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32 chapters
A BOY’S RACE WITH GENERAL GRANT AT EPHESUS.
A BOY’S RACE WITH GENERAL GRANT AT EPHESUS.
THE Turkish battery ashore thundered a royal salute to General Grant as the Vandalia which bore him from port to port in the Mediterranean steamed up to her anchorage in the harbor of Smyrna. Thirty great iron-clads followed in quick succession; men-of-war crowded the harbor. They had been ordered into Turkish waters on account of the war then raging between Turkey and Russia. From ship and shore thousands of spectators watched the Vandalia’s approach with eager interest, and from the foremast o
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INDIAN CHILDREN AND THEIR PETS.
INDIAN CHILDREN AND THEIR PETS.
MANY people suppose that the Indian children have no dolls or pets. This is a mistake. The Indian baby, or pappoose, is provided by its squaw-mother with a sort of doll from its earliest infancy. The baby itself is tied to a board which is covered with buckskins and fanciful bindings, or with bright-colored cloth ornamented with bead-work and tinsel. This baby-board, which is carriage and cradle in one, looks like the toe of a large slipper, and has a piece of wood bent across the head to protec
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RIGA IN THE CHIMNEY.
RIGA IN THE CHIMNEY.
HOW did Riga get into the chimney? Well, if the truth must be told, it was not merely a chimney, but the window; and not a window only, but the front door; and not only the front door, but the staircase. It was, in fact, so much of all four, that it was but slightly like any one of them. Things were altogether upside-down in this house. Instead of being built on the ground like all reasonable houses, it was under it; and although it had but one place to come in at, and but one fire to cook at, s
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SEEING THE POPE.
SEEING THE POPE.
IT is only the young people of America who, in this age of the world, have not been to Europe; therefore to them and for them I have written down, in journal form, a few incidents of travel; among them, a brief account of an evening spent with La Baronessa Von Stein, and a presentation to the Pope. Wednesday. This evening we have spent, by invitation, with the Baroness Von Stein, widow of Baron Von Stein of Germany. The Baroness, a German by birth, passed much of her youth in Poland. Skilled as
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A LESSON IN ITALIAN.
A LESSON IN ITALIAN.
“DO you speak English?” “ Non, Signora! ” “Do you speak any other language than Italian?” “Then you are the person I desire as guide!” The above dialogue took place near the Amphitheatre of Verona. The Italian, standing awaiting employment, was an old man, bright and active. The American, who addressed him was an elderly woman, who had studied the languages of Europe nearly half a century. She had just arrived in Verona. Leaving the younger members of her party she had strolled off alone, the be
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FEEDING GHOSTS IN CHINA.
FEEDING GHOSTS IN CHINA.
THE carpenter who has been making our new book-case says he wants to go to his home for a few days—some work is awaiting him there; the Chinese writer says he wishes to go—there is a message to be sent in the direction of his village, he can carry it, and, being at leisure, can spend a few days with his family; our house boy says he , also, must go—his “muddar” has been sick, is now “more better,” and he must go and see her. And so the carpenter and the writer have gone, and the boy is going; bu
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THE CHILDREN OF THE KOPPENBERG.
THE CHILDREN OF THE KOPPENBERG.
FROM Hanover to Hameln is a good twenty-five mile walk, with a mountain at the end: to go over which, however, shortens the journey by several miles. In the case of Tom Osgood and Fred Taylor, who reached the foot of the mountain towards the close of what had been to them a long and weary day, the one—that is, Tom—concluded to go around the mountain, while Fred chose the shorter if rougher path over the top. Why the boys should have taken this long and tiresome tramp when a railroad runs the who
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A DAY AT THE BUTTS.
A DAY AT THE BUTTS.
IT was the fourth day of August, more than a hundred years ago, and the whole road between London and the little village of Harrow was thronged with people. It was hot and dusty enough that summer morning, but nobody seemed to mind in the eager scramble for the best seats; and it was not long before the little green knoll, just at the west of the London road, seemed fairly alive with spectators. It was a lovely spot—this well-known Butts of Harrow—with its crown of tall forest trees waving like
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TINY FEET OF CHINESE LADIES.
TINY FEET OF CHINESE LADIES.
JUST imagine the foot of a full grown lady but five inches in length! Yet even this is large, and in highly aristocratic families four inches is the standard. This queer custom of compressing the feet of Chinese girls is of very ancient date, and in our day is almost universal—only nuns, slaves, boat-women, and others who are obliged to perform out-door drudgery, being exempt. As to the origin of the custom, the Chinese themselves are not agreed. Many suppose that it is a fashion intended to dra
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SHETLAND PONIES.
SHETLAND PONIES.
FAR north from Scotland, and but seldom visited by southern travelers are the Shetland Islands. From these rock-bound, treeless islands come the Shetland ponies that we so often see at the circus, or pulling little phaetons patiently along. A Shetland pony is almost a child’s first desire, unless, perhaps, it may be to own a monkey. To have a pony to ride, or to drive, and especially a real Shetland, long-haired, short-legged pony is a dream of perfect happiness, indeed. But have the readers of
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MR. SWEET POTATOES.
MR. SWEET POTATOES.
OUR milkman has a very odd name,—translated into English it is “Sweet Potatoes.” His Chinese neighbors call him “Old Father Sweet Potatoes.” Some persons think him a good man; others say that he is a very bad one. Just how that is I do not know—his business brings him great temptation. He is accused of putting water into the milk. He himself says, that he only does it when he has not enough milk to supply all his customers; then he does not know what else he can do. When we engaged him to bring
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SHETLAND WOMEN.
SHETLAND WOMEN.
NOT far outside the town of Lerwick, on the Shetland Islands there is a great, black, muddy tract of land called a peat-bog. All about is utter desolation. There are no huts even to be seen. The town is concealed by a rounded hill; and when, through some opening between the bare upheavals, one catches a sight of the North Sea, it, too, seems deserted by mankind. The peat, or mixture of roots and peculiar black soil, is dug here in large quantities; and all about the place are great piles of it,
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MARDI GRAS IN NICE.
MARDI GRAS IN NICE.
HAVE you ever happened in Nice at Carnival? On a bright June morning, which my calendar called February twelfth, Rull and I tripped lightly down through the old olive orchards to the station, and billeted ourselves for Nice. Long before we reached Nice Rull’s hands tingled; for there lay a beautiful line of snow, miles away, on the north side of the Alps, and the poor fellow hadn’t been as near a snow-ball as that for the winter. But I had only to say “ confetti! ” and his eyes danced at the vis
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ON THE FARM IN WINTER.
ON THE FARM IN WINTER.
THE life of a boy in winter on the old-fashioned New England farm seems to me one of the best of the right kinds of life for a healthy lad, provided his tastes have not been spoiled by wrong reading, or by some misleading glimpse of a city by gas-light. It certainly abounds with the blood and muscle-making sports for which the city physiologists so anxiously strive to substitute rinks and gymnasiums. But I rather pity a young fellow who gets his only sleigh rides by paying a dollar an hour to th
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A CHINAMAN’S QUEUE.
A CHINAMAN’S QUEUE.
EVERYONE knows that a Chinaman wears his hair in a queue, but not everyone knows why he does so. A Chinaman’s queue is not a mere oddity or variety; it is, to him, a very serious thing; losing it, he would almost sell his respectability, and history tells of more than one time when it has been a matter of life and death. In many of their customs the people of China follow their forefathers of more than a thousand years ago, but queues may be called a new fashion, having only been worn about two
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MEXICAN WATER-CARRIERS
MEXICAN WATER-CARRIERS
A MEXICAN water-carrier is always an oddly-dressed fellow. He looks something like the man some one met “one misty, moisty morning,” who was all clothed in leather. He has a leather cap, jacket and trousers, the last reaching only to his knees, and held aside with bright buttons of silver, so as to show the white cotton drawers beneath. Down the front of his jacket, too, and around the rim of his cap, are bright buttons. Fastened at his side is a leather wallet holding his money. On his feet are
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A VERY QUEER HOUSE.
A VERY QUEER HOUSE.
THERE are few pleasanter places in summer than the great square of Et-Meidaun at Constantinople. The tall gray pointed monument in the middle, like a sentry watching over the whole place, the white houses along either side, the polished pavement, the high white walls and rounded domes, and tall slender towers and cool shadowy gateways of the Turkish mosques together with the bright blue sky overhead and the bright blue sea in the distance below, make a very pretty picture indeed. The different p
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IN BELGIUM.
IN BELGIUM.
AFTER rolling and tossing for twenty-four hours upon the German Ocean, the sight of land should be hailed with a spirit of thankfulness. But of all inhospitable shores, those of the Belgian coast, in the month of November, must carry the palm. The waters, gray and rough, dash upon a sandy beach for miles and miles, showing no signs of life, if we except an occasional wind-mill in action. Row after row of poplar trees form a partial back-ground. Somewhat stripped of their leaves, they have the ap
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JOE THE CHIMPANZEE.
JOE THE CHIMPANZEE.
WHEN in England I was very much interested in the monkeys at the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park, London. There were hundreds of all kinds and sizes, from the gigantic orang-outang to tiny creatures not much bigger than a large rat. These monkeys had a spacious glass house, heated by steam; and as a tropical temperature was always maintained, tall palms and luxurious vines grew so vigorously within its walls that I have no doubt the quaint inmates supposed themselves in their native haunts. Th
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MARKET DAY AT PAU.
MARKET DAY AT PAU.
IF you don’t know where Pau is, do as I did when I first heard of it,—look it up on some large map of France. Down in the southeast corner, at the mouth of the Adour river, you will see the city from which the bayonet is said to have received its name; and if you move your finger along about an inch due east from Bayonne you will be likely to pass it directly under Pau. It is the capital of one of the finest departments of France, the Basses-Pyrénées; and its mild, equable climate and charming s
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IL SANTISSIMO BAMBINO.
IL SANTISSIMO BAMBINO.
ON the Capitoline Hill, in Rome, stands a church, twelve hundred years old, called Ara Cœli. It is unpromising in its outward appearance, but is rich in marbles and mosaics within. The most precious possession of this ancient church however, is a wooden doll called Il Santissimo Bambino—The Most Holy Infant. It is dressed like an Italian baby, and an Italian baby is dressed like a mummy. We often see them in their mothers’ arms, so swathed that they can no more move than a bundle without any bab
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CHILDREN UNDER THE SNOW.
CHILDREN UNDER THE SNOW.
FAR away up in the north, on the shores of that great frozen ocean lying beyond Europe and Asia, you may sometimes catch sight (as I did once) of a huge, gray, pointed thing, standing all alone in the midst of the snowy plain, just like an immense pear with the stalk upward. I should have been puzzled had I not seen a thin curl of smoke creeping from the top of it; but that let me into the secret. This queer-looking thing was a Samoiede tent! The tent of a Samoiede is almost as simple an affair
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THE JEWELLED TOMB.
THE JEWELLED TOMB.
WOULD the youthful readers of this volume like to hear about the most beautiful tomb in the world? It is in the city of Agra in India, on the other side of the globe. When Boston children are eating their lunch or playing in the sunshine at noon-recess, it is midnight in India. It is so hot there that if anyone happened to be awake, he would probably be fanning himself and looking out of the window up at the stars which are bigger and brighter than in New England, or down at the gardens where hu
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A NIGHT WITH PAUL BOYTON.
A NIGHT WITH PAUL BOYTON.
“TELL me, what was the oddest experience you ever had?” said a friend of mine one day, upon the cars going West. I had been “spinning yarns” to him, as the sailors say, for the last hundred miles of our journey, concerning a variety of queer happenings met with in the life of a journalistic Free-lance during the past ten years. “Well, now, that’s a hard question to answer,” said I: “give me five minutes to think. Let’s see—did I ever tell you about my cruise with Paul Boyton?” Paul Boyton is the
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BOY-DIVERS IN THE RED SEA.
BOY-DIVERS IN THE RED SEA.
“HERE we are at last, Mr. Ker,” says the captain, as we cast anchor off the coast of Arabia, a little after sunset, about two-thirds down the Red Sea. “It’s too dark to make out much to-night, but you’ll see a rare sight when you come on deck to-morrow morning.” The worthy captain’s mention of “coming on deck” is doubtless from force of habit, for neither he nor I have been anywhere but on deck for more than a week, except perhaps to look for something which we have left below. Most of my time i
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ST. BOTOLPH’S TOWN.
ST. BOTOLPH’S TOWN.
LONG time ago, there were in England, as well as in many other countries, certain pious men and women who, for their eminent wisdom, charitable works, or lives of purity and usefulness, came to be called Saints. Among these was a Saxon monk, the Abbot of Ikanho, St. Botolph by name, who lived about the middle of the seventh century. Botolph belonged to a noble English family. After having been educated at one of the religious houses in what was then called Belgic Gaul, he came back to England, a
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SOME QUEER AMERICANS.
SOME QUEER AMERICANS.
THE queerest people in this country, I fancy, live down in the southern part of the Blue Ridge where that magnificent range of mountains passes through the northern parts of both Carolinas and of Georgia. Even their houses are small and queer, and all their tools and machinery of the most primitive description. The farm-houses through the mountains are made of logs, and, as the weather is not usually very cold, the chinking of mud and chips between the logs is very likely to fall out and be only
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THE BOY KING OF EGYPT.
THE BOY KING OF EGYPT.
YOU have all heard of Rameses the Great, whose noble presence looms up from the black night of ages, majestic, gracious, clear cut, and real almost as the monarchs of to-day. Rameses mei Amoun, as his people delighted to call him, meaning Rameses beloved of Ammon, the great god of Egypt, was born more than three thousand years ago, in Thebes, the capital of the kingdom. His father was a pharaoh, Seti I., and his mother was the queen Livea. Old Greek historians tell marvellous stories concerning
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
WE lived in that same Casa Guidi from whose windows Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poet-eyes saw what she afterward put into glowing verse. Casa Guidi is a great pile of graystone, a pile of many windows which give upon the Via Maggio and a little piazza, as the squares in Florence are called. Consequently it is lighter and brighter than are many of the houses in Florence, where the streets are narrow and the houses lofty. According to almost universal custom, Casa Guidi was divided into half a do
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
THE two public picture galleries of Florence—the Pitti and the Uffizi—are on either side of the Arno. They are connected by a covered way, which runs along over the roofs of houses, and crosses the jewelers’ bridge, so called because upon it are built the shops of all the jewelers in town,—or so it would seem at first sight. At all events, here are nothing but jewelers’ shops; small shops, such as I imagine the shops of the middle ages to have been. But in the narrow windows, and in the unostent
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
ONE summer we lived in a villa a short distance outside the gates of Florence. For Florence had gates in those days, and was a walled city, kept by Austrian sentinels. That was the time of the Austrian occupation. Since then, Solferino and Magenta have been fought, and the treaty of Villa-franca has been signed, and now, “Italy’s one, from mountain to sea!”— But then the Florentines bowed their necks under a hated foreign yoke, scowling when they dared at a retreating “maledetto Tedesco” (cursed
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CHEERFUL WORDS.[B]
CHEERFUL WORDS.[B]
In the whole range of English literature we can call to mind the works of no single author to which the title, “Cheerful Words,” can more properly apply than to those of George Macdonald. It exactly expresses the element which permeates everything from his pen, whether sermon, essay, story or poem—an element which strengthens while it cheers, which instills new light and life into the doubting or discouraged soul, and incites it to fresh effort. In the volume before us the editor has brought tog
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