek--A Beggar 204 + A Cold Day 208 + Along the River Moskva, Moscow 209 + A Russian Jew 211 + Jewish Types, taken in Russia 213 + Jewish Types, taken in America 213 + A Dainty Nurse-maid, Berlin 215 + Hamburg Street Traffic 218 + Our Bill of Fare 220 + A Gentleman of Maarken 222 + A Kinder of Maarken 222 + Among Vrow and Kinderen, Maarken 224 + A Load of Hay, Holland 227 + Along the Zuyder Zee 227 + The Fish Market, Den Haag 228 + The Gossips, Den Haag 228 + A Watery Lane, Den Haag 229 + Dutch Toilers 229 + Map of North Europe. + Map of Scandinavia and Baltic Russia, in profile. + + +[Illustration: THE NAERO--SOGNE FJORD, NORWAY.] + + + + +Through Scandinavia to Moscow. + + + + +I. + +London to Denmark Across the North Sea. + + + ESBJERG, DENMARK, _August 25, 1902_. + +We came down from London to Harwich toward the end of the day. Our +train was a "Special" running to catch the steamer for Denmark. We +were delayed a couple of hours in the dingy, dirty London station by +reason of a great fog which had crept in over Harwich from the North +Sea, and then, the boat had to wait upon the tide. + +The instant the train backed in alongside the station platform--only +ten minutes before it would pull out--there was the usual scramble and +grab to seize a seat in the first-carriage-you-can and pandemonium +reigned. H is well trained by this time, however, and I quickly had +her comfortably ensconced in a seat by a window with bags and shawls +pyramided by her side the better to hold a place for me. Meantime, I +hurried to a truck where stood awaiting me a well-tipped porter and +together we safely stowed two "boxes" into a certain particular +"luggage van," the number of which I was careful to note so that I +might be sure quickly to find the "luggage" again, when we should +arrive at Harwich, else a stranger might walk off with it as aptly as +with his own. + +Our "carriage" was packed "full-up" with several men and women, who +looked dourly at us and at each other as they sat glumly squeezed +together, elbows in each other's ribs. So forbidding was the prospect +confronting me that I did not presume to attempt a conversation. These +comrades, however, soon dropped out at the way-stations, until only +one lone man was left, when I took heart and made bold to accost him. +I found him very civil and, recognizing me to be a foreign visitor, he +spoke with freedom. One Englishman never forgives another for sitting +beside him, unintroduced, and squeezing him up in a railway carriage; +but he harbors no such grudge against his American cousin, equally the +victim of British methods. + +Our _vis-à-vis_ had been a volunteer-trooper in South Africa, and had +just come back to England, after two years' hardship and exposure. He +had given up a good position in order to serve his country, and had +been promised that the place would be kept open for him against his +return. He tells me he now finds a stay-at-home holds his job. He has +"a wife and two little lads to keep," and so far he has had "no luck +in finding work." There are thousands of others in as bad a fix as he, +he says, returned patriots who are starving for lack of work. He +denounced the entire Boer-smashing business most savagely and declared +that as for South Africa, he "would not take the whole of it for a +gift." We hear this sort of talk everywhere among the people we +casually meet. The average Englishman takes small pride in his Army. +"It gives fat jobs to the aristocracy, it is death to us," is what I +have heard a dozen times remarked. Our new acquaintance seemed to feel +the better for having thus spoken out his mind, and when we parted, +wished us a "prosperous voyage." + +[Illustration: THE NORTH SEA.] + +The ship was in motion within twenty minutes after our train reached +the Harwich pier. To my landsman's thinking the air was yet murky with +the fog. Big sirens were booming all about us. The melancholy clang of +tidal bells sounded in sombre muffled tones from many anchored buoys. +It was a drear, dank night to leave the land. We moved slowly, +sounding our own hoarse whistle all the while. I stood upon the upper +deck peering into the mists till we had come well out to sea. There +were few boats moving, no big ones. Multitudes of small schooners and +sloops rode at anchor, their danger lights faintly gleaming. I +wondered we did not run down and crush them, but the pilot seemed to +apprehend the presence of another boat even before the smallest ray of +light shone through the fog. One or two great ships we came shockingly +close upon. At least, I was jarred more than once when their huge +black hulks and reaching masts suddenly grew up before me out of the +dead white curtain of the mists. The estuary which leads from Harwich +to the sea is long and tortuous. Only a pilot who has been born upon +it, and from boyhood learned its currents and its tides, its shallows +and its shoals, may dare to guide a boat along it, even in broad day. +How much greater the skill and knowledge required thus to steer a ship +through these labyrinthine channels amidst the fogs and blackness of +such a night! The Captain told me he was always uneasy when coming +out, no matter when, and never felt safe until far out upon the sea. +Even in open water he must keep the sharpest kind of a watch lest some +one of the myriad fishing craft which haunt these waters, should lie +athwart the way. + +The sea was quiet, rolling with a long slow swell. The rising wind +soughed softly through the rigging when, toward midnight, I at last +turned in. + +All day Sunday the North Sea lay smooth and glassy as a pond; no hint +of the turmoil and tempest which so often rage upon its shallow +depths. We did not see many vessels; far to the north I made out the +smoke of a steamer which the captain said was bound for Kristiansand, +in Norway; and south of us were a few sail, which I took to be fishing +luggers from Holland. Nor were there many seabirds flying. The sky +hung low and in the gray air was the feel of a storm in the offing. +Toward dark, about eight o'clock, a misty rain settled down upon us, +and the rising wind began swashing the dripping waters along the +decks. Toward half past nine we descried a dim glimmer in the east,--a +beacon light flickering through the night,--and then another with +different intervals of flash, a mile or two out upon the left, and +then our ears caught the deep bellow of a fog horn across the sea. +We were nearing the west coast of the Province of Jutland, in Denmark. +Our port lay dead ahead between the lights. Another hour of cautious +navigating, for there are many sand bars and shifting shoals along +this coast, and we came steaming slowly, very slowly, among trembling +lights--fishing smacks at anchor with their night signals burning--and +then we crept up to a big black wharf. We were arrived at Esbjerg. + +[Illustration: THE DOCKS, ESBJERG.] + +The train for Copenhagen (Kjoebenhavn) would leave at midnight, an +eight-hours' ride and no sleeping car attached. + +We decided to stay aboard the ship, sleep peacefully in our +wide-berthed stateroom and take a train at eleven o'clock of the +morning, which would give us a daylight ride. + +We were entering Denmark by the back door. The sea-loving traveler +generally approaches by one of the ocean liners which sail direct from +New York to Copenhagen; those who find terror in the sea enter by way +of Kiel, and an all-rail ride through Holland and Germany, crossing +the channel to Ostend, Dieppe, or the Hook. Only the few voyage across +the North Sea with its frequent storms--the few who, like ourselves, +are good sailors and do not fear the stress of tide and tempest. We +were now at Esbjerg, and must cross the entire peninsula of Denmark, +its Little Belt, its Big Belt and the large islands of Funen and +Zealand to reach our journey's end. + +I am already beginning to pick up the Danish speech, a mixture of +English, German, Dutch and new strange throat gutturals, the latter +difficult for an American larynx to make. And yet so similar is this +mother tongue of Scandinavia to the modern English, that I can often +tell what a Dane is saying by the very similarity of the sounds: "Go +Morn"--(good morning), "Farvel"--(farewell). + +Our fellow passengers were mostly Danes. This is their favorite route +for coming home. They are a quiet, rather pensive people. The men, +much of the time, were smoking, and drinking beer and a white brandy. +The women were often sitting in the smoking room with them, enjoying, +I presume, the perfume of tobacco, as every right-minded woman should, +and it may be, also finding solace in the scent of the strong brown +beer, which they are not themselves indisposed to quaff. + +The cooking on this Danish boat has been good. We have keenly +appreciated the improvement upon the diet of roast beef, boiled +mutton, boiled ham, boiled potatoes, and boiled peas steeped in mint, +which we have been compelled to exist upon during the past few weeks +in Britain. + +[Illustration: OUR DANISH RAILWAY CARRIAGE.] + + + + +II. + +Esbjerg--Across Jutland, Funen and Zealand, the Little Belt and the +Big Belt to Copenhagen--Friends Met Along the Way. + + + HOTEL DAGMAR ("Dahmar"), + COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, _August 27, 1902_. + +Here we are in "Kjoebenhavn," which word you will find it quite +impossible properly to pronounce, however strenuously your tongue may +try. + +My letter, beginning in Esbjerg, was broken short by the necessity of +sleep. We wisely remained upon the ship and took full benefit of our +comfortable berths. In the morning we were up betimes, obtained a cup +of coffee and a roll, and then, sending our bags and baggage to the +railway station, set out afoot. + +The air was misty, full of a fine drizzling rain. It was regular +Scotch and English weather, but the atmosphere was cooler and not so +heavy as in Britain. The little stone-and-brick-built town is clean +and neat, with its main street well asphalted. It lies on a gentle +slope of hillside which lifts from the water. A giant lighthouse, +rising from the highest point of land, is the first object to meet the +view. Back of this, upon the level summit, lies the best of the town. +The buildings are generally of one and two stories, with steep, +gabled roofs. + +H, in her Scottish "bonnet," and I, in my raincoat, were quite +impervious to wetness, and we spent the morning strolling here and +there, stopping to see, among other things, the tubs and tanks of fish +in the market square, where fishwives in big, white caps, stood quite +heedless of the rain. The fish were almost wholly the famous _roed +spoette_ (red spots), one of the flounder family, much resembling the +English sole. + +Wanting cigars, I was tempted into a little shop, and found it kept by +an intelligent young Dane, who instantly confessed to me, in good +United States, that he had lived in America and there done well. In +fact, it was plain to see that his heart still beat for the great +Republic. His father had died and he had come back to Denmark to care +for his old mother, and then, he had fallen in love with the blue-eyed +daughter of a citizen of Esbjerg, an only child. So now, with several +little Danes added to his charge, he was fixed fast in Esbjerg. But he +was "always grieving for America," he said. He delighted to see us, +and sent for his young wife, who came smiling in to us with her baby +in her arms. H says he told his wife in Danish, that we were Americans +just like all others she would see, if she should ever reach New York! +So I bought a box of cigars from him, instead of one or two, and found +them good smoking and well worth the very moderate cost. + +Crossing the market square to a long, low building, which somehow had +about it that indefinable air suggestive of a breakfast comfortably +cooked, we came to an inn, in the low-ceilinged dining room of which +were little tables set about upon the sanded floor. Two or three men +of the sea were smoking in one corner, a bar and a red-cheeked barmaid +were in another, and two huge, yellow, Great-Dane dogs occupied most +of the remaining space. We chose a table by the window and H ordered +_roed spoette_, rolls and coffee. The fish was delicious, possessing a +harder, sweeter flesh than the English sole; and rolls with salted +butter rejoiced my palate, for I am dreadfully tired of English butter +with no salt; and then we were given big brown pancakes with currant +jelly, all we could eat. It was a breakfast fit for a Viking. The bill +was only three _kroner_ and twenty _oere_, which equals about +eighty-six cents. + +At the railway station, a mile from the docks, our tickets, bought in +London, gave us the best on the train, better than similar carriages +in England, for here they are bigger, with larger windows and the cars +are set on trucks. + +The journey to Copenhagen was over and through a sandy, flat and +slightly rolling country, more carefully tilled and more generally +cultivated than in England, with more grain, wheat and rye; with more +vegetables, turnips, carrots, cabbage and potatoes. There were cattle, +herds of large red cows, for Denmark is now the dairy of all Europe. +But I saw no steers, nor beef cattle, fattening for the market, and +but few sheep; nor any hogs running afield--the last are probably kept +up. The houses are set singly upon the farms, are surrounded by +outbuildings, and are usually of one story and often big and rambling +with ells and gables, and generally have thatched roofs. The barns are +big and substantial. More people are here upon the land than in +England, and not living in clustered villages, as in France; the +fields are divided usually by hedges. There are sluggish waterways and +canals, and ponds where fish are bred and raised for market; and +almost every hilltop is capped with a Dutch-looking windmill. + +The train moved deliberately. It made from twenty to twenty-five miles +an hour, stopping a long time at each station. We hadn't gone far when +a bald-pated, round-headed _Herr_ climbed in and we speedily fell into +talk with him. H speaks Danish enough to get on, and I use my pocket +dictionary, and pick up what I can. His name was Hansen and he "owns" +the "Hotel Kikkenborg," at "Brammige," wherever that may be. He told +us of the country we were passing through and helped me on the Danish +gutturals. You must gurgle the sounds down in your gullet as though +you were quite filled with water, and the more profound the depth from +which the sound comes forth, the more perfect the speech. We lost him +at the first change of cars, when we boarded an immense ferryboat to +cross the strait of water called the Little Belt, which separates +the main land from the large island of Funen, but we found ourselves +again in kindly company, this time, with a gray-bearded man and two +ladies, his wife and daughter. He was "Inspector of Edifices" for the +Government. They had been spending a few weeks on the island of Fanoe +at Nordby, a fashionable seaside resort much patronized by the gentry +of Copenhagen. He talked with me in fluent German, and the ladies +conversed readily in French, while all spoke with H in _Dansk_ and so +we got on, fell fast friends and were introduced to a beau of the +Froeken, a young "Doctor" who had "just taken his degree." We sat +together while crossing the island of Funen and on the ferryboat top +all through the long sail across the Big Belt which divides Funen from +the island of Zealand. Our friends here pointed out to us where it was +that Charles X of Sweden, and his army of foot and horse and guns made +their dare-devil passage on the ice that night in January, 1658, +crossing the Little and Big Belts to Zealand and Copenhagen, forcing +the beaten Danes by the Peace of Roskilde to cede the great Provinces +of Skaania, Halland and Bleking, which made Sweden forever henceforth +a formidable European state,--"God's work," the Swedes declared, for +these salty waters were never before frozen solid enough to bear an +army's weight,--nor have they been since. We parted only at the +journey's end. Our friends were pleasant people of the aristocratic +office-holding class, content to live simply on the modest stipend +the Government may grant, who neither speak nor read English, and who +listened to the tales of bigness in America with doubting wonder. "A +building twenty stories high!" "Impossible!" "Eighty millions of +people!" "Incredible!" "America already holds four hundred thousand +Danes--one-fifth of the Danish race." "Ja! Alas! That is too true!" +"Our young men are never satisfied to come back to stay when once they +have lived in America!" "Our young men don't return, it's hard upon +our girls." + +[Illustration: MY INSTRUCTOR IN DANISH.] + +Our new found friends, when we lunched upon the big ferryboat, +introduced us to that very Danish dish called _Smoer Broed_, thickly +buttered rye bread overlaid with raw herring or smoked goose breast, a +Viking dainty--a salty appetizer well calculated to make the Norseman +quaff from his flagon with more than usual vim, and to drive an +American in hurried search of plain water! These salty snacks of cold +bread and cold fish are as eagerly devoured and enjoyed by the +Scandinavian as are the peppery, stinging eatables for which every +Mexican palate yearns. + +It was dusk when we arrived in the large and commodious Main station +at Copenhagen. The suburbs of the city were hidden from us by the +gathering darkness, and the electric lights were glowing when we left +the train. + +We missed General and Mrs. C at the station, so great was the crowd, +but found them when we came to our hotel, the Dagmar, they having +themselves missed us and followed on our track. + +[Illustration: OUR DANISH FRIENDS.] + +There are many good hotels in Copenhagen and this is among the larger +and more popular stopping places of the Danes themselves. It is built +along the clean Vestre Boulevard, with umbrageous trees in front of +it, and possesses that rare thing, an elevator. In the dining room we +sit at little tables, and find the cooking much superior to what one +generally meets in England. It is more after the French sort, the +Danes priding themselves greatly upon their soups and sauces. In our +rooms, which look out upon the broad, paved boulevard, the furniture +is old style mahogany, very substantial, and in the corner there is +one of those immense porcelain stoves reaching to the ceiling, which +is the general mode of heating large rooms in these Scandinavian +lands. + +Copenhagen is a city of four hundred thousand people, one-quarter of +the estimated population of Denmark, and the city is growing steadily +at the expense of the country,--increasing too fast for a land the +population of which is as steadily growing less. English is said to be +the fashionable foreign tongue in court circles, by reason of the +British royal connection; but among the people the German speech is +steadily and stealthily taking a foremost place, and this despite the +fact that the Danes dislike Germany and view the Germans with +well-founded fear. You will talk to a Dane but a few moments before he +is pouring out his heart to you about the atrocious robbery of the +splendid Provinces of Sleswik and Holstein, of which Bismarck +despoiled the little kingdom nearly forty years ago. Almost half of +Denmark was then lopped off at a single blow,--nor England nor Russia +interfering to save the Danes,--and now they are ever in uneasy spirit +lest Germany encroach yet more upon them and ultimately devour them, +land and sea. They feel she is incessantly creeping on to them with +all the cunning of a hungry cat. + +[Illustration: THE KRYSTAL GADE AND ROUND TOWER, COPENHAGEN.] + + + + +III. + +Copenhagen, a Quaint and Ancient City. + + + KJOEBENHAVN, DANNMARK, + (COPENHAGEN, DENMARK), _August 28, 1902_. + +The Copenhagener declares that his beloved "Kjoebenhavn" is not really +an ancient city, although he admits it has been in active business +since the middle of the tenth century, nearly one thousand years. + +My Danish friends assert that it is my "Yankee eye," which is so new, +and prove the modernity of their town by telling me how many times it +has been bombarded, how often sacked and razed, how frequently burned +up; and yet, despite their facts, I still make bold to say the city +bears the markings of an ancient town. + +Long, long ago, even before the time of King Gorm the Old, here were +markets by the water's side, where the fisherman brought his catch, +the peasant fetched his eggs and milk and cheese and what the soil +might yield, where the itinerant merchant came to show and trade his +wares. These handy markets by the sea were at first moved constantly +about; by and by they came to be held, year after year, in the +self-same spot; the temporary clustered settlement became a lasting +town. As the centuries rolled on these market hamlets expanded into a +single commercial rendezvous for all the northern world. Thus +Copenhagen won her name (_Kopman-haven_--merchant port) and grew until +her commerce made her the heir to the trade and traffic of the +Hanseatic League, and she was recognized as supreme mistress of the +commerce of the North by London and Bremen, Brussels and Bordeaux, as +well as by the merchant fleets of Venice and the Levant. + +Those were the days when her Kings and hardy seamen would as lief +drink and fight and die as eat and live; their very recklessness made +them masters of the North; they even annexed the mighty Norseman, and +made Norway a Danish Province; they hammered and held in check their +doughty cousins, the Swedes; they brought beneath their sway the +Provinces of Skaania, of Halland and of Bleking, the southern portion +of what is now known as Sweden; they dominated the cities along the +shores of the North and Baltic Seas. + +Copenhagen became, in fact as well as in name, the veritable capital +of the North. In politics and in intrigue she played the master hand. +She gathered to herself the arts and the sciences, the fashion and the +elegance, of the North; and to-day, although warlike pride and power +have fallen from her, although trade and commerce have lessened in her +midst, yet the arts and the sciences, the culture and the elegance are +still her own, and the fine old city claims to be as markedly as of +yore the intellectual center of the Scandinavian race. + +[Illustration: THE OESTERGADE, COPENHAGEN.] + +Copenhagen is a flat-lying city; it has no hills in it, while there +are many canals and watery lanes which wind through it and lead to the +sea, or as the Danes would say the _Sund_ (Sound),--that narrow strait +which links the Baltic to the Kattegat, where Denmark and Sweden +appear once to have split apart. + +The buildings are generally of brick, sometimes of stone, never of +wood; they are large and substantial, often four and five stories +high, with gabled roofs, sharp and steep, covered with tiles. + +In the older parts of the city, the streets are narrow, and twist and +turn and change their names even more often than the Rues of Paris. In +the newer section, toward the north and northwest, there are long +straight boulevards and straight cross streets, and the inevitable air +of modern monotony. + +The feeling and impression which stole over me the first morning I +strolled about the city became almost one of sadness. The wistful, +pensive faces of the people; their unobtrusive politeness; the +inconsequential traffic of drays and carts along the quiet streets; +canals and quays half empty where there should have been big packs of +boats; absence everywhere of bustle and ado,--all these were almost +pathetic. It might have been a Puritan Sabbath, so silent stood the +big stone docks and piers among the lapping waters. There was none of +the ponderous movement of London, none of the liveliness of Paris, nor +the busy-ness of Hamburg, of Bremen, of Amsterdam, of Rotterdam and +Antwerp, although once Copenhagen was peer of any one. The bales of +goods, the tons of merchandise which once filled her lofts and cellars +are no longer there. The commerce which once made the city rich and +gave her power has ebbed away. She is far fallen into commercial and +industrial decay. + +The causes which have wrought this collapse of the once great city +are, perhaps, difficult to analyze. At least, those Danes with whom I +have talked upon the matter are not at all agreed. Nor are they united +upon the solution of the problem of restoring the city to the proud +place she once held as metropolis of the northern world. + +Some tell me that after the demise of the present King, and the +passing of Sweden's ruler to the Halls of Valhalla, then will it be +possible for the Scandinavian peoples to come together in one +permanent federation, or federal pact, where the Norwegian-Democratic +spirit shall instil new energy into the now moribund political body of +the sister states, and that then Copenhagen will be the natural +capital of this free and potent Scandinavian state, and then will come +to her the splendor and dignity justly her due. + +Others declare, and declare with a flash of terror in their eyes, that +the only hope for Copenhagen, the only hope for the pitiful remnant of +the once proud Kingdom of Denmark, is to be wholly devoured by the +Hohenzollern Ogre, to be by him chewed fine, gulped down, digested and +assimilated as part of the flesh and blood of the waxing German +Empire. Then will Copenhagen become the chief seaport of the German +Hinterlands to the south, then will the importance of Bremen and +Hamburg and Kiel be expanded into the new vigor that will have come to +Copenhagen. They point to the inevitableness of this destiny as +evidenced by the subtle, silent, incessant encroachment of the German +tongue among the people of the city as well as throughout the land, +and by the continuous invasion and settlement of the city and country +by men and women of German breed. They say the Imperial monster grips +them in a clutch whence there is no escape. + +[Illustration: THE ROYAL THEATRE, COPENHAGEN.] + +Whatever the future may have in store for stricken Denmark and +Copenhagen, it is clear enough to the apprehension of the friendly +stranger that the noble city is ailing and benumbed. She stagnates, +and only revolution and rebirth into a greater Scandinavian state, or +Germanic conquest and absorption, will restore her to her former +place. It is natural for an American to hope for Denmark and her +people a rehabilitation through the uplifting influence of a +Scandinavian Republic. + +There are fine shops in Copenhagen; behind the unpretentious fronts +along the Oestergade, the Amagertorv, the Vimmelskaft and Nygade and +neighboring streets is stored great wealth of fabrics and of +merchandise. Here we saw the notably handsome pottery and artistic +porcelain ware for which Copenhagen is already famous beyond the sea; +and H and her mother have delightedly bought several charming pieces +of the latter and ordered them sent forward to New York. They have +also quite lost their hearts, and certainly their _kroners_, over the +exquisite gold and silver and enamel work manufactured here, while +they declare the laces and drawn work--particularly what is called +_Hedebo_--excels anything of the kind they have discovered in London. +The Dane is a poet, a dreamer, an artist; he is also a patient +artisan, and what he produces ranks among the world's best work. + +Passing along the narrow sidewalks you would never suspect what is +stored behind the plain exteriors, for the Dane has not yet learned +the art of window display, nor has he acquired the skill of so showing +his goods that the buyer is caught at a single glance. If you would +purchase, you must have already determined what you want, and then, +upon asking for it, will be given liberal choice. + +The shops are mostly small, each seller dealing in a single ware. Only +one Dane, a wide-awake newcomer from Chicago, has dared to introduce +the complex methods of "department" trade. He has opened an immense +establishment called the Magazin du Nord, where thus far is done a +rushing business. But the conservative merchants of Copenhagen have +not yet become so well assured of the success of this innovation that +they are willing to follow the example set. + +[Illustration: THE EXCHANGE, COPENHAGEN.] + +In company with the ladies I have been out all the afternoon along +these narrow streets--streets where the narrow sidewalks are +altogether insufficient to accommodate the passing crowds, which +consequently fill up the middle of the way--and we find the _Frus_ and +_Froekens_ of Copenhagen apparently as much devoted to what is called +"shopping" as our own fair dames at home. Buxom and yellow-haired and +rosy-cheeked, they throng the streets each afternoon. They are comely +to look upon, and carry themselves with more graceful carriage than do +the women of England. They walk deliberately, with none of the nervous +scurry of their transatlantic sisters. Indeed, it is hinted to me, +they have not come out so much to buy as to meet some friend or +neighbor, and exchange a bit of news or gossip in one of the numerous +and cozy cafes where is sold _conditterie_:--candies and chocolates +and coffee and little cakes. + +Next to _conditterie_, the Copenhagener is fondest of his books and +the town abounds in bookshops, big and little. Every Dane reads and +writes his native tongue, and among the educated, English and French +and German are generally understood. In the book stores I visited I +was always addressed in English, and found French, German and English +and even American books upon the shelves; and more newspapers and +magazines are published in Copenhagen, a Danish friend declares, than +in any other city in Europe of its size. The Danes have, too, a widely +established system of free circulating libraries and book clubs, +which extend throughout the countryside of Zealand and Funen and +Jutland, as well as in the towns, while Copenhagen is supplied also +from the extensive collections of the University and Royal Libraries. + +The public schools and the University we did not see, for the season +was the vacation interval, and the teachers, professors and students +were all dispersed. But the schools and University of Copenhagen are +modernly equipped. The Dane is intelligent above all else, and he has +always paid great heed to the adequate education of his race. Indeed, +Copenhagen was the first city in Europe to establish real public +schools, opening them in every parish more than three hundred years +ago. + +There are many _Torvs_ about the city, market-places where all sorts +of things have once been sold, but which are now become wide-open +public squares. The old word _Torv_ has already lost its ancient +meaning, even as has the word _Circus_, which in London first sounds +so strange to American ears. But while the Gammelstorv, the Nytorv, +the Kongen's Nytorv and many others are now degenerated into these +mere open breathing spaces between the big buildings of the town, +there are yet _Torvs_ where fish, and flowers, meats and vegetables, +and things else are offered for sale. The most attractive of them all +to me were those where are sold the flowers and the fish. + +In the Amagertorv were heaps of pale and puny roses, and diminutive +asters and chrysanthemums, along with splendid pansies--"stepmother +flowers," as the Danes call them--and luxuriant piles of mignonette, +and big baskets of pinks and phloxes; where rosy-cheeked women, in +starched white caps, smilingly urged me to buy, and one _Froeken_ with +a wealth of yellow hair and cobalt-blue eyes, pinned on my coat a +monstrous pansy for _boutonnière_. + +[Illustration: THE GAMMEL STRAND, COPENHAGEN.] + +Among the fishwives of the Gammel Strand there was always lively stir, +for their _fisk_ must early find a buyer, and by midday they +themselves must be back to their nets and boats. These Danish +fishwives, moreover, have a burden of responsibility quite unknown to +their English, German, Dutch and French sisters. Not merely must they +sell the fish which the men turn over to their keeping, but they must +also preserve it hearty and alive, else the dainty Danish housewife +will not buy. The fish are kept in large tubs and tanks filled with +fresh sea water, where they swim about as keen and lively as they +might do in the sea. The buyer scrutinizes the contents of these tubs +with a fine and practiced eye; she picks out the fish which swims and +splashes to her mind; has it lifted out alive, and carries it home in +a bucket of water which she has brought to the market for that +purpose. A fish which is dead, a fish which has died of strangulation +in the air, is looked upon with horror and rejected as unfit for food +by all right-acting Danish stomachs. No dead fish, preserved from +becoming stale through the use of chemicals, ever enters a Danish +kitchen. Is it any wonder then, that the buxom red-cheeked women and +sturdy men of these seafaring lands prefer a square meal of sweet +fresh fish to any other! Sauntering along the Strand I espied the cod +and mackerel and herring under names I did not know, and everywhere +foremost among them all the now familiar _roed spoette_, the Danish +epicure's delight. + +The streets of London are choked with moving vehicles, or those drawn +up in line awaiting fares. In Copenhagen one is struck at once by the +absence of the equipages of the rich, the very limited number of cabs +anywhere about, as well as the small number of heavy drays, even upon +the wholesale business streets. One might almost say that the streets +would seem deserted if it were not for the pigeons and the dogs. There +must be many dove-cotes in Copenhagen and the birds certainly have +hosts of friends. But the dog, the unabashed and capricious dog, is +the real king of Denmark's capital. After seeing him in Holland and in +France, where his dogship is a faithful co-worker with man, toiling +all the long day and longer year to eke out the income of his master, +one almost envies the lot of the dogs of Copenhagen. These beasts +abound throughout the city; neither tag nor muzzle adorns them, nor do +owners seemingly claim them, but from puppyhood to gaunt old age they +lead a boisterous and vagabond life, to the terror of small children +and their nurses, and the well-gowned women who may chance to cross +their trail. Whether they survive through performing the office of +scavenger, as do the dogs of Constantinople, I have never been +informed, but whatever the cause, the curs of Copenhagen take as full +possession of that town as do the tame vultures of Vera Cruz. + +We visited, of course, the many objects of interest the tourist is +expected to see; we studied the splendid collection of the +masterpieces of Thorvaldsen, housed in the stately building where also +is set his tomb; we looked at the collection of ethnological relics, +one of the most notable in the world; we lingered in the old castle of +Charlottenborg, and the new art galleries where are gathered many of +the master paintings of which the Danish capital is so proud; we +admired the great round tower, up the spiral causeway of which a +squadron of dragoons may ride to the very top, and Peter the Great +ascended on horseback; we duly marveled at the much bepraised Fredriks +Kirke, a marble edifice, smothered beneath a ponderous and ornate +dome; and H and I spent a delightful hour in the noble Vor Frue Kirke, +where her grandmother was wedded some sixty years ago; the banks and +the Bourse, the imposing new Hotel de Ville--the finest modern +building in Denmark--the Legislative Palace, Christiansborg and +Rosenborg and Amalienborg and Fredriksberg. We saw what of them the +public is allowed to see; we also drove and strolled upon the fine +wide Lange Linie Boulevard along the water side, shaded by ancient and +umbrageous lindens, whence may be viewed the inner and outer harbors +and Free Port and the spacious, new and half empty docks, and much of +the shipping, and where of a pleasant afternoon the fashion and beauty +of the city are wont to ride and drive. We joined in with the +multitude upon the long, straight Fredriksberggade, where the life and +movement of the city may be watched and studied, even as upon New +Orleans' Canal Street and New York's Broadway; and we did all else +that well instructed Americans are taught to do. But after all, these +are the things that Baedeker and the guide books tell about. To me it +is ever of higher interest to learn from the people themselves by word +and touch what my own senses aid me to see and hear, and so it was +only when I met some of my wife's Danish kin, and a broad and burly +Berserker clasped me in his arms and implanted a smacking kiss upon +either cheek, ere I knew him to be of her relations,--that I felt my +acquaintance begun with the most polished and elegant branch of the +Scandinavian race. + +Other parts of nights and days we spent with friends in the lovely +Tivoli gardens, where all the Copenhagen world, high and low, rich and +poor alike, are wont to meet in simple and democratic assemblage, +equally bent upon having a good time. "Have you seen Tivoli?" is ever +almost the first question a Copenhagener will put. There we watched +the famous pantomime in the little open booth beneath the stars, a +sort of Punch and Judy show; there we entered the great music hall +where the Royal band plays, and the crowded audiences of music-loving +Danes always applaud; there we drank the Danish beer which is +admitted to be the best on earth--so a Danish neighbor whispered in my +ear. Tivoli is the Copenhagener's elysium. When he is blue he gets +himself to Tivoli; when he feels gay he travels to Tivoli; alone or in +company he goes to Tivoli, and he goes there as often as time will +permit, which is usually every night. + +[Illustration: ALONG THE QUAYS, COPENHAGEN.] + +A most difficult problem for Copenhagen has been that of draining and +sewering the city. It lies so low, almost at the dead level of the +sea, and the tides of these Baltic waters are so insignificant--ten to +twelve inches only--that for many centuries Copenhagen has been a most +unhealthy city, infected by cesspools, tainted by blind drains, and +defiled by accumulated poisons, until its death rate was higher than +that of any other city in Europe. But at last the problem is solved. +Forced water and giant suction pumps wash and drain out the elaborate +system of pipes, and spill the death-laden wastage at a distant point +into the sea, and with this transformation Copenhagen has become a +measurably healthy city. + +Perhaps it is this century-long fight with death, plague and epidemic +knocking continually at her doors, which has endowed Copenhagen with +so many fine hospitals and public charities for the care of the +sick,--few cities in Europe are so elaborately provided. Hand in hand +with the hospitals are also institutions for caring for the destitute +and very poor. Denmark has never followed England's pauper-creating +system, but the beggar on the street is promptly put in jail, while +the deserving poor is given a kindly and helping hand. + +One of the most charming spectacles of the city is its extensive +public gardens, where the ancient defenses are converted into parks, +and the moats are transformed into ponds and little lakes where swans +and geese are kept, and boys sail toy boats. The landward side of the +city is thus almost encircled with these pleasure grounds. One morning +we were crossing one of these gardens, the lovely Oersteds Park, when +I caught a pretty picture with my kodak, a little two-years-old tot +learning to make her first courtesy to a little boy of four or five. +She dropped and ducked and bent her little body with all the grace of +a Duchess of the Court. + +Denmark is about the size of three-fifths of West Virginia, comprises +fifteen thousand square miles and contains less than two millions of +people,--about sixteen hundred thousand. She possesses no deposits of +coal or iron, no forests of valuable timber; she has few manufactures. +Her people are farmers making a pinched living off the land, +raising lean crops and selling butter and cheese, or they are +crowded--one-fourth of them,--into the city of Copenhagen, or they are +gaining a hardy livelihood upon the sea. And yet this diminutive +kingdom puts up $275,000 a year for the keeping of the King, and also +provides him and his family, tax free, with palaces and castles, and +estates whereon to fish and hunt and play. + +[Illustration: AN ANCIENT MOAT, NOW THE LOVELY OERSTEDS PARK.] + +To an American mind it is amazing that a competent people will accept +and suffer burdens such as these. + +In the great state of New York, with its seven millions of people, +with wealth of coal and iron, with immense primeval forests, with +cities whose commerce expands with a swiftness almost incredible, the +Governor is paid $15,000 a year, and allowed a single mansion wherein +to dwell. Massachusetts, Vermont and Michigan, and many other +commonwealths, pay their Governors but $1,000 per year, without a +mansion for their residence. + +The mighty Republic of the United States itself, with a continent for +domain, and eighty millions of people, pays its President $50,000 per +year, and gives him the use of the White House for his home. + +Therefore, do you wonder, as I stroll about this fine old city, and +look into the unhopeful, wistful faces of its plainly clad, not +over-rich nor over-busy people, that I begin to comprehend why +Copenhagen holds the highest record for suicides of any city in the +world, and why so many of her vigorous, and alert and capable, young +men continually forsake their native land for the greater +opportunities and freer political and industrial atmosphere of the +United States? + +The Dane always gets on if you give him half a chance. He is called +the "Frenchman of the North." Graceful and supple in his manners, with +a mouthful of courtesies of speech, he is naturally a social +diplomat. The blunt Norwegian calls him a fop. The martial Swede +sneers at his want of fight. But the Dane has always held his own, and +as a financier, a diplomat and man-of-the-world able to make the best +out of the situation he may be in, he still gives proof of possessing +his full share of the Scandinavian brain. + +[Illustration: A VISTA OF THE SUND.] + + + + +IV. + +Elsinore and Kronborg--An Evening Dinner Party. + + + HELSINOERE, DANNMARK, _August 29, 1902_. + +We left Copenhagen Friday evening, about four o'clock, from the +Nordbane station. We were in plenty of time. Nobody hurries in +Denmark. The train of carriages, with their side doors wide open, +stood on the track ready to start. Prospective passengers and their +friends moved about chatting, or saying good-bye. It was a local train +to Elsinore, where it would connect with the ferry across the _Sund_ +to Helsingborg and there with the through express to Stockholm and +Kristiania, a night's ride. We would go to Elsinore, and there spend +the night, and go on by daylight in the morning. + +A good many acquaintances had come down to see us off, just for the +sake of friendliness. I had kissed all the rosy-cheeked _Froekens_ and +been kissed by the _Frus_, having dexterously escaped the embraces of +the men, when there loomed large before me an immense Dane, near six +feet high and proportionate in girth, brown-bearded and blue-eyed, +holding an enormous bouquet in either hand, an American flag waving +from the midst of each. He made straight for me, folded me up among +the flowers and kissed me joyfully on either cheek, and all before I +really knew just what had taken place; then he doffed his hat, and +bowing profoundly, presented first to me and then to H one of the +bouquets with which he was loaded. And these bouquets were tied up +with great white ribbons! Of course, we were evidently but newly wed. +We suddenly became of interest to the entire company. Nor was there +escape, for General C is well known and popular in Copenhagen. Others +now came up and were introduced, and H and I held a _levée_ right then +and there, and of kisses and embraces I made no count. + +The ride was along the _Sund_, that lovely stretch of salt water, only +a few miles wide, which joins the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic. It is +more like the Hudson River below West Point than anything I know, +except that the shores are low and more generally wooded to the +water's edge. Or, perhaps I should say that it is another and narrower +Long Island Sound, as you see it a few miles out from Jamaica Bay. The +busy waters were alive with a multitudinous traffic from Russia and +Germany and Sweden and Denmark itself, and the fishing vessels that +abound along these coasts. Here and there villas and fine country +houses peeped out among the trees. The _Sund_ is the joy of the Dane. +He loves it, and the stranger who looks upon it does not forget it. +One then understands why the Danish poets have sung so loudly of it. + +[Illustration: ELSINORE.] + +Our way lay through much cultivated land, market gardens sending their +produce to Copenhagen, dairy farms where is made some of that famous +Danish butter every Londoner prefers to buy, and which is sold all +around the world. Here and there we passed a little town, always with +its sharp-steepled Lutheran church and dominie's snug manse along its +side. The church, the Lutheran church in Denmark, is no trifling +power. It is as bigoted and well entrenched as is the Roman hierarchy +in Mexico and Spain. We should have liked to be wedded in the Vor Frue +Kirke, where the dear old grandmother had been married. But it is a +Lutheran church, and we were Dissenters, and without the pale. Nor +could we present the necessary proof. We had no papers to show we had +been duly born. Nor had we legal documents to prove that our parents +were our very own. Nor could we show papers in proof that we had been +christened and were legally entitled to our names, nor that we had +been regularly confirmed. Without these documents, sealed and +authenticated by the state, and in our case also by the United States, +no Lutheran pastor would have dared to try and make us one. So we ran +the gauntlet of less stringent English law, in itself quite bad +enough, and lost the experience of the quaint Danish ceremonial in the +noble church. + +At the fine big Government station in Helsinoere (Elsinore)--for the +Government owns and runs the railroads in Denmark, just as it does in +Germany and much of France--we were met by an aunt and uncle and +cousin of H's. They were a charming old couple, and the son was a +young naval engineer (shipbuilder), working in the ship yard at +Helsinoere. All have lived in America and speak our tongue. We were to +dine with them and spend the evening, when General and Mrs. C would go +home on the last train at 10 P. M. I left the ladies together, while D +and I strolled over to the ancient, yet formidable, fortress of +Kronborg, which for centuries has commanded the gateway to the Baltic. +Built of Norwegian granite, when erected it was believed to be +impregnable. Its casemates, lofty walls, turrets and towers frowned +threateningly across the three-mile strait to Helsingborg in Sweden, +and no boat sailed past except it first paid the dues. To-day, these +walls of rock, these ramparts in the air, no longer terrify the +mariner. _Sund_ taxes are no longer levied! The ancient fortress does +little else than fire an occasional salute. But the Danes still love +and honor it, and a few soldiers are stationed in it, a solitary +guard. + +A vista of the _Sund_ I tried to kodak from the top of the great +tower, and I bribed a soldier for a dime to let me take his manly +form, although a camera is forbidden within the precincts of this +place of war. + +But Kronborg is famous for other things than mere Danish tolls and +wars. Kronborg it is, where Hamlet's shade still nightly wanders along +the desolate ramparts. There it is that the Danish prince beheld his +father's ghost. There he kept watch at night with Horatio and +Marcellus. And close by in the park of Marienlyst Castle is Hamlet's +grave. We did not see it, but many pilgrims do. + +[Illustration: THE SUND FROM KRONBORG'S RAMPARTS.] + +Then we descended into the deep dungeons, or part of them, and a +pretty, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed Danish lass told us tales of Holger +Danske, who lives down in the deepest pits, whose long white beard is +fast grown to the table before which he sits, and who is to come forth +some day and by his might restore to the Danish race its former great +position on the earth; and she told us also of the human tragedies +which have in past ages been enacted in these keeps. She spoke in +soft, lisping, musical Danish, the only sweet Danish I have heard; for +the Copenhagen speech is jerky, the consonants are chopped short, and +the vowels are deep gurgled in the throat, difficult for foreign ears +to comprehend. + +After seeing the fortress, we visited an ancient monastery, suppressed +when the Roman church was driven from these northern Lutheran lands, +and now become an Old Ladies' Home--shocking transformation in the +contemplation of those monkish shades which may yet roam the forsaken +cloisters!--of which institution the old uncle is now Superintendent +with Government pension for life! + +And then we came to the cozy home where the ladies were already met. +We entered a narrow doorway, a sort of interior storm door, and turned +to the right into a comfortable sitting room, beyond which was the +dining room, with the table set. The aunt is a gentle, round-faced, +rosy-cheeked little woman, in a white lace cap and the prettiest of +manners. With her was an old spinster friend, _Froeken_----, a slim, +wizen-faced dame of sixty, in brown stuff dress, with tight sleeves +and close fitting waist, and old lace at the throat, fastened by a big +mediaeval-looking gold brooch, and with a gold chain about her neck. +She possessed very small, bright black eyes, and lips that stuck +straight out. She courtesied,--dropped down straight about ten inches +and came up quick, a sort of bob--smiled, and said in Danish, "she was +rejoiced to meet H's '_Mand_.'" All were very friendly, and H to have +caught a _Mand_, sure enough, was treated with distinction. + +The table was set for eight; there was beer in glass decanters, cold +fried fish, cold smoked goose breast, cold smoked salmon (raw), cold +sardines, cold calveshead jelly, cold beef loaf, cold bread, black +bread, rye bread, cold rolls (hard and shiny with caraway seeds in +them), gooseberry jelly, spiced currants, and also tea, this latter +piping hot. At each place was set a pile of salted butter (at least a +pound) on a little dish. I sat next "_Tante_," with _Froeken_--across +the table from me, her black eyes boring me through with steady gleam. +You take your fish up by the tail and eat him as you would a piece of +bread. "Butter him thick, yes, thick," "_Tante_" said to me. I laid on +about half an inch, she did, they all did. It was delicious butter and +that fish went down wonderfully slick. The goose breast was good, but +I discerned it to have been a gander. The raw herring I did not +find so attractive as the goose. There were also several sorts of +cheese, of which every one ate much. You put a heavy layer of butter +on your bread, then a layer of thin cut cheese, then a layer of +herring or sardine or salmon, and eat it fast. There was no hot food, +there never is. The rule is to stow away cold fish, butter and cheese, +and wash it down with the strong brown beer. The sweets are then taken +to top off with. Pickles and preserves together--just like the +Germans. (I have not yet run into the sour foods in which the German +stomach delights.) Having begun with a mild cheese, you gradually +ascend to the strongest with the final sweets. H says the meal was +only "supper," not dinner, but I confess I am so mixed on these +Scandinavian meals, that I cannot yet tell the difference. At +breakfast, the Danes take only a cup of coffee and a roll, the Spanish +_Desayuno_; not even an egg, nor English jam. About one or two o'clock +in the day, they dine, having soups, meats (roast or boiled), fish +(fresh and salt), vegetables and beer. At night, it is about as I have +told you, and they often dare to add a little more cold fish and +cheese before they finally retire. The soups at dinner are very good; +and the meats are better cooked than at a British table, on which, +after a while, all meats begin to taste alike, and you grow tired to +death of the eternal boiled potatoes, and boiled peas steeped in mint. +I have had very nice cauliflower at Danish tables, and the lettuce of +their salads is delicate and crisp, while the coffee of the Danes, +like that of the Dutch, is better than you will find in either +England, Germany or France; it seems to be the real thing, with +neither chicory nor hidden beans. The Danes are skilful cooks, +although their palates seem to be fondest of cold victuals and raw +smoked fish. + +[Illustration: FISHING BOATS, ELSINORE.] + +We stayed the night in a comfortable inn, close by the water side, an +ancient ale house where sailors used to congregate in the halcyon days +when all passing ships must lay-to at Helsinoere to pay the tolls then +levied by the King, hard by where now the fishing boats tie up. There +were many of these and one in particular was continually surrounded by +an excited crowd. It had just arrived loaded down to the decks with a +catch of herring. The fishermen had had the luck to run into one of +those rare and extraordinary schools of herring which are sometimes +chased into the protecting waters of the Sound by a whale or other +voracious enemy outside. The nets had been let quickly down and +millions of fish as quickly drawn up. The boat had been filled to +sinking, and word flagged to brothers of the craft to hasten up and +partake of the abounding catch. Twenty thousand dollars' worth of +herring had been caught within a few hours by the fishermen of +Helsinoere alone, to say nothing of what were taken by the crews of +other fishing boats along the coast. The entire population of the +little town is now busy cleaning and salting fish, fish that will feed +them well and keep them easy in stomach until the winter shall be +past and the spring be come again. Women were selling fish along the +streets, boys were peddling fish, how many for a cent I do not know, +and men were giving fish, gratis, to whosoever would carry them away. +These extraordinary catches do not often happen. No such luck had +befallen Helsinoere for many a day. It may be years before it again +occurs. The fisherman of these northern waters sails forth upon his +cruise each day inflamed with very much the same spirit of adventurous +quest as in America are we who, living upon the land, drill wells for +oil or dig for gold. + +Helsinoere is rich to-night, and the herring is her king. + +[Illustration: A SNAP SHOT FOR A DIME, KRONBORG.] + + + + +V. + +Across the Sund to Sweden and Incidents of Travel to Kristiania. + + + KRISTIANIA, MISSION HOTEL, + PILESTRADIET 27 (ALFHEIM), _August 31, 1902_. + +_Hilsen Fra Kristiania!_ + +Our ancient tavern, the Sleibot, in Elsinore, cared for us most +comfortably. We were given a large room looking out over the waters of +the _Sund_, with wide small-paned casemented windows, and a great +porcelain stove and giant wooden bedstead. For breakfast we had fresh +herring, the fish which will now form the chief diet of Helsinoere for +many a month, and more of the good Danish coffee. The bill for lodging +and breakfast was seven _kroner_ (about $1.90) for us two. + +The dear old couple were on hand to see us off, and waved _farvel_ as +we boarded the immense ferryboat which takes on, if needful, an entire +train, but usually only the baggage cars, for through travel to +Swedish and Norwegian points. The boats are long and wide and strong, +and smash their way through the floes of drifting ice the winter +through, for this outlet of the Baltic is rarely frozen solid for any +length of time. The four-miles passage is made in twenty minutes, +and after we got under way, it was not long before even massive +Kronborg faded upon the view, and we were making fast to the pier at +Helsingborg, in Sweden. + +[Illustration: KRONBORG.] + +In England, owing to the smallness of the tunnels and the present cost +of enlarging them, the railway management is compelled to keep to the +ancient diminutive style of carriage first introduced sixty years ago. +But here, in these northern lands, where railway building is of more +recent date, although the gauge is the same as in Britain, the +carriages are half as large again, and are many of them almost as long +as our American cars, so that the riding in them is much easier than +there. And in Norway I have already seen cars which, except for being +shorter, were exactly like our own. + +We traveled first along the sea, then through a flat country. There +were scores of sails upon the Kattegat, a multitude of ships and +barques and brigs, schooners and sloops, and small fishing smacks, and +larger fishing luggers going far out upon the North Sea. There were +also many black hulks in tow of big tugs carrying coal to the Baltic +cities, and steamers bound for English and German ports and even for +America. The waters were alive with the busy traffic. + +We passed wide meadows and much grass land. Cows were feeding upon +these fields, red cows mostly, with herders to watch over them. The +cows were tethered each to a separate iron pin sunk in the ground, +all in a single row; and thus they eat their way across an entire +meadow,--an animated mowing machine. Now and then we returned to the +shore of the sea, passing some fishing village nestled along the +rocks, or we rolled through forests of small birches, pines and +spruce. + +In the same compartment with ourselves sat a couple of young Germans. +They were much interested in each other. I noticed that the lady's +rings were most of them shining new, and one, a large plain gold ring, +was in look particularly recent and refulgent. H came to the same +conclusion also at about the very same moment. The two were surely a +bridal pair. And they talked German, and looked out across us through +the wide windows as though we were never there. So I spoke to my wife +in good United States, and we agreed that these two were newly wed. +And then the bride's noble face and fine brown eyes appealed to me, +and I declared her to be the loveliest woman I had yet seen this side +the sea. The while she and her _Mann_ still conversed in low, soft +German. But it now seemed to me that they looked out across us with a +kindlier feeling in their eyes and, in a surreptitious way, the German +beauty was peeping at the fine large diamond on H's left hand (the +wedding ring she had already succeeded in making look dull and old). +At Goteborg (Gothenburg) our train drew up for half an hour's wait. +Here that portion of it going to Stockholm would be cut loose from +our own, and another engine would take us to the north. Along with +most of the other passengers the young German and I also got out, +leaving the two ladies in the car. At the counter of the big lunch +room I watched the ever hungry Norsemen stowing away cold fish and +cheese, and was in somewhat of a dilemma what to take, when the German +husband of the lovely bride came up to me in a most friendly way, and +suggested that I would enjoy a certain sort of fish and thin brown +cake, which seemed to be one of the popular objects of attack by the +voracious multitude. And he spoke to me in perfect English of the +educated sort. He had evidently quite understood my flattering +comments upon his bride, and was now my fast friend. I did not show +surprise, but took his hint, and afterward we strolled up and down the +platform, munching our snack, while he told me that he was a +"barrister from Cologne." "Yes, on his wedding trip." He had "learned +English in the German schools," he said, and had "never been in +England or America." His wife, he admitted, "could not speak English," +but "could read it and understand it when others talked!" He told me +of the German courts, and of his long years of study before he was +admitted to the bar. When they left us a few miles further on, for +their way lay up through the lakes and forests of Sweden, we parted as +old friends, and they promised to visit us if ever they should come +across the sea; our unsuspecting admiration had won their hearts! + +[Illustration: KARL JOHANS GADE, KRISTIANIA.] + +About 4 P. M., we dined at the small station of Ed, our first example +of Swedish railway dinner-serving on an elaborate scale. The train was +a long one. There were many passengers. The fish and cheese consumed +at Gothenburg was long since shaken down. We were genuinely hungry. +But when the train came to a stop there was no rush to the restaurant, +nor attempt of every man to get ahead of the one in front of him. The +passengers took their leisure to get out, and walked deliberately +toward the big eating room. The food was set upon a long central +table. There were hot soups, hot boiled fowl, hot meats, an abundance +of victuals, cold and salt. There were piles of plates, of napkins and +of knives and forks. Everyone helped himself, and ate standing or +carried his food to a little table and sat at ease. This latter plan +we followed. Rule: Eat all you will, drink as much beer as you desire, +take your own time, the train will wait, and when you are quite +satisfied pay a single _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents). There is no +watching to see how much you may consume. You eat your fill, you pay +the modest charge, you go your deliberate way. However slow you may be +the train will wait! + +We now traversed a barren country of marshy flats; with skimp timber, +chiefly small birch and spruce. Toward dusk it was raining hard. The +long twilight had fairly begun when we crossed the Swedish border and +a few miles beyond stopped at Fredrikshald, where is a famous fortress +against the Swedes, besieging which, King Charles XII was killed. +Here a customs' officer walked rapidly through the car, asked a few +questions and passed us on. Our trunks had been marked "through" from +Helsinoere, so we had no care for them until we should arrive in +Kristiania. But that there should be still maintained a customs' line +between the sister kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, which are ruled by a +common King, may perhaps surprise the stranger unacquainted with the +peculiar and somewhat strained relations ever existing between these +kindred peoples. + +[Illustration: VEGETABLE MARKET, KRISTIANIA.] + +For many hundreds of years (since 1380) Norway had been a province of +Denmark. Her language and that of the Dane had grown to be almost the +same, the same when written and printed, and differing only when +pronounced. But in 1814, the selfish powers of the Holy Alliance +handed over Norway to the Swedish crown as punishment to Denmark for +being Napoleon's friend, and threatened to enforce their arbitrary act +by war. So Norway yielded to brute force, and accepted the sovereignty +of Napoleon's treacherous Marshal Bernadotte, the Swedish King, but +she yielded nothing more, and to this day has preserved and yet +jealously maintains her own independent Parliament, her own postal +system, her own separate currency and her Custom Houses along the +Swedish line. And you never hear a Norwegian speak of any other than +of the "King of Sweden." "He is not our King," they say, "we have +none." "We are ruled by the King of Sweden, but Norway has no King." +Cunning Russia, it is said, cleverly spends many _rubles_ in order +that this independent spirit shall be kept awake, and the war force of +Sweden thereby be so much weakened. Russia might even to this day be +able to nourish into war this ancient feud between the kindred breeds, +if it were not that in her greed of power she has shown the cloven +foot. The horror of her monstrous tyranny in Finland already finds +echo among the Norwegian mountains. "We are getting together," a +Norwegian said to me. "We have got to get together, however jealous we +may be of one another. We must, or else the Russian bear will hug us +to our death, even as now he is cracking the ribs of helpless +Finland." And when I suggested that little Denmark should be taken +within the pale, and a common Scandinavian Republic be revived in more +than ancient force to face the world, he declared that already a +movement toward this end was set afoot, and only needed a favorable +opportunity to become a living fact. + +At 11 P. M. we arrived at Kristiania in a pouring rain, and at General +C's recommendation, came to this curious and comfortable hotel. Like +many other hotels in Norway, it is kept by women, and seems to be much +patronized by substantial Norwegians of the nicer sort. It is on the +top floor of a tall building, and you pass up and down in a rapid +modern elevator. It is kept as clean as a pin, and the beds we sleep +in are the softest, freshest in mattress and linen we have seen this +side the sea. We have also passed beyond the latitude of blankets +and are come to the zone of eider down. Coverlets, light, buoyant, and +delightfully warm now keep us from the cold, and in our narrow +bedsteads we sleep the slumber of contented innocence. We have a large +well-furnished chamber, all for two _kroner_ per day (fifty-four +cents). When we entered the long, light breakfast hall this morning, +we saw a single table running the length of the room, a white cloth +upon it, and ranged up and down, a multitude of cheeses big and +little, cow cheese and goat cheese, and many sorts of cold meat, beef +and pork and mutton, and cold fish and salt fish. And there were piles +of cold sliced bread and English "biscuits" (crackers). The coffee, or +milk if you wish it, is brought in, and in our case so are fresh +soft-boiled eggs. A group of evidently English folk near us had a +special pot of Dundee marmalade. The Norwegians take simply their +coffee or milk, with cheese and cold fish and the cold bread. Our +breakfast cost us twenty cents apiece. + +[Illustration: KRISTIANIA, A VIEW OF THE CITY.] + +To-day the city is washed delightfully clean, the heavy rain of the +night having cleared streets and atmosphere of every particle of dust +and grime. We have driven all about in an open victoria. It is a +splendid town, containing some two hundred thousand inhabitants. It +lies chiefly upon a sloping hillside with a deep harbor at its feet. +Like Copenhagen, it is the capital of its country, and the seat of the +Norwegian Government, of the Supreme Law Courts, and of the Storthing +or National Congress or Parliament. At the end of the wide Karl +Johans Gade stands the "Palace of the Swedish King," a sombre edifice, +now rarely occupied. Kristiania is also the literary and art center of +the Norse people. Here Ibsen lives, here Bjoernstjoerne Bjoernsen +would live, if Swedish intolerance did not drive him into France. The +types of men and women we see upon the streets are the finest we have +met since coming over sea. Tall and well-built, light-haired and +blue-eyed, the men carry themselves with great dignity. The women are, +many of them, tall, their backs straight, not the curved English spine +and stooping shoulders. All have good chins, alert and initiative. The +Norwegians are the pick of the Scandinavian peoples. They are the sons +and daughters of the old Viking breeds which led the race. They are +to-day giving our northwestern states a population able, fearless and +progressive, no finer immigration coming to our shores. Senators and +Governors of their stock are already making distinguished mark in +American affairs. + +It was not long before we perceived that in Kristiania, as in +Copenhagen, we were also very close to the great Republic; except +that, perhaps, here we discovered a keener sympathy with American +feeling, a closer touch with the American spirit. + +Those Norwegians whom we have met speak good United States, not modern +English. You hear none of the English sing-song flutter of the voice, +none of its suppression of the full-sounded consonant, but the +even, clear, precise accent and intonation of the well-taught +American mouth. And our friends tell us that it is much easier for +them to learn to speak the American tongue than to master the often +extraordinary inflexion of spoken English as pronounced in Britain. I +am gaining a great respect for these Scandinavian and Norwegian +peoples. They are among the finest of the races of the European world. + +[Illustration: OUR NORWEGIAN TRAIN.] + +We have driven not merely through the beautiful city and its parks, +and beheld the wide view to be had from the tower at its highest +point, but we have also visited the ancient Viking ship, many years +ago discovered and dug out of the sands along the sea, a measured +model of which was so boldly sailed across the Atlantic, and floated +on Lake Michigan, at Chicago, in 1892. + +At this time, however, we are but birds of passage in Kristiania. We +may not linger to become more intimately acquainted with the noble +town; we are arranging for a ten days' journey by boat and carriage +through the _fjords_ and mountain valleys, and region of the mighty +snow-fields and glaciers of western Norway. We must now go on, and +postpone any intimate knowledge of the city until another day. + +H is quite ready for this trip. She wears a corduroy shirt waist of +deep purple shade, and has brought with her one of those short, +simply-cut walking-skirts, of heavy cloth. A natty toque sets off her +head. She is fitly clad. And my eyes are not the only ones that note +this fact, as I observed to-day when, to avoid a shower, we sought +shelter under the pillared portico of the Storthing's fine edifice in +the central square. As we stood there, waiting for the rain to cease, +I noticed a small, fair-haired, quietly-dressed woman intently staring +at the skirt. Each hem and tuck and fold and crease and gore she +studied with the steadfast eye of the connoisseur. And so absorbed did +she become that she grew quite oblivious of our knowledge of her +interest. Around and around she circled, until at last we left her +still taking mental notes. Some other woman in Kristiania, we are +quite sure, will soon be wearing a duplicate of this well made costume +from New York. + +[Illustration: ALONG THE ETNA ELV.] + +[Illustration: HAILING OUR STEAMER, THE RAND FJORD.] + + + + +VI. + +A Day Upon the Rand Fjord and Along the Etna Elv--To Frydenlund--Ole +Mon Our Driver. + + + FRYDENLUND, NORGE, _September 1, 1902_. + +We left Kristiania about seven o'clock this morning and drove six +kilometers to Grefsen, a suburb where the new railway comes in, which +will ultimately connect the capital with Bergen on the west coast. +Grefsen is up on the hills back of the city. The cars of the train we +traveled in were long like our own and also set on trucks, the +compartments being commodious, like the one we rode in from +Helsingborg. + +We traversed a country of spruce forests, rapid streams, small lakes +and green valleys; with red-roofed farmsteads, cattle, sheep and +horses in the meadows, and yellowing fields of oats and rye, just now +being reaped; where men were driving the machines and women raking the +fallen grain, all a beautiful, fertile, well-populated land with big +men, big women, rosy and well set up, usually yellow-haired and +blue-eyed. + +About ten o'clock we arrived at Roikenvik, on the Rand Fjord, a sheet +of dark blue water about two miles wide and thirty or forty long, with +high, fir-clad mountains on either hand; with green slopes dotted +with farm buildings, and occasional hamlets where stopped our tiny +steamboat, the Oscar II. This _fjord_ is more beautiful than a +Scottish _loch_, for here the mountains are heavily timbered with fir +to their very summits, while the hills of Scotland are bare and bleak. + +We sat contentedly upon the upper deck inhaling the keen, fresh air, +watching the picturesque panorama and noting the passengers crowded +upon the forward deck below. They were chiefly farmers getting on and +off, intelligent, self-respecting, well-appearing men, and full of +good humor. One old gentleman with snowy whiskers, who resembled an +ancient mariner, which I verily believe he was, seemed to hold the +center of attention and many and loud were the shouts which his quaint +jests brought forth. He evidently delivered a lecture upon my big +American valise, pointing to it and explaining its excellent make, and +his remarks were apparently to the credit of the owner, and of America +whence it came. + +Just before the bell summoned us to dinner in the after cabin, I +noticed a skiff rowing toward us, one of the three men in it waving +his hat eagerly to our Captain, who immediately stopped the boat until +they drew beside us, when two of them, clean-cut, rosy-faced, young +six-footers, came up, hand over hand, on a rope which was lowered to +them. They were born sailors, like all Norwegians. I snapped my kodak +as their skiff drew near us, and the first news the Captain gave +them was to apprise them of that fact. They appeared to be greatly +flattered by the attention. They laughed and bowed and looked at me as +much as to say, "How much we should like a copy of the photograph, if +we knew enough English to ask for it," but they were too diffident to +make the suggestion through their Captain friend. + +[Illustration: THE OLD SALT.] + +With the Captain himself, I became well acquainted; an alert man of +affairs, who had knocked about the world on Norwegian ships and +visited the greater ports of the United States. He gave me an +interesting account of Norse feeling at the time of the outbreak of +the Spanish war, saying to me, "I am from Bergen. I am a sailor like +the rest of our people, and with about a thousand more of my fellow +countrymen I went over at that time to New York. I was boatswain on +the warship--and I served through the Spanish war. When we heard that +there was likely to be trouble and got a hint that you wanted seamen, +I gathered the men together and we went over and enlisted and others +followed. Yes, there were several thousands of us, altogether, on your +American warships, ready to give up our lives for the great Republic. +Next to Norway, your great, free country, where already live half of +the Norwegian race, lies closest to our hearts. We were ready to give +up our lives for the stars and stripes. When the war was over most of +us came back again. In the summer time I am captain of this boat, in +the winter seasons I go out upon the sea. If America ever needs us +again we are ready to help her. We Norwegians will fight for America +whenever she calls." + +Then he spoke of Norway and the growing irritation of the Norwegian +people against the assumptions of Sweden. "It is true that the Swedes +are our kin, but we have never liked them. The Norwegians are +democrats. We have manhood suffrage, and each man is equal before the +law. In Sweden, there is a nobility who are privileged, and while the +Swedish people submit to the aristocrats running the Government over +there, we Norwegians will never permit them to run us. If it were not +for fear of Russia, we would fall apart, but the Russian bear is +hungry. If he dared he would eat us up. If it were not for England he +would devour Sweden now, and then there would be no hope for Norway. +The Russian Czar wants our harbors, our great _fjords_, as havens for +his fleets, and he would like to fill his ships with Norwegian seamen. +So we fret and growl at Sweden, but we can't afford really to have +trouble with her any more than she can afford to fall out with us. We +must stand together if we are to maintain our national independence, +but nevertheless, we are full of fear for the future. I am +apprehensive that the bear will some day satisfy his hunger. France +will hold down Germany, who just now claims to be our friend also. +England will be bought off by Russian promises in some other quarter +of the world, and then, we shall be at the mercy of the Czar. God help +us when that day comes! Those of us who can will fly to America, all +except those who die upon these mountains. The Russians may finally +take Norway, but it will then be a devastated and depeopled land. +America is our foster mother. Our young men go to her. We are always +ready to fight for her!" + +[Illustration: OLE MON.] + +As I looked into his strong blue eyes, which gazed straight at me, I +felt that the man meant everything he said, and was expressing not +alone his personal sentiment, but also the feeling of the sturdy, +seafaring people of whom he was so fit a type, and I wondered what the +Spaniard would have thought if he had known when he sent his fleets +across the sea--fleets deserted by the Scotch engineers who, in times +of peace, had kept their engines clean--that the United States could +call at need, not merely upon its own immense population, but might +equally rely upon the greatest seafaring folk of all the world to fill +her fighting ships. + +After three and a half hours' sail--about thirty miles--we came to the +end of the _fjord_ at Odnaes, where was awaiting us a true Norwegian +carriage, a sort of _landau_ or _trille_ with two bob-maned Norwegian +ponies, in curious harness with collar and hames thrusting high above +the neck. We had dined on the boat; we had only a valise, a hand-bag +and our sea-rugs. We were soon in the carriage and began our first +day's drive, a journey of fifty-four kilometers (thirty-two miles), +before night. + +Our driver was presented to us as "Ole Mon;" and the English-speaking +owner of the carriage informed us that Ole ("Olie") Mon spoke +fluently our tongue. He was a sturdily built, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed +man some forty years of age with a gray moustache and smooth, +weather-beaten face. He drove these tourists' carriages in summer, he +said; in the winter he took to the sea. We soon discovered his English +to be limited to a few simple phrases, while when he ran to the end of +his vocabulary he never hesitated to put in a fit Norwegian word. He +was proud of his acquaintance with the foreign tongue, and delighted +to exercise his knowledge of it. His chief concern in life was to take +care of the ponies. He continually talked to them as though they were +his boys, and at any excuse for a stop, always had nosebags filled +with oat meal ready to slip on and give them a lunch. The ponies are +not over eight or ten hands high, but are powerfully muscled, and they +are as sleek and tame as kittens. We believe that we have a treasure +in Ole Mon, and I expect to learn much from him about the country we +traverse, for he is glib to talk. + +The road was superb, the scenery magnificent. We followed a deep +fertile valley, along a roaring river, the Etna Elv--recent rains +having filled the streams brim full--with high fir-clad mountains +rising sheer on either hand. We climbed gradually for quite twenty +miles, meeting and passing many curious two-wheeled carts, drawn by a +single horse, called _stolkjaerres_, in which the driver sits behind +the passenger, and about four o'clock we halted at Tomlevolden, a +rambling farmstead where Ole Mon put the nosebags on the ponies and +we rested until the bags were emptied. + +Here, we visited a dairy cow barn,--a large airy building finished in +planed lumber, with long rows of stalls where the cows face each +other, standing on raised floors and with a wide middle aisle where +the feeders pass down between. So scrupulously clean was it that each +day it must be washed out and scrubbed. In one end stood a big stone +furnace, a sort of oven, to keep the cattle warm through the dark cold +winter time, and fresh spring water was piped to a little trough set +at each stall. + +Some years ago, having spent the night at a West Virginia mountain +farm, in middle winter, I looked out of the window in the morning and +beheld the family cow with about a foot of snow piled on her back and +belly-deep in an icy drift. I remarked, "It has snowed some in the +night." Mine host replied that "he reckoned it had." And then talking +of the snow, I told him that I had seen snow eight feet deep way up in +Canada. He looked at me incredulously and inquired, "Say, what mought +the cows do in such snow as that." Would that I might show him and his +like this Norwegian cow barn! + +Then we went on till 7 P. M., when we reached the famous Sanatorium of +Tonsaasen, almost at the summit of the long grade, a spacious wooden +hotel overlooking a profound _dal_, down which plunges a cascade. + +The hotel is kept by a big, bustling woman who speaks perfect cockney +English, and who tells us she has "lived in Lonnon, although a native +Norwegian." She wears a large white apron and a white lace cap, and +she has received H in most motherly fashion. Indeed, our coming has +greatly piqued her curiosity. She has asked us many questions and has +taken H aside and inquired confidentially whether I am not a deserting +soldier, and whether she is not eloping with me! She is evidently +alert for military scandal, and was sorely disappointed and half +incredulous when H declared that she and I were really man and wife. +The truth is, Norway is become the retreat for so many runaway +couples, recreant husbands and truant wives, that the good people of +these caravansaries are quite ready to add you to the list of shady +episodes. Even when I boldly wrote several postal cards to America and +handed them to mine hostess to mail, I felt sure that after she had +carefully read them she would scarcely yet believe our tale. + +Here we were given a bounteous supper of eggs, coffee, milk, cream, +chicken, hare, trout, five sorts of cheese, and big hot rolls, and all +for thirty-five cents each. The ponies were also fed again, and at +eight o'clock we moved on twelve miles further, crossing the divide +and rolling down into the valley of the Baegna Elv in the long +twilight, and then brilliant starlight, coming at last to a typical +Norwegian inn, at Frydenlund, not far from the lovely Aurdals Vand. +This is the main road in winter between Bergen and Kristiania, and is +then more traveled by sleighs and sledges than even now by carriages. +All along the way there are frequent inns and post-houses. +To-morrow we start at eight o'clock, and go on sixty-one miles more. + +[Illustration: FEEDING THE PONIES, TOMLEVOLDEN.] + +[Illustration: CHURCH OF VESTRE SLIDRE.] + +Our inn is a roomy farmhouse where "entertainment is kept," even as it +used to be along the stage-traversed turnpikes of old Virginia, and +adjoining it are extensive barns and stables. There seemed to be many +travelers staying the night. We are really at an important point, for +here two state highways separate, the one over which we have come +leading to Odnaes, and the other diverging southward toward Lake +Spirillen and the country known as the Valders, continuing on straight +through to Kristiania. The house is painted white, and has about it an +air quite like a farmstead in New England or New York. We were +expected when we arrived. Word of our coming had been telephoned from +Tonsaasen, and also from Kristiania. A large bedroom on the second +story is given us. The floor is painted yellow and strips of rag +carpet are laid beside the narrow bedsteads, where we sleep under +eider down. I am writing by the light of a home-made candle. It is +late, the silence of the night is unbroken save by the ticking of the +tall clock on the staircase landing outside my door, and the +occasional neighing of a horse or lowing of a cow. It is the silence +of the contented country-side. + + + + +VII. + +A Drive Along the Baegna Elv--the Aurdals Vand and Many More to +Skogstad. + + + SKOGSTAD, NORWAY, _September 2, 1902_. + +Here we are eighty-four kilometers (sixty-one miles) from Frydenlund, +where we spent last night. All day we have sat in an easy carriage, +inhaled the glorious buoyant air, and driven over a superb macadamized +road. We have skirted the shores of five lakes or _vands_--called +_fjords_,--amidst towering snow-marked mountains, passing beneath +cliffs rising sheer above us for thousands of feet, the highway +sometimes a mere gallery cut into the solid rock, and we are now +wondering how we were ever such simple things as to waste our time in +tame England, or even linger among what now seem so commonplace, +Scottish _lochs_ and _tarns_. We have traversed the shores of the +Aurdal, the Stranda, the Granheim, the Slidre and the Vangsmjoesen +Fjords, each and all pools of the foaming river Baegna; and have +looked across their limpid waters, their clustered islets, their +shimmering surfaces reflecting field and forest and _fjeld_, and even +portraying as in a mirror the snow-fields of mountain heights so far +distant as to be indistinguishable to the naked eye, distant yet two +full days' journey to the west. We have been continually excited +and astonished as each succeeding vista of vale and lake and mountain +has burst upon us. + +[Illustration: THE DISTANT SNOWS.] + +As we advanced further and further along the wide white military road, +the valley of the Baegna Elv grew narrower and deeper, and the +contrasts of verdant meadow and dark mountain increased in sharpness. +The lower slopes are as green and well watered as those of +Switzerland, and are dotted with farmsteads where the thrifty Norse +farmer dwells upon his own land, independent, self-respecting, +recognizing no lord but God--for the title of the "Swedish King" +weighs but little here. Everywhere have I remarked a trim neatness, +exceeding, if it were possible, even that of Holland. Upon the meadows +were cattle, mostly red. The fields were ripe with rye and oats and +barley where men and women were garnering the crops. The lands were +cleared far up the mountain sides to where the forests of dark green +fir stretched further up, until beyond the timber-line bare black rock +masses played hide and seek among the clouds. + +Back and beyond this splendid panorama of vale and lake and +cloud-wrapped summit, far beyond it, binding the horizon on the west, +there grew upon our vision all the afternoon enormous heights of stern +and austere mountains, lifting themselves into the very zenith, their +slopes gleaming with white bands of snow, their topmost clefts nursing +glittering icepacks and glaciers. Ole Mon has constantly pointed +toward them saying "Yotunheim!" "Yotunheim!" and we have known them to +be the gigantic ice-bound highlands of the celebrated Jotunheim Alps, +the loftiest snow mountains of Norway. + +We left the inn at Frydenlund after a breakfast of brook trout, fried +to a turn, and all we could eat of them, delicious milk like that from +our blue grass counties of Greenbrier and Monroe, in West Virginia, +and coffee made as only an Americanized Norwegian may know how. + +Along the way we have met children evidently going to and returning +from their schools, and it has been charming to see how the little +boys pull off their caps, and the little girls drop down in a +courtesy. The little caps always come off the yellow heads with +sweeping bow, and the duck of the little girls is always accompanied +by a smile of greeting. I regret that in America we have lost these +pretty customs which were once taught as good manners by our +forebears. + +We have passed this morning a frowning stone jail, the prison of this +province, and Ole Mon tells us that it is quite empty and has had no +tenant for some two years; surely, convincing testimony of the innate +honesty of these sturdy folk. + +We have also to-day met many young men, tall and stalwart, clad in the +dark blue uniform of the Norwegian National Guard. This is the season +when the annual drills are going on, just at the end of the +harvest time. Norway, like the rest of Europe, has adopted universal +military training for her men. They are taught the art of war and how +to shoot. It is calculated that in eight or ten years more every +Norwegian of voting age will have had the necessary military training +and will have become a part of the effective national defense. "We +will never have trouble with Sweden," they say, "the Swedes and +ourselves only show our teeth." "It is Russia, hungry Russia, that we +fear. We will learn to march and shoot and dig entrenchments so that +we may defend ourselves against the aggression of the Slav. Upon the +sea, we are the masters. We learn in your navy how to handle modern +warships and shoot the giant guns. Upon these mountains, we hope, ere +another decade has elapsed, also to be safe against the encroachment +of that 'Great White peril.'" + +[Illustration: THE BAEGNA ELV.] + +[Illustration: A HERD OF COWS, FOSHEIM.] + +[Illustration: THE GRANHEIMS VAND.] + +We stopped for our first pony-feed at Fagernaes, where a road turns +off to Lake Bygdin and its _Elv_, where the English go to fish; halted +a half hour at Fosheim, where is a fine hotel, and then, passing the +ancient stone church of Vestre Slidre, drove on to Loeken, where a +reindeer-steak-and-salmon-trout-dinner awaited us. The inn, situated +on a rocky point overlooking the picturesque Slidre Vand, was +quakerly-clean, as all of these places are. The neatly dressed young +woman who waited on us had lived two years in Dakota, and in Spokane, +and spoke perfect United States. She had an uncle and a brother still +there, and hoped to go back herself when the old folks had passed +away. At Oeilo, fifteen kilometers further on, we also drew rein--each +time we stop the ponies have the nosebags of oat meal--and then we +paused again at Grindaheim at the Vang Hotel, close to the shores of +the Vangsmjoesen Vand. Here the mistress of the inn had lived in +Minnesota, and talked with us like one of our own countrywomen. She +had come home on a little visit, she said. A stalwart Norseman had +lost his heart and won her hand, and saved-up dollars--but yet her +spirit longed for free America. Her boys would go there as soon as +they were big enough to hustle for themselves. + +In the dining room of the comfortable house was gathered a collection +of stuffed and mounted birds of the surrounding countryside. There +were several ptarmigan and one fine capercailzie, the cousin to the +black cock, and the biggest thing of the pheasant-kind that flies in +Northern Europe. + +Our Minnesotan hostess pressed us to stay and tarry a few +days, setting before us a big pitcher of milk and little +caraway-seed-flavored tea cakes, all for the price of _Te Oere_, two +and a half cents. We would like to have lingered here, for the house +is nestled in one of the wildest and loveliest of dales. To the north, +a mile across the vand, tower the black precipitous heights of the +giant Skodshorn (5,310 feet) upon whose cloud-capped peaks, Ole Mon +tells us, the ghosts of the ancient Scalds and Vikings meet in +berserker combat with Thor and Odin, and whence, sometimes, when +the air is still and there are no storms about, the clangs and clashes +of their battle conflicts resound with thunder roars, waking the +echoes in all the valleys round. Then the black mountain sides breathe +forth gigantic jets of steamlike cloud, while it is at such times also +that the _Trolls_ and Gnomes creep forth from the shadows of the rocks +to do honor to the warring giants. When questioned closely, he +admitted he had never witnessed one of these combats, but declared +that when a boy he had heard the roar on the summit of the mountain +and had seen the white clouds shoot up, which is always the sign of +victory for the gods. Our hostess also asserted that she had once +heard the mountain roar, but admitted she had not seen the shooting +clouds. Some scientists try to explain the mountain's action according +to natural laws, but so great is my faith in Ole Mon that I dare not +dispute his word. Back of the little inn also rise the lofty masses of +the Grinde Fjeld (5,620 feet) upon whose moorland summits it is, the +capercailzie fly and the herds of reindeer range, whence came the +juicy steaks we ate to-day at Loeken and have had to-night for supper. + +[Illustration: A HAMLET BENEATH THE FJELD.] + +All along the Baegna valley, including the fertile basins wherein +nestle the many _vands_ or lesser _fjords_, there were men and women +in the fields mowing the short grass and ripening grain. But neither +the grasses, nor the rye and oats and barley had reached maturity. Nor +do they ever fully ripen in these cold latitudes. They must be cut +green, and then the feeble sunshine must be made the most of. Long +ricks, made of sticks and saplings, or poles barred with cross-pieces +set on at intervals are built extending through the fields, and on +these the grass and grain are carefully spread out, hung on a handful +at a time, so that each blade and straw may catch the sun, and dry +out, a tedious, laborious work on which the women were more generally +employed. The men bring up back-loads newly cut by scythe and sickle, +and throw them down before the women, who then carefully hang each +handful on the ricks. What must a Norwegian feel, trained to such +painstaking toil as this, when he at first sets foot upon the +boundless wheat lands of Minnesota and the prairie West. No wonder he +returns to his native homestead only to make a hasty visit, never to +remain. In Switzerland, I also saw the grass cut when scarcely half +ripe and but a few inches high, when it is stored in handy little log +cribs where in the course of time it slowly dries out, but here every +blade must be hung up in the sun and air if it shall turn to hay. When +the hay and grain is fully dried, it is taken down and done up into +loosely bound sheaves, or carried in bulk to the large, roomy barns. +The grain is generally thrashed out with flails, I am told, although a +few American machines are now being introduced. + +The wire fence is not yet come into Norway, although timber is remote +and costly, and the people are hard put to it for fencing material. I +noticed that they generally depend upon slim poles and small +saplings loosely strung together, for English hedges cannot be grown +in these chilly northlands. + +[Illustration: RICKING THE RYE.] + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR BY THE SLIDRE VAND.] + +And now we are at Skogstad, above the Vangsmjoesen Vand and lesser +Strande Vand, with two or more _vands_ to see to-morrow before we +cross the height of land and come down to Laerdalsoeren, on the Sogne +Fjord which holds the waters of the sea, sixty-five miles further on. +The _vands_ to-day have been like giant steps, each emptying into the +one below by the roaring river, mounting up, each smaller than the one +below and more pent in by towering mountain masses. + +H is now tucked in between mattress and coverlet of eider down--we are +beyond the latitude of blankets--in a narrow bed, and I am about to +get into another on the other side of the room, on which I now sit +writing to you by the light of a sperm candle, while the murmur of a +thousand cascades tinkles in my ears. + + + + +VIII. + +Over the Height of Land--A Wonderful Ride Down the Laera Dal to the +Sogne Fjord. + + + LAERDALSOEREN, NORGE, _September 3, 1902_. + +We left Skogstad early and began to climb a long ascent, a dozen miles +of grade, still following the valley of the Baegna Elv foaming and +tossing by our side. The two days so far had been clear and cloudless, +but now the air was full of a fine mist, and we probably ascended a +thousand feet before the curtain lifted and a panorama of snow-capped +mountains, profound valleys, and sheer precipices burst upon us. + +A thousand rills and rivulets and brawling brooks streaked the green +slopes with threads and lines of white; mosses and lichens softened +the black rock-masses; blooming heather, and a plant with fine red and +yellow leaf gave color to the heights between the sombre greenness of +the fir forests below and the whiteness of the snow-fields above. I +have never before seen such stupendous precipices, such tremendous +heights; neither Switzerland nor Mexico, Alps nor Cordilleras lift +themselves in so precipitous ascent. + +After a two hours' climb, all the way listening to the roar of the +_Elv_ choking the gorge a thousand feet below our way, we met its +waters issuing quietly from yet another lake, the little Utro Vand, +surrounded by snow-crowned summits, the snow-fields creeping almost to +the water's edge, also passing on our right, the road which leads to +the Tyin Vand and the ice-crowned summits of the Jotunheim. Here was a +large and comfortable inn, Nystuen by name, and Ole Mon gave the +ponies their first morning's feed, adding an armful of mountain hay to +the oatmeal diet. Half an hour's rest is the usual limit, and the +ponies seem to know their business and eat their fare on time. In +Mexico, horses are fed grain but once in twenty-four hours, and that +at midnight, so that all hearty food will be digested before the early +morning start. Here a horse is kept full all the time to do his best; +difference of climate and latitude, I suppose. + +[Illustration: THE PROTECTED ROAD.] + +Just beyond the Nystuen Vand, we crossed the height of land between +the waters of east and west Norway, and now the streams were running +the other way. We were up 3,294 feet, and the summits round about +us--rising yet two and three thousand feet higher--were deeply +snow-marked--great patches and fields of snow. Then we came to another +succession of four more _vands_, like steps, each bigger than the one +above it, and a roaring river that proportionately grew in size. The +road became steeper and we fairly scampered down to a fine inn, +painted red with curiously-carven Norse ornamentation on the gables, +called Maristuen. Here we had fresh salmon, and more good coffee. For +breakfast we were given trout and eggs, now salmon and a delicious +custard for dessert. At table we met a Mr. C and wife, of Chicago, +going over our trail, and we may meet them again in Stockholm. They +are anxious to go on to Russia after seeing Stockholm, and have urged +us to go along also. Across the table from us sat a dear old +white-haired grandmother from Bergen with a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired +granddaughter--a Viking Juno. They are driving across to Odnaes in +their own carriage, a curious, old-fashioned _trille_, low and +comfortable with a mighty top. The old lady is stacked up between +pillows of eider down, and the blue-eyed granddaughter is full of +tender care. We spake not to them nor they to us, but we smiled at one +another and that made us friends. They both waved _farvel_ as they +drove away. + +And then, about two o'clock, we went on again for forty miles down to +the level of Laerdalsoeren and the sea, on the Sogne Fjord, where now +we are. We were to descend some 3,000 feet, and here began one of the +most exciting experiences of my life. The mountains kept their +heights; we alone came lower, all down a single _dal_. Most of the +road was hewn out of the side of precipices--a gallery; great stones +were set endwise about two feet apart on the outer edge, and sometimes +bound together by an iron rail; a slope down which we rolled at a +flying trot, coasted down--the roaring, foaming river below, far +below. Close to us were falls and cascades and cataracts, and the +stupendous mountains, the snow-capped rock-masses lifting straight +up thousands of feet. H grew so excited, exclaiming over the mighty +vistas of rock and water and distant valley, that I had fairly to hold +her in; and ever we rolled down and down and down, spanking along with +never a pause for nearly thirty miles, the spinning wheels never once +catching the ponies' flying heels. Great driving that of Ole Mon, +great speeding that of the sturdy ponies; marvelous macadamized +roadway, smooth as New York's Fifth Avenue! Water bursts, misty +cascades, descending hundreds of feet, sprayed us, splashed us, dashed +us, as we went on and on and on, only the gigantic precipices growing +higher and higher and higher, and the ever-present snowy summits more +and more supreme above us. + +[Illustration: THREE THOUSAND FEET OF WATERFALL.] + +Then we swept out into a green valley, hemmed in on either hand by +sombre precipices rising straight up for three and four and five +thousand feet, and hove to at the farmstead of Kvamme for the ponies +to be fed once more before their last descent. A mile or two further +on the precipices choke together forming a deep gorge, called the +Vindhelle, where it looks as though the mountains had been cracked +apart. + +The Norwegian farmer, like the Swiss, not only makes his living from +the warm bottom-lands, which he cultivates, but also from the colder +uplands to which his goats and cattle are driven in the early summer, +and where the surplus grasses are painstakingly gathered with the +sickle. We were driving quietly along when my attention was attracted +to a couple of women standing with pitchforks in their hands near a +cock of hay. The hay was fresh mown, but I could see no hay-fields +round about. They were looking intently at the distant summit of the +precipice towering above them. My eye followed theirs. I could barely +make out a group of men shoving a mass of something over the edge, and +then I beheld the curious sight of a haymow flying through the air. +Nearer it came, and nearer until it landed at the women's feet. I then +made out a wire line connecting a windlass set in the ground near +where the women stood and reaching up to the precipice's verge, whence +came the hay. The hay was wound about this line. In this manner is the +hay crop of these distant uplands safely delivered at the little +_gaard_ or farmstead in the valley's lap. From these mountain +altitudes the milk and cheese and butter which the goats and cows +afford are also sometimes lowered by this telegraph. In Switzerland, I +have seen communications of this sort for shorter distances, but never +before beheld a stack of hay flying through the air for half a mile. + +This Laera River with its _dal_ (dale, valley), is famous for its +trout and salmon. We passed several men and boys trying their luck, +one, an Englishman, up to his waist in the ice-cold tide. We have now +put up at a snug hotel, quite modern; English is spoken here. And--but +I forgot; when we stopped to feed the ponies, right between the two +descents, we made solemn friendship with the old Norseman who here +keeps the roadhouse; his daughter "had been in Chicago," she spoke +perfect United States, and took us to see, hard by, the most ancient +church in Norway, the church of Borgund, eight hundred to one thousand +years old. It is very quaint, with strange Norse carving and Runic +inscriptions. I gave our pretty guide a _kroner_ for her pains. On +returning to the house, she handed it to the old man, who took out a +big leathern wallet and put the coin away. We had meant it all for +her, and by reason of her knowing Chicago had made the fee quite +double size. + +To-morrow we sail for six hours out upon the Sogne Fjord to Gutvangen, +then drive by carriage to Eida, on the Hardanger Fjord, all yet among +these stupendous mountains. + +I was sitting in the little front room of the inn waiting for supper, +when our driver, Ole Mon, came in to settle our account, for his trip +was at an end. After I had paid him and added a few _oeres_ and a +_kroner_ for _trinkgeld_, at the liberality of which he seemed to be +much gratified, he produced from the inner pocket of his coat a +goodly-sized blank book, which he handed to me, and begged that I +would set down therein a recommendation of his qualities as a driver +and a guide. In the book were already a number of brief statements in +French and German and Norwegian, by different travelers, declaring him +to be a "safe and reliable man," who had "brought them to their +journey's end without mishap." I took the book and wrote down some +hurried lines. When I had finished, he gazed upon the foreign writing +and then disappeared with the book into the kitchen to consult the +cook, who had lived in Minneapolis. He presently reappeared, his eyes +big with wonder and a manner of profound deference. He now advised me +that he would deem it a great honor to be permitted to drive us free +of charge, next morning, from the hotel to the steamer, a couple of +miles distant. He further said, that he had decided to take the sea +trip to Gutvangen on our ship and would there secure for us the best +carriage and driver of the place. He evidently regarded me as some +famous bard, to whom it would be difficult to do sufficient honor. The +lines were these: + + Aye! Ole Mon, you are a dandy whip, + You are a corker and a daisy guide. + You talk our tongue and rarely make a slip, + You've taken us a stunner of a ride. + And when from Norge's _fjelds_ and _fjords_ we sail, + And in America tell of what we've seen, + Our friends will stand astonished at the tale, + And next year bid you take them where we've been. + +[Ilustration: OUR LITTLE SHIP, LAERDALSOEREN.] + + + + +IX. + +A Day Upon the Sogne Fjord. + + + STALHEIM HOTEL, NORWAY, _September 4, 1902_. + +To-day we have spent mostly on the water. We left Laerdalsoeren--the +mouth of the valley of the river Laera--by ship, a tiny ship, +deep-hulled and built to brave the fiercest gales, a boat of eighty to +one hundred tons. Casting off from the little pier at eight o'clock, +we were upon the waters of the majestic Sogne Fjord until after 3 P. M. +This great _fjord_ is the first body of water that I have seen +which to my mind is really a _fjord_, the others along the shores of +which we have journeyed for the past three days, including the last +and least, the Smidal and the Bruce _Fjords_, were only mountain +tarns, what in Norse speech is termed a "_Vand_." While I had read +much of _fjords_, never till to-day have I comprehended their +marvelous grandeur, the overwhelming magnitude of the earth's +convulsions which eons ago cracked open their tremendous depths and +heights. Although their bottoms lie deeper than the bottom of the sea, +(4,000 feet deep in some places), so the Captain tells me, yet up out +of these profound waters rise the gigantic mountains (_fjeld_) five +and six thousand feet into the blue sky, straight up as it were, with +hundreds of cascades and foaming waterfalls, sometimes the tempestuous +tides of veritable rivers, leaping down the black rocks and splashing +into space, and everywhere above them all are the snow-fields, the +eternal snow-fields. + +Sometimes when the precipices are sheltered and sun-warmed, their +surface is green with mosses and banded with yellow gorse, and with +white and pink and purple heather, and barred with scarlet and gray +lichens. The waters were so deep, the precipices so sheer that often +our ship sailed not more than twenty or thirty feet distant from them; +the misty spray of the streams dissolving into impalpable dust +hundreds of feet above us, dampening us like rain, or windblown, +flying away in clouds of vaporous smoke. + +Here and there along the more open parts of the _fjord_ were bits of +green slope with snug farmsteads, a fishing boat swinging to a tiny +pier or tied to the very house itself. Sometimes, perched on a rocky +shelf, grass-grown and high-up a thousand feet, we would discern a +clinging cabin, and once we espied a grazing cow that seemed to be +hanging in mid air. No patch of land lay anywhere about that was not +dwelt upon, tilled or grazed by some man or beast. The climate of +western Norway is mild and humid, tempered as it is by the Gulf +Stream. These coasts have always been well peopled, sea and soil +yielding abundant living to the hardy Norsk. The _fjords_ are the +public highways and upon their icefree waters vigorous little +steamships ply back and forth busied with incessant traffic through +all the year. Our course led us up many winding arms and watery lanes +to cozy hamlets nestled at the mouth of some verdant _dal_, where we +would lie-to a few minutes to put off and take on passengers and +freight. We also carried the mails. At each stopping-place the ship's +mate would hand out the bags to the waiting official, often an old +man, more generally a rosy-cheeked young woman, and carefully take a +written memorandum of receipt, when bag and maiden and many of the +waiting crowd would disappear. Once or twice the bags were loaded upon +one of the curious two-wheeled carts called _stolkjaerres_ driven by a +husky boy, when cart and horse and boy at once set off at lively +gallop. In winter time sledges and men on _skjis_ replace the handy +_stolkjaerre_, and thus all through the year are the mails efficiently +distributed. The captain tells me that a great proportion of the +letters received and sent are from and to America, where so many of +Norway's most energetic and capable young men are growing rich, and +that a large proportion of these letters received are registered, and +contain cash or money orders remitted to the families at home. What +wonder is it that these thousand white-winged missives, which +continually cross the sea, have made and are now making the ancient +Kingdom almost a Democratic state! At one of these hamlets, Aurland by +name, I caught with my camera a pretty Norwegian lass in full native +costume, such as has been worn from time immemorial by the women of +the Sogne Fjord,--a charming picture. + +[Illustration: THE SOGNE FJORD.] + +[Illustration: ALONG THE SOGNE FJORD.] + +Toward three o'clock we sailed up a shadowy canyon, the Naeroe Fjord, +under mighty overhanging precipices, arriving at Gudvangen, our +voyage's end. Here carriages awaited us and here Ole Mon, who has +sailed with us throughout the day, after having driven us down to the +boat himself and refused all pay, handed us over to the driver of the +best _vogn_ (wagon) of the lot, with evidently very particular +instructions as to our welfare. In fact, H tells me, Ole Mon has spent +the day with his book of recommendation open in his hand, calling the +world's attention to my glowing rhymes, and pointing me out with an +air of profound deference as an illustrious, although to him unknown, +bard. We bid him _farvel_, with real sorrow, and regretted that he +might not have driven us to the very end. + +We now went on ten kilometers through a narrow clove, between enormous +heights, passing the Jordalsnut, towering above us, straight up more +than three thousand feet, and straining our necks to peer up at the +foaming torrent of the Kilefos leaping two thousand feet seemingly at +a single bound, and almost wetting us with its flying spray. At one +place the road is diverted, and the immense mountain is scarred from +the very edge of the snows by the marring rifts of a recent avalanche, +which, our driver says, was the most tremendous fall of snow and ice +these parts have ever known. At last we began a steep zigzag ascent, +so sharp that even H relieved the ponies of her weight. We were an +hour in climbing the twelve hundred feet; and found ourselves on a +wide bench overlooking the wild and lovely Naeroedal up which we had +come. The sun was behind us, the half shadows of approaching twilight +were creeping out from each dell and crevice. Upon our left, the gray +peak of the Jordalsnut yet caught the sunshine, as also did the +snow-fields of the Kaldafjeld, almost as lofty upon our right. The +Naeroedal was filling with the mysterious haziness of the northern +eventime. Behind us, commanding this exquisite vista, we found a +monstrous and uncouth edifice, a German enterprise, the Stalheim +Hotel, thrust out upon a rocky platform between two rivers plunging +down on either side. Here we have been given a modern bedroom, fitted +with American-looking oak furniture, have enjoyed a well-cooked German +supper, sat by a blazing wood fire, and shall soon turn off the +electric lights and turn in, to repose on a wire mattress, and be +lulled to sleep by the musical roar of the two great waterfalls. + +[Illustration: SUDALS GATE ON THE SOGNE FJORD.] + + + + +X. + +From Stalheim to Eida--The Waterfall of Skjerve Fos--The Mighty +Hardanger Fjord. + + + ODDA, NORWAY, _September 5, 1902_. + +We left Stalheim by _Skyd_ (carriage), at nine o'clock. The drive was +up a desolate valley, through a scattering woodland of small firs and +birches, close by the side of a foaming creek, the Naerodals Elv, +hundreds of becks and brooklets bounding down the mountain sides to +right and left. + +After an hour's climb, we reached a flattened summit where lay a +little lake, the Opheims Vand, two or three miles long and wide, +encircled with snow-fields. Here and there we passed a scattered +farmstead--_gaard_--for every bit of land yielding any grass is here +in the possession of an immemorial owner. The _vand_ is a famed trout +pool, and as we wound along its shores we passed any number of men and +boys trying their luck. It was raining steadily, a cold fine downpour, +and all the male population seemed to have taken to the rod. + +At the lake's far end we passed a small hotel, built in Norse style +with carved and ornamented gables and painted a light green. Here in +the season the English come to fish. + +[Illustration: THE NAERO DAL.] + +Leaving the _vand_, we began a long descent, and for twelve miles +rolled down at a spanking pace, the brook by our side steadily growing +until it at last became a huge and violent torrent, a furious river, +the Tvinde Elv. In the fourteen miles we had descended--coasted--two +thousand five hundred (2,500) feet, and now were come to the little +town of Voss or Vossvangen, which lies on the banks of the Vangs Vand, +a body of blue water five or six miles long and two miles wide, +surrounded by one of the most fertile, well-cultivated valleys of +Norway. + +Vossvangen is a town of importance, and is the terminus of the railway +with which the Norwegian government is connecting Bergen and +Kristiania. The easiest parts of this national railway, those between +Bergen and Vossvangen, and between Kristiania and Roikenvik--over +which we came--are already constructed and running trains, but it is +estimated that it will be twenty years before the connecting link is +finally completed, for it is almost a continuous tunnel--a magnificent +piece of railroad-making when it is done. + +Vossvangen is also the birthplace of one of Minnesota's most +illustrious sons, United States Senator Knute Nelson. It is upon these +mountains that he tended the goats and cows when a barefooted urchin, +and I do not doubt that he has surreptitiously pulled many a fine +trout and salmon out of the lovely lake. The people of Vossvangen +accept his honors as partly their own, and my Norwegian host gazed at +me most complacently when I told him that American Senators held in +their hands more power and were bigger men than any Swedish King. +Norwegians are justly proud of their eminent sons who, in the great +Republic over the sea, are so splendidly demonstrating the capability +of the Norse race. + +We put up at a modern-looking inn, called Fleischer's Hotel, a +favorite rendezvous for the English, despite its German-sounding name. +Here we rested a couple of hours, and were given a well-served dinner +with tender mutton and baked potatoes, big and mealy, which we ate +with a little salt and abundance of delicious cream. Our hearts were +here stirred with sympathy for a most unhappy-looking American girl +who had evidently married a foreign husband. He was a surly, +ugly-mannered man, with low brows and tangled black hair. She, poor +thing, was the picture of despair, her fate being that all too common +one of the American woman who, foolishly dazzled with a titled lover, +too late finds him to be a titled brute. + +We were to continue to Eida on the Hardanger Fjord, in the same +carriage in which we set out. The ponies were well rested, and we got +away a little after two o'clock. Ascending the well-tilled valley of +the Rundals Elv by easy grades over a fine hard road, we crossed a +marshy divide and then descended to the Hardanger Fjord. After passing +the divide and coming down a few miles, we suddenly found ourselves +on the rim of a vast amphitheatre into the center of which plunged a +mighty waterfall, the Skjervefos, much resembling that of the +Kaaterskill Falls, in the Catskill mountains of New York, only ten +times as big. A roaring river here jumps sheer a thousand feet, and +then again five hundred more. Yet we did not know of it until we were +right on to it and into it. The falls making two great leaps, the road +crosses the wild white waters between them on a wooden bridge. Over +this we drove through soaking clouds of spray. + +[Illustration: GREETING OUR BOAT, AURLAND.] + +When in London we had no thought of Norway. Not until we heard from +General and Mrs. C of the delights of this journey did we make up our +minds to take it. We were then in Copenhagen, and neither in that town +nor in Kristiania have we been able to get hold of an English-worded +guide book. We are trusting to our driver's knowledge, and to our own +eyes and wits. And so it is, that we came right upon one of the most +splendid waterfalls in all Norway, and never knew aught of it until +chasm and flood opened at our feet. Perhaps it is better so. We have +no expectations, our eyes are perpetually strained for the next turn +in the road, our ears are alert for the thundering of cascades, our +minds are open for astonishment and delight. + +While it is a substantial modern bridge that now takes you safely over +the stream which spins and spumes between the upper and the nether +falls, yet our driver tells us, that in the ancient days when men and +beasts must ford or swim to get across, this was dreaded as a most +dangerous place. Few dared to ford,--most made a long detour. No +matter how quiet or how low the waters might appear, there were yet +dangers which men could not see, for water-demons hid in the black +eddies and skulked in the foam. They lurked in silence until the +traveler was midway the stream when they would boldly seize him by the +feet, and draw him down, and ride his body exultingly through the +plunging cataract below, nor did they fear also to drown what rescuer +might venture in to save his friend. When now the moon is low and the +night is still, may frequently be heard commingling with the leaping +waters' roar, 'tis said, the death wails of the lost souls of those +whom the demons thus have drowned and delivered for torment to the +cruel master-demon, Niki. + +Below the giant Skjervefos we rolled alongside its Elv until we came +out upon the margin of another exquisite tarn, the Gravens Vand, +where, just as along the Vangsmjoesen Vand, the roadway is, much of +it, hewn out in galleries at the base of overhanging cliffs. Nor is +there room for carriages to pass. There are turnouts, here and there, +and you pull a rope and ring a bell which warns ahead that you are +coming. In some places the roadway was shored up with timbers above +the profound black waters. We passed from the _vand_ through a rocky +glen down which the foaming waters hurried to the sea. We followed the +stream and suddenly came out into vast breadth and distance. We were +at Eida on an arm of the mighty Hardanger Fjord, the biggest earth +crack in Norway. + +[Illustration: THE HARDANGER FJORD.] + +A fresh, keen wind blew up from the ocean. A wooden pier jutted out +into the deep water, where, tied to it, were several fishing smacks. A +small, black-hulled steamer was there taking on freight, but it was +not our boat. The sky was overcast. The long twilight was coming to an +end. It would soon be dark. Across the _fjord_, giant black-faced +precipices lifted up into the clouds and snows. Down the _fjord_ misty +headlands loomed against the dusk. The black waters were foam capped. +There was a dull moan to the wind in the offing; it was a night for a +storm at sea. It now grew dark. A few fitful stars shone here and +there. The wind was rising. A bright light suddenly appeared toward +the west. Our boat had come round the headland, and was soon at the +pier. It was much like the little ship in which we sailed upon the +Sogne Fjord. These _fjords_ are alive with multitudes of just such +boats, deep-set, sturdy craft, built to brave all weathers and all +seas. Our course lay down the Graven Fjord, through the Uten Fjord, +and then up the long, narrow Soer Fjord--arms of the Hardanger--to the +hamlet of Odda, where we would again take a carriage and cross the +snow-fields of the giant Haukeli mountains of the Western Alps. + +Watching the sullen waters, profound and mysterious, as they churned +into a white wake behind our little craft, I could scarcely credit it +that I was upon the Hardanger Fjord, the greatest and most intricate +of the sheltered harbors which for centuries have made the coasts of +Norway the fisherman's haven, the pirate's home. Upon these waters the +ancient Viking learned his amphibious trade. Hid in the coves which +nestle everywhere along the bases of the precipices the Viking mothers +hatched and reared their broods of sea-urchins, who romped with the +seals and chased the mermaids and frolicked with the storms. Where I +now sailed had met together again and again those fleets of war-boats, +the like of which we saw the other day in Kristiania, and which went +out to plunder and ravage hamlet and town and city along all the ocean +coasts, even passing through the Gates of Hercules, and visiting Latin +and Greek and African province with devastation and death. +"Sea-wolves," Tacitus called them, and such they were. Here gathered +the hardy war-men who went out and conquered Gaul, and founded Norse +rule in Normanwise where now is Normandy. Hence sailed forth the +warships which harried the British Isles, and left Norse speech strong +to this day on Scottish tongue and in Northumbrian mouth. Here, also, +fitted out the ships, some of the crews of which it may have been who +left their marks upon the New Jersey shores in Vineland, and who may +even have been the sires of that strange blue-eyed, light-haired, +unconquered race I saw two years ago in Yucatan, who have held the +Spaniards these four centuries in check. I gazed upon the black waters +of mighty Hardanger, and saw the fleets returning with their spoil, +and heard the shouts of vengeance wreaked and victory won, which have +so often echoed among these mountains. I was looking upon the +breeding, homing waters of the greatest sea-race the world has known, +and every lapping wavelet became instinct with the mystery of the +cruel, splendid past. + +[Illustration: THE SOER FJORD, HARDANGER.] + +The churning of the propeller blades now ceased. I felt a jarring of +the boat. We were come to Odda and the voyage's end. + +It was ten o'clock when we made our port. A black night it had been, +pitch dark, with a fierce wind and ill-tempered sea. The profound +waters respond with sullen restlessness to the stress of outer +tempest. Only a Norseman born and bred to these tortuous channels +could have safely navigated them on such a night, and I noticed that +our engines did not once slacken speed throughout the voyage! + +Upon arriving at our hotel we found we were expected. A comfortable +room was in readiness, and a carriage engaged for the following day +and early breakfast arranged. All this had been done through telephone +by our Tourists' Agency (the Bennetts) in Kristiania. And so have we +found it everywhere along our route. All Norway, every post office and +nearly every farm, and especially all hotels and inns, are connected +by a telephone system owned and run by the Government. Anybody in +Norway can call up and talk to anybody else. We have experienced the +full benefit of this efficiency. + +Our entire trip has been arranged by telephone from Kristiania. We are +always expected. A delicious meal, ordered from Kristiania, is always +ready for us, and every landlord knows to the minute just when we will +arrive, for news of us has been 'phoned ahead from the last station we +have passed. + +This hamlet of Odda is an important point. Here converge the two great +trade and tourist routes of Western Norway. The one, the Telemarken +route, crossing the Haukeli Fjeld of the Western Alps to Dalen, and +thence by the Telemarken lakes and locks to Skien, and by rail to +Kristiania; the other diverging at Horre, passing down the valley of +the Roldals Vand to Sand and thence to Staavanger by the sea, whence +ships cross to Hamburg and Bremen and the North Sea ports, and to Hull +and Harwich in Britain--favorite routes by which the Germans and +British enter Norway. + + + + +XI. + +The Buarbrae and Folgefonden Glaciers--Cataracts and Mountain +Tarns--Odda to Horre. + + + HORRE, HOTEL BREIFOND, _September 6, 1902_. + +To-day we have driven thirty miles from Odda, all of it up hill, +except the last six miles. We started about nine o'clock with two +horses, an easy carriage, and a driver whom I have had to resign to +H's more promising Danish, for he is elderly and very weak in the +foreign tongue. From the first we began to climb. The driver in Norway +always walks up the hills, and the male traveler also walks, while the +female traveler is expected to walk, if she be able. The Norse ponies +take their time, although at the end of the day they have traveled +many miles and are seemingly little tired. + +By the side of the smooth road rushed a river, the Aabo Elv, a mass of +foam and spray which sometimes flew over us. A couple of miles farther +on we came to a little dark-blue lake, the Sandven Vand, surrounded by +lofty mountains, on the far side of which, almost jutting into it, +pressed down the glacier of Buarbrae, descending from the snow-fields +of the Folgefonden, a single expanse of ice and snow some forty miles +long and ten to twenty wide, the greatest accumulation of snow and ice +in western Norway. Over the precipices hemming in the _vand_ dashed +scores of cataracts and cascades, often leaping two and three thousand +feet in sudden plunge. H says nobody can ever show her a waterfall +again, nor talk about English _Waters_ or Scottish _Lochs_. + +Passing the lake, we continued to ascend, the road entering a deep and +sombre gorge, which suddenly widened out into a sunlit vale, the air +being filled with mists and rainbows. We were nearing the Lotefos and +the Skarsfos, two of Norway's most celebrated cataracts. Two rivers +begin falling almost a mile apart, approaching as they fall, until +they unite in a final leap of nearly fifteen hundred feet, a splendid +spectacle, while right opposite to them tumbles the Espelandsfos, +falling from similar heights. The spray and mist of the three +commingle in a common cloud, and the highway passes through the +eternal shower bath. As you look up you can see the entire mass of the +waters from their first spring into space throughout their tumultuous, +furious descent, until they eddy at your feet. Nature is so lavish +here with her gigantic earth and water masses that one is perpetually +awe-struck. + +One incident has occurred today, which I presume I may take as a high +compliment to my native tongue. One of two young Frenchmen, whose +carriage has traveled near our own, while walking ahead of his +vehicle, found the ponies disposed to walk him down. Twice this +happened. Then he waxed wroth. He suspected the tow-headed Norse +driver of not being really asleep, but of trying to even up the +ancient national grudge against his own dear France. He flew into a +Gallic passion. He stopped short. He halted the team. He awoke the +driver. He shouted in broken English, "You drive me down! You drive me +down! You vone scoundrel! I say vone damn to you, I say vone damn, I +say vone damn!"--shaking his fist in the astonished face of the +sleepy-head. After that the Norseman kept awake and the French +gentleman walked safely in the middle of the road. He evidently felt +that to swear in French would be quite lost upon the son of the +Vikings. English alone would do the job. + +[Illustration: THE ESPELANDS FOS.] + +[Illustration: COMMINGLING LOTE FOS AND SKARS FOS.] + +We climbed for many miles a deep glen called the Seljestad Juvet; and +dined long past the hour of noon at a wayside inn, the Seljestad +Hotel. The hotel was kept by women. "Our men," they said, "are +gathering hay at the _Saeter_ (mountain farm) far up on the mountain +highlands. They are gone for a month, and will not return until the +crop is all got in." We paid our modest reckoning to a delicate, +fair-haired, blue-eyed little woman, with quiet, graceful manners, +well bred and courteous in bearing. She is the bookkeeper and business +manager of the inn, "so long as the summer season lasts," she said. +And then she sails to England in one of her father's ships, and there +becomes a governess in an English family until another summer holiday +shall come around. She had never been to America. "Some day," +her skipper sire had "promised to take her to New York," when +they would "run over for a day" to Minneapolis to see an aunt and +cousins who were prospering, as do all Norwegians in America's +opportunity-affording air. And "Americans, she always liked to meet," +she said, "for unlike the English, they met you so frankly and did not +condescend." She showed H all through the neat and tidy kitchen, while +a big black nanny goat stood in the doorway and watched them both. + +All the afternoon we kept on climbing by the winding roadway, passing +a black-watered, snow-fed tarn, the Gors Vand, and over the +Gorssvingane pass above the snow line, where snow-fields stretched +below us, around us, above us. From the summit of 3,392 feet above +Odda and the sea, we had a superb view of all the vast Folgefond +ice-field behind us, and before us two others, the Breifond and the +Haukeli Fjeld, as vast, while 2,000 feet right down beneath us lay a +deep blue lake, the Roldals Vand. + +The road now wound ten kilometers (six and one-third miles) down into +the deep valley by many successive loops, twelve of them, one-half a +mile to the loop--a feat of fine engineering, for this is a military +road. We came down on a full trot all the way, even as Ole Mon came +down the Laera Dal, until we reined in at a picturesque inn at the +vale of Horre, overlooking the valley of Roldal and its _vand_. Now we +are in a cozy hostelry, the Hotel Breifond, with a room looking out +over the exquisite deep-blue lake, encompassed by green mountains and +snow-covered summits. + +[Illustration: THE GORS VAND.] + +[Illustration: GLACIER OF BUARBRAE.] + +Our hotel is kept by two sweet-faced elderly women, serene and +rosy-cheeked, dressed in black with immaculate white caps; one is the +widow of a daring seaman who years ago went down with his ship in a +winter gale. He was the captain and would not leave his post, though +many of the crew deserted and were saved. The other is her spinster +sister, whose betrothed lover likewise was lost at sea. In the summer +time they here harbor many anglers, who come to fish the waters of the +Roldals Vand and adjacent streams, which like most Norwegian lakes and +rivers are rented out by the local provincial or district governments. +The visitors who come here are chiefly English, the ladies tell us, +and great is their distress and often violent their objurgation at the +absence of any darkness when they may sleep. They cannot adjust +themselves to the nightless days. They are inexpressibly shocked when +they find themselves playing a game of golf or tennis at midnight, or +forgetful of the flight of time in the excitement of a salmon chase, +pausing to eat a midday snack at 2 A. M. + +Our beds are the softest we have yet slept in, for both mattress and +coverlet are of eider down. The two ladies have been delighted to talk +with H in the native tongue, and have told her of their nephews and +cousins who are getting rich owning fine wheat farms in the Red River +of the North. "Come back to us in June," they say. "Our wild flowers +are then in bloom, and the hungry trout and salmon will then rise to +any fly!" And H and I resolve that in June we surely will return. + +I saw one or two small pale butterflies to-day, and one gray moth at +the snow edge, where we crossed the divide; the only ones I yet have +seen. The birds, in this northland, of course, are all new to me; the +crows are gray, with black wings, heads and tails; a magpie with white +shoulders and white on head, and long, blue-black tail, is very tame; +while a bird I take to be a jay is numerous, with black body, white +shoulders and wing tips, and tail feathers edged with white. I have +seen some gray swallows which are now gathering in flocks preparatory +to going south, and several sparrows much like our field sparrows; and +sandpipers and upland plover, very small. The gray crows have a coarse +croak like a raven, "Krakers" they are called. In England we saw and +heard our only lark the day we drove from Ventnor to Cowes, on the +Isle of Wight, but I heard no other song birds in England, only once, +near Oxford, when I caught a note like our song sparrow's, while crows +and rooks swarmed everywhere from Southampton to Inverness. In Denmark +there are many storks, and I there saw the nest of one, a gigantic +mass of sticks and mud, built on the ridge of a barn, but I noticed +few other birds, except the gulls and terns along the sea. At Vang, +the other day, I saw, as I wrote you, the ptarmigan, and the +capercailzie stuffed and mounted by a Norwegian living there; they +are found on the mountains thereabouts; and a passenger, day before +yesterday, on the Sogne-fjord-boat, had in his hand half a dozen +ptarmigan, with their plumage already turning toward the winter's +white. + +[Illustration: THE DESCENDING ROAD TO HORRE.] + + + + +XII. + +Over the Lonely Haukeli Fjeld--Witches and Pixies, and Maidens Milking +Goats. + + + HOTEL HAUKELID, _September 17, 1902_. + +This morning we left Hotel Breifond about eight o'clock and although +we started alone, three other carriages soon caught up with us, and we +set off together, ours being the first in the line. As it is the +etiquette of the drivers never to pass each other, we have kept this +order all the day. Next behind us was a Dane with his Norwegian wife, +from Bergen, to whom H talked in their own tongue. Next to them were +the two young Frenchmen with whom I have managed to converse, and +behind these rode a German and his _frau_, who were most icy until +they learned we were not English but Americans, whereupon they grew +friendly indeed. We have got well acquainted while walking together up +the long mountain slopes. + +Yesterday we crossed the divide at a maximum elevation of 3,392 feet, +and were above the snow line; to-day we again traversed the +snow-fields at a yet higher altitude, passing under one snow mass by a +tunnel, where H took a snap-shot of me standing in the snow, and +reached the maximum altitude of 3,500 feet. + +[Illustration: A MILE STONE.] + +[Illustration: CATTLE ON THE HAUKELI FJELD.] + +From the emerald valley of the Roldals Vand we crept up a long ascent +for twenty miles, and I walked the whole of it. We followed the +foaming Vasdals Elv to its source, until all trees were below us, and +only short grasses, mosses and lichens grew amid the masses of drear, +black rock, and wide fields and patches of snow. This was the most +desolate region I have ever yet beheld or set foot upon; no life of +any sort; "_aucuns animaux, aucuns oiseaux; seulement les roches, le +silence et le froid_," as one of the young Frenchmen exclaimed! There +was not even a gnat or a butterfly. The primordial adamant rock +presented as sharp and unworn edges to the blows of the icy torrents +as when God first made it. The sun was warm and all the streams brim +full, swollen from the melting snows. High on the height of land we +found two silent lakes, the Ulivaa Vand and the Staa Vand. No life +stirred about them, although our driver asserted they were "alive with +fish." + +On these silent heights with their mosses and lichens, goats and +reindeer thrive, and the latter range throughout the year. + +We dined near the summit at a neat log inn called Haukeli-Saeter upon +a soup, boiled salmon, reindeer steak and vegetables,--all good. Here +our Germans clamored for _sauerkraut_ and _bier_, and were much +perturbed at receiving instead schooners of sweet milk and +caraway-seeded tea-cakes. The inn is built in typical Norse style, +with sharp and elaborately carved gables, and is kept open chiefly for +the benefit of tourist travel. + +Our driver is a quaint and lackadaisical old Norsk, who speaks a +drawling, ancient Roldal _patois_. The first day we could not do much +with him, although H tried her best Danish. But to-day he is beginning +to thaw out and has at last become really garrulous. He is full of +peasant superstition and folk lore which he implicitly believes. These +Haukeli Fjelde will never be inhabited by man, he says, for they are +already the home of the giant and dangerous _Trolls_, mysterious and +mighty spirits who are inimical to man. They dwell on the barest and +bleakest and most desolate mountain tops, where they devour young kids +and reindeer fawns and, occasionally, even dare to kidnap a child, and +are always on the watch to steal a buxom lass. It is useless to chase +or follow them, they are never to be caught, and while they may show +themselves at times if they shall choose, yet they are invisible to +most human eyes. He has never seen a _Troll_, he says, but once he +knew an old man who had been scared by one which tried to catch him +when a boy. + +There are also witches upon the Haukeli mountain tops, the old man +says. He is sure he has heard them hurtling through the air, +sometimes, when driving alone in the dusk of midsummer nights, +crossing the desolate heights of the Haukeli Fjeld. I asked him if +they still rode on broomsticks as they used to do in Germany, but he +declared that they were more bloodthirsty than that, for they always +carried ancient Viking broadswords, which they had picked up after +some of the big fights which take place before breakfast in Valhalla +every morning among the Vikings. Every summer some few witches are +sure to be seen or at any rate heard, by some lonely peasant caught by +fatigue on a twilight mountain top. There is one more beautiful than +all the rest, he says. He calls her "Hulda," and says she is a great +hand to seduce and beguile young men. She can fix herself up to appear +very beautiful, and to look upon her is to fall fast in love with her. +Then she taps a rock with a long staff she carries and lo! it opens +and there within are splendid chambers, a fairy palace, with all the +allurements of golden furnishings and sumptuous hangings and a table +groaning under the weight of delicious things to eat. If, dazzled by +this glimpse of paradise, the youth once enters and is taken in her +arms and kissed by her, then it is all up with him. He never escapes, +but after she has toyed with him to her heart's content in idle +dalliance, and grown tired of him, then are his blackened bones cast +forth upon some barren mountain top, perhaps to be found long years +afterward by wandering goatherd or venturesome hunter. Between these +_Trolls_ and the witches, H has acquired a most wholesome fear of the +Haukeli Fjeld, and she vows she would never drive over it alone. + +[Illustration: THE DESOLATE HAUKELI FJELD.] + +Also, the old man has at first hinted at and then confided to us that +the _Trolls_ and witches are not indeed the so serious menace they +might seem, for they are really afraid of man and keep generally well +out of his way; but that the real vexation of life comes from the +little pixies and sprites, who love to live handily about your house, +and who are always making trouble, either out of a spirit of pure +mischief, or else by reason of jealousy or pique. They are "very +touchy," he says, and you never know when or how you may offend them. +But if you do, then woe betide you. They will steal the feed out of +your horse's trough, or from his very nosebag right before your eyes, +and so deft are they at their tricks that you can never catch them. +You only discover that your horse gets thinner and thinner until he +finally dies, while if they shall be pleased with what you have done +or said you will find the horses always sleek and fat and able to do +two days' work in one. I asked him how he stood in with the pixies +just now, for I thought his team looked rather poor, but he said that +was by reason of the hard summer's work, the pixies having done him no +ill for several years. They also delight to milk the goats and cows +upon the sly, he said, and will steal the cheese set out to dry, and +often play such havoc with household supplies as to drive the peasants +to despair. For this reason it is, that many good farmers set out +little bowls of milk and bits of cheese in some silent meadow or +mountain dell, where the pixies may eat quite undisturbed. + +As if to emphasize the old man's words, we just then passed the hut of +a woman goatherd almost upon the summit of the vast lonely Haukeli +Fjeld and there, set upon a little shelf, high up near the moss-grown +roof, were a small milk-bowl and a bit of brown cheese, an offering to +the elves and pixies of that place. + +The information I here give you may be wrong in minor detail, for we +could not always perfectly interpret the quaint and ancient dialect in +which the facts were told, but H says she could make out the most of +what the old man said; for after all Danish and Norse speech are very +nearly the same. + +We were now well over the height of land and were coasting down toward +prospective supper. The barren waste of black and gray rocks, across +which we had traveled, began to give place to greener slopes; the +mosses had returned; the grass was peeping up again. Swinging around a +well-graded curve, we dropped into a little valley. The evening sun +was behind us, the slanting rays tipped peak and snowy crest with +reddish gold, but the vale below was wrapped in soft shadow. On the +left, stood a moss-roofed cabin, near where ran the road; on the +right, across a boisterous brook, we saw a group of Norse maidens, +clad in blue-and-red peasant costume, surrounded by a herd of goats. +The goats were apparently in great excitement. Each young woman was +following a goat and that particular goat walked with demure and +expectant gait. One old gray goat moved with particularly stately +step, while the lady by his side held in her hand a small wooden +bucket. I presumed that, of course, she proposed to give that goat his +evening meal. Imagine my astonishment when, before the goat really was +aware, she collared it, swung her leg over it and holding it fast +between her thighs, facing its rear, began energetically milking, not +it, or him, but her! The goat had disappeared, only a tail and a head +discovered themselves beyond the lady's skirts, and the evening +shadows gathered about that maid and goat,--that goat held tight as +though in iron vise. The day was too nearly done for my kodak to +avail, so I have tried to sketch the episode, and so also has one of +our French companions--and I send you the pictures. If the old poet +had only seen the tableau of goat and maid he never could have written +the following lines which long ago my memory clipped from the Yale +_News_: + + "The milkmaid pensively milked the goat, + When, sighing, she paused to mutter, + I wish you brute, you'd turn to milk, + And the animal turned to butt her!" + +We have driven some eighty kilometers to-day and have been in the +fresh mountain air, open air, for eleven hours. H is growing plump, +and her cheeks have caught the Norse red. The keen air makes our blood +tingle in spite of the cold, for it is cold. On these summits ice +forms the moment the sun is hid. We are in full winter clothing, and +wrap our heavy sea rugs about us as we sit in the carriage. In a +fortnight the snows will cover the passes and tourist travel will +cease till another year. + +[Illustration: NORSE MAIDEN MILKING GOAT.] + +During the last two days we have frequently met men bearing on their +backs and dragging on sledges piles of birch branches, the twig ends +with the leaves yet on, and we have noticed here and there, entire +birch-growing hillsides where the saplings had all been trimmed, the +tender twigs sheared off and frequently the lopped-off branches +stacked up in bundles stuck in a handy tree-crotch. This is the winter +fodder for the goats, and the birch twig is as important for them as +is the hay for the cattle. Just as in Switzerland, large flocks of +goats are pastured throughout the summer upon the higher mountain +slopes and ridges, and much cheese is manufactured from their milk. Of +sheep we have seen few, although I understand a good many are raised +for the local demand for wool. Like Scotland, Norway is hereabouts too +cold and harsh for sheep to do their best. + +Nor have we noticed many fowls, turkeys or geese or ducks about the +farmsteads,--only a few chickens here and there. This also is too cold +a climate, with too rigorous and lengthy winters for poultry to be +profitable. Nor have we had chicken set before us but the once when we +supped with the inquisitive dame of Tonsaasen. Trout and reindeer +steak as well as eggs we have often had, and once roast ptarmigan. + +Neither in Britain, nor in France, nor in Germany have I ever seen a +wooden house; all buildings there are of stone or brick; but here the +buildings throughout the countryside are all of wood; hewn logs most +frequently, not uncommonly of sawed lumber, these latter quite often +painted white and red, reminding one of tidy New England. The roofs +are steep to shed the snows or, otherwise, quite flat and covered with +a layer of birch bark and then tight-growing sods and mosses, which +covering the snow may melt upon but through which it will never soak. + +To-day being Sunday, we have met many churchgoers upon the road, and +have passed two churches where the Lutheran service was being held. +During our drive we have constantly noted the number of these Lutheran +churches, as well as the snug-built, substantial schoolhouses. Piety +and intelligence deeply mark the lives of these Norse people. Just as +in Denmark, so here also is the Lutheran church recognized and +supported by the state, and its pastors constitute a formidable and +influential body, guiding the thought of the Norwegian people. +Apparently the schools here are as universal and as well attended as +our own. Every Norwegian child, who is of school age, is compelled by +law to go to school. Nowhere outside of my own country have I seen so +many schoolhouses dotting the countryside. In England there are no +common schools and no schoolhouses. In France the schoolhouses are +hidden among the buildings of the clustered villages. In Switzerland, +perhaps, the schoolhouse is as much in evidence as here, but in +neither Germany nor Holland, although their universities lead the +world, is there revealed the teaching of the common people as is done +by the many schoolhouses of this northern land. + +Now we are housed in a commodious and quite modern inn, and have had a +delicious trout supper, all our four carriage-loads of travelers +sitting at one long table, where H and I have been the stars--for we +only and alone can talk equally to the Dane and his Norwegian wife, to +the young Frenchmen, and to the German pair; while through us only can +they exchange ideas, for we alone can talk to each in his own native +tongue. "Ah! these Americans!" "You talk all the languages!" "How wide +you see!" "While we, we do not see beyond the boundaries of France." +"We speak too seldom a foreign tongue." "You are bigger-minded than +are we!" So exclaimed one of our French friends. + + + + +XIII. + +Descending from the Fjelde--The Telemarken Fjords--The Arctic +Twilight. + + + DALEN, _September 8, 1902, 7 P. M._ + +Our series of great rides on land and water is at an end. For eight +days we have been inhaling the crisp, buoyant, ozone-laden atmosphere, +viewing the majestic scenery, watching the sturdy, strong-faced men +and women, the rosy, yellow-haired children; and now it is over. H and +I agree that in our lives we will never again experience a more +delightful outing--our sure-enough honeymoon. + +This morning we left the Hotel Haukelid with only sixty kilometers for +the day, and most of it down hill; since noon yesterday we have been +coming down. Just a little snow was now to be seen far away upon +distant summits, while forests of birches, interspersed with aspens, +covered the nearer slopes. Our road led us along the borders of +several exquisite lakes, the little Voxli Vand and then the greater +Grungadals Vand, about a mile wide and ten or twelve miles long; +frowning precipices and cloud-wrapped heights encircled us on every +hand, their rocks now largely greened over with mosses, and +birches--only a few firs--growing wherever trees might thrust their +roots. Then we drove through a narrow clove, along a frothing torrent, +and came to another _vand_ equally shut in, but not so long nor so +wide,--a greener, warmer valley, Boertedals Vand in the Boerte Dal. +Here we dined at Hotel Boerte, rested till 3 P. M., and then got away +for one of the finest thirty kilometers of the trip. If we only had +had Ole Mon to drive us, how perfect would have been the day! I +imagined we had already come down enough to be at the bottom, but we +were yet to descend a mighty canyon with the road blasted out of the +precipice's side, and walled in with rock posts and iron defenders, +much like the Laera Dal, while far beneath us wound a silver thread, +the almost imperceptible roar of whose waters floated up a tremulous +murmur. We came down at a rattling trot, every moment unfolding new +vistas of vale and precipice and mountain. After two hours of this +fearful, yet joyous, coasting we crossed a wide-spanning iron bridge +and swept out into the charming vale of Dalen, at the head of the +Bandaks Vand, where now we are. The mountains are here clothed in +heavy forests of birch and much deciduous timber, only a little of the +fir; I can scarcely realize that yesterday we were up amongst the +mosses, the lichens and the snows. As we descended we kept taking off +our wraps; our rugs were folded up; H took off her golf cape, then her +jacket; she wanted to ride with bared head, so soft and warm had grown +the air. + +[Illustration: A NORSE CABIN.] + +[Illustration: OUR HOSTESSES, HAUKELI SAETER.] + +KRISTIANIA, NORWAY, _September 10, 1902_. + +Yesterday, we left Dalen at the head of navigation on the Bandaks +Vand, boarded a taut little steamboat about 150 feet long, built for +deep water, and traveled sixty-five kilometers through a succession of +_vands_ and _fjords_--the Telemarken Fjords--canals and locks--twenty +locks in all--to Skien (called "Sheen"), where we took the railway for +Kristiania, arriving at midnight. + +The lakes were long, narrow and mostly shut in by heavily-timbered +mountains, which as always, lifted up to enormous heights, green vales +and valleys opening in between, where were picturesque hamlets and +neat, thrifty-looking farmsteads. + +Nothing here impresses me more than the great patience and tireless +energy of the "Norsks," as they call themselves. The magnificent +roads, superior to those of England, equal, almost equal to those of +France; the canals, blasted for miles through solid granite; the +railways, which are as good as our own; the little boats so perfectly +appointed. The Norwegians impress you as being born seamen; they know +how to build and how to sail a boat, and you feel it. + +Standing upon the forward deck, watching the changing panorama of +vale and lake and mountain, I became so absorbed in the enchanting +pictures that it was some moments before I noticed a slit-eyed, +high-cheek-boned, black-straight-haired, short, pudgy youth or +man--hard to tell which--a sure-enough Lap if ever there was one, who +was making vain efforts to hold conversation with me. He spoke slowly +and with some hesitation in perfect Cockney English. I at once gave +him my ear, and asked him where he had learned to speak so well. "Hi +ave been a cook in Lonnon," he said. "Hi ave been hassistant cook in a +Hinglish otel, you know. Hi am just now leaving the otel at Dalen, +where Hi ave been hassistant cook this summer, you know." Whereupon he +told me of his experiences in London. How he landed there from a +Norwegian ship, friendless and unknown, and made his way by his +aptitude in wiping dishes! And some day he "oped" to go to "Hamerica" +and there own a kitchen all for himself. "Ow strange it must be for an +Hamerican to see real mountains," he exclaimed, and I discovered that +the only America he knew about was the prairie land of the flat west. + +Upon my asking whether he was not a Laplander, he resented the +suggestion with great vehemence, declaring himself to be a Viking +pure, and he begged me to let him know if I should learn of any good +openings for dish-wipers in America, especially if it would lead to +the dignity of cook. His manner was frank and simple, wholly free from +self-consciousness, except as he took great pride in being able to +speak the English tongue. In Norway there are no classes and all men +stand equal before the law. It is as respectable there to work as it +is in America, and similarly men meet you as your natural equals. +There is none of that offensive subserviency which so jars upon one +in most of the monarchy and aristocracy bestridden lands. + +The volume of water which flows from these lakes and through these +deep canals is immense and we have sometimes swept along the narrower +channels at really an exciting pace. We had just passed through the +beautiful Flaa Vand and descended the deep full-flowing river, the +Eids Elv, with its many locks, to the greater Nordsjoe Vand, when we +drew up beside a little pier. There were many people upon it. +Evidently, there was here gathered an unusual crowd, and down the +hillside leading toward us came yet others. The whole community had +turned out. Two tall, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed, fair-haired young men +were the center of the throng; about them the others pressed. They +were neatly dressed, fine-looking fellows, and the men and women were +kissing them good-bye. They were going to America, perhaps never to +return. The mother, a gentle-faced, white-haired old lady, wept on the +necks of each of them, and the white-haired father kissed them upon +either cheek, and then everybody rushed in to shake their hands. They +were going to America where so many of Norway's most ambitious and +able sons had gone before. The whole countryside would watch their +career and wait for news of their success! Two iron-bound chests were +dragged on to the boat. The young men stepped alertly aboard, their +faces flushed with the excitement of the farewells and the +anticipations of the land across the sea. As I watched them and their +family and friends waving their adieus I could not but ponder upon +this instinct of the old-world races, my own among the rest, to go out +and seize life's prizes even across the widest waters. The +leave-taking I was now beholding must be not unlike that of the men +and women who in the days of Pilgrim and Puritan and Cavalier left +little England to found a community where freedom and opportunity are +still the loadstones which attract the energy and youth of all the +world. + +[Illustration: HAUKELI SAETER.] + +[Illustration: A GOAT HERD'S SAETER, HAUKELI FJELD.] + +In traveling through Norway, I have been greatly surprised to see so +many newly-built farmhouses, barns and farm buildings, new fences and +modern gates. Everywhere the old and tumbled-down is being replaced by +the substantial and modern. I have seen nothing like this anywhere in +Europe; nowhere so general a replacing of the old with the new. Many +of the new farmhouses are not merely substantial, but are +architecturally attractive. There must be abundant money coming from +somewhere to pay the cost of this universal rebuilding. I have asked +about it more than once and every time I receive the same reply. "The +sons have gone to America, they are in Chicago, in Minnesota, in +Dakota. They have grown rich. They are sending back the money. They +want the old places made as trim and spick as though they were in +America." "Put everything in good repair," they say, "never mind the +cost." And then, every few years they return with the American +grandchildren to see the beloved old folks. More and more of these +American-Norwegians are coming every year to holiday in the +fatherland. Many now regularly sojourn throughout the summer. A few, a +very few, remain to end their days on the loved home-soil. + +I also learn that it is to supply the demand of this increasing travel +from America to Norway that the Scandinavian-American line have +recently put on the large ocean steamers now sailing direct from New +York to Kristiansand, with accommodations equal to anything which has +hitherto entered the ports of Germany and England and France. + +The other day at Loeken, we were waited on at table by a fine-looking +young woman who spoke perfect United States. She had an air about her +of comfortable independence. The house, the farm buildings, everything +about the place was new and neat. While we were talking with her, she +told us that she had a brother and an uncle in the far west, one at +Spokane, who was rich. She was living with him when word came that the +old father had passed away. She was needed at home to care for the +mother and the younger children, so she returned; and the brother sent +back the money to have the old place put in perfect repair. + +This intimate connection between our thriving west and Norwegian home +life, largely explains, I think, that independent American spirit +which now so prominently marks Norway, and the growth and assertion of +which is driving her by natural momentum away from the hectoring ties +of franchise-constricted, aristocratic Sweden, pushing her toward +her inevitable destiny--to become a Republic. + +[Illustration: DRYING OUT THE OATS.] + +[Illustration: TENDING THE HERDS.] + +The immigration from Norway to the United States has taken from her +nearly one-half the population, a much larger percentage than has yet +come forth from Sweden. Although even there, so great is now the +exodus, that the Swedish Ministry is alarmed; there is also uneasiness +in Norway. Recently, laws have been enacted prohibiting the steamship +agents from spreading among the people the glowing accounts of +America, by means of which so many steerage tickets are sold, but all +the same, the propaganda is persistently carried on. At Skogstad, the +other day, I fell in with an alert-looking, quiet-mannered man, who, +after he learned I was an American, confided to me that he himself was +from Minnesota. He had been born in Norway, but went to America when a +boy. He was now back in Norway representing large farming interests in +the Northwest, and his business was to recruit farm hands for the +western wheat fields. He said he had penetrated during the past three +years into every nook and cranny of Norway, everywhere finding out +what vigorous and sturdy young men would like to go to America, and +then arranging with them to pay their passage, and supply sufficient +funds to enable them to pass the immigration inspectors, and providing +also their railroad transportation to the west. "They are a splendid +and hard working lot of men," he said. "We want all of them we can +get. And most of them do well when they reach America; many of them +become rich men." He was traveling in the disguise of an itinerant +doctor selling herbs and roots. + +Crossing the mountain this side of Boerte, where the road wound up +through the fir forest to avoid an immense cliff which jutted into the +lake, I stopped and dug up a little seedling fir, surely a real Norway +spruce. I took it up with care and have now brought it to Kristiania +and to-day am sending it to America by mail wrapped in damp mosses, +and trust that it will reach Kanawha with life enough to live and +thrive in its West Virginia home. Along the roadside, not far from +where I found the seedling, were lying a fine pair of _skjis_, just as +the wearer laid them aside, only to be worn when winter shall return. +The Norwegian does not need to lock his door! + +Upon the mossy, marshy, moorland summits and divides which we have +traversed, I have noticed widespread beds of peat. In some places +these are extensively worked, large areas being uncovered and the +squares of peat piled up to dry. The existence of this fuel has proved +a godsend to Norway, for the forests are often distant and year by +year the woodlands diminish. Although there are some inferior coal +beds in southern Sweden, there are none in Norway, and for fuel her +peat beds and her forests are her sole domestic supply. And yet, +despite this lack of fuel, it seems to me that Norway is dowered with +enormous stores of power. She possesses water power without stint. +King Winter surely cannot freeze up all the streams. Will not the +day yet come when the harnessed water powers of Norway may run the +turbines which will supply the world? + +[Illustration: DALEN ON THE BANDAKS VAND.] + +It is yet early September; the belated summer of this far northern +land, to our strange eyes, is just begun. The meadows are green; the +fields of grain are scarcely yellowed; in the markets of Kristiania we +see daily exposed for sale fresh-ripened strawberries; in our +Virginian latitude it would be the season of the month of May. Yet we +see big stacks of firewood piled near each farmhouse door; we see the +cabin newly banked with earth against the frost; at blacksmith's shop +we see men hammering on well-used sled; alongside the road, awaiting +the winter's need, lies an upturned snowplow newly ironed; everywhere +men are making ready for the cold. In a fortnight the highway across +the Haukeli Fjeld will be blocked with new-fallen snow. In a month the +jingling bells of sleighs and sledges will sound along the now verdant +valley of the Baegna Elv. + +A year ago, when traveling in Mexico, in southern Michoacan, the +tropical precipitancy of the night was sure to take me unawares. I was +never quite prepared for the sharp transition from day to night. The +hot red sun rested a moment above the towering Cordillera, then it +dipped behind, and the cold white stars instantly shone forth. Here in +Norway my senses are equally surprised. It is already September and +yet "early candle light," means near ten o'clock. The day dies slowly. +The contours of vale and mountain almost imperceptibly fade upon the +eye. A violet blueness softens form and hue. Little by little the +violet changes into gray, and then the grayness pervades the air as +though the shadow of some phantom raven's wing overspread the world. + +At nine o'clock, at half past nine, at ten o'clock, the goats and +cattle are awake--we have made long day-drives by reason of the limits +to our time--I wonder if they ever sleep. The sparrows and gray-coated +crows fly soberly across our way; a magpie softly flutters to the +road. I hear no bird-songs, only faint twitters, no chirping crickets, +no piping frogs and newts, none of the evening sounds of my Virginian +countryside. A hush creeps over _dal_ and _fjeld_ and _fjord_, even as +do the mysterious violet and gray shadows. We ourselves are drowsed. I +do not speak to H nor she to me. To the ponies Ole Mon has ceased to +talk. The world is stilled. We draw long breaths, inhale the delicious +air, lean back against the cushions of our seat, and daydream amidst +this hush of man and thing. The old Norse driver of the Roldal +cautions H to watch. "This is the hour," he says, "when the elves and +pixies stir abroad. Count the fifth meadow from where you stand and +there they are always sure to be." Thus have we driven through the +twilight, the mysterious, lingering twilight of this far and almost +Arctic North. + +This is the last letter you will receive from Norway and I am sure +that you will agree with me, after reading what I have sent you, +that nowhere in all the world may one have a more delightful outing. + +[Illustration: NORSE WOMEN RAKING HAY.] + +As to expenses, I figure it up that the total cost for both of us is a +little less than five dollars per day, which includes our carriage, +our driver, our eating, our sleeping and the liberal fees which, like +good Americans, we have everywhere bestowed. Here in Norway the _oere_ +(two and one-half cents) is as big as the quarter, and the _kroner_ +(twenty-seven cents) as big as the dollar. + +How long the _oere_ will loom so large I dare not say, for the +American invasion is begun, and I fear the _kroner_ will soon be no +bigger than the dime. + + + + +XIV. + +Kristiania to Stockholm--A Wedding Party--Differing Norsk and Swede. + + + STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, _September 12, 1902_. + +We came over here night before last from Kristiania, by the night +train; by _sovevogn_ (sleep-wagon), the first I have tried in Europe. +We traveled first-class and had a compartment to ourselves. About +9 P. M. a porter came in at a way-station, put all our bags out in the +corridor, pulled out the round cushions at the back of the seats and +put them into the overhead racks; he then pulled out a linen cover +with which he overlaid the long seat, and unholed small, wee pillows +from a cavity at the end of each seat; the beds were made! Later, +another man informed me that we could have sheets at one _kroner_ +(twenty-seven cents) each; but these we declined. Fortunately, we had +with us our heavy sea rugs. I put H into my long gray overcoat, did +her up in the blanket and rug, and tucked her big golf cape over her. +Then I put on my blanket smoking jacket, my slippers and cap, rolled +up in a blanket and rug, and so we slept comfortably on our narrow +seat-beds. There was no heat in the car, and only one toilet room for +both sexes! The night was cold and it was with difficulty we +managed to keep warm. Such is the modern European method of running a +sleeping car. + +[Illustration: STOCKHOLM.] + +The train we traveled in was crowded. In our car every compartment was +filled. There were two groups of travelers who interested us. The +first was a party of Americans, a petite elderly woman, keen, lively, +very much mistress of herself, evidently accustomed to command, and +with her two pretty black-eyed American girls, "pert," "sassy," and +used to receiving the homage of man! In their company were half a +dozen tall, blond-bearded, blue-eyed Viking youths, entirely willing +to be commanded and to render homage. They were all in uniform, a dark +blue cloth with red facings and a very little gold braid. The blue +eyes shot tender glances, we thought, the black ones defending against +Cupid's darts with great vivacity. Each young man presented an +enormous bouquet to the elderly woman, and one gave her a basket of +fruit--the girls got nothing, only the blue-eye-flashes. And how +eagerly the young men promised to call on the elderly woman, if ever +they should be so fortunate as to visit New York! And all the while +the two American belles laughed and smiled and smote yet deeper +through the dark blue uniforms. The departing train almost carried +away with us one fair-haired giant. All the military caps came off +with sweeping bows, while two handkerchiefs fluttered from the +windows. + +The other group took us by storm and also captured the train. Before +we knew it, there was a surging crowd outside the car and the roar of +many Viking throats. And then into the compartment next to ours rushed +a pack of ladies, one of them all in white, with a sweet face half hid +in a pink satin bonnet. A little man with waxed moustache, curly black +hair, wearing a stovepipe hat, and clad in evening dress, followed +close behind. The women admitted him, as though by right, but no other +man was let inside. It was a wedding party. A wedding in high life. He +was a Professor at Upsala. She was one of Kristiania's fairest +daughters. They had been married in the Fru Kirke in the afternoon. +She had had a big reception at her home. The friends and guests were +now come down to the train to see them off. She was large and fair and +rosy, yet in her early twenties. He was small and weazen, shriveled +and swarthy. They called him "Herr Doctor," evidently recognizing his +eminent standing. Flowers and rice and a white satin slipper were +thrown into the window. There was tremendous hugging and kissing of +the bride by all the women,--I could not see that here the men had any +show,--and pandemonium still prevailed upon the station platform when +the train pulled out. Later in the night I was awakened by shouts and +then most glorious singing. I sat up with a start, the melody pulsing +through my brain. The Student Corps from the University of Upsala had +come down to the junction where the newly-wedded pair would change +cars, to welcome their Professor and his bride. They were singing a +mighty welcome. And it was such full-toned, full-voiced, perfect and +practiced singing by the hundreds of young men who seemed to be on +hand! I fell asleep as our train went on, the splendid harmony of the +well-trained voices filling me with dreams of realms not far away from +Paradise. + +Next morning I was about dressed, and H was adjusting her skirt, when +the doors, which I thought securely locked, flew open and a burly +red-faced uniformed official thrust himself in. He came to take away +the pillow cases! He did not seem to think he in any way intruded; +privacy is not much respected this side the sea. + +Our toilets were scarcely made when the train came to a stop in the +station at Stockholm. Indeed H was not yet quite ready, when another +official in uniform again burst open the door and began grabbing our +effects. To his astonishment he was forthwith ejected and the door +shut in his face. When we were finally dressed I went out and found +him waiting for us on the station platform. He was a licensed porter. + +We were first obliged to fetch all our belongings to the Custom House, +where important-looking officials, in gray uniforms trimmed with red, +asked perfunctory questions and hurriedly passed us through--an +exercise of Swedish authority which seemed quite unnecessary since we +came direct from Norway under the same King. This done, our porter +then gathered up our bags and rugs, put them into a little +two-wheeled push cart and started out across the square. Here again I +came near meeting the fate of the tenderfoot. We did not know the +location of the Hotel Continental; I stepped up to a cabby and told +him we wanted to be taken to that hotel. A man in uniform gave me a +brass check with "No. 5" marked on it, pointing to a cab standing in a +long row which also bore a No. 5. I handed the brass check to No. 5 +cabby, and was putting in my bag when our porter pointed to the +farther side of the square. There was our hostelry, not three hundred +feet away! I took out my bag from the carriage, in spite of protest, +and walked to the hotel. The driver claimed a fare of half a _kroner_ +and raised a mighty clamor, but I vowed I would not give him an +_oere_. Thus you must have your eyes about you when you come to a city +you do not know. + +The Continental is a fine hotel. The rooms are supplied with electric +lights and with telephones (good ones, not the imperfect London +system). We have a large front room, facing the Vasa Gatan, with +dressing room and ante-room, handsomely furnished, and as clean as +anything can be. We are fain to be content with the fourth story, +although we asked for the tenth, and a new modern elevator takes us up +and also down; all this costs only six _kroner_ a day ($1.62) for the +two of us. Our breakfasts are served in our room, two eggs each, a pot +of coffee, boiled milk and cream, a basket of rolls, fresh radishes, +cold tongue, cold veal, smoked goose breast, anchovies, cold smoked +salmon, cheese, each in a neat little dish by itself, and a big +round flat slab of slightly salted butter; all for one and a half +_kroner_ each, three _kroner_ for us two (eighty-one cents). You +receive much for your money here in Scandinavia. + +[Illustration: KING'S PALACE, STOCKHOLM.] + +The spirit of Stockholm, although intensely Scandinavian, is yet +widely different from that of either Copenhagen or Kristiania. It is a +difference, not so much to the eye, as to the feeling. + +The city presents the same substantial and solid types of buildings, +there are the same high walls of stone and dark red brick, and +sharp-gabled roofs covered with heavy tiles, the same square towers, +the same spindly leanness to the steepled churches, and in the older +sections the narrow streets are paved from wall to wall with the same +big squares of granite. The people are mostly blue-eyed and +fair-haired like their kindred Danes and Norsks. But here the likeness +ends and you feel it the instant you pass out upon the street. I +missed at once that certain self-containment, based upon +unostentatious self-respect, which marks the Norsk, where no man knows +a lord but God, and manhood suffrage everywhere prevails. I missed +that composure of manner and self-assurance to the step, which lets +men look you calmly in the eye without offense, that spirit, which +takes for granted the perfect equality of man and man. I instantly +felt myself among men of another temper. The alert, frank, +self-respecting manner of the Norsk is lacking in the Swede. I found +myself again among a "lower class," who have no votes, and treat you +with sullen servility, and also among men with the swashbuckling +manners of military caste. Stockholm is full of young officers in +natty uniforms, who strut along the streets aping the braggart +insolence one meets among the soldier-bestridden Germans. The peasant +and townsman must also here step aside to let these Yunker soldiery +pass on. Militarism hangs heavy over Stockholm, where the scions of an +impecunious aristocracy think to find in dashing uniform and truculent +German manner a restoration of the noble military traditions of the +past. + +The Norwegian looks out upon the Twentieth Century and finds his +inspiration in the example of free America and the universal equality +of man. The Swede looks ever backward to the glorious days of Gustavus +Vasa, Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII, and sighs for a return of the +good old times when the half of Europe trembled before Sweden's +military might. The lofty mountains and profound valleys, the savage +mystery of fathomless _fjords_, the wondrous immensity of the unknown +and illimitable sea, which fired the brain and pricked the energy of +the Norseman, and made him poet, pirate, explorer and conqueror +through a dozen successive centuries, were all unknown to the +practical-minded Swede. His monotonous forests, his sandy levels and +shallow gulfs, his pond-like and insignificant Baltic Sea, stirred no +fibre of his imagination; nor when he crossed those narrow waters +and set foot upon the flat and barren shores of Germanic and Slavic +Europe, was there anything in their sombre forests and limitless +plains and desolate marshes to arouse within him the fire of his soul. +War with the flaxen-haired savages, who swarmed upon these lands like +myriad wolves, was his only exercise. He sailed up the Gulf of Bothnia +till he entered the Arctic wastes where dwelt the Laps; he followed +the shores of the Gulf of Finland, and explored the river Neva and +Lake Ladoga and connecting streams, and even crossed to the waters of +the mighty Volga, and entered Asia by the Caspian Sea; he ascended the +lesser Russian rivers, and pitched fortified camps along their banks, +founding Revel and Riga and Novogorod, whence the Swedish Ruriks gave +to the Muskovites their earliest Czars. He ruled Finland and Esthonia +and Livonia and Courland, and even begat Sigismund, the Polish King. +For centuries he warred with and ruled these Slavic tribes until at +last, driven back to his narrow peninsula, the mainland knew him only +as defeated and expelled. A practical, unimaginative fighting man was +the Swede. He loved war for war's own sake, and when he had no longer +reason to war for conquest or defense, he clung to pike and sword as +permanent substitute for plow and seine, and hired himself to +bickering Slav and German and grew famous as a "Mercenary," who +spilled his blood for pay and the plunder of his master's foes. Thus +have the cousin peoples swung wide apart. The one, free and +open-minded; the other, still dazed by the faded glories of a long +dead past, turns ever a wistful eye toward the military tyrannies of +Czar and Kaiser, and finds in the inequalities of landed noble and +landless yokel, in official and military caste and enthralled +peasantry, the realization of his Fifteenth Century ideal. + +[Illustration: A SWEDISH CHURCH.] + +[Illustration: ANCIENT SWEDISH FORTRESS.] + +Thus, as I have wended my way along the Vasa and Freds Gatans and +neighboring streets, toward the fine Gustaf Adolf Torg, the chief +public square, mixing among the jostling crowds, have I felt keenly +the variant atmospheres of these Norse and Swedish lands, differences +which finding their roots in the historical development of the kindred +peoples make their present union beneath a single flag and King both +artificial and constrained. + +While on the surface and to the feeling there is apparently wide +divergence in political sentiment between the Norwegian and Swedish +peoples, yet there is in reality a closer and closer approachment +between them. The democratic notions prevailing in Norway already stir +the pulse of the Swedish peasantry and working classes--the classes +which in Sweden have no votes. Already has the demand for universal +suffrage been raised in Sweden, and sentiment inimical to aristocracy, +yunkerdom and privilege, grows continually more aggressive. An +intelligent and aristocratic Swede with whom I have discussed this +question to-day, admits this rising tide of democracy, and admits, +also, though ruefully, that not until universal suffrage shall become +established in Sweden will it be possible to come to that +understanding with the Norwegian people on which may be founded a +lasting and united Scandinavian State. Thus in Sweden itself, I hear +uttered sentiments very nearly akin to those which caught my ear when +in Copenhagen: the possibility, nay, probability, of a common +Scandinavian Union, when the peoples of Denmark and Norway and Sweden +shall federate, and the obsolete system of kingship and privilege +shall be set aside. + +[Illustration: A BAND OF SWEDISH HORSES.] + + + + +XV. + +Stockholm the Venice of the North--Life and Color of the Swedish +Capital--Manners of the People and their King. + + + STOCKHOLM, _September 13, 1902_. + +While wandering about the city I have not taken a guide. A guide or a +courier is to me always a very last resort, but I have followed the +movement of the crowd, and enjoyed the being lost in it, immersed in +it, becoming one with it, while yet so separate. I could not read the +signs, nor understand the speech. I could only see. My vision became +my one guiding sense. My eyes became abnormally alert. Color and form +and action,--I caught them all. And what I saw, my mind held fast. +Thus I wandered on through many quaint and ancient _Gatans_ (streets) +past _Plats_ and _Torgs_ (open squares), and over _Bros_ (bridges), +and yet I felt secure and well assured that, returning, I should find +my way safely back. I knew each corner of a street, each square, each +unusual sign, each building of strange design, even as at home I have +often wandered alone among the wild mountains and forests with nothing +for a guide but my eyes, the sun, and my knowledge of moss and tree. +Thus has my early training always served me well in foreign lands +and cities, where speech was strange, and I myself unknowing and +unknown. + +[Illustration: THE SHORE OF LAKE MAELAREN, STOCKHOLM.] + +My first quest was a bookstore, a map, and an English or French or +German-worded guide book, which would tell me of what I saw. By great +good luck, I happened immediately upon the object of my search. I saw +a window holding maps. I entered a small shop, and found it the +"Bureau" of the "National Tourists' Union," with German spoken +perfectly. This bureau is maintained by the enterprising citizens of +Stockholm, and for most moderate cost gives information to tourists, +and publishes a series of fine maps, showing every road and lake and +mountain and town and inn in Sweden. I bought a set of the maps and +one in particular of the city. Thus fortified I was now perfectly +equipped. + +Our few days' sojourn in Stockholm has taught me to like the Swede, +although he is quite lacking in the hearty frankness of the Norsk. +Stockholm has always been a spot where men have congregated, and has +been a city known as such these last eight centuries, ever since +Birger Jarl made it the seat of his pirate power. It holds the passage +between the lakes Maelaren, which stretch far inland and now form the +eastern section of the great Gotta system of canals reaching across +Sweden to the Kattegat and Atlantic Ocean, and the deeply indented +waters of the Baltic Sea, thus being a natural place of rendezvous and +commerce; it was a place easy of access before men had roads and +mostly traveled by boats. Here the Kings of Sweden have always set +their capital, and the history of Stockholm is the history of the +Swede himself. + +In past ages, disorders and massacres and open murders have drenched +with blood her streets and her great public squares, and Stockholm's +dungeons have their tales of horror and wickedness to tell. She was +cruel and turbulent when Sweden herself was harsh and savage, she is +now equally serene and contented under the liberal rule of enlightened +King Oscar II, and is become one of the best-ordered and most +beautiful cities of the world. By reason of the many islands within +her limits, she is called the "Venice of the North," and by reason of +her cleanliness, the substantial character of her modern buildings, +and the efficiency of her municipal government she is termed the +"Edinburgh of the Baltic." Stockholm is more scientifically advanced, +and more modernly wide-awake than are the German and English cities of +to-day. She has a fine and bountiful water supply, an elaborate and +efficient telephone system, and is probably more thoroughly and +effectively illuminated by electricity than any city in Europe. The +older quarters of the city are well paved and scrupulously clean; in +the newer sections are blocks of stately buildings of modern design, +and wide boulevards and avenues paved with asphalt and squares of +stone. Her public buildings, her numerous _Plats_ and _Torgs_ and +lovely parks are all exquisitely kept. + +We spent one delightful morning crossing the wide stone bridge of +Norrbro, and viewing the Royal Palace, the State Apartments, and +Royal Library, and the fine old church of Riddarsholm, which is the +Westminster Abbey of Sweden, her Pantheon, where lie entombed the +bones of Gustavus Adolphus and the ashes of Charles XII, and members +of the House of Vasa, along with other illustrious Swedes. The old +church is of red brick, topped by a curious wrought-iron steeple, and +is the shrine to which come all patriotic Swedes, there to contemplate +the departed glories of their fatherland. + +[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF RIDDARSHOLM.] + +Of an afternoon, we visited the famous Djurgaard (deer park) and then +went on to the park called Skansen, where are gathered a most +interesting collection illustrative of the ancient Swedish way of +living, as well as examples of the ancient industries, exemplified by +charming lively peasant girls clad in their divers Provincial +costumes. We then also climbed the tower set upon the hill, whence +spread out before us a superb vista of the city and its many islands +and surrounding waters, and wide-sweeping woods and forests. We also +crossed among the islands upon dapper electric launches which ferry +between, and then came back to dine in a fashionable restaurant under +the Grand Hotel near the quay, where were small tables, and where sat +men in dress coats and handsome women in evening dress--generally +high-necked--and we were given fresh strawberries--this September +13th--and savory mutton chops and fresh-grown peas, and fruits and +ices. + +The streets at all hours of the day and evening were astir and gay. +The many officers in blue and gray uniforms, patterned after the +German styles, the Dalecarlian girls in their picturesque bright +barred aprons and braided hair, carrying packages and bundles--the +messenger boys of the North--the blue-eyed and yellow-haired men and +women neatly and soberly clad, and the absence of all beggars--we did +not come across a single one,--the multitude of boats, great and +small, constantly moving rapidly up and down and across the many lanes +of water, all these gave animation to the city. + +The streets of Stockholm are filled with women, more like the German +towns, while, just as there, scores of sturdy men stand idly around +decked out in soldier's uniform. Rosy-cheeked young women wait upon +you in the restaurants; women armed with big brooms sweep at the +crossings; women come in from the country driving carts loaded with +produce of the farm; and women also largely "man" the small boats that +ply along the waters between the islands. Woman is here as greatly in +evidence as she is in Boston, but of a huskier, heartier type. + +Visiting the markets, I found a great profusion of strawberries, +whortleberries, blueberries and others I did not know, and withal, +most of the vegetables my Kanawha garden would yield in June. These +fruits of tree and soil are brought into the city by chunky native +horses hitched to little two-wheeled carts, which horses, when they +reach their destination, are securely halted by a strap or line +passed around their two fore fetlocks, tying the feet tight together, +a treatment an American horse would scarcely endure. + +[Illustration: NORRBRO, STOCKHOLM.] + +Another day H and I wandered across the Norrbro and beyond the Palace +and down near the Storkyrko Brink, and discovered a curious little +coffeehouse, tucked away up a flight of creaking stairs, in an ancient +building which seemed to be a counting-house below and offices above. +Here were set against the walls little mahogany tables holding three +and four, where plates were laid without a cloth, and ale and beer +were served in tall pewter mugs. We called for the foaming brown brew +and asked for _roed spoette_, our old Danish joy, and lunched +delightfully. The room was filled with big, burly, red-cheeked men, +merchants and sea captains, H thought, from what bits of conversation +she could pick up. A most substantial company they were, who evidently +came here to strike weighty bargains as well as to eat and drink and +smoke. We were doubtless lunching in a well-known and most ancient +rendezvous, much like the historic grill room I discovered in London, +called "Toms," where Dickens' and Mr. Pickwick's chairs are shown to +the visitor, and the waiter will inform you on just what sort of +kidney broil and roasted sausage each made his daily meal. + +Stockholm divides with Copenhagen the honors of being the metropolis +of the Scandinavian world, boldly asserting her superiority over +Kristiania, for she is the larger city. She is easily first in Sweden +in all save scholarship and learning--in that, Upsala, the Cornell +and Harvard of the North, holds unrivaled lead. + +The fine stores and shops, along such streets as the Dronning Gatan +and Regerings Gatan and adjacent thoroughfares, H declares quite equal +to those of Copenhagen; while in an ancient and narrow alleyway she +discovered a perfect mint of embroideries and linens, articles of +feminine apparel which rejoice her heart. + +On our last evening we attended the Royal Opera, occupying a box quite +to ourselves, where we heard good singing and well-rendered music by +the Royal Band, beheld a fashionably-dressed and intelligent-looking +audience, and were stared at by old King Oscar who sat rigid in his +box, and glared at us with a mighty black opera-glass until he had +studied each feature of the stranger guests, and by his persistence +thereby directed upon us the curiosity of every other pair of opera +glasses in the house. The example of the King was quite in accordance +with Continental custom, where the glare of opera-glasses is +astonishingly bold. Nor does the impudent stare stop at that, but in +Stockholm, just as in Paris and Berlin, between the acts very many of +the men rise up, put on their hats, turn their backs to the stage, and +deliberately focus their glasses upon the faces of every attractive +woman in the theater, no matter how near she may be, nor how annoying +this treatment may appear; and often two or three young men will then +compare notes, and unite in a common stare, bold and insolent. To +avoid this unpleasant ordeal, ladies very generally rise from their +seats, leave the theater and promenade in the foyers until the curtain +rises and the impudent glasses are put down. + +We have secured tickets and berths for the voyage to St. Petersburg +across the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland. We sail to-night, and are +to arrive on Tuesday morning, a voyage of three nights and two days, a +distance of six hundred miles. + +We have now visited the three capitals of Scandinavia, Copenhagen, +Kristiania and Stockholm, and have spent a month among these kindred +peoples. + +While I had learned in America to esteem the vigor, the intelligence +and the worth of our Scandinavian immigration, no finer race +contributing to the citizenship of the Republic, yet it has been only +when I have met the Dane and Norsk and Swede upon their native soil, +and beheld their noble cities, so alert and clean and modern, and +traversed their hills and valleys, and climbed their mountain heights +and floated upon their _fjords_, that I have learned fitly to admire +and appreciate the grandeur and greatness of Scandinavia. + + + + +XVI. + +How We Entered Russia--The Passport System--Difficult to Get Into +Russia and More Difficult to Get Out. + + + ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, _September 16, 1902_. + +It is not easy to get into Russia; it is yet more difficult to get +out. + +Before leaving the United States, I had taken due precautions and +secured a passport from the State Department, signed by Secretary Hay, +with the Great Seal of the United States upon it. In that passport I +was described. I had also provided myself with a special letter from +the State Department, in which all consuls and officials of the United +States in foreign lands had been bidden to pay particular heed to my +welfare, for I was vouched for as a worthy and respected citizen of +the Republic. + +I presumed that, armed with these credentials, I should find all doors +and gateways open to my passage. I assumed that the autocracy of the +Russian Empire would be delighted to welcome a citizen of the great +Republic, so well accredited. Imagine my surprise, when I presented +myself at the ticket office of the Russian steamship line, by which we +would travel to St. Petersburg, and was refused a ticket because I +did not then have my passport in hand, so that the ticket-seller might +duly scrutinize it! An hour later, when I again presented myself with +the passport and laid down the coin, I was a second time refused. The +passport had not been certified by the American Minister in Stockholm, +our port of departure, nor had it been _viséed_ by the Russian Consul +General of the port. + +I immediately drove to the American Ministry, a mile away, where the +Swedish clerk endorsed my passport as being genuine, and gave me a +note to the Russian official. A drive of another mile brought me to a +tall stone building, above the door of which reposed the Imperial +Eagle. Ascending two flights of stairs, I was shown into a small +ante-room, and, after waiting some time, was ushered into a large, +well-lighted chamber, where a big, round-headed, bearded man, in +Russian uniform, sat at a long table. He was writing. He did not deign +to look up. After standing some moments before this important +personage, I called his attention in my best French, to the fact that +I was there. Still he made no reply, but kept on writing. I noticed +that he was nearly to the bottom of the page; when he had finished it, +he looked up and inquired in German what I wanted. I replied in German +that I called upon him to have my passport _viséed_, and handed him +the document and the note. He read the latter and looked at the +former, but the description of my person was in English and he was +evidently stumped. He gazed at me and the paper, took up a metal +stamp, pressed it on an ink pad, made on the passport the imprint of +some Russian characters, signed his name to them, and advised me that +I was his debtor to the extent of twenty _kroners_ (about five +dollars). He then turned again to his writing. + +I had thus spent three hours in driving about the city, visiting these +officials, and now hurried to the steamship office, where on +presenting my passport duly _viséed_, I at last obtained the tickets. +Upon boarding the ship, at a later hour, we were notified to call at +the Captain's office and surrender our passports, which were then once +more verified, along with our tickets, before we cast off from the +pier. + +We left Stockholm about eight o'clock in the evening. We were a party +of four,--H and myself, and the two delightful friends whom we met +that day at Maristuen, at the head of the Laera Dal, in Norway. The +suggestions then first made had ripened into a definite plan, and we +agreed to join forces for our journey through Russia. Our friends were +Mr. and Mrs. Condit, of Chicago, and we found their ready western wit +and genial fellowship on more than one occasion of most signal aid. + +We crossed the Baltic Sea in the night, and touched at the Russian +port of Hangoe, in Finland, early Sunday morning. Here I noticed a +messenger in uniform leave the ship bearing a long iron box heavily +padlocked, and was informed that this box contained the passports of +the passengers, which he was to take to St. Petersburg by a special +Imperial train that would put him there in twenty-three hours, when +the passports would be immediately filed with the police department, +verified, recorded and given to certain other officials who would meet +our ship on its arrival at the mouth of the river Neva on Tuesday +morning, and who would examine and scrutinize us and then return them +to us. If in the meantime, we should happen to change our minds and +want to remain a few days in Finland, say at Helsingfors, we would be +liable to arrest for not having our passports now gone to St. +Petersburg. We might not change our minds or alter our itinerary. It +was now St. Petersburg or jail. + +The twilight was just fading into night when we cast off from the pier +and slowly made our way among the islands. The sail down the narrow +channel to the sea was in the light of the full moon. The myriad +electric lights of the city were blazing behind us. We passed the +black hulls of many vessels anchored in the harbor, and in turn were +passed by scores of little boats, with a big light on the foremast, +which were scurrying about carrying passengers between the islands. +Along the wooded shores were villas and country-seats, and ever and +anon, there seemed to be open clearings and farms, and then we came +into the blackness of wide waters. We were out upon the Baltic Sea. + +In the morning we were among more islands; the Aaland Archipelago; we +had had only two hours of the open sea. The sun was behind a mass of +scudding clouds, gray and threatening; and great banks of blacker +clouds were rolling up from the south. A gale was blowing--a furious +gale--which drove the waters and whirling foam wherever open space +allowed. The wind was bitterly cold, and grew ever colder, while +higher and higher rose the tempest. We were in great danger, although +at the time I did not know it. + +The steering of the Swedish pilots was skillful, and the little ship +obeyed the helm perfectly, swinging round sharp points, and traversing +narrow channels where, even in quiet waters, it is dangerous to +navigate. + +About noon we slipped in between two rocky islets, scarcely a +cable-tow's length apart, rising only a few feet above the level of +the sea, and turning sharp to port came into the rock-bound harbor of +Hangoe, a town of Finland, whence the railway goes on to Helsingfors +and St. Petersburg. + +The gale now grew into a tornado with deluges of rain, a storm so +fierce that, until it should subside, the Captain refused to leave the +protection of the port. + +Thus we lay-to at Hangoe until the dawn of the following day, when we +cast off from the long pier and plunged once more among the islands of +the Archipelago. Hundreds of islands there were, barren and +uninhabited, the big ones covered with dwarf birches, a few stunted +pines and firs, the lesser islets thick with tangled grasses, or more +often bare of all except lichens and gray moss, the vegetation of a +desolate, wintry latitude. + +[Illustration: FACING THE GALE.] + +The wind was now somewhat abated, but not so the sea. It was angry, +stirred to its depths. It was a bad day for a landsman,--a bad day +even for an old salt. Two stalwart seamen stood ever at the wheel in +addition to the pilot and our Captain, and it took all their combined +strength and skill to save us from certain wreck. The conflicting +currents churned and swirled with maelstrom violence, while we crept +steadily on among the shoals and sunken bars and hidden reefs. + +It was long past noon when we swung round a bold rocky point, and saw +before us Finland's capital, Helsingfors. The city surrounds the +harbor much like a crescent. On either horn, granite promontories jut +out into the sea, where are fortifications, one of them the formidable +fortress of Sveaborg, where we could see brown-coated Cossacks +gathered in large numbers watching our entrance to the port. A great +garrison there seemed to be, and everywhere floated the Russian +flag,--parallel stripes of white, blue and red. Russian troops not +merely man all these fortifications, but there are also soldiers +within the city itself, and more are quartered in every village of +consequence in Finland. The ancient Senate and House of Chevaliers are +no longer permitted to enact the laws. A Russian Governor-General +issues his Ukases, which the Russian bayonets are here savagely to +enforce. All this you already know, but it comes vividly upon one when +you see the Cossack, clad in his long kaftan-like military coat, +everywhere about you visible evidence of how harshly Finland has been +stripped of her rights and liberties. + +Helsingfors astonished us. Lying upon a rising slope, it presents an +imposing outline from the sea. It is a city of ninety-six thousand +people. We were not prepared for so large and substantial a city. It +has well-kept parks, well-paved streets, frequently asphalted as in +Stockholm, and blocks of big granite buildings five and six stories +high; the city is clean, and the streets are alive with well-dressed, +rosy-cheeked, vigorous people. Everywhere there are electric tram-cars +and electric lights, and on the broad thoroughfares are large and +handsome shops. It is evident that in the Finnish hinterlands there is +an extensive and well-to-do population. + +Our ship was to lie at her pier for several hours, and the passengers +were told that they might safely visit the town; if arrested for not +having passports, we might refer to the Captain of the ship. So we +wandered up along the quays, following a wide boulevard. Everywhere on +the sidewalks and driving through the streets were Russian officials +in their long gray coats and flat black caps; there were also many +soldiers upon the streets. + +Finland was once a province of Sweden, and the Teutonic Swedish +language is yet that of the educated classes, who are chiefly of +Swedish descent. In the country, however, and among the working +classes, there remains the original population of primitive Finnish +race, "The old Finns," cousins to the Hungarians, and these have a +Turanian language of their own. They have accepted for centuries the +Swedish rule and fraternized with the Swedish leaders, but have held +to their ancient tongue. Now is also the Slavonic Russian speech, by +Ukase, commanded to be the language of the schools, of the courts and +of the government. Thus the Finlander must be acquainted with three +fundamentally different tongues, and all of the streets of Helsingfors +are named in the three languages on the same placard. The Russian name +is in Greek text, then in Latin text the Swedish name, and under that +the native Finnish name; thus there is much babel of tongues in +Helsingfors, while all the Finlanders bitterly resent the brutal +attempt to substitute the Russian for their own. + +[Illustration: FISHING BOATS ALONG THE QUAY, HELSINGFORS.] + +[Illustration: THE PIER, HELSINGFORS.] + +Finland has, also, heretofore been privileged to coin her own +money,--but now the Russian _ruble_ is supreme. We had boarded a +tram-car, as modern and comfortable as those of New York, and were +whirling along the boulevard, when we tendered the conductor our fare +in Russian coin (we had provided ourselves with "_kopeeks_" and +_rubles_ before leaving Stockholm), but he declined to take the money. +He was about to stop the car and put us off, when a courtly-mannered +Finn, addressing the passengers as well as the conductor, explained +that, under the present laws, Russian money must be taken when +tendered, and that we were entitled to ride,--so H tells me, who +understood his speech, so much is it like the Danish. But the +conductor, patriot that he was, refused to touch the _ruble_ I +offered him, preferring to let us ride without making charge. If I had +been able to do so, I would have explained to our fellow-passengers +that I intended no insult, and would thus probably have restored +myself to their confidence. As it was they glowered at me as a friend +of hated Russia. + +We visited the splendid Parliament buildings, where the Finnish Senate +and House of Chevaliers have been wont to meet,--now closed forever by +the Ukase of the Czar. I understand, also, that the Finnish judges +have recently been deposed from the courts, and Russians appointed in +their stead; and we were told by a friendly Finn that so completely +are the people terrorized, that no patriot dare give open evidence of +opposition to the Russian rule. One may only detect it by the sullen, +disquieted faces of the people one meets upon the streets. In the dour +glances cast at the Russian officials I saw everywhere expression of +hatred and revenge.[1] + +[Footnote 1: The reverses of the Japanese War, the assassination of +Governor Bobrikoff and threat of revolution have at last frightened +the Russian Autocracy into partially restoring to Finland her pillaged +liberties.] + +It was middle afternoon when we set sail again. No other vessel dared +leave the port, but our Captain, being anxious to reach St. +Petersburg, decided to venture on the voyage. As soon as we emerged +from the protecting barriers of the islands at the harbor's mouth, we +came into open waters. A furious sea was running and the ship rolled +heavily. She plunged and reared and pitched, until most of the +passengers were driven to their staterooms,--indeed, so mad was now +the sea that we were told there would be no more hot coffee and hot +steak, since the cooks in the kitchen could not keep their legs, nor +could dishes be set upon the tipping tables. Those who were able to +eat might get a snack from the steward, who would hand it out--cold +fish and cheese at that. The boat rolled until her gunwales were +awash, and frequently the roaring waters swept across the decks. +Although it was a wild and dangerous night, yet the clouds were +parting and the stars were out. No grander panorama of the sea have I +looked upon than these mighty foam-capped billows--greater even than +our ship,--between which we hid, and on the summits of which we +climbed,--the angry, pitch-black waters, the star-lit firmament, and +the serene moon shining with fullest splendor. + +[Illustration: THE DOEBLN AT HER PIER, HELSINGFORS.] + +[Illustration: MARKET SQUARE, HELSINGFORS.] + +At dawn on Tuesday morning, we passed the great naval fortification of +Kronstadt, and three hours later, after threading our way among +fishing boats, were entering the canal which leads from the gulf of +Finland to the river Neva and the city of St. Petersburg. + +South and east of us, behind low shores, the land stretched away green +and flat as far as the eye could see, an apparently indefinitely +extending plain. Only the glint of a gilded oriental dome, the bulbous +cupola of a Russian village church, lightened here and there the green +monotony. Then far to the east we saw not one but many domes +glittering and flashing in the light of the lifting sun--the gilded +towers of the cathedrals and churches of the city of St. +Petersburg--then we saw a tangle of tall chimneys, then ships and +barks and schooners and enormous barges from Lake Ladoga, and immense +docks on either side. We were upon the river Neva. We were come to the +city of "Petersborg," the splendid capital of the Russian Czars. + +Just as we were entering the canal, a steam-tug came up alongside us +and a company of government officials in long gray coats climbed on +board. They were the customs inspectors and officers of the police +department. The two chief officials seated themselves at a long table. +An officer of the ship directed the passengers to form in a queue, and +one by one we appeared before the official examiner, while the Captain +called off our names, reading the list from a little book. When my +name was announced a clerk handed one of the officials a passport. It +was numbered--my name was upon it--it had been received in St. +Petersburg from the messenger who left Hangoe Sunday morning;--it had +been filed with the police department; it had been _viséed_; it had +been translated into Russian, and the official now read over the +description to his assistants;--I was scrutinized,--the passport was +found correct--the officials so endorsed it and handed it to me. The +passenger immediately behind me, seemingly, did not correspond with +his passport, and was directed to stand to one side. There were a +number of these, who were to have a difficult time with the +authorities. Our baggage was also examined, but not closely. With the +Russian official the main thing is the passport, not the baggage. + +[Illustration: A WILD SEA--LEAVING HELSINGFORS.] + +[Illustration: FISHING BOATS, MOUTH OF RIVER NEVA.] + +We were now arrived at the pier and were ready to go ashore. Two +sailors carried our small steamer trunk upon the wharf, and we were in +St. Petersburg. Instantly we were surrounded by a howling mob of +bearded, blond-headed, dressing-gown-coated men, clamoring for our +fares. They were _izvostchiks_ in their native _kaftans_. I beckoned +to one of them, and pointed to our trunk. He lifted it to his shoulder +and led us to his _droschky_,--a diminutive open vehicle, much like a +small sledge on wheels. We entered it and in a moment were galloping +through the streets of the city, the driver constantly shouting to his +horse and yelling to all foot-farers to get out of the way. I gave him +the name of our destination, Hotel de l'Europe. He seemed to +comprehend my meaning, and never drew rein until we stopped before the +imposing entrance of that hostelry. + +We were in Russia. We had run the gauntlet of the border,--our +passports had been sufficient, and we were at last safely within the +dominions of the Czar. Would it be as difficult to get out? + + + + +XVII. + +St. Petersburg--The Great Wealth of the Few--The Bitter Poverty of the +Many--Conditions Similar to Those Preceding the French Revolution.[2] + +[Footnote 2: These letters were written in the early autumn of the +year, 1902, and present a glimpse of Russia as it then appeared.] + + + GRAND HOTEL DE L'EUROPE, + ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, + _September 18 (N. S.), 1902_. + +So much has been jammed into the last two days that my pen is like to +burst. Splendor and squalor, the glitter of twentieth century +civilization, the sombre shadow of barbarism, are here entwined in +inextricable comminglement. The city is filled with stately buildings +of gigantic and imposing dimensions; with wide, straight boulevards +and streets. The sidewalks and _droschkies_ are gay with the dashing +and gaudy uniforms of innumerable soldiery, and the fine dresses of +elegant women. Yet many of these great buildings are in ill repair, +and what you at first imagine to be magnificent stone, reveals itself +to be a stucco of rotting wood and crumbling plaster; the broad +thoroughfares are abominably paved, and pitifully cared for by abject +wretches wielding dilapidated birch-stick brooms. + +[Illustration: ENTERING THE NEVA.] + +[Illustration: ALONG THE NEVA.] + +The superb horses--stallions, all of them--whirl past, driven +by _izvostchiks_ in dirty, truncated plug-hats and blue +dressing-gown-like _kaftans_, whose sodden faces tell of _vodka_ and +hopeless haplessness. Beggars swarm (frightful creatures), and the +faces of the officers, fine big men in striking uniforms, are +dissipated, hard and cruel. + +We are in a huge hotel. Big men in uniform open the door; big men in +livery fill the halls; the rooms are big, ours is immense, with double +windows, It is steam-heated, and also has hearth fires of burning +wood. The building is warmed all through, even the halls. There are +French waiters in the big dining-rooms; there is delicious food and +delightful coffee, whose aroma is very perfume of the Orient; the +beefsteaks are juicy, thick and tender. We have had no such meals +since leaving America. On each story there is an elaborate bar for +serving _vodka_ (a fierce white whisky distilled from wheat) and +drinks to the guests of that particular floor, and a single bath room, +and a single diminutive toilet for both sexes' common use. + +The moment we set foot within the doorway of the hotel, up stepped an +official, in blue and gold, and demanded our passports, and we were +requested also to sign a paper like the one enclosed, viz.: + + + NOTICE TO THE POLICE. + + Family and Christian WHERE IS YOUR PASSPORT? + Name: Signature: + Profession: Please order your passport + Age: two days before leaving + Confession: Russia. + Arrived from .......... + + +This to be at once filed with the police department, and the passport +not to be given back until we should notify the same big +official,--whose duty it was to stay right there and watch all guests +of that hotel, and who must be notified twenty-four hours before we +leave the city,--when he will return the passport two hours before the +said time set, and give it to me only upon my paying him the +government fee of ten _rubles_ (five dollars) in good yellow gold.[3] +And right outside the door of our apartments, seated at a little +table, are two officials, pen and paper in hand, who set down the hour +and the minute of the day we enter and come out. They were there when +we went to breakfast; they, or others as fox-jowled and lynx-eyed, +were also there when we returned from the theater late at night, and +they are there all through the day. Our Swedish guide, who does the +duties of courier and shows us about the great city, is also +registered at the police department, and he has to hand in every night +a written report of what he has done with us all through the day, +where we have gone, what we have seen, and we suspect even what we may +have said. On the streets, big sword-begirded policemen stand at the +intersections of the ways, pull out a little book from their pockets +and make note of our passing that particular spot at that certain +hour; at night these reports also are handed in to the central police +office to be checked up against the statements of the guide and the +spies at the hotel. + +[Footnote 3: I have subsequently learned that the legal fee is about +three _rubles_ ($1.50), the charge of ten _rubles_ being impudent +graft.] + +[Illustration: ALONG THE NEVSKY-PROSPEKT.] + +[Illustration: OUR DROSCHKY, ST. PETERSBURG.] + +We are in the capital city of the mighty Russian Empire; in the +capital created by Peter the Great amidst and upon the marshy delta of +the river Neva; a city of more than a million inhabitants; a city +spread out over vast distances; a city whose disproportionately wide +streets and boulevards are paved with wood, wood that is rotting all +the while, leaving big holes into which a horse, a team, may plunge +and disappear, because only wood will float upon the marshy mire of +the mucky islets, and stone and brick will eventually sink from sight; +a city whose top-heavy palaces and public edifices are so +treacherously set upon the sands that they must constantly undergo +costly repairs; a city builded upon foundations so unstable that the +springtime floods of the river Neva ever threaten permanently to wipe +out its very existence; a city where the palaces of the always +widening circle of the Imperial princes of the blood, and of the upper +nobility, and of the great bureaucratic chiefs, are builded with an +arrogance of dimension, an elaborateness of design, a lavishness of +cost that beats anything an American billionaire has ever tried to do, +or dreamed of doing in San Francisco or New York; and yet a city +abounding in the mean, small, log and wooden cabins of the very poor; +a city where penury and poverty and dire pinch protrude their squalid +presence in continual tragic protest against the flaunted and wanton +riot of unmeasured wealth, possessed by the very few. + +This morning as I walked upon the Nevsky Prospekt, the Broadway of the +Imperial capital, and watched the movement of mankind along the way, +and beheld the extraordinary contrasts between those who walked and +those who rode; as I saw the burly policeman arrest the shabby +foot-farer for nearly being run down, while he let the haughty grandee +drive freely on; as I beheld poverty and wealth in such flagrant +contrast, and realized that a standing army is kept ever armed and +girt to protect and uphold the privilege and security of the rich; as +I beheld the surly, sour, sombre faces of those who wore no gaudy +covering of broadcloth and gold lace, my fancy harked back to the +time, somewhat more than a century ago, when the King and Nobles of +France drove through the Rues of Paris in all their glittering +splendor, trampling down in their pride of power the pedestrian who +failed to escape from their sudden approach. How secure they felt in +their arrogant enjoyment of prerogative and rank! How contemptuously +they disdained the humble claims of the glitter-proletarian, of the +peasant on the land! Louis XIV had cried "_L'etat c'est moi._" Was +that not enough! And yet, I had stood in the Place de la Concorde, +almost on the very spot where, inspired by the hatred of the +Sansculottes, Mademoiselle La Guillotine had bit off the dull head of +Louis XVI, and cut through the fair throat of Marie Antoinette. + +It may be possible for Russia and her governing men, her Bureaucratic +Autocracy, yet a little while to postpone the fateful hour. By means +of foreign wars it may be possible to play the old game of diverting +the public mind from its own bitter ills; by promises of fair and +liberal dealing it may be possible to calm the public mind--cajole it +until the promises are duly broken, as is invariably the case. +Whatever fair-speaking and fat-feeding officialdom may to the contrary +assert, the impression I gain amidst all this splendor and pomp and +glare of supreme, concentered power of the few is that, beneath this +opulent exterior, deep down in the hearts and even below the conscious +working of their minds, there to-day abides among the masses of the +Russian people--who after all hold in their hands the final power--a +profound and monstrous discontent: a discontent so deep-rooted and so +intense that when the inevitable hour strikes, as strike it must, the +world will then behold in Russia a saturnalia of blood and tears, a +squaring of ten centuries' accounts, more fraught with human anguish +and human joy than ever dreamed a Marat and a Robespierre, more +direful and more glad than yet mankind have known. + +We drove about the city like grandees. Our _landau_ was just such as +Russian nobles like best to use; our splendid pair of sorrel stallions +pranced upon their heels and neighed and ran just as all nobles' +horses should; and our well-distended driver, of enormous and +deftly-padded girth, sat belted with a big embroidered band, and +guided the horses he never dreamed to hold, and helloed loudly to +those who did not fly out of the way, just as would any driver of the +Blood! We almost ran over some slow-moving man or woman, foot-weary +wretch, at every crossing of a street! + +Many palaces and public buildings we visited--enormous edifices, all +of them, with innumerable and extensive halls and immense chambers +finished in gold and alabaster and gaudy hues, with countless servants +and lackeys in livery and lace, gold lace, to care for them, and watch +over them, and fatten upon a government graft or easy-gotten fee. +Suites of enormous apartments they were, which are never used and +never are likely to be used. + +The paintings of the great masters collected in the galleries of the +Hermitage and Winter Palaces, accumulated by the Czars, are among the +most renowned in Europe. The reception halls and audience chambers and +ballrooms and dining halls of these palaces are designed and intended +to dazzle and impress whosoever are given the chance of beholding +them. At the same time, the library and study of the late Czar, +Alexander III, is a small and plainly furnished room, with the +atmosphere and markings of a man of simple tastes, who laboriously +worked, worked as no other official of the Bureaucracy in Russia +pretends to work. + +[Illustration: OUR SQUEALING STALLIONS.] + +[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY OF KAZAN.] + +We traversed the suites of apartments used by the Imperial family, +when sojourning in St. Petersburg during those portions of the winter +season when the court there gathers, and we noted the outer guardrooms +where night and day stand the faithful watchers with sleepless vigil, +and we realized, perhaps for the first time, that this man, so steeped +in power, is after all but a prisoner of the system which locks him in +and binds him fast and robs him of that independence of action which +you and I enjoy. He is become but a creature of the great machine that +governs, a slave of the system which Peter the Great set up for the +furtherance of his Imperial will, a system of government which has so +developed and spread out that to-day the Czar of all the Russias is +merely the puppet of its will, the tool of the greedy, grasping, +intriguing, governing Bureaucracy. + +On approaching the city, our straining eyes first caught sight of the +gilded, glittering domes and spires of the great cathedrals and +churches with which it is so abundantly supplied. The domes of St. +Isaac, of our Lady of Kazan, of Alexander Nevsky, and the spires of +St. Peter and St. Paul, each and all told us that whatever else we +might discover, we were yet entering a city and a land where the +people counted not the cost of the splendid housing of their faith. +And so we have found it. The wealth of gold and of silver, of precious +stones and of priceless stuffs with which these churches are adorned +and crammed, excels anything of which the western brain has ever +dreamed. Each great church is famed and honored for its particular +beneficence, its peculiar holiness, and to each one comes in +procession perpetual an innumerable throng to pray and worship and to +receive the blessings flowing from that especial fane. Even in the +ancient log cabin, said to be the actual house erected by Peter +himself, is established a shrine, where priests continuously intone +the beautiful service of the Russian church and where thousands of +devoted worshipers swarm in and out all the day long, and the night as +well, praying to Imperial Peter's now sainted ghost. + +In the noble chamber of the golden-spired cathedral of St. Peter and +St. Paul lie the white marble tombs of the Romanoffs, where is also +kept up throughout the day and night yet another sumptuous service for +the repose of the souls of the illustrious dead. In the great +monastery of Alexander Nevsky is each day maintained a simple and +splendid choral service which multitudes attend, and where the +melancholy Gregorian chanting and intoning of the black-robed +long-bearded monks reveal new organ stops in the human voice. + +Naturally, an American has great sympathy for the Russian people +who have so little, while he has so much. In America we send our girls +and boys to school as a matter of course. Here in the ornate center of +autocracy, I have seen no building that I recognized as a common +school, nor in Russia is there such a system, as we know it. + +[Illustration: OUR IZVOSTCHIK.] + +To the western mind three things stand out above all else in Russia: + +(1) The concentrated wealth and privilege of the few--the big grafters +who have seized it all. + +(2) The opulence and extraordinary power of that ecclesiastical +organization, the "Holy Orthodox Church" itself an engine of the +autocratic rule,--used to cover atrocious authority with gilded +cassock and priestly cope. + +(3) The profound poverty and hopeless subserviency of the Russian +people--those who are robbed and ruined by the grafters and hoodooed +by the Church. + + + + +XVIII. + +En Route to Moscow--Under Military Guard--Suspected of Designs on Life +of the Czar. + + + MOSCOW, RUSSIA, _September 19, 1902, 10 P. M._ + +We took the Imperial Mail train as determined. Foreign travelers +generally journey by the night express, which arrives at Moscow only +an hour behind the Imperial Mail, but it leaves St. Petersburg at so +late an hour that there is little chance to see the country traversed. +We made up our minds to take the more democratic train, which goes in +the middle afternoon and stops at all way-stations. This would give us +an opportunity to see more of the people as well as a longer season of +daylight to watch the passing panorama of the land. We knew no reason +why we should not take the train of our choice. It was true that our +guide urged us to go by the night express. It was also true, when I +presented my passport to the ticket agent at the railway station, the +day before, and requested tickets, that he advised us to make the +journey by the night express, nor would he at first agree to sell us +tickets by the Imperial Mail, but told us to come back again two hours +later, when he would let us know whether there were any berths +unsold in the train's through sleeper. It was also true that when we +returned, he again advised us to take the night express. But our minds +were made up, and we at last secured the tickets we wanted, and became +entitled to an entire stateroom upon a designated car. + +[Illustration: OUR LANDAU, ST. PETERSBURG.] + +When we left the Hotel de l'Europe, the government official to whom I +had returned my passport, after having bought my tickets, emerged from +his office, received graciously his ten _rubles_, and again handed me +the document; the sundry flunkies in liveries and spies in uniforms +obsequiously bowed us out of the establishment, and our very competent +guide immediately packed us into several _droschkies_ and galloped us +along the Nevsky Prospekt to the huge government station of the +railway running to Moscow. The instant our _izvostchiks_ brought their +horses to a stop, we were surrounded by a swarm of porters clad in +white tunic aprons and flat caps, who seized our bags, and preceded us +through the large waiting room to the gates admitting to the train +platform. Here our tickets were scrutinized, and a group of uniformed +officials, who seemed to be awaiting us, informed us that the car in +which our stateroom had been sold being already filled, another +stateroom in another car was placed at our disposal. They then led the +way to the front of the long train, and showed us into a large +combined sleeper-and-chair car immediately back of the engine. Several +soldiers were standing guard near by. We were evidently expected and +were especially provided for. We almost had the car to ourselves. The +only other passengers were a Russian officer and his orderly. We were +at the head of a train made up mostly of mail cars locked and sealed, +having at the rear several passenger coaches. But we were separated +from all these latter, and we seemed to be objects of unusual +interest. Many strange faces flattened against our windows, peering in +at us, and the orderly locked up with us never took his eyes away from +us. This did not annoy me, however, for I presumed he was admiring the +beauty of our American women. + +The train was a long one,--and such huge cars. The Russian gauge is +five feet, the cars are long, and half as big and wide again as are +the American cars, and are heated by steam, having double windows +prepared against the cold. We had secured a whole compartment in which +the two seats, facing each other, pull out and the backs lift up, +making four berths, two lower, two upper, placed cross-wise. You pay +one _ruble_ (fifty cents) for blankets, sheets and towels. We put H +and Mrs. C in the lower berths. Mr. C and I took the uppers. The car +had only two more staterooms, one on each side of our own, and then a +large drawing-room with reclining chairs. The stateroom ahead of us +was occupied by the officer; his orderly slept on a chair in the +salon. In the stateroom behind us were two railway guards. After we +entered the car, the door was closed and locked by an official who +stood on the outside. The officer and his orderly were locked in +with us. Our trunk was checked through to Moscow by the guide, very +much as we would have done it at home. He gave me the check, and I +paid him his last _pourboire_ before we entered. This was the only +daily local train going southeastward, and whoever would leave St. +Petersburg for the way stations must travel by it. + +[Illustration: A NOBLE'S TROIKA.] + +[Illustration: THE RAILWAY PORTERS, ST. PETERSBURG.] + +Our first impression, after leaving the city, was that of the flatness +and the vacantness of the land; the landscape was marked here and +there with insignificant timber, birches, firs and wide reaches of +tangled grasses, and seemed uninhabited. There were no sheep, no hogs, +no goats. Occasionally we saw herds of cattle and some horses, but +very little tillage anywhere. The few houses, mostly low built, were +of small-sized logs, or slabs. Towns and villages were few and far +apart. In the towns were rambling wooden buildings, all just alike; in +the villages were log and wooden cabins, scattered along a single wide +street, and these streets were deep mud and mire from door to door. +Here and there was a wooden church painted green, with onion-shaped +steeple gilded or painted white, but there were no schoolhouses +anywhere. At all the railroad stations were many soldiers, and +dull-looking, shock-headed peasants, men clad in sheepskin overcoats +with the wool inside, and women in short skirts wearing men's boots, +or with their legs wrapped in dirty cotton cloth tied on with strings, +their feet bound up in twisted straw. It was a desolate, monotonous, +dreary, sombre land. We saw no smiling faces anywhere, but always +were the corners of the mouth drawn down. Now and then we passed a +large town, with a commodious, well-built station of brick and stone. +Here and there we saw huge factories and mills, all belonging to the +government of the Czar. + +We stopped at Lubin for supper. The guard unlocked our car, opened the +door and pointed to the station, where we found a monster eatingroom +with huge lunch counters on either side and long rows of tables down +the middle. Everybody was standing up; there were no seats anywhere. +Hot soft drinks were served at the side counters and smoking coffee +and tall glasses of hot, clear tea. The Russian swallows only hot +drinks and eats only hot foods. On the center tables, set above spirit +lamps, were hot dishes with big metal covers. There were glasses of +hot drink for a few _kopeeks_, which the Russian pours down all at +once. Taking a plate from a pile standing ready, you help yourself to +what victuals you choose. There were hot doughnuts with hashed meat +inside, hot apple dumplings, hot juicy steaks, hot stews, hot fish; +all _H-O-T_. When you have eaten your fill, you pay your bill at a +counter near the entrance, according to your own reckoning. The +Russian is honest in little things, and nobody doubts your word or +questions the correctness of your payment. The eatingroom was full of +big, tall, robust, fair-haired, blue-eyed men and a few women. The +Russian is big himself, he likes big things, he thinks on big lines, +he sees with wide vision, too wide almost to be practical. Hanging +around the station were groups of unkempt, dirty peasants. We see such +groups of gaping peasants at every station, always a hopeless look of +"don't care" in their eyes. + +The train ran smoothly and we slept well. All Russian cars are set on +trucks, American fashion, and there is no jarring and bouncing as in +England's truckless carriages. We traveled over an almost straight +roadway, traversing the Valdai hills, the brooks and rivulets of +which, uniting, give rise to the mighty Volga, and crossing the river +passed through the city of Tver during the night. It was just daylight +when I awoke. I at once arose, and then waked Mr. C and afterward we +aroused the ladies. A different military officer and a different +orderly were now traveling in our car. The officer seemed to have kept +vigil in the compartment ahead of our own. When I came out of the +stateroom, he was standing smoking a cigarette in the aisle just +outside our door. When I went to the toilet-room he followed me and +then returned to the door of our stateroom. He watched us all, even +standing guard at the door of the toilet-room when occupied by the +ladies. We were evidently in his charge. Later, I made acquaintance +with him, accosting him in German, to which he readily replied. He was +a medium-sized, wiry man with dark hair and eyes, close-cropped beard +and long moustaches. He was a "lieutenant-colonel of infantry," he +said. + +The night before, as we rode along, we noticed many soldiers gathered +everywhere at the stations. Now there were none, but instead there was +a soldier pacing up and down each side of the track, a soldier every +sixteen seconds! His gun was on his shoulder. He wore a long brown +overcoat reaching to his heels, and a vizored brown cap. At all the +bridges there were several soldiers, at each culvert two. After a few +miles of soldiers, I commented on this, to me, extraordinary +spectacle, and asked the colonel what it meant. "Do you not know," he +said, "the Czar is coming in half an hour? He is returning from the +autumn manoeuvers in the south!" Presently, we drew in on a siding. I +wanted to go out with my kodak and take a snapshot. He said, "_Es ist +verboten_ (It is forbidden). You cannot go out." He then asked to see +my kodak, which he examined with the greatest care, taking it quite +apart. He then handed it back to me saying, apologetically, "Bombs +have been carried in kodak cases, you know." Soon we heard the roar of +an approaching train. The ladies pressed to the windows. The uniformed +attendant stepped up and pulled down the shades right in their faces. +I demurred to this and appealed to the colonel, who then directed the +guard to raise the curtains, seeming to censure him in Russian. The +ladies might look. A train of dark purple cars richly gilded flashed +by. Was it the Czar? No! Only the Court. Another train just like the +first would follow in half an hour and the Czar would be on that. But +none of the public might know on which train he would ride. The +colonel turned to me and said, "You kill Presidents in America. We +would protect our Czars here! We also have Anarchists." + +[Illustration: THE HOLY SAVIOR GATE. KREMLIN.] + +[Illustration: OUR MILITARY GUARD BARGAINING FOR APPLES.] + +I could not forbear remarking upon the excessive number of men in +uniforms, soldiers apparently, I met everywhere in Russia, as well as +the great expanse of vacant land, saying to him, "You have too many +soldiers in Russia. You should have fewer men in the army and more men +out on the land tilling the soil and supporting themselves. It is +unfair to those who work to be compelled to feed so many idle mouths." +He answered me frankly. He said, "It is necessary to have these +soldiers. The peasants are ignorant. We take their young men and make +soldiers and good citizens out of them. The army is a school of +instruction; it is there the peasant learns to be loyal and to shoot." +And then he said with emphasis, "Ah! In America you don't need to +learn to shoot, you are like the Boers, you all know how to shoot," +which view of American dexterity, I, of course, readily acceded to. +And when I asked him why it was there were no schools or schoolhouses +in all this journey, he replied that it was useless to build schools +for the peasant, for he did not wish to learn. He had no desire to +improve. "You in America," he said, "are every year receiving the +energetic young men of all Europe. You are constantly recruiting with +the vigor and energy of the world. You can afford to have schools. +Your people want schools, but the Russian people want no schools. They +will not learn, they will not change, and no young men ever come to +Russia. We receive no help from the outside. Nobody comes here. +Nobody. Nobody (_Niemand, Niemand_). We have always the peasant, +always the peasant (_Immer der Bauer_)." And then he asked me about +President Roosevelt, and inquired whether he would succeed himself for +a second term, remarking that "Mr. Roosevelt was greatly admired by +the Russian army." "The Russian army sees in your President Roosevelt +a great man," he said, then added, "in France the Jews and financiers +set up a President, but in America you choose a man who is a man." We +became very good friends, and he accepted from me an American cigar, +one of a few I had brought along and saved for an emergency. At +subsequent stations he allowed me to get out in his company, and even +let me take his picture along with some of the other officers who +stood about. The Czar had passed. The weight of responsibility was off +his shoulders, he had discovered no evidence of our being +conspirators. He now treated us as friends. He even directed the car +attendant to clean from the windows their accumulated dust. + +During all the early hours of the morning we came through the same +flat, desolate, uninhabited country. It was a landscape of profound +monotony, with the dark green of the firs, the frosted yellow of the +birches, the withering browns of the tangled grasses, the black and +sodden soil. Even the crows were dressed in melancholy gray. + +[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF THE ASSUMPTION, KREMLIN.] + +[Illustration: ALONG THE GOSTINOI DVOR, MOSCOW.] + + + + +XIX. + +Our Arrival at Moscow--Splendor and Squalor--Enlightenment and +Superstition--Russia Asiatic Rather Than European. + + + MOSCOW, RUSSIA, _September 20, 1902_. + +It was toward ten o'clock when we drew near the suburbs of Moscow, a +city of more than a million inhabitants. We saw straggling wooden +houses, mostly unpainted, rarely ever more than one story high, and +unpaved streets filled with country wagons, not the great two-wheeled +carts of France, but long, low, four-wheeled wagons with horses +pulling singly, or hitched three and four abreast; and I noted that +the thills and traces of these wagons were fastened to the projecting +axles of the fore wheels, the pull being thus directly on the axle, so +as to lift the wheel out of the ever present mud holes. So universal +has become this method of hitching up a wagon that I observed it even +used on the vehicles in the cities where the streets are paved. Men in +high boots and sheepskin coats and felt caps were walking beside the +wagons, cracking long whips. The roads appeared to be frightful +sloughs of bottomless mire. + +Our train drew into a long, low, brick station, the Nicholas Depot. +The door of the car was unlocked, porters came in and seized our +bags, and we followed them. Our military escort did not even deign to +say good-bye. He was writing up his note book and seemingly +preoccupied. The instant we emerged from the station portal we were +surrounded by a mob of roaring_izvostchiks_; a pandemonium. We picked +out two of the cleaner-looking _droschkies_; the porters who had taken +our checks came with the trunks on their shoulders, and we started off +for our hotel. Although a dozen _izvostchiks_ will wrangle and war for +your custom, until you fear for your very life, yet the instant you +pick your man, the others retire and peace reigns. There is no attempt +to make you change your mind. + +The sky was overcast, drops of rain were falling, and there had been +more rain earlier in the day. The cobble-paved streets were thickly +overlaid with mud. Surely, they had never been cleaned in a century! +Moscow is a city of low, one and two story buildings, generally of +stone or stucco, but there are many of wood. It is a city full of reek +and accumulated filth, and is apparently without sewers, or with +sewers badly laid and long ago choked up. It is a city of narrow +streets with many turns, and narrow sidewalks or none at all. It is an +old city, the ways and alleys and streets of which have grown up as +they would. The people we met were ill-clad, unwashed, unkempt, +wild-eyed, shock-polled, dull-faced. They were a meaner multitude of +men and women than I had ever before set eyes upon. + +"Hotel Berlin" we said to our _izvostchiks_. The word "Berlin" they +seemed to comprehend, and they brought us safely to our destination. +It is a comfortable inn, on the Rojdestvensky way, kept by a Jew, and +recommended to us by the Swiss Concierge of the St. Petersburg hotel. +"It is the hotel where the drummers go," he said. We had learned long +ago that "where the drummers go," is where the best table will be +found, for the world over, the drummer loves a knowing cook. So we +went to the Hotel Berlin. We were there received by a little +weazen-faced, black-eyed, dried-up man, who spoke in voluble German +and broken English. "The police had notified him that we would come!" +he said. He told us that "He had once lived in London!"--and declared +that his rooms were exactly what we wanted, and his table "the best in +Moscow." He also confided to us that he was "fortunate in having at +hand, immediately at hand, and now at our service, the most skilled +and intelligent guide in Moscow, who would be delighted to serve us, +who was altogether at our disposal and whose charge would be 'only ten +_rubles_ a day,' and the guide 'talked English.'" We thanked our host, +took the rooms and accepted the guide. We have now been in Moscow +several days, and the guide has been faithful. He vows he has been +twice in Chicago. He says he is from Hungary and he talks excellent +German, but Mr. C, who himself hails from Chicago, is quite unable to +comprehend the English of his speech. Only my knowledge of German has +saved the guide his _rubles_. Moreover, his remembrance of Chicago is +indistinct, as well as of New York. Indeed, his knowledge of America +we are fain to believe is altogether hearsay. The nighest he has been +to Chicago, we surmise, was when a few years ago he "bought Astrakhan +lamb skins at Nijni Novo Gorod for Marshall Field & Company," whose +agent we believe he may really then have been. He is now married to a +Russian, and it is many years since he has been back to Hungary, nor +does he have much occasion to talk German or English, except when he +is acting as guide to Americans. Mr. C now and then forgets and +attempts to use American speech in conversation with him, when there +is entanglement. I am appealed to in German, the difficulty is cleared +up, and so we get on. + +To-day, we have taken a _landau_ and have driven all about the city. +Just how shall I describe this strange commingling of past and +present; of sumptuous splendor and squalor profounder than any seen in +St. Petersburg; of modern intelligence and mediaeval superstition; +this city which contains a Gostinnoi Dvor, a magnificent building of +white stone, extending over many blocks, a bazaar of six thousand +shops, with a single steel and glass vaulted roof covering the entire +immense series of structures as well as all included streets; this +city of beautiful stores, displaying the costliest products of London, +of Paris and New York; which is lit with electric lights equal to +Berlin, and provided with a telephone service superior to that of +London; this city where right alongside this modern bazaar, the +handiwork of Chicago builders, stand the towers and ramparts of the +ancient Kremlin; a city where at every corner of every street, swarm +bowing multitudes worshiping before the innumerable Eikons. + +[Illustration: BEGGING PILGRIMS, ST. BASIL.] + +[Illustration: THE RED SQUARE, MOSCOW.] + +A strange and curious sight it is to see a street packed with people +all bowing to a little picture stuck up in the wall. The Eikon to the +Russian is even more important than the Czar. He wears a miniature +Eikon hung about his neck as a sort of amulet. He puts an Eikon in his +house, in his shop, along his streets, and builds cathedrals and +lavishes fortunes to house and adorn them. Indeed, Russia might be +fitly termed the land of the Eikon, for there, as nowhere else in all +the world, has a simple picture been exalted to become an object of +worship. The Greek church allows no images. One of the serious causes +of the great schism with Rome in the eleventh and twelfth centuries +was the strict interpretation by the Eastern Church of the injunction +of the II Commandment, "Thou shalt make no graven images," wherefore +they declared the Roman practice rank idolatry, but to the sacred +pictures they gave their sanction. These Eikons are mostly painted in +the monasteries by monks of recognized holy lives. They are paintings +of the Christ, or of a Saint, sometimes the Virgin Mary and the Christ +Child together, and are often so overlaid with gold and jewels--tens +of thousands of dollars worth of jewels--that only the eyes and the +face may be seen, the draperies of the person being scrupulously +imitated and concealed by the overlaid plates of gold. + +This afternoon we saw a big, black, hearse-like carriage drawn by six +black horses, harnessed three abreast, accompanied by priests, to +which all the people took off their hats and bowed and crossed +themselves as it passed along. It was an Eikon being carried to the +death-bed of some penitent, who would be permitted to kiss it before +death. Sometimes these Eikons work miracles and the dying sinner +begins to recover so soon as it enters the room. All Russians keep +Eikons in their homes, and generally have one in every room, before +which a little candle is kept perpetually burning. And when a Russian +enters a house, he at once goes to the family Eikon and bows and +crosses himself before he greets his host. To ignore the Eikon would +be an unpardonable offense. In St. Petersburg we procured a copy of +the famous Eikon which reposes in the little chapel of the house of +Peter the Great, the portrait of St. Alexander Nevsky, which Peter +always carried with him into battle, and to the power of which he +attributed the victory of Pultova. The beautiful cathedral dedicated +to "Our Lady of Kazan," upon the Nevsky Prospekt, in St. Petersburg, +was erected in honor of victories brought to Russian arms by the +miraculous influence of her Eikon. The Russian lives in an atmosphere +of Eikons, and it takes a quick eye and an agile hand to doff your +hat and properly bow, as the Russian always does, whenever you pass by +one. + +[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF ST. BASIL THE BLESSED, MOSCOW.] + +In this city of contrasts, in sight of the modern Gostinnoi Dvor, I +must take off my hat in going through a "Holy Gate," and every man, +woman and child I here meet are crossing themselves and bowing as they +pass along! In Mexico you do not feel so surprised at the superstition +of the Indian! But these are white men with blue eyes and yellow hair! +This is a city which contains so splendid an edifice as the monster +cathedral of Saint Savior, a pile of wonderful beauty, built of white +granite, and domed with five gigantic onion-shaped, cross-topped +cupolas, all sheathed in plates of solid gold; it is a city which +contains four hundred and fifty churches, five hundred chapels, and +convents and monasteries, how many I dare not say, all of them +begolded and bejeweled inside and out with barbaric emblazonry. And +yet it is a city, the streets of which are as ill-paved and as +stinking as were London's five hundred years ago; a city where trade +and enterprise are throttled by arbitrary and excessive taxation, +while the common people have no schools, even as they have no votes. + +We had just left the Imperial palace of the Kremlin, the most gorgeous +edifice my eyes have ever looked upon, where I had beheld such +chambers of gold and precious jewels and priceless tapestry, as one +only reads about in the Tales of the Arabian Nights; where the vast +Hall of St. George in the Czar's new palace is plated with gold from +floor to ceiling, and the ceiling is altogether of gold; where is gold +along the walls, panels of alabaster showing in between, ivory finish +and gold, gold and lapis lazuli, gold and emerald malachite, gold in +leaf, gold in heavy plate--gold everywhere. We were but the moment +come out from this stupendous display of riches. We had just passed +through the Holy Savior Gate. Our senses were still dazzled with this +excess of reckless magnificence, when we found ourselves upon the Red +Square--"Red" because of the human blood spilled there in the +countless massacres of Moscow's citizens by past Czars,--amidst the +swarming throngs of the abjectly poor; men and women, pinched-faced +and hollow-eyed; men and women who toil with patient, dull, dumb +hopelessness, and who are thankful to eat black bread through all +their lives, who are become mere human brutes! We saw many groups of +these, gnawing chunks of the black bread for their dinner with all the +zest of famished wolves, while they bowed and crossed themselves +incessantly, thanking God that they were indeed alive! + +The wanton luxury of the rich, the pinching poverty of the poor, so +widespread, so universal in Russia, appal and shock me upon every +hand. What are the political and social conditions which let these +things be possible is the query which constantly hammers on my brain! +Until to-day, I have never understood the light and shadow of Roman +history, nor what manner of men made up the hosts and hordes of Alaric +and of Attila. Here, you see the whole story right upon these +streets. + +We have not only visited the Kremlin, its cathedrals and its palaces, +its museums and its buildings of note, but we have also stood before +and gazed upon that wonder of all churches, the cathedral of St. +Basil, the weird and gorgeous creation of Vassili Blagenoi, and +lasting monument to the artistic sense of that monster-tyrant, Ivan +the IV, called the "Terrible." + +In the cathedral of the Archangel Michael, within the sacred precincts +of the Kremlin, lie now their coffins side by side, costly coverings +of gold-bespangled velvet enshrouding each; a strange example of the +equality of death. The story runs: so delighted was Ivan with the +extraordinary and curious beauty of Vassili's creation, that he gave a +sumptuous banquet in his honor within the Imperial palace and there, +lavishly bepraising him before the assembled company, declared that it +were impossible for human mind to create another building so wonderful +in all the world. Whereupon turning to Vassili, he inquired of the +flattered and delighted architect whether this declaration were not +the truth. The gratified creator of the wonderful cathedral is said to +have replied, "Ah, Sire, give me the money and I will build you +another a thousand times more beautiful than the poor work I have +already done." Hearing this, the Terrible Ivan turned to his headsman +who stood ever handy at his elbow, and ordered Vassili's eyes to be +immediately burnt out with red-hot irons, in order, as he declared, +that there should never be again created so splendid an edifice; then, +Vassili dying as a result of the operation, Ivan ordered a magnificent +funeral and directed that the body be laid within the consecrated +chamber of the cathedral, among the princes of the blood, where even +to-day it yet remains. + +Our Hungarian guide vowed that this tale was the literal truth, +pointing to the coffin which lay at our feet, among the relics of the +house of Rurik, as evidence incontrovertible. Nor did we presume to +doubt this instance of Ivan's cruelty, so thick spotted are the pages +of history with a thousand other instances of his devilish acts. + +Ivan loved the sight and smell of blood. As a boy he delighted to +torture domestic animals, and to ride down old women when he caught +them on the streets. As a man, he had the Archbishop of Novogorod sewn +up in the skins of wild beasts and thrown to savage dogs; frequently +he dispatched his enemies with his own sword, and he publicly murdered +his eldest son, the Czarevitch. No malevolent scheme of the human mind +was too cruel for his enjoyment. By him entire cities were devoted to +destruction on the most trifling pretext. For one instance, the +inhabitants of the commercial towns of Novogorod (sixty thousand in +Novogorod alone) and of Tver and of Klin were massacred in cold blood +under his personal supervision. He was more cruel than Nero or +Caligula, and compared with the appalling atrocities of his reign, +Louis XI and Ferdinand VII were gentle kings. + +[Illustration: ANCIENT PAVEMENTS, MOSCOW.] + +[Illustration: BREAD VENDORS, MOSCOW.] + +His presumption was equal to his cruelty, and he did not hesitate to +send his Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth to offer her the privilege of +becoming his eighth bride. History knows no such other monster as Ivan +the Terrible, who was undoubtedly mad; and yet he built beautiful +churches and palaces, and did more to encourage art and culture within +the confines of the empire than any other of the Russian Czars. + +We have also driven about the city and viewed the public buildings, +the shops and the markets, and this afternoon have come out across the +river Moskva, and climbed the hills of Vorobievy Gory, the "Sparrow +Hills,"--from the heights of which Napoleon, on that memorable +fourteenth day of September, 1812, fresh from the victory of Borodino, +first viewed the city. In superb panorama, Holy Moscow lay stretched +before us, its towers, its spires, its red and green and blue and +yellow walls and roofs, its golden domes, presenting a most sumptuous +harmony of color to the delighted eye. + +While St. Petersburg is the political capital, yet Moscow is the real +center of Russia. Here is the focus of Russia's industrial, +commercial, financial and religious life. Her "Chinese Bank" cashes +notes on Kashgar and Pekin, and sells bills of exchange upon their +banks in return. The street-life of this most Russian city, the coming +and going of its people, the commingling of these divers tribes and +races, strikingly illustrates the heterogeneous character of the +cumbrous empire. Here pass me by the blue-eyed, tow-polled _mujiks_ +from the provinces; here I meet, face to face, the swarthy skins which +tell of Tiflis and of Teheran; here I touch elbows with kaftan-gowned +traders from Merv and Samarkand, and silk-clad Chinese merchants from +the distant East. + +As I stroll along the Nickols-Skaia, the Iliinka-Skaia, or the +Rojdestvensky Boulevard, and catch the glances of these faces which +stare upon me with constant grave suspicion, doubtful, perchance, +whether I am a foreign spy in bureaucratic employ, or a stranger +friendly to the held-down people, I am musing upon the curious +interweaving of science and superstition, of modern and mediaeval +custom, which I here behold, and I ponder how work the hearts and +minds behind these masks which alone I see. Profound suspicion and +discontent is the impression I receive. Nowhere do I note a single +instance of that joyous hopefulness which marks men's faces in +America. The eye which here looks into mine has about it a gaze not +frank and sunny, but furtive and melancholy as that of a chained-up +wolf. Gradually I am beginning to comprehend that the men I look upon, +although clothed in the veneer of twentieth century civilization, are +nevertheless in mind and heart barbarians,--barbarians chafing beneath +the bitter burden of the hateful auto-bureaucratic rule; they are +Asiatic rather than European; even in discontent they lack the +open-mindedness of the West; they belong to the mysterious and +inscrutable peoples of the East. Napoleon's saying, "Scratch a Russian +and you will find a Tartar," now comes to me with redoubled force. + +[Illustration: THE KREMLIN BEYOND THE MOSKVA.] + +Despite the French telephones and the Chicago-built Bazaar, despite +the splendid churches and the gorgeous Kremlin, I perceive that these +Russians are yet the same as when Byzantium sent St. Cyril and his +monks to Christianize their savage ancestors thirteen centuries ago. + + + + +XX. + +The Splendid Pageant of the Russian Mass--The Separateness of Russian +Religious Feeling From Modern Thought--Russia Mediaeval and Pagan. + + + MOSCOW, RUSSIA, _September 21, 1902_. + +We have just been leaning over a guard rail of burnished brass, +peering down into the half twilight gloom, beholding ten thousand +Russian men and women bending their swaying bodies, as a wheat field +bends before the wind, crossing themselves in feverish fervor, even +bowing the forehead to the marble floor and kissing it rapturously in +the solemn celebration of the mass. + +We drove in a _landau_,--all four of us and our Hungarian +guide,--through the narrow, crowded streets. "Drove," I say! Rather I +should say whirled, behind two mighty black Arab stallions, which no +man might hold, but only guide, and we never slackened our pace until +we dashed up to the great white granite stairway of the vast cathedral +of Saint Savior. Our Russian driver yelled, men and vehicles fled from +our path, and yet we ran over no one, we killed no one! Our furious +horses stopped short on their haunches. Two Russian soldiers now +held them by their heads. We drove like nobles. We must be grandees! + +[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF ST. SAVIOR, MOSCOW.] + +The cathedral of Saint Savior has been nearly a century in building. +Founded in commemoration of the defeat of Napoleon in 1812, it has +been slowly raised by means of the multitudinous contributions of the +Russian people. It is a square cross in outline, as lofty as the +capitol at Washington, and surmounted by five oriental domes, the +central one bigger than the other four, all topped with Greek crosses, +and all covered with plates of solid gold, the burnished glittering +splendor of which dazzle the eyes long miles away. Within, the +interior is tiled with rare marbles of divers colors, while the walls +are decorated with priceless paintings by the most illustrious Russian +artists of the century, done by them at the command of the Czar, with +pillars of malachite and lapis lazuli, green and blue, standing +between the splendid pictures. There are altars of solid silver +covered with rare embroideries of gold and emblazoned with precious +stones. Close by each altar rests an Eikon. + +A soldier in gold lace uniform opened our carriage door. He led us up +the long flight of white steps--white in the golden sunlight--and +pushed his way and ours through the bowing, crossing, sweating, +stinking (the Russian really never takes a bath) thousands, who, like +ourselves, sought to enter the precincts of the most magnificent +cathedral of "Holy Russia." We jostled against rich merchants and +their wives clad in splendid furs and silks and adorned with many +jewels; against military officers in long gray coats, high boots and +caps of astrakhan wool or fur; and peasants, in sheepskin coats, +belted at the waist, their legs wrapped in cotton cloth tied with +leathern thongs, their feet bound up in straw. These farmers from the +country are too poor to afford the luxury of socks and shoes. Through +all these the soldier with our _pourboire_ in his hand, forced his +way--not always gently--and led us up a winding flight of one hundred +steps to the series of galleries which run round the immense interior. +Here he again forced back the press of people until we might lean over +the great brass rail and gaze down below! And what a spectacle! There, +were ten thousand, twenty thousand,--I dare not say how many, men and +women; all standing; all bowing; all devoutly responding to the +intoning of the priests! Three hundred men and boys clad in red and +purple and golden vestments were chanting the melancholy music of the +Russian Church! No organ is there allowed, no musical instrument, no +instrument save that which God has made, the human throat! Then, from +the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctuary, comes out the Archbishop +of all the Russias, the Metropolitan of "Holy Moscow," clad in +vestments of gold and of silver, intoning the mystery of the mass! +Other priests stand close behind him, swinging censers of incense, and +also chanting in melancholy mournful harmony with the mighty melody of +the choir. Never have my senses apprehended such opulent, refulgent +splendor, such a pageant of gold and of purple, of jewels and of fine +linen, such clouds of incense, such glorious, mighty music from the +human throat! Such fervor, such frenzy, such exaltation as I now +beheld in the swaying, worshiping multitude! I was beholding the +fervant, fanatical, hysterical religious feeling of the Russian +people, a people mediaeval in their blind superstition, mediaeval in +their per-fervid ardor for their church! + +What I am writing of can only be impressions, and yet perhaps the +impressions which I receive in my brief sojourn within the Russian +Empire may more vividly portray that subtle, almost indefinable, +atmosphere which broods over Russia and marks it from all the world, +than I might be able to do if I remained so long within her confines +that I should lose the power. + +I have now sojourned in Russia barely seven days, yet I feel as though +I had spent a lifetime in another world than that of America. I hear +no sound which is familiar. I cannot even count in Russian. I see no +street signs which my eyes have before beheld; even the alphabet, +though Greek, is yet enigmatically Russianized. Nor do I find that +English or Danish, French or German is of much avail. In the largest +news emporium or bookstore, in St. Petersburg, upon the Nevsky +Prospekt, the other day, where twenty or thirty clerks were serving +the public, there was no one of them who spoke or even understood +either French, or German, much less English. In the chief bookstore +in Moscow, where a large trade is carried on, nothing is spoken but +Russian. After much search I did find one small bookshop where a clerk +spoke passable French, and another where the Jewish proprietor +understood German. And while it is true that the high Russian officer +who escorted us from St. Petersburg spoke fluently in German and in +French, and while it may also be true that among the bureaucracy, and +perhaps nobility, French is still generally understood, yet it is +equally true that the present tendency in Russia is to Russify +language as well as things, and that foreign tongues are less spoken +and less known to-day than they were thirty or forty years ago. The +Russian is absorbed in himself, he knows little of the outside world +and he cares less. The news of Europe and of America and of all the +earth only comes to him in expurgated driblets through the sieve of +the Censor. The saying that "there are three continents," the +"continent of Europe," the "continent of Russia" and the "continent of +Asia," is no mere jest. One feels it here to be a verity. One feels +that Russia, despite her pretensions to the contrary, is mediaeval, +that she is mentally and morally aloof from all the progress of the +present century, from all the thought of modern peoples, and utterly +remote from all touch with the progressive nations of to-day. + +In Scandinavia, the world is abreast of the times, its peoples are +advanced and alert, but the instant you cross the dead-line and enter +Russia, you feel that the world has taken a back-set of five hundred +years, that Russian life is so far behind all modern movement that it +never can catch up. + +Even the bigness of St. Petersburg carries with it an impracticability +that is itself mediaeval. St. Petersburg did not grow up because there +was need of a city on that spot. It was created as the deliberate act +of a despot. Peter the Great feared to live longer in Moscow. He had +murdered and tortured too many of its worthy citizens. He had, for one +job, hung eight thousand patriots in the Red Square; he had thrown ten +thousand more into dungeons, there to rot. Daring no longer to live in +Moscow, he founded the new capital, "Petersburg," on the banks of the +Neva, which should become a seaport, be protected from his own +subjects by the ships he himself would build, and house his government +as safe from domestic as from foreign foes. He laid out the city with +streets so wide that it has never been possible to pave them well. He +provided public buildings so huge that it has never been possible to +secure a foundation upon the Neva's miry delta solid enough safely to +hold them up. He drove the nobility into this quagmire city, and drew +the bureaucracy up to its unstable ground. To-day, St. Petersburg is a +city of a million and a half of inhabitants, but if the Russian Czars +should choose to reconstitute Moscow their permanent capital, St. +Petersburg would again become a wilderness, a waste of marshy +islands, desolate and bare. It is the hot-house plant of autocracy. +There is no natural reason for it to exist. + +Everywhere in Russia one feels the certain so childish straining after +effect which is mediaeval and barbaric. In the palace of the Kremlin +lies the disabled and gigantic cannon which Catherine II commanded to +be cast, and which has never fired a shot for the reason that it was +so big they could never find a gunner to serve and handle it. Close +beside it lies the enormous bell, the "Czar Kolokol"--King of +Bells--cast by command of a Czar, so huge that it could never be +lifted up into a belfry and which, falling to the ground from a +temporary scaffold, cracked itself by sheer weight. It lies there a +fit commentary on overleaping ambition. The cars and locomotives of +the railways are uncouth from their very size. Russia is like a big, +loose-jointed, over-grown boy, a boy so constituted that he may never +become a veritable man. + +The government arsenals and machine shops in Moscow are run by German +and English bosses. The Russian makes big plans, but he does not +possess the power himself to carry them to successful issue. The great +empire is so spread out that pieces of it are even now ready to break +off. An intelligent Swede with whom I voyaged from Stockholm, then +living in St. Petersburg, declared the day not far distant when not +only Finland, but the German provinces of Esthonia and Livonia and +Courland along the Baltic, as well as Poland, must inevitably crack +off. And he declared that from mere internal cumbersomeness the +Russian Empire must soon dissolve. It may be so. And one is here +impressed with the fact that Russia now chiefly holds together by +reason of the military might of her autocracy, whose strength and +permanence under serious defeat may vanish in a night. + +Another thing I have become cognizant of is the fact that everywhere +the men who do not wear a uniform hate the men who do. The cleavage +parting the upper and the lower levels of Russian life is immense. +Apparently there is no sympathy between them. The _mujik_ upon the +street scowls at the uniformed official who drives by in his dashing +equipage. He looks with surly countenance upon the grandee who nearly +runs him down. He hates the men who so mercilessly wield authority and +power, and who order the Cossack to ride him down and knout and saber +him into terrified submission. + +One morning we passed through a great square in Moscow containing +nothing but men--wild-eyed, long-haired, long-bearded men; men in +rags, most of them, and all of them compelled to come there and wait +to be hired to work. To that square must all working men go who seek +work. The city feeds them while they wait, a single small piece of +black bread each day. Some never leave that square, but wait there +their lifetime through. They gazed upon our handsome landau with +hungry and wolfish eyes. How glad would they have been to tear us into +pieces and divide what little spoil they might obtain! I never before +beheld so frightful, unkempt a company of hopeless, hapless, hungry +human slaves as these Russian workingmen who waited for a job. + +[Illustration: A MOSCOW TRAM CAR.] + +[Illustration: THE OUT-OF-WORKS.] + + + + +XXI. + +The First Snows--Moscow to Warsaw--Fat Farm Lands and Frightful +Poverty of the Mujiks Who Own them and Till them--I Recover My +Passport. + + + HOTEL SAVOY, FRIEDICHS STRASSE, + + BERLIN, GERMANY, _September 23, 1902_. + +"_Hoch der Kaiser, Hoch der Kaiser! Gott sei Dank! Ich bin in +Deutschland angekommen!_" have my brain and blood and bones been +crying out all the last fifty miles, since we safely crossed the +Russian border. Until the moment when the last Russian official waked +me up, held a light in my face, and, staring at me, compared my visage +with what the passport said it ought to be, and handed me back that +document to be mine forever, to be framed and hung up in my Kanawha +home, and preserved for my children and children's children as +evidence that I came safe out of Russia; not till that midnight hour +did I realize that I belonged to the common Teutonic brotherhood of +men, and that Puritan-descended American though I were, I and my +German neighbor were yet really kin! But at that moment when we +crossed the German boundary, I knew it and felt it in every fibre and +tingling nerve. I was a Teuton, I was a German, I was come again among +my blood kindred. "_Hoch der Kaiser_," "_Selig sei Deutschland!_" I +had come out of mediaevalism, from the shadows of barbarism, I was +emerged into the light of the twentieth century's sun! + +We left Moscow late Sunday afternoon, in a blinding snow storm, the +first of the year. + +In the morning, after attending mass in the cathedral of Saint Savior, +we drove about the city enjoying the cloudless blue sky, the pellucid +sunshine. We visited the Gentile and Jewish markets, and watched the +pressing concourse of eager traders bartering and chaffering their +goods and wares; we passed along the high frowning walls of the +debtors' prison, where any man who has incurred a debt of five hundred +_rubles_ ($250) may be incarcerated by the creditor, and kept shut up +as long as the said creditor puts up for him the very modest sum of +about four cents a day for bread. When the creditor quits paying for +his debtor's keep, the debtor comes out, but not till then. The fare +at that price is not luxurious, and after a few weeks or months of the +meagre diet, the debtor joyfully promises anything to escape and, +sometimes, persuades his family or friends to compound with the +creditor and get him out. But some there are who spend a lifetime +within those walls. And our Orthodox driver declared that a Jew liked +nothing better than to thrust and hold a hapless Gentile debtor behind +those gates. + +[Illustration: MONASTERY CHURCH, NOVO DIEVITCHY.] + +[Illustration: CEMETERY NOVO DIEVITCHY.] + +[Illustration: HOLY BEGGAR, NOVO DIEVITCHY.] + +The day was lovely and the air had almost the balminess of spring. Men +and women and children were going about in summer garments, no +overcoats or wraps, and it might as well have been May or June. At the +same time, we noticed that the windows of our rooms in the hotel were +double-sashed and tight-corked with cotton, and I also observed that +similar double windows were fast set on public buildings and +dwelling-houses past which we drove. But otherwise, as we looked into +the soft blue sky there was no hint of approaching frosts. + +It was near noon when we drove out to see the famous convent of Novo +Dievitchy, and we spent a delightful hour in viewing its towered +church, its cloisters, its nuns' cells and children's quarters, and +the curious cemetery where are entombed many of Moscow's most +illustrious dead, tombs which are set above the ground amidst choice +shrubbery and blooming plants. We had just come out, through the old +arched gateway, and had encountered a band of holy beggars who +absorbed our attention and our _kopeeks_. I had put the ladies into +the _landau_, while the driver with great difficulty held back his +restive, squealing stallions. My hand was on the carriage door, when I +felt something soft and cold upon it. I looked up and behold! the air +was full of big flakes of descending snow. The horizon to the north +and east was black, the blue sky had grown a leaden gray. Winter had +come to Moscow and to us as silently and as suddenly as it once came +to Napoleon and his thinclad army, near a century ago. There was no +wind; the noises of the city were suddenly hushed; a great silence now +brooded over Moscow. The air was thick with big, fluffy, fluttering +particles of whiteness which stuck to everything they touched, and +never melted when they ceased to fall. We could not see across the +road, even the horses were half hid. Our driver gave full rein to the +impatient team and we flew homeward, but the snow kept coming down +just the same. It never melted anywhere. It grew into piles and mounds +and soft feathery masses. It wholly concealed the scarred and rutted +unevennesses of the road, it clung to twig and tree and fence, to +gable, to window-ledge and lintel. King Winter had breakfasted in +Archangel and, speeding across flat and unbarriered Russia, now dined +in Moscow and would there permanently remain. And as suddenly all +Moscow now bloomed forth into sheepskin overcoats and elaborate furs +and winter wraps. The citizens must have had them hanging behind the +door upon a handy peg, ready for just such a sudden coming of the +snows. By afternoon, sleighs and sledges jingled along the ways and +boulevards, and stinking, filthy-streeted Moscow was transformed into +a city immaculate and pure. And the snow kept ever falling, falling, +falling, steadily, softly, persistently, without let or stop. + +It was toward two o'clock that we took our final excursion out beyond +the borders of the city to the summer palace of the Czars, the +favorite Chateau Petrovsky, where prior to the coronation every +Czar goes to repose and meditate and prepare himself with fasting and +prayer for the ordeal of the tedious ceremonial in the Cathedral of +the Assumption within the Kremlin. + +[Illustration: THE KREMLIN BENEATH THE SNOWS.] + +The Chateau is a large and rambling building of wood and brick, with +extensive suites of big, bare rooms. Behind it there lies a garden, +laid out as though it were in France, with many graveled walks, and +beds of flowers and edges of close-clipped box. Here the Czarina loves +to wander, and here she passes many a quiet hour when escaped from the +pomp and pressure of life in the Kremlin's gaudy palace. Here one bed +of roses was pointed out to us as her especial joy. The old French +gardener looked pathetic as he stood beside it and watched the big +white flakes alighting upon each leaf and petal. "The snows are come," +he said, "the garden dies, there will be no flowers more till another +year!" And then, as if to save his cherished pets, he hastily gathered +the finest of the blooms and presented them to H and begged her to +accept and keep them, saying, "The snows are come, the Czarina, the +Empress, will not now object; to-morrow these will surely all be +dead." + +In the morning of the day before, we were told that, "To-morrow, or +next day, or in a week, or a fortnight, will come the snows, we do not +know how soon. But when they come, then we know that winter is begun, +the long seven months of winter which will not leave us till May or +June. It is then you should come to see us. Then are these ill-paved +and reeking streets white and hard and clean; the summer's dusts and +heats are then forgot, and we quicken with the invigoration of the +cold; then does the city gladden with the gay life of those returned +from the summer's toil upon the wide estates, or from foreign lands, +for winter is the season when all Russians best love to be at home." + +We settled our hotel bills only after much argument with our host. We +would not pay for candles we had not burned; our room was lighted with +electric lights. We would not pay for steaks we had not eaten, nor +chickens yet alive, nor for sweets we never tasted. No! For these and +the like of these we flatly refused to pay. "De Vaiter's meeshtakes, +Mein Herr, sie shall kom oudt." One hundred _rubles_ for three days! +Moscow was as costly as London! + +Through the falling snows, thick falling snows, we drove to the +Smolensk railway station, whence start the trains going west, for +Moscow has not yet arrived at the convenience of a union depot. +Although all railroads are owned and run by the government, yet each +train starts from that side of the city nearest to the direction it +will travel. We entered a long, low brick and wooden building, and +passing through a wide dark waiting room, came out upon a wooden +platform and were beside our train. We were ready to go. We had our +tickets and our passports. Three days before, almost as soon as we +arrived, we gave the forty-eight hours' notice of our intention to +leave Russia, and the twenty-four hours' notice that we should also +leave Moscow. We were permitted to take our passports to the main +ticket office up within the city, the Kitai Gorod, and presenting +them, secured the tickets. We then returned the passports to the +police department to be given back to us just before we left, by the +big uniformed official at our hotel. But he did not return them until +we first bestowed upon him another ten _rubles_, as we had done when +leaving St. Petersburg! Now we were once more to surrender our +passports to a new uniformed government official, the train conductor, +who would also examine them, _visé_ them, and hand them to another +when we came to Warsaw, to be yet again scrutinized and stamped and +only returned to us when we at last crossed the German border. Nor +even then until we should be finally inspected and compared by yet +other officials so as to make dead certain that we were indeed the +very self same travelers who now declared they wanted to get out of +Russia. + +The train was a long one. It was the through express carrying the +Imperial Mails to Vienna, Berlin and Paris. It would pass Smolensk, +Minsk, "Brzesc" (Brest) and Warsaw. It was one of the important trains +of the empire. There were many passengers, and we were able to secure +only a single stateroom with two berths in the first-class car for the +ladies, while Mr. C and I obtained two berths in the second class car +adjoining. We might sit together during the day, but for the night we +would be in different coaches. The berths in our sleeper were provided +each with a mattress, and an extra _ruble_ gave us a pair of blankets, +a sheet and a pillow. The cars were warm and double-windowed against +the cold. + +We went about twenty miles an hour over a straight-tracked road, and +our sleep was undisturbed. When I awoke in the morning and made my way +toward the toilet, though early, I yet found a queue of men and women +ahead of me, and had to fall in line and take my turn. A big bearded +Jew was just coming out of the little toilet room and a slim young +woman was just going in, a young woman comely and with hair tangled +and fallen down. This was bad enough, but between the tangled hair and +myself stood another dame with locks quite as disheveled and unkempt. +But I dared not quit my place, since an increasing number of men and +women pressed uneasily behind me. My only chance was to stick it out +until those coiffures should be restored to immaculate condition for +the day. Within the toilet there was no soap, nor towel, nor comb, nor +brush, nor else but ice-cold water, and a wide open channel down into +the bitter stinging air. But I had now journeyed somewhat in Russia +and had come fitly prepared. + +All night we had rolled through a dead flat country, passing Smolensk, +a large city of fifty thousand inhabitants, and all day we continued +to traverse the same wide levels. The sky was blue, the air was +cold and keen, there was a slight drifting of snow across the +illimitable fields. Peasants in belted sheepskin overcoats, which came +down to the heels, were plowing in the fields, each behind a single +horse, and women on their knees were planting, or digging out potatoes +and turnips and beets. Women were also hoeing everywhere, working like +the men--mostly in short skirts, kerchiefs about the head, legs +swathed in cotton cloth wrapped around and tied on with strings, feet +like the men's, wrapped up in plaited straw. The houses were miserable +wooden huts of only one story and with chimneys made of sticks and mud +and built on the inside to save heat, and meaner than any cabins of +the most "ornery" mountaineers of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. +There were no windows in the hovels, no openings but one single door. +For the men and women who tilled the land, it was poverty, bitter +poverty everywhere. Yet we were traversing some of the finest, +richest, most productive farming lands of Russia; lands on which great +and abundant crops are raised, or ought to be raised, and where these +men and women ought to be living in ease and comfort by their toil, +for these lands are largely owned by those who till and cultivate +them, the "free and emancipated" peasantry of Russia! But the great +crops are of little avail to the helpless peasant. His industry brings +him no cessation of grinding toil. He barely lives, often he starves, +sometimes he dies, dies of starvation right on this rich, fat land he +himself owns. The government of the Czar knows just what each acre of +his land will yield, and knowing this, it takes from the peasant in +taxes the product of his sweat and toil, leaving him barely enough to +live. There are no schools to teach the peasant. The high Russian +officer, the lieutenant colonel who guarded us from St. Petersburg to +Moscow, said, "The peasant wants no schools." Thus, he never learns +his rights, the rights God wills to him. He keeps on toiling year in +and year out, and the government of the Czar squeezes from him his +tears, his blood, his _kopeeks_, his life! And these men I saw were +white men and owned the land, fat, fertile land, rejoicing ever in +abundant crops! + +[Illustration: A STATION STOP, EN ROUTE TO WARSAW.] + +A century ago, even thus were also the peasants of France ground down +and pillaged by the King, the nobility, the government of the state. +As I traveled through the fruitful valley of the Loire two years ago, +crossing central France, and beheld the smiling fields and +well-planted meadows and perpetual cultivation of every foot of soil, +until the whole land bloomed and bore crops like one mighty garden, I +could not help wondering, as I looked upon the smiling countenance of +the terrain, and upon the contented faces of the sturdy and thrifty +peasantry who owned and tilled it, whether this present fecundity and +agricultural wealthiness of rural France, does not, after all, repay +the world and even France herself, for the terrors and the tears, the +blood and the obliteration of the _l'ancien régime_, whose +expungement by the Revolution alone made possible to-day a +regenerated and rejoicing France. + +We have passed through Minsk, the ancient capital of Lithuania, a city +of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants of whom more than half +are Jews, and through Brzesc (pronounced "Brest"), another city as big +as Smolensk and renowned as a fortress, taken and retaken, lost and +relost, through all the weary centuries of Polish-Muskovite wars. We +have crossed the river Bug ("Boog") on a fine steel bridge, and +entering pillaged Poland, are now arrived within the borders of her +great capital, Warsaw ("Barcoba," "Varsova"), where we change to a +train of German cars, of the narrower German gauge, and go on to +Berlin. + +Just after leaving Minsk, I fell into conversation with a most +intelligent young Jew from Warsaw, who, among other things, spoke of +Russia and her ways, saying that, strange as it may seem, the people +of Poland prefer her harsh rule to the fairer dealing of the Germans, +for the reason that Pole and Russ both talk a Slavic tongue, and race +affinity constitutes a bond. Yet said he at the same time, all Poles +dream of the day when a Polish King shall again fill a Polish throne, +and the glories of their Fatherland shall be restored. + +We reached Warsaw only two hours late and pulled into the large stone +station close alongside the Berlin train. The porter grabs our bags. +Our small steamer trunk is shown to hold no _vodka_, nor contraband +effects. "_Nach Berlin_," I shout, and we are transferred to a clean, +comfortable German car. _Gott sei Dank!_ we feel a thousand times. We +are almost free, almost escaped, almost beyond the Russian pale. For a +fortnight, we have been under constant, conscious, persistent +surveillance. Our guides have been in the employ of the police; +strange men have followed us about upon the streets, have sat beside +us in hotels, have scrutinized us with cold eyes upon the trains. We +have been under the direct guard of armed soldiers, who have stood +outside our stateroom door and slept beside us all the night. We have +never, since entering Russia, been free from the weasel-wit and +ferret-eye of incessant espionage! + +And the dirt! Dirty cars! Dirty hotels! Dirty carriages! Dirty +streets! Dirty churches! Dirty palaces! Dirty men! Dirty women! Such +is Russia, a land where the world knows not water, except to skate +upon when turned to ice. + +Now we are in a German car, immaculately clean! Clean, almost, as it +would be in Norway! We are in the modern world again. I feel great +pressure in my heart to "_Hoch der Kaiser_", and this despite the fact +that, like every right-minded American, I am bred to abhor the +assumptions of Hohenzollern Kaisership even as strenuously as Romanoff +Autocracy. Yes! I feel great impulse to _Hoch der Kaiser_ and to cheer +for Germany and my German kin. + + + + +XXII. + +The Slav and the Jew--The Slav's Envy and Jealousy of the Jew. + + +Now that I have had a glimpse of Russia, you ask me, "Why is the Slav +always so eager to do to death the Jew?" Wherefore this hatred which +so constantly flames out in grievous pillage and wanton murder and +blood-thirsty massacre of the children of Israel? + +You say to me that in America for two centuries we have had the Jew; +that we now have millions of Jews, and that they are patriotic and +loyal citizens of the Republic; that Jews sit in our highest courts +and render able and fair decisions, enter the senate of the United +States and sit in congress, are sent to West Point and Annapolis and +prove themselves devoted and efficient officers of the army and navy, +are lawyers and doctors and distinguished members of the learned +professions; that they display intelligence, industry and thrift, and +are among the foremost citizens of the Republic, and that many of +these Jews, or their fathers and mothers, have come direct from +Russia. And you ask me "Why is it then that within the dominion of the +Czar the Slav makes such constant war upon the Jew?" + +If I were briefly to sum up my impressions of the real cause of the +Slav's hatred of the Jew, I should say, JEALOUSY and ENVY, and then +ask you to remember that the Slav is yet at heart a semi-Asiatic and a +barbarian. + +When journeying from St. Petersburg to Moscow the Russian +lieutenant-colonel said to me: "In America you select real men for +Presidents of whom Roosevelt is the finest type, but in France the +JEWS and financiers set up their tool for President." In a nut shell +this high Russian officer expressed the feeling of his own race toward +the Jew. The Jew is a Jew and the Jew is a financier. The Russians are +jealous of his acquired wealth and of his ability to gather it and +they hate him. + +A few days later, traveling from Moscow to Warsaw, we found ourselves +sitting in a dining car with an elaborate bill of fare before us and +yet we were like to starve right then and there. The menu was printed +in Russian; the attendants and waiters talked nothing but Russian. We +knew no Russian and spoke in English, in German, in French, in Danish +without avail. The servants just stood there shaking their heads and +saying, "_Nyett, Nyett_." ("No, No.") We were famishing but could +order no food. Just then a tall woman of courtly manner, elegantly +gowned, came toward us from another table and said in perfect English +that she had long lived in London, though now she resided in Russia, +and then, giving our orders to the waiters, she saved us from +impending famine. She afterward told me that her passport had lapsed, +and that the Russian Government now refused to let her leave Russia +because she was a Jewess, while at the same time, they forbade her to +remain longer in Moscow, she having recently become a widow, and under +the harsh laws of Russia thereby lost her right of domicile within the +city. She hoped to escape to America by bribing the officials at the +border. + +At Vilna, I fell into acquaintance with a young Pole from Warsaw, who +spoke seven languages and among them German and English fluently, +although he had never been outside the dominions of the Czar. He was a +strict Jew, and he expressed great surprise when I assured him that in +America a Jew is treated just the same as a Christian. He said he had +heard that to be indeed really the fact, and he expressed the +intention of some day coming to America to see for himself. He seemed +both perplexed and gratified when he found that I showed him the same +consideration I did my Gentile acquaintances. + +In Moscow we drove past the imposing front of the great Jewish +Synagogue. The doors were barred. The structure was falling into +decay. I learned that it had been closed for nigh twenty years by +order of the Imperial Governor of Moscow, Prince Vladimir, uncle of +the Czar; nor might any Synagogue now be opened in Moscow; nor might +any Jew now worship in any edifice; nor might any outside Jew now come +and live in Moscow; nor might any Jew living in Moscow come back if +he had once left the limits of the city; nor might he own any land in +the city, nor practice a profession; nor might he marry a Christian, +nor might a Christian marry him. The Jews were also subjected to extra +and particular special taxes, arbitrarily levied and collected by the +autocratic government. The Jew, right here in "Holy Moscow," soul and +heart-center of the vast Russian Empire, was pillaged under the +autocratic rule of the Czar, persecuted under the hand of the Holy +Orthodox Church, plagued and preyed upon by a perpetually jealous and +malevolent populace. + +The Russian army officer sneering at Monsieur Loubet, President of +France, whom he called the "tool of Jews and Financiers;" the courtly +Jewish lady; the intelligent Jewish merchant of Warsaw, who was so +much astonished that I should show him the courtesy of an equal, the +lowly _izvostchik_ driving me in his _droschky_ and pointing out the +closed and moldering Synagogue; each and all discovered in their +divers ways the attitude of the Slav toward the Jew; and the officer +revealed in his criticism of the ruler of Russia's ally, the Republic +of France, the real underlying secret cause of the Russian's animosity +and hatred of the Jew. That cause of hatred is the Jew's ability to +prosper without and in spite of the fostering care of the autocracy. + +The Jew was a cultivated citizen-of-the-world when the Slavic +ancestors of the Russian were unlettered nomads roving the illimitable +wastes of Scythia. In the temples and libraries of ancient Egypt +the Jew acquired the culture and the learning of the Pharaohs; amidst +the palaces and hanging-gardens of Imperial Babylon and Nineveh the +Jew learned the arts and the sciences of the Assyrian and Persian; +Plato and Aristotle and the Greek philosophers recognized in the Jew a +spiritual culture of exalted type, and granted him to possess a +learning as encompassing as their own; the Roman, practical, and +master of the then known world, paid homage to the cultivated +intelligence of the Jew. + +[Illustration: CATCHING A KOPEEK--A BEGGAR.] + +The monotonous plains of Russia were yet filled with nomadic hordes of +pagan barbarians when Cordova was a paved city, its streets +illuminated by night, its libraries and its University the center of +the most advanced learning of the age; when the gigantic and splendid +cathedrals of England and France were everywhere raising their mighty +walls and spires for the perpetual glory of God and the inspiration of +mankind; when the fleets of Lisbon and Genoa were discovering the +farthest and most distant splendors of the Orient and Occident; when +Venice was mistress of Byzantium and Florence patron of Rome; when +Hebrew savants, under the benign influence of Saracen rule, were among +the most learned and renowned leaders of Moslem science; when the +Israelites of Italy and France were intermarried among the proudest of +the nobility and were even counselors of Kings; when Hebrew learning +and Hebrew wealth gave added momentum to the impulse of the +Renaissance. While during the centuries of the world's reawakening, +even as during the preceding centuries of the Crusades, just as +throughout the long duration of the dominion of Rome and of the +Eastern Empire, the Jew was ever recognized for his learning, culture +and wealth. + +When St. Cyril and his Byzantine monks, in the seventh century, gave +Greek Christianity to the Russian Pagan, the Russian yet remained +content with outward forms and ceremonies. He continued pagan at heart +and persevered in worshiping the ancient ghosts and spirits, even as +in many parts of Russia he does to-day. He put on a Christian coat, +but he kept his pagan hide; and the Russian Orthodox Christian has +always remained a semi-pagan. + +The great mass of the Russian people were serfs sold with the land up +to 1860, when Alexander II gave them nominal freedom, but a freedom +without lands and without schools; a so-called freedom which has left +the individual peasant, the _mujik_, as landless, as bitterly poor, as +benightedly ignorant to-day as he was a thousand years ago; nor does +the autocratic-bureaucracy of the Czar give him hope of a better day. +I journeyed through some of the richest farming lands in Russia, and +the farmers, the _mujiks_, whom I saw tilling the soil, plowing and +digging in the fields, were so poor that their feet were wrapped in +plaited straw, too impoverished to afford the luxury of a leathern +boot! The government absorbs all the profits of the crops in payment +for these lands and in taxes, as return for having made the _mujiks_ +nominal owners of the soil and emancipating them from serfdom. + +On the other hand, the nobles are forbidden by caste spirit and +tradition to enter into any career except the service of the state. +The younger nobles and ruling breeds among the Russian people are all +sucked into the employ of the state by the maelstrom of bureaucracy. +The youths of the nobility and gentry, and the more or less educated +classes, must enter the navy, the army, and the service of the state. +A government job for life is their only hope. They are not permitted +to make money for themselves independently; they can only make money +for the government of the Czar and for themselves through "Graft." + +The government wishes to do everything in Russia. It deliberately +invades the spheres of private enterprise; it deliberately seeks all +the profit; it deliberately destroys the ambition and the power of the +person; it deliberately annihilates and stifles individual initiative. +In Russia, the government runs all the railroads, most of the mines, +many of the iron mills. It raises cotton; it raises wheat; it farms +and it manufactures. It buys and sells. It runs all the telegraphs and +telephones and express business. It opens all private letters and +reads all the printed books and newspapers. It permits no letter to go +through the mails, nor book nor newspaper to be read, which it deems +to express sentiments inimical to the supremacy of the autocracy. I +was threatened with imprisonment in Russia for snapping a kodak +without government permit. I was under police and military supervision +and escort all the time I traveled in Russia, even short as it was. +Nor did I dare to send a letter to America from Russia, but wrote my +thoughts with locked doors, and mailed my writings only when safe +beyond the eye of the Russian government spy. + +Thus we find that, on the one hand, the peasantry are crushed, thrust +down and pitilessly held in ignorance and superstition and bitter +poverty; on the other hand, all the best ability and brains of the +governing classes are commandeered into the army, or navy, or +life-long government service, and with meager salaries and small pay. +The big grafts, the soft snaps, the juicy chances must all belong to +the government and flow into the coffers of the Czar to keep fat and +easy the Imperial family and the swarms of parasitic tid-bit hunters +who leech them. + +But even in autocratic Russia, the grasping clutch of autocracy cannot +hold up all the avenues of commerce, however far-reaching its embrace +may be. Hence, in those lines of enterprise, not absorbed and +appropriated by the government, there is left open a clear path to +whosoever may have the acumen to seize the opportunity. Here is the +chance of the Jew. Endowed with a keen and subtle intellect, educated +by his own masters often to the highest training of the intelligence +and disciplined by the hardships of persecution, he is at once an +overmatch for the ignorant, brutal, poverty-haunted _mujik_, and fully +the equal of the best breeds of governing Slavs. Those intellects +which are the equals of his own are not in competition with him. The +ablest of the Slavs are earning a small salary in the army, in the +navy, or as government officials; making what they can for themselves +by more or less open graft, it is true, but without the incentive of +other personal gain. So the Jew gets on in Russia. This progress is in +spite of the jealousy and the hatred and the pillaging hand of the +envious Slav. + +[Illustration: A COLD DAY.] + +[Illustration: ALONG THE RIVER MOSKVA, MOSCOW.] + +There is, here and there, considerable wealth among many of the Jews +in Russia. This is not true of all the Jews. Most of the Jews are +poor, frightfully poor, made and kept so by the laws; but there is +wealth among some of the Jews. The few wealthy Jews do not always keep +these riches within the dominions of the Czar. The Russians complain +that the rich Jews, while making their money in Russia, yet lay it up +in the banks of Berlin, of Vienna, of Paris and particularly of +London. When a Russian Governor wishes to squeeze a little extra +pocket money out of the Jews of his district, his city, his province, +he cannot always lay hands on their money hoards. Sometimes, then, he +lets the street urchins plague them a little; the squeezed and squalid +peasant is allowed to vent his envy of their wealth, even to knocking +a Jew down; now and then, these meanly-minded boys, these +pinch-bellied peasants get out of hand and, stung by their blood +lust, too hastily massacre more Jews than the Governor intended. This +is about the size of the job that Governor Von Raaben found to his +credit in Kischineff. The poor Jews suffered for the prosperity of +their rich brethren. The embittered and down-crushed _mujik_, galled +and soured by reason of his own hapless and seemingly hopeless +condition, vented his spleen at the first handy object, and the Jew +was handier, though not more hated, than the uniformed official of the +governing autocracy. + +The Russian, as an individual, is of a kindly nature. He is good to +his wife, good to his children, good to his beasts. He has none of the +Roman-Spanish pitilessness to dumb creatures. But the Russian, after +all, is an Asiatic. The old saying, "Scratch a Russian and you'll find +a Tartar," is as true to-day as when the Cossacks of Catherine II +impaled and crucified men and women and children of the fleeing Mongol +horde, when these simply sought to migrate beyond the hectoring reach +of Russian rule. + +No bloodier chapter mars the annals of history than that of the +Russian slaughter of nigh the entire Tekke Turkoman race in her +warfare of 1881 on the shores of the Caspian, at Geok Tepe, when seven +thousand women and children were stricken down in cold blood as they +fled from Kuropatkin's ruthless Cossacks. + +Nor is the world done shuddering yet at the atrocious barbarities +under General Gribski, Governor of Blagoveschensk, who commanded +the deliberate drowning of the Chinese inhabitants of that city but a +few years ago, in 1898, and in a season of prevailing peace, drove +them before the knouts and bayonets of his Cossacks into the hopeless +waters of the river Amoor by unnumbered thousands, old men and women +and little children, so that for many weeks, nay months, the great +river was so choked with the swollen bodies of the dead that +navigation was at a standstill. + +[Illustration: A RUSSIAN JEW.] + +No Roman sack and pillage of a conquered city, not even the taking and +wreck of Jerusalem by Titus and his legions, equals in horror and cold +blood these late Russian slaughters; not even the fire and sword of +Attila and his avenging Huns wrought such woe and terror as have been +wrought in these recent years by the servants of the Czar; nor are the +tormented souls of Alva and his Spanish veterans more deeply marked +with blood-soaked scars than is the Russian autocracy of to-day; nor +mediaeval, nor modern times, nor pagan, nor Moslem warfare, have known +so monstrous a series of godless massacres of helpless humankind as +those now standing to the credit of the Russian autocracy during the +last twenty-five years. + +The crime of Kischineff is no more heinous than have been the +slaughters of Geok Tepe, Blagoveschensk and a thousand lesser human +killings, nor more heart-sickening than were those awful visitations +of Slavic blood-lust upon creatures defenseless, helpless, abjectly +terror-struck. It is only that it was committed in a season of +profound peace, against a peaceful people, and at a time when all the +world had the leisure to hear the dying wails of the hapless women and +helpless children raped and ravished and torn asunder in the open day. + +Notwithstanding these crimes which mar the pages of recent Russian +history, none would be more astonished than the Russian himself, if he +were made aware of the world-wide condemnation these crimes provoke. +He would protest against so harsh an estimate of Russian conquest; at +most, when confronted with the facts, he would shrug his shoulders and +urge that the responsibility lies not upon Holy Russia, but upon those +who oppose her destiny to conquer and absorb. The thoughtful Russian +will declare that after all it is no more than the inevitable struggle +of the survival of the fittest, and demonstrate that there are no +feuds of race, other than the universal hatred of the Jew, within the +dominions of the Czar. + +From the Russian viewpoint these arguments are not unreasonable; the +vast military establishment upon which rests the autocracy, +necessitates foreign wars with weaker peoples, if for no other reason +than to keep a busied soldiery from thinking too much upon grievances +at home; through commercial expansion in Asia, won by bayonet and +sword, the autocracy has sought to secure compensation for the +suppression of commercial opportunity at home! + +The problems of Russia are, after all, economic rather than racial, +and it is up to Russia to solve these in accordance with the +lessons and example of the enlightened nations of the west; let the +nobility and educated classes, who are now sucked into and absorbed by +the bureaucracy, take full part in the commercial and industrial life +of the empire and receive full reward for the exercise of their +energy, intelligence and skill; let them lift from the _mujik_ the +crushing weight of the Imperial taxes, divide with him the almost +illimitable acreage of the Imperial domain; and leave to him his fair +share of the earnings won by his sweat and toil, and there will be no +more Geok Tepes, Blagoveschensks, nor Kischineffs, nor will there be +longer hatred of the Jew. + +[Illustration: TAKEN IN RUSSIA--TAKEN IN AMERICA. JEWISH TYPES.] + + + + +XXIII. + +Across Germany and Holland to England--A Hamburg Wein Stube, the +"Simple Fisher-Folk" of Maarken--Two Gulden at Den Haag. + + + LONDON, ENGLAND, + HOTEL RUSSELL, _September 27, 1902_ + +Crossing the Russian border in the night, we arrived at Berlin almost +before the dawn; the city lies only three hours (by train) beyond the +Russian line. + +The station we entered was spacious and clean, in sharp contrast to +the dirty stations of Russia; we were evidently come into a land +blessed with a civilization of higher type. Leaving the car, we were +instantly beset by a regiment of smartly uniformed porters--old +soldiers all of them--and were piloted by one tall veteran to a +waiting _fiacre_, which soon carried us to the Hotel Savoy. It was +early, not yet five o'clock, but the streets were already alive with +an orderly and animated throng, who appeared to be workmen largely, +carpenters, masons and day-laborers, each clad in his distinctive +laborer's garb. They were on their way to work, for the working +day is long in Germany, ten and twelve hours, and the workingman +is up betimes. We passed over asphalted streets where men in +military-looking uniforms, with hose in hand, were washing down their +surfaces, while others with big coarse brooms were sweeping them +clean. Berlin is a clean city, clean and neat as the proverbial German +in America is known to be. Alighting from our carriage, I was greeted +in my own tongue, by the friendly mannered concierge, who instantly +marked me for an American, and gave us comfortable quarters such as +American dollars usually secure. + +[Illustration: A DAINTY NURSE MAID, BERLIN.] + +H and I were now alone, our companions, Mr. and Mrs. C having left us +at Warsaw, where they would spend a week or two and learn something of +Poland. Perhaps I might tell you right here, that the next morning, as +we were leaving the hotel, I felt a hand upon my shoulder and, turning +round, faced the two Chicago travelers just then arrived. They had cut +short their stay in Warsaw, for the only American-speaking guide in +that city was away on a vacation, and German and French to them were +as impossible as Polish. They confessed, also, that they had sorely +missed their American fellow-travelers, and had hurried after us, +hoping they might induce us to sojourn a little while in their good +company. + +We spent our single day without trying to see museums and picture +galleries, but taking a guide and a carriage, drove about the city and +viewed its avenues and parks, its markets and busy thoroughfares, and +noble public buildings, to catch what glimpse we might of the waxing +Capital of the German Empire. The first impression Berlin makes upon +the stranger, especially the stranger new-come from Russia, is that of +its cleanliness and orderliness; and, I think, I here also felt the +sympathy of blood-kinship with the well set-up and neatly clad men and +women, whose faces might have been those of my fellow countrymen of +St. Louis, Cincinnati or New York. Berlin, to-day, fitly typifies +modern Germany and the modern German spirit. We drove everywhere over +smooth streets, kept scrupulously clean. On either hand stretched +miles of new and handsome buildings, modern in architecture and modern +in construction, while the signs I saw were in Latin Text, instead of +the Gothic, a striking evidence of German progression. + +When we came to the lovely Unter Den Linden, we left the carriage and +wandered beneath its umbrageous trees and enjoyed, as every one must, +the beauty of its vistas of greensward and carefully tended flowers. +The German loves his flowers almost as devotedly as does his English +cousin. We strolled also along the famous Thier Garten, which would be +a magnificent boulevard in any city; and which the German Kaiser has +sought to ornament with innumerable ponderous groups of sculpture, +preserving for the astonished world the commonplace memories of paltry +ancestors. How much better would it have been to have adorned this +stately thoroughfare with statues of illustrious Germans, whose great +deeds and works have contributed to the world's enlightenment and the +Fatherland's renown! To a Democrat, bred to contemn the empty glitter +and pretense of inherited privilege, it almost stirs one's anger to +see so splendid a public highway as the Thier Garten thus arrogantly +defaced. + +In this Capital of an Empire, whose foundation is set on bayonets and +swords and the "biggest guns," where militarism runs riot, there is no +surprise in finding the streets filled with soldiers and officers, and +to meet frequently a marching company, nor does it astonish one to see +here the extreme development of the spirit of military caste. Here, +the civilian, man as well as woman--no matter how well clad he or she +may be--must turn aside for strutting officer and also, as for that, +for the common soldier, and all traffic must hold back to let a +company of soldiery pass by, even though they are out only on errand +of trivial exercise. Here in Germany, perhaps as nowhere else, have +the clever supporters of Royal and Imperial pretension worked the army +racket to the limit, through creating a perpetual scare that greedy +neighbors will devour the Fatherland. The citizen of Berlin is never +allowed to forget that little more than a century ago, Cossack hordes +pastured their ponies in the parks and gardens of the German capital; +and can gallop there again from their Polish camps in a single day. +The army has been built up on the pretense that it is necessary for +national defense, and thus the Kaiser, who is permitted to occupy the +position of army chief, holds at his command these enormous military +forces, while he uses them the rather to exalt his own prerogative +and subvert the people's inborn rights of individual sovereignty, +which is the highest gift of God to man. + +The splendid building of the Reichstag, where the Socialist party of +Germany, to-day, makes its almost vain attempt toward securing to the +people a freer exercise of man's natural rights, is thus menaced by +the colossal military group which stands before it, as though to teach +the lesson that the sword still rules the Fatherland. + +In the evening, our guide, who had privately confessed to me that +within the year he would travel to New York there to become manager of +a great hotel, led us to one of the more notable Bier Garten, where we +saw a most German vaudeville, the feats of whose performers were +greeted with vociferous _hochs_, and where we listened to a splendid +band, and where H had her first sight of ponderous Germans absorbing +beer, with which spectacle she was much impressed. + +Wednesday, we were early astir, driving to the Hamburgischer Bahnhoff, +where we took the fast nine o'clock express for Hamburg, and flew +along over a well-ballasted road-bed through a dead-flat country, in +what the Germans proudly call their "fastest" train. The panorama was +one of market gardens and intensely cultivated land. It was a +monotonous prospect, where the alikeness of the vistas was emphasized +by the sentinel stiffness of the ever recurring rows of +Lombardy-poplars. As in Russia, men and women were everywhere +working in the fields and gardens, but unlike Russia, they were well +clad and well fed, and bore an air of thrifty contentment. There was +no dilapidation anywhere. We saw no longer the tumbled-down shacks of +the _mujik_, but everywhere substantial, neat homesteads of brick and +stone. + +[Illustration: HAMBURG STREET TRAFFIC.] + +Ours was a through train connecting with the Hamburg-American Line of +steamers for New York, and with the through railway express traffic +for France and Belgium, via Cologne. The passengers were chiefly of +the well-to-do commercial classes, or those substantial travelers who +would hasten quickly between Germany and France. None the less, at the +few stations where we halted, did the entire company instantly burst +forth, hastening to the long counters, where they convulsively +swallowed foaming schooners of beer and eagerly devoured sundry +dainties, such as rye bread spread with goose grease and over-laid +with _kraut_ or _wurst_, and varnished _pretzels_ salted to the limit. +Even the babies were held at the open windows and foaming mugs of beer +poured into them by their fond parents. The passion of the German for +his _bier_ equals the Russian's thirst for _vodka_. + +We reached Hamburg a little after half past one, when, taking a +_fiacre_, we immediately drove to Cook's Tourists' Agency, where I +booked to London, via Amsterdam, The Hague, the Hook of Holland, and +Harwich. Then, for an hour, we strolled about the city. + +Hamburg possesses fine retail shops and abounds in restaurants, +Bier-Keller and Wein-Stuben, establishments devoted to the solace of +the inner man. + +Stricken with hunger-pangs, and not knowing just where to go, I +accosted a tall and prosperous-looking burger, telling him we were +Americans in search of food. Lifting his hat, he "begged to be allowed +to guide us to the finest Wein Stube" in the town, whither his own +steps were at that moment bent. He led the way to a quiet side street, +where, descending a flight of stone steps, he introduced us to the +portly master of the _stube_. We entered a succession of large +cellars, paneled and ceiled in oak and floored with patterned tiles, +where small round-topped wooden tables were set about. We were +conducted to a cozy corner, and Rhine wine, cheese, sausage and fresh +rye bread were set before us, as well as mustard and sour pickles and +pats of sweet unsalted butter, and to this was added a palatable stew. + +The room was filled with men--big, well-fed, well-clothed men, +apparently merchants, ship-masters and men of affairs. They fell-to +upon their flagons of _wein_, their _wurst_ and _kraut_, their +_braten_ and _fisch_ with serious and deliberate devotion. It was that +time of day when, in America, the prospering businessman eats lightly, +smokes sparingly and touches liquor not at all, holding his intellect +alert and whetted to its keenest edge. We watched with wonder these +men of Hamburg, while they poured down quart after quart of wine, the +air growing thick with the fumes of strong tobacco. This capacity +of Hans to eat heavily and mightily liquor-up and yet transact +affairs, bespeaks a hardness of head and toughness of stomach which +ranks him neck and neck alongside his cousin Bull as co-champion of +the bibulating, gastronomizing world. + +[Illustration: OUR BILL OF FARE.] + +Although H was the only woman in the _stube_, being recognized as +Americans, we were treated by the company with greatest courtesy and +that invariable friendliness with which, in Germany, my countrymen are +everywhere received. + +Upon departing, Mein Host presented me with an attractive little +ash-tray to add to my collection of souvenirs and, with much ceremony, +bestowed also upon mine _frau_ an illuminated catalogue of his store +of wines. + +Later, we entered a comfortable _landau_ and for several hours were +driven about the city. Hamburg has always been an important city and +one where great volume of business has been transacted. In the Middle +Ages it was a member of the Hanseatic League; in after days it was a +Free City and, even at this time, its citizens view its absorption +within the German Empire not altogether with satisfaction. It bears +the marks of great antiquity. Quaint and picturesque are the lofty +mediaeval buildings which lean over its canals, where men and women +push, with long poles, blunt-ended canal boats and clumsy-looking, but +storm-proof, sloops and luggers, among perpetual cries and clamors; +where sturdy black tug boats incessantly shove their way; and where +is a jam and jostle of inland water-life not unlike that seen in +Holland. Many narrow streets cross these canals on high-built bridges, +bearing a continuous and deliberately-moving traffic. + +Hamburg also possesses noble boulevards, long and straight and wide, +and well-shaded with umbrageous lindens, where, set back behind high +walls and strong-barred gates, are miles of sumptuous mansions, in +which her merchant princes maintain their households in unostentatious +luxury. The wealth of the merchants of Hamburg is said to exceed that +of the aristocratic office-holding classes of Berlin. + +There are also spacious docks in Hamburg, convenient and modernly +equipped, where, year by year, gathers an increasing shipping to fetch +and carry the rapidly developing foreign commerce of the German +Empire. The wealth and energy of the German Hinterlands pours itself +eagerly into Hamburg's lap and the ancient mediaeval city now finds +itself, unlike somnolent Copenhagen, at the very forefront of Europe's +activity. Hamburg is, commercially, more alive and active than Berlin, +and as a port receives more shipping than London. Hamburg is almost as +wide awake as is New York. + +After our drive, we came to the Hotel Europaer, where we dined and +rested, and then departed a little before midnight for Amsterdam. +Although this is the regular passenger service to Holland, there was +no through sleeper, and we were compelled to change at Oestenburg, +where we caught the night express from Cologne. Then in a comfortable +"_schlafwagen_," wrapped in our sea-rugs, we slept soundly the balance +of the night. + +[Illustration: A KINDER OF MAARKEN.] + +[Illustration: A GENTLEMAN OF MAARKEN.] + +We arrived at Amsterdam near eight o'clock and found our way to the +Hotel Victoria, near the station, where I enjoyed such delicious +coffee two years ago, and there we breakfasted: coffee,--a great pot +of fragrant Java,--abundant milk, sweet and delicious,--rolls and big +fresh eggs, and a fish which much resembled the Danish _roed spoette_ +and English sole. It was a delightful breakfast, such as one is always +sure to have in Holland. + +Two years ago, I devoted my time to viewing the city, so now we +resolved to see somewhat of the country beyond the limits of the town. +Thus it happened that we boarded a taut little boat in the midmorning +and all day long steamed through canals, with many locks, passing +above picturesque farmsteads and villages, down upon which we looked +from the higher level of the diked-up waters, and floated at last upon +the Zuyder Zee. We later visited the Island of Maarken with its +fisher-folk in quaint and ancient costume. Once "simple peasants," but +now, alas! ruined by the staring, money-shedding tourist. We had +scarcely set foot upon the Island, when we were stormed by a horde of +men and women, boys and girls, each demanding "mooney," and imploring +us to snap the kodak at them for the cash; begging us also to visit +their particular homes, where we would be allowed to look inside the +door, and perhaps inspect the house, for more Dutch _cents_ and even +_gulden_. So persistent were these "simple fisher-folk" that I almost +fell into dire mishap. H suggested she should take my photograph, +whereupon I arranged myself before the camera, when, just as the kodak +clicked, a _vrow_ and several _kinderen_ rushed up and took position +by my side, thus necessarily appearing in the picture, as you will +see. The lady backed by her brood thereupon demanded, "Mooney, mooney, +mooney." Naturally, I refused to pay for what had been given without +request. The little company immediately raised a loud lament, at sound +of which an immense and bow-legged fisherman appeared upon the scene, +lifting a great oar and threatening my annihilation, unless money were +put up. However, I was firm and fearless, and finally convinced him +that I had not requested the family to stand before the lens, while I +showed him I had already added half a _gulden_ to his chest for +inspection of the home. Comprehending this at last, his anger then +turned upon his spouse, and he sulkily drove her and the _kinderen_ +within their door, using language that sounded much like the English +damn. + +Leaving the Island, we came home across the Zee and passed through +the huge new locks of the River Amstel, the "_Dam_" of which, +keeping out the waters of the Zuyder Zee, gives to the city its +name,--_Amstel-dam_. + +[Illustration: AMONG VROW AND KINDEREN, MAARKEN.] + +The little boat we sailed upon was chiefly filled with Holland folk, +for we were behind the tourist season. They were a quiet, +undemonstrative company and, on the deck, sat about in little groups +and were served with Schiedam _schnapps_ in small glasses by +white-aproned waiters and smoked long, light-colored Sumatra cigars. +The proverbial Hollander, fat and chunky with an enormous pipe, is now +a mere tradition. The Dutchman of to-day, like his English cousin, is +long and lean, and might almost be taken for a New England Yankee. + +An hour by rail brought us to "Den Haag." We passed among broad +meadows, marked by wide black ditches from which gigantic pumps +incessantly suck out the seeping waters and pour them into the sea. +These meadows were once the bottom of the ocean, the soil being +composed of the rich alluvial silt which the continental rivers have +for centuries discharged. Indeed, Holland may be said to consist of +the submerged deltas of the rivers Scheldt and Rhine, which the +indefatigable industry of man has rescued from the sea. These lands +are of inexhaustible fertility and upon them, everywhere, we saw +grazing herds of black-and-white Holstein cows, whence come the butter +and cheese for which Holland is famous, and the delicious milk which +is so abundantly offered us at every meal. The roadbed ran high above +the meadows, down upon which we looked. Here and there we espied a +cluster of neat farm buildings, reminding me much of the Dutch +homesteads along the Hudson River valley, and stretching from Albany +along the Mohawk, in New York,--with this difference, however, that +here, each house and barn and garden lay surrounded with its own +diminutive canal, where were little foot-bridges and skiffs fastened +near the kitchen door, even a large canal boat being often moored +against a barn, the better to float away the loaded hay. The Dutchman +finds life intolerable unless he has his own canal right at his +threshold. + +Farther along, the landscape was marked with innumerable windmills +turning their ponderous arms slowly to the breeze which crept in from +the sea; we counted I do not know how many, there seemed never to be +an end. The people we saw were stout and rosy-cheeked, and moved with +less alertness than do the Norwegians, nor did they have about them +that air of busy-ness which the modern German begins to show. The +impression made by the Hollander is that of sureness and deliberation. +The cocky strut of the Frenchman, who moves ever as though on +dress-parade, is entirely wanting to the Hollander, whose demure +exterior gives no hint of the wealth, the talent, the high importance +hid within. + +The journey from Amsterdam to The Hague takes scarcely an hour, and +before we knew it we drew in to the large station of the Dutch +capital. The soldierly-clad porters are not here as numerous as in +Germany, nor did those who served us move with so self-conscious +and self-important a gait. Men in quiet, dark-blue uniforms quickly +put our baggage into an open _fiacre_ and we drove to the hotel of the +"Twe Stadten," a comfortable inn facing a large well-shaded "_park_." +We were given a commodious chamber looking out upon a pretty garden +and dined, at a later hour, in the long, low-ceilinged dining room. +The guests were few, only one other party beside ourselves dining thus +late. They were two tall and white-haired dames, gowned in black silk +with much old lace round about the throat, and with them a petite and +pretty Señorita, who spoke in Spanish and insisted upon puffing +cigarettes. She led the way from the dining room smoking jauntily, the +two chaperones following respectfully behind. + +[Illustration: ALONG THE ZUYDER ZEE.] + +[Illustration: A LOAD OF HAY, HOLLAND.] + +[Illustration: DUTCH TOILERS.] + +[Illustration: A WATERY LANE, DEN HAAG.] + +In the morning we spent delightful hours in the national picture +galleries looking at the priceless collections of the Rembrandts and +Rubens, which the Dutch government has here assembled; in the +afternoon we strolled about the clean, quiet city, beneath the +over-spreading elms; and then we supped at Scheveningen, where we saw +the sea again and the last of the season's fashionable folk. + +A moment before leaving our hotel to take the train, which would carry +us to The Hook, I had my last adventure among the canny Dutch. Upon +the table in our chamber lay an attractive little ash-receiver, which +any smoker must needs long to own. Quite naturally, it became +entangled with our sundry purchases and scattered belongings and with +them was inadvertently put away. Just as we were quitting the +apartment, the head waiter of the inn, in whose charge we seemed to +be, burst in upon us with wild anxiety in his eye and explained in +broken English, that he instantly observed, upon scrutinizing the +chamber, that a most valuable piece of Delft ware had mysteriously +disappeared. Perhaps we had broken it? At any rate, it was gone and he +would be held responsible for its loss. Two _gulden_ would barely +replace it! "What should he do?" Naturally, I explained that my wife +by mistake had probably packed it up, and begged him to advise the +office that, upon settling my bill, it would give me pleasure to +deposit two _gulden_ against the loss. At a later time, when +exhibiting this relic to wiser eyes, I was forced to recognize that +the little ash-receiver was merely common ware, of value perhaps ten +Dutch _cents_! So much for the knowing Dutchman who traps the traveler +in search of souvenirs! + +Two hours after leaving The Hague we were upon the ship which would +carry us to England. By early morning we were again at Harwich, and we +arrived in London by mid-afternoon. Our only fellow passenger upon the +train was a tall, dark, silent man, who carried with him an enormous +overcoat of fur. We thought him a Russian, and wondered if he also had +come directly from the Empire of the Czar. + +We are now returned to London, whence we departed five weeks ago. We +have crossed the North Sea, and journeyed through Denmark, and +Norway, and Sweden, and visited their capitals. We have voyaged +across the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland; we have caught a +passing glimpse of Helsingfors, and looked upon St. Petersburg and +Moscow, and traveled many hundred _versts_ through the Empire of the +Czar. We have sped through Germany and felt at home in the noble +cities of Berlin and Hamburg. We have tarried in Amsterdam and Den +Haag, where we felt the strangely familiar atmosphere of Dutch New +York. We have looked upon many peoples of the Teutonic races and, when +among them, have felt that subtle throb of kinship, which common blood +and common origin awake; we have also plunged a moment within the +mediaeval and yet semi-barbarous dominions of the Slav and found +ourselves upon the threshold of mysterious Asia. + +[Illustration: THE GOSSIPS, DEN HAAG.] + +[Illustration: THE FISH MARKET, DEN HAAG.] + +We have everywhere been thankful in our hearts that we were born and +bred beneath the Stars and Stripes in the great Republic of the West, +where hope and opportunity are not merely our own, but are also the +loadstars which beckon thither the youth and vigor of these older +peoples of the World. + + + + + INDEX + + + Aabo Elv, 89 + Alexander Nevsky Monastery, 156 + Amagertorv, The, 22 + American Belles and Viking Beaux, 119 + American Dollars and Norse Farms, 111 + American Emigration from Norway, 113 + American Influence on Norway, 48 + American Navy, Norse Sailors in, 53 + American Spirit, 112 + Amsterdam, 223 + Arctic Twilight, The, 115 + Ash Receiver, Incident of, 227 + Aurdals Vand, The, 60 + + Baegna Elv, 60 + Baltic Sea, Crossing the, 138 + Baltic Sea, A Storm on,140 + Bandaks Vand, 108 + Belts, Big and Little, 11 + Berlin, City of, 216 + Berlin, Hotel at Moscow, 169 + Bier Garten, Berlin, 218 + Blagoveschensk, 211 + Boerte Dal, 107 + Borgund, Ancient Church of, 72 + Breifond, Hotel, 93 + Bruce Fjord, 75 + Brute, A Titled, 82 + Brzesc (Brest), 199 + Buarbrae Glacier, The, 89 + Bug River, 199 + + Caste, Influence in Russia, 207 + Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, 175 + Cathedral St. Basil the Blessed, 175 + Cathedral St. Savior, 173 + Churches and Schools in Norway, 104 + Churches, St. Petersburg, 155 + Climate of Western Coast Norway, 76 + Coasting Down the Laera Dal, 71 + Condit, Mr. and Mrs., 138 + Copenhagen, 13 + Cossack Hordes, 217 + Cruelty of Ivan the Terrible, 176 + Cruelty of Peter the Great, 187 + Cruelty of Past Czars, 174 + Cruelty of Modern Russia, 210 + + Dalen, 106 + Danish Friends, Our, 11 + Democratic Trend in Sweden, 126 + Denmark, A Small Country, 28 + Dinner Party, An Evening, 36 + Dining Service at Ed., 44 + Discontent of Russian Masses, 153 + Dogs of Copenhagen, 24 + Dutch, Impressions of the, 226 + + Eida, 84 + Eids Elv, 110 + Eikon, The, 171 + Elsinore, 33 + Esbjerg, 9 + Etna Elv, Along the, 56 + + Fagernaes, 63 + Farming in Norway, 71 + Fat Farm Lands of Russia, 197 + Finland, 142 + Finland, The Gulf of, 145 + Flaa Vand, 110 + Fleischer's Hotel, 82 + Fog, The, leaving Harwich, 3 + Folgefonden, Ice Field, 89 + Fosheim, 63 + France and the Jews, 202 + France, Modern France, Contrasted with Russia, 198 + French Fellow-travelers, Our, 90-97 + Frydenlund, Night at, 58-60 + + Gammel Strand, The, Fish-market, 23 + Geok Tepe, 210 + German Bride, The Lovely, 43 + German Fellow-travelers clamor for Bier, Our, 97 + German Car, In a, 200 + German Ogre Hungry for Denmark, 19 + Germany, We Enter, 214 + Germany, Journey to Hamburg, 218 + Gors Vand, 92 + Government Monopoly in Russia, 207 + Graft, Mulcted for Passports, 150-159-195 + Granheims Vand, 62 + Gravens Vand, 84 + Gribski, General, 210 + Grungedals Vand, 106 + Gudvangen, 78 + Gulden at Den Haag, Two, 228 + + Hague, The, 228 + Hamburg, 220 + Hamlet's Ghost and Grave, 35 + Hangoe, We Make Port, 140 + Hardanger Fjord, The, 85 + Harvesting in Norway, 65 + Harwich, Departure from, 1-3 + Harwich, Return to, 228 + Haukeli Fjeld, The, 97 + Haukeli Fjeld, Descending from the, 107 + Haymow Flying Through the Air, 71 + Height of Land, Crossing above Nystuen, 69 + Helsingborg, 41 + Helsingfors, 143 + Herring Catch at Elsinore, 38 + Hoch der Kaiser, 189 + Holger Danske, Legend of, 35 + Holland, Passing Through, 225 + Hollander of Today, The, 225 + Hook of Holland, The, 227 + Hotel Berlin, Moscow, 169 + Hotel Breifond, Horre, 92 + Hotel Continental, Stockholm, 122 + Hotel Dagmar, Copenhagen, 13 + Hotel de'l Europe, St. Petersburg, 149 + Hotel Fleischer's, Voss, Norway, 82 + Hotel Haukelid, Norway, 97 + Hotel Kristiania Missions, 46 + Hotel Savoy, Berlin, 214 + Hotel Sleibot, Elsinore, 38 + Hotel Stalheim, Norway, 75 + Hotel Twee Stadten, The Hague, 227 + Hotel Victoria, Amsterdam, 223 + + Imperial Apartments, St. Petersburg, 155 + Imperial Mail Train, Russia, 158 + Ivan the Terrible, 176 + Izvostchiks, 147-149-168 + + Jew, Cultivated Citizen of the World, 204 + Jews' Opportunity, The, 206 + Jewess, Russian, 202 + Jewish Synagogue, Moscow, 203 + Jotunheim, 61 + Jutland, to Funen and Zealand, 13 + Juno, A Viking, 70 + + Kilefos, 78 + King Oscar II, an Incident, 134 + Kischineff, Massacres of, 210 + Kremlin, The, 173 + Kristiania, 46 + Kristiania to Stockholm, 49 + Kronborg, 34 + Kronstadt, Fortress of, 145 + + Laera River, The, 72 + Laerdalsoeren, 70 + Lap Dish-wiper, A, 109 + Life and Color of Swedish Capital, 129-132 + Loeken Upon the Slidre Vand, 63 + London, Departure, 1 + London, Return to, 228 + Lotefos and Skarsfos, 90 + Lubin, The Eating Room at, 162 + + Maarken, Island of, 223 + Maarken, In a Tight Place, 224 + Maidens Milking Goats, 101 + Maristuen, 69 + Militarism, in Germany, 217 + Military Guard, 160-163 + Minsk, 199 + Moscow, En Route to, 158-161 + Moscow, Arrive at, 167 + Moscow, 168 + Moscow, Our Guide in, 169 + Moscow, Street Life, 178 + Moscow, We Leave, 195 + Mujiks, Frightful Poverty of the, 197-208 + Mujiks, Hatred of Bureaucrats, 187 + + Naeroe Fjord, 78 + Nelson, U. S. Senator, 81 + Neva, Entering the River, 146 + Nordsjoe Vand, 110 + North Sea, Crossing the, 3 + Norwegian Bride, A, 119 + Notes and Comments on Norse Life, 103 + Notice to Police, 150 + Novo Dievitchy, Monastery, 191 + Novogorod, 125 + + Odda, The Voyage to, 87 + Odda to Horre, 91 + Odnaes, 55 + Ole Mon, Our Driver, 56 + Ole Mon, I Fall into Rhyme, 74 + Opheims Vand, 80 + + Pageant of Russian Mass, 182 + Palaces of St. Petersburg, 154 + Passport System of Russia, 136-146 + Peat Beds in Norway, 114 + Peter the Great, 185 + Petrovsky, Chateau, 193 + Pixies and Sprites, 100 + Poland and the Poles, 199 + Police at St. Petersburg, 149 + Problems of Russia Economic, 212 + + Raaben, General von, 210 + Railroads--Danish, 10-31 + English, 1 + German, 218 + Norwegian, 41-81 + Russian, 160-163-195 + Swedish, 118 + Rand Fjord, Upon the, 55 + Recruiting Farm Hands for America, 113 + Red Square, Moscow, 174 + Religious Feeling in Russia, 180 + Rembrandt, 227 + Revolution in Russia Inevitable, 199 + Roldals Vand, 92 + Roosevelt, Russians Admire, 166 + Rubens, 227 + Rundals Elv, 82 + Rurik, House of, 125-176 + Russians Barbarians, 179 + Russian Dirt, 200 + Russia, How We Entered, 136 + Russia, Mediaeval and Pagan, 185 + + Sandven Vand, 89 + Scandinavian State, United, 19-127 + Scheveningen, 227 + Schools, in Norway, 104 + Schools, Lack of, in Russia, 156-165 + Seljestad Hotel, Our Hostess, 91 + Seljestad Juvet, 91 + Serfs, in Russia, 206 + Ships, on North Sea, 3 + Ships, on Gulf of Finland, 138 + Skansen Park, 131 + Skien, 108 + Skjervefos, The Roaring, 83 + Skodshorn, The Legend of the, 65 + Skogstad, The Night at, 67 + Sleeping Car, Swedish, 118 + Slidre Vand, 63 + Smidal Fjord, 75 + Smolensk, 195 + Snow, The First, 191 + Snows, Distant, 60 + Sogne Fjord, On the, 75 + South African Trooper, Incident, 2 + Sparrow Hills, 177 + Staa Vand, 97 + Staavanger, 88 + Stalheim to Vossvangen, 81 + Stars, We are the, 105 + Stockholm, 129 + Stockholm and the Swede, 123 + Stockholm, The Hotel at, 122 + Stockholm, Life and Color of, 128 + St. Peter and St. Paul, Church of, 156 + St. Petersburg, 148 + Stranda Vand, The, 60 + Summary of Impressions, 229 + Sund, The, 32 + Sund, The, Crossing to Sweden, 41 + Swede and Norsk, Differentiation of, 124 + Swedish Coffee House, A, 133 + Swedish Sleeping Car, A, 118 + + Telemarken Fjords, The, 108-110 + Teutonic Kinship, 189 + Thier Garten, Berlin, 216 + Three Continents, 184 + Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, 26 + Tomlevolden, 56 + Tonsaasen, Sanitorium of, 57 + Trolls and Pixies, 65 + Trolls and Witches, 98 + Tver, City of, 163 + Tvinde Elv, 81 + Twilight, the Arctic, 115 + + Ulivaa Vand, 97 + Utro Vand, 69 + + Vangs Vand, 81 + Vangsmjoesen Vand, 60 + Valdai Hills, 163 + Volga River, 125-163 + Voss or Vossvangen, 81 + Voxli Vand, 106 + + Warships, Incident of American, 53 + Wealth of Churches, St. Petersburg, 156-157 + Wealth of Few, Poverty of Many, Russia, 148-152-157 + Wealth of Few, Russia, 209 + Wedding Party, A, 120 + Wein Stube, Hamburg, 220 + Western Alps of Norway, 88 + Winter, Preparation for, 115 + Workingmen's Square, 187 + + Zuyder Zee, 223 + + +[Illustration: MAP OF NORTH EUROPE.] + +[Illustration: MAP OF SCANDINAVIA AND BALTIC RUSSIA, IN PROFILE.] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42132 *** |