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THE Alhambra and the Kremlin.
THE Alhambra and the Kremlin.
The South and the North of Europe are contrasted in this volume. Not by any formal comparison of the morals and manners, the institutions and condition of the peoples in different latitudes, but by candid statement and description, I have sought to give a fair view of life as it is in Spain and Scandinavia. Since the journey was made, the Queen of Spain has fled, and the Emperor of France has perished from among men. But the social life of the nations remains the same from age to age. The Alhamb
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CHAPTER I. GRANADA.
CHAPTER I. GRANADA.
IN the grounds of the Alhambra, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings of Granada, what time those conquerors of Spain here held their right regal court, I have come to sit down and to rest. My lodgings are just under the walls of the old castle, in sight of its crumbling towers, in hearing of its many falling waters, and under the shadow of its English elms, which the Duke of Wellington gave to Spain. At any moment a few steps take me into the courts and halls and chambers of the Alhambra. In
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CHAPTER II. OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN—THE BASQUE PROVINCES.
CHAPTER II. OUT OF FRANCE INTO SPAIN—THE BASQUE PROVINCES.
AWAY down in the south-west corner of France, on the Bay of Biscay, was a hamlet on a rock-bound coast, which has of late years suddenly sprung into the notice of the world. The sunshine of imperial favor ripened the modest bud of a humble village into a flower of remarkable beauty. What was a short time since quite unknown, is now the fashionable watering-place of France. Selected by the late Emperor as his autumnal resort, he built a handsome chateau, and named it Eugénie , and thus made the f
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CHAPTER III. BURGOS—THE ESCORIAL.
CHAPTER III. BURGOS—THE ESCORIAL.
NOTHING purely Spanish comes in sight till we get to Burgos. This old city is half-way from the frontier to Madrid, and is just so slow, sleepy, and sluggish a town as one should see to get a correct impression of Spain at the start. About a thousand years ago, Diego Porcelos, a knight of Castile, had a beautiful daughter, Sulla Bella, who was loved and won by a German, and they founded this city, calling it from a German Burg , a fortified place, Burgos. For many long years it was independent,
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CHAPTER IV. MADRID—A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL.
CHAPTER IV. MADRID—A SABBATH AND A CARNIVAL.
A VALET-DE-PLACE who was leading us to church on Sunday morning in Madrid, spoke very fair English, and I asked him where he had learned it. He said, “At the missionary’s school in Constantinople.” He was quite a polyglot, professing to be able to speak seven languages fluently. It was interesting to meet a youth who knew our missionaries there, and entertained a great respect for his old teachers,—and it gave us an idea, too, of the indirect influence which such schools must be exerting, when y
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CHAPTER V. MADRID—PALACE—BANK—PICTURE-GALLERY.
CHAPTER V. MADRID—PALACE—BANK—PICTURE-GALLERY.
WHEN Napoleon, as conqueror of Spain, entered the royal palace of Madrid (it was in 1808, his brother Joseph, the new-made king of Spain, being at his side), the great captain paused on the splendid marble staircase; and, as the magnificence of the mansion burst upon him, he turned to his brother, and said, in his epigrammatic way of putting his thoughts, “My brother, you will be better lodged than I.” It is far more splendid than the Tuileries, or any palace in France, England, Germany, or Ital
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CHAPTER VI. TOLEDO—ITS FLEAS, LANDLORDS, ANTIQUITIES, AND LUNATICS.
CHAPTER VI. TOLEDO—ITS FLEAS, LANDLORDS, ANTIQUITIES, AND LUNATICS.
Ignorant of the state of civilization in the ancient city of Toledo, the capital of Gothic Spain, the glory of the Jews and the Moors when they lived luxuriously on its airy heights, we had imagined it easy enough to find lodgings for a night. Unconscious of the fate awaiting us, we put up at the Hotel Lino, the largest and best in the city; and here we sought sleep. The search was vain. For the fleas are always going about seeking whom they may devour. We fell a prey to them and to the landlord
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CHAPTER VII. LA MANCHA—ANDALUSIA.
CHAPTER VII. LA MANCHA—ANDALUSIA.
AS I took my seat in a “first-class” car and left Toledo, a gentleman in the same compartment asked me, “Is smoking disagreeable to you?” It was the first time that such a question had been put to me in Spain. I had heard it proposed to a lady, some days before, but generally no one pretends to ask the privilege of smoking in the cars, or the parlor, or anywhere. Everybody smokes, everywhere. It is not interdicted in any department of any railway carriage. Occasionally, in some hotels, I notice
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CHAPTER VIII. CORDOVA.
CHAPTER VIII. CORDOVA.
A NEW, but old world, a sudden vision of the Orient , rose on the sight, when we reached the city of Cordova . Never did I enter a city that filled me with a deeper sense of the transient, temporal, and fleeting nature of all things material. It is not in ruins. It shows no tokens of decay to the coming traveller. A cleaner city is not in the world. It was the first city in Europe whose streets were paved, and the traditional habits of the people are so well preserved, that although it was a tho
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CHAPTER IX. SEVILLE, ITS CATHEDRAL AND BULL-FIGHTS.
CHAPTER IX. SEVILLE, ITS CATHEDRAL AND BULL-FIGHTS.
NOT until reaching Seville does one feel what a luxury it is to live,—just to breathe,—to inhale the delicious air and rejoice in being . Other climates had been cold, or damp, or chilly; some hot, debilitating; but this was just right, and when a man comes to the place where the weather just suits him, it is time to sit down and enjoy it. It was a privilege to be any thing that could breathe in this delightful clime. It is the latter part of February. If one of my lungs was out of order, or bot
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CHAPTER X. SEVILLE.
CHAPTER X. SEVILLE.
DON MIGUEL DE MANARA, a Spanish rake, one of many like the Don Juan who stands as type of his race, having spent his life in the way rakes love to live, undertook to be religious in his later years. He had sowed his wild oats, and never got much of a crop, and now that death was likely to call for him soon, he thought to get ready for his coming by making over to some pious uses what he had not spent upon his lusts. According to the theory of that church which takes care of all Spanish souls, he
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CHAPTER XI. MALAGA.
CHAPTER XI. MALAGA.
THE wind blowing from the north-west,—that is, a land breeze, at Malaga, excites the nervous system so much, that in courts of law it is held to be an extenuating circumstance in case of crime. It is therefore of great importance to know which way the wind blows when you are proposing to kill your neighbor or to commit a forgery. In our country we have hardly got to that point, but in Boston, where easterly winds prevail, the phrenologists set up a plea in behalf of the Malden murderer that was
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CHAPTER XII. THE ALHAMBRA.
CHAPTER XII. THE ALHAMBRA.
WHEN the followers of Berber, the Moorish chieftain, some of whom came from the regions of Damascus and the valley of the Jordan, first entered the plain that lies in front of Granada, they imagined, in the fervor of their Oriental fancies, that they had struck Paradise itself. Perhaps they had come back to Damascus, the blessed and glorious city of the East, but that and Paradise to them were about the same thing. The wide and fertile plain was and is watered by two streams like those that flow
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CHAPTER XIII. THE ALHAMBRA (Continued).
CHAPTER XIII. THE ALHAMBRA (Continued).
BLASICHO, or, in good English, poor Blas, was an honest worker in leather, a mender of soles, in the city of Granada. There are streets in this queer old town wholly given up to one or another handicraft, and it is rather pleasing than otherwise to see the rule disproved that two of a trade can never agree. Perhaps it is easier for a whole street full of cobblers, or tinkers, or carders, or smiths, to live in peace, than it would be for only two rivals in trade, who would be jealous of each othe
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CHAPTER XIV. GRANADA.
CHAPTER XIV. GRANADA.
WHEN we came down this evening from the Generaliffe, we found a curious group in the vestibule of the inn where we were lodged, and a picture of troubadour and gypsy life in Spain was before us suddenly. A dwarf, so stout and short as to be a monster in his appearance, and two or three girls to sing and play with a rude tambourine, made hideous dancing. The landlord and landlord’s wife, the two daughters of the landlord and their husbands,—two lazy fellows who helped one another do nothing all d
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CHAPTER XV. GENEVA—FREYBURG—BERNE.
CHAPTER XV. GENEVA—FREYBURG—BERNE.
BY a very circuitous route, over which I will not ask you to follow me, I came to Switzerland, on my way to the north of Europe. When I was a boy of nine, I read in Cæsar’s Commentaries, “Extremum oppidum Allobrogum, proximumque Helvetiorum finibus est Geneva,” and rendered it into English, “the farthest town of the Allobroges, and nearest to the frontiers of the Helvetii is Geneva.” Out of the lake flows the river Rhone, with waters so blue that they seem to have been colored with indigo, and S
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CHAPTER XVI. THE BRUNIG PASS—LUCERNE.
CHAPTER XVI. THE BRUNIG PASS—LUCERNE.
IF it were required of me to name the pleasantest day’s ride thus far of this summer’s tour in Switzerland, I should give the palm for beauty to the day that took me with two friends from Interlaken to Lucerne by way of Brienz and the Brunig Pass. Interlaken, as its name implies, is between the lakes Thun and Brienz. Thun is a beautiful gem of a sea; Brienz is a little smaller, but fortified by formidable mountains and scarcely less lovely than her sister Thun. Our carriage-road, after leading u
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IN THE HOTELS AND ON THE ROAD.
IN THE HOTELS AND ON THE ROAD.
It is one thing to travel in a country, stopping only at the great hotels, and quite another to get off the highways, among the people, and live as they live. At the hotels, the aim is to give you the kind and quality of food you are accustomed to in your own land, to put you into a good bed, and charge you just as much as you will pay. It is my way, when I can, to get out of the beaten paths of travel, and mingle, if possible, with the natives of the country, and those, too, who are not in the
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CHAPTER XVIII. CANTON APPENZELL—SWISS CUSTOMS.
CHAPTER XVIII. CANTON APPENZELL—SWISS CUSTOMS.
Peasants of Eastern Switzerland. You have never been in Trogen. You have never heard of Trogen. You do not know where on the map to look for Trogen, and you probably would not find it, if you looked for Trogen. Trogen is one of the little villages in Canton Appenzell, in Switzerland. It is reached by carriage from St. Gall, a large town on the railroad from Zurich to Constance. As soon as you leave the line of the rail, you begin to ascend, and it is all the way up, up, up, till you get here. We
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CHAPTER XIX. GERMAN WATERING-PLACES—BINGEN ON THE RHINE.
CHAPTER XIX. GERMAN WATERING-PLACES—BINGEN ON THE RHINE.
A GERMAN watering-place, with its nauseous springs, its inviting groves and garden and shady walks and rustic seats and bowers, its conversation house, and sweet, clean beds and airy rooms and quiet halls, was in our way, and a Sabbath was just ahead of us. So we would rest there according to the commandment. I have been left alone, or with my little party only, in a wayside inn, among the Swiss valleys, and have seen troops of travellers, some of them with white cravats and straight coat collar
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CHAPTER XX. PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
CHAPTER XX. PILGRIMAGE TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
Aix-la-Chapelle. IT is now nigh upon a thousand years since King Otto ordered the tomb of Charlemagne to be opened. The floor of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle was broken up, the sacred mausoleum that cherished the remains of the mightiest of emperors was entered; and there he sat in the chamber of death, as in a hall of state, on a marble chair, in the vestments of his imperial office, a sword at his side, a crown on his head, and a Bible in his hand! Charlemagne was born in this place in the
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CHAPTER XXI. FRANKFORT.
CHAPTER XXI. FRANKFORT.
WITH faces at last fairly turned towards Russia, we stopped to rest for a day at the old town of Frankfort—the Ford of the Franks . Towards evening I wandered out to an old graveyard. Like some in our own cities, it had ceased to be used for interments, and its walks and shade and vacant squares had become places of recreation for the children of the town. The gates were never shut, and, indeed, the walls were broken, so that it was a public square for the living rather than a quiet resting-plac
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CHAPTER XXII. WARSAW.
CHAPTER XXII. WARSAW.
ON the banks of the Danube, but just where the story does not say, and when it is quite uncertain, lived three brothers, whose names were Lekh, Teckh, and Russ. They were of the Slavonian race. Ambitious to found distinct dynasties of their own, they set off on their travels. Presently three eagles appeared, flying in as many directions, and the brothers instantly agreed to follow the birds and the example. Russ went after one of the eagles, and the region he went into he called Russia; Teckh we
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CHAPTER XXIII. FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
CHAPTER XXIII. FROM WARSAW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
WE were to leave Warsaw in the course of the forenoon. At half-past eight we came downstairs, and found the breakfast-room closed, and nobody up in the house who could provide the morning repast. As time was precious, we went out to another hotel, and it was still closed; when at nine o’clock we succeeded in getting in, there was no one stirring but the landlord himself, and he managed to get breakfast for us with his own hands. Returning to our own hotel we called for the bill, and found the pr
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CHAPTER XXIV ST. PETERSBURG.
CHAPTER XXIV ST. PETERSBURG.
WE were in Russia, at Warsaw. At that point in the journey we were put through a searching process, and the result having satisfied the officials that we were not of the dangerous classes, and had no designs upon the life of the Emperor, or the emancipation of Poland, we had been allowed to enter. And now that we had come to St. Petersburg, there was no need of overhauling us again, for we had been certified to already. We were as free on arriving at the capital as if we had come to New York. At
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CHAPTER XXV. RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS.
CHAPTER XXV. RUSSIAN ART, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS.
I HAD always supposed the Winter Palace of the Emperor was an edifice prepared with some special reference to the climate of this northern country. It is called the Winter Palace only because the Emperor has, as a matter of course, other palaces in the country in which to spend the summer. This is a vast structure on the very border of the river Neva, and in the midst of the city. It is built of brown stone, and makes some pretence to architectural elegance. It, the palace, has five thousand inh
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CHAPTER XXVI. FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW.
CHAPTER XXVI. FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW.
MY roughest railroad ride in Europe was from St. Petersburg to Moscow. It did not improve the road to be told, as I was, that it was built by American engineers; but it did jolt me so naturally that I felt at home as soon as we were under way. And there was a slight infusion of a familiar morality in the excuse made for the present condition of the road, that the managers of it under the government were seeking to buy it, and were letting it run down that they might get it at a lower figure! A g
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THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW.
THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW.
I never had a very definite idea of the Kremlin of Moscow. It has been mentioned in books about Russia as a part of the city that every one must understand. The Acropolis of Athens and of Corinth, and the Capitoline Hill of Rome, enclosed with a wall to shut them off from the rest of the city, a refuge for the people in time of peril, the site for the most sacred temples and the most gorgeous palace for the sovereign, would be the Kremlin of Athens, or Corinth, or Rome. As far back as in 1340, w
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CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CHURCHES OF MOSCOW.
WE were alone in the holiest of all the holy places in the empire of Russia: a church and a sepulchre; the place where the emperors crown themselves and the primates of the church are lying in their grave-clothes all around; the grandest of all earthly grandeur, and the solemn evidences of the mightier power of King Death staring at the pageant in mockery of all that man is and does. We were alone in the Cathedral of the Assumption; four gigantic gilded and pictured columns in the midst of it su
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CHAPTER XXIX. PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW.
CHAPTER XXIX. PALACE AND INSTITUTIONS OF MOSCOW.
IF you are weary reading of royal palaces, you will be sorry to be invited to the one more gorgeously adorned and illustrated than any other which you and I have entered in company. You have often heard of, and perhaps have seen, some specimens of barbaric splendor! You have associated with the word barbaric , ideas of Oriental and excessive magnificence, laid on without the more refined and chastened taste of modern civilization. It is a word the old Romans used to define foreign people , and w
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CHAPTER XXX. FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
CHAPTER XXX. FROM MOSCOW TO ST. PETERSBURG.
A COUPLE of English commercial travellers arrived to-day and were very conversable at dinner. No class of men one meets abroad are more free to impart what they know, than these agents of trading houses in England, who infest all countries, and push their way into every company that is willing to hear their ceaseless flow of talk. At dinner one of them asked a Frenchman in what country of Europe Egypt was situated, and the Frenchman did not know; they discussed the subject for some time, neither
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CHAPTER XXXI. FINLAND.
CHAPTER XXXI. FINLAND.
AT nine in the morning we were to be on board the steamer Wyborg , Captain Nystrom, to go from St. Petersburg to Finland, and thence to Sweden. When we reached the wharf, so great was the crowd of passengers and the crush of luggage and the pressure of freight, that it seemed doubtful if we should be able to get on board. It was summer time, very hot, and the people who had not yet escaped from the city heat, and were able to, were rushing to their rural residences on the sea-coast. They are as
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CHAPTER XXXII. FINLAND (Continued).
CHAPTER XXXII. FINLAND (Continued).
AT the close of a delightful day’s sail along the coast of Finland, we reached the harbor of Helsingfors. The distant sight of the city is imposing, and one’s admiration is doubtless heightened by the surprise he feels when first finding such splendid structures in this part of the world. The Fortress of Sweaborg, commanding the approach to the city, is rather a series of fortifications than a single fort. The works of nature have been turned to as good an account at this point as in the Straits
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CHAPTER XXXIII. SWEDEN.
CHAPTER XXXIII. SWEDEN.
The day was bright as we left the harbor of Abo, and struck out into the sea among the Aland Isles. The wind was strong, but not enough to disturb the weaker brethren who are easy victims of the sea. Breakfast was served at ten and a half o’clock, and already the Swedish customs at meals began to show themselves. Before sitting down to the table, or immediately on taking a seat, as you prefer, little glasses of gin schnapps are passed around, and each one is expected to take a nip as an appetize
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CHAPTER XXXIV. SWEDEN (Continued).
CHAPTER XXXIV. SWEDEN (Continued).
BY the beautiful island of Drottningholm, on which the king’s mother resides in a palace within a park, that seems the abode of peace and plenty, and along the shores of other islands small and picturesque, but lovely to look on as we pass them on our way, we sail out into Lake Malar. It is a wide, winding, beautiful sheet of water,—one of the many noble lakes that Sweden holds in her bosom. Two islands in it come so nearly together, that a drawbridge for a railroad stretches across, and opens f
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CHAPTER XXXV. SWEDEN (Continued).
CHAPTER XXXV. SWEDEN (Continued).
WE are going across the kingdom, from Stockholm to Gottenburg. We might be carried through by rail in a day; but what should we see of life in Sweden if we went flying over it in that style? We will take the slower and better way, by the raging canal. This canal is the Erie of Sweden. It extends from lake to lake, and so connects sea with sea, the Baltic with the Atlantic; it leaves Malar lake, and takes lakes Wetter and Wener in its way, and all the chief towns of the interior; and as the trave
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CHAPTER XXXVI. SWEDEN (Continued).
CHAPTER XXXVI. SWEDEN (Continued).
WE went on board the canal steamer very early in the morning, and found the deck covered with passengers taking their coffee as comfortably as if they were at home. This was not breakfast, that was to come by and by; but they turned out early, and all wanted coffee immediately. The steamer was large, adapted to the canal, the lake, and sea, for all these waters are to be ploughed in going from Stockholm to Gottenburg. One of the sailors hearing us speaking the English, addressed us in the same l
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CHAPTER XXXVII. NORWAY.
CHAPTER XXXVII. NORWAY.
UP in this part of the world you must be very careful to look out for yourself, in all matters that require certainty as to times and ways of travel. It was hard to learn when a steamer would go north from Gottenburg, and all that we did learn from captains and porters and landlords proved to be erroneous. But at last it was settled that a boat would be along the next morning from Copenhagen, bound to Christiania, and if we were at the wharf at four A.M. we could go! We were called at three, and
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CHAPTER XXXVIII. DENMARK.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. DENMARK.
WE are coming down to Denmark. Down from Norway and along the coast of Sweden. First through the Skagerack and then the Cattegat, in the steamer Excellent Toll , by name, with twenty American passengers. Fleets of sailing vessels were in sight, the crews engaged in the mackerel fishery, a great business off this coast. The day was as lovely as the suns of Italy ever show, and the sunset revealed such splendors as I never saw except in Mantua, under Italian skies. The sun went down as if into the
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