And now we are in a land of streams, where mighty rivers begin their courses. See you that little brook by the roadside, which any barefooted boy would wade across, and an athletic leaper would almost clear at a single bound? That is the beginning of the longest river in Europe, which, rising here among the hills of the Black Forest, takes its way south and east till it sweeps with majestic flow past the Austrian capital, as "the dark-rolling Danube," and bears the commerce of an empire to the Black Sea.

Our fellow-travellers now begin to diverge to the watering places along the Rhine--to Baden and Homburg and Ems--where so much of the fashion of the Continent gathers every summer. But we had another place in view which had more interest to me, though a sad and mournful one--Strasburg, the capital of ill-fated Alsace--which, since I saw it before, had sustained one of the most terrible sieges in history. We crossed the Rhine from Kehl, where the Germans planted their batteries, and were soon pa.s.sing through the walls and moats which girdle the ancient town, and made it one of the most strongly fortified places in Europe, and were supposed to render it a Gibraltar, that could not be taken. But no walls can stand before modern artillery. The Germans planted their guns at two and three miles distance, and threw their sh.e.l.ls into the heart of the city. One cannot enter the gates without perceiving on every side the traces of that terrible bombardment. For weeks, day and night, a rain of fire poured on the devoted town. Sh.e.l.ls were continually bursting in the streets; the darkness of midnight was lighted up with the flames of burning dwellings. The people fled to their cellars, and to every underground place, for safety. But it was like fleeing at the last judgment to dens and caves, and calling on rocks to cover them from the inevitable destruction. At length, after a prolonged and heroic resistance, when all means of defence were gone, and the city must have been utterly destroyed, it surrendered.

And now what do we see? Of course, the traces of the siege have been removed, so far as possible. But still, after five years, there are large public buildings of which only blackened walls remain. Others show huge gaps and rents made by the shot of the besiegers, and, worst of all, everywhere are the hated German soldiers in the streets.

_Strasburg is a conquered city._ It has been torn from France and transferred to Germany, without the consent of its own people; and though the conquerors try to make things pleasant, and to soften as much as may be the bitterness of subjugation, they cannot succeed in doing the impossible. The people feel that they have been conquered, and the iron has entered into their souls. One can see it in a silent, sullen look, which is not natural to Frenchmen. This is the more strange, because a large part of the population of Alsace are Germans by race and language. In the markets, among the men and women who bring their produce for sale, I heard little else than the guttural sounds so familiar on the other side of the Rhine. But no matter for this; for two hundred years the country has belonged to France, and the people are French in their traditions--they are proud of the French glory; and if it were left to them, they would vote to-morrow, by an overwhelming majority, to be re-annexed to France.

Meanwhile the German Government is using every effort to "make over"

the people from Frenchmen into Germans. It has introduced the German language into the schools. _It has even renamed the streets._ It looked strange indeed to see on all the corners German names in place of the old familiar French ones. This is oppression carried to absurdity. If the new rulers had chosen to translate the French names into German, for the convenience of the new military occupants, that might have been well, and the two might have stood side by side. But no; the old names are _taken down_, and _Rue_ is turned into _Stra.s.se_ on every street corner in Strasburg. Was ever anything more ridiculous? They might as well compel the people to change _their_ names. The consequence of all this petty and constant oppression is that great numbers emigrate. And even those who remain do not take to their new masters. The elements do not mix. The French do not become Germans. A country is not so easily denationalized. The conquerors occupy the town, but in their social relations they are alone. We were told that if a German officer entered a public cafe or restaurant, the French instantly arose and left. It is the same thing which I saw at Venice and at Milan in the days of the old Austrian occupation. That was a most unnatural possession by an alien race, which had to be driven out with battle and slaughter before things could come into their natural and rightful relations. And so I fear it will have to be here. This annexation of Alsace to Germany may seem to some a wonderful stroke of political sagacity, or a military necessity, the gaining of a great strategic point, but to our poor American judgment it seems both a blunder and a crime, that will yet have to be atoned for with blood. It is a perpetual humiliation and irritation to France; a constant defiance to another and far more terrible war.

The ancient cathedral suffered greatly during the bombardment. It is said the Germans tried to spare it, and aimed their guns away from it; but as it was the most prominent object in the town, towering up far above everything else, it could not but be hit many times. Cannon b.a.l.l.s struck its majestic spire, the loftiest in the world; arches and pinnacles were broken; numbers of sh.e.l.ls crashed through the roof, and burst on the marble floor. Many of the windows, with their old stained gla.s.s, which no modern art can equal, were fatally shattered. It is a wonder that the whole edifice was not destroyed. But its foundations were very solid, and it stood the shock. Since the siege, of course, everything has been done to cover up the rents and gaps, and to restore it to its former beauty. And what a beauty it has, with outlines so simple and majestic. How enormous are the columns along the nave, which support the roof, and yet how they seem to _spring_ towards heaven, soaring upwards like overarching elms, till the eye aches to look up to the vaulted roof, that seems only like a lower sky. Except one other cathedral--that of Cologne (under the very shadow of which I am now writing)--it is the grandest specimen of Gothic architecture which the Middle Ages have left to us.

There is one other feature of Strasburg that has been unaffected by political changes. One set of inhabitants have not emigrated, but remain in spite of the German occupation--_the storks_. Was anything ever so queer as to see these long-legged, long-necked birds, sitting so tranquilly on the roofs of the houses, flapping their lazy wings over the dwellings of a populous city, and actually building their nests on the tops of the chimneys? Anything so different from the ordinary habits of birds, I had never seen before, and would hardly have believed it now if I had not seen it. It makes one feel as if everything was turned upside down, and the very course of nature reversed, in this strange country.

Another sign that we are getting out of our lat.i.tude, and coming farther North, is the change of language. We found that even in Switzerland. Around the Lake of Geneva, French is universally spoken; but at Berne everybody addressed us in German. In the Swiss Parliament speeches are made in three languages--German, French, and Italian--since all are spoken in some of the Cantons. As we did not understand German, though familiar with French, we had many ludicrous adventures with coachmen and railway employes, which, though sometimes vexatious, gave us a good deal of merriment. Of course there was nothing to do but to take it good-naturedly. Generally when the adventure was over, we had a hearty laugh at our own expense, though inwardly thinking this was a heathen country, since they did not know the language of Canaan, which, of course, is French or English. In short, we have become fully satisfied that English was the language spoken by Adam and Eve in Paradise, and which ought to be spoken by all their descendants.

But no harsh and guttural sounds, and no gloomy political events, can destroy the pleasure of a journey along the Rhine. The next day we resumed our course through the grand duchy of Baden. At one of the stations a gentleman looking out of a carriage window called me by name, and introduced himself as Dr. Evans, of Paris--a countryman of ours, well known to all who have visited the French capital, where he has lived for a quarter of a century, and made for himself a most honorable position in his profession, in both the American and foreign community. I had known him when he first came to Paris, just after the revolution of 1848. He was then a young man, in the beginning of his successful career. He has been yet more honorably distinguished as the gallant American who saved the Empress in 1870. The story is too well known to be repeated at length. The substance may be given in a few sentences. When the news of the surrender at Sedan of the Emperor and his whole army reached Paris, it caused a sudden revolution--the Empire was declared to have fallen, and the excited populace were ready to burst into the palace, and the Empress might have been sacrificed to their fury. She fled through the Louvre, and calling a cab in the street, drove to the house of Dr. Evans, whom she had long known. Here she was concealed for the night, and the next day he took her in his own carriage, hiding her from observation, and travelling rapidly, but in a way to attract no attention, to the sea-coast, and did not leave her till he had seen her safe in England. Connected with this escape were many thrilling details, which cannot be repeated here. I am very proud that she owed her safety to one of my countrymen. It was pleasant to be remembered by him after so many years. We got into the same carriage, and talked of the past, till we separated at Carlsruhe, from which he was going to Kissingen, while we went to Stuttgart, to visit an American family who came to Europe under my care in the Great Eastern in 1867, and have continued to reside abroad ever since for the education of their children. For such a purpose, Stuttgart is admirably fitted. Though the capital of the Kingdom of Wurtemberg, it is a very quiet city. Young people in search of gayety might think it dull, but that is its recommendation for those who seek profit rather than amus.e.m.e.nt. The schools are said to be excellent; and for persons who wish to spend a few years abroad, pursuing their studies, it would be hard to find a better place.

To make this visit we were obliged to travel by night to get back to the Rhine. We left Stuttgart at midnight. Night riding on European railways, where there are no sleeping-cars, is not very agreeable.

However, in the first cla.s.s carriages one can make a sort of half couch by pulling out the cushioned seats, and thus bestowed we managed to pa.s.s the night, which was not very long, as daybreak comes early in this lat.i.tude, and at this season of the year.

But fatigues vanish when at Mayence we go on board the steamer, and are at last afloat on the Rhine--"the exulting and abounding river."

We forget the discomforts of the way as we drop down this enchanted stream, past all the ruined castles, "famed in story," which hang on the crests of the hills. Every picturesque ruin has its legend, which clings to it like vines to the mouldering wall. All day long we are floating in the past, and in a romantic past. Tourists sit on deck, with their guide-books in hand, marking every old wall covered with ivy, and every crumbling tower, connected with some tradition of the Middle Ages. Even prosaic individuals go about repeating poetry. The best of guide-books is Childe Harold. Byron has seized the spirit of the scene in a few picturesque and animated stanzas, which bring the whole panorama before us. How musical are the lines beginning,

The castled crag of Drachenfels, Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks which bear the vine, And hills all rich with blossomed trees, And fields which promise corn and wine, And scattered cities crowning these, Whose far white walls along them shine.

Thus floating onward as in a dream, we reached Cologne at five o'clock Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and found at the Hotel du Nord a very s.p.a.cious and attractive hostelry, which made us well content to stay quietly for two or three days.

Cologne has got an ill name from Coleridge's ill-favored compliment, which implied that its streets had not always the fragrance of that Cologne water which it exports to all countries. But I think he has done it injustice for the sake of a witty epigram. If he has not, the place has much improved since his day, and if not yet quite a flower garden, is at least as clean and decent as most of the Continental cities. It has received a great impulse from the extension of railroads, of which it is a centre, being in the direct line of travel from England to the Rhine and Switzerland, and to the German watering-places, and indeed to every part of Central Europe. Hence it has grown rapidly, and become a large and prosperous city.

But to the traveller in search of sights, every object in Cologne "hides its diminished head" in presence of one, the cathedral, the most magnificent Gothic structure ever reared by human hands. Begun six hundred years ago, it is not finished yet. For four hundred years the work was suspended, and the huge crane that stood on one of its towers, as it hung in air, was a sad token of the great, but unfinished design. But lately the German Government, with that vigor which characterizes everything in the new empire, has undertaken its completion. Already it has expended two millions of dollars upon it, and holds out a hope that it may be finished during this generation.

To convey any idea of this marvellous structure by a description, is impossible. It is a forest in stone. Looking through its long nave and aisles, one is more reminded of the avenues of New Haven elms, than of any work of man. We ascended by the stone steps to the roof, at least to the first roof, and then began to get some idea of the vastness of the whole. Pa.s.sing into the interior at this height, we made the circuit of the gallery, from which men looked very small who were walking about on the pavement of the cathedral. The sacristan who had conducted us thus far, told us we had now ascended one hundred steps, and that, if we chose to mount a hundred more, we could get to the main roof--the highest present accessible point--for the towers are not yet finished, which are further to be surmounted by lofty spires.

When complete, the crosses which they lift into the air will be more than five hundred feet above the earth!

The Cathedral boasts great treasures and holy relics--such as the bones of the Magi, the three Kings of the East, who came to see the Saviour at his birth, which, whoso can believe, is welcome to his faith. But the one thing which all _must_ believe, since it stands before their eyes, is the magnificence of this temple of the Almighty.

I am surprised to see the numbers of people who attend the services, and with an appearance of devotion, joining in the singing with heart and voice. The Cathedral is our constant resort, as it is close to our hotel, and we can go in at all hours, morning, noon, and night. There we love to sit especially at twilight, when the priests are chanting vespers, and listen to their songs, and think of the absent and the dead. We may wander far, and see many lofty structures reared to the Most High, but nowhere do we expect to bow our heads in a n.o.bler temple, till we join with the worshippers before the Throne.

CHAPTER XIII.

BELGIUM AND HOLLAND.

AMSTERDAM, July 30th.

If any of my readers should follow our route upon the map, he will see that we take a somewhat zigzag course, flying off here and there to see whatever most attracts attention. The facilities of travel in Europe are so great, that one can at any time be transported in a few hours into a new country. The junior partner in this travelling company of two has lately been reading Motley's histories, and been filled with enthusiasm for the Netherlands, which fought so bravely against Spain, and nothing would do but to turn aside to see these Low Countries. So, instead of going east from Cologne into the heart of Germany, we turned west to make a short detour into Belgium and Holland. And indeed these countries deserve a visit, as they are quite unique in appearance and in character, and furnish a study by themselves. They lie in a corner of the Continent, looking out upon the North Sea, and seem to form a kind of eddy, unaffected by the great current of the political life of Europe. They do not belong to the number of the Great Powers, and do not have to pay for "glory" by large standing armies and perpetual wars.

Belgium--which we first enter in coming from the Rhine--is one of the smaller kingdoms still left on the map of Europe not yet swallowed up by the great devourers of nations; and which, if it has less glory, has more liberty and more real happiness than some of its more powerful neighbors. If it has not the form of a republic, yet it has all the liberty which any reasonable man could desire. Its standing army is small--but forty or fifty thousand men; though in case of war, it could put a hundred thousand under arms. But this would be a mere mouthful for some of the great German armies. Its security, therefore, lies not in its ability to resist attack, but in the fact that from its very smallness it does not excite the envy or the fear or the covetousness of its neighbors, and that, between them all, it is very convenient to have this strip of neutral territory. During the late war between France and Germany it prospered greatly; the danger to business enterprises elsewhere led many to look upon this little country, as in the days of the Flood people might have looked upon some point of land that had not yet been reached by the waters that covered the earth, to which they could flee for safety. Hence the disasters of others gave a great impulse to its commercial affairs.

Antwerp, where we ended our first day's journey, is a city that has had a great history; that three hundred years ago was one of the first commercial cities of Europe, the Venice of the North, and received in its waters ships from all parts of the earth. It has had recently a partial revival of its former commercial greatness. The forest of masts now lying in the Scheldt tells of its renewed prosperity.

But strangers do not go to Antwerp to see fleets of ships, such as they might see at London or Liverpool, but to see that which is old and historic. Antwerp has one of the notable Cathedrals of the Continent, which impresses travellers most if they come directly from America. But coming from Cologne, it suffers by comparison, as it has nothing of the architectural magnificence, the heaven-soaring columns and arches, of the great Minster of Cologne. And then its condition is dilapidated and positively shabby. It is not finished, and there is no attempt to finish it. One of the towers is complete, but the other is only half way up, where it has been capped over, and so remained for centuries, and perhaps will remain forever. And its surroundings are of the meanest description. Instead of standing in an open square, with ample s.p.a.ce around it to show its full proportions, it is hedged in by shops, which are backed up against its very walls. Thus the architectural effect is half destroyed. It is a shame that it should be left in such a state--that, while Prussia, a Protestant country, is spending millions to restore the Cathedral of Cologne, Belgium, a Catholic country, and a rich one too (with no war on hand to drain its resources), should not devote a little of its wealth to keeping in proper order and respect this venerable monument of the past.

And yet not all the littleness of its present surroundings can wholly rob the old Cathedral of its majesty. There it stands, as it has stood from generation to generation, and out from all this meanness and dirt it lifts its head towards heaven. Though only one tower is finished, that is very lofty (as any one will find who climbs the hundreds of stone steps to the top, from which the eye ranges over almost the whole of Belgium, a vast plain, dotted with cities and villages), and being wrought in open arches, it has the appearance of fretted work, so that Napoleon said "it looked as if made of Mechlin lace." And there, high in the air, hangs a chime of bells, that every quarter of an hour rings out some soft aerial melody. It has a strange effect, in walking across the Place St. Antoine, to hear this delicious _rain_ dropping down as it were out of the clouds. We almost wonder that the market people can go about their business, while there is such heavenly music in the upper air.

But the glory of the Cathedral of Antwerp is within--not in the church itself, but in the great paintings which it enshrines. The interior is cold and naked, owing to the entire absence of color to give it warmth. The walls are glaring white. We even saw them _whitewashing_ the columns and arches. Could any means be found more effectual for belittling the impression of one of the great churches of the Middle Ages? If taste were the only thing to be considered in this world, I could wish Belgium might be annexed, for awhile at least, to Germany, that that Government might take this venerable Cathedral in hand, and, by clearing away the rubbish around it, and proper toning of the walls within, restore it to its former majesty and beauty.

But no surroundings, however poor and cold, can destroy the immortal paintings with which it is illumined and glorified. Until I saw these, I could not feel much enthusiasm for the works of Rubens, although those who worship the old masters would consider it rank heresy to say so. Many of his pictures seem to me artistic monstrosities, they are on such a colossal scale. The men are all giants, and the women all amazons, and even his holy children, his seraphs and cupids, are fat Dutch babies. It seems as if his object, in every painting of the human figure, were to display his knowledge of anatomy; and the bodies are often twisted and contorted as if to show the enormous development of muscle in the giant limbs. This is very well if one is painting a Hercules or a gladiator. But to paint common men and women in this colossal style is not pleasing. The series of pictures in the Louvre, in which Marie de Medicis is introduced in all sorts of dramatic att.i.tudes, never stirred my admiration, as I have said more than once, when standing before those huge canvases, although one for whose opinions in such matters I had infinite respect, used to reply archly, that I "could hardly claim to be an authority in painting." I admit it; but that is my opinion nevertheless, which I adhere to with all the proverbial tenacity of the "free and independent American citizen."

But ah, I do repent me now, as I come into the presence of paintings whose treatment, like their subject, is divine. There are two such in the Cathedral of Antwerp--the Elevation of the Cross, and the Descent from the Cross. The latter is generally regarded as the masterpiece of Rubens; but they are worthy of each other.

In the Elevation of the Cross our Saviour has been nailed to the fatal tree, which the Roman soldiers are raising to plant it in the earth.

The form is that of a living man. The hands and feet are streaming with blood, and the body droops as it hangs with all its weight on the nails. But the look is one of life, and not of death. The countenance has an expression of suffering, yet not of mere physical pain; the agony is more than human; as the eyes are turned upward, there is more than mortal majesty in the look--there is divinity as well as humanity--it is the dying G.o.d. Long we sat before this picture, to take in the wondrous scene which it presents. He must be wanting in artistic taste, or religious feeling, who can look upon it without the deepest emotion.

In the Descent from the Cross the struggle is over: there is Death in every feature, in the face, pale and bloodless, in the limbs that hang motionless, in the whole body as it sinks into the arms of the faithful attendants. If Rubens had never painted but these two pictures, he would deserve to be ranked as one of the world's great masters. I am content to look on these, and let more enthusiastic worshippers admire the rest.

Leaving the tall spire of Antwerp in the distance, the swift fire-horse skims like a swallow over the plains of Belgium, and soon we are in Holland. One disadvantage of these small States (to compensate for the positive good of independence, and of greater commercial freedom) is, that every time we cross a frontier we have to undergo a new inspection by the custom-house authorities. To be sure, it does not amount to much. The train is detained half an hour, the trunks are all taken into a large room, and placed on counters; the pa.s.sengers come along with the keys in their hands, and open them; the officials give an inquiring look, sometimes turn over one or two layers of clothing, and see that it is all right; the trunks are locked up, the porters replace them in the baggage-car, and the train starts on again. We are amused at the farce, the only annoyance of which is the delay. Within two days after we left Cologne, we had crossed two frontiers, and had our baggage examined twice: first, in going into Belgium, and, second, in coming into Holland; we had heard three languages--nay, four--German on the Rhine; then French at Antwerp (how good it seemed to hear the familiar accents once more!); and the Flemish, which is a dialect unlike either; and now we have this horrible Dutch (which is "neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring," but a sort of jaw-breaking gutturals, that seem not to be spoken with lips or tongue, but to be coughed up from some unfathomable depth in the Dutch breast); and we have had three kinds of money--marks and francs, and florins or guilders--submitting to a shave every time we change from one into the other. Such are the petty vexations of travel. But never mind, let us take them good-naturedly, leaping over them gayly, as we do over this dike--and here we are in Holland.

Switzerland and Holland! Was there ever a greater contrast than between the two countries? What a change for us in these three weeks, to be up in the clouds, and now down, actually _below_ the level of the sea; for Holland is properly, and in its normal state, _under water_, only the water is drained off, and is kept off by constant watchfulness. The whole land has been obtained by robbery--robbery from the ocean, which is its rightful possessor, and is kept out of his dominions by a system of earthworks, such as never were drawn around any fortification. Holland may be described in one word as an enormous Dutch platter, flat and even hollow in the middle, and turned up at the edges. Standing in the centre, you can see the _rim_ in the long lines of circ.u.mvallation which meet the eye as it sweeps round the horizon. This immense _plat.i.tude_ is intersected by innumerable ca.n.a.ls, which cross and recross it in every direction; and as if to drive away the evil spirits from the country, enormous windmills, like huge birds, keep a constant flapping in the air. To relieve the dull monotony, these plains are covered with cattle, which with their ma.s.ses of black and white and red on the green pastures, give a pretty bit of color to the landscape. The raising of cattle is one of the chief industries of Holland. They are exported in great numbers from Rotterdam to London, so that "the roast beef of old England" is often Dutch beef, after all. With her plains thus bedecked with countless herds, all sleek and well fed, the whole land has an aspect of comfort and abundance; it looks to be, as it is, a land of peace and plenty, of fat cattle and fat men. As moreover it has not much to do in the way of making war, except on the other side of the globe, it has no need of a large standing army; and the military element is not so unpleasantly conspicuous as in France and Germany.

Rotterdam is a place of great commercial importance. It has a large trade with the Dutch Possessions in the East Indies, and with other parts of the world. But as it has less of historical interest, we pa.s.s it by, to spend a day at the Hague, which is the residence of the Court, and of course the seat of rank and fashion in the little kingdom. It is a pretty place, with open squares and parks, long avenues of stately trees, and many beautiful residences. We received a good impression of it in these respects on the evening of our arrival, as we took a carriage and drove to Scheveningen, two or three miles distant on the sea-sh.o.r.e, which is the great resort of Dutch fashion.

It was Long Branch over again. There were the same hotels, with long wide piazzas looking out upon the sea; a beautiful beach sloping down to the water, covered with bathing-houses, and a hundred merry groups scattered here and there; young people engaged in mild flirtations, which were quite harmless, since old dowagers sat looking on with watchful eyes. Altogether it was a very pretty scene, such as it does one good to see, as it shows that all life and happiness are not gone out of this weary world.

As we drove back to the Hague, we met the royal carriage with the Queen, who was taking her evening drive--a lady with a good motherly face, who is greatly esteemed, not only in Holland, but in England, for her intelligence and her many virtues. She is a woman of literary tastes, and is fond of literary society. I infer that she is a friend of our countryman, Mr. Motley, who has done so much to ill.u.s.trate the history of Holland, from seeing his portrait the next day at her Palace in the Wood--which was the more remarkable as hanging on the wall of one of the princ.i.p.al apartments _alone_, no other portrait being beside it, and few indeed anywhere, except of members of the royal family.

This "Wood," where this summer palace stands, is one of the features of the Hague. It is called the Queen's Wood, and is quite worthy of its royal name, being a forest chiefly of beech-trees, through which long avenues open a retreat into the densest silence and shade. It is a great resort for the people of the Hague, and thither we drove after we came in from Scheveningen. An open s.p.a.ce was brilliantly lighted up, and the military band was playing, and a crowd of people were sitting in the open air, or under the trees, sipping their coffee or ices, and listening to the music, which rang through the forest aisles. It would be difficult to find, in a place of the size of the Hague, a more brilliant company.

But it was not fashion that we were looking for, but historical places and a.s.sociations. So the next morning we took a carriage and a guide and drove out to Delft, to see the spot where William the Silent, the great Prince of Orange, on whose life it seemed the fate of the Netherlands hung, was a.s.sa.s.sinated; and the church where he was buried, and where, after three hundred years, his spirit still rules from its urn.

Returning to the city, we sought out--as more interesting than Royal Palaces or the Picture Gallery, though we did justice to both--the houses of the great commoners, John and Cornelius De Witt, who, after lives of extraordinary devotion to the public good, were torn to pieces by an infuriated populace; and of Barneveld, who, after saving Holland by his wisdom and virtue, was executed on some technical and frivolous charge. We saw the very spot where he died, and the window out of which Maurice (the son of the great William) looked on at this judicial murder--the only stain on his long possession of the chief executive power.

Leaving the Hague with its tragic and its heroic memories, we take our last view of Holland in Amsterdam. Was there ever such a queer old place? It is like the earth of old--"standing out of the water and in the water." It is intersected with ca.n.a.ls, which are filled with boats, loading and unloading. The whole city is built on piles, which sometimes sink into the mud, causing the superinc.u.mbent structures to incline forward like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In fact, the houses appear to be drunk, and not to be able to stand on their pins. They lean towards each other across the narrow streets, till they almost touch, and indeed seem like old topers, that cannot stand up straight, but can only just hold on by the lamp-post, and are nodding to each other over the way. I should think that in some places a long Dutchman's pipe could be held out of one window, and be smoked by a man on the other side of the street.

But in spite of all that, in these old tumble-down houses, under these red-tiled roofs, there dwells a brave, honest, free people; a people that are slaves to no master; that fear G.o.d, and know no other fear; and that have earned their right to a place in this world by hard blows on the field of battle, and on every field of human industry--on land and on sea--and that are to-day one of the freest and happiest people on the round earth.

How we wished last evening that we had some of our American friends with us, as we rode about this old city--along by the ca.n.a.ls, over the bridges, down to the harbor, and then for miles along the great embankment that keeps out the sea. There are the ships coming and going to all parts of the earth--the constant and manifold proofs that Holland is still a great commercial country.

And to-day we wished for those friends again, as we rode to Broek, the quaintest and queerest little old place that ever was seen--that looks like a baby-house made of Dutch tiles. It is said to be the cleanest place in the world, in which respect it is like those Shaker houses, where every tin pan is scoured daily, and every floor is as white as broom and mop can make it. We rode back past miles of fertile meadows, all wrung from the sea, where cattle were cropping the rich gra.s.s on what was once the bottom of the deep; and thus on every hand were the signs of Dutch thrift and abundance.

And so we take our leave of Holland with a most friendly feeling. We are glad to have seen a country where there is so much liberty, so much independence, and such universal industry and comfort. To be sure, an American would find life here rather _slow_; it would seem to him as if he were being drawn in a low and heavy boat with one horse through a stagnant ca.n.a.l; but _they_ don't feel so, and so they are happy. Blessings on their honest hearts! Blessings on the stout old country, on the l.u.s.ty burghers, and buxom women, with faces round as the harvest moon! Now that we are going away, the whole land seems to relax into a broad smile; the very cattle look happy, as they recline in the fat meadows and chew the cud of measureless content; the storks seem sorry to have us go, and sail around on lazy wing, as if to give us a parting salutation; and even the windmills begin to creak on their hinges, and with their long arms wave us a kind farewell.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE NEW GERMANY AND ITS CAPITAL.